Harry Potter Invades my Life!

Ok, so, the next installment of my blog! Here I go. Here I am. Writing.

Well, okay, so, here's the scoop. A lot of stuff has happened, but the most immediate and important thing I have to share is that I got spit on by Voldemort.

Yup. That's right. Voldemort spit on me. I was just sitting there, doing my own thing, not bothering anyone... and, well.

Okay, so I went to go see this play, The Tempest. It's a William Shakespeare play, and the main character was played by Raph Fiennes, who also just so happened to play Lord Voldemort in all the Harry Potter movies. I got to say, he looks a whole lot better with a nose. But man, is he a spitter. In fact, they all were. And how did I get so close that I was prone to being spit on? Well, the whole tale is that in London they have this deal called “Day Seats.” You go the day of the play and sit out for three hours and and cue until the box office openes at ten am and then the first eighteen people can get seats to the matinee or the evening showing of that day. Well, there are only matinee showings on tuesday and saturday, so I guess only on those days will there be eighteen tickets. On other days, there would only be about nine. This, I must qualify, is for this particular theatre- other theatres might have slightly different policies. So, I had gotten up early Saturday morning and went for a run- an hour and thirty minutes, and then ended up running to the theatre itself. I was the second person to be there; there was one other girl outside other than me. So, then, about five minutes later the three other girls in my group showed up and then we waited and waited for three hours (we got there at 7am) until the office opened, and then we got our tickets!

So, further explaination of Day Seats. These seats are in the very,very front row of the whole theatre. So, when we got to the theatre later that evening, when we sat down, my head was literally a foot and a half away from the edge of the stage. It was awesome! They were great seats; you would think that they wouldn't be because they are too close, but they were great! I loved every minute of it except when I got spit on. Next time I need to bring some plastic to cover my face or something. The whole cast was spiting up a storm; after that first, big lugie, I was paranoid the rest of the night that I was going to get sprayed again.

So, tonight I am getting my next shot at a play; however, I think we have different seats that are not nearly so close. We're going to go see “Top Girls.” It's sorta a feminist play that I don't know much about, but a lot of people really wanted to see it and John, one of our Directors, highly reccomended it, so I think it has potential. And it was only 14 pounds. So that's a plus.

This whole week has been interesting. The past few days (monday thru today, Wednesday) have been full of schoolwork- mainly art. We went to a bunch of galleries yesterday with our art classes, and then the day before I spent almost 8 hours doing art in the studio. Today, though, we took a turn around the city as a big group and we went to St. Paul's Cathedral. The “feed the birds” one, from Mary Poppins. I brought some bread to feed the birds (tuppence a bag!- which means, two pence, you know), but we didn't end up doing it. We'll go back another day or something.

We did a tour of the whole building; we climbed almost 1000 stairs up to the very top of the dome, at the base of the spire, and looked out on the city. It was a brilliantly clear day today, really warm too, so we could see all around. The Thames was shining down below us and the Millenium bridge (a strictly pedestrian bridge that featured in the 7^th Harry Potter movie- it got destroyed) was a white beam running across it, crowded with tourists. The London eye bit a chunk out of the pale blue sky, just down the river a ways and the Globe Theatre, which we get to go see “Much Ado About Nothing” by Shakespeare, on Friday this week, was nestled in deep shade beside the factory-like brick Tate Modern just across the river.

The rest of the afternoon we spent walking around, eventually ending up on Fleet Street, which apparently features in the Sweeny Todd film, which I've never seen so I didn't appreciate it like some other people did. We did wander inside the Royal Courts of Justice- our director had told us that he wandered in there once and watched a court session for twenty minutes. We had to go thru security, which baffled and freaked me a little, but then, wandering around inside the solem and quite building, which was like a gigantic, marble-pillared bank, we decided to leave. As we left though, we found a secret winding staircase next to a pillar formation that looked suspiciously like the bathroom sinks in the girl's bathroom in Harry Potter. And the secret staircase led into a deep, dark hole that we couldn't see the bottom to. The Chamber of Secrets! Or, at least, something very much like it.

Across the street from the courthouse, I saw a little hole in the wall building, shoved between two bigger and fancier buildings that said “Twinings.” That is the brand of tea here that's really prominent. We walked inside, out of curiosity, and found that it was a tea-shop full of box upon box of dozens of types of tea and coffee. And, the best part was, in the back there was a 'Tea bar' where we could go try a cup of tea for free! So, we sat down and had some “herbal infusions” (which aren't tea cus they have no caffeine, they are just herbs).

This day, now almost completed, has an ending with the promise of a play tonight, and tomorrow, we are off to Cambridge for a day! We are going to go punting in the river Cam, and walk around the university and take a hike in the country-side I believe. And we'll also get to hear Evensong, which is the choir singing at night. I guess it's similar to a Fireside, but just music, and for catholics or protestants or whatever.

Well, till next time- this has just been a week full of Harry Potter. I think the best part of my life is the fact that I apply Harry Potter to so many normal, everyday parts of it without even thinking or trying. It's crazy how much a book series has influenced my life. :D It's great.

Northern Tour

So, this is my account of the Northern trip that our study abroad

class took. I've been putting this off maybe because soooo much happened that I knew I would have to write a lot to do it all justice.

So, we spent six days away from home. We took this great big red and yellow bus. The bus driver's name is Tony. In my bedroom back at the center, I sleep on the bottom bunk of a bunk-bed.

On the wooden slats above my head are notes that all the girls who have slept here before me have written. One of them says, “Tony is the bus driver from hell!” I didn't understand that until after I got back from this trip. I believe it's totally wrong, but funny, nonetheless. Tony was great; he would often get on the microphone and spurt out little facts about the area that we were driving in, and would always tell us good places to eat in the towns we stopped in for the night.

The first day, we drove for three hours, heading north (i'm assuming). We ended up in at Chatsworth. Chatsworth is a priv

ately owned estate house which was used in the new Pride and Prejudice film with Keira Knightly as “Pemberly,” Mr. Darcy's home. It was pretty exciting. Except that most of the house was under scaffolding, so it's face was covered with white cloth

and you coulnd't really see the stone work. The majesty was a little bit lost on me to say the least. But the inside was beautiful; there was a sculpture hall, full of marble sculptures (which you also see in one part of the film), and in the gift shop there is a bust of “Mr. Darcy” which was also in the movie.

It was the grounds that were really impressive. Outside there were perfectly manicured lawns and shrubberies and beautiful trees. Also, there were fountains and manufactured waterfalls and small stone domes you could walk into.

Another girl, Jessica, and me, took an adventure off into the wild, behind the house and into the bush, following a little dirt trail in the grounds until we discovered a secret green door in a dry stone wall, which was locked. We jumped the wall and climbed up even further along the hill-side, in search of a “big thing” which I had seen from a distance; a stone tower with water running off of it.

After a good forty minutes of treking, we finally found the big thing, which turned out to be an old aqueduct of some sort. It was really quite beautiful and the pictures don't quite do it justice (mostly because, after going through my pictures that I took, I have realized that either I'm a really bad photographer or my camera is just kinda old and the lens is too). It was a fantastic time, climbing the hill and going through the “secret garden” door and discovering the big thing.

That night we stayed in a youth hostel in the village of “Osmotherly.” It was a quaint, picturesque little town with a small local cemetary. The next morning I got up really early and went running to the cemetary and did so

me rubbings wi

th charcol and paper on the graves. The rubbings didn't turn out very

well because my paper was too thick I think. But it was fun to run in the hilly little village in the early morning hours, with the overcast sky and the cobblestoned streets running up and down hills dotted with sheep mowing away at the brillent green grass.

That day we traveled to Edinburgh, Scotland. We dropped our stuff off at our hostel and took a hike up the highest “mountain” in the city to “Arthur's Seat,” the tallest point on the hill where two little monuments stand.

Fun fact for you, this is the place where one of the early saint apostles (I don't remember who) said a prayer dedicating Scotland for the work of the church to move forth. It was really, really windy on top. I would guess the winds were upwards of 90 miles an hour; it felt like, and we were probably really close to actually being blown off the mountain top. It was crazy. We were up there screaming and yelling at each other, hooting like happy owls, as if it was an amusement park ride. It was really really fun.

As we were coming down I just felt the need to do a little Eric Liddle and run down the hills of Scotland, so I did. I felt very much like I could be on Chariots of Fire at that moment.

The second day in Edinburgh, we toured “Edinburgh Castle,” which is at the top of the Royal Mile, the main street for touristy stuff in Edinburgh. It was quite informational and really pretty, but not my favorite thing. I would have rather gone back up to Arthur's Seat to be honest. But it was cool because I did a watercolor painting of the place in school this last winter semester, so it was neat to be able to go there for real.

That afternoon we went to three different museums, the last one having a really neat sculpture exhibition by Tony Cragg, a really famous sculptor. It was a great exhibition, and really inspiring. I liked his work much better that some of the stuff I just saw in the Saatchi Gallery yesterday (a privately owned gallery of experimental artwork, mostly sculpture based, which is located here in London- our art class went together to go see it, but I was mostly just disappointed in how dark and gross the majority of the stuff was).

While in Scotland we ate at the White Hart Inn, “the oldest pub in Edinburgh” or so the sign outside the door said. We had hagis (sheep organs boiled and chopped up inside of the sheep intestines), which was actually quite good, accompanied by potatoes and meeps. Meeps, apparently, are a sort potato like yams (they are orange).

The next day we drove off to Ambleside, in the Lake District. Ambleside is a backpacking paradise; it is a little mountain village perched on the edge of the Windermere (they call lakes “meres”) in a valley of beautiful hills and coniferous trees and meadows full of sheep and cows and quaint little farms. We soon found out that these meadows also acted as marshes wether it was raining or not. The first day in Ambleside it was dry and sunny and we went on a four hour hike down Jenkyn's Craig, then up to the W. Pike (W=something that starts with a W which I can't remember), which is a really tall peak on the mountain side that you can see out over the whole valley and the Windermere, and then down to some waterfalls below. It was quite strenuous and we walked through some really marshy meadows, but we made it and it was the highlight of my week.

The next day we went to a bunch of artist/author's houses, including William Wordsworth's two homes located in the area, and the last day, Saturday we went to John Ruskin's (a famous art critic, writer, and artist) home and saw his gardens. This area, the Lake District, is also

where Beatrix Potter lived, the lady who did Peter Rabbit.

Friday night, I forgot to mention, we stayed in a really nice hotel and I had my own room with my own bathroom with a bathtub. I was sooo excited. It was really nice and we had a three course meal that night at the hotel. It was fun cus we all dressed up nice, and we had all showered and washed off the nasty grit and dirt from our hiking earlier that day.

Overall, the whole trip was awesome. I loved it. I can't wait to go traveling about again, but our next trip won't be for a little bit, and it's only a day trip to Cambridge. But our next big trip is the southwestern tour which i'm really excited for!

Alright, well, that's about it! Hopefully this wasn't too boring, and the pictures hopefully help!

To Market, to market to buy me some... Turkish Delight!

Today we went to two different markets: Portabello Road, and Borough Market. They were both fantastic, in their own way. Portabello Rd is actually only a few blocks away from where I live, at Palace Court.

If any of you have ever seen the movie Notting Hill, then, that is where we live; Palace Court is right off of Bayswater, which is also the same road that joins up with Portabello Rd. The closest tube stop is Notting Hill, followed by Queensway (which, the two are just about the same distance from each other, so it just depends on where you want to go as to which one you use).

The Portabello Rd market opens at 8am every Saturday, so me and two other girls, Lynn and Emily, left the Center at about 8:15 this morning and made the short trek over. Lynn had been before, but neither me or Emily had yet. As we walked down the long street, which is very long, I was thinking to myself "I'm not that impressed."

It wasn't very crowded and most of the little shop-sellers were still just putting out their souvenir-type goods and supposed "antiques" while the booths that lines the road-ways were being put up with old sticks and boards, little hangings and umbrellas popping up like daisies into the sky in preparation for rain. It was a grey, cloudy kind of morning and the humidity gathered up sweat on my brow, even though it was slightly cool. We passed by a lot of junk jewelry and British flags pasted on clothing and bags. There were a lot of useless items being sold.

Then we came to the food section, and a the place was like a farmer's market, with locally grown (as local as you get in the heart of London) veggies and fruits and baked goods. I snagged a plain bagel for 40p (we don't get fed on Saturdays, it's the kitchen crew's day off so we fend for ourselves), and continued walking. We were looking for some wellies for Lynn, and we found a few little shops that sold Hunter brand (the classic, English brand for wellington boots), but they were too expensive, landing at around 80 pounds, which, even if that was in dollars, is a lot of money for a boot.

We finally made it to the end of the road, with still relatively little traffic, however, when we turned around to head back to the top, meaning to peruse the shops and stalls more closely now that we had seen in general all that was available, a whole new sight awaited. The street and sidewalks were crammed with people. We had just been the forerunners I suppose, and all the crowds had followed after us.

This time, walking back up the hill, it was much more exciting and closer to what I had thought a market would be. We were squished and called out at and had to dodge passerby as we made our way up the street, but it was fun. We made several small purchases; I got a nice wool-knit hat with ear-flaps, sporting the British flag (which, I can't wait to wear! But I'll have to wait till I get back to America, or else I'll feel like one of those tourists who wears an "I love London" t-shirt in Trafalgar square), and my friends got some neat antique watches on necklace chains and some socks. Mostly the fun was just being there and seeing all there was to see.

Perhaps my favorite stall was one with old British army fatigues. There were gas-masks, bomber hats and pilot goggles, which I was sooo tempted to buy. They all looked pretty legit and also cost 20 pounds a-peice. Yikes! I may go back though and barter with them; I've heard that you can usually convince the stall owners to lower the price if you haggle.

After finally exiting Portabello Rd and getting back home we quickly recouped and went off to the tube and exited at the London Bridge tube station. Yesterday we were looking in Time Out magazine, which is a magazine that tells all about things to do in London, such as plays and musicals running, events, tours, etc. In the magazine we saw an add for a "Harry Potter Muggle Tour"- see all the places in London that inspired and are a-part of the Harry Potter book series! Free!

We jumped at that and quickly emailed the little tour group, but never received a reply. So we thought we'd try meeting them at the meeting spot. When we got there, we searched and searched but could find nobody, so, that being a failure, we (we now had expanded to a group of about eight) went to Borough Market, which was just around the corner.

Borough Market is about two or three times larger than Portabello Rd, and I think I was even more impressed with this place, though maybe that had to do with the fact that it was almost lunch time.

Borough Market is located on the south-side of the Thames River (so, on the opposite side from where we live). It is literally a little borough of streets converted into a market several days a week, most of which are covered by glass ceilings or are located under train-track tunnels so that the sound of the tube and the railway screeches and rumbles through the market, adding to the hustle and bustle and the excitement.

The market is comprised of four mini-markets that are all generally called the "Borough Market." We explored two today, one of which I remember is called the Green Market (my favorite). This place was full of food stalls. Everywhere you went there were stalls with jams, mustards, spices, meats, cheeses, breads, cakes, chocolates, candies, falafel, curry, German bratwursts, ripe fruits, veggies with dirt still on them, bags of herbs, oils for dipping in breads. Anything you could think of, it was there. And the majority of the stalls had free samples.

FREE SAMPLES!!! It was awesome. Everything here (in London) costs money, and for a traveling art student, abroad and far from home, anything free is a luxury and a delight! I had almost a full lunch before I even bought anything to eat as a real meal. I tried chutney and jam and preserves; I dipped little bread pieces in exotic oils; I tried fresh mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses; I tasted savory bacon bits and scraps of meat; I tried crumbs o

f fried falafel; I had delicious dark chocolate; and best of all was the Turkish delight and the baklava.

You remember, in Chronicles of Narnia, that Edmund absolutely loves Turkish delight? And how, when watching the movies (especially the old ones), that we never really understood what it was? (or at least, as a child, I didn't). Well. It is delicious. And I love it. I think I have a new favorite candy. It is a jelly-type or gummy-type treat, of all different flavours, sometimes with nuts or fruit pieces scattered inside, and all frosted with powdered sugar. I tried several kinds, one of which was a soft brown coloured pistachio-flavour, which was especially good. I think I'll have to go back and get a bag of it right before we leave London and I can bring it back for you all to try; it was completely and unexpectedly delightful.

After about an hour and a half in Borough Market, we made our way past the crush of tourists and locals through the market, then out towards the London Bridge tube station and took it back to Queensway and walked home in the hot humidity of the early afternoon. Not pressed for time by any very demanding school projects, I decided to write up my experiences in the markets before getting down to business.

Tonight is the last night of Proms and there will be an open air concert in Hyde park in a giant constructed amphitheater. We might go there and listen outside the walls (it costs 30 pounds to get in). There is also the Thames Festival tonight (and tomorrow, but we won't be going to that!) along the river, which might be fun to go romp around and see the fireworks along the water and see the parade of people and dancers and booths. So, who knows what we'll end up doing tonight, but hopefully it will be a wonderful ending to a great day.

A Whole Muddle of Things

Hi all. So, it's been about a week since I started this blog and I haven't done anything. Some of you may be angry, while others just don't care. But, I'm going to try and make sure I get at least a weekly update in, but i'd like to get more consistent with an every other day post. We'll see about that.

A ton of stuff has happened since then, but I can't imagine relating all of it to you, so I will refrain and just talk about my favorite parts.

Living in London is a very interesting thing. You are in the city, so there are always tons of people about, walking and going places, eating , sitting, taking pictures, running like mad into Primark (a store sort of like Kohl's in the US, except two stories high). I've discovered, amidst this all, that I am directionally challenged. Yes, directionally challenged my friends. Not that I get lost all the time, but I often have an odd habit of insistently thinking that I am going the right

way, when in fact, I'm going the very opposite. Never did I realize how much I appreciate the Rocky Mountains as a directional guide. If I can see them, which you almost always can in Colorado Springs, then I know they are west, and then follows North, East, and South, pointing me at least in the general direction of where I want to go. However, here, the buildings are so tall and the landmarks all look just about the same- very British.

We have gone to a few events since I've been here, which have been very fun. We went to “Proms” on Monday night. Proms is a musical festival of sorts that takes place in the Royal Albert

Concert Hall (I believe that's the name of it). It's a huge concert hall with beautiful lighting and decoration. There are many different symphonies and groups that will come and play during the Proms, which is several days I believe. We just so happened to get tickets, ironically, to the night that the Philadelphia Philharmonic played.

The music was wonderful. They played a Tchaikovsky (spelling?) (chi-cow-skee) piece at the end which was my favorite. Afterwards the crowd was so enthralled that the symphony ended up giving 2 encores. It's interesting here, because at this event, and then play we went to see the next night, the crowd is welcome to have food and drinks in the stands. Many people had beers and wine, and during intermission at the play, there were people selling little cups of ice cream.

The next night, last night, we went to see Richard III, a William Shakespeare piece, with the star actor, playing Richard, Kevin Spacey (who is apparently a pretty popular actor here, though I don't know him). It was done with a slight modern twist, only apparent in the actors' clothes and in a couple of scenes. It was really awesome. There was this one scene, supposed to represent the citizens of the town and them expressing their views on what was going on, and it opened with a bunch of men in trench coats and bowlers holding onto straps from a rail that went across the stage just over their heads, as if they were riding the tube. It was really funny.

Today, we're going on a walk where we'll go see the Tower of London (which is a big

component in Richard III, cus he locked two of his nephew's in the Tower and had them killed),

as well as the Tate Modern. I'm really excited.

It's been very nice weather here, with some few days sunny and hot, but mostly just nicely cool and overcast. It's only rained twice, and the first time was really mostly drizzles, and yesterday

was the first really rainy day so far.

My hair is doing nice things while i'm here, but I think it's going to be curly the whole time because I tried straightening it two days ago, and it just went all wacko on me (the straighteners here aren't powerful enough and there's too much water in this air for it to stay straight).

It hasn't been all fun and games though. We've been working hard on schoolwork. I haven't had any writing assignments from my Creative Writing class yet, but I have 4 things for art/walks class. Two art projects, plus another one (for two diff. Classes), and then a paper that is art class/walks class related. I finished one art project so far and need to do another one tonight, cus they're due tomorrow. Well, we're about to leave for class before we go on our walk, so that's it for the update today! I can't post this just yet because

I have no internet here, but I will get it up later today, maybe with another update on the Tower and some photos!

Wow! I just got back from a really long, but great day! We had a couple hours of class in the morning, before we were sent off to find our way to the Tower of London.

The Tower is most famous for being a place of executions and imprisonment of important historical figures in British history. When we got there we got a tour from these guys called “beef-eaters” (we asked, they do not know where the name comes from!). It was probably the best guided tour I've ever been on. The guy who led us around, George, talked really loud in a great Scottish accent, so that even the people in the very back (and it was a loud, windy day, and our group had upwards of 80 people in it or so) could hear.

I learned a lot.

For example, to be a beef-eater, you have to have served 22years in the British military, as well as have had 18 years of that as a “non-criminal” (no criminal record basically). Also, the crown jewels reside in the tower, and a huge collection of the British armoury is in the White Tower (which is a building on the grounds). The White Tower is actually the first palace in London to ever be built, but it eventually got turned into a prison, which is ironic. I saw the largest suit of armour ever made in the whole world, which was made for some guy who was 6'8'' !! Also saw the largest diamond in the world, which is in a royal scepter in the crown jewel collection. There also used to be a menagerie held in the pits below the drawbridge to the Tower. There was an archeological expedition that found lion skulls over 600 years old there.

After visiting the Tower for about 3 hours ( a little longer than I would have liked, but some people really wanted to get their fill!) we went to the Tate Modern. It was really fantastic, but I think I wouldn't have enjoyed it so much if Peter (my art professor) hadn't been there to guide a small group of us through, telling us background and stories about the artists and paintings.

We've talked a lot about cultural influence on art and context. It's important, in art appreciation, to understand the context and the time or culture that the artist lived in. In this way, you can better understand why he/she is doing what they are doing; much modern art is very under-appreciated or misunderstood because people don't realize that most artists are just reacting to the topics and rules of their time (usually rebelling against it and trying to improve upon the current system, searching for that nugget of truth and for what art really should be representing). It was very enlightening for me, as an artist, and as an art appreciator.

After that, we scurried home, I took a 25-30 min run around the block, going down embassy street (where all the foreign embassy's live) and through Hyde park, and then we had dinner and now I'm going to go work furiously to get a piece done before tomorrow for art class in the morning.

I have to say, I'm really excited because I found some really neat wooden objects for my 480 class projects that I'm going to do (480 is a self-guided and composed class where the artist works with a professor to create a body of work where all the rules and bounds are made by the artist- really, preparing us to work on our own). I was kinda getting desperate there for some inspiration, but it came! It always does if I have my eyes and ears open.