practically perfect

Happy Birthday to my Dad!

This morning I woke up very early to meet Cristobal to go into London to work on his photography assignment. He had an ipod, a CD, a cassette and all of London's great monuments and architecture at his disposal. We reflected the London eye in a cd and big ben on the ipod – it was surreal to just walk around the city as if it was ours, feeling the furthest away from a tourist as possible… well, minus the giant cameras around our neck.

The funniest part of the morning was getting into London. To save money, we buy day travel cards which allow unlimited travel by bus, train and underground all day. To save even more money, we buy the “off peak” travel cards, which allow all of that travel, but starting after 9:30 am to allow the working-class Londoners to get into the city early.
We arrived at Seven Sisters station, the underground station at 9:15. Chris and I grabbed a newspaper to read for 15 minutes until our cards would be operational at 9:30. As the time got closer to 9:30 more and more people were gathering where we were, right outside the electronic gates, waiting for 9:30. By 9:28 there were around 50 people congesting the entrance to the station. There was a digital clock on the wall that read 9:29.30 – people were anxiously watching it, though they didn’t want to look like they were, trying to glance at their magazine every few moments. As the seconds crept closer, the crowd began casually meandering towards the 10 electronic gates, there was so much tension in the air and anticipation that Chris and I couldn’t help but laugh a little. Finally the clock had 10 seconds to go, as we counted it down silently as if launching a shuttle into deep space. Once it hit 9:30.00 the crowd made a break for it, jamming their ticket into the slot only to be greeted by a loud buzz rejecting their card. The machine wasn’t calibrated to the nanosecond to that of the digital clock 10 feet away, but after a wait of 5 seconds, the machines began letting us through.

Cris and I also stopped off at Kings Cross station to take a picture under ‘Platform 9 3/4,’ made famous from the Harry Potter novels as the platform where the Hogwarts Express departs from. They have placed a cart that is half way through the wall to take pictures with, which we did.

After walking around London taking pictures, Cris had to go back to Cat Hill to go to class, and I decided to walk around a little more on my own. My feet were very soar and needed to rest, so I looked for the nearest Starbucks, which happened to be right behind me – and I sat down for a while with a frappachino.
I began walking down towards Tottenham Court Road which houses the theatre district. I walked up to the Prince Edward Theatre, which is showing the show Mary Poppins, the most popular theatre show in London at the moment, and just walked inside to see if they had any tickets for the night’s performance. Coincidently they had one in the 5th row dead centre, and I couldn’t pass up the cheap ticket. I went back home to drop off my bag and rest a little before heading back into London to catch the show. It was nice to do an activity alone, as sad as it might sound, but being around so many people all the time is a little draining, and this was a necessary break from going everywhere in groups of 5 or more.



The show was really incredible. The set consisted of a dollhouse like set up where rooms would actually come forward, fly up and down and shuffle around. Mary Poppins also made a pretty cool exit at the conclusion of the show when she flew from the stage, above the entire audience and into the ceiling of the theatre.

As she says, my day was practically perfect in everyway.

kids in america

There are very few times that we can get an idea about what it is like to view the United States from another culture. For me, these last three weeks have been exactly that - a chance to take a critical look at my country and learn about others. Time Out magazine is a youth magazine published in London. In its latest issue it had an article addressed to British students who are thinking about studying abroad in America. I was so shocked by the reality of the article that I wanted to share it on my blog.

Please take the time to read this, as I know you will enjoy it.



KIDS IN AMERICA
by Tom Lamont


Many universities offer the chance to spend a year in America. Do it, says Tom Lamont, but be ready for a difference in attitude. Towards race? Money? No: booze.

Academic life certainly is different in America. Campuses, as self contained as any Center Parcs, are like miniature cities, with their own road networks, their own food sponsors… even their own police forces. Students are hugely competitive: academic progress is charted to the exactness of two decimal places. Everyone says ‘dude’ a lot – as a welcome, a title, an endearment and an admonishment. And the attitude toward drinking? You might find it a little strange.

‘Dude. I drank ten beers, eight shots and a glass of wine. Now pass me the water, I don’t want a hangover in the morning.’ Not an attitude towards the sauce to match that of their British counterpart. It might not seem an important difference – people study abroad to do more than get jagged – but the culture discord can lead to a pretty odd stay if you enjoy the occasional sip.

The first thing to remember is that, in America, you can only legally consume alcohol once you’re 21 (three years after buying your first handgun in Florida, six years after receiving a drivers licence in South Dakota, seven years after getting married in Texas.) The law is rigorously enforced – the most unassuming bars will have someone checking ID’s at the door – and can come as an enormous shock to the Brit who’s been “legal” for a while.

Boozing remains an under the table pursuit until students are well into their third year.
The habit of charting alcohol consumption with comprehensive, to the minute precision is probably the most obvious example of this: American students will happily keep you apprised, throughout an evening , of exactly how many cans, bottles, shots and swigs they have ingested…long after the ability to count should have been lost.

There’s little sense that drinking is for fun. Over here, the Sunday tabs wait all week to hand-wring over the binge-drinking epidemic gripping the nation’s youth. But the moral furore ignores the fact that the British student has also mastered that other, more careful, practice: the art of casual boozing. There’s the afternoon pint. The cheeky lunchtime half. If you know the right pubs, the pre-exam morning tankard. Drinking to the British student is a leisure activity. It is a pleasure.

To the American Student it is a sport. And a sport they must win. Hence their endurance style methods, devised to get as much alcohol into the body as possible without tasting it. ‘Shotgunning’ requires cutting a hold in the base of a beer can to aid swift all-in-one consumption. (The cans, by the way, are the 330ml, Coke sized sort – cute when compared to our hulking juggernauts.) The “beer bong” is a long, funnelled tube, held vertically to deliver two or three pints direct to the stomach. The “keg stand” sees an individual hoisted upside down over a keg of beer, fighting gravity to neck as much pressurised beer as possible, while contemporaries roar that immortal chorus “Chug!”

The spirit is light hearted, yes, but there’s something rather desperate and overly contrived about it all.

This doesn’t fully reveal itself until the end of an evening, when, after the frolics are over, you might see the same people – the shotgunners, the keg standers, the ones who have kept you tirelessly updated on their drinking progress – line up to sup from a bottle of water, careful to avoid a hangover in the morning. This boozing-by-numbers; arranged by little spontaneity, as one of many pursuits to make time for in a college in a week. It makes for eerily mature conclusions to drinking sessions that have been anything but.

There is a serious side to the difference in mentality, too. Without any kind of gentile introduction to booze – afforded, as it is in Europe, throughout the formative years – many American freshers arrive at college with virgin gullets, discover a sudden access to drink…and wake up in groups in the emergency room. Fraternity houses are regularly suspended or closed down by their universities after the plunge of a drunken innocent from the third floor balcony, or the belated discovery of a dead fresher beneath a pile of plastic cups. Many universities have their own police units, driven – through an almost utter lack of serious on campus crime – to patrol the quiet collegiate roads, ticketing minors who weren’t quick enough to toss their beers. An hour in handcuffs and a hundred buck fine, all for the quiet sip of a beer? Not unheard of.

It all seems unnecessarily straight-faced at times, bypassing the spirited, communal side of drinking. You may find yourself the bemused soul in the corner of a room , longing to enjoy a casual drink without chalking up figures after every sip. Our advice? Don’t let it put you off going… just don’t get caught raising your eyebrows too often.

And keep this happy though in mind: there is a welcoming pub in yonder isle beyond the sea, with ale and McCoys aplenty; a landlord who couldn’t care less about your ID; and a crowd who are too busy counting shrapnel from the Millionaire machine to bother about the number of glasses they’ve held. Dude, it’s the way it should be.

a little punting

- A bike in front of St. Mary's College -

This morning Michaele and I left Ted Lewis at 8:30 and walked to Robbins Hall, the other residence hall near the Enfield campus. We met Megan and Damon at Robbins and sat with them in their kitchen as they finished up breakfast and prepared for our day trip to Cambridge. We walked from Robbins to the Ponders End train station and bought a return ticket.

As we were waiting for the train, another train, the Stanstead express would rip past the platform at incredible speeds unannounced, a frightening experience if you were not paying attention. The weather was typical, overcast and bitter cold for the morning. We boarded the train and then changed trains to catch the one to Cambridge. The ride was very scenic as we sped north out of London and into English countryside of sheep and rolling green hills. We arrived in Cambridge about an hour later.



We walked out of the station and immediately noticed the increase of students in the town, they were everywhere. We grabbed a coffee and some munchies at a French café on the corner and began on our walking tour of the city. Cambridge has 32 total colleges within the city. All of the colleges have massive campuses made up of ancient stone architecture and towering cathedrals. After asking, we learned that this week is fresher’s week, a week where freshman are introduced to the workings of the school – we saw tons of tours being lead around the colleges.

We ate lunch on a bench in one of the gardens and then headed towards King’s College. Many of the large colleges are located along a river that winds around the outside of the city and under ancient stone bridges. The river is usually busy with people riding in boats that are being punted. Punting is the act of propelling the boat through the water by sticking a long pole to the bottom of the river and pushing – similar to the gondolas in Venice. The moment we saw the boats travelling down the picturesque river, we knew what our next activity was going to be.



Megan, Damon, Michaele and I headed to the Punting dock where Cambridge University students were all dressed up as pirates boarding the boats. It was quite humorous to watch the new students try and push the long boats through the water, but then we realized that we were next, and probably wouldn’t be laughing when we went in circles. The four of us were given our own boat and punting pole for one hour, and no instruction on how to use it. Damon was the first punter and did an excellent job propelling us down the river.


It was also quite humorous to see the other people punting. Many of the tourists just signed up for the guided punting tour, where they just sit in a luxury boat and have some Cambridge senior punt them down the river, explaining the sights, using the same jokes on each run. Ourselves on the other hand, decided to go for the self guided adventure.

The only close call was when Megan was punting, the boat rocked quite violently and she almost lost her footing – that would have been a chilly swim. I also got kind of tangled into some willow trees while punting, but all was well. It was a very peaceful time and made for some great laughs and beautiful sights. Damon was the champion punter of the day, he credits his English blood.

After returning our boat, we walked to the circle church – a church modelled after the temple in Jerusalem, and headed to Weatherspoons for dinner before catching the 7:30 train back to Enfield. Cambridge is one of the most beautiful cities I have been to, and it was defiantly worth the visit.

brie in the park

This morning Megan and Michaele and I met to make our way to the ever-familiar Tesco shopping market. There is not a day that goes by where we don’t walk into Tesco, it is so convenient for sack lunches and very inexpensive. We were on our way to Trent Park to meet Damon and George, flatmates of Megans, that we installing an art project on the campus. The campus is so large and full of thick woods that we had a hard time finding them, we were tired of walking around in the woods yelling “George… Damon!” that we settled on a bench in the middle of the park and unpacked our lunch.

In London, Saturday is a day to get things done around the house, but Sunday is reserved for going to the parks and enjoying the leisure that comes with a day off. As we sat on the bench, countless families walked by with their dogs, children and grandparents. It was really special when a black lab and a chocolate lab came up to greet us, reminding me of my dog Grace. Moms would walk by kicking a football with their son, and little girls raced on their tricycles down the path. It was quite a sight, nearly every minute a different group would walk by, and we were in remote Trent Park, I can only imagine the liveliness on Sundays at Hyde Park.

Megan made some very European snacks for our park lunch, they included crackers, cranberry sauce, brie cheese and grapes all together – it sounds a little odd, but it was delicious, try it if you like.

We ended up spending 3 hours in the park, taking pictures, watching the wildlife, drawing pictures with our Tesco brand crayons and watching the English families walk by. It was excellent.

Enfield Photos

a cheerie English afternoon

This morning was the first morning that I slept in, I am officially completely settled in – I mean, who else would sleep in till 11 in London, there are things to do, pictures to take, fish and chips to eat.

Michaele and I decided to make today an adventure, with no plans and a bus pass, we made our way towards Enfield town. We walked down the crowded streets of the small town centre and into some of the stores. I was looking for some jeans and found some good ones at a local store. The reason that I was looking for some new jeans came out of a comment from Teripsi, one of the Greeks. The American style of Jeans is very baggy and loose, and she said that my pants look like Eminem’s, the rapper. Most Londoners wear straight legged jeans, and they are usually too long when you buy them, and need to be altered.

We crossed the main street and began walking back into some neighbourhoods. We were just walking around some streets when we came to a small river that made its way along the houses. Little bridges connected the houses to the street, now this was England! Each house had a different coloured door and a small picket fence that protected rose gardens.

We heard some yelling and cheering so we followed the river walk towards a large field where we saw a football (soccer) game being played. On the way to the game we passed through the churchyard, which housed gravestones from the 1800’s, many of them green with moss and vine and cracked. Some of the tombs were actually split exposing small holes that looked in, we didn’t really want to get much closer.



The football game was very exciting and we talked with an old man that was the referee of the game. He was holding an umbrella and wearing rain boots in perfectly sunny weather. “This team is complete rubbish,” he told us. Michaele and I walked back to Enfield, saving a bus ticket. When we got home, Michaele prepared a turkey and pasta dish for Teripsi, Cristobal and myself.

We always have a ton of fun in the kitchen. The most memorable part of the dinner conversation was when somebody mentioned Michaele’s name (her name is pronounced like the male name Michael) and Teripsi said “Who is Michaele?” We all began laughing in astonishment…”Michaele is the girl that cooked us dinner, the one that is sitting to the left of you… your flat mate, the girl that you have been hanging out with for the past two weeks!” “Your name is Michaele?” said Teripsi. We couldn’t contain ourselves, “What did you think my name was Teripsi?” asked Michaele. “I always thought it was Miko.” – her Greek accent is so strong that she had been saying “Miko” for the last two weeks, and we didn’t even notice a difference!

After easing the side aches that wretched our stomachs from laughing, Teripsi grabbed her huge container of bottled water and said, I am going to go take a shower. The laughing continued. To give you some background, we have all noticed our hair falling out more since we are here. Teripsi thinks that it is because the London water is so hard. She has decided to start washing her hair with bottled water from the Tesco supermarket. We all about lost it, as someone exclaimed that she should just take a bath with Evian. We all love Teripsi, as she makes times like these memorable.

Farmhouse and a Flick

This morning was my 2nd day of class; I woke up to meet Cristobal down in the courtyard to walk to the bus stop. The weather was made up of drizzle and London fog, the first such day that we had experienced here in two weeks. After a 45-minute bus ride to Cat Hill campus (the traffic was unbelievable) we finally arrived to begin our lecture. We both have the class “Introduction to the History of Art Architecture and Design.” Classes in England focus on a lecture and a seminar. In the lecture, you learn all of the core materials and objectives, and then later on in the day you meet with your seminar of about 20 people to sit in a group with the teacher to discuss the lecture. The teachers are also on a first name basis, something that has taken a little getting used to. It’s a little odd just calling my teacher ‘William.’

I then had to make my way to Trent Park campus for my Journalism class. Trent Park, as mentioned earlier, is a huge mansion in the middle of a wooded campus. Most of the original buildings remain, including the horse stables and the piggery. I had my Journalism class in the stables, and it was very intriguing. My teacher from Northern Ireland, named Eddie, is an eccentric teacher that has owned his own London video production company and said the F-word around 100 times in our lecture alone, that’s just how the Irish talk. He lead some great discussions about the BBC and objectivity and other very pressing issues. The class was three hours long, but we only meet one day a week.

After returning home, Megan, Cassie and I decided to head to the movie theatre to catch the movie ‘Pride & Prejudice.” The movie theatre was quite posh: we had to choose our assigned seat while purchasing our ticket. The movie was great, there were some very beautiful shots of English farmland and countryside – I had to take a reality check and remember that I am here in England…perfectly capable of visiting such places. Great Flick. Please check it out when it reaches the United States.

I have also included pictures of my room and attached restroom.

school day

This morning was officially my first day of school for the fall semester; I know some of you were wondering when I was actually going to begin class. My first and only class of the day was Health and Wellness with Paul Comfort on the Enfield Campus. I woke up early with anticipation and ran to Tesco to grab some notebooks since I had not yet even bought school supplies; I came home and had some toast with jam, pineapple juice and cereal.

Class was very interesting and surprisingly very fun. My teacher began talking about the structure of the class and the fundamentals of fitness and wellness. The most rewarding part of the class was when he would ask a specific question, most of the hands shot up in the lecture room eager to answer. We also talked about rugby, football (soccer), badminton and pursuit cycling – many sports that are not played or talked about in the US fitness classes. In this class we have a lab and a seminar where we will be practicing proper fitness techniques and doing VO2 max and oxygen tests. Should be very interesting.

I came back to Ted Lewis hall and met up with Megan and Michaele to head into central London for a day of art exhibits. We made our way to Liverpool Street via the national rail line.

Liverpool street station is one of the major tube stations in Central London, it is where many underground lines converge and trains depart to greater England from this station as well. We had made our way down the stairs and through the ticket receptacle and on our way to the track when there was a polite pre-recorded announcement over the intercom “attention, please make your way to the nearest exit as this station is being evacuated due to security reasons,” suddenly another much louder voice interrupted the recording over the intercom nearly shouting “Everyone, leave this station immediately!” there was panic as everyone began to make their way through a gap in the ticketing barricades that was only 5 feet wide creating a bottleneck of flustered people. All of our hearts were racing, as we had a small glimpse of what it is like to be in a mass panic situation in a public venue such as an underground station. The station was closed for the remainder of the day, and we have yet to find out what happened there, but we kept hearing people talking about Liverpool Station.



We eventually made our way to St. Paul’s and walked across the millennium bridge to the Tate Museum of Modern Art. The Tate was an old factory that was purchased by the museum to turn into a venue for its increasing collection of modern art. It is a really interesting building as they have blended the new renovations with the old structures and chimneys of the old factory. Megan and I purchased tickets for the Frida Kahlo exibit. Frida, Mexico’s most famous female artist painted very interesting subjects including a huge collection of self portraits and portraits with herself and husband Diego Rivera. The show featured nearly 50 oil, watercolor and pencil pieces of work by Kahlo – all very interesting. The views from the gallery windows were equally spectacular of the Thames and St. Pauls cathedral.

We headed back across the bridge to the Starbucks next to St. Pauls cathedral. I never knew I would ever be able to sit outside Starbucks sipping a Carmel frappachino, admiring the architecture of one of the most famous cathedrals in the world, with one of the priests sitting at the table next to us. We actually held up the Frappachino’s cup next to the church’s dome, comparing the similarity in the shape. After riding the central line to Piccadilly Circus, Megan and Michaele went shopping in some stores while I wandered around the surrounding streets where I found the CNN building and the Regents Street Apple store. The store was huge, with a giant glass staircase leading upstairs to another level. The store was packed with hundreds of Londoners, many of which were playing with the new ipod nano. Ipods are everywhere in London, as they are in most cities, but it seems to be in incredible abundance.

a rock and roll greeting

David and I headed out to Trent Park at around noon with all of his luggage because he would be leaving to the airport after lunch to catch his flight to Spain to begin his study abroad term. We were sitting outside the mansion building, admiring the beautiful grounds and the forest that lie across the pond when the silence was interrupted by a loud propeller plain that was passing over head. We looked closer to see that it was trailing a message; after reading the message trough a couple times, we both couldn’t contain ourselves from laughing hysterically. “Bon Jovi says have a nice day.” Read the banner. How random.

I let David get on his way to Oakwood Station and then to Gatwick airport, he had become an expert of the London underground while here, so I had confidence that he could find his way.

I headed back to Enfield town on the bus, again it was the exact time that school was letting out, so I was surrounded by unformed school children on the upper level of the bus, they are so funny. There are usually a group of 5 in the back of the bus listening to some British rap, and then a group that likes standing on the bus stairs – a pretty rough ride since they almost fly down the steps when the bus slams on its breaks.

I headed back to Ted Lewis and met a group of people to celebrate Megan Vizina’s birthday – she is a senior CSU student. We went to a small Italian restaurant that was on the corner of the street. It was a ton of fun – we had 12 people crammed into the tiny candlelit room. The owner greeted us at the door, a native Italian. There was complimentary garlic pizza bread as appetizers and I ordered Marinara spaghetti, which was pasta with shrimp, oysters, clams and baby octopus – incredible. I sat with Rob, a student from Devon England, George, a student from Cypress, Cristobal and Cassie from CSU. We had some great dinnertime conversations, everything from the explanation of English sports to the movie Love Actually. Rob, an Englishman, said, “Whenever I feel worthless and sad, I just put in Love Actually, and everything is right in the world.” Despina was sitting next to Chris, and she scolded Rob for lighting his cigarette off of the candle that was on the table, noting a Greek saying that every time you if you light your fag (cigarette) off the candlelight, a sailor dies. Needless to say, a couple sailors went down last night. The dinner lasted for about 2 and 1/2 hours – it was great to not be rushed like you are in so many American restaurants, it gave everyone enough time to slowly enjoy their food and make solid conversation with everyone.

all that jazz

Today David and I woke up and headed to Leicester Square to see if there were any cheap theatre tickets available for the evening. Once you exit the tube station there are tons and tons of booths that say 1/2 price theatre tickets, but most of them are not legitimate. There is one in the middle of Leicester Square that is run by the city of London that is very trustworthy and has great prices. We asked the agent if they had any more tickets to “Chicago” and we ended up with tickets in the third row for 1/2 price.
We then caught the tube to Russell Square and made our way through the park to eat our sack lunch before entering the British museum. The weather was very cold and windy, a perfect day to spend inside. The leaves are beginning to fall around here, and are visible in the parks. The British museum is a massive collection of Egyptian, Greek, Asian and African artefacts from all around the world. The building itself is very impressive, with a transparent circular roof that is truly spectacular. The museum houses the Rosetta stone, one of the most crucial pieces of Egyptian history since it is the clue to translating hieroglyphs. There are also pieces from the great sphinx of Gizha and many Greek statues from the Parthenon; and the best park about it is that it is free, and you are also allowed to take as many pictures as you want. There were some very intricate and ornate pieces in the Latin America wing of the museum, such as a human skull that has been tiled with turquoise pieces and human teeth, it was probably the freakiest mask I’ve ever seen.

After the British museum we headed back to Enfield to cook before going back into town for the show. Our seats were great, and the musical was excellent – the singing and dancing was first rate. Lynda Carter, famous for her role as wonder woman on TV played the role of Momma Morton. After the show we walked to the waterloo bridge for a great view of Big Ben and the London Eye at night.

a little too posh

This morning we made plans to meet Megan, Cristobal in the courtyard at 11 – with bags packed with sack lunches we headed off towards London town again. Cristobal ended up not joining us because he wanted to do laundry instead. (laundry…London, hard to decide.) We got off at the Knightsbridge station and walked up the stairs of the station to find Harrods towering before us.


I kept telling everyone that this was just more than a store; it was something special. I think they got the idea when we passed the front windows that displayed a formula one car, and a luxury car that cost £300,000: around $600,000. Harrods is made up of different rooms, there is the meat room, the chocolate room, the produce room, the purse room, the perfumery, the pet shop and so on… It is kind of what I imagine Santa’s workshop to look like, and they were getting ready for Christmas nonetheless. The father of the late Dody Al-fayed owns Harrods (Dody was killed alongside Princess Diana) there is a fountain commemorating the two at the lower level of the store. The engagement ring that Dody was going to give Diana is a part of the memorial.

We walked over to Hyde park to eat our sack lunch. Hyde Park is a huge park in central London that is great for walks and sitting in the shade. JM Barrie, author of Peter Pan lived across the street from the park, and wrote much of the book under its trees. There is a statue of Peter Pan in the park as well. As we were sitting under a tree, the Greek club coincidently walked past us and we hollered at them to come join us – imagine, the entire city of London, and we see people that we know. Despina, Joanna and Teripsy began walking with us toward the duck pond, and Despina would flip out every time a horse passed because she loves animals so much. In a thick, deep Greek accent, she would scream, “DUNCAN! Get your camera out and take a picture of that horse, ok!” It suddenly began to rain, and we decided to keep walking on towards the tube stop, what is London without a couple of sprinkles.



The Greek club got excited when I described Harrods to them, and they left the group for some shopping. The rest of us headed to Saint Pauls Cathedral. It was truly impressive to walk around this world famous cathedral, and I was keeping an eye out to see if Mary Poppins was right that it only costs tuppance a bag to feed the birds, but there was no bird woman. David pointed out that the cathedral doors were open, and we walked up the steps and found ourselves walking inside. The detail of the ceiling and flooring was incredible, and the size of the main hall was jaw dropping. To add to the beauty, they were about to start a service and the organ began playing along with a trumpet accompaniment. It was sad to see how some of the tourists treated the cathedral; many were taking pictures – which were prohibited, and munching on snacks as they walked around.

The Walking Tour

Today started very early for me. I woke up at 5:30 to get ready to go to Heathrow Airport to pick up my friend David Klock who was flying in from New York City and staying in London for 3 days before he departs to Malaga Spain to begin his Study Abroad experience.

I walked to Ponders End Bus stop and waited for the 307 bus to Oakwood Station even before the sun began to rise. I caught the Picadilly line at Oakwood and rode it for an hour to get all the way trough London and out to Heathrow Airport. Once at Heathrow, I met David at Terminal 3 and then we headed all the way back to Oakwood station – it was a long journey especially for someone who had just gotten of an airline flight.

After re grouping at Ted Lewis and having lunch, we headed out again back to Oakwood station, and back into Central London. We got off at Leicester Square and walked to the National Portrait Gallery. The National Portrait Gallery houses some of the most famous portraitures of British figures. The top level had works of all the Queens and important political figures; some 20 feet tall. The second floor housed more modern paintings of Elton John, Paul McCartney, Tony Blair and JK Rowling. My most favourite painting of the collection was a fish eye view of Prince Harry, William, The Queen and relatives relaxing in a room at Buckingham palace that was about 25 feet tall, it was incredibly impressive.



We then walked to Trafalger square where crews were setting up for an art day that is taking place on Sunday. They will have live music, painting lessons and other art related activities. We continued our walking tour of London, using only a “London A-Z” map guide” and walked the stretch to Buckingham Palace ( I felt like a local taking David to all of the attractions, but I have only been here for a week and a day, so I am most unfamiliar with the layout of the city still – it was actually a miracle that we didn’t get lost.





From Buckingham Palace we walked along Regent’s Park where there was a beautiful lake with Pelicans on rocks and people walking their dogs. I noticed some of the massive trees were beginning to lose their golden leaves. It was a beautiful sight: black cabs driving by, people walking their dogs, and leaves falling in downtown London. We turned the corner, and Big Ben appeared above us, we walked across the Thames to the London Eye – the Farris wheel that was put up to celebrate the millennium, but will be most likely a permanent addition to the London skyline (the same is true for the Eiffel tower, it was only meant to stay up for a short time.) We walked back across the bridge where there were vendors selling everything from small quacking puppets to delicious smelling roasted almonds.

We headed back towards Westminster Abbey and rode the underground back home (both David and I dozed off a little on the journey home.) As soon as we arrived home, we hit the sack at 9 pm.

A Royal Evening

This morning I got up to meet Emily, a Psychology student at Middlesex Uni to partake in one of her tests. Emily was measuring the response to pictures versus cartoons. Electro receptors were placed on my fingertips, wrists and ankles, much like Ben Stiller in Meet the Parents. The computer screen would show an image and then I would press a key indicating if it was pleasant or unpleasant. The pictures and cartoons ranged from David Beckham to Hilary Clinton.

In the evening the international exchange and Erasmus exchange students all boarded coaches outside of our campus to take us to central London. Everyone was dressed up since we were going on a Thames River boat disco. The bus ride was quite long since the Tower Bridge was stuck open, and they could not figure out how too get it down, thus backing up traffic throughout town. When we finally arrived we pulled right up to the Tower of London, a medieval castle on the bank of the Thames and walked down to the dock to board our boat. It was really incredible to go under Tower Bridge at night, I had no idea how massive it was and we had a great view up top on the boat. The boat had three levels and on the first was a dance floor.

The most memorable moment during the dancing was when the dj began playing some Indian Pop music; as if in a musical, the dance floor cleared immediatly and all of the Indian students began dancing traditional Indian dances. The men would lock their feet and spin around balancing on one foot, the girls moved their arms about in a flowing motion and spun around rapidly - it was quite a sight, and everyone cheered them on.

After the dancing, I sat with three Greeks; Despina, Teripsy and Joanna – I have code named them the “Greek Club.” They are a funny group of girls that have actually extended membership to myself, but I am a little lost when they began talking Greek – and that is where I have to draw the line because I don’t know if they are talking about me; but they never would do such a thing.

The boat travelled all the way down to the Thames River barrier, and turned around near the Millennium Dome – a giant domed structure that was built to commemorate the Millennium and featured in the James Bond movie “Die Another Day.” The structure has been thought of as a major waste of money and a failure, but it will be able to prove its worth when London hosts the Olympics in 2012 as a sporting venue. It was a Royal night, with many great memories.

Hey Macarena!

Today Michaele and I woke up to travel to Trent Park, after getting our student card and our NUS card, we took the bus back into Enfield Town where we wanted to see what the shopping was like. The main thing I noticed about the stores was that many of them were not unisex; the either specialized in just men’s clothing or women’s clothing. Enfield Town also had a strip mall that extends behind the stores on main street – I left Michaele to try on about 10 outfits in one store (she was feeling very out of place, like many of us Americans, because we are not as fashionable as the Europeans).

We boarded the bus back to Ponders End. It was the same time that we tried to catch a bus that the local schools were just getting out for the day. The bus’s were full of small children in school uniforms talking about everything from the latest music, to the happenings of the day. I specifically remember listening to two young British girls talk about the punishment one of them is facing from their father. She said that she was trying to break up a fight at the recess time, but was wrongly accused – and now her father is going to keep her from going to school. The stairway of the double decker bus was populated by young English boys who had loosened the tension of their plaid ties around their neck. They were shouting to one another about a number of things.

We arrived at our destination to settle back into our rooms and get ready for the big dance night at the Enfield Forum, the student centre on our campus. We had been waiting for the dance to start in the Enfield bar where we sat with Karen from Belgium, Kristina from Iceland, Cristobal and Nora from the Czech Republic. The dance was one of the best 4 hours I’ve ever had. Imagine if you can, people from every country in the world dancing to the same songs and having an absolute blast. It was at the point that I looked around and saw girls from India and English Rugby players alike dancing to Abba’s “Dancing Queen.” I knew I was in the UK for sure. It was also really funny because they played a lot of Brit-pop songs that I had never heard before, but the English knew all of the motions and dances. The Macarena also made an appearance, and everyone went crazy.

do you have the latest Grisham Thriller?

This morning I woke up and walked to Tesco supermarket to pack a sac lunch. The British have these great little sandwiches that are freshly made each morning and are quite cheap. It was humorous to find an older couple counting out the sandwiches in their cart that corresponded to the day of the week in a thick British accent. “Monday, ham & cheese, Tuesday, egg and rocket, Wednesday, chicken and bacon, Thursday….” Man, what an exciting variety!

After grabbing my lunch I headed to meet the others and we made our way to Southbury station. After an hour, we arrived in Central London ready to explore. We first went to Piccadilly circus and walked around trying to find the Spanish Embassy for Cristobal, and then walked to Buckingham Palace to eat our lunch. On our way to the Palace we found a guard outside that was keeping watch over a back entrance. You can see us standing next to him in the above photo. Usually the guard's guns are not loaded and are there to provide meerly a ceremonial decoration - the police would be in charge of dealing with theifs and intruders to the palace, but after the 7/7 London terrorist attacks, all of the guard's guns are now loaded. There is also a noticable increase of police and security at all underground stations.

After eating in front of the Queen’s residence we headed back onto the tube towards Notting Hill Gate. Notting Hill is a small little neighbourhood that is know for its Portobello Road. The road houses numerous antique markets and shopping booths along the street.

Imagine a small winding street that contains houses of each different colour and you will get and idea of what Notting Hill is. Being fans of the popular movie that was shot in this part of town, we made our mission for the day to find the Travel Bookshop that the film was shot in. We asked numerous street vendors, some just pointed down the street saying “Its down that way love.” Others said “I’ve never seen it, It doesn’t exist.” But after heading into Starbucks I found a map on their bulletin board that described how to get to the shop. We arrived at the small store and it was in the exact condition that is was for the filming. We walked in and looked at the books, it was actually a great store with a ton of cool travel books, and the old man that worked there was happy to help with any questions we had. We all headed back to to Ted Lewis after taking the tube back to Picadilly Circus.

left than right

I have been her for exactly one week and I feel like I am getting a pretty good feel for the British culture. Many things have been very hard to get used to in this last week and the culture shock was a little more than I expected. People come to London expecting an American like city where people just speak with a funny accent, but I have found out that this place is much more than that.

Today was the first time that I found myself looking right then left before crossing the road, a habit that was very hard to break and very necessary to break if I didn’t want to get hit by a car or bus. To give you an idea of what the streets of London are like, imagine a city where suddenly every old and beat up car disappeared and was replaced with brand new shiny cars, that’s London. I have seen only 1 “junker” while I am here, and even a car made in the early 90’s is hard to spot when walking around, the British love their cars, washing them constantly and making sure they have the newest model, something you have to see to believe.

I have also found that the British are very rule oriented and very controlling. Just yesterday we tried to push a shopping trolley (cart) out of the local Tesco’s shopping market outside of the parking lot boundary. We were laughing and talking about what we would make for dinner when the cart suddenly stopped, as if slamming into an invisible wall – we looked up to a sign that read “Please don’t take shopping trolleys outside of parking lot, wheels are fixed with magnetic device.” I couldn’t believe it, the asphalt was affixed with a magnetic device that makes it impossible to push the trolley past a certain boundary.

Some other interesting cultural differences: American’s are the only people who have crisps (chips) with their lunch. Many international students find it very humorous. They all say that crisps are for eating with a beer or whine after dinner. It is also impossible to find crisps in any familiar flavours, the selection usually consists of: Salt and Vinegar, Cheese & Onion, Bacon and Beef: these are the flavours of regular Lay’s chips.

Water has also been an adventure in the last week. I have yet to find a drinking fountain in all of London. I was walking around the main campus building the other day and I asked the receptionist where a drinking fountain was: after looking at me quite weird she said “Go down the hall and there is one on the left, love.” I arrived at the described spot to find a rusty sink in the corner of the wall. It is also quite easy to spot American students because we are all carrying our Nalgene water bottles around campus. The London tap water is not bad, it just tastes a little more chlorinate than usual.

I shall get back to describing what I did yesterday.

Yesterday induction week began. I woke up early to meet Michaele, a CSU student and Karen, a student from Belgum. We took the 307 bus east towards Oakwood Tube Station, (all of the transport busses in London are red double decker busses, contrary to my previous belief that all red 2-story busses were for tourists in central London, needless to say I get to ride a double decker buss to class each day.) We arrived to a sea of students standing outside the underground station waiting for the bus that takes them to Trent Park Campus, the campus we were trying to get to. As soon as the small bus pulled up, a mob of eager students crammed into the bus and it pulled away, leaving around 50 students and ourselves to figure out a way to get to Trent Park since we had to be there at 9:30 and the shuttle ran every 15 minutes. We began walking down snakes lane, the road to Trent Park.



Trent Park is a huge campus situated in London that contains miles of green grass and thick forest. It was once a hunting ground for the King and the former residence of Vidal Sassoon. Snakes lane is about a mile long road that winds through a thick rainforest like surrounding – a beautiful sight, especially just after getting of a dirty bus. We finally arrived at the Mansion and walked into the old building. There was a grand staircase that we ascended and admired the pictures of professors on the wall: all of them were wearing robes and silly feathered hats – a sight straight out of Harry Potter. After our introduction class, we went to the library for a tour. We ate lunch outside the mansion overlooking the grounds and lower pond where white ducks were swimming. It was so calm and majestic, we felt like we were looking at the setting of a Jane Austin novel. After visiting the small Middlesex University gift shop (which consisted of 2 keychains, a sweatshirt, a t-shirt and a mug, we all caught our bus back to Enfield, and began to make a spaghetti dinner.

By The Beautiful Sea

This morning I woke up at 6:30 am to get ready and grab some breakfast before my trip to Brighton. We all boarded the coach at 8:00 and headed an hour and a half outside of London to reach the southern coast. The drive was beautiful – everything you would expect from an English countryside: rolling neon green hills, sheep, horses and little cottages.

Brighton is one of the main places that the English take their holiday. It consists of a huge pier stretching into the ocean with carnival type booths and rollercoasters. Cristobal and I headed directly towards a ride called “The Ranger” a ride that swings back and fourth like a giant swing until you are completely upsidedown hanging looking at the ocean in the far distance below you – it was a blast and a great way to start out the day. I spent most of the day with Cristobal, Fernanda, Pedros and Lidia – Lidia and Cristobal are from Spain, Pedros from Cypres, and Fernanda from Portugal. The opportunity to spend an entire day without any other American students was a great experience.

We walked into town and sat down at a café that had all you can eat gourmet buffet for really cheap. We all ate delicious Pizza, vegetables and couscous alongside the street as people walked by. We then walked around and looked at some shops, but quickly headed back to the beach. The beach was made up of small rocks and seashells and it was littered with English people and their children riding the mary-go-rounds and playing in the sand. Cristobal was quite tired and he took a quick “siesta” as he called it and we all decided to bury him with sand to get the full beach experience.

The bus took us back at about 4pm where we gathered at Ted Lewis then got ready to go out again. About 10 of us walked to the bus stop and caught it to Oakwood station then road the Picadelly Line all the way to Waterloo station where we came above ground to the sound of drums and celebration. We were here to watch the Thames River Festival. After a huge parade of Londoners in elaborate costumes passed, the most impressive fireworks display I’ve ever seen began over the river with a backdrop of St. Paul’s Cathedral and the shipping boats. It only lasted a mere 5 minutes but had about as many fireworks in it as a usual 1 hour show – you can just imagine the intensity. We walked across the Waterloo Bridge and looked a Big Ben and the London Eye Lit up while eating some Indian spring rolls we found at a booth. We all then walked past the Lyceum Theatre and up to Covent Gardens to catch the tube and the Night Bus back to Enfield campus. It has been a long day and tomorrow begins campus induction. I apologize for the tardy upkeep of the Blog as my internet has not been working in my dormitory for the weekend

London Town

Saturday September 17, 2005

I am sitting in my dorm right now getting ready for bed and the sound of Freshers returning from the Beef and Barrel pub down the street is echoing loudly throughout the Ted Lewis Courtyard. I have been noticing how social and friendly the locals are – just now I saw a group talking down by the benches and another group entered the courtyard, one girl screamed “Hello! My name is Emily!” the entire group said “Hey!” and they all went and introduced themselves, and are still talking 20 minutes later.

If you have ever seen the movie “Rear Window,” you get a very clear understanding of what my view looks like: rooms surround the courtyard in 5 story buildings and now after meeting tons of people I can literally just look out my window to see if they are home, and to just yell down or yell up to get their attention.

Today was great; all of the international students were given a guided tour of London. The busses set out from Enfield at 9 am and we picked up a Blue Badge Guide at Baker Street (famous for the residence of Sherlock Holmes.) Blue Badge Guides are Londoners that have taken a series of rigorous tests about the history of the city and can offer some great insight. Angela, our guide showed us around Buckingham Palace, Parliament, The Tower Bridge, Leichester Square, Covenant Gardens and Piccadilly Circus – we also saw Hyde Park and the house where JM Barrie lived – author of Peter Pan and subject of the movie “Finding Neverland.”

The tour lasted a couple of hours – this weekend in London is called ‘open to the public weekend.’ Where many royal houses, banks and government buildings are open to the public for one weekend out of the year – there were huge lines outside many of the famous places of interest that are usually closed. This weekend London also hosts the Thames River Festival and that included a boat race down the Thames River, and various venues along the waterfront. Tomorrow night they will be setting off fireworks down the river at about 9 pm and a couple of us plan to head down for the festivities.

I have been getting to know some really great people – three Rams and I (Cassie, Michael and Meghan) cruised the city with Eric, an orientation leader from Essex, and Cristobal, or Cris – a student from Spain that is Living in Ted Lewis also. We began our adventure in Covent Gardens where we grabbed lunch from a small deli – I had a toasted bacon and avocado sandwich and then we headed to watch some of the street performers. The one we watched put himself in a straight jacket and had 3 minutes to undo himself. We then headed down towards the West End Theatre district where we saw the theatres that house ‘Mamma Mia!” “Marry Poppins,” “The Producers” and “The Lion King.” We are all going to try and catch some shows in the coming weeks.

We finished the day by trying to cram as many people as we could inside one of London’s iconic red telephone booths, and headed back to Enfield for some supper. Tomorrow I am heading to Brighton, a sea side resort similar to Coney Island in the southern coast of England. Until then.

Arrival

After landing in Heathrow Airport I went through customs and grabbed my bag. I was greeted by Chris and Eric, two British Middlesex University Students. We rode and underground train to Terminal 3 and had a great time talking during the ride about everything from Kanye West to how much they hate the show "The OC." Once arriving at Terminal 3 I was greeted by Toby Mosely, the study abroad advisor and more international students. Navigating the corridors of Heathrow was nuts: I had a push cart with my luggage on it and I was walking on the right side of the hallways but the oncoming pedestrian traffic decided to walk on whichever side they wanted, many of them pushing large carts like myself. We boarded a charter bus that drove around northern London dropping off the students at different campuses, and after 3 hours I was finally dropped of at Ted Lewis Hall in Enfield. The Picture above is the surrounding neighborhood in Enfield.

In Flight

It is at 650 mph and 3700 feet that I begin my first blog entry – currently it is about 3:20 am in Fort Collins and I am flying over the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast of Iceland. The flight has been really enjoyable so far – I don’t know if I can fly United again after flying British Airways, I think it was the complementary toothbrush and socks to wear around the cabin that sold me. I didn’t even mind when I bent down to readjust my backpack and the drink card rammed into the back of my head.

One of the stewards, in a thick British accent announced that “This evening there would be a slight change in the entertainment programming: on channel 4 we will be playing ‘the sisterhood of the travelling pants. That should be interesting…” he said sarcastically. It wasn’t all that bad of a movie. We were served dinner which consisted of pasta ravioli, spinach salad, a bread roll, a chocolate Oreo cheesecake for desert and a Cadbury chocolate bar. I will be meeting the Middlesex University orientation team in London in about an hour and a half – the cabin lights just popped on, so its time for breakfast.