Day 8: A Nice and Easy Saturday

Needless to say after 8 days of non-stop museums and travel I was pretty tired and just wanting to take it easy.  This was somewhat hampered by Claire and I waking up to the sounds of drunken carousing at 10 AM.  Our room is on the fourth floor and with the windows open it practically sounded like a riot or frat party going on, and bare in mind that we are in the middle of a large park.  It got louder and louder as the day went on and curiosity got the better of me.  We knew that there was a "football" game that day but I wanted to see for myself.  We'd eaten at the Globe Pub which is quite close to the school but during a little walk I was actually able to follow the sounds to a closer pub, The Volunteer (good food we found out later).  I took a walk around the city and took some pictures and video of some rather adorable kids.  Westham vs Blackpool(?) was the game and if they won, which I believe they did, they would move up a division and get a huge chunk of cash for renovating their stadium.  This was explained to me by the mom of the kids who I recorded singing a fight song.  The game started at two I believe and the revelry lasted till then.

These doofuses were driving around in their ridiculously lame stretch Ford Excursion singing out the windows, going from bar to bar. 

After that we did some homework and headed out for Portobello Road, which is a series of shops and stands and I guess we also passed the house where Hugh Grant or Julia Roberts's character lived in the moving Notting Hill?  We had fun, Claire bought a silver ring with two snakes that she freaked out about.  I got a neat little ring for myself at a good price.  Later that night we all went out to eat at the Volunteer.  A good time was had by all and I got a nice jog in on the way home.

Day 7: Oxford!

Oxford gets an exclamation mark because it was a trip I kind of dreaded and has probably been my favorite part so far.  I thought ooh, we get to walk around a college campus, fascinating.  No, Oxford is a big town and everything is ancient.  The first thing we saw was a church tower, only the tower remains.  The church which had been around since 1000 AD or so was knocked down in the late 1800s so that they could make the street wider.  That's the mindset these people have; 1300 AD is like yesterday to them because they have so many buildings that are so much older.  We bought a little map with a suggested walking tour on it and started on that first, then got distracted by the castle on our way. 

Here we are touching a one thousand year old church tower.  Except for Aspen.  She Loves history and wanted to give it hug like a super cute nerd.

 So I'm no commercial contractor but this whole concept kind of disturbs me; the next level of a house should not be larger than the foundation right?  This was really popular through the fifteenth century which was a big problem during the great fire of 1666 (which the Protestants decided was God's attempt to cleanse their country of the Catholics and vice versa; and they hanged a baker for the starting of the fire who was later found to not even be anywhere near the start of the fire.)

So this is our castle.  It was built near the end of the 11th century though it is hard to set a specific date.

During the Anarchy of 1140 when Matilda, the rightful heir to the throne, was denied the kingdom due to her ovaries she raised up a whole huge rebellion and started a war.  She went to Oxford Castle and used it as her base of operations.  The castle was laid to siege for three months and the myth is that Matilda escaped by climbing down the wall in a white gown that camouflaged her into the snow and then ice skated down the river.  No one was there but that sounds lovely so lets stick with it.  By the 1700s the castle was in a good amount of disrepair and was only fit to house prisoners and yes the castle became a prison, until 1996!!!!  It doesn't even have indoor plumbing folks and is super, super creepy.  It housed a few famous prisoners such as Mary Blandy in 1751 who poisoned her father with arsenic.  She was a classy highborn lady so she was allowed to have guests for tea as long as her ankle was still manacled.  Or, my favorite, Issac Duncan who was a highway man with a well known sense of fashion who, rather than let the man keep him down, dressed himself to the absolute nines for his execution including a mask.  He snatched the rope out of the executioner's hands, put it around his neck, and jumped into the crowd.  Like a boss!

 Sorry mom and dad, I got into trouble in London!  (I could read Claire's mind and she was just wishing that she had rotten food.)  What you can't see is that with my tiny girl hands I can slip them out  : P

 Omg, Claire got a picture of a ghost... 

This is me standing in the haunted corner.  Before the castle was expanded there was a church, where we are in the picture is the church's basement which, with its cool temperature, was great for housing corpses!  And food.

This was my favorite part of the trip.  We stepped into one of the colleges and in this courtyard, surrounded by clipped grass and orderly walkways is an overgrown section with ancient headstones.  It made for some bomb pictures!  Claire and I naturally freaked out and entered tourist mode, snaping pictures of everything.  One girl mentioned something about tourists and I wanted to grab her and shake her.  "Your school is a thousand year old converted cathedral with stained-glass windows and has a cemetery with graves covered with freaking buttercups and forget-me-nots!  You should be walking around all the time, looking at everything and freaking out at the history and picturesque beauty that you get to partake of!!!  If you're not reading poetry in the courtyard every day then you are messed up as a person."

 I think this is my favorite picture that I have ever taken.

 Or this one.

Seriously, just when I thought Oxford couldn't get any cooler.
So we walked around on our tour until it felt like our feet were going to fall off.  Aspen bought a "Keep Calm and Study" tee-shirt from one of the hundred Oxford School stores.  I would really love to go back here before the trip is over.  Apparently there's a C.S. Lewis tour which, being a nerd, sounds awesome to me.  Hopefully its not my last visit!

Day 6: Kew Gardens & Love, Love, Love

The Royal Botanical Gardens are in a little town called Kew, don't mistake that with not being a pricey neighborhood though because if the Audis and Mercedes were any indication it was pretty ritzy.  The gardens are huge and it is definitely worth a visit to see some of the beauty of the gardens.  I have to admit though that with my not being particularly botanically inclined I didn't find myself absolutely as fascinated as I probably should have been.

I thought this Gateway of the Imperial Messenger (4/5ths actual size of its parent in Japan) was really amazing looking.  It was built for the Japan-British Exhibition in 1910 and then moved here.  Super beautiful and elegant looking.

Ananya hates birds and a peacock got a crush on her.  She is hiding behind Rob.

 This is the house where King George III lived when he was crazy.  We were all too cheap to pay the 4 pounds for a tour except for Aspen who said it was interesting (but she's a history major so she probably actually thought that).  We did learn that King George did actually use the term, "what what."  So there's your historical fun fact.

 Its totally normal to have a statue of Satan in the garden right?

  

After the garden Jane pointed out to us a good place to go get some tea.  And I love me some Rooibos!

 

 

So this is my only picture of a very neat experience.  A few of us got to go see a wonderful play at the Royal Theatre (surprisingly small actually) called Love, Love, Love.  It takes place in three acts (and everyone scrambles to the bar in the lobby during intermissions to try and get beer or wine.) The first act is set in the sixties where boy meets girl (who is actually boy's brother's date).  They are both completely enraptured in the movements of the sixties.  They protest, smoke weed, and really believe that they are going to change the world from what it has always been.  The brother serves as a great embodiment of the fifties and old notions of hard work and conservative political feelings.  They fall in love during the first act and decide that before they go back to Oxford in the fall that they are going to hop on a bus and travel.  The second act begins with the boy (now father) and his children returning home in the eighties.  The daughter's mother failed to appear for her violin recital and is upset (it is also her birthday).  Mother (the girl from the first act) returns home and the kids go upstairs.  Mom and Dad fight.  They are both deeply unhappy with their lives.  They work too much, smoke too much, drink like crazy, and both have been having affairs.  Daughter comes back "downstairs" to scream at them twice or so about their loud argument.  The kids come down for sister's birthday cake and mom tells them that they are getting a divorce.  The scene is a frighteningly real rendering of a dysfunctional family where no one is getting what they need from their relationships.  Daughter runs upstairs, slams the door, and then screams.  The parents run upstairs and pound on the door until the scene ends.  Act 3 begins with the daughter coming into what we take to be her divorced father's home.  It is lavish and we gather that he is retired and very well off.  The mother visits and we see that this is the first time that they have been together in a long time.  The daughter, now almost 40, tells her parents that she wants them to buy her a house.  She resents her parents for living well while she has been working hard her whole life and can't afford even her own place.  Her parents defend themselves and talk about how hard they worked to be where they are culminating in my favorite line from the mother: "we didn't climb the ladder, we built the ladder."  And the scene ends with the parents deciding that they want to travel the world together.

The whole play was incredibly done and afterwards we got to do a little Q&A with the cast and directors. Having never really gotten into the sixties and seventies it was a fascinating experience to observe the generation that sprang from it.  I was more that a little reminded of my own parents in that final scene and it made me try to picture them as optimistic youth.  The terrifying question that I was left with at the end of the production was why were the parents now successful and well off while the daughter who had worked just as hard had nothing to her name, not a car or property or a family?  Its a scary question that we like to ignore.  There's definitely a component of the financial market just not being as good but there are a lot of people with degrees and bad jobs out there today.  In our parents time if you didn't like your job you just started over.  Now you have to begin back at school, with four years and tens of thousands of dollars in debt ahead of you.  It was a play that raised many questions and gave no answers, which in my mind is ideal.  Good theater should make the viewer think and I definitely did.  So a lovely night out at the Royal Court Theater.  I am looking forward to more theater in London!

Day 5: Tate Britain, Herrods, Marble Arch, Oxford Street

This was a day of much, much walking.

We started out at the Tate Britain which was both cool and disappointing.  Disappointing because they have etchings from William Blake that aren't on display!!!  There is so much art here that is in storage it's disgusting.  Its like if they can't do a whole huge thing with it then you can't see the item at all (refer to the Seagram Paintings on Day 9)  Well it was pretty cool despite.  I saw a Pollock and a Warhol in person and these guys can now be added to my official list of reasons why I'm more pretentious than you.  The museum was interesting and then we took a trip to Herrods, which is Britain's outrageously expensive department store.  The candy section is off the chain!  It is a complete candy land and it so beautiful and fun to look at.  Good thing calories can't be consumed via the eyes or I would be in trouble.  We saw designer gowns and a hat section next to the bridesmaid section.  I think hats are awesome and wish I could pull them off.  If I could you would never see me at a wedding without one.  Then we took a walk through Hyde Park and got some pictures of Marble Arch.  The big cheap store, like Forever 21, here is called Primark.  And Claire and I thank Primark for cheap black "leather" jackets to keep us from freezing while we are here.

Marble Arch

The Lady of Shalott, a la Tennyson's poem

Andy Warhol, that is all.  I'm not actually much of a fan.

Jackson Pollock, he's ight.

 Claire and Rob checking out the trippy mirror that makes you sick.

 Ophelia, a prime example of pre-Raphelite art.  (Pretension level rising, rising...)

 Claire in her snake wrestling pose.

Rob is so confused.

Pretty cupcakes at Herrod's!

Claire and Maddy at Herrod's!

Haha, Muhamed Ali in Swarovski crystals valued at 14,000 Pounds (which is roughly 20,000 American)

Designer gowns!  YAY!

 

My girls: Leslie, Kristen, Aspen, Me, Ananya, and Brittanie

Day 4: John Soane House and the British Museum

John Soane was rather picky about us taking photos so I don't have any but it is the strangest museum that I've ever been two.  John Soane was an avid collector who bought three houses, connected them and displayed his many, many, many curios.  The highlight of the exhibit was a pharaoh's tomb made out of limestone.  Apparently he got in a bidding war with the British Museum for it and won.  He had a huge party that lasted three days when the piece arrived.  We all joked that he probably filled it with ice and booze.

The highlight of the day absolutely without a doubt though was the British Museum.  Stuart and Barry (affectionately referred to as "StuBear") have been teaching us in the classroom but sweet Jane has been our London tour guide.  The things she knows are incredible and being taken on a tour of the British Museum by a woman who hardly needed a map was a fantastic experience.

 

Yup, this is me with an Eastern Island head.  Be jealous.

 Here she blows.   I saw the Rosetta Stone in person.  It was a cool, humbling experience.  But I swear every tourist in the place thinks that they personally must document what's on it.  Peeps, I'm pretty sure they've got it written down somewhere.  Chillax, take your picture, and get out the way!

Say hello to the Elgin Marbles.  These babies used to adorn the upper portion of the Acropolis in Athens until Thomas Bruce, the Earl of Elgin visited and decided that the Greeks couldn't be trusted with these beauties.  In all fairness most of them had fallen from the Acropolis and were being trampled in the street and destroyed.  Good on him for cultural kidnapping/looting.  So he numbered them and brought them back here to England, then sold them to the museum (that seems legit right?) So nowadays there's this huge controversy because Greece wants them back and Britain doesn't share toys very well.  ("You are trying to kidnap what I have rightfully stolen.")

 A beautiful statue also from the front of the Acropolis.

 I love Greecian statues.  The way that they capture movement of clothing over skin is incredible.

 Here is the ultimate irony.  Pharaohs had their fancy tombs made of gold and servants but this lowly peon has survived thousands of years because the desert was his grave.  The sand in the desert wind dehydrated him so well that we can still make out his features.  Meanwhile the pharaohs are now wrappings and dust.

 

Sweet Jane :) She is telling us about this statue.  Dating to about 2500 BC it is the oldest thing in the museum.  It has been called Ram in A Thicket (descriptive no?)  It is made of gold and lapis lazuli.

 

Look familiar?  It should, its the inspiration for Ron Weasley's Wizard Chess set (Harry Potter Tour coming up in the future.  Don't miss that installment.)

 Britain is stealing a lot of stuff from Greece I feel...  I couldn't quite get an explanation as to why the BRITISH Museum looks like a Greecian temple.

 Mumified Cat.

 I'll take three...

Now is a good time to mention that a good portion of my pictures have been stolen from Claire Margetts.  If you are really fascinated by this blog check out hers Claire's Blog