Friday and the Weekend

On Friday, my friend from home, who is living in Paris this summer, arrived in London. Though she is staying at her aunt and uncle's house in Kensington, she and I have and will continue to hang out each day for the rest of my time in London.

On the first day of our adventures together, we began the day at the Camden Market. This market is a huge place with multiple components, including Camden Lock, Camden Town, Camden Stables Market, and Inverness Street Market. My friend and I walked through all the little stalls, ate crepes for lunch, and bought a couple of cheap novelty items.

The coolest market in Camden Market, because it's a former working stable turned into a market



After lunch, we moved my friend's stuff to her family's house and spent the evening in Notting Hill, right next to the Kensington area. This neighborhood is so beautiful and so cool. It looks like this:





I like the funky, brightly painted houses best. If I could live anywhere in London, it would be in a bright yellow flat in Notting Hill.

We walked to Portobello Road, which is famous for Portobello Market. When we arrived, the Market was just starting to close up for the day, but we still had time to wander through some of the stalls and into the little shops along the street. Portobello is much fancier than Camden... there is a tangible decrease in my fear of being pick pocketed in going from Camden to Portobello. We ate dinner at a Malaysian dive restaurant and got cupcakes at the London bakery Dragonfly Bakery.



On Saturday, we started off the day at Westminster Abbey. The Abbey is across the street from the Parliament Building, and is therefore the center of tourist pandemonium on a Saturday in the summer. Unlike a lot of historical sites and museums in London, the Abbey also charges a pretty hefty entrance fee. Even considering both those factors though, the Abbey was well worth the trip. Like the Notre Dam, the Abbey has incredible floors, ceilings, and stained glass. Unlike Notre Dam, the Abbey also has a whole series of small chapels on the edges of the main sanctuary, and each one is designed differently and intricately, usually with the tomb of some important British person inside, like Henry VII and Queen Elizabeth I.

Speaking of tombs, the Abbey houses a whole lot of them. In addition to the big tombs in the chapels, there are tons of people buried beneath the floors of the Abbey, including many British political figures, but also including people like Charles Dickens, William Wordsworth, Chaucer, Charles Darwin, and others. Many famous funerals have been held there too (and coronations and weddings), including Princess Diana's, which I watched on TV as a little kid, and which had previously supplied all my knowledge regarding the Abbey.

Pictures are not allowed inside the Abbey, but here are some from the Internet...

The main sanctuary



The Lady Chapel, probably the biggest chapel and my favorite because of its intricate, almost lace-like ceilings



Me outside the Abbey... it was a rainy London morning



After fully exploring the Abbey, my friend and I found lunch and then set off for Tate Britain. This museum was fairly small but offered a large variety of art by British artists. Like Tate Modern, it had a good selection of printmaking, which I loved because of my printmaking focus in my art minor.

An etching of London by JMW Turner



It also had modern art like this famous piece by Piet Mondrian, who was Dutch but who worked in England



Even though I love the prints in the Tate Britain, I discovered that my new favorite artist is a painter... John Singer Sargent paints so beautifully and so romantically

"Carnation, Lily, Lily Rose"



"Study of Madame Gautreau"



Once finished looking through the Tate, my friend and I headed back to the Holborn area so that she could see the British Museum briefly. This constituted my third visit to the British Museum, but I still stumbled upon a lot that I hadn't seen before, like an exhibit on money (interesting after my Monetary Theory course last semester) and these cool old clocks...



We ended our day with dinner and a couple of ciders with friends from LSE near my old dorm.

On Sunday, my friend and I started off at Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park. Speaker's Corner is famous for allowing crazy people to exploit their soap box rights on Sunday mornings, and large crowds come out to watch them rant about the end of the world.

Cooky bananas





Hyde Park is very, very large and is home to many other neat things. There are tons of paths to walk along and fields to lay out in or play "footie" in. The park hosts lots of concerts, the first being a Rolling Stones concert in the sixties and the most recent that I know of being a Jay-Z concert a couple of weekends ago (wiiiish I had gone). There is a pond in the center of the park, on the other side of which is Kensington Gardens, home to Kensington Palace, which I visited on my very first night in London. Of particular interest to me are the pony riding lessons conducted in the park on weekends.

I would've been one of these girls had I lived in London at age eight



Hyde Park is also home to Marble Arch... not as cool as the Arc du Triumph, but still neat



After walking through Hyde Park, my friend and I took advantage of her aunt's membership passes at the Natural History Museum. Admission to the general exhibits are free, but a few special exhibits require payment or a membership pass. In this case, the Museum had a really cool butterfly exhibit that we got to see for free.

Some swans and me at the Natural History Museum



Dinosaurs



Butterflies!





We ended our day with a trip to Warwick Avenue. Most people outside of London haven't heard of this place because it isn't really famous. I wanted to go because one of my favorite musicians, Welsh singer Duffy, has a song named after the street. The whole song and music video are centered around the Warwick Avenue tube station.

Me at the Warwick Avenue tube station



Duffy at the Warwick Avenue tube station

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhZ5-L9znt8

On my walk home, after my friend took the tube back to her aunt and uncle's house, I stopped at a patisserie whose desserts I'd been eying all week. I enjoyed an amazing slice of strawberry cheesecake, deciding I'd make a small late dinner in a couple hours. These sort of decisions may result in a few more hours at the gym when I get back to the States, but for now, I say, Life's short... eat dessert first.

The Variety of Wal-Mart and the Quality of Saks

Today I spent almost the entire day in Harrods department store. Harrods makes every department store I've ever been to look like Ross Dress for Less. Everything was beautiful. The sales people were friendly and helpful, even though it was clear I wasn't actually going to purchase any Dolce and Gabbana dresses or Cartier jewelry.

The world's biggest department store takes up an entire city block and is seven stories, and it's big for a reason. It boasts multiple gift shop areas, designer clothing, bags, and shoes, makeup, jewelry, hats, electronics, stationary, sports equipment, toys, restaurants, food halls, a florist, a pet shop with live animals, furniture, fine china, cigars, and so much more. Did you know that Hermes makes furniture? Why do they do that? Oh, because Harrods is awesome. There is even a Harrods bank and a Harrods real estate office. If you wanted to buy a car or, say... an elephant, from Harrods, they'd probably figure it out for you. I'll put it this way: any department store that hands out guides to help customers navigate the store is probably pretty awesome.



Ah yes... every escalator area definitely requires a mural on the ceiling



PETA would have a lot of fake blood to throw in this room



Oscar de la Renta is one of the best designers EVER



Hats!



A classic Chanel suit



Of course it's necessary to have a Veuve Clicquot bar inside the store



The Food Halls are yummy... I had a lamb pasty for lunch (a savory pasty like the one I had is like a mix between a pot pie and a cal zone)



The Harrods Toy Kingdom



I will come back to Harrods one day... one day when I have enough money to buy things there, besides food and small gifts. But even if and when that times comes, I hope that I always view trips to places like Harrods as special. What I mean is, I hope that I one day have enough to be comfortable, but not to be extravagant, and that I always appreciate what I have, and that I spend it on things that matter, like on my children and on others, and only sometimes at places like this. I hope that I always recognize that places like Harrods are a little bit ridiculous.

As I was leaving Harrods, I watched as a family climbed into their driver-driven, custom-made Land Rover, the doors opened for them by a Harrods doorman. I smiled as I walked into the tube station, more excited about my time in London than about any of the stuff I left behind in the store. The things inside Harrods are beautiful, but so much--adventures, and being here, and discovering how to be on my own in this big place--is so much better.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday

After a couple of days of anxiety about my new location, I have settled into an awesome routine of exploring London, getting meals with friends, and going out for a couple of ciders or Pimm's at night. I'm about a 30 minute walk from my old dorm, but that just means more exercise to balance out the British food and alcohol calories.

On Monday, I ran some errands and got to know my neighborhood a bit more in the morning and then visited the Victoria and Albert Museum in the afternoon. I was surprised at how much I liked the V&A, because I hadn't really even planned on going until my friend suggested it that afternoon. Turns out, the V&A has a big fashion gallery, a really beautiful modern glass gallery, and a weird collection of plaster copies of famous churches and statues from around the world. It was definitely worth seeing.

A 1932 Chanel evening gown



The courtyard of the V&A



A plaster of an Italian church face



A piece in the modern glass gallery called 'Colorbox'



That night, I ate at the tastiest fish 'n' chips joint of my life. It was greasy, salty, vinegar-y, and wrapped in paper... just as it should be. I finally feel justified in giving this blog its title.



On Tuesday, I explored Oxford Street in the morning. There, I confirmed that H&M is the best store of all time. It is cheap and offers a huge variety of options. Also, there are four H&M stores on Oxford, as well as at least one on Regent Street and one on Long Acre, so it's easy to find and access. I bought a couple skirts and tops.

Oxford Street has a plethora of shops, from the very cheap to the very expensive. Selfridge's, for example, is a lot like Saks Fifth Avenue. It is also an extremely busy area, and it makes me wonder how anyone raises a family in a city like London. I can barely manage to get myself down the street without running into a thousand people or getting pick-pocketed... how does anyone handle themselves AND a child on a street like this? The craziness of Oxford Street reminds me how much I love my small Northwest towns.

Try navigating this with a stroller



Selfridge's





In the afternoon I went to the Jewish Museum in Camden. The Museum had a floor about general Jewishness, one about Jewish history in England, including a Holocaust memorial section, and one floor with a special exhibit displaying old Jewish texts.

Old spice boxes for Shabbat



A Synagogue Ark from 1600's Italy



An old London street sign from a previously Jewish district of town... coincidentally, my new dorm is in that area



After looking at the Jewish Museum, I walked around Camden. I discovered that I need to go back to Camden ASAP because Camden has a glorious, wonderful, girl's dream of an outdoor market with really cute dresses for negotiable prices (aka under five pounds). The market also has food stalls with any kind of food one could possibly desire... Chinese, Indian, pizza, fish 'n' chips, and the list goes on. I will be back this weekend without a doubt.

On Wednesday, I was a busy girl. First, I went to the National Gallery. I had already been to the National Portrait Gallery, and even though the two are right next door to one another (and adjacent to Trafalgar Square), I did not have time to see both. I spent an hour and a half looking at mostly van Gogh, Manet, Monet, Seurat, and Degas paintings. I really like the Impressionists and the post-Impressionists, and I'm really excited to learn more about them in my Art History class this upcoming semester. Overall though, I think I preferred the National Portrait Gallery to the National Gallery. And, unfortunately, neither allow pictures, so I can't post what I saw here.

After the National Gallery and lunch with friends from LSE, I walked down Fleet Street, past St. Paul's Cathedral, and across the Millennium Bridge to Tate Modern. The view from the bridge is incredible, and you might recognize it from the most recent 'Harry Potter' movie... it's in a scene with Deatheaters, I think.

From the St. Paul's side, looking at Tate Modern



From the Tate Modern side, looking at St. Paul's



Inside the Tate Modern, I explored the coolest art I've seen in London.

Me with a lithograph print by Victor Pasmore



The Snail, by Matisse



Andy Warhol... I learned here that I love pop art, and I will definitely be using the genre as inspiration in my art classes this year while I finish up my studio art minor



Found object book art



After I finished looking at the Tate Modern (there's a Tate Britain too that I'm going to go to soon), I headed back to my new dorm. On the way, I stumbled upon the Museum of London. When looking at maps earlier, I had seen that the Museum was quite close to my new dorm, and had planned on going at some point. Finding it now though seemed like a perfect opportunity to take a look at it. The Museum detailed a lot of really early history, back to when England was part of Rome. Perhaps this is something I should be interested in as part of my London adventure, but I'm just not. So, I spent most of my time in the small modern London area. One thing I learned from this, beyond what I've picked up from merely being here, is that Londoners are real excited about the upcoming Olympics.



So true, Nelson Mandela, so true.

Learning Lots in London

Friday marked the final day of my class at the London School of Economics. On Saturday, I moved to a new location in London-- a City College dorm that rents out rooms during the summer-- to finish out my last week and a half in London.

My last week at LSE was a study in balance even more so than others weeks. By this, I mean my aim was to balance as much going out and exploring as possible with class and studying for the final examination. In my Development Economics course, we finished up by looking at how social networks, regulation (a very broad concept, I suppose... we focused on labor regulation), and barriers of entry in markets affect growth and productivity. Class was canceled on Thursday to give us time to study for the final on Friday.

And outside of class, my friends and I did our best to put as much effort into London's nightlife as we did into our classes (I promise I made responsible choices and studied enough for my final, Mom and Dad). On Monday night, we had dinner with the staff of my abroad program. At Wagamama, a chain of healthy-ish Asian fusion restaurants, the staff checked in with us AND paid for our dinner (with money we already paid them, I guess). Later, we headed to a brewery in Covent Garden and tried a really awesome beer called Honey Dew.



On Tuesday, we saw the new movie 'Inception' at the Odeon Theater in Leicester Square, which is a pretty famous place that occasionally hosts big premieres. My thoughts on this cinematic experience are as follows:

1. Movies in London are really overpriced. I'm not sure whether this is because movies in big cities are expensive, movies in England are expensive, or both. It was worth getting to see how the British do movies, but I'll wait to see any more movies at the theater at home or through Netflix.
2. Instead of showing a couple of commercials, a couple of previews, and then the movie, the theater showed 20 minutes of commercials and previews, followed by a 10 or so minute break (from what, I'm not sure), followed by the movie.
3. Movie theaters here have assigned seating. This is bad for young people who buy their tickets separately and then have to search around the theater and negotiate with other movie watchers to sit together.
4. 'Inception' is really creative and exciting, but the dialogue is pretty crap. I definitely enjoyed it a lot, but people are talking about it like it's the greatest thing that ever happened to the arts and entertainment world... it's not.

On Wednesday, after a bit of afternoon finals studying, we hung out in the gay bars of the Soho district. Here, I was saddened at the thought that the guys I went with would be hit on much more than I would. Still, we were having a wonderful time observing the chaos of Soho when a lovely sloshed lady ran into one of my friends, yelled at him for being rude, quickly forgot that she was annoyed with us, and promptly offered us 'Charlie'. Charlie is cocaine. Pretty soon after that, we headed towards home. We went to our local O'Neal's, a chain of pubs in London that stay open later than most other places (pubs in London generally close around 11 PM since most people start drinking right after work at 5 PM). After a half pint of black currant Strongbow cider, it was time for bed in preparation for Thursday's studying.

After final exams on Friday, we enjoyed one of the greatest things about the British university system: finals parties with open bars. In litigation-happy America, schools would never, ever, EVER welcome 3000 or so college-aged students into a university-owned bar for free drinks and food. In litigation-happy American, most universities would never even own bars in the first place. LSE has three, not including the one in my dorm, all with significantly cheaper prices than the average London pub. We mingled with professors in the main walkway of campus for about an hour, and then left for a proper dinner.

The Development Economics crew, with our professor in the middle in the striped shirt.



On Saturday, a few girls from my class and I woke up early to go on a tour of a few English landmarks outside of the city. The first stop on our bus tour was Windsor, a small town a couple of hours outside of London that is home to Windsor Castle. From what I can tell, the town of Windsor exists primarily because of the need to staff and support the tourism at the Castle, which is the Queen's primary residence.

The Castle is basically what most would expect from a castle. It is surrounded by really beautiful gardens.



It also has lots of fancy towers.



This is me directly in front of where the Queen stays when she's at Windsor.



The state apartments inside the Castle are the coolest part of Windsor, but unfortunately, it's also the part that tourists cannot photograph. Everything about the state apartments, the formal rooms where the Royal family still hosts guests and events, is ornate. From the big stuff like the ceilings, chandeliers, and art, to the small stuff, like door knobs, rugs, and furniture, everything about Windsor is pretty breathtaking. After watching 'The Tudors', it's also cool to think about a Jonathon Rhys-Meyers-esque Henry VII stomping around the Castle. He's buried there, alongside his favorite wife Jane Seymour, but we didn't have a chance to see their tombs.

The next stop on the tour was the city of Bath. I didn't really know anything about Bath before this weekend, but I now know that it's one of the neatest places in the world. First of all, the drive there, through the storybook English countryside, is amazing. Upon arriving, the little town of Bath is beautiful. We stopped at the Bath Abbey.



The Abbey is located next to the reason for Bath's name and fame, the Roman Baths. When England was part of the Roman Empire, the Romans discovered hot, bubbling pools fed by hot springs. The pools seemed to have healing effects-- the sores of leprosy healed upon regular use of the baths. More significantly, the baths became a sort of resort area for most of Europe. Since people didn't really bathe at the time, it was considered really luxurious to spend time at Bath and lounge around in the pools.
Now the bath houses have been turned into a museum that shows off the amazing channels the Romans built to harness and direct the water from the hot springs.







The final part of our tour went to Stonehenge. Although it's pretty mind-blowing to consider how people might have constructed the spiritual center/burial ground 5000 years ago, Stonehenge is a little underwhelming. I don't know that it's necessary to see it to appreciate the coolness of it-- a postcard will pretty much get the job done. It might sound like I'm becoming jaded by all the historical stuff I've seen in the last couple weeks-- Big Ben, the Louvre, lots of castles and museums-- but I think it might just be that Stonehenge, as something that humans constructed when they probably shouldn't have been able to, is awesome to consider, but not that great to see in the flesh (in the stone?). This may have something to do with my tiredness level at this point in the day. Still, I suppose it's pretty cool to say that I've SEEN Stonehenge.



However, there was one shocking thing about visiting Stonehenge, and that is how close the road is to it. 'Oh sure... it's 5000 years old and super famous... let's put a road 25 meters from it... no big deal'. I can't imagine driving past it everyday, or, say, going on a morning run past it. Even though it wasn't my favorite part of our tour, I can't fathom being in the presence of that kind of importance at home, as if were just part of the landscape.

Finally, the bus rolled back into London, and we took the tube back to our station from the bus stop. I finished gathering up my things, and took a cab to my new dorm.

I would have really liked to have stayed in my previous dorm, now that I know the people and the area there pretty well, but the entire building was booked for the second session of LSE summer school. My new dorm is less than 2 miles away from where I was, in a relatively quiet financial sector of Central London. I know I'll get to know this neighborhood and continue to hang out with my friends from LSE on a daily basis, but it's a bit scary to be alone in this big city. I have always lived with either my parents, in a dorm, or in a house with five other girls. I love time alone, making my own schedule, and having space to think, but I have never been so totally on my own in my whole life. It's terrifying and empowering at the same time. I am really excited to explore the places that I haven't been able to see in London-- the Jewish Museum, and all the markets, Harrods, and a million other things-- but I can't say that this week and a half alone won't be a bit of a challenge.