Richmond's Own (but unowned) Website

 
 
The second day in Scotland was just as busy, if not busier than the first! We finally got to eat a real breakfast! The hostel had a good breakfast line. I got scrambled eggs (whites – and they needed salt and pepper, but were ok), yogurt (dairy!), grapefruit, hashbrowns, sausage (I wasn’t expecting much…and didn’t get much…), and beans (didn’t know what else to get). I also had a bite of Katie’s haggis…I think one bite was enough for me. We went back to pack our stuff, and met Mike to go to the castle. Basically, Edinburgh has a castle (I guess historically it’s for defense) and at the other end is the Holyrood Palace (for fine royal living), and connecting the two is a street called the Royal Mile – it’s about a mile away.
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Edinburgh Castle
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Castle
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prison!
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Castle's Great Hall
We went through this stadium that was set up in front of the castle, for military festivals. Which reminded me of that scene from The Lost World: Jurassic Park when they have the San Diego Jurassic Park amphitheater – not anywhere that huge, but I thought of that! The castle itself is on a hill, and has many levels of defenses, and a lot of cobblestone everywhere we walked. I really enjoyed it – there seemed to be a lot more there to do than there was at Windsor (though it’s not a royal residence, so that may have something to do with it). There was so much to see! There were walls to climb on (where they would shoot arrows and defend the castle from), cannons (so many of those), statues, museums, military and war galleries and exhibits and museums. It was up on the hill, and had beautiful views of rock, grass, and of Edinburgh below. There was a memorial and chapel to fallen Scottish soldiers. We also got to see the prisons of war – and walk inside them – barracks and cells, which was cool. There were Americans housed there in 1781 from the American War of Independence (that’s how it’s referred to there), so I felt a connection there! It was interesting to see their conditions – soldiers as prisoners of war seemed to have much nicer accommodations than common people (but were by no means luxurious). It was a great little whirlwind tour of the castle!

After the castle, we walked back down the Royal Model toward the palace, and ate at a restaurant/pub called Canons’ Gate. I had another meat pie! Beef this time. And it came with mash and lots of peas. It was also very good! It wasn’t a traditional pie serving, but with the stew on a plate and a crust laid on top – but it was still good. We also saw Formula 1 racing on the TV – interesting, since cars are not going around an over with one way turns for hours – but instead laps around a winding track for hours! And Sir Patrick Stewart was there, interviewed on tv at the beginning. I went out to look at some shopping – there was a Christmas Shoppe! Which was cute, but pretty much had only ornaments. I was tempted to be a 13.99 pound bagpipe Christmas music CD. Which I didn’t.
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Holyrood Palace
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Holyrood Abbey
Then we went to Holyrood Palace, home of Mary Queen of Scots, and still an official Royal Palace – in fact, the queen was there recently on her trip to Scotland! We also got our picture taken by a Spanish woman – puedo decir “gracias!” en espanol! They gave us an audio tour, which was funny when we all had the little things pressed against our ears. It was a nice palace – amazing detail to the ceiling plaster work, some large halls and courtyard, and obligatory spiral staircase. Also, there was a ruined abbey (historical) right there – the Holyrood Abbey I believe. And quite a colorful garden too. It’s a very different sense of history over here, not like in the US. There’s just nothing that old in the US – the sense of old here could mean 13th century, and “new” could be 1730 – there wasn’t even an America yet! So I feel that the sense of history is completely different. It just astounds me sometimes to see these historic and old places.  After the palace, I did a little more shopping, and went into a Starbucks (darn globalization) to get an Americano (though I notice Starbucks makes you add your own milk, at Caffe Nero or Costa Coffee, you have to ask for it white!), and a muffin for breakfast tomorrow.

Ahren, Tom, Steph, and Katie went to climb the Salisbury Crags earlier (hills/mountains overlooking Edinburgh, partly formed by an extinct volcano), and Adam and Alexis were thinking about coming up later, so I decided to go head up myself – after all, I’d only be here this one time! And with over an hour and a half left, I figured why not. I thought I could cut some time by not going on the huge tourist path, but up the side, the smaller path through the grass where you could see some footsteps – and some of the steps up I had to take were like at least a foot high, there were some areas where I could lean forward not a whole lot and have my face up close to the hill, so it was a bit steep in some areas. About half way up, I got to a flatter part and looked down – and thought this might not have been such a bright idea! But I kept going up (didn’t slip and fall all the way down!), got some beautiful pictures, and then got to the ridge where the main path was. It was an amazing sight from just there – I could see Parliament, the water body off of Edinburgh (the Firth of Fourth. Say that 3 times straight), and even taller hills/mountains, along with all the tall grass. It was beautiful, and no picture or words can really do it justice. I really wish I had a crane or helicopter shot, that would run up the hill through the grass, to come over the ledge and see the valley, or the lake and Firth and hills on the other side. It was breathtaking. But it doesn’t end there! I ran into the group of four heading down as I made it near the summit. We took pictures, and I stayed there to take a few more. I went up more almost to the top, and thought I’d turn around, but I went less than 100 yards before I ran into Adam and Alexis – and decided to go all the way to the summit with them! We made it up there, and the view was beautiful. Slightly dehydrated from the coffee (drank the water from my bag when I got there), sweating heavily, and quads sore, I was at the top, and I am so happy and grateful that I decided to take that opportunity, it was probably the highlight of my trip there! There were some people there, but it wasn’t super crowded. Some people were sitting on the rocks near the ledge. I took tons of pictures and videos! A woman from Missouri took our picture, with the incredible view. Edinburgh looked like a tiny toy city, and the hills looked like something out of Harry Potter or the Sound of Music. I wish I could have made a movie. And the tall grass looked like waves of wheat almost, blowing blissfully in the wind. We decided to start walking down, and it began to rain. So we pulled out the umbrellas – which wasn’t too bad, since we stayed on the gentler tourist path on the way down. It was a very fulfilling hike, and even though it was a spur of the moment decision (or I did it on the hoof? Maybe. Don’t think that’s the right way to use that), that was great.

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Salisbury Crags from the bottom
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It's steeper than it looks!
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Just gorgeous. That blue line in the back on the left is the Firth of Fourth
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View looking down (backwards I guess)
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You can see how steep the cliffs are, and the people walking up toward the summit
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Edinburgh from the top
We walked back toward the hostel – and stopped for some ice cream on the way back. We met up, walked to the station, and say bye to Mike, then bought dinner in a store. It was like a small mini grocery, but you can imagine the cashier’s surprise when Kriss unloaded a hand basket with 12 people’s worth of food in it. It was a bit overwhelming, and we made it to the train with 5 minutes to spare. I got a table seat with Nicole, Kelsey, and Tom (who switched seats with Katie halfway through). So it was bye to hills, sheep, countryside, and fake Kansas/Pennsylvania. I wish I could say it was bye to all the rain too! There was one point we passed a lake and a steam/smoke cloud coming out of the wood – which looked like the Hogwarts Express from far away! Had to take a picture of that!

We got back to the city, and on the tube with 2 Irish lads, who had apparently gotten on going the wrong way. We couldn’t help them to where they were going (didn’t know where it was), so they (to our humour) started cussing each other out – dropping lots of f bombs, and words I’d rather not hint to on this blog at each other (though not angrily, but in a half angry buddy way – Irish stereotype?) – it made a tiring night into an entertaining ride. I wrote my academic blog and slept very late – close to 2!

 
(See, I posted this on the 9th, not 11th of July! Right...?) We went to Edinburgh, Scotland! It was a rather early morning – we had to leave by 7:30 am (not so early compared to other things, but it’s early compared to class started at 10am!) we took the Picadilly line from Hammersmith – which today was the west-most station due to railway work.

We then arrived at King’s Cross station – yes, that’s where Platform 9 ¾ is in Harry Potter. Though there was a lot of construction, and it didn’t look as bright and happy as the station does in the movie.  I went with Katie, Kevin, Adam, and Alexis to find it – as we neared platforms 9 and 10, we were told by a person who worked there that it wasn’t there, but out in front. I bet he has to say that to tons of tourists! So we went outside – I’ll admit it was cool, but a bit of a letdown. There’s a cart that’s halfway into the brick wall – the “brick” is basically a poster of a brick wall…and there’s an electric box above it. But it’s nice that they have something there! So I got my obligatory picture.

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This looks kinda legit...
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Oh...maybe not so much. At least they have something!
It was time to get onto the train. We passed nice 1st class carriages with tables at every seat, and coffee waiting. We weren’t in 1st class. But they were alright – their sliding doors were glass and cooler than Amtrak’s! But no footrests like Amtrak. They did have electrical outlets though. I sat with Nicole for the ride up. Food was packed breakfast (wrapped croissant) and packed lunch (took another tuna!). Not the best food, but glad to have it. It was strange going through a lot of tunnels as we went north of London – the air pressure kept changing every couple minutes when we went in and out of tunnels – and our ears would pop. Though it was alright in the end I guess. Soon we started to pass hills, sheep, and even seaside on the east coast of England! I took pictures, though they really don’t show the rolling hills that well, it looks rather flat. But believe me, there were hills! In some ways, it looked a bit like America’s heartland, where there were lots of farms (no corn though) – maybe Pennsylvania because of the hills. I played a couple games of UNO with Nicole and read Bossypants by Tina Fey to pass the time – and a 20 minute nap. We passed by Newcastle, where another cohort of Fulbright summer institute kids are currently located.
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Scotland! Or America?
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Hills! Scotland!
I realized (perhaps too late and too close to Edinburgh) that we were in Scotland – the land of Hogwarts! So I could listen to Harry Potter music on my iPod. A lot of the Nicholas Hooper scores (5 & 6) really capture the essence of travelling up there. I’m pretty sure Williams’ score from 3 would fit the mood as well, but I didn’t have that on my iPod! Finally, 4.5 hours later, we arrived in Scotland!

Our tour guide, Mike (Scottish, and complete with kilt!) met us at the train station and took us to our hostel so we could drop off things. We then walked around – there was so much history that came from Edinburgh! Adam Smith, 14 story buildings centuries ago, Hume, Sir Walter Scott, and JK Rowling!
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Scottish Parliament Debate Chamber - very modern!
We then got to see Parliament, which was amazing – it was very modern, built around the theme of a tree, or a branch. The old parliament dates back to the 13th century, dissolved in the 18th when they united with England, and the new parliament was established in 1999, the new building in 2003. It was very cool architecturally, because it was built with cameras and microphones built in, and not after the fact. There is wood and stone coming from and representing different areas of Scotland. There are large skylights and lots of windows for natural light – it is not your typical government building! We got to see a committee room, as well as the main debate chamber. It was beautiful, and also had a beautiful view of the hills/mountains (formed from an extinct volcano – Salisbury Crags maybe?) next to Edinburgh (which itself is built on hills), which were breathtaking! The only downside was that it was pouring that day. I understand why Harry Potter movies are always rainy and gloomy – it just poured down on us. I’m very glad I brought my umbrella, but it was still crazy, and I still got soaked!

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Dinner - meat pie
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Lovely Edinburgh street - the city has so many levels (literally, like streets that go above other areas), and lots of little alleyways that lead to little hidden squares and gardens and dumpsters.
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Sunset over Edinburgh
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Edinburgh Castle - up on a hill, it looks like Hogwarts!
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The "birthplace" of Harry Potter!
After Parliament, we went to have a pub dinner – I ended up having lamp and mint pie which was delicious! I think everyone enjoyed their meal! We had a nice water feature of water coming down through the ceiling too, though on the other side of the seating area from us. Afterwards, I walked around Edinburgh with Nicole, Kelsey, and Kevin, on the newer side of the valley (I believe it used to be a loch years ago, now there’s gardens and railways). It was beautiful to see buildings on the stone faces of mountains and hills – again I’ll say it, but it keeps reminding me of Hogwarts! But Scotland is an absolutely beautiful place. I love the old buildings and style of architecture that they have too. We also got to go by the cafe where JK Rowling started writing Harry Potter! From the window, you can see the Edinbrugh castle...and a cemetary. That gives some perspective to the books. Apparently, some of the surnames for book characters have come from the cemetary gravemarkers. That night, the four of us played UNO in the girls’ room, along with Adam who came back. It was an INTENSE game, that lasted over an hour and we still didn’t finish, in deference to sleep. There was a bit of a mob mentality going on against the person with the least amount of cards. And sacrificing one’s own hand to find that +2 or +4 wild card out of the deck to play it against someone! Notable quotes include “It doesn’t matter what card you play, it just doesn’t matter!” and “- I’m closely monitoring the situation. –That’s what President Bush said about Afghanistan,” and the drawing of half the deck to find a blue card. It was great fun! I was in a room with Katie and Stephanie that night. It was decent – bunk beds (I was on top), and the toilet room had a shower in it with no curtain and a drain on the floor – like the train toilet Levar Burton showed on Reading Rainbow in the 90s. But nicer that what I thought we were going to get! I fell asleep very fast, for I was very much tired out!
 
Just a quick note on the blog - not sure if I needed to categorize this under "london" but I did just in case there are any daily followers from the London category, which was on the Fulbright tweet! (hello 1 person out there!)

Anyways, blog housekeeping. As we're going to be in Edinburgh (Ed-In-Borough for you Americans!) over the weekend, and I'm not going to have internet access, I won't be posting tomorrow (and maybe not the next night either). Definitely Monday night, but maybe not until then. I will have a notebook with me to take notes, and camera to take plenty of pictures! So I'll type up my notes and update it when I can get back on the internet - and thanks to the wonders of technology and the Weebly platform, I can adjust the date to make it look like I posted the entries earlier!

And since I'm on a 20 day blog posting streak, which I'd like to continue as long as possible, I don't consider this next day (or 2) a gap in that continuity, since it's a problem of physical access and not me not wanting to write.

And now back to the curling game - type to all of you soon!
 
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The Question Time panel sits
A day too late for that tagline? Or a week and a half early? Or right on time, because today was our last academic session! (We still have volunteering sessions and time to work on our films next week though). Today’s academic session was based on “Question Time,” a BBC programme where people ask questions to politicians. Before that though, we filled out another feedback form for Dave, and had a short discussion on feedback about the program. Today was pretty cool, because it brought back a bunch of lecturers and guests from our other sessions and put them together in one room on a panel. I loved having them all there in one room – it really helped everything feel connected. Jackie hosted the panel, which consisted of Stephen, Dave, Darren, Alex, and Yasmin – all of whom were great during their respective sessions, and were great today as well! We went over topics such as British Identity, Volunteerism, the phone hacking scandals, and important issues facing the UK in the future. It was great to hear their different viewpoints, and see them agree (and disagree!) with each other!

Today’s lunch was fish n chips – and mushy peas! I found that I like mushy peas – it tasted like split pea soup, but had the consistency of mashed potatoes. Maybe that doesn’t sound the most appetizing, but I really thought it was delicious! Shame that not as many other people like peas. Kriss came by too, giving us our Oysters, and talking a little about tomorrow’s trip to Edinburgh.

After lunch, we were done, though we had tutorials with Dave over blogs. Tutorials are like one on one feedback sessions, like office hours, but more specific on feedback on work (or at least that’s the feeling I get). I got some good feedback on my academic blog, as well as some things I could do better. I accidentally had a muppet video on there from when I was testing out the system – I didn’t know that was the view that was graded! Oh well, it’s gone now, but you can imagine there’s one there on the sidebar! You can read the academic blog here:

This afternoon, I also discovered that on YouTube in the UK, you can watch full length videos of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics! So I watched parts of the opening ceremony, along with CURLING! John Shuster and the US Team! They weren’t the best performing team…so I may watch some UK games as well. It’s all coming back to me! Curling in/out, the house, peels, hammers, and all the rest of it! Brings me back to high school senior year at home and in Dawdy’s class! Also took the time to work on my second set of academic blogs, getting those out of the way before Monday or Tuesday. Felt good to get something done! And watch curling again! I love this – I think it’s geoblocked in the US. So I’m going to get as much out of it as I can!

Dinner was good – saw Johnny and said hello – I had a vegetarian tortellini with corn and carrots. But the bread was fresh tonight, and very good! Tonight I went to the ASDA with Katie – it’s a bit like Wal-Mart, but more food based, though they have a fair selection of clothing. I needed to get a pair of (cheap!) shoes (and were they ever so cheap and uncomfortable…), and grabbed some snacks, while Katie looked for some sandals (came up empty handed). It was nice to go though, had some nice talking time about our backgrounds, being Asian, school, and stuff. The lines were really long though – everyone was buying so much! I suppose that was quite Wal-Mart like. I think me standing there with my one pair of less than 20 pound shoes and bag of peanuts was the least of anyone who was buying. Some other interesting things – they don’t say canned here, but tinned – tinned soup, tinned vegetables, etc. And nappies for diapers. And “squash” means concentrated juice…unlike what I thought…which was vegetable squash juice. Woops.

Tonight was pretty much relaxation – working on the blog, facebook, chatted with Priscilla, and watching more curling! And packing (lightly!) for our trip to Edinburgh tomorrow. I was watching the USA vs GBR game, when the US had the hammer (throwing the last stone of the end (ends are like innings)) and had the chance to score 2 points, and take the lead (2 points is pretty big in curling!), and they blew it. Easiest shot ever. And they got 0. I screamed in frustration. Katie and Stephanie who were in the room talking to me about something else jumped, and Tom who was in the hall choked on a banana. Woops. But I get passionate like other people are passionate about other sports! Wouldn’t you be mad if it was 1st down, 2 yards from the end zone, and they lose the ball, and the other team makes a touchdown? That’s about how I felt (on the losing side). And I remember we lost that game. Like other people remember old football games. I remember old curling games. Tonight, a bunch of us were wearing the I <3 RU shirts, looking the same – leading to Adam’s “Camp Counselor Night” comment. But anyways, time for me to go – need to get up early to go to Kings Cross tomorrow (Harry Potter anyone?) and finish watching this GBR vs DEN game of curling!

 
Today I also skipped breakfast and elected to eat my chocolate muffin from last night. Today’s academic session was entitled “Progress and Sustainability,” so we got to talk about the environment, climate change, responsibility, possible futures, and how this relates to citizenship.
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Richmond Park! Looks like countryside
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Richmond Park - horseback riders!
We went to Richmond Park today (cool name!), which was beautiful! It looked exactly what I thought English countryside would look like – though very close to the metropolis of London. It’s a royal park, and historically, it was hunting grounds, and places like Roehampton would be akin to hunters’ lodges. There isn’t hunting today, but I believe it is one of the largest parks in at least London, maybe in a greater area too. It was beautiful! Trees, some rolling hills, a stream, tall grass, some people riding on horseback.  And to complete the whole mood, it was raining too. We walked by the projects/socialized housing in Roehampton, where Dave explained that when they were built post war, the architectural idea was for them to be connected to nature, so they have a view over the park – though physically getting from there to the park involves quite a walk (there was talk of putting a gate so the residents could directly enjoy access to the green space in the park, but it has gotten stalled). We talked about issues of sustainability, and climate change. We discussed skepticism of science, as well as how the general perceives (or doesn’t perceive) the effects of climate change, and how the political power of countries can affect that.  It started to rain quite hard – I wish I had my umbrella, I only had my semi water resistant rain jacket since I had read “light rain” on the weather website.

We took shelter in a little café, where some of us got coffee, or other snacks and we continued our discussion there. We took an online quiz about our own sustainability practices, and discussed why we thought our numbers were what they were (how many earths we’re using), and how we can lower our numbers. We continued our conversation on how climate change affects different countries, and what governments can do about it. We also discussed new forms of “green technology” and looked at how environmentally friendly they really are, as well as the role of corporations and oil companies, and the use (or lack of use) of social/environmental responsibility.  We walked back to Roehampton in the rain, and upon arrival were told we’d be speaking with Spanish teachers.

The Spanish teachers were in the UK for a while, also learning, they were from Spain, and we got to talk with them, which was a fun experience – I got to use my Spanish too! (A little bit at least – Katie’s vocabulary range is better than mine! But one teacher said I speak well!) The teachers are here to learn more English I believe, to better work with English speaking students. We talked a little bit about America, and our own courses of study, and we went to the Froebel diner to eat lunch with them, which was nice. I’m glad we had the chance to talk with them! There were some scheduling miscommunications at the beginning, but it all worked out well.  Lunch was quite good as well, roast chicken with peas and carrots, roasted (fingerling – they didn’t say that though) potatoes, and Yorkshire pudding, which was all quite delicious!
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Young new tree growing strong!
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garden plots
After lunch, we went on a Roehampton outing with Jonathan (the Environmental Initiatives Manager, or something similar to a position like that), and Tessa (from the education department, but also an environmental champion).  We got to see some of the different areas around Roehampton that are helping to contribute to environmentally friendly solutions. We saw beehives with honeybees – some of the most important insects to pollinate our food! We saw LED lamps on the paths, some bat houses for local bat species to come live in, and some of the species of water fowl in the lake were named for us. We went into the forest where there was an old orchard on the Roehampton estate (if you can call it that?) from a long time ago, and they were hoping to restore the apple orchard in the future. There were apples on the ground and trees, but it was very overgrown. We then walked by the stone wall – there’s a door there I’ve been seeing whenever we passed it, and it turns out that it’s the refrigerator – or ice shed, from back before electricity, and whoever lived in Grove House had to keep meat and other things cold! The ice shed was built into the rock to keep it cool. We walked further and saw a new orchard – less than a dozen trees, but they’re trees that the students take care of, which helps to promote environmental sustainability, and show people little steps they can take. MP Justine Greening had apparently come to help open the orchard, and planted one of the trees herself! They were apple trees from 2010, and they seem to be growing nicely. We also got to walk by a community garden in Roehampton, where many vegetables were being grown – some plots were a bit overgrown, but others were nice – there was corn, tomatoes, carrots, onions, and much more! Of course it’s not enough to feed the whole school, but again the idea is to expose more people to sustainability and show them what steps they can do to help the environment. We made our way into the forest, into a circle clearing cut out (and some people had some nasty experiences with nettles!), where we talked about different possible futures – basically there are 3 basic  routes for society to take – 1) society collapses, and there’s nothing we can do about it, 2)technological and scientific fixes will be discovered that will save the environment, 3)we adapt and evolve, changing our political, social, economic, etc structures to live within this new paradigm. We got to read “future newspapers” from 2027 about these different possible routes we could take, and it was quite fun – the stories were interesting, and they even had ads for movies in the future!

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Helena Bonham Carter
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Alan Rickman
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slightly blurred Daniel Radcliffe
In the afternoon and evening, we went into London – today was Ahren’s birthday! I went with Katie, Stephanie, Ahren, Tom, and Alexis. First, we stopped at Trafalgar square for the Harry Potter premiere! It was crazy! There were so many people! There was a traffic diversion (detour), and police kept yelling at people to get out of the street! There were people on the steps of buildings across the street from Trafalgar Square. You needed tickets to get close (I think, we would’ve never made it up there anyways), and it seemed to have several layers of fencings. But from our vantage point, we could see into Trafalgar Square a bit, from up on the side of the Square, and saw half of the huge screen they put up (the other half covered by trees and a lamppost – and with the help of 16x zoom of cameras, could see the stage. Though I had to hold my camera high up to get over all the other people! We saw a little bit of the premiere on Nicole’s laptop earlier, but it was amazing to actually be there! While we there, we were able to see (albeit a bit far off) Emma Watson, Helana Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, and Daniel Radcliffe! It was amazing to actually be there! And every time an actor was shown on the screen, the crowd went wild! (Though I think a few times, people just wanted to cheer!)

After that, we went to try to find a Thai restaurant in Soho. But my google maps directions had us closer to Goodge Street – we found our way, thanks to a bike rent map thing (and the maps they have all over London, which are super helpful – even though we have a good idea of where stuff is, it’s nice to have those maps!) – though I had a run in (literally) with a pole while looking at my tube map. I fought a pole and lost! A bit of blood on my fist – they definitely do not have smooth poles like in the US! Interesting cultural difference, theirs are much bumpier…well it was interesting to find that out. In the end, we didn’t have time to go to the Thai restaurant, because the line was too long, but Ahren found this crepe place, which was quite good! I had a savory ham, cheese, spinach crepe which I enjoyed.

After that, we walked over to Ahren’s birthday event, The Comedy Store, to listen to some comedic standups. It was great fun! There were jokes – many sexual, but also about Boris Johnson (crazy mayor of London), marriage, men and women, audience members (including one who sold rather…interesting products…), Americans, and much more. In all, there were 6 comedians, plus the MC who also did comedians in between the other acts. It was great fun!

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Southbank and Thames at night - London is beautiful at night!
Afterwards, we took the tube to the Southbank at night, which was absolutely beautiful! We took a lot of pictures of the Thames at night. We went to the other side of the bridge between the Embankment and Southbank, so we could look at the Eye and Parliament, which were stunning at night! I’m glad we got to go there. It was peaceful, and I put my camera away for a couple minutes, to enjoy the ambience. It was a nice time, there weren’t too many people, but enough to not feel empty.

We came back, Katie and I played our roles as leading wheel on a tricycle, and got back to Roehampton. Adam was still awake, “kept the porch light on,” and even came and opened the door for us! Speaking of Adam, I got to be Adam today, being the directions person leading the way (or appearing to know where we were going!) around London. It was a successful day, and a lot of fun!

 
Today’s session was on Nomads and Citizens. I thought it was quite interesting – learning about “New Age Travellers” and the movements in Britain in the 80s, which seemed similar to US movements in the 60s, as well as the portrayal of these nomads by the government and media as “others” who were different and like a scourge, who needed to be eradicated. We learned about legislation that has been used to curb the travellers saw some clips of police violence during the travellers’ attempts to have a festival (strangely enough edited out of the original newscast in the 1980s) – makes you wonder about some things. And the media here appears that a lot of it seems to lean slightly right of center (as opposed to what I think about American media being more left of center) – so it’s interesting to compare raw footage of events with the way the British media portrayed events.  Though I think it’s quite interesting for me to link these travellers to the communalists in America in the 1970s and what I’ve learned in STS. While maybe not as nomadic, they did have back to the land, utopian, communal ideas and spiritual experiences through drugs, and things like that. Though it seems to me that many of their communities out in the deserts in America failed to survive because they ran out of money, and had to go back to “regular civilization,” while people in Britain were able (for a while at least) use the welfare system, which probably increased their negative reputation. But in the end, the American communalists searched for their “out of body” experiences in other ways – for instance through computers, and the fledglings of the internet, which was some stuff I learned this past year!

Today was the visit day for new (or looking for a uni) students – tours and everything (I think one walked through our dorm halls), saw Kriss getting ready to do a tour, and the lunch line was very long! But it was alright – had a glazed salmon which was very good!

In the afternoon, we got to meet with activists who were pretty cool. One, James, had made a video for a community organization, and gave us some tips on editing, interviewing, and the whole documentary making process.  After that, we got to interview them for our videos, which was great, and we got a lot of great footage. We also had time to meet in groups which was also wonderful, since our group got to get our topic more focused and come up with some more focused questions, so our following interviews should be more relevant and really help a long way in supporting our video.

At lunch break, Katie and I tried doing some mini karaoke in my room – Adam came and joined a bit later too. Coming back from class, Nicole and I did a quick game of bowling with water bottles and oranges! (Unfortunately Brendan delivered me the news that it won’t be an Olympic sport. Shucks.) Brendan, Adam, and I stayed in the dorms, mostly trying to get a head start on blogging and the night’s reading. The others went to meet with some of the volunteering kids, and ended up watching a movie and bowling I believe. We had dinner at the Digby Diner (or canteen?) – hamburger patties, chips, veg – though they had a lot of salads tonight, including a dessert pasta thing and a sweet couscous. After that, Adam and I headed out!

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Contemporary Art - it's a tape player
We took a 72 bus to Barnes, but realized we would have to wait for a train for 20 minutes. It was 1914, and the Camden Arts Centre where we were going closed at 9pm – so not much time. We went back up onto another 72 bus (empty though, so that was nice to get seats!) We got to Hammersmith and took a line into Westminster where we took the Jubilee up to Finchley Road. We got out of the tube and realized we didn’t look up which way to go! There was a map at the bus stop which we looked at and started walking…and didn’t see anything. But we kept going, and found it – it looks like it used to be a house, but now an art centre. It was rather small, only a few rooms, but there were some interesting things. There was a huge room, with tape machines (or recorders) at both ends, and the tape ran around the wall between the two machines. One made sound, while the other didn’t – we weren’t sure what the purpose was, or if one was just broken, but it was interesting to look at. (Contemporary art I suppose). There was also a film that was shown on 2 side by side 16mm projectors, one with a 20 second delay. Which was pretty cool – though I think it’d be awesome if there were portions that would line up with the 20 second delay and “interact” or something. There was a room with a huge plaster curtain draped across it, with plaster molds of flying figures poised to fly above the curtain – interesting that if you look from some angles, you can see the hollowness of the molds (only like half of them were open), but it was cool to see – they were modeled on ancient statues. Last we saw a film about the last cosmonaut – about a cosmonaut trapped in space for 10 months. It was interesting, because space scenes were in English, while earth scenes were in Russian. Also, video was shown (edited or not, I’m not sure) to be scratchy and jumpy, with snow and noise in the picture. It was also shown non-chronologically which was interesting too.

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You can see all the way down the train!
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Harry Potter!
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People camping out for the Harry Potter Premiere at Trafalgar Sqaure
We went back to the tube station, and got on the district line train WHICH WAS SO COOOOL!!! It was a doorless train, so you could walk between the carriages, connected by accordion style connectors. You could see down the whole train, and watch as it turned and bounced! It was a very new train, and had very nice seats too! If there weren’t other people, we’d have run up and down the train! At Baker Street station, we got a picture of Sherlock Holmes in the station! The next tube had sofa like seats instead of single seats (there were armrests, but the benches were made of one cushion instead of separate ones) - so I made Adam bounce up and down a couple times! Then we took the tube down to Trafalgar Square, where the Harry Potter premiere is tomorrow night! We couldn’t believe it! It was amazing! There were fences, a huge sign, huge lights, people camped out (literally! – probably for entry bracelets – only 8000 for tomorrow – we didn’t know, or we’d have tried to find out how to get them), banners with the houses on them, it was an amazing, unbelievable experience. If you had told me I’d be in London during the last Harry Potter movie premiere a few months ago, I would’ve that you were crazy! Noticed in the Metro and Evening Standard, they both described fans as “Potty” – I wonder if that’s a regular British term now. Don’t really hear that in America much – except for Oprah 9 years ago saying “We’re having an Harry POTERRR POTTYYYYYYYYY!!!”

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Westminster at night is beautiful
After that, we walked down through Westminster, past Parliament, which looked just beautiful at night, so did the London Eye across the river – unfortunately my camera battery died! We kept going, into a hotel building we thought we could go through, but didn’t seem like it, so we turned back, and went past a sketchy part on the unseen side of Waterloo – there was one stair going down that we passed which was all graffiti – we walked past that. We ended up basically walking around 3 sides of Waterloo instead of 1 – so next time, we need to figure out how to get straight there! But we made it, and got onto a train to Barnes (at first it seemed like we were the only ones, but then others got on). 1 more academic session to go tomorrow – Progress and Sustainability!

 
Today there was a small breakfast group – Alexis, Stephanie, Adam, and myself, for the regular croissants. Maybe I should have slept in today – oh well, it was alright. Today’s session was on Globalisation. I didn’t get a lefty desk though – talk about inclusion/exclusion! In the morning we did a lot of discussion – first the presentation of our human rights articles from last week, and there was some good discussion on nationality versus citizenship, the use of torture in regards to suspected terrorists, and the right to life. It was interesting to see how we used language in these debates versus how words are used in the more political debates.  We went into globalisation, talking about our views on it, and the use of the media, which provided for a very lively discussion.

For lunch I elected to go with a sandwich – which was pretty good – and I got ice cream and  chocolate and a pack of crisps!

In the afternoon session, we had some more lecture, on 8 different facets of globalization. We did some group research looking at examples of globalism. Our group did China and creolisation, while other groups did liberalization in Korea and transnationalisation in Mexico. It was a fun bit.

We came back, and played a couple fun games of mafia – Sophia and Katie are pretty good narrators. We made it through a somewhat nervous and awkward dinner back came out alright. After that, Adam, Alexis, Kevin, Sophia, and I went to Westfield mall. Brendan came along to go meet a cousin, and left at Hammersmith. It was great at night – though a little bit darker from the skylight. I bought another Thomas book, and sat and did some reading. I was thinking about getting starbucks, but decided not to – lucky me, Alexis bought a pack of ice cream!  Coming back took a while. It was raining (also when we left too), and the bus took a long time to get here, and I fell asleep a bit on the way back.

We came back and some of the group was watching hunger. But now we’re watching the movie Four Lions – a humorous take on secutiy and terror – focusing more on terror from what we’re seeing now. It’s much more peaceful than hunger, but a lot of fun too. It’s nice with the rain coming outside – gotta go watch now!

 
Happy Independence Day! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUdB8gCMcXI#t=57)  Interesting here in London – just another day gone by – the 4th of July could be like any other day – like the 3rd of March or something. But anyways, today.
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mall - and this is not even the tall section!
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Tower Bridge out of Lego!
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Wouldn't want these in my bathtub!
As Americans, Roehampton kindly gave us the day off. In the morning we did some shopping at Westfield Mall (Sophia, Brendan, Adam, Alexis and I – the scarred for life people who watched “Hunger” coincidentally or not). The bus ride there and back took a long time – over an hour there, almost an hour back – there was a lot of construction and some car crashes we passed by. The tube might have been faster, but it was alright in the end. The mall was HUGE! Doesn’t even compare to Ithaca, and much bigger than Puente Hills or Brea Mall.  It was arranged in basically a double square formation (like the number 8 on a digital clock) – and most of it was 2 stories, the second story was over 20 feet tall, allowing for areas to go to 4 levels (or here it’d be ground, 1,2,3 floors). And the ceiling was mostly glass, allowing a lot of natural light in – it was beautifully constructed. And so many stores! I went into the lego store for a while, saw a Dalek bathtub toy in a toy store, and walked by so many more shops. I got a Starbucks muffin take away (instead of take out) because I didn’t eat breakfast. I went to a couple of bookstores (they have more than 1 there!) and found some Christopher Awdry Railway Series books (very rare to find in America! Even Amazon isn’t selling the collection anymore…so I’m buying them 1 by 1) – and bought a couple of those. Thomas is British after all!

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Grilling time!
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Eating time!
When we came back, the Roehampton team had coordinated a barbeque for us Americans! I think it may have been planned by the marketing side, but the academic people came and spent some time with us as well – thanks to Talah and Emma for doing a lot of the set up and cooking! It was pretty American, and it was interesting to talk with the academics and some Roehampton students about Independence Day, how it’s celebrated in America, treatment of the US flag, some of our patriotic things, and catching them up with what we’ve done over the weekend. There was so much food! Hamburgers (small but thick patties, and some nice artisan buns), mustard and ketchup (and BBQ ketchup), pringles, doritos, sausages, grilled chicken, and lamb kebabs (which while not part of my usual 4th of July food was very very good!). And salad (with rocket! I love it! I think it’s arugula in the US…at least I think it was the rocket. A bit of a nutty flavour. It was good. Had it the second night too in my salad). And strawberries. And chocolate cream Oreo’s! Which were a lot of fun introducing those biscuits to Stephen. And Emma’s cookies which were delicious! And there were Roehampton people in the background playing rugby. Not American football...but close enough I guess!

I took a much needed hour or so nap this afternoon (I don’t see how some people can go with so little sleep! I’ve been getting 6 and I’m going crazy!), and did my reading on globalization for tomorrow. Emma brought us our dinner – packed sandwiches. Adam gave me the excited tuna call! We favour the tuna sandwiches out of the 3 types – those, ham and cheese, and cheese and tomato because they usually put in a good amount of tuna…and it just tastes better than the others. And there’s usually enough people who don’t like tuna to leave them for us. Though with all the packed sandwiches, we’ve got a good stockpile up in our fridge. I think if we went through, we’d have a good amount of chips and water too. In case of emergency, of course. We went to a Putney bar (sports bar - saw an American game of baseball - not cricket- Cubs vs Nationals) tonight with some Roehampton students/workers (like work study I think – they study here, but we’ve only interacted with them when they’re working). It was…interesting. Big steps for me tonight I guess. And I witnessed some other aspects of British drinking culture. And interesting night overall. I can definitely vouch for Adam’s RA skills though. But we all made it back safely, and I should be ready to go for tomorrow’s class!

 
So I just finished watching Hunger (wikipedia here)with 3 other people. Emotions flying. It was hard to watch. Partly the use of static shots – like a long (seemed like 20 minutes, maybe shorter) static shot of a conversation. But also just the graphic imagery and dark nature of the film. It was an emotional roller coaster down into the depths of emotion I never knew existed. I don’t really have words for the film. Good yes, but very heavy, very dark. And I thought Schindler’s List was a darker film. It’s hard to believe that it all happened. Definitely something that relates to our sessions on Security and Terror and Human Rights. But I can’t really express how I feel right now. I think I had my eyes covered for a good portion of the film. And it wasn’t like a horror film. Though there was a lot of horrific stuff. I think that’s been the hardest hour and a half I’ve ever had to sit through. Very intense. I’m not sure there are words to describe it. Maybe that’s a good thing. We shouldn’t have to describe those things. Yet they occur. I’m not really sure where I’m going with this now. But it was a very hard film. Good film. But hard to watch. And I’m pretty sure it was meant to be like that.

 
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Hyde Park tree
Oh my goodness it’s been 2 weeks already! I can’t believe it – it’s gone by so fast! And another 2 weeks to go still – not quite the halfway point yet.

Today was an official free day, so we spent the day getting as much out of London as possible! I woke up around 8 to go to breakfast, just plain croissants today, and picked up bag lunches.  We (Adam, Alexis, Kelsey, Kevin, Ahren, Brendan, and myself) started off the day by going to Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park. It was a nice walk we had on the way there, passing through the trees, and a really nice tree with drooping branches and you could walk “inside.”  We got to hear a man speak – the guy Nicola told us. It wasn’t so much a debate as it was a guy on a soapbox – yet it was interesting to hear his views, whether I agreed or not.  Though it wasn’t the highest level of debate (but not debate) – excessive use of the F word, and the assumption that if you support a place, you should go there and not here. But it was a London experience worth having!

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Tate Modern art piece
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Whaam! at Tate Modern
After that, we took the tube over to Tate Modern. We had lunch outside before going in, out by the river which was nice.  Afterwards, we went inside, and split into several groups. I went with Adam, Alexis, and Kelsey.  We couldn’t go into the Miro exhibit because you had to pay, but we went through a lot of other ones. The first exhibit we saw was rather interesting, it was a 18 stories about bloodlines, and pictures of the families. They were very different and ranged from light hearted to serious to sad – part of a family who was kidnapped in North Korea, an orphanage, 2 families involved in a South American blood feud, a Nazi high up in the ranks, a family that believed in reincarnation (so one man was both father and son to his biological father), a family partly wiped out by genocide, a Chinese family (chosen by their government of course), and Australian rabbits (imagine having 30-40 offspring a year! Yikes.)  We wandered through some other galleries – saw some really  modern things – wood carvings, a video of a guy kicking a trashcan, a staircase made of fabric, stones arrange in concentric circles, hardened foam that looked like lava, a mirror, some strange scultures, and much more. We also saw some older 20th century pieces – Picasso, other cubist pieces (Alexis gave me a short history lesson on one of the art pieces!), and the Whaam! Painting which was a pop art piece which was pretty cool. After a gift shop walk, we crossed Millenium Bridge to find a tube to Camden.

We took the District line – and the last one, we were lucky. Once we were on the tube, the driver said something like “This is the last train service today. There will be no more trains today. If you are still sitting on the platform you are wasting your time!” (He said it somewhat humorously.  I started falling asleep on the tube, and couldn’t lean back so I had to lean forward, though as I fell asleep I began leaning to the right…toward Adam. Awkward. We switched trains and made it to Camden, where there were many outdoor markets. Wasn’t as nice as Covent Gardens though, but I’m glad I had the experience – not sure if I’d want to go back again. There were some signs saying beware of pickpockets. And also the stall people were very aggressive at trying to sell us things. We took the Northern line back down to Waterloo, and got back for dinner, around the same time Nicole, Ahren, and Kevin got back.

Sophia was feeling better, so 9 of us (Brendan was back already too) went to dinner tonight. After dinner I finished my academic blogs! And so now we’ve got ice cream and watching the movie Hunger.  And the Harry Potter debate between 2D…and the world’s largest IMAX! We’ll see. And Hunger is a super intense movie. Oh my. Horrid prison conditions. Horrible…Wow.  Time to go watch.

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Camden Market