Last Day in Londontown!

I imagine this will be my last post! Although it was tough to keep up with the blog, I am so glad I decided to write one, not only to share with family and friends who might be wondering what I'm up to, but because I will be able to look back on it and remember all the little details and the day-to-day things about my semester in London.

SO. How do you end something like this, anyway? I suppose what's at the forefront of my mind right now is the snowstorm that is hovering unpleasantly over the East Coast. My flatmate's flight (on the same airline as mine) got cancelled yesterday, and she had to scramble to re-book a flight. Luckily, she's on her way home now, but I'm nervous about my flight. I've been checking pretty regularly, and everything seems to be okay. Probably because I'm not flying out until Sunday morning, and my flatmate's flight was for today, Saturday.

The flat is clean, I'm all packed and (hopefully) under the 50 pound weight limit for checked luggage. All I have to do is get myself to Heathrow, check in at the airport hotel, hang out, get up early tomorrow morning and COME HOME.

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Now I want to offer some kind of summary reflection. This entire experience has been really incredible, but also kind of whirlwind. It HAS gone by really fast, and it has actually been pretty difficult to process and digest everything that happens everyday here. I suppose living in central London has contributed to this hustle-bustle kind of feeling, but at times it has been hectic. That being said, I really do love living in a big city. There's always tons of things to do, and especially in London there's always tons of FREE stuff to do. I had to come to terms with the fact that London is just a really, really outrageously expensive city, but it is only money, and I think this entire experience was invaluable.

I found myself going through phases of likes and dislikes while here in London. Towards the beginning of the semester, I would spend hours just sitting in Trafalgar Square, watching the people moving against this unbelievable backdrop of Big Ben and Parliament and Nelson. Perhaps it was the changing weather, but I stopped going there as the semester went on. My favorite trip would definitely have to be the recent, 5-day Ireland trip with my literature class. Ireland's history is just so complex and in some ways the wounds of the past still haven't healed over. I think I will definitely go back to Ireland sometime in the future, to see more of the place.

Going to Paris by myself was another big deal for me. My parents and flatmates were kind of worried about it, but I knew that I could handle it. I think sometimes you have to do things that scare you a little bit, if only to show yourself that you're capable. I'll never forget walking around the Louvre at like, 10 o'clock at night, with the Tour Eiffel lit up against the sky... it was wonderful.

If nothing else, I think this experience, albeit kind of short, has taught me a lot in terms of cultural immersion. I suppose you can't live abroad for 4 months and not change in some ways. I expect my family and friends will comment on my generally more dressed-up appearance. Everyone in London dresses so well, that it was hard to leave my flat in jeans. Likewise, the women wear more makeup, and so I started spending more time on that, too. Probably more than this, though, would be my newfound attention to the art of conversation. My dad and I recently discussed the differences between Brits and Americans in terms of speech patterns and general manners, and I think I've matured a bit in the way I express myself verbally. I noticed this the most in class discussions... I definitely use fewer "likes" in conversation, and I've noticed that I also generally talk a bit less than I used to, especially while conversing.

This is all just personal reflection, but I'm having a hard time trying to process "What London Means To Me" at the moment. I suppose the subtleties will come out more the longer I've been away from here, but I have most definitely been changed by this experience, and I believe changed for the better. That being said, I believe I am ready to come home. I didn't really make many friends on this trip, which is totally fine, but it just made missing my friends and family that much more difficult. I was able to distract myself with the city, but the holiday season only made me pine for familiarity that much more. My dad asked me if I wasn't going to miss London. I will miss this city, the culture and the general attitudes of Europe. These attitudes, in my mind, are in some ways better than American attitudes. However, I think I can take what I've learned here and apply it in some really good ways to my life in America. I think that, wherever you go, you're still in your head. Sure, there will be some cultural shocks when I get back to the States, but I think I'm strong enough to keep my head and maintain what I believe to be valuable elements of British and European culture. I'm happy to be coming home, not devastated to be leaving London.

Will I be back? Someday. Perhaps I need to see a bit more of the world before I'm ready to come back to Londontown. But I know this city has changed me, and perhaps will continue to change me even though I'm not here. It is a beautiful city with a beautiful character. I can only hope that I do this experience justice by continuing to learn from it and by making an effort not to unlearn all that I've seen and experienced.

Torrey

Ireland, extensively, with pictures!

For the past five days, I've been exploring Dublin and its immediate surroundings with my Irish literature class! I literally just got home an hour ago, so I'm still digesting some of the subtleties, but I wanted to get a post written about what I saw...

We left from Heathrow airport on Wednesday afternoon, and basically just got ourselves to the hotel. We had a little free time, and so we went to a pub for dinner, and I had my first of many pints of Guiness, or "the black stuff" as Dubliners call it.

Thursday, we had an early start. We all got three-day DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transport) passes, and so we went from our hotel on Lansdowne Road to Tara Street Station. First, the group went to an exhibition on the life and works of William Butler Yeats at the National Library of Ireland on Kildare Street. The exhibition was really great, and featured many of Yeats' original handwritten and typed copies of his famous poems, like "Easter 1916" and "Sailing to Byzantium". After the Library, we went on a guided walking tour of the city, focusing on the events of 1916. Our tour guide was called Lorcan Collins, who seemed to know every single person in the city of Dublin. He took us walking down the River Liffey, showing us the Liberty Building where the republican rebels set up camp during the 1916 rebellion. In this picture to the right, the Liberty building is the "tall" one... it's only 16 stories and it's the tallest building in Dublin. On our tour, he also took us walking down O'Connell Street, which is the high street of Dublin. Unfortunately, a lot of it has been converted to stores in an attempt to draw tourists.

We saw the General Post Office building, though, which the republican rebels also took over in 1916. We saw the bullet holes that were still left in the marble exterior, although the building itself was all but totally destroyed in the fighting. Inside, we saw one of the 12 or so remaining original proclamations of the Irish nation. We also saw a statue of Cuchulain, a mythical Irish warrior who strapped himself to a rock when fighting, even after he couldn't stand up. That's him over on the right. Birds plucked out his eyes, apparently, but he kept fighting!

After some free time for lunch, we took a bus to the outskirts of the city to visit Kilmainham Jail, where the Easter 1916 rebels were imprisoned and executed. The fourth picture is from the basement of the jail. Interestingly, the bodies of the rebels were not given proper funerals, because the English realized that if they allowed the rebels to have proper graves, the Irish people might make martyrs of them. Instead, they were buried near the jail, in unmarked graves with quicklime thrown over their bodies. We saw the yard in which they were executed by firing squad for high treason. It was really moving, especially in light of a movie we recently watched for class, "The Wind That Shakes The Barley", which talks about the problems with the rebellion and the subsequent War of Independence and Civil War.

Friday, we started off with a trip to Prospect Cemetary in Glasnevin, which is on the outskirts of the city, as well. There, we saw the graves of the rebels (after public opinion changed and they were given proper funerals a few years after the rebellion). This cemetary is once of the oldest and largest in Dublin, and unlike many of them, is not segregated by religion. After lunch, we went to the Joyce Tower in Sandycove, which is on the southern part of Dublin Bay. In Joyce's "Ulysses", this is the fictionalized Martello Tower on the sea where the first scene of the novel is set. The curator gave us a talk and a tour, and told us of how Joyce lived here for a short time, and ge drunk and went swimming in Dublin Bay at the Forty Foot Pool. Myself and two of my classmates decided that if it was good enough for a drunk James Joyce, it was good enough for us, sober. We stripped down to our underwear and dove into Dublin Bay in December, and it was all I hoped it would be and more. Picture at the right.

After, we went to Trinity College Library to see the Book of Kells, Ireland's oldest Celtic manuscript, c. 800 A.D. It was truly stunning, and we also got to see the huge Trinity College Reading Room where nearly every Irish luminary studied. I included a picture of a college building on the right. After that, I walked through St. Stephen's Green, which is a famous Dublin landmark. Later that night, the group went on a musical pub crawl that included more Guiness and a "Noble Call", for which members of the audience are invited to sing, a capella, a song from their home county (or country, in this case). A few of my classmates sang some folk songs and Bob Dylan, and I was sorely tempted to sing a verse or two of Lady Gaga, but decided to refrain, as I thought I'd had enough alcohol to properly do it justice. The live musicians were great, and sang and played traditional Irish folk songs. It was a lot of fun!

Saturday, we were up and out early again. We went to the National Museum of Ireland to see an exhibition of the Iron Age "bog bodies". These bodies were discovered in Co. Offaly and Co. Meath in 2003. Research suggests that these human sacrifices were often tortured and sacrificed to the gods, and were placed on significant kingdom boundaries in ancient Ireland. Most of the bodies were incredibly well preserved, though I was thinking mostly about mortality during the exhibit. The National Museum had many other artifacts from around this time, including lots of gold jewelry and metal-on-wood crosses from the 8th through 13th centuries. It's easy to see how a museum like this, showcasing Ireland's rich history, would have given the average person a greater sense of pride about their country.

After lunch, we went to Newgrange, in Co. Meath. Set in the Bru na Boinne Valley, this Neolithic passage grave was built over 5,000 years ago, before the pyramids in Egypt and before Stonehenge. The exterior was re-built in the 1970s, but the inside of it has held up so well, no stone breaking, no rain. When we got inside the tiny chamber, the guide turned off the lights and simulated the sunrise on the winter solstice, when a tiny shaft of light comes in through the entrance in just such a way to light up the entire inner chamber. We couldn't take pictures inside the inner chamber, so I included a picture of the exterior and of the highly decorated entrance stone. The entire experience was pretty magical, and it was one of my favorite activities on the trip.

That night, we went to a play at the famous Abbey Theatre in Dublin. The play was Conor McPherson's "The Seafarer". Although the original Abbey Theatre was rebuilt in the 1960s, this is Ireland's National Theatre, founded in 1903 by Yeats and Lady Gregory. Its early productions were often radical; in 1907, the premiere of Synge's "The Playboy of the Western World" provoked riots.

Sunday, we went on a bus and walking tour of the Wicklow mountains, south of Dublin. We saw Lough Bre and Lough Tay (more commonly known as Guiness Lake), as well as the Glenmacnass Waterfall, just north of Laragh. We stopped for lunch in a little village near Glenmacnass, and then continued on to Glendalough, to see ruins of a 6th century monastic city founded by St. Kevin, who was actually a member of the royal house of Leinster. The scenery was unbelievable. It felt a lot like Scotland, especially the pronunciations of all the Gaelic names of lakes and valleys. On the tour, our guide was really interesting. His name was Eamon Murphy and I managed to sit in the front seat next to him the entire time, and we talked about everything from bilingual education in Ireland to music and movies. He's lived in Dublin his entire life, and had a lot to say about the Easter 1916 rebellion. He comes from a family of Irish republicans from "rebel County Cork" and Co. Wexford in the South. He was a blast to talk to, and he was definitely one of my favorite tour guides, because he knew a lot but was able to tell me things in a casual way, without being too academic or stuck up about his knowledge of the country. That night, the professors took us all out for a pint and dinner, and I had a traditional Irish Boxty, which is basically a potato pancake that you wrap meat and vegetables in, burrito-style. This was a traditional Irish restaurant, very expensive and not like a pub at all. For dessert, I had bread and butter pudding, served hot with homemade custard and rum raisin ice cream. I don't think I'll ever forget that meal.

So, that's about it for specifics of the trip! Once it all sinks in a little more, I'm going to write about my impressions of the place, specifically compared to London and all that. It was an incredible five days, and now I have to write a four page "field trip response" paper before tackling a seven to nine page final paper. Less than two weeks until my arrival back in the States. It's going to be so surreal being back after having been gone living in a fancy European city for four months. More soon...

schlepping around London

I realise these posts are becoming more infrequent, but that is simply because there is less and less I feel is relevant to share. The initial lustre of London life has worn off, and I find myself succumbing to routine, as I suppose one does when one lives in a place for longer than a month or two. After I returned from Paris, I was confronted with much reading and paper-writing. Even though the workload is substantially less than even my first semester at Grinnell, it takes quite a bit of effort to get down to work, what with all the distractions of city life.

More recently, we celebrated Thanksgiving here in London. My flatmates and I attended a Thanksgiving service at St. Paul's Cathedral, which was lovely. Normally, one has to pay an entry fee in order to wander around St. Paul's, though it can be avoided by attending a service, which was the initial enticement. That evening, we went to a potluck dinner at our program director/Irish lit professor's house in Chiswick, and it was a really nice, relaxing way to spend Thanksgiving.

Alas, now London is pulling out all the stops for the Christmas season. Starbucks plays a continual loop of jazzed-up holiday tunes, and Oxford Street and Regent Street are both decked out in lights and decor. Christmas trees are beginning to pop up in front of high-end establishments. This is all rather nice, as it gives the comings and goings of life a little bit of sparkle, but it makes me miss home a little bit. My friend Becca is visiting from Granada this weekend, so we had a little soiree here at the flat last night, followed by dancing at the Social. It was really fun, though I think I will be staying in tonight with my flatmates and having a low-key movie night.

Coming up: a five night trip to Ireland with my Irish lit class! We're mostly going to be in Dublin, though we're making some trips to surrounding environs including Tara, the Boyne valley and Newgrange. After we get back, I have only 2 weeks left abroad. I will be going to a Marilyn Manson concert, making a second trip to Hornchurch in search of my great-grandparents, and writing a final paper for Irish lit. I feel things beginning to wind to a close here, and I'm thankful that I will always have these silly blog entries and photos to bring me back to my time here in London. I do miss home, though. There are a lot of things that will be changing for me within the next year and a half... a lot of plans to be made. I'm looking forward to getting started with all that.

Paris (belatedly)

After much foot-dragging and delay, I present MES AVENTURES PARISIENNES:

I woke to the sound of my cell phone alarm at 4:30am Thursday. Ungodly. I had managed to throw some things in my canvas messenger bag the night before, so I only had to stumble to the bathroom, shove a toothbrush in my mouth, and go. Of course, the tube doesn't open til about 5:30am, which is when my train was set to leave from King's Cross/St. Pancras Internat'l. The buses were also apparently in the weird limbo time from when night buses stop and when day buses start, so I had to walk the 1.2 miles down Euston Road. Kind of scary.

BUT I did manage to make it in time for the train, and I proceeded to promptly pass out for the 2.5 hour journey, waking up only to register the misty morning fog of northern France. When I arrived at Gare du Nord, I was a little taken aback. No Parisian vista upon entering the city? Where's the Eiffel Tower? The neighborhood of the train station and my hostel is on the Rive Driote (north side of the Seine), in the 10eme arrondisement. Kind of bleak and built up, but who was I to complain, I was in PARIS.

After locating my hostel and dropping off my bag, I set off on a sightseeing tour of extravagant proportions. I checked out the exterior of the Louvre, rode around the Charles de Gaulle Etoile (where the Arc de Triomphe is) on a public bus at dizzying speeds, stood under the Tour Eiffel, and climbed Montmartre to see Sacre Coeur... all on only a few hours sleep!

The Paris metro was great, though. So much dirtier than the London Underground, with a faint, lingering smell of urine. My dad told me that the Brits, for all their politeness, have zero courtesy on the tube, which I haven't really seen much of, but SACRE BLEU the French are SO rude on the Metro. Literally, sardine city. For three days, it was hysterical, but I think I'd get sick of it really fast if I had to deal with it everyday. I got a three day "Paris Visite" pass, which meant unlimited access on all public transportation in central Paris. Suffice to say, I did a lot of riding around and sightseeing on public buses.

Day two was LOUVRE DAY. For only 9 euro, I was able to see thousands of the old masterpieces (see Facebook for photographic evidence). My favorite memory was wandering around the Napoleon III Apartements at about 9am... because there was NO ONE ELSE THERE. That changed by about 10am, when the place became inundated with tourists of all nationalities. It felt a little like a scavenger hunt, simply because there is SO MUCH to see and not nearly enough time. The Salle de Rembrandt was pretty phenomenal, as was the Sphinx and the Venus de Milo... I could have done without the absurdity of the Mona Lisa... but I did see it!

Day three involved a coffee stop at La Coupole, a famous restaurant/cafe near Montparnasse where the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Lenin, and Trotsky dined and discusses ex-pat things... like Communism. It felt very modern, but I tried to imagine the place as it might have been then. Apparently the food is to die for, but again, I only had a coffee. I also went to La Cimetiere de Pere Lachaise, the largest cemetary in Paris, where TONS of people (famous and otherwise) are buried. Speaking of scavenger hunts, there was a little info map at the main entrance of the cemetary... basically how to locate the graves of famous people. I saw the graves of Chopin, Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, and Jim Morrison. Very cool, but kind of creepy as a tourist activity. An early afternoon departure meant my time was cut short, though I did manage to see Notre Dame (but not Sainte Chapelle) before I left.

Paris was lovely, but I think in terms of my city rankings, London is higher. It's cleaner, and the museums are all (mostly) free. Maybe it's the propensity for rebellion that Paris has about its character. I did witness a riot outside the Barbes-Rochechouart metro station, which was a little scary. A great three-day weekend trip, but I don't think I'd want to live there. Getting to speak French was pretty cool, though.

Irish lit, Paris

It's been a while since my last post. Things are relatively the same here, though I think I might be getting depressed. I really miss my boyfriend and the weather is turning colder here and all I'm reading about is the damned potato famine.

I am going to Paris tomorrow, though, which I am really excited about. Maybe that will cheer me up. I promise to post lots of pictures here and write more in-depth about what I saw, I just don't feel like I have anything to say right now.

fall break!

The past few days have been WUNDERBAR here in Londontown. I've been exploring various new and exciting neighborhoods around town, watching tons of films, reading, etc.

Yesterday, I went to a few galleries. I saw a polaroid exhibition near Baker Street. The gallery was super-tiny and everything was WHITE in it, which actually was a nice backdrop for the polaroid pictures. I saw four taken by Andy Warhol, and I think my favorites were ones taken in 2008 by a British artist called Mark Quinn. He splashed paint all over his polaroid prints (mostly of eyes turned upside down). I also went to see a Damien Hirst exhibition. Apparently, he is the richest artist in the world, and very rarely does paintings (I think he does more installations and stuff like that). I didn't really enjoy that exhibition, but it was still fun to go. It is being housed in The Wallace Collection, which is in an 18th century house on Manchester Square. It's a family collection, so there were a lot of other neat displays, including portraits, furniture, china, etc.

Last night, I went to see Clouzot's "Les Diaboliques" (1955), which is part of the vintage film season at the PCC. It was really, really amazing. It seemed clear to me that Hitchcock would have probably seen this movie, and there were a lot of techniques that Hitchcock imitated in his later work, including a sort of suspense-building scene involving a bottle of liquor, a glass, and a vase. Going to all these films is really bringing out the film-buff in me; I bought a (kind of campy, cheesy) book of the "501 Must-See Movies". It's defintiely unsophisticated, but it has a ton of movies with information about dates, directors, awards, etc.

Today, I didn't get out the door until about noon, which was really lovely. I stopped by Sainsbury's for 2-for-1 pound croissants, and then at Pret for 99p filter coffee. This is becoming more of a routine for me - I'm really into croissants right now! Perhaps someday I'll learn to make them. After brunch, I went to Camden! Only three stops up the Northern Line leads you into a kitschy, labyrinthine marketplace with A MILLION semi-identical stalls selling everything from hookahs to Doc Martens to latex corsets (what?!) and everything in between. Being the genius that I am, I managed to stumble across a vintage, vaguely Army/Navy store called "What Goes Around." It. Was. Phenomenal. I have generally resigned myself to the notion that London (especially central London) is just ridiculously overpriced and expensive. This store wasn't cheap, by any stretch of the imagination, but it was really high-quality stuff for cheaper than I've seen in any other thrift store. A purchase was made. I'm not sure if I'm ready to talk about it here just yet (though it was under 40 pounds, Mom, I promise). It is beautiful and outrageous and warm and I think it may be in the top-ten of my favorite purchases of all time.

Still giddy with excitement after my purchase, I stumbled out into the market and decided to take the District line WAY East to Hornchurch, to check out the cemetary in which my great-grandparents are buried. My first impression of "East London" was very working-class, and much browner than central London. There were lots of ugly, cinderblock housing complexes that James said the government owns and lets to the working poor and the unemployed. Hornchurch is all the way out in Zone 6, so it took us an hour or so to get out there. It was already beginning to get dark when we got to the cemetary, and a combination of poor grave markings and fast-fading light meant that the cemetary was being locked up for the night before we could find the graves. I will definitely be going back, though, because now I know the general area the two graves are in, and so it will be way easier for me to find my great-grandparents the next time.

This evening, I went to see Roman Polanski's "Repulsion" (1965), starring Catherine Deneuve. This is Polankski's first film in English, and it was really a terrifying film, in my opinion. It basically shows the descent of a beautiful French girl in London into complete madness. The cinematic techniques were great: sound cut-outs at really dramatic moments, disembodied hands coming out of walls... really good. After the film, I came home and had some Earl Grey tea (another new obsession) and watched ANOTHER movie: Hitchcock's "Rebecca" (1940). I didn't like this one as much as other Hitchcock films, but it wasn't bad. It was based on a novel by a French author, but I felt that there actually wasn't much STORY being told. Maybe I was just tired...

That's all for now. Tomorrow I'm going walking in the country up on Hampstead Heath, then I'm going to practice my acting skills while conducting a hare-brained social experiment: I'm going speed-dating at a cafe/bar/record store. More details to come...

finals and the blissful aftermath

I am happy to report that I made it through my finals (relatively) intact. I worked hard, and hopefully my grades will reflect that. Now it's smooth sailing for the next week until Modern Irish Literature starts. I am, however, overly excited to actually have a LITERATURE class. I picked up an introduction to literary theory the other day, you know, just for casual reading. Mostly, I think I'd like to get a jump on the theory element of literature, as I haven't encountered a lot of theory at all in my studies at Grinnell.

Last week, as a kind of study break, I saw Alfred Hitchcock's "Notorious", with Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman. It was phenomenal. It makes a huge difference being able to see films in theatres, as opposed to on a television or a laptop. This week, the Prince Charles is showing three films I really, really want to see: "Gamer", "Les Diaboliques", and Polanski's "Repulsion". The latter two are part of the PCC's "vintage film season". In a few weeks' time, "Breakfast at Tiffany's" is playing, which will be wonderful, I'm sure.

Things here have been pretty quiet the last few days, as we're on fall break now and all of my flatmates have left in a mass exodus to various European destinations. I went out to a nearby club last night for Halloween (I went as "Blackmail": I dressed in all black and put a postage stamp on my shirt), which was pretty fun. Yesterday, I also walked around the Portobello Road Market for quite a while, and I ended up purchasing a leather briefcase similar to the ones I had mentioned before. I got it from a street vendor, and I was pretty impressed with my haggling skills, as I paid 20 pounds for this bag, which was marked at 50 pounds, and which probably cost the original owner about 100 pounds.

Speaking of purchases, I have booked a train ticket to Paris the weekend of November 12th! I'm staying for 3 days and 2 nights, and although my parents are skeptical about me traveling alone, I think it will be a lot of fun to go by myself, because I will be able to see and do everything I want without having to compromise with others about time management, etc. I'm staying in a hostel right on the Rue de Dunkerque, which is near Gare du Nord, where my train arrives. I'm really looking forward to this trip.

Tonight, I am going to a liturgical performance of Mozart's Requiem complete with a full orchestra. It's part of a requiem mass on the eve of the commemoration of All Souls. Tomorrow night, I'll be going to the requiem mass at another church, but the performance is Camille Saint-Saens's Requiem. Lots of classical music!