Apologies in advance for typos. Too excited about finally being up to date to go back and edit.
6/10
Sunday morning we met at Faraday at
9:30 AM to take the busses to Brighton. We took a charter bus with students
from the other classes down south toward the sea. After about an hour and a
half bus ride, we were dropped off then walked toward our first stop at the
Pavilion. This is the pleasure palace that is most greatly associated with King
George III. The architecture is a combination of Chinese and Indian and every
room had a distinctive feel and design to it. We were given an audio
self-guided tour device to make our way through the building with. My favorite
room I think was the extensively decorated dining room where the royalty would
entertain guests. The chandelier was “held up” by a large dragon that was
wrapped around a tree. Beneath the biggest dragon lay four other ones in which
different ends of the chandelier were connected. The long table seated about 20
guests, with the King’s chair in the center as he enjoyed being in the middle
of conversation. It took a little over 45 minutes to get through the entire
building, but it was definitely worth hearing the details about every room!Jessie and I unfortunately missed when the tour group was leaving from the Pavilion to walk around the city, so we ended up wandering by ourselves and attempting to find everyone. It proved unsuccessful initially so we just grabbed lunch at a restaurant that was buffet style, similar to the buffet at Whole Food. The veggies, potatoes, and more lined the window so after walking by we did a double and triple take and eventually decided to eat there. Afterward we met up with everyone and spent some time shopping in the kitsch and novel shops throughout Brighton. Unfortunately our day was dampened by rain so we didn’t go down on the beach at all. I wish we had more time as we didn’t get to make it on the pier, but Brighton was definitely a cool area to have had the opportunity to explore for the day!
6/11
On
Monday we opened class discussing the Olympic bid process. Professor Hollenbeck
talked about how the general process works, and also London’s reception of the
Olympic bid. Their bid focused on sustainability, motivating individuals to
become more active, use of public transportation, multiculturalism, and the
ability to reuse their venues. Turns out there was only a four vote difference
between London and Paris, but on July 7, 2005 it was announced from Singapore
that London would receive the bid for 2012. Unfortunately, the day after the
bid was announced there was the terrorist attack in the Underground killing 51
people. Though there was no definite signs pointing to a relationship between
the attacks and the Olympics, there probably was something to do with the
timing of the attacks. After talking about the bid, we went into London 2012’s
logo and how it has proven controversial and hard to understand. I had no idea,
but apparently the “2012” part of it are five shapes that represent the five
boroughs directly affected by the Olympics. It has been widely criticized for
being seemingly unclear and not really showing the personality of London.
After
our lunch break we watched a documentary on the Munich Olympics. These were the
1936 Olympics in which the terrorist attack happened against the Israeli
Olympic team. The film we watched was both emotionally gripping and very
frustrating, as we learned about the lack of intervention by the German
government, police, and special forces during the attacks. It seemed like all
the mistakes they could have made, they made in attempting to free the
hostages. I thought I had an idea of what happened during these Olympics, but
this documentary proved me wrong.
I
went to Café Nero to work on my project after class, and ran into Yi who told
me about plans to go to a pub to watch the England versus France game. A group
of us went to The Apple Tree, a pub down the street from our flat to watch the
competition between the rivals. We sat in an upstairs area with one other group
of people, so we didn’t experience the hooligan action first hand but it was
still a cool experience to have watched the game in a pub!
6/12
On
Tuesday, the BBC Project Executive for London 2012 came to speak to our class.
She told us about the project team of 40 individuals who are in charge of
looking after the events happening during 2012 such as the Jubilee and the
Olympics to name a few. It was really interesting seeing the extent of coverage
that BBC will be putting on for the Olympics. As each country has a network
that covers the Olympics, us in the States won’t be able to make use of the
online feature created by BBC that streams every single event simultaneously,
live. It was a little disappointing to hear the difference between NBC and
BBC’s coverage. I’m sure NBC’s will be great but it would’ve been really cool
to have the online platform that BBC has. After her talk Professor Cook gave us
some historical background on the Blitz in London and we watched a film about
it afterward. They had encouraged us to go to the Imperial War Museum after
class, but many people were burnt out or stressed about a paper/project due
that week so we decided to save that for another day.
6/13
Wednesday
morning we traveled to the Houses of Parliament to speak with Karen Buck, a
Member of Parliament from the House of Commons. The area that she represents is
one of the most economically and socially diverse, with constituents from both
the highest and lower ends of the income spectrum. It was pretty interesting
hearing about what her job entails exactly. As she is also a member of the
opposition party, on top of doing normal legislature and duties she is part of
the group that will have to be on the rebuttal side during governmental
debates. She spoke to us about some of the work that she is most proud of,
which includes a lot regarding early education as a means to decreasing the
achievement gap. I asked her how she prioritized which emails, tasks, etc. to
work on and she explained to me that it’s a day by day basis. She said to make
a to-do list would be to fail in that the job is so fast-paced that you cannot
predict what issues will come up; for example, an eviction notice could
suddenly popup and due to its urgent priority she may have to handle that
instead of something else slated for the day.
In
the afternoon I was the first to present on our final paper topics. My topic is
“Team as Sport.” I discussed what the meaning of the team is in relation to the
Olympics, the relationship between teams and the media, the types of teams in
the Olympics, and brought up the debate about individualism within teams.
Overall it went pretty well which was a sigh of relief after a lot of time
preparing and some initial nerves. After my presentation, Mike Gillespie came
to speak to us about the Paralympics. During his presentation he showed a clip
from a TED talk given by Aimee Mullins, a paralympic track star which was
really interesting. Following his talk, Mike and Jasper presented on their
project and we were done for the day.
After being pent up in the classroom all day, I went to the gym to get
my legs moving. In the evening I got to meet up with David from Emory who has
been Euro-tripping since graduation. It was great again to see a familiar face
and try out a new pub near the flats.
6/14
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| Sandys Row Synagogue. |
After
a few presentations on Thursday morning, we headed out to the East End and
Spitalfields for a walking tour. We took the tube to Liverpool Street and began
walking down what we thought was the main road to meet the tour guide, Alan
Dein who is also a correspondent for BBC Radio. As we were walking down that
road it became evident of the multiculturalism of the area we were at. Stalls
lined the streets with Bangladeshi clothing and food. Once we met up with him,
he gave our group a run down of our day. During this introduction one of the
strangest things happened that I’ve witness since I’ve been here. Two men were
biking on the street and decided to stop, one of them who was wearing some
ankle-length dress dismounts his bike and walks behind our tour guide and holds
up a white piece of paper that says “Jesus” on it. We all stared, puzzled at
what had just happened while trying to continue to listen to Alan. He lead us
through the side streets and back roads of the East End.
This
was honestly one of my favorite areas we have been to. One neighborhood would
turn into the next almost every corner. The archaic buildings were up against
the backdrop of the ever-growing financial center of London. My absolute
favorite part of the tour was when we were standing outside of Sandys Row
Synagogue, the oldest Ashkenazi synagogue in London, a man popped his head out
of the doors and invited us in. This man was Jeremy Freedman, a 4th
generation of Dutch Jews who belonged to the synagogue. It was breathtaking
being in such a distinctive, historical piece of Jewish history in London.
There was a golden glow of the interior of the congregation, accented by the
white ceiling (newly rebuilt) with orange-salmon colored trimming. Jeremy told
us about the history of the synagogue, both the building itself and its
congregation. One of the things that first caught my eye was the purple bima
cover with the lettering that dedicated it to the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. It
wasn’t until he starting talking about it that I didn’t even realize that it
wasn’t in fact from QEII’s Diamond Jubilee, but Queen Victoria’s in the 1800’s.
I was happy to hear that their services are open to the public, and am hoping
that Jessie and I will get a chance to go back this coming Friday night. That,
by far, made my tour and I was very elated afterward.
We continued through Spitalfields
to Brick Lane, the curry capital of London. The curry restaurants and other
shops were crammed into this bustling street. He led us to “the only place to
get bagels in London.” They had bagels premade with smoked salmon/lox and cream
cheese. Overall, they weren’t too bad but I wish they had had fresh ones for us
when we were there. As many people had raved about them, I wonder if that’s
saying something about the bagel quality in London. Though they were tasty I
don’t think they were anything quite like Goldberg’s (deli by Emory) or
KSB/Bagel Bakery’s (delis by home). The area was very eclectic and was full of
vintage shops. I’m hoping to make it back there sometime before I leave as I
decided to go back after our tour since I had to wrap up a paper.
6/15
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| View of the Olympic Park from John Lewis. |
On Friday a coach picked our class
up from the flats and headed out toward the Olympic site. We bussed through the
city with our tour guide explaining to us all-things important and historical
that we passed. We made a pit stop by 3 Mills Studios, where many famous
producers work. One of notable interest is David Bay, the director of Slumdog
Millionaire and the opening ceremony of this year’s Olympics! It seemed pretty
low-key for such an important studio, much less so than anything in Hollywood
at least. After leaving there we drove closer and closer to the Olympic site.
We unfortunately couldn’t actually get inside of the site as they have been
upping their security as the games are quickly approaching. We drove on the
highway around it, trying to snap as many photos as possible. It was definitely
disappointing that we couldn’t actually get into Olympic Park. Our final stop
of the day was Westfields Shopping Center, a humungous mall right on the
outskirts of the Olympic Park. We went up to the London 2012 store located
within John Lewis (a department store) to get the best view of the park. It was
cool to see the venues up close, but the entirety of the area was still
shrouded by construction going on.
We had the rest of the afternoon to
ourselves to wander through Westfields. I had always thought Tysons was
massive, but it is honestly nothing compared to this mall. After fueling up on
a jacket potato, we started hitting the stores. Though most of my time at the
mall was just browsing, I ended up getting a jacket from GAP as the weather has
been a bit chillier than I anticipated. The variety and number of storms was
almost overwhelming, but I’m really glad we went there. I was crashing pretty
hard in the afternoon but decided to go on a run instead of nap, which ended up
waking me up a bit. Afterward Jasper and I went to the local park to kick
around and ended up playing some 1v1. We kicked back in the flats afterward and
hung out into the evening, played both Ninja and Jedi (or light saber?). And
naturally capped the night off with Perfect Chicken. It was a good end to the
long week of classes, and a great start to a three day weekend!
6/16
 |
| Tate Modern. |
It
has been SO nice to have a full, free, three-day weekend the past few days.
Saturday I finally got to knock two major things off of my London bucket list.
Our first stop for the day was Tate Modern. I absolutely love modern art, as
weird as it can be, and was very happy I finally got to go here. What I loved
about this museum is that it was organized thematically rather than by time
period. This really gave a distinctive feel to each of the galleries. Before
hitting any of the main galleries, we went to Damien Hirst’s exhibit on the
same floor as the entrance. We cued and then worked our way toward the entrance
to what appeared to be a black box. My eyes squinted hard trying to make out
anything as we made our way inside, but you could barely see where you were
walking. We turned the corner and then we saw what the buildup was for. In the
middle, inside of a glass case, was a skull that was completely covered in
diamonds. It was the most beautiful representation of anything regarding death
that I’ve seen. The exhibit called “For the Love of God” is supposed to
represented the beauty in a life, and not just the morbid part of death.
From
there, we worked our way through the galleries. We started out in ‘Poetry and Dream’
which was one of my favorites. It mostly consisted of surrealism-based pieces,
including works by Salvador Dali. I enjoyed learning about how this type of
work emerged alongside the development of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jungst’s
theories (psych-nerd moment). From there we went to ‘Energy and Process’ which
I thought was incredibly interesting. This gallery focused on art that reused
material and the movement called Arte Povera, “poor art.” Lastly, I went into
‘Structure and Clarity.’ This gallery was essentially what the name means, and
contrasted greatly with the last exhibits. I was feeling very inspired after
exploring Tate Modern, and stopped by the gift shop on the way out to pick up a
few things. Afterward we went to Borough Market. The place was packed and
definitely the biggest market we had been to. We took our time to walk around
and try and make a decision on what to get for lunch. I ended up getting some
dried fruit from a vendor and a sausage from a booth that claimed they were the
best in the market. After finally getting to go there I now understand why Wen
spent so much time there during his semester in London!
 |
| Walking into Borough Market. |
Saturday
night we went out to Club Aquarium, a club that also has a pool inside. This
was probably one of the strangest going-out experiences that I’ve had before.
As soon as we walked in I questioned whether or not we should have been there.
There were people in costumes, animal masks, tutus abound. It may or may not
have been gay night there…up for debate between our friends but we still
haven’t decided. We ended up staying and it turned into a pretty fun night
despite the very interesting crowd. Overall, Saturday was an awesome day and I
felt very relieved to have finally gotten to go to both Tate and Borough
Market.
6/17
Yesterday
(ah I finally caught up in my blogging to where I could write yesterday, this
is exciting!) we went to the Tower of London, which was also a major thing on
my bucket list. After strolling by a bagpipe playing street performer, a
protest by some Italians regarding the U-21 UEFA tournament final being hosted
in Israel, and going through security, we made it in! Our group split up so I
ended up exploring the entirety of the tower, which is more like a castle, with
Jessie. We moved from room to room, tower to tower. At one point, you suddenly
come upon a mission to protect the tower and all of the important belongings
inside. We got to try on helmets and make our way around as if we were guards. It
was amazing seeing the etches of prisoner’s names or other details on the walls
of the Tower. Many were covered by a piece of glass that also gave a caption to
who they were, why they were imprisoned, and what the etching said. Other
highlights of the Tower include the exhibit on animals’ roles. We learned how a
polar bear used to be kept on a leash and brought along fishing in the Thames,
and how monkeys smoked cigars as they were encouraged to participate in
human-like behavior. After exploring the perimeter of the tower, we descended
down to try and find the area where you could see the Crown Jewels. The exhibit
for the Crown Jewels was very interesting, it took you through a timeline of
sorts all building up to the main exhibition of the crown jewels. Every crown
was incredibly unique and mind-blowingly beautiful. The detail that went into
them was amazing, and who knows how much each are actually worth. I wish we had
been able to take pictures!
After
that exhibit, we exited and decided to go up and talk to a couple of
Beefeaters, who are part of the Royal Guard stationed at the Tower of London.
This was probably one of my favorite interactions I’ve had on my trip so far.
Below are an assortment of quotes from said conversation:
 |
| Me and the awesome Beefeater. |
Me: “This may be a stupid question, but what does the ‘R’
stand for in ‘ER II’?”
Beefeater: “It stands for ‘Romantic.”
Me: “Really?”
Beefeater: “Yeah, ‘Everlasting Romantic’..it’s how we get
the job.”
Me: “That was actually going to be my second question, how
did you get the gig?”
Beefeater: “You have to be able to shake a leg.”
Me: “Oh really?”
Beefeater: “Yes, and be great with the ladies.”
Me: “Clearly.”
*posing for our picture together*
Beefeater: “American girls always just smile because they
have such nice teeth, here..let’s do a 1920’s pose.”
Me: “What’s that mean?”
Beefeater: “Look serious…ok now look away.”
We couldn’t have picked better people to go up and talk to.
The guy was quite the charmer, and definitely hilarious. He told us about how
they live directly in the houses in the Tower of London, crazy! We told him
we’d seem at the club later before bidding adieu.
That actually made the visit 100x
more worth it, and we couldn’t stop laughing about it afterward as we made our
way through the exhibit on guns and armor (the details blurred together at this
point). After we wrapped up at the Tower, we headed down to St. Katherine’s
docks to walk around there. We had bussed by there a few times, but not
actually into the dock-area themselves. It was a very cute area, with shops and
restaurants flanking the sides of the water. These docks were also home to the
Royal Barge from the Jubilee flotilla which we got to see up close after only
seeing it from afar in the Thames. After a lap around the docks, we finally
took the tube home. I stopped at Tesco Express to stock up on groceries for the
time being and grab dinner for the night. Last night we had a girls night and
watched ‘My Sister’s Keeper.’ There was both tears and/or laughter pretty much
all-around, by the end it was pretty much indistinguishable whether people were
crying or laughing. Naturally we made the mistake of following it up turning to
what seemed to be as equally depressing of a movie, the Shawshank Redemption
(or at least the part we watched). It was nice to have a chill night, and get a
nice nine hours of sleep before today.
6/18
TODAY! It feels so good to finally
have caught up with my blogging. I apologize for typos and stuff because I
didn’t take the time to go through and read all of this again. From here on out
I will do my best to stay up to date. It was much easier in Italy as we had
lengthy bus rides almost everyday. After getting a decent night’s rest thanks
to my new nightly habit of using of ear plugs #firstfloorproblems, it was great
to wake up today with another day off of no class! I hung around the apartment
for a bit before doing my normal 3+ mile lap around the area before hitting the
gym. I got a good lift in and didn’t kill anyone, which was reassuring after my
last almost-mishap. Afterward I came back to the flat, made lunch, and we
headed out to the Tube. We took the Underground to Knightsbridge and went to
Harrod’s, the massive and incredibly nice department store. We trekked from
room to room admiring the different products, and quickly putting them down
after looking at the price tag. We passed champagne bars, walked through the
home furnishing section (which included a room solely made up of pianos), and
spent some time in the section of women’s clothing that included lots of sales.
I didn’t buy anything but it was nice to have been able to at least go there. Since
we’ve gotten back I’ve just been hanging out at the flat, cooking dinner, and
catching up on my blog! I can’t believe I only have less than two weeks here.
Time has been flying but looking forward to everything planned, and still to be
planned, before we head home.
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