Churches Galore

Guess what? It's SNOWING here in London. Compared to what Vermont and Ithaca get, it's nothing. Still, the city of London is not designed to function during the snow. The tube will have massive delays and shutdowns, so it will be fun getting back to the flat. It's Sunday morning and I'm back at the IC London Centre since we still no Internet in the flat BUT we just got our landline installed so our Internet should be up within the next few days. Yay!

We just got back from Bath and the west country last night. However, my adventures there will have to wait until the NEXT blog post, since I still haven't talked about anything since LAST weekend.

Last weekend Kara and I accompanied many of our classmates on one of Bill's walks. This particular one took us around St. Paul's Cathedral.

Pretty, yeah? Thank you, Christopher Wren, master architect. Unfortunately we didn't get to go inside, but I'm hoping I'll be able to make a trip back sometime during my stay here.

St. Paul's is in the City of London, which is the "main" borough (there are about 32) in London. We walked around the rest of the City, mostly looking at churches that had been bombed during WWII. We also stopped by St. Bartholomew's Hospital and its two priories, St. Bartholomew's the Lesser and St. Bartholomew's the Greater.

Several movies have been filmed in St. Bartholomew's the Greater, including "Shakespeare in Love."

We then paid a brief visit to the Museum of London and continued to make our way back to St. Paul's. I honestly took no less than 130 pictures that morning, but I'm starting to have a little trouble identifying which pictures came from which church!

I also started my first week at Blurb Music PR. I've made many MANY phone calls to media outlets, asking for reviews of CDs we send out. As more work comes in I'll have a broader range of work to do, but for now I'm just sticking my feet in the water. I also did a presentation in my British Pop and Contemporary Music class on Billy Joel's "The Entertainer." We're learning about the Beatles next week, which will then lead into our trip to Liverpool two weeks from now.

Stay tuned for my next blog entry, which I think I'll put up as soon as we have Internet at the flat. Fast Internet is needed since I took some videos on the Bath trip that I plan to post.

MORE THINGS I HAVE LEARNED WHILE IN LONDON:

11. American peanut butter is not entirely impossible to find but grape jelly is. Grapes and jelly are "gross." (direct British quote)

12. Larger-sized shoes can be found in grocery stores but not in clothing stores.

13. "Skins" is the best show. EVER.

14. Ben & Jerry's in England is not Ben & Jerry's because it's not made in Vermont and does not use milk from Vermont cows.

15. Don't listen to your British friends when they say that black pudding (aka "blood pudding") is delicious.

16. Ditto with toad in the hole, parsnips, and Yorkshire pudding.

17. Free evening newspapers rock.

18. Even though the English are happy that Obama is in office, some will still discriminate against Americans.

19. It CAN get really cold in London.

20. Lion candy bars are almost better than pain au chocolat.