Bunny-Hopping All Over the City

Happy (belated) Easter or Passover!

I can't believe I've been here for over three months. I can't believe I have less than four weeks left! I'm definitely having mixed feelings about it all...

Monday night a week ago I went to go see "Three Days of Rain" in the West End. I'd gotten rave reviews from friends and I'd heard it was starring James McAvoy (of "Band of Brothers," "Chronicles of Narnia" and "Atonement"), so I decided to go see it. It wasn't a musical, but it was very entertaining. James McAvoy was the best of the three actors, but the other male actor was very comical as well. It was definitely worth seeing, although I do overall prefer musicals! :-D

On Good Friday it rained and most of the tube system was down for the weekend, but I made it over to central Westminster in time to realize that it WAS Good Friday and of course Westminster Abbey wouldn't be open. I did see Westminster Cathedral (the difference being that the Cathedral is Catholic, not Anglican).


Then I walked up to Covent Garden and browsed the stands there before heading back to the flat.

On Saturday I trekked over to Harrod’s. I knew it was an upscale department store, so I dressed a little nicer than usual. However, “upscale” turned out to be an understatement, at least to a Vermont bumpkin such as myself! There was a doorman who greeted every person who walked in the door. Since it was the Saturday before Easter there were massive chocolate carvings of rabbits, chicks, ducks and eggs everywhere. Anything and everything you could ever want was sold: books, electronics, designer clothes, shoes, jewellery, animals, toys, furniture, pianos, food, glasses and even original prints of old maps. Since the Al-Fayed family who owns the store is Egyptian, much of the store is Egyptian-themed and there are a lot of giant Sphinxes all over the place. The main Egyptian staircase is overlooked by balconies from each floor, and there was an opera singer performing from one of them. I didn’t take any pictures, because I definitely didn’t want to be that girl who took pictures in Harrod’s.

On Easter Kara, Sarah, Kathy, Katie, Chris M and I all bought or prepared food for a “family-style Easter dinner” at our flat. It was really nice to do something homey for Easter…and eat a lot of good food!

Easter Monday is a bank holiday here in the UK so I didn't have to go to my internship (however, those who have Monday classes at the IC London Centre still had to go haha). I decided to have a little adventure and get over to the Tower of London on the east side. I say it was an adventure because all tube lines to the Tower of London were closed, so I had to find my way from the Bank station.


Although the Tower of London is generally associated with imprisonment, torture and executions, it was originally a royal palace. The place is quite grand, but it does have an air of creepiness to it.

As soon as I entered the gate the Royal Guards marched from the entrance over to the building where they keep the Crown Jewels.


I saw Traitor's Gate, through which prisoners were brought by boat.


I then hopped on a tour given by a Yeoman Warder (commonly known as a Beefeater) so that I could go inside the Chapel Royal of St. Peter ad Vinicula. It looks like an ordinary chapel; its draw is that it's the burial place of those executed on the Tower Green. Two of Henry VIII's wives are buried there (including Anne Boleyn, whose portrait is on the right hand side of this blog) as well as Jane Grey, who reigned for about a week before she was overthrown (quite rightly, actually) by Queen "Bloody" Mary. There's also a monument on the Tower Green marking where the scaffold that they were all executed at was.


I next went into the Bloody Tower, so named because two princes were supposedly murdered there. Well, in actuality, one of them was the true King of England. He and his brother were sent to the Tower for "safekeeping" by his uncle, soon-to-be Richard III, until the boy's coronation. Within two months, Richard III had them (falsely) declared illegitimate and the princes were never seen again. Centuries later, the skeletons of two boys their ages were found buried elsewhere in the Tower of London. They were determined to be those of the princes, but no one knows for sure who's behind their deaths.

At one point I got a really pretty view of the Tower Bridge...


I also paid a few of the ravens a visit. There are always six ravens at the Tower of London, because legend has it that if the ravens were to leave the Tower, the Tower, the monarchy and the kingdom would fall.



Then I went into the White Tower, which is in the middle of the Tower of London. It's home to a temporary exhibit of all of Henry VIII's armour (save one, which is at Windsor or Westminster Abbey). I then proceeded to Beauchamp Tower, where many prisoners were held. It was extraordinary; the curators have preserved many of the graffiti carved into the walls by the prisoners held there. Some of the graffiti is plain; others are quite elaborate. Possibly the most famous graffiti is one that simply reads "Jane."


Many believe that it was carved by Jane Grey's husband, Guildford Dudley, as he, too, awaited his beheading. It also could have been carved by one of her supporters or it could have been carved by someone else with a different Jane in mind.

Finally, I went to go see the Crown Jewels.


The queue was ridiculously long, but I was told it was worth the wait. And really, it was. No pictures were allowed, but they're quite unforgettable. I definitely think my favorite was the Sceptre with the Cross, which has the Great Star of Africa, the second-largest faceted diamond in the world.

After I left I decided to take a nice, looonnng walk from the Tower of London back to my flat in Bayswater. It was a beautiful day, so it was great to see the city at a leisurely pace. The prettiest part of the trip definitely had to be Hyde Park, though. I'd been through it before but not when the flowers were in bloom. Kensington Gardens was beautiful as well.


I took a different path than I had before, because I realized that I hadn't seen the Italian Garden Fountains or Peter Pan statue before.



Tomorrow night I'll be at Wembley Arena (capacity 18000 people) for a Prodigy concert. They're a huge electronic-punk-dance music group over here, very popular. However, we've been told that this will be wilder than The Rifles concert. One thing's for sure: I'm staying out of the mosh pit this time!

A FEW MORE THINGS I'VE LEARNED WHILE IN LONDON:

41) When the tube gate doors close on you, it really REALLY hurts.
42) Blackcurrant berries are the grapes of the UK. Blackcurrant jelly, blackcurrant jelly beans, blackcurrant lollipops, blackcurrant Starburst...
43) Queen is definitely one of the most awesome bands ever. And they are quite addicting and very often lead to long streaks of listening only to them.
44) On that note, "Video Killed the Radio Star" is possibly the most addicting single ever.
45) London during the springtime is a sight not to be missed.

Long Live the Peacocks

Here's a "mockumentary" I made from footage I took at the peacock menagerie at Warwick Castle and an acoustic guitar track of "Greensleeves." Just when you think it might actually be serious, it proves you wrong! Enjoy! 

From London to Stratford and Everything in Between

I can definitely tell that the term's drawing to a close. Everything is getting slightly more hectic, everybody's trying to cram everything they haven't done yet into the little time they have left and summer is on everyone's minds.

Last Tuesday everybody taking Brit Pop went to go see the West End production of "Billy Elliot" at the Victoria Palace Theatre.


It is definitely one of the productions most relevant to Brit Pop since the storyline takes place in northern England during the time of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and the music for the show was written by Sir Elton John. However, the main attraction of the show is not the music itself but the dancing.

For those of you who haven't seen the movie, "Billy Elliot" is about a young boy growing up in a mining community who just wants to dance, despite the pressure to become a boxer or miner when he grows up. The lads who rotate playing Billy are about 12-13 years old and they've spent a year or two perfecting their dance routines. They dance ballet, contemporary, tap and even aerial work. It was insanely amazing, and I loved it!

Wednesday was an eventful one in the London community. Last week was the G20 summit and many world leaders, including President Obama, were in London (we actually saw the president of India going to and from the hotel he was staying at near the IC London Centre). Also in London were protesters from all over the country and the world protesting the banking industry, economy, etc. Thousands descended upon the bank district of London, hung effigies of bankers from the trees and even broke into the Royal Bank of Scotland. I thankfully kept my distance that day, but I couldn't escape the madhouse that was the tube system. Still, it was very interesting to actually be here for it, considering I probably won't ever see anything like it in Vermont or Ithaca!

On Friday many of us went on a IC London Centre-coordinated trip to Warwick, Stratford and Oxford. First stop was Warwick Castle.


The castle was VERY old and beautiful and the views from the towers were gorgeous.


The grounds were very pretty as well; there was even a peacock menagerie!

We then moved on to Stratford-upon-Avon, where we were all staying in cute B&Bs. My friend Katie and I stayed in one called Quilts and Croissants (best name ever!). Everybody went to a Royal Shakespeare Company production of "A Winter's Tale" at the Courtyard Theatre. Since I wasn't in the Shakespeare course or any of the drama classes I hadn't read the script beforehand, but thankfully I was able to follow along pretty well. It was a very entertaining show. After the performance we all went to the Dirty Duck bar where the actors from the show were hanging out.

The next day we went to the Holy Trinity Church where Shakespeare is buried.


After we visited his grave we went on a walk led by one of the ICLC professors. He showed us some of Shakespeare's former properties, all of which had that Tudor-period architecture that was lost in London during the Great Fire.

After the tour most of us walked around the town a little bit and ended up lounging by the Avon.

On the way back to London we stopped at Oxford. Almost everybody headed toward the Christ Church College, considered to be the most beautiful of all the colleges at Oxford University.


It is also where all the Great Hall scenes in the Harry Potter movies are filmed. However, the Great Hall wasn't open when we arrived. Still, the campus and the surrounding area of town were very pretty. Maybe I'll apply to Oxford University for grad school! ;-)

The Leprechauns Made Me Blog It

(The title is in reference to a common joke, "The leprechauns made me...", that we saw quite often last weekend.)

This past weekend Kara, Sarah, Kathy, and I made a whirlwind trip to Dublin, Ireland. We left VERY early Friday morning. Upon arrival we dumped our stuff off at the hostel and headed across the city. We were embarrassingly American and ate at a place called Eddie Rockets (basically, the European Johnny Rockets). We trooped across the river and came across Dublin Castle, which is a poor, poor excuse for a castle; perhaps castle is synonymous with “palace” or “manor” in Ireland since it was simply a very well-decorated residence. We also saw a couple cathedrals in the "viking and medieval" area of Dublin.


After much walking, we ended at our final destination: the Guinness Storehouse.


It was actually quite interesting; the Guinness Storehouse is located inside a factory building that they used for about 100 years. It has a very cool setup and you have to climb through the five or so floors before reaching the Gravity Bar at the top, which boasts one of the best views of Dublin.


And of course, our admission included a free pint of Guinness, which only I out of the four of us was actually able to finish. It is definitely a very rich, hoppy beer.


After the Storehouse we were too exhausted to do anything besides grabbing some dinner and then crashing in our hostel room.

The next day was dedicated to getting to Malahide, a suburb of Dublin. Upon arrival, we quite unexpectedly ran into one of my friends from IC, Katie C., who's studying abroad in Siena, Italy this semester. What are the chances??? She was leaving Malahide Castle, which was our destination.


Malahide was a small castle but I still consider it my first "legit castle." It wasn't a royal residence, but it was owned for hundreds of years by the Talbot family, a high-ranking Irish family. The grounds are gorgeous and the inside was quite nice (no pictures allowed, though). This castle is also supposedly haunted by the Talbot patriarch, who makes an appearance every time an alteration is made to the castle that he doesn't approve of.

After visiting the castle we walked to the seaside, where it was very windy and cold! We completed our tour of Malahide and took the train back to central Dublin, where we made sure we got back to the airport in plenty of time to make our flight back to London.

Guinness, Gardens, and Ghosts

This entry is a little overdue, but it's been so busy around here between work, classes, and scheduling the last of our trips! I really can't believe we only have a little over six weeks left in London!

Let's see..a week ago Tuesday was St. Patrick's Day. Unlike in the States barely anybody here dressed up in green. What Londoners care about is drinking as much Guinness as humanly possible. On St. Patrick's Day night I had a gig for Will and the People, one of my workplace's artists, at the Water Rats (where I had previously seen The Mars Patrol). They're very good, and I enjoy their songs a lot. After the gig I had my first pint of Guinness. I had been trying to hold off until I made it to Ireland but it was St. Patrick's Day; I had to.

Wednesday night I had to go to a concert for my Brit Pop class. We went to go see The Rifles at The Roundhouse in Camden. The Roundhouse itself was incredible; it was first a roundhouse engine shack built in 1846 and was renovated in the 60s to be used as an arts venue. Since then artists such as The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, and others have performed there.

Nothing, however, could have prepared me for the audience there. The Rifles are a staple in this generation's "mod culture" as The Who was to the mod culture of the 60s. Actually, I would say that they are a staple to anybody who was ever in the mod culture, as there were plenty of people who would have been my age during the resurgence of the mods in the 70s/80s. Other British audiences I've seen have stood still and enjoyed the music without movement. Not The Rifles fans. They jumped up and down and threw their beer cups into the air, soaking anybody who dared stand near the center of the audience. I was one of those people, so as soon as I returned to my flat that night I threw my clothes in the washing machine and tried to get dried beer out of my hair. The Rifles themselves were very good, though; I downloaded a few of their songs after the concert, but I doubt I will ever see them live again!

On Friday Kara and I needed to get our National Rail cards validated for an upcoming trip, so we went to King's Cross to do so. Of course, since we're both big Harry Potter fans (and that's probably an understatement) we had to go see Platform 9 3/4.


For those of you who aren't Harry Potter enthusiasts, Platform 9 3/4 is where Harry goes through the wall to get on the train that takes him to Hogwarts. And if you don't know what Hogwarts is, don't even get me started! :-D

On Saturday I took the train over to Hampton Court Palace.


Hampton Court was built in the 1500s by Cardinal Wolsey, but it was given as a gift to King Henry VIII when he remarked on it being too grand for a clergyman. It was then remodeled extensively to fit the king's (and all of his queens') lavish tastes. It was remodeled again in the 1600s by Christopher Wren to suit the tastes of William and Mary. Today it is no longer inhabited, but it's only one of two palaces remaining of the 30 or so that Henry VIII owned.

Besides being a favorite home of Henry VIII, Hampton Court is mostly known for two things. The first would be it's world-famous gardens, which are GORGEOUS! There was one garden that was just an acre of daffodils, which is my favorite flower.


There were sunken gardens where the ponds used to be for the palace fish supply. There were shaped trees and fountains and swans everywhere.


I didn't even get around the whole of the grounds, but it was breathtaking.

The other thing Hampton Court is known for are its ghosts. Whether or not you believe in ghosts, they still make a good story. The most popular ghost would be that of Catherine Howard, Henry VIII's fifth wife whom he had beheaded when he found out she was having multiple secret affairs. Her ghost is said to haunt the Long Gallery, where she tried to run to beg Henry for forgiveness while he was at mass in the Chapel Royal. I had no idea where the Long Gallery was, but I came across it as I was leaving Wolsey's apartments. It may have only been because the corridor was slightly dark and empty, but I definitely felt a little spooked there and hurried out. Only after I asked a guide where the Long Gallery was did I find out that that's the corridor I'd passed through. And a few years ago, a mysterious figure in period dress appeared on the security cameras when a set of doors in the palace blew open at the same time three days in a row.

On Sunday a few of us went to check out the markets in East London. We went to the Sunday UpMarket near Brick Lane, which had an amazing selection of food vendors and unique clothing and jewelry. We walked down Brick Lane, which is home to many vintage shops.


We ended with Spitalfield's, a shopping centre/market with everything from food to crafts to vintage clothing to sock puppets.

Tonight is the last episode of our favorite British TV series, "Skins," so we're having a get-together at our flat tonight to watch the season finale. And then we all have to leave for various airports at 3 AM tomorrow so we have a nice long night ahead of us!

For Now, a Video from Greece

I'll be posting an entry about my previous week or two in London very soon, but I'd like to share this video from Athens in the meantime. It's from the day we couldn't go up to the Acropolis because of the strike. Still, it was a beautiful day and we found an awesome view from a rock/cliff nearby!

It's All Greek to Me (Spring Break, Part 2)

(If you haven't read Spring Break, Part 1 about Rome, I would read that first if you want the events of last week in chronological order!)

The latter part of our week was spent in Athens/Αθήνα, Greece/Ελλάδα. I'm going to try to include as many Greek characters as I can, since most of the signs we were reading were in Greek (which made it somewhat difficult to navigate and know what we were looking at, since Greek is not at ALL similar to any other language we know). Hopefully the Greek characters show up on your computer system!

We first went in search of authentic Greek food. We ended up at a nice place near our hotel that had an AMAZING menu! I ordered roumeliotiko (pork and tomatoes on pita bread) and chicken "burgers" with creamed feta cheese on top.


Our meals also came with shots of ouzo, which is strong with an aftertaste of licorice.

On our way back to the hotel we found one of those small, tourist trains called the Athens Happy Train. Since we were looking for something to acquaint us with the area, we decided to take its tour...at 10pm! We did have to drag Kara on it, but I think it was well worth our while. We got to see all the temples lit up at night, and it helped us figure out where everything was, since we could barely read all the Greek on our maps!

The next day was GORGEOUS, so we set out for the Acropolis/ακρόπολη. However, our attempt was thwarted by a strike organized by the workers of the Acropolis and affiliated sites. For that day we had to settle with climbing up a rock near the Acropolis and getting a spectacular view of Athens.

We then walked down the hill to the Agora. It was very similar to the Forum in Rome (there actually is another Roman Forum in Athens). We passed by the Stoa of Attalos, passed a lot of statues with their heads missing, and ended up at the Temple of Hephaestus.

We left the Agora and ended up walking through the Plaka, a tourist shopping district by the Acropolis. On the other side of the Plaka we ended up at the Temple of the Olympian Zeus (not to be confused with the Ancient Wonder of the World Temple of Zeus formerly located in Olympia, Greece).

A couple hundred metres walk from the Temple brought us to the Panathinaiko, the home of the first modern Olympics in 1896 and the location of the archery competitions for the 2004 Olympics.


That night we went back to the Plaka and ended up at a restaurant where we got gyros! I LOVE chicken gyros; there's an awesome place in Ithaca where I sometimes get them. The others got pork gyros, which ended up making Kara sick :-(. Amazingly enough, we ended up running into four other Ithaca College London Centre students at the restaurant.

The next day we were successful in getting up to the Acropolis. The Acropolis is most known for the Parthenon but there's actually quite a bit on top of that rock. There's the Propylaea, which is the monumental gateway to the Acropolis.


There's the Temple of Athena Nike (Nike means victory in Greek) and the remains of a previous temple to Athena. There's also the Erechtheion/Έρέχθειον, whose columns are actually statues of women.


But of course, the Parthenon is the big draw!


On the slopes of the Acropolis are a couple of ancient amphitheaters. They've maintained the newer of the two, the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, for current performances that I used to watch videos of in high school history/English classes. I use the term "newer" quite loosely since it was built in 161 AD.


The older of the two is the Theatre of Dionysus, built in the 5th century BC. It was the first stone theatre built and could seat 17000 people. It was also the birthplace of the Greek tragedy.


The next day was spent getting as much Greek food in us as we could before jumping on a plane back to London!

That concludes my Greco-Roman spring break. There are some videos from Greece which I will post in due course. All in all, it was an amazing experience that I'll NEVER forget. But then again, I've found that to be the case with everything that has been happening this semester! :-)

When in Rome...(Spring Break Part 1)

(Due to the excessive number of pictures I have taken and my desire to show as many as possible in this blog, I am splitting my spring break into two blog entries. The next one should be posted in a couple of days.)

I've loved history; I always have. I always especially loved ancient Roman and Greek history. But when sitting in World History or English class, I never imagined that I would actually get to see the places I was reading about. The Colosseum? The land of Oedipus and Odysseus? I mean, they sounded amazing and I always thought they would be cool to see, but I never expected to see them in real life. This was the thought running through my head for the whole of this past week.

We spent the first part of our spring break in Rome/Roma. All of us had been told so many times by friends and family members as a must-see while we were in Europe that we knew we wanted more than a weekend there. And we were right.

Right away we were hungry, and we asked the front desk at our hotel for a restaurant recommendation. They told us to try a restaurant directly behind the hotel in a little alleyway. What we initially thought was a little hole-in-the-wall place soon proved to be one of the best finds on our trip.

The restaurant is called la Taverna dei Fori Imperiali and is generally listed as one of the top 10 restaurants in Rome. Pictures on the wall showed us that the likes of Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, and Ron Howard had eaten there. The place was simple but it had a lot of charm. But the best part, of course, was the food. We all tried different things, which was great because we could sample a lot between the four of us. Everything was delicious; from the pasta to the ravioli to the gnocchi to the buffalo cheese to the desserts which all included zabaione cream (yum!). It was so wonderful that we went back for our final dinner while in Rome and have since been comparing all other food we’ve eaten to the food from Imperiali.

That night we met up a fellow Ithacan, Heather, who’s studying abroad in Rome for the semester. We met her at the Spanish Steps (or the Piazza di Spagna), where even at night many people were sitting on the steps and chatting, singing, playing games, etc.


Heather brought us to her favorite gelato place (though honestly, we never found gelato we didn’t like in Rome). We then walked to the Piazza del Popolo, after which we grabbed some pizza (more yum!) and crashed back at the hotel.

The next day we decided to visit the Colosseum/Colosseo, which was just a couple of blocks from our hotel. It was, of course, amazing. We took our time touring the arena, listening to the audio guides we rented.


Afterwards we went to see an exhibit featuring Giotto di Bondone, a famous Italian painter from the Italian Renaissance. The exhibit was located in the Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II or “Il Vittoriano” which is down the road from the Colosseum. We then climbed to the top of the Vittoriano and checked out the view of Rome.


We then ate at another restaurant near the hotel, which had pretty good food, although I ordered a pasta with spicy sauce by mistake and probably ended up drinking two litres of water while there! We then tried to make it to the Pantheon before sunset, because we wanted to see light shining through the dome. However, there was a service of some sort occurring so we headed toward the Trevi Fountain, where of course we threw in the necessary coin for a return to Rome.


The following day we went to the Roman Forum. It was beautiful, but it was so huge I feel sure we must have missed something.


On our way out we ran into fellow Ithacans from London (we already knew that many people had chosen Rome as a spring break destination). Afterwards we finally made it into the Pantheon, which was gorgeous and we had fun just sitting and taking it all in.


Our last day in Rome (Monday) was devoted to the Vatican. We first visited St. Peter’s Basilica (Basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano). It turned out that we weren’t the only Ithacans who had the same idea that day; we ran into no less than 10 other Ithaca College London Centre students while there (and considering there are only 70 of us, that’s quite a lot!).

The basilica itself was one gigantic “WOW.” It was enormous and there was gold everywhere. We first visited the tomb of the popes, where many of the popes, including Pope John Paul II, are laid at rest. It was quite eerie, especially since nobody is allowed to speak or make a sound in the area around John Paul’s tomb.

We then entered the main hall of the basilica, which was very grand and filled with many, many statues.


Kara and I immediately sought out Michelangelo’s Pietà.


During our search we unexpectedly came across the preserved body of Pope John XXIII on display for public viewing (and photo ops as well, apparently). It was…quite odd, but we refrained from taking pictures.


After leaving the basilica we chilled in the Piazza di San Pietro for a bit, enjoying the view and sunshine, before heading to the Sistine Chapel (Cappella Sistina). The Sistine Chapel was a bit of a maze; the Vatican has engineered it that you walk through countless exhibits of Renaissance and modern art before reaching the actual chapel.


But it was all very beautiful, and the chapel itself was awe-inspiring (sorry, no pictures allowed in the chapel!).

That concludes our time in Rome. Look for Spring Break, Part 2 in the next couple of days!