Old London Blogs

pilgrimage, yes?

Posted March 12th, 2009 by Michael

::heavy sigh::

I just returned from the airport to see Bailey off. It’s been a glorious week. I haven’t really done any homework because I didn’t want to bore her, so I’m going to spend the rest of the weekend doing that. I have a paper due on Thursday and my first Differential Equations test on Wednesday, so I’ve got plenty to do.

Last Wednesday evening, the Central programme organised a trip to a football game for us. It was amazing! I played football as a youth and have always had a special infatuation for it (and if you haven’t caught on yet, I am talking about “soccer”), so getting to watch a professional game was a delight. It was the Fulham Football Club versus Hull City and Hull City won in the ninety-second minute. It was intense. It was also a trip to see all of the football fans. Mark, the Programme Director, told us it was a mild crowd, but it really did fulfill quite a few of the stereotypes we have about British football hooligans. Overall, it was quite a bit of fun.

Bailey and I spent quite a bit of time sightseeing and shopping. She wanted to find “something fantastic” to take back with her, and I can’t blame her for that. She found this gorgeous dress at a boutique out on Carnaby Street. On top of that, we also went out to the Natural History Museum. I hadn’t been there yet either, so it was a treat for both of us. Wow. That is really the only word to describe it. Some of the exhibits were a bit childish, but there was still quite a bit of stuff there to see and learn. For me, two of the most jaw-dropping moments was seeing the fossil skeleton of a giant sloth, then seeing how big a blue whale really is. In one room, they had recreated tons of mammals and they were scattered about. Well, all of the recreations were actual size, and the blue whale was considerably bigger than I was expecting it to be. It was the length of the room, suspended in the air and it really was colossal. I’d seen little drawings in text books comparing it’s size, but actually seeing how big it can be was startling. I also really geeked out in there because I started thinking about how wonderful using some of the demonstrations would be when I teach boy scouts merit badges at summer camp. Especially some of the things in the Earth Science exhibits dealing with Earth processes. It was fantastic.

Friday brought a trip to Canterbury. It was a compulsory trip through the Central Programme, but that didn’t bother me at all because it was Canterbury! Andy and I joked about how it seemed only appropriate to tell stories on the way there and back, just because. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy Canterbury quite a bit. We got to tour the cathedral. It was incredible to see—completely breathtaking. Even now, I can’t believe I saw everything I did. The Cathedral is the ecclesiastical center of the Church of England and the largest place of worship I’ve ever stepped foot into (although that’ll change when Easter rolls around!!). It was inspiring to be in a place that was a destination for so many pilgrimages so many years ago, but it was also humbling. We saw the altar where JP2 came and prayed with the leader of the Church of England in 1982; we went down in the crypt and saw where they held St. Thomas Becket’s body after he was martyred; we saw all of the destruction that the Puritans did to the Cathedral. It was pretty amazing.

Then, after the tour, we were probably a block from the Cathedral, if that, and AJ and I spot a small catholic church. Being the geeks we are, we decide to go in. On a side altar in the Catholic Church, they had a couple of relics of St. Thomas Becket—equally cool, if not cooler! We didn’t have a ton of time there, which was unfortunate, but in the remaining time, after fish and chips at a pub, a group of us went to a “Canterbury Tales” attraction. I thought it would have been some sort of museum or something, it ended up being this mildly cheesy reenactment of the different stories. It was all automated with some puppets and different screens and wax figures. It covered all of the popular stories that everyone is supposed to read from the cannon. Like I said, mildly cheesy, but still fun—at least the English major enjoyed it. They had some complete copies of Chaucer’s work in the gift shop, and I really really wanted to buy it—my logic being what better place is there to buy Chaucer’s work than in Canterbury. I ended up not doing it because the copies they had I could honestly pick up on Amazon or a random Borders. On the way back to the coach, Andy, Jenna, Bailey and I stopped at this little shop called the Shake Shed. It had a wall of ingredients that you could put into a shake. It was glorious! I ended up splurging quite a bit; my shake consisted of fudge brownies, Nutella and peanut butter cups, with Cadbury chocolate flaked on top. It was chocolate comatose, and by chocolate comatose, I mean delicious.

The parks in London are beautiful. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I think it should be said again. Bailey and I went strolling around both Regent’s Park and Hyde Park while she was here, and they’re just swell. It’s one thing to see them when I’m running around, but to be able to just meander around and take in all of the sights is fantastic. I was sad though because I forgot my camera when we went to Hyde Park and we ended up stumbling across the Peter Pan statue as well as the Princess Dianna Memorial Fountain. The fountain was really neat. It was a circle that continuously flowed and had different types of “terrain” (I guess, it’s awkward to describe) to flow over. I’m sure there’s a beautiful explanation somewhere of what it means symbolically, but I didn’t see a plaque while there and I’m too lazy to Google it at the moment.

That’s a recap of everything so far. I have another topic I’ve been pondering, but I’m going to save it for another post because this one already seems fairly long. So stay tuned and you’ll discover what has be masticating around my conscious thought for a few days.

Chicago, in London?

Posted March 4th, 2009 by Michael

I’ve spent the last few glorious days showing my beautiful girlfriend around London. Back home, this is SJC’s spring break, so she was wonderful enough to fly out here and visit me. I’ve took it upon myself to show her a good time while she’s here.

Her flight here was cancelled on Friday after her plane was struck by lightning, so she didn’t end up arriving until Saturday around midday. I took her to both the Borough Market and Camden town. At Borough, we bought a pineapple! I really wanted one last time I was out there, so I made it happen now. Out at Camden, we took a lot of time just to wander and see all there is to see. I’ve been out there quite a few times, but there were still things that I’ve never seen before. One of my dear friends back at Saint Joe informed me that she has family in London who own a shop in Camden. It was an incredible shop full of hand-made leather goods. It was amazing.

We tried to balance seeing the sights with resting and relaxing so she didn’t suffer any terrible jet lag. Sunday we mostly took it easy, but I did show her Regent Street running between Oxford and Piccadilly Circus. Monday, I was in class all day. Bailey spent the day at the British Museum; then after my afternoon class, we went back out to Regent Street to do a bit more shopping. I showed her the National Geographic Society as well as Liberty. Liberty is this outlandishly extravagant department store meant for the economically gifted (if that’s a politically correct way of putting it). It’s a treat just to go in there and look at how glorious everything is. In the evening, dinner turned out to be a real treat. It was a hodge-podge, conglomeration of foods that turned out to be deliciously fantastic. It was rice, a pepper, carrots, eggs and prawn mixed with a lot of spices. It was almost bizarre, but fairly delicious.

Tuesday proved to be a splendiferous day indeed. When I asked Bailey what was the ONE thing she wanted to do while in London, she told me she wanted to go to Madame Tussauds’ Wax Museum. So that’s what we did today. I have been to the Madame Tussauds in New York, so I was excited to see what a different one would be like. I was surprised that the museum in London was smaller than the one in New York—I mean, it all started here in London, so I figured it’d be the greatest in size. There were some different figures at this one and it was organised differently. There was an amount of figures that were more esoteric for a British, or even European, audience. It was still a blast; I enjoyed it as much as I did the first time.

We spent the afternoon exploring more of London. After having her try pub food for the first time, we went and explored the alleys and side streets of Covent Garden. The goal was to get day-of student tickets to see Chicago at the Cambridge theatre. We waltzed in there just to see if they had any available (because they weren’t supposed to begin selling them until an hour before the show) and the bloke at the booth just sold them to us then. And get this, the tickets he sold us were for the front row, just to the right of the center aisle.

WE HAD SEATS IN THE FRONT ROW TO SEE CHICAGO!

I wanted to take Bailey to see it because it’s touring in the States right now, and she could have seen it in Chicago, but instead decided to come and visit me. The show has been in the West End for ten years, and now we know why—it was amazing beyond description. And, we were in the front row… I still can’t get over how lucky we were and how sweet it was to be so close. The night overall was a rousing success because we also ate dinner right across the circle from the theatre at this high-class restaurant. It was incredibly classy and ended up being a superb meal. We both ordered fish—she got grilled salmon and I got seared pollock—and it was to die for. Everything about the night has been completely wonderful.

Except now I have to wake up tomorrow and go back to class. That’s kind of a buzzkill after spending a free day on the town loving every minute of it. Alas, such is life…

quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Posted February 26th, 2009 by Michael

AAAAHHHHHHHHH!

That’s how excited I have been since Monday… Monday I attended the premier of Watchmen. And, because this confused people when I put the statement on facebook, when I say I attended the premier, that doesn’t mean that I actually got in and saw the movie–although that would be sweet, too. No, I stood on the red carpet and took photos and got autographs of the stars of the film as they walked past.

I KNOW!?!?!!!?!?!

I still can’t believe it! My class on Monday afternoon was cancelled, so I went out to see if I could get a good spot, and I was early enough to get a terrific spot. Andy brought me a sweater because I wasn’t dressed for the occasion (considering I went out there on a whim); he also bought me a copy of the graphic novel, and that’s what I asked the stars to sign. I KNOW?!!! I couldn’t believe it. I also felt cool because most of the actors and actresses reacted excitedly when they saw me with the actual comic. Apparently not many other people had that idea. The guy next to me had some “movie guide” that had sweet pictures of the characters, and that’s what he was having them sign. All in all, it was INCREDIBLE!!!!

After the premier, I decided that I should actually read the graphic novel seeing as how I now had a copy. I’ve spent all of my free time doing that so far this week. I finished it this afternoon. It’s a pretty incredible story. As a English Lit major, I like to think that I can accurately form intellectual opinions about the things I read, and I must say that the Watchmen story is a fantastic one. It takes our intrensic knowledge about superheroes and makes it human. The story is gripping and raises a lot of questions about humanity and human nature. If I can “English Geek” on you for a minute, the cognitave estrangement that Watchmen produces is a thing of beauty. It really transends the realm of comic books and graphic novels altoghether. I’m probably going to go see it in IMAX while I’m here, just because now that I’ve read it, I’m really excited for it–and I’ve never been to an IMAX movie before.

But seriously, I haven’t really done much else this week, including homework. That’s what I’ve been working on since returning from Ash Wednesday mass, and I’m going to continue to work on today and tomorrow. My girlfriend is coming to visit for the next week. She lands on Friday, so I want to have all of my work done for next week before then.

And Seriously, read Watchmen.