Shepherd’s Bush Market and the BBC

Today we went to Shepherd's Bush Market. It was another cold, drizzly day. We all had our umbrellas, so we were prepared. The tube station at Shepherd's Bush is closed for work, so we had to get off a station before and walk, which was no big deal, except the street is under construction as well, and the sidewalk was pretty torn up. We walked through the Shepherd's Bush Market; I finally found a fat curling iron to replace the one I melted, so I was a happy camper. This market reminded me a lot of the flea market at home, but lots of fabric stalls and several meat stalls. I will be so glad to see Publix meat, on Styrofoam trays and wrapped in plastic. We went for lunch at a Lebanese restaurant – I had chicken soup. Everyone seemed to enjoy their food. We did have some baklawa (not baklava – I didn't spell it wrong!) for dessert that was incredible. It was absolutely delicious. The service at this place was incredible, the guy was really going out of his way to make sure we enjoyed out food.

We did find a "Everything's a Pound" store, and I found some really great stuff. I got this really huge bag, because my laundry hamper from the Dollar Tree is down to one handle, so I figured that for a pound, I would get this really big bag to hold my laundry. Well, we ended up shopping a little more that we intended, so I had to stuff all my bags inside the giant bag. When I say "giant," you'd really have to see it to appreciate it. It is monstrous. I bet I could put my niece inside of it. We found this mall, sort of, and there was a store in there that was having a sale. It was so cool outside; I bought a sweatshirt, and another shirt and 14 pairs of socks. It was a really good deal. We also got 10% off, by showing our student ID cards, which was just an extra bonus. There was a grocery store in this mall, so we wandered through there, and bought a few more things.

Our tour at the BBC was at 4:15. We had a wonderful tour, very informative; we actually go to see inside the news room and inside some of the studios. We got to go into this interactive studio, where Jonathan was part of the news and Lindsay, our Graduate Counselor, got to be on a game show. It was pretty cool. We came back, had a fire alarm, and now I'm off to pack for Scotland. The cab is coming to pick us up tomorrow morning at 5:15!!!
By the way, I am not taking my laptop with me to Scotland, so I won't be doing any more posts until I get back late Sunday night. I'm sure I'll have tons of pictures and stuff to share!

Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London and a BAD mood

I started off today, Wednesday in a bad mood. I guess I just got up on the wrong side of the bed or something, but I was in a icky mood. It didn't help when I checked online and realized that Westminster Abbey doesn't allow pictures inside. My dad gave me specific things to find and take a picture of for him – the graves of David Livingstone and William Wilberforce. Now, it's time for a little useless trivia here: David Livingstone's grave (which I did see) contains his body, minus his heart – that is buried in Africa. I never saw William Wilberforce's grave, it will take another trip for that I guess. William Wilberforce is supposedly responsible for slavery being outlawed in England and the movie "Amazing Grace" for which my favorite singer/songwriter in the whole wide world Chris Tomlin wrote an extra bit for the old classic hymn "Amazing Grace." The old hymn was written by John Newton, who had been a slave trader himself. Apparently, John and William were buddies. So, that's enough of the factual but basically useless knowledge, back to Westminster Abbey. We were on a tour and had a time limit I guess, so I feel like we ran through the Abbey like we were on fire. I can't remember hardly anything specific about what we saw, mostly just tourists listening to little headsets. I do remember the stained glass with the broken spot from World War II, which ironically enough, has a quote from Shakespeare, "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers" which serves at a memorial to those pilots of the Royal Air Force, who took part in the Battle of Britain. My dad would have liked to have seen that. We also saw the grave of George Frederic Handel, who is special to my family, as one of my mother's wishes, was that we play "The Hallelujah Chorus" at her funeral. The building itself is magnificent, and history just oozes out everywhere you look. I got scolded a bit by the Blue Badge guide, she thought I was going to sit and she wanted to show us something – I was really just trying to get out of the way. The scolding didn't help my grumpiness at all, let me tell you. I would love to go back again, and get a headset of my own, and get in other people's way and take my time. I think we raced through in about an hour and half – 1000 years of British history in 90 minutes or less. We left the Abbey, rushed through the subway stations and up the street to some boat dock. I can't tell you anything about it, because I needed to use the "necessary room" so badly, I was oblivious to where we were or what we were doing. We were just running in a pack. Finally, we had enough time to take a deep breath, and dear sweet Andrea found a restroom. Then, she bought me a Coke, so after that I was much happier, although I was still confused why we had to hurry so fast, just to wait for half an hour.

Anyway, we took a cruise along the Thames to the Tower of London. There are the most beautiful buildings along the Thames. I don't know what most of them are, or what they are for, but they sure are pretty. On both sides of the boat, just one gorgeous building after another. Most of our group went to the top of the boat, but Andrea and I sat on the bottom, where hardly anybody else was. We had practically the whole bottom deck to ourselves. We opened the windows, and I ran back and forth from side to side taking pictures like a mad woman. I think I took 145 pictures today, without any from Westminster Abbey.

We got to the Tower of London, had time for lunch, and then at 2, began our tour of the Tower of London. We began at the Traitor's Gate, and our guide told us a story of someone (sorry, can't remember who) who was brought in and refused to go in the Traitor's Gate, so she sat on a rock until the tide came in, and then, was probably dragged in. We went inside and saw the ravens. I always thought ravens were just crows, but these are the biggest blackest birds I've ever seen. The story is that as long as there are ravens in the Tower of London, the monarchy is safe, but if the ravens leave. . . Well, they clip their wings so they can't go far. We saw part of the old Roman walls that surrounded the city of London, and then a memorial for people executed inside the tower. Apparently some people where executed outside, in front of a crowd, but some inside. Our guide said that those executed inside were usually people that would cause trouble if the public saw them beheaded. They were mostly women, like Anne Boleyn, (who had 6 fingers on one hand) Catherine Howard, Lady Jane Gray, and others of course. There is a new memorial for those executed inside the Tower; it looks like a ring bearer's pillow. We saw some "Beefeaters" and our guide assured us it's OK to call them that. She explained that to be one of them, someone must have at least 22 years in the military, and 18 of that must be a clean record. There is actually the first female Beefeater, who is Scottish.

We finished our tour by viewing the Crown Jewels, which is nearly enough to knock one's socks off. The monstrous diamonds and all the other "bling" just blow my mind. I bought a book to read about them later. One of the most interesting things is the Coronation or Anointing Spoon, which our guide explained to us, but those poor people who didn't have a guide were making up some really strange stories about the spoon as we walked through. The Coronation Spoon is filled with oil, and the hands, head and chest of the new monarch are touched by the spoon, which symbolizes anointing with oil. The people behind me thought it was for breakfast or "royal oatmeal." They believe the spoon to be from the 12^th century.

One thing that has really amazed me is how old everything is. For example, the Study Centre building is a 17^th century building. We saw a tree in Oxford that was planted in 1801. In the US, our definition of old and the definition of old over here, are completely, totally different. I feel like I'm being steeped in history.

Today was Wednesday, so we had our American dinner prepared by Dr. E. Tonight's menu was meatloaf, with mashed potatoes, and green beans. It was delicious. We tried "Brown Sauce" which is kind of a combination of gravy, and barbeque sauce. The meatloaf made me feel better. By the time we got back from the Tower of London and had dinner, I was in a much better mood. Now, I'm going to bed, because tomorrow, we're going to the British Library, to Shepherd's Bush Market and then we're touring the BBC. Then, early Friday morning, we're off to Scotland!

A Fabulously Wicked Day

Today was a marvelous, wonderful day. We had so much fun. We explored Kensington Gardens, which had to be explained to me three times, is one section of Hyde Park. We began in the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Playground. This is a fantastic playground, but to be allowed in, you must have a child with you. We had to start here, because they were letting us in early, and we ran around like we were children. It is sort of a Peter Pan themed playground, with a pirate ship, a watery section just made for mermaids, and teepees for pretending to be Tiger Lily. The water section wasn't turned on yet, and one woman who worked there kept laughing at us, but we didn't care. We had a grand time. There were all sorts of secret places to explore. I found a treasure chest, and this gorgeous bench with ladybugs, and dragon flies and all sorts of cute insects carved into it. It was weird, because the people working there had to explain to some parents why we got to go in early. We had to leave when the park really opened, since we had no children, except ourselves, and it was sort of pitiful to look at the children and parents waiting outside the fence to get in. We left that part of the park, walking past the children and parents waiting to get in, and made our way through other parts of the park. Our goal was the Peter Pan statue, but we got distracted. Our photography focus today was using water in our shots, so everyplace we saw water, we were experimenting. We stopped at Round Pond, and watched the swans, watched people play with their dogs, watched little kids and their moms or dads or both. It was just a great relaxing, fun day. We walked on to the Peter Pan statue, took a group picture, (our second of the day, after the pirate ship!) and just moseyed on. We watched the fountains, and more swans, and kept practicing our water shots. I learned a lot about my camera today. We walked on around, and ended up at the Hard Rock Café for lunch. We were extremely excited, as the Hard Rock has free refills, which most places in London don't. That was extremely cool. We went back to the Serpentine, which is a manmade lake that has pedal boats and rowboats for rent. Most of our class decided not to do it, but Jessica and Jodi took a rowboat and Dr E and I attempted a pedal boat. Dr. E is a much better "pedal-ar" than I am, and after a few mishaps, including running into the fence around a duck island, and running around, we manage to pedal our way all over one section of the lake. She steered and I just pedaled. When we finally got back ashore, my legs felt like limp noodles. I was afraid I couldn't walk but I managed. After that, we went to the Diana Memorial Fountain, which is not like any fountain I've ever seen before. It looks sort of like a lazy river, with water flowing from top to bottom. People were soaking their feet in it, and wading around. I just took pictures of the people and the flowers. We left there and went to the Royal Albert Hall. Earlier in the day, we had seen this golden colored spire sticking up through the trees and didn't quite know what it was; we just thought it looked pretty. Well, we realized later what is was – it was the monument that Queen Victoria had built for Prince Albert. Someone told me that the people of England weren't too happy with it, that they thought it was a bit too much – after all, he was just the husband of the queen. (That's what I heard – not necessarily what I believe!) According to Wikipedia, it was finished in 1874 and cost 
120,000. Not being even remotely mathematical, I can't even guess what that would be equivalent to today. I think it's beautiful, but it may be a bit much. We went into Royal Albert Hall, and were going to take a tour, but we all were pretty tired and were feeling kind of hot and icky. We would have had to wait for the next tour, so we just headed back. We ended up taking the bus, instead of the tube and it took forever. We got back finally, and we all took showers and got dressed to go see "Wicked." I have wanted to see "Wicked" ever since last October, when we got to go to the AASL conference in Reno. I was reading the book on the plane and a seatmate noticed the book – it's kind of hard to miss with the green pages, and began telling my friend Connie and I how much he loved it. He even pulled out his iPod and played some songs for me from the soundtrack. As soon as I got home I put the soundtrack on my Amazon.com wish list, but I bought one tonight, so I can take it off the wish list. I tried to go see the play in Orlando at home, and just couldn't work my schedule out to get there. I was so excited and I think I must say for the first time ever in my life, I enjoyed the play more than the book. I liked the book, but there was lots of political stuff in the book that kind of confused me. I tremendously enjoyed the play. When she sang "Defying Gravity" I wanted to fly myself! I know this has turned into a really long post, but there is one more thing I want to share. A really strange thing happened today. Of course during the course of the day, I had to find the restroom in the park. One of our last visits, I was still in the stall and I heard this awful noise. Now, I live in Florida, I know what a bug zapper sounds like, I just didn't expect to hear a bug zapper in the bathroom. I yelped, afraid that my professor or one of my class mates had just been electrocuted in the loo! Now, that would have been an awful thing to blog about, wouldn't it? I was afraid to use the hand dryer, I left with wet hands. My other classmates laughed at me for being so worried. I still just think the bug zapper thing is the bathroom is just weird. So, I am pretty tired now, and need a little something to eat. Tomorrow, we're going to Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London. I'll probably take another hundred pictures tomorrow. That seems to be about average for me – 100 pictures a day. My family is going to have a GREAT time looking at all of those when I get home. I'll post some here to save them at least an hour of pictures!