Kingston

Well, there's not terribly much to report, but I just wanted to check in. I've mostly been in Kingston, taking long rambling walks and discovering all the cool little side streets and things. Last night I saw a group of swans (what's the technical term for a group of swans?) floating down the river, which was really cute. And a few nights ago there was a fox out in the parking lot.

Also, Gabby is teaching me a little bit of Czech. Ja mam rada studovat cestina! That means "I like studying Czech." Well, there are supposed to be marks above the letters, but I don't know how to type them. Anywho, it's pretty fun.

That's about it. I know, I'm so exciting. :) But at least I have pictures this time! Here are the ones I took in London on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas, Mr. Potter!

Yesterday I went downtown to see London on Christmas Eve. It was very cool, but also very crowded. Oxford Street, one of the really popular shopping districts, was jam-packed with last minute shoppers. So for about four hours I just walked around to see what I could see, as it were. I walked through Regent’s Park to see the Queen’s Rose Garden, realizing only when I got there that—oh hey—it’s the end of December and there probably aren’t going to be too many flowers blooming. Still, it was a nice place.

From there I found my way to Baker Street, and I was really excited when I saw the Sherlock Holmes museum. Earlier this semester, I’d started reading some of the Holmes stories, so going through the little house-museum was really neat. Yes, I know he’s fictional, but still. There were lots of little pictures and odds and ends from all the stories laid out around the house, and they even had those creepy wax figures. All the museums here seem to thrive on those. Yeesh.

After that, I finally found my way to Buckingham Palace. And, while it’s cool to able to say that I’ve seen it, it wasn’t what I was expecting. I mean, it’s a beautiful building and all, but I was expecting it to be flashier, I suppose. There weren’t even any of the Queen’s Guards with the funny hats. The monument out front was really gorgeous though. And like I said, now I’ve seen it.

Then I joined Gabby and another of our friends, and we went to dinner. (We went to Nando’s, which has the most hilarious chicken-shaped logo ever.) By then it was proper dark, so we walked down the main streets for a bit looking at the Christmas decorations. I got a few pictures of the ones on Oxford Street, but I’d forgotten to charge my camera batteries (d’oh!) so my camera died around that point. I still got lots of good pictures during the day, though.

Christmas Day has been pretty quiet so far. We had originally planned to go to a friend’s party in London, but the Underground doesn’t run on Christmas, so we couldn’t get there. We also forgot that all the stores are closed and that we have little to no food in the flat. Thus, our Christmas cuisine was…creative: fajita-spiced rice for lunch and cous cous salad for dinner. Unconventional, but excellent—much like my Christmas this year. :D

I hope everyone has a very merry Christmas!

On Holiday

Sorry for the massive delay in posting, everyone. Things have been mighty busy lately. Last week was the last week of classes for me. So I spent pretty much all of that time either in class or writing my two final essays. I can't believe the first term is over already! It seems like time is really flying here. And I'm really glad that I'm here for the full school year instead of just one semester. I do miss everyone at home, but I think going home now would mean I wouldn't get to see a lot of cool things here.

We did manage to have a little fun during the stressful, last week of term. The weekend before we all left for the holidays, our flat had a little Christmas party, which was very fun. We did dinner, and also presents and Christmas cookies.

Then just this past Friday, Gabby and I left for her friend's flat in Kingston (a suburb of London). It's just a quick train ride to downtown London, which is very cool. We did a little shopping there on Sunday evening, and man is London beautiful at Christmas time! All the department stores had ridiculously gorgeous decorations covering the entire sides of buildings. There's no snow here yet, but it still feels like Christmas because of all the decorations and music coming from everywhere. People here are really into the holiday spirit, which is nice too.

Now that I don't have class, I have lots of time for sight-seeing. So if anyone has any good suggestions, let me know! There's a train station just five minutes' walk from here, so I'm in a great position to go anywhere!

The internet here isn't terribly reliable, but I'm going to do my best to keep updating. Happy Holidays, everybody!

Carols at the Cathedral

There was a really lovely carol service at the Cathedral tonight. The choir sang maybe a dozen or so Christmas songs, many of which were in different languages. (And if anyone's interested, "Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day" is apparently a traditional English carol.) There was even a verse of Silent Night sung in Swahili. There were also some readings, but not all from the Bible; some were poems too. And at the beginning and end of the service they turned off all the lights in the Cathedral, and everybody had lit candles so that the whole place glowed. It was really pretty! The Cathedral was really gorgeous from outside too, all lit up against the dark winter sky. There were even some lighted Christmas trees and a manger scene on the lawn in front.

I thought I'd mentioned this before, but maybe not. A few days ago I got an email from my professor saying that there's definitely going to be a trip to Germany from April 1-5. We're going to see some different Roman ruins around the country, especially in Trier (yay!). So I'm really looking forward to that. And my flatmate Sarah just proposed a trip to Scotland the weekend after we all get back, so that could be really fun too. So many places to go here, I love it!

Happy St. Nick's Day!

Happy St. Nick's Day! In our flat, we put paper stockings on our doors with our names on them, and Valentina gave us all little Santa-shaped chocolates and clementines. Yummy!

Last night we made gingerbread cookies. Valentina had made the dough the day before, so all we had to do was cut out different shapes (we used jar tops or glasses to make circle and square shapes) and decorate them with sprinkles. The cookies turned out pretty hard, almost like biscotti, but they're really good when dunked in cocoa. Mmm, mmm!

A bit of awesome news: I get to stay in London over the Christmas holidays! Gabby's friend has a flat in London and, as he'll be out of town during our break, he says that we're welcome to use it. How cool is that? I'll get to wake up every day and be in walking distance of all these great museums and parks and things. I can't wait! We're leaving on the 19th of December and we'll be staying until sometime in the second(ish) week of January. It's going to be amazing!

Well, it's finally starting to get cold here now. Though, from what I'm hearing from home, it's still not as cold here as it is there. I don't think we've really had any proper freezes yet. Alas, we don't have any snow here yet either. I'm hopeful that at least sometime before Christmas we'll get some snow.

Two more weeks of class and then I can start the serious business of full-time sight-seeing and traveling, starting with more of London. I've got two essays to write before the end of term, but I don't think they'll be that hard. Everyone in the flat seems to be buckling down for two weeks of work, but at the same time we're all excited for break. And to celebrate, we're having a Christmas dinner this coming Friday, which should be lots of fun.

Snowflakes and Christmas Lights

Last night Helen, Gabby, and I spent a couple hours making paper snowflakes. We're all about the kindergarten crafts, here. :D We taped them up on our kitchen windows, and it actually looks really pretty from outside (and inside too, of course).

And then today Gabby and I spent two hours waiting in a queue for tickets to the Christmas carol service at the Canterbury Cathedral next week. Apparently it's really great, so it's really popular and the (free) tickets go really fast. I had tried to pick up a ticket yesterday after my class when they handed out the first batch, but they were all gone by the time I got there. So to be on the safe side, we got there way early (I sat in line reading Obama's book) and we were one of the first ten to get tickets. I can't wait for next week!

Well, it's that time again: time to start researching for my next round of essays. This time I'm writing about medical care in the Roman army for one class, and open-air museums for the other. I've already got two big stacks of books on my shelf... Oh boy.

Turkey Day, Take Two

Our flat had our Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. It went really great! There were nine of us all together: five of us from the flat (one of our flatmates couldn't make it), one girl from another flat here, and then three of our flatmates' friends. It was a very international Thanksgiving. :) So for our party we cooked a turkey (which Helen named Ben after Benjamin Franklin, oddly enough--we kept slipping and calling the turkey a "him" all night, which frankly is pretty creepy if you think about it), stuffing, green bean casserole, red cabbage casserole, mashed sweet potatoes, salad, rolls, cranberry sauce, and an apple crumble for dessert (courtesy of Valentina and Sarah). It all turned out pretty delicious, I must say.

There was one slight, if hilarious, mishap. (Part of my brain is telling me not to tell anyone this story, but the other part of my brain is saying it's too hilarious to not tell it.) Helen and I were in charge of cooking the turkey, and I knew that when you buy frozen turkeys from the store that they have the innards still inside. So when we were getting ready to put the turkey in the oven, we took out what was inside the cavity (the neck, I think, and some unidentified turkey innard bits). So we cooked it for 3 and a half hours, and it looked great. Then we sat down to dinner, and I started cutting the turkey. And Helen said, "I think there's something shiny in there..." And she reached over and pulled out this humongous giblet packet from between the skin and the meat of the turkey. Needless to say, everyone in the kitchen burst out laughing. It was hilarious and mortifying all at once. Seriously, isn't that something that only happens in the movies?

We started dinner at eight, and the last of us didn't leave until one in the morning, so I'd say it was a pretty successful evening. It was certainly the most fun I've had so far. Valentina made a music playlist, Gabby bought roses for the table, and we even had candles. Finding enough pots and plates and cutlery was a bit of a challenge, but we managed. And since it was Gabby's birthday as well, we put candles in the apple crumble and everybody sang Happy Birthday.

So much fun!

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Turkey Day, everybody!

As Thanksgiving is not a British holiday, I still had class today. Afterward, though, I went out with my flatmates and we bought all the supplies we'll need for tomorrow's post-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving dinner. It's going to be great!

Nice Night

Ah, weekends. They're really quite lovely. (You can imagine that in a British accent, if you want. I think my flatmate Helen's speech patterns are rubbing off on me a little.) I went to ASDA (British Walmart) today via the free "grocery bus." I got some pretty cool stuff--a comfy throw for the coming cold winter nights, a small but very cool lamp, and potpourri that smells like chocolate! My room feels so much cozier now, which makes me smile. And I also bought little slippers that have cow spots on them, and little pink bows on the toe. They're so cute!

We've decided to start propping our doors open in the flat now. We figure it'll be easier to be more sociable throughout the day that way. Unfortunately, the doors are really heavy, so I've got to push my little chest of drawers in front of the door to keep it open. And this evening, Gabby, Helen, and I drew Thanksgiving turkeys (you know, tracing the hand and drawing in the turkey's face and feathers and all that) and hung them on the fridge. Oddly enough, we also hung Christmas lights above the windows in the kitchen, and put the mini Christmas tree in the corner. Yay holidays!

Museums, Museums

I decided to be productive and do a little exploration today, so I went to the Canterbury Museum and the Roman Museum. The Canterbury Museum was very nice--it's housed in a medieval building known as the Poor Priests' Hospital. It really focused on how the town of Canterbury has really changed over the centuries, from a pre-Roman town, to a Roman town, to a town under Norman rule, to a medieval town, and so on.

The Roman Museum is actually underground, which was cool. You go down one flight of stairs, then you walk through the exhibits, part of which is a glassed-in area where you can see parts of a Roman house-floor that archaeologists excavated. There are also a lot of hands-on replicas of pottery and building materials. It's always kind of cool to see museum exhibits where you're encouraged to, rather than prohibited from, touching objects on display.

I know it's still a bit early for this, but I've already gotten into the Christmas spirit. I bought a mini fake Christmas tree for our flat yesterday (I won't put it up until at least after Thanksgiving, though) and some festive lights. I've strung the lights along the top of my bookshelves in my room, and it looks very cool. I haven't started singing Christmas carols though. Yet.

Mini Pub Crawl

Hey, everybody! It's been a while since I've posted anything. I've been keeping busy with school and exploring the town. Last week I finished my first two papers for my classes. So now I'm just eagerly awaiting the grades. I hope they don't mark me down for my American spelling/grammar. :P

Last weekend I went to a cool Moroccan restaurant with Sarah and Valentina. The place was great--there were lots of cool lanterns and pillows and stuff. And I think it was probably the best meal I've had since coming here too. It was duck with almonds, raisins, and squash. Yum yum! (Usually, dinner is canned ravioli or a cold-cuts sandwich, so that was definitely a nice change.) And best of all, it was half-price because it was students' night.

A few days ago I went on my first pub crawl. We went to three places in town. (I'm not sure if that counts as a "real" pub crawl--is there a minimum number of pubs you have to go to?) I even got to try a James Bond-style martini. It was actually pretty good. So that was a really fun night too.

Right now, three of my flatmates have visitors (parents and siblings), so things are pretty crowded. The language barrier is a little difficult, since most of them don't speak English. Mostly it's a lot of smiling and hand gestures. Awkward, to be sure, but I'm just choosing to look at it as valuable cultural exposure. Yep, I'm a veritable cultural sponge.

Woooooooohooooo!

It's 5:24 a.m. right now and I'm wide awake. I just spent the night watching the election results with a lot of other students. It was really cool to have everyone gathered around the TV, totally focused on the election and the future US president. I had gone to an election party in Keynes building earlier tonight, but it was too crowded and loud to hear anything. So instead I opted for the smaller TV lounge (which I've recently discovered) in the building next to mine.

It wasn't until 4 o'clock in the morning for us that they announced Barack Obama as the winner. Everyone in the lounge started cheering and high-fiving each other right away. And there were even some people outside who were running back and forth across the car park, yelling and cheering.

I had planned on going to bed at a decent hour and finding out the winner in the morning, but I'm glad I stayed up. It was quite the experience. I especially remember what one girl said right after they announced Obama's victory: "Maybe Americans aren't so backwards after all."

London Again!

I went to London again this past Saturday. It's so amazing there! If I had the money, I think I'd go just about every weekend.

I went back to the British Museum. I wanted to see more of the galleries, since last time I spent most of my time in the Enlightenment Gallery. I spent about 3 and a half hours in there this time, so I had lots of time to wander around. There is so much stuff there! I started out in the Egyptian gallery, and I took pictures of just about everything, but as time went on I started to realize that if I took a picture of everything that looked cool I'd have about 1500 photos.

I got to see Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament too! That was really cool. By that time, though, it was after dark (it gets dark about 4:30 now!) so it was hard to get a good picture. After messing with the camera and taking more than a few blurry pictures, I was able to take a couple good ones of Big Ben from across the River Thames. It was really rainy and windy and I got totally soaked walking around, but it was worth it. Also, it's a real confidence booster that I was able to figure out my own way around London. I'm a total pro at the Underground now too. :D

Alas, I've got two papers due at the end of this week, so I've really got to get cracking. My first one is about the French Revolution's impact on the development of European museums, and the second one is about how contemporary diagnoses of ancient diseases influences our view of that time period. Heavy. Off to the library I go again, then!

London 2

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween, everybody! I spent a nice night in Canterbury with my flatmates. We had originally planned to go on the Canterbury Ghost Tour (which is something they have every night, not just for Halloween). However, due to a few crossed wires communication-wise and a late start, we ended up a little late for the start of the tour. We hustled around downtown Canterbury looking for the right street, and eventually we spotted a big group of people gathered around a guy in a silly outfit. Bingo. So we joined the crowd and followed the tour to...a car park. Real spooky. The guide stood in the middle and started talking about some ghost activity or some such, but it was really hard to hear anything he said because he didn't speak up and he did that rambling British thing. Plus, since for my flatmates English isn't their first language, it was doubly hard to understand him. And on top of that, it wasn't even scary, like we thought it would be. He kept things really light and told jokes the whole time. So when the tour moved on to another not-so-scary destination, we split off and wandered back to High Street. We found a really nice cafe/bar and sat and had drinks and talked for a while. I think that was much more fun than the tour was.

Halloween seems to be just as big a holiday here as it is in the states. I'd say over half the people we saw in town were in costume, or at least had their face painted. There were lots of zombies and witches, and there were lots of guys dressed like the Joker. I also saw a couple people dressed like the guy from A Clockwork Orange. So dressing up for Halloween seems to be a big thing, but I don't know if the kids here do trick-or-treating at all.

Well, I'm off to London in the morning so I should get some sleep. Good night!

I Voted!

I voted today! It's the first time I've gotten to vote in a presidential election, so I was kind of excited. My regular absentee ballot still hadn't shown up, so I downloaded an emergency write-in ballot, filled it out, and popped it in the mail straight away. Hopefully it'll get there in time to be counted. And if not, well at least I tried my best.

I just finished reading Fahrenheit 451. It was really good, very thought-provoking. And definitely much easier to understand than the Aristotle and Galen that I've got to read for class.

We had a really interesting debate about ancient Greek views on dissection in class the other day. The class split up into three groups and we were each supposed to argue the side of one of three medical sects--Empiricists, Dogmatists, and Methodists. Our group was the Methodists, and lemme tell ya, it was really hard finding info about them. Everything I searched for was about the religion rather than the medical philosophy. As it turns out, the Methodists had no strong feelings either way about dissection, so we got to sit there and listen to the Empiricists duke it out with the Dogmatists. The debate got really lively, so that was interesting at least. I don't know why I'm writing so much about this, except that I spent a good chunk of my weekend working on it. :P

Anyway, here's a fun picture to make you smile. It's the label from a bottle of hand soap I bought. (I know, I'm easily entertained.)

Busy, Busy

I think I'm finally getting over the cold that's been plaguing me all week. I've been taking it easy since I wasn't feeling very well. I got a lot of reading done for my museum class, but there's always more to do. Right now I'm supposed to be reading some selected works of Aristotle for my Graeco-Roman medicine class too. Busy busy!

Yesterday I went to ASDA, which is the English equivalent of Walmart. There was lots of nice cheap stuff there, which was great. I splurged a bit and bought a pair of trendy brown boots for fifteen quid. It's very fashionable here to wear ankle or calf-high boots with your pant legs tucked into them. Long jackets and beret-style hats are also very in. I've never been a real fashion plate, so I guess we'll see how it goes.

I'm a little disappointed that my museum class was cancelled this week and will be cancelled next week as well. Apparently the professor is ill. I had my presentation on the British Museum all prepped, but I didn't get to give it since he wasn't there. The week after next we won't have class either because that's our scheduled reading week. So I won't get to meet with that class again until almost a month from now! That's a big chunk of time, especially considering we only meet once a week for 12 weeks.

No new pictures today, unfortunately. Though I'm going back to London this week (hopefully), so I'll post pictures of that later in the week. And maybe someday this week I'll walk around campus with my camera too. :)

Laundry Day

I feel rather productive today. I got up at eight and had a nice morning of drinking coffee and reading in the kitchen. Then after my lecture I came home and did some laundry, vacuumed my room, and cleaned too. When I went back to the laundromat to get my clothes, though, I discovered that half of the dryers were broken and the other half were busy and had a queue of people waiting. So I loaded up all my wet clothes and took them back to my room, where I hung them up or spread them out across every available surface. As I'm writing this, I've got jeans hanging from the ceiling, t-shirts splayed across the top of my wardrobe, and socks dangling from my bookshelves. I find it rather amusing, but I think next time I'll suck it up and wait for the dryers.

Just a quick update for today. I'd better get back to my reading which, right now, is Plato's Timaeus.

London!

Today was my first trip to London, huzzah! And what a really excellent trip it was. Valentina, Sarah, and I left the flat around 8, got the bus to the Canterbury train station, and took the 8:45 train to London. The ticket was only eleven pounds (with the student railcard I bought), so it was a great value. The train ride was really nice too. We could see the English countryside rolling by, there was lots of space for us to stretch out, and the train itself was remarkably quiet. We got to Victoria Station a little after 10:00. It was a bit intimidating to be in such a huge train station, but Valentina knew where to go, so I just followed her.

By the way, you might want to get comfy--this is a long post.

The first thing we did was buy bus/underground passes. Well, that's a lie--the first thing we did was buy coffee to wake us up. But then we bought our Oyster cards (why they call them that, I don't know), which work like a pay-as-you-go discount transportation card. They were really convenient because we only had to swipe them to get into the underground. Taking the underground was really cool for me. You have to go down something like 150 feet underground in these huge elevators--you can take the stairs, but there are all these signs telling you, basically, not to because it's such a ridiculous climb. So anyway, we took the tube to Russell Square, which is really near the British Museum. We walked through the square and found the museum pretty easily, being the humongous building that it is.

Okay, so the British Museum. Can I just say "wow"? It has to be the single coolest museum I've ever been to. And it's free! The Great Court in the middle is beyond amazing. It's this enormous round room with a glass ceiling and a another huge enclosed room in the middle. I got some pictures of it, but I'm not sure they can do it justice. I went through the Enlightenment Gallery first, which is an exhibit that focuses on the beginnings of collecting and museums in general, and the British Museum in particular. I have to do a small presentation about the Enlightenment Gallery this Thursday in my museum class, so now I can say I've been there first hand. And it was really incredible. There were so many artifacts and books and statues from so many different cultures that I didn't even know where to start. That one gallery alone was so huge, it took me an hour to go through it, and I could have spent more time there.

After I'd explored the first floor of the museum, I met back up with Valentina and Sarah and we walked to London's Chinatown for lunch. Then we were going to split up for a few hours, and I had been planning to go back to the museum to see the rest of it. But then I decided that since it was my first trip to London, I wanted to explore a little more of the city instead of just seeing the museum. So I put my museum-exploration on a temporary hiatus until I go back to London a second time (probably in a week or two) and went walking around London with Valentina instead. And I'm really glad I did, because London is awesome! We saw Trafalgar Square, Picadilly Circle (I just love saying that), Regent Street with all the high-end shopping, the London Eye (not up close, but I saw the top of it peeking up from behind a building), and tons and tons of really cool architecture. We were going to see Buckingham Palace and Big Ben, but we ran out of time, so I'll see those next time. I took tons and tons and tons of pictures--I love my digital camera. I didn't even care that I looked like a total tourist because tons of other people were doing the same thing.

London is great, but it's super crowded! There were huge throngs of people just about every street we went down. It never really bothered me that much except once when we briefly went in Topshop, which is a trendy clothing store. There were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people crammed into that place. Granted, it's a huge store of three floors, but still! Everywhere I turned there were just walls of people, and at any given point at least three people wanted to be standing in the exact same spot I was standing in. It was crazy.

Everything's really expensive in London too. Even just a simple t-shirt from a store would be 30 or 40 pounds (that's 60 or 80 bucks for me!), and a tiny cup of soda was one pound-fifty. And I was also surprised at how early shops close even in a big city like London. As soon as 5:00 rolled around, lots of stores closed up, and I noticed the museum closed at 5:30 too. (I swung back by the museum to pick up a guide-book so I can a) have it for my presentation and b) plan my next trip there.)

Around 5:30 we headed to Covent Garden, an area in London with lots of shops and cafes, to meet back up with Sarah. We got another round of coffees and sat in an indoor courtyard type of thing. There was a guy singing opera for a restaurant nearby, so we got to listen to him a bit too. Then we decided that we should probably start heading back since it would take us a while to get home. So we took the tube back to Victoria and got the 7:03 train to Canterbury.

Once we got back to Canterbury, we made a quick stop at Tescoe's (the supermarket in town) and caught the bus back to campus. Then we had dinner, for which Helen joined us. After that, I had a cup of tea, came back to my room, and here I am!

And here are all the pictures of my awesome day! (The glass over some of the displays in the museum really messed with the pictures, but I think they're still fun to look at.)

British Museum

London

Walking and Pseudo-Museums

Boy, my feet hurt. I went walking around Canterbury today, visiting the Pilgrims' Hospital and the Canterbury Tales attraction. They're not really museums, per se, but they're educational and cultural, so I'm still learnin' stuff. The Pilgrims' Hospital dates back to the medieval period when lots of visitors would come to Canterbury to visit the Cathedral of St. Thomas Beckett. The hospital is relatively small, or at least the parts that are open to the public are small. When you first walk in, you have to go down a half flight of steps, as main floor is below ground level now. You pay your one quid admission charge at the desk there, then go down another half flight of steps into the crypt, which is now full of various artists' works. (I didn't really understand what the art had to do with the hospital.) There weren't any objects or anything left over from the medieval period, so I have to say the archaeologist in me was kind of disappointed. Then you could go up a level to the chapel, which is still in use. Apparently the hospital has residents in wings that aren't open to the public.

After that I went further up High Street to the Canterbury Tales attraction, which--I'm not gonna lie--was extraordinarily creepy. The whole place was like a haunted wax museum. You walked from room to room (all in near darkness), listening to an audio tour read from Chaucer's point of view and staring at the creepy plastic peasants. Luckily, there were two other random tourists going through the place at the same time as me, or I think I would have bailed. I could hear weird noises coming from other rooms, and if I stared too long at any one of the characters in there I started to imagine it was moving. Eep, creepy. I'm not sure it was meant to be creepy, but there you go.

So other than that, I've been keeping pretty busy here. I went to a fruit market this morning and picked up some bananas, blackberries, and grapefruit (proving that I do eat more than just ramen). Last night I went to the sci-fi club and we watched Back to the Future and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, so that was lots of mindless fun. Also, just tonight I went to an open lecture on Eurojust, which is a legal/investigative coordination between members of the European Union. The speaker talked about coordinating between different governments and different levels of government, and how Eurojust facilitates transnational crime solving. I know that might sound a bit dry, but I found it really really cool. I could tell the moderator was a bit unhappy, but personally I was glad that the speaker ran over time by about half an hour. :)

Here are the pictures from the Pilgrim's Hospital and Canterbury Tales, and I also updated the Canterbury photo album with a few new shots. (I'm not sure why, but some of the dates of my pictures on the Picasa website are all wrong.)

Pilgrims' Hospital

Canterbury Tales

Canterbury

The Duchess

Well, I just got back from seeing the movie The Duchess with one of my flatmates. It was a really good movie, and also very sad. I thought Keira Knightley did a good job, but I totally hated Ralph Fiennes, as I suspect the audience was meant to. The theater itself is a really cool place too. There's a big cafe that's always very busy and crowded. And I don't know if this is really all that unusual or not, but there was an usher in the cinema who used a flashlight to help late-comers find seats. I guess I haven't been to many movie theaters where there was an usher period.

I may have mentioned this already, but everything over here seems to close really early! My American sensibilities are used to 24-hour Starbucks and Walmarts, but that's not the case here. Most shops are closed by 5 or 6. Today, for example, I went to the campus library around 7 p.m., but it was already closed! It's open 'til midnight on weekdays, which is nice, but apparently on weekends it closes really early. To be honest, it's a little aggrivating for a night owl like me, but nothing I won't get over.

Things in the flat are really going well. I'm trying my best to be sociable and not hide in my room all the time, so often I'll go to the kitchen and have a cup of coffee and talk with my flatmates. This may sound silly, but I like the feeling of our mini-community, and I'm glad we've got the shared kitchen to hang out in.

Tomorrow I'm going to get up "early" and try out the walking path into Canterbury. (Supposedly it only takes about half an hour which, if true, would be great since it will save me 2 quid on the bus ride.) So I should probably try to get some sleep soon. A la prochaine! (Until next time!)

You Mean I Have to Study Too?

Aha! I had my first cup of tea in England today. Thanks to Dan and Beth, I've gotten to try Irish tea, and now I've had English as well. It wasn't proper "traditional" English tea (I went for raspberry instead), and I didn't have crumpets with it, but it was still good.

I'm slowly getting into the swing of studying. Somewhat to my dismay, I'm beginning to learn that my museum class is going to necessitate many, many trips to the library. We've got two core textbooks, but then the professor assigns loads of miscellaneous articles and chapters from other books as well. Trouble is, there's just one copy of each of those books in the library and 20 students who all need them in one week's time. Exactly. I'm hoping that at lecture tomorrow the professor will address that issue, and maybe just photocopy the chapters we need instead.

I bought a cell phone yesterday. Or I suppose I should call it a mobile. It's just a cheap pay-as-you-go phone, but I decided to get one so that I'd have it in case of emergency, especially if I go traveling somewhere. The cell phone company that I'm with is Orange, and supposedly they have these "Animal" plans that give you different rewards for buying minutes. The most interesting one was Camel, which lets you call abroad for 6 pence a minute. So it's cool but not something I have to have, seeing as the Skype and Windows Messenger video-calls have been working so well.

Well, it's getting colder here. Time to break out the sweaters and jackets, which is fine by me since I have so many stylish sweaters. ;) Plus I get to wear my Kent sweatshirt. And surprise, I have a picture!


Cheers!

Rain, Rain

This past weekend was very relaxing. I read a lot (mostly for fun, though I did think about maybe getting some reading done for my classes...) and watched a bit of TV. But it was British TV, so at least I'm absorbing the culture, right?

As promised, it rains a lot here, which I think is great. A lot of the time it's sort of overcast, which you might think would be depressing. But I think it just seems really calm. I've gotten used to putting my umbrella in my bag every time I head out to class or the shop. I was sitting at my computer on Friday afternoon, and when I looked out the window I noticed a big storm cloud rolling in. I thought it looked neat, so I snapped a picture. You can see the flats in the building opposite mine, which are really just mirror images. At night the kitchens of the various flats are always lit up, as none of the Parkwood kitchens come with drapes on the windows. My flatmate Sarah calls the kitchen windows "TVs" because at night you can watch all the students cooking their dinners in the brightly lit kitchens.

I went to an open lecture tonight entitled "Churchill and Roosevelt," given by Professor John Lucaks. The lecture itself was sort of interesting, though I wish he had gone into more depth. He only spoke for about 45 minutes, and he talked mainly about the written correspondence between Churchill and Roosevelt. However, the room was really warm and I admit I didn't stay through the end of the question-and-answer section because I figured leaving early would be preferable to passing out on the floor.

I bought an official University of Kent sweatshirt a couple days ago. The price was a little steep (a bit over twenty pounds) but I figured it was worth it. When else am I going to study in the UK? It's a light purple, and it'll be perfect for those rainy class days.

First Week of Class

My first week of classes here at the university went well. The Greek and Roman medicine class looks like it'll be much more interesting than I had originally thought, and my museum class should be pretty great as well. I'm supposed to visit the British Museum in London and give a presentation about it, so hopefully in a few weeks' time I'll have some great pictures from that. I've noticed though, that university here feels quite different than college at home. A lot more individual study is required, and no one really tells you what specific things you should be reading at any given time. That's both good and bad, because while they don't have any busy-work or pop quizzes, you do have to be really motivated to keep reading on your own. I think it'll be a great experience though.

Other than that, there's not much new to report this week. On Tuesday I went down to the city center again and picked up a coffee maker and a watch, so now I'll be both alert and on time for class. :) I also got a library card for the public library here, which is small but nice. The library also has British shows on DVD, so I can watch those and not have to pay the $240 TV license fee to watch live television. And on Tuesday night I checked out the university's sci-fi club, which was very cool. (Didn't take long for my nerd side to surface, did it?)

That's about it. 'Til next time!

Leeds Castle

The university sponsored a trip to Leeds castle today, which turned out to be an awesome trip. It took about 40 minutes to get there by bus, much better than the 2 hours it took me to get to Dover the other day. The grounds of Leeds Castle were really gorgeous. There were tons of acres of grass and little hills and flowers. And tons of ducks! They had, I kid you not, a duckery. A duckery! That's what the sign said and everything.

The castle itself wasn't bad, but it was rather modern; it has been remodeled and updated several times over the centuries, so a lot of the interior doesn't look very castle-y anymore. Plus, there were about a hundred other people from the group crammed in there too, and we did the awkward slow-shuffle-forward for the whole tour. Though I have to say that the outside of the castle was still really impressive, and I got lots of pictures of it reflected in the water surrounding it.

After taking the tour through the inside of the castle, we got to roam around the grounds on our own. I saw vineyards, stumbled my way through a hedge maze, went into an underground grotto lit up with technicolor lights, and even watched a falconry demonstration. I got a few short video clips from the falconry demonstration too.

Leeds Castle

Falconry Demonstration

Dover Castle

I visited Dover Castle today. It took a while to get there by bus (about two hours, what with the waiting and the transfer) but it was fun. And on the upside, I'm becoming quite the pro at the bus system here. The reason I went was that I was looking into volunteering at the archaeology society there, where they do repacking and storing of archaeological and historical collections dating from Roman times all the way through the Cold War era. The collections they had stored were interesting, but I'm not sure if I can handle the two-hour-each-way journey on a regular basis.

After I talked to the assistant curator, I got a chance to look around the castle grounds, which were gorgeous. I also got to take a tour of the "Secret Wartime Tunnels," which are tunnels that were used during WWII (among other times; they originally date back to the war with Napoleon, I think) to house military personnel and even an underground hospital. Very cool, very creepy. Supposedly the repeater room down there is haunted, but I didn't see anything. I also went into another set of tunnels dating back to the medieval period; those were really dark and full of spiders. I got to explore the castle's Keep, which was built by King Henry II and is known as "the Key to England" because it's so exposed geographically and yet has never been conquered. The views from the top of the castle walls were incredible!

And thanks to the fabulous digital camera my parents got me, I have lots of pictures to share!

Dover Castle

Canterbury Cathedral

Today I got to visit the Canterbury Cathedral and take a guided tour. The university bussed us down there and paid for the tour, so everything was free. (Hooray!) And believe you me, the Cathedral is an awesome place. The outside alone is absolutely gorgeous. They're actually doing work on it right now (to replace the roof I think) but I still managed to get some great pictures.

The inside of the Cathedral was equally amazing. Lots of stained glass and soaring archways. When I first walked in, I didn't realize how big it was because you can't see the whole thing in one shot. But then the tour guide started taking us around and I began to realize just how humongous the place is. There are tons of little chapels and alcoves off the main nave. Also, the crypts underneath are spooky, but reeeaally cool. Apparently, St. Thomas isn't really buried in the Cathedral like many people think. They say his body was cremated and his ashes scattered either to the water or wind. However, Edward the Black Prince is buried there, and I got a few pictures of his tomb (which had a really cool replica of him in his armor all laid out).

After the tour, we were on our own to get back to the campus. That was fine by me, because I decided I'd just wander around for a bit and see what was around. So I bought a cappuccino and started walking. It was really fun walking down little side streets and seeing all the cafes and shops and things. Luckily, there are lots of tourists in Canterbury so I didn't feel like such a sore thumb. After a while, I eventually found my way back to a bus stop. I only had to stop and ask for directions once--progress!

Here's the album I put together of pictures from the Cathedral. Check 'em out!

Canterbury Cathedral

Settling In

Well, a few days have passed and I'm glad to say that things are going extremely well. So far I've met lots of people from countries all around the globe, including France, Germany, Austria, Cypress, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Britain (of course) and more. Even though introducing myself to new people is at times horribly awkward, it's always worth it in the end.

This morning I went to a few international students' orientation meetings which, while they weren't exactly riveting, were certainly informative. Plus, finding my way to the meetings also provided me the opportunity to get lost several more times, but I'm beginning to learn that that's often the best way to explore the campus. Tonight I went to the international students' dinner, which was great fun. I got to meet more people, and there was great food and even a Bollywood dancing presentation.

And on an especially awesome note, I found out today that I have classes only 3 days a week, and no class starts before 11:00 a.m. How cool is that? I'm anticipating a lot of individual work, though. This term my two classes are Greek and Roman Medicine, and Museums: Our National Heritage. I'm hoping they'll be pretty interesting.

No pictures for you today, but hopefully there will be lots tomorrow, as I'm going on a tour of the Canterbury Cathedral tomorrow afternoon. 'Til then!

Day One

Well, I made it! I left the house yesterday at 3:00 p.m. and arrived at Kent's campus today at about 12:30 p.m. I think it really hit me on the plane ride over that yes, I really am going to be studying in another country for 10 months. And it was difficult at first, adjusting to the new campus and the new people. But I think I've made some good progress so far, however small--I figured out the bus routes and went down to the city centre (look, English spelling!) to buy some bedding for my room, and I don't get quite as confused now when people say they're "at uni." The driving on the left side of the road thing still freaks me out occasionally, though.

I got a chance to walk a little ways into campus, and it's very pretty, with lots of trees and greenery. Plus, they have signs that point you in the direction of certain buildings, which was very helpful. So today and tomorrow are all about getting settled in my room and having a look around campus. And of course, getting rid of the jet lag. Overall, it's been tiring but really exciting!

Here are a couple pictures of my room. It's actually much more spacious than I thought it would be!