adventures

so many adventures in the past few days! here's how things have been going down:

friday
i went to the british museum solo. it's an absolutely massive building- there's no way you can get through it in a day. my favorite parts were the rosetta stone (duh), the exhibit on watches and clocks, and this excellent exhibit on death & illness in other cultures. (one village in africa makes coffins shaped like people's passions or hobbies or dreams and they had a coffin on display that looked like a giant camera and another one that looked like a big phoenix. it was incredible. they also had an exhibit laying out all the pills people take in their life. very interesting stuff.) at night, we headed to ye olde cheshire cheese which is one of Dicken's old haunts (he even wrote about it in a tale of two cities) We were pleasantly surprised to find that pints were a mere £1.90 which is the cheapest we've come across so far. the pub itself was full of small rooms, some gloomy and wooden, others cozy and full of antique-y red couches. it was originally built in the 1600's, but burnt to the ground in the great fire and was rebuilt shortly after. so old! very cool.

saturday
woke up later than we wanted to (**for the most part, when i say 'we', i mean my roommates and i. occasionally my fornwald is thrown into the mix or lauren or pat, but it's mostly just us three stooges.) and headed out for portobello market. it was PACKED but full of good people watching material and neat antiques and good smelling food. we headed out pretty early, vowing to drag our butts out of bed earlier next weekend to try and beat the crowds. then we headed to brick lane for bagels (we accidentally walked through the film set of the new x-men movie! we saw a crazy powered wheelchair zipping around! and motorcycles! it looked legit.). brick lane is full of vintage stores and indian food. literally, that's all it is. it's kind of like my heaven. we browsed some vintage shops and markets and got cheapy, fresh bagels with cream cheese & lox. we then decided we were exhausted and headed home.

sunday
we took it easy. woke up and tried to go to speaker's corner (every sunday morning, people show up there, stand on soapboxes and talk about whatever. mostly political and religious rants, but still very cool and something we wanted to see.) however, after walking half an hour through hyde park, it occurred to us that we had no idea where we were going. so we sat by the marble arch for a while, people-watching and discussing our thoughts on the trip so far. then we headed back to do homework (because i am still at school, though i often forget) and catch up on sleep. sunday night we headed out with a huge crowd of temple kids to check out the thames festival. i got really good thai street food and wandering around. it was packed and there were all kinds of stalls and performers. very cool. we ended up on one of london's many bridges to watch the fireworks. and while the fireworks were incredible (they filled the entire sky!) it was so strange- the crowd was completely silent the entire time. they just watched. it was almost reverent. and a very different experience than i'm used to. very enjoyable.

monday
my creativity in advertising class went to the tate modern for a field trip. a guide lead us around and lead us in several discussions on the art and gave us creativity exercises (my favorite was playing the game telephone with a ball of clay. you had to sculpt something behind your back, show it to the person next to you and they had to replicate it and so on. then we all shared and it was strange to see how much the shape changed.) i'm normally not a huge modern art person, but this museum was incredible. our guide was very good and got me thinking about art in a lot of new ways, including the value of process or process as product. afterward, i had my travel writing class and we were sent out onto the streets to observe people and try to act as a flaneur (a key term for the course, and a very interesting concept.) i really like the teacher in that class and i feel like we have some fairly good discussions about our experiences and how we experience tings.

tuesday
had my interview for my internship, that was less like an interview and more like just a meeting. he told me all the things i'll be doing and i'm very excited. it sounds like a lot of working from home (exciting in the sense that i get to set my own hours) and seeing free improv! i'll keep you updated on details as i learn more/start doing more. i start thursday night! the rest of the day was spent lounging around and catching up with people. i do miss everyone at home, but don't worry folks! i'm having a good time! again, it's just a transition period. happens to us all.