before i forget

1. i am obsessed with earl gray tea. i like to put a little milk in the bottom of my mug than pour the tea in. so. good. i'm going for my third cup today.
2. i saw a girl about my age give up her seat to a pregnant woman on the tube today. she then struck up a conversation with the woman about how far along she was (34 weeks) and if this was her first child (yes). the woman looked so relieved to be sitting down and genuinely happy that someone was taking an interest in her day and how she was doing. it was extremely heartwarming to witness. (<--i'm so corny.)
3. it occurred to me that i've been on the tube every single day since i arrived here. getting the most out of my oyster card that's for sure.
4. i accidentally gave two people wrong directions today. i felt extremely bad afterwards. the first was a girl abour 13 or 14 who wanted to transfer lines and i told her to go up the stairs. then it occured to me that we werent' in a transfer station. dur. and the second one was an older british lady, probably in her early 60's, who asked which was knightsbridge was. i had just gotten off the tube and was a little disoriented and sent her in the complete wrong direction. both of these things could have been prevented if i'd only taken the time to really think about the question before answering. hopefully karma realizes i feel really bad about it and doesn't come back to get me.
5. i've noticed that the inhabitants of london have this terrible habit of exiting buildings and forming a solid wall of bodies spanning the sidewalk, then walking at a pace that would make sloths cringe. it's impossible to get around them. and they're going painfully slow. it's like they have no concept of the world around them and it severely irks me. not that i'm some speedy walker, but i like to maintain a brisk stride and these folks just aren't allowing it. no bueno.
6. the people watching here is incredible. and the street musicians? glorious.
7. even though i have no problem whipping out my camera at home and snapping pictures of absolutely everything, i'm really self-conscience about it here. i feel like the second i pull it out everyone is going to turn and point and chat 'TOURIST TOURIST TOURIST!'. i know this won't happen. and even if it did, so what? i kind of am a tourist. i just find it strange that i'm more comfortable taking pictures like a tourist in philly, where i live, than abroad.

just had to get that stuff out there before i forgot. commuting on the tube provides ample time for reflection.

cupcakes & dinosaurs

before i tell you about the cool stuff i'm doing, can i mention some of my nerdier endeavors? mainly me watching mighty boosh all the freakin' time. i'm seriously obsessed. i'm watching it online and sometimes it takes FOR-EV-ER to load, but it's so worth it. totally ridiculous characters and jokes and plotlines. and the songs! my favorite characters so far have been the spirit of jazz and charlie, the hubba bubba nightmare. and i looooove naboo and fossil's description of animals. for those of you unfamiliar with the boosh, here's a small taste. it makes me miss my brother actually- i feel like he would loooove boosh.

in more exciting news: i got a delicious cupcake! on wednesday, we went to hummingbird bakery (i thought i passed this on the street, but when i looked it up i realized it wasn't on any street i had ever been on before . . . maybe i dreamt about it? i've been having extremely vivid dreams lately so this wouldn't be a stretch.) and it was incredible. keiran got a lavender cupcake, christine got some crazy rocky road chocolate covered marshmallow mountain thing, and i got something called a 'black bottom'. i had no idea what to get and just kind of panicked and randomly ordered it but thank god i did. it was chocolate cake on the bottom, choco chip cheesecake on the top, and cream cheese icing on the top. yes yes yes. there was a serious lack of baked goods in my diet and this really hit the spot.

yesterday, i hit up the natural history museum solo. (i'm digging this whole 'museums by myself thing'. i'm trying to make it kind of a regular deal.) while the exhibits were a little juvenile, i'm a total sucker for taxidermy and captions and just museum layouts in general. the dinosaurs were incredible (and i'm always amazed by how large they are and the fact that they lived on earth! and yet we still don't know everything about them. so interesting. also, they were talking about how this one dinosaur had a kind of built in horn in it's head that it could blow to warn other dinos of danger. dinosaurs had so many cool features.) and i loved the mammals as well. whales? totally crazy. huge. there were a bunch of weird captions/exhibits in the museum that made me laugh out loud, which in turn made me look like a crazy person since i was by myself. the one that really got me, was about camel's body temperature compared to humans. it was cute little narrative with little wooden figures in a diorama. when the sun came out and they started to sweat, little clear beads popped up above their heads and when it got too hot, the wooden man figure just fell over. so cute. i was hysterical.

i also started my internship last night! i'm working with this guy, Dylan Emery, who is super involved in London's impro scene (sidenote: did you know that london's scene is relatively young? it only got swinging about 5 years ago. and it's pretty small too. . . interesting, since london is such a major city. . .). i saw a catch23 show (3 impro teams of 2 players each must do 4 scenes totaling 23 minutes. points are awarded yadda yadda yadda. super fun) everyone was super nice and the show was so much fun to watch. it made me miss doing improv at home. i'm excited to get into it here though. there's a guy, tim, from chicago (he's on the musical team baby wants candy) and he's going to do a couple workshops while he's in town so hopefully i'll get to go to some of those. it was so nice talking to another american as dumb as that sounds. i missed that american connection! and i feel like he understood some of the things i was going through with culture shock.

so overall: yay for the past few days! good things abound! this weekend = curry festival! and sara walsh gets here! and open house weekend! i'm looking forward to exploring.

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.

during our orientation, before we even got to london, they explained that there are several stages study abroad students experience. there's the honeymoon stage when you're still just stupid excited to be somewhere new, something we jokingly called the 'rage stage' when you get annoyed by all the differences, the humor stage, and something like the 'don't want to leave ever' stage. i'm definitely entering into the rage stage right now. not in a hulk-out kind of way. more in a sad charlie brown way complete with an incessant inner monologue. i know, i know. i'm still transitioning. we've only been here a week and a half. but it's incredibly jarring to go from a place where you feel comfortable, surrounded by people, where you have your own space and a very solid sense of identity to an entirely new city, full of new people, with nothing that's really yours, and only a handful of friends. (and very good friends at that. i'm incredibly lucky to be with the people i'm with. they're best case scenario. )

i think the thing i'm struggling with most is the concept of living here, yet being a tourist. i want to be a tourist because it's what i'm used to- if you're in a different country, you have to cram it all in and see everything. but i'm actually living here. when i live in philly, i don't feel the need to go out all the time. i don't feel guilty about having nights in or even afternoons spent reading and napping. because that's just general life. but i feel like the time i have here is so limited and precious, i need to constantly be seeing things and doing things and it's been exhausting. i think i was also hoping that keeping extremely busy would curb any homesickness that may arise.

but it's kind of a hollow busy-ness. i'm beginning to realize more, as i rush around trying to fill my time, how much i value the people in my life. the times that stick out in my memory as being especially fun are linked more to the people i was with than the location or activity. and just in general- any human interaction, making any connection. i enjoy that so much more than going specific places or seeing specific things.

i know. it's only been a week and a half. it's a transition. it's like freshman year all over again. but i'm allowed to throw this stuff out on my blog right? that's what blogs are for. and i am having fun. everyone just always gushes about how incredible studying abroad is so i think i had some unrealistic expectations. i just thought it'd be day one. best time ever. confetti and best friends everywhere. not really. but kind of.

this week = internship interview. starting my internship. knitting club. mumford&sons dj event. possibly a weekend away. hopefully more settling and moving away from the rage stage. humor stage sounds like much more fun.

reflections on life in the foggy city

i've officially been here for a week now. a whole friggin' week. it simultaneously feels like it's been much longer and like i just got here. i didn't give a whole lot of thought to what it means to be studying in a foreign city- i just kind of it had it on my list. that sounds really terrible, but I wasn't expecting much of a culture shock. I just wanted a change of scenery and a chance to explore a different city. and they speak english, right? it can't be that different. yet it feels very very different. two of my classes (travel writing and innovation in uk media) require us to be very self-reflective and really analyze our place as foreign students. we're putting ourselves in the position of being an outsider, and though we move beyond the dreaded title of tourist because we're attempting to understand the culture better and staying longer, we still don't have the ability to assimilate fully. though london is a strange place to experience this- the city itself is so international. you constantly hear different languages and see different nationalities represented in the tube or the pub and even talking to people you realize how many arent' native londoners. and yet, i still feel very alienated in this incredibly diverse city. i feel like my american accent immediately draws negative attention. and somehow, i feel dumber when I talk to people. I know it's general practice among the college-age liberal crowd to hate on america, but i've never really had that mindset. I'm proud of where I'm from and i'm not going to trash talk my country. at the same time, i'm very aware of how we're viewed globally and i feel the need to downplay my 'american-ness' as much as possible for fear of feeding into even the smallest of stereotypes. it's very strange to try and live in an entirely new country. visiting, that's pretty easy, but living is a whole other game. again, i've only been here a week and hopefully once I start my internship it will be easier to meet British people and become more immersed in london life outside of FIE and my american flatmates. but as of now it's a very strange feeling. i'm going to try to think more about what i'm doing here and through what lenses i'm experiencing things. and ya'll might even get to read about my mental ramblings on this thing! waaahooo!

in fun news:
- keiran and i went to high tea with two other girls in our flat. the tube was on a 24 hour strike so we had to take the bus and traffic was INSANE. we were sitting completely still on the bus, crawling about an inch a minute (if that) and after an hour and a half, some guy on the bus got so fed-up he pushed the emergency exit button and just hopped off the bus. most of us followed suit. walking was so much faster. we each got our own little pot of tea and an adoorrrrable tray of pastries. i'm talking scones with clotted cream and jam, cupcakes, brownies, blondies, meringues, raspberry marshmallows- the works. we were totally stuffed. keir and i stayed quite a while chatting about feminism and sippin' our tea. then we left and went to the sir john soane museum.This guy was an architect and designed his house to hold his massive collections of junk. Mostly roman and greek stuff but also tons of art and random little knick knacks. He would let people come and tour his house and use the architecture artifacts as teaching tools for london architecture students. when he gave tours late at night, he would use oil lamps (like thousands of them) to illuminate the basement. so, every first tuesday of the month, the museum hosts candlelight tours of the museum. people literally line up down the block to get in and check this place out. it was verrrry cool.
- i bought some banana bread beer. smells skunky, but the aftertaste is legit banana bread. strange.
- SAW A FOX. not like an attractive man. like a legit, lives in a hole, fox. on the streets. just smelling some trash. keiran tried to chase it. it was so surreal. took a lot of pictures.
-played the worst game of pool ever. none of us know how to play and it was supremely embarassing.
-we've also been going to pubs and bars, taking advantage of the lowered drinking age, and imma just throw this out there, but it's not all it's cracked up to be. first off, drinks are mad expensive. and that's not even counting the pound to dollar conversion. second, i'm not used to going to bars in america so i have no idea what proper bar etiquette is/ how to act. not that i'm acting a fool up in these places, but i just feel like a kid at a middle school dance. that level of awkward. my lack of know-how coupled with the fact that i'm on the younger end of the age spectrum and i'm distinctly a yankee, means i stick out like a sore thumb and feel like the town leper. hopefully, this gets better as time goes on.
- my classes are all super interesting. we're taking a lot of field trips and i feel like there will be lots of opportunities for discussion/reflection. also: british professors = best accents. distracting at times though.
- got some cheese samples at the grocery store yesterday and dear god, i am back on the cheese wagon 100%. i don't have the budget for it, but i would like nothing more than to just sit in the whole foods cheese room (because that exists here. and it is heaven.) and waste away my entire savings account. christine and i decided that's the one thing we'll splurge on in france- wine and cheese tastings.

LUN-DONE

back home it's like what? 9:24 pm? it's friggin' 2:24 am here! it's crraaazzayyyy! time is wacky!

i've been in london three days now! and i figure i'm due for a blog update- so you know i'm still alive/having adventures/jamming up your google reader/taking pictures of food. we got in early on thursday morning (fornwald and i flew direct out of newark- i sat between him and a nice man from limerick who slept soundly the entire flight. i had some trouble falling asleep but the inflight movies were pretty legit so it was all good. once we got to the airport we waited for keiran and then took the tube to kensington. high point of tube ride: when fornwald tried to straight up walk through the glass doors (they normally open automatically) low point of the tube ride: dragging 65+ pounds of luggage up stairs. thank god some man helped keiran and i but seriously. we were dying.)

we check in and got our keys blah blah blah- we're living right across from hyde park in a super fancy part of town (like, average going price for a place in the hood is 800,000 pounds. crazy.) we're right next to the dutch embassy and some royalty. pretty much just like temple. our row home is divided into 'flats' (floors) and each flat has a kitchen, common room, dining room-ish area, and several bathrooms. then we each have our bedrooms- i'm rooming with keiran and christine (bunk beds! holla!) in a teeny tiny little room. no desks, three big ol' cupboards for our clothes, and it's always freezing. but the wallpaper is beautiful (3D!) and our house is big and glorious. there's more temple kids on the 4th floor of the house and some other guys in the basement.

yesterday was full of orientations blah blah and today was sight seeing. we had an awesome blue badge tour guide for our coach tour (tony) and he was actually the most hilarious old british man in the world. saw some harry potter buildings. saw mary poppins buildings. got sweets at a sweet shop. pretty legit. i can't wait to go exploring. it's surprising how much i recognize from my visit here in '05. weird.

that's all the boring stuff- i feel like i'll save the exciting 'going-out-and-actually-doing-things' part for tomorrow when i'm not exhausted and can do it justice. ya'll deserve it.

here we go

all packed up (one large suitcase, a smaller duffel bag, and my carry on) and ready to head out. my flight isn't until 7:20pm but i'm a nervous traveler so i like to get there ridiculously early. this sounds so stupid, but it still hasn't hit me that i'm going to be away for three months. maybe when i get to the airport it while. but right now i'm still just going along like it ain't no thang. our flight is eight hours and we arrive in heathrow around 7:40 am. we then have a hellish hour-long tube ride which i'm already dreading- the combined weight of my luggage is close to 65 pounds. dragging that up stairs? when there's a crowd? no thank you. i'll be traveling with my friend matt, who has only been on a plane one other time so it should be interesting- at least i'll have company/someone to help me read signs/someone to reassure me i'm not crazy. i'm not sure when i'll have internet access again but until then, farewell dear bloggy. i'll be back soon, posting from a whole new address in a whole new country.