Sketches from Europe

A little late in coming, but these are some of my sketches from Europe:

Rialto Bridge

Arch at Chatsworth

Wilton House

Marie Antionette's Little Hamlet

Notre Dame

The David

Villa Savoye

Eiffel Tower

Bathtub at Villa Savoye

Millenium Bridge

Tower Bridge

Fireplace

Big Ben

Comparing Europe...

Italy:
Italy was the ultimate vacation. Rome was full of history and culture to fulfill educational needs. Florence was the true 'foreign country' experience, with it's merchants and bartering. Venice was everything a vacation should be. . .full of beauty, experience, and fun. Italy was a fantastic combination of city, country, and beach with the additions of good food, interesting culture, and once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

Paris:
Paris was a city experience. It was fast paced, dirty, and smelly. It had better parts than others, where there could be an appearance of beauty, but it was mostly just the blur of a city. It was a good introdution to metropolis life, but it was not an experience that I would choose over other opportunities.

London:
London was amazing. Purely and simply amazing. London carries the city-vibe as well, but small homey neighborhoods and the wide-open country are well within reach. London is full of entertainment, culture, and life. The culture is similar enough to home to feel comfortable, but different enough to create a learning experience. England was simply a dream come true.

Goodbye Europe...

Last day in London…and Europe for that matter. I’m sad, but at the same time sooo ready to go home. For our last day, we went to visit the Queen. . .even though she wasn’t home. We got to Buckingham Palace around 9:15, and after getting sent into and out of line twice, we finally got our tickets and went inside. We did an audio tour through the house. A lot of the palace was designed by John Nash, even though Parliament strongly disapproved of his spending. After the King George IV died (he had commissioned Nash), Parliament quickly took him off of the project and it was finished by others. It was pretty similar to the other palaces we’ve seen, just a little more extravagant. One of the major design trends in the palace was white and gold ceilings that really added to the rooms. One of my favorite parts of the palace was the grand staircase. Just the way it was placed and served not only it’s function, but also as a focal point and template for the layout of the room was, in my opinion anyway, a great example of form following function. Although Buckingham Palace has a form of gardens, we didn’t really tour any of the grounds. The rest of the day was a free day, so Michelle and I left to do some last minute souvenir shopping at Piccadilly Circus. We got a little lost on our way back to St. James subway station, and somehow ended up at Victoria station…which was closed due to somebody dying…I think. The announcement sounded like it said that somebody fell off a train. Surprisingly, that happens a lot here. After finding that out, we had to walk another ten minutes to St. James Park, and do a transfer. It was a great adventure. We finally got to Piccadilly Circus, found the shop we were looking for, and spent too much time and money shopping for gifts. But we got some good stuff, so it was worth it. From there we just headed home, stopping at Hummingbird Cupcakes on the way. They’re supposed to be, like, the best cupcakes you ever eat, but I tried two different kinds and wasn’t super impressed with either. But I had to try them. The rest of the day was pretty boring; I packed, did some final homework stuff, mailed some postcards (Yes, I know it’s really late), and cleaned up. We all hung out in the common room for a while, then Kylee, Megan, Michelle and I went out for dinner. That’s pretty much the end of my day….5 am at the train station, 9 hour flight, 3 ½ hour layover, 4 hour flight, then 2 hour drive home all tomorrow…whoot! America, here I come!!

August 1-3: Last weekend in London...and Europe, for that matter!

For this blog, I’m combining Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, August 1st through 3rd. On Saturday, I didn’t go out to do anything except walk to the gas station. Other than that short walk, I just worked on homework, which was desperately necessary. Sunday wasn’t much more exciting, but I did do a couple of things. The morning was filled with more homework and relaxing, then in the afternoon I met up with Whitney, Jenna, and Laura. We got on the metro and took a couple of stops to Hyde Park Corner, and started walking around Hyde Park, which is like the Central Park of London. It is so massive. We spent over an hour just walking through it. It was well worth it thought. There are flower gardens of all different kinds all over the park. It was so incredibly pretty. There was also this tree that was sort of inverted, so the main trunk grew upwards, and then all of the branches grew down to the ground, making the tree like a cave. There were opening where you could walk in under the tree. I’ve never seen anything like it before and I wish I had discovered a tree like that as a kid because it would’ve been heaven for pretend-games! From there, we continued through the park on the Princess Diana memorial walkway. There are plaques on the ground along the pathway that have Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Walk engraved in them with a design in the center. We took the path all the way down to the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain. The fountain is arranged in an oval and it just continually flows into itself. There was a little boy playing in the fountain, and I thought it was cute, so I took a picture of him, and he saw me taking the picture, stopped playing, and kicked water at me. I guess he didn’t want his picture taken…but I got it anyway, so there! I got the last word on a 4 year old! After Hyde Park we got back on the metro and went over to Covent Gardens, which is just a shopping and entertainment area. We didn’t get there until about 7, so most of the shops were closed down, but there were still live entertainers out. There was one group where this guy in the group would run through the audience and encourage people to clap their hands and dance, while occasionally doing some comedy, and then he would run back and play his instrument with the group. They all played string instruments and while they were playing, they started dancing around and clicking their heels and stuff like that. It was really entertaining. I left shortly after getting there because I wanted to be back by 8, and that was pretty much the end of my night.
On Monday, Whitney and I had planned to go to the Imperial War Museum. We weren’t meeting until noon, but I woke up around 8:30 due to my chatty roommates (if you girls are reading this, I love you anyway), so I had plenty of time to get ready. We left a little before noon, and it took us about 20 minutes to get there, but at least we found it pretty easily. It was such an amazing museum…it was definitely in my top 3 for this trip. It’s mostly focused on World War II right now because their special exhibit is a Holocaust exhibit, but they had a lot of stuff from World War I also. When you walk in on the ground floor, all you can see is tanks and planes everywhere. The tanks cover the ground and the planes are suspended from the ceiling. Walking around the ground floor you start to see more than the tanks, such as a submarine exhibit, military gars, missiles, and cannons. The submarine exhibit was really interesting. It wasn’t an actual submarine, it was just an enclosed exhibit that we walked through, but there were pieces of submarines inside of the exhibit and they had it arranged sort of like a submarine. They had replicas of the beds set up and of the toilets, as well as the instructions for using the toilets. Apparently, they were really complicated to operate, with a series of 8 instructions, and if they weren’t followed exactly, the toilet could shoot back up at the user. They also had little bits of random information posted throughout the exhibit, like that when people in submarines found dead mice, it caused a lot of worry because it meant that the oxygen in the sub was low. There was also a board with a quote from Winston Churchill mentioning that submarine work is the most dangerous military work. We spent most of our time on the second floor in the Holocaust exhibit. It was so powerful and moving. Parts of it made me physically ill. They had a lot of stuff about Jewish life before Hitler and the war, and then the exhibit went through the Holocaust and to the end of the war. They had pictures, journals, and possessions from Jews that survived in hiding. They had the original hand written pages of Anne Frank’s diary that were recovered from the house that she was hiding in. They also had quotes posted from survivors of the Holocaust, such as Elie Wiesel. There was also a large model of Auschwitz, the main camp, with explanations of what would happen in that part of the camp as you walk by the model. They have pictures posted of every stage of the camp, except from inside the gas chambers obviously. On the back of the model display, they had a glass case stuffed with tattered shoes that the Jews had worn on their way to the camps. There was also a sign saying how the Nazi’s would even use the dead bodies for economic purposes, such as weaving their hair into cloth (that’s the part that made me ill) and using the ashes from the crematory for fertilizers. I felt like a disgusting person because I was so interesting in the exhibit. I can’t even fathom how it’s possible for people to do something like that to other human beings…I can’t understand hate that intense. There were quotes posted from Nazi soldiers describing the screams of dying children, yet after experiencing…and even causing…those screams, they continued to do what they were doing. It was heinous and it’s disgusting for me to think about, even though I had nothing to do with it. The exhibit was so powerful and moving that I walked out of it nearly in tears. It was absolutely incredible. On a lighter note, we continued through the rest of the museum to the collections of uniforms, guns, and items from both World Wars. The way they had it displayed was really cool because they had different rooms set up with things from the wars from all of the different countries that were involved. The Imperial War Museum really was one of the best museums I’ve seen.
After the museum, I went home and napped for about an hour, and then at about 6 Amanda and I left to see As You Like It at Shakespeare’s Globe theater. We had standing tickets so we wanted to be there early to get a good spot. The play was a little over 2 and a half hours long, and with the exception of 10 minutes during the intermission, we had to stand the whole time, but it really wasn’t that bad. And it was so worth it! The play was absolutely hilarious. The story is a comedy about 2 female cousins, one of whom is the daughter of the current Duke, and the other is the daughter of the Duke’s brother, who was previously the Duke until he was banished from the country by the current Duke (I hope that made sense). The current Duke gets mad and banishes his niece as well, and his daughter decides that she has to go with her cousin, so Rosalind (the niece) disguises herself as a man, and Celia (the daughter) disguises herself as a plain woman, and they head into the forest of Arden to find Rosalind’s father. Meanwhile, before running, Rosalind met Orlando and they were instantly in love, and he also ran to the forest because his brother was trying to kill him, so he’s in the forest looking for her, finds her disguised and believes the disguise, and the man version of Rosalind is teaching Orlando how to court Rosalind. Throughout the play, everyone’s falling in love with everyone, some that could never work (such as a woman falling in love with Rosalind while she’s disguised as a man), and it’s just a mess. It all works out though, with four weddings at the end. As You Like It is the play with one of Shakespeare’s most famous quotes, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” It was so much fun to see it in his original theater, standing just as they would have then.
Although I didn’t do very much, it was a really great weekend. The perfect mix of relaxation, studying, and playing!

July 31: Haddon and Chatsworth

Friday morning we caught a train out to a small town called Chesterfield, in the Derbyshire area of England. A bus picked us up at the train station to take us out to Haddon Hall. Haddon Hall is one of the best surviving medieval homes in England. Its history dates back to the 12th century. The main families of the house are the Vernon’s and the Manners. It is now owned and lived in by Lord and Lady Edward Manners. It was abandoned as a home in the 1700’s, then in the 1920’s the 9th Duke and Duchess of Rutland restored it and made it livable. There are now some modern parts to the house, like a kitchen, but the original kitchen is still used once a year for a Tudor group dinner. Besides the house, we also got to tour the chapel and the courtyards. The chapel was very small compared to others that we’ve seen, but it was still really pretty. Originally, all the walls had painting on them, but now all of the color and most of the base has faded away. It is still possible to see some patterns and images though. One wall in particular has a very large depiction of St. Christopher carrying Jesus through the river. There is also a carved memorial to one of the Lords of the house. It is not the original carving, however. It depicts the young Lord in his death. Apparently he died very young, and his mother carved a memorial. Haddon Hall had a really interesting collection of Tudor furniture and décor. It wasn’t the most extravagant of the places that we’ve visited, but it was very rich in a historical sense. It was probably extravagant at one point in time, but it’s very worn now. It’s pretty close to what I would imagine medieval places to look; dark and dreary, with lots of stone and almost a small castle-like appearance. Besides being a home and a tourist attraction, Haddon has also been used to film a few movies, such as The Princess Bride, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth and others.
After Haddon Hall we took the bus over to Chatsworth. Our bus driver told us that Haddon and Chatsworth are basically neighbors, but the region is full of hills, so you can’t see one from the other, or drive straight across. Chatsworth has been and still is the home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, probably the most well known Dukes and Duchesses throughout history. Lady Georgiana, the one that the movie The Duchess is about, lived there with her husband, the 5th Duke of Devonshire. As usual, the weather wasn’t the greatest, so we decided to tour the gardens first to try to avoid the rain. The land at Chatsworth is pretty extensive, so we spent about an hour and a half going through some of the gardens (really, we missed a lot of them). We walked down to the coal tunnel, which is still open to the public, but decided not to go in. It’s been raining for a couple of weeks, so there was quite a bit of water laying in the bottom of the tunnel and we didn’t feel like getting that wet, so we just took pictures outside of the tunnel and pretended that we walked through it. From there we went up to the Rock Garden, which was really cool. It had rock formations that you could walk through, waterfalls over some rocks, and a lookout point that we hiked up to. It was probably the most creative of the gardens we’ve seen since it used a different medium than pretty plants and flowers. Next to the Secret Garden at Blenheim, this one was my second favorite. From the Rock Garden we cut through a very muddy path (Kylee and Michelle were both in sandals, and it was really entertaining) to the Sensory Gardens. This particular garden apparently was designed to intrigue all of the senses, but I didn’t really get that from it. It smelled good, and I touched a plant, but that was about the extent of the use of my senses. By this time it was about 2, and we hadn’t eaten yet, so we went to the restaurant. It was ridiculously overpriced (I paid 8 pounds, which is about $14 for a bowl of soup, chips, a roll, and a piece of cheesecake) but aren’t they all? It was pretty good though, and we were hungry so it fit our needs. The cheesecake was amazing…probably the best part of my lunch (that makes me sound like a fat kid). After lunch, we headed back to tour the house, which surprisingly was the fastest part of the day. It only took about an hour. There was one section that was dedicated to an exhibition showing the filming of The Duchess and the history behind it. It was really interesting to see all of the history and compare it to how it was portrayed in the movie. The normal part of the house was so pretty. The staircases were some of my favorite of the ones we’ve seen. They were pretty basic, but the banisters were gorgeous and the walls around were covered in paintings with large paintings above the landings. I feel like we missed a lot of the house because it’s currently under a very extensive restoration plan. The sculpture room was also very beautiful, and this room can actually be seen in the Kiera Knightly version of Pride and Prejudice. After touring the house, we took the bus back to the station and a train back to London. We didn’t get back to London until almost 8, so the rest of the night was pretty relaxed; we just hung out in the flats and worked on homework…that seems to be how most of our evenings are spent in London. Well, at least the flats are nice!

July 30: Anybody care for a bath? Tea? Music?

The initial plan for Thursday was for everybody to go to Bath, but Darrin and Susie made it a free day…Kylee, Megan, Amanda, Julia, and I went to Bath anyway. And I’m so glad we did. We went to the Roman Baths first, which were really interesting. We did an audio tour so we listed to the history behind different parts of the bath house and temple while we were walking through it. It’s really fascinating that people came up with things that ingenious that long ago. To the left is a model of the building and the water system. The way the water is pulled through the buildings and the drainage systems were absolutely incredible. It was definitely simple and basic, but almost modern in the way it worked. It was just done in a different way than using electricity, but basically the same concept. The baths consisted of a temple and the bath house. The temple was dedicated to the Goddess Minerva. The bath house consisted of the main bath, smaller baths, a chilled bath, and changing and waiting rooms. Although women and men would bathe together, there were separate changing rooms. Some of the baths were meant for healing, so people with all different kinds of ailments would share the same bath. The patrons believed in the healing powers of the baths because all of the water came from the sacred spring that they believed to be blessed by the Gods. The water in the main bath is still from the same system of water that the Romans originally used. Seeing the Roman baths was probably my favorite part of all of the Roman history we’ve seen on the trip…except for the Coliseum.
When we bought our tickets into the baths, we bought the ticket that included the Fashion Museum. However, the museum is not in the same place as the baths, so we had to walk through town to get to it (that was really only about 10 minutes, it’s a pretty small town). The Fashion Museum was so awesome. It was really small, but so cool. They had collections of classic gowns and suits. They had one dress where the hips were about 6 feet wide. There was also a collection of dresses of the year from about the past 20 years. Some of them were absolutely hideous, but most of them were really pretty. One of my favorite parts of the museum was the dress up area. They had corsets and wire skirt frames that we got to try on. We all got dressed up and took pictures. It was a little ridiculous but a lot of fun. The museum also had a special collection called The Supremes. The collection was just what it sounds like; collections of costumes worn by the Supremes. It was such a good collection. Besides, the costumes, they also had boards and screens with little bits of history about the group and the time period, as well as information on black rights movements.
After the museum, we went over to the Jane Austen Center. Jane Austen lived in the city of Bath for a while, so they have dedications to her all over the place. At the center, there were men dressed like Jane Austen’s time period outside, so we stopped and took pictures with them. We went inside through the gift shop, but didn’t go through the actual center. It wasn’t her actual home, it was just a home dedicated to her, and it was a little pricey so we skipped it. After the gift shop, we went up stairs to the restaurant and had an official tea party with tea, finger sandwiches, crumpets, scones, and cake. Kylee and I split the meal called ‘Tea With Mr. Darcy’, which included little cucumber and cheese finger sandwiches, two scones with clotted cream, two different kinds of tea, and two pieces of cake. The sandwiches, tea, and scones were really good (for me anyway, Kylee wasn’t a fan of the tea), but I didn’t like the cake too much. We got one slice of carrot cake, which I usually like, but didn’t, and we also decided to try the Victoria sponge cake (it’s really common here), which I didn’t like either. It’s a regular sponge cake with fruit and cream through the center. I liked it better than the carrot cake, but neither one was very good. But it was still really fun to have a tea party! All of us had to be back in London by about 6 for shows, so after our food, we hurried (literally ran) back to the train station to barely catch the train at 4:13. We got there 1 minute and 20 seconds before it left.
When we got back to London, Julia and I ate a small dinner really quick and then left to go to Les Miserables. We were running a little late (and I thought we were running really late because I saw a clock that was about 10 minutes fast), so when we got off the metro we jogged to the theater. We made it about 15 minutes before the show started though. We had side view seats so part of the stage was blocked, but our seats weren’t bad for what we paid. Les Mis was so amazing! It was really powerful and moving; both Julia and I cried. I still think that Wicked was more entertaining overall, but Les Mis was definitely worth seeing. I loved it and would strongly suggest it to anyone who has not seen it. Now I just have to read the book…

July 29: Heaven, Hell, and Stamford

Wednesday morning we took a train out to a town called Stamford. From there, we got on a bus to go out to Burghley House. Burghley House was built by William Cecil in the 1500’s, and though the house is still lived in by the Cecil family, it is owned by a historical trust. Something a little different about Burghley is that the family owns their own herd of deer, and they just hang out in front of the house on the grounds. Apparently, the deer that are there now are descendents of the original deer. The deer are obviously very use to people being around, and are super friendly. They ran away from us when we were all in a group (if I were a deer, I would run away from 30 people coming towards me), but when we got into smaller groups, they let us walk right up and touch them and feed them. They ate right out of our hands. It was a little bit scary because most of them had antlers, but it was really fun at the same time. How often does one get to hand feed a herd of deer at a mansion in England? Because the deer just roam in the ‘front yard’, as you would imagine, there are deer droppings everywhere. A big thing in London is to ‘mind the gap’, referring to the gaps between subway trains and platforms, because apparently people fall into them and are injured or killed. So, every time you’re anywhere near a platform, you hear announcements and see signs saying ‘mind the gap’. As we’re walking across the lawn, dodging massive amounts of deer droppings, Brady came up with a new pegged term: mind the shat. No, that’s not a typo…it’s really shat. ‘Mind the shat’ was our phrase for the rest of the day. While Burghley was really pretty, it was not one of my favorites of the house we’ve seen. The furniture collections inside were incredible though. And the ceilings of the Heaven and Hell rooms were really amazing as well. The paintings on these ceilings depict, obviously, Heaven and Hell. The first one is Heaven, depicting happiness, luxuries, and comforts. I actually liked the Hell room better though. The ceiling in the Heaven room looked like many that we’ve seen, with clouds and angels and Gods. Light blues, whites, and yellows are common colors used. In the Hell room, though, the ceiling was very brave in my opinion. It was not a happy, flattering depiction. It was dark and painful looking. There was the face of a huge red beast in the center. The entire concept, and the details used to portray it such as the scenes and colors, was very different from most of the things that we’ve seen. I feel that it was a very bold step for a commissioned artist, and home owner. It added a completely different feeling to that particular room. It was really fascinating. After going through the home, we didn’t really have much time to go through the gardens because we had to be back on the bus. The bus took us into the middle of Stamford and dropped us off for a couple of hours to go through the town on our own. It was a really cute little town and was sort of a stereotype of what you would expect a little English town (at first, I was actually thinking it was stereotypical of New England, but then I realized that those stereotypes came from England). There were quaint little shops and cobblestone alleys; a large church in the center. Plus, it was raining, which seems to be a staple to the environment here. Megan, Kylee, Michelle and I only looked around the town for a little over an hour, and then we headed back to the bus to wait…and to get out of the rain. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. After getting back to London, I went to Leicester square with Amanda and Julia to buy tickets for Les Miserables the next day, then went home and went to Subway with Kylee. Though Burghley was not, in my opinion, one of the top homes we’ve visited, it still made for a pretty good day.

Note: I didn't charge my camera the night before, so no pictures from today. Whoops!

July 28: Blenheim Palace

Tuesday, just like every other day this week, started out with a train. This particular train was going to Oxford. Our main goal there was Blenheim Palace. Blenheim Palace has always been the home of the Dukes of Marlborough, which also happen to be the Churchill-Spencer family, such as Sir Winston Churchill and Lady Diana Spencer (now known as Princess Diana). The house was given to the first Duke as a gift in honor of his leading to victory at the Battle of Blenheim against the French. The house is still lived in and owned by the family, more specifically right now, the 11th Duke of Marlborough. It was kind of a drab day (rainy, windy…how it’s been since we got here), so we decided to do all the gardens first in case the rain got worse. There is so much ground at Blenheim…2100 acres to be exact. There are multiple gardens situated all over the lands. My favorite garden by far, not just of Blenheim, but of all the gardens we’ve seen, was the Secret Garden. It was so beautiful. It was such a perfect setting, and there was so much attention to little details that made such a huge difference. It wasn’t a laid out garden like the French ones, instead it was walkways and paths laid out through very natural looking landscapes. There was a stream running through that occasionally went over a man-made waterfall. It was so pretty. We also went into the Rose Garden, which is pretty self explanatory. The roses were arranged going outward in a circle from a center point, and were all different colors. I have never seen so many different colors of roses. We tried to go up to the cascades, but apparently they were under construction, so we headed back to the house. The palace was designed by architect Sir John Vanbrugh. When he designed it, he designed it in perspective, so it is best viewed from a distance. It was still amazing to view it from right in front of it thought. The tour of the palace was split into two different sections. The first section that we went through was the State Rooms. This was the normal rooms of the palace, like bedrooms, dining rooms, halls, etc. The most famous person to have lived at Blenheim was Sir Winston Churchill. We got to see the room where he was born and some of his clothing from childhood. We also got to see original copies of letters he had written to his father when he was in school. Another famous resident was Lady Diana Spencer (later Princess Diana). We got to see a copy of the wedding announcement for her marriage to the Prince of Wales. Because of all of these things, Blenheim was not only really interesting architecturally, but also historically. The family of the Duke of Marlborough still lives in the palace now, in the same rooms as the first Duke and Duchess. Wouldn’t that be nice? Blenheim is a pretty popular place, being used to film movies such as Indiana Jones (Last Crusade) and Harry Potter 5. After the house, we took a little train (like the ones at the zoo, and I love them!) to get to other parts of the grounds, where we went into the Butterfly House. This is exactly what it sounds like…a greenhouse filled with different plants and butterfly species. It was such a different thing to see at a place like Blenheim. The butterflies were all different sizes and colors. One of them had about an 8 inch wing span…it was huge. We also went into an attraction area that had a hedge maze! Apparently, it’s the second largest hedge maze in the world. It was so much fun; way better than any of the corn mazes I’ve been too…Kylee and Megan really got lost though. I got out of the maze pretty quick, so I went in the café and got a cup of tea (really, just to warm up…it was freezing) and wait for everyone else. We started to head back to the main house so that we could catch a bus to go back to London…and found out that the last little train back to the house left at 5:30…this was at 5:35. So we had to walk up the road back to the main gates (about a mile or so). When we were almost to the gates, some people that had just walked up there stopped us to tell us that the gates were closed and that we would have to go around to get out of the grounds. So, we took the scenic tour past the bridge and the lake and across the rest of the grounds, out the side gate, through the village, and finally to the bus stop…just to miss the bus by 30 seconds (it was pulling away when we were trying to cross the street). Luckily, another bus was coming about 5 minutes later, so we didn’t have to wait long. The bus took us as far as city center, and then we walked the rest of the way to the train station. We barely made it to the last train back to London by 15 minutes. After the fiasco of getting there, we finally made it back to London and called it a night.

July 27: Sausage, Scaffolding, and Stones!

Monday was another early start day. Not 5:30 in the morning, but still pretty early. We were headed out to Wilton House. Wilton House is where the Earl of Pembroke lives and has for many generations. The current Earl has only held the title for about 7 years, and is getting married next year. He was the only son of 7 kids, so there is no ‘spare heir’, so it’s all on him to produce a son. The house was really pretty. Of all the famous homes and palaces that we’ve seen, Wilton House is the only one that I could actually live in. It was large and extravagant enough to be interesting, but small enough to be manageable and to not feel empty. I like it a lot. It also had more natural grounds, with just large grassy fields, and some hedge work with walkways and stuff like that. Much homier than huge manicured gardens. We had a guided tour through the house and over the grounds. We were able to go up on the bridge, which is something most tours don’t get to do. The bridge was built by one of the Earls, and it was inspired by the Rialto Bridge in Venice. We got to see the parts of the house where certain movies have been filmed. A couple of scenes from the Kiera Knightly version of Pride and Prejudice were filmed in the rooms at Wilton. It was small and humble, but it really was a great house.
After Wilton House, we headed back into the main town of Salisbury. We got dropped off by a bus and walked a couple of blocks to Salisbury Cathedral. We split into groups and went through different tours. The other group got to go on a tour of the cathedral as well as the roof tour, but we only did the roof tour. It was incredible though! We first climbed up to the second floor of the cathedral, where we could look out over the inside of the church, kind of like the dome at St. Peters. Then we went up and around into the roof above the cathedral, on top of the vaulting. We got to walk through the rafters and see how the roof was constructed and supported, as well as walk along the length of the roof on the inside. After that, we went into the room that holds that mechanism that controls the bells, and from there, up a staircase into the bell chamber. The cathedral has 4 quarter bells that chime on the quarter hour, and then on big bell that chimes on every hour. Our guide explained that it’s hard for older cathedrals to have multiple bells that ring a lot because throughout the years the vibrations from the ringing destroy the buildings. Also, the bells themselves don’t actually swing anymore, there’s just a mechanism on the inside of the bell that hits it to make the sound. From there we went up one more staircase, to the bottom of the spire, which used to be the top of the church. There is no public access allowed up the actual spire, but we got to stand at the bottom of it and look up through the scaffolding. The tower is the tallest hollow structure still standing in Europe. Also, the scaffolding is believed to be the longest standing scaffolding, because most scaffolding is taken down after the completion of the project. At the bottom of the spire we also got to go out onto a very narrow balcony to look out over the town of Salisbury. In some places, you can see up to 14 miles away. The views were amazing. This was by far one of the most interesting tours we’ve done.
After the cathedral, we got into taxi vans and headed out to Stonehenge. We got to do an audio tour around Stonehenge that talked about the history (what we know, anyway), and the different stones, and some of the speculations of what it was for, as well as the area around it. It was so great! Stonehenge is another one of those places where I felt like it was only a place in pictures and that I couldn’t actually get there…but I got there! Whoot whoot! They’ve had it roped off for the last couple of years, so the public can’t actually go up and touch the stones or anything anymore. In all reality, that’s probably for the better, but it’s still a little bit annoying. Too bad that some stupid people have to ruin things for everyone else! We spent about 30 minutes around Stonehenge, just looking at info and taking pictures. Afterwards, we took our taxis back to the train station and caught a late train back to London. We didn’t get back until almost 10, so we were out for over 12 hours, but it was such an amazing day, and completely worth the exhaustion.

PS: This post has absolutely nothing to do with sausage. I was trying to come up with a name, and asked Kylee and Amanda for words related to house that starts with and S, and Amanda said sausage...so there it is!

July 25th

This day was our second day in London. It was much more eventful that the first. We got up around 9:30 so that we could get ready and go to the Nottinghill Market. Apparently they do a big outdoor market on Saturday’s that’s one of the most popular ones in the surrounding area. People come from all around London and the smaller towns in and around it to shop at this market, so we thought it would be a lot of fun to go. We took more time than we planned getting ready, and didn’t actually make it to Nottinghill until about 11:30. We weren’t in much of a hurry though. When we got there it was so packed. We walked down Portobello Road, and the market is near the end of the road. We split into smaller groups, and I stayed with Julia and Amanda, and we didn’t actually make it to the market until after 1. Instead, we found really fun, cheap shopping on the way to the market. We found a couple clothing stores where everything was 5 pounds, so about $8. I got a pair of shoes and a shirt, and Julia and Amanda got quite a few shirts and some shoes. It was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, these were very small stores, leaving no room for fitting rooms, so we just had to try stuff on over our clothes in the middle of the store and look in mirrors…it was quite the experience. We eventually made it down to the market . . . I think (I’m not sure if we made it to the actual market, or just more stores that had stuff set outside), and it wasn’t as interesting as I thought it would be. There were some cool things to look at, like little antiques and trinkets, but nothing that I would really want to buy. And there wasn’t as much stuff as I expected, which is kind of what leads me to believe that we didn’t make it to the actual market. But it was still a lot of fun, nonetheless. This was the first time on the trip that I had actually gone shopping, so it was nice to just go around with a couple girls and try on ridiculous amounts of clothing. After Nottinghill, we headed over to Shakespeare’s Globe, again crossing the Millennium Bridge, which made us think of Harry Potter. Our plan was to get tickets to As You Like It for that night, but when we got there we found out that it’s not like the other theaters where you can buy tickets the day of. Apparently, they usually sell out weeks if not months before the night of the show. Luckily, we were able to get tickets for Monday, August 3rd, so we’ll be able to go then. Our tickets are standing tickets, so we’ll have to stand for almost 3 hours, but they were only 5 pounds, and I don’t think it will be that bad. The play will make it go by quicker. After the Globe, I walked with Julia and Amanda down to Tower Bridge. They were going through the Tower of London, so I walked with them to there and then got on the subway. (Dad, I know you’re reading this, and don’t worry, I was safe. I stayed in populated areas and I was only by myself for about an hour. :) ) I took the subway to Kennington and transferred onto a different line to go to Leicester Square. I grabbed some lunch and went shopping for a few minutes (finally bought a sweater!), and then headed home. I was planning on going out to dinner with a couple of girls later in the evening, but they ended up going to a musical, so I just stayed in for the night. It was another really slow day, but it was actually a lot of fun.

July 24: Wicked!!

Friday was our first free day in London, and most of it was pretty uneventful. Megan came in around 9:30 to get us to go try to buy tickets to Billy Elliot. I didn’t want to see Billy Elliot, so I just stayed in bed, and Kylee had been up super late, so she stayed in bed as well, and Amanda and Julia went with her. When they came back, they woke us up to tell us that Billy Elliot was sold out, so they bought all four of us tickets to see Wicked!! For only 45 pounds! I was really excited. By this time, it was about noon. Yup, that’s right, we had stayed in bed until noon. It was amazing. This trip is great, but we are going all the time, and it is so exhausting, so having a chance to sleep in ridiculously late is a rare and beautiful thing. We finally got up and got ready. Kylee went out after about an hour to do a bunch of stuff that she and some other girls had planned. Julia and Amanda went running, and I was going to go to the Imperial War Museum with them when they got back. A few minutes before they came back, it got super stormy, and I decided that I didn’t really want to spend another day outside in the cold weather. So I just decided to stay in. I got to work on some homework, relax, and actually take my time to get ready for Wicked. Not to mention, I got some time by myself. I love hanging out with most of the girls here, but 5 weeks with the same people gets a little bit hard. It was nice to be by myself for a while. Wicked started at 7:30, but we were leaving at 6:30, so around 5, I started getting ready. I had offered to start making dinner before Amanda and Julia got home. We were having hamburgers, and I thought they would take a while to make because our stove doesn’t really work that well. I took the meat out of the fridge and figured out how to defrost it in our microwave, and I also found that one of our burners works just fine, so it only took about 20 minutes to make the hamburgers. Amanda and Julia got home about 10 minutes after they were done, so it was perfect timing. After we ate, I finished getting ready and we left for Wicked. We were supposed to be meeting Kylee at the Victoria station around 6:45. When we got there though, she wasn’t there. We waited for a while, and the rest of our group came, but we couldn’t find her. So we waited at the station and the rest of the group went over to the theater (it was only across the street). At about 7:10, right when we needed to leave to go into the show, Susie came back and said that they had found Kylee at the theater. So now that we were all together again, we headed into the theater. It was so amazing! The stage set up was so cool. And the show was fantastic! I will never be able to look at the Wizard of Oz the same way again. For those of you who don’t know the story, Wicked is a musical about how Glenda becomes the good witch and how the Wicked Witch of the West becomes known as Wicked. It also shows where the Tin Man and the Scarecrow come from. It was such a good musical. Afterwards, on our way home, I ran into Susie, Terry, and Becky, and they were going to eat, so I decided to go with them. It was too late to go to a restaurant, so they got Chinese food, and I went to Subway. Spending the evening watching Wicked more than made up for not doing anything else today!

July 23rd: Day at Cambridge

Thursday was our day trip out to Cambridge, located about 50 miles north of London. A bunch of us were running late, so we had to rush quite a bit to catch our train, but we made it with 4 minutes to spare! When we arrived at the train station in Cambridge, we stopped for some drinks and pastries. After two days in a row of having hot drinks and pastries in the morning, I’m convinced that it should become a daily occurrence. It makes for such a better morning. Our booking with our tour guides didn’t start for a while, so Darrin led us around Cambridge to the point where we would need to meet, and then gave us about 45 minutes of free time. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to get stuff done. I ran back to the post office to grab some stamps, which was really convenient because it’s the only chance I’ve had to get to a post office during business hours since we’ve been in London. The woman at the post office was really annoyed with my debit card. Apparently, in the UK, writing ‘see id’ on the back of your card does not count as a signature (in the US, ‘see id’ is accepted as a signature as long as you can present id). She finally sold me the stamps, but was really discontent with the idea of my signature being on my driver’s license rather than my card. I had two credit cards with my name on them, a government issued card that also had my name and a photo, plus a copy of my signature, and she was still skeptical that the card was really mine. It was a little bit ridiculous. But oh well, I got the stamps. After the post office, I went back to our meeting point and waited on a bench. There was a little old man sitting next to me, who was quite entertaining. There was a map posted on the wall behind us, and every time somebody would come to look at the map, he felt the need to stand up and explain to them that the map was situated in the wrong direction (north was not up), ask them where they were going, and then proceed to show them where it was on the map and how to get there. I think he secretly wanted to be a tour guide. After a few minutes, the rest of our group started to come back and we headed off to meet our guides. We split into two different groups, and the group that I was in headed off to tour King’s College Chapel. Our tour guide, Sally, made various stops on the way to point out different sites and throw in different bits of Cambridge history. She told us about a Cambridge University holiday, May week. May week actually occurs in June, after final exams, and is two weeks long. It’s kind of like our spring break, where everyone just relaxes and has fun, regardless of how their grades are turning out. She explained that an old May week tradition is night climbing, which is where students climb up buildings to pull pranks on certain nights between the hours of midnight and 6am. Some of them over the years have been pretty creative. Big pranks don’t happen as much anymore, because measures have been added to make sure students can’t climb certain buildings. Eventually, we made it into King’s College Chapel. The architecture was similar to other churches that we’ve seen, but the interior was completely different. The stain glass windows were there, and there was beautiful fan vaulting, but that was the most elaborate of the decorations. Everything was unpainted inside. There were decorations on the wall that had been placed by Henry VIII. The chapel took over 100 years to complete, due to consistently running out of money. It is done in perpendicular Gothic style, which came late in the Gothic period. The building of the chapel was started by Henry VI, who wanted it to be very plain with no interior decorations, because he felt that this was more righteous than embellishing the chapel with décor. Even the small amount of decoration that was added by Henry VIII was more than Henry VI wanted. Our guide explained some of the implications of the decoration. Above one of the stained glass windows that has a full image of Christ in it is an H, for Henry VIII. This symbolizes that Henry was putting himself above Christ and God. She also pointed out interesting historical points, such as different parts of the church have the initial H with different attached initials, indicating the different wives of Henry VIII. It was interesting to be able to see exactly when certain parts of the church had been built due to the initials that were on that part. After King’s College Chapel, we went to All Saints Church, a much smaller church. The most interesting part of this church was a large stained glass window at the front with images of different saints. William Morrison helped design this church, and in one of the images on the window, the face of the saint is believed to be the face of William Morrison, and another is believed to be his wife.
After this we broke for lunch. We went to the Eagle Pub, which has been in Cambridge for many years. The ceiling in part of the pub is covered in signatures of American soldiers from WWII. Across from the pub is the laboratory where the double helix was first mentioned. For lunch, I had fish and chips for the first time. It was not what I expected. The fish is like an entire fish battered and fried. I was thinking strips of fish filets. The chips were fries that were very greasy and fried (but really good). It was served with ketchup and tartar sauce. For some reason, I was expecting different types of condiments. It was not quite as good as I expected (the fish was a little bland for my tastes), but it was still really good, and I had to try fish and chips in England. I’m sure I will try some again. I’ve heard that the best places to get it are actually little hole in the wall places rather than a pub or a restaurant.
After lunch, we met back with the rest of the group to complete our tour. Megan and I ended up getting switched into the other group, so now we had the other tour guide. He was still pretty interesting. We went to a museum, and he showed us different paintings from different movements. I actually really liked him because he analyzed the paintings and explained what was happening and the significance of that particular painting to the movement. It made it a lot more interesting that just looking at more classical paintings. We were in the museum for a little over an hour, but it really went by pretty quick. After the museum, we went punting, which was by far my favorite part of the trip. Punting is an activity where a group of people sit in a little row-type boat, and a punt chauffer stands on the back of the boat and ‘punts’. This is done with a 24 foot pole that the punt chauffer pushes off the bottom of the river with to propel the boat. It was so much fun. Our punt chauffer was a boy named Orlando, who actually was a student at Oxford, but he worked in Cambridge. He was hilarious. He was a classic example of that dry British humor. He chatted with us the whole time, occasionally tossing in historical facts about Cambridge. We learned about a couple of the different colleges (there are 31 total so it would’ve taken days to learn about all of them). We got to see the first bridge put over the river, which gave the town its name (the river is the Cam river, so when the bridge was built, the Cam had been bridged, making it Cambridge). Also, we got to see some of the spots that had been used to film the Harry Potter movies (we seem to be seeing a lot of those places here). Punting really was a fantastic way to end the day…I think it should become a worldwide activity. Punting down the Logan river? I think so.

July 22nd: Magic carpet ride...

Good morning…or not so much. We had to get up at 4:45 am today to be at the train station by 5:45. It was miserable. Trains should not run that early. Between the metro, train, bus and waiting time, it took us 3 hours to get to our destination: Brinton’s Carpet in Kidderminster. At least we had a little extra time to sleep on the train and bus though . . . and after getting up that early, we all took full advantage of that time. When we arrived, they took us into a room with chairs set up and design boards all over. They also had coffee, tea, water and cookies set out which made us all a little cheerier. I had a cup of tea (English breakfast tea in England? I think it’s pretty necessary), and some ginger cookies, which were incredible! The staff did an introduction presentation about Brinton’s Carpet, and then split us into groups. My group went to the archivist first. It was absolutely incredible how large of a design library and archive the company has. There were shelves and shelves full of binders from the floor to the ceiling with different collections from the past 200 years. There were tons of cabinets filled with books from different time periods, movements, regions, and designers that the company uses for inspiration. The archivist showed us some of the original patterns, and one was even signed by King Albert. It was really amazing. We got to look through the old Japanese stencils that have been kept for centuries, and original sketches and hand paintings from the company’s designers over the years. She explained to us that the archive in this building was the main archive for all of Brinton’s worldwide. Some of it is uploaded into an electronic database, but not all, and the manufacturers in different cities in the world all call there to get records and inspiration. Brinton’s still uses many of their traditional patterns, either as they are or with a modern twist. It really is incredible that a carpet company retained that much stuff over 200 years, because usually stuff like that gets thrown away because the designers and or company don’t think that the trends will come back. Styles come and go, and once they’re not popular anymore, what’s the point in keeping them? It’s a good thing they did though. After the archivist, we went to our session with the designers. One designer in particular, a residential carpet designer, is the one that talked to us about everything. He talked about the staff, and the differences between the company’s commercial and residential designers. Considering there are only a couple of designers on staff, they really do put out a ton of work. He explained the programs that they use, and the process from getting a pattern from a sketch to an actual carpet. He showed us some of their newer stuff that’s just starting to come out. They’re trying to do bolder, more modern patterns. I liked them a lot. Rather than a full pattern across, they’re doing patterns that fade to plain, either from the side out or the center out. He showed us some of the design boards that they’ve had to do from conventions and stuff. Their goal was to make the board itself a piece of art, rather than just pictures stuck on, so all of the pictures we’re in collages and cut out in patterns. They were really cool. And I definitely do not envy the person that had to cut them all out. These couple of sessions had filled our morning: 9 to 12, so after the designer chat it was time for lunch. Brinton’s was providing lunch for us, which was really great. It was a little weird, because they had some pretty classic British food, which includes sausages and other meats wrapped in breads and pastries. I tried one that wasn’t bad, but the others were a little strange. They also served normal sub style sandwiches, chips, and juice. I had a tuna sandwich…I think. It was definitely fish, and probably tuna, but with different stuff mixed in than I’m used to. It was still really good though, and free food is always a bonus! We ate pretty quickly and still had an hour left for our lunch break, so most of us curled up on the carpet strips on the ground to lie down and chat. Some people fell asleep for a while. Surprisingly, I did not. Whoot, go me! After lunch, our group went to tour the factory. We had to wear bright yellow vests for safety, and weird headphones so that we could hear our guide over the weaving machines. They made great accessories to our dress outfits…not. The factory was really interesting. We started in the area where they dye the yarn. The yarn comes in on pallets every day, and they have a machine that picks up a stack of like 4 pallets, sets them in a pot to be dyed, and then pulls them back out. It’s amazing that they can dye that much at once and still have all the yarn be a consistent color. After being dyed, the different colored yarns are stored on shelves that go from the floor to the ceiling until they need to be used. From there, we went to the part of the factory where they prepare the colors of yarn that they will need for a particular carpet. This is done by dropping a specific amount of yarn into one section of a big box. The sections are completely separated, so the different colors of yarn are placed in the different sections, corresponding to where they need to be in the weave. It really is an innovative process. And all of the machines used by Brinton’s were designed and built by the company, which is more impressive. From there we went to the looms, where the carpet is actually weaved. We got to watch them work for a while, which was really cool. It’s amazing to see what looks like a mess of yarn go into a machine and come out a large piece of patterned carpet. Unfortunately, we were moving too quickly to take in pictures of the archives and the designer works, and they don't allow pictures in the factory. So no pictures for today. But regardless, Brinton’s was a fabulous place to tour, and I think it would be a great place to work. They have a factory in Las Vegas, and the main USA headquarters is in Georgia…internship, maybe??

Patterns

These are my 3 museum patterns from London. The first one with the floral and stripes was inspired by the ironwork collection at the V&A Museum. The second one, the squares, was inspired from modern artwork at the Tate Modern museum. And finally, the third one, with the circles, was inspired by the coin collections at the British Museum.

July 21st: Sick in London

I was really sick this day and didn't do anything, making this a very boring post. I simply wanted to make a post to keep track of the days. I did learn that our flat is very foreboding when there's only one person in here!

July 20th: Museums, monuments, and magic!

We started Monday morning with the Victoria and Albert museum. It was such a good museum. It had a ton of variety ranging from ancient to classic to modern. And there were so many different types of collections. There were paintings, jewelry, a modern fantasy collection, ironworks, fashion, and many others. It was really nice to walk through a museum and see different things instead of a bunch of the same things. One really cool thing in this museum was the really famous white beaded dress and jacket that Diana wore. We also had an assignment to do patterns from 3 different museums, and the V&A museum was one. So for the museum, we split into groups that were led by the different juniors that did the Angela Adams pattern assignment last year. Our group did a few exercises where we would pick an object, sit down in front of it for a while and sketch a pattern inspired by the object. It was a really good exercise but I seem to struggle a lot with patterns. But this is the first time I’ve ever done patterns, so hopefully it’ll get better.
After the V&A, we walked down to Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. The Tower is located on the north bank of the Thames river. It is now preserved as a historical monument. The tower is made up of several buildings behind defensive walls and a moat. When it was actually used, many important people were imprisoned and executed there. The bridge crosses the river. It was really cool to see because it was like a real castle. Like bricks, towers, drawbridges, and all. It really felt like Old England. It was really interesting.
On our way to the Tate Modern Museum, we walked by London City Hall and went inside to look around. London City Hall is a really modern building designed by Norman Foster. It is in the shape of an egg and the exterior is all windows. The exterior of the building is made up of almost 4,000 glass panels. It was really cool inside. You walk down a spiral ramp that is mimicked by a spiral mirror on the ceiling. It’s really interesting. The shape of the building was chosen so that they could fit more space inside without taking up space on the ground. I think it works out really well. It’s one of my favorite buildings that we’ve visited so far. After stopping at London City Hall, we walked by the Globe (Shakespeare theatre), and continued on to Tate Modern Museum. It was a really great museum. We weren’t allowed to take pictures in any of it, so I probably won’t remember too much of it in a month, but I enjoyed it while I was there! It was a lot of really interesting art. It was all modern, as opposed to a just a modern collection in a museum. The only other completely modern museum that we’ve been to was the Pompidou in Paris, so it was really nice to have another modern museum day. There were 6 floors to the museum, but only 2 of them were free to the public so that made it very manageable. Much better than viewing all 6 floors. Some of the art was a little bit too weird for me though. Some of it was so out there that there were warning signs about explicit content and children under 16 weren’t allowed in the rooms. I guess anything can be seen in an artistic way, but some things are harder to understand than others. But it’s good to be exposed to different styles, I guess. All of these things took up most of our day, until about 6 pm. At that point, we split up, and I went with Beccah, Whitney, Malory, and Jenna over to Leicester Square to buy theatre tickets for Harry Potter 6! That’s right, we saw it in London…in the same theatre that they did the premier in. The movie didn’t start until 7:45, so we got some Burger King (much better than the McDonalds in Italy), and ate in the square. At around 7:30, everyone else started showing up, but it was too full for us to be able to sit together, so it was just the 5 of us. But that was just fine. The movie was so amazing! A lot of people have criticized this one more than the others but I thought it was just as good. And it made it even better than a lot of the places that they show in the London parts of the movie were places that we had gone to that day such as the area around London City Hall and the Millennium Bridge. The Millennium Bridge is the bridge that the death eaters tear down at the beginning of the movie, and we had just walked across it an hour earlier to get to the metro to Leicester Square. It was really weird. After Harry Potter, we headed back to the flats (around 11:15, it was a long movie) and hung out at home for the rest of the night. As a great finish to the day I got to chat with Nash for the first time, which I loved. The day was incredibly long, but the exhaustion was well worth it!