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!

July 19th: off to London!

Sunday morning we got up to take the train to London. We had to leave around 10:30. A bus took us and our luggage to the train station, and then we had to go through two sets of border control: one to leave France, and one to enter the UK. Leaving France wasn’t too bad, but entering the UK was a little intimidating. While they were looking at our passports, they interrogated us on why we were going there, where we were staying, how long we were staying, how many people were with us, etc., etc. The guy that was questioning me was really soft spoken, so I couldn’t really hear what he was saying and I had to keep asking him to repeat the questions. Also, we weren’t allowed to tell them that we were in a study abroad group, because most study abroad trips are through a sister university that is in the country you’re going to, and they send you special documents. Our trip isn’t connected to another university, so we don’t have those documents, so we just had to tell them that we were traveling with a large group of friends. I’m pretty sure the guy could tell that I was intimidated, but he was really polite and let me through without a problem. On the other transfers that we’ve had, we’ve all sat next to each other on the trains, but that wasn’t the case with this one. We were all spread out across different cars. Luckily, I was seated next to Jenna instead of somebody I don’t know. We talked for a few minutes, and then, of course, I fell asleep for the rest of the train ride. I’m kind of sad that I missed going through the Chunnel, but I’m sure it was just dark. I didn’t wake up until a few minutes after we got into London. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a bus or anything to take us to our flats, so we had to haul our luggage through the metro system, referred to as ‘the tube’ here. It actually went a lot better than I would have expected, except all of blocking the stairs by hauling our luggage up and down them. When we got to our flats (not a hotel anymore, they’re actual student housing like dorm rooms), we couldn’t get in right away, so we sat around outside. Then, as it does the first day of any city we go to, it started to rain. The resident life supervisor was really great and let us come in and bring our luggage inside and hang out in the common room until we got our keys. We did our little orientation meeting to learn all of the rules and everything, then got our keys and headed up to our flats. We’re 3 or 4 flights of stairs up (I didn’t count, it made me feel better), and there are no elevators, so we hauled our luggage up some more stairs. When we made it up, we were all so excited about our flats. They’re so nice. We have 4 bedrooms that just have beds and closets, 3 bathrooms all with showers, a fully stocked kitchen, and a common living area with a TV. They’re so great. Julia, Amanda, Kylee and I all share a bedroom, and so far it’s been a lot of fun.
After getting in, we took an hour to rest and freshen up then went grocery shopping. The four of us that are rooming together got groceries together, and it was only about 80 pounds for all four of us, which was about 130 dollars (stupid conversion rates!). But we should be ok for most of the 2 weeks here, and 20 pounds a piece is way cheaper than it would be to eat out every night. The grocery store was closing 45 minutes after we got there, so we had to rush through like crazy, but we got almost everything we needed. Unfortunately, we had to carry all of our groceries home. It’s only a few blocks though. We stopped at a movie rental store on the way home to rent Harry Potter 5 to prepare to see the new one. When we got back to the flats, we quickly put our groceries away and headed back downstairs to meet Darrin for our walking tour of London. We got on the metro and went to Leicester Square, which is kind of like the Times Square of London. There are a few movie theatres surrounding the square, and those are the movie theatres that London movie premiers are done in. We walked around other parts of London and saw the Parliament building, Big Ben, and some other smaller sites. We got to see a couple of the Queen’s guards, which was pretty cool. After walking around London, we came back to the flats and just worked on homework and got settled in.

July 18th

Saturday was our last day in Paris. We were free until 2 pm, but I just stayed in the hotel and worked on some homework. At 2, we all met to catch a bus out to Fontainebleau. I have no idea how long the bus ride was because I fell asleep. . . I can’t seem to stay awake on any form up transportation except the airplane. But anyway, when we got there, it was amazing. I had never realized how large Fontainebleau actually was. It is arranged in a similar U layout of Versailles, with a symmetrical staircase right in the front that comes out in a half circle from each side. There is a long walkway leading up to the front entrance that is lined with potted trees on each side. Although it wasn’t completely symmetrical on the sides of the U shape, I think that Fontainebleau looked a lot more cohesive that Versailles. I felt like the sides of Versailles looked like a bunch of different buildings, whereas Fontainebleau looks like different parts of the same building. Fontainebleau was a predecessor of Versailles, serving as a home for the royal family. In all, over 30 royals, from Louis VI to Napoleon III spent time there. The inside of the building was gorgeous. There were aspects of many different styles, due to so many renovations by different rulers, but it still came together really well. One of the coolest features was the fireplaces. Almost all of the rooms had a fireplace, and many of them were elaborately decorated. Some had decorative mirrors or sculptures above them. Also, the chandeliers throughout the different rooms were incredible. While some were quite large, most of them were a fairly modest size and there was usually more than 1 in a room. The chapel inside of the palace is also incredibly beautiful. We also got to see one of the most famous rooms, the library. The public is not allowed to walk through it, but the front of it is open so you can see into the entire room. Standing at the front of it, it seems like such a long room. Books fill the walls on both sides, and near the viewing point, in the middle of the room is a massive globe. Also, we got to see the throne of Napoleon, which is the only surviving original throne in France. It’s obviously in the Napoleon style, draped in blue and yellow fabric covered with little wasps (Napoleon’s signature image), and a large N at the top of the canopy. Most of the building had fallen into bad shape during the Revolution, but Napoleon Bonaparte restored it so that he could live there instead of at Versailles, which had been kept in better shape throughout the war. Fontainebleau is arranged around a series of courtyards, so we sort of walked through those as well. We didn’t walk through them as extensively as the gardens at Versailles, but we did go through the one in the back. They had a little sorbet stand set up in the back that Darrin said was really good, so we got some sorbet and ate it on the edge of the pond. I didn’t think the sorbet was really that great, but the setting was nice!
From there, we got back on the bus and headed to Vaux le Vicomte. On the way, we stopped at a grocery store to pick up food for a picnic for dinner, because we were supposed to stay at Vaux until midnight. A bunch of us shopped together, and got stuff for sandwiches, fruit, chips. . .stuff like that. When we got to Vaux we went into the picnic area, which seemed like camping. Vaux is basically set in the forest, and the picnic area is just the little clearing off the side of the parking lot where benches and tables are set up. We made our dinners, and it was so nice to just eat normal food instead of restaurant food. We took about an hour for dinner, and then we headed into Vaux. Vaux is the palace that Nicolas Fouquet lived in until Louis XIV had him arrested and sentenced to life in prison. It’s much smaller than Fontainebleau or Versailles, but in all honesty I like it the best. It’s just one straight building rather than being in a U layout. Vaux is also going through restoration, and half of the roof has been restored so far. We were at Vaux so late in the day because we were doing a candlelight tour. So there were candles lit on all of the window seals and all around the building, inside and out. It was so extraordinary. It made you feel like you were actually walking through the house in the 17th century. It was so much better than doing a normal tour. Also, they had figures set up in scenes throughout the house. They used projection screens to make them appear to have facial movement, and speakers with conversations coming through. It was really interesting. They had scenes of business meetings, Nicolas doing personal work, and even one of a ball happening in one of the rooms. That one was really cool because they just had a few figures up in front and then a projection screen into an archway, making it look like it opened up into another room where people were dancing. The way all of this was presented really brought the house to life. We also got to walk through the dungeon/basement under the building. Written on plaques on the walls was the entire story of Nicolas’ arrest and trial, and some of his life in prison. It was really interesting to be able to read the story as you walked through the dreary part of the building. After the basement, we were able to go into the gardens. Again, they weren’t as extravagant as Versailles, but they were still impressive. The goal was to continue the candlelight tour through the gardens, but it had started raining so they didn’t light the candles. There were still some regular lights though, so we could actually see it rather than just walking through in the dark. The gardens have decoratively cut shrubbery arranged in rectangular areas on each side, with a pond in the middle of the back. On the other side of the pond is a bridge, and a grassy hill continues up from there with a large statue on top. We only went as far as the front of the pond though. It was really pretty to face the house from the pond and see it with all the candles and lights. We didn’t linger in the gardens too long, due to the rain. We headed into the gift shop for a while to pass some time, and then headed back out to the bus around 11:00. Vaux le Vicomte was my favorite of the three, and it was such a good experience to go through in a unique way at night.

17th: Versailles

Friday morning, we got up and caught a train out to Versailles. Versailles started out as a royal hunting ground for Louis XIII. He built a small hunting lodge there so that he could stay overnight when he went hunting. He would usually take his son, Louis XIV with him, who later turned the lodge into the royal palace, and moved the royal family from Paris, the capital, to Versailles. It is widely believed that a large part of the reason Louis XIV had Versailles built was out of jealousy of Nicolas Fouquet and his chateau, Vaux le Vicomte. Louis claimed that the Nicolas, who was the financial minister, could not have built this chateau unless he had been embezzling money from the crown. So, Fouquet was arrested, given a “trial” (it was really just for show), and sentenced to banishment from France. Louis wasn’t happy with this sentence, so he changed it to life in prison. After Nicolas was out of the way, Louis employed the same architect and landscaper that had done Vaux to build Versailles. The royal family only lived at Versailles for a few generations, from Louis XIV to Louis XVI. During Louis XVI’s reign, the Parisian citizens became more and more angry with Louis, and especially his wife, Marie Antoinette. Near the beginnings of the French Revolution, mobs swarmed Versailles and removed the royal family by force. Both Louis and Marie Antoinette were later sentenced to death, and Versailles was no longer used as a palace. However, it was kept in decent shape throughout the Revolution and the years after, allowing it to become the popular tourist attraction that it is today.
When we got out to the palace, we met up with our tour guide, Sid. He was quite an eccentric man with a braided rat tail. He was a pretty good guide though. When we finally entered the palace, it was incredible. There is so much attention to every little detail. It was beautiful. Our tour guide walked us through the rooms, giving us a brief history of each. The royal apartments were really interesting. Sid showed us the door in Marie Antoinette’s bedroom that she used to escape when the palace was stormed. Actually, almost all of the bedrooms had doors that were painted or covered in some way to blend in with the wall. I had never realized that before, but I guess it was a pretty common thing. We also learned that in the royal chapel, when services were happening, everyone in attendance had to stand facing away from the priest because the King sat on a higher level in the back, and everyone had to face the King when he was in the room. So when services were happening, the only people facing the front of the chapel would be the royal family. It was really fortunate that we got to go to Versailles right now, because they’re working on restorations, so we got to see how the palace looks now, and a little bit of how it will look in a few years. Most of the restorations that were completed were redoing the gold leafing on the roof, and redoing the whole front gate. The goal is to make the palace look the way it did before the Revolution. I’d like to come back in a few years to see how it looks.
After walking through the palace, which actually seems much smaller on the inside, we went out to the gardens. When you walk out the back doors and see the gardens, they seem to extend forever. There are flowers and carefully cut trees and shrubberies everywhere. There are a ton of fountains! Unfortunately they weren’t operating, because they only operate on Saturdays and Sundays to cut back on water usage and cost. They were still really pretty though. We walked down through the main gardens, then stopped for lunch near a part called ‘Little Venice’. It’s a big pond referred to as the canal, and you can rent boats to row around on it like riding through Venice. We only had about 45 minutes for lunch, so we just picked a spot on the grass and started eating. We had all packed stuff so that we didn’t have to spend a bunch of money on the food at Versailles. It was a really good experience to sit down and enjoy lunch in the gardens of one of the most famous palaces in the world.
After lunch, Sid walked us out to the rest of the grounds, which include all of the little houses (some of them really aren’t that little) that had been built for the queens and kings to use for privacy (and occasional affairs). The farthest he walked us out was to Marie Antoinette’s little village outside of the gardens. She had been from the countryside and didn’t really enjoy the socialite life at Versailles, so she requested a small country like village be built for her personal use. It literally looked like a fairy tale. None of the buildings are fit for touring, so you can’t go in them, but just looking at them was incredible. It felt like you were in a little princess Barbie land. It was amazing. Sid left us there, and we all went our own ways. After taking some pictures, I started walking back to the palace (about a mile) with Caroline, Nancy, and Michelle. I wasn’t feeling too well, so I didn’t want to linger very long. Caroline and Nancy stopped halfway to meet with Darrin, and Michelle and I continued on to the palace and the train station. When we were almost back to the palace, it started to rain a little bit, so we tried to hurry to the train station. We used Darrin’s directions and were able to get ourselves back to Paris. When we got there, we walked by the bakery near our hotel to see if they had any sandwiches, but they didn’t so we just continued home. Michelle was going shopping, so we split at the corner, and I went to the hotel. It kind of sucked, because I spent the rest of the day in bed, but Versailles made for a really great half-day!

July 16th: From Villa Savoye to Eiffel Tower!

On the morning of the 16th, we caught a train out to Villa Savoye, designed by Corbusier. I slept on the whole train ride, which was pretty great. When we got there, it was in a really weird setting. Everything that we had done up to that point had been in a very developed urban area. Villa Savoye was different. It was in a more residential area, and it was set back away from the road in a little open space of its own surrounded by trees. It was one of those things that while you were looking at it, you kind of forgot what it was because it’s not possible to really be at Villa Savoye. It was unreal. We got to walk through the entire house, including the roof gardens, and of course the famous bathroom with the unique tub design. One thing I learned that I hadn’t realized before is that you can get anywhere in the house except for the basement by using a ramp. It was designed to not have to use the stairs. The bathroom was everything it’s ever been made out to be. It was so beautiful. After touring through the house, we sat outside for a while and sketched the house. It was a really hard thing to do, because I know that any sketch I could do would not do the building justice. Also, it was really difficult to get the proportions right on the bottom part of the building and on the columns. I feel like I did a pretty decent job though, compared to a lot of my other sketches.
After Villa Savoye we took the train back into Paris and went to a restaurant called Kong for lunch. The restaurant is significant because it was designed by Phillipe Stark. He also designed the Ghost chair, and that’s what we got to sit on at the restaurant. The restaurant was in the upper level of a high rise building, and the walls were lined with the windows so you could look down around you. The whole place was really cool. There was a lamp made out of a tutu, which was pretty interesting. And the food wasn’t half bad either. I had a club sandwich, which I thought would be pretty American, but that wasn’t really the case. The only similarities were meat, lettuce, and tomato. The bread was a different style, there was a weird sauce on it, and there was a fried egg on top of the sandwich. It was different, but it was probably some of the best food I’ve had in Europe. I want to start ordering my club sandwiches with a fried egg when I get back home.
From Kong, the group split in half, and half of us went to Notre Dame and the other half to the Musee d’Orsay. I was in the Notre Dame group because I hadn’t seen it yet. It really does deserve all of the fame that it has. It was an amazing church. It’s incredible to see the differences between Italian and French churches. The Italian churches were covered in mosaics and were usually longer. In France, the mosaics are replaced by stained glass, and the churches get so tall on the inside. The ceilings just seem to be expanding farther and farther up. It’s also really interesting to see the different arch styles because we spent so much time studying them in history. Seeing it in person brings on a whole new understanding. We tried to climb up to the top level of the church, but that part of it had closed about 15 minutes before we tried to do it so we had to skip it. When we were walking out the front of the church, there was a group of people surrounding a circular tile set into the cement, and Susie explained to us that the circle was the true center of Paris and that everything went out from that point. So of course we had to get pictures and especially a foot picture because it was a cool thing on the ground. We had no choice, right?
After Notre Dame, we went to the Musee d’O rsay. It was probably my favorite classical museum. It had a lot of the big movement and influential artists, such as Renoir, Van Gogh, Manet, and Monet. They had an entire room dedicated to Van Gogh, which was really cool. Unfortunately though, his most famous work, Starry Night, is not kept at this museum. But they did have his self portrait, which is probably the next best thing. They had Manet’s famous painting, Le dejeuner sur l’herbe, where the 3 people are eating, and the woman in front is naked and looking towards the viewer. They also had a great art nouveau collection, containing one of the original Paris metro signs by Hector Guimard. I liked this museum a lot because I felt like it had enough interesting things, but it wasn’t overwhelming. It only took us about 2 hours to get it done, which is much better than 5!
We also really wanted to climb the Eiffel tower that night, since we hadn’t been able to the previous nights. So at 8:15 we left the museum and rushed towards the Eiffel tower. We got a little delayed in the metro system because we got on at the wrong stop, but after a couple line transfers we figured it out. When we got to the tower, we realized that our rushing hadn’t been necessary because the top was actually open until 10:30, not 9. So we had plenty of time. We got in line to buy our tickets, and when we finally got through the line we took the elevator to the 2nd floor. The 2nd floor contains an overlook area, the official gift shop, and it’s also where you wait in line to go to the very top. It was so breathtaking to look out over the city at night. Paris is massive. It was also a bonus because there was a storm happening out around the edges of Paris, and we got to watch the lightening from the second floor. After taking pictures for about 5 minutes we got in line for the elevator to the top. We had been standing in line for about 5 minutes when it started to rain a little bit. Most of the 2nd floor is covered so it wasn’t really that big of a deal. . .until it started to downpour. The wind picked up a lot, and was blowing the rain straight in at us. Everyone in the line got down on their hands and knees to try to get protection, and it wasn’t really working very well. As many people as could fit crowded into the gift shop, and others crowded into doorways and under awnings. It was absolutely crazy. People were soaking wet within a few minutes. Although it was pretty fun, it was a little scary. It was a large group of people in a mild panic trapped on the middle of a tower. And there were some people being a little unreasonable. Everything turned out ok though, and the rain started to slow down, so we got back in line. Unfortunately, because of the storm they had closed off the top, because with winds that hard the top of the tower actually sways and it can be dangerous to be up there. So we got back in the elevator to go down, and it was broken. The storm had knocked it off level a little bit, so the doors wouldn’t close and the car couldn’t operate. We were stuck with about 20 people crowded into an elevator for a good 15 to 20 minutes. They couldn’t even let us out to go down the stairs because they had closed the stairs to protect people from slipping on them. It kind of sucked. And people were starting to get really pissed off, and the poor elevator attendant couldn’t do anything about the situation, but she still had to deal with the people. When the elevator was finally operational, we got down to the ground level and started walking home. It was not quite the Eiffel tower experience we were expecting; instead it was a whole new kind of tourist experience.

Wednesday July 15th

Wednesday morning, we started out the day by going to St. Chapelle. It’s a beautiful church in Paris. There are stained glass windows everywhere, and incredible patterns. The church is built in the Gothic style, built by Louis IX. The stained glass around the windows depicts many biblical figures. The entire roof and most of the walls were extravagantly patterned. It was one of the prettiest churches we’ve seen so far. We didn’t spend too much time at St. Chapelle because we had to hit the Pompidou and the Louvre museums in the same day. The Louvre is open later, so we went to the Pompidou first. It was by far my favorite museum of the trip so far. It was so fantastic. I could’ve stayed in there for hours. They had a small Mark Rothko collection, and he’s one of my favorites. I was a little disappointed though because they didn’t have my favorite piece by him, but it was still really cool to see. They also had collections of Jackson Pollock and Piet Mondrian, both of whom I like a lot as well. I also found some new artists that I really like, such as Simon Hantai. There were also collections of Matisse, Delaunay, and Picasso. There were furniture collections by Corbusier and Van de Rohe. It really was a great museum. Even the layout and architecture of the building itself is really unique and interesting. It was definitely one of my favorite places that we’ve visited.
After going through the Pompidou, we got a quick lunch at a crepery. I had a banana and sugar crepe and it was really good, but not really what I was expecting. I didn’t really like the flavor of the batter itself, and it was a little sweet for lunch, but I guess there were other kinds of more substance such as ham and cheese, which I tried a bite of and it was the best ham and cheese combination I’ve ever tasted. After lunch it was off to the Louvre. At the time, that seemed really exciting. That was before we walked around the Louvre for over 5 hours. It was really cool when we got there though. The pyramid was absolutely gorgeous. I’ve seen countless photos of it and even seen it in movies, but the photos don’t even come close to doing the structure justice. You walk through an archway that is the main entrance, and the pyramid builds up in front of you as you walk forward. When you can see the whole thing, it’s quite the scene. There are fountains surrounding it, and it looks really interesting because the fountains reflect in the glass of the structure, and the structure reflects in the water from the fountains. It was a really unique effect to see. My camera died right after the Pyramid, so I was only able to turn it on long enough to take a photo of the Mona Lisa. I didn’t get any other pictures in the Louvre, which is kind of depressing, but I’m sure I can copy them from someone else. Despite its length, it really was unbelievable to see some of the things in there. I’ve heard about them all my life, and again seen numerous photos and videos that show the pieces, but it’s such a different experience to actually see them in person. The first major thing that we saw was the Venus de Milo. It was actually really funny, because I was just looking around at other things, and then everyone stopped in front of me to gather in a group, and I couldn’t figure out why. It took a minute until I looked up and saw the statue in the center of the group. I guess I was missing the forest through the trees. I did finally notice her though and she was so incredible. I never realized that the statue was called Venus de Milo (Venus of Milo) because of the island she was found on. I thought that was just what the artist had named the statue, but I guess that wasn’t the case. The statue is believed to be the work of Alexandros, but it’s not known for sure. After seeing those two things, we made our way around the rest of the museum. We went through the Napoleon apartments, all the different time periods, different areas such as Mesopotamia and Greece. I really liked the Napoleon apartment. The entire museum was great, but I have to admit it was a little bit overwhelming. Walking the whole thing covers about 14 miles, and I feel like we did that. We spent over 5 hours in the Louvre. It kicked my butt. It was so exhausting…but still really amazing. After the Louvre, we went to a crepery that Megan had been to before. It was a really cool setup; you sat down in tables that were arranged around a center grill where they made all the food in front of you. Kylee and I shared a mushroom omelet. I didn’t understand though, that here when it’s called a ‘mushroom omelet’, that includes only eggs and mushrooms. No cheese. That was really weird to me. But it was pretty good anyway. We also shared a double chocolate dessert crepe that was sooo good! It was really rich though, so we couldn’t finish it. It had chocolate pieces and white chocolate ice cream and they both spread and melted together, so it was a little bit too much to handle.
After the long adventure at the Louvre and dinner, we still weren’t even close to done with our plans for the day. From dinner, we headed over to the Arc de Triumph. We climbed up all of the stairs to get to the top, and it hurt like hell. It was a miserable climb, but very worth it when we got to the top. The sun was starting to set, so we sat up there for about 15 minutes and watch most of the sunset over the entire city. It was super pretty. And it was really nice to just sit up there for a few minutes and relax. After a little while, we hiked back down the steps, and started to make our way over to the Eiffel Tower. It turned out to be a wasted effort. Our whole intention was to go up to the top, but we didn’t realize that they close off the top earlier than the rest of the tower, so when we got there, it was too late to go all the way up, so we just decided to cut it and try later. It was a really great day overall, but it definitely was a little bit overwhelming.