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!