Prince Harry

Thursday, April 12^th: This day deserves its own blog post.

In the morning time, we had our last GST tour with Sean Boyle, which is pretty sad. It’s theme was “21^st Century London,” and it was really about the modern buildings that are up or are being built. We focused on 2 famous architects. They like their bizarre names and nicknames like the Gerkin, Darth Vader’s Helmet, the Cheese Grater, the Walkie Talkie, Shard, the Quill (aka baby Shard). So no more Thursday tours!

Now Thursday night: I expected a super chill chill night. I was feeling lazy, and I knew Friday was going to have to be a productive day. I’m sitting upstairs just reading a little after 8 when Ginna Claire comes in.

GC: “What dress should I where?” (holding 2 fancy dresses)

Me: Where are you going?

GC: Same place you are. Put on a dress.

And so the spontaneous girl’s night began. Emma, Lindy, & I got all dressed up and blindly followed Ginna Claire on our adventure.

Stop 1: the Madison at St. Paul’s

This is a fancy restaurant and café on the rooftop with a beautiful view of St. Paul’s and London. GC really wanted to get dressed up and have some sticky toffee pudding. We made friends with some of the waiters who were so friendly and helpful because apparently the Madison restaurant and bar is the place to be for “suits” on a Thursday night, so it was busy! But we made friends, enjoyed the view, and decided to go to this Piano bar on High Street Kensington.

Transportation #1: On the tube after the Madison we met Tom the Banker. He was laughing at us talking to some other Americans about living here, so we struck up a convo with Tom. He was super nice, and it was just fun to meet people. We also met another guy on the tube who was very interested in Lindy the country girl, but that doesn’t need to be a part of this story.

Stop 2: Pianobar at Kensington.

This place is so nice! Pretty swanky again, but also so chill. I definitely want to come back because we weren’t there for more than 10 minutes when GC friended Ben. Basically, he said hi, and not to long after that he said “get your stuff and your friends we’re going to boujis.” Now if you don’t know, because I didn’t before London, bouji’s is known as Prince Harry’s nightclub. Talk about swanky. I guess technically you can get in some line and pay some cover charge, but you don’t really get in unless you’re on a VIP list. But Ben told us we’d get in with him, and there was no charge.

Okay at this point I know it sounds a little sketch, but there were 4 of us, he’s American, GC met his other friends, the club was nearby, and we heard him tell the cab driver to go to bouji’s.

Transportation #2: In this short cab ride, we quickly learn that Ben must be from old Manhattan money, and he has made more than his fair share of new money as a nightclub founder in Edinburgh, as a nightclub and restaurant owner with his brother in Restaurant, and as a precious stone trader in London.

“What kind of stones?”

“The kind you want on your ring.”

So we also learned he’s a bit arrogant, really only wanted to talk about himself, and was loaded. Fun fact, he’s been to Tokyo, Hong Kong, and three other places all in the last 6 weeks. For business? Nope. For pleasure. On the weekends. I think you’re learning what type of guy Ben is…

Stop 3: BOUJI’S!!

Again, you only get in if you’re on a guest list, but Ben and his friends walk up to the bouncer. He greets them, they chat, he chats up some hostess type person, and they send us in. Now once we actually get in the club, we only briefly see Ben once, and he even leaves before us. So we’re pretty positive he does this a lot…just lets guests in because he can.

Let’s pause here for a second….how do you even get to that status where you are a regular at a VIP club, Prince Harry’s VIP club?? The bar sold bottles of drinks, bottles!, that were like 500pounds probably on the cheapest end. I’m pretty sure it was more like 800 all the way up to 2,000 pounds. That is not how I’d spend my money if I had that much to just toss away…Someone could spend all of the money I've spent all semester in one night easily. Crazy! Later one Emma was looking up private membership, and of course it's super exclusive not to mention expensive. Feel free to look it up... http://www.boujis.com/

Anyways, back to the night.

So the 4 of us girls are in bouji’s, and it’s 80s "Material Girl" theme. Quickly one of the girls working there comes over to us, hands us little hand lace things (it’s 80s), sunglasses (not cheapy plastic things), pins, & like lollipop/dum dum candies. Someone else comes back later to give us more pins and beaded necklaces-again, not cheap plastic necklaces. WE MET PRINCE HARRY! Just kidding. We didn't. But it's still cool that we were in "his" nightclub:) This is not a life I would enjoy living long term...not even consistently short term...but it's definitely so cool to experience as part of the London nightlife! The 4 of us just enjoyed our spontaneous girls’ night- we were pretty chill just hung out and danced, and then tackled the night bus system to get home.

I can’t even believe this night happened. It’s definitely going down as one of the top nights in London!  It was so chill too, just a spontaneous adventure to dress up and get sticky toffee pudding….

Tweed on Tweed on Tweed

April 8^th:

EASTER!

So the morning started with Easter Mass of course. Mass is still mass, and Easter is still Easter, but this Easter Mass was not quite the celebration that I’m used to. A lot of that is just due to the atmosphere and community of the church that I found. Still, it’s Easter Sunday, and I was determined to make it special.

About 6 of us in my program all pitched in to have a nice Easter brunch! We had flowers, hard boiled eggs, scrambled eggs, different kinds of pancakes, hash browns, fruit salad, and chocolate eggs. We all had work to do, but we made an effort to have a nice brunch, and it was so nice! Even for those that weren’t really celebrating Easter as the religious holiday and miracle, I think everyone there really appreciated the little taste of home.

 April 9^th:

Easter Monday

Easter Monday here is a bank holiday, and almost every Easter Monday there is Point-to-Point. Point-to-Point is a horse racing event that is meant to raise money for the hunt. So Neenz & I took a train out to Basingstoke where Tim and Ginna Claire picked us up. Monday was spent in the countryside of England. First we had a nice pub lunch that was a treat from three dads. Usually they would picnic before Point-to-Point but it was rainy, windy, and cold!!! Because of the weather there weren’t as many horses racing, but we still watched two or three complete races.

Now this was an experience! The horse racing itself was really cool, and Tim’s parents (especially Mrs. Carpenter) were so friendly, talking about the races and everything. The whole atmosphere, even the weather, felt very British! There seemed to be an unofficial uniform of hunter rain boots (excuse me-wellies) and tweed on tweed on tweed! There were tweed hats and jackets everywhere! 

 There were some stands that we looked around too, and one of them was just selling chickens and quails! We watched as a man stuffed two chickens in a box for the couple that just bought them.

After we had enough of the rain, Tim decided we were going to drive until we found a country pub. So we drove. And drove. At this point we’re really driving around the countryside just trying different villages for a pub. Eventually we found Woolpack Inn.

After the pub, we went back to Tim’s flat where he cooked us a delicious stir fry, and we watched Notting Hill! The three of us girls hadn’t seen it before, so Tim insisted we watch it. It was cool to watch the movie and recognize all of the different places! Plus it’s a good movie. Tim has been so generous and kind, welcoming us all as his friends and just helping us experience London!

April 10^th:

Back to class…

So we do take classes and do work here I promise! Tuesday morning was the usual, GST and then Theater. For lunch I went with Dr. Hall and four other girls to Hummus Bros. Elon has given Dr. Hall some money, and he’s using the leftovers in his budget to treat us to meals in small groups. So Hummus Bros is a hummus restaurant-clearly-that is delicious! You get a plate of hummus with the toppings that you want and 1 or 2 pitas. Delicious. I plan on going back.

After lunch, KJ, Neenz, & I headed north to Golders Green to do research for our project in GST. We wandered around, researched in the library, and then headed back into the city to find dinner before our play that night. While wandering around Southbank center looking for food, it started to rain and then it started to hail! The hail wasn’t that large, but it was definitely ice falling from the sky. So that was an experience.

Tuesday night we had our 7^th play for our Theater class, She Stoops to Conquer. This is a National Theater play, and it was good! Not my favorite but still a lot of fun with some really bizarre characters!!

April 11^th:

One month until my birthday!

Wednesday morning was lazy as usual, and then I adventured one stop down on the Tube line for a little taste of home: Subway! There are Subways everywhere, but this was the first time I gave in and had a sub! It was just as good as at home, and they even had American cheese!

Wednesday afternoon, my art class went to the Tate Modern for the Damien Hirst exhibition. We’ve studied him in class, so it was really cool to actually go to his exhibit! He’s a contemporary artist, really famous, but I’m not really a fan. I can appreciate his themes, I even like some work here and there, but I personally think he’s kind of arrogant…and disturbed. He does a lot with animals in formaldehyde. I highly suggest you look up his work, though be prepared, he’s unique. He rubs me wrong though, as an artist who wants to make a lot of money and get away with bizarre things just by calling it art. Oh well, each to his own, right?

Calm Down Joey!

April 3^rd started pretty normal GST class and then Theater. After our little lunch outside, four of us headed to Aldgate East to do an audio guided walking tour for our Art in London class. This was actually really cool! In 1999, an artist recorded herself walking through the streets of Spittalfield, in the East End. She recorded all of the noises that she heard as well as dialogue and narration of a murder mystery. All of this was put together as well as her giving us directions as to where to walk. 50 minutes later, we had followed these guided directions all around the streets while hearing about a murder mystery while we were getting confused as to what sounds were live and what were recorded. It sounds a bit strange, but it was actually a really cool experience!

The rest of the evening was just spent in Café Nerro trying to get work done with the benefits of unlimited internet. 

April 4^th started with a rough workout circuit led by Katie Gonino. Then my art class went to the Saatchi Gallery. Saatchi is a well known curator and collector of contemporary artwork, so we went to his Gallery which currently has a New German art exhibition. It was cool to study the art this way, and it’s all in preparation for our “fantasy exhibition,” aka our final exam.

The Johnsons arrived the night before so after the Gallery, Katie J, her parents, & I all went to Chinatown for dinner! Then we went and saw BILLY ELLIOT!! This musical was absolutely phenomenal!! Seriously incredible!! The talent of this 12 year old dancing boy honestly brought me to tears more than once. It’s an incredible plot even without all of the remarkable dancing! Probably one of the best musicals I have ever seen!!

Thursday, April 5^th, was our weekly GST Tour. This week’s tour was entitled “London 2012.” It started in Hackney Wick, the town around the Olympics, and ended with us looking at the Olympic Park! So that’s pretty cool! They still have some aesthetic work to be done, but as a whole the facilities are basically up! It’s going to be really cool to see it on TV in a couple of months and know that I’ve been there.

Thursday night my Theater class went and saw WAR HORSE. I was a bit skeptical of seeing this on stage because it’s a puppet horse. Any worries I had were quickly erased because it was so well done! Even the mechanics of the powerful horse were so realistic you could imagine really watching a live horse! This week was a great week for theater!!

April 6^th, Friday, was pretty low key. The day started off with a workout outside because it was nice out! We went to a little park by the canals that give Little Venice its name. After that, Neenz and I went to the grocery store to do some shopping for our Easter brunch! The rest of the day was a chill day, but Neenz, Michael, Connor & I all went to go see “This Means War” at a cheaper movie theater. So that was funny. Amusing movie (though I’m not so sure how I feel about the ending). Anyways…

Today, April 7^th…one month left of the program! I cannot believe the time is flying by that quickly!

Today we went to the annual Oxford v. Cambridge boat race! These are crew teams from the two universities, and it’s a pretty big deal. We took the bus all the way down to Putney Bridge to watch the start of the race! After that, Bishops Gate park right next door had a screen up to watch the rest of the race! However…all of a sudden there is a random person in the water! Seriously, in between the front of both of the boats a person is in the water!! So the race had to stop! They had to stop to get this random person out, and then they had to reset. The race was so close!! But it took them at least 45 minutes to reset. And it was so cold out. So we ended up bailing early. As we were walking out though they restarted the race, oars collided, and Oxford lost a blade. So Cambridge ended up winning the race…bummer (not that we really cared, but we were cheering for Oxford!).

Since we were cold we stopped by Ben’s Cookies on the way home for delicious cookies and hot chocolate to warm up :)

The rest of today has been spent doing homework, uploading pictures, cleaning, blogging…just the usual.

Happy Triduum! This is a different triduum then I’ve ever had before, but at least it helps me think about what it is really all about!

April Showers bring May Flowers

April 1:

Palm Sunday Mass was a bit…interesting…The actual Mass was nice, but the Priest had the congregation start outside for the blessing of the palms. This was after everyone was already waiting in the pews so moving outside, listening, and then moving back inside was a bit…chaotic honestly. Still a nice Mass though.

After that Sunday was basically a buckle down and work day. I spent a few hours in Café Nerro with unlimited internet to work on some homework. That’s about it.

April 2:

Because our schools just finished a term, they are on a 2 week end of term/Easter break. In other words, we have 2 Mondays off from our practicum! I wanted to do more than sit around the flat today, but a lot of people still had work to do. So I had a little London adventure of my own.

I started by checking out Daunt Books. It’s kind of known I guess around here, and everyone walks around with the cotton canvas bags. I wanted a bag. : ) It’s very English Teacher nerdy of me. I need to come back with my camera because it’s so cool! The front seems pretty normal, but when you walk to the back there’s the floor you’re on, the basement, and the gallery above. I need to take pictures! This back section is organized by countries and is so quiet. I could have spent so much time in there, but I made myself buy what I came for and leave. 

Daunt Books

After that I walked from Marylebone High Street to Oxford Street. Oxford Street is THE shopping street. There are lots of places to shop, but this is the long street that is always crowded with pedestrians no matter what day or what time. Because it was nice out I just decided to walk along the street, so I ended up walking the whole length of the street! Okay well I missed part of it because of where I started, but then I walked part of it twice, so for all intents and purposes, I walked the whole street.

To give you a feel for how long the street is….There are at least 4 full H&Ms, at least 8-maybe more- McDonald’s… Basically all of the chains along that street are repeated 3 or 4 times, maybe even more, plus of course huge department stores and local chain shopping stores.

The End of March!

So my final blog in the month of March…I don’t know where this time is going, but we only have about 5 weeks left in the program. I’m so glad my parents (and Liz) are coming at the end, so I get to extend my time here in London.

I also can’t believe that one week ago we were getting back from Dublin, but it’s time to blog about this week back in London. It was a very British week in my opinion:

Sunday, March 25^th:

Okay Sunday wasn’t particularly British. Mass, homework, unpacking, reorganizing…that basically took up the whole day, especially since we were all reuniting and talking about our breaks. However Sunday was also the beginning of some gorgeous weather! Sunny, warm, say goodbye to the jacket (if only for a week).

Monday, March 26^th:

Okay the exciting week hasn’t started yet…I spent Monday at my school, St. Marylebone, observing English class after English class. Even though these days are very long, it’s a good experience (not to mention resume booster).

Tuesday, March 27^th:

Today began pretty low key with my GST class, but then for my theater class we went to the Imperial War Museum to study WWI in preparation for seeing War Horse next week. This museum is really impressive! It’s huge, and we were quickly worn out. After looking at trenches and propaganda for class, I spent some time in the Holocaust exhibition. The IWM has a really impressive Holocaust area that’s heart wrenching and educational all at once. I only spent 45-50 minutes in there, but it’d be easy to spend over an hour there. The IWM covers everything from the 1^st and 2^nd World War, the Cold War, Conflict since 1945, and everything else too. My favorite part of the museum was probably “The Secret War.” This exhibition was all about M16, M15 aka spy warfare. It was something really unique to look at in a museum. The rest of the day was just spent working back in the flat.

Wednesday, March 28^th:

Today was a very very British day. We had a picnic lunch, because it was almost 70 degrees!, in Green Park. This park is gorgeous, green, and near Buckingham Palace. We had lunch there before we headed to meet Lisa for our Art class. For our class today we toured West End Galleries!! This was so cool because I would never feel educated or sophisticated enough to just wander into a gallery. The 7 (or maybe 8) we went were all in Mayfair, which if you remember from an earlier blog, is a very posh area of town. So we went into these galleries to look at more art, some that we studied, some local, and start generating ideas for our “Fantasy Gallery” which is our final project. We start street art, paintings made with blow torches, glass art, and other contemporary art.

We ended our class in Selfridges (the #1 or #2 largest department stores, it’s up there with Harrods) where we ate Pinkberry! Pinkberry is a froyo place that actually originated in the states (I have yet to try Snog-the UK froyo). 

Thursday, March 29^th:

Today GST was dedicated to a museum independent visit project, so my roommates and I headed to the Science Museum. This museum is not exactly user friendly because the stairs and lifts are in weird corners and don’t access every floor. There’s also so much to see that it’s a bit overwhelming to a non-science person like myself. But I spent a good amount of time studying the story of steam, for my GST assignment.

After the museum, we stopped by the V&A (Victoria & Albert) museum that apparently has some really great stuff in it (sorry Mom, I say stuff because I’m not sure what exactly there is, I know there’s a lot of artwork, but that may not be it). However, it was a bit too overwhelming to do right after another museum, so we’ll come back to it.

Then on the way home we stopped by High Street Kensington, that’s known for its shopping. I didn’t buy anything, but I’ve now been in a T.K. Maxx! And yes that’s exactly what it sounds like-T.J. Maxx, but the UK version. I’m not sure what the K, or the J, stands for though…

Friday, March 30^th:

Today the weather was gorgeous!! So I spent a sold 3 ½ hours with a few other girls out in Hyde Park! We brought our lunch, picnicked, and then just basked in the sun! I wasn’t wearing a jacket, tights, or boots! Crazy right? Sadly, Friday was the last of the warm weather. We took advantage of it though and got in our Vitamin D. Hyde Park is huge!! Lots of green space and really gorgeous flowers too! Friday night we just spent in the flat, watching TV, since the sun took it out of us :)

 Saturday, March 31^st:

Despite the 50 degree weather, a few of us girls went out to watch Tim and his rugby team. Sadly, they lost, however we still made it a fun outing. We cheered for the Serpents and just got to spend time watching Rugby outside. After the game, Tim and his friend Ollie convinced us to stop by the pub if only briefly to hang out with the team. So eventually we gave in. How often do you get to hang out with a rugby team in a pub in London? Not very often, so that was another very British day. The rest of this four day weekend however is going to have to be productive on school work…things are beginning to pick up!