Despite lots of work (oh hey I haven't finished FALL semester btw) I am LOVING my London classes. Art we've visited the National Gallery, National Portrait, both Tates and will see the Saatchi Gallery soon! GST we visit a new museum once a week. Theatre we see a show once a week. History had some museum involvement, but will have even more with a new professor (see below). We are constantly on our feet exploring all of the resources a tube-ride away. It is brilliant!!
- visited Canterbury!!! (about 1 1/2 hr train ride from London) We walked around the adorable little town with lots of shops and cute restaurants and then went inside the Canterbury Cathedral. Wowzers. It was very impressive. Just to keep the Cathedral running for ONE DAY it costs 14, 500 pounds. Needless to say the Cathedral had a big campaign going for preservation and expansion costs.
- Imperial War Museum. Just a quick brief tour but now another museum added to the "revisit" list! The museum explores most of Britain's modern warfare, but especially World War I and World War II. It is filled to the brink with lifesize exhibits including some of the earliest airplanes, bomb shells and a reenacted trench experience (smelly, dark, loud) from WWI. One of the best stories we heard was a giant boars head on a plaque had become a pet for one officer. When the ship sunk all but the boar were killed. The was found swimming in the Atlantic Ocean and was rescued by another ship who brought it to London where it lived another decade or so.
- Tate Britain. This is a collection of all British work from 1500-onwards. We have been studying the YBA's (Young British Artists, movement from late 1980's-2004) and got to see Damien Hirst's Away from the Flock (Sheep) and pieces from his butterflies exhibit. While his work is typically just taking ready-made objects (ie: dead sheep, dead shark, butterflies, etc) and displaying them, paired with his titles the work has got a lot of thinking-potential behind it. His thought behind putting a dead shark in a tank titled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. It really is difficult to wrap your mind around that the shark was once swimming in the ocean, chomping on fish, with little knowledge that he'd be plucked from the ocean and put on display for twenty years in a glass case for millions of visitors to see.
- Discovered Whole Foods, London. Ah yes. I've been avoiding Whole Foods at the fear of not culturally diversifying myself and not spending a heck of a lot of poorly-converted British pounds. But it was well-worth the trip. The store was HUGE. The bottom floor was mostly groceries, the middle floor fresh produce and the top floor a massive restaurant filled to the brink with diverse choices. It was pretty spectacular and I'll be back. Let's face it...compared to Elon, NC...where it takes a solid 2 hours to reach the closest WF, a 20-minute tube ride is definitely something to be taken advantage of.
- Tate Modern. This is the art museum built by the Tate Britain to be filled with modern and contemporary British Art (mostly stuff post-1900). Really stretches thinking as to what is art. Some of it I was pretty unconvinced it museum-worthy, but other pieces I really saw the unique artistry and thought behind the work and wondered if they weren't in a museum if I'd appreciate them as much/find them as revolutionary.
- New History teacher. After way too many group meetings with every representative of our school service and 300 different names coded by the FBI including "the situation" and "the incident" we were welcomed with a new history teacher on Thursday. After spending 4 days writing a paper on the Entente Cordiale, I personally cared a little more about my long-awaited nap then hearing "the situation" referred to one more bloody time, but finally the man of the hour was introduced (Fat chance I remember his name). It's a bummer because I loved the last teacher, but it's all for the best. This "new guy" hates America (obviously...he's from there. No one in London actually hates America unless they're escaping some weird complex they have with the country with 50 states), can be a little overly-critical and has NO idea why he's there. Such a warm welcome. But really he's fine, the class will be interesting, we'll take lots of field trips and I need to just pretend with Spring Break just comes a new History class rather than dwelling on the past.
- The Brunel Museum. Despite the fact that we were the first visitors who weren't a.) Delivering a package b.) looking for a job c.) soliciting donations or d.) lost...this teensy-tiny museum ended up being pretty neat. One of the museum volunteers took us into the "shaft" which once led to the first tunnel to ever go underneath a river (the Thames). It was very revolutionary and quite the stir (think new I-Pod stir) when it finally opened after 18 years of construction. We were the first visitors in a year and those visitors were the first in 150 years to get into the shaft. They opened the shaft allowing thousands of visitors to come down for one day last year, but because we didn't fit any of the above criteria (see a-d) we were privy to a tour!
- MOM AND DAD TOUCHDOWN IN LONDON IN LESS THAN 12 HOURS!!! First a trip to Dublin, Ireland to see Erin (and UNH co.) and Elise! Then back to London for 5 days of exploration. Spring Break officially starts Thursday at 2:30! I'll spend the nigh in London with Mom and Dad then back to Ireland (Galway, Dublin, Cork, the ocean!) and Paris to see Steph and Sarah Kelley (!!) for vacation!
Fun Fact: The British believe we overuse the word "awesome."
Full Review of "The Heretic" (aka Sarah's new favorite contemporary play) to come soon!
