London Updates

A month ago tomorrow I came home from London after living there for four months. I didn't update whilst I was there, but I did send e-mails to my friends about all that I was doing. Here now are the edited versions of those e-mails, just to keep a small record of all the many things that happened.

January 20, 2002

Just got a hold of some computer access at school. Sorry bout the e-mail delay. The trip over was great, free liquor. At the airport three diff flights converged and we all had to pack onto a minibus. Good times.

The school is in v. posh Kensington, a couple blocks from Kensington Gardens. The building is pretty cool, the library is nice now that it is open for internet use.

Kensington High street is up the block, and the shopping is fantastic, lots of sales going on right now, but I am being good and refraining. Harrods is having a huge sale too, so we browsed around there for a few hours the other night.

Today we went to Windsor, which was so beautiful. The castle is amazing, and the rooms are literally painted with gold. One of the guards said that Prince William was there.

Yesterday we went to Greenwich, it was ok. The observatory is interesting, and I got to see an ancient Saxon burial mound which you all know I got a kick out of.

A few nights ago I went on a pub walk around Covent Garden, which was v. interesting. After the tour we all ended up at this bar/club place called the Long Island Ice Tea House, thought that was great besides the fact that is was amazingly expensive and I did not buy anything.

Wow, I think that is it so far, besides a bus tour we went on the second day. I am all registared for classes, which start tomorrow, but I only have one so we will prob hit a museum or something afterward.


January 28, 2002

Hey gals, how is everyone doing? I suppose by now we are all back at school and attending bloody classes. My classes here are a lot harder then I thought they would be. Apparently in England they do not believe in multiple choice answers thus all exams are in essay form. This on top of the numerous other papers and homeworks that must be written during the semester. Oh well, at least I will get some good practice at it.

I am taking Political Sociology (taught by a boring feministist in leather trousers), Art in Context (whose class entails weekly visits to various museums), British Politics and Parliment (conducted by the cutest little Londoner with giggle fits), Bus. Writing (completly torturous from the mere fact that the instructor is from Kansas but has lived in Paris for 10 years then in London for 15 making him sound like Ross when he was trying to phase out his British accent, if that makes any sense), and lastly is Security Studies in which I don't really know what is going on, as of yet, but it is taught by the afore mentioned cutey with the giggles.

Last Saturday we took a trip to Oxford. The city was so beautiful. Some people were bored with it but I thought it was fascinating. The oldest building there is a Saxon tower built around 1040. You had to pay a pound to go up, so I was the only one who did, it was so worth it though. From
the top you could see the whole city with the steeples of the churches poking up into the sky with the back drop of the country behind it. I have never in my life seen grass so green.

I dragged my little group into various churches and cathedrals built around the 14th c. And we took a lovely walk around some of the surrounding gardens. When we first got there I swear the heavens had opened up and were pouring down upon us, but towards the afternoon the sky had cleared and the ancient structures glistened in the sunlight.
Quick fact: Oxford University does not have a single building, it is made up of numerous colleges in which you can study any major you want. V. odd, but each of the colleges are really beautiful with their own green and church. Harry Potter was filmed there too, v. excited bout that fact.

Sunday my mates and I took a stroll up to Notting Hill. It was kind of a dreary day, and the markets really weren't open (Sat is their big day) but we went into a few of the odd shops around there and I bought my sister a birthday gift (a sweatshirt that says Dodger on it). We were going to go find Robbie's house, like the gits we are, but were too tired by the end of the day to go searching. But I do think that I saw Monica Lewinsky drive by us.

And right now despite how bloody tired I am, we are going to walk over to High Street Kensington, get a membership to the library, and walk around the park for a bit.


March 12, 2002

Dear All,

I just got back from Italy on Sunday and I the whole time I just kept thinking how much I wanted to go home and see my family and you guys. I wish you were all there with me, I think we would have had a really good time. Sea and I had a really good time, but going with just one other person it is hard to go out at night and stuff, especially in Italy and especially for two girls alone.

We left Kensington at 4am on Friday morning for Stansted. We had to catch a night bus to Victoria station then an express bus to Stansted airport that took about an hour. We arrived at the airport round 6:40am and took off at 7:30. We flew into Genoa and when we got off the plane I was stunned by the beauty that surrounded us, the whole city is enclosed by mountians. We thought we would spend the day there but as it turns out the city seemed really dirty on the ride to the train station and we just decided to take the train right out of there to Venice. I should have taken the state of Genoa as a portend to what the rest of the country would look like.

We arrive in Venice with no help from Trenitalia, they really blow, and walked across the bridge of the canal to our hotel. Our hotel was decent, but Venice had much to be desired. The canal smells like shite, later someone told me that is because they are dredging it out. The streets are pretty dirty with tons of street sellers trying to get you to buy something anyway they can. Kinda scary. There was not that much to do, I think we spent one too many days there. We saw San Marco and the famous Piazza. We saw the Doge's Palace with the bridge of Sighs (the prison that is a bridge of the canal). When I went to pay for my ticket to go in I didn't have exact change, it was 5.50 and I had a ten. The woman was actually not going to let me in cause she did not have any change. She was just like, "oh sorry", gave me a dirty look and turned away. Italians are really rude. But Sea and I just paid together and we finally got in. So that was really it for Venice, except we also saw the church where Titian is buried and there is two of his paintings there, that was really cool. All of that took a day by the way.

Monday we took the train to Florence, this is when the TrenItalia guy LIED to us about the train times and was going to charge us a hundred something for a Eurostar train. Then he yelled at us for holding up the line. We got proper info that evening from the information booth, thank goodness, and took the first train out of there.

Florence was really nice, I loved it. We saw Michealangelo's David (we took a picture, haha) and one of his Pieta's. We saw the church where Michealangelo, Machiavelli and Galileo are buried and we went to the Uffizi museum which is a converted Medici palace that now hold TONS of famous art including Botticelli's Birth of Venus and most of his other works. The famous tryptich by Giotto, father of modern painting and tons of Donatellos, Da Vinci's and Poussin's. And I just realized how boring that was for ppl who are not art history majors, sorry, but it made me really excited.

We could have spent another day there but left for Rome on Wednesday.

Ann met us at our hotel right when we got there. It was a nice surprise to see her. She went up to our room with us and we put down our stuff and went over to see the colliseaum. Wasn't that impressed actually. We saw a bunch of other things around there, triumphful arches and such then we out to see the Trevi fountain, the Spanish steps and grab some dinner. The food in Italy was really good, surprise surprise, lots of pizza and pasta. After dinner Ann left us to go out to a bar with her friends. The next day Sea and I went to Vatican City. We walked around the Vatican museum for about three hours, we saw the Sistine Chapel, woohoo! I sent my parents a post card from the Vatican and bought my grandma some rosary beads blessed by the pope. Then we went over to see St. Peters, which was amazing. I couldn't have even begun to take it all in. Everything was immense. Michealangelo's most famous Pieta is there behind a thick wall of glass and the supposed remains of St. Peter the apostle are buried there. We randomly saw ppl from my floor at University there and said hi, but at that point in the trip it wasn't all that weird, in Florence we saw 5 ppl from my school and in Rome we saw a boy from the train in Venice three times not to mention the same group of Japaneses tourist from in all three cities, it was insanity, Italy is so small.

We went to Ann's flat for dinner and on the way home, while we were waiting for the bus, a car drove by with kids shouting at us who then spit on me. Yup, true. Could not fucking believe it, welcome to Italy huh?

The next day we slept in and went to the Pantheon. While we were standing outside the building we were accosted by so many umbrella selling guys we had to go inside to escape them. Sea was wandering inside while I was sitting chilling and ppl watching when I spot a guy who looks just like Mr. Big, Chris Noth, I wave Sea over frantically. she takes a loop around him and comes back nodding that it indeed was. hurrah celeb sighting in the Pantheon. He was dressed like crap but seemed v. excited over the art. The girl he was with was so bored she wasn't even looking while he was pointing and reading from the book.

Anyway, Rome was really dirty and tons of graffitti everywhere. The smoke and exhaust fumes from all the cars and moterbikes got me kinda sick, I felt like the entire time I had a ball of exhaust in my throat.

I don't think I ever want to travel again. I just have no desire to travel at the end now. Hopefully my outlook will change by the time comes though.

Ugh that was a lot, and now I have class. I hope all is well with everyone, I miss you all! Well maybe not Laura, she is staying with me this week for the week ;)