e_clare | Entries tagged with britain

Who wants to come to London with me for a week in September? NYC-London tickets are just under $500 right now on Student Universe.

Soooo missing England right now. Need to toast a crumpet, spread clotted cream on a scone, and drink a gin and tonic.

Perhaps not all at once, though. That could be bad.

Great British Foods, the top twenty-five.

(The other top seventy-five are in parts I, II, and III.)

Furthermore, ( my new favourite meme )

London explosions

No words. Not looking forward to the Metro ride this morning.

kmmatero is adorable. She was plugging away on her set model last night, and I was quietly reading/periodically cheering her on. Precisely at midnight, she looks over: "Happy Birthday!" Thankee. :)

St. Patrick's Day was pretty low key. I spent the evening baking cookies, watching Scrubs, and cutting out wee people for Kristy's set. Her room is close enough to the dorm bar, however, that we could easily hear the revelry and pretend to be a part of it. Tonight will definitely make up for it: fancy dinner, plus huge end-of-term party -- briliant.

Cheers, all.
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Happy (early) St. Patrick's Day!

I've been in Canterbury since Tuesday afternoon, and the weather's just lovely. (I'm expecting it to rain cats and dogs today or tomorrow, in order to make up for the beautiful SPRING days we've had.) People were very confused when I returned from visiting Kloss and Kristy in the fall, without having been to Canterbury Cathedral. At the time, I blamed the short length of my stay. The truth is, the cathedral just doesn't compare to the thrill of sitting around Kloss's kitchen, shooting the shit. Seriously. (Having seen the cathedral now, I can say that for certain. It's not that the cathedral is boring, or even somehow less cool than sitting around and trading gossip; it's just that it's not any more exciting.)

Most of my time has been spent sitting around talking about random things, catching up on MHC gossip and legitimate issues like the ongoing budget failure, and squeeing about how awesome it would be if some of us ended up in the campus apartments for next year. (We find out on Friday -- yay!) My other major accomplishments were reading Stoppard's The Real Thing (homework on break, yes, I know) and starting a Facebook group for campus techies ("I Sold My Soul to the Theatre, and All I Got Was This Lousy Black T-Shirt"). Big things, folk. Big things.

I had a great time in Bath; huge thanks again to Dorothee and Bridget for hosting me, and keeping me entertained as much as possible (while allowing me ample time to entertain myself, which I appreciate). I finally made it to the Roman Baths (totally worth it) and experienced a Sally Lunn Bun (which was slightly less worth it but ultimately saved by the lemon curd topping). My fabulous British vacation has been fabulously low-key, but I like that. Vacations are supposed to be relaxing.

I'm getting a lot of reading done, taking a lot of naps, and finally catching up on all my delayed correspondence from earlier in the semester. My pen pals in Chile and Scotland have a little something-something to look forward to in their mailboxes, as will many of mes amis aux Etats-Unis (once their postcards are purchased and written -- still behind on the Americans, sorry). There's a very good chance that I could finish all of my break-time homework, which would be amazing, since I'll have two papers and a proposal to produce within a week of my return.

Furthermore, Kloss, Kristy and I have decided that we need to facilitate the return of karaoke to the MHC social world, and that our housewarming party/Kristy's 21st birthday bash will be the perfect venue to do so. Consider yourselves warned, and start practicing now. *g*

Thanks to everybody for the good-travel wishes. My Gmail inbox feels loved. :)

I have nothing to say, really, except that I heart Bath. Also,

sweetcncrd's bed is comfy,

neuilly's pictures are awesome, and I wish I'd been not-jet-lagged enough to make it to the Uni last night -- but I'm gearing up for St. Patrick's Day, and Friday, and didn't want to overdo it. Plus, I thought it'd be good to wake up at some point today.

Now, of course, the problem is finding something to do with myself. I need to go putter around the city and do some shopping -- saving the Pump Room for tomorrow afternoon (scones!) -- thanks to a surprise e-mail from Jessie McD, I feel the urge to send postcards to everyone I've ever known. Must do something about that.
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It's haunting me. I thought I'd be able to get away from it by crossing the frickin' ocean...

Band Aid 20's 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' just came on CD101 -- the local 'cool music' station that I'd expected more of. I thought you had higher standards, Andyman!

Feeeeed the wuuuu-uuurld...

Current Mood: aiieeeeeeee!

The token last post from England. Yay! I'm actually very sad to be leaving -- but also so excited to go home, especially after only an hour of airport experience. (I just decided that I hate airports. I just don't want to deal with all these PEOPLE and their gi-normous families anymore.)

My weekend in London by meself was alright, although it degenerated by yesterday into "Oh my god I'm so bored I don't even want to move" -- I spent a lot of time at the Leicester Square Odeon cinema in the past two days. My findings: Finding Neverland: overrated; Phantom of the Opera: if it weren't for Schumacher's messy fingerprints all over it, it might actually be good. Or I might just not like Phantom that much after all.

See you all (some of you, anyway) soon -- I'm off to blow my last pounds on Cadbury bars. Cheers!

Hostel is booked, as is a ticket for His Dark Materials: Pt. II -- w00t! I'll save the train ticket for Thursday, and give myself a little break (plus the two exams tomorrow will mean I'm a bit pressed for time). Also reserved a wee holiday gift for myself yesterday *nerd alert* -- apparently I've decided to just say screw it and let my bank account flounder. I'm working over break; I'll be fine.

And now that everything is booked and I can stop worrying about it, I'm very excited about doing a London weekend. In addition to my theatre trip (yaye!) I want to go back to the Tate Britain, and try to hit up the National Gallery, and the British Museum (mummies!...other cool stuff!). I love going to museums on my own; it's going to be great to just be able to wander and not worry about keeping track of people, etc.

Anyway. First exam down today. The verdict: not too bad, until I got to the second question and realized my notes didn't really do anything to answer it. Oops. I think I made up enough about Julian Barnes and History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters to get by -- but then I turned in my inadequate notes, like a doofus. Oh well.

Tomorrow: Jane Austen and the Anglo-American Relationship. Both of which I have yet to prepare for...but the internet is just so tempting! As much as I complained -- as much as we all complained -- I think it was probably a Good Thing that the basement computers didn't have internet access all semester. Because the papers? Would have been an even more unhappy experience.

EDIT: And now, I kind of want this shirt. Why is it so hard to stop spending? Also, hilarity. Aaaand I just got sucked back into the internet again. Bad news. AIM...luring...people keep talking...aieeeeeeee.

Current Music: Band Aid 20 -- Do They Know It's Christmas?

The last 2 and a half weeks have been utterly horrible, in terms of work. Psychologically, I've finally taken a turn for the better (yay!) -- but the workload came out of nowhere and kicked my ass. We've reached that point in the semester where everybody needs a break from independence, and is ready for some parental coddling -- which I was lucky enough to have this weekend, thanks to a visit from "I've only been employed again since October but you're only in England once, and it's a good excuse for me to go there" Mom.

We had high tea at the Pump Room, the premier place to be seen in Bath's social heyday. We went to Oxford, and wandered around in the rain looking at New and University Colleges, and had a drink at the Turf tavern which she frequented on her study-abroad program. We spent a lot of time in Nelson House, where she wrote postcards while I frantically wrote a paper. ( a brief interlude to talk about writing papers )

The quick version of the weekend:
His Dark Materials (part I) at the National Theatre: so incredible. Must go back for pt. II -- simply must. Yay, magical theatre!

The Lion King: after seven (?) years of waiting, totally worth it. I had a Lilo and Stitch moment during the opening number, but recovered enough to enjoy the show, despite some actors definitely not being up to snuff.

The Tate Britain: Victorian art is awesome. That Sargent painting of Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth? So much cooler in person. Many postcards were purchased.

Covent Garden: Mom bought my Christmas present, a long purple tweed skirt. I miss my kickass brown boots to go with it, but have a mission to purchase suitable footwear before I come home. We'll see.

Tower of London: Holy crap, that's a lot of armour. Also, holy crap, that's an actual rack and manacles...creepy. Rainy. Big excitement came from a confused pigeon that flew into the gift shop.

Westminster Abbey: Totally awesome. Elizabeth I, Mary Tudor, Mary Queen of Scots, and Geoffrey Chaucer, all buried here. So much history, so exciting, whee.

Got to run -- about to be kicked out of Nelson House, as usual. More good stories to come, surely.

(you knew it was coming, eventually.)

I'll try to keep this short but eloquent. And maybe even go for funny, although I might be too mad about it.

After many, many seasons (what are they up to now -- 12?) of The Real World, we're all highly aware of what happens when you stick seven (or nine) people between the ages of 18 and 22 in a house for a semester: people get pissed off.

People also get pissed, which leads to their housemates becoming pissed off.

( in which people are loud, and dishes are dirty )

The last straw was this morning: I came downstairs to discover that someone decided it would be reeeeally funny to turn all of the furniture in the dining room upside-down. And there were still dishes in the sink. The good news is that Murph was already awake, and had set some of the chairs upright before I came in. I had some warning, which was a bonus -- otherwise, I would have needed to storm up the stairs and punch somebody in the face. As it was, I got out some of my anger by moving the comfy chairs back, and aggressively wiping down the table. And now, post-rant, I feel even better.

We will be having a small family meeting about this, however. Considering that we're getting into paper-writing mode again, this will emphatically not happen next weekend.

PS. Look! I found a political Python icon that I stashed months ago in my Photobucket account. I like.

In other news, I'm wearing my tan sneakers with black trousers, and feel very English today.

London was excellent. We got the bad part out of the way early -- wandering around a 1-block radius at Victoria Station for 90 minutes, trying to find kmmatero and kakloss -- and it was all up-hill from there. Spent lots of time wandering around the West End, over both days. Saturday night's activity was the musical Blood Brothers -- one of those that sounds good in theory, but sounds super-cheesy on-stage. So cheesy, y'all: synthesizer, gratuitous saxophone, and the most heavy-handed symbolism and acting style that I've ever seen on a professiona stage. (Seriously.) Still, it managed to be entertaining. Plus we had rush tickets, so our good, orchestra-level seats were fairly cheap.

Afterwards, we were distressed to find a lack of available pubs (in the theatre district, no less!). Although we knew that pubs in our respective towns generally close at 11 pm, we foolishly hoped that London pubs might be open later. Alas, no luck; we ended up getting fruit juice and HobNobs (yay, McVitie's!) from a convenience store and going back to the hotel.

Sunday was a lovely day for wandering around, some more. We started off on the south bank, passing the London Eye and the National Theatres complex (including the National Film Theatre and the Royal National Theatre). We spent about 2 hours in the Tate Modern (enough to do just one floor, or two galleries) before hunger set in. I'm definitely going back to the Tate Modern (and should probably check out the other Tate, too), possibly when Mom comes to visit in November.

After the Tate, we grabbed a leisurely lunch at Pizza Express (classier than it sounds, I promise), and rushed past Shakespeare's Globe, some cathedral, and the London Dungeon in order to make our way across town to Latchmere, where one of Kristy's UMass friends is interning at a wee theatre company. The play of the evening was Fishbowl, an Argentinian play that tells the story of two prep school boys and their fucked-up relationship. It was a really intense show (very much an actor's show; three elderly audience members walked out 3/4 of the way through), and we spent the rest of the evening breaking things down over dinner and drinks.

Hi! This is Emily's stream-of-consciousness, slightly-drunk-still, last post from Oxford.

I may regret this tomorrow. But I'm finding I can type surprisingly well--despite the number of tries it took me to write 'f aigoltz|more' and try to harass poor banannagoats some more. Finding telnet on the JCR computers made my day yesterday--too bad it had to wait until 48 hours before we left.

Tutors' dinner tonight was great. Fabulous. My knee just popped ridiculously loudly. Anyway...I sat with the printmaking tutor and her husband. Husband and I talked about theatre productions--Shakespeare and Chekov, and PS, he'd heard of Jacques Brel, tho' not the musical--almost the entire time, with a slight digression into politics (naturally) and brief discussion of 'Girl With A Pearl Earring' ('pretty film--yes, quite. got a bit wrong, though').

Dinner was followed by post-dinner entertainment, consisting of ASE alum singing (rather badly, and sadly), and current ASE tutor telling long, pointless story before playing pretty guitar pop-song medley. [Digression: wanted to read 'Amazing Race' recaps, and catch up--because I am that sad--but reading is officially too much work--not quite sobered up yet. Just wanted to share.]

( In which she is Not Impressed with the vocalist )

( In which she explains this post, and notes how embarrassed she'll be tomorrow )

Um. GIP! Yaaayyy kilts! Edited to add: a happy belated Mountain Day to the MoHos, and happy one-month-in-England anniversary to me. Whee!

Current Mood: tipsy

Our fabulous, but far too short, week in Oxford is drawing to a close. The last big event is a 'formal dinner' with the tutors and ASE staff tonight, and then we're back on a bus to Bath tomorrow morning by 9:30, when only a brief stop at Blenheim Castle and a two-hour bus ride will stand between me and my clean clothes.

I wish there was more time to explore; there are so many cool little side streets that I just noticed today while out wandering. I want to shop, and go to pubs, and just wander around the different colleges. However, my wallet will be very happy to be back in Bath, and just spending money on groceries instead of dinner out every night.

But oh, the dinners...from the authentic Italian (best pizza EVER, and homemade tiramisu for dessert) on Friday to last night's Indian extravaganza (they just kept bringing out plates and plates of food)...it's all been fabulous. Even Pizza Hut was good on Tuesday (free soda refills are not so easily had in this country). And our sack lunches? Some quality baguettes, yo. Brie w/ mango chutney is my new favourite combination.

Wow. How obvious is it that we've still got two hours until dinner? Time to hit up the Cadbury's vending machine again...

Current Mood: hungry

Exactly one week, and I'm exhausted. This is one tiring country. And yeah, there's a lot to catch up on. I'll try to fit the good parts in.

( The journey over )

( The house )

( My classes )

( Social life )

For the most part, I'm enjoying myself. I've been grocery shopping a couple of times (most of you know how thrilling that can be for me), bought my school supplies, and had lots of time to wander around a very cool old city. Next entry will cover trips--this coming weekend is Devon and Cornwall, not Oxford as previously reported--and classes.

Finally, shout-outs to alc517 (your letter goes in the mail tomorrow), banannagoats and krikkit911 (more trans-atlantic phone chats will follow), beckyp (that sheriff of Nottingham is dead sexy), and newredshoes (The Jake was on TV this morning, and I totally squeed in front of my male housemates--embarrassing).

Cheers!

I'm going to England! *does happy dance* I've got guaranteed finaid. Whee!

Of course, now I need to like apply to the program and stuff. But that's cool.

Yay!