On the Town

Last night, my friends and I decided to go see a show on West End. We had been planning the next few months we're going to be spending abroad and realized that we have very few days left in London all together.

On a serious note, my time here is going by way too quickly. I knew that it would be this way, but realizing that I only have a few weeks total left in London (the rest of my time will be spent traveling) is a bit depressing. I'll be happy to go home and see my friends and family of course, but I know I'm going to hate to leave. I feel like I know London now... I'm familiar with the layout of the city, I know which buildings are which, I've adjusted to and have embraced the culture, and I no longer feel like as much of an outsider. The first time I gave directions to tourists, I was so proud of myself. I'm not sure when the switch came about, but after experiencing a lot of the local things East London has to offer, being spontaneous in central London, and just living here, London became a home away from home -- not just the location of an extended vacation. I'm also going to miss the friends I've made here. A fair amount of them also go to USC, but knowing that Kevin and Emily will be completely across the country and that Haider is an ocean away is very sad. It's incredible how close I've gotten to a few of my friends here in the past few months and I know I'm going to be very sad when I can't see them nearly every day.

Moving away from that sad topic... my friends and I decided that we should spend a night on the town, and what better way to make use of the days we have left than to go see a show? =)

Second on our list of shows to see together was Spring Awakening (Rowan Atkinson was on vacation, so Oliver was out of the question). We ended up getting great seats from the half price ticket booth, so we grabbed dinner at a nice Mexican restaurant first.

This was the only Mexican restaurant I've seen (let alone been to) in London, and ordering Mexican food made me feel like I was back in LA at El Cholos. Their margarita list wasn't half as extensive, so Kevin and I got pina coladas instead!


Yummy! The pina coladas were delicious -- the best I've ever had! The food was great, too, but the waiter forgot to put in my order. Oh well, I was still happy to get fajitas!

Spring Awakening was great, I'd recommend it to most anyone, but am glad that I didn't see it with my mom. Sex on stage, song titles including "The Bitch of Living" and "Totally Fucked" aren't necessarily the most family friendly, but I really enjoyed it. It's a story about growing up and challenging the ideals instilled from birth. The show managed to cover a lot of really tough issues, but was able to make me laugh so hard I doubled over and missed the next few lines. =) All in all, a great success!!

The next day, we all went down to the Thames to watch The Boat Race (yes, it's capitalized) -- Oxford v. Cambridge! It was a big ordeal -- there were tons of people lined up on the river to watch, plus TV crews and lots of parties going on in front of pubs. We got off the tube at Hammersmith and took a nice long stroll along the banks of the Thames looking for a nice spot to watch the race.


We ended up walking around 2 miles along this path, but it was beautiful and definitely worth it!

Once we ran into a few pubs and a nice place to eat, we found a permanent spot to watch the race.


I thought that Fish and Chips would be the most appropriate thing to eat at such a traditional British event! =)


Group picture! I decided to root for Cambridge because I've actually met someone from there and had no other ties. It was very hard to root for a team which had light blue as one of its colors, though. ;)


The team to the left is Oxford (those jerks... they won) and the one trailing is Cambridge. Our spot was about 2/3 of the way through the race, so Oxford ended up killing them. Oh well. As an aside, I was looking through one of the programs and it turns out that some of the races have been won when the other team sank... I may or may not have been rooting for that to happen in front of us, haha. ;) How funny would that have been? Tee hee.

Kevin rooted for Cambridge, too, so he decided to throw Vanessa into the water to vent his frustrations (just kidding. But seriously, I swear he thought about it, hahaha). I'm lucky to have survived the semester with him as my flatmate -- although I guess I shouldn't speak so soon.

So the day on the Thames was wonderful! It was a great way to spend my last full day in London for 2 1/2 weeks, hang out with friends, do something cultural (woo!), and just enjoy life. I've reaffirmed my desire never to swim in the water itself, but it's nice to walk by it and seeing The Boat Race was an experience that I'm glad to say I've had. =)

Canterbury Tales

Caitlin and I decided to spend her last day in England in Canterbury so we woke up early, made a nice breakfast, and took a train there. The town itself was moderately quaint, but also touristy and at some times, metropolitan. The main thing to see there was Canterbury Cathedral.


I couldn't get the entire cathedral in the picture... but believe me when I say that it was even more beautiful and impressive in person!

When we went into the cathedral, we happened upon the beginnings of a choir practice. There was a performance of Handel's Messiah scheduled for that night, so they were doing a full run through. Caitlin and I decided to watch them for about a half hour -- BEST DECISION EVER.


How many people can say that they've performed (let alone practiced) in such a beautiful place? I was floored. The sound was amazing (and I'm sure the brilliant acoustics helped). It was probably the best choir I've ever heard live. The soloists were phenomenal... I got chills at least 2 or 3 times.


I love this picture of us. See how happy we were to sit and listen to the choir? =)


The detail inside of the cathedral was amazing. This doorway lead to another chapel and (I think) a practice room.

We wandered around the rest of the Cathedral, looking in the maze of chapels they had downstairs. They also had a display of 14th-18th century artifacts from the church, which I found really interesting. There was an old septre, lots of silver goblets, and a few ancient Bibles. I love seeing old artifacts like that.

We ended up spending more time in the cathedral than we had expected, so we grabbed dinner at a pasty shop (side note: I'm going to miss pasties soooo much in the states! It's like a hot pocket, but a million times better and much more fresh). We wanted to go to

The two of us wanted to make it to St. Augustine's Abbey and a few of the other local attractions, but most everything was closed by the time we finished with dinner, nothing was open. Instead, we window shopped and walked around the town. I ended up buying a pretty green and gold scarf. It's shiny, so that explains a lot of my love. ;)

We headed back to London that night and spent the evening talking and looking at pictures from her trip to Paris. Early the next morning, Caitlin left for LA and took the wonderful California weather with her. It was great to have her company over those few days. =)

Paper Faces on Parade

Draper's was hosting a Masquerade party for charity, so my friends and I decided to put the masks we got in Venice to good use. Caitlin and her friend were spending a few days in Paris, so she wasn't able to come. Anyway, we got all dressed up and headed to Drapers, where there was a chocolate fountain (!!!) and the bar was lit up with disco lights. Because it was for charity, I felt even better about eating the chocolate covered fruit and drinking the glass of champagne included in the cover price than I would have otherwise. =)


They had all sorts of different things to dip in the glorious chocolate fountain, but I definitely favored the strawberries... YUM.


I know it's impossible to tell (because our identities are so cleverly hidden), but this is our group! Huzzah! We definitely had the best masks.

The group putting on the event had a few fun things planned for entertainment. The dance group performed a Viennese Waltz (with masks on). It was pretty fun to watch a choreographed dance. There was also a DJ, so the rest of us were able to dance, too (albeit not as gracefully). The last entertainment for the evening was a mask competition. I didn't win, but Emily got 4th place! I'm thoroughly convinced that it was rigged. ;)

The next night, while waiting for Caitlin's triumphant return from Paris, I decided to bake cookies. Remember my horror stories from earlier in the semester? Well, it turns out that I'm still absolutely horrible at baking cookies from scratch. I ended up with one giant cookie.


See? On the plus side, Meghan pointed out that if I were to eat it all, it would only count as one cookie... =)


After this, Kevin started taking a ton of pictures of me, so I tickled him until he gave my camera back. Revenge is sweet, haha. I thought this picture was hilarious, so I had to include it.

Blarney!

When I came back from Stratford, I hosted my friend Caitlin for a few days while she was on Spring Break from USC!! It was really great to see her and we had an amazing time. =)

The first night Caitlin was in town, all of us went to Brick Lane to show her and the girl she was traveling with a bit of East London. The food was delicious (as usual). I'm getting better at handling spicy things, I think... but that's not to say that I'm not a wimp anymore. I'm just less of one. ;) Anyway, Haider got us a great deal (he's definitely the best at haggling) and we decided on a nice place. I'm also starting to get a bit better at ordering food at Indian places. I've discovered that my favorite thing (so far) is Kabahi Kosht. It's basically lamb marinated in spices with peppers and onions. I have to make it more mild by adding lots of rice and naan, but it's delicious! I'm also a big fan of mango lossi, which is kind of like a very sweet, milky fruit smoothie.

After dinner, we grabbed bagels at the Bagel shop (what trip to Brick Lane would be complete without it?) and then got dessert at Cookies and Cream, our favorite dessert place. Once we had finished, we walked to Hayfield's and met up with Damien and his friends for his 21st birthday party. Having Caitlin there made it 10 times more fun. We were joking around and laughing the entire time. =)


Caitlin and I definitely used the pool cues as microphones, haha. We played pool, too... (and the two of us won!).

After Hayfield's closed (of course we stayed until it closed!), Caitlin, Haider and I decided to continue the merriment by hanging out by the canal and then lighting off some fireworks at the park right by campus. It was hilarious -- Haider misplaced a stand for one of htem so he held it at arms length (away from us, of course), lit the fuse, and lost hearing for a second or so as it screamed away, haha. =)


The next day was St. Patrick's Day! I spent most of the day working on a paper (booo), but Caitlin went out and did touristy things in London with her friend. We met up that night and decided to go out to an Irish pub in Leicester Square.


Vanessa and Caitlin took the advice on my button. ;) I ended up taking it off in the tube after a few sketchy guys passed by me (as a side note, a hobo had come up to Vanessa and I a few days earlier, blown both of us a kiss, given us what he thought was a seductive look, then smiled and walked away. The worst part is that my instint is to smile, "catch" the kiss, and put it in my back pocket... luckily, I caught myself that time and -- just barely -- didn't do it, haha).

The pubs at Leicester Square were ridiculously crowded (although probably not near as crowded as Dublin was -- Kevin spent St. Patty's Day there), and a ton of people were wearing green Guiness hats. I was jealous. We ended up leaving Leicester Square after about 45 minutes or so and headed back to campus to have a drink at the New Globe. I ordered an Irish car bomb with a few friends and went to bed early (hey, I was still tired from the night before!). Despite my lack of energy on St. Patrick's Day itself, I think the Irish car bomb was a significant tribute to my heritage. That, and I also wore a bit of orange. ;)

Such Stuff that Dreams are Made On

This weekend I went to Stratford-upon-Avon with a bunch of people from USC (some studying in London, others in Edinburgh) to visit Shakespeare's birthplace and see The Tempest! I was able to room with Vanessa, so that made it even better.

Vanessa, Sammy, and I took a train up to Stratford on Friday afternoon and got in to the town with just enough time to check into the group's hostel and head to dinner.


This was our B&B. The woman who owned the house cooked us a full British Breakfast every morning -- that's poached eggs, bacon (which is more like Canadian bacon than the regular kind), roasted tomatoes, and baked beans. I was a bit wary of it at first, but it was actually quite delicious. =)

That evening we met up with all the USC students for a group dinner. One of the best things about USC trips is that they're meant to be "free" to us, so USC covers everything. That means that we get to eat at a nice restaurant and order whatever we'd like! Hooray! I've been eating pretty cheaply as of late (it gives me more money to travel with), so I definitely got a fillet mignon, some red wine, and a delicious slice of chocolate mousse cake for dessert. YUM.

After dinner, a group of us went to a Weatherspoons and hung out. The town was pretty quiet, it seemed like there was only one pub open and very few people were out on the streets. It was pretty fun though and when we went to bed that night it definitely felt like a sleepover, haha.

The next morning, Vanessa and I got backstage tickets to The Courtyard Theatre, where our show was going to be played.


The theatre itself was tiny, but very intimate. It featured what's called a "thrust" stage, which means that the audience is on 3 sides of the stage. Our tour guide told us some of the history of the theatre (it started out as a tin shack!) and we were able to walk around backstage a bit and take a look at the props. They also let us wander around the stage itself, which was really cool. I really enjoyed the guide's stories about stage blood (there was some splattered on one of the walls backstage). I think it'd be fun to bags of it under my clothes and stage fights with my friends to get reactions out of strangers... hehehe.


We weren't supposed to take pictures inside, but I was sneaky. This is a closeup of one of the props they had -- it was supposed to be a dead body on the island. I thought it was neat that the teeth were made out of tiny shells.



I love this picture, haha! It was very windy, which explains my glorious hair. ;)

Vanessa and I met up with everyone else from USC and took a walking tour of Stratford. Most of the things we saw had something to do with Shakespeare. We saw where he was born and baptized, where he lived and was buried, his secondary school, and various places where he was said to write. It made me wonder -- wouldn't most people find it strange and a bit creepy to find out that 100s of years later, people make pilgrimages to the places they've been? Moving on...


This is the Church of the Holy Trinity (better known as "Shakespeare's Church"), where Shakespeare was baptized and buried.


Once we were inside, we got to see Shakespeare's grave! The man who was in here speaking about it was crazy... he spoke very slowly, but in a mystical kind of way. It was pretty funny because he was difficult to understand. The church had copies of the actual records of Shakespeare's baptism and burial on display.


Our group walk ended at Shakespeare's birthplace. I took a tour of the inside, but they wouldn't allow pictures. The house was pretty small, but we were told that it was large for its day. It had a room for his father's glove business and they set it up to include sample gloves. Shakespeare was probably born in one of the rooms upstairs. One of the coolest parts of Shakespeare's birthplace was the museum upstairs where they had taken down some of the windows from earlier periods when the house was being shown. There are signatures and dates scratched onto them and you can pick out other famous writers and politicians who visited.

After Shakespeare's birthplace, we wandered around Stratford a bit until it was time to meet for dinner. There were some great giftshops around town selling all sorts of touristy Shakespeare things. One of my favorite souvenirs is an eraser that says "Out, damned spot!" on it. =)


While looking around, I chanced upon an amazing find: the complete works of Shakespeare -- illustrated. The best part? It was pretty cheap, too! =) I was really happy with myself. I have absolutely no idea how to get it home (the current plan is to ship it or have my mom take it home with her when she visits... it's between 5 and 10 pounds).


Dinner was delicious! Sammy and I got exciting cocktails and I ended up having duck for dinner and a blackcurrant tart for dessert. On a side note, the English love their blackcurrants -- there's no grape jelly in any of the stores in London, only blackcurrant.


After dinner, we went back to the Courtyard Theatre to see The Tempest. The Royal Shakespeare Company paried up with the University of South Africa for this rendition of the play, and the result was fantastic. They put an African spin on it, which was pretty interesting. I had read the play in high school and loved it, so it was really great to see it live. They had a lot of African music and I think the tribal feel to it helped make Ariel's character (and Prospero's magic) more believable. Also, the actor who played Ferdinand was really handsome and performed one of the scenes shirtless, which I appreciated. Yum. =) hahaha!

When the play was over, most of us went to a pub called the Dirty Duck (renamed from the Black Swan) for a few drinks. It was overpriced, so we ended up just sitting outside an talking for a few hours before going back to the B&B. Most of the actors came to the pub because it was their last performance and all of the girls jokingly made a big deal about Ferdinand being there ("I have to *cough* use the restroom... Anyone want to come with me? It's right across from the private room in the back...").

The next morning, Vanessa and I decided to stay for a bit before heading back to London so we could see Anne Hathaway's cottage.


Anne Hathaway was Shakespeare's wife. They married when she was 28 and he was 19, which made me giggle. The cottage itself was beautiful! I would have loved to see it in the spring when the gardens were in full bloom. Again, we were told that the cottage was pretty large for its day (and was built onto in the years that followed), but I think that if the rooms hadn't been built in miniature, it wouldn't have seemed as tiny. I had to duck to get through doorways! Also, some of the floors weren't on the same level, so it felt like you would have to go up a step to get to another room in the house, which I thought was pretty funny. The cottage was very quaint and I'm really glad we went. =)

Before we took a train back to London, Vanessa and I stopped for lunch at a corner pub in the town called the Old Thatch Tavern. They were having a special featuring the British traditional Sunday roast, so both of us got that. What an enormous amount of food! They filled my plate to the brim with beef, pork, vegetables, yorkshire pudding, potatoes, and lots of gravy. It was SO delicious!

And so with high spirits and full tummies, Vanessa and I ended our trip to Stratford-upon-Avon and came back to lovely East End! What a wonderful trip!

Back in London!

I realize that I've been neglecting this blog since my reading week trip, so I'm going to try to catch up! Class has been more demanding as of late (how rude... doesn't Queen Mary know that this is my semester off?). I've had a few papers due and need to finish the next three (Three?! See what I mean?) in the next week and a half. My classes officially end at the end of March, at which point I'll have an entire month to travel and forget absolutely everything I should've learned over the term. Then my finals will be during the month of May and I come home in early June! Time flies.

Anyway, when I got back from reading week I had to research and write a paper on Westminster Cathedral for my architecture class. The building itself is pretty interesting.


My professor describes the layered red brick and stone as "streaky bacon," (a very technical term, I know). It's not my favorite -- I tend to like traditional architecture. Bentley built it in the early-Christian Byzantine style with some inspiration from St. Mark's Basilica in Venice (which I saw while I was there).


There are over 120 different types of marble in the interior, but it is still unfinished (see the dark roof? It's just brick). I thought that was kind of cool though -- it's being built over the ages. Ok, enough about Westminster Cathedral. It's a landmark for a good reason, but after writing a paper on it, I've had enough of describing it. ;)

Not very long after turning in that paper, my friends and I went to The Hayfield (which has quickly become our favorite pub) for karaoke night. It was a lot of fun! They didn't have the best song selection, but as the night goes on it seems better, haha. =) The most interesting story of the night was when two guys (one from Latvia and one from Estonia) decided that they were both interested in me (best quotes: "How you no have boyfriend?! In Russia, you have boyfriend," and "After drink, I hook up, yes?"). I let one of them buy me a drink and walked home with my friends about 10 minutes later, haha. All in all, a very fun night.

The next weekend, I decided to get back into the groove of exploring London, so a few friends and I went to the Tate. I loved all the paintings and had a great time exploring.


I got to see a lot of beautiful artwork, but this was actually my favorite. A bit more modern than I usually go for, but I thought it was pretty cool. If you look carefully, you can see that the mushroom cloud is made up of pots and pans.

At the tail end of February, my friends and I went to Brick Lane (it was my first time, but they had gone while I was in Prague). It is definitely now one of my favorite things to do in East End.


The restaurants have people standing outside soliciting you to come in -- it reminded me of Brazil, but people here actually give you deals instead of just hassling you to come inside, haha. The atmosphere of Brick Lane and haggling is always fun... cheap (and delicious) Indian food with friends just can't be beat. =)


After dinner, Kevin found the fabled Brick Lane 24-hour Beigel Shop! It turns out that it's incredibly inexpensive and even yummier than I thought it would be. East End used to be a big Jewish community, so I thought that I should stay true to my Jewish roots and get a bagel with lox and cream cheese. It was great! The shop also sold a bunch of desserts, but we were too full to have anything else. I'm definitely going back!

The next week, I had a field trip to the Royal College of Physicians (another building that I can tell you far too much about). Suffice it to say that it's a Brutalist building that cost way too much to make. The library is really cool, smells like old books, and has dried human veins varnished on wood and framed, hanging on the walls (they were 17th century teaching aids for physicians). It sounds kind of creepy, but it was actually really cool. There was also an interesting room whcih had old remedies for different sicknesses (among the tools were leech containers, various blood letting devices, old hearing aids, early stethoscopes... the list goes on and on). I would have put pictures up of the interior, but we weren't allowed to take them.

The following Friday, I had dinner with friends at Caitlin's apartment (lemon chicken - yum!) and then went to Drapers (the bar on campus) because they were having a "UV Rave," complete with blacklights and face paint! It was really hard to get the glow in the dark paint to show up on camera... so just imagine us all glowing in the dark, haha. It was pretty cool. =)


Kevin and I being silly, hehe. Great minds think alike -- we wore white because it'd glow the best. =)


I love this picture! Haider jumped in the middle of the picture as a joke, but it definitely made it 10 times better.

The next day, a bunch of us went to the London Zoo! I had a great time. It almost felt like I was traveling back in time. It had a very open feel to it... similar to how it was portrayed in Lady and the Tramp, now that I think of it. There were a lot of open areas, tons of grass, and a lot of the time there would just be an iron fence separating you from the animals. Pretty intimate, but at the same time it is a very old zoo and I wish the animals were able to have more space.


We walked through Regent's Park to get there... isn't it pretty? I can't wait for the flowers to start blooming! It'll be great to go to all the major parks to see the seasons turn.

We spent a pretty good amount of time in the Reptil House (where they filmed for Harry Potter). One of my favorite exhibits was where they tried to make it look like the Soutwest U.S. for a desert rattlesnake.


I think someone forgot to mention that Budweiser is now owned by a Belgian company, haha.


Kevin should really watch where he puts his hands, haha!


What a cute baby monkey! He was really frustrated because he couldn't figure out why he couldn't run away... (his mom's holding his foot down, hahaha!)


We caught the otters at feeding time -- adorable!


This is definitely my favorite picture of the day. It just looks like he's looking at me saying, "What the HELL are you doing?! Did I SAY that you could take a picture of me??" hahaha.


The original Winnie the Pooh and me! Winnie was a black bear cub at the London Zoo around WWI. A.A. Milne's son loved the bear and named his own teddy bear after it... and now we have Winnie the Pooh! =) Yay!

After the zoo, my friends and I went to Byron, this great little hamburger place by Kensington High Street. They advertise that their burgers are "proper" hamburgers and they were delicious! They also had amazing chocolate milkshakes. Yum!

Before I finish this up, I'm going to vent. I've been writing this on a train and the guy who sat next to me just left. He had a brand new unread copy of The Economist (in the plastic!) and decided to read the tabloids instead. Bah! I wanted to take it from him while he was wasting his time on that garbage. *Grumble*... I miss my subscription to the best magazine in the world.