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Tuesday, Sep 17, 2002
Tuesday, September 17, 2002
Tuesday was rest. I had no classes to attend so I sauntered downtown around 8:30am. The tube was crowded. Once at the college, I headed over to the computer room to get (as the English say) sorted out.
There weren't many people using the Internet computers in the early morning so it wasn't a problem finding a computer station to work on. I plugged in my own computer and I was off and running. My task for the morning was to fix my email newsletter program. This task soon became an afternoon task as well. Before I knew it, I had spent a better part of the day trying to get my newsletter program working. I did manage to get a few other things done, but not much.
Tuesday night was our first big show: Lés Miserables. Sure, I'd already seen it twice back home in the US. But this time it was different. This time was in London. This time was with English actors. This time was...free! Hard to argue with free. The show played at the Palace Theatre, which is quite a nice place. The seats for the students seemed to be spread around at random. I ended up at the back of middle balcony. It's no orchestra, but sure beat upper balcony. The seats were comfortable and I prepared for a great show.
We were then greeted by the sounds of a terrific orchestra. This was no surprise to me as the show was currently in its 17th season. If an orchestra member isn't perfect by now, they need to sell their violin and maybe take up accounting or something. (No offense to accountants.)
Being there was quite a treat. The admission was free--well, it was part of the program. And personally, I think the show is one of the finest in musical theatre. However, some would disagree. And that's fine. There's no crime in being wrong. I don't hold that against them.
The performance was a good one, and I would say it was at the same level as the San Francisco productions I'd seen in the past. The talent in the cast ranged from strong to well, not so strong. Still, it was moving and turned out to be well worth seeing.
September 18, 2002
Wednesday was more school. Classes were the same as Monday; however, our British life and culture class had a field trip. I love field trips. No sitting in a hard chair for two hours. This trip was to the British museum. The museum has some wonderful attributes about it -- one of them being the price...free. (When you spend thousands on a scholastic program, free takes on a whole new level of meaning)
Our tour guide took us to and around the museum. It's too big to cover everything, so she mainly stuck to a few exhibits. Between listening to her speak and moving from place to place, I never had much of a chance to take any good pictures. This was compounded by the fact that my batteries died on my camera.
September 19, 2002
Thursday consisted of just one class: History of Film. This class was four hours long. It involved a lecture regarding the beginning of film and watching a couple of movies followed that. I spent the evening at a pub with a few friends.
Friday was our field trip to Greenwich. We arrived at Embankment Tube Station at 9am and boarded a ferry. The boat took us up the Thames River over to Greenwich. From the boat, you got a marvelous view of apartments and industrial buildings. Come to think of it, maybe marvelous wasn't the best word to use. It did have a couple of nice views though. The Tower Bridge looks humongous when traveling under it.
At Greenwich, we got a tour guide and viewed the Greenwich observatory. Up at the top, you got to see the famous clock that the world's time is set by. It's digital now. The place also doesn't allow pictures to be taken when inside. Apparently, they had a problem with people taking pictures and then posting and selling them on the Internet. That's terrible. Leave it to someone to ruin it for everyone by making a buck. And it's worse when that someone isn't even me.
The shop up there had many fancy things to buy. I was more than tempted to buy a cool golden pocket watch for 60 pounds. But in the end, it just seemed like too much money for a souvenir that I'd never actually use. They had pocket watches that even sold for 500 pounds. On one shelf, there were many old-fashioned mechanical clocks that were encased in glass shells. One particular clock had this strange looking (aka ugly) cone-shaped glass top on it. A note on the clock said "Sure to be a conversation piece in any home." I remarked that that was true; however, the conversations would all most likely begin with "What on earth were you thinking buying that?!?"
From the observatory, we headed into the British Maritime Museum. Rumor has it that England used to have a small navy or something and went around conquering half the world, though their navy is considerably smaller nowadays. I think they may be a tad bitter about that because the rule in the maritime museum is the same -- no pictures. Ack. So many cool things to photograph - so many rules to prevent this.
After the museum, I took the ferry back towards Westminster. I ran into Elika on the ferry and we departed the boat at the Tower Bridge stop to finish the journey by tube. In the end, it took about as long to find the tube station as it would have taken to remain on the ferry. Once back at the school, we decided to meet later and visit a pub.
I headed over to the internet café to write some emails. I also got some shopping done. I then learned something new -- Ben and Jerry's ice cream is outrageously expensive over here. Should you feel the need to indulge; take note that it costs over four pounds a pint. Yeah, that's over six dollars! You'd have to sell your gold fillings to satisfy any sweet tooth. (Okay, I admit, that's a bad one. But nothing else came to mind. I tried, mind ye. Honest I did.)
I met up with Elika around 9pm and we headed over to the Cambridge pub for drinks. We ended up getting drinks downstairs and headed upstairs to drink them. The upstairs seating area was completely empty. This was a real treat. No loud noises. No smoke filling the room. It was almost like a secret hideout. We chatted for about an hour before more lucky travelers discovered our secret hiding place. Around 11pm, Heather and a few other girls showed up. By 11:30pm they booted us out since they were closing up shop. Most pubs close around 11pm in London. It's crazy, I know.
We wandered around a couple of places and then finally headed home. I rested well that night.
September 21, 2002
Saturday was a day to sleep in. I didn't even bother setting an alarm. At 11am, I awoke and had breakfast. We all met at 1pm for a bus tour of London. The bus took us around to different places and we got to stop at a couple of sights. This was a good thing since it's hard to take any pictures from inside a bus. Our "drivebys" included the Tower of London, the Millennium Bridge, the London Monument, Saint Paul's Cathedral, and Buckingham Palace. We did get out there for a spell. But the Queen wasn't around. This is the second time I've been over there and she wasn't home. I think she's avoiding me.
After the tour, I met up with my friend Emily from the States. She happened to be touring Europe this summer and was in London for a few days. We ate lunch at a local food court in a small mall. She had fish and chips. I had chicken and chips. It wasn't a bad meal, but probably not worth the price. "Chips" of course are French fries. Though, I probably should have had the fish. When people ask if I've tired "fish and chips," I have to say sort of. I mean it's very close. But truth be told, I had chicken and chips.
After lunch, Emily and I parted ways and I returned home. Five minutes later, I was heading out again. A group of us met up at the Dilke house to celebrate Gardner's birthday. We then walked down to Wagamama's restaurant. It's this Japanese noodle place that serves some great food. After dinner, we even had a cake and everything. It proved to be an excellent way to spend one's birthday. I told them my birthday was next week, but that turned out to be ineffective since I had already said it had been last June. Pleading that I was one of the rare few that had two birthdays per year didn't go over either. Hmmmm. Maybe if I do this thing again next summer. There's an idea.
We walked around town after dinner. Gradually, the group dwindled down from 16 people to seven. I made my exit around 11:50 pm to catch the last running Tube train back home.
September 22, 2002
Sunday. I had set my alarm for 8am. Around 9:30am, I woke up. There must be a competition somewhere to compete for hitting the snooze button the most times. I need to research that. Yet, I had nowhere to be. The day was one of rest. I dropped my laundry off at a local Laundromat and bought their special service. If you pay a little extra, they will do your laundry for you. This suited me just fine. I paid 5.50 pounds and was told to come back around 2pm. When I did, I found my laundry washed, dried, and even folded. I am going to continue using that service. It's so convenient. Though, I haven't figured out how I'm going to ship my laundry back and forth once I return to America.
We had a visitor in the house on Sunday. His name was George and he's an older Greek gentleman. This guy had interesting stories to tell of world travels. He also brought some Honey cake from Madeira. The cake was delicious and I found myself wanting more. One thing about the cake is that it isn't sliced, it's hand broken into pieces. This is supposed to keep the flavor strong. Apparently, it works well since the cake is very tasty.
Most of Sunday was spent writing, reading, and doing my homework. They don't give us a lot of homework, but the little we do have does have to be done. Fortunately, that's what Sunday evenings are for.
Thoughts:
Regarding food
Before coming to England, I heard many things about the food over here--mostly bad. I heard one story of a girl supposedly losing 20 pounds because she couldn't eat the food. Now, if the food is bad, I haven't gotten a taste of it. So far, everything has been great. I can't vouch for the smaller cities because I haven't traveled there. But in London, there is a seemingly endless supply of choices. There are restaurants with foods from all over the world. From curry rice to French food to McDonalds, one can find just about any food they desire. The stores have a nice array of things to choose from as well. I am even told of a Safeway store being located around here. Sometimes different choices of the same thing can be found. Last week, I picked up some curry flavored Pringles. And while the cereal may go under Frosties instead of Frosted Flakes, they're just as sugary.
Regarding money
For starters, they don't use the American dollar. Yeah, call them insane, but they have their own bill: the "pound." Well, actually, they don't even use a bill for the pound. They use a thick coin. Alas, my pocket now has a few coins in it. They do have a 5-pound bill, and 10 and 20-pound bills -- just not a 1-pound bill. Coinage is crazier. They almost always round to the nearest .05 pence. I would think that's to cut down on coinage, except there's a: 1-pence piece, 2-pence piece, 5-pence piece, 10-pence piece, 20-pence piece, and a 50-pence piece and even a 2-pound piece. That's EIGHT different coins. And keep in mind, I've only been here a week, there may be more. Who knows? My pockets are getting full. Soon holes will probably develop in my pants and I won't have any coin problem to worry about any more.
Regarding weather
If you don't like the weather in England, just wait five minutes and it will change. Trouble is that it'll then be colder and cloudier. Before coming here, they said to say goodbye to the sun since we wouldn't be seeing it once our plane descended under the cloud line. I thought they were joking. Silly me. I think it may actually turn out to be true. Well, okay, the sun has shone for a small part of the time, but it is rare when it happens. One person back at the Greenwich observatory remarked how ironic it was that they would build a site to observe the starts at a place that would appear to be one of the cloudiest places in the world.
Regarding watching the movie Casino at 12:50 at night and having the room start shaking.
Well, the closet creaked and the light swayed. I glanced upward to be sure. Yup, I believe an earthquake did occur. I then returned to the movie. I come from California. It's going to take more than a 2.0 to hold my attention.