The Faraday House (as you all can read) this is where all my classes take place formally. I don't know who the car belongs to, but it's kind of cute so I didn't call the bobbies to have it towed. I know that it doesn't look like much but once inside it is very nice and inviting. Like today I went in and got tea and scones for free from the Student Lounge it was very nice. I took them upstairs with me to my drama class- where someone mistook me for the professor.... *looks into mirror and wonders at society* Alright so I was wearing a nice put together outfit (black pants, charcoal three-quarter sleeve top) and I actually had a notebook *gasp* but other than that I have horribly bleached hair and look like I'm twenty (which I am). I don't think I look like a professor. But other than that...I guess it was vaguely flattering- very vaguely. Andrew is trying to convince me that I have a very good British accent, I think that he just wants me to try it on an English person and see them kick my butt. No thank you. But this blog post is not about all my inane class experiences! It is about the tour I took last Thursday (1/21/10). It started here at the Faraday House and then we went outside to Russell Square.
Russell Square is actually right next to my apartment so I get to see this beautiful scenery whenever I want to, but I took this picture to let you know that when I start pining for green I do have some nearby. So we cut straight through here heading towards the University of London.
We were all in a big group so we were noticeable tourists anyways, I thought what the hell, why not? Let's take a picture of all the really pretty double decker buses for all the jolly folk back in the USA. I'm sure they'll be able to appreciate it- and I have to say they're pretty cool looking, though when one is bearing down on you as you're crossing the road they are pretty darn intimidating. Crossing roads here is hard enough (having to look for traffic in the direction you usually never look) without having a double decker roaring down the road at top speed with the driver grinning manically at you! Mom please just ignore that last sentence and trust me when I say the streets here are much, much, much safer than in NYC. I have yet to feel like vehicular assault is about to be done upon my person.
So we sort of just zipped through the University of London with no real tour- Rebecca and I wondered if the tour guide was actually going to talk to us at all or just chat with the guy from Faraday House. This is a building that was across the street from ULU (University London Union), I was entranced by its color and architecture. I know I am not an architect, nor do I even know what good art is, but the buildings here in London fascinate me and I love them. So you will be seeing many, many random buildings that I have no idea what they hare but something inside me screams "PRETTY" when I see them so I take a snapshot.
This is the Senate Library (University of London Library) it was used as the Ministry of Truth in the filming of an adaptation of George Orwell's book 1984. The building is monstrous and looks rather like a prison if you ask me, but as our guide Edward (yes, I did make a Twilight crack to my roommate after I heard that- I could not help myself) told us, it is what is inside that matters. Edward graduated from Cambridge as an English major, which he told us was the most useless degree ever- don't do it. I shuffled behind Rebecca and pretended I was smart. But it turns out that he was just one of those typical Londoners (not born and bred, he's lived here 5 years) who has a very dry sense of humor and likes to poke fun at everything. As the man from Faraday House told me "He's being sarcastic" I wanted to reply "No? Really? I had nooooooo idea!" Honestly I have been warped by sarcasm, dry humor and mean comments since I was a baby, just because I don't react to your quips doesn't mean I don't get them, it means I'm not infantile. But according to Forbes (ETS prof) I am infantile....so we might need to hash this out a bit more (no he didn't call me infantile, I am exaggerating as usual).
Another bit of pretty buildings. I just love this style, it's so nice, so just nice. I could look at them all day. We need more of this stuff in the US.
Welcome the British Museum! No I have not had the chance to get in yet, but Rebecca and I are planning an excursion to it hopefully soon. Edward of course waited for us with his hands in his pockets and we snapped very touristy pictures and laughed and giggled amongst ourselves. Then he called our attention back to us and explained that admission to the museum was free! His explanation for it being free was that England had pretty much stolen everything inside of it and stopped up their ears and pretended to not be able to hear when other countries demanded their artifacts back. Thus, the least they can do is to make the museum free- except for the temporary exhibitions which cost money. But that's ok.
I snapped another picture of the building because come on, let's admit it, this thing is COOL. It's huge and vast and will take days on end to explore. I actually took a third picture, but there are two male morons looking like dunces so I couldn't post it. It would have shamed me.
Lots of pretty buildings.....the park is Bloomsbury Square, open to the public and quite nice.
I thought it was kind of cool....ooooo Sicilian Avenue! How exotic! Then I walked down it and was like....eh....normal and not very inspiring....
VOILA! Ooooo!!! Spiffy architecture AND an important building! This is Lincoln's Inn, no you cannot stay the night here. This is one of four places where you must have a place at to be able to be a barrister (there is a difference between a barrister and a lawyer). It is not open to the public though. But isn't it gorgeous?
These are the gates to Lincoln's Inn, very nice, very pretty... and down the road across from them is the Royal College of Surgeons which has the really cool medical museum in it which I need to go to that I haven't yet, but come on people, second week here. I need a little time to get situated!
If I am correct I believe this is the Royal Courts of Justice, I'm not quite sure.
Pretty building.....
YES! It is a horse's butt....I didn't have time to get around and get a picture of the front of the statue and I can't remember what it was for, but that's ok. It's on Fleet St. which was where all the newspapers used to be printed, but then the newspapers moved away and it became the financial/lawyer/barrister district. I didn't get a picture of it, but the clock the inspired the clock for the Harry Potter films is hanging above me. They took it down, recreated it and then put it back up. Pretty sweet... Another cool looking building. Fleet St was also the place where the fictitious barber Sweeney Todd killed his customers and his neighbor cooked them up into pies. So a fun place to be!
This is inside Inner and Middle Temple which are two of the four Inns that barristers can be a part of in order to be barristers. But this one is open to the public it was amazing inside, there was barely any noise at all, the sounds of the city were almost completely blocked out.
This is Edward, I didn't have enough guts to actually ask for a picture so I took a few really bad ones on the sly and decided this one was halfway decent and I could post it. Edward might look familiar to fans of the TV show Bones because he was a character in the first two episodes of the fourth season when they went to London. It was really cool to find that out, he was a good character on that show. He's a really funny guy, even though he wasn't able to answer my question about off hand glassblowing studios, my mom had to help me with that.
This is the temple that the Inner and Middle Temples get their name from. This is the temple that the Templar Knights built as one of many temples on the way to the Holy Lands where they would hold money for rich people who were making the pilgrimage. Thus the Templar Knights created banking. Edward informed us multiple times over the course of the tour that the book The Di Vinci Code sucked majorly and should never have been allowed to be published. But because of this the Temple started giving lectures about the building and what is in it (in order to stop people from trying to pry up the floor looking for the Holy Grail) they were able to raise money to help with upkeep and restoration.
This is a picture of the statue which is the symbol of the Templar Knights which was two knights on horseback. This was the symbol that King Phillip of France used to help prove to the Pope (who was in debt with the Templar Knights) that the Templar Knights were bad and should be killed. He used the symbol to show that the Templar Knights were all homosexuals and we know how the Church feels about homosexuals. I agree with Edward on this one: How childish. But in France the majority of the Templar Knights were are rounded up on Friday the 13th which has made that day an unlucky day in most countries barring France (insert mean French joke).
Ahhhh, at last! The River Thames! Isn't it beautiful!? That is the Blackfriars Bridge. Edward then told us about the river and how one summer the sewage in it all cooked over and created this horrendous stink that finally force Parliament to put in two huge sewer pipes to redirect waste from the river.
Cool looking building
I think this is one of the Temple buildings, I just took a picture because it was pretty.
This is the Millennium Bridge also known as the Wobbly Bridge. When it was first opened a massive amount of Londoners all came to the opening to walk across it. Well it wasn't designed well so it started to sway back and forth and buckled, people panicked, screamed and got sick. So when the architect of the bridge was asked why he couldn't build a simple bridge he replied that the bridge was perfectly fine, but what threw it off was not the design, but the way Londoner's walk which is a rather stupid reason.
The Millennium Bridge is also the bridge that gets ripped apart by Death Eaters in the beginning of the sixth Harry Potter movie. But that white building with the brown roof that you see there is the recreation of the Globe Theater. It's actually not in the exact location where the Globe Theater originally was but it is in the general area. The funny story he told us about the Globe Theater is that in it there are tiles where people who donated lots of money to the project have their names engraved in them. One of the tiles is John Cleese and if you look hard enough you will find another tile with Michael Pallin on it. Now if you know anything about Monty Python you know that his name is supposed to be spelled Michael Palin, but John Cleese paid and extra 10,000 pounds I believe to have them change it to Pallin.
These are the stairs leading to St. Paul's Cathedral which was designed by Sir Christopher Wren who is buried within it.
The impressive visage....
More pictures....
The very front of the Cathedral
One of the very last authentic pubs in London made in the old style. This is one of the very few that survived the Great Fire. Some other church that I walked by on my way back to Faraday........lemme see if I can find its name. Nope, way too many churches in London, if I wander by it again I'll check it out. Well that's all for now! Hope you enjoyed it!
So I know that you're all waiting on the edge of your seat to see my new abode and want to know if I'm living in total poverty or not. No need to worry! I will survive no matter the circumstances! So Now I will reveal to you the mysteries of a London apartment!
This is the lovely front door of my apartment. I am at 15 Bedford Street, and it looks so nice from the outside. The whole neighborhood/street looks pretty spiffy. To get in the door you need a little black fob that you hold up to the sensor and then there are multiple locks to get into your personal rooms. When you walk into the entrance hall you go straight, go down the stairs through the fire door and you'll find three doors. One goes to the laundry room, one to the main part of the apartment and the third to the bedroom. I'm not going to show you the laundry room. I showed you my bed (the only important part of the bedroom) so now I'm going to show you the common area!!! YAAAAY!!!
This is the entry hall straight ahead and to the left is the main common area, there are two doors that we don't have access to and directly to the left are the bathrooms.
Directly to the left, here are the bathrooms. Yes we have to full bathrooms, what is really annoying about them is that the light switches are on the outside as you can see, as is with almost every room. Put the stupid light switches inside the door and the hall light should be near the entrance door (which it is not). But it's nice that there are two bathrooms, lessens the congestion.
This is the lefthand bathroom, just in case you're wondering what an English bathroom looks like. It's fairly nice, this is the shower that has hot water, they're working on getting it in the right hand bathroom, it needs a new thermostat. The building people must think we're freaks we need so much attention. >.< But what am I to do? My momma always taught me that it's the squeaky wheel that gets the oil. So I am SQUEAKING!!!
This is the main living area from my desk (only two of them fit in the bedroom so I took the one in the living area and have effectively taken it over). We haven't turned on the TV yet and the times I have sat on the couches I have to say they're not that comfortable, but not that bad. I was hoping for leather....mmmm....leather....XD
This is from the door looking into the main living area, to the right is the desk I am currently sitting at, to the right is a smaller table that Rebecca some times takes over and behind all that is our small kitchen. I went shopping today so it now actually has some food in it! YAY!! I got eggs and green stuff, and I'm going to COOK....here's to not burning down the apartment!!!
This is the left hand nook of the kitchen, we have a stove, oven, microwave, toaster, water heater...sink...utensils...looks very nice, very inviting and warm....not much else to talk about...
Aaaaannnnd the right hand nook = the fridge...that's about all of it!!! Ta for now!
Rebecca and I at JFK we got there ridiculously early. Which I was so happy about, I'd rather be too early than a few minutes too late!! We waited around and chatted until it was time to check our bags, which we did. It was a little stressful because even though my larger bags (the ones I was checking) were the right weight (23 kilos) my carryon was too big and I had to find a way to trim that did. So I managed to do that by stuffing books into my purse...I love big purses!
Here is me waiting outside my gate. I was making last minute preparations for the plane, I was moving things from my carryon to my purse. Back and forth to make sure that I had everything I wanted. My carryon was much too big to fit under the seat and I didn't want to be inconvenient for other people. Try not to look too closely because I pretty much look like crap. I have HUGE bags under my eyes, no makeup and my hair isn't done....oh well.
Here I am in my bed with Bob, we are quite happily settled in and ready for sleep. Yes it is already cluttered, but there's not much I can do about that....I'm a very cluttered person. But this is my area, there are two other beds in the room that I didn't feel like taking a picture of because they're not mine.
And now that I have figured out how to do pictures....I SHALL PREVAIL BETTER IN THE NEXT POST!!!!
I am currently sitting in the Faraday House computer lab, typing to all of you to let you know a few things:
1) I AM IN LONDON 2) This is a Coca-Cola nation (T.T) 3) All my luggage made it through safely 4) There are LOTS of cute English boys...with smexy accents 5) I am officially jetlagged and want to go to bed 6) I DIDN'T LOSE MY WALLET OR PASSPORT
Now that all of that is out of the way let me give you a brief tour of my new home...I don't have pictures yet so I'll paint it for you in your mind. I live at Bedford Place #15 in the basement. You go down the twisty flight of steep stairs (you need to be 2% smarter than the luggage, I explained this to Rebecca as I navigated them) and smack dab in front is the Laundry room. Next to the stairs is the door to the apartment, you have to unlock the deadbolt on top and then the second lock. Once inside there are two full bathrooms (YES), and you go down the hall a bit and there is the living area which is connected to the kitchen with has lots of counter space and cooking utensils. To get to the bedrooms, you have to exit the apartment and go to the door next to the laundry room. There are three beds, three desks and two closets.
It's much more spacious then I thought it would be, and not as bad as I thought it would be. This week is going to all about orientating us and warning us about the dangers of being in London. I am currently completely knackered and wanting to kip, but other than that I'm doing fine! I'm working on an e-mail to send to you all, but that might take a little bit longer, so I just thought I'd send this out into the void so you could hear me and know!
The Faraday House (as you all can read) this is where all my classes take place formally. I don't know who the car belongs to, but it's kind of cute so I didn't call the bobbies to have it towed. I know that it doesn't look like much but once inside it is very nice and inviting. Like today I went in and got tea and scones for free from the Student Lounge it was very nice. I took them upstairs with me to my drama class- where someone mistook me for the professor.... *looks into mirror and wonders at society* Alright so I was wearing a nice put together outfit (black pants, charcoal three-quarter sleeve top) and I actually had a notebook *gasp* but other than that I have horribly bleached hair and look like I'm twenty (which I am). I don't think I look like a professor. But other than that...I guess it was vaguely flattering- very vaguely. Andrew is trying to convince me that I have a very good British accent, I think that he just wants me to try it on an English person and see them kick my butt. No thank you. But this blog post is not about all my inane class experiences! It is about the tour I took last Thursday (1/21/10). It started here at the Faraday House and then we went outside to Russell Square.
Russell Square is actually right next to my apartment so I get to see this beautiful scenery whenever I want to, but I took this picture to let you know that when I start pining for green I do have some nearby. So we cut straight through here heading towards the University of London.
We were all in a big group so we were noticeable tourists anyways, I thought what the hell, why not? Let's take a picture of all the really pretty double decker buses for all the jolly folk back in the USA. I'm sure they'll be able to appreciate it- and I have to say they're pretty cool looking, though when one is bearing down on you as you're crossing the road they are pretty darn intimidating. Crossing roads here is hard enough (having to look for traffic in the direction you usually never look) without having a double decker roaring down the road at top speed with the driver grinning manically at you! Mom please just ignore that last sentence and trust me when I say the streets here are much, much, much safer than in NYC. I have yet to feel like vehicular assault is about to be done upon my person.
So we sort of just zipped through the University of London with no real tour- Rebecca and I wondered if the tour guide was actually going to talk to us at all or just chat with the guy from Faraday House. This is a building that was across the street from ULU (University London Union), I was entranced by its color and architecture. I know I am not an architect, nor do I even know what good art is, but the buildings here in London fascinate me and I love them. So you will be seeing many, many random buildings that I have no idea what they hare but something inside me screams "PRETTY" when I see them so I take a snapshot.
This is the Senate Library (University of London Library) it was used as the Ministry of Truth in the filming of an adaptation of George Orwell's book 1984. The building is monstrous and looks rather like a prison if you ask me, but as our guide Edward (yes, I did make a Twilight crack to my roommate after I heard that- I could not help myself) told us, it is what is inside that matters. Edward graduated from Cambridge as an English major, which he told us was the most useless degree ever- don't do it. I shuffled behind Rebecca and pretended I was smart. But it turns out that he was just one of those typical Londoners (not born and bred, he's lived here 5 years) who has a very dry sense of humor and likes to poke fun at everything. As the man from Faraday House told me "He's being sarcastic" I wanted to reply "No? Really? I had nooooooo idea!" Honestly I have been warped by sarcasm, dry humor and mean comments since I was a baby, just because I don't react to your quips doesn't mean I don't get them, it means I'm not infantile. But according to Forbes (ETS prof) I am infantile....so we might need to hash this out a bit more (no he didn't call me infantile, I am exaggerating as usual).
Another bit of pretty buildings. I just love this style, it's so nice, so just nice. I could look at them all day. We need more of this stuff in the US.
Welcome the British Museum! No I have not had the chance to get in yet, but Rebecca and I are planning an excursion to it hopefully soon. Edward of course waited for us with his hands in his pockets and we snapped very touristy pictures and laughed and giggled amongst ourselves. Then he called our attention back to us and explained that admission to the museum was free! His explanation for it being free was that England had pretty much stolen everything inside of it and stopped up their ears and pretended to not be able to hear when other countries demanded their artifacts back. Thus, the least they can do is to make the museum free- except for the temporary exhibitions which cost money. But that's ok.
I snapped another picture of the building because come on, let's admit it, this thing is COOL. It's huge and vast and will take days on end to explore. I actually took a third picture, but there are two male morons looking like dunces so I couldn't post it. It would have shamed me.
Lots of pretty buildings.....the park is Bloomsbury Square, open to the public and quite nice.
I thought it was kind of cool....ooooo Sicilian Avenue! How exotic! Then I walked down it and was like....eh....normal and not very inspiring....
VOILA! Ooooo!!! Spiffy architecture AND an important building! This is Lincoln's Inn, no you cannot stay the night here. This is one of four places where you must have a place at to be able to be a barrister (there is a difference between a barrister and a lawyer). It is not open to the public though. But isn't it gorgeous?
These are the gates to Lincoln's Inn, very nice, very pretty... and down the road across from them is the Royal College of Surgeons which has the really cool medical museum in it which I need to go to that I haven't yet, but come on people, second week here. I need a little time to get situated!
If I am correct I believe this is the Royal Courts of Justice, I'm not quite sure.
Pretty building.....
YES! It is a horse's butt....I didn't have time to get around and get a picture of the front of the statue and I can't remember what it was for, but that's ok. It's on Fleet St. which was where all the newspapers used to be printed, but then the newspapers moved away and it became the financial/lawyer/barrister district. I didn't get a picture of it, but the clock the inspired the clock for the Harry Potter films is hanging above me. They took it down, recreated it and then put it back up. Pretty sweet...
Another cool looking building. Fleet St was also the place where the fictitious barber Sweeney Todd killed his customers and his neighbor cooked them up into pies. So a fun place to be!
This is inside Inner and Middle Temple which are two of the four Inns that barristers can be a part of in order to be barristers. But this one is open to the public it was amazing inside, there was barely any noise at all, the sounds of the city were almost completely blocked out.
This is Edward, I didn't have enough guts to actually ask for a picture so I took a few really bad ones on the sly and decided this one was halfway decent and I could post it. Edward might look familiar to fans of the TV show Bones because he was a character in the first two episodes of the fourth season when they went to London. It was really cool to find that out, he was a good character on that show. He's a really funny guy, even though he wasn't able to answer my question about off hand glassblowing studios, my mom had to help me with that.
This is the temple that the Inner and Middle Temples get their name from. This is the temple that the Templar Knights built as one of many temples on the way to the Holy Lands where they would hold money for rich people who were making the pilgrimage. Thus the Templar Knights created banking. Edward informed us multiple times over the course of the tour that the book The Di Vinci Code sucked majorly and should never have been allowed to be published. But because of this the Temple started giving lectures about the building and what is in it (in order to stop people from trying to pry up the floor looking for the Holy Grail) they were able to raise money to help with upkeep and restoration.
This is a picture of the statue which is the symbol of the Templar Knights which was two knights on horseback. This was the symbol that King Phillip of France used to help prove to the Pope (who was in debt with the Templar Knights) that the Templar Knights were bad and should be killed. He used the symbol to show that the Templar Knights were all homosexuals and we know how the Church feels about homosexuals. I agree with Edward on this one: How childish. But in France the majority of the Templar Knights were are rounded up on Friday the 13th which has made that day an unlucky day in most countries barring France (insert mean French joke).
Ahhhh, at last! The River Thames! Isn't it beautiful!? That is the Blackfriars Bridge. Edward then told us about the river and how one summer the sewage in it all cooked over and created this horrendous stink that finally force Parliament to put in two huge sewer pipes to redirect waste from the river.
Cool looking building
I think this is one of the Temple buildings, I just took a picture because it was pretty.
This is the Millennium Bridge also known as the Wobbly Bridge. When it was first opened a massive amount of Londoners all came to the opening to walk across it. Well it wasn't designed well so it started to sway back and forth and buckled, people panicked, screamed and got sick. So when the architect of the bridge was asked why he couldn't build a simple bridge he replied that the bridge was perfectly fine, but what threw it off was not the design, but the way Londoner's walk which is a rather stupid reason.
The Millennium Bridge is also the bridge that gets ripped apart by Death Eaters in the beginning of the sixth Harry Potter movie. But that white building with the brown roof that you see there is the recreation of the Globe Theater. It's actually not in the exact location where the Globe Theater originally was but it is in the general area. The funny story he told us about the Globe Theater is that in it there are tiles where people who donated lots of money to the project have their names engraved in them. One of the tiles is John Cleese and if you look hard enough you will find another tile with Michael Pallin on it. Now if you know anything about Monty Python you know that his name is supposed to be spelled Michael Palin, but John Cleese paid and extra 10,000 pounds I believe to have them change it to Pallin.
These are the stairs leading to St. Paul's Cathedral which was designed by Sir Christopher Wren who is buried within it.
The impressive visage....
More pictures....
The very front of the Cathedral
One of the very last authentic pubs in London made in the old style. This is one of the very few that survived the Great Fire.
Some other church that I walked by on my way back to Faraday........lemme see if I can find its name. Nope, way too many churches in London, if I wander by it again I'll check it out. Well that's all for now! Hope you enjoyed it!
