War and Peace

As you may probably be able to tell, my creativity for blog title posts has run low. Alas.

To give you an idea with where I am in the semester, this coming week is the last week of classes for the semester. On Friday, we begin a three-week spring break, and then a month of exams. Very exciting! Friday Mom arrives, and so will begin my three week travel bonanza! Many adventures await, of which I will do my best to record and update here. But for now, these last two weeks have been nothing to sneeze at, so I will begin here.

221B: the real edition!

Moffattt

On Wednesday (March 21st, for the sake of chronological orientation), Emily, Kristen, Devyn, and I went to see 221B Baker Street, the home of Sherlock Holmes! There was a lovely museum (that we didn't go in), a shop filled with all the Sherlock Holmes paraphernalia you could ever desire (we did go in there, and I purchased a bookmark and a post card - alas, my dreams of getting a deerstalker hat were crushed by the £25-£40 price), and Mrs. Hudson's Old English Restaurant. Much to my amusement, on the door between these two establishments was a little plaque saying "Moffat Associates - Catalysts for Change." While I'm sure this was a perfectly legitimate establishment, it amused me that the name of one of the two infamous writers of the recent BBC series Sherlock (a fantastic modern adaption of Sherlock Holmes) was on the door. (And, the fangirl in me - who is very much familiar with how much Moffat enjoys messing with his viewers - imagines that he did it on purpose, as unlikely as it is.)

221B: the Sherlock edition!

Then we went to the site of the 221B door for the BBC Sherlock series, which was kind of awesome and surreal. Too bad there's no more filming until 2013...otherwise I'd totally stake it out to find Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. What?

Then we quickly perused the Beatles store next door, and headed to Brick Lane for some yummy beigels (pronounced bagel, of course...don't ask me why it's spelled differently, just know that they are delicious).

Thursday, we enjoyed some good ol' American Chipolte (what) and then went to the premiere of the Hunger Games! Truly a superb movie - I highly, highly recommend it. Though I would say, I recommend the books even more. But as far as book to movie adaptations go, I don't think I've ever been more satisfied. I mean, obviously there were some things I wished were changed, but overall I was extremely satisfied. And Jennifer Lawrence is a goddess. Just so you know.

Then, on Friday, Emily and I commenced the "war" part of my week - we got tickets to go to the Churchill War Rooms. Located just off Whitehall, the Cabinet War Rooms were where Churchill pretty much fought World War II, especially during the time of the blitz. They are underground, fortified rooms, abandoned as soon as the war ended and re-opened to the public a few decades later. Except for the added information plaques/statues of people hanging around, the rooms are almost exactly as they were left, preserved because no one entered them between when they closed and were re-opened.

Map in the aptly named Map Room!

The rooms themselves were really very interesting; we saw the Cabinet Room, where most important meetings were held, the Map Room, which was manned 24/7, the various small bedrooms/dining rooms for the officers and Mr. and Mrs. Churchill (who got separate rooms, Mrs. Churchill's being extremely effeminate - but most of the time they slept at 10 Downing). Apparently, when they first re-opened the Map Room, they found in one of the desks someone's stash of sugar (that they had saved up because of the shortage), hidden carefully in a drawer. They also had showing a cross-section of the Slab up at the ceiling, which was this five foot thick slab of concrete that they installed during the Blitz to increase the security of the building. It was kind of awesome.

One of my favorite things was a door disguised to look like a bathroom, but with the lock always "engaged" (as though someone were in it). Rumors said that the bathroom held the only flushing toilet in the bunker (as the rest did something with chemicals, I think? Well they didn't flush, anyway), and was reserved for the Prime Minister. In actuality, it was the room from which Churchill could make direct and encrypted calls to the President (very much in secret) whenever he needed to. How clever!

In the IWM

From the War Rooms we headed south of the river to go to the Imperial War Museum, an impressive collection of all sorts of war memorabilia (the first foyer-type room you go into is stuffed full of tanks, jeeps, cannons, and all sorts of airplanes hanging from the lofty ceiling - very awe-inspiring, to be sure). We weren't able to see the whole museum (as it is ginormous) but we saw the World War I and II exhibits (including the Trench Experience, which took you through these dark, winding trenches to simulate the experience), the modern war exhibits (any war or conflict since 1945, which was very interesting, as Britain has gotten into some fights that the US wasn't a part of that I wasn't aware of - the Falklands War against Argentina, for example) so that was informative. We also got the opportunity to go into a very large and very well-done Holocaust exhibit, which chronicled everything from the Nazi rise to power to the end of the war, and brought in many sociopolitical aspects of the Holocaust not usually touched upon in the exhibits (that usually focus only on the shock factor of the victims and the camps - which, of course, this had as well, but it was much more multi-faceted than just that, which made it even more fascinating and made much more of an impact). I highly recommend a visit to the IWM, even if you only have time to do the bare bones like we did.

The keep

So that was Friday!

Saturday, Kristen and I were up nice and early to catch a coach to Cardiff. We spent the day there, and what a beautiful day it was! We spent some time exploring Cardiff Castle, an impressive structure with ties to many parts of history. In the center was the old Norman Keep, the oldest section. All that remained of it was the outside wall and stairs up to the top, but it was still very cool. We walked around the battlements and went into the war tunnels (since every structure seems to have them...) which were pretty cool. Then we went into the Victorian-era manor, which was incredibly elaborate in a style that is pretty uncharacteristic of the Victorian era, to be honest; apparently it was early Gothic? Some of it seemed to have an Arabic influence, though...but one way or another it was impressive. Unfortunately, the card on my camera (a 4 GB) decided it would be more fun to only record forty pictures instead the usual 1800 or so, so I have regretfully very few pictures of this trip. Fortunately, the problem is fixed!

In the Manor

Millenium Center

From Cardiff Castle we then walked (about a half an hour or so) to the bay area, where the Millenium Center is located. Of course, this was the weekend of the Doctor Who Convention, so we were surrounded by Dalek balloons and people dressed as the Doctor, and they were playing the music and people all around us had the Convention bags and such, and it was torture. But tickets were something like $200 a pop, so...oh well. But the bay area was definitely very nice! Kind of a tourist-y, vacation sort of vibe, which fit well with the nice day. We got some lunch and ate it looking out at the bay (and trying our best to soak in as much Vitamin D as possible! We wandered around the bay area for a bit (found the BBC studios!), got some ice cream, and lay in the grass for a while. Very relaxing, very nice! Then we trekked back up to the center of the city and walked around the high streets (shopping/restaurant areas) and to the bus!

BBC Studios

The bus took us to Bristol, where we were picked up by simply the loveliest people ever - Kristen's family friends, Naomi and Jeremy. They took us back to their house in this little village called Stone, and Naomi served us the most British meal she could think of - cottage pie with leeks, and (of course) a lovely cuppa! It was absolutely delicious.

Their church

Then, the next day, we were treated to an equally delicious breakfast of fruit, toast, and cereal, and Naomi and I tried characteristic foods of each other's cultures. That is, I tried Marmite, and I made her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. For those who have never experienced Marmite, it's pretty much just a yeast extract. It has a very odd taste, and apparently it's famous for either being absolutely loved (usually by those who have eaten it their whole lives) or completely despised (usually by those who haven't). Apparently I broke the rules when I was pretty much unaffected by it - I didn't mind it so much, it was fine, but I'm not sure if I'd look out for it in a grocery store or anything. Very ambivalent. Naomi was very excited, and proceeded to tell everyone we met.

Bell ropes - the fuzzy bit is the part pulled second.

We then went with Jeremy to see him ring the bells at his church. In England (pretty exclusively so, apparently, according to Naomi and Jeremy) bell-ringing is something of an art, and something that people do very much by hand. It was absolutely fascinating. There were (if I'm remembering right) six bells, rung in turns by Jeremy, the pastor, two middle-aged men, two middle-aged women, a young girl (probably around 13 or 14) and a boy, maybe 9 or 10 years old. They stood in a circle, and the first person (the treble bell, I think? I could be remembering totally wrong) would usually start. Then, they would ring in a pattern, until someone called out another pattern (something like "4, 4, 5" or "3 to 2") and they'd all smoothly switch to whatever the person called out. Jeremy tried explaining some of the physics of it to me - the bell moves all 360º, and are moved by a wheel (that's what the rope is attached to). When you pull the rope down initially (the handstroke), the bell winds on the rope, going up to the balance, and then they pull a different part of the rope (the tail), this is the backstroke, which brings the bell back down. That is an extremely over-simplified version, but rest assured it was very cool and more complicated than I could understand.

At the deer park

Then after the bell-ringing, we went on a walk through a deer park, which gave us fantastic views of the surrounding area (including the castle of the area, which is still resided in by the family! How great would it be to live in a castle?). Unfortunately, Naomi and Jeremy told me that hedgehogs are generally nocturnal, and very, very shy, so unlikely to be found when walking around in the daytime. They did tell me a story about how one summer Jeremy was cleaning out the backyard and lifted up some compost, to find a nest of baby hedgehogs! Worried that he'd disturbed them he put everything back, but later that day when they were out in the yard, they saw a mommy hedgehog carrying the babies (one by one) across the yard to another nest. Adorable. Naomi also (very thoughtfully) found me an article about hedgehogs, which I will bring home and give to Emma. Know that I did try!

After our walk, we were treated to a lovely tea at the house of some more people Kristen used to know - they, too, were absolutely the sweetest people. It was an older woman, Judy, and her husband (the pastor, whose name I have forgotten), their son (who is friends with Naomi and Jeremy's sons, who were - in turn - friends with Kristen and her brother, which is how they all know each other, for those of you who may be curious). Also there were Judy's brother (celebrating his 70th birthday!) and his wife, who live in Canada. They were all very interested in Kristen and my studies, and in our life in the United States. I very much do hope to see them all again, though I don't know how likely it will be.

Kristen, Naomi, Jeremy!

Naomi treated Kristen and I to yet another delicious (and huge) meal - a lunch of salad, delicious breads, salami and ham, many different cheeses, and tomato with mozzarella, with a glass of wine. Then Naomi and Jeremy took Kristen and I back to Bristol to catch our bus back to London! I was sad to leave, but we'll be seeing Naomi again when she comes to London to go shopping with us!

Now, to recap this week! (Almost done, I promise!)

Ice bar!

On Monday, ISA took us to the musical We Will Rock You, a Queen musical which was not what I expected. It was unfortunately not very good (despite its long run time and standing ovation at the end). Of course, the songs were good (can't go wrong with Queen, and the singers were extremely talented) but the plot was threadbare at best, and very preachy (basically the whole thing is set in a future where all music is made electronically and nobody has any originality or emotion because of the internet, controlled by the - of course - Killer Queen). You got the message very early on, and it continued to be pounded in your head throughout, accompanied by an attempt at meta-theatricality that came off very cheesy and ill-contrived. Oh well. At least we got to listen to Queen, right? Can't complain much! (But I wouldn't recommend it, despite how appealing a Queen musical sounds...)

Then on Wednesday, we went to the Icebar! It is pretty much as it sounds - a bar made entirely out of ice, kept at -5º C. You have to wear these fantastic blue parka things (gloves attached), and you drink out of ice glasses, and the ice is imported from Sweden! This is something I definitely recommend - despite its relatively high price.

And here I am! Looking forward to a weekend of lots of studying and writing, as I have a goal to get everything (all my essays and such) due next week done by Sunday night. We'll see how it goes...I have high hopes!

Thanks, as always, for reading...sorry for the rambling length of this one, but not so sorry that the next post will be any different. :)

Cheers! <3

Bonus photo - fun in parkas!