Thursday, December 11, 2008
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Last week of Undergrad
Senioritis is so much worse when you are spending your last week of your college career in a foreign city.
I only have my massive Brit Pop journal and teaching journals left to finish and then I am officially done with my undergraduate education.
I get a break from work on Thursday night with the end of term party at school and then the people from Lambeth are taking Omar, Andrew, and I out to a jazz club for food and music. I will be done with everything by that point on Thursday so that I have three full days to pack and play in London before I head back home.
Monday is coming very quickly.
I only have my massive Brit Pop journal and teaching journals left to finish and then I am officially done with my undergraduate education.
I get a break from work on Thursday night with the end of term party at school and then the people from Lambeth are taking Omar, Andrew, and I out to a jazz club for food and music. I will be done with everything by that point on Thursday so that I have three full days to pack and play in London before I head back home.
Monday is coming very quickly.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Thanksgiving
I had some trepidations about trying to pull off Thanksgiving in London. None of us are with our families, and we had decided to do a potluck traditional Thanksgiving for 11. Most everyone started making their contributions the night before, so as to not take up valuable kitchen space and time at the boys apartment on Thursday. Unfortunately, we all had class on Thursday, so we planned for the eating to begin at 7:30. I'm used to a more afternoon Thanksgiving, as was everyone else, but there was no choice.
To my surprise, the meal actually worked out. The food was all ready to go by 7: 30 and it was all really good. Eric and Andrew were in charge of the turkey- all 18 pounds of it - and I thought the moment when everything was going to fail was when Eric started to carve the turkey and found the giblets (whose absence had puzzled Andrew earlier in the afternoon when his arm was up to the elbow in raw turkey) in the neck, complete in their plastic bag. Neither of the boys had thought to stuff the neck as well as the bottom of the turkey, but it ended up being alright in the end.
We definitely had way too much food, but it was all so good. I had two helpings of entirely different food. We had the 18 lb turkey, gravy, french stuffing, traditional stuffing, cranberry chutney, cranberry relish, salad, macaroni and cheese, rolls, green bean cassarole, broccoli, company carrots, zucchini bread, stuffed mushrooms, roasted chestnuts, and twice baked potatoes. For dessert there were chocolate peanut butter cookies, fruit salad, peach cobbler, low-fat pumpkin pie, and traditional apple pie. Of course, we also had all the wine you could want, cider, and a traditional British drink of Pimm's and apple juice mixed together and heated up, which was really good- a little like mulled cider. All of the food was homemade and excellent. I haven't been that full in a long time. It took me a couple of hours to work up the energy to get on the bus to go home. All in all it was a great Thanksgiving and I'm really proud of all of us for pulling together to pull it off.
Our turkey, George, that Eric and Andrew made. Check out the golden brown perfection.
To my surprise, the meal actually worked out. The food was all ready to go by 7: 30 and it was all really good. Eric and Andrew were in charge of the turkey- all 18 pounds of it - and I thought the moment when everything was going to fail was when Eric started to carve the turkey and found the giblets (whose absence had puzzled Andrew earlier in the afternoon when his arm was up to the elbow in raw turkey) in the neck, complete in their plastic bag. Neither of the boys had thought to stuff the neck as well as the bottom of the turkey, but it ended up being alright in the end.
We definitely had way too much food, but it was all so good. I had two helpings of entirely different food. We had the 18 lb turkey, gravy, french stuffing, traditional stuffing, cranberry chutney, cranberry relish, salad, macaroni and cheese, rolls, green bean cassarole, broccoli, company carrots, zucchini bread, stuffed mushrooms, roasted chestnuts, and twice baked potatoes. For dessert there were chocolate peanut butter cookies, fruit salad, peach cobbler, low-fat pumpkin pie, and traditional apple pie. Of course, we also had all the wine you could want, cider, and a traditional British drink of Pimm's and apple juice mixed together and heated up, which was really good- a little like mulled cider. All of the food was homemade and excellent. I haven't been that full in a long time. It took me a couple of hours to work up the energy to get on the bus to go home. All in all it was a great Thanksgiving and I'm really proud of all of us for pulling together to pull it off.
Our turkey, George, that Eric and Andrew made. Check out the golden brown perfection.
Two tables worth of food...
...and the third table. Note the Firebird wine that I contributed for drinks.
Turkey legs on an 18 lb turkey are huge. Mike really enjoyed it, as you can tell. Seth ate the other one, I believe.
The square apple pie complete with homemade crust that I made. : )
I hope everyone's thanksgivings were good!
Cheers!
Cheers!
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Edinburgh- Email Style
So, since I have a paper to write instead of writing another blog entry, here's a copy of an email I just sent to my parents:
Hello!!!
So, I'm on the train on the way home from Scotland. We just passed over the border into England. As I write this, we're passing along the coast- craggy cliffs drop off to the ocean on the left and on the right, the sky is settling into sunset. The trip was a ton of fun. Edinburgh is located right on the western coast of Edinburgh and our hostel was on the outskirts of town, but it was on a hill overlooking the bay, the the property ran right to the beach. I took two really nice morning walks along the water before anyone else was really up. On Friday evening, after we got the hostel sorted, we went for a walk around town with Bill to get ourselves situated. Luckily, Edinburgh is a pretty small city, so you don't really need public transport, and the main drag, called the Royal Mile, has enough stuff to occupy all of us for the evening. We saw the cafe turned Chinese Buffet where J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book. I went to a pub for dinner, and split an appetizer of haggis to try with two friends, Sarah and Ally. It is pretty good- it tastes kind of like roast beef hash, but it's creamy and a little spicy. They serve it with neeps and tatties- turnips (which are also pretty good!) and mashed potatoes. For my main course, I got corned beef hash with a sweet onion sauce and no egg (yuck). It was really good, but I prefer my hash a little crispier from the electric frying pan. I split a dessert of treacle tart (Harry Potter's favorite dessert!) with Sarah. It was really good. I was expecting it to be the consistency of pecan pie except tasting of molasses, but it was kind of spongy and not too sweet at all. That night we went on a ghost tour. Edinburgh is supposed to be one of the most haunted cities in the UK. We went to a graveyard known as Greyfriars. Greyfriars is famous for Greyfriars Bobby- a dog who, after his owner was buried in the cemetery, wouldn't leave the premises. Bobby was 2 when his owner died and spent the rest of his life until he was 17 being fed and hanging out in the graveyard. The graveyard is this big hill and on the ghost tour we learned that it used to be a valley. The town ran out of room in the 15th century for all of the dead, so they just started turning the graveyard into a layer cake. There are 500 headstones and approximately 40,000 people buried there. We went into the prison where the clergymen of the church belonging to the graveyard were imprisoned and tortured when Scotland was changing religions. It was creepy, but not really terrifying in any way. They did have a guy waiting to jump out at us, and of course I jumped and screamed, but really, that was to be expected.
On Saturday we spent the morning at Edinburgh castle, which has a long and storied military history. The Scottish Crown Jewels, called the Scottish Honors, are kept there. We were allowed in to see them. Part of the Honors includes this sword that has to be 3 1/2- 4 feet long! After the castle, it was time for a quick lunch on the run to the Parliament. Scotland got their own parliament in the late 90s and the building is very new. The outside doesn't blend in with the historic part of town it sits in, but the inside is really quite pretty. After the tour of Parliament, Bill decided that we had not had enough exercise in our life so we climbed an 850 foot craggy hill called Arthur's Seat. The view from the top was spectacular. We could see out over all of Edinburgh and the ocean. Scotland has some of the most spectacular natural beauty that I have ever seen. The top was incredibly windy - I legitimately would not have been surprised if someone had gotten blown off the top. Kite flying in Scotland is more like involuntary-landsurfing, as we've dubbed it. Last night we went to a ceilidh. The music was good- just three violins and a keyboard and one bagpipe solo by a traditional player. The dance was part of the University of Edinburgh's Folk Music Society's 50th anniversary celebrations. We all danced with strangers, and I danced with Bill for the first dance- he dragged me onto the floor. It was a ton of fun, but exhausting, especially after climbing up the 850 ft hill.
Today was spent touring Holyrood Palace, the Queen's official residence in Scotland. Since its a working palace, we only got to see like 10 rooms, but it was still really impressive. The back of the palace has a ruined abbey, which is always eerily interesting because it generally signifies a large-scale change of religion across the country, which in general is a bad time for everyone. The rest of the day was spent window shopping, and a stop in the morning at this amazing place called Chocolate Soup. It's a cafe that focuses on hot chocolate instead of coffee. I got a hot chocolate sundae and a muffin and it was glorious.
There was just almost a scene on the train. There are these women around 50 years of age talking and laughing at the top of their lungs and being really disrespectful to the rest of the train carriage. One of our students went up to them to nicely ask that they be a little more quiet and one of them responded "Hell no, we won't." So then, of course, because apparently no one can behave like an adult, another student went up and piped in with the fact that there are 36 students and 5 of these women. Now, these women are really annoying- I can hear them with my headphones turned up, but this is also not a reason for a bunch of students to start a fight with these women who may or may not be a little inebriated. One of the women responded to the second prompt of majority rules with "If we were in your country we'd expect you all to act like us and we wouldn't have a problem with it." Which is again, not really mature either. So, then someone went off to fetch a staff member on the train. We've been told they're going to get off at the next stop, but now they've starting singing songs . They're getting off the train now, and one of them came up to one of the students and told them that "When she goes to America, she hopes that we make her feel as welcome there as she was here today" now the woman is up by us talking about how we're all a disgrace, even though she was the one that came up to us and started instigating with us. For the record, they are UK citizens. I'm not surprised by the immaturity shown by the IC students- most of them are 19 and 20, but the adults' behavior startled me a little. Whatever, they're almost off the train. I'm glad the three people I'm sitting with are more adult than everyone else in this car.
Cheers!
P.S. Pictures tomorrow or the day after!
Hello!!!
So, I'm on the train on the way home from Scotland. We just passed over the border into England. As I write this, we're passing along the coast- craggy cliffs drop off to the ocean on the left and on the right, the sky is settling into sunset. The trip was a ton of fun. Edinburgh is located right on the western coast of Edinburgh and our hostel was on the outskirts of town, but it was on a hill overlooking the bay, the the property ran right to the beach. I took two really nice morning walks along the water before anyone else was really up. On Friday evening, after we got the hostel sorted, we went for a walk around town with Bill to get ourselves situated. Luckily, Edinburgh is a pretty small city, so you don't really need public transport, and the main drag, called the Royal Mile, has enough stuff to occupy all of us for the evening. We saw the cafe turned Chinese Buffet where J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book. I went to a pub for dinner, and split an appetizer of haggis to try with two friends, Sarah and Ally. It is pretty good- it tastes kind of like roast beef hash, but it's creamy and a little spicy. They serve it with neeps and tatties- turnips (which are also pretty good!) and mashed potatoes. For my main course, I got corned beef hash with a sweet onion sauce and no egg (yuck). It was really good, but I prefer my hash a little crispier from the electric frying pan. I split a dessert of treacle tart (Harry Potter's favorite dessert!) with Sarah. It was really good. I was expecting it to be the consistency of pecan pie except tasting of molasses, but it was kind of spongy and not too sweet at all. That night we went on a ghost tour. Edinburgh is supposed to be one of the most haunted cities in the UK. We went to a graveyard known as Greyfriars. Greyfriars is famous for Greyfriars Bobby- a dog who, after his owner was buried in the cemetery, wouldn't leave the premises. Bobby was 2 when his owner died and spent the rest of his life until he was 17 being fed and hanging out in the graveyard. The graveyard is this big hill and on the ghost tour we learned that it used to be a valley. The town ran out of room in the 15th century for all of the dead, so they just started turning the graveyard into a layer cake. There are 500 headstones and approximately 40,000 people buried there. We went into the prison where the clergymen of the church belonging to the graveyard were imprisoned and tortured when Scotland was changing religions. It was creepy, but not really terrifying in any way. They did have a guy waiting to jump out at us, and of course I jumped and screamed, but really, that was to be expected.
On Saturday we spent the morning at Edinburgh castle, which has a long and storied military history. The Scottish Crown Jewels, called the Scottish Honors, are kept there. We were allowed in to see them. Part of the Honors includes this sword that has to be 3 1/2- 4 feet long! After the castle, it was time for a quick lunch on the run to the Parliament. Scotland got their own parliament in the late 90s and the building is very new. The outside doesn't blend in with the historic part of town it sits in, but the inside is really quite pretty. After the tour of Parliament, Bill decided that we had not had enough exercise in our life so we climbed an 850 foot craggy hill called Arthur's Seat. The view from the top was spectacular. We could see out over all of Edinburgh and the ocean. Scotland has some of the most spectacular natural beauty that I have ever seen. The top was incredibly windy - I legitimately would not have been surprised if someone had gotten blown off the top. Kite flying in Scotland is more like involuntary-landsurfing, as we've dubbed it. Last night we went to a ceilidh. The music was good- just three violins and a keyboard and one bagpipe solo by a traditional player. The dance was part of the University of Edinburgh's Folk Music Society's 50th anniversary celebrations. We all danced with strangers, and I danced with Bill for the first dance- he dragged me onto the floor. It was a ton of fun, but exhausting, especially after climbing up the 850 ft hill.
Today was spent touring Holyrood Palace, the Queen's official residence in Scotland. Since its a working palace, we only got to see like 10 rooms, but it was still really impressive. The back of the palace has a ruined abbey, which is always eerily interesting because it generally signifies a large-scale change of religion across the country, which in general is a bad time for everyone. The rest of the day was spent window shopping, and a stop in the morning at this amazing place called Chocolate Soup. It's a cafe that focuses on hot chocolate instead of coffee. I got a hot chocolate sundae and a muffin and it was glorious.
There was just almost a scene on the train. There are these women around 50 years of age talking and laughing at the top of their lungs and being really disrespectful to the rest of the train carriage. One of our students went up to them to nicely ask that they be a little more quiet and one of them responded "Hell no, we won't." So then, of course, because apparently no one can behave like an adult, another student went up and piped in with the fact that there are 36 students and 5 of these women. Now, these women are really annoying- I can hear them with my headphones turned up, but this is also not a reason for a bunch of students to start a fight with these women who may or may not be a little inebriated. One of the women responded to the second prompt of majority rules with "If we were in your country we'd expect you all to act like us and we wouldn't have a problem with it." Which is again, not really mature either. So, then someone went off to fetch a staff member on the train. We've been told they're going to get off at the next stop, but now they've starting singing songs . They're getting off the train now, and one of them came up to one of the students and told them that "When she goes to America, she hopes that we make her feel as welcome there as she was here today" now the woman is up by us talking about how we're all a disgrace, even though she was the one that came up to us and started instigating with us. For the record, they are UK citizens. I'm not surprised by the immaturity shown by the IC students- most of them are 19 and 20, but the adults' behavior startled me a little. Whatever, they're almost off the train. I'm glad the three people I'm sitting with are more adult than everyone else in this car.
Cheers!
P.S. Pictures tomorrow or the day after!
Friday, November 14, 2008
A little of many things
So I haven't updated in a bit, largely due to illness. Last week I had my annual autumnal cold of doom. I spent a week with no energy, a wicked cough, pounding headache, and no sleep despite medication. Naturally, I did almost nothing besides class. A week later, I feel much better but am left with the cough.
I was pretty sick the night of the election, so I didn't stay up to watch any of the coverage. There were viewing parties in pubs across London, and if I had been feeling better I would have definitely gone to one. Heather was nice enough to call me though, when Obama won. Granted, she did wake me up in the middle of the night here, but it was worth it to know right as it happened. I wish I could have seen his speech live, but I've read the transcript and watched it on the BBC. The reaction in London was electric. Everyone was so happy and relieved. I've never had that many people take an interest in talking to me about American politics since I've been here. There was an Irishman in a cafe that I stopped in for a cup of tea (a cuppa) who heard my accent and stopped me to ask if I was happy with the outcome and if I was going to have a party. One of the headlines from the Thursday after the election read "The Day America Became a Little Bit Cool Again." I love the Brits haha.
This past weekend was the school trip to Liverpool. It's a 4 hour coach ride from London, which isn't so bad considering that Ithaca is 4.5 to 5 hours from my house, but riding on coaches always makes me feel slightly sick. I did manage to get two seats to myself, since this was a smaller trip, so I got to stretch out a bit and sleep. We got to Liverpool a little after lunch time, and checked in to the YHA.
Liverpool is an industrial city and back in the day was a vital stop on the slave trade triangle. The town has the look of a combination of Danbury and the docks in Bridgeport (for those of you from Connecticut). Liverpool is also the European City of Culture 2008. They have a ton of museums that are not Beatles-themed and the docks are full of neat little stores and restaurants. The European MTV awards had been held in Liverpool the night before we got there.
Friday afternoon was taken up by a quick trip to the docks and we saw where the ferry leaves to cross to Ireland and we stopped by the lobby of the Tate Liverpool Museum. We then loaded back on the coach and set off on the Magical Mystery Tour. We were taken around town and shown where each of the four Beatles were born. We also stopped at Penny Lane and saw a few of the places mentioned in the song. Strawberry Fields was another stop on the tour. It was interesting to see where all of the Beatles were born and went to school. George and Ringo really grew up in a pretty poor area. John on the other hand, had a pretty middle class upbringing. The last stop on the tour was the Cavern Club, where the Beatles played over 200 gigs and got discovered by their manager, Brian Epstein. We had a traditional dinner of scouse, a type of meat stew, at the hostel. Afterwards, most people went back to the Cavern Club, but as I was still sick, I went to bed by 8 pm. Super lame, but whatever.
The next morning, we went to The Beatles' Story, which is the original Beatles museum. It was fantastic. We each got our own audio guide and wandered through rooms that were recreations of different places from the Beatles' lives. They had original instruments from John Lennon's skiffle band. The museum ended with a really touching room with John's white piano and "Imagine" pumped through the speakers. We found the children's room and immediately proceeded to color and glue confetti for about 20 minutes at the end of the tour.
After Robin, Erin, Meghan, and I were done with the museum, we hit up this creperie that Meghan was super excited about for lunch. I got the vegetable soup and a banana and chocolate crepe for dessert. It was excellent. After that we went back to the Tate gift shop and then hit up the Slavery Museum. That museum was hard to walk through. They had original shackles and recreations of conditions in the ship along with video recreations. It is so hard to believe that white men and women ever believed that they could treat other human beings that way solely based on the color of their skin. There are no words to describe the feelings of horror and shame I felt walking through there. There was a wall in the entryway of the museum where people could write on note cards about their reactions to the museum. It was touching to see so many people had written about Obama being elected and the hope he brings to the world.
On our way out of Liverpool we stopped at Cromwell Beach to see an art installation by an artist named Antony Gormley. He is most famous for a sculpture called the Angel of the North, installed near Durham (in North England, duh). It is, obviously, an Angel and the wing span is wider than the statue of Liberty is tall. The installation we saw is called Another Place and it 100 casts of Gormley's naked body spread out over the beach and into the water. The tide came in while we where there, and some of the statues had water up to their heads. It was very interesting and visually captivating. Bill, our center director, got a kick out of having Robin, Meghan, Erin, and I pose with one statue who had his "willy" painted green. He took a picture of us looking out over the horizon, a shot from the front, and for the last shot, he gave me his baseball cap and had me cover the willy so he could "send a picture back to the music school to let them know you're not getting into trouble." Oh, Bill.
This week was hellish in it's intensity and workload. I have my last ever paper due for my British Art and Architecture class on Tuesday, and I couldn't be less interested in writing it if I tried. I went to the exhibit in the Queen's Gallery in Buckingham Palace on Sunday. Monday, I started teaching year 7 Jazz Band, and if that is how all 12 year olds behave, I never want to teach middle school. Tuesday night, I went to an Arsenal football game. They are a premiere league team and they won 3-0. It was a great game: 60,000 screaming fans make for a fun atmosphere. Wednesday I continued working with my 16 year old composition students, which is a bit of a challenge because they know nothing about music and are using sequencing software to write a piece. Wednesday night, we went to see Billy Elliot the musical with my Brit Pop class. It was absolutely amazing. The lead is a 13 year old from Nebraska of all places. He had a great northern England accent and his dancing and singing were both superb. I have no words for how good the show was, but I would love to go and see it again (perhaps in NYC??). Thursday was spent in class and at the Victoria and Albert Museum in the National Art Library, researching for this paper I don't want to write.
I write this post on the train on the way to Edinburgh for the weekend. It is our last school trip and I'm super excited to spend the weekend in Scotland. The train left from King's Cross station. Before we left, I detoured to Platform 9 3/4 for my photo-op. The train has free wifi, so I've been getting work done on this hellish paper and checking my email. We should arrive in Edinburgh around 2 pm and we have a full weekend lined up. Tonight there is a performance of traditional music and dance called a ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee), but we had to buy tickets in advance using pay pal. I didn't want to set up an account, so we're going to go and try to get tickets at the door. If we can't get in tonight, there is another show tomorrow night. There is a ghost tour we're going to go on on whichever night we can't get into the ceilidh.
Train travel is so lovely. Northern England is absolutely idyllic. It's all gentle rolling hills, sheep, cows, and emerald green fields flanked by trees decked out in autumnal colors. The weather is only slightly overcast and the towns that we've passed so far have been very quaint looking. I did notice some peculiar looking animals earlier: they were either small horses or mules, but they looked like cows. They had the mottled white with black blotches coat that is, what I had thought up until this point, unique to cows. We also passed by the Angel of the North (mentioned earlier), and the town of Durham- the set of Billy Elliot and home of the famous (to Art and Architecture students) Durham Cathedral.
Cheers!
I was pretty sick the night of the election, so I didn't stay up to watch any of the coverage. There were viewing parties in pubs across London, and if I had been feeling better I would have definitely gone to one. Heather was nice enough to call me though, when Obama won. Granted, she did wake me up in the middle of the night here, but it was worth it to know right as it happened. I wish I could have seen his speech live, but I've read the transcript and watched it on the BBC. The reaction in London was electric. Everyone was so happy and relieved. I've never had that many people take an interest in talking to me about American politics since I've been here. There was an Irishman in a cafe that I stopped in for a cup of tea (a cuppa) who heard my accent and stopped me to ask if I was happy with the outcome and if I was going to have a party. One of the headlines from the Thursday after the election read "The Day America Became a Little Bit Cool Again." I love the Brits haha.
This past weekend was the school trip to Liverpool. It's a 4 hour coach ride from London, which isn't so bad considering that Ithaca is 4.5 to 5 hours from my house, but riding on coaches always makes me feel slightly sick. I did manage to get two seats to myself, since this was a smaller trip, so I got to stretch out a bit and sleep. We got to Liverpool a little after lunch time, and checked in to the YHA.
Liverpool is an industrial city and back in the day was a vital stop on the slave trade triangle. The town has the look of a combination of Danbury and the docks in Bridgeport (for those of you from Connecticut). Liverpool is also the European City of Culture 2008. They have a ton of museums that are not Beatles-themed and the docks are full of neat little stores and restaurants. The European MTV awards had been held in Liverpool the night before we got there.
Friday afternoon was taken up by a quick trip to the docks and we saw where the ferry leaves to cross to Ireland and we stopped by the lobby of the Tate Liverpool Museum. We then loaded back on the coach and set off on the Magical Mystery Tour. We were taken around town and shown where each of the four Beatles were born. We also stopped at Penny Lane and saw a few of the places mentioned in the song. Strawberry Fields was another stop on the tour. It was interesting to see where all of the Beatles were born and went to school. George and Ringo really grew up in a pretty poor area. John on the other hand, had a pretty middle class upbringing. The last stop on the tour was the Cavern Club, where the Beatles played over 200 gigs and got discovered by their manager, Brian Epstein. We had a traditional dinner of scouse, a type of meat stew, at the hostel. Afterwards, most people went back to the Cavern Club, but as I was still sick, I went to bed by 8 pm. Super lame, but whatever.
The next morning, we went to The Beatles' Story, which is the original Beatles museum. It was fantastic. We each got our own audio guide and wandered through rooms that were recreations of different places from the Beatles' lives. They had original instruments from John Lennon's skiffle band. The museum ended with a really touching room with John's white piano and "Imagine" pumped through the speakers. We found the children's room and immediately proceeded to color and glue confetti for about 20 minutes at the end of the tour.
After Robin, Erin, Meghan, and I were done with the museum, we hit up this creperie that Meghan was super excited about for lunch. I got the vegetable soup and a banana and chocolate crepe for dessert. It was excellent. After that we went back to the Tate gift shop and then hit up the Slavery Museum. That museum was hard to walk through. They had original shackles and recreations of conditions in the ship along with video recreations. It is so hard to believe that white men and women ever believed that they could treat other human beings that way solely based on the color of their skin. There are no words to describe the feelings of horror and shame I felt walking through there. There was a wall in the entryway of the museum where people could write on note cards about their reactions to the museum. It was touching to see so many people had written about Obama being elected and the hope he brings to the world.
On our way out of Liverpool we stopped at Cromwell Beach to see an art installation by an artist named Antony Gormley. He is most famous for a sculpture called the Angel of the North, installed near Durham (in North England, duh). It is, obviously, an Angel and the wing span is wider than the statue of Liberty is tall. The installation we saw is called Another Place and it 100 casts of Gormley's naked body spread out over the beach and into the water. The tide came in while we where there, and some of the statues had water up to their heads. It was very interesting and visually captivating. Bill, our center director, got a kick out of having Robin, Meghan, Erin, and I pose with one statue who had his "willy" painted green. He took a picture of us looking out over the horizon, a shot from the front, and for the last shot, he gave me his baseball cap and had me cover the willy so he could "send a picture back to the music school to let them know you're not getting into trouble." Oh, Bill.
This week was hellish in it's intensity and workload. I have my last ever paper due for my British Art and Architecture class on Tuesday, and I couldn't be less interested in writing it if I tried. I went to the exhibit in the Queen's Gallery in Buckingham Palace on Sunday. Monday, I started teaching year 7 Jazz Band, and if that is how all 12 year olds behave, I never want to teach middle school. Tuesday night, I went to an Arsenal football game. They are a premiere league team and they won 3-0. It was a great game: 60,000 screaming fans make for a fun atmosphere. Wednesday I continued working with my 16 year old composition students, which is a bit of a challenge because they know nothing about music and are using sequencing software to write a piece. Wednesday night, we went to see Billy Elliot the musical with my Brit Pop class. It was absolutely amazing. The lead is a 13 year old from Nebraska of all places. He had a great northern England accent and his dancing and singing were both superb. I have no words for how good the show was, but I would love to go and see it again (perhaps in NYC??). Thursday was spent in class and at the Victoria and Albert Museum in the National Art Library, researching for this paper I don't want to write.
I write this post on the train on the way to Edinburgh for the weekend. It is our last school trip and I'm super excited to spend the weekend in Scotland. The train left from King's Cross station. Before we left, I detoured to Platform 9 3/4 for my photo-op. The train has free wifi, so I've been getting work done on this hellish paper and checking my email. We should arrive in Edinburgh around 2 pm and we have a full weekend lined up. Tonight there is a performance of traditional music and dance called a ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee), but we had to buy tickets in advance using pay pal. I didn't want to set up an account, so we're going to go and try to get tickets at the door. If we can't get in tonight, there is another show tomorrow night. There is a ghost tour we're going to go on on whichever night we can't get into the ceilidh.
Train travel is so lovely. Northern England is absolutely idyllic. It's all gentle rolling hills, sheep, cows, and emerald green fields flanked by trees decked out in autumnal colors. The weather is only slightly overcast and the towns that we've passed so far have been very quaint looking. I did notice some peculiar looking animals earlier: they were either small horses or mules, but they looked like cows. They had the mottled white with black blotches coat that is, what I had thought up until this point, unique to cows. We also passed by the Angel of the North (mentioned earlier), and the town of Durham- the set of Billy Elliot and home of the famous (to Art and Architecture students) Durham Cathedral.
Cheers!
Thursday, October 30, 2008
All the King's Horses
I love London for all of the bizzare things you can see on a daily basis. For example, this morning I was waiting at the bus stop this morning and all of a sudden I heard horse hooves. I turn to the left, and this is what I saw:
Ten minutes later, the procession finished passing. They were followed by a horse trailer that read The King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery. I got to the London Center and googled it right away. Turns out the guard is made of 111 horses plus riders and trumpeters. You can read about them here if you like: http://www2.army.mod.uk/kingstprha/index.html.
So I guess you can say I started my morning by seeing all the King's horses haha
Cheers!
Ten minutes later, the procession finished passing. They were followed by a horse trailer that read The King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery. I got to the London Center and googled it right away. Turns out the guard is made of 111 horses plus riders and trumpeters. You can read about them here if you like: http://www2.army.mod.uk/kingstprha/index.html.
So I guess you can say I started my morning by seeing all the King's horses haha
Cheers!
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