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!