Harrods

I went to one of the largest department stores in the world yesterday. After class a group of us went to explore (and get lost in- for real!) the 5 large floors of consumerism called Harrods. And if some of you have something like JCPenny's in mind, think bigger, much bigger and think of overly-super expensive lines like Prada and Gucci. Harrods is so big that there are a couple of restaurants on each floor, a supermarket, carpet store, a huge department of chocolate (oh, yes!) and even a pet shop! (There are actually over 330 departments in Harrods.) My favorite parts were the Christmas department because it was so good to hear Christmas music again and I also loved the Tiffany & Co. department because of all the gorgeous diamonds. One of the massive rings we looked at cost 105,000 pounds! Which would be a rock that would be priced at about $210,000 in the US... yikes! Needless to say, I did not purchase anything at Harrods because I think I would prefer to have money to eat for the rest of the time I am in London instead.

The Church Chapter

I have found a wonderful church here in London to attend! I was looking forward to going to many different churches during my stay in London, but since I have found Westminster Chapel I just want to go there from now on. The people are so welcoming and my first time there the younger greeters even told us (Leah and I) where to sit so we would be with the rest of the young people. The service reminds me a lot of my home evangelical free church. I recognize most of the contemporary songs that we sing, though because of the English accent the song "I stand in awe of you" sounds more like "I stand in awer of you." I really enjoy worshiping with the people here. Even though I am living in London, I still don't get a lot of real, meaningful contact with British people. After attending church a few times and the Wednesday night service for people in their 20s, I feel like I actually could call a few of these Londoners my friends!

I really felt at home at Westminster Chapel on Sunday when the Vandon House group stayed for the meal after the service. Every Sunday the church serves a noon meal for £3 (about $6). Since we were new to the church, our group was offered vouchers to eat for free! (How could we pass up free food that we didn't have to make ourselves??) It was delicious lunch of potatoes, beef stew, and cold rice pudding for dessert. I offered to help clean up afterwards and had a great conversation with an older gentleman while we put away dishes together. He is originally from Ireland and it was a good thing we got to talking because I am traveling to Ireland (Dublin area) this weekend! He was able to give me some pointers and places to see.

Something I've noticed about British people, especially those I have met at church: When they find out I am American they always ask where I am from in America. About half the time when I tell them "South Dakota," they actually have an idea of where that is! Now, if I were back at home in the US and met someone from England, I would never think to ask what part of England they are from, because I know squat about UK geography. I've noticed this in topics like politics as well-- British people know tons more about America than Americans know about Britain. In reflection of this point, I wonder if being American makes me so focused on my country that I forget about the rest of the world. One of my goals in coming to London for a semester is to become a better global citizen, so I hope to learn to think out of the "American-box" while I am here.

Oh, and I forgot to mention one thing! Westminster Chapel is located only a few doors down from Vandon House! It's amazing how God works in situating such a vibrant, Christ-centered church only a block from a houseful of American students!

Greenwich

Yesterday, our group went to Greenwich, which is a small suburb of London. Greenwich is significant because the prime meridian is located there. The Royal Observatory is located on top of a hill that overlooks London. The prime meridian line is clearly shown, so I was able to take a picture with a foot in each hemisphere!


The Observatory also has many telescopes... and clocks because time all over the world is measured from Greenwich.

In Greenwich (which, by the way, is pronounced "Grenich") Leah, Venice and I ate at a delicious Chinese restaurant. Venice is from Hong Kong so she loved taking us there and advising us on what to order. It was so nice to eat out, even though it is expensive, because we have to make all our own food in Vandon House. ***As a side note, if any of you reading this have any simple, good recipes-- SEND THEM TO ME! I am learning to be a better cook, but I am running out of ideas.***

Another Greenwich highlight was The Painted Hall of the Old Royal Navel Academy. The entire hall was painted from floor to ceiling with nautical references, angels, royalty, and mythological figures. It was so beautiful! I spent some time laying on the cold, stone floor just staring up in wonder at the skill of the artist. The hall was meant to be a dining room for the academy, but after it was painted it was thought to be too well done for just eating in, so it's been open for tourists ever since. I wish I could better describe to you how incredible it was!

Unique to London

Do you remember my adventure with Leah and Karley to the longest escalator in western Europe? Well, one night last week the three of us were off on another slightly ridiculous trip! We saw in the paper that a huge sculpture of a swimmer had been unveiled by Tower Bridge, so we hastily grabbed our cameras and were off! The swimmer was pretty neat... rather weird, but why not have a huge swimmer trying to freestyle through solid ground?

The unexpected joy we found next to the swimmer was Tower Bridge at night. So gorgeous all lit up! I forget sometimes that I am in London, but walking across Tower Bridge couldn't be a better reminder. It is such a unique landmark to this city.

News! News! I was caught out in my very first London rain a couple of days ago! Surprisingly, It didn't rain for the first 19 days I was here. So when it finally did rain on Thursday, I was completely unprepared without umbrella or raincoat! It started pouring as I was walking along the Thames, so I dodged into the Tate Modern art museum (thank goodness for art!). I guess I will soon have to get used to taking my umbrella and wearing my raincoat when I go out.

Stratford-upon-Avon

This past weekend, the whole program took a trip to Stratford-upon-Avon. We were put up in Bed and Breakfasts and therefore, got the opportunity to sleep in very pastel/floral rooms and eat a full English breakfast each morning. It was a delightful experience! Please note the picture of my roommates and I drinking tea in our room- lovely. Stratford-upon-Avon is known for being the home of William Shakespeare. So, we got the grand tour of the town and saw all the important sights to Shakespeare's life.

One of the highlights for me was seeing the Royal Shakespeare company (see cheesy picture with "RSC" sign-- haha) perform the play "Twelfth Night." It was a funny show and very well done. A surprise was that John Lithgow (from the 90s show "Third Rock from the Sun") played one of the main parts! Stratford really was a nice little town to visit. It was so good to get out of the city for a weekend. I am not made to be a city girl!

In addition to seeing Stratford, we also made a short trip to see Warwick Castle, which was very cool! Part of the castle was 1000 years old! We were able to climb towers, view creepy wax figures of past residents, and there were gorgeous gardens to wander through. The rolling countryside in England was lovely as well. It was so nice to see farms, fields, and sheep again! We also took a stop in the university town of Oxford on the way back to London.

Our director, Eric, keeps reminding us that London is NOT England. I know what he means by that now after being out in the country and coming back home to the metropolitan, busy "Big Smoke." It was a great weekend away and a wonderful chance to see more of England and build relationships with others in the program. Thank you, thank you, thank you for reading!

The Underground

The London Underground fascinates me. It is a whole world all underground the streets of London! Over 3 million people use the tube system everyday. I read that the length of all the lines is about 253 miles total. I invite you to check out this map of the system: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/colourmap.gif Though it seems really confusing, it is actually fairly easy to navigate once I got the hang of it. I'll try now to get creative and write about the tube experience I had the other day with some friends:

"The longest escalator is Western Europe is located at Angel Station," I read from the back of a jigsaw puzzle of the Underground to my friend Karley. This began our journey to Angel station at 5:30 one evening. Our goal was that special escalator and little did we realize that 5:30 on a weekday is NOT the best time to travel the underground. We arrived at the station, slapped down our Oyster travel cards (credit card type tube tickets that are scanned for each ride) and went down the stairs to the line we needed to get on. The platform was crowded with people who were headed home from work. What I love about the underground is how everyone uses it. Very few people have personal cars in London because it is very expensive to have a car in the city. Name a type of person and you can find them using the underground-- business men in nice suits, students, tourists, moms and babies, backpackers... everyone! And no one talks to each other either. The British are very polite, quiet people and the tube is always very silent, despite the masses of people using the system.

Back to our pilgrimage to ride the longest escalator in w. Europe... We stood on the quiet platform and waited. It's always hot and stuffy, too. In the distance, we could faintly hear the growing noise of our approaching train. A sudden, cool wind whips our hair everywhere and the lights of the train can be seen in the tunnel. The long train of cars screeches to a slow halt. The doors of each car slide open and people stream onto the platform as others crowd to get on board. We get into one of the cars which always makes me a little nervous because the doors are merciless and quick to slide shut. Passengers have maybe 15 seconds of open-door time before the train starts to move again.

On the tube (again- no one talks) most everyone has open a paper or listens to music on their ipods. The three of us get off at our stop to change lines so we can get to Angel station. Now it is almost 6pm and prime time for rush hour. Platforms are long but seem unable to hold everyone trying to head home after work. We stand bumping shoulders with our neighbors as we wait for our next train to arrive. It comes but we can't get on because there are so many people already crammed onto the train! We wait again. The next train arrives and Leah and I shove our way into the small spaces available to stand it. The train takes off and I grab for a bar to balance myself. I glance around and see no signs of Karley! Then I see her as we whiz down the line, still standing on the platform, looking at me and shrugging her shoulders. The tube stops about 4 times before we get to our destination of Angel station. Incredibly, each time only a few people get off, while at least 6 more get on! We are packed in like sardines already and still people see the possibly that they can fit too! What a relief it was to finally squeeze our way off at Angel station. And another relief when Karley arrived on the next train to join us.

The longest escalator (it's almost 200 feet long!) in western Europe was a pretty good time. We rode it up and down twice taking pictures (I know, cheesy!) and I timed it once-- 80 seconds to go up! I'm glad that we survived rush hour to reach it. (I apologize for the picture--it just doesn't do it justice-- oh and thats part of me on the left.)

I hope that story was amusing for you and helped you better understand the amazing Underground which I ride almost everyday to get around London.

Wicked and School

Last night was so, so fun! I had my first London theater experience when our program went to see the musical "Wicked." It was phenomenal!! The acting and singing was beyond good and I now have a whole new view of "The Wizard of Oz." It's hard to describe how amazing it was-- you will just have to go see it yourself!

This morning we took a trip to Birkbeck College where I will be taking British Experience and Contemporary British Society. After that we went to visit London Metropolitan University (LMU) where I will be taking drawing class, or as they would say here-- drawing 'module'. The university system is different than US college. Here, they expect the student to be in charge of their education and what they choose to learn. It is expected that students will spend a lot of time in the library reading the recommend books, especially since class is only held one day a week. Grades for most classes are based on exams at mid-term and a final. That's it! Though, I feel that things will be different since I am taking a studio art class. Still, it is intimidating! I hope I get to meet more British students through my LMU class.

After LMU we had the joy of being put into teams for a scavenger hunt! My two teammates and I ran about in the tube stations and squeezed ourselves into a phone booth for a picture. It was quite the adventure and I'm afraid we didn't do very well! But it was good fun and a quick way to learn the tube system better. That's all for now! Thanks for reading!

The National Gallery- Art Please!

Yesterday was great! A group of us went to the National Gallery (see pic). It is a HUGE art museum and I loved it. I only got through a fourth of it and it took three hours! I saw so many amazing art pieces. I took art history classes at Northwestern all last year and every wall held pieces that I recognized from my art history textbooks. I'm so glad that it is a free museum and I can go back many, many times and see their whole collection!

Afterward I sat between the feet of a lion in Trafalgar Square (the front yard of the National Gallery). It was much harder than I though it would be to get up near his feet!

Public Transportation...hmmm

Wednesday, 11am. I think that would be around 5am your (central) time.

Hello all! Thanks again for reading this blog. I really appreciate your curiosity for what I am doing here in London. This week is focused on orientation and meetings. Which is great because I want to learn all I can about how to maneuver this city and get the most out of my experience! Speaking of experiences... the other day a fellow NWC student, Kara, and I decided to set of for this slightly obscure address we had for London's International Student House. So we walked, and walked, and walked and finally found it. After looking around the Intl. Student House for awhile we decided to have mercy on our feet and take the tube back to Vandon House. As we walked into the underground station, we heard yells that, "The last train to Victoria leaves in a few minutes!" That's us! So we ran and raced down the escalator only to be greeted by an orange-vested worker proclaiming that, "The Victoria train has departed and there will be no more south-bound trains today." Great! The director, Eric, had told us that there was a possibility of a tube strike today, but it was unlikely to actually happen. The union did go on strike and the tube was at a standstill. Kara and I were very north of home and our only way of going south now was by bus. Ahh, but to figure out the bus system... What is the colorful, lined, and numbered map trying to tell me? We did end up finding our bus stop and got on. Relief! We were heading in the right direction. But wait! The bus driver then said that this bus was being... terminated? Everyone piled off and we had to wait on the pavement for another bus. When we did get on another bus it was packed with people--with more getting on at each stop! The streets were lined with people waiting to catch their rides home. It was incredible to see how important public transportation is to Londoners. Without the tube running, everyone was stranded and waiting for alternatives to get home.

Kara and I had our little adventure with public transportation on Monday. As I write this it is Wednesday and the tube workers are still on strike. Hopefully the strike will end today or tomorrow because it is much harder to get around without it! Though there is always walking. Yesterday our group went on a walking tour lead by this great British tour guide/actor. He showed us around our part of the city explaining the history and important buildings. My favorite points of interest was the Spencer residence where Princess Diana grew up, a very old hat shop, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey. I am thrilled to be around so much history and buildings that are so old and gorgeous.

I don't have anything going on today as far as the program is concerned. I hope to go to an art museum or explore a park. News that brings me great joy: most of the art museums are FREE! How perfect is that?
Until next time, amy

Here at last

I made it! I arrived in London this morning (Sunday) at 9am and it's so good to finally be here. Traveling went really well and the four of us who traveled from Omaha together didn't have any problems. One of my favorite parts of getting here was on the flight to London when I sat by 17-year-old twin girls who are from England. We talked about traveling, UK and US school differences, and other random things-- like when one of them asked if South Dakota was a desert. :) I had to really focus to understand their quick speech and accents. Though they do speak English here, it's much harder to decipher than I expected! But I'm sure I will get used to it and maybe come home with an accent of my own...
The place I am staying with 50 other US students is called Vandon House. Vandon House works as a hotel during the summer and then study abroad students fill it during the school year. We are blessed to be in a wonderful, central location (close to Buckingham Palace). My "classmates" here will be fun to get to know and those I know so far are great. My romming situation with my roommate, Abby, is going to work out well I think. She is very into fashion and clothes so, as you can imagine, we are quite the pair!
This afternoon, after unpacking, I went with a group to get our tube (subway) passes for the week and a few groceries. After that, a few of us walked to Regent street to an Indian Festival being held today. There were so many people there from all different nationalities which was neat to experience my first day here. London is very diverse-- which is another aspect I didn't expect. It was fun to walk to the Festival, too. Though it took about a half hour to walk there, there is always something to look at! The buildings are so beautiflul and old and, well, everything is new to me and makes me curious!
I apologize if this post is a bit disorganized. I've been awake since early Satruday morning and am running on the poor sleep I got on the plane. It will be an early bedtime for me tonight! I'm looking forward to understanding this city more and starting my classes and... going to "Wicked" on thursday night! If you have any questions for me feel free to ask them. Thanks for being interested in my experience here in London! I will try to write more soon.
blessings, Amy