Another Update

Well, we haven't done anything too incredibly exciting since my last post, but here is the update.

We worked full days Tuesday-Friday this week. Wednesday was extra late because of the move, which went well. Thursday after work Sally and I went to see the Museum of London, which was interesting- it was basically just a history of London since prehistoric times. Yesterday after work, we met Harvey at Leicester Square to try and get tickets to see Jersey Boys, but it was pretty close to sold out except for the restricted view tickets. So we tried to get tickets to see the Sex & the City which was sold out for all of the shows at almost all of the Odeon Cinemas in London. And there were about 25 minute tube delays on three of the underground lines. So we made the best of the situation and got dinner at Wagamama, which is an Asian restaurant, and by the time we were finished, the underground was back on schedule. After that we just came back to the independent cinema about a 20 minute walk down the street from our flat and saw the movie there.

This morning we woke up and went on tour of the Freemason's Hall/United Grand Lodge of England, which is headquarters for all of the Masonic lodges in London. We were the only people under the age of 40 there, and I'm pretty sure the only group that did not have a mason with us. I'll admit to this being a nerdy think to wake up at 8am on a Saturday morning to do, but it was both enlightening and interesting! After the tour of the temple, shrine, and some of the various lodge rooms, we went to the library/museum they have their and wandered around for awhile. By the time we were done it was lunch time, so we headed to Bourough Market across the Thames. It is the largest farmer's market in the UK, and was super crowded, too. We stopped for lunch at one of the little vendors on the side of the street, but stuck to more traditional hot pork or turkey sandwiches...there were other options like ostrich or venison burgers though! There were flower stands, fish markets, all kinds of meat, wine, produce, nuts, breads, cookies, truffles, and pretty much any other sweet you could imagine. We came home with all kinds of fruits, vegetables, and plenty of other things, too. Sally and Harvey are making a fruit salad in the kitchen right now!

After the market, we searched for an antique market we thought was close by, only to discover it is only open on Fridays. So here we are, back at the flat! I'm just sitting at the table typing on my computer, and Sally and Harvey are just slaving away in the kitchen. I'm going to get up and help in a minute, though! All of the windows are open, because it is actually a somewhat nice day today, and we are brewing iced tea in celebration. We didn't actually have a pitcher here though, so we just washed out a huge flower vase to use instead. Well, that is all I have for now! Happy Saturday.

Bank Holiday in London

Yesterday was a Bank Holiday in the UK. And it seemed like every resident of the country decided to spend the day in London. It is just coincidence that it fell on Memorial Day, but the freezing cold winds and constant downpour we experienced here were probably far from the barbeques and lake days many of you were having back in the US!

Even though it was raining, we decided to get out and take advantage of our day off. We started off at the Mind, Body, and Spirit Festival. Nisa, a Diorama employee, is also a masseuse and yoga instructor and she got us in with her exhibitor pass so we wouldn't have to pay the 14 quid fee! There were exhibitor booths set up all over- tarot card readers, herbal remedy stores, psychics, spiritual healers, astrologists, life coaches- almost every form of alternative medicine and healing had some sort of representation. It was eye-opening, and had everything not been so insanely expensive we may have purchased more than just organic smoothies. Who knows when a color photograph of my aura would have come in handy?!

After the festival we headed to the Museum of Natural History. It was enormous, but we only stayed an hour because it was exploding with children in strollers, screaming children, running children, children on leashes, children that should have been on leashes, and their exasperated parents. Apparently schools observe the bank holiday, too! We will definitely be back when we can actually get into exhibits without waiting in line for 45 minutes. The Victoria and Albert Museum was right across the street, so we stopped there before we went home. It was an amazing and diverse collection that, once again, we will be back to visit when it isn't so crowded!

For dinner, Sally and I met up with our friend Brett who is a law student at TU and his friend Wes, who are in London for the week. We went to Chiqitos, which is the only real Mexican food restaurant they have here. Let me tell you, it was an abysmal imitation of what we call Mexican food back in Texas. Word of advice: Don't eat Mexican food in London. But you live and you learn, right? Afterwards, we went to a comedy/improv show on Leicester Square, which turned out to be pretty entertaining. The comedian took advantage of the fact that the four of us were Americans sitting in the front row, but that was to be expected...at least he didn't call us Yanks! It was nice to see familiar faces and spend time with people that don't laugh at you for saying y'all!

Today was a long day at work, and tomorrow we are moving completely out of the old Diorama building, and it will probably be another long day. That means I am off to bed! And for those of you that have requested our address it is:

Westburn Place, 2b Kilburn Park Road
Maida Vale
London
NW6 5UY

Goodnight!!

To Wales and Back

We made it to Wales and back alive, which at times seemed doubtful for the three of us (Harv, Sally, and I).

Friday we went to Hummus Brothers for dinner in Soho after our friend Thomas, who studied here last summer, recommended that we give it a try. Harvey and I tried aloe vera juice, which definitely was life changing, as was the hummus.

Saturday we woke up at 6:30 to get ready and make the trek to Victoria Station for our coach ride to Wales. We made it right on time at 8:00am and then slept for a majority of the way. Cardiff was our destination, and is also the capital of Wales. As we were driving into town we noticed that there were hundreds of people dressed in red rugby jerseys...apparently, the European Rugby Finals were taking place in Cardiff yesterday. We soon discovered that the red team was Munster from Ireland, and the other team was Toulouse from France. The crowd, which seemed to expand exponentially as the day went on, was in strong support of Munster, and took every possible moment to chant, yell, and scream it for all to hear. They even closed down the city streets to accommodate for the growing, and increasingly intoxicated, crowd. One Irish supporter stopped us to ask for directions to the stadium, and when we responded that we weren't really sure but gave him a general idea of where it was, he started laughing and said something to the effect of "how did I pick the only 3 yanks in this city today to ask for directions??" Yanks are what Americans are commonly called over here, and I'm sure it is one of the only times that our Texas/Kentucky accents will be mistaken for that of "yanks". He was kind enough to explain all about the match and the teams, and wished us a great stay in Wales.

We took one of those cheesy double decker bus tours around the city, and our poor guide Robert could barely speak over the rowdy bus full of rugby supporters, but it was still enjoyable. We also toured a castle that was near the city center, and visited the National Museum of Wales before a little shopping and then running after our bus. We had a hard time finding where the bus was supposed to load, because it was in a completely different place than where we were dropped off, but ran up to the curb right as the 509 to London pulled up. The drive home was beautiful- the countryside between London and Cardiff was breathtaking.

Today has been a lazy day, just working more on the stuff we brought home to do for the Diorama. Talk to you all soon!

Cooking Abroad

Yesterday, Sall and I tried to cook pasta, something that seems fairly difficult to mess up. Somehow, we managed to create a mess of noodles and spices that would have been inedible except for the fact the only other items to eat in our flat were nutella, diet coke, and biscuits. We went to Hackney this morning, and now I am back at the flat about to get started on some work for the Diorama that we brought home. We are off to Soho tonight, and then Cardiff, Wales tomorrow morning, so I'll update later this weekend!

Work, Work, Work

That subject line isn't exactly accurate. We started work Monday at the Diorama. So far it is fairly uneventful, and seems like it will be until the Diorama director returns to London in mid-June. Nisa is in charge until Mark gets back, and she is great. They are currently in the process of moving buildings, and are in a temporary (and tiny) space until the new building is completed in August. Right now we are just working 3-4 days a week, and those aren't really even full days. I know we will make up for lost time in July when the music festival starts.

So, we went to work Monday and got acquainted with everything. Nisa took us and Phil (he's working on a theatre project for the Diorama) out for Indian food again, which we are growing to like. Tuesday after work we decided to head across the river, stopping at St. James Cathedral to eat dinner on the steps with all the pigeons. We crossed Millenium Bridge to get to the Tate Modern after that. I have sort of negative feelings towards a lot of contemporary art, particularly surrealism, but they really do have an amazing collection. After that we wandered around, got some coffee, and then went to see A Midsummer Night's Dream at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. It tops my list on favorite things we've done so far. It was absolutely amazing, or brilliant as they say over here. Our seats weren't the greatest, but that's what you get for waiting until the day of the show.

Today we had off work, so Harvey came into town last night so we could get up to do more sightseeing today. But when you stay up until 4:00, it is just really hard to wake up before 11:00am, so we did get a little bit of a late start today. We made it to the Vanity Fair portrait exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery, got lunch, and then made it to the Strand for a matinee of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. This is one of those shows that I wish I had an excuse for loving so much, but I actually can't think of one. Once again, waiting until the day of the show to get tickets wasn't too smart, as all of the tickets were sold out except for mid-price restricted vision seats (there was a railing that divided the stage in two just in front of us) but it was still spectacular. Loud, showy, fun- everything that the 700 uniformed primary school children and tourist couples over the age of 60 that saw it with us wanted. Well, we wanted that too, I guess. Anyways, we all loved it, Harvey wept at the end, and everyone rose for a standing ovation. Then stopped by the portrait gallery again to see a couple more of the rooms showing their permanent collection, went to the grocery, and are now about to make dinner. Sally and Harv are acting like they are about to starve to death over here, so I guess this is it for now! Hope everyone is doing well!

First London Weekend

We arrived to our flat around 1pm London time on Friday, after driving around Regents Park to see where we will be working in Euston Square. We explored around the neighborhood for most of the afternoon, had orientation with our housing director, and after we were all settled we went to the pub next door to our townhouse for dinner. Turns out the bartender actually had just moved to London from Dallas after graduating from OU! After dinner we ran by Tesco’s to pick up some things we had forgotten at the grocery store earlier, and when we got back to our flat, our apartment mate was there. Her name is also Cassie, and she has been in London studying since January. She lives in the one bedroom on the first floor, the kitchen and living/dining space are on the second floor, and then Sally, Ayumi (the third TU intern) and I share a bedroom on the third floor. We have two bunkbeds and tons of dresser/closet space, and a nice sized bathroom too. On the fourth floor are two more double occupancy bedrooms that won’t be used until June.

Friday night, Harvey (Jessica is her first name- she is a friend from Tulsa who has been studying in Canterbury this semester for those of you that don't know!) came into town for the weekend. We hadn't seen her since we left for school in December, so I am sure we startled a few people walking around Kilburn as we ran towards each other on the sidewalk outside of the tube stop. If you have ever seen Harvey run, then you know what I am talking about. Harv, Sall, Ayumi, I pretty much spent all of Saturday and Sunday exploring. Saturday we went to Parliament Square, Big Ben, the Tate Britain museum, the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, Evensong Service at Westminster Abbey (Sally and Ayumi both kept falling asleep, making it difficult for Harvey and I to contain ourselves), Leicester Square(the theatre district), and ate dinner in Chinatown with Jackie Teague who is also from Tulsa and just finished up her semester internship at the Diorama.

Today we slept in shamefully late, but not on purpose! It was just the jet lag kicking in. We did manage to get to the National Portrait Gallery, where the Vanity Fair exhibit we wanted see was sold out- apparently that has been the case every weekend since it opened, but we are going to try to get there sometime this week after work. We went up to Camden to the huge market they have there and then walked over to Regent's Park, which is absolutely beautiful. We walked to Euston Square too, and then took the tube to Picadilly Circus for dinner at a vegetarian Indian restaurant. None of us really knew what we were ordering, but it was definitely good! After that we befriended a Frenchman at a little pastry shop, where he gave us far more desserts than we needed, and then walked to Buckingham Palace to eat them and wait for the Queen to come out and join us. She did not. We then got lost looking for the hotel we stayed at the last time we visited London, but eventually found it, and then got on the wrong line to get home on the tube, but eventually made our way home.

So far, London is great. We have encountered plenty of friendly people willing to help show us around, including a Russian man that personally escorted the four of us to the Tate Britain; he just whistled and talked the entire way. It is really easy to get lost, but we are getting better. Tomorrow is our first day of work, so we will update more later this week!

We made it!

We are in London! The plane ride was long, but we arrived on schedule. Got settled into our flat and are going to go look for a grocery store! A longer update is to come, when we can find free internet...

Pre-Departure Countdown!!

Sally and I are flying out of DFW tomorrow night at 7:40pm! We will get to London Heathrow at 10:45am London time, 6am our time. I don't know when we will have access to internet or be able to talk to any of y'all, but we'll be sure to keep you updated about our European adventures this summer through this blog (which Sall says she will never post on, because she doesn't like writing. I will at least let you know if she is alive and well.) I cannot promise that it will be eloquent, properly punctuated, or grammatically correct, but hopefully it will be fun for everyone to read. Talk to y'all soon!