The Rest of April (Showers)

Looking back, I'm really not kidding about the 'showers' part. It rained, it seemed, almost every day the weeks following my mom's departure. I spent significantly more time indoors, working on final essays and thinking about studying for exams. Despite the weather, I did manage a few significant outings...

It was not as exciting as I imagined it would be, but I did have my first Red Carpet experience in London. A friend and I headed down to the Royal Opera House for the Olivier Awards (for theatre) in hopes of seeing a few of our favorite British celebrities. While we did not spot any stars from our decent vantage point (we got there a bit late), we did realize afterwards that we spotted a few people we knew (Patrick Stewart, Maria Friedman, etc.). After the Red Carpet emptied, I did get a chance to place one foot on the carpet and snap a few photos, just to satisfy the tiny part of me that seeks some fame someday. We then headed to nearby Covent Garden, where they had screens and a stage set up for the crowds there. We watched the awards show and then got to be a part of the section shot live in Covent Garden. The hosts - Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton - came out and joked with the crowd for a bit before introducing live performances from Jersey Boys and Les Miserables. While it was a bit chilly, the event was free and not horribly crowded, making for a good night out, enjoying the best of London theatre.

Towards the end of April, I finally made the much-anticipated trip to Nottingham. I, of course, wanted to see the land of Robin Hood, as any young person who grew up watching the Disney film would. The city of Nottingham is, I'm sad to say, not very exciting, just another English city with the same stores, same hooligan-esque teenagers, same pubs. The experience was salvaged, however, by an EPIC 3.5 hour tour with Ezekiel Bone. Though not dressed in Hood costume, Bone took a small group of us on a fantastic journey through Nottingham's history. We walked through the various sites associated with Robin as he retold parts of the legends while also enlightening us to other portions of the city's past, including its hey-day as the world's number one lace manufacturer in the late 1800s. Very interesting stuff. I was also fortunate to be there on St. George's Day, so the city had a bit of a festive atmosphere to it even as the rain came down throughout the afternoon. One day in Nottingham was enough.

Robin Hood

Nottingham City Hall

Claims to be the oldest pub in England

St. George

Back in London, exciting things began happening. En route to the Globe theatre, I stumbled upon the London Marathon. I have never seen anything like this. Ever. The amount of people, the colors, the costumes, the cheering - it was really something.

At the Globe, I attended Sonnet Sunday, which was the official kick-off of the World Shakespeare Festival 2012. In order to celebrate London's Olympic ordeal, the Globe's festival this year was dedicated to Shakespeare around the globe. The season would include all of Shakespeare's plays, each being performed in a different language by a company from that country. It truly was something special, and I took advantage of it as much as I could. In addition to Sonnet Sunday (all of Shakespeare's 120+ sonnets being read in different languages, ranging from Cree Indian to Icelandic), I attended performances of Pericles (in Greek) and King Lear (performed in Belarusian). It really is remarkable that performers could keep an audience invested in a play that they couldn't understand the dialogue of. They relied instead on body language, props, exaggeration for the humorous bits, and a comment, now and then, in English. Both companies I saw did an amazing, original interpretation of the plays.

On stage, at the Globe

Sonnet Sunday at the Globe. In the rain.

We now come to one of my favorite trips of the spring. I met fellow-Ashlander Megan, who was studying in Pau, France, in Brussels for a long weekend. Instead of the normal hostel/crazy touring/budget meals ordeal, this was a weekend of luxury. We stayed in a real hotel (thank goodness!), ate our weight in Belgium waffles and chocolate, and enjoyed some of the Belgian beers.

Our hotel

Park Royal

Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula

Waffle!

Brussels is a beautiful city. It is more intimate, more peaceful, but still energetic and full of surprises. There are street performers everywhere, markets, parks, and museums to enjoy. The buildings are stunning - gold detail, elaborate carvings, and bright colors. 

Chocolate bar... Lindsey size. :)

Grand Place - Grote Market

Meg and I

Brussels is also a bit of a quirky place. It's most famous landmark - if you call it that - is Manneken Pis. A peeing statue. Ridiculous? Yes.

Beautiful Brussels.

Chocolate hippos!

Bubble Man.

Beer Temple - Favorite Beer: Delirium Tremens Cherry beer. YUM.

In the Brussels metro. With Charlie Chaplin.

On a more cultural note, we made it to the Costume Museum, the Chocolate Museum, and the art museum in Brussels. Cuisine-wise... well, we ate a lot of waffles and chocolate. We did have a lovely Greek dinner one evening (with Spanish guitar serenading us).

Costume Museum

Chocolate Museum. Samples.

Delirium Trememns pub. Cherry beer.

The Palace Royal

Phew. Thus ends the month of April. A great month, full of wonderful memories... despite the weather in London.

Catching Up: April Part I

Thus begins the post-London posts that I neglected during the final crazy weeks of my time abroad. I've been home two weeks now and shall enjoy remembering the amazing adventures I had. It feels good to be home (well, back in Ashland for work) - I've definitely missed the wonderful people I'm blessed to know and love, and I can tell that the rest I'm trying to get is needed. One can only keep up with city life and travels for so long.

So I'll begin the catching-up with my mom's visit in early April. When I last posted, I had just gotten back from the Oxford Literary Festival. The next day, my mother Linda arrived for an awesome 10-day visit. Her first day was spent recovering from jet-lag a bit and then a walk around London in the sunshine (a rare occurrence). The next morning, we departed for a few days in northern England, in the Lake District. We took the train from London Euston to the village of Windermere, where we stayed at a REAL hotel (no hostels for us this time - The Grey Walls was nice). Surprisingly, the first day we were in Windermere (April 3), it snowed. Yep, snowed. Lovely, right? We had a whole spectrum of temps, precipitation, and sunshine during our visit, but we powered through all. 

We started out early the next day to Bowness, where we caught a ferry across Lake Windermere and then a bus to Far Sawrey to see Beatrix Potter's Hill Top Farm. We had tea at the Sawrey hotel, and then headed to Beatrix's adorable little cottage. The National Trust has done a phenomenal job preserving the house just as Potter bequeathed it in the early 20th century. Practically everything in the house belonged to her - all the furniture, knick-knacks, linens, lamps, etc. Plus they had a number of her letters, drawings, and photographs. It's really a spectacular site. After Hill Top, we walked along Lake Windermere for as long as we could stand the cold before heading back to Bowness for dinner and a bit of chocolate-shopping that we enjoyed that night over some hard cider and a film at our lovely hotel.

On Thursday morning, Mom and I went to Grasmere, which is north of Windermere, to visit Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Museum. Another really amazing place - the cottage is relatively empty inside, but walking through the rooms inspires incredulity as you try to picture all the people living there. Wordsworth has never been one of my favorites, but I definitely fell in love with the place he set up his home. The surrounding countryside - now slightly more built up than in his day - is simply gorgeous. The hills, the lakes, the forests... One can breathe there. After the cottage, we took a walk through the village of Grasmere, saw the Wordsworth graves, and grabbed some lunch and millionaire shortbread (shortbread + caramel + chocolate) at the Riverside Cafe. After our meal, we took a bit of a hike up one of the hills near Lake Grasmere to get a better view of the valley. While we decided we didn't want to do the whole trail, we did get a considerable way up the hill. In the afternoon, we caught a bus to Rydal Mount, which was Wordworths's later home in the Lakes and is about three times the size of Dove Cottage. Wordsworth retired to Rydal and spent his time writing poetry and working in his extensive gardens. Dinner was at Windermere, then wine and chocolate for dessert while watching some 'Big Bang Theory' in the comfort of our room.

Our last morning was dedicated to sleeping in and a walk around Windermere before catching the train back to London.

Lake Windermere

Sawrey

Hill Top Farm

Lake Windermere (notice the snow)

Dove Cottage

Lambs!!!

Rydal Mount - In Wordsworth's library

View from Rydal Mount of Lake Grasmere

Saturday, I finally made it to Portobello Market with Mom. It was an intense experience navigating through the crowds, but the atmosphere was exciting. We feasted on crepes as we walked and I took Mom by the bookshop in Notting Hill after we'd done a little shopping in the market.

Easter Sunday, we attended church service at THCC. I made some pasta for our dinner and we then met up with my friend Christa's family for tea and biscuits.

During the final days of Mom's time in London, we hit up a few indoor activities due to the rain. We made it to the Dickens Museum, the Museum of London, and Evensong at St. Paul's Cathedral. We then grabbed a traditional English pub dinner (those were getting old by this point) before heading back to my flat.

Our final full day together, we went by coach to Brighton for the day, where we walked the famous pier (which has unfortunately been overrun by cheesy carnival things and arcade games), toured the Royal Pavilion (look up pictures of the interior online - it was easily the most stunning building I've ever seen), and explored the disappointing sea-side town. It's not how Jane Austen described it, I can tell you that. Anyways, we took a bus in the afternoon out to the town of Lewes to see Lewes Castle, the priory, and just to walk around a smaller English town. We ate a yummy French dinner at Cafe Rouge in Brighton before catching the coach back to London.

Mom left the next morning from Heathrow as I asked myself: 'What now?' I spent a few days just lounging around a bit before plunging back into a whirlwind of study, travel, and more.

Dickens Museum

Admiral Nelson's Sword at the Museum of London

Brighton Pier

The Royal Pavilion

Lewes Castle

Lewes Gardens

Mom. :)

Lewes Priory

The Royal Pavilion

More to come!

Springtime in England

Since my trip to Rome, I have not left the country but that is not to say that my travels have slowed down. Though I no longer take the risk that is flying Ryanair, I have spent many a day on buses and trains in a mad  dash to make it to my last few 'must see' places in England. It's been a bit complicated - schoolwork came crashing down inevitably towards the end - so the balancing act of being a student with a life on campus and being a traveler has become more difficult.


Hence this blog has fallen quite far behind of where I had hoped it would be. Apologies - especially to my immediate family - for not keeping you all up-to-date on what I've been up to. So below is the first part of my spring in England and others will follow.


First stop: Cambridge. On Saturday, 17 March, a few of my friends and I headed to the second half of Oxbridge to scope out the university and to see the town. It was a lovely outing, but unfortunately the weather did not want to make it beautiful for us. The city center of Cambridge is nice enough, lots of chain stores but also a few smaller independent shops and tea rooms. My favorite find in the city was a book sale going on in an old church, which I thought was spectacular. Lots of really unique books and the stacks of literature spread across the creaky wooden pews, which looked very neat. Our group also had the chance to explore the exteriors of Clare College and Queens College, which were something to see. I found that I do prefer Oxford, though they say Cambridge is prettier. The disappointment of the day, however, was that the rain prevented us from going punting - which is still on my to-do list.

The week following Cambridge was a hectic one academically as I was finishing up essays, writing the prospectus for my thesis next year, and choosing classes at Ashland for the fall. I did, however, take Friday, 23 March, off to enjoy the sunshine. I headed to the northwest areas of London - Highgate and Hampstead - to visit Kenwood House (the manor house in the film 'Notting Hill') and Keats House (where the poet John Keats lived for a number of years). Both were absolutely wonderful and are probably my favorite places in London after Foyles. Kenwood House is now a free art gallery and has the most beautiful grounds overlooking a small lake. It was lovely to just sit in the grass in the sun and it was one of the warmest days we've had since I've been here. The Keats House has some wonderful tour guides full of information and the rooms have been re-decorated to look how they would have when Keats lived in the house in around 1820. It's situated in a very quiet street in a friendly, clean part of London, which is a nice change after the hustle and bustle of Mile End and Central London. I also stumbled upon a treasure in Hampstead - the Keith Fawkes used bookshop. It's just what a bookshop should be - books piled floor to ceiling, dusty smell suffocating you, aisles so narrow you have to dance around someone to pass them, stacks of books on the floor you have to dig through, a crazy old man behind the counter... You get the picture.

Kenwood House

Keats House

Keith Fawkes Bookshop

And to wrap up the eventful month of March... The Oxford Literary Festival! The weekend after classes ended, I went to stay with Norma in Headington, which is a 15-min. bus ride from Oxford. On Friday, Norma and I went to Oxford Castle, climbed 'The Mound,' and explored the Lit Fest tent, where they were handing out free samples of gin and tonics while you browsed the books (perfect combination in my opinion). Norma again took wonderful care of me, cooking for me and making tea every day. On Saturday, I headed to the Festival again to see Anthony Horowitz, author of the new Sherlock Holmes novel, speak at the Sheldonian Theatre and to listen to Ben McIntyre talk about his new book Double Cross (about the D-Day spies). Both were very interesting to listen to and I learned so much about the literary world from them. The D-Day spies definitely appealed to the history buff in me and I can't wait to get hold of his book this summer. On Sunday, Norma and I attended her Catholic church for Palm Sunday, which was nice, and I attended the final event of the festival which was an interview with the Australian author Peter Carey (Oscar and Lucinda). I got Carey to sign my copy of Parrot and Olivier go to America, which was exciting. Carey is definitely an oddball, though so are all of his characters - not surprising.

Norma at the top of the remaining tower of Oxford Castle

On 'The Mound'

Literary Festival tent at Christ Church College

Peter Carey, on the left, being interviewed

I'll wrap up the first segment here - stay tuned for a post on my mom's visit, Nottingham, Shakespeare Festival, and more.