Please

please please please please dear Lord in heaven, refrain from dumping even more snow on London so that my Thursday flight will not be cancelled and so that I will get home before Christmas. This is all I ask.

Although, if you could spare a second favor, an earlier flight would also be quite welcome.

It is taking every ounce of my concentration, as I sit in the lobby of this hotel in Notting Hill, not to break down crying as from the window I watch the snowflakes growing steadily larger. In order to combat the despair that will surely overwhelm me as soon as I am out of sight of the desk man, I am going to talk about all the things I have to be thankful for. They include:

Number One: My dad. He is a hero among men. I'm sure he had a lot of important things to do at work today, but as far as I can tell, he has been meticulously combing the Delta website looking for fleeting cancellations that would enable me to come home sooner. He succeeded in moving my flight up from Friday to Thursday, which, being the difference between getting in on the 23rd and getting in on Christmas Eve, is like, a big ol' Christmas miracle.

Number Two: My London roommate, Lea. She originally was in my situation, of having had her flight cancelled and not being able to get out until Thursday. She booked a hotel in Bayswater (near Notting Hill) and we were going to share the room. She managed to get on a standby flight this afternoon, but left her reservation so that I could use it. I am eternally grateful. The hotel is nice, and weirdly it's in the same neighborhood as the Eurolearn people had us staying in at the very beginning, so I kind of know my way around. At least, a few things are blessedly familiar.

Number Three: Britain's drinking age. I went to a pub down the road to eat dinner and get a drink after I checked into this hotel. When I ordered, I had sort of forgotten that I had eaten nothing the whole day at Heathrow. Sitting there drinking my Bulmer's pear cider, waiting for my food and reading my e-copy of Emma, I accidentally ended up a little drunk, which really helped, as Jane Austen would put it, "calm my nerves."

Number Four: Heathrow airport's left luggage room: Were it not for that, I would have either had to pay seventy quid for a taxi to my hotel, or I would have had to battle the Piccadilly and District lines with my giant suitcase, my tiny suitcase, my backpack and my computer bag. Thanks to Heathrow, I was able to store the two suitcases and just take my two little bags to the hotel. Which brings me to—

Number Five: H&M. I knew where it was, because I knew where the mall was from staying here in September. Since I stored all my luggage, I only had one change of clothing with me. I was able to buy some basics for pretty cheap, and I have a clean new sweater to wear on the plane.

The snowflakes look smaller now than they did when I started this post. That's Number Six.

Anyway. I am going to try to make the most of this. I am going to go back to the British Museum to see their travelling exhibit on the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and I am going to hit up the National Gallery. I might go see another show tomorrow. Who knows. This whole thing doesn't seem as much of a disaster as it did about four hours ago... that is, as long as my new flight actually leaves when it's supposed to. Touch wood. Perhaps tomorrow I will even be in a good enough mood to write the post I was planning on doing today: top ten things I would miss about England. We'll see.

Hope to be seeing you all sooner than I expect!

Love,
Catherine

Partying...

...is happening back home amongst my friends quite often these days, which is tough, because I wish I could join in, but I comfort myself with the knowledge that I'll be back home in a mere five days. Yippee! Aside from a debacle with my English paper, my assignments are coming along nicely. I'm leaving one paper for over the break, because it's about LOST and I can't get Netflix in this stupid country.

That's not fair. I don't really believe this country is stupid. In fact, quite the opposite; I love it here. I can't believe I have to go, without any idea when I might return. Hopefully for grad school, at least. This weekend we went round London taking silly Christmas pictures at places like Abbey Road and Harrods and the South Bank. Every time I go into London I find that I'm going to miss is even more. Kingston I could take or leave. Kingston Uni I could take or leave. Actually I'll be happy to leave Kingston Uni, where I am not impressed with the attitudes of most students. Whatever. London, though. I can't believe I have to go home to Tulsa.

Right now I'm waiting for word from my professor about my English paper, which is probably going to be a fruitless endeavor, so let's revisit my goals.

-5 new countries: Fortunately, this most important of my priorities I have accomplished! Sweden, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Austria, and Ireland make exactly five, not to mention France, which I've already visited. This brings the total number of countries I've visited up to a round ten. Awesome.

-Out of the way places: Charleston Farmhouse, yes. Chawton (Jane Austen's house), yes. Charles Dickens' house in London, yes. This one could have been better, but in the last weeks here I decided with the combination of my dwindling funds, my mounting workload and the blistering cold, some of those places, like Durham and Wales, just weren't going to be possible. Which sucks, and is just another reason I wish I could stay longer. But, you know. Grad school.

-London buses: Epic fail. Whatever. Really, everything I ever do in London is either within walking distance of wherever I am, or within walking distance of the Tube. I didn't bother visiting on Tube strike days. Kingston buses, on the other hand, which are a part of the London bus system, I am an expert in. Which is unfortunate because they are all terrible.

-None of my parents' money: Mostly a success. The only substantial thing I used their money for was a travelcard, but really, that's all. Everything else has come out of my savings and money from TU.

-More friends: While I haven't made any friends as close as Lea or Carolyn, I have managed to make at least one friend in each of my classes, and in my seminars and my journalism class I feel a lot less like an outsider than I did at the beginning. Not to mention, I've hung out several times with Carolyn's boys, who are great. Also, I've made connections with most of my professors, which is reassuring because that's usually how I operate at home.

-Room tidy: Mostly a success. Lately it's been more difficult, as I've been more busy and staying out later, but all in all I've been a lot neater than I usually am at home.

-One postcard per week: Overall a success, but lately a big fail. I've sent enough postcards to average out one per week, but I have a pile of them on my desk right now that have been sitting there for weeks that I haven't sent. Oops.

-One thing per day I fear: This one is so weird. For about the whole first half of my time here, I was hyper focused on this, and it took a conscious effort to do anything, because I was afraid of everything. I know that I am still afraid of things, like turning in papers and going to seminars and singing in the choir and filming interviews and ordering at pubs and talking to people in shops... but I don't notice it anymore. That is, I don't notice the effort it takes to do these things. I don't know if I'd say I wasn't afraid anymore; rather that I have proportionally more ability to cope with my fear. This is the part of me that I think has changed the most over the past twelve weeks, and the thing that I most hope sticks when I go back home. But, I think it will. I am, of course, so afraid of sliding back into my timid, always-assume-the-worst mindset. In the spirit of not always assuming the worst, however, I am confident that I can keep it up.

-Internships: Just applied to six, but I still have the Tulsa World, Breakthrough Collaborative, and NPR to do when I get back. The point is, I didn’t slack off and miss all the early deadlines like last year.

-Don’t say mean things: This might have been a success simply because I know fewer people about whom to talk. I am converting this one into a goal for when I get back.

With this evaluation, I score myself about an 80%. But that does not take into account all the other stuff I accomplished, which I did not think to incorporate into my goals. Like writing a novel. And embracing feminism. And making a lifelong-caliber friend. And developing a taste for beer. And gin and tonics. And re-investing myself in my faith. And re-wetting my literary appetite. And taking a few excellent photographs. And becoming a regular at a pub. And knowing my way around London. And discovering the electric kettle. And going to the Globe three times. And not wanting to come home.

So, you know. I think I earned some bonus points.
<3
C

Perhaps...

...you've noticed my abysmal posting record of late. Rest assured that those days are gone. Prior to Tuesday morning at two thirty, my time was primarily being commandeered by National Novel Writing Month, which for some idiotic reason I decided to attempt this year, despite the ridiculous amount of work I have to do and generally being overwhelmed just by being in this country. And somehow I finished! I completed, for the second time in my life, a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. I now feel I have earned the title "novelist."

A lot of things happened while I was doing all this noveling. I skipped class one day to go to Jane Austen's house, and I skipped class another day because I was in Ireland with my family. Now I am done skipping class, because I have far too much work to do to be missing anything.

Unfortunately the weather does not seem to agree. We had a snow day today — my one class got cancelled. Which is fine with me, because my seven minute walk to the bus in the morning turns to fifteen (at the least) in the snow, and my twenty minute bus ride turns into forty. So not worth it for an hour of class.

So I guess I'll say some things about some things. Like.

Jane's Austen's House!

This is in a tiny village near Alton. This is the house that she spent the last good chunk of her life at, and where she wrote and published most of her stuff. I loved it. The nice thing about out-of-the-way sites like that one is that in the middle of November in the rain and cold, there are virtually no tourists. We almost had the house to ourselves. Unfortunately they do not allow photos inside, but it was worth it to go around. A lot of the stuff is really well preserved, and they have a lot of letters and things on the walls, and some really amazing stuff like her sister Cassandra's watercolors. I got a ton of nerdy stuff from the gift shop. The little village was so cute; about every third house has a legit thatched roof, and I'm sure only about a hundred people live there. Unfortunately the village pub wasn't serving.

It was definitely worth skipping class. I re-read Sense and Sensibility for my term paper in 18th Cent. Lit and I was happy to find that I understood it far better than when I read it in high school, and that I enjoyed it a lot more. I'm sure the two things are linked.

So, that was cool. I'm glad we went when we did, because it was about the last tolerably warm (i.e. not deathly cold) day that we've had.

Then, you know, my parents and brother came to visit me, which had the bittersweet affect of making me super happy the whole week but a lot more homesick after they left. But I'll come back to that and instead talk about...

Ireland!

One of my professors at TU swears that Ireland is magical, and I can see what he means. It was overcast for a lot of our visit, but one thing that really struck me was that the way the sun is, the way the light hits everything, it never quite lights it up properly. Instead it sort of bathes everything in a whiteish glow. It's most pronounced when there's mist or fog, but even on the clear days, the sunlight was never as bright as it is here or at home. It was really strange but really lovely.

I'm glad my family was happy not to spend most of our time in Dublin, because, as most people have told me, the Irish countryside is where it's at. We spent most of our time driving around, visiting castles and cliffs, and popping in to local pubs. Everyone is so friendly, too, and everyone has a dog. The perfect combination of these two features was when the woman selling admission to this ancient ruin site, who had her dogs in the ticket booth with her, let us take one of them for a walk down to the old fort. Who does that? Irish people, that's who. Then, at the Cliffs of Moher, there is a three-legged sheep dog who hangs around for all the tourists to love on him. I think what he used to do is like, lead you up this path to the top of one of the cliffs, but they stopped letting people go there because they would get blown off the cliffs by wind gusts or whatever. There are all these signs everywhere for help with depression for all the people who go there to commit suicide. They don't have those at the Grand Canyon, let me tell you. It sounds awful to say, but it was horrifying and hilarious at the same time.

Our last day we spent in Dublin, which was nice to get to see, but did not capture the imagination quite like Stockholm or Prague. We took one of those bus tours, and we were lucky to get a live instead of a recorded guide as we passed the Guinness brewery (which probably takes up like, half of Dublin). You could tell he loved talking about Guinness. I guess back when it started, it was a really good company to work for; it was the only one at the time to give paid sick days and stuff like that. You can't actually tour the proper brewery anymore, just the museum/shrine to Mr. Guinness, which is too bad. Anyway, the whole time we were around the Guinness quarter, the guy was chattering on and on about Guinness and telling us all these funny stories, and then as soon as he got to the part where he had to announce the next stop, all he said was something along the lines of, "And the next stop is the Modern Art Museum," which was followed by three minutes of dead silence. My dad an I were cracking up; it seemed so stereotypically Irish.

We saw St. Parick's cathedral, (we thought) like good Catholics, but as it turns out, St. Patrick's is actually an Anglican church, thank you Henry VIII. This really upset my mom and me. We came all the way to Ireland and didn't even manage to see a single Catholic church? Ridiculous. But it was beautiful, and really, not being Catholic doesn't diminish it in any way I guess. It's just sort of sad.

The last thing we did was, I sort of tricked my family into agreeing to go to the Dublin Writer's Museum, which after seeing Jane Austen's house, I thought was going to be really cool, but was actually sort of a bust. It was pretty informative, but not all that interesting. I thought it was going to have a lot more artifacts or manuscripts or whatever but it didn't, so much. It more just made me feel guilty about all the stuff I haven't read.

So, all of this was a lot of fun. The rest of the time, I spent going to class and sending my family off on adventures during the day and then meeting them in London in the evening. We saw a couple of shows, and then on Saturday, we did a whirlwind of tourist stuff, including Westminster Abbey, the Churchill War Rooms, and the tour of the Globe. Westminster Abbey was my favorite; poet's corner, where are buried like, all the important writers ever, was really mind-blowing. Dickens is there, and really, countless others. Outside there, on the other side of the wall sort of, I randomly found Aphra Behn. She's barely marked at all, and she's not on the audio guide or whatever, so I was really excited to find her. Her epitaph reads: "Here lies proof that wit can never be/Defence enough against mortality" which is just proof of how much of a badass she was.

Oh, also. I went to the Houses of Parliament, which is cool mostly for all the weird things they told us Parliament does. And the copy of the Magna Carta that is just chillin on one of the walls.


So. That all happened. And now I have a hot 18 days before I come back home. Having my family here has made me really really homesick. I mean, I still love London, and I would be happy to live here forever, but right now my life is in Tulsa and I woud like to get back to it. It doesn't help that I have a mountain of homework to do before I can leave. Four papers, two films, a still portrait of God-knows-who. If I finish one paper this weekend, one paper next week, one paper next weekend, and the last paper the last week, I should be okay on that score. Then as long as I can get my stuff filmed over the course of the coming week, I should be able to edit over the last week, and that should be okay. I just really do not know who to photograph for my portfolio. It has to be of a Kingston "hero." I have only lived in Kingston for three months. I don't know any heroes. So that's going to be an issue.

As long as I can get through the work, however, I am going to survive. There have been times when I really did not want to leave England at all. Those days are mostly over. I am going to miss it so much, but right now I really just want to be home. Every time I see something about Christmas in Tulsa, I just miss it more. I thought I was going to be able to switch my flight and come home a day early, but that isn't possible.

I don't think this would be so bad if it were not snowing and a complete ordeal to get anywhere. But the trains aren't running, so I can't even get into London. Oh well.

I hope to be able to post several more times before I go, and at some point I should re-evaluate my goals. Get super psyched for that!

Peace.
C

Profusions

To start out today*, I am going to address a question brought up by my uncle David in a comment on my last post. He asks whether in England, when passing each other in the halls, people automatically walk on the left side, as we in America generally walk on the right. This is an excellent question which I will address before regaling you all with tales of my adventures.

The short answer is: hell no they do not. And it is probably the most irritating thing in the entire world. Even in busy cities in America, people are usually surprisingly good about walking on the right side of the street or hall. Not in England. I thought for a while that this was because London is so heavily populated with people who come from countries where they drive on the right — with Londoners trying to walk on the left and everyone else trying to walk on the right, it would cause trouble, but that's not the case. For some reason, pretty much no one in Europe has learned this trick. I know this, because I have now been a lot of places in Europe (you like that segue? huh? huh?). For instance, in

THE NETHERLANDS

there is definitely no discernable walking pattern. I don't really blame the Dutch, however, because their streets have like 57 separate lanes for all different forms of transportation. Here is a quote from Tara, after remarking how weird the traffic signals for busses are: "I guess they have to make them different  from the lights for cars. Aaaand for pedestrians. And for bikes." Because all of those things have different signals, lanes and rules. If I hadn't been with Tara I probably would have died, not least because now I'm used to watching for cars coming from the right instead of the left. It is going to be a nightmare re-learning to drive when I come back.

The great thing about the Netherlands is that everyone rides a bike. I am pretty sure it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that 90% of citizens own bikes. That is just the way you get around, especially in cities. I loved it, and I really wish more places in the States were like that, so I could move there. As it is, I would be perfectly pleased to live in a place like Utrecht, which is lovely and one of my favorite places I've visited. Amsterdam was also surprising as well, given its stigma, but it is actually a beautiful city with a lot of cool things to do (other than drugs). We went to the museum where they keep Rembrandt's Night Watch (those of you who were on academic team in high school will really appreciate that), which actually isn't a night scene at all, and just looks dark because of how it's changed over time. It was awesome though; it's like the size of a wall — not disappointing and tiny like the Mona Lisa.

A dirtier and not-so-bicycle-friendly place is

THE CZECH REPUBLIC

but that is okay because it is officially my favorite place in continental Europe. It's dirtier and not as many people speak English. The tourist shops are garish. I have all this Czech money left over that I can do nothing with. But Prague feels real. I don't know how to explain it other than that. I loved it so much. Maybe because they don't have quite as much tourism as some places in Europe, it is super-friendly to travelers; our hostel was like a palace. And everyone that we talked to (except who worked at the train station, but everyone who works at a train station automatically hates their lives I'm pretty sure) was totally nice and helpful, even if they didn't have any English. I just felt really welcome there.

And it wasn't just Prague. We went out for a day to a town called Kutna Hora that we randomly found in Carolyn's guidebook whose claim to fame, other than one of the best example of Gothic cathedral architecture at St. Barbara's (patron saint of miners; Kutna Hora used to be a silver mining town), is the bone church. There's a tiny church on the edge of Kutna Hora whose graveyard was used as a place to put bodies of plague victims. A few hundred years ago, a half-blind monk who lived around there started using the bones in the graveyard to make sculptures and decorations for the church. The chandelier is constructed using every bone in the human body.

They estimate the church is decorated with remains from about 40,000 people. It is one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen. It may just top the list. 

We also went to St. Barabara's and a museum full of Czech art from the 70s and 80s, and it turns out that Czech modern art is some of my favorite. A pleasant surprise, and fitting with my whole fantastic experience in that place. It's tough to realize that one can't live everywhere, but Prague is a place I am making a priority. 

A place I would also like to live, but only in certain places, and one that is not necessarily a priority is 

AUSTRIA.

Vienna is quite possibly the most beautiful city I have ever seen, but I am glad we weren't there for very long, because it is also entirely overwhelming. Everything important is squeezed into a tiny radius of space, and pretty much every building in that radius is a masterwork of architecture. It is a lot like being in a huge art museum... you soon grow exhausted of masterpieces.

The main attraction we did was the Belvedere museum: again, completely overwhelming. It has a ton of Kilmt, including The Kiss, and it also had a traveling exhibition on Rodin that we were lucky to catch. The guy at our hostel when we first went out was giving us recommendations, and when he heard we were going to the Belvedere he just said, "Oh, that's very nice too." Understatement of the century.

We lunched at an Ottakringer brewery. Delicious food and delicious beer.

We did get to see the Vienna ballet, which was excellent. Actually, I was only impressed by half the performance, and I did not feel that they were any better than the Tulsa Ballet. But, it was really great to see, and I was especially excited because I'd seen one of the pieces before: The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude. It's one of my favorites.

Of our time in Austria, just one day was in Vienna. The second day we took a train to Salzburg and took the Sound of Music tour. It was nice to get to see Salzburg and the mountains around it, which is were the tour ended, but we did not unfortunately get to actually see much about the Sound of Music. We saw the gazebo, which was great, and the church where Captain von Trapp and Maria get married. Our guide was a huge freak. But Salzburg is almost unbearable cute, though it felt more livable than Vienna. I'd really like to go back and spend some time there some day.

All in all, we had a hugely successful trip, but by the end of the tenth day of travel I was exhausted, and really happy to be home (such as it is) in the Berrylands. I'm in the home stretch (literally) of this whole experience, and it's a bittersweet kind of feeling.

*Note: I actually started writing this post a week ago but never finished. I did not mean to slack on my blog, but it just happened. I'll soon be writing more about my continually changing view of Enland, probably within the next couple of days. Check out my facebook page for pictures from all these places.

Paul Simon

or


I'm on my way; I don't know where I'm goin'

Okay, that's not entirely true. I technically know where I'm going: Utrecht, Amsterdam, Prague, Vienna, Salzburg. But really, that is the extent of my planning.

I am already loving ferry travel. Checking in was super easy, there was practically no security hassle, my cabin is (so far) empty of other passengers, there is free wi-fi, and you have lots of room to wander around. The only downsides I have detected so far are that everything is pretty expensive, and the bar won't make me a Sidecar. Fortunately, savvy traveler that I am, I expected the first hurdle and have surmounted by packing my own food: a sleeve of milk chocolate oatmeal cookies. The second issue can't be helped I suppose.

Right now I am sitting in the coffee bar/lounge by a window looking out on the rainy port sipping a coffee. It is very peaceful. Barack Obama is giving a speech on CNN, which they have streaming on one of the TVs opposite. I am trying not to glance over, because it is making me feel like a bad citizen for not having a clue what is going on in my country right now. Oh well.

I noticed as I was walking to the bus with my suitcase earlier that I have approached this trip with a vastly different attitude than any of the other journeys upon which I have embarked in recent memory. I have been trying to examine why that is.

It probably has a lot to do with the fact that I know I am going to be around friends. It is a really comforting thought that I'll be with Tara tomorrow, and I'll be with Carolyn on Tuesday and for the rest of the week. A lot of the problem in the past has been just having to dive into the unknown. That was certainly the case with Sweden, and especially with initially coming to the U.K.

For another, I am not leaving any person of whom I am particularly sad to take my leave. The exception is my roommate, Lea, but it is not like if I stayed, I'd be able to hang out with her. She is going to spend her fall break with her friend Lauren, where she is studying in Italy this semester.

Additionally, I'm only going to be gone for ten days. Not 4 months.

So, this all explains why I am not terrified of doing this. But then, why am I so excited? I suppose because I have never been to any of these places, and we have a lot of excellent prospects for stuff to do. And you know, the absence of a lot of fear helps excitement actually to manifest. But, you know. I'd also like to think that maybe I have gotten just a tad bit braver, after having spent nearly two months pretty much on my own on another continent? At least, I really hope that has something to do with it.

Anyhoo. I can feel the engine just started; I think we are supposed to leave in like 15. I have to dash off one more cover letter tonight I guess, so that I can send off the last of my internship apps tomorrow: Denver Post, Seattle Times, St. Petersburg Times.

Hope everyone has a good weekend, and don't forget to vote. No on 744!!

<3

C

Parachute

I'm running out of p words.

I have been hard at work on internship applications all last night and this morning, and my eyes are nearly bleeding from filling out employer information and writing cover letters, so I'm taking a break and devoting it to my readers. Lucky you!

I guess I could have called this post "Paris" since I haven't given an update about that yet. So, yeah, some words about Paris:

It is a beautiful place. Bet you didn't know that, right? Bet that's some really big news to you, isn't it?
Well, yeah. It is. The thing about Paris, though, is that although pretty much every street and alley and view is lovely, close up it is kind of grody. It's just a dirty city. So far in London I haven't noticed a huge amount of trash on the ground or graffiti on the walls, but in Paris that stuff is pretty much everywhere, except for the super-expensive places. Alright, London's no Stockholm, but it's respectably clean. Where Paris beats London though is staying true to traditional architecture, at least in the city. For on thing, many places in London got destroyed in the Blitz, and some of the newer buildings are just really depressing eyesores. That is something I didn't see in Paris, really.

Didn't really notice too much rudeness, either—they say that's one of the worst things about Paris, but as long as you say, "Bon jour, parley vous engles?" (I'm sure I butchered that spelling), they are pretty happy to help you. The first night we were there, we checked into our hostel and went down the street to a cafe/bar (right across from the Moulin Rouge!) and ordered Sidecars (Carolyn and I are both Princess Diaries fans; if you've read them you understand why that's amusing). I don't know why, but our waiter and the bartenders were really tickled that we ordered them. No idea what they were saying, but they were totally making fun of us in French. Whatever. They were delicious, and it is totally my new favorite drink.

Saturday morning, we went to explore the graveyard where Oscar Wilde is buried, along with Sarah Bernhardt, Jim Morrison, Isadora Duncan, Marcel Proust, Moliere and a host of others. We wandered that damn graveyard looking for Sarah and Proust for ages, and we must have passed right by them like 20 times, but we never found them. We did find Jim, Isadora (who's cremated), Moliere and Oscar Wilde though. Wilde's grave is great; its covered in red kiss marks and little thank-you notes to him and stuff. (Jim Morrison's is as well, but I was more excited about Wilde). I wrote a tiny little "THANKS -C" on it. I hope he sees it.

After this we went to eat—French food is DELICIOUS—and had a wander up the Seine past Notre Dame, the Louvre and the Royal Palais toward the Paris Opera.

Carolyn and I have both seen Paris before, which was a really big advantage to this little weekend trip. Neither of us really wanted to go see the Louvre again, or needed to go up the Eiffel Tower, or walk up the Champs Elysees. That gave us a lot more freedom to be relaxed tourists instead of crazy time-budgeting ones. Plus, Carolyn's friend Elizabeth who is studying in Paris was able to take us around and show us some great out-of-the-way places.

The Paris Opera was one thing we'd neither of us seen before, so we paid 5 euro to have a look inside. It is the first place I've seen this term that I would describe as opulent. The Brighton palace came close, but this was still the most extravagant and intricate interior designing I've ever seen. I wish we'd gotten a chance to see Paquita, like we planned, but it didn't end up working out. Seeing inside the place was still a treat, though. I had Phantom of the Opera stuck in my head for a long time, because you can totally see Andre and Firmin freaking out on the entrance hall stairs, or imagine a ghost haunting the back rooms on the sides and stuff. It was so cool. I wish we could have gone down to see the lake underneath the stage—it's real; it's there for acoustics—but I get the feeling access to that is pretty exclusive.

We spent the rest of our weekend window and flea market shopping, pub crawling and chocolate buying. On Sunday morning I went to Mass at the basilica on Montmartre, where our hostel was, and where I went to Mass last time I was in Paris. Last time though, it was a Wednesday evening, and no one was around, and they shuffled out all the tourists before they started the service. This time, not so much. It was weird to have this constant stream of onlookers wandering past as Mass was going on. But, oh man, I wouldn't have been surprised if the organist had been the Phantom of the Opera himself, he was so good. And he played all this ridiculous dramatic organ music pretty much all throughout the ceremony. It was so neat.

Anyhoo. Paris was awesome, but what was even more awesome was the feeling of relief to be able to come home to London. I can't believe it's even possible for me to write that.

Plus, I've had a fantastic week here so far. Monday I started filming the interview and other footage for my first film for video journalism (Carolyn's story about her first time going to the Globe) and I think it is going to be excellent. I can't wait to get started editing when I get back from fall break. Tuesday I ran errands in Kingston, but then went up to London to meet up with Peter and have a drink. It was awesome to get to see him—I have really enjoyed being around him and Tara, people who know what I'm talking about when I talk about McFarlin or the Schroeders or poor Igor. It's refreshing in a way. Plus, we went to this excellent pub, the Cheshire Cheese, which looks like the Leaky Cauldron on the outside and is where Charles Dickens wrote books. Also, it sells pints for £2, a price unheard of pretty much everywhere else in the greater London area, except for Wednesdays at the Berry. I think I am going to be frequenting it a lot this coming month, because I am crazy and am going to try to do National Novel Writing Month (write a 50,000-word novel in November), and I think it will be a good place to go and be inspired.

Yesterday I finished filming Carolyn, and we went for fish and chips at the great pub by the Globe. She went to go see a show, and I went to find an independent bookstore I found online. Turns out Charing Cross Road is like London's bookstore capital, so I had a lot of fun looking around at all the little places. The first place I went to, the one I was trying to find, is called Foyles, and it's like an independent version of Borders. What makes it way cooler than Borders is that it has a far wider selection, and I had a lot of fun browsing titles. I purchased a Hungarian phrasebook and another book (a surprise) for Meredith and a collection of Seamus Heaney poems called District and Circle. I love that I'm enough of a Londoner to understand that title. On the next corner there was a tiny little discount bookstore, crammed with stacks of thrift-edition classics for just £2. I bought Anne Bronte's second book, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

And so we come back to me filling out internship apps. I am almost done with the State Department and am working on the Washington Post, St. Petersburg Times, and Seattle Times. I still have to call the Denver Post to see if I can submit my stuff electronically. Basically all I need to do still for these places is write a couple of cover letters, but filling out the damn apps online is so time consuming and boring. I'd much rather be writing long and rambling blog posts about the random things I do in the U.K.

Ooookay. Back to the grind now I guess. I'll probably update when I get onto the ferry to go see Tara.

Peace.

Promised

A Day in the Life of a Kingston University Study Abroad Student: A Photographic Documentary

by Catherine Roberts

Wednesday is the best day of the week. Why? Because for one thing, my budget starts over on Wednesday, because it is the day I'm supposed to pay rent. I get to begin anew and forget about how much I went overbudget, as I invariably do, the week before. For another, it is cheap drinks night at our local.

This Wednesday was a particularly good one. Despite it being truly cold for the first time since I've been here, the sun was shining, and there were no clouds on the horizon to threaten rain later, a rarity in this country. 

Here is the other reason I knew Wednesday would be a good day:

As I rounded the first corner on the way to the bus, what should greet me but the yowling mew of Sherwin, my favorite neighborhood cat. I have no clue what his real name is, but I call him Sherwin because he looks like he got into some white Sherwin Williams paint. He is the only cat I've met so far who comes up to you to say hello and be petted. When I see him in the morning, I take it as an omen of a good day.

I purposely caught the bus early so I could get a coffee and facebook for a bit before class.

Library coffee isn't so delicious, but it is the cheapest you can find in town. When I go to Paris this weekend, I am going to try to find a small French press coffeemaker, because my landlords only drink decaf, and that just does not cut it for me. As you might be able to tell, I am listening to Regina Spektor, off of Mary's playlist. This particular day I listened to Mary music all day, because I was missing her most keenly, especially in my Gender & Pop Culture lecture, during which we discussed how appallingly late in history women's equality has been put into legislation. When I come back I am going to be a bonafide feminist.

I don't like much about the physical Kingston campus, and especially the library, because it is just freakishly packed with students all the time, but I do like the third floor. Since you have to walk up a ton of stairs to get there, it usually has slightly fewer people. Also it has all the econ books, plus books with titles like this:

After GSPC, I have a new class that I'm just taking for fun: Understanding Britain. It's six weeks long and doesn't count for any credit, but it's a good alternative to the British Life and Culture class which I hear is just full of cliquey Americans from Jersey. No thanks. This class is mostly internationals from Germany and India. We had a quiz on the British monarchy at the beginning, and I scored 4 out of 10. Oops.

In the corner is the note I wrote to Mary about how excited I was about my earlier lecture and about finding out who Guy Fawkes was. Mary, I will transcribe this for you at some point. :)

Understanding Britain let out a bit early, so the usually packed and unpleasant courtyard was relatively calm.

The good thing about when this place is packed is I can pass by the smokers, get a little secondhand smoke and be reminded of home without looking like too much of a creep.

After class, I had to go turn in a very late form to the study abroad office. So, you know, that just requires a stroll up the Thames.

Since I was already in the town center, and it was the beginning of the week, I felt I could spend money on a treat. This is where I wanted to go...

...but I resisted. I walk by here all the time though, and one day I am going to break down. Instead, I walked into the square...

...and bought a mini-pasty. 

So cute and delicious. I shopped some of the sales, but everything is still too expensive, and the jacket I really want from H&M isn't marked down yet, so I will have to wait it out. Instead, I did buy a truffle from my favorite place in Kingston.

This place is my main vice. But I only buy one truffle at a time from the case at the front...

Finally, after restraining myself on the retail front, though not on the chocolate front, I caught the bus. 

Here's the thing about the bus. For one thing, I have to take the K2, which is like the worst bus in greater London. It's unreliable, it doesn't run at night, and the drivers are maniacs. The other weird thing is, and although this isn't unique to the K2, it's really true what they say about Brits queueing at bus stops. I don't understand why this happens. And it's only at busy stops where several routes pick up that this happens. People waiting form a queue from the approximate point the bus will stop. But you have no way of knowing who is waiting for what bus, and what route's bus will come next. So as soon the bus rounds the corner, there is a mad dash forward as people from all parts of the line, not just the front, rush to be first on, and there's a scrum around the bus door. So queueing had absolutely no point at all. It is a mystery to me, but you know. When in Rome...

Now comes the best part of Wednesday. I ran home, dropped off my books, and walked down the road to our favorite pub, The Berry. It is named after the little town/neighborhood center it is in, The Berrylands. The Berrylands consists of very little other than The Berry, a train station, and a bus stop. The Berrylands is to Surbiton is to Kingston as, like, Drumright is to Sapulpa is to Tulsa, if Drumright, Sapulpa and Tulsa were all within walking distance of each other. Anyway, The Berry is a wonderful pub, which is quiet and never very busy and has friendly bartenders. Plus on Wednesday you can get £2 Strongbow, Vodka&mixers, or G&Ts, plus discount pitchers. It was my week to buy a pitcher.

These are my friends. Lea, my roommate, is on the left, looking like champ. Carolyn, on the right, is polishing off the pitcher, like a champ. That's how we roll. 

Shortly after this, Lea left to party with the football girls, and Carolyn and I went to go see The Social Network. As we were walking out of The Berry, I realized that I had forgotten my house key, and Lea had already caught the bus. This was the first omen I had that the joyful, carefree day I'd had all day was bound not to last, though I ignored it of course. I figured as long as Lea got home before me everything would be okay. Working on that happy notion, Carolyn and I went to see the movie, which turned out to be fantastic. I haven't seen that good a movie in theaters in a very long time. 

In British movie theaters, you have assigned seating, and pay more for better seats. And people like, actually check your ticket when you're inside the theater. Bizarre.

After this followed a long, drawn-out ordeal consisting of a lot of riding back and forth on the 281 and wandering around Tolworth with Carolyn while I waited for Lea to say she was headed home from the club. At one point I ended up at the Kingston library, which I like a lot more when it's deserted in the middle of the night. For one thing, I can take pictures of the third floor without people looking at me like my skin has fallen off or something. 

I stopped taking pictures after this, because I was so distressed at not being able to go home and go to bed. I am a big moron for forgetting my key, and also for not just going home after the movie and ringing the doorbell. Lea finally texted me she was headed home, so I got on the bus, but she beat me back, and by the time I got there, she'd fallen asleep. Totally understandable, since it was 3 a.m. I waited outside for 45 minutes in the near freezing weather hoping she'd wake up*/screwing up the courage to ring the doorbell and wake up my landlady. What about that makes sense? Absolutely nothing, I realize. And I realized at the time, but I was delirious from cold and booze and sleep-deprivation, and I was afraid of making my family mad. Eventually when I finally admitted to myself that it was either ring the doorbell or sleep on the doorstep, I rang it. My landlady let me in, and wasn't mad, of course. I felt like a big idiot.

*I don't blame Lea at all in this, I just want to make clear. I am clearly thick.

So, that is a really extreme but good example of how most of my days here run the gamut between fantastic and disastrous. Though it ended terribly, I am happy the rest of it went so well, and I learned several lessons. 1) NEVER leave home without your house key. 2) If you've been waiting for something in the cold for more that 15 minutes, you've been waiting too long. It's time to try something else. I should have learned that lesson from my adventure to Charleston, but alas, I did not. 3) I can't remember what 3 is. Mostly, don't be an idiot. You'd think I'd have learned that by now, what with all the House I watch. Too bad it never sunk in. 

Anyway, I am still looking forward to next Wednesday, as it is always generally a good day, and I am more immediately looking forward to spending the weekend in Paris. My flight leaves in just under 4 hours, so I have to run pretty soon here, but I wanted to finish this damn post that I've been working on since yesterday afternoon. I saw Sherwin this morning, so I am sure our trip will be a successful one. Among other things, we are going to go see the Paris Opera Ballet perform Paquita, parts of which I danced in high school at one point, so I am quite excited about that. I also hope to buy some posh clothes. Also coffee and chocolate. Yes please. 

I hope everyone has a pleasing weekend!

Love,

Catherine

Peacefulness

Hello everyone,

I write this post in the best of moods; this weekend was lovely, the week appears to be turning out similarly, and I fly to Paris on Friday. No class tomorrow, so I am writing a few postcards and a birthday card for Sadie, drinking soup, and watching my most recent TV obsession, the new British period drama with Maggie Smith and many other beautiful people, Downton Abbey. It's great; I dearly hope I can get it in the States when I come back.

Tara's visit this weekend went really well (yes, James, I am writing about her in my blog); it was really refreshing to see someone from home. Among other things, we got Mexican food since we were both craving it. It actually turned out to be pretty good, though the guacamole was a little off. Ah well. Turns out Tara is an Agatha Christi fan, so we went to see The Mousetrap, which is something like the longest running play in the West End. It was a lot of fun. 

We also visited Hampton Court, Henry VIII's favorite crib. I'd heard it was cool, but it turned out way better than I expected. In William III's (of William and Mary) suite, we got some really interesting info from an overly —ahem— friendly dossen. I think I will definitely take my family there when they come to visit. 

Tonight Carolyn and I went to see a play, but not a West End thing. It was a tiny independent production in SoHo about a little orphan in Russia in the 1990s who befriends a pack of dogs. At first I was skeptical but I ended up bawling my eyes out. The independent theater scene in London is really neat; I can't think of an equivalent in Tulsa. Plus, they offer one of the shows in the series free, so it didn't cost anything. 

I am just feeling really settled these days. I finally figured out the cheap bus and travel passes for Oyster, which is saving money, I discovered the wonderful things that are digestive cookies (that sounds terrible, it's an archaic name, they're just sugary cookies), and I made a couple of new friends this week (one of them a real Brit!). I am even getting into a running routine, and I have a lovely route through the neighborhood. 

Really, I don't have much else to report. I love living here. There's always something to do, but even when you don't want to do anything, you can do nothing in the pub along with all the other lingerers. The one thing that is continually a bother is how expensive everything is, but even that's getting better, with my improved grocery buying skills and the Oyster bus pass. I am sure I'll spend too much in Paris, but at least the Euro's exchange rate with the dollar isn't so punishing. 

I miss everyone; when I got home from the play, I saw all these wonderful things people had written on my Facebook wall, and it's just a great reminder of how lucky I am to have such a fantastic group of friends. 

Hope all is well in T-town.

Catherine

Potpourri II

HELLO.

How is everyone? I sometimes wish all my friends had blogs, so I could read about the random things you all are doing.

I call this post Potpourri II because there's been no internet at my home for the past week, and I have lots of little things to write about. For example, I went to the Globe again last Thursday to see Henry IV Part II. That seems so long ago, but it wasn't even a week. I am still in awe at how good the Globe players are. I think my favorite part of Part II was John Falstaff's long soliloquy about how much he loves booze. I have never heard a more compelling speech in favor of drinking. And I'm friends with Danny Patten.

So, you know, the next day I went to Sweden. What is that about? Who would have ever thought I'd go to Sweden? Certainly not me. I am still having trouble believing it was real. Here are some things about Sweden:

$$$$ Or I guess I should say SEKSEKSEKSEK. There isn't really a symbol for Swedish kroner. I mention this first, because it was really the only downside to Sweden. I nearly had a heart attack when I looked at my bank account when I got back. Oh well. Surely it's a good sign if I'm broke when I come back home.

English Everyone speaks it. That's not so unusual for large cities in Europe. What I did find astonishing was how hard it was to tell that some of the people speaking English were actually Swedish. Most people under 30 that we talked to spoke with almost no trace of an accent. Not even a British accent — the English speaking Swedes sounded like they were from the States. Or Canada. It was a shock every single time. At first we thought there were just a bunch of Americans working in hostels and bars in Sweden... but no, they just speak English amazingly well.

Everyone is nice. Everyone we talked to is really pleasant and helpful. All our bartenders were super friendly. We walked through an outdoor farmers' market our first day there and whenever we would stop at a stall to puzzle over something, a local shopper would help explain what was being sold. Several times we would be standing on street corners with our map looking lost and people would come up and ask if we needed help. It's not like people in England are mean, but it was really weird to have people consistently go out of their way to be nice. I loved it.

Everything is clean. Seriously. There is absolutely no trash on the streets, not even chewing gum. Stockholm has a really comparatively low population density for European cities. There is very little traffic. I had heard this about Sweden before, but it was bizarre to actually see it.

Everyone is beautiful. I have never seen so many attractive people in one place.

Great bars We went to two bars the night we went out: the first was the Absolut Ice Bar. It is made entirely of ice, with the exception of the ceiling and the floor. It cost an arm and a leg, but was one of the coolest (HAHA) things I've ever seen. The bar is made of ice, as well as the glasses they put your Absolut cocktails in. I still kind of can't believe we actually went there. The second bar was the KGB, which was in our guidebook, and we chose a bit randomly, but was an excellent, excellent decision. It was decorated in all the Communist propaganda and busts of Stalin and Lenin and stuff, so it seemed really weird, but it turned out to be great. In England, there are just two types of bars: pubs, which all close at about 11 and are really just places to gather and drink; and clubs, which if you want to stay out late, is your only option and are mainly for dancing and getting hit on. The KGB was a perfect mix of the two. There was a small dance floor where people were sort of jamming to the Russian music that was playing, but the bar part was also really hoppin and the whole thing was open really late. Our bartender was so nice too, even though she couldn't make me a Sidecar. (That is my new goal for this month: have a Sidecar).

So really, Stockholm is my new favorite place. I never thought I would go there, and now all I want to do is go back.

Unfortunately, I spent a terrifying amount of money, since it is such an expensive city and it was so hard to tell how much things actually cost with the kroner being such a completely foreign currency to me. Whatever. Okay. That's Sweden. Now to change tracks...

Ta daaa! New section.

I decided, since I have now been in England for a month, almost exactly, I should do some self-evaluation. This is the part where I go through that goals list and see how I am doing.

1. 5 new countries — I'm at one of five, with Sweden. In two weekends Carolyn and I are going to Paris, which I've already been to, so that doesn't count (not that I'm not excited of course). But for fall break, I am going to visit Tara in The Netherlands before meeting Carolyn in Prague, where we will stay for a couple of days, then taking a train on to Vienna. So that will bring my total up to 4 new countries. When my parents come to visit, we will be spending a weekend somewhere in Europe, probably either Rome or Dublin, so that will complete my five! Plus right before I leave I think I am going to take a train to Belgium for a weekend to do Christmas shopping. Woo!

2. Out of the way UK destinations — Well, I went to Charleston. That was great, but getting there was a disaster. I am going to try to take a Friday and Saturday in December to go to the Castle Nannau in Whales, and one Tuesday I will call the Associated Press and see if I can visit the television station. We are planning on taking a day trip up to Stratford-upon-Avon some Saturday. I don't think I will make it to Durham, because that is apparently a nine hour train ride, and the only thing I wanted to see there is the cathedral, but when I come back here for grad school, that is something I can do then. So, this goal seems doable for the most part. Really, Charleston was the main one I have wanted to see since freshman year, so I am happy I was able to do that.

3. Don't say mean things — The problem with this one is, while I have not exactly been saying a lot of awful things about people, I have not exactly been making a concerted effort to avoid derogatory talk. This one could use work.

4. Buses — Haven't been to London much, but I am definitely an expert on Kingston buses. They work much the same way in London. I also haven't actually needed to take the bus in London yet, really, as the Tube is so easy. I do plan on going to London quite a bit more, so maybe I will try to navigate that way one of these days.

5. Postcards — I am far exceeding my goal of one per week. That's a cinch.

6. Keep space tidy — Also pretty easy, since I just don't have very much shit. Our family is really nice, and vacuums our floors and cleans our bathroom every couple of weeks. I really appreciate that, since I was worried about having to ask to borrow a vacuum and Windex or whatever.

7. Summer internships — This definitely needs work. I have been writing my resume, and one goal I have for this week is to send off applications to three places.

8. Spend none of my parents' money — For the most part, I have been really really good about this. I had to use their Visa once when the automatic train ticket Kiosk wouldn't take my card, and then I used it once at Gatwick for a coffee. That only amounts to about £10. So while my record isn't perfect, I am still proud of myself.

9. Make more friends — This one is a bit dodgy... I definitely made a friend on the trip to Oxford, but I can't find her on Facebook because I only know her first name and I'm not sure how to spell it. I want to see if she wants to have tea or something, so I have been watching for her in the library and stuff. Also, there are two girls in my econ class who are really really nice and funny. One of them, like me, likes to write down the unintentionally funny things professors say. At some point I am going to try and see if they want to get coffee after class or something. Also I met another American girl in my English class who is study abroad who is really nice. I found out she has Tuesdays off too, so I might see if she wants to take a day trip with me or something. And finally, I signed up to take like a six week, not graded course about British culture, which is for international students, so I hope to be able to meet some people there. So, I feel like this one is slowly but surely coming along. Also, I feel like strengthening the connections I have made with Lea and Carolyn also counts, and anyway having fewer but better friends is my preferred M.O. I feel like this goal is mostly going to be a success.

10. One thing per day I'm afraid of — This is both really easy and really difficult. It must be the nature of doing this kind of thing, but studying abroad is teaching me a lot about myself, and one of those things is that I am pretty much afraid of everything. Like, going to class. Asking a question in the library. Going to the post office. Also things like flying to Sweden and emailing strangers for help on my projects for video journalism. However, all of these things I have done. Today, the thing I was afraid of was going to choir practice at the Catholic church I've been going to, but it turns out it was a really excellent decision. The choir is made up of all these old men and ladies, and they were a riot. I won't be able to sing much with them until November, but I am really glad I decided to join. And that is pretty much what I find, is that when I do things I'm afraid of, I am better off in the end. Even the disaster of a trip to Charleston, I learned a lot and got a great lesson in common sense, and I was scared out of my mind for a long time. And really, how could I ever regret going to Sweden? This is the goal that I feel I have already been most successful with. As I get more comfortable here, it is going to be harder to find things I am afraid of, naturally, but I really don't think it will be too hard. I really am apparently afraid of everything. Going abroad is probably like, the best thing I could have done for myself.

So, on the whole, I feel I have been pretty successful with my goals. The internship thing is really the one I need to get started.

Aaaand last. This one is for Ellen, who asked me to provide the definitions of satire and irony my English prof gave us, so Ellen, here we go. Share with your classes!

Satire


Satire is, as is widely defined both in texts from the 18th Century and now, generally as a kind of writing that seeks out and exposes vice and folly. (This isn't that surprising. The next part is what I found so useful) It consists of 7 elements, all of which may or may not be used in a particular satire, but which are good indicators and tools satirists use.

1. Exaggeration: On a moral level, there is no difference between a small crime and a large crime, so in a satire, something small gets turned into something large, or something large gets turned into something much smaller. That's not the only type of exaggeration, though, obviously. This one is pretty self explanatory. In "A Modest Proposal" (which is what we were talking about that week in class), Swift exaggerates the solution to over-population by suggesting that a good idea would be to eat babies.

2. Parody: Can be a type of exaggeration. To parody is to mimic the most memorable feature or mannerism of someone/something, including a style of writing. In AMP, Swift parodies the language of a sensible suggestion to the government common at the time, which would frequently have a big impact. He particularly parodies their use of statistics and modest language.

3. Irony: Probably the hardest word to define in any English class. There is dramatic/situaitonal irony, in which the audience knows something a character doesn't, or when a character says something without realizing it applies to them. In essays like Swift's, irony is created by setting up a discrepancy between what seems and what is. That's the kicker. A discrepancy between what seems and what is.

4. Bathos: Here's one I'd never heard of. To use bathos is to talke someone on high, or something important or major, and bring it down to the bottom level, creating a descent from the sublime to the ridiculous. Classic example would be a policeman slipping on a banana peel.

5. Incongruity: Similar to irony. The masters of incongruity were Monty Python — coconuts in Arthurian England is just one of tons of examples. An example in AMP is when Swift cites his Native American cannibal friend: it really does not make sense for an Irish clergyman to be talking about eating children with an American Indian.

6. Allusion: Referring to something else, pretty straightforward. In 18th Cent. lit though, sometimes deeply embedded and hard to detect, since they were written for people with the common knowledge of the time.

7. Satiric Norm: Another one I'd never heard of. The satiric norm is the thing that the satirist compares the subject of the satire to. It means a norm of behavior, or something that is usually done or is socially agreed should be done, an ideal mode of behavior. Within a satire, it is not usually stated (by the way, we all know really how a Duke should act isn't to be greedy and cruel), with the famous exception of AMP, toward the end. He even puts it in Italics: He states he can't think of a reason to object to his proposal, and says, "Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients: Of taxing our absentees at five shillings a pound: Of using neither cloaths, or household furniture, except what is of our own growth and manufacture..." etc. He lists pretty much all the other things he thought Ireland should have been doing to combat its economic woes instead of eating babies.

So. That wraps up this post finally. Stay tuned for a photographic documentary of a day in the life of a Kingston student!

Peace.

C

'Pologies...

...for not providing an update prior to now. I had been attempting to wait for a sort of plateau in how I've been feeling before writing another post, but every day here is pretty much a rollercoaster ride, so that's pointless.

Turns out I was wrong about it being a cinch to make the volleyball team. I don't understand how in England of all places, there isn't even a tryout for the football (soccer) team, but the volleyball team is super-competitive. I have another chance to try out this Thursday, which I'm going to do, because I have no shame, and think I can do better than I did last week, but really? It seems backwards.

Classes, though I've only had one week of them and only been to most of them one time, are going really well. My 18th Century lit class is my favorite so far; today we started talking about Jonathan Swift, and the professor gave us the best definitions of satire and irony I've ever had from an English class. For video/photo journalism, our project for the semester is supposed to be a portfolio of two videos and one still photo that each fall into a certain theme. I am particularly excited about the video dealing with history and people who live in the past; I am going to try and do members of different clergies (Catholic, Church of England, Quaker, etc.) and how they bring all the years of traditions of their faiths into the future. It is going to be so good.

Over the weekend, we went out with three guys—one of the brothers Carolyn lives with and his two friends. They were great fun, and I am hoping to be able to see more of them and get to know some genuine Brits. We went into London on Saturday and visited the Tate Modern, most of which went right over my head, but we also visited two touristy train stations: Paddington, where there is a statue of Paddington Bear, and King's Cross, which, duh.

That is one thing about not making the volleyball team: before I found out I could try again, I had already rationalized away the disappointment by telling myself that really, it might be nice not to have too many obligations, since I am going to be travelling pretty much every single weekend in October and November, and it leaves more time for the silly tourist stuff that I want to do but that normal students aren't interested in. Of course, this is all still true, and if it turns out that I won't be able to play in most of the games because I'll be gone or whatever, then I probably won't commit to the team. But hopefully both will be possible.

In other news, I am settling in a bit better here: I have groceries that should definitely last me till Friday, I haven't gone over my budget this week, I finally did some laundry, my phone started working again, I taught myself how to fry an egg, I found a site that streams TV shows so I can watch old seasons of 24 and Arrested Development (even though it's really slow and everything has what looks like Japanese subtitles), and I have started to go running in my neighborhood. By "I have started" I mean, I went for the first time today. But I think I am going to keep it up; I'm not quite as out of shape as I thought, and the neighborhoods are so pretty that it's nice just to get out in them. Plus the weather is pretty much perfect for running outside, when it isn't raining.

On top of all of this, Lea, Carolyn and I are going to Stockholm this weekend. Who would have ever thought I would go to Sweden? I plan to bring back lots of stuff like coffee and chocolate since I expect things will be much cheaper there than they are here.

I hope everyone is doing well! I still miss all my Tulsa people.

Love,
Catherine

Potpourri

Time for some random observations and tidbits that haven't really fit in to any of my posts up to this point.

~*~HERE WE GO~*~

—Mind the gap: Everyone has heard this, right? It's one of the quintessential things people think about when they think of Britain. What I wonder is why they say it so much. From what I've seen, in the vast majority of tube and train stations, if you were actually to have an issue with the gap between the train and the platform, you would have to be extraordinarily clumsy, almost to the point of actually trying to fall down, or you would have to be very very small. Like, green army man size.

—Arachnids: I am really surprised "Charlotte's Web" was not written in Britain (rhyme!). Nearly every morning on my walk to to bus stop I notice a new spider web on someone's bush or flowering shrub. And these are not your Tulsa sized spiders or webs. These are big, fat spiders that sit in the middle of huge, beautifully constructed webs. I don't think they are any sort of dangerous variety, but they sure look menacing. Since it rains so much here, it's usually really easy to see them, covered in little water droplets. It's a pretty amazing thing.

—Fun fact: You know those Princeton Review college ratings, like Happiest Students and Dorms Like Prisons or whatever? Well, there's one called Town/Gown relations. That term comes from Oxford! Because of the weird little robes they wear to meals and graduation and stuff. You've seen pictures, I'm sure. And the funny thing is, Oxford and Cambridge both have terrible town/gown relations. In Oxford, although all the buildings are mixed in with the town, there are just certain places the townspeople always go, and places students always go: especially pubs. Apparently if a student walks in to a townspeople pub, the whole bar goes silent and everyone puts down their drinks and stares. How creepy. And in Cambridge, the college and students are in a completely separate part of town as the Cambridge locals.

—College sports: are just really not as big a deal here as they are in the States. From what I can tell, there's not really any sort of NCAA equivalent for like, the elite or whatever. For example, my roommate, who, granted, is really athletic, was able pretty much to walk on to the ladies' football (soccer) team here. Tomorrow I am going to try out for the volleyball team, and if my suspicions are correct, I will be able to join without much of a problem. (This is great for me; I am really looking forward to competing in something organized again.) They are sort of more like club sports, much like the rugby team at TU. I wish TU had more club sports like this; something in between intermurals and the legit school team.

—Gents: The don't call anything "Mens'." It's always "Gents'." Which I love. Gents' toilets. Gents' barber. There are a surprising number of those, by the way. Barber shops. Just for gents, just for ladies, just for ethnic hair. There are also ones fashioning themselves as unisex, which I'm sure means open to both, but to me sounds like the give the same haircuts to both ladies and gents.

—Gardens: I'm sure you've heard of English gardens, and for the most part this is really true. Most people have tiny front yards, which they line with cute little flowerbeds planted haphazardly with flowers and shrubs. Or, if they have all brick in front of their houses, there are still flower beds at the edges, or at least pots and flower boxes. All the houses are really close to the street, which means even in the suburbs the yards are a lot smaller than in the States, which is great, because it makes it much easier to see when there are

—Cats: or kittens in the windows. One house on my way to and from the bus nearly always has a different kitten in the window. It's one of my favorite parts of the day.

That's all I can think of for now. My classes seem great so far; I had Gender, Sexuality and Popular Culture today, and I felt a lot like how Mary must feel in her classes all the time. It seems really interesting, and I am excited to start. One of the lectures scheduled for later in the semester is called Laura Croft's Breasts (It's about gender portrayals in video games. I am going to bring up all that stuff Mary told me about World of War Craft.). Friday is the class I'm most excited about, in which I'll be learning how to do video journalism. I am going to have such a great range of journalism skills!

Now I'm off to read an article about gender in the media, some stuff about 18th cent. lit, and some Jonathan Swift poems.

Catherine

Purgatory

Please excuse the less-than-joyful tone of this post. I know these things are supposed to be about how amazing and fulfilling this *experience* is, but you are all probably jaded and tired of that by now anyway. Right? RIGHT?

The point of this is that I have not had the greatest few days. Remember that solo trip out to Charleston I was going to take? Well, that turned into a profound disaster. All told, I must have made about a dozen public transportation mistakes which ended up costing me more than I care to think about, and in a twelve hour day, I spent only about two hours at my destination, and the rest in transit. And Charleston is only about an hour away from London, technically. The place itself was really cool; it's the old home of Vanessa Bell (Virginia Woolf's painter sister) and Duncan Grant, two of the most important figures in the Bloomsbury bohemian-type movement in Britain. It was great to have learned so much about it in school at TU and then to actually see it in person. I wish I could just have stayed there, and in fact, I probably should have, since it turned out that the bus I hurried to catch never came, and I ended up waiting for it for an hour and a half outside in the cold and drizzle, before having to walk another couple of miles in the shrubs along the highway to get to the nearest train station. People kept honking at me as they drove by too, and I have no idea why. It was really disheartening.

So that was lame. The next day, a trip for internationals to the Cotswolds and Oxford, was not as lame. I was worried because I didn't know anyone on the trip, but I ended up making friends with a girl called Nadua from Bosnia. Problem is I don't know her last name and am having a hard time finding her on facebook. Frustrating. F-game.

The Cotswolds were almost too cute to be real; think England from a BBC original miniseries of a Jane Austen novel. Or even a Shakespeare play. In the Costwolds you have something called cream tea, which is basically just tea and scones, but the scones... They're more like what we call biscuits, only they have fruit and rasins in them and stuff, and for cream tea, you put clotted cream and jam on them. Clotted cream is somewhere between heavy cream and butter, and is my new favorite thing in the world.

Oxford is a strange place. This whole trip was one of those where they really don't give you enough time to do everything you want to do, and I feel like I missed out not getting to just roam around for hours. Also I was feeling a little bitter about not having gotten to go to school there; there was some kind of graduation ceremony going on and all these people were wandering around in their little Oxford robes and grad caps.

What I really wanted to do but couldn't was go to the pub where C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien used to hang out. Our guide pointed it out as we drove by, but of course there was no time to visit. I might try to get up there again. It seems like a great town.

Mostly the problem with little trips like this is that I just want to be a local everywhere I go, instead of an observer. Like, a huge reason I wished I could've studied at Oxford was to eat in the Christ Church dining hall. Hogwarts, anyone?

Oh well. I bought a few school supplies today, and I'm hoping that classes starting tomorrow will improve my mood. I try out for volleyball on Thursday, so I guess I also need to go buy some court shoes and knee pads. I am just writing this week off as a total fail financially.

Aaaaanyway. I'm off to write an opinion piece for the Collegian (Vote NO on SQ744!!!!!!), for which I will hopefully get paid, even though I'm abroad. Dear TU payroll, please understand that I am poor and need your money!

Peace.

C

Percolate?

I couldn't think of another relevant P word.

I am sitting here writing lots of postcards, since I went overboard buying them at the British Museum, so I thought I would do a blog post too, while I'm at it. And I am tired of just blabbing about where I've been going, so I thought I would do this one in a list form.

Top ten reasons living in Kingston is better than living in Tulsa:

10. Developed river: Kingston's full title is Kingston upon Thames, and that is no lie. There is a lovely walking path along the Thames, and High Street (which is what you call the main street/town center of any British village or neighborhood — remember this from Hogsmeade?) runs right along the Thames's east side. The theater and dozens of great restaurants come right up to it, it's full of swans and ducks, you can take river tours and even catch a ferry down to Hampton Court, which was Henry VIII's favorite royal residence. That's on my agenda of things to see.

9. Shopping: There are multiple H&M locations in Kingston, and it is really not that big of a town. Need I say more? I am going to have to be careful not to spend all my food and rent money there...

8. Pubs: I have not really taken advantage of this yet, but we are going to do a typical British pub night tomorrow for my roommate's birthday. Bring on the fish and chips and beer!

7. Developed town center: Going back to High Street — there is nearly always something going on here. There are tons of cute cafes and little shops, and you can get pretty much everything you need, including help from the Kingston study abroad office, right in the space of about a half-mile. Every day there is an outdoor market with the cheapest and freshest produce in town, which is great for day-to-day cooking. Next on my list: the gelato place. I expect I will go here to reward myself after our first day of class, coming up Monday.

6. Old shit: There is a bridge on High Street across a little canal tributary to the Thames which was built in the 1200's. Insane.

5. Food: For one thing, there is delicious Indian food everywhere you go. For another, I just discovered these things called pasties (again, recall your Harry Potter) which are like hot pockets only a trillion times better. Plus they are cheap.

4. Proper public transportation: Our bus stop is a ten minute walk from our house, and on weekdays, 7 to 7, the bus runs every ten minutes. Then, there are trains into London about every twenty minutes during peak hours. Best of all, with an Oyster card, you top off the amount you can be charged for travel at about £6 per day, so no matter how many busses you take that day or how far you go on the tube in London, they won't charge you more than that. Oh, and, the tube. Easiest way to get around ever.

3. Easy access to the ocean: All the study abroad people went to Brighton today, which aside from being one of the cutest towns I have ever seen, is also right on the ocean. It's just an hour away. The beach isn't exactly a Pensacola-type set up, since it is covered in pebbles instead of sand, and the water is pretty freezing, but it is still a great place to be. I did a tiny little sea-bathing today (a la Jane Austen's characters).

2. Easy access to the rest of Europe: Lea, Carolyn and I are going to Stockholm for the weekend in October, and the plane tickets plus our hostel only cost me about $150 in all. That is fantastic, plus, I'm going to Sweden??? Ridiculous. I just wish we could have stayed in the ice hotel.

1. LONDON: Subcategories to this include the British Museum (free), the National Gallery (free), Trafalgar Square (free), the Tate modern art museum (free), the Globe (£5 for tickets to the best Shakespeare in the world), the West End (discount tickets for students, where you can decide to see a random Beckett play and not realize till he says his first line that the show stars Michael Gambon, the guy who plays Dumbledore), Hyde Park (free), places where you can get better fish and chips in a box than you can in Oklahoma at a sit-down restaurant (£4), and really, the list never ends.

All of this sounds great, of course, but in the interest of journalistic integrity, I am going to construct an alternative list.

Top ten reasons living in Kingston is NOT better than living in Tulsa:

10. Paying rent: While it is true that TU is technically paying this, it is a big drag to remember to pay these people £95 per week. I think that is a little bit ridiculous for how far we are living from campus, and how we must use and cook all our own food and stuff. That's as much as my trip to Stockholm. At TU, Stead just pays my rent every semester. Thanks, Stead!

9. Not having a bicycle: The busses are great, but they are only really handy during peak hours. Out much after nine at night and they get more and more infrequent and inconvenient. I really wanted to get a bike so I don't have to depend on them all the time, but people apparently take their biking very seriously here, and I would have to drop like several hundred pounds to get even a used one that I don't have to fix.

8. British accents: While sexy in a select few people, mostly they are just hard to understand, and I hate having to ask people to repeat things.

7. Spinach: is very hard to find here. I knew they had it, since it's in a common Indian dish, saag, but I couldn't find it until recently, at the outdoor market on High Street. Even then, you have to buy a huge bundle, and I am going to have to eat it very fast in order for it not to spoil and go to waste.

6. Lack of Mexican fast food: Even when I am starving, I can resist places like McDonalds and Burger King, because, I'm in England for heaven's sake. But, I don't even have the option of going to T-Bell or Bueno when I am starving in my room after eating toast for dinner yet again.

5. Food in general, I guess: It's very expensive, in most places. I often feel awkward cooking in our hosts' kitchen, and I have been living pretty much on toast and eggs and oranges for the past week here. If anyone has any cheap, fast recipes that they like that don't require use of an oven (because I don't understand the one here), please send them my way.

4. Laundry: I am still too afraid to ask our family about their facilities, since I am fearful they are going to charge us extra. Carolyn's landlady does. But the laundromats (launderettes, here) are also really expensive. I am going to run out of clothes soon...

3. Not having a cat: Pretty self-explanatory. I have always had a cat, since second grade. Even living at TU, I can always go home and see Gracie whenever I want. And we all remember Sodapop. Our host family doesn't have any animals at all.

2. TV: Gossip Girl is a week and a half behind in the U.K., and sites like Hulu don't work here. It's nearly impossible to watch episodes of shows that have aired in the U.S. but not in the U.K. Same with House. It's torture. I just thank heaven LOST is over, and I don't have to be tortured by waiting for it.

1. People: Everything — and I truly mean everything — would be more incredible if I could share how great it is with the people I love. I miss my family and my friends and my jobs so heartbreakingly much.  Fortunately, I have made some great friends here, so I am not lonely, per se. And I am having the time of my life. It's just, it would be even better to be able to share it with everyone I love most.

Sooooo that's that! Two competing perspectives on life in England. I wish everyone could have this experience of becoming a local in a new place, because it has far exceeded my expectations. Next up, joining clubs at the activities fair tomorrow, maybe a solo trip out to Charleston farmhouse near Lewes on Friday, International student trip to Oxford on Saturday, probably another day in London on Sunday, and my first class at Kingston on Monday! Fortunately I met someone today who will be in my very first class, so when I have to skip to go traveling, I can get his notes, and vise versa!

Pleasant day to all,

Catherine