Scotland... Almost.

As you know from the taste I gave you when I got back, I spent last weekend in Scotland. It was a tour that I purchased through Arcadia before arriving, and as such it was with 50 American students studying at various UK universities, all from random US universities, studying abroad through Arcadia like me. Three of the other people studying at Royal Holloway through Arcadia with me also went on the trip: Audrey, Jenn and Briana.

The Arcadia plan was to leave for Edinburgh by train via King's Cross at 8 am on Friday. Of course I had two classes on Friday, even though I had no other classes the rest of the week (the history department had a 'reading week' and canceled all classes). Also, it would have been a real hassle to leave from Egham trying to make it to King's Cross in London by 8 am. Instead, the four of us from Royal Holloway headed into the city on Thursday afternoon, then stayed the night at a hostel near the train station (Arcadia had actually given us vouchers for the place back in January, so it was free!).

So Thursday night began the journey. Jenn and Audrey split off from Briana and I early on, so it was just us two to figure out what to do in London on a Thursday night when we knew we had to get up around 6:30 the next morning. We decided to tackle dinner first, and set off looking for a pub. The first one we walked into was absolutely packed. Not a seat in the house. Figuring there had to be other places we continued our search. In that search we stumbled across another place. Packed. As we walked we came to a location where you could stand in the doorway of one McDonald's and look at the other McDonald's no more than 60 yards away. I realize they were separated by a bizarre intersection comprising many lanes of traffic, but I couldn't help but think Lewis Black would have something to say about a McDonald's across the street from a McDonald's. Kept walking. Found another pub... too expensive.

By now we're starting to get discouraged. As we walk down the street, headed back to the original pub to see if a seat has opened up we pass a group of people on a street corner waiting to cross. As we turn our backs to them we hear the scream of a wild banshee and turn to see a crazed rotund woman in a skirt barreling towards us, eyes wild, arms flying. Needless to say we are mildly confused. As she nears us she valiantly attempts a flying ninja kick. The kick fell short. I don't know if the near-miss was the intentional product of the fact that she did not really want to kick us, or if it was the unexpected result of the force of gravity on her large frame. Either way, I'm glad the kick was short. For some reason neither Briana nor I flinched; it was over in a matter of seconds and we were back to walking, dazed by the impact of the lunacy that had just targeted us. This is why I can't live in a city.

Upon arrival at the original pub we were relieved to find... just kidding, it was full still. Now we're really hungry and head to this pub that looked from the outside like it was absolutely packed. Nevertheless, upon entry it had seats available, and reasonable prices so we sat. Grateful to be sitting we took our time choosing off the menu, and then Briana went to order, leaving me to jealously guard our table. She returned moments later with the news that somehow the pub had run out of the food necessary to make 2/3 of the items on their menu. Essentially we could have the most expensive food they offered, or we could leave.

Outside we were now really discouraged, and were about to settle for buying some snacks at a "Food and Wine" store and moving on to our next destination. As we wandered we spotted a faint glow down a side street we passed maybe 4 or 5 times during our search that night. So we went to see. The glow was emanating from a little pub called the Boot. We looked at the food prices. Incredibly reasonable (for Britain, especially London). We knew that as soon as we opened the door we would be met by a massive crowd of people, filling the tables and crowding the bar, just like all the other pubs. We braced ourselves and opened the door. A couple groups of people were scattered around half the tables laughing and enjoying a meal or a pint, and the bartender was calmly cleaning the bar, at which nobody was waiting. There was a man, presumably the owner, in the back corner of the pub with papers scattered about him, working. A dog lay silently and obediently at his feet, untethered and undisturbed by the incoming strangers. We ordered our food and sat down at a table. Briana and I were taken aback. If we walked a city block in any direction from the Boot we would have found 2 or 3 pubs all crowded and loud, and possibly without food apparently. Yet here was this idyllic little pub in the middle of it all, almost tauntingly perfect. It was straight out of a moving... the dog in the corner just completed it!

And that is the story of my favorite pub in London.

From there we hopped on the tube and took off for the Westminster stop to see the Houses of Parliament/Big Ben and the Eye at night. I've seen them multiple times now, and at night once (during my first few days here, even), but I never had my camera. So it was time to play tourist. See pictures above!

That took a lot longer than I expected... you can see why I say writing this is going to be an epic. So that was Thursday night; the rest was occupied with sleeping. The next three days were Scotland. Which will come later, because I have to go make dinner.

Windsor II

So... this is a little late, but last Saturday I was at Windsor again! The first trip was run through Royal Holloway for the benefit of all the international students. This second trip was one I purchased through Arcadia University (the people that organized my studies here) before I knew that Royal Holloway was bringing us. I like it enough the first time that I figured it couldn't hurt to go again. I pretty much saw all the same stuff, but with a different group of people (they were all Americans studying at various universities around the UK through Arcadia).

Turns out that Windsor is about a ten minute bus ride from Royal Holloway, but Arcadia wanted everyone to meet in London at 9:30 AM on Saturday and ride a bus out from the city center. So essentially my choices were to wake up super early, take a 40 minute train ride and another 15 minute tube ride, followed by an hour long bus ride to approximately the location from which I began (and then do it all in reverse at the end of the day), or wake up later, buy a less expensive bus ticket, travel for 10-15 minutes by bus there, and 10-15 minutes back. It was a simple choice. Doing it, however, was less simple as the Brits once again lived up to my expectations of being terrible at returning emails (I had to ask to make sure it was acceptable to meet the group in Windsor instead of London).

Nevertheless it was fun, and I got to do/see a couple things I missed the first time. For instance, this time I grabbed an audio tour guide thing. I had seen them around the first time, but assumed you had to pay and was not really all that interested. As it turns out, they are free with admission, so I got a little more in depth understanding of what I was looking at. Another enhancement to the trip was that I got to see the changing of the guard. Yes, those dudes in funny bear hats came out in a big group, did a little marching around and stomping, played some tunes, and even tried to get the crowd clapping along. The whole time I was watching I couldn't help but think of what a fearsome fighting unit they were, what with their bear caps covering their eyes, their immobilizing long trench coats, their flutes and drums, and of course their willingness to allow potential assassins essentially to touch them. I still cower in fear just to think of it. During the performance I met up with Ben and Viral, two of the guys that I had lived with on my homestay (they go to King's College through Arcadia's programming).

After the rather silly display we went back into my favorite building (possibly ever), St. George's Chapel. It's soooooooo ornate, you simply wouldn't believe it. I asked one of the information ladies (who double as anti-photograph enforcement agents... we saw one make a girl delete about 20 photos off her digital camera) a question at one point and then felt really bad as she fumbled around with her many paper apologizing because she was new. The sad thing is I don't even remember what I asked, nonetheless what the answer wound up being! Still, St. George's chapel is pretty cool, and it is fun to stand on Charles I (the king they beheaded during the Civil War) and Henry VIII, and their tomb is marked by a stone in the middle of the walkway in the chapel.

Afterwards we did all the other Windsor stuff, none of which is of particular note since I have already commented on it previously, got some late lunch/early dinner, and went home.

Since then things have been relatively small scale. I have my first two papers due next week, and another due the week after, so I've been trying to focus just enough to get those done. I also finally submitted my application to an internship I would like to get over the summer with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

Of cultural note I would say the last significant thing I did was go to the Happy Man pub last night with my friends Win and Leah (it was really weird when Win was on the phone and said "I'm at the Happy Man with Leah and Jason") to get some Sticky Toffee Pudding. I figured I had to after hearing Doug rave about it. Verdict: it looks really gross, but tastes pretty good. Definitely will be having it again if my wallet doesn't feel too light. Tomorrow is hopefully a trip into the city, possibly to see a museum and Harrod's. I'd also like to pick something up....

PS - Pictures are a Statue of Queen Victoria outside Windsor Castle, me in front of St. George's, the funny bear hat band, and me in front of the extremely long walkway that leads up to Windsor, where the Queen's dog's are apparently walked on occasion, though I'm sure not by her.

Natural History and Homestay

So it has been a long time since my last update. That means this will be a long one. I apologize.

Last Wednesday (21st) I used my day off to travel into London once again. This time I got a group together, because there is a special deal that if you have a group of four people traveling together for the day, you can get 4 train tickets for the price of 2! Ridiculous. We wound up with five (all Americans, sadly): Stu, Leah, Sarah, John and myself. The plan: go see the natural history museum, get some food, and do a little shopping (not my choice, but I was only a part of the group, so whatever).

The natural museum is free to visit, but I wanted to go on a weekday because it is apparently SWAMPED on weekends with kids, families and tourists. A nondescript Wednesday was perfect though. The building is absolutely astounding (see pics). It had little animal gargoyle things on the outside, and was made entirely of heavy stone. It was very impressive, and once you were inside you totally lost track of where you were. The museum had exhibits on everything from evolution (they really like Darwin... surprise!), to rocks, to space, to bugs. It was enormous.

That being said, it wasn't nearly as cool as the Tower of London or Windsor. Natural museums can be impressive, but there is a sense that to some degree they are all fundamentally the same. We had our fill after a couple hours, and knowing that we could return for free at any time made our exit.

Nobody had eaten lunch so we were starving. We had wandered on the tube over to High Street Kensington for the shoppers in the group, and were trying to find reasonably priced food... which was naturally very difficult in the shopping area. Eventually we stumbled across a restaurant where you could get personal pizzas for 5 pounds apiece (it was a special, the menu showed them typically costing between 5.5 pounds and 10 pounds, so it was pretty nice). After eating we wandered with the shoppers, and eventually made our exit so Leah could get back to campus for a choir thing. It was a fun day; I got to people a little better and I saw some cool stuff. Nothing epic though.

Oh! I forgot to mention.... The night before the natural history museum experience (Tuesday the 20th), I saw a sign for a debate society event. The debate society was going to be debating the motion of whether or not the English should sanction Israel for the events of recent weeks. I figured it would be interesting and decided to join the audience. It is interesting that there is such a pro-Palestinian leaning in the UK when there is such a pro-Israel stance at home.

The debate was in a large lecture theater and was packed. It was naturally very heated. The opposition (pro-Israel) was entirely outdebated and clearly lost. Even if the odds weren't stacked against them they just didn't do very well. Add to that the fact that the audience was yelling and totally breaking debate rules and they didn't stand a chance. It was very interesting.

Skip ahead now... Wednesday was Natural History, Thursday and Friday were work/class days. Nothing special. Friday night however, all 6 of us at Royal Holloway through Arcadia departed campus on a bus for Swansea, Wales. We were going to have a homestay for the weekend with various Welsh families. When we arrived in Swansea there was another bus with Arcadia students from King's University. In a very disorganized fashion we were divided up and sent with random Welsh people.

Jake (the Bucknell student studying at Royal Holloway through Arcadia) and I had earlier been given information that said we were staying with a Lynda McNaught. She was supposed to be a single woman, with no children and no pets, according to the information we were given. Jake and I were also supposed to be the only people staying with her. Well, when we met her she was with a man that she introduced as Matthew, and there was another student, Ben from King's University, coming along as well. We were a little confused, but nothing too bad. As we were pulling out of the parking lot the woman organizing students and families shouted to stop us and shoved another guy, Viral (pronounced Veer-il) from King's into the (now very crowded) car with us. Clearly organization was lax for this experience! We then found out that Lynda had been expecting four girls... whoops.

When we got to their house we were in for more suprises! There was a girl that looked to be about our age, Kirsty, a guy that looked a little older than us, Jason, a baby, Caitlin, and a dog, Pip. All we got was their names, so we were very confused about everyone's relation to one another. There was also a Slovakian exchange student named "Adam," but they explained his presence (he is there for 6 months). We talked for a little while, and then headed off to bed. Before going to sleep the four of us (who all shared a room) tried to sort out who everyone was! By the end of the weekend we figured this out: Matthew, a Scotsman, and Lynda have married over 20 years. Kirsty is a daughter that they adopted when she was ~10. We think Jason, who didn't actually live with them, is Matthew's son, but not Lynda's. Caitlin, the baby, is Kirsty's. The dog, Pip, is only 5 months old, but was rescued by Kirsty from an abusive owner. Now she doesn't want the dog, but wants to be sure it goes to a good home.

Phew! It is all very complicated.

To keep things as short as possible I'll try to be brief about what we did. Saturday all the people on homestays got together to be guided by one lady and her very funny 6 year old nephew. We saw the marina in Swansea, tried some local foods, went to a museum that was state of the art, but pretty empty to be honest. Eventually we were set free to do our own thing. A group of us took a bus to the "Mumbles" which is a scenic spot on the outskirts of Swansea (which is on the coast). Very nice, we had a good time.

That night we ate dinner at our hosts'. It was a very big dinner, and it was nice not to cook or pay, but it wasn't anything specifically Welsh. After dinner we sat around talking some more. Matthew was a real character. Eventually they convinced Jake and I to go downtown, to Wine Street, but Ben and Viral opted to stay in. Jake and I were able to convince Matthew to come along, and he was more than happy to oblige. The street was absolutely nuts. I don't know if I've ever seen such a drunken display anywhere before. The street was just club after club and people were stumbling every which way. We stayed for a little while, but it was loud and not all that much fun (Matthew was having a ball though!). Then we caught a cab home and went to bed.

The next day we just took the dog out to be walked and caught the bus back to Royal Holloway. Since then I've been catching up on things like groceries and laundry.

Finally: in yet another attempt to reach out to the seemingly uninviting natives I have sent emails out to the university's juggling club and "James Bond appreciation society" (I found them after a good 20 minutes scouring the university's poorly crafted website). I immediately got a message saying the juggling address was not valid, but I sent an inquiry to the student union to see if there is any other way to contact the club. I'm waiting for real responses on all fronts. We'll see!

The end. You made it! Congratulations...