I arrived at Heathrow last Saturday without any problems, and even managed to find (or rather, be found by) Liz, a girl from my program, in the baggage claim, so I had a buddy to ride the Tube into London with. We rode the Piccadilly line, and that was the first time (but won't be the last) that we giggled hysterically when we heard the name of the terminus: Cockfusters. I've decided that even if we were to live in London for years, we would still laugh. I don't know how Londoners don't, maybe the connotations are different here. (NB: when discussing Joseph Andrews our (British) professor assumed we knew what a "booby" was. While I knew it meant a silly or stupid person, I don't think that was the first association most of us made.)
I spent most of the weekend recovering from jet lag. On Sunday a few of us met up with the British Bulldogs kids (Yalies doing internships in London), including Gabor, Casey and Leang, for a picnic in Regents Park, a beautiful huge park only a twenty minute or so walk from our dorm. It was a gorgeous day, and afterward Liz and I found our way to the rose garden, eating ice cream and doing our reading for class.That night we went out to a pub, most of my class, and got to know each other a little more. We've done that a few times now and it's really nice, and relaxed. Everyone is really interesting and cool, and in terms of classes we're all about at the same level of stress. We have a lot of reading, as well as five papers to write (three are due in the last week), so we're constantly saying we need to read and wanting to do other things instead.
I've now visited two royal residences, the Tower of London and Hampton Court Palace. Both were really interesting as well as beautiful. Our tour guide at the Tower fell in love (okay, not
really... lust, maybe? Even though he's in his late forties and married) with Hayley, one of my classmates. He told the tour group that the step into the chapel was haunted and had a way of popping up to trip the ladies, so he was in the doorway ready to catch us. Hayley didn't fall but he told her she should have, and when we left at the end of the tour he gave her a little hug. All of our tour guides have been kind of hilarious and they always call on someone from our group.Hampton Court Palace was gorgeous, especially the grounds. There was a maze that was too easy on the way in to the center, when we had energy
and were adventurous, and too hard on the way back out, when we were getting tired. There were paintings by some of the artists we're learning about, hanging in the King's apartments. Our tour guide was "Sir Thomas Seymour," and at the end of the tour he told us all of what really happened to him. He was the brother of Jane Seymour, one of King Henry VIII's wives. There was an exhibit about Henry as a young man---did you know that he was married to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, for twenty years before he had the marriage annulled? I think I thought his
marriages were spaced out more than they were, that he kind of got bored after a bit and wanted a change, but he only annulled the first marriage (though he did have affairs) so that he might have a son.On Friday Lissa and I took a day trip to Cardiff, Wales. The bus ride, both in and out, was gorgeous. The countryside is amazing and I'd like to go back, both to Cardiff and just to Wales in
general, see the hills a bit. We went to Cardiff Castle, which stands in the middle of the city. There has been a castle there for 2000 years, though it hasn't always looked as it does now. The interior was redone in the Victorian area and is beautiful and a bit eccentric. The family that owned the castle was extremely wealthy (coal, to the income of the equivalent of $6 billion/year) and spared no expense, even though they only lived there six weeks out of the year.I went to Sam's Day today at the Globe for a little while with Liz and Erin. It was in remembrance of the Globe's founder, and we saw a demonstration on stage combat and heard a talk about the text of the plays, which were both fun. We're hoping to go back soon and see A Midsummer Night's Dream, paying £5 to be groundlings and walk around the ground in front of the stage.
Our professors are both really nice, and the paintings and novels we're discussing are all very interesting, but it's not fun to have reading and papers to think about when there's all of London to explore. But we're looking for a balance and hopefully we'll find one. Meantime we're having a lot of fun, and that's the important thing.
As expected everything here is really expensive. We are able to get breakfast at our dorm but are on our own for lunch and dinner, so I've been doing a lot of peanut butter sandwiches, cereal, bread, and fruit. It's worth it to save money on food though, because there are so many things I want to do and not all of them are free. But the museums mostly are (we went briefly to the British Museum and I'm looking forward to going back soon), so now that I have palaces and castles out of my system (still need to make it to Buckingham and Windsor though) hopefully I'll spend some time in them.
It's hard to believe a week has already gone by, but I feel like I've been here and known everyone for longer than that. There are tons of things to look forward to in the next five weeks, but I want them to go extremely slowly so I can enjoy every minute.
ETA: Hilarious incident of the evening: I was carded while ordering water at a pub. Yes, really.
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