That week really was eaten up by our papers. I finished my second art history paper Sunday night and edited it Monday afternoon. Monday morning was an art history field trip to the Tate Britain. I went there so many times on this trip. I really liked it, and there's still a lot I never got around to seeing.
We went back to papers after the field trip. I turned mine in mid afternoon and then, back in my room, I found out that the blue book had gone up online, so I wasted time with that for a while before attempting my English paper. Didn't get very far, so I got Lissa and Bill to take a walk (funny how Starbucks happened to be in that direction...) and then finally wrote some. My paper was on images in Vanity Fair; a lot of the characters had portraits of each other and those paintings reinforced the false images they held of one another. I think it was a decent paper.
Tuesday we had our last English class and talked about Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust. I really disliked it while I was reading it but liked it a bit better after talking about it. Not much but a little. I spent the afternoon researching for my last art history paper (I wrote on Constable and how his landscapes were influenced by his memories and how that changed), had Chinese food for dinner, hung out with Gabor for a while before returning to paper writing. That was also the day my friend Maya clued me into Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog (drhorrible.com), a Joss Whedon musical that was available online for a while. It's amazing, is available on iTunes, and... yeah. Watch it.
Wednesday we didn't have class in the morning, so I went to the centre early and worked some on my art history research. You have to realize though, "worked" is often a euphemism for "read some stuff vaguely related to the topic and didn't take notes" or, if I was on my computer at the time, "talking to Kari and Maya". However, I did manage to get everything done.
We had a field trip to the National Gallery (I wish I'd had more time there, really neat gallery and two visits was not enough). After class Martin bought us all coffee (cocoa, of course) and then most of the day was spent "working", though I was careful both those days to eat outside as much as possible. We had some really nice weather as well as some rain (I think) and it was depressing to be tied to my computer.
Thursday was the last official day of Yale-in-London. I got some work done before our field trip to Dickens's house. The house wasn't hugely exciting but there was a really neat painting called Dickens's Dream. I almost bought a poster of it but then didn't... kind of wish I had. Oh well.
The afternoon involved paper swapping and editing, and I turned them both in around 4:30. It was such a relief, and I expected to feel really happy on the walk home, but instead I started getting hugely nostalgic, even a little teary-eyed. I was thinking things like "this is the last time I'll walk back this way, the last time I'll go by the British museum". It didn't end up being true, I walked that way the next day, but at the time it felt pretty darn depressing.
We went out to Pizza Express as a group, which was fun, and then Lissa, Bill, Nell, and I went
"night sight-seeing". We took the Tube to Green Park and walked to Buckingham Palace. It was pretty at night, lit up some, but not overly exciting. We wandered back until we got to Piccadilly Circus, where we caught the Tube back. Lissa, Bill and I went to the pub we went to on our first Sunday, which sort of made things feel like they came full circle but also reinforced my usual conflicted feelings about time: I always feel like it's gone quickly and I want more of it, but at the same time I feel like I've been there forever and am completely comfortable.Lissa and Nell were leaving the next morning, so we said goodbyes (or didn't, in Lissa's case, and just said goodnight). I went back to my room and randomly decided to start packing, while talking to my mom on Skype. I stayed up till 1 a.m. or so but by the time I went to sleep I was pretty much packed.
The next morning I went to Portabello Road Market, the market featured in the movie Notting Hill. Despite getting a little turned around on the way there and back, I had a really good time. I bought a necklace for myself, scarves for my mom, myself, and friends, and several books (there was a nice used bookstore along the road). When I got back to the dorm, I had lunch with Bill, who left that afternoon, and then I went to Charing Cross and checked out a bunch of bookstores. I got a few books and then headed back to my room for a book break.
Around 4 I set out to meet my friend Kati (Demetra!). We did the Summer Writing Program (SWP) at Carleton together a couple years ago and she was in London studying at LSE. We met up near Charing Cross Tube station, had coffee, went to dinner, and then went to see Spamalot! I had bought a ticket for 10 GBS earlier in the day and on the way to the theatre Kati stopped and found she was able to get a ticket too.
The theatre wasn't full so I was able to move down and sit in the front row of the balcony with Kati. The show was a lot of fun, not quite as good as the movie, but the music was great. I wasn't a fan of the dancing girls, but I thought they did a good job translating key moments (the Black Knight, the Knights who say Ni) to the stage.
I said goodbye to Kati in the Tube station and took the Tube to Russell Square for the last time, walked down the street to the dorm for the last time (there I go with nostalgia again).
I finished packing before breakfast Saturday morning, said goodbye to Matt, Amy, Hayley and Conor at breakfast. I'm 99% sure that I'm the only person in the group who made it to breakfast every single morning. (I'm also sure Hayley and Bill would've, if they hadn't gone away some weekends, and that Conor was very very close). I got my suitecase from my room and caught the Tube at Kings Cross to Heathrow.
I relaxed on the Tube and didn't have too much trouble getting to the check in. The people at Delta asked me if I'd be willing to go on a later flight, stay a night in NYC and get $1000 of Delta money. I said sure, but they didn't end up needing me to. The time in the gate before my flight went fairly quickly.
The plane ride was long, about 9 hours. The guy sitting next to me was nice, a grad of Carleton who was probably in his late twenties and had been working in London for a year. I read some, slept some, watched a movie. Was pretty tired when I got to Atlanta.
Funniest (and most annoying) thing that happened as I went through customs was having to wait in a long agricultural line because I had forgotten to eat my apple from breakfast on the plane. A bag-sniffing dog got me in trouble. Oh well. It meant that by the time I got my bags through and checked in, I had maybe an hour to sit in the gate.
I talked to my parents, to Kari, to Maya online, watched the final installment of Dr. Horrible (so sad!) and then flew home. My parents met me at baggage claim with balloons (I love my parents) and took me home. I gave out my presents and talked to my mom a bit before going to bed. I've been sleeping so much since coming home.
Today I stapled all my tickets and programs and such from things I went to into the journal I kept on the trip. Hopefully it'll help me remember that yes, I did do a lot of things while I was there, even though sometimes I feel like I wasted a lot of time and didn't see enough. Six weeks is so much longer than most people get to spend in foreign cities on trips (we had only days in each city on Italy tour last year), and I did my best.
In case you can't tell from this blog, I had a wonderful time. I'm so very, very glad I did Yale in London. Despite my complaining about papers, the classes were really awesome, the professors were outstanding, and my classmates were so much fun. The city was beautiful, and comfortable, and always interesting. I really hope to go back, and soon. I could even see myself living in London someday (hopefully with a well-paying job, haha).
Whenever I leave something, it almost feels unreal, like the whole experience never happened. I'm home now, and it almost feels like I've been here for weeks and weeks, not 9 days. But London was real, however it feels now, and it was amazing.
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