Lake District

Happy Halloween! In honor of fall, I thought I'd post the pictures from our trip to the Lake District in Cumbria, the colors of the trees were amazing! We rented a car this time as the train doesn't really run to the lakes which was a bit exciting. Danielle did all the driving since she learned on the left in Trinidad, but we were both a little too used to the wide lanes of US suburbs ... some of the country roads were tiny, and two cars could only just squeeze by between the dry stone walls on both sides! Fortunately our rental was a tiny little car and most other cars on the road were small too, don't know what would have happened if we'd encountered an Escalade out there. This was also our first English B&B experience and Armidale Cottages was truly lovely, we felt more like guests at someone's house.

I tried to mention lake and town names throughout the slideshow in case you wanted to follow along on a map and see where these places are. Enjoy!

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Devon

Just a quick link to pictures of our last train trip out to Devon, we leave for the lake district in a couple hours! Devon was lovely, we got to meet Nicola, Mark, & the boys and also poke around a bit on our own. Danielle got to pet a wild pony on the moor!

Without further ado ... (click to go through to actual slideshow)

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Funny Money

Somewhere in Central London we got slipped a counterfeit bill. We didn't even realize until we tried to use it at a restaurant and the waiter caught us as we were leaving and said "I'm sorry but one of your bills is counterfeit." British people are so polite. Apparently it's such a problem in the heart of the city that the waiters are instructed to examine every note coming in ...

Since there isn't really much you can (legally or morally) do with fake money, let's play a little game of "Can you spot the counterfeit?" The same bill will be on top in all three pictures ...

First, the back side of the bills ...
Hmm ... hard to tell much from that. Now the front side ...

And now for the total giveaway ...
Did you guess the top bill? Congratulations! You've won a 10ish pound note!

we must be settled here

I say that for a number of reasons. First, my friend Amberjae came through London on the way to the second half of her internship, and we were able to show her around. Which necessarily means that we know our way around. Which necessarily means that we're not strangers here anymore, entirely. The other reason is that it doesn't occur to me that we've done anything extraordinary, when actually everything we do is extraordinary if one takes into account the fact that doing anything in London is out of the ordinary for people who call somewhere else home. So I haven't blogged for a while because I didn't remember doing anything special, and then I looked at our recently downloaded pictures and thought 'what's wrong with me? Look at all these things we did!' So I think that means we're settled.

'Alright,' you say, 'what are these things you've done?' Well, first, when we got back from Leeds, my friend Caroline who had been in the play which will someday have its own entry in this or some other blog also found herself in London reading poetry at the Trinidad & Tobago High Commission. So we got to go to that. Exciting. I'd never been to a Trinidad High Commission before. Which is ironic, seeing as when I was younger I'd been all over the Haitian embassy in DC. Anyway, here's a picture or two from that event..

Caro T., myself and Caro M.


Joey, apparently saying something * hilarious * to Caroline


Ms. Caroline Neisha Taylor, giving a dramatic rendition of the verse of Anne Fridal




So that was quite an evening. Then, as I said before, my friend Amberjae came through town, and we took her places. 'Places' in this case includes the recreation of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre on the Thames; the Borough Market; the Neal's Yard area of Covent Garden, one of my favourite spots (note how the 'u' has crept back into my writing) and the British Museum. Which all give me the opportunity to upload more wonderful pictures.

Joey at a magnetic poetry board in Neal's Yard:



The Neal's Yard Back Rub shop (is it any wonder I love it?):


The best chalk board statement in the world, at the Borough Market:


The Borough Market butcher shop (you may remember their rabbits), displaying ducks and some other unfortunate fowl:


Amberjae in front of posters at the Globe:


Joey in the wee little upper window-deck-thingy at the British Museum:


So now I know that I'm in danger of underestimating our adventures, I'll try to be extra vigilant and post things even when they're deceptively ordinary. :)

on working

Alright, so I'm just about settled into the idea and fact of doing work on a regular basis for the internship, which is good seeing as I'm solely responsible for accomplishing a number of things. It's different than I'm accustomed to, though, because I work on my own from wherever I feel like, and have to be fairly mentally disciplined to get it all done well and in good time. I've found that when there's little/no set schedule it's hard to keep track of how much time you spend doing what, and to prioritize the work things and the personal things all at once. The good news is I think I'm getting the hang of it, or at least I haven't done anything wrong yet :)

In other words, I've done a lot of work this last week or two. On Tuesday evening I went to a talk that featured one of the directors of my center and George Soros, which was exciting. Yesterday I helped with the launch seminar and reception of the center's annual publication, the global civil society yearbook, which is so new it isn't even on the website yet but you can certainly look at the older ones there. (I'm peppering my post with links à la Joey.. teehee) All this in addition to the actual work of research and coordinating various things. In all, though, it's a very enjoyable learning curve.
~D

Trains in Britain run on time

We took an extended weekend trip to Leeds and York in "The North" last week, which was pretty fun. One of the main purposes was to see "Carnival Messiah" at Harewood House, Danielle will write more about that later. We traveled by train both because it was cheaper and so we could see the sheep as we rolled by ... there were plenty, though not as many as I had imagined. Hopefully our next trip to Devon/Cornwall will correct this.

Anyway, Leeds is the self-proclaimed shopping capital of "The North" and has a very pedestrian friendly city center shopping area. It's a former industrial town, but has made the transition much more gracefully than most Rust Belt cities in the US. It doesn't have too many real tourists draws apart from shopping though, best summed up by our housemates reaction when we told them we were going to Leeds: "Leeds? Whatever for?" (said in a wonderfully incredulous British accent)

We stayed in a nearby suburb called Headingley, famous for the Headingley Cricket Ground. We stayed in the stadium. Yes, in the stadium. Danielle didn't quite understand me when I told her I'd found a great rate for a room 'at' Headingley. Let there be no doubt:

Unfortunately, cricket season is over and there wasn't a rugby match until the day we left.

Leeds was fine, but York was much more fun to poke around in ... we spent 1/3 the time in York, but took 3 times as many pictures. It was only 25 minutes away on the train. We walked along old medieval/roman city walls, climbed the bell tower at the huge York Minster cathedral, and poked around lots of medieval alley ways. There were also a lot more tourists and tourist traps than in Leeds ...

Now that you've read the commentary, click below to check out our Yorkshire photo album!

Yorkshire

So I told you that story to tell you this story: On our last day in Yorkshire, we barely made our train back to London. It was exciting. When we booked our train tickets we though we'd spend Saturday night in York for a change of scenery. The York hotel board thought otherwise, having declared that thou shalt not spend Saturday night in York unlest thou hast spent Friday night or thou then procede on to Sunday night. Saturday night alone is right out! I mean nowhere would take a reservation for just the one night. So we extended our stay at Headingley and decided we'd just have to make our way to York on Sunday ...

We were poking around Leeds on Sunday morning, starving since everything was closed until 11am. We felt like we had plenty of time before our train at 3:03, so at ~12:30 Danielle decides she'll just "walk through" this one last store. She emerged at 1:25. We had to catch an emergency taxi back to Headingley to get our bags (fortunately taxis are a lot cheaper outside London) and convince the security guard that we weren't just trying to sneak in to the rugby match without tickets. We arrived at the Leeds train station at 2:08, assuming we could hop on one of the frequent 25 minute trains to York. One left at 2:08, and with Sunday schedules being what they are, the only train left was a local service making all stops on the way to York and arriving at 3:03 ... seen that time somewhere recently? Oh yeah, it's the time our train for London was supposed to leave York. And trains in Britain run on time. The helpful information man's comment was "Well, I hope you don't have advanced tickets." Ha ha.

We tried to see if we could intercept the London train at its next stop perhaps ... except its next stop was London. Danielle and Neisha asked a cab driver how long it took to drive to York, but when we showed up with our bags and urgency suddenly the time estimate went up to 45 minutes we no longer had. At this point, we then had to sprint back into the train station carrying our bags and run up and over to our platform to catch the last hope local train. Barely made that one, and then sat biting our nails for the agonizing 40 minutes to York. As the train approached York, I asked the conductor if he could give us any info that might help us make it somehow ... instead, he radioed in to the station and switched the platform our train arrived at to the one just opposite the one used by London bound trains. Then, as we pulled in, he stopped the train early and let just us off so we could jump across to our train while they pulled all the way into the station. The guy was an angel, and the doors to the London train closed seriously 15 seconds after we darted through them. And that is how we avoided another post entitled "Danielle and the 100 quid sweater" ... The End.

Slideshow of September

You may have been wondering if I would ever post something ... well the suspense is over. We put together a slideshow of some pictures from our first month in London, enjoy!

(you can either watch them here in small form or check out the Picasa album by clicking on it)

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this website is for the world to see

Not that I think the world is looking, (on the contrary, only family and friends are looking, really) but there's a wide potential audience. So even though not a whole lot has gone on this week, here are some more pictures from previous events. We've been busy unpacking and settling into the bay house, and I've been reading a looooot for the research project I'm working on for the internship, but this weekend should yield some more interesting sight-seeing adventures and updates.


This is me, expressing my enthusiasm about the (relative) wilderness of Hampstead Heath.


This is Joey, expressing his enthusiasm about Hampstead Heath.


This is an english dog, expressing whatever it is dogs feel about geese, at a pond at the Heath.


This is me, very excited about the abundance of cheese on sale at Neal's Yard Dairy in Covent Garden.

This is Joey being dwarfed by a mountain of cheese.

Interesting fact: if you click on the pictures you can see the bigger versions of them on a new page. Thought I'd share that. That's the sum of the offering for now; more later!

pictures!

What that means is that we are now in our proper London digs, have connected our phone and can be reached on our regular (Santa Barbara) home number as well as our mobiles, and, internet gods willing, can share images of our adventure. Since the last post, the following has happened. We met our prospective bay house housemates, and took a shine to them (Saturday). We went to the London Borough Market and fell in love with it and everything in it (later on Saturday). We walked across the Millennium footbridge over the Thames and saw St. Paul's Cathedral (even later on Saturday). We saw a room for our friend Henning - a German classmate who spent the last term at UCSB - and as his proxy secured said room for him, so that now he has somewhere to live (Sunday). We hiked in the lovely Queen's Woods - formerly "Churchyard Bottom Woods", no joke, what a wise name change - in Highgate (later Sunday). We moved to Stockwell (today). Joey promised to post to the blog (someday). For your viewing pleasure, a few select images from the weekend are below. They are, in no particular order, mounds of chocolate on sale at the Borough Market (how could one not fall in love? They had me at hello), various shots of Joey and me in front of St. Paul's Cathedral, Joey contemplating what to do with our suitcases having finally gotten them into our room in Stockwell, Joey giving up on the suitcases and collapsing over them.

heavenly voices

Today I sat next to the tomb of Sarah Nevill, wife of the Earl of Nevill, I think, who died and was buried so long ago that the etching that states the year on her epitaph has been rubbed away after centuries of being walked on in processions and such by devotees at Westminster Abbey. If my chair had been placed 8 inches to the right, I would have been sitting on Sarah Nevill, wife of the Earl of Nevill. I think nowadays her family name would be Neville. As in Longbottom. But she’d be less handy with a wand, probably, which is good considering I had to walk over her to leave the place. We went to the evensong service at Westminster, and it was absolutely heavenly (and not just because of the large number of deceased attendees – in fact it occurs to me there may have been fewer live people at the service than otherwise). The choir was perfect in a way that makes you understand why music has been so central to worship for so many centuries. There was a good assortment of tourists and people who seemed to know what they were doing. We were surrounded by a good assortment of monuments to/tombs of famous Brits who contributed to history in big ways, regardless of whether they knew what they were doing. We said ‘ah-men’ at the end of our prayers. Nobody talked.

I kind of like that about London. People seem to know when to stay quiet. So far, we’ve been in several situations (once on the tube at the height of morning rush hour) where lots of people are together in a small space and nobody is saying anything – not a thing. I’ll report on our first cinema and theatre experiences and let you know if it holds there too. As for the choir, they did an excellent job of not staying quiet. As far as I could tell, not a note was out of place and the entire a cappella service was exactly as the Lord intended. I’ll bet Sarah was pleased – I was.

After the service we walked to Chelsea. For anyone not familiar with London, that’s about an hour of pavement time. Some of us who shall not be named (me) thought of taking the bus. Some of us who shall not be named, but are male, encouraged others not to. It was a pretty walk, through some of London’s most prime real estate, judging by the cars parked along the road. We had dinner in Chelsea (wild boar sausages were on the menu) and made our way home. Suffice it to say we are properly knackered. Note the use of British colloquialisms.

Someday we’ll get pictures up. Goodness knows we take enough of them.

ten thousand leagues across the sea

And we're here. Well-steeped in understanding of tube navigation, experienced in pounding the apartment-hunting pavement (by which I clearly mean 'flat-hunting pavement'), and finally clear on what a quid is. Speaking of which, I will now embark on the rant that has been bubbling and brewing over the last week. My god, London is expensive. I know, everybody told us that before, but nobody said it was actually completely unaffordable. We've done expensive. We've done New York, San Francisco, Palo Alto, Santa Barbara... some of the least affordable places in the world. I mean, if Oprah lives there, it's probably expensive, and somehow we pulled it off. London, on the other hand, is a completely ridiculous real estate bubble. Even people who've lived here for years are surprised every now and then when they check rent prices. They have this fabulous scheme going where they charge rent by the week, so you don't quite realize that you're expected to hand over your soul every month. But when you take £260, multiply by four and then again by two (more math than I'm used to, let me tell you), it adds up. Oh well. It could be worse. I could be mutliplying by ten.

That said, we're not homeless (yet), Aunty is keeping us housed (bless her), and we're working out the logistics of moving to what was our back-up but may now be our best hope. That place, which we'll call 'bay house' for ease of reference, is in Stockwell which is south of the river. It's very close to the tube (~25 minutes to work) but not particularly close to anything else. It's pretty cheap, compared to the other options. The people sound super-friendly - older than we are but a laid-back group of friends who've figured out that they can afford better housing together than alone and happen to have an extra room. Thank goodness. The organizers are out of town on holiday until Friday, so although we've been in email contact we can't have a proper phone conversation or a room viewing until then. We'll let you know how that works out.

Other things we've done... Walked along parts of the Thames, past Whitehall, Westminster, the Old Scotland Yard, the London Eye, various museums I didn't pay enough attention to seeing as I can't remember their names, the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace... a lot of walking, basically. We've sat in a number of parks, including St. James Park and Hyde Park. We've taken pictures of ducks. Okay, so I took the pictures of the ducks and Joey stood around and indulged me because he had to because I had the map. We've eaten fish & chips, steak & kidney pie (Joey), steak & ale pie (me) (priorities) and cornish pasties. We've obtained mobile phones. They're mobile phones on this side of the ocean, not cell phones. If you'd like to talk to us, email us and we'll tell you our numbers. You have to work for it. We've figured out how to work the many transformers and converters we need to work our small appliances here (Joey) and blown a few small fuses (me). We've learned to say a few enjoyable sentences with a cockney accent. We've seen a friend or two.

As soon as we're set up and have a wireless internet connection, we'll plug in the VOIP phone so we can be reached on our regular phone number. The Santa Barbara one. It will be great to hear from all folks across the water (but only if you call at decent hours given the time difference, otherwise we'll say one of our new cockney sentences and then hang up). We're 5 hours later than east coast time, and 8 hours later than west coast time, which basically means that late morning/early afternoon over there is late evening here.

Hopefully we'll find the stamina to keep this blog going, pictures and all. Feel free to send words of encouragement, pictures of miscellaneous things, news, etc. Stay tuned!