motion

First and foremost, I must say, Happy Birthday Mommy!!  Today is my mommy's birthday but obviously I am unable to see her and tell her happy birthday in person so I shall say it here.  I will be baking your cake as soon as I get home!

In other news, we went to Oxford today.  Our photography focus was capturing motion.  First, we toured the Bodleian Library.  Some of the tour was quite fascinating but our tour guide was a bit long-winded making for a rather long, drawn-out tour.  It was fun nonetheless; you know me, books + art/architectural history + religion + history = one happy Katy.  After that tour, Elana and I had lunch at a restaurant called The Nosebag.  Sounds appetizing, huh?  Well, chances are we never would have found it, let alone even consider eating there had it not been for the dining suggestion of Elana's friend.  However, it turned out to be delicious.  And huge!  Elana ate one of the salads included in my meal and I was still full at the end of lunch.  We then ventured on down the street for a tour of Christ Church.  Our tour guide James for this tour was marvelous.  I do believe that we have decided that he is one of our favorite tour guides, second only to our beloved Hugh.  I really love the way we tour because we get to go to all kinds of off-limits places at most of the places we see.  It's awesome.  I'm pretty sure that the other visitors hate us.  But anyway, during our tour of the Christ Church gardens, an adorable cat started following us.  Now, we have had a few tag-along tourists when we tour, but this cat is by far our favorite.  But back to the tour itself...  One of the college's most famous (if not the most famous) scholar was Lewis Carroll who wrote Alice in Wonderland.  In fact, Alice in Wonderland is based on the daughter, Alice, of one of the school's deans and her adventures in and around the campus.  James showed us dozens of real-life details of the campus and told us of the stories that inspired Lewis Carroll and his work.  It was pretty cool.

Earlier, I was talking to a friend who asked if I had gotten what I wanted out of this experience.  I told him that I think I have.  One thing that I am particularly proud of is my ability to navigate through an otherwise unfamiliar city with only a map.  Also, I have learned and gained confidence in using the Tube and Metro (and any subway system for that matter).  For this, I must thank Elana who mentored me in the foreign ways of the subway systems.  I have also made some fabulous friends and had some wonderful experiences.  I also want to give a shout out and thank you to all of my friends and family who have been reading my blog regularly.  I never thought that people would care so much or that what I write would be halfway entertaining enough for people to keep reading.  In any case, I love you all and can't wait to see you when I get back!!

photographing the small things in life

Today I got a reader pass for the British Library.  I am quite proud of myself.  But I will get into that in a bit.  First, we stopped in at King's Cross Station to see and take pictures of Platform 9 3/4 like every other stereotypical librarians.  We then strolled over to the British Library for a lovely tour.  In case you were unaware, the British Library is pretty hardcore.  They don't bend the rules for anyone and they measure their stacks in kilometers.  Whoa.  Perhaps the best part of the tour was when we went into the gallery which had volumes upon volumes of amazingly preserved books and manuscripts.  For me, the Sacred Texts portion of the gallery was the best by far.  Some of the volumes dated back hundreds of years.  I got my Bachelor's in Religion with a minor in Art History and wrote my senior seminar paper comparing medieval Christian illuminated manuscripts to Islamic calligraphy.  I cannot describe how awesome this exhibit was for me.  I found, however, that apparently I know Hinduism best of the major world faiths whose sacred texts were on display at the British Library.  I was able to recognize the majority of the figures and stories for the Hinduism display more than for any other faith.

As my flatmates so kindly reminded me just now, the British Library also holds the world's largest collection of pornography.  While it may seem that I would simply add this for a giggle, it is actually interesting to me because I read the book Libraries, Erotica, and Pornography for an assignment in one of my Information Studies classes (this book was not assigned, but rather we were allowed to chose our books for the assignment with professor approval).

But back to my British Library reader pass.  When Mr. Gets, a friend of the family, heard about my trip to London, he gave me a mission.  Now, Mr. Gets is British himself and apparently his grandfather, one J. L. Theodore-Getz, wrote a few books which are held at the British Library.  However, Mr. Gets thought they were at the British Museum so I had to find their true location first.  You see, some years ago, all of the books in the reading room at the British Museum were transferred to the British Library.  So, I took my mission there.  Now, Mr. Gets is quite a trouble maker so trying to ascertain what exactly he wanted from these books was a bit of a mission in itself as he rarely offers a straight answer.  Finally, I found that he wanted any biographical information that might be in his grandfather's books.  So today, I applied for and received a readers pass, requested the books, sat around for an hour to wait for them to be pulled from the stacks, and finally gleaned whatever information (of which there was little) from the books that there was.  It was all a rather intimidating process, to be honest but at least now I can say that I have a British Library reader pass (at least for the next month) and that I made use of its services.

story in 5 frames

Our class went to the Tower of London and stopped by Shakespeare's Globe Theatre today and our photography task was to create a story in 5 frames.  My 5-frame story actually came later, when Elana, Lynn, Kaitlin, and I went on the Jack the Ripper Murders Tour.  Here is my story:

For the record, I was not actually scared by the Jack the Ripper tour.  Our guide was a very good storyteller and that made for an interesting tour.  The real murderer was never actually caught and there are many theories about who it might be.  Before I came over here, I checked out the book Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper - Case Closed by Patricia Cornwell which argues that the true identity of Jack the Ripper was Walter Sickert.  I only read the beginning but it sounded pretty convincing.  However, our guide didn't seem to agree with Patricia Cornwell.  In any case, the case will likely never be solved and remain a mystery.

On our way back from the tour, Elana thought it would be a good idea to stop by one of the 24-hour shops on our way and buy the most random thing was say.  We ended up having a weird flavor chip (or crisp, rather) tasting party.  I think my favorite was the prawn cocktail, though it tasted nothing like shrimp cocktail. 

Tomorrow is my day to take the group photo and we are going to Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross Station and the British Library (where I may attempt to get a library card and see the books that Mr. Gets wants me too look into, but we'll see about that).  I am open to creative ideas for a group photo in case anyone has any!

thinking differently

This morning, Dr. Everhart charged me with the task of navigating us to the public library in the Barbican Centre as I am good with directions, though I was relatively unaware that this was public knowledge.  In any case, I got us there in time for our 10am tour appointment.  The Barbican Library is the largest public library in the city of London.  They have a large portion of their library devoted to a music collection.  The Barbican Library is located in the middle of a business district of London so the largest demographic of their patronage is men aged 25-40.  Elana and I couldn't help but note that this is clearly where we need to be looking for our respective future British husbands. 

Our photography focus of the day was "thinking differently" which was not the easiest to capture since we were not allowed to take pictures within St. Paul's Cathedral which was the next stop on our itinerary for the day.  The Cathedral was very interesting nonetheless and we had a very good tour guide, John.  In fact, he showed us the geometric staircase in the Cathedral which was used in the filming of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.  So, we just had to see for ourselves.  The FSU Study Centre has a collection of DVDs in its library available for checkout so we went and checked it out to watch.  Sure enough, the staircase appears about 40 or so minutes in.  (Actually, we were investigating where in the movie it would come in and found that perhaps it was in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban instead so I emailed my friends who are hardcore Harry Potter fans and sure enough, they responded with the exact movie and scene in which it appears - yeah, they are a little more than fans.)

To end the day, I went to the grocery store (as suggested by our new BFF Elvis) to get a kidney pie as instructed by my friend Donnie.  Yeah, Donnie said it was just called kidney pie, that there wasn't actually kidney in it.  Yeah, he was wrong.  It was alright.  At least I can return home to tell Donnie that I tried it.

black & white

On this Wednesday, the twenty-first day of July, in the year of our lord 2010 we ventured to Stonehenge and the Salisbury Cathedral in the English countryside.  Our assignment for the day was to capture black and white photos.  I took all color photos and later transformed a few of them into black and white pictures.  Tomorrow, we will learn how to create a photo that is mostly black and white but has touches of color.  It was really neat to see Stonehenge and hear the history and various theories about its mysterious existence.  I must say, I am quite fascinated by curiosities throughout history.  After seeing Stonehenge, we drove to the nearby town of Salisbury where we had lunch and toured the Salisbury Cathedral.  Our favorite tour guide Hugh was unable to officially give us a tour of the cathedral because there were volunteer tour guides eager to show us around the building.  However, Elana and I were rather bored by the volunteer tour guide so we caught up with Hugh and asked him to give us the tour anyway.  Hugh is the best.  Everything is better when he says it.  And he is quite funny as well.  He has also toured us around Bloomsbury and Westminster Abbey and he had definitely become our favorite tour guide.

Another person we have come to love is Elvis who works in the reception area at the FSU Study Centre.  Tara, Elana, and I hung out with Elvis for quite a bit last night just talking about how certain terms and customs vary between the UK and the States.  It was quite insightful.  We also found out that Elvis is apparently a Kool-Aid lover, so we might have to send some to him a few packs of it when we return home.

buildings

Our itinerary today consisted of riding the London Eye, lunch in St. James' Park, a tour of Westminster Abbey, and going to the theatre to see Billy Elliot.  The focus of our photography today was buildings.  Our task was to photograph buildings in a creative and provocative way.  Luckily, there are lots and lots of marvelous buildings here in London to photograph in interesting ways.  Similarly, we had great views of the city in which to capture impressive architectural feats.  Of all the pictures I took today, I chose the picture on the right as my best of the day.  The subject is Westminster Abbey which I was utterly entranced by.  All of the history and culture and art and religion...it was so exciting.

As I said previously, we also rode the London Eye which gave us very exciting views of London for miles.  I'm a little afraid of heights though, so I was a bit nervous on the London eye - especially since the capsules don't stop for passengers to get on and off.  In any case, here's the proof that was on the London Eye, you know, in case anyone needed it:

Our final stop of the day was the theatre for a showing of the musical Billy Elliot.  I'm not gonna lie, I wasn't really too terribly excited to go see it because I was really tired and needed to work on this but I went with an open mind nonetheless.  I liked it but I didn't understand a decent portion of it because the actors had very thick accents and I had no background for the time period of the story.  At least I can say I tried it.

last day before class starts

This morning we went on a historical bus - or coach, as they call it here in the UK - tour of London.  Our original tour guide Shawn hurt his back so Liz gave us our tour.  She was quite funny and gave us a great tour of London.  It made me quite excited to start class and officially tour the many historical and marvelous sites here in London.  One cool thing we saw today was the changing of the guards - here is a video of the guards marching up for there ceremony:



The rest of the day was spent wandering around Old Spitalfields Market where people sell all kinds of nifty handmade items.  Some things were really neat but well out of our price range.  Later, we went to dinner at an Indian restaurant that's a stone's throw from the FSU Study Centre.  It was really good food but I've found that customer service in restaurants is very different here from in America.  American waiters are so attentive to their customers but that is far less true here in the UK.  A good part of that is due to the fact that American wait-staff work for tips while that is not so much the case here.  Just an interesting observation.

touring and shopping

This morning, our guide Hugh took us on a tour of the Bloomsbury area surrounding the FSU Study Centre.  It was fabulously interesting and Hugh was so very nice.  I am looking forward to exploring the area more in the coming days.  I'm also glad that he will be showing us around Westminster Abbey on Monday.

Later in the day I met up with my friend Fran who studied abroad at UF a couple of years ago and lived in the dorm with me and is now living just outside of London.  We had lunch and went shopping down Oxford Street.  It was so, so busy down Oxford Street and the shops were so packed that we gave up on trying anything on or buying anything because the queues were too long.  Perhaps I will go back to a few stores on a weekday; Fran said that it was so busy because it was Saturday.  And even though my feet were aching something awful near the end, I still had a great time.  We took the tube back to Tottenham Court Road - my first time riding the tube!  After relaxing at the flat for a bit, Tara, Eric, Fran, and I went out for dinner at Pizza Express.  It was delicious.  We have now retired to our respective flats after a long, busy day.

seeing the city

Today was the first day we really got out and saw the city.  This morning, our graduate counselor took us on a walking tour of the neighborhood to show us the practical locations surrounding FSU Study Centre.  He pointed out restaurants and shops and whatnot for us and it gave me a big shopping itch.

Afterward, a bunch of us went out to a gelato place that we saw along the way.  Of course, we had to find our way back to the gelato shop, but that was part of the fun.  It was a bit of a challenge to orient myself on the map to find my way around since London is not on a grid map. 

Then Elana and I scratched our shopping itch by wandering around Covent Gardens a bit.  Then we found our way to Leicester Square where I took the obligatory photo with the red phone booths that are so iconic for London.  It's nice to be in a city where you walk so much.  Along with the four flights of stairs we have to climb to get to our flat, we definitely walked off all that gelato!