Glorious Scotland, Day Two

After a restful (but kind of chilly) night sleep, I had scrambled eggs for breakfast this morning (but alas, not on peanut-buttered toast, mom) and started off the day with a trip to Edinburgh Castle. I rented one of the interactive audio guides and it was a very enlightening trip. From my American perspective, it's hard to fathom how a place could have stood for so many centuries and still feel so incredibly solid. It actually sits on an extinct volcano that was formed nearly 7,000 years ago if I remember right. The place is chock full of history, most of which you can see, most some of which you can actually hear. In a history class on Early Modern England I took last year, we studied Mary Queen of Scots and her exile to England, James VI/I, etc - it's very cool to be in the midst of it all. And the castle even has a cemetary for dogs.

It was a bright, sunny day here today but bitterly cold. (Well, ok... living the UK has turned me into something of a sissy when it comes to cold, the temperature is downright balmy compared to the way Nebraska can be in the winter.) While nice to see the sun shining, there was a gripping northwest wind blowing steadily all day and way up at the castle which sits above the city, it was horribly cold. I definitely should have worn another couple of layers today!! There are also great views of the Forth from the top of the Castle and I feel fortunate to have seen everything I saw today against a blue sky, something of a rarity in Scotland during February.

The rest of the afternoon I spent getting to the Forth Rail Bridge and the village of South Queensferry, about 8 miles west of Edinburgh. I find the bus system in Edinburgh to be a little bit tougher to navigate that London's tube. Since I am not here long enough to really grasp the city's streets, it is making figuring out where I should get off a little difficult. I somehow managed to find the correct bus and explain to the driver where I needed to go - he had that Scottish accent you can hardly understand. While walking down the town's quaint High Street, I caught a glimpse of the bridge between two buildings and was able to walk down on a little jettee that goes out into the Forth to experience her in her full glory. WOW! I was able to get much closer than I expected and I'm anxious to see how my photographs turn out. It was so windy and cold out there on the water that I had to run for cover and a hot meal in a quaint little restaurant right on the Forth. It was well worth the trip out there to see that bridge, which captured me the first time I saw a photograph of it in an architectural history book. The Forth Road Bridge is interesting too, a more traditional suspension bridge and seeing both of them together is quite a juxtaposition.

I am still exhausted after my enthusiastic14 mile trek yesterday up and down and everywhere so I went back to the Turret House for a little nap and could just not get warm. This cold goes right through me here, especially when I'm out in it for hours at a time. I'm might I look like a ruddy, windburned Scot by now but by golly, my lungs are sure clear from all the crisp, cold air!

I leave on a Timberbush Tours day trip to Loch Ness, Glen Coe and the Highlands at 8:30 tomorrow morning; this is a tour that Fiona at the guest house recommended. I wish I had more time to spend up there exploring but I'll just have to make a return trip someday.

I'm off to get dinner and warmth... hopefully more tomorrow! Gin, there are Westies and Scotties everywhere up here! :-)

Glorious Scotland, Day One

Greetings from Edinburgh! I took a bus from London up here yesterday and in just under 9 hours of travel time, I got to watch the landscape change from the gentle rolling hills of the southeast, to Liverpool and Manchester, alongside Yorkshire Dales National Park, to the mountain-like terrainand snow capped hills of the Pennines on our way through Liverpool, Carlisle, and finally over to Edinburgh. The spotless and cozy guest house at which I am staying is fabulous, run by a lovely couple named Jim & Fiona Mackie. Since I purposely made this trip alone, I have a single room with a lovely view and my private bathroom just on the landing. My bathroom has a TUB! After my first hot breakfast in over a month (yummy waffles, porridge, yogurt, toast, and tea) I set out to conquer the city.

Edinburgh is much different from London - things are a much smaller scale and the entire city seems to have this darkness that appropriately represents the great Scottish history and the generally dreary weather. (However, I love the damp and cold so this is the place for me.) Between the streets are these great little alleyways called closes (in London they are called mews) that connect the city in a helter skelter sort of way of passages and stairs. Unlike London, Edinburgh definitely has topography - it's a series of hills so I am constantly walking up or down. One street will be 20' above another and this is a stair climber's paradise. I had a wonderful day just wandering around with my Lonely Planet guide in hand and a general idea of where I was going but exploring interesting shops or eye catching buildings wherever I went.

I ventured down Princes Street with Edinburgh Castle ever looming over my head and made my way to the Royal Mile, past all kinds of shops including a marvelous Christmas shop, St. Giles Cathedral (being renovated), John Knox's house, The Canongate Tollboth, the crazy and controversial new Scottish Parliament Building, and eventually ending up at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Her Majesty the Queen's royal residence in Scotland. (I have now been to all three: Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, and Holyroodhouse.) A student discount is offered so I explored the palace with one of the free and very informative audio guides. My favorite part of the palace is the Abbey, which dates to 1128. It lies in ruins with just portions of all four walls and the cloister intact but while standing in it, you can almost hear the story of what has happened in that space.

While I was in the Palace, I noticed a huge hill to the south (I guess you could call it a mountain) and upon looking closer, I saw the tiny little dots of people moving along a road that traversed it. Consulting the map, this was Arthur's Seat, one of the highest points in Edinburgh and the guidebook said it was a fairly easy 45 minute walk to the summit, 251 meters above where you begin. I started the climb and it's really a severe grade for the first 20 minutes or so! A Scottish guy started the hike at about the same time as I did and we chatted, breathlessly, up the side of the mountain while watching the city sink further and further below us and eventually reached the top about an hour later. (The guidebook lied about the easy walk... it was more like a moderate climb.) Standing there at the summit in the stiff, cold wind overlooking the entire city was definitely an experience I will not forget. From this point, you also overlook the Firth of Forth, the body of water that comes into Edinburgh from the North Sea and visible just in the distance is the Forth Rail Bridge. I hope to get closer to it before I leave because it really is very unique. The descent to the city was much shorter that the climb and I exchanged thanks and goodbyes with my hiking partner.

A light rain started to fall mid-afternoon so I sought cover in a little Mexican place on the Royal Mile called Pancho Villas. Finally, a place that knows how to do Mexican properly! I spoke with the owner for a bit since I was the only patron and he told me that Edinburgh has a dozen or so Mexican restaurants. Hooray! This is not the case in London! Sufficiently full after my two course meal for £6.95, I wandered back up the Royal Mile to Lothian Road toward Princes Street and then along Rose Street which is open to pedestrians only. All along here are restaurants, pubs (some with crazy names), shops, and a number of really interesting jewelry stores. My parents brought me back a lovely Charles Rennie Mackintosh necklace that I am not often without when they were in Edinburgh several years ago; now I'm looking for a unique ring or earrings.

My pedometer says I walked just over 14 miles today and I feel it. I would love to be able to attach some photographs to this post because everything is breathtakingly beautiful but in the interest of traveling light, my laptop is back in London so I can't transfer the digital images.

Tomorrow I'd like to visit the Castle, the Museum of Scotland and the National Gallery, Calton Hill (which sounds as if it could be another climb to its summit), and possibly the royal yacht Britannia. Wednesday I am taking a day trip to Loch Ness, Glen Coe, and the Highlands and then it's off to Glasgow for Thursday and Friday before returning to London by bus on Saturday. I will try to post daily this week, check back soon!

Things I've Learned After Living in London for One Month:

The yellow traffic light means get ready to stop AND get ready to go.

• The pedestrian right-of-way is a foreign concept and the cars will not stop.
• Thinking about how much things cost in terms of US$ is painful and not recommended – everything is pretty much twice as expensive.
• Public transportation (both within cities and between cities) is really great and my Oyster card is the best thing I buy each week.
• The gentle lull of a train creates a great place to take a nap.
• To ‘alight’ is to get off of the train.
• I should take my groceries out of the basket at the register at Marks & Spencer but leave them in at Tesco.
• Nightly evensong is a welcome break in a hectic London day.
• London’s favorite color is black.
• The 9/11 memorial in Grosvenor Square across from the US Embassy always brings a tear.
• Every time I walk across Tower Bridge, I will have goosebumps.
• The River Thames at night should not be missed.
• IKEA is the solution to a lot of problems.
• The UK has nothing even resembling the ADA and you pretty much can't live here if you're handicapped.
• No need to get on a stairmaster, just ride the tube twice or three times a day (especially the Piccadilly line, which has the longest access escalators I have ever seen).
  
• Even if my bathroom items get stolen from the hostel shower, chemists carry a ton of American products.
• When ordering fish and chips and being asked if I want mushy peas or firm peas, NEVER order mushy.
• When London goes smoke-free in 2007, there are going to be a lot of unhappy people.
• Crossing the streets around Trafalgar Square feels like cheating death.
• Cheers means hello, goodbye, and thank you.
• Most days, I probably will need both my sunglasses and umbrella at some point.
• No matter how much I resist it, eating a McDonald's cheeseburger is an inevitable solution to homesickness.
• The post office not only sells stamps (that I have to moisten) but issues driver’s licenses, insurance, phone cards, is a place to pay bills, and just about anything else you can think of. But they’re only open until 5.
• While a cheap solution to housing, hostels suck and sneaking away to a hotel for a few days is fabulous.
• When leaving the hotel, you’re supposed to give them back your key and request it when you return.
• London loves dogs and theirs are amazingly well behaved.
• The opportunity to make repeat visits (for free) to all of the Museums is great.
• Any kind of music in St. Paul’s or Westminster Abbey is breathtaking.
• I love Queen Elizabeth Hall; and half price student tickets to the London Philharmonic.
• Starbucks here is like Walgreens at home – there’s one on every corner. But real Londoners know that the best coffee is at Café Nero.
• There are two sets of prices in cafes and coffee shops and it always costs more to eat in than takeaway.
• Canary Wharf and Butler's Wharf (both updated mixed-use areas) are awesome.
• London is beautiful and wonderful but I love being an American.
  

A bit of fun, but mostly work.

Once again, course work has kept me indoors and busy for the last few days; the picture at left is some new housing along the Thames we saw while at Woods Bagot last week. Friday afternoon I went with the other girls to Oxford Street, Regent’s Street, and Bond Street – the three ID girls who are here with us needed to do research for an upcoming interiors project so we were traipsing around these big name stores. I felt like more of a tourist on this afternoon than ever before while wandering around with 7 other girls, three of whom were snapping pictures of Prada, Issey Miyake and Louis Vuitton. More jacket potatoes at the Black Lion pub (I’ve decided that the British version of chili does not agree with me) and back home for a bit. On a wild hair, the 8 girls decided to go see Brokeback Mountain at the Odeon on Kensington High Street at 11:00pm. We now know that an International Youth Hostel card gets you a pretty good discount and we should carry it at all times, that you’re given a seat assignment when you buy a ticket, and that the theaters only have 4 rows of seating. It felt more like dinner theater than a megaplex. I didn’t particularly care for the group’s choice of movie but the scenery was pretty. Since the tube quits running at midnight, we walked (with purpose!) all the way up Kensington Church Street and home on Notting Hill Gate, arriving around 2:00am. And of course, some drunk person pulled what we assumed was the fire alarm at 3:30am resulting in us all clamoring down the seven flights of narrow, steep stairs half asleep in our pajamas, wondering what was going on. (“I don’t know, just shut up and keep walking.”)

I felt the need to escape on Saturday and made the mistake of heading out to Tottenham Hale again to do some window shopping. It was wall to wall people and it was one of those days where I just didn’t want to be elbow-to-elbow with the masses. Even after being here for nearly a month, I am still having trouble dealing with the density of London – it’s irritating at times. I’ve come to appreciate more the wide open spaces of the Great Plains and the luxury of space we enjoy as Americans.

I must be looking or acting more like a Londoner, though, because I repeatedly get asked for directions… usually in English, although I quite proudly gave tube directions to a girl in German last week and she seemed to comprehend what I said!

Since the Circle, Metropolitan, and Hammersmith & City Lines of the underground are part suspended on the weekends through March for track replacement at King’s Cross St. Pancras, our planned trip to Islington on Sunday was made far more complicated so we set out to find another free wifi spot. In the rain, we trekked for a half hour through Notting Hill with our computers looking for a restaurant I’d read about, only to find that we actually walked in a circle and this place was really only just at the end of Queensway, a 5 minute walk from our hostel. Sometimes I miss the Midwest street grid! It was an Anglo-American restaurant called Harlem Soul Food and although on the inside it looked sufficiently English, my burger (made of Scottish angus beef) was decent and the Motown music was fun. It was slightly strange to hear people at the next table asking the waitress what New York Strip was.

Something amazing has happened: the guys in our group seem to have finally decided that maybe it’s not such a good idea to spend five nights a week closing the bar downstairs, blowing all of their money on booze and spending all of their days hungover instead of out seeing the city. I’m grateful for this revelation because I’ve just about had enough of their daily accounts of drunk antics (“Dude, you were so wasted”) and the tally of how many times each of them has gotten sick.

I leave for Scotland on Sunday! :-)

Crit, Scotland Plans & Quiz Night

A lot of my time lately has been spent holed up in the studio room working toward two deadlines this week although did get out to take this great picture of Tower Bridge. Tuesday was spent wandering around Clerkenwell and Finsbury looking for a subject for the second personality of place project. In the evening I treated myself to Pizza Hut takeaway (I love sweetcorn and tomato pizza) and watched the Olympics in the hostel’s TV room. While I’m grateful for EuroSport’s 24-hour coverage, and it’s mostly live, it’s very strange to not hear much about Americans.

Chris sent me balloons for Valentine’s Day and Sandy had just done laundry so we played a little game of balloon volleyball over the clothesline in our tiny little room! Thanks for the entertainment, C.

I’ve nailed down my travel plans for my upcoming 9-day break (Feb 25^th-March 5^th) during which I am headed to Scotland. I’ll spend Sunday through Wednesday in Edinburgh and Thursday through Saturday in Glasgow; I was fortunate to find cute single-room accommodation in two guest houses in both cities thanks to Rick Steves’s guidebook recommendations. And since I have the time, I’m taking buses everywhere instead of trains – it’s substantially less expensive and National Express runs good services throughout the UK. I am so excited; several other people from our group are headed in the same direction so I’ll be able to meet up with them but I can’t wait for a private, quiet room and full cooked breakfast… although I don’t think I’ll be trying the haggis.

On Thursday afternoon we all went to Woods Bagot’s office for a schematic design critique. Unfortunately the crit ended up being more about presentation than content but it’s always good to get outsiders’ feedback. We feel somewhat limited because we don’t have the ability to build physical models or print more formal presentations but we’re doing the best we can with hand drawings and limited computer work. After jacket potatoes for dinner at The Black Lion pub, all 15 of us collectively participated in quiz night at the hostel’s bar downstairs and won! We haven’t done much socializing as a large group so it was fun to be together in a situation where we didn’t have to do any work. A good time was had by all, although some more fun than others… and thus for some, Friday was spent recovering. A previously-set Friday deadline was unanimously petitioned ahead to Monday.

My pedometer currently reads 112.23 miles – Sandy and I did a little dance when it turned over 100 miles while walking through Charing Cross station on Wednesday. Three weeks down, eight to go!

National Gallery, Drunk Brazilians, and Studio Work

Studio work has kept me from doing quite as much sight seeing as I’ve been doing the past few weeks but I’m trying to find time to get out for a bit each day. On Friday, we slept late and I managed to make it to the free lunchtime concert at St. Martin-in-the-Fields on Trafalgar Square – this day it was string students from the Guildhall School of Music who played Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Shostakovich. It was a very well presented programme – sitting in such a famous performance space, I felt very fortunate to have the opportunity to go to great things like this. I ate my sandwich on Trafalgar Square amidst dive-bombing pigeons and spent the rest of the afternoon leisurely wandering through the National Gallery. It was amazing to see the paintings I’ve studied in my art history classes: Titian, Holbein, Caravaggio, Van Eyck, Turner, Seurat, and Monet. I caught evensong at Southwark Cathedral and discovered that the New English Hymnal doesn’t have any notes in it! I spent most of the evening with a cappuccino at Café Nero engrossed in a book after calling my dad for some company. I’ve become addicted to Anita Shreve’s books while over here – my favorite thus far is Light on Snow. To top off my day, I walked across Tower Bridge after dark and stood looking at the lights of London all the way down the Thames. London is beautiful at night with all of the bridges, the Eye, and the Houses of Parliament lit up.

On Saturday, Sandy and I went to the RIBA (the British equivalent of the AIA) to check out their incredible bookstore and spent some time walking around Oxford Circus and Regent’s Street, which on a Saturday is chock full of people and interesting shopping. We’ve found a Mexican restaurant within walking distance of home so we treated ourselves to burritos and enchiladas there on Saturday night. Pricey, but oh so worth it.

We were awoken at 3:55am by our neighbors across the hall arriving home from the bars. There must have been at least twenty people yelling and screaming in the small hallway outside our room speaking a language we later figured out was Portuguese as the people are Brazilian. Angrily opening the door (several of them fell into the room when we opened it) and yelling at them to go away did no good so we were awake until they finally passed out around 6. I cannot believe how inconsiderate international travelers are; noisy drunk people seem to be a regular occurrence here. The living situation here really is not good and I grow to dislike hostel life more and more each day, especially now that we have no hot showers anymore and there were bodily excretions floating in several toilets on Sunday morning. (It is a far cry from the clean, spacious QUIET apartment I left in the States, that’s for sure, and I think we will all appreciate the luxuries we have as Americans more after this trip – my rent will be a bargain after paying close to $900/month to live in a tiny room with three other people and a sink, see photo at left.)

Quite appropriately, it was cold and raining on Sunday which kept us all inside either catching up on sleep or studio work. This is the first rain we’ve had since we arrived 2 ½ weeks ago; that’s pretty good for London in the winter. It has become a tradition with our group to go out for a hot meal on Sunday nights, something that I believe comes from all of our days as youngins in the dorms since no Sunday dinner is served at UNL. This week it was Bella Italia and a steaming hot bowl of penne pomodoro hit the spot for just under 6 GBP.

On Monday, we had a visit from Hiko Takeda who used to be the London architect associated with this program before Steve Reinke at Woods Bagot. We presented some of our design ideas for the Windsor Atheneum (things are still pretty loose, mostly sketches on bum wad and observational drawings in sketchbooks) and we are preparing to present some schematics for the same project to the folks Woods Bagot on Thursday afternoon. We’ve got a lot of balls in the air right now with various assignments and it’s tough to buckle down and do work with London beckoning. I took a break in the afternoon to head back to IKEA, this time the one in Tottenham Hale which is far easier to get to (!), in search of a duvet and sheets. I’m hoping I will sleep better if I know where my bedding has been and as is usually the case at IKEA, I got a pretty good deal. I had to change subway lines at King’s Cross-St. Pancras around 5:30 and with a large bag of purchases, it was rather chaotic. There must be about 6 lines of the Underground that all come through this station and you feel a bit like a red blood cell sometimes in those little artery-like corridors, being pushed along with the other people. After 2 ½ weeks, I am a savvy tube traveler and am really a fan of public transportation. It’s so easy here! I’m preparing for our 9-day break which begins next Saturday – I’m headed to Scotland for some peace, quiet, and hopefully some hiking in the Highlands. (Alicia & Camille, I’ll try to make it to Aberdeen!)

Happy Valentine’s Day, Chris! :-x

Tube Accident, Canary Wharf & Greenwich

Sorry for the delay in posting but my studies have had to take my attention away from daily sightseeing! On Tuesday morning, I felt the need to escape the hostel on my own. When I got to the Bayswater tube station, it was all closed up with a sign that said ‘Circle and District line service suspended due to person under a train’. Now I wasn’t sure if this meant there were doing maintenance work under the train or if someone had gotten hit by a train – later I would find out that yes, in fact, someone did commit suicide by jumping in front of a train at Notting Hill Gate station. Londoners don’t bat an eye as this happens from time to time but it sounded horrific to me. Now when the Circle and District Line are both closed, it creates a bit of a problem because these are one of the two busiest lines of the Underground. I had planned on spending the day at the National Gallery but by the time I walked to Holland Park (which was the nearest place I could get on a Central line train) I didn’t think there’d be enough time to really enjoy this museum before I had to be back for a meeting at 3 so I went with plan B and went to Southwark instead.

One of my professors had mentioned that Southwark Cathedral was a hidden jewel and often overlooked so I spent an hour or so walking through it – its scale is definitely smaller than some of the other cathedrals I’ve seen but it’s really quite lovely. Its interior is very warm with lots of wood – not at all what I expected from the outside. Southwark Cathedral is London’s oldest gothic building but just became a cathedral in the early 1900s. I’ll have to make it back to evensong there one of these days – the staff of the building certainly were friendly.

I spent the rest of the afternoon exploring Southwark, walking along the Thames past Shakespeare’s Globe, the Tate Modern, and across the very cool Millenium Bridge (no cars, just people) which deposits you directly at St. Paul’s doorstep. This is a popular running route (it seems a majority of Londoners run every day during their lunch breaks) so one must be careful when crossing this bridge for fear of literally getting run over. Again, this having to get out of everyone and everything else’s way is getting annoying! I enjoyed my brie and ham sandwich and crisps on a bench in the shadow of St. Paul’s and headed back to the hostel for my meeting.

In the evening, a few of us trekked to Islington for free wireless internet access and whipped out our laptops at a small Turkish restaurant with amazing Turkish apple tea and all-day breakfast (but alas, no pancakes). It’ll probably be a weekly journey there and we’ll have to try out some of the interesting restaurants around the Angel tube stop. Oh yes, my black wool coat came from home this day so I feel like a little less of a tourist now. Thanks, Mom!

On Wednesday, the sun was shining and it was a gloriously bright day. While I had work to do for studio, I procrastinated and went with two friends to Canary Wharf on our way to Greenwich. Canary Wharf was unexpected – soaring glass skyscrapers, everything impeccably clean, wonderful shopping… it felt more like New York City or Chicago than London, especially with the brilliant blue sky. This is an area of London that has been rebuilt very well.

After wandering around in awe of our surroundings for a while, we took the Docklands Light Rail to Greenwich and hiked to the top of a HUGE hill to the Royal Observatory. This is home to the prime meridian (0 degrees longitude) which separates the eastern and western hemispheres. It is marked by a very cool sculpture. We also synchronized our watches with the official Greenwich Mean Time so I will never be late for anything! Down the hill, we walked through Inigo Jones’s Queen’s House (designed in 1616 as a retreat for Queen Anne of Denmark) and the fascinating National Maritime Museum, which showcases Britain’s long standing naval traditions. And all of this was free!! On the way back to the train station, we saw Cutty Sark, the only surviving tea-and-wool clipper ship. Since we had to stop at Canary Wharf on our way back, we broke down and ate at a Chili’s we found in Canada Place (the closest thing we’ve found to Mexican food). Yummmmmmy. The evening was spent trying to do all the work I was supposed to have done during the day… but hey, when the sun is out, I refuse to sit inside!

Thursday I spent the entire day trying to get things done. I’m working on a very loose design for a banquet hall in Windsor – it’s right on the waterfront of the Thames so it lends itself to something cool using the water. We’re presenting our design ideas to some folks at Woods Bagot next Thursday. It is definitely hard to find the motivation to get work done around here with the city at our doorstep!

PS - Having found a faster internet cafe, I just added several new albums to My Photo Album at the right.

Covent Garden, Regent’s Park, and Windsor

After my trip to Salisbury on Saturday with seven other girls, I was craving some personal space and independence. On Sunday morning, I got up early and went to Covent Garden, which is a large area of shops, markets, theaters and outdoor plazas. There were a bunch of street performers who gathered large crowds, one in particular who walked a tight rope held by four men at each end while eating a bag of crisps. The sun was partially out today (although still not enough to require sunglasses) and I took advantage of the opportunity to just walk around without an agenda. I treated myself to a hot meal - £5 seemed fairly reasonable for a bowl of hot pasta. After picking up some green grapes and milk at Marks & Spencer, I took the tube to Regent’s Park, which my guidebook correctly states is London’s most picturesque park. First of all, it’s HUGE… my two hours of wandering only covered about ¼ of the park’s area. I walked around the outer circle – on this fairly warm Sunday afternoon, there were a lot of people out doing the same. There were all kinds of dogs, too, who were frolicking off of their leashes. The swans, ducks, and pigeons around the boating lake are used to being fed by the visitors so they follow people around with expectations of bread or crisps.

As it began to grow dark, I headed back to Westminster Abbey for the first of their series of free organ recitals – it was packed and I got one of the last chairs. The programme was two Bach pieces performed by Robert Quinney, a 1998 graduate of King’s College and the Sub-Organist at Westminster. I stayed for the 6:30 service following in which we got to sing THREE hymns! Of course, English hymns have at least six verses and it’s definitely a challenge to keep that many people singing and an organ together in such a large space! It was good to be by myself all day today – I think I’m going to need to do that on a regular basis to maintain my sanity with these people.


Monday morning we made the trip en masse (complete with Dr. & Mrs. Sawyers) to Waterloo station to board the train for Windsor-Eton. Every time I get on one of those trains, I fall asleep… I think it has to do with the motion. I seem to have the best 25 minute naps on Brit Rail trains. The reason for the trip was that Windsor is the site for our first “design project” (it’s going to be pretty loose) and we were able to familiarize ourselves with the area and take pictures. The rest of the day was spent exploring the area around Windsor Castle (I’ll have to go back to take the tour, I wasn’t in the mood and didn’t want to part with close to US$20 for it today), the town of Windsor, and the neighboring town of Eton. What struck me the most about both of these places was how quiet it was – perhaps it was just because we were there from 10am-2pm on a Monday but it was so peaceful. The towns are chock full of quaint houses and shops.

Meanwhile, back at the hostel, the saga of not enough hot water and too much radiator heat continues… I'm off to the National Gallery for the day! More soon.

Westminster Evensong, Salisbury, and Stonehenge!

Friday was another productive day in the studio as Sandy and I finished up our work on the personality of place project, but I treated myself to evensong at Westminster Abbey that night. It is surprisingly much better attended than St. Paul’s and has a different feel to it, one of higher tradition. I’m finding that the best way to experience these great cathedrals is to go to a daily evensong – it allows you to hear and feel a building in a way that just standing in the midst of it does not. I took the picture at the right (WOW!) after the service – the sky in this part of the city always seems to have a certain red haze because there are so many important sites. I called it an early night because of our planned excursion for Saturday.

Unfortunately, it was a sleepless night between the Friday night traffic (we have to sleep with our window open now because the heat has no control and makes our room sweltering) and the Friday night swell of rude international travelers in the hostel… which made getting out of bed at 7am Saturday morning not too pleasant. And while we now have (excessive amounts of) heat, we’ve apparently had to sacrifice our hot water in return so showers are now fast, furious, and… well, invigorating.

All eight of us girls took the tube to Waterloo station where we boarded a Brit Rail train for Salisbury. I can’t tell you how great it was to get out of the city. The trains here are smooth, on time, and clean and I felt a sense of relief to see the wide open spaces of the English countryside, dotted with villages and grazing sheep. We arrived around noon and went straight for the cathedral – it is visible from everywhere in the city and is the point from which all things are navigated. Salisbury Cathedral, built between 1220 and 1258, has the tallest spire in all of England at 123 meters, and is noteworthy not only for its breathtaking beauty but because it is wholly a single architectural style: Early English Gothic. It also has an amazing cloister, the largest in England.

While London is an amazing city, I am finding that being there is claustrophobic and I feel like I’m constantly getting out of people’s (and cars’) way. I don’t like that. Salisbury, situated on the River Avon, operates at a slower pace with its 47,000 residents and opens its arms widely to tourists, giving them directions and stopping to let them cross the street. (This is a novel concept in Britain.) The people are dressed more casually and are very friendly. We popped to The King’s Head Inn on Bridge Street, a quaint local pub, where we found wonderful food and surprisingly lower prices. After eating a lot of cold sandwiches in the past week, we welcomed a hot meal on a cold, gray day.

After lunch, we walked back across town to the Wilts & Dorset bus company to board the No. 3 to Stonehenge. It was a double-decker bus and we got seats right up front on the top which allowed us to see Stonehenge coming from a ways away. It’s amazing how close the monument is to a fairly major set of roads but the English Heritage is planning to build a tunnel for the roads so Stonehenge can be viewed without the distraction of modernity. After you pay your entrance fee, they provide you with a free hand-held audio guide that gives you background on the site while walking you around the circle. It was really interesting – did you know that the vertical Sarsen stones actually go under ground several meters? It must be really breathtaking to be at this place on the summer solstice, when the sunset is perfectly framed under one of the lintelled arches. It was a great site, well worth the trouble (and expense) to get there. Hopped back on the train in Salisbury and arrived back in London later that evening, relished a long phone conservation with Chris and hit the sack.

Working away...

Since I last posted, I’ve mostly been doing work for our classes over here – mostly reading, sketching, and taking photographs. Sandy and I are doing a “personality of place” project on a small garden I discovered off of Kensington High Street. At left is a very quick sketch I did of the sundial in the middle of it. It’s tucked back behind St. Mary Abbots Church and along Kensington Church Walk. It’s been a couple of cold, gray days here but the hostel finally got heat and we have all been sleeping a little later in the morning snug in warm beds. The lecture at the AA on Wednesday night was a bit of a disappointment – it was two professors from Ohio State who unfortunately fit the stereotype of arrogant Americans and weren’t too interesting. Zaha Hadid is scheduled to speak at the AA later this month – it’d be cool just to say I’d been in the same room with her!

Thursday afternoon we trekked across the city (and walked across Tower Bridge over the Thames!) to the London offices of Australia-based Woods Bagot near Butler’s Wharf and met with Steve Reinke, an American architect who has been living in London for 18 years. Their office will serve as our critics for the two design projects we will be working on and they seem like a very creative but down-to-earth group of talented people. Speaking of design, we will take the train to Windsor en masse on Monday morning to visit the site for our first project there. We’re paired up for this project and I’m a little nervous because I’m supposedly working with one of the three interior design girls who are with us… I fear our approaches to design will be sufficiently different so it could be interesting.

A few of us are thinking of heading off on the train to Salisbury (hooray for Gothic cathedrals!) and Stonehenge for the day on Saturday – I’m kind of looking forward to getting out of the city for a bit.

We found free wireless internet yesterday! Unfortunately, it’s in Islington which is about a 20 minute train ride from here. I’m hopeful to get there to upload some pictures soon – the speed of the internet here is not quite the same as at home so it’ll take longer to transfer the files. Check back sometime early next week.

Things I miss the most from home: the clear blue sky, Mexican food, quiet, my family (please call me!), Chris H., and my Sadie.

Westminster and St. Paul's!

On Monday morning, we met with Dr. Sawyers for our first class meeting and as usual, he bombarded us with information and gave us a whole list of things to do. Not quite ready to get into productivity mode, Sandy and I took the tube to Westminster and it is a sight to behold when you pop out of the station and poof! There’s Big Ben! We explored the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and Parliament Square before walking up Whitehall to Trafalgar Square (National Gallery and St. Martin-in-the-Fields). We treated ourselves to a sit-down lunch at Garfunkel’s on Strand and then crossed the Thames on Waterloo Bridge and walked along the Queen’s Walk past Royal Festival Hall (under construction!) and the Aquarium before crossing back on Westminster Bridge. The afternoon is a little fuzzy, I know we found Lloyd’s of London, the Swiss Re Headquarters, and the Tower of London (but will have to take the tour some other day). Somehow we stumbled upon Hawksmoor’s Christ Church and the Spitalfields Market while lost and looking for the way to get home – the London A-Z street map was definitely a good investment because the streets here are a confusing maze, to say the least. This was another 10 mile day on our feet! (The picture above is looking at the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral from the next street over.)

I slept late on Tuesday and spent the day by myself walking through Kensington Gardens and along Kensington High Street. Then I took the tube to Victoria Station and went looking for Buckingham Palace. Tuesday was another sunny day (we’ve been so lucky!) so I spent some time sitting around the Queen Victoria Memorial in front of the Palace commiserating with some of the other tourists. Walked across Green Park, which is really quite lovely, up to Piccadilly Street to the Ritz, and Old Bond Street. I love how I keep stumbling upon these things I’ve seen pictures of or read about in books – I’ll turn my head and there’s Burlington Arcade or the Royal Academy. As the sun was starting to set, I took the tube home to meet Jolie to go to St. Paul’s for nightly evensong at 5:00. This is the best way to see the Cathedral because not only do you get to be inside the building for free, you get to sit in the choir and listen to the acoustics for an hour! The Gentlemen of the Cathedral choir was wonderful and the service (a series of lessons, psalms, a hymn and an anthem) lasted about an hour. It’s a gorgeous, awe-inspiring building with a reverb time of close to 7 seconds -- I can say now that I have sung at St. Paul’s. Taking the tube home afterwards was very crowded; Notting Hill Gate station is where we make the change to the Circle Line and it is frequently a bit like a stampede getting on and off the train.

We finally got heat in the hostel but now it’s too hot and we can’t turn it down so I guess we just can’t win. We’re learning to do the “American Shuffle” back and forth between the cold and hot water faucets since they’re separate although I still get a chuckle out of watching people cursing and trying to wash dishes under the scalding hot water that comes out. And there is so much food in our little refrigerator in the studio room that half of it falls out every time we open the door so it has become a juggling game to try to catch it all before it falls to the floor. I’m still eating a lot of Tesco sandwiches (yummy and cheap!) and yes mom, I’m getting plenty of fruit. Today I’m hoping to find a place to do laundry – I’m sure that will be an adventure, too. We are going to a lecture about Peter Eisenman and Rem Koolhaas tonight at the Architecture Association in Bedford Square. The pedometer currently reads 31.09 miles walked since last Friday. More to come!