Travel Update

Jolie, Sandy, and I are gearing up to leave on our tour of Europe on April 15^th. It will begin by taking the high-speed Eurostar train across and under the English channel to Paris, which we were ecstatic to learn would only cost us each £50! We’ve taken out Vienna and Berlin and I’ve shortened my trip by a few days because I am getting kind of anxious to come home but will still get to see most of what I wanted and do some valuable research for my thesis in Norway and Finland. I can jubilantly report that I get to meet up with Chris’s parents in Florence and my dad is going to join me in Oslo for the last week of my trip through Scandinavia!!!!

Paris 4/15-4/18

Barcelona 4/19-4/20

Train Day to Nice 4/21

Train Day to Roma 4/22

Roma 4/23-4/25

Firenze 4/26-4/28

Venezia 4/29

Oslo 4/30-5/3

Helsinki 5/4-5/7

London 5/8

Omaha 5/9

Hampstead and Winchester

Dr. Sawyers has informed me that I'm not to spend this four-day break we are on right now doing work like I planned so I'm taking a series of day trips from London. Four of the girls are in Amsterdam and one is in Dublin so I've been enjoying the opportunity to explore on my own. Yesterday was a SUNNY DAY and I went to Hampstead Heath (heath=hill), a 200 acre wooded park north of London. It's amazing to walk around in the quiet stillness of the Heath and think that you are still in Zone 2 of the Underground and a mere 20 minutes from central London. Dogs run off their leashes and ducks and geese abound although there are no maps or signs to be found so I frequently had to navigate using my shadow and what I know about sun angles this time of year. Hampstead Garden Suburb is as close as the English get to the American suburb where houses actually have yards and I think I even heard a lawn mower in use. The houses are still undeniably English with doors so small that I don't know how they get any sizable piece of furniture through. It's also where the money lives, confirmed by the presence of the first Hummer I've seen in the UK parked in one driveway.

Today I took the train to Winchester, a quiet little town 65 miles southwest of London with a grand cathedral (cathedrals are to small towns of England as grain elevators are to the Midwest) and loads of history -- it was larger than London until 1066. Since we saw the sun yesterday, that will fulfill the quota for the next 10 days at least and today was the typical cloudy with a light drizzle. I stumbled into a great lunchtime concert at the Cathedral, which has three styles of architecture in it, and wandered around the town which sits on the picturesque River Itchen. Evensong with the Winchester Cathedral choir was by far the best I have heard and I'm glad I stuck around for it. Coming back to London now feels like home, although I'm still perplexed by things like why people would eat prawn cocktail crisps and why Londoners can't seem to pick a side on the sidewalk. (Things like sliced Gouda at Sainsbury's and fabulous pastries make up for the crisps.)

My interest in the books of the travel writer Bill Bryson (an American born in Des Moines who lived in England for a while and then went back to the US) ended today when I picked up his Notes from a Big Country, his book on America written for Brits. The first few chapters were quite funny but it quickly changed to his soapbox whining about all the things that are wrong with America and how everything is grand in Britain. I disagree and the book is going back to Waterstone's tomorrow. Spending 3 months outside the US has made me appreciate how lucky we are to be Americans. It's great to travel and expand your horizons and I will continue to do so throughout my life, but I have never been more proud to be American.

Tomorrow may be a trip to Cambridge or Kew Gardens... three weeks from today is our last night in London. As our continent travel plans have shifted, I'm changed my arrival date back in the States from May 14th to May 9th.

While Lincoln is buried in snow, I am buried in work.

As you can see, the time between postings is getting longer and longer which is in direct proportion to the amount of work I find myself doing here! With a studio project, Hampstead Garden Suburb neighborhood analysis, the product for my independent study research on urban green space, my thesis proposal (which also requires research), scholarship applications, registration, and a sightseeing requirement all up in the air, I am a busy busy woman. I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed especially by the things I'm trying to take care of from afar (like arranging a summer internship). I'm trying to prioritize and breathe deeply but if you have a second, you might offer up a little prayer... especially for the internship since my graduation rides on it.

St. Patrick's Day in London was a bit on the crazy side. Some of our guys headed to the pub at noon and when we met them there after dinner, we could see that this could be a very long night. Every bar we went to was wall-to-wall people but it was generally a good time. When London goes smoke free in 2007, it will be a wonderful thing!

On Saturday, I took some time to get out of London and visit Sam in Oxford where I got the behind-the-scenes tour of the city, enjoyed the company of an American other than the 14 I am here with, and had wonderful home-cooked food. Did you know that Oxford University is made up of 40-some individual colleges? Sam is working on his doctorate (a D. Phil over here) and living at New College. Sunday was a beautiful sunny and slightly warm day so some of my pictures of Oxford have BLUE sky! I even got to attend an Oxford Symphony Orchestra concert in Sir Christopher Wren's Sheldonian Theater.

The daffodills are coming up in London by the handful - I think more and more emerge overnight. Unfortunately, it's not getting much warmer or sunnier so eating one's lunch on a bench in St. James's Park still requires a coat and scarf. I'm ansty for warmer, clear weather - you don't realize how much you miss the sun until you go weeks without seeing it.

We heard that we have missed out on not just one, but TWO University snow days due to a massive snowstorm that rolled across Nebraska this week. TWO SNOW DAYS! One is rare enough but two is unheard of! How fortuitous that this should happen at the end of spring break, too. I'm so jealous... I miss the snow.

We have a scheduled break Thursday through Sunday of this week but I will be staying in London to get work done and hopefully take a day trip to Cambridge for pleasure and a day trip to Newcastle for research purposes. A week from Saturday is my birthday (I am halfway to 50! Yikes!), then three weeks from Friday is the end of our time in London and then it's off to Paris to start my European Adventure. Time is flying by!

A Night in Soho

I came back last night around 8pm and everyone was leaving to go on a tour of the eccentricities of Soho with this crazy Brazilian bartender from the hostel bar who insisted we come out with her on our day off. She was not taking no for an answer so anyone who was in the studio was required to come. We went to three bars: the first was the huge Waxy O'Connells, this awesome but unusual Irish bar with a huge fake tree inside it - it was kind of like being in some sort of Hobbit land and I left my autograph on one of its branches. The next was called Garlic & Shots and was in the basement of a Swedish restaurant. We all crawled into this little tiny dungeon-like room with a long table down the middle, it was lit by dripping candles and was very claustrophobic. Then we ended up at a very unusual place called Crobar, a gothic/metal bar that she chose because it's one of only a few that are open past 1am on a Monday night. It was an interesting experience, I think we all felt sufficiently preppy in that place! A good time was had by all although I lost track of how many times a drunk Tam spilled his drink on me, he has since offered to pay to have my wool coat dry cleaned!

By the time we left, it was a little after 2am and the tube stops running at midnight so that meant a cab (and a lot of money) or a free night bus. We stopped at a McDonalds and must have stood on Charing Cross Road for at least a half hour--long enough for me to have a complete conversation with Chris!--before the N390 appeared. I had this magical image of what night buses are like thanks to Harry Potter but alas, they're just like any other bus; no squeezing in between cars or beds rolling around like in the movie. We discovered 15 minutes after boarding that we were going the wrong way and had ended up all the way up by Euston Road and King's Cross... so at 2:40 we got off and waited another 10 minutes for a new bus going the correct direction, and arrived back at the hostel at 3:20am. We had a studio meeting at 9:30 this morning so it was a short night, but a good bonding experience. I've gotten through the spat with my roommate and actually discovered that the rest of the girls are having the same issues with her! I took a nap this afternoon and it's a good thing because the entire country of Spain has just moved in across the hall from me in the hostel and I probably won't be sleeping much tonight.

Canterbury, Queen Mary's Gardens, and Mendelssohn

[photos to come, Blogger won't let me upload them right now!]

We’ve been stuck inside working on yet another project (ARGH) but on Saturday, I made the pilgrimage to Canterbury by train. Expecting to find a quiet and quaint Chaucer-like village, I was quite surprised to find it to be a fairly good sized city full of tourists, shopping, and obnoxious teenagers but loads of history. The Cathedral is really beautiful and I was fortunate to enter right in the middle of the University of Kent orchestra’s dress rehearsal for their performance that night which apparently included Beethoven 5. What a treat to hear music in that space. I tried to get a ticket for the concert but the box office closed before I could make it. Evensong was glorious; I got to sit in the quire. Unfortunately, the cathedral’s boiler had blown the day before and repairs weren’t expected until Tuesday so it was quite cold in the building. England has a real problem with heat!! It started snowing while I was waiting for my train back to London and was a very cold weekend.

I’ve gotten myself into a little spat with one of my roommates (oh, the drama!) so I vacated the premises quickly on Sunday morning for some air. I’m doing an independent study project involving public squares and gardens of London and went walking around all day looking for more subject matter – much to my disappointment, a lot of the interesting looking green shapes on my map are beautiful private gardens accessed only by the residents who live around them. I want a garden! I made quite a trek around the city today, walking for the better part of five hours from Brompton Road in South Kensington to Regent’s Park. The success story of the day was visiting Queen Mary’s Gardens within Regent’s Park. What a beautiful place this is! And if it’s this beautiful now, I can only imagine what it’s going to look like in a few short weeks when spring comes to London and the flowers are in bloom.

On Sunday evening, I went to an organ recital of Mendelssohn and Brahms at Westminster Abbey (Uncle Gerry, I wish I could zap you over for one of these free weekly concerts!) and stayed for the evening service in which we sang THREE hymns. (I still have yet to see a trap set or hear a praise song in the Church of England. Somehow, contemporary Christian music has not found its way across the Atlantic and I love it!) I sat next to a couple from Cedar Falls, Iowa at the service… at this point in the trip, I’m feeling a bit homesick so I’ve been striking up conversations with the random Americans I hear talking on street corners, at bus stops, in queues, and in the Tube. There seem to be a lot of them here right now; you can usually spot them pretty easily.

Today marks only 32 days remaining in London. With weekends quickly slipping away, I am going to Oxford on Saturday to spend the weekend with Sam Evans, a St. Olaf grad who I met through Camille & Angela... he has been living in Oxford for a few years. I'm excited to see the city with someone who knows it well; apparently there's a home-cooked meal involved!

Monument, Rain & Cameron Diaz

On Monday, we met for our usual weekly meeting and exchanged stories from our trips. Some of the group went to Ireland, most to Scotland, and one person to Paris to propose to his girlfriend. It started off a fairly sunny day so I took advantage and went to Monument, designed in 1677 by Sir Christopher Wren to commemorate the Great Fire of London and celebrate the rebuilding of the city. It is a giant Doric column with 311 winding circular stairs (with no landings) that is 202 feet high. From the viewing platform, you get a nice aerial view of Tower Bridge, City Hall, the Thames, and Lloyds of London. I spent the afternoon visiting green spaces for my independent study project, researching possible destinations for our next break, and hustling in the rain to make another glorious evensong at St. Paul’s Cathedral.

While we are getting a few glimpses of spring and warmer weather, we still have days like today where winter slaps us in the face. For a class project we went en masse to the village of Shere which is about an hour’s train & bus ride southwest from Waterloo station and unfortunately when we got there, it was pouring rain and very cold. This made wandering the village in the rain and mud to document the intricacies very unpleasant (especially since some people didn’t bring their brollies) and an hour later, we found it more enjoyable to sit in the pub and drink warm things. (As a side note, in England there are a gazillion pubs with colors and animals in the name and I can never keep track of them… true to this, the pub in Shere is called The White Horse. We have also seen The Black Lion, The White Swan, The Black Elephant, The Brown Goat, The White Dog, The Purple Pelican, etc. I generally cannot keep them straight and thus refer to all pubs as The White Elephant.) I also had bangers and mash today for the first time, which is basically several cooked sausages on a bed of mashed potatoes covered in gravy. It is to England what haggis is to Scotland but unlike haggis, this is pretty good!

Unbeknownst to us prior to our arrival, a portion of a major motion picture is being filmed in Shere… the pub is right across the street from the filming site and there were bright lights set up, all sorts of security, and tents everywhere. Cameron Diaz is in this movie and she actually came right into the pub to use the restroom and walked by our table! Rumor is that Jude Law was there as well but, much to the Interiors girls’ disappointment, he did not make a similar appearance. We thought it was crazy that they’d be filming in this teeny tiny village with just three streets on the same day we were there. It was definitely a highlight of this very cold and wet day. After today and the days I spent hiking waterfalls in the rain in Oregon with Chris before I came over here, I have decided that I really must buy some rain pants!

Our workload is starting to pick up again but we are running out of weekends to make trips out of the city so hopefully this weekend and next we will make it to Canterbury, Bath, Cambridge, etc. We have discovered that if we travel in groups of 4, we get a 50% discount on train fares! More soon.

Back in London

After a long and quite unpleasant 8 hour bus ride back to London yesterday with a horribly rude driver, I'm back. Today is a beautiful sunny and quite warm day -- after a very cold couple of weeks, it's nice to see signs that spring is indeed on the way.

Pictures from my Scotland are available for you to view. Click 'My Photo Album' on the sidebar at the right or visit http://photos.yahoo.com/elizannleach. The new albums are Victoria etc., Edinburgh, The Highlands, and Glasgow.

The Cold Shoulder of Glasgow

I took a bus from Edinburgh, somewhat reluctant to leave the city and my wonderful accommodation, and arrived in Glasgow about 75 minutes later. The second you step off the bus, you are thrown into the hustle and bustle of this much bigger city. It feels more like London with its taller buildings and people begging for change on every corner, a bit more cosmopolitan as well. Sauchiehall \street and Buchanan Street are both complete pedestrian zones and those are pretty nice, but the rest of the city is pretty dirty, weirdly artsy fartsy (thanks to the Glasgow School of Art) and unfriendly. While this may not really be the case, I only have 36 hours to spend in this city and that is the face it has presented me.

My accommodation here is not as nice as the wonderful guest house in Edinburgh but it's still better than a hostel. I'm staying at the Old School House which is a heritage-listed building a skip away from the School of Art that Lonely Planet recommended. My mattress is incredibly uncomfortable and the answer to the question "What time will the drunk art student stop singing while wandering the street in front of my hotel?" is 4:30am. Oi.

I went through the Museum of Modern Art in the afternoon, which pleasantly has some student work in it, and found a really awesome art store that puts Dick Blick to shame and then settled in a comfy chair in Borders while reading Bill Bryson's Neither Here Nor There because the girls from Boston recommended it and I just felt the need to be somewhere American.

For dinner I met up with the rest of the girls who had been in Dublin and Belfast for the past few days. While they've seen some cool stuff, I'm very glad I've made this trip alone. Living and sleeping and working and playing with the same 14 other people for a month had sent me clammoring for privacy and independence. I can't imagine having traveled this last week with 7 other people -- that is just too many. It was good to exchange stories -- we'll all rendevous back in London on Sunday as they are headed to Edinburgh for the remainder of the break.

This morning, I slept in; the down side to a bed & breakfast is that you have to get UP for the breakfast, usually by about 8:30am, so this morning I went without especially since it was a full Scottish breakfast including haggis. I took a tour of the School of Art, which is a Charles Rennie Mackintosh masterpiece. The hour-long tour was very informative and it is a fascinating building filled with light and the intricate details Mackintosh is famous for. There was a beautiful snow squall this morning with huge fluffy flakes... I miss the snow.

This afternoon I'm going to the Cathedral, the necropolis to get a good view of the land, the Armadillo (Clyde Auditorium), and an architecture exhibit at the Lighthouse and in the morning, I'll take the 8-hour bus back to London. I have some work to finish up before Monday. Our next break is just 3 weeks away and I'm trying to decide where I should spend those four days. Any suggestions?

The Highlands

Since I had to be at the Castle by 8am to leave on the Timberbush Highlands tour, Jimmy and Fiona prepared my french toast a bit early and I was out the door into the cold, but sunny, morning with three layers, a fleece and a shell, two pairs of socks, hat and mittens. There were about 25 other people on this tour -- an armful of Spaniards who spoke little to no English and jabbered in Spanish the ENTIRE time, a handful of Americans, a few Indians, and a couple of Irish. We made our way up north, little by little, watching the scenery change. It's hard to describe the change without photographs which I am dying to share with you all! Eventually we made it to Glen Coe and then Loch Ness. Since I didn't have a map with me, I'm going to have to ask Camille for some assistance in placing names with my pictures. Unfortunately, the driver, although good intentioned, would NOT shut up. It would have been fine if he were talking about things relevant to our tour but he told us about how he needs to lose weight, about his black leather pants he wears on his motorbike, about his Jack Russell, and how he's wanted to be a coach driver all his life, etc etc. It got irritating by about the 8th hour of nonstop chatter in a heavy Scottish accent! There was the threat of not being able to make it all the way north because of heavy snow - the most I ever saw was about 3 inches so I'm not sure if that's a lot or if we just didn't see the portions of the north where the most snow fell. I was a bit disappointed; the way the driver was talking I was expecting to be trapped in a blizzard!

Loch is the Gaelic word meaning 'lake'. (Road signs start reading in both English and Gaelic as you get further up into the Highlands; the Scottish pronounce Gaelic "Gah-lic" which to me, sounded a bit like how people from Boston say garlic.) We drove past all sorts of lochs including the creatively named Loch Lochy. At the famous Loch Ness, we went out on the water in a little boat searching for the mythical creature "Nessie", past Urquart Castle and admiring the surrounding hills. There was a sort of mist over the water with sun off in the distance - the result was this interesting effect of layers and layers of light and dark. We also saw Ben Nevis, the highest peak in Great Britain at 4,406 feet. I'm so anxious to see how my photographs turned out. After skirting around Inverness (which I would like to spend some more time in) we arrived back in Edinburgh around 9:30pm. I am so glad that I went out and found the Forth Bridge yesterday - I thought we might see it on the tour today but it was only at night on our way back while driving across the Forth Road Bridge.

On the trip, I met three girls from Boston who are teaching English to high school students in the south of France and it worked out well for us to sit together on the bus and eat together when we stopped. They gave me some tips on being smart in France and I offered advice on London since they'll be there next week. It's comforting to find people from home, especially when traveling alone. Although I don't like eating in restaurants by myself, I find traveling single to be quite enjoyable.

In unrelated news, my iPod has finally recovered from whatever illness it got while coming up from London on Sunday. I was about ready to take it to the Apple store - one of the Boston girls said when problems occur, Apple replaces malfunctioning devices with new models - but there's no evidence than anything was wrong. Technology, I tell ya...

I am off to Glasgow this afternoon and it is another gloriously sunny day here. I have seen more sunshine in Scotland this week than in London in the last month! More from Glasgow, where I will meet up with a few of our group who are coming to Glasgow from Dublin.