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!