Dublin: Part One

So I'm finally back in London, ready to update you all on my trip to Dublin! On Wednesday night my roommate and I left our apartment by 11:00 pm and spent the night in Stansted airport, outside London. Our flight was leaving at 6:30 Thursday morning, and since the tube shuts down around midnight, we had to get out to Stansted and stay there for the night.

We didn't sleep the whole night, so that was pretty miserable. At one point I actually laid down on the floor of the airport, but the tiles were freezing cold, so there was no sleep to be had. We boarded our plane at around six, and we finally got into Dublin around 8:00 a.m. Shuffling through the airport, we desperately wanted to sleep, but first we had to find our way to our hostel. The hostel was a ways outside Dublin; the map read it was in a place called Dun Laogohaire. We went to the train station to ask for directions.
"We're trying to get to Dun Lay-go-hair?" I asked the ticket seller.
He raised his eyebrows. "Dunleeree?"
I blinked. "What?"
He sighed, and it was if I could read his mind: Silly Americans. "Dun Leary. It's called Dun Leary."
Oh. I still have no idea how a place spelled Dun Laogohaire could be pronounced Dun Leary. Also keep in mind at this point that I had not slept in 24 hours.
Our hostel was called the Marina Hostel, and it was out on the coast. Dun Laogohaire was beautiful, but it was frigid. The wind hit us like a physical shock to the system as we stepped out of the train and began the half mile trek to our hostel.
"This is freeezing!" my roommate squealed, and since she was from Texas I felt pretty bad for her. I can handle cold weather, but c'mon, in September? I could only imagine what this place was like in January.

The hostel was sort of grungy, and there was a bunch of older Europeans milling about. College kids were at the hostel too, but I was surprised at the amount of gray haired Europeans that were willing to stay in a hostel. We took a quick nap and then began to explore the picturesque, freezing cold seaside town of Dun Lagohaire. It was cute town; apparently James Joyce used to stay in this town and write about it and its inhabitants.

We were walking with no real destination in particular when we stumbled upon the ruins of a small castle from the sixteenth century. It was surreal- first there were houses in a sleepy suburb, and then bam! a ragged stone castle ruin. Of course we walked all around it, taking pictures like mad, our crushing sleepiness temporarily forgotten. A small plaque next to the castle read: Monkstown castle; Monkstown= Town of Monks. Ahhh, so that's what's monkstown means. Always wanted to know that. All in all, the castle was the coolest part of that long, long day.

After dinner, we went to bed at nine o'clock, surrounded by other sleeping strangers. I was too tired to care; I don't think I've ever slept so soundly in my life. 36 hours of sleep deprivation will do that to you.

In my next post, I'll tell you more about what we did in Dublin. Stay tuned..

Brief Update

I only have a few minutes of access to a computer, so I wanted to give my loyal readers (even if there's only 2 or 3 of you) a quick update.
I'm in Dublin for the weekend with my roommate, and it's been pretty interesting. There are many things to tell you about when I get back, including:
Staying overnight in an airport
Sleeping in a hostel
Going to an Irish pub
Issues with Gaelic
Visits to Neolithic gigantic monuments (coolness)
Ridiculously cold temperatures
And other stuff.
Tomorrow I'm spending the day strictly in Dublin. On Sunday I will tell you all about my crazy Irish adventures. Cheers!

More Nerdy Adventures

On Sunday my roommates and I went to the British Library, which is about a fifteen minute walk from our apartment. It was a gigantic library, but the most interesting part was the room filled with 'treasures'. It was a dim, climate controlled room that contained some of the most famous/important documents in writing. The stuff that I thought was the coolest was:
An original copy of the Magna Carta
A Guttenberg Bible
Original hand written lyrics to Beatles songs such as 'In my life' (they even had John Lennon cartoon scribbles all over them!)
Original letters written by Jane Austen
Original hand written scores by Bach, Mozart and Beethoven
It was all pretty incredible. The classical music alone had me blown away. I can't believe both the British Library AND the British Museum are within walking distance of my apartment. I am an in a nerdy girl's paradise.

In that same vein, I had some more archaeology orientations yesterday. I went on tours of the Institute of Archaeology, the Archaeological Library,and UCL's Petrie Museum, which is comprised of over 80,000 Egyptian artifacts (all of which were excavated by Sir Flinders Petrie, who is considered the father of Egyptology). The museum was pretty cool; it featured the oldest dress in the world (made of linen, it is over 6,000 years old).

And to finish off the day, the new archaeology students were invited to a welcome party on the top floor of the Institute. The party had free beer (in enormous cans) and wine. I sipped a Stella and mingled with my classmates and professors. I met kids my age from all over the place, including Finland, Denmark, France, Australia, and Japan. Whenever I told someone my home institution was in NYC, they were always very impressed.
"Ooooh, New York!" one girl answered. "That must be amazing!"
"Yeah it's not bad," I would reply casually, ever the bad ass. "It's pretty sweet."
It was a little weird drinking a giant beer with my colleagues at six o'clock in the afternoon, but I guess that's how they do it over here. Either way, I had a nice happy buzz as I walked through campus later that evening on my way home.

These are a Few of My Favorite Things

Yesterday was Saturday, and my roommates went to go see a matinee production of The Sound of Music. The tickets were too pricey for me, and I've already seen the movie a million times, so I begged off. So that left me on my own in London for the first time, with a Saturday afternoon to myself. What did I do with my time? I went to the British Museum.

The British Museum has some of the most amazing archaeological treasures in the world. The museum has collections from almost every culture in almost every time period, from the classical Greeks and Romans to the ancient Celts to twentieth century France. Their collection of Egyptian antiquities alone is mind-blowing; they even have the Rosetta stone. I wandered around dazedly amongst the Asian tourists, pausing to stare at this and stare at that. I had already been to the Museum before (in April), so I was free to look at collections that I wanted to look at, and at my own pace.

Here are some of the things that I thought were really cool:
Lindlow Man: the body of a man who had died over 2,000 years ago; he had been sacrificed to the Druids and his body was found, remarkably preserved, in a peat bog. Creepy but cool.
The Queen of the Night: A beautiful stone relief of an unknown Babylonian goddess (or demoness).
Balawat Gates: Reconstruction of a giant set of gates from an Assyrian fortress.

Basically, I gorged myself on amazing artifacts until I developed a headache. Maybe it was the information overload or the crush of tourists, but I left the museum exhausted after four heady hours, and walked the fifteen minutes back to my apartment (Can you believe it's so close??).

My first Saturday night here in London involved going out with my roommates for pizza, and then heading to the local pub. Pizza and beer after a long day at the museum- you can't beat that. God bless Americans.

A Date with the Queen

Last night my roommates and I got all dolled up to try to get student rush tickets for Macbeth. It sounded like an awesome show; Patrick Stewart (for all you nerds out there, he's from Star Trek) was starring as Macbeth, and he got excellent reviews. Unfortunately, my roommates and I got stuck in the unreliable tube station, which basically shut down as we were waiting for a train to Picadilly Circus. We realized we were never going to catch the play in time. So we walked out of the tube into a park area near Buckingham Palace.
"Let's go say hello to the Queen," one roommate decided, and dressed in our classy theater clothes, we walked through the park and towards the palace.
We got there about ten minutes later. It was twilight, and the palace was devoid of the normal crush of tourists. The flag was flying high on the roof; the Queen was staying at Buckingham.
"Ooooh, she's here!" we exclaimed delightedly, clapping our hands and jumping up and down like idiots. "Which room do you think she's in?"
We sat on some steps that was part of a huge memorial to Queen Victoria, and stared at the palace for about forty-five minutes, wondering what it must be like to be queen. We decided you must have huge closets, awesome bathrooms, and posh (cool) clothes. Oh, and all the chocolate you could eat.

Then we decided to walk to Picadilly Circus. On the way we walked by St. James Palace, where Harry, William, and Prince Charles live. We stopped and pressed our faces against the wrought-iron gates, staring hungrily at the palace. I was praying to catch a glimpse of Wills walking by an open window wearing nothing but his boxers, but alas, it did not happen. We moved on.

Picadilly Circus is basically like the Times Square of London. It's brightly lit and swarming with tourists and theaters and shops. At this point we had been walking for two miles in our heels, so we hobbled into a coffee and shop and got some drinks. Looking out the window of the coffee shop, we saw that we were right across the street from the Macbeth theater. Sigh. So close, but so far. Both my roommates are English majors, so we launched into an awesome discussion about Shakespeare. How cool is that- talking about Shakespeare in London right across from a Macbeth production.

So we ended the night by going to a Burger King in Picadilly Circus. French fries were desperately needed after that long, foot shattering walk. Hey, you can take the girl out of America, but you can't take the America out of the girl.

Archaeology and Guinness

Yesterday I went to the first (of what promises to be many) archaeology orientations. UCL has an entire school devoted to archaeology; it's called the Institute of Archaeology. It even has its own library and Egyptian antiquities museum! All of the overseas students got together and had an informal tea and socializing session, which proved to be rather awkward. More often than not, I would ask a fellow student a question, and receive a barely discernable answer.
Example:
Me: "So what type of archaeology are you studying?"
Random person: "O I thinkiim gona mumble mumble....erm...."
Me: ???
But everyone seemed nice, and if they're interested in archaeology they have to be cool, right? Right.

So I signed up for my classes. I'm taking:
The Archaeology of Ancient Egypt
The Archaeology of Roman and Medieval London
The Archaeology of Near East, 2000-300 BC (this course talks about the Babylonians, Assyrians, etc)
Cognitive Evolution and Early Technology (this course is about how one can explain the rise of the cognitive mind in homonids based on early archaeological evidence)
Don't those classes sound awesome? I plan on nerding out big time. Plus, almost all of my classes (except for the cognitive one) involve museum visits. Yummy.

Speaking of yummy, my girl roommates and I went to a pub for the first time last night. We went to the Jeremy Bentham, which is right near UCL and is marked with a big wooden sign in the shape of Jeremy Bentham's head (He kind of looks like Ben Franklin). Everyone was standing outside the pub, but there were only a few people inside and sitting down. Strange. We grabbed a corner table. I started out by bravely ordering a Guinness. The other girls balked at my drink. "Do you have any girly beers?" they plaintively asked the bartender (and clearly making us look like clueless Americans). They got some beer called Hoegaarden.

My Guinness was in a huge glass, and it was black and opaque. The head at the top was more the consistency of cream than foam. I stared at, and it stared back. An hour later, I had only finished half of it. It was thick and it tasted good at first, but after a while it was too filling, and it left a bitter after taste in my mouth. I couldn't understand why I couldn't finish it. My grandparents knock back Guinness regularly, and my Dad even said it tastes like a chocolate shake. It doesn't. It's like a whole loaf of bread in a glass. Blehhhhh.

The barmaid cleared up my half-full glass. "You're not going to finish this?" she asked me incredulously. I smiled. "No, I'm done."
She didn't smile back. "You're really not going to finish this?"
"Sorry," I replied, embarrassed.
She took the glasses back to the bar, and the bartender looked over at me three times in the course of thirty seconds, giving me a look that read 'You're wasting a Guinness?'
Ouch. Apparently I had offended some people. I got the hell out of the pub.

My roommate and I are throwing around plans about going to Dublin next week. Will it happen? Stay tuned...

Coolest Apartment/Flat Ever

So I moved into my flat yesterday. It's on North Gower street, about a five minute walk from campus and a minute away from the Euston Street tube (subway) stop. It's in central London, and grocery stores, restaurants, and pubs are all short walk away. It's a pretty cool locale.

Our apartment itself is brand new. It has a kitchen/common room, and three double bedrooms. Each double has it's own bathroom. The bedrooms are pretty big too. I live with three other girls and two boys; they're all American. The girls are all very sweet (huge relief- I hate cattiness), but I don't know the boys that well yet. At least they have their own bathroom- I'm spared from boy grunginess.

I'm glad to be living with a bunch of American kids; besides my flat, there are two more flats with American kids in them in this building. Living with other Americans helps deter homesickness, which is a huge relief. We've been navigating the city together. Basically, when it comes to living arrangements, I've lucked out!

One story, and then I'll go....
Yesterday a girl came over to hang out with me and my roommates, and around 11:00 pm she had to go back to her dorm. Her dorm was about twenty minutes away, and it was too dark for her walk home. 'How should I get home?' she asked. 'I don't know how to catch a cab.'
'Oh man, me neither,' said my two roommates.
Enter New York Girl.
'I can do it!' I declared. We walked out unto the main street, and I hailed a cab like a pro. The other girls, all from the South, were really impressed, and I felt like a Bad Ass.
'I could never do that,' they said enviously. 'I'd be too scared.'
Yeah, Annie can handle it.

Orientation Situation

So the past two days have been all about getting used to this country. In case I didn't mention it before, I was in a group of about 80 American study abroad kids; we were all staying at the St. Giles Hotel near Heathrow airport. For yesterday and most of today, we went from lecture to lecture, learning about various aspects of London culture. We learned about Londoners in general, safety in the city, academics in the UK, and about UCL (my new school).

Here are some of the things I learned:
About Londoners: They usually wear black or gray clothes because the weather is so depressing. They are a quiet, shy group of people, and they can be easily embarrassed. Once you embarrass a Brit, they won't be friends with you again. They believe Americans on the whole are too loud and bossy.
About safety: Britain was described repeatedly as a nation full or 'petty thieves'. I have to be careful I am not pickpocketed.
Academics in the UK: The professor doesn't lead you by the hand; you have to do alot of outside work. I'm ready for the challenge.
About UCL: UCL was the third university organized in England (after Oxford and Cambridge) and it was the first university that had no religious affiliation. The founder and premier philosopher of the school was a man named Jeremy Bentham. When he died, he gave his body to the university to be mummified. His body, dressed in his favorite clothes, still sits in the university library (although his head is made of wax; his real one fell off). I actually saw Jeremy today, and I found it sort of disturbing. All of the UCL orientation leaders I met felt compelled to bring up Mr. Bentham; they found it to be really funny.

Some of my own observations:
On the whole, the Brits seem to be very friendly.
Food is not so great; today I was given a free sandwich that had tuna fish, whole corn kernels and mayo in it...bleeaaaargh
Weather is pretty gray and it sprinkles occasionally from time to time
Everything is expensive.

Next post, I'll fill you in on my living situation. Until next time....

Finally in London

So I'm finally here! I got in last night at 7:30 pm London time, and met up with my mom's friend Peter to stay the night at his apartment (or flat).

Orientation was supposed to start at the St. Giles hotel near Heathrow, so I headed out there this morning, taking a train from the Waterloo train station. I got to the hotel, and the orientation director gave me a packet of information. He told me that today had no scheduled activities; it was just a day to sleep. I went to my little hotel room and met my roommate, who promptly passed out on the bed (she had flown a red-eye). No one was around; I decided to head back into central London.

I got epically lost looking for Peter's apartment, but I found after about an hour (this was disconcerting for me; I never get lost).

I move into my apartment on Wednesday; I'm going to be living with other American students in a place on Gower street, which is right next to the British Museum and 5 blocks away from campus. I hope my roommates are cool.

I'm rather sleepy and disoriented, but I'm doing okay. A little homesick, but hopefully I'll be keeping busy. I'll be sure to keep you all updated!

Getting Ready To Go

I leave for London tomorrow. My flight leaves Logan around 8:30 am, which means I have to wake up at the ungodly hour of 4:30 am. I get into Heathrow around 8:00 pm British time, so I'm basically in the air all day. I'm flying British Airways; I only hope the food is good (No blood pudding at 25,000 ft, thank you).

I'm actually pretty nervous about all of this; my stomach has had butterflies all week, and I've been plagued with ridiculous dreams involving orientation, classes, London etc. Last night I had a dream in which my new British classmates all ended up being werewolves (aaaahooooo! werewolves in London). Hopefully in reality the culture shock will not be that extreme.

I've packed my life into two big suitcases; one is filled with clothes, the other with shoes and other necessities. I hope I have packed everything I'm going to need over there. Aside from orientation on Monday, I have no idea what lies ahead of me. I'm flying by the seat of my pants.

Stay tuned, readers, for next time I update this blog, it will be from the other side of the pond.

A Blog is Born

Oy vey. I'm gearing up to go to England in a few days, and everybody wants to know what I'll be up to over there (besides tracking down Prince William). Well, this is the solution: Annie's British Blog. I figure this is better than mass emails clogging up your mail boxes, or ridiculous phone bills. I promise to update this regularly and fill you in about all my English Adventures. Right now nothing spectacular is happening in my world except for packing, but I'm sure thing will get more interesting when I cross the pond. So, Onward and Upward, or as the brits like to say: Tally Ho!