Kate's Trip to London, Part 1: Hampton Court Palace

My best friend, Kate, came to visit in March for a week!  It was so much fun having her here.  We were quite cozy in my little, tiny dorm room.  But I loved spending every minute with her.

One of our first big outings was going to Hampton Court Palace, a half hour outside of the city by train west on the Thames.  Half the palace was home to King Henry the VIII.  The other half to William and Mary.

Entrance to the Tudor part of the palace

View of the Baroque of palace from one of the many gardens

We picked the perfect time of year to visit becaues the daffodils and the cherry blossoms were out!

Kate!

One of the coolest parts of the palace was the hedge maze.  Kate and I got a bit lost though and had to follow a couple of 7 year olds out!

One of the cool gardens.  There were several of them with crazy shaped hedges all over.  I'm very impressed with the English gardens.

A different side of the palace

Stay tunes for more photos from Kate's Visit!

A few randoms

Here are a few photos from the winter that I thought were worth sharing.  There is no theme with these, completely random.

As many of you know, I had trouble getting out of London for the holidays.  This was due to the small snowstorm that rolled through the UK and Europe in December.  I thought Seattle was bad with dealing with snow, London is far worse.  This departure board was from my second attempt at getting out of Heathrow.  Unfortunately it took a third attempt before I got out of the country.

These are a couple of my closest friends in London.  Nina on the left and Carrie on the right.  We generally go out and explore the night life together.

This is a Chihuly piece in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The British Museum which should really be called the Stolen Antiquities Museum. (See below)

Part of the apex of the Parthenon (stolen from Greece).

A totem pole from British Columbia. (I think this one was actually donated).

Mummy (stolen from Egypt)

Helmet (stolen from Iran)

Southwark at Night

My friend Vera (from Austria but studying in Dublin) came to visit for a couple of days in February.  We went to Camden Market, Burough Market, Brick Lane Market and went around to a ton of sights in the city. 
It was great having her visit because I hadn't seen since she was in Seattle a couple of years ago.  Hopefully I can visit her in Vienna sometime this summer!

Vera and I trying on some uber-cool shades in Camden

A great walk we did was along the south side of the Thames, beginning at Tower Bridge.  We walked west along the river through Southwark to the London Eye.  Here are a few of my favorite photos.

This is looking east from about Waterloo bridge.  You can see St. Pauls and the Gherkin.

St. Paul's.  My favorite building in London!

Same view as the first, just after a shopping break.  The lights on the river are really cool.

The London Eye (Lit up red for Valentine's Day), Parliament and Big Ben.

Greenwich

Some months ago (seven to be precise) some friends from school and I took a boat trip to Greenwich.  It was beautiful, even though the weather was a bit overcast.  I live in the easter part of central london and never get to see grass or trees, so being in Greenwich was like being on a nature preserve.

This is a view of Tower Bridge from our clipper ride down the Thames

A large portion of Greenwich is occupied by the Naval College.  Most of the buidling were designed by Christopher Wren (the guy responsible for St. Paul's Catherdral).  I never get tired of looking at his architecture.

This is the huge park behind the college.  At the top of the hill is the Royal Observatory which is most famous for marking the Prime Meridian.

This is the view from the top of the hill.   The buildings in the background there are Canary Wharf.  On a clear day you can see central London in the far left.

This is me excited to see trees and grass!

This silver-arty thing is what marks the Prime Meridian.

And there I am standing on it!

We were lucky to come to Greenwich when we did (in November) because they began charging a 15 quid entrance to go in.  The museum itself houses a bunch of really clocks, but not worth the entrance fee.

See later posts for a sunny view of Greenwich!

Roller Disco

Today being the last day of classes for the term, some of us PGEU students (PGEU=Politics and Government of the European Union) of course wanted to celebrate being free.  In a more southern part of central London, by the Vauxhall tube stop, there is a roller disco.  That's right, I said roller disco.  And at least on Thursday nights it is awesome!  The entrance fee is only 5 quid and it includes roller skates and wrist guards.

I haven't roller skated since elementary school parties at Skate King.  It's kind of like riding a bicycle though.  The only scary part was remembering how to stop.

All in all, we had a great time and I hope we go again!

Christmas treats!

Tonight, my department had a little holiday get together.  It's really put me in the Christmas spirit!(particularly while I sit here blogging to Christmas music with snow falling outside.)
There were two traditional British things I tried for the first time tonight:

Mulled Wine
So yummy! This is the alcoholic's answer to spiced cider.  The difference between spiced cider and apple juice is like that of mulled wine to regular red wine.  It just tastes like the holidays.  I love it!  And I plan to attempt to brew some of my own when I go home for Christmas!  (in just a couple of weeks!)

Minced Pies
I am not particularly a fan of these little pastries.  They are little pies, with very rich crust, filled with spiced (and perhaps rum soaked) raisins and maybe currants too.  In theory this would tasty, however I'm not much a fan of raisins.

If you have the opportunity, I would definitely recommend having a glass of Mulled Wine.  And for the raisin fan, a Minced Pie.

On Friday, once I turn in my last essay, I will blog about my trip to Greenwich!

What I'm up to

So it has been a very long time since my last post...I do apologize and will try to be better about keeping you updated.

The truth is though, since school has picked up, I haven't done anything that is really blog worthy.

Halloween

Halloween is not as big of a deal here as it is in the US, you can't find good candy in the store, and kids don't go trick-or-treating.  That being said, young adults still dress up and go out, so I had to find a costume.  Myself and a few girls, plus one gentleman came up with the idea of being Jack the Ripper and his victims.  My dorm is on one of the stops for the Jack the Ripper tour, so it was an especially good idea.  Implementing it was a bit tricky though.  A trip to the Capitol Hill Value Village would have been perfect place to find horrible prom or bridesmaid dresses we could have altered to look more like mangled 19th century prostitutes.  The only second hand store we could find was pretty lame.  We ended up in Camden at a Gothic shop.  Our costumes look more like Madonna circa 1983 though than 1883 London.

This is Jacob aka Jack 

Here are Nina, Myself, and Despina, aka the victims (notice our bloody throats).

One of the more interesting costumes of the night!

(I have no idea who was in it though)

School

Things at school have become very busy.  I have either an essay to write or a presentation to give every week until I come home for Christmas.  All of the things I'm reading and writing about are very interesting, but because they are assigned, it makes them tedious to do.

One cool thing to note about school is I discovered the study room for my department.  Because there is only one library at school, it gets really full and difficult to find a place to work.  The study room has hardly any people in it and has super comfy chairs with large desks.  The best part is that we can eat and drink in there.  We have to leave the library if we need to eat a snack...very annoying.  Sometimes I find myself alone and I crank up the tunes while I work on my essays.

Other London Things

Yesterday was the Mayor of London Day.  There was a big parade and fireworks show pretty close to my dorm.  The reason though, that I was out and about and discovered this was because St. Paul's Cathedral was free all day and they had free performances of Peter and the Wolf.  The organ was very cool and it was fun to see and hear all of the British children.  The novelty of adult English accents has kind of worn off.  Kids however are still super cute!

Today was Remembrance Day Sunday.  By Trafalgar Square, there is a big procession with the royal armed forces and the Queen, along with other VIP's lay wreaths around a war memorial in honor of Veteran's Day (Remembrance Day in British English).  Unfortunately  I did not get there early enough to find a good place to stand.  There were about 5 rows of people in front of me, with most people much taller than I.  All I could see of the whole event was the tops of the black bear hats the guards wear.  I was though probably within 200 yards of the Queen.  Unfortunately no photos to show.

Domestic Stuff

Most of you know that I really like to cook and bake.  It has been challenging to do so though in my dorm, with my limited resources in terms of kitchen supplies.  I did attempt to make my mom's famous oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.  Despite vanilla flavoring instead of extract and butter instead of Crisco, they actually turned out alright, not quite like mom's but close.

Notice, my mixing bowl was a big pot and the absence of an electric mixer.

I got a workout in mixing them by hand with a wooden spoon. 

I hate my oven a little bit, but they turned out alright!

A couple of months ago, I promised to post pictures of my room once it was decorated and clean.  It feels more like home, or at least my home away from home.  Well, here you go...(I cleaned really well one day, in order to put off essay writing.)

 It's got a little bit more personality and color than the before photos.

 Some cool decals I found at a store. 

The best I could do with such a large white wall I was not allowed to paint.

Next week's agenda:  A trip to Greenwich!