Stupid Moments

Last I left you I was arriving in London - now there's only five days left until we leave for Germany.  Seeing as how Katie brought Julia and me free cupcakes from the Sunday UpMarket and now it's 2am, I don't see me making a ton of progress but I'll do my best.

Katie and I arrived on Thursday, technically a day early.  Our apartment building is a two-year old highrise near White Chapel and Spitalfields - prime killing grounds for Jack-the-Ripper (a tour we decided to make a prioritysince it is relevant to the area).  The building is very modern and highly secure with sterile halls and rooms.  The best thing about the room is the huge window, along with a grated window that can open.  The worst thing about the room: the very flat pillow.

 The amazing view from my room.

Thursday evening I had dinner with a girl I new from the costume shop and two guys I was less familiar with but have come to like quite a bit.  That's another thing that is great about this trip: there are people I don't normally get to interact with.  The group is made up of two fashion/apparel students; six costume oriented students, one of which is actually a music student with a stunning operatic voice; two theatre history/theatre education PhDs; one MFA actor; and three theatre undergraduates, two of which are acting focus.  I wrote all of that out more to see if I could than for your interest, I'm sure...

One thing that's been interesting to see evolve is the groups in which people congregate.  At first people new to London or just generally not confident to navigate on their own, kept with those who were more confident.  This resulted in relatively large groups traveling together which is highly difficult and annoying.  As time has gone on and people have become more confident in traveling and in their knowledge of the city, the groups have become smaller and more mingling is happening.

All that to say, the first official day of the trip, Friday, we had very little scheduled, so the six costumers headed out a little.  We killed some time at the neighboring cafe, the Tinderbox.

 

(From left to right) Sarah, Julia, Kate, Molly, and Alycia is next to me and out of the line of fire.

Sarah was telling us a good story and I happening to capture their faces at the perfect moment.

Then we had a couple meetings and a brief local area tour (which left out that Diagon Alley is literally the next block over!) after which we ate at one of the many pubs in the area.

Katie, Julia, Molly enjoying their beverage.

 Sarah and I with what we think are non-alcoholic drinks.  It turns out "soft drink" can be loosely interpreted as many types of drinks, and at this pub means "still alcoholic even though not listed with other alcohols"  Needless to say, I asked for a different drink pretty quick.

Not your typical looking pub food - a vegetable tart.

While being rowdy I looked over and saw a couple trying to have a romantic evening.  So sorry, guys!

Really, REALLY happy for banoffee and sticky toffee puddings (which we shared to cut calories...)

Saturday is when things really started (more or less).  We still hadn't officially been introduced to or learned the names of the people in the group we didn't know before hand, but a group meal and a city bus tour were on the schedule for the day.  Brunch was in Spitalfields Market.  I was really looking forward to pancakes and was extremely disappointed to find nothing of the sort on the menu.  Once I got over that (it took a few sulky minutes) I decided that "bacon, fried eggs and bubble and squeak" sounded promising.  They way it was described to us made it sound like a breakfast burrito and if you know me you know that I am ALWAYS in the mood for a burrito.  Needless to say it was nothing like a burrito.  It was, however, delicious.

Bacon, Fried Egg and Bubble and Squeak. The bubble and squeak is a potato base with some greens mixed in (it's been a long two weeks, so I don't remember the specifics...)

With some time before our bus tour, we surveyed Spitalfields Market.

 Treasures, and a view of the daily vendors.

The Wool Exchange!  This area has been populated by silk weavers and other dealers in fabric for a long time.  There are still tons of fabric stores reminiscent of the fabric districts of LA or New York.

 So excited to venture out of the Spitalfields area!

 View of the Tower, Tower Bridge, and the ... Mayor's Offices?  I think that's right.  It was obviously a beautiful day.

 Our guide, Hugh, explaining about the recent expansion of the South Bank.

We got stuck in traffic, so I started taking pictures of people with interesting and bizarre fashions as well as playing with my camera settings.  This is my favorite picture of the bunch.

 Waterloo Hospital for Children and Women.

 Fun architecture.

When we finally alighted the bus there was the incident of the public toilet which may or may not have involved a few of us climbing over the pay-barriers because we'd left our wallets on the bus... It wasn't actually that bad, but it's a confusing story better told in person.

I thoroughly enjoyed these birthday balloons posted in a posh neighborhood nest to Westminster Abbey.

We were able to walk around Westminster and Parliament, which was a blast - I really like both of these buildings a lot.

After our tour I took a nap and really thought I wouldn't do anything, but a friend knocked on my door and inspired me to try for a show.  I was almost certain we wouldn't make it in time, but after the incident of calling the theatre by the wrong name and insisting I was right, we got student rush tickets for 10 pounds, walked into the theatre and the show started immediately. 

(the "incident" actually was as follows:

Me: Hi - do you happen to have any student rush tickets for the performance of... er... I forgot the name of the show (seriously?) but it's in the Lyceum Theatre.

Ticket Guy: (concerned that I'm at the wrong theatre five minutes before curtain) This is the National Theatre, not the Lyceum.

Me: I know, but the National is comprised of three theatres...?

TG: Yes, but they are the Olivier, Lyttleton, and Cottesloe

Me: Oh! Lyttleton! It's the Lyttleton!  *laughing* Sorry, I'm American (I really said that, folks. For real. *facepalm*)

TG: *luckily, laughing back in a with me sort of way rather than at me*  Okay, so you're here to see "Travelling Light?" You have to go to the other ticket window for that.

I really liked the story and the production value at the National is always high.  Set in Russia in the late 19th, early 20th century, it was a charming love letter to the early years of film.

Afterwards we wandered over to Le Pain Quotidien - a little French cafe for a post show bite.  I got the Caribbean Veggie soup, which came with some delicious bread.

The cafe is under what was once an old part of a bridge.

Okay, it's 4:30am and I now know when it starts getting light.  I guess I'll just have to stop there for now.

The post you've all been waiting for...

... an update from London!

Just a forewarning that this is going to be a long post, as so much happens every single day, and it has been 12 days since I left (we'll see how far I can get tonight).  It's really quite amazing what we've done so far.  There will also be plenty of photos, but I'm creating a shutterfly account where all the pictures will be posted (there are also a sprinkling on facebook, but that's mainly to tag people)

Where better to start than from the beginning.

 
The flight out was fairly tumultuous.  My flight from Chicago was delayed almost two hours, so I missed my connecting bus from Heathrow to Gatwick airport and therefore had the flight re-routed through Heathrow (which makes the most sense anyway...).  Then I took the most round-about way of getting the train out to Balloch.  When all is said and done, I only arrived about an hour late, but it was a special time.  I've never had a problem with flying, so it really threw me, but it was a good learning experience.

Nevertheless, it was such a thrill to arrive at the Woodvale bed and Breakfast - which I highly recommend to anyone looking to stay in the Balloch area of Scotland - and  see Katie's lovely face.  The B&B was a small, four-room establishment, decorated -in an honesty non-kitschy way - with thistles.  We had a two-bedder with sloping ceilings.  It was very peaceful and lovely house.

 Katie in her corner.

 Dining room.

That night we ate dinner at a local restaurant where I tried haggis for the first time!

Photo courtesy Katie Cowan.

I wasn't sure what I thought at first: it has a very specific texture, but ultimately I decided that I like it.  We also began this night the tradition of eating as much different sticky toffee pudding as possible.

The following day began with a full Scottish breakfast.  The B&B owner, Allie, was just a DOLL.  Katie found it wonderfully charming that the Scots actually say "wee" and "lass."  It was a great start to the morning, followed by a lovely walk along Loch Lomond and around Balloch castle.  I had never before heard the song Loch Lomond, so Katie played it for me.

 The Loch

The Castle - not open for tours but the trails lead right up to and around it.  The grounds are obviously gorgeous to walk through

 Some lovely flowers and other colors around the Castle

Now, for those of wondering "why Balloch?" I will explain.  Katie's family is from the area and she wanted to spend a few days before the program started going around and seeing the land of her ancestors.  She asked if anyone would be interested in joining her and I jumped at the opportunity.

Following our walk we parted ways: Katie going up to her family's home/area and me going down to Glasgow - about a 40 minute train ride - to see my friend, Alex, from Pepperdine. 

 

Alex is an actor who has been living in the UK since he came to London/Edinburgh with Pepperdine in 2008.  He just decided he would stay and work and he did.  The only way Alex can stay after the coming December, however, is by getting married so we'll see what happens...

Alex and I had lunch and saw a show in the converted cathedral, Oran Mor.

 Downstairs is a bar and theatre space

Upstairs is covered with murals painted by a local artist.  I think the intention was to open a gallery up here, but it hasn't quite happened yet.  Nevertheless, the murals are beautiful.

From the Oran Mor, Alex gave a me a great tour of Glasgow in our brief time together.  He showed my the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow University, the Kelvingrove Art Museum which had some fantastic costume pieces including period suit coats made from tartan! and we went on a hunt for the missing arm of a statue painted in one of the murals in the Cathedral.

 William Hunter: Collector, Midwife, Superstar.  Seriously, folks.  This made my day.

 View of Glasgow from the University.  Just before I fell and split my knee open, bleeding all over the city before finding a band-aid.

 18th and 19th century Tartan suit coats!

The tumultuous story of the Warrior's Arm, featured in the mural upstairs at Oran Mor

 The statue in mural and actual form

Back in Balloch I had fish and chips with some questionable sauces.  However, our meal was remedied by the sticky ginger toffee pudding and banoffee pie from a local pub.  We came to the realization that we probably shouldn't eat toffee pudding every night, but for now we were on pre-vacation vacation.

The following morning we left Balloch for London!  One the train I typed up my first blog post for IU's blog, I to U.  Read it here.

 Pretty views from the train to London.

Well, I was hoping to get further than that, but alas, it is 1:30 am and I have to be up to tour the Tower of London tomorrow morning!

and Ben too!

Hi everyone.  While Barbara's in London she will be continuing to post blogs about her amazing adventures.  Meanwhile, I'm going to drop a note or two about some of my goings-on while she's gone.

First, on Monday I drove Barbara up to O'Hare Airport in Chicago.  It's about a four or five hour drive, but it was significantly cheaper to fly out of Chicago.  Also, I was happy to take a day off and spend some time with Babs before she left.  The drive up was nice and in fact it was the first time we've driven to Chicago in the day time.  We were early enough, so we went to our favorite place to eat in Chicago (so far), Orange with a Peel.  As always (we've only been once before, but I say "always" because we plan to go as often as we can) we enjoyed the pancake flights, the frushi, and delicious savory sandwich.

The pancakes were different flavors from the last time we had them.  Unfortunately, we didn't document which flavors they were...

The frushi was also different.  There was watermelon and I believe a blackberry with strawberry.  The sauce is strawberry.

 This was an egg, bacon, and spinach sandwich with a fruit spread.  Barbara liked it better than the caprese we had last time, but I think I preferred the caprese.

We got to the airport, and said goodbye before Barbara went through security.  I then spent the next 24 hours worrying until I heard from her that she'd arrived and was ok, and I was able to unclench.

It's been strange here with Babs gone, but work just sort of marches on.  We've got two weeks before school gets out and I can hop on a plane to go join her.  I'm so looking forward to that, in no small part because the kids are getting more and more out of control as the end of the year nears.  There are many more fights, etc. that I've got to jump in and break up, it's exhausting.

On Saturday, Reynolds (Julia's fiancee) and I went up to Jeff's (Katie's fiancee) house for some fun guy time while the ladies are off doing London-y things.  Jeff had heard that I'd had a rough week at school, so he suggested we "shoot things and burn things" which was really perfect.  Jeff has some guns, and a big enough piece of property that he can shoot on.  Actually Jeff has a really beautiful house and property, and we always love going up to visit.  We had a great time target shooting with handguns, rifles and a shotgun.  I don't recall if I've really gone "shootin'" since I got my rifle shooting merit badge (you read that right) and it was a blast.  What is it about shooting a gun, especially the higher caliber guns, that's so satisfying?

Loading the 22 rifle.  We spent much of the time zeroing in the scope.  I'm proud to say that despite it being years, I got pretty good groupings.

Jeff, with that wonderful adolescent smile we all get when playing with big boy toys.

Jeff in action.

Checking out the damage to one of these cool metal targets Jeff has.  As you can see, they swing, so even from very far away you can tell when you hit it.

The arsenal.  Not pictured: the shotgun.

We also raided the recycling to set up some other targets.

Reynolds in action.  

We started kind of late and basically went until it got too dark.

This was a really fun one to shoot.  It was lever action and had one heck of a kick.  It made me feel like I was in a western.

Once it got too dark to shoot, we retired to the fire.  We roasted hot dogs (pretty much the only way to eat them) and sat around and visited for hours.  Finally we said goodnight (long after we would have been made to go home if our responsible partners were around) and headed home.  All 'round, it was a successful guy's night that we may do again soon.

Reynolds and Jeff roasting hotdogs.