It has been
Relative to Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were relatively quiet. Highlights included cooking Stuffed Green Peppers and Teriyaki chicken on consecutive nights and general relaxation in the city.
Friday morning brought my first day of work researching in the British Library. After waking up at a reasonable hour, I walked the half-mile north to the library. Inside the library building, I went downstairs to their locker room, where I dropped off my coat and bag, as these are not allowed inside of the readings rooms. They provide large, clear plastic bags (so that you can’t sneak any books out), so I put my notebook, computer, and pencil (they don’t allow pens) into the bag and went upstairs to the reading. It is a relatively recent building, so all of the stairs are not in the same area and I had to wander to the back of the building and through the cafeteria.
Finally, though, I found the Humanities Reading Room. I entered through large wooden doors and showed my reader pass to the security guards inside. The reading room itself is a large, open room with green carpet, light wood, and relatively dim lights, as the majority of the light comes from the opaque skylight and the lamps on the individual work desks. A large collection of leather-bound books sits on bookshelves that ring the room. Long rows of individual desks run along the floor.
I went to the main desk to pick up my book, but they told me to first find a desk, as they require the number on your desk for their records when they give you your books. After finding a desk, I returned and acquired my book, a general reference book about expatriate modernism and Hemingway, and spent the next couple of hours going through the book as one normally does when doing research.
When done working for the day, I returned to the flats for a quiet afternoon and then went out to dinner with some friends. We went to the Lucas Arms, a pub just north and west of the flats. Conveniently, I had seen it on my way up to the library earlier in the day. It was a nice pub with plenty of tables for a meal, which can be difficult to find. Their prices were pretty reasonable, although not as good as some of the burger and a beer deals that I have seen advertised. The pub was big, two rooms, and a bit more commercial than some others, but it was a good fit dinner on a Friday night.
After dinner, we went back to the flats, and a few of us decided that it would be a beautiful, frigid January night for a walk down by the river. We walked down Farringdon and turned at Queen Victoria Street unsure of where to cross the river. At the City of London School, we walked past the very modern Salvation Army building and saw what we quickly realized was the Millennium Bridge. To confirm the identity of this bridge, I turned around and, sure enough, saw the massive dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral behind me. As we crossed the bridge, we took a few pictures of the river Thames and the Cathedral; I won’t post any, though, because they didn’t really turn out.
On the other side of the river, we walked from the Tate Modern museum east toward Tower Bridge. There are many winding street and paths along the river, so we followed these, always staying within about a block of the water. We saw a number of nice, large pubs that looked fairly expensive. At London Bridge – the replacement, not the one that is now the second largest tourist attraction in Arizona, after the Grand Canyon – we found restaurants built into the arches of the bridge over the land, a creative idea that added to the liveliness of the riverfront area.
Continuing on, we made it as far as the ultra-modern London city hall, a steel and glass complex of three or four buildings, the main building of which looks like a narrow AT&T logo that leans to one side. From the city hall plaza, which sits directly across the river from the Tower of London fort, we took our closest pictures of the night of Tower Bridge, perhaps the most internationally recognizable of London’s many bridges.
Tower Bridge at Night
On Saturday morning, I slept in before going to the British Museum with Hal, Tim, and Kyla in the afternoon. A surprisingly short distance from our flats, the museum is a massive, rectangular stone complex with a large central courtyard. Since 2000, a steel and glass roof, which seems to emanate from the former British Library circular reading room, has covered the courtyard.
The Enclosed Courtyard of The British Museum
In particular, I appreciated the organization of the museum, which grouped the artifacts first by culture or geographic location and then by time period and the simply displayed the artifacts in the appropriately labeled room, very much like an art museum. The Museum of American History could learn a very good lesson from the British Museum, as I found the approach of simply displaying artifacts by time and place vastly superior to the more difficult to navigate exhibits approach that perhaps group the items by type, such as first lady inaugural dresses, and limits the available artifacts to those that fit the current exhibits. This open display approach is far more conducive to exploring and absorbing the history.
Also notable is their “A History of the World in 100 Objects” program, which has labeled one hundred objects throughout the museum as particularly representative of moments in history. You can see a banner advertising this program in on the right side of the picture of the courtyard above. I saw a few of these objects, such as the Rosetta Stone, on Saturday, and my goal is to see all one hundred of them while I am here.
Following our busy afternoon exploring the museum, we went out on Saturday night to attempt to purchase rush tickets for The Lion King, but the show was sold out, and we quickly discovered that every other show that we could agree on having any interest in seeing had also sold out for the night. Not allowing us from enjoying an evening out, though, we stopped at the Hercules Pillars pub just north of Covent Garden on Great Queen Street. Like most pubs, it had dark wood and low lighting with relatively comfortable seating. A band was playing in the basement, but we stayed upstairs to talk and hang out. Interestingly, I discovered that their scotch whiskey was cheaper than the average pint of beer, three pounds, so I tried both J&B and Glenfiddich, the later of which had a very strong, immediate taste.
Sunday morning, I ventured across town to Westminster Cathedral, a Roman Catholic Cathedral that is a distinct entity from the Anglican Westminster Abbey, with Hal and Nick. The second Catholic Church built in England after the nineteenth century lifting of the ban on Catholicism, it is approximately one hundred years hold, with exterior architecture that combines a Byzantine, hierarchical domed feel with Victorian era architecture, in particular reminding me of the Victorian era hotel between King’s Cross Station and the British Library. On the inside, the floors are wooden, and the usual gold and marble decorations cover the first fifteen feet of wall space. Above that line, though, the cathedral feels unfinished, with a black brick ceiling and glass, not stained glass, on the windows. I suspect, although this merely conjecture, that they ran out of money before finishing the decorations, but, as I said, that is only a guess. The inside was also very cold, and I did not see any vents in the floor, suggesting that the church just barely predates such conveniences as interior heating.
As it happened, the 10:30 mass on Sunday mornings is their solemn mass, meaning that the cathedral’s, apparently, famous choir performed Latin chants of most of the prayers and mass parts. Only the priest’s welcome, the readings, the Gospel, the homily, a portion of the Eucharistic prayer, and the closing prayer, were in English. Just about everything else consisted of Latin chant, which, to the choir’s credit, was an excellent performance featuring very complex phrasing and harmony. That being said, as good as the music was, it also convinced me yet again that the Second Vatican Council was an excellent progressive moment for the Church. Having now listened through a mass mostly in Latin, particularly following a lifetime of experience with more engaging masses, I feel as though the Church would be having even greater issues maintaining interest and attendance.
After mass, I split off from Hal and Nick to return to the flats and, on my way, started another project: my own personal Big Mac Index. For those of you who don’t know, the magazine The Economist periodically releases a list of the relative prices of Big Macs across the world, providing a very simplified sense of current Purchasing Power Parity. They use the Big Mac because it is a good that the international company McDonalds produces fairly consistently throughout the world. Technically, this relates to exchange rates and should only vary with currency, but, even in the Euro Zone, I hope to make these observations in each country that I visit to develop my list of purchasing power parity data over the course of the semester. In this case, a Big Mac cost 2.49 pounds, which, on the day of the purchase, converts to $3.94. That doesn’t mean very much yet, as I have nothing to compare it to, but, hopefully, that will change as the semester continues.
I spent the remainder of Sunday afternoon and evening putting together my first research report for my independent study while anxiously awaiting…my 21st birthday!
However, as you may have noticed, that is a fairly anticlimactic birthday here in Britain, as I have been drinking legally here since the weekend that we arrived. As a result, there was no typical American rush to go out for the stroke of midnight. After a typical day of class, though, I joined some friends in Kamen House for an excellent taco dinner before we went out to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. We enjoyed the pub so much last time that I thought it would be a good place to go to celebrate. I did not mention after our last trip that, instead of serving brand name alcohol, they serve traditionally crafted versions, enhancing the old fashioned feel. As a result, their beer does not have a specific or defining taste, but instead tastes very much like…beer, just good, standard beer. Similarly, I also tried their blended scotch whiskey, and I found it much smoother with less of a wood taste than the two that I tried on Saturday, although it had an unusual bite as it hit the tongue. Also surprising, the scotch was, once again, cheaper than the beer. This is quickly becoming one my favorite pubs.
Me Outside of Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese
A Sign Listing All of the Ruling Monarchs
Since the Rebuilding of the Pub...in 1667
When I returned to my room, I found my flat mates hanging out with some friends before heading out for the evening, so I joined the group in the kitchen and they invited me to come along. They had heard about a bowling place nearly Piccadilly Circus with Monday night specials, so I joined the group for the adventure. At the bowling alley, which also included a large arcade, we bought the student special, which included a round of bowling and a round of bumper cars. A couple of friends offered to buy me a drink for my birthday, and the bartender poured me a very generous Jameson to close the night as bowling got underway. Surprisingly, I bowled well, with the exception of the eighth frame, and finished with strikes in the ninth and tenths frames followed by a spare on the two extra balls at the end for a 128, possibly my best bowling score ever. I’m already looking forward to golf.
Following a thoroughly enjoyable 21st birthday, my Tuesday included another evening of adventure. Our theater class play was attending a play in Richmond, which is twenty-five minutes from London by train. A few of us went into town early with our professor right after class. He showed us around town and then brought us to a pub that, though once very traditional, now sported a semi-Russian theme, including a sign advertising “Vodka and Food” out front. Fortunately, Tuesday night is their two for one night on pizza and they had a happy hour on draft beers until seven, so we had a very economical meal which became even more economical when our professor very generously paid for the food for our small group.
After dinner, the group split up for the hour until the show, and Michelle and I wandered the city. At some point, we took a wrong turn and walked a few blocks out of our way, but, fortunately, we managed to find our way back to the theater for show time. Entering The Orange Tree Theatre felt like walking into a house. We climbed a short set of stairs to the entrance and walked through the small, carpeted bar area into the theater. Very small and intimate, this theater in the round stage included only two rows of seats on all four sides and an additional balcony level with two more rows on each side.
The play, Once Bitten, is a recent translation by Reggie Oliver – a friend of our professor who spoke to us in class before we attended the performance – of a classic French farce about…well, the usual subjects of a farce: adultery and mistaken identity. With a phenomenally complex and well-layered plot, the play was absolutely hilarious. Adding to our experience were our front row seats, meaning that, because of the setup of the theatre, I could not stretch my legs out for fear of tripping the actors. Sitting so close, they easily interacted with us through eye contact and gestures throughout the performance. Overall, it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening and a hilarious show.
Well, at nearly twenty-eight hundred words, this post eclipses my last post by over eight hundred words. I congratulate those of you who have made it all the way through. I am also within one hundred words of ten thousand total words for all of the posts combined. That one fifth of a novel!
I am sorry for not posting more often, but Tuesday night was, once again, the best night for me to spend time writing this week. I hope that you enjoy the post and pictures, and I look forward to sharing more with you in the coming weeks.
Until next time,
Joel
Next time you're at a pub, try a Pimms! Very good in my (extensively limited) opinion.
ReplyDeleteI like your allusion to drinking and playing golf. Very subtle, good sir.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I like your reference to the audience at the end. :D