Life Goes On

Well, as Iceland continues to send ash our way and the skies remain clear for the fifth day in a row, life does go on here in London.

Last weekend, at the beginning of all of this, I was happily oblivious to the repercussions of a persistent ash cloud, and I had a lovely weekend enjoying the beautiful sunshine and exploring places I had yet to go.

On Friday, I took an hour-long train ride to Brighton, to visit my English professor Susie by the sea. Susie met me at the train station with her adorable puppy, who was apparently very happy to see me. Then Susie gave me an unofficial tour of Brighton, eventually leading me down to the famous Brighton Pier and the ocean! We walked on the beach (which is made up of pebbles, as opposed to sand) then got lunch at a fish shop on the boardwalk. It felt a lot like Seaside, Oregon to me, only larger. After Susie left me on my own, I went to the Pavilion which is a breath-taking palace built by King George III during the Regency Era. Unfortunately, you can't take pictures anywhere inside, but it was absolutely gorgeous!

Afterword, I explored the North Lanes, which is full of hip and trendy shops geared towards kids exactly like me, pretty much. Brighton is a town full of university students, mostly art students. After seeing about three shops full of adorable 50s-style dresses, I decided I have no self control and I must go in and try a dress on. I walked out the proud new owner of an awesome rockabilly dress. Shortly after, I left Brighton as that was the only guaranteed way to keep myself from spending all my money.

On Saturday, I went with Annie to Kew Gardens. It is ridiculously expensive to get in, but it's huge inside and there is so much to see. It's especially enjoyable on a gorgeous 60 degree day, as this day was. I took 195 pictures at Kew Gardens, and you can see every single one here, in my Facebook photo album!

I finished up the weekend on Sunday by visiting The Globe Theatre with Hannah, Katy, and Liz for a free day to celebrate Shakespeare's birthday (he's 500 something now). The place was teeming with people, mostly under the age of 10, but it was a blast. We watched some plays and skits taking place on the stage, then sat in on a "gentle introduction" to King Henry VIII with a very adorable nerd who was funny but seemed a bit out of his element. We also took silly pictures as various Shakespeare characters, and got to walk on The Globe stage before leaving. But the birthday celebrations are far from over; Shakespeare's actual birthday is this coming weekend, and the entire class is off to Stratford-upon-Avon on Friday to spend the night, see King Lear, and join in the town's birthday festivities.

A new week of classes started up yesterday, but it's not quite the usual routine. Martin, our Britain Today professor and the man in charge at AHA, is stranded in Portland, Oregon until the ash cloud decides to cooperate with British airspace. So his class was canceled yesterday, leaving several students with a large gap of time to fill between our morning class and our evening class. The solution for many students was to watch Jurassic Park (I opted for a nap in the lounge downstairs). I haven't heard from Martin since Monday, so I have no idea where in the world Martin currently is. Hope he's able to return to London soon!

I have decided to write a news story for The Mast about the volcano eruption and its effects on people in the UK. I'm very excited about this (and, apparently, so are staff members back at The Mast), as it's my first piece for The Mast which is not opinion! Everyone should keep their eye on The Mast coming out this Friday, as it will feature two fascinating stories by me; the volcano story, as well as an opinion article defending the beautiful side of Parkland.

In closing, I would like to bring you this very special video from Shakespeare's birthday party on Sunday at The Globe. Some helpful volunteers were snagged from the audience to help the actors on stage sing a song about Macbeth to the tune of Old MacDonald Had a Farm. Enjoy!


An important update has been made since the beginning of this blog! British air space is officially open! However, as the volcano continues erupting and weather patterns may change, we're not entirely out of the clear yet. Keep your eyes to the sky, I suppose.

The Weekend The UK Stood Still

The following should not come as breaking news to anybody, as it's been all over the news since Thursday: a volcano in Iceland (with the extremely-easy-to-pronounce name of Eyjafjallajökull) erupted for the second time in one month, after 200 years of non-activity. The explosion has caused an ash cloud to sit over Europe, affecting air travel all across northern Europe.

Originally, it was thought that the skies would clear up within a day or so. However, as Monday approaches, planes still are not flying (especially not within the UK, as the ash is continuously being blown our way) and other modes of transportation are filling up. Traveling is becoming impossible in and out of the UK these days.

At first, I didn't care one bit about the news. I'm not traveling by plane for three weeks, so this doesn't affect me. Right?

Well, apparently not. The volcano has not stopped erupting yet. The ash is floating towards the UK. And the BBC is reporting that this could potentially continue for a month. Wait, a month? But...I'm supposed to fly home in four weeks.

Students' parents who were planning to visit London have had their flights (and therefore their visits) canceled as a result of the eruption. Martin, our professor and the head of AHA went to Portland, Oregon last week and is probably still stranded somewhere in the US, unable to return to the UK until the air ban has been lifted. Students planning to travel this weekend had flights canceled, and other students (fortunately nobody from AHA) studying in London are stranded in other parts of Europe, unable to return to the UK and to their classes.

I'm still not terribly concerned; I'm not trying to fly anywhere until May, when I have a cheap flight to Norway booked. I'm still hanging on to the hope that the airspace will clear up this week. I wouldn't even mind missing my Norway weekend - but dangit Eyjafjallajökull, you had better not get between me and my home!

Playing Shakespearean Actor for a Day, and a Trip to The Most Magical Place in England

First note: Kindly ignore the fact that the first picture here is from January 2009. I didn't have my camera with me on Monday.

Monday morning, the Shakespeare Literature class did not meet in our usual classroom at 6 Great James Street. Admittedly, there is a group from UW who has commandeered our usual classroom for the quarter, but all the same. We did not meet at the AHA building at 6 Great James Street.

Instead, everybody trooped across the Thames and met up in a Starbucks located on the South Bank, just outside the only building in London with a thatched roof. Class was held at Shakespeare's Globe.

The class was then guided on a tour of the theatre (a reproduction of the re-built theatre, as the company burnt down the original theater during a production of Henry the VIII 400 years ago) by an incredibly cool British actor named Mike. Mike told us about the original theater (which was built on the south bank, as that was outside London city limits in the 17th century and therefore outside the Puritans' rule, and the Puritans hated theatre), as well as about the rebuilt version of the theatre (which is barely 10 years old, was built by an American, and features several paved stones with donor names outside it, including a Monty Python joke: John Cleese bought a stone from Michael Palin for the sole purpose of getting Palin's name mis-spelled on the stone as "Michael Pallin".) The reproduction of The Globe is the only building in London with a thatch roof, because Mr. America was so gung-ho about making the building accurate, that he got special permission from the city to use a thatch roof, despite an ordinance stating that no building may have a thatch roof in the city of London, dating back to the 13th century. The reproduction has extremely Elizabethan sprinklers along the top of the roof as a cautionary guard for the canon scene in Henry VIII productions.

After our guided tour inside and outside of the theatre, Mike took us to a large rec room, where he then led the class in a theatre workshop. This class was a ton of fun; for the first activity, we were split in to two teams. My team was Scotland, and we were having a battle with Norway (from the opening scene of Macbeth, which we will be seeing in Straford-upon-Avon next weekend for Shakespeare's birthday). Everyone's index finger was their sword, and their other hand was placed behind their back as their heart. If you got stabbed in the heart, you died. By the end of the battle, we had encountered many dramatic deaths and most of the floor was covered in dead bodies. Seven of us remained standing; myself and two other Scots, and four Norskis. Unfortunately, unlike the opening scene of Macbeth, Scotland was defeated. Regardless, it was ridiculous amounts of fun to run around yelling and screaming and charging the other team like a group of 6 year olds at recess!

During another exercise, my partner Annie and I were made in to an example. The good kind! We were interpreting an interaction between Macbeth and Banquo, and Mike liked what we did with our lines. So he asked us to present to the rest of the class, which we obligingly did. So good news, Annie and I received a gold star in theatre workshop!

Today, Annie and I had most of the day wide open to us, and the weather was fantastic. So we decided to enjoy the weather. We met up in St. James' Park, where we enjoyed some delicious hot dogs and sat by the river, watching the swans and geese and ducks. Signs along the water encourage feeding the birds, but other signs also request people to not feed the pelicans. I was highly disturbed by this blatant display of bird segregation, and so we left the park.

Next stop was Harrods. We had some difficulty finding Harrods, which led to us strolling around Victoria (for the record, Harrods is not in Victoria, it is in South Kensington/Knightsbridge area) for a while. It was a nice little stroll, and we found a very lovely (and probably ridiculously expensive) housing area. After walking all the way back to Westminster, Annie remembered that Harrods was near the V&A Museum, and so we hopped on the Tube to South Kengsington.

Sure enough, we found the store. Before going in, we walked along two sides of the store, admiring the window displays. They are absolutely insane! Each and every window is elaborately decorated with some theme. That store is LINED with windows! Then we popped inside the store, where we promptly got lost inside the mammoth of a store. I genuinely felt like a kid at Disneyland for the first time. I turned to Annie and said "Annie. We're in Harrods." And then I suppressed a squeal.

We most certainly are going back THERE.

We finished off the day by popping in to a little cafe next to Harrods which had the most fabulous cakes in the window, where we enjoyed milkshakes. All in all, it was a very wonderful day; and the week is only beginning!

Through the Looking Glass: Sarah in Hogwarts

On Friday, the class took a field trip to Oxford. The point was probably to learn about Oxford and explore some of the historical sites and buildings to be found there, but what most of us took away from the experience was how important Oxford was to the creation of Alice in Wonderland and Harry Potter.

You literally cannot go anywhere in Oxford without finding some reference or connection to one (or, more likely, both) of those famous works.

First stop of the day was the Bodleian Library. This building was built by a man named Bodley who was an Oxford graduate. The Divinity School, where theology was taught, is better known to the 21st century as the Hogwarts infirmary from the first Harry Potter film. It was also used in the fourth movie as the classroom where ballroom dancing lessons were held. Now, the room is used for parties and as a robing room for graduating students at Oxford.

Next stop was a visit to the Natural History Museum, which wasn't particularly big (two large rooms, essentially), but it had SO MUCH STUFF, it was absolutely amazing. Here, there is no shortage of dodo birds and references to Alice. The second room of the museum is basically full of odds and ends and curiosities. Less than a museum, this collection rather feels like the archives, and it just happens to be accessible to the public. In this room, you can find Native American masks, totem polls, shrunken heads, and Japanese lamps that look like puffer fish, among other discoveries. Small as the entire museum was, a person could spend all day in there and not see everything. It was genuinely incredible!

After a lunch break, the class joined up once more and went to Christ Church College. The Great Hall of Hogwarts was filmed here, using the Great Hall of Christ Church. The real Alice also lived here when her father was the dean of Oxford. The cathedral was pretty impressive as well.

We finished off the day with a visit to the Ashmolean museum, the oldest museum in existence that has been kept open continually. There are older museums in existence, but they have not been open as museums constantly since opening. The Ashmolean, however, has. Unfortunately, several of us were too tired to enjoy much of The Ashmolean, so after half an hour of exploring in there, we caught the bus back to London.

Oxford was a beautiful city, but it's really not very different from Cambridge, and I think I liked Cambridge better. However, it was still cool to go, and it was quite the experience!

No, London Children, I Will Not Buy You Fags

London is a strange place sometimes, with some very strange (and, when I am cranky, extremely irritating) kids.

Most mornings when I walk to the Tube to make my ridiculously long commute in to school, I pass a horde of school children hanging out on the street outside the Tube station. I regularly get asked by 15-year-old girls if I will buy them a fag (not a gay man, but a cigarette). I always tell them no and keep walking, thinking to myself as I go "why would you want one anyway?"

I find it very astounding how many kids here in London smoke (or want to), seeing how London has so many laws prohibiting smoking, just like we have at home in Washington State. And I certainly knew of kids sneaking cigarettes when I was a teenager at home, but it just never seemed to be as big of an issue as it appears to be here. For example, I have never been asked to buy cigarettes by kids at home. I'm far more likely to be asked to buy kids alcohol.

Today, I was particularly shocked when two boys who looked to be about ten years old asked me to buy them fags. I wanted to inform those kids how stupid it is to be worrying about smoking; it does not make them look cool to anyone. I also wonder how frequently all these kids actually get somebody to buy them cigarettes. But instead, I simply told them no, and continued to walk.

In completely unrelated news, here's something ridiculously awesome from back home:

Slash appeared on The Tonight Show with Big Chin The Late Night Loser himself, wearing an "I'm With Coco" button. NBC tried so desperately not to give the pin airtime, that the segment is rather painful to watch. We never get a full shot of Slash, the only close-ups are of his guitar, and on more than one occasion the television shot becomes black, as it is obscurred by another camera man. That's old-fashioned bad television editing. All this work, and not only did the Conan pin still make it's way on the screen, but NBC has now drawn a lot of negative attention to itself, while the internet is buzzing today with love for Slash and Conan.

Here's the article about the event, if you're interested.

Easter Eggs, Latvian Style!

Saturday evening, I dyed Easter eggs with Aldis here in Riga. Now, I was thinking we'd do the standard egg-dying kit, with little chemical dyes dropped into hot water and soaking the eggs in the dye.

Not so!

We used various sources found from nature, and the end result is random and unpredictable, but very pretty and interesting. So follow the steps and the pictures for instructions on how to dye Easter eggs with supplies found in your garden and local grocery store, without paying for those fancy dye kits.

To prepare, you will need:

Eggs

Nylon socks (you can buy knee-highs for 99 cents at Wal-greens)

Anything from nature with color; we used red onion skins, radish skins, and grass. You may also try tree bark and flowers.

A large pot to boil and soak the eggs in

Creativity

A little bit of patience

First, start with fresh eggs. Do NOT boil the eggs. We used both white and brown eggs, and the end result was very pretty. So use whichever you prefer (or both). Using the dye materials (onion skins and grass and

whatever else), wrap the egg and place it inside the toe of the sock. It is a little difficult to keep the materials in place on the egg, but this doesn't matter. Do your best, and just get all of it in the sock. The egg does not need to be entirely covered. Don't be afraid to mix and match your dye materials!

Once the egg and the dyes are in the sock, tie a knot in the nylon. Being careful not to break the egg in the sock, repeat this process with other eggs and dyes until the sock is full. Continue this with other socks until you are out of eggs.

Stick the socks full of eggs in to a pot of water. Make sure the water is covering each of the eggs. Add any left-over dye materials to the pot of water. Add some salt to the water and boil the eggs as usual (for approximately ten minutes). Turn the stove off after the eggs have boiled, but keep the eggs in the water. Let the eggs and water sit for at least an hour; the longer you let the eggs sit, the more they get dyed! However, if you are impatient, you will get a nice result within an hour. We let our eggs sit overnight and opened them Sunday morning.

To open, simply cut the nylon and remove the egg. You may need to run the egg under cold water in order to rinse off the dye materials.

And there you have it! Marbled Easter eggs from nature!

Traveling Around Europe Feels a Lot Like Being in a Movie

Back in December, my mom, Jesse and I went to Leavenworth, Washington to see the tree lighting festival. The place was cold and teeming with people, which led to me being very cranky and unpleasant. My mom said that being with me in Leavenworth was like being with Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day.

Well, if I was Bill Murray in Groundhog Day back then, then sightseeing by myself in Paris made me feel like Chevy Chase in the movie European Vacation. Chevy's character makes his family mad and winds up sightseeing by himself. I recall my dad saying once while watching that movie that having to take your own tourist pictures is the saddest thing in the world. I certainly did feel a little lame trying to take pictures of myself in Paris!

But my movie experiences does not stop there; continuing in our theme of 80s movies, I also had a Steve Martin experience, trying to get from Paris to Venice. Funny as Steve Martin is, my experience this time came from the movie Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. I refrained from dropping the f-bomb at any overly-cheerful car-rental staff, but I certainly had quite the ordeal getting from France to Italy.

My flight was scheduled to depart at 8:35 AM, so I left my hostel at 5:30 to catch the metro in to Paris. I had to wait 17 minutes to catch the metro, then had to wait 15 minutes to catch the bus to the airport. I arrived at the Paris Orly airport at 7:20, which is twenty minutes before check-in was scheduled to close. I was a smidge panicked, hoping that I would not miss my flight. When I finally reached the check-in desk, I was informed that the airline had made a mistake, and I was at the wrong airport. My flight was now departing from Paris Charles Degaul airport at 11:00, and there was a shuttle coming in half an hour to take the passengers to the other airport.

So, naturally, the shuttle came late. And the flight departed late. We finally arrived in Venice at 1:00, and then sat and waited at baggage claim for an hour before our baggage finally arrived. I finally left the airport around 2:00, where I promptly missed the bus to the train station and had to wait 20 minutes for the next bus. Only, the next bus came late, and I really waited an extra 10 minutes for it. By the time I reached the Venice train station, I had to catch a train to Rome immediately. Frankly, I'm lucky I managed to even do that; there were only four seats left on ANY train from Venice to Rome for that day.

After a four hour train ride to Rome (I thought it would be three hours), I arrived in Rome where I caught the metro to the station where my hostel runs a shuttle service. I had to wait once more for the shuttle to arrive, but I eventually made it to my hostel by 9:30 PM. And I spent the day traveling by plane, then train, and finally automobile!

When I left Rome yesterday (at the lovely hour of 4:15 AM), I felt a bit like George Clooney in his latest film, Up In the Air. There's actually no reason why I felt this way, except I happened to see a billboard with Cloons on it as I was arriving at the Rome Fiumicino airport. I actually had a good travel experience this go 'round, arriving in Riga tired but happy.

And now, after my rather crazy weekend of 80s movie references, I am here in Riga (once again!) visiting with the Sirmacs and having a lovely time. There's rumor that a day trip to Lithuania may be in store for tomorrow; so we'll just wait and see!