The Netherlands

A week ago today I wrote my last post in the airport. It feels like so much longer than one week! I arrived in Amsterdam bright and early (6:30am) on Tuesday morning. The city was incredibly quiet and peaceful (it was very early in the morning!) and the exit I took out of the train station led me to a beautiful, serene canal instead of the more touristy Damrak street. It was a lot busier at other times during the few days I was there, especially on the more touristy streets and in the Red Light district, but a lot of the streets maintained that quiet and pleasant feeling (especially smaller canal streets like "de negen straatjes", or "the nine little streets"). While in Amsterdam, I visited the Rijksmuseum (a museum with a variety of Dutch items, from Rembrants and Vermeers to Delft tulip vases and beautiful old dollhouses), FOAM (a photography museum), and Rembrandt's House. I spent a lot of time just walking along the canals - the architecture of the houses is so pretty and the canals are just beautiful.





I had great food while in the Netherlands, apparently the Dutch take their sandwiches very seriously and even at small little cafes I found delicious things to eat (like goat cheese and sautéd bell peppers on farmers's bread with mango chutney, rocket and almond slivers). Restaurant de Belhamel (which Anne told me means "Rascals" in Dutch) was my favorite, with this lovely view:


I had a great time staying with my friend Anne and her fiancé. I've only known Anne since the beginning of July and we were only in London together for 3 weeks, but we (along with Betty, a girl from Austria) had a great time exploring London, trying out new restaurants together, and planning Anne's proposal, which she did on the London Eye the weekend after our class ended. So we became much closer than most people after only three weeks! Their house was wonderful and only a 2 minute walk from the Amsterdam Muiderpoort train station, from which it is only a 5-minute ride to Amsterdam Centraal. I took the train a lot while staying with them and was very proud when I figured out the Dutch words for express vs local trains - "Sprinter" trains are of course the fastest while "Sneltrein" means it goes more slowly (like a snail? Dutch is full of English cognates) - only to find out from Anne that it's the exact opposite! Anne was also extremely helpful in correcting my atrocious pronunciation of Dutch (the only phrase I really got down was "dank je vel", or "thank you very much") but everyone in the Netherlands spoke almost perfect English, so except for picking the slower trains, everything went very well. Except the one time I tried to buy wet wipes (always very useful for traveling) and found out from Anne that I had purchased "wet toilet paper" - who knew such a thing existed?

On Thursday I took the train out to Delft and then Leiden. Delft (where the blue/white pottery originally came from) is a picturesque old town with 2 large churches, the Old Church and the New Church ("new" being a relative term, as the church was built between 1396 - 1496). You can climb the 365 steps up an extremely small spiral staircase in the tower of the New Church (which I did) and walk around the top of the tower 109 meters above the main square (which I did not do).


Luckily there were a few levels before the very top, so I got to enjoy some spectacular views of Delft and the surrounding areas.





I also visited the Old Church, which was lovely inside, but didn't climb up that tower as it leans over 2m from the vertical.




I hopped on the train to Leiden in the afternoon and enjoyed seeing my first Dutch windmill and views of the town from a ruined circular fort called the Burcht. Had dinner on a lovely canal boat terrace with some delicious Old Amsterdam cheese for dessert and an amazing sunset.












I flew out of Amsterdam on Saturday morning after a truly wonderful 4 days in the Netherlands. I am in Madrid now, enjoying the sunshine, stately Spanish architecture (some of it reminds me of home!) and cheap wine (I stopped in a grocery store and bought M&Ms for €2.25 and a liter of wine for €0.55). I'll write more about Spain soon - I'm off now to have tapas with two friends I played water polo with at Michigan.

Up next on my itinerary: Barcelona, Granada, Tangier, Chefchaouen, Fes, Meknes (+ Moulay Idriss and Volubilis) and Marrakech before I head beck to London to start Orientation for UCL!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Back to Europe

I'm sitting in Dulles airport, yet again - I think I've spent over 15 hours here in the past 8 days! I'm waiting now to board my flight to Amsterdam. A week ago yesterday I landed at IAD from London only to have my flight on to NYC canceled that evening, rescheduled for the next day, and then delayed until that evening! It took over 40 hours for me to get from my dorm in London to New York! Despite the travel woes on the way over, I had a very successful trip to New York. The visa process went incredibly well and I was surprised at how smoothly everything worked (especially given the horrible reviews of the British Consulate online). After getting fingerprinted in Brooklyn and finding a great (and cheap) Italian grocery store, I went to the British Consulate on Thursday morning for my premium service appointment, turned in my passport, and returned that afternoon to pick up my passport stamped with my new Tier 4 visa! During the week I was in New York, I was able to stay with my aunt at her family's great apartment right on Union Square, where I could visit the Green Market, walk to Trader Joe's (which I've missed terribly while out of the country) and enjoy the sights and sounds of New York City. My aunt and I did a ton of fun things in New York, from walking the High Line to shopping at Zabar's and The Strand. Over the weekend I was able to meet up with a good friend from Michigan (we were in the same ENGR 100 group together as freshmen!) who's working in the city. We visited an exhibit of Buddhist art from Pakistan, parts of which reminded me strongly of the decorations at Angkor Wat in Cambodia, though most of the buddhas on display at the museum hadn't had their faces chipped out of the stone. Afterwards we walked through a bit of Central Park and looked at the great views of New York from the 29th floor of the Bloomberg Tower. New York has a completely different feel to it than London, and it was really interesting to notice the things I've gotten used to over the summer that surprised me when back in the States. I kept expecting the announcer on the subway to speak in a British accent, and I saw way more ripped jeans and fanny packs in the past few days than when I was in the UK! Plus a few bizarre things, like a completely tattooed man and the interestingly named "Taco Tortilla King Chinese Food" restaurant.

I love the skyline in New York - it's so dramatic and different from the buildings in London. I was a shameless tourist and took tons of pictures (much to the chagrin of my local New York friends).













A few more photos from the past week:

Part of the impressive cheese selection at Zabar's:


A piece from the Buddhist art from Pakistan exhibit at the Asia Society:


Some cool art in the subway station:


The original Bloomingdale's:



Assuming today's travel goes better than my trip back to the US last week, I should arrive in Amsterdam tomorrow morning! I'm staying with a friend from the first session of King's Summer School who has a house in the city - I can't wait to see her again and visit the Netherlands for the first time! I've yet to make any firm plans for travels before I return to the UK by Sept 16 for Orientation, but I may meet up with friends from UM in Spain after Amsterdam, and I'm hoping to spend some time in Morocco as well. More on that to come as I figure out what works best.

Only 4 more hours at the Dulles airport - seems like nothing after all the time I've spent here recently. I decided to leave my computer with my aunt and ship it to London when I get back so I don't have to haul it around while I'm traveling and worry about losing it, so I'm trying to post this from my iPad - apologies for any typos or formatting issues, I'm trying out a new blogging app! Not sure if the pictures will work out either, but I'll play around with it and try to make it work. If not, I promise many pictures to come when I get to a real computer.

Packing Up (by which I mean Visiting the Tate Modern and Enjoying Lunch at Borough Market)

I've spent the plast few days getting ready to leave London, turning in my last assignments and packing everything up. This morning I met up with a few friends and walked down the Thames to the Tate Modern. I'm not a giant modern art fan, but I knew that one of Monet's Water Lilies is there so I was looking forward to seeing that. I ended up enjoying the museum much more than I had expected - though some of the pieces gave me that I-clearly-don't-understand-modern-art-this-looks-like-something-I-could-do-myself feeling, I thought other pieces were absolutely amazing. We only looked at one of the several floors of artwork, and even on just one floor I saw a Cornell box, several Picasso pieces, a portrait by Matisse, a whole roomful of Rothkos, and a Jackson Pollock. My favorite piece on that floor was actually by an artist I've never heard of before (Gerhard Richter - photo below from Tate Modern website). I don't normally like abstract paintings but there was just something in the color combinations and texture of these giant canvases that I absolutely loved.

A few other pictures from the Tate (I love being able to take pictures inside a museum!):

Afterwards, we walked down from the Tate to Borough Market, a fantastic food market in Southwark. I visited there for the first time a few weeks ago and loved it so much I knew I had to come back for lunch before I left; not only can you buy all sorts of produce, fish, and meat (including ostrich meat!), but it's a great place to pick up an incredible street-food lunch. After picking up a delicious "summer spritzer" (the perfect lunchtime cocktail for nice weather - almost rivals Pimm's), we waited in the long queue for Roast To Go. An offshoot of the rather expensive restaurant "Roast" above the market, Roast To Go offers all sorts of quick meaty meals, from a "devil on horseback" (something involving bacon, I'm not entirely sure what) to "bacon butties" (some type of bacon sandwich) and the giant, delectable pork belly sandwich with applesauce. Yum. We ate in the gardens of a nearby church and wandered around the market a bit more before heading back.

Tomorrow I'm dropping my second suitcase off at the storage facility - as I brought everything I'd need for the year with me when I came in July, I had to figure out someplace to leave the vast majority of my stuff while I return to the US for my visa and travel around Europe. I found quite a cheap place in South Bermondsey that's easily accessible by train, so I'll drop off the last of my things tomorrow and fully clear out my room. It was so sad to say goodbye to everyone tonight, knowing we're all heading off to such far-away places, but I'm hoping in the next month I can visit some of the friends I've made here and I am immensely cheered up by knowing that I'll be back in London in just over a month.

Shakespeare in London

I have so much to write about! First of all, things in London have calmed down considerably since Tuesday night - the news link on the BBC webpage has changed its name from "London riots" to "England riots" and, most tellingly, has moved down from the top featured link to the third link on the page, below news about England's test cricket match against India. Instead of seeing pictures of people smashing windows and setting things on fire, the news is showing "broom armies" of locals cleaning up. It's heartening to see the local response, especially after all the anger (of the rioters, of the people against the rioters, of the people against the police, etc...) that was so evident earlier. Around where I am, in central London, the only signs of what's been going on is an increased police presence, especially in tube and train stations, so everything feels quite safe.

I apologize for not having written at all yet about my Shakespeare class! We had our last class today, which was quite bittersweet. Luckily this course was in the same classroom as my previous course, the 8th floor room with an amazing view. I was sad to sit in class today knowing that was the last time I could listen to a lecture while looking at Tower Bridge or the Eye. This sessions class has been great fun. The first week we focused on Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus as an introduction to the context and setting for plays in the early modern time.

We went to see a production of Dr. Faustus at Shakespeare's Globe on a Wednesday afternoon and then were lucky enough to get a presentation from one of the scholars who works at the Globe as a researcher to help the director and cast understand the play. I wasn't a huge fan of Marlowe's text - though it was the quickest read of all the plays we read, I found it somewhat archaic - but I really enjoyed the production at the Globe. We had tickets in the yard, which are only £5, but that means you're standing for the entirety of the play. Despite my aching feet, I liked being so close to the stage (even if you're at the back of the yard, you can be within 15 feet of the actors depending on the stage set-up) and I thought the production was exciting and well-constructed. That first week we also took a quick trip to the National Portrait Gallery, to look at portraits for many early modern figures including Shakespeare, Tudor royalty, and other contemporary figures.

The second week we read Much Ado About Nothing, spending class time talking about gender in Shakespeare's plays and re-writing our own endings to the play. We had tickets to see a production of Much Ado in Shoreditch at the end of the week, but there's currently a production in London of Much Ado starring David Tennant and Catherine Tate (two of the stars of the tv show "Dr. Who") at Wyndhams Theatre that I had read about, so I decided to try to get tickets for that. I asked at the theatre and was told to come to the box office at 10am, at which point I could pick up a ticket for the lottery at 10:30am. Every day they draw lottery tickets to give away 20 premium seats for £10 each. They told me that they normally have about 40-50 people vying for the 20 tickets, so I wasn't too hopeful about my chances, but I headed down a Friday morning to give it a shot. I picked up my lottery ticket (then headed to Laduree for a delicious morning macaroon so if I didn't get my ticket the morning wouldn't be a complete bust), and when I went back at 10:30 my number was called! I got to see the production that evening, sitting in the third row on the aisle. I was very pleased with the play - David Tennant was hilarious as Benedick, and the 80s themed production was very fun! During the costume party, characters dressed up as Indiana Jones, Darth Vader, and Mario; later scenes, especially Claudio and Hero's "stag and hen" parties, reminded me strongly of the Baz Luhrmann version of Romeo + Juliet. Overall, I found it an enjoyable and entertaining production. And thank goodness I went to see that show, since the production we went to go see for class (at the Courtyard Theatre in Shoreditch) was absolutely awful! The theatre was probably 90 degrees, which didn't help anything, and all the actors seemed to be under 25, which gave the production the feeling of a high school play. Benedick and Beatrice weren't a compelling couple in this production, and Claudio was almost abusive toward Hero. Most unfortunately, the setting was extremely dark and murky - completely opposite the tone of the play! Though the 3+ hour production was not my favorite, it reinforced for me just how much I liked the other production I had seen and reminded me how important performance is in how we appreciate Shakespeare's plays.

This past week we've spent looking at Richard III. Though quite long (it took me twice as long to read as I had expected), I liked the play, and I loved to production we saw. We were lucky enough to get tickets to Richard III at The Old Vic, a theatre just down the road from our apartments. I've wanted to see this show since I heard about it six weeks ago and after hearing several friends talking about how much they liked it and reading so many phenomenal reviews, I was so glad to finally be able to go! This production was directed by Sam Mendes and starred Kevin Spacey (the first time the two have worked together since they both won Oscars for American Beauty), and I thought it was a superb performance. Kevin Spacey was eerily creepy yet incredibly compelling, and the staging was quite inventive. Mendes did a great job of integrating the audience into the production, making us all feel a bit complicit in the tyrant's rise to power. Probably my favorite show I've seen in London! We also took a class trip to the Tower of London earlier in the week due to that location's prominence in Richard III as the site of the murders of Clarence and the

young princes. I haven't been to the Tower since I was little, and it was great to roam around

and imagine the play's characters imprisoned in those rooms. We also visited the Crown Jewels (which I found somewhat anti-climactic - hundreds of people in an incredibly long queue all funneling onto a moving walkway to be herded past the most valuable crowns), watched the beefeaters, and looked at lots of ornate old armor in the museum in the White Tower.

Though this class involved many more assignments than my Multicultural Literature course (one 2000-word essay for the first session vs. two 1500-word essays, a 2000-word presentation journal, and a 10-minute presentation for this course), I've actually really liked the work we've had to do! My first essay was a close reading of a scene in Much Ado and my second essay focused on the women in Richard III; my presentation this morning was on Shakespeare's sonnets (did you know that most of the sonnets, including "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?", are written to a young man?). I find that writing about Shakespeare helps me engage with the text in a way I might not otherwise necessarily achieve. It's been recommended to me that I should post some of the work I do while I'm here, so perhaps I'll include a post with my close reading essay (I know I got a good mark on that one - everything else was just due today so I don't yet know how I did!).

I can't believe I'm leaving London in just a few days! It doesn't feel at all like I've been here a full six weeks. Life will be so different not walking across Waterloo Bridge every morning (check out the street view on Google Maps of Waterloo Bridge: look carefully and on one side of the bridge you'll see the Eye and Big Ben, look the other way to find St. Paul's - this was my walk to and from class every day!). I'm heading to New York on Sunday to apply in person at the UK Embassy for a different type of student visa - since my summer school course at King's and my year of studies at UCL were over four weeks apart, I've had huge nightmares with figuring out my visa situation. Cross your fingers for me next week in NYC and let's hope the UK Border Agency will let me back in the country. Because everything with visas has to be as difficult as possible, I can't come straight back to the UK from New York (I won't be allowed to re-enter the UK until at least August 26), so I'm planning on traveling around Europe for a while and after a few weeks returning to the UK and hopefully visiting some places outside of London. UCL starts up on September 26, but I'll definitely be back in London by September 16th to do my orientation through UCL and the company that's facilitating my study abroad (an American company called API). I am so glad that I'm coming back to London so soon and that I don't have to cram everything I want to do into my last few days here!

Still here!

I'm still here! I'm sorry that I haven't posted in a while, and I figured I'd better post at least a little something now given the rioting and unrest in London. I don't know how much coverage the riots are getting internationally, but here it's pretty big news. Everything in central London around where I am has been perfectly fine but it's bizarre to me to see footage of cars burning and police in riot gear in places that I've visited so recently. I visited Brixton with my last class a few weeks ago, and I was just in Hackney a few days ago to watch bike polo (yes, bike polo), and neither place felt dangerous or unsafe when I was there. We talked for a few hours about the 1981 Brixton riots in my Multicultural Literature course last session and I wish we could discuss what's happening now in that class! I'm shocked by how many different locations keep appearing in the news. It seems to have spiraled so far away from the original peaceful protest in Tottenham a few nights ago to acts of random looting and violence. Hopefully things will start to resolve themselves soon. More to come (on hopefully happier topics!) soon.