Helena's Super Secret Ninja Missions

... I could find out countries in her."
-Shakepeare's The Comedy of Errors

I had a great time with K when she visited me this weekend! We made some really random discoveries, such as a certain fast food restaurant's new Chili Cheese Bites (apparently only available in the U.K.?), the existence of the word 'scrumpy', and a list of Shakespearean insults, among other things.

Of course, I brought her to the usual tourist spots that I'd been to before, such as the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, Oxford Street, Chinatown, Trafalgar's Square, and 10 Downing Street, but I was happy to have the opportunity to explore new places (i.e. different markets and museums).

So we started off our adventures by taking a train over to Hampton Court, former home of the Tudors! I don't know if I would have known that it existed if she hadn't visited. Anyway, after hearing her talk about the merits of Showtime's interpretation, I really do feel inclined to watch that series. At the Tiltyard Cafe, we sampled rhubarb ice cream, which tasted oddly familiar, and K had her first taste of a scone with jam and clotted cream. Random: the Devonshire method of eating a scone says that one should spread clotted cream and then add a teaspoon of jam to the top, but at the time, I didn't realize that I wasn't meant to spread the jam, so it really just looked unappetizing. I think I would probably prefer the jam before the cream anyway, so it can be evenly distributed. Yes, I probably think about these things more often than I should.

"Imagine how much sex he must have had here!" -K Also I really love how tall all the beds are.

When we returned from Hampton Court, we wandered around the South Bank area and stumbled upon a small carnival! Obviously, the next logical step was to get cotton candy. And then I think we contemplated opening our own cotton candy stand.

On Saturday, I suppose the only touristy thing we did was the British Museum. I finally saw the Rosetta Stone and a ton of the exhibits on Ancient Greece. Reading the descriptions of the statues was both hilarious and somewhat puzzling. It seemed as if the vast majority of them said that while part of the statue is here, the head (or some other miscellaneous body part) is located in Athens. So K and I are looking forward to going to Athens and finding signs that tell us that the other half of the statue is actually in London. Even more so than we were before, that is.

Of course, I should also mention that we hit up Patisserie Valerie and Maison Bertaux, which was really adorable. Unfortunately, I must have neglected to take pictures for posterity. Clearly, I was overeager.

Sunday was super busy; in the morning, we met up with A to go to Spitalfield's market, where we randomly spoke to these British men about brownies and traveling, if I remember correctly. In all honesty, I was more focused on my half of the brownie than on the conversation. Are you starting to see a theme?

We eventually found our way to Brick Lane market, which was our actual destination. We had some delicious Indian food and K managed to restrain her impulses to buy gingerbread men earrings. I'm pretty sure that I'll return later to try one of those Indian restaurants for dinner, though at this point, I feel as if I say that about every place I go to. I promise this will definitely happen.

So on our way to Buckingham Palace and such, we managed to get sidetracked for the better part of three hours at the National Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery. For some reason, I think I was really shocked when I realized/remembered (?) that they're not the same museums. Anyway, I really did not expect to enjoy the National Portrait Gallery due to the fact that I don't generally enjoy that type of art. Furthermore, we didn't expect to spend so much time there. In fact, we probably only meant to look at about ten rooms or so (i.e. more Tudors, Brontë sisters, Jane Austen, and contemporary portraits), but we basically ended up wandering through the whole building. I was slightly disappointed that I didn't see J. K. Rowling's portrait, despite the fact that the map clearly said she was somewhere in rooms 35-41 (or something to that effect).
Conclusion? I need to return to seek out the J. K. Rowling portrait.

Also, I want to note that they really should do something about their computers. We spent a significant amount of time, surfing the database, trying to figure out how to locate the Brontë portrait, and it turns out that it can't be done. It would appear that you can only find out information about the subject and the artist, so they are essentially useless.

K and I pretty much agree that this portrait of Tennyson was probably the best part. Not to mention that it was right next to the one of the Brontë sisters. No, I did not mean for it to be so huge.

After watching K halfheartedly try to climb up to the lion statues in Trafalgar for a photo op, we decided to briefly pop into the National Gallery. Of course, we ended up staying until they were essentially kicking us out. Monet's Water Lilies are pretty amazing. All of them. If you're in London and you're a fan of impressionism, I highly recommend you stop by, if you haven't already. Below, you can see an image of a Van Gogh product in the gift shop.

This is one of the most idiotic products I have ever seen. When you open it, it's all blank, because of course, you're expected to paint it all yourself. I really cannot fathom what was going through the inventor's mind when he/she thought of this. Likely something along the lines of: "Oh, I'm sure there's some sucker out there that will buy a book of completely blank postcards!"

Here's to coming up with new inside jokes with an old friend!

So I really miss 24-hour places. London, as cosmopolitan as it may be, does not seem to have many things that stay open throughout the day. In fact, the only place I can really think of is the Tesco Metro across the street from the Russell Square station. The other night my roommate, J, was hungry but lacked snack food and since it was well past midnight, she wasn't able to find a place that was still open to deliver food to her. It was terribly tragic. A lot of my friends on this program tend to talk about this a lot--places in New York that are open all the time. However, I suppose I have this problem when I'm on campus as well. It was just never so...salient, in my opinion. I'm not quite sure why.

Another thing is that pubs have a tendency to close down at midnight or so. The bartenders will literally kick you out. Well, not literally. I have yet to see someone tossed out of a pub, like they are in movies and such. I just find this phenomenon really bizarre.

I hate that the tube closes at midnight. Although I know that I am centrally located, I find it quite constraining. Just because I don't necessarily need the tube doesn't mean I don't want the option, right? I realize that the Barcelona metro closed at midnight on most nights, but at least it stayed open until 2 AM on Fridays and all night on Saturdays. Yes, I miss Barcelona immensely.

I know this will make me sound like a nerd, but I seriously miss the library, especially during times like this, when I have tons of papers to write before a deadline that is rapidly approaching. I know, I really should get off my blog right now and continue writing/reading for my classes, but there's only so much research a girl can do before all the words start blurring together and losing all meaning. Like the word 'laborer.' I really feel like I've typed that so many times that it doesn't mean anything anymore. Of course that could also be due to the fact that it's currently...quite late. Or, you could look at it another way--I'm awake at an abnormally early time. It's almost miraculous that I'm still (for the most part) going strong. Clearly, my level of productivity peaked a few hours ago, but for the most part, I'm still typing coherent thoughts. My sentences might be a bit choppy but at the very least, everything is spelled correctly and is grammatically correct.

So if you're wondering why I've been blogging more often in the past week than I did in the whole month of January, you have your answer. I'm procrastinating. Which shouldn't be a surprise to most people who know me.

Here's to libraries that are open 24 hours a day! London really should get on that. The Senate House Library isn't even open on Sundays. I find that absolutely mind-boggling. Maybe it's just me, but I tend to spend my Sundays either sleeping or doing homework for Monday (considering I have seven hours of class on Mondays, it's necessary). So where do British college students study on Sundays?!

So I was recently inspired by M, who has blogged twelve times since the start of the semester, to try to get back on track with this blog. I've done a lot of exploring since I last updated. For one thing, the program put us all on a bus and gave us a three hour tour around London, which was a good way for us to get our bearings. The tour guide informed us that we basically live within walking distance of all the places that we passed by on the tour, including tourist attractions such as the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, and the Houses of Parliament.

They also showed us Australia House, which was apparently where they filmed the Gringotts scenes of the Harry Potter movies. However, I still have not been to Platform 9 3/4.

Although we were not on one of those red double deckers, I did seize the chance to ride one of those when F and I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum. It was great to see her, especially considering that we hadn't seen each other since high school (!). Although we didn't get to all the exhibits, I felt quite fatigued by the end of the adventure. If you go, I recommend that you check out the Glass and Greek sculpture exhibits; they were my favorites. Also, I enjoy that basically all the main museums in London are free, including the Natural History Museum and the British Museum. Quite recently, J and I went to the British Museum because she needed to see a specific exhibit for one of her classes. To be honest, we only saw about four rooms out of...dozens, reasoning that we'll have plenty of time to return. I definitely need to return at least one more time to see the Rosetta Stone and more Greek exhibits! K, you in?

Some of you from last semester may remember my love of markets. Given that London has tons of them, I've made a point of seeing them. A few days after a walking tour of Camden, a group of us returned to explore Camden Market, which is one of the largest markets I've ever seen, full alternative fashion and antiques, along with the usual--clothing and food. There were so many different branches and it seemed to stretch on forever. I'm sure we didn't get to all of it, despite having spent about three (!!) hours there. However I'm sure I'll return before I depart, especially since I did not see the London Zoo or visit Primrose Hill, both of which are nearby. I'll probably actually end up doing both of those things next weekend.

Some of the flatmates and I also went to the Portobello Road market, which is apparently the world's largest antiques market, in addition to selling produce and secondhand clothes.

I saw this sign on the side of the market and thought it was very cute. I think Barcelona prepared me for pickpockets though.

G and J had the misfortune of getting seafood paella from this particular stall. It was disgusting. I can't really fault them on their presentation though.

Here's one of the performers at the Covent Garden market. He was hilarious! Also, apparently the word 'busking' means street performance. You learn something new every day.

Aside from markets in London, I also managed to visit one in Greenwich on a day trip. Standing at the Prime Meridian was slightly anticlimactic, but nevertheless worth the trek to the Royal Observatory.

Here's to lovely markets! I have plans to see Borough market and Brick Lane market this weekend, and I have high expectations.

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Towards the end of my semester in Barcelona, I spent a great deal of time trying to fit in as many must-see sites as possible, but I definitely did not have enough time to do everything I wanted to do. It seemed that all those days of sleeping-in had finally caught up to me. I remember that R and I went to the Christmas market (Santa Llucia), which had tons of different caganers and caga tíos. The stalls had both traditional caganers and ones of celebrities, which were especially amusing.

Later that day, we also went to see the Montjuic fountain show, which was unfortunately under construction when I tried to go with K. It was rather impressive, though I must note that if one wants to sit on the steps at night in the winter, one should probably opt for pants instead of tights (even in Barcelona). If you wish to see a picture of this show, I would suggest either going there in person or using Google, because at that point, I (more or less) decided that it would be a better idea to enjoy the show than to waste time snapping pictures. Besides, I'm sure that I could not have captured the full majesty of the fountain anyway.

On another occasion, A and I went to Fundació Joan Miró, which I really enjoyed. All of his works seem to have the same elements: stars, women, men, ladders, birds... As time went on, we became progressively more skilled at identifying each of these elements (they're fairly abstract). Anyway I recommend this as well.

Later, A, her host mom, L, and I (finally!) went inside Sagrada Familia. I've seen the outside of it countless times, and in my opinion, the outside is nothing compared to the inside. It was absolutely gorgeous, and A was able to tell us several interesting facts about the church, due to the fact that she opted to use the audio guide the last time she went. 

It's as if you're in a forest!

So my departure from Barcelona was actually more bitter than sweet, given the fact that I decided not to go directly home like my fellow students. Therefore, I did not return home for the holidays; instead, I proceeded to travel to Sevilla (where I spent Christmas), Cordoba, and Madrid (for New Year's), all of which were lovely in their own way. I wish I could say that it was significantly warmer further south, but this was not the case. Despite this, the extended time in Spain was definitely worth it, but I'm not going to go into that right now, since it is fairly late and I have my first classes tomorrow.

I spent about two and a half weeks in New York (not nearly enough time, if you ask me) before flying across the pond (yes, I'm going to start trying to use English terminology as much as humanly possible). Being on the group flight was great because I was able to meet D on the plane, and I didn't know anyone in the program before. In fact, they wouldn't even tell us who our roommates were before we arrived! We had to wait and be surprised.

Anyway, the plane arrived in London on Wednesday, and I proceeded to my flat, which I am sharing with four other women in my program. We have a kitchen, two (abnormally small?) bathrooms, and two refrigerators. There isn't much else to say...My flatmates have been great so far. I got a great little cell phone with the Orange network, and hopefully this time, the back won't fall off. I still do not know how to cook, so if you would like to send me any (simple!) tips, they would be much appreciated.

Fun fact: the beds are on wheels. It is quite inconveniencing when one wishes to get on or off their bed. One of these days, I will simply fall on my bum (okay, now I feel slightly ridiculous).

Here's to the end of an era. And the start of a new one. (Also, is it weird that as I wrote this post, I was narrating in my head with a British accent?)