Author Archives: Pam Schwartz

July 19, 2008

The Countdown: Final Week in London

By Pam Schwartz

My time is coming to an end here in London and I can hardly believe it. Washington D.C. seems like it was so long ago but London has gone by in a flash. This is a really hard week to get on with. I have a lot of work to do for the museum as well as my portfolio and papers for class. It is difficult because I’d just much rather be out seeing as much of London as I can. There are so many things I haven’t had a chance to do yet and many things I know I won’t even get to see. Today I’m going to try and work hard on my responsibilities so that tomorrow I can run around and try to knock a few things off of my list of things to do. The last week has basically just consisted of work for me, and on Wednesday my group had to give our presentation for class.

We were supposed to basically talk about our work and time in London but my group decided to spice it up and write 16 stanzas of modified beat type haiku. Here are a few of our favorite and/or the most telling stanzas about life and work in London.

Living in London
London Town
I live in ghetto
I have no money for food
We work for nothing

 

Commuting to Work
London Town
The tube has no air
Someone is under the tracks
I think I’ll just walk

 

Socialization
London Town
Olympic drinkers
Frequent breaks for hydration
We also like tea

I guess it maybe won’t make sense as quite a lot of the haiku was inside jokes from our group. Our professor liked that we were creative with it though.

On to a completely different subject. This is me pretending that I am that cat on the roof of our flat complex. One night I randomly look out my window and discover that there are these weird little cat statues on our roof, knowing me I would have to get out there and get a picture with one.Thursday night we got to go see Spamalot! Those of you that know me KNOW that I love some Monty Python and this is the musical based The Holy Grail. I get to meet Terry Jones AND see Spamalot while in London. It’s almost too much! Spamalot was great, we were in the nose bleed section but what can I say, I rented the little binoculars and all was well. Before we went to the show we went to The Cambridge pub for dinner. I decided maybe I should actually start eating some traditionally British food. So I had a steak pie and it tasted just like pot roast and was quite delicious. I then came to the conclusion that I’ve essentially been a vegetarian this entire summer. Meet is expensive and we really have no way to cook anything in or flats so sandwich meat has been mostly what I have eaten. Then tere is a picture I took during the show (no flash, don’t tell)Sadly to say, just this last week at The Cambridge we discovered that there is this brochure for the classic pubs of London. If you go to five of the many listed pubs and by either food or drink you get your brochure stamped. Once you get five stamps you get a free t-shirt that has the saying “I toured the classic pubs of London” and other things on it. It’s pretty neat. So after my steak pie and an odd but tasty raspberry lemonade I got my first stamp. Last night Laura, Casey and I got on a wild hare to go and get some more stamps (our thought is that maybe we can get two t-shirts before we go home) as each pub and pub district has their own unique shirts. So off we go on a little pub crawl of our own which began at the Ye Olde Watling. I’ve discovered this wonderful things here they have called Pimm’s, it is a very light drink that is made with a ton of fresh fruit in it (as you can see in the picture below) Stamp #2.

We continued walking around finding these pubs, in total we went to three different pubs and ended up at Nicholson’s Blackfriars. This is a really brilliant little place. The decorating is absolutely smashing and the people even better. We ended up chatting with some people across the way and some guy from Brazil . The night ensued with doing the chicken dance and fighting about how there is a lot to do in London (a guy who has lived there is whole life tried to disagree). The two English guys who were with a French girl were quite interested in our little pub crawl and the free t-shirts and they began harassing one of the bartenders that they should give the three of us a free stamp…instead he got fed up and just gave us a free t-shirt! Fantastic! That means not only do we have a free shirt, we also still all have our brochures with four stamps on it, one more and that makes shirt number 2. So maybe I’ll have three.

From here we decided to walk home, which actually ended up being quite a lot farther than we had realized but it was all fun and gave us opportunity for some fun pictures. This is me making an acrobatic call from one of London’s famed red telephone booths.The drain covers or man-holes, whatever they are, in London have my name on them which I find to be odd. So I took a picture with one and then somebody was throwing eggs at us and Laura almost got hit, so we decided to keep moving on, we don’t really know what was going on .Upon arriving home we met up with Erica (another Capa intern) and her British friend Amanda who were also coming in after a night out on the town. Erica invited me over for chat and some pasta stuff, which I could resist. So we had an after midnight pasta party. I’m really going to miss

 

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July 14, 2008

Amsterdam

By Pam Schwartz

First of all, here are some pictures from the Erykah Badu concerts that I promised, hopefully there will be more where these came from. In the second picture is where Ben and I are holding her up in the crowd. You can see Ben’s head and my arm! What a great concert.
The journey to Amsterdam begins. Leslie and I took a coach because it was really cheap. We left at 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday and drove all night. Naturally we had to get across the channel some how so we got to ride a ferry. I loved it, it was a real big luxury ship, the biggest I’ve ever been on. This was a picture out of the window of our boat before we left, too bad it was dark and rainy or I would have liked to stroll the deck but we weren’t allowed.
We arrived in Amsterdam at roughly 9:30 a.m. or so. It then occurred to me that..umm I don’t speak this language, but no fear everybody there speaks English making my life easier. We took the train into town from Amstel Station and went on the hunt for our hotel. We stayed at the Hotel de Gerstekorrel. At first we thought the room was super tiny for three people (shh it was only supposed to be for two) but by the end of the trip I grew to love this little room on the 4th floor (our 5th floor) if I ever return to Amsterdam I plan to stay there. Though the winding steps were wicked. The desk service was more than friendly, one of who was Lisa originally from Cincinnati who had been living in Amsterdam for 5 years. We befriended her and went out to a coffeeshop with her a day or two later.
Yes, Amsterdam has a bad rap because of its Red Light District and many coffeeshops but I found it to be a very beautiful, diverse and romantic city. It’s many canals are beautiful along with it’s old brick housing and many little shops. Thursday while Leslie and I waited for Ben to arrive (who flew in that night) we wandered around the inner part of the city exploring the canals.We of course had to take a canal river cruise because it is one of the big things to do in Amsterdam. It was a lot of fun, we got to relax for a while and see the canals and banks. Here is a good example of what most of the housing in Amsterdam looks like, it’s all very quaint.
Because as tourists there are things you MUST do, we went to the Anne Frank House. It was interesting though I would probably never go again. Most of the fixtures and documents are not originals and while I understand this is a climatic problem it was still a bit disappointing. Here is the swinging bookcase doorway into the secret hideout.
This is us eating Vlaamse frites. This is a apparently a really big deal and I didn’t even know it until after we got back, another thing you must do while in Holland apparently. Essentially they deep fry thick cut french fries put them in a paper cone, smother them in Dutch mayonnaise and you eat them. They were quite tasty and as you can see we are enjoying them.
Another big thing in Amsterdam in hot chocolate. Some coffeeshops make it with real chocolate others make it with Chocomel, the leading brand of chocolate milk in Holland. Either way is delicious. We became connoisseurs while there. This particular picture is Ben and me enjoying Real Belgium Hot Chocolate at the Dampkring coffeehouse. It was made with steamed milk, a Belgium chocolate stir-stick. Lots of whipped cream, cocoa powder, and a cookie for decoration. The cocoa made with chocomel was also very good, we had that a few different places.
Out walking around at night the city is quite beautiful. Many of the bridges on the canals are lit up. It rained a lot while we were there but luckily for us the nights were enjoyable.
Ben and I enjoyed the last night sitting on the rooftop of our hotel chatting. It was the perfect end to an amazing and beautiful trip. Too bad the pictures don’t do any justice to how beautiful it was.
Though reluctant to leave Sunday morning we packed up bright and early. The bus ride home was awful to say the very least. We stopped a multitude of times for no apparent reason, the bus driver didn’t seem to know what was going on so we missed the ferry and had to take the chunnel (Eurotunnel) which I officially dislike. The French couple sitting in front of us was very loud, very physical, and rude so that did not make for a nice ride, all in all we got home safe and sound. One of the perks to the bus driver not knowing what was going on was that we actually got to spend a stint of time in Brussels, Belgium. Fun! I got to go to another country and didn’t even know about it! This is my “I’m apparently in Belgium standing under a big sculpture I know nothing about and have no idea how I got here!” pose.

This picture was taken at yet ANOTHER of our various stops. I have absolutely no idea where I am here. France, maybe?
This is our bus descending down into the chunnel. Not fun at all. You drive into one of these bit metal train cars and sit while it drives you under the channel. The driver turns off the bus and it is very very hot and smelly. I using my better judgment feigned having to use the restroom and got out and sat in the car but outside the bus where it was much cooler. There wasn’t however much room to move around with the huge bus in the middle of the car. Next time, I prefer the ferry.

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July 6, 2008

4th of July London Style

By Pam Schwartz

London keeps getting busier, and going by faster and faster. We only have 20 more days here. Wow. So much has been going on in the last week. Monday night Ben and I went to the Erykah Badu concert which was really really good, she puts on an amazing show. I don’t have any pictures from it because Ben told me I wasn’t allowed to bring my camera, but everybody there had one. So I’ve been talking to people online to try and get their videos and photos. You can click this link and watch her last number from the show.

If you look closely at the end of the video when Badu is lying out over the crowd you can see the hands that are holding her up in the air, yeah those are Ben and I’s hands. We actually got to hold her up in the crowd, absolutely brilliant.

 

This week at work was really busy; I’m working on getting surveys from 100 people who come through American Scene. I obviously get turned down a lot more than I get people to do it. Slowly but surely I’m getting there I have 46 finished. I only have 11 more days of work to finish them all done, analyze the data, write my report, and then present my data. It has been such a good internship.

This weekend was 4th of July weekend of course. Ben and I tried to make the most of it, He had his friend James over and we had big huge burgers, chips (American chips), watermelon, and they had Budweiser, and naturally we had to finish the night off with s’mores. They were makeshift and made in the microwave but it gave James the point on his first American 4th of July. Everything was super tasty; we even watched fireworks online to make ourselves feel better, though it wasn’t the same. Then later we went out to an American sports bar and danced all night. Finished our night off with some Mcdonald’s on the way home, how much more American could we have done it here.

Ben and James enjoying watermelon, maybe a little too much.Here is the s’more I made for James. With digestives cookies (which sounds weird but are actually a lot like a graham cracker), chocolate, and pink and white seductively soft marshmallows…really nice advertising.These two pictures are at the American sports cafe. It was a lot of fun, happy 4th of July. I don’t know who the people in the pic are below but I enjoyed their American spirit.Yesterday we went to the London Pride festival. We watched the parade, then watched all of the talking and concerts afterwards. We saw Sir Ian McKellen and heard a lot of good music including Basshunter. I was really surprised, maybe we were in the wrong part of town, but London Pride was way tamer than Chicago pride was. The parade was mostly just people walking with banners and whatnot, none of the huge floats like in Chicago, but we had a lot of fun. Sir Ian McKellen, who is Gandalf from Lord of the Rings. He is a big gay rights activist.The main stage in Trafalgar Square and below are some people dressed up in the parade.

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June 29, 2008

London Eye and Salsa Dancing

By Pam Schwartz
It has been a busy weekend. Friday we went and knocked a few more of the touristy things off of our lists. We did the London Eye and the accompanying river cruise. The London Eye is 450 ft tall. So here’s looking out over London.

The next few are all pictures from the London Eye. There is Big Ben, County Hall (which houses little exhibits and an arcade and things) and part of one of the ferris wheel pods, a nice aerial view of London if you see the blueish dome sort of thing in the right hand side of the picture, that is the top of the British Museum’s grand court!
The river cruise was relaxing. It’s nice to get a slow different view of the Thames. Here is the London Bridge and all of us on the cruise. After all of that we just wandered the Thames area. Watched some street theatre which is always intriguing. This guy looked exactly like a real statue, he even had a pigeon on his shoulder at one point. These people literally paint their whole bodies and just stand in the street all day long. There were about 6 people or so doing it, this man, a silver wizard, a golden slinky man, a golden cowboy, a fish on a bicycle, and blue guitar man and I think that was it.This next guy was nuts. He pretended to be Indian and I don’t really know why. He was actually Australian and he did all sorts of crazy juggling. For his final act he climbed a maybe 10 foot pool and laid on a bed of nails while juggling, ouch but he was entertaining.

This picture doesn’t really have a purpose, we don’t really know what the sculpture is but Casey and I thought it would be a good idea to stick our heads through it and have our picture taken. However, when we started to get our heads stuck we decided it wasn’t our best idea so just posed like this instead.

Today Mai, Leslie and I went to the Carnival De Cuba, which is the world’s largest Cuban festival outside of Cuba. It was a lot of fun though my knees hurt from salsaing too much. Here we are sporting our fancy custom cut Cuba t-shirts.
Why do people really go to Carnivals? Not because I’m Cuban but because jerk chicken is tasty and I enjoyed a lot of it…and three strawberry smoothies.

Here is part of the festival set-up. There was live music all day long, which made for a lot of dancing. I’ve come to the conclusion the dancing makes my right knee hurt, I don’t think that this will stop me however. Below for example is Mai trying to take a cute picture when I’m too busy rocking out. The carnival was fun and made for a lazy day with great atmosphere.

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June 26, 2008

Night out with the colleagues

By Pam Schwartz

This week has been very busy work and class on Monday and Tuesday, then yesterday I went to work all day and then we had a “staff event” afterwards. I’m surprised this type of staff event doesn’t happen in the states more. At about three four of us left work early and set off for the museum in the docklands (east end) We went to the special Jack the Ripper exhibition because we get in free. It was interesting but not terribly well done I didn’t think. David being the huge interp and eval nerd that he is made us go through this whole evaluation of it, but in a fun way not a, we have to do this? sort of a way. After we finished at the museum and they kicked us out we walked over to the Thames on this nice little bench sat and had a couple of beers (that David brought in his backpack) and talked about the exhibit and other stuff. I thought this might be the end of the staff event but it absolutely wasn’t. We wandered some more on Canary Wharf had a couple glasses of Pimms (which is very good) at some random pub….walked some more and ate at a Turkish restaurant called Tas.

We had Renk which is basically a whole bunch of dips and stuff they bring out with bread and then some falafel, spinach cheese filled things, calamari, mussels, and a bunch of stuff and everybody just eats whatever. It was all quite tasty. We had a bottle of wine here…then we went past a pub which was the first stop in Geoffery Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, but didn’t go in, it’s more like a hostel now I think. Then we went into the pub where Charles Dickens apparently used to frequent (Steve is full of random knowledge on ALL of the pubs). We had another bottle of wine, David wanted to get quail’s eggs to eat, but luckily for me they stopped serving food all ready. I don’t think I could make myself eat a quail’s egg. After that pub closed down they started looking for ANOTHER pub…I was like wholly heck, I was doing really well but this kid doesn’t drink like that and I knew I had to work this morning. They all had taken the day off to go to Wimbledon. Alas, all the pubs in the area were closed so I caught the tube home and went to sleep. It was quite an evening for a staff outing but I really enjoy my colleagues and we had a lot of fun.

This morning I wook up and my arms were all full of hives, so I apparently got into something I was allergic to. I’m thinking it was probably the clipboards at work I’ve been carrying around. Oh well so I called Rhiannon and asked that I not come in today, I didn’t really want to wander the galleries with my arms all red and puffy looking. She said that was fine so I’m staying in today, resting, catching up on laundry, sleeping, eating….the good things. Sorry there aren’t many pictures for this blog, I don’t get a chance to go out much during the week. Here are a few pictures from last weekend though. The first two are both at Camden Market where we went shopping (I went back again the next day with Ben) and didn’t forget my camera. This is the lock that runs down the middle of the market. Below is one of the tunnels that go into the markets. It is so easy to get lost going down into tunnels and up stairs, back and fourth. I saw things the second day I definitely didn’t see the first.
Last Saturday night we went out clubbing. We went to the Electric Ballroom in Camden Town. Six of us girls just went, I wore heels…bad idea. I wanted to die by the end of the night I don’t understand how the rest of those girls all made it. It was fun, they play all your normal music like we would play at a middle school dance, lots of early 90’s stuff. I liked it. We found a few guys who we ended up dancing with most of the night, they were fun. Supposedly it was Richard’s 21st bday…Neither he or Michael look 21 though. There were a lot of really young people there which made things weird when you have somebody who looks like a twelve year old boy start dancing with you…but there were a fair share of 40 year olds there too. I think I’m more of a pub scene girl than a clubber.

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June 21, 2008

I love markets

By Pam Schwartz

Stayed up late Thursday night so decided it just may not be a bad idea to sleep in a bit. I feel like I’m wasting valuable time but I guess if I don’t sleep I won’t fully enjoy time either. We got started a little later in the afternoon but Leslie and I didn’t have anything planned so we just went wandering. We ended up down by the London Eye (which I will ride eventually before I leave hopefully) We just sort of wandered in and out of places on the the waterfront looking for things to do. This is a Dali design sculpture on the Thames. I love it, it is from one my favorite paintings of his.

Next we came upon a Fright Club Horror Show, so for lack of something better to do we went. I was locked in the stockades and beating with a bloody amputated leg. It was an interesting show. It is apparently not illegal for people in haunted houses to touch you here cause I about lost my leg twice and had a small girl on my back at one point. It was fun, I’m almost sure in the states they aren’t allowed to touch you at all.
Next we found a huge arcade so just stopped by and played a few games. The bumper cars were absolutely ridiculous. It would have been a lawsuit in the states for sure. They went really really fast and when you got hit it wasn’t just a little bump it was getting thrown all the way to the other side of the arena. It was the best bumper cars I’ve ever been on!Leslie and I’s camels raced …her camel was faster than mine. We used the tickets we won at the arcade to buy candy. I feel it was a good investment for the return of fun and sugar.

Then we just came back to the flats and chilled as we were both really tired from our afternoon of fun. I’m entirely sick of eating spaghetti and pbj sandwiches so I decided to stop and get groceries and make something tasty. Mom should be proud! I like to make it fancy and call it Sage and Cheddar Fried Aubergine on a bed of creamy chicken pilaf with a roasted baguette. It was tasty enough to sound that fancy but really it was fried eggplant with brown rice with cream of chicken soup poured over it. Minus the butter and sodium it was kind of healthy right?
This morning I forgot my camera. I never forget my camera so this naturally upset me. I take pictures of everything but Casey wouldn’t let me go back for it. We went to the Camden Market and it was amazing. It was like it’s own little village and there was so much neat stuff! My first purchase was some peaches…four and I’ve eaten them all all ready. Casey and I wandered there for quite a few hours. I didn’t buy too much, there were a lot of clothes and crafts stuff I don’t actually NEED or have room to pack. I did however meet a leather worker who I schmoozed with for a while and he made me two custom made leather bracelets for 6 quid only! I was so excited so they fit my wrist perfectly and were crazy cheap. He offered to make me a zebra skin belt too but that was kind of weird and Casey was waiting to leave.

We ate some really bizarre but amazing candy at a stand, and also some really bad lemonade. Lemonade is very hit or miss in this country…you never know their definition of it or what they are going to give you. I try to stick to water. The market was amazing, I might try to hit it up again before we leave…I’m only here 36 more days. That’s not very many. Here is a pic or two I made just for fun, this is what I do really late at night when I’m procrastinating on sleeping.

Tomorrow I have a lot of work to do for work. Too much work but I’m trying to keep at it. I guess the museum is basically substituting me for the professional consultants they usually have come in. David thinks I can do better then I’m sure I can. It’s just going to be intense. Tomorrow at Trafalgar Square they are having a free event called West End Live, note the word free, I love that. Basically all of the shows that are going on around here, Dirty Dancing, Phantom of the Opera, Spamalot, Chicago, etc. are going to have actors there performing skits and numbers from their shows. So that should be a lot of fun!

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June 19, 2008

Terry Jones!!!!! Like WOAH!!!

By Pam Schwartz

Not too much happens during the week besides work. I go to work, come home, hang out for a bit and then sleep. Work is very intense. We’ve finally decided my title is Interpretation and Visitor Research Intern. David is working on putting together my next project. They want me to do the work of what they usually hire professional consultants for because they had a budget cut. What an opportunity…and a lot off work and a standard to live up to. Things are going to get a little stressful come time for that project I think. I officially present my exhibition analysis to the Interp. Board next Wednesday…lots of practicing for that this weekend. Here is my office, there are eight of us who work in here. I work just to the right over there and that is the lovely Susan who is very sweet.

This is my desk where I sit and the floorplan for the next exhibit that I was creating at the time and my cup of tea! I love London, frequent breaks are taken out of the workday for tea and it tastes so good.This is the view out of the office window. That is the front of the British Museum and the little courtyard where I eat lunch everyday. Isn’t it crazy!? I eat lunch there!Yesterday I went to the London Grad Fair. It was interesting but I didn’t know what half of the companies were that were there so I just got a bunch of cool free stuff. The winner for the oddest thing to hand out at a grad fair was the Kent Grad Program who gave me a can that looked like it was going to have moist cat food in it. It’s a grass growing kit, how bizarre. Other things included a nice planner, pens, and highlighters the norm.

No really big plans for the weekend yet. On to more exciting matters! Tonight I went to a lecture given by Terry Jones!!! I was so excited and nobody else even knew who he was. He co-directed and acted in a lot of Monty Python stuff, MP and the Holy Grail, The Meaning of Life. He’s written many articles, is an author and excellent historian. Needless to say I was SOOO excited. He hugged me and I got my picture taken with him. The lecture was about Richard the II on whether he was mad or not, it was sort of in defense of his honour versus Henry IV. I got his autograph too…that is getting framed when I get home!

The girls and I on the way home from the lecture, me, Laura, Leslie, and Vanessa. Riding on one of the numerous huge escalators in London down to the tube.
That is all the new business. Below are some other pictures from the last week or so that I have gotten from friends or finally put on my computer. Sunbathing in Hyde Park again, I think at the time I was laughing really hard because Casey was so excited to eat his sandwich.
Some more pictures from inside of Salisbury Cathedral. Isn’t is absolutely beautiful and the size was amazing.

Lastly another picture from King Lear of the cast doing a call at the end. It was so good. Ben and I might try to get tickets to go see A Midsummer Night’s Dream there.

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June 15, 2008

Weekend Adventures

By Pam Schwartz

There has been too much going on this weekend. It started out that on Thursday night we went to see King Lear at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. It was very, very good. The acting was phenomenal and the atmosphere was even better. It was outside but luckily it wasn’t that chilly. Below are the little accompanying ensemble and a group of us that went to see it.Friday we went to Bath, Stonehenge, and Salisbury. Bath is absolutely beautiful , so I’m going to get a job at the Bath Museum and I all ready picked out my house. This is the English countryside on the way to Bath. This would be just down the road from where I’ll be working, just kidding. Isn’t it gorgeous though?Here you can see inside the Roman Baths and in the background the Bath Abbey. The Roman Baths were awesome and oh so tempting to jump in but they don’t let you do that. It was just like this big stone vault of different size and types of baths. The museum part was very interesting and informative as well. For 50 pence Casey and I got to sample the water, it was very hot and full of the minerals. It made my teeth feel funny.Next we went to Stonehenge, I tried to push the stones over but they were too heavy. Stonehenge is interesting but not near as large as I thought it might be. Then on to Salisbury, this cathedral had us all in awe. It is absolutely gorgeous outside and in, we also got to see one of the four remaining copies of the Magna Carta. There will be more pictures for all of these things later. My camera battery died so I stole Casey’s camera but haven’t gotten a chance to get the other pictures yet, so more stuff later.Of course on Saturday we went to the Naked Bike Ride in Hyde Park. This was to protest Oil Dependency and Bicyclists Rights. No worries, I posted the least vulgar pictures I had. We also got video….which is interesting. A lot of the body painting was very neat though. I thought about joining in and started to loose my shirt but my friends didn’t think it was a very good idea…and I didn’t have a bicycle, which was too bad.

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June 10, 2008

Dreaming of Museum Visitors

By Pam Schwartz

The last two days at the museum I have been doing visitor tracking. As you can see below, this requires me to lurk the gallery and stalk people when they come in . I created the blueprint of my exhibit below and use this to draw those fine squiggly lines you see and record where it is people go when they enter the gallery. This particular person went mostly in the correct direction. However, the stats are not looking too good. Many people have been going in the opposite direction, which is understandable, the gallery is set up quite oddly. Of course this is what I am here to find out, whether the exhibit needs to be set up differently or not in later exhibitions. Tomorrow I have 36 more observations (making a total of 100) to make and then I have to finish compiling my data and make a report and analysis about my methodology and findings and what not. This should be interesting as I have never done anything of this sort before.
These are all some pictures from the last few days, I apologize for things being out of order but as people post pictures I get them and want to show them to you so I’ll try to make things as clear as possible. Above was Sunday, chill and homework day. We went to Hyde Park which is just this HUGE area and because the sun was finally showing we had a picnic (you guessed it pbj sandwiches) I was right where that open spot is by the huge blue BM Internship Orientation guide is. It was actually a very interesting read. In the afternoon we went to stop by the National Portrait Gallery and we happened upon Dano which is a Korean festival of sorts. We seem to happen upon many of our coolest activities, this little band was like its own little parade. The portrait gallery was huge, my posse grew tired early so I’ll have to go back and finish reading every single text panel later like I love to.
These pictures are from Saturday night, we went down to Bar Bar Blacksheep had a drink and played a rousing game of Trivial Pursuit. That is the really fun thing about pubs and bars here, it isn’t just a bunch of obnoxious drunk people. You can sit and chat and play board games, my kinda place. A couple of locals joined us and man were they much better than we were. Below was my team with Mo, Leslie, myself, and Jessica. We lost by one question, Mo’s specialty was Science, and everything we didn’t actually know the answer to we answered Tony Blair.
The winning team consisted of Casey, Laura, Ryan, and Peter. It was a good time, we are thinking this may become a regular activity too. I’m glad some of the people on this trip are just as nerdy as I am.
Last night we went to the pub to watch the big football match (soccer of course) It was rowdy but a lot of fun. The next big event coming up is seeing King Lear at Shakesphere’s Globe Theatre on Thursday, that will be exciting!

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June 7, 2008

Carnaby Street, gotta be, had to be Cah-nah-bee Street.

By Pam Schwartz

Two hours to the horse races did not sound like a good idea at 7 this morning…so instead we slept in. When we started off this morning we saw a little farmer’s market with all sorts of samples, a good free way to get breakfast. We had marinated garlic, cheese sticks, some amazing cheesey bread dough ball things, apples, bread, and then we came to the goat cheese stand. What happened next made my entire day and possibly my entire weekend. To make a long story short there were something like 15 different types of goat cheese to try and Casey is popping them in his mouth faster than I can figure out what they are. When suddenly Casey looks like he may either throwup or start crying. For about two minutes he just stood there with this awful look on his face not wanting to be rude and spit it out but also not being able to swallow it. The man at the booth laughed and then told Casey it was his best seller but that he could spit it out because the birds like it. I wish I would have gotten a picture of his actual face eating the “well-aged” awful awful cheese. We had many kinds but the goat cheese covered in ashes from burnt coconuts was my favorite, kind of different. If we had ovens we would have gotten some of the bread dough ball things to make, but we don’t

Casey and I went to the Red Bull Flugtag competition which is basically where Red Bull (the energy drink) has a big ramp built out over some water. People from all over build what are supposed to be clever gliding/flying machines. They run them off the end of the ramp and whoever makes it the farthest without crashing wins I guess. We didn’t stay for the entire thing but it was quite amusing. Most aircrafts only made it to the end of the ramp and took a quick dive along with their drivers into the lake. Below the picture of somebody falling off the end is what the fliers look like after they stop flying.

Walking around Hyde Park they have some really crazy trees. This tree made it look like the Earth was wearing a big wig and you could walk under it and climb up in it’s branches. Casey and I also had fun feeding the squirrels who are quite friendly. A little old lady informed me that the squirrels would not eat bread however, they only liked peanuts. She also said we had better not feed them salted peanuts because it was bad for them. Thus Casey and I’s plans for next weekend were born. Feeding peanuts to the squirrels at the park.


I had to travel to Carnaby Street for my good old friend Alice. We used to watch an obnoxious movie about two girls going to London called Smashing Time. I took this picture in remembrance of all the amazing smashing times we’ve had. It was a fun little shopping street as well. The walk include cheap chinese noodles and amazing tea samples.This afternoon we got lost on the bus system, we blame Leslie and Laura who thing that Camberwell Grove is where we need to go to. It’s not however but it was like another fun sight-seeing tour. Tomorrow, a day of rest and relaxing….and homework.

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