Cool Kew

This weekend is the one free weekend we have before we leave London. Tara and I took the opportunity to head out of town to Kew Gardens on Saturday. It was absolutely beautiful with more flowers and plants than we had seen anywhere previous. Kew itself is a tiny little town that was a nice change from superbusy London. The tube lets you off right at the center of town and its only a short walk to Kew. I've actually been really intrigued by Kew Gardens since I read Virginia Woolf's short story by the same name when I was an undergrad. She describes it so beautifully and while I'm sure the gardens have changed since she walked through them, they are still breathtaking and peaceful. There are a few different greenhouses including a Palm House and a Waterlily House. Both of which are filled to the brim with amazing plants that I've never seen before. Tara recognized many of the plants in the Palm House from her home in Hawai'i but for a midwestern like myself, they were very foreign. One of the highlights was definitely the butterfly exhibit in the Princess of Wales Conservatory. There were very beautiful and so much fun to look at. I kept thinking I was going to step on them though; ridiculous but true. London has been an ironically wonderful to explore plants since they have a huge abundance of gardens and around the city. Most of the royal parks were made public which has produced some really wonderful green areas. It definitely makes living in London attractive and bearable. To top off a wonderful Saturday, Tara and I stopped at a great bakery that had the most delicious looking cupcakes, which we brought home to all the roommates. We completely stocked up on carbs: olive filled ciabatta, rosemary and olive oil foccacia and muffins. It was a delicious day!

From 2010-07-24

From 2010-07-24

From 2010-07-24

From 2010-07-24

From 2010-07-24

From 2010-07-24

Regent's Roses

After a full week of major tourist attractions, we took a break and headed for Regent's Park. While this is a tourist attraction as well, its a 410 acre tourist attraction so no one is packed together. It's also a great spot for locals and their families, so it was much more relaxing than the British Museum or Stonehenge. Regent's Park is famous for their gardens and I wasn't disappointed. They were beautiful and obviously well taken-care of, which is nice thing to see in any garden. I was playing with the panorama setting on camera and got some fantastic pictures (see below). The flowers were enticing to photograph but I was really looking forward to flying kites on Primrose Hill. I love flying kites so I was itching for a chance to use my “Tiny Dancer.” Alas, the wind was less the adequate and we all spent most of time running up and down the summit, trying to get lift. I plan on taking my kite to Hyde Park and hopefully it will be windy then. I may try for Primrose Hill again but I'm running out of time for all the things I wanted to do. The day ended with a trip to Abbey Road. I like the Beatles and their music was a huge part of my childhood, but I can't say that I was blown away by Abbey Road. It might be because I really enjoy the music but knowledge stops there. I don't know much about the group or their history. Not to mention that Abbey Road is a tride-and-true cross walk on a very busy road. I just didn't think it was vale la peňa to stop traffic and I can commiserate with drivers who have to deal with lots and lots of pedestrians. Madison is overrun with students who will not look both ways when they cross the street. However, I really enjoyed the graffiti wall. Thousands and thousands people come and leave their messages and names on the wall outside of the Abbey Road Studio. I think this is much better expression of the Beatles' spirit since they are mostly messages about love. It was a great end to the week.

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Dr. Who would be so proud

We visited the Prime Meridian today at Greenwich, which is basically a metal line on the ground that is supposed to be 0 0 0. More importantly, its the home of hundreds of years of time-related research. In the "Time Galleries." It's easy to forget that our concept of time is a relatively new invention. For decades, time was kept differently in different places and no one place necessarily matched to another. However, it also wasn't necessary; most towns/villages were concerned with the events going on in their own areas. Once groups started to expand via sea and land, time and direction became very important. The Time Galleries explained how the British set about solving the "longitude problem" in the 18th century after a disastrous shipwreck. It took them years to solve because the direction and clock engineering at the time could not compensate for the natural movement of the ship. Read all about that the Royal Observatory. I think Dr. Who would enjoy this exhibit very much.

Somes

Going out to Stonehenge and Salisbury today was such a relief. I love London, I really do, but I find all the people and traffic all the time overwhelming. I always thought I wanted to live in a big city and I'm already starting to rethink things. I've never lived “downtown” before... except in Madison but Madison is only about 100,000 people so its not anywhere near as big as London or Chicago. It was really nice to leave the insane traffic and hundreds of thousands of people for a town set upon chalk. Salisbury would be a great place to spend lots of time. It doesn't have lots of shows or thousands of restaurants but its a good size town with great food, decent shopping and lovely green that isn't overcrowded. I'm probably romanticizing it, but I had one of the best meals so far in a great pub in the center of town. Stonehenge was, of course, really interesting.. I find it impressive that a group of people thought something was important enough to bring stones that weighed scores of tons to the middle of open field. The meaning of Stonehenge was oddly not bothering me. Its really fun to have your own opportunity to wonder at the meaning of these stones who meant so much to someone sometimes (oh, lots of somes there). It was definitely something.

From 2010-07-21

From 2010-07-21

From 2010-07-21

From 2010-07-21

Had to talk about tea

I love tea. I really do. This is a recent obsession, not one that I grew up with as a child. It partly has to do with that I can't drink coffee anymore and my roommate in undergrad drank tea like it was water. I was very excited to go to English tea at the the British Museum. I love the idea of tea because like the Spanish siesta, its a planned break (and a snack!) which does not exist at all in the States. I mean, it can definitely get very fancy, like ours did, but it can also be a simply cup and a couple of cookies and chance to rest. Sounds great to me.

Bits of the British Museum

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The song at the beginning is Time Bomb by The Format from their album Dog Problems.

• this is an experimental podcast, not for the assignment!
• I just wanted to see if I could get the podcast to work.
• “A History of the World in 100 Objects” put out by BBC4 radio.

British Museum

This morning was the third time I've been to the British Museum and I don't feel as though I've seen anymore than the first time. The British Museum is massive. Today I only got through half of the second floor, basically Europe. I was pretty obsessed with the clocks because if the miniature mechanics so I spent a good 45 min wandering through that room. The Clock room is only a small part of the Museum's collection; they have collections on Asia, Africa, the Americas, Europe and lots of little, unique exhibits.
The British Museum is Massive! But Tara loves it anyway.

From Photos

From Photos

From Photos

From Photos
			From Photos

Westminster Abbey, religious hybrid

Parliament, Big Ben,
Westminster Abbey from the London Eye

Unlike the United States, Europe is dotted with lots of religious hybrids. It's not land or the area or the region but the building itself. Westminster Abbey is a wonderful example. This isn't just a English anomaly; you can find these hybrids in Spain down in the south where the Christian monarchs Ferdinand and Isabel conquered the Moors. Granada's Alahmabra, which wasn't physically altered too much but was used as the headquarters to rule the south (and the newly discovered American colonies). In Cordoba, the Mezquita was partially converted into a cathedral. When you walk through, you go from mosque arches to cathedral splendor.

Westminster Abbey from the side street entrance,
closer to the monks' side
Westminster's changes are not nearly as dramatic as those in Spain. The Abbey is really no longer an abbey since the monastery that was there in the 16^th century has been abolished. The Abbey spent six centuries as a Catholic center before being changed into an Anglican church. There are still parts of the original monastery that was built by Edward the Confessor. When Henry VIII implemented the Reformation, they used many parts of the old Catholic church, like the choirs, pulpit and such. What I think is really interesting, and is so foreign to us Americans, is this concept that the church is naturally tied to the monarchy and therefore the government. Westminster has changed over the mast 11 centuries that it has existed but its ability to be a symbol of a connection between government and people has not.

Front of Westminster Abbey
Religion seems like it has much more of a dynamic position in Europe, especially England, than the States. They buried an unknown soldier from the WWI in the entrance of this church as away for the country to show its appreciation for the thousands that lost their lives. Its obviously a religious gesture, but its also a societal and cultural one.I found my experience at Westminster very moving... which is odd for me since I have visited lots of churches on my travels and I'm not religious at all.