Scotland = Damp Pants

Hello! I'm in my hostel for the night (there is free internet, sweet). I've had an eventful two days. I got into Edinburgh yesterday at about 8:30, and my friend met my shuttle from the airport. We walked around for awhile, got some falafels (YUM) and then she left to write a paper. I went to the Royal Museum and the National Gallery, and walked up and down the Royal Mile. I went to bed really early last night (I got up at 4, so I was pretty out of it).

I went to St. Andrews today...it's a little over an hour train ride from here. You take a train to the town over, and then take a bus to St. Andrews. It's a beautiful ride; it goes all the way along the coast, so I saw a lot of very blue water and a bunch of sheep. St. Andrews was pretty too, and COLD, but they've got an awesome ruin Cathedral, and a huge cemetary. Even though it was cold, it was really sunny, so that was nice. I walked around the University for awhile too, and saw some people playing golf.

When I got back to Edinburgh, I went to the pub where JK Rowling started writing Harry Potter...it's called The Elephants Head, and it's full of elephant related things. The shortbread I got was shaped like an elephant. I met my friend again and we went and walked around the Christmas market which is by the Ferris wheel/arcade in the center of town. We got crepes and watched people ice skate on the outdoor rink (and when I say "watched", I mean "watched people fall over and mocked them"). It was starting to get really cold, so we went to a pub for awhile, and I just got back here. I think I'm going to knit for awhile and turn in...I think I'm going to the Castle tomorrow, and maybe another museum, but I'm not sure yet.

The only downside...I lost an earring, and (as the post title suggests) my pants have been dragging in puddles since I got here.

I'll let you know when I re-enter Norwich. I hope you all are having a good week!

The Land of Scots

Gin a body meet a body
Comin' thro' the rye
Gin a body kiss a body
Need a body cry?
Ilka lassie has her laddie
Nane, they say, hae I
Yet a' the lads they smile at me
When comin' thro' the rye.

Gin a body meet a body
Comin' frae the town
Gin a body kiss a body
Need a body frown?
Ilka lassie has her laddie
Nane, they say, hae I
Yet a' the lads they smile at me
When comin' thro' the rye.

'Mang the train there is a swain
I dearly lo'e myself
But what his name or whaur his hame
I dinna care to tell
Ilka lassie has her laddie
Nane, they say, hae I
Yet a' the lads they smile at me
When comin' thro' the rye.

I'm off to Edinburgh tomorrow (very early in the morning!) until Saturday. I kind of wish I had planned this for earlier in the term, but I am getting excited. One of my friends is at the University of Edinburgh for the term, so I get to hang out with her which should be fun. I'll try and get online at some point and let you all know what I'm up to.

P.S. I picked this song specifically for it's Catcher in the Rye significance. It turns out all my flatmates love that book too, which makes me really happy with life.

Holkham Hall

Hi all, sorry I've been bad at blogging over the past few days...I had a Country House presentation today (my last one! wheee!), I have an African Art one next week and then 3 papers right at the end, so I'll be pretty busy from here on out.

But talking about Country Houses, my class went to Holkham Hall last week, and it was CRAZY. I've been to biggish houses, like the Vanderbilt Mansion in NY, but this was the biggest "house" I've ever seen. It took 10 minutes of driving through the estate to even get to the house. I think it has something like 25,000 acres, and it used to have it's own railway station, but that has since flooded.

This is the main hall. If you go up the stairs, you can look out the window and see a monument to one of the Earl's that lived there. If you turn around and look out the stateroom window, you can see an obelisk on the exact same axis...they apparently planned this out! The ceiling is pretty dramatic too, we walked in and gaped at it for awhile.

We also got to go in the guest rooms, which the public can't normally see. We couldn't go in the chapel because Keira Knightley was filming a movie there; they use the house a lot for movies (a lot of times they shoot at a bunch of different houses and then stick them all together as one country house). This guest bedroom is the "Red Parrot room" and it has an AMAZING bathroom with probably a six foot long bathtub. One of my friends asked, and it's only 1500 pounds a night (that's 3000ish dollars for you American currency fans), so you can keep that in mind for your next holiday. It's used mostly when they have hunting parties there on the weekends.

The library was also really cool, it reminded me a lot of Beauty and the Beast. It was empty of tables and things because they were filming in there too, so we got to see the secret passage behind one of the bookcases! It was used by servants if they had to get upstairs quickly; you just pull part of the bookcase away from the wall. The house is closed to visitors for the winter, so it was really nice that it was just us so we could see a lot more.

I'm kind of skipping the staterooms and state bedrooms, but this is the main state bedroom...if they had royalty staying, this is where they would stay. That's why there is a crown on top of the bed; the bed is SO tall, too. And lastly, this is the kitchen, I love all the copper pots. The current Earl (he and his family still live in one of the wings) had all the staff members painted and these all hang in the kitchen. So there is a housekeeping painting, and a gardeners painting, etc. I thought that was kind of cool.

We talked about the gardens a bit, but it was too cold to really do much out there. The best part was their man made lake with a lot of ducks, and a herd of deer that hang out on the lawn. We all kind of walked around in shock...looking at these buildings in books is one thing, but they don't seem as massive as they really are. So my new life plan is to marry a lord/earl/duke and manage his art collection. My American friend in the class wants to marry a lord/earl/duke so she can use his stables and horses. It's nice to know we have goals.

Giving Thanks...with Waffles

I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.
~Jon Stewart

HAPPY THANKSGIVING ALL!!

What a weird day it's been. A friend and I went and got waffles this morning at Norwich's own Waffle House. It was really tasty, they have both savory and dessert waffles. We went with dessert: I got a pecan one (sort of a substitute for Gram's pecan pie). And then we decided to go crazy and get chocolate mousse too. You can get it on a waffle or just in a bowl with Norwich whipped cream, which is what we did. It came with a warning, because it had raw egg in it...it tasted like brownie batter that had been whipped. It was delicious. And incredibly filling; I had about 2 bites left and couldn't finish it. So you will all be happy to know that I stuffed myself in a good Thanksgiving way. I'm still really full.

I walked around downtown for awhile after that. I went to one of the Oxfam shops, did some Christmas shopping, bought myself a black beret which has a little glitter on it, went by the river, and then back up by the Cathedral. I noticed there were a lot of soldiers around taking donations (if you gave money you got a balloon). When I got back to the market there were all these people lining up, so I stayed to see what was going on. There was a big sign on the Newsagents that said "Welcome home, well done". What I found out was that the Anglian Regiment had just gotten back from their tour of duty in Afghanistan and people from all over had come to see them (the people in front of me were from Cambridge). It was really packed and getting really cold, but then they started playing Rule Brittania, and the soldiers all marched down with their guns and swords and everything. And the man behind me yelled, "that's my son!" so everyone started cheering for him. The old woman next to me (why am I always next to old women at these events?) said kind of to herself, "oh my, they are barely more than boys" and I started crying and could not stop. I think it was a combination of things...I cry at most anything, this was my first Thanksgiving without my family, the fact that everyone I know who is not in England was just getting ready to eat dinner with their families, that people who are younger than me go to war and sometimes die, the ones who do come back don't get the right treatment from the government that sent them there, and that the soldiers marching by were supposed to look serious but you could tell they were so happy to be back. And that's a pretty good thing to be thankful about.

Ely

I've been doing work all day (another Country House presentation on Monday, eek!) so I thought I'd take a break and do this. It is also 4:30 and completely dark out--I just checked on weather.com and the sunrise this morning was 7:29 am, and sunset at 3:54. This can be compared to Jtown, where the sunrise was 7:14 and sunset was 4:51...effectively, you people get almost 1 1/2 more hours of daylight a day there. Depressing.

Anyway...this post is about Ely, where I went last Friday. No complaining about weather then, because it was beautiful out, if a bit cold. It started with a typical Anna adventure: I got to the train station late, got my day pass, and knew that the train left at 9:57. I swear to you, when I looked at the monitor I saw one leaving then, as well as a bus. So I ran for the train. Once it was moving and the conductor read off the list of stops I realized it was definitely not the right train. I checked the map in the car, and I was heading toward the coast, not the midlands where I was supposed to be going. Now, two months ago I would have had a minor stroke at this, but it didn't even faze me (of course, two months ago I wouldn't have just hopped on a random train without checking the rail timetable more than once). So I ended up in Reedham, where I had 40 minutes to kill before getting the train BACK to Norwich. I walked around for awhile, and it was one of the smallest towns I've ever seen...it had no sidewalks, and I almost got hit by a lorry whilst walking in the road, but it was really pretty. The picture is from my walk. The conductor probably thought I was a total lunatic.

I went to Ely mainly to see the Cathedral (my parents went there when they were here, and my advisor told me to go there too) and it was worth it. Ely is a fairly small town too (one of my flatmates described it as "really pretty, but a little inbred") and it's got a good riverwalk and a few downtown streets with shops. I followed signs to the Cathedral, and had to go through this little gate and through a green field and then there was this view of it, with the horses in the front. I wanted to move there, really.

I walked around in there for awhile and then went on a tour. All my cathedral tour guides have been old women and hilarious, and this one was no exception. She was excited I was American, because she had just gotten back from "holiday" at the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas. I had to tell her that I haven't actually been to either place. It's a really interesting building (I won't go into the history too much here) but the coolest part is the octagonal lantern. It was built in the 14th century (the tower that was there collapsed) but the rest of the building is mostly 11th century. The picture doesn't really do it justice; it's pretty elaborately painted, which you can't really tell. They do have one stone that dates from the first building on the site, so that is 7th century. I know that's not very old in the grand scheme of life on earth, but it seems pretty old to me!!

The lady chapel is also interesting; it's the largest dedicated to the Virgin Mary in England. The statue is from there; my dad referred to it as a Touchdown Virgin, but apparently she is "supplicating". You could also see traces of Medieval paint on the walls, and all the people carved on the walls had their heads whacked off during the dissolution of the monarchies. I think that stuff is pretty cool (not defacing art, the history behind it). They also have a lot of side chapels, one completely dedicated to the soldiers in the World Wars from that area (that seems to be coming up a lot, doesn't it?) Since this area of the country is sooo flat, it was used as a major air field; there is a stained glass window commemorating that.

I walked around Ely for a little after that, stopped in a used book store and went down by the river. I got the train back to Norwich with no problem, although this one was much more crowded than my earlier ones. Still, I got a seat, and read some Alice in Wonderland which was nice. That probably deserves an explanation...one of my friends discovered that the UEA library has a HUGE collection of children's books (she currently has Mary Poppins out). I got it because I like children's books (especially British ones!) and also because I can't read The Kite Runner before I go to sleep without having nightmares, but I've realized that I've been having really weird dreams after reading Alice in Wonderland. For example, last night I had a dream that involved my Economics professor from last semester giving me Greek olives, and then I was in a pizza place, but they had cheesecake instead, and I was knitting, and someone who worked there kept trying to steal my knitting and cast off for me, and I woke up in a panic thinking that my knitting had been messed up. Maybe I should just read the "Queen Anne Revival Architecture" book I checked out today, because I'm pretty sure that'll put me right to sleep...

Long tangent aside, Ely was really good, I am going to go find dinner, and for those of you on break, I hope you are having fun!

East Anglian Escapades

This title could actually apply to the next few posts...I've been doing a few fun/exciting things in this area recently. I might go back to London/Paris posts after this (sorry, I'm not very chronological!)

Anyway, this is Cromer and Sheringham. I went there with my parents and godmothers, and two friends and I are going back this Saturday. The return tickets are pretty cheap, and there is a cute tea place in Cromer. Plus, it's the North Sea. When we went it was raining, but that made it feel more English coast-like, if that makes any sense. We also went the day after their flood, and even though it didn't hit them quite as hard, some of the railings were broken and there was a hole smashed in the pier. The sea was also looking really brown; I think from all the stuff it must have dragged up.

We also stopped in the cathedral in Cromer, mostly to dry out. I was looking around in one of the rooms, and they had a plaque for the men of Cromer who died in the World Wars, and then a list of civilians, either from air bombings or from shooting off the sea. It was so strange...we never really have civilian deaths, do we?

And we met this old Welsh man, who told me his "American joke": A nurse was answering phones in an American hospital, and got a call from a woman asking about Minnie Brown in Room 413. The nurse checked her records and said, "Minnie Brown is doing much better, her cholesterol is down, and her blood pressure is back to normal, we can actually release her tomorrow."
"Oh," said the woman on the phone, "that is good news."
"So are you related to Minnie Brown?" asked the nurse. "You seem very concerned for how she is."
"This IS Minnie Brown in 413", said the woman on the phone. "And none of you tell me a damn thing!"
There is some Welsh humor for ya.

So I like Cromer and Sheringham; I bet in the summer they are packed with people going to the seaside on holiday. It's kind of a forbidding view though...it's not friendly water like a lake or even what I've seen of the Atlantic, but I still like it. It makes you think about how much we don't know about the seas and oceans and how we really shouldn't mess with them, because they will always ultimately be more powerful than people. What a good philosophical thought for the day.

The Green Bits of London

Wow, this really is a filthy city!
~Gonzo, The Muppet Christmas Carol

You always hear about London being foggy, but I didn't really think it was. Maybe we just hit it when it was exceptionally clear (it only rained a tiny bit the three days we were there) but the other times I've been it seemed fairly clear too. And there are LOTS of parks. I think it just got voted one of the worlds Greenest Cities, but I could be making that up. I did see a lot of people sweeping the sidewalks and picking up leaves.

Anyway, here are some park pictures for your viewing pleasure. I should have taken some of the parks in Bloomsbury, since that's where we were staying, but I didn't. The two on the bottom are St. James Park. In the right one, you can kind of see two tiny people holding hands.

So we crashed the Remembrance Day Service at Westminster Abbey

As many of you know, my life often has elements of, shall we say, ridiculousness. Sometimes this works out to my advantage, however. We headed to Westminster Abbey early-ish on Thursday morning, and there was a line when we got there, but not too bad. As we're standing in line, I started to realize that 1) everyone looks over the age of 65, and 2) everyone is wearing war medals. We all had on poppies (they have paper poppies sold by I think the British Legion on the street, you give a donation for them and then pin them to your coat, it's a great thing) so we kind of blended in. We had to pass through a metal detector which seemed kind of strange to me, but I didn't really think much about it. When we got through this is what we saw. It was crazy. All the little plots were for different battalions/sections of the Navy, Air Force, Army, etc. They do have different names for them, but I'm not quite sure what they are.

So it was packed with Veterans, and we weren't quite sure what to do. A man came over and told us to "get to our plot, because he would be here soon." Rather cryptic. We just picked a spot that seemed fairly uncrowded. I started talking to the old woman next to me about the different medals people had on. Apparently this one woman had on a larger medal that you were only supposed to wear at night for state dinners, but as it was her husband's medal she must not have known any better. It was crazy to look around and see all the people who had come. They do so much more in honoring their Veterans than we do.


The doors swung open and the clergy came out. They did a few prayers and then the trumpeters played reveille from the roof. All I could see was the bells of the trumpets. It was so cool. And then they read part of a Churchill speech which is now part of the service, and everyone in unison said "we will remember them", and I got shivers. They view the World Wars so much differently then we do. We did have civilian deaths in Hawaii, but for them it was people in so many different cities being bombed. I can't even imagine.

A bunch of camera people started moving out on to the walkway. "It figures," said my new old woman friend, "they let those people out from behind the railings but they don't let the Veterans." And then they announced the Duke of Edinburgh, and there he was. I mean, granted, he's not the coolest member of the royal family you could get. But he does have a military history, and as my godmother pointed out, he does look pretty good for being 86 years old. My old woman was not impressed though. "Is the Queen not here?" she said to Ken the Veteran from Birmingham behind me. "Well, she wasn't here last year, was she?" he replied. "So she wasn't," said my old woman. "Her back's been playing up." So I guess that is that.

Prince Phillip circled all the Veterans and shook hands with people. He was accompanied out with some of the clergy, hopped into his Rolls Royce (is that what they use?) and drove off. What a weird experience. And all these British people were standing outside the gates taking pictures of him, I think if we had arrived just a little bit later we wouldn't have been able to get in. So sometimes being a farce has it's advantages.

Cross Continental Visitors

I went to London last Wednesday and my parents and godmothers came to visit! We all came back to Norwich later on Friday, and my godmothers headed back to the states yesterday. I have a bunch of stuff to write about, so I'll be spreading that out. I think I'm actually going to bed soon...they wore me out!

In other local news, the coast flooded on Friday by Great Yarmouth and Caister-on-Sea, but Norwich is far enough inland that only the river swelled. It was the worst North Sea flood in this area in 50 years. And I just saw on the news that Diss, which is the stop closest to Norwich, has an outbreak of bird flu. Crazy goings on in East Anglia.

Done!

My first British paper is finished, and 200 words over the minimum it is. I have a feeling when I reread it in the morning it might not make much sense, but that's the way it always is when I write late-ish at night. I even started watching clips from "Spice World" to keep myself focused, so that is a sad state of affairs (for those of you who are interested...I think most of the movie is on youtube!)

And I took an hour or so break tonight and went to the Pub Quiz with my flat. Here was my contribution: the question was "what is Michelangelo's first name?" (answer, that is his first name, it was a trick question). Glad to see my education is helping me out. AND, for a bonus round, we had to list all fifty states. I still remembered them in order from this song we had to learn in middle school, so my flatmate was running up with them and another team just beat us, so that was sad. I walked over with an American friend who met up with people in one of her classes and she got 48 down. So well done us.

I'm going to go to bed now, and I'll try and dig up a more exciting post for next time.

Andy Patmore

One of my friends calculated, and today is the exact half-way point between when we arrived in England and when we leave. It sometimes seems like I've been here for 6 months, and sometimes like a week. My concept of time is very messed up at the moment.

So about the title of this post--I am researching a paper and a presentation for Andy Patmore, and I'm procrastinating on here. Andy Patmore is my US Foreign Policy professor, or "tutor". He's a strange man...he has crazy hair, and he always wears the same sweatshirt, and a "Norfolk Pub Run" t-shirt, and he chain smokes, but he is the nicest of my professors. And he genuinely loves American History. Loves it in the way my 7th and 8th grade history teacher Mr. Kresge does. So that he REALLY wants you to know about it. I've learned a ton so far in this class.

However, this doesn't mean that I want to write Andy Patmore's paper. Most of the books that I need (I'm doing the CNN effect on the public and policy, and how president's manipulate the
media for their own gains) have been checked out of the library. I went to his office hours last week and he was on his smoke break, so I ended up talking to him out there. In the rain. And then today, he was in the coffee bar instead of his office, so I found him there. We ended up talking about various things for 20 minutes: my hometown, and how my classes are, and future career ideas (or in this case, serious lack thereof). He was wearing a poppy on his sweatshirt so I asked about that. I started seeing them on a lot of people yesterday, too. It's leading up to their Veteran's day (Nov 11, like ours), and it's for the British who have died in war. Or as he put it, "I'm wearing it for all those who die in war, not just the bloody British."

So I will miss Andy Patmore. He says "crikey", and he points excitedly at you if you are saying something worthwhile. I'm the only American in my class which is a strange feeling, but I think I'm doing well.