Tate Modern

After move in and orientation at Sussex I had a few days on my own so I went to visit Jesse in London. While I was there we discovered all different parts of the city, including Bricklane, Tate Modern and the nightlife in Soho.

The local art adorning the sidewalks of Bricklane, which is apart of the Bengali district in East London. On Sunday Jesse and I went to an outdoor market and went through tons of local vendors. There was also a lot of food stands that had everything from Spanish to Indian to Japanese. We both had fun walking around and feeling like locals...!

This was an old bus that was made into a food stand! It was called the RootMaster and there were all fresh organic soups with an upstairs on top of the bus that you could either dine out of or order from the wine bar.

Later in the night, Jesse and a friend of ours bought tickets for dinner and a show at a theatre in Soho. This was a pub we stopped off at to kill some time before we ate. I thought it looked like one of the conventional pubs you would expect to see in England.

Dinner was at a restaurant called Tiger Tiger Bar but it was just mediocre. The play made up for the ok dinner and was at this great little theatre. We saw 'The 39 Steps,' which is a comedy/mystery that is supposedly based on an Alfred Hitchcock film but I'm not exactly sure which one. The whole play was performed by only four actors and they did a wonderful job; even Jesse was glad that we dragged him along!



A lot of the streets around Soho look like Times Square in NY with the exception of the many historical monuments and classic architecture in certain spots.


This was the front of the theatre we went to; it was only one of about 15 different playhouses in the West End.

China Town was right around the corner from where we were and so we walked over and discovered that on the weekends you can get Chinese food at 1:30 in the morning at a great restaurant...Unfortunately, we had already eaten so we opted for a pub called O'neills. I was looking forward to hearing British music in the clubs but the DJ at O'Neills played Rihanna and Gwen Stefani all night...

By the Beachside

After a lot of sightseeing and venturing around the city I finally hopped on the train to Brighton and moved into my tiny flat. I am basically back in the dorms but things aren't so bad because we have two kitchens and single rooms. The city makes living a bit outside of London worthwhile because there are loads of fun restaurants, small shops and pubs/clubs to visit. Take a look at the first glimpses of my new home...

The first night we found a Spanish restaurant that was in a trendy part of Brighton and had tapas and sangria. It was a great way to spend the last night that my mom was in town.

This is the famous Brighton Pier during the day. It is really quite nice but I don't think I would go on any of the carnival rides...

As international students that are new to the school we are grouped with the 'freshers' at University of Sussex. Every year there is an annual initiation for the freshers called the 'Pub Crawl' and one ten pound ticket will gain entry and inexpensive drinks at numerous clubs and pubs. These are some pictures from the places we visited that night...

This was a traditional pub called Ye Old King and Queen and was my favorite that night. Tuesdays are Karaoke and we got there in time for a Spanish exchange students rendition of 'Your Song' by Elton John. We were with a lot of other international students so we also got to see a lot European girls go crazy when a girl sang the Maquerena (spelling?). It made the whole night worthwhile!

This was the Spanish Elton John. Can anyone read the drinks on the signs behind him? And would anyone order the one in the middle? I hope not...




The Brighton boardwalk all lit up at night. This is the view we have from most of the clubs.

The beach here doesn't have one grain of sand. Instead there are huge and rounded smooth rocks covering the shore.



Cheers!

British Museum and More

This is just a short post of a day with some of the girls from my orientation group and my dear Jesse. We went to the British Museum and saw exhibits from Greece, Rome, Egypt and other displays that had relics from ancient civilizations. This included the Rosetta Stone, which was a lot larger than I thought. Later that day we went on a ferry tour of the Thames River and saw London from a different angle.

Inside the British Museum:

I love having castles in the background of my pictures...That is part of the Tower of London.

This is right over the bridge where the boat docked that took us on our water tour.

This was on top of one of the many double decker bus tours going around London. It was the most embarrassing tourist activity that I participated in but I will admit that it was also one of the best! We saw so much of the city, the tickets were a free part of our school's orientation and my feet weren't killing me afterwards! Along the way there were the many famous monuments but we also saw Margaret Thatcher's Rolls Royce parked outside of her apartment (she was home!), the street that Mama Cass and Jimi Hendrix lived on and places the Beatles visited. We also went by Prince Williams home (yet another castle), the Ritz that serves a cup of tea for 35 pounds ($75) and the Hilton that was supposed to be 33 storeys but was lowered to 28 because the Queen didn't want anyone looking into her backyard...It was great and I think that the background of this photo makes us look cropped in.

Traditional Sites

The tourist activities are mandatory when visiting a nation as old as the United Kingdom and so here I continue with some of the famous sites in London. This includes the Tower of London, Big Ben and Westminster. After the Tower of London my mom and I went to the new Globe Theatre and saw the Merchant of Venice. The acting troupe was really good and our seats were right over the stage. I wasn't able to to take any pictures but it was one of my favorite experiences so far here. The round theatre was completely outdoors and so it got a bit chilly but it was exciting thinking that we were seated in a theatre designed exactly like the one that the famous playwright worked out of. It was rebuilt because during a performance of Henry the Eighth the actors failed to predict the consequences of lighting off a real cannon through a straw roof and burned the whole place down. Shakespeare may have been brilliant but I suppose even geniuses have lapses in judgement...

So first...The Tower


This is the inner courtyard of the Tower of London. The Tower is famous because it is a palace that criminals were held and many times tortured before they were executed or put on trial. This includes royal offenders, such as Anne Boleyn and William Wallace (Braveheart/Mel Gibson...anyone?).

The first view of the London Bridge.



This was a little prayer room and if you look on the floor you can see the little kneeling mat and stand to the left.

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The staircases here give you maybe half of a foot of room to walk on each step and if you are much taller than I am forget about comfortably walking and not bending over.

Across from this tall white building are the Crown Jewels. The jewels are more impressive then I ever imagined and there are diamonds the size of my fist. A collection of gold platters, rubies, emeralds and every other kind of stone fill three different rooms...

A second view of the famous London Bridge from inside the Tower.

The crooked egg shaped building across the water is the City Council. This building was designed to be energy efficient and runs on about 25% of the energy of a normal business building.












The first pictures of Big Ben with the London Eye in the background. The London Eye is basically a half hour ferris wheel ride that you can see the entire city from. It may be nice at night but it is a little bit pricey and I can't bring myself to do it yet...

Here are the views of Westminster Abbey that I first had on my trip. It was everything I expected and more.



The abbey is actually attached to Westminster Palace, which was one of the King's favorite abodes (James?). The back part houses the different Parliament buildings and part of my orientation here included a tour of the different rooms. We were able to visit the places that many famous political figures in the U.K. work out of and even rub the foot of a statue of Winston Churchill, which is an English tradition said to bring good luck!


This statue was erected in memory of Oliver Cromwell who fought in a battle overseas and died right after he learned that the English had conquered the country they were fighting. Our tour guide told us that he was preserved in a barrel of alcohol so that he could be brought back to land for a proper burial. Apparently, when they finally docked there was almost nothing left in the barrell because the soldiers had been dipping into the supply the whole way back...I hope that's not true.