Busy, Busy, Busy

Sorry it has been so long since I've posted anything. It's been a crazy couple of weeks. I went traveling around Europe all of last week, so I didn't have too much internet access. As for this week, I've been trying to settle in to my new residence at Lancaster University in England. It's been interesting and a little odd because I'm basically a freshmen or "fresher" again, but there will be more on this later. I've picked out my classes and I'm very excited to start them next Monday. In the next few days I should be able to find the time to really update and recount all of our fun stories from our European travels.

More free time = more frequent blog posts.

With my seminar winding down I’ve had a lot more free time. I’ll pick up where I left off on Monday, September 8^th. After class we went to the Royal Society. We have been talking about this Society throughout the seminar. The Royal Society is the oldest scientific society in existence as well as producing the oldest publication in the world. Many of the people we had to research for our papers and presentation were members of the Royal Society. Because of this, the Library of the Society had different artifacts from our ingenious people. I got to see an original letter written by William Herschel, one of my ingenious people, discussing his discovery of a new comet. We also saw one of the death masks of Isaac Newton, who has played a major role in our seminar. There was also a copy of History of Fishes, which was the first publication financed by the Society, which was such huge failure that it nearly bankrupted and destroyed the Society. While we were there, a couple of us applied to be readers at the Library, which is pretty cool, considering all of the other important people who are too.

Tuesday it was my turn to give my presentation, which went very well. After class we went to explore a couple of the museums near where we are staying in Chelsea/ South Kensington. We started at the Science Museum. We actually saw a couple of the mirrors that William Herschel made, which I discussed in my presentation earlier that morning. There was a really cool part of that museum that was more designed for children, but we had a really good time in there for about an hour. There was a station where you could play with these huge bubble wands. There was also a infrared camera with a screen and a part where you could wire electrical circuits in a way that kept you from electrocuting yourself. They had another exhibit on the history of computers and math, including the difference and analytic engines, which James discussed in his presentations. They were designed by Charles Babbage, whose brain is actually in the museum. Apparently it used to be a big thing to preserve the brains of really intelligent people and dissect and compare them to see if there was a difference between them and average people. When they were done dissecting Babbage’s brain, they gave it to the museum, which still has it on display. After we browsed through that museum, we went next door to the Natural History Museum. It was your basic natural history museum, complete with fossils and massive dinosaur skeletons.

Wednesday we had a free afternoon, so Ryan, James, Zoe and I went and experienced the London Eye. It’s basically a massive ferris wheel that is right along the Thames, near Big Ben and Parliament. It took about a half an hour to go the whole way around, but it was well worth it to get such a great view of the city. When we got off the Eye we decided to go and explore Harrods, which is a massive store. It was 6 floors in total, with its own grocery store and concierge desk. Everything it was horribly overpriced, including a £136 beach towel. I did end up buying something there. There was a Waterstones bookstore, which is not owned by Harrods, and was therefore, reasonably priced. I got a Student Survival Cookbook set, which has come in pretty handy. That night we had tickets to see Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream at the rebuilt Globe Theater. The Globe was the building that Shakespeare had all of his plays preformed during his lifetime. We were groundlings, which meant we were right up front near the stage, but we had to stand the entire time. The play was really good though, so I didn’t mind standing.

Thursday, after class we went to the Soane’s house museum. Basically, Soane was an avid collector of everything. He was also a well known architect. In his will he provided that his house and collection be turned into a public museum so that it would never cost anything to enter. It was a little unsettling for me to be there. It wasn’t very well lit and there were all kinds of masks hung on the walls. Some parts of it were very cluttered, including the part of the basement where the sarcophagus of Seti I of Egypt is kept. We also found out that the way the house was set up, with everything displayed like a museum, was how the house was set up while Soane and his family lived there, which struck me as odd.

Friday we took a day trip to Bath. We started out at Paddington Station. It took about an hour and a half to get there. After we arrived around 11 am, we walked into town and went through Bath Abbey, which is one of the oldest Abbey’s in the United Kingdom. One thing that I really remember from the Abbey was that there was a tomb for the wife of an important man in Bath. She died before he did, so he made arrangements for both of them to be buried in the Abbey. However, after his death, someone else decided to burry him somewhere else, so his wife is in the Abbey and he is not. After we went through the Abbey, we took a tour of the Roman Bath’s, which is where Bath gets its name from. The Baths are the only hot spring in England and were so warm in some parts you could see the steam rising from the water, even though it was a really beautiful day. Outside the Bath’s there were some really good violin players, so it was cool to hear the music while I was walking around the Baths. At the end of the tour, we were each given a free glass of purified water from the Baths. It smelled and tasted like fish and sulfur because the water comes from deep underground. Needless to say, I didn’t finish my glass. After taking a break for lunch we walked up to William Herschel Museum, which is located in the house that William and Caroline lived when they discovered Uranus. Our tour of the house started out with a short movie that recounted William and Caroline’s story. I actually found some of it funny because how the movie was telling the story was different than how I had learned it. They were only little details for the most part, that, and although I had already given my presentation, I’m fairly certain I was the only one who noticed. It was still really cool to be in the house that they worked, although I may have been the only one who really enjoyed it. Here was where we went separate ways from some of the group. Meghan, Cheryl, Zoe, Alice, Ryan and I, set off for the Jane Austen Center. Our tour of that museum started off with a 15 minute introduction session, which was very interesting. After that we walked through the museum, which was mostly comprised of costumes from a BBC movie about Jane’s life. After the museum, we decided to have high tea in the tea shop above the center. It was really fun and actually really good. Throughout the whole day we noticed these statures of decorated pigs that were all over the city. We learned it was a local legend about one of the first king’s of Bath, where a prince of Bath contracted leprosy, so he was sent off to live with a pig farmer. He noticed the pigs also contracted the leprosy, but then went into a mud puddle from the water from the roman Baths and were cured. Bladud, the king, noticed this, bathed in the water, and was cured of leprosy. After this he returned to the throne. Overall, the day was a lot of fun. The whole area of Bath was really pretty and overall it was a really good day. To keep this from getting too long, I’ll stop here for now and finish updating to what I’m doing currently within the next few days

Pictures from the London Eye and Bath

View of the Thames from the top of the Eye.

James, Me, Zoe and Ryan with Big Ben in the background.

View of Big Ben and Parliament from the Eye.

The Roman Bath's with Bath Abbey in the background.

Ryan, Zoe and I at tea in the Jane Austen Center.

Catching my blog up with reality.

So it’s been a while since I’ve written, but the upside to this is that I’m done with the work I have to do in London, so I’m basically on vacation for the next two and a half weeks. We only have a week and a half left in London and there is still so much that I haven’t done yet. However, a lot has happened since my last email, so let’s see what I can remember.

Last Thursday, September 4, we went to the British Museums. The whole experience was really awesome. The building was huge and completely filled with artifacts. There were a couple of huge rooms with mummies and different artifacts from Egypt. They also had the Rosetta Stone, which is what was used to decipher the hieroglyphs. I was actually surprised to find an entire room dedicated to Native North Americans. It just goes to show that you can cross the ocean, but you can’t escape where you come from. The museum had a number of artifacts from China, Japan, and India, including symbols from Hinduism, Buddhism, and different Chinese religions. They also had a number of Greek and Roman marble sculptures that were very pretty.

Friday was a fun day. We had another day trip that was part of the seminar. This time we went up to Greenwich. We started out taking a boat down the Thames. We got to Greenwich in a little less than an hour. After arriving, we went to the Queen’s House, which is a building for two of the Queen’s of England. The house itself was beautiful. In the Great Hall, the builder, Inigo Jones, built the ceiling to match the shape of the marble tiles on the floor. After the tour, we went to the National Maritime Museum. There were a bunch of really cool exhibits about different chapters in British maritime history. We also ran into our tour guide from the first day. Surprisingly, he recognized us, but thought we were part of his tour that day and didn’t seem to realize we weren’t part of his tour, even after we tried explaining it to hi. From the museum, we walked up to the Royal Greenwich Observatory. This is where the Prime Meridian is marked, so we had fun taking pictures with people in different hemispheres. We also had a tour with the person in charge of taking care of the clocks in the museum. He showed us the room that was the Observatory when it was first built. We also saw the four clocks that helped to solve the problem of determining longitude, which was the topic of one of the book we read over the summer. After that we saw a show at the planetarium. We got home by taking a tunnel that runs under the Thames, which was fun.

Saturday was a pretty easy day. We went out to a huge flea market along Portabella Road in Notting Hill. There were really great prices on fruits and vegetables, which I used when I made dinner that night.

Sunday was our main adventure day. We got on a train out to Salisbury, England. From there we got on a bus and went out to Stonehenge. The whole experience was amazing and it is definitely one of my favorite trips so far. Our bus tickets included an announcer who told us about all of the different landmarks on our way up to Stonehenge. When we got there we were given an audio tour to take with us as we walked around the site. It told us what the different stones were made of and what they were used for. It also discussed some of the different myths and legends concerning the building and builders of Stonehenge. Some of them that were discussed were Merlin, Satan and aliens. It was pretty impressive to stand there and look at the stones that have been there for so long. When we left the henge, we discovered there was an archeological dig going on in the field across from the henge that was working to discover more about the origins of the henge. That was one of the most interesting parts of the visit. I also found out that the stones themselves are one third buried underneath the ground. They were also excavating what called Stonehenge Ave, which is a pathway is leading from the river, up to the henge, which points to the henge being used in some sort of processional. We got back on the bus and drove back through Amesbury, which is a very old earth-made fortress which was the first version of Salisbury. We also saw a bunch of burial mounds that surround the henge.

I’ll stop here for now, but a lot has happened since then and I will report back on it as soon as I can.

Picture section.

This is the real Rosetta Stone, which was used to decipher the hieroglyphs, which was pretty amazing.

This is a picture of the view from the top of the Greenwich Observatory. Even though it was cloudy, you could still see a lot.


This is Stonehenge. It was amazing!


This is me with my traveling companions Zoe, Ryan and James at Stonehenge.

Pictures to go with previous post

So this is going to work a little backwards, but I've been having problems trying to put pictures right into my posts. so I'm going to have a picture section below the post, starting with the post right after this one.

Punting tour of the River Cam along the back of Cambridge University


Trying to gain entrance to Hogwarts via Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross Station.
aka. brb going to Hogwarts


This is the memorial at the spot where people, such as Anne Boleyn, were beheaded inside the Tower of London.

Inside the Tower, enjoying the history and the fantastic weather.

More fun things in London!

So much has happened since my last post, so bear with me if this gets a little long. On Friday, the 29^th, we took a day trip to Cambridge. There was a little bit of a mix up on the way there, where half of the seminar group got on a underground train, called the Tube, and the half I was in did not make it in time. We thought we were going to all meet up at the next stop, but apparently they wandered off to look into getting discount rail passes. About 45 minutes later we all managed to meet up at King’s Cross Station. From there we got on a non-stop express train up to Cambridge. It only took about 45 minutes, which wasn’t that bad. Once we got there, we walked into town, past some of the college of Cambridge. The University system in different in England than how it is in America. Each university is composed of many different colleges. When you apply, you apply to a college, not to the university as a whole. All of the colleges have their own characters, financial support, chapel, housing, and dining hall. Classes are handled by the university though, so there could be students from many different colleges in the classes. One of the colleges on the outskirts of the Cambridge University grounds, Pembroke, was open for visitors, so we walked around and looked at the chapel and the grounds. After that we headed into the main center of the city of Cambridge. We found a market there that has been in that exact same spot since the time that the Romans occupied the city, about 2000 years ago. We got lunch at the market and then went down along the Cam, which is the name of the river. There are flat boats that they run along the river, called punts. Two groups of my classmates decided they wanted to try punting down the river themselves. I quite enjoyed watching them try to figure out how to get the boat to go in the right direction. I opted for the guided punt tour of the river along the part that runs behind and through a bunch of the colleges of Cambridge. It was really pretty and I took a lot of pictures that I now have to go back through and try to remember what all we saw. When we were all back on dry land, we went back into to town to meet our tour guide. He was an American who had been living in England for many years. We walked through the complex of the Cavendish Laboratory and passed by the spot where Watson and Crick had their lab where they discovered the structure of DNA. We also went into the display where they have some of Darwin’s collection of animals that he collected on the voyage of the Beagle which helped him develop the theory of evolution. We also got more information on some of the better-know colleges at Cambridge, including Trinity College where Isaac Newton lived, worked, and studied for most of the time he was developing his theories. After the tour we went to a local pub called The Eagle, where Watson and Crick first told people about their DNA discovery. We had traditional fish and chips, with, basically an entire fish, minus the scales, eyes, and bones. We then hopped on the train back to London and had fun playing with the sign for Platform 9 ¾ from the Harry Potter books.

Saturday we got up early and went down to a farmer's market that they have every Saturday morning in one of the parks near our residence hall. We found a bunch of fresh stuff, for good prices and found food for the rest of the day. Later, we went to the Tower of London, which was ridiculously awesome. We stood outside and watched a demonstration of a catapult. We went into the Tower and joined a tour of the Tower and heard a bunch of really cool stories of things that happened there. We also got to see the memorial near the spot where 6 people who were killed inside the Tower, including Anne Boleyn, were beheaded. We also got to see the Crown Jewels, which was pretty amazing. After that we went through the White Tower, which is the oldest part of the Tower, which was used as a torture chamber and arms warehouse in the many years since its construction. All in all, it was pretty cool and I basically went into history major overload.

Sunday we went to this fun Chinese place that serves something called din sum, which is where they bring all kinds of food around on trolleys and you sit at a table and pick what you want as they come around. It was in the China town section of London, which was pretty cool to see. After that James, Ryan, Zoe and I went off to see the National Portrait Gallery. They had a good collection of portraits from different periods of England’s history, starting mostly with the Tudors.

Monday, after class, we went to the British Library. they had a really awesome collection of different books, including a working copy of Persuasion, by Jane Austen and her writing desk. They also had several copies of the Magna Carta and different pieces from many different religions, including Taoism and Buddhism. They also had a copy of the Gutenberg Bible, which was the first book mass produced after the invention of the printing press. After that we went up to Notting Hill and had dinner at a really cool pub. We were looking for a Jamacian Festival, but figured out that it had probably happened the week before.

Tuesday we had another seminar session in the morning, followed by a scientific walking tour of London. We got to see the homes of a couple of people we’re talking about in our seminar. When we were done with the tour, a couple of us went up to Abby Road and saw the recording studio where the Beatles worked. I also stood by and watched four of my friends from the seminar attempt (rather badly) to recreate the photo on the cover of their album.

I’ve been having a really awesome time so far. I love London. It doesn’t really have the feel of a city that I’m used to from visiting New York City. Where cities in the United States expanded up because of the restrictions for how far out they could to, London seems to have expanded outward, with some of the buildings constructed in the 1600’s being among the tallest in the skyline. I’ve really started to enjoy the Tube, now that I know how to navigate my way through it. The seminar is a little boring at the moment. The professor doesn’t really know how to teach history, seeing as he normally teaches physics. That should get better next week, when our presentations start. Although, the one really cool thing that Professor Marschall has done is ask about getting cookies from the dinning hall at Gettysburg, sent over to us. We still have a lot coming up this weekend, including a trip to Greenwich all day Friday. James, Ryan, Zoe and I are thinking about going up to check out Stonehenge on Saturday, or possibly checking out a much bigger farmers market back up in Notting Hill. Friday is also my birthday, so we’ll see what kind of craziness we can get into, which should be fun.