From High Tea to Hogwarts

I have officially been in London for two weeks and can no longer claim jet-lag as a reason for being tired. I now blame it on the constant tempo we have been dancing along throughout this wonderful city. Everyday merges into the next and it's hard to keep straight what I've taken in.

A highlight of this week: high tea at the Gore Hotel. Sidenote for anyone with money planning a trip here: this is the place to stay. Rooms are 200-250 pounds/night and each individual seat at tea was about 28 pounds. Lucky for us, we only paid 1 pound through our program. I knew I picked Wisco for a reason. I arrived at this beautiful old hotel and although I was dressed up, there was still an air of being out of place. The room in which tea was held was decorated with candles and chandeliers and seemed to be plated in gold. After we were seated, a very smartly dressed waitstaff arrived and brought towers of food and pots of traditional English tea to our table. The food was mouth-watering! Ham, turkey, salmon, and egg finger sandwiches, eclairs, fancy cupcakes, and the cream of the crop: scones with raspberry jam and a dollop of cream. Delicious and worth every pence of that pound. After we had thoroughly stuffed our faces, we snapped some pictures and said good-bye to one of the fanciest meals I have yet to experience in this lifetime.

The next day I reluctantly rolled out of bed for our tour of the British Museum. One thumb up for the museum, one huge thumb down for the guided tour and tour guide. She was a very nice little British lady, a bit crazy at times, who gave entirely too much information and backstories on the five, yes only FIVE, items we saw in two hours. This is the type of museum in which one would never feel as if they never saw everything it had to offer, but 5 items in two hours was a total waste of time. I may sound bitter, but I don't need to hear a 20 minute story on the birth of Athena or spend 20 minutes looking at five Greek statues. And I could have done without her drooling over the naked Greek statues and winking at the girls in the group as if this was the sole reason we came to the museum...

Sunday brought a few of my first major frustrations in London. We took the tube to visit Petticoat Market which turned out to be nothing like we expected. So, since we were already near the city of London, Lindsey, Ashley, Alyssa, and I decided to make the most of the day and go to the London Eye. This turned out to be harder than it should have, as the closest tube station is closed on Sundays, forcing us to walk a mile back to the one we came from. The city of London is deserted on Sundays with no locals available for directions, so the four of us wandered around looking like total tourists with our bright red maps out. The day turned around, however, when we ran right into Diagon Alley! It was obviously a lot different without the animated storefronts and people in cloaks, but it was fantastic nevertheless. :) After our stop for the necessary HP pictures, we boarded the tube, conquered our first transfer, and made it to the beautiful boardwalk along the Thames River, across from Big Ben, Parliament, and the London Bridge. We walked past yummy food stands, street performers, and finally set eyes on our destination: the magnificent London Eye... to discover it was closed until January 18th for yearly maintenance and cleaning. It was January 17th. Frustrated with yet another disappoint of the day, we queued in line for the Aquarium, determined to do something significant after our three-hour trek. The Aquarium ended up being awesome and well worth the money.

This leads us to my second week of "class." My only class Monday was cancelled (and yet to be rescheduled) because the teacher went to an ultrasound with his wife. Tuesday I had Interpreting Popular Culture in which we talked for a few hours about our favorite artists and genres and then watched a pretty cool video on the history of Blues. Tuesday night I went to the play "Inspector Calls" for my Theatre class. It was ... interesting. Overall, I liked it. The ending made no sense whatsoever to me. I also choose one of the few and worst quiet moments of the play to have a coughing attack and you've all heard and witnessed the volume of the 'Dohnal coughing fits.' It was a little embarrassing. Today, Wednesday, I spent three hours in Contemporary Britain listing the British celebrities and personalities we know, listing our British stereotypes, and hearing American stereotypes. In Contemporary Art, we visited two Damien Hirst exhibits, both which focused on death, contained pictures of skulls, and were a 180 degree twist from my style, to say the least. That brings us to Wednesday night, the start of my weekend. All in all, I feel bad receiving 12 UW-Madison credits for my academic effort here.

One last little story and then you can all get back to your lives, which I'm sure are more entertaining than this extremely long blog entry. After the second art exhibit, Lindsey, Ashley, and I went to King's Cross Station to buy our train tickets for Scotland since the website wouldn't take American credit cards. In the process, we shopped a little along Oxford Street, got on a tube train as we heard over the PA system 'Attention all passengers, this is an emergency. Please evacuate the station,' and got off at King's Cross to a different person saying Oxford Circus was closed while the Fire Brigade checked the place out. The Brit's accent made it seem innocent and no one seemed to be very concerned, but it was odd to us Americans. Anyway, we got to King's Cross and ran directly to Platform 9 3/4! Despite all my attempts pushing the trolley, the wall wouldn't give, but I'm convinced it's because it wasn't in its original location due to construction. After the obsessive picture taking and getting stared at by workers, we had our first burgers since our arrival. While waiting in line we met the nicest British man I'll probably ever encounter. He informed us that "Just around the corner, maybe 50 meters" was a lady handing out coupons for 2 pounds off a burger meal. We followed his directions, but returned five minutes later, coupon-less. He insisted she had a stand set up and before we could stop him he said, "no worries" and took off running, his food and bags left behind. We awkwardly stood by the table and ten minutes later he came sprinting back, from the opposite direction he had ran, carrying three coupons and a breathless line of "This had better be worth it." We thanked him, he asked if we were studying here or on holiday (the accent gives it away...), wished us luck, and was off. As for the food, "Fine Burger Co." was either true to its title or just fed my meat-deprived stomach well.

I've had to slow down for a minute and give myself a reality check: I am actually living in London and have three glorious months ahead of me. When I'm tired from being out and walking around all day, the flat has come to feel like home. The tube is no longer a fear of mine. I can navigate my way around my neighborhood, to class, to the cheapest grocery store. It's instinct to look the opposite way when crossing the street and seeing people drive from the right-hand side of the car doesn't faze me. I am truly amazed at how well London has come to mesh with me in these two short weeks.

Pictures from all these adventures will be posted soon. :)