Yet More Photos...

A painting from the Saatchi Gallery

Another painting.  Note the chicken.

An old overgrown graveyard in Oxford.  Charles Williams, a member of the Inklings, is buried here.  There were also some people camping behind those trees. 

I believe Exeter College.

Typical English food at the Eagle and Child where the Inklings used to meet. 

Bodleian Library

Some doorway in Soho.  I don't know what to believe.  

The London Eye at night.  In the left hand corner is the boat/restaurant. 

The London Eye by day and a sculpture in front of the Dali Museum.  

Road Rage? Rather, Tube Temper

Well, the sun of Portugal is long gone and even my little red bikini is all peeled off now.  London has done its best to be as crowded, cold, and alternately hot as possible.  One of my main sources of unhappiness is the London underground or, the tube.  Because CNIguard is in Stanmore, it takes me over an hour from station to station.  I hate to be touched by strangers, which is something unavoidable on the tube.  It is incredibly hot (43 degrees was recorded a few weeks ago) and disgustingly crowded.  I have terrible tube temper.  I find myself angrily bowling past tottering grannies, stealing the seats of little toddlers, and snottily snapping at tourists on the escalators “walk left, stand right.”   Unaccountably, the train will stop in the tunnel, allow the passengers to shuffle and sweat for ten minutes, then continue along.  During these times, I pick out which passengers would be Jack and which would be Piggy, assuming the train never moves again.  (That was Lost and Lord of the Flies, respectively, for those of you entirely without pop culture knowledge).  This is just another instance in life where I wish that Harry Potter were real.  Apparition is so much more practical. 

 

Floating Boat Restaurant

 

I went to a restaurant that was a floating boat on the River Thames.  Sounds good, right?  Here’s the catch: the boat doesn’t move.  It just floats, which is more a necessity in a boat than an attraction.  I ate the appetizer excitedly waiting for the boat/restaurant to start a majestic voyage down the river.  It was only until I had started the entrée that I realized the only difference between a restaurant and a boat/restaurant is that you and your dinning partner bob and you are marginally closer to the water.  Further, the singing pianist had a speech impediment. “When you thmile, the whole world thmiles with you.”  “Thummer time…. and the living ith eathyyy.”  Certainly, he could have chosen more forgiving titles. 

 

England People Very Nice

 

I saw the play England People Very Nice at the National Theatre.  The story is all about the nature of England as a country of immigrants and the prejudices against these immigrants.  It started with the Vikings and progressed to present day issues such as the Jewish and Indian immigration populations.  It is also a play within a play as the “actors” in the set I described are a group of immigrants waiting for visas.  I thought it was good, but I didn’t get many of the jokes about English culture.  That is because I am not English.  

 

The Gentle Sex at CNIguard

 

Last week we had a meeting with two government agents to discuss how much tax relief CNIguard can claim for research and development.  So far, I have met only men in the security sector so I was very happy to see that these two workers were female.  However, things went awry very quickly.  After a few minutes of discourse, one woman removed her sober black blazer to reveal, oh horror, a skimpy t-shirt with the word “DIVA” etched over her breasts in rhinestones.  Under “DIVA” one could clearly see her electric pink brazier through the thin white material.  The other was not much better, extending the meeting to three long hours of drivel culminating with an illuminating discussion about her ten-year-old son.  Come on ladies!  We can do better than this. 

 

Oxford

 

On Thursday, with less medical drama, we went to Oxford in order to meet with the professor Dr. Crowe.  One of his most redeeming qualities is his terribly classic English accent.  There will soon be a real video of this on the official TWC vlog.  There will also be a very accurate rendition of this on my facebook page.  All jokes aside, it was so helpful to meet with Dr. Crowe to discuss the Rhodes Scholarship.  He described what student life is like at Oxford University and the qualities most valued in Rhodes Scholar applicants.  I’m not certain if this is something I want to apply for, but I will seriously consider Oxford University as I near my post-graduate years. 

 

Jerusalem

 

After taking a tour at the Royal Court Theatre (where I saw that other weird play, Grasses of a Thousand Colours), I was lucky enough to get a free ticket from one of my professors.  We saw Jerusalem, which is a very contemporary and sort of cutting edge play.  Apparently, the Royal Court specializes in shocking London audiences.  Jerusalem centers around a man who lives in the English countryside as a kind of “red neck,” living in a camper and selling drugs.  At one point, the actor drinks a huge glass of raw egg and milk.  The set featured real turf and trees trucked in from Kent.  It was so amazing; perhaps the best play I have ever seen.  According to my friend Ashley who works at What’s On Stage, this is the play to see right now.  If you can possibly manage it, you must come to London now and see Jerusalem! 

 

On Recommendation from Kate…

 

Today, Ashley and I cleaned the refrigerator.  We did this because the refrigerator smelled very bad.  The refrigerator smelled very bad because Kate spilled some organic Tesco milk over her rotting chicken pasta.  For no reason that I can explain, Kate left this rotting, milky mass to ferment.  Ashley and I righteously shoved all this down the trash chute and Kate later chipped the frozen milk from the refrigerator with a knife.  Roommate issue resolved. 

 

Case in point, my adventures in the refrigerator made me realize that Kate, Ashley, and I have been subsisting on a very limited home diet throughout the summer.  The foodstuffs are allocated as following:

 

Ashley:  lemon chicken, green beans, mashed, potatoes, cider

 

Kate:  Tesco Frosties (frosted flakes), Tesco organic skimmed milk, popcorn, white wine

 

Kila:  granola, toast, fruit, raw vegetables, water

 

Deduct what you will from this.  If nothing else, you now know that I cannot cook.

 

Nowadays, I have holed up writing my papers.  Mustn’t grumble. 

 

Oh, and is anyone still reading this, or am I talking to myself?  

Some Photos From Portugal

The coastline in Lagos

The view above the nude beach.  Sarah is still clothed at this point.  

The westernmost point of continental Europe.

Before the sunburn.  

Portugal

This last weekend, I had the opportunity to travel to Portugal with eight fellow TWC students.  We planned and organized the trip ourselves, accounting for the unplanned and disorganized nature of the vacation. 

 

Friday:

 

I arrived at the War-Torn London tour at ten in the morning only to find that everyone else had already packed and had brought their luggage with the intent of leaving directly after the tour.  I had brought only a pencil and a camera, expecting to pack later.  So, as everyone else looked at incendiary burns on St. Paul’s Cathedral, I (discretely) escaped back to the apt to throw some things in a bag. 

 

Even though Portugal is relatively close to the UK, it took about ten hours from door to door.  Rides on the tube, the bus, the plane, and then a sketchy van finally brought us to our little hostel right in the center of Lagos, a small tourist city in the south of the country. 

 

Saturday:

 

This was the Fourth of July.  However, this holiday has less significance in the Algarve.  We had a large breakfast of buns and fruit in a sunny cobbled street and then headed for the beach.  The beach was lovely, but the water is quite cold because it is the Atlantic Ocean, obviously.  Further, I was convinced that Jaws was eternally a few feet below, waiting to snap me up.

 

At this point, I decided to separate from the group to buy bus tickets to Lisbon.  After making the purchase, I called a friend from the group to find where they were all eating lunch.  I called everyone in the group, got no answer from anyone, and realized that I was entirely lost and alone with no address or key in a foreign country.  Thanks, group J.  I had a lovely, rather feverish march around Lagos, looking into restaurants with drinks specials and hamburgers.  Incredibly, I stumbled upon them after about an hour of searching.  They had realized only a minute before that I had been missing. 

 

Next, I packed on to the bus to Lisbon.  I had heard that it is about a two-hour drive.  The scenery was beautiful; I enjoyed the ride very much.  Let me rephrase that:  I enjoyed the ride very much, that is, until the two-hour drive became FOUR and counting.  At about hour three and a half, the bus unaccountably stopped in the middle of the desert, the driver mumbled something in Portuguese, and everyone got off to go eat dinner.  I watched in despair as the driver picked at his meal.  I watched in fear as he drank his beer.  Impaired driving or not, I reached Lisbon safely, albeit with legs atrophied from disuse. 

 

I had dinner then at a restaurant next to the river.  I had my friend who speaks Portuguese order everything for me, so I can’t say exactly what it is that I ate.  I had some sort of traditional Portuguese drink and then some prawns and small peppers.  It all seemed rather authentic to me, but then I saw that there was also a sushi section to the restaurant.  Authenticity is overrated. 

 

We then drove farther west of Lisbon to meet some friends.  I made the classic mistake of greeting everyone with a firm handshake and broad smile.  Ugly American.  Of course, cheek kissing is the only way to greet in continental Europe, dahling.  Despite that initial faux pas, I met some very interesting people who were mostly the children of English Ex-Pats now living in Portugal. 

 

As the night progressed, I kept assuming that we were leaving for home.  I had not then quite grasped the concept of European nightlife. 

 

Sunday

 

It was only when the sky started lightening in the east that I realized the extent of European debauchery.  In truth, it was quite nice, almost wholesome, to see the sunrise from the beach.  One could imagine that one had only just awoken for a nice jog and then yogic meditation. 

 

After a short nap (ha), I was fresh and crisp (ha) to see Federer and Roddick have a go at it.  I had a really good “breakfast” at a small restaurant perched on a cliff over the sea.   Then, back on the bus to Largos. 

 

Monday

 

Some of my more liberated friends and I seized this opportunity to visit the secluded nude beaches of Largos.  We hiked about a mile out of town and found a small beach filled with mostly local, naked, old men.  Probably because of my shockingly white skin color, one of said men approached me gesturing wildly with a rusting can of what appeared to be mud.  I was very open-minded to this cultural interaction—until he tried to rub the mud onto me. 

 

We had a gorgeous morning on the beach and then started back towards the hostel and London.  About ten hours later, we were shivering in our sundresses near Liverpool Station in a miserable drizzle.  I wish I could have stayed longer, but university and work are in the way. 

 

Now, back to the daily grind, I have contracted some strain of swine flu.  If Ron Weasley can have it, no one is safe. 

 

Cheers!  

British Food

 

I was hoping I could write something complimentary here, but, sadly, British food is actually as bad as its reputation.  The British have some bizarre desire to take two very disgusting foods and then mix them together.  Only the English could consider using tuna fish and corn or egg salad and bacon as sandwich fillings—and like it.  In short, I haven’t had any authentic British food that I really enjoy.  Fish and chips is too fried and bangers and mash (sausage and mashed potatoes with gravy) is just gross.  I have spent most of this trip dining at ethnic restaurants, particularly Asian style food as my flat is close to Chinatown.  I hate to continue the stereotype, but there is no way around it; British food is bad. 

 

 

Last weekend, I dragged myself out of the relatively cool flat and into the oppressive London heat.  I went to the Tate Britain, one of the few air-conditioned buildings that has free entry.  There was a very interesting exhibit of African carvings that I studied intently, feeling refined and cultured.  However, as I continued through the show, something was not quite right.  I suddenly realized that the ornate wooden man I had been appreciating was actually a carving of Ronald McDonald.  I look around me and realized that all the statues with crazy eyes and blood red hair were actually depictions of Ronald.  Then I read the sign that explained that the exhibit is actually a satire of the European obsession with “authentic” African artwork.  I felt less cultured and left quickly. 

 

My friend and I then headed to Hyde’s Park where the Fleet Foxes were playing a concert.  It was sold out, but we were at least able to hear the bass from outside of the barrier, where we ate food from Harrods’ and drank good British beer as some policemen looked on.  (In England, it is permitted to consume alcohol out of doors.)

 

To complete my role as a tourist, it was necessary to go to at least one musical.  My flatmate and I were able to get tickets, albeit terrible tickets, to Wicked.  I have never read the book so I’m not really allowed to comment, but I really liked the play.  The protagonist (that green woman) was a very strong singer.  However, the theater was so incredibly hot that my elbows were sticky like honey.  That is my most vivid memory of Wicked. 

 

Sadly, a large part of my time here is consumed taking courses at CAPA.  For the British History course, we went to the Winston Churchill museum and the war rooms.  The rooms were rather unimpressive—just some plastic men in underground fifties offices.  In contrast, the Winston Churchill Museum, which is connected to the war rooms, was crazy.  It was as if the museum had taken drugs.  Hundreds of computer displays and projected images flashed bits of Churchill’s life.  It was more stimulating than MTV.  After about an hour of pushing buttons to discover Winnie’s favorite foods andcigars, it was time to go. 

 

Today was the scheduled trip to Oxford in order to meet with an Oxford Professor to discuss the Rhodes Scholarship.  However, en route to the bus station, my friend became violently ill and had to be taken to the hospital.  I’m certain that she does not want her personal details posted here, but I will say that she was released this afternoon and is doing much better.  Although the Oxford trip was canceled, this was an incredible opportunity to better understand the NHS.  After being checked in to the ER, it took over two hours for the doctor to meet with us.  After that, there were long delays in the pharmacy and elsewhere.  Further, it seemed like the overall quality of equipment in the hospital was of a lower standard than the equipment in the U.S.  Free healthcare is great, but, from what I saw today, the quality of care does suffer under a public system. 

 

I’m having a great time and I promise to keep you all updated on my adventures this weekend in Portugal!