Last Day

After putting Mom and Dad on a plane back to the States, I had to come to terms with the startling realization that it was my last day in London, so I'd better make the most of it. In between packing up the items I hadn't sent home in the extra suitcases my parents had brought, I managed to have quite a nice day.

I started out going to the Movieum with Vanessa and Emily. This "movie museum" is a step above a tourist trap, but was still fun. Actor profiles are interspersed with rooms with costumes, scripts, props, and wax figures. For me, the highlight of the trip was the room featuring the set from the Sherlock Holmes series in the early nineties featuring Jeremy Brett as the master detective. It's a show I grew up watching with my dad, and I know own the complete series on DVD (favorite case- "The Six Napoleons"). It was quite a kick to see Holmes's flat right in front of me.


After spending the afternoon at the Movieum, it was back to my room to pack everything I didn't need that night, before one last hurrah with my friends. We went to Brick Lane, then the 24-hour Bagel Bakery, then The Hayfield pub, before I had to go to bed and get up bright and early to do my last packing for the airport. My friend Emily graciously helped drag my suitcases through the Underground at 7:30 in the morning, getting me to the Picadilly line so I could ride it to Heathrow Airport. One 11 hour flight and three movies later, I was safely on the ground in LA, where my friend Stephanie picked me up and took me home.

My last album of this blog is here:

Last Day

A friend of mine in London wanted to know my thoughts on the best and worst of London, so I thought I'd wrap up this blog with those musings.

First, the worst:

-The crosswalks. It may seem like a small thing, but when you have to maneuver through five seperate pedestrian lights to navigate from one corner to the corner diagonally across from you, it becomes real tiresome real quick. I much prefer the two lights it takes in the States.

-The weather/lack of sun. Much as I enjoyed my snow days, I missed the sun. Perhaps I'm a spoiled SoCal girl, but I like my eighty degree weather (of course, as I write this, it is overcast outside of my window, but we'll ignore that for now). Plus, since England is higher up in the hemisphere than Southern California, they get less sun during the rare times when it is shining, which is highly disorientating.

-The exchange rate. I enjoyed some of the lowest exchange rates that have existed between the US and the UK in quite some time, but that still meant that everything was quite expensive compared to the US, which did wonders for my bank account.

-Milkshakes. Milkshakes in the UK are often not the same as milkshakes in the U.S. UK milkshakes are much more akin to very thick chocolate milk, rather than the US version which favors the ice cream.


Most of those are minor, though, in compared to the things I love about London:

-Public transportation. Never in my life has it been so relatively easy to get from point A to point B. Whether I needed to get to the grocery store, the theatre, or the airport, I just had to hop on the nearest bus or Tube, and away I went. It made seeing the city amazingly easy, and traveling was a relative snap.

-Trains. I wanted to single out the trains because it had been years since I had ridden on one, and I am now a firm devotee. London trains are easy to use, clean, and reliable, and make it sooo easy to get about on the island. I also enjoyed the train in Europe, which my friends and I used during reading week in February to go from Italy to Switzerland to France.

-Brick Lane. I now love Indian food. It's delicious. And Brick Lane is cheap Indian food, which is a lovely combination.

-Used book stores. With the above-mentioned problem of the exchange rate, I was sadly having to skip buying books to read while in London. Then I discovered the used book market along the Thames. And then I discovered the row of used book stores near Leicester Square. And suddenly my book collection doubled in a few weeks.

-Leceister Square. Going to the theatre in London is soo much easier than it is in California. Because there are such a range of shows in such a small area, you can show up on any given night and get tickets to a good show at fairly good prices. I will sorely miss being able to see stage shows at the drop of a hat. Now I have to plan things out a couple of months in advance (and with Fiddler on the Roof coming to the Pantageas Theatre in August, I better start looking at my calendar....)

-Cornish Pasties. A stew in a convenient bread holder, it is a food that I will sorely miss in the States. Great for both a quick snack and a full on meal, I grew very fond of them.

-Ease of travel to Europe. With Paris an hour away by plane, and Italy a few hours further, it was relatively simple to travel to other countries. I enjoyed seeing Europe immensely, and the cheap flights and easy access made life even better.

I could go on and on about my likes (and to a lesser extent, my dislikes), but my hand would cramp up and I'm sure you would all grow quite bored. Suffice it to say that my semester in London was fabulous, and I cannot wait to go back again. Even though I was there for six months, there are still many things I was unable to see, and I want to go back as soon as possible to amend such faults.

Thank you all for reading my ramblings over the semester! It has been wonderful to share my stories with friends and family and to keep you apprised of my goings-on. Here's to many more adventures in the future!

Cheers!
Caitlin

Whirlwind Week

The week that Mom and Dad visited is a bit of a blur, as we rushed from one end of London to the other, taking in sights that I had yet to see as I had been saving them for their visit. The day after we returned from Disneyland Paris, we went to Hampton Court Palace on the edge of London, a favorite residence of King Henry VIII. Sadly, no photographs were allowed inside, but I got some nice pictures of the outside. The admission included access to the gardens, including the hedge maze, which provided an amusing seven minutes of fun as my dad and I tried to get through with as few mistakes as possible.

The Rose Garden:


Friday we spent the morning at St. Paul's, from the crypt--where we paid our respects to the Duke of Wellington, who defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo--to the top dome, where I took some photos of the city. We then went up to Windsor Castle, where we toured the magnificent rooms (especially amazing since the castle suffered a huge fire in the early '90s). We then stayed to watch the Windsor Tattoo, an annual show put on by Britain's military, featuring horsemen, marching bands, tanks, and more. It was a wonderful performance; for an added bonus, the Earl of Wessex--son of Queen Elizabeth II and a Prince of England--was present to accept on behalf of the Queen the salutes from the different groups of the military.

View from St. Paul's:

Windsor Castle:

Horsemen galloping across the show grounds. They were so fast it was difficult to get a good picture!

Saturday, we made a trip to Blenheim Palace, a residence of Queen Victoria and birthplace of Winston Churchill. Somewhere on the grounds they were also filming Guillver's Travels, starring Jack Black and Emily Blunt. Though there were signs everywhere of the film crew's presence, we were unable to locate them, so sadly, there were no celebrity sightings.

Just a few more posts left before I wrap up this blog! For now, entertain yourselves with photos from the adventures described above.

A Magical Time

Now, it's time for the post you've all been waiting for: Disneyland Paris! My parents and I were at the resort from the Monday after they arrived through Wednesday. We traveled there by a Eurostar train and through the "Chunnel" (the tunnel underneath the English channel), arriving at a station literally just outside the gates of Disneyland Paris. The Disney Express service provided us our tickets on the train, and gave us luggage tags so that we could drop our bags at the Disney Express counter at the train station, where they would be taken to our hotel so that we could pick them up later. Within minutes of arriving, we were within Walt Disney Studios, sister park to Disneyland Paris. This smaller park has fewer rides, making it an ideal first stop as the train reached the parks in the early afternoon, and the parks close relatively early during the off-season at seven o'clock.

Walt Disney Studios seen from outside the park. It was supposed to rain the entire time we were at Disneyland, a fact we had sadly accepted. And it did rain severely--once at 6 in the morning on Tuesday. The rest of the time it drizzled lightly at the worst, and at some points it was even sunny! For the most part it was overcast, however, as you'll see in the somewhat darkened photos.


The lines in both parks were pretty much non-existent. Rockin' Rollercoaster was a five-minute wait, unheard of in its other location, Florida.


This was one coaster that we had to wait a decent time for: Crush's Coaster.


The ride, however, was well worth the wait. Part dark ride (a la Peter Pan or Snow White), part coaster, it comes with cars shaped like turtle shells, with back-to-back seatin that holds four people, as seen in this model outside the ride.


The tiny bit of track you can see outside the building is from the very beginning of the ride and is fairly tame. After you go through that bit, you go into the dark ride section, seeing Nemo and his friends under the ocean. Then up the lift you go, finally getting to the top where you suddenly swerve to the side and drop sharply, car spinning at the same time. Imagine dropping a marble into a steep bowl and letting it roll around, and you may understand the sensation that is Crush's Coaster. While I thought it was quite a blast, I was alone when I went on the ride later in the trip--Mom said that the ride was amazing, but she'd never do it again.

Walt Disney Studios overall was fairly underwhelming, with lackluster themeing and few rides and shows, so we easily saw everything we wanted to before the park closed and we headed back to the hotel. The Sequoia Lodge was nice, reminescent of the Wilderness Lodge at Disney World, if not quite as expansive. We went to bed early after getting up equally early to get to the train station on time. the next day, however, we got up early to take advantage of a hotel special: Extra Magic hours. Guests of all Disneyland Paris hotels get to enter the Disneyland Park starting at 8 o'clock. Since the park doesn't open to the public till ten o'clock, that meant that we had two hours of little-to no crowds. Even though we were restricted to Fantasyland Discoveryland (the equivilent of Tomorrowland), it was amazing to walk through the park with barely any other people around. We got to walk onto rides such as Peter Pan and Space Mountain that normally would have required a wait, going onto every attraction available to us before the park officially opened to us.

If Walt Disney Studios was underwhelming, Disneyland Paris was the exact opposite. The detail was amazing. Everything was giant in structure and yet intricate at the same time. Take the castle for instance. It is big enough to house two stores, a second floor gallery of stained glass windows telling the story of Sleeping Beauty, and a dragon's lair in the basement.



There are two levels of walkways along the moat. Yet the columns have been detailed with Gothic-like architecture, with a Disney-twist.

It was an absolutely wonderful experience. Tuesday we spent at Disneyland Paris, Wednesday at both parks, going on any rides we hadn't had a chance to do yet, and re-doing ones that we had enjoyed. Then it was back on the Eurostar to be dumped off at St. Pancreas station.

Here is the album for the parks. Facebook recently expanded the number of pictures one can include in an album, thank heavens! More pictures, less albums.

Disneyland Paris

Hopefully I'll have time to wrap up my trip posts this weekend. My new internship is keeping me busy, but I'm enjoying it!

A Day at the Theatre....Shakespeare-Style

One of the last things my friends and I managed to do together was to attend a production of Romeo and Juliet. This production had the added attraction of being performed in Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, a replica of the original theatre where Shakespeare first put on his productions. Not only does the theatre look like the original, it does its best to make the entire experience as close to the 1600s as possible. This includes a section of standing-room-only (tickets cost five pounds and you have to queue early to get a good spot); my friends and I decided we wanted to be a little more comfortable, however, so we popped for seats just behind the peasants--I mean, standing patrons. If you attend a production here, however, be ready to be uncomfortable no matter where you are. The benches we sat on were wooden and had no backs--cushions could be rented for a pound. The cushion makes things better for a while, but after three and a half hours of sitting, not even the cushion can take the edge off.

The stage from my seat. Notice it is an open-air theatre.

Free paper sun-visors were on the seats to help counter-act the glare from the sun, an unavoidable side-effect of the open-aired venue.


Singers and musicians perform seventeenth-century music before the show begins, complete with instruments that would have been around during the period.


Seating arrangements aside, it was a wonderful production, and I had a lovely time at my last show in London. All-in-all, I managed to see 90% of the shows I wanted to see, only missing Jersey Boys and The Lion King, and I've already seen The Lion King twice in the States.

Coming up next, a trip to the most magical place in Europe!

London Eye and Ireland

I am now safely home, albeit somewhat jet-lagged. I will tell you right now that the sun has never felt so good! I'm still running around like crazy, unpacking and getting my summer internship finalized, but I have a few minutes to catch you up on what I did the last few weeks in London.

On Sunday, May 3rd, I went with my friend Kevin to do the London Eye and the London Aquarium. The giant Ferris Wheel that is the London Eye is a bit over-priced and over-rated, as you pay a hefty fee for a ten-minute (though impressive) view of London. Still, it was on my list of attractions to visit, and I'm glad I did it. The London Aquarium was also quite nice, and I enjoyed it as well.



Then there was a few days of cramming, followed by my one and only final for the semester in my Medieval Europe class. Less than six hours after I walked out of my exam I was on a plane heading for Dublin, Ireland with my friends. Apart from nearly freezing to death in weather that was much colder than London, I had a wonderful few days there. We did a day tour into the countryside around the city, where we saw among other things the monastic settlement of Glendalough. The second day, we took a free three-hour tour of the city given by a group called New Europe. The tour guides work on a tips-only basis, as the company believes that anyone should be able to afford a tour in the major cities of Europe. It was amazingly good, and we were led all around the city and filled in on its history from the Vikings to the revolution that occurred in 1916. If you ever have a chance to do one of these tours, I highly recommend it.

Besides touring the city, we also managed to find a local pub that puts on free Irish song and dance every night, seven days a week. We enjoyed two hours of music and Irish stepdance. It was a wonderful experience. After two days, it was back to the airport for Caitlin so that she could be ready to pick up her parents on Saturday!

Albums are located below, as always.

London Eye and Aquarium
Ireland One
Ireland Two
Ireland Three

Don't Worry, I'm Still Alive

I realize that it's been two weeks since I last posted, but I've been both busy and absent from the computer during all that time, so there have been no blog posts. As Mom and Dad are keeping me busily running around England for the next few days, I probably won't have time to post until I get back to the states next week. For now, know that Disneyland Paris was an absolute blast!

Upcoming posts:

London Eye/Aquarium
Ireland
Disneyland
Hampton Court
Windsor Palace
Blenheim Palace
Coming Home

Let's Make Some Noise!

Last night, I went to see a performance of STOMP, and spent the evening completely mesmerized. For those who don't know, STOMP is a group that takes everyday objects and turns them into a percussion orchestra (check out their website for a promo video). This is a group that I've been wanting to see live for over ten years now, ever since I first saw Mr. Rogers visit them when I was watching Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood on PBS. I was not disappointed. I laughed, I cried (from laughing so hard), but mostly sat in the audience with an giant grin on my face that I was hardly aware of because I was having such a good time. Among the items used to create the rhythm "music" were brooms, trashcans, inner tubes, cigarette lighters, grocery bags, dustpans, folding chairs, and yes, even the proverbial kitchen sink. And it wasn't enough to just bang these objects around. In one number involving metal paint buckets, the cast tossed the buckets across the stage, creating a criss-cross of flying objects, all while keeping the beat. The cast didn't speak one word the entire show, yet still interacted with the audience, at one point getting the entire theatre to mimic their hand claps. I was amazed when the nearly two-hour show was over, as time simply flew by. If you ever have a chance to check it out, do so! (For you Southern Californians, a touring production makes a stop in Long Beach at the end of May!).

Back to studying.....