Sunday, May 16, 2010

I live in a Park

Can you imagine how that would be?

I don't have to. Regent's College fits into the park perfectly, complete with ivy climbing up the outer walls. For some reason, I can't upload pictures at the moment. I will try to do that later, because I just have to share the beauty. I tried to take pictures of the flowers, but they are so bright that my camera doesn't know how to handle the color. The resulting pictures aren't anything close to the originals.

We live about 3 minutes away from Baker Street. Thus, we just had to go to the Sherlock Holmes Museum today. There are all kinds of treasures here, including a miniature of the Hound of the Baskervilles that makes a baying sound that makes me jump every time. We had fun with the wax people and the violin.

Going to church here is a blast. I'm sure I'll enjoy it even more sans jet lag. Sometimes I forget I'm in England, but then I listen to the accents around me and I remember. I felt really good about having British accents dominate at church. I'm sure that novelty will wear off with time, but for now I still love accents, especially those I hear from the little children.

We went to FHE tonight, and we tried to play jeopardy. For some reason, answering with a question just didn't make sense to the British players. I can understand - it's weird to answer with a question. One girl just couldn't wait to get the answer out and would forget to answer in the form of a question. She got frustrated very quickly.

There are so many very large museums here. It's a bit overwhelming. We saw maybe 1/8 of the Victoria and Albert Museum today. It was beautiful. None of these white walls with art hanging on them. No - if you took out all the exhibits, the museum itself is a work of art. There are murals all over the ceilings, and so much stone and woodwork.

One of the girls in our group has a book about places to go in London, and we found a Pizza place that we thought would be just a little hole in the wall. It's not. We walked in and saw the goblets and white tablecloths and napkins and felt very under-dressed. But it ended up only being about 6 pounds per person. Not bad at all. My favorite was the Margherita pizza.

Class so far is wonderful! I love the dynamic between Tom and Disa, the instructors. They're married, and can just roll so well off each other's discussion. I've never been taught by two professors at once, and they do it very very well. Together they have such a great energy - they're so polite to each other, and one will get really excited and the other will calm the class down to discussion level. Sometimes I can imagine me marrying another English major to be a nightmare because opinion is such a big part of interpreting literature, but it seems like they've perfected the art of being open to other ideas.

Saturday was kind of a blur. I was so dead by 1:00 and couldn't imagine being up for another 8 hours at least. I'm pretty sure I didn't hear half of orientation, which is not the best thing to miss. I've been filling in the blanks with the help of my classmates through the last two days though, so no worries. I do remember a classmate eating a Sherlock Holmes sandwich - we figured that the reason it has this name is that it has a mystery sauce.

More to come. Hopefully including pictures.


3 comments:

  1. beautiful, wonderful, perfect.
    so glad to hear all of these!

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  2. Kathryn! We miss you! I miss you! But it is so wonderful to hear about your experiences. Keep them coming!

    I love you with affection unspeakable!
    Meredith

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  3. Dear Kathryn ... I loved reading every word. Isn't it interesting how much older everything in England is compared to the United States! I love the parks and museums too. And people's accents are loveable ... except when I hear them on "Masterpiece Theatre" I sometimes can't understand! Hope you are cautious and are having a mawvelous time! We love you very much!
    Grandma Carolee

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