I watched you board a train in the London rain…
I’ve already been in London for over two weeks, and I feel that it’s time for another update.
It’s crazy how ever since I got here the weather has been unusually crazy for London. The concept of “London Rain” seemed to be nonexistent for the first couple weeks. This amuses me because from what I’ve heard back home it has been raining almost every day. Well after that being said, I can now say I’ve started to experience the London rain though. The last couple days it has been “pissing” rain, as the Brits would say, on and off all day. It’s quite unpredictable to be honest; the sky can be blue skies and fluffy white clouds and still start raining at random moments. I don’t really mind the rain because the temperature most definitely beats MA. It’s always between 65-70 degrees Fahrenheit, which to me is awesome temperature. I’m still wearing a light jacket and it’s July! This is probably a major reason why I’d totally want to live here in the future.
There are some things that I’ve started missing from back home. Besides the people of course, I’ve really started to realize how much I miss Dunkin Donuts. The only things they have in London are Starbucks, Nero’s (Italian Coffee), and Costa’s. They’re all very similar to well… Starbucks and kind of expensive to be honest. You just can’t beat a medium Iced Coffee – Blueberry flavor with regular cream and sugar. Seriously, I miss that stuff. I’ve also missed Denny’s crappy yet satisfying breakfast foods, and I’ve also missed Panera for some odd reason. I don’t hate all British food though I’ve actually grown a huge fondness for British Bacon and English breakfast. Their scones aren’t too shabby either, but I’ve yet to really take part in an afternoon tea. Surprisingly, it’s a common misconception that they actually take a break for Tea, at least not in the city.
I feel like I’ve really started adapting to London society, and as dorky as it sounds “becoming one” with the culture. Maybe not to its fullness, but I’ve started getting used to my surroundings. Sometimes I forget I’m in London because it feels like any other city I’ve been in, but with way cooler accents and giant red double decker buses. I really think I’m going to miss the city once I go back, but right now it’s just become such a routine for me lately.
This past weekend, I went to Cork, Ireland with my friend Paul and it was a pretty good time. It was nice to get away from the city for a while. Granted, Cork is supposedly a city as well, but in Ireland terms… it reminded me a lot like Fitchburg minus a lot more sketchy ghetto-ness. It was actually really cute, and hilly. For people who don’t know, Cork City was originally made up of 14 separate islands. They slowly filled in the rivers that separated these islands to form the City of Cork. I guess they’re still some rivers running underneath the roads, and they have over 40 bridges in the city because the various rivers are still running strong through the town.
My flight left London at 10pm and we didn’t get there until about 11:30pm so the first night we just checked into our hostels and went to sleep. Saturday we started off our day by going to check out Blarney Castle and the Blarney stone. It was really cool to be honest; Blarney Castle wasn’t anything grandeur in size, but it was definitely a stereotypical “Irish Castle”. Stereotypical in means that it was really old, crumbling, with lots of green surrounding it, and looked like something you’d see out of an Ireland Brochure. It’s really small, but it makes sense for its purpose and age. At the top of the castle is the Blarney Stone, which is supposed to give you some sort of gift from the Gods or good luck when you kiss it. Supposedly people make yearly trips far and wide to kiss the Blarney Stone. What I didn’t know though is that you pretty much have to lie down on your back and have someone hold you down to be able to kiss it. Pretty much you’re hanging from the top of Blarney Castle upside down. It was scary, but I did get a picture of myself kissing it, and I look really stupid to be honest… at least I have proof though!
After we hit up Blarney, we went back to Cork and walked around the main streets and looked at various shops. We also went on a bus tour that showed us a bunch of the major sites in Cork. It’s such a pretty place and Ireland really is just a lot of rolling hills and fields of green… lots and lots of green to be honest. Oh, and sheep, cows, and various other farm animals. It rained on and off while we were there, and I guess it also always rains in Ireland as well as London. The Hostel we stayed in was pretty nice, but the others guests were so freakin’ loud. Granted they were all young and probably drunk, but I haven’t heard so much drunken drama in my life… not even College. Besides that the bunk beds were cute and looked like a 10 year olds bed, but it was fairly clean and secure.
Now back in London, my classes are reaching its last week, and every teacher I have has assigned some sort of final project. It’s going to be intense, and I feel like I’ll be working on a lot of my work outside of class. Today was really cool though because we got to work in the Print shop and learn how to do Letter pressing, which is the old school style of printing. We got to stack our own letters by hand, and overall it was really interesting. I’m not going to lie, as intensive as this course was I’m really learning a lot. Overall, it’s definitely different from an FSC class, and I feel like I’m learning a different aspect of Graphic Design that they don’t cover in the Comm. Classes at FSC. It’s just weird being with different people who have totally different styles, and are more accustom to different things. CSM is a lot more artsy and they’re constantly pushing for us to achieve more creative, personal, efficient, and practical ways of design. Definitely, not something you really get from FSC.
On a non-academic note, I went to see Lord of the Rings the Musical. It totally brought me back to my days where LOTR was my fandom. It was pretty good, but I didn’t think it was the best. The set was really cool, and the stage was a constant circle that could be broken into pieces to rise and be lowered when needed. The music was alright, it was cool because they used some of the songs that were written in the book. A lot of the musical was more closely related to the book, which was also really cool. What I found odd though was that they concentrated a lot of the play around Lothlorien, which was only really in the Fellowship of the Ring. The actress who played Galadriel though had a really good voice, and was probably the best singer in the group. I feel that for an adaptation from a huge ass trilogy, it was alright but a little confusing because they had to leave a lot out because of time constraints. I totally want to see more theater while I’m here though because tickets are so much cheaper than in the U.S. On my way home, the line that I usually take to my stop closes early on weekdays so I got off a stop early and decided to walk home. Thank God for my A-Z London Map book, which pretty much a necessity for any Londoner in general.
I’ve made some adjustments in my travel plans so now I’m going to Edinburgh, Scotland from August 2 – 4, and I don’t know if I mentioned I was going to Dublin, Ireland on August 5 -8 before I head home. I know I’m cutting it close with all the traveling, but I figure when else I’m I going to get a chance like that.
I really hope to get some pictures posted, but my internet here is really crappy when it comes to uploading photos. I’ll try my best to get some up, so keep a look out! I hope everyone is well, and keep in touch!
Cheers,
K. Pho
P.S. The theater I saw LOTR in was totally the Theater they filmed a scene from the movie Closer in. I recognized it right away, and took a bunch of photos. Yes, I’m a dork.
