A Guided Tour of Central London

To say that my feet are sore would be the wildest understatement in recent history.  Every single muscle from the tip of my toes to the top of my hips is currently screaming in agony, and I have aches in places I didn't even know existed.  I'll refrain from going into gruesome detail about the blisters.  You're welcome.    

I have walked a bazillion miles (only a slight exaggeration) around central London today, so I'll give you a guided tour to make my pain more worthwhile.  I can't even begin to describe emphatically enough how deliriously happy I am with my newly adopted city!  

I live in Southwark, which is borough of London south of the Thames.  From my apartments, I can walk about a mile and a half to campus on the north bank of the river via Blackfriars Bridge.   The Thames is a tidal river and changes dramatically from one hour to the next.  Perhaps because of the tide, it is always windy and cooler while walking across the bridges, and I can't help but stop to watch the constant stream of tour boats, yachts, and barges making their way up and down the river, and admire the cityscape and the towering London Eye, which sends its passengers 443 ft. into the air for stunning view of the city. 

 During low tide, the muddy banks are exposed, and artifact hunters called mudlarks can be seen scouring the river banks for whatever bits of London's ancient history that the tides churn up- 2,000 years of debris tossed or lost into its depths, from Roman coins to Victorian pipes.  These mudlarks' treasures add to the Museum of London's already extensive collection.  Today, there was a sand sculpting competition in progress, and people were in the process of building some stunning artwork which would be swallowed back into the tide in a matter of hours (see pictures below).  

From campus, Trafalgar Square is only a fifteen minute walk down the Strand.  Dominated by the towering Nelson's Column (commemorating Admiral Lord Nelson's death at the Battle of Trafalgar during the Napoleonic Wars), and four gigantic lions (perpetually crawling with children- and a few adults- posing for pictures as brave conquerers of the mighty beasts), the square is home to two un-missable art galleries- the National Gallery, and the National Portrait Gallery.  

To the west, through the Admiralty Arch, the Mall lead toward Buckingham Palace- the "road not taken" today.  Instead, I headed south toward the Thames again, to make my way toward the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey past the buildings of Whitehall.

At Westminster Bridge, this magnificent statue of Boudicca, a queen of the British Iceni who led an unsuccessful but inspiring revolt against the occupying Romans, stands guard over Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.  Technically known as the Palace of Westminster (as it was once the residence of the King's of England), the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben are most picturesque when viewed from the South Bank of the Thames, and at night, when the buildings and clock tower are beautifully lit.

As I arrived at Westminster Cathedral to a spectacular setting sun peeking through the 11th century towers, I unfortunately found it closed for the day, so I toured the outside, and I'll have to come back another time.  Boo!

On my way back home, I decided to walk the South Bank of the Thames all the way to Tower Bridge and the Tower of London (2.3 miles).

Sand sculpture contest along the South Bank of the Thames

Along the way, I passed St. Paul's Cathedral...

and Shakespeare's Globe, a reconstruction of Shakespeare's Elizabethan Globe Theater, which burned in a fire in 1613.  During the summer, you can view one of Shakespeare's masterpieces, either from one of the covered, tiered wooden seats around the edge of the circular theater, or while standing in the central yard in front of the stage as a discount-ticketed "groundling".

Near the Globe, you can pop in for a pint at The Anchor Bankside, the sole surviving inn from Shakespearean times, frequented by actors and playwrights of the time.  The current construction dates to 1676.

You can also tour The Golden Hinde- a replica of the ship on which Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the world in 1580.

Just south of London Bridge stands Southwark Cathedral, the oldest gothic church in London, dating to the 12th century and the era of William the Conquerer.  I hear that the candlelit Christmas Carol service is hauntingly beautiful and will leave you with goosebumps.  I hope to find out.

Finally, when my legs had all but given out, and I fervently believed that I might perish from exhaustion, I found myself at tower bridge, peering across the Thames at the Tower of London, fortress of William the Conquerer, dating to 1078 at its earliest construction.  It was also prison to some of the most famous characters of British history.  I suggest finding a seat in the little park on the South Bank and rewarding yourself with a 99 Flake (a soft-serve ice cream cone served with a Cadbury Flake chocolate).

In all, I estimate that I traversed around seven miles, not counting the time spent milling around in each destination, and I am exhausted.  I'll leave you with these pictures of the South Bank at night, which I took on the night of the pub-on-a-boat.

Random Observations: Cultural Stereotypes, Rules of Etiquette, Buskers, and Primark!

I met my department today at King's College London- a whopping 21 total fellow Classicists.  Everyone seems very friendly.  I caught lunch with a few of them at the campus bar before heading to the Library tour.  With so few students in our department, the classes should be small, cozy, and personal.

Our tutors were every bit the awkward, absentminded, tweed-wearing, British Classics professor stereotype. :)  They proceeded to give us a few bits and pieces of information about classes and expectations, liberally spaced with ums and foot-shuffling as if caught off guard to find us all there, seemed directionless without the head of the department (who was running late), told us what he would have/should have possibly said, then sent us on our way.

I adore my tutor.  He's an older man (late 40s, 50's) with a perfect blend of pithy, self-deprecating humor and genuine warmth and personal regard; fatherly and charmingly informal.  I signed up for classes with him on Friday.  When he left, he told me that if I had any questions or "sudden brilliant flashes of inspiration" that I should come see him, but otherwise he would see me "anon".  I'm taking Intermediate Ancient Greek on Mondays and Thursdays, Pompeii and Herculaneum on Tuesdays, a required seminar on research methods for dissertation on Wednesday and Propaganda and Ideology in Rome at University College London on Friday.  I'm also seeing about auditing (participating in the class, but not for a grade) The Ancient Novel.

I've heard some unexpectedly good and very eclectic music on the Tube.  So far, several singers/guitarists (one who was being filmed by a television station as I walked by), a reggae musician, a Scottish bagpiper in full kilt (No, Casey, I didn't ask him what he had on underneath), a man playing drums made of overturned empty plastic crates, and a drummer playing a long hollowed out tree limb kind of like a didgeridoo, but not.  It produced a very strange sound, but not bad.

I've picked up on several unspoken rules since I've moved here.  Never, ever, look directly at anyone on the Tube.  Ever.  The whole London Underground is crammed with people studiously looking at the floor, ceiling, advertisements, and their shoes rather than each other.  And under no circumstances whatsoever should you make eye contact!  This rule is meticulously followed.  Also, if someone steps on your shoe, blocks your path, runs into you, or commits some other social faux-pas, both parties must apologize profusely.  It's only polite.  Lastly, one should never verbally chastise someone who fails to practice courteous behavior.  If someone should cut in line, speak loudly and obnoxiously in public, or decline to offer a seat to an elderly or pregnant passenger, it is customary to look disappointed, clear your throat, or (at the very most) tut disapprovingly.  As a fellow non-confrontational introvert, I think I'll fit in rather well here.

Primark is my new favorite and least favorite store in London.  It sells clothes, shoes, bedding, accessories etc. at ridiculously low prices (yay!) and is a perpetually moving sea of humanity (boo!), bumping and jostling each other and battling for bits of mirror while trying on jeans/shirts/shoes/undergarmets over their clothes and dumping discarded items all over the floor, displays and each other.  The check-out line is often as long and winding as a line for a ride at Disney World.  The whole store is unmissable, and quite a spectacle!  It simultaneously makes me want to laugh and tear my hair out.  You would have to see it to believe it.  I also have lots of new winter-appropriate clothes, which won't all fit in my microscopic closet.

Cheesy chips (fries) with garlic mayo are a little piece of heaven in a plastic portable container.  And yes, Chris, I did have a Guinness for you at a pub across the street.  It was fantastic!

Disappointment, Euphoria and other Strong Emotions

Let the misadventures begin!!!

...

So, on Monday, I arrived in London, moved in, got settled, and everything seemed to be going well.  My internet worked, but not my phone, as I needed an international SIM card.  Then, on Wednesday I woke up to find that the internet would not connect, which meant that I had no way to contact the outside world, i.e. my parents, whom I knew from past experience would take this badly (cue the ominous, foreshadowing background score).

 So, I went to the reception desk here at the apartments to see about solving my internet problem, and was told to either email the network coordinators or call ISS services.  Obviously, I couldn't do either one, so I tried my apartment's computer room, filled with tons of unused computers which also wouldn't allow me to log on, and no one could help me with this either.  Then I remembered (wisely, I thought) that I had an iPhone and that, if I signed up for new service I would have both internet and phone service and (voila!) my problems would be solved.   I could use Facebook and Skype to talk to everyone back home without using long-distance minutes.  Oh silly, ignorant me!

I took the Tube downtown and found a Vodaphone store, where a representative told me, "Sure! We can get you set up with a new account on an existing phone as long as you have a British bank account or a letter of acceptance form your university."  Having neither on hand, and because it was getting late, I decided to go home for the day and conquer the problem the next day.  Meanwhile, my parents had gone an entire day (oh, the horror!) with no word from me.

On Thursday, knowing that I needed a British bank account anyway, I found myself sitting in a USBC, waiting for about an hour and a half to see a harried and exhausted-looking banker.  They had had a bit of drama that morning.  A woman had come in while I was waiting, extremely drunk and incoherent at 10:30am, babbling about a stolen ATM card, whereupon she collapsed in a heap on the carpet in the lobby, and could not be moved because every time she was helped into a sitting position, she threw up.  The sight of all those suited, uber-polite, and proper London bankers stepping over the sprawled limbs and vomit puddles of the poor drunk lady was an unexpected twist to my morning errand, to say the least.  Finally (the ambulance having come and rescued the maiden-in-distress), I was ushered into the banker's receptacle and discovered that I would (of course) need internet access in order to transfer money from my American account to my new British account.  Right... Oh, and also, my acceptance letter from King's College was apparently out of date and I would have to supply them with a new one sometime in the next four weeks or my account would be closed.

So, shiny new bank account in tow, I went back to Vodaphone to open a pay-as-you-go account with a new British SIM card, and found out that my iPhone is locked for international service and that there is no unlocking code for the iPhone 4 yet.  So now I have a very expensive glorified iPod.  Some of the apps still work, though.   Tired of the run-around for awhile, I decided to go home, rethink the problem, rest awhile (so I thought) and come back later.  Two full days had now passed since I had last Skyped my parents and they had proceeded to lose their ever-loving minds.

Back at the apartments, I was stopped by a lady in reception who asked me if I happened to be Melinda Helms.  When I replied, startled, that I was, she informed me that my parents had contacted the apartments several times that day, my room had been searched, my roommates interrogated for my last known whereabouts, and random female students had been checked for my identity at the door.  Feeling very much like a criminal and having had entirely too much frustration for one day, I promptly lost my shit.

I hate, ABHOR, crying in public, but the embarrassment of my apparent man-hunt combined with all of the other stresses of the week (or month, really) led to my breaking suddenly and simultaneously into laughter and tears, whereupon the receptionist, taking compassion (I'm sure) for the emotionally unstable half-wit in front of her, mothered me into her office and dialed my father's cell phone number.

In the ensuing commotion and all of my profuse apologies, I left my purse beside her desk and, rushing back 15 minutes later when I discovered it was missing, found that the office was closed for the day.  At this point, I decided that nothing good could possibly come of the day and returned to my room to bury my woes under a heap of duvet and self-pity myself into oblivion.

Thankfully, my roommates rescued me and, instead, I spent the rest of the night in a bar...on a boat...on the Thames.  That's right.  Read it again.  It sounds even better the second time.  To get there we took the Thames pathway past the London Eye (huge Ferris wheel), all lit up with twinkling blue lights and with the Parliament building and Big Ben glowing from the opposite bank.   It was a perfectly fantastic night.  How's that for a turn-around!

London!!! Day 1

After waiting so long to be able to finally leave for London, my visa finally came in on Friday, so I made flight reservations for Sunday.  I thought I had it all planned out (silly me!).  My flight would arrive in London at 6 AM, but I couldn't check in at the apartments until 9, so I figured I had time to eat a leisurely breakfast at Heathrow Central Terminal before catching the Heathrow Express into Paddington Station and catching a taxi to get me to my apartments.

The reality was somewhat different, and the entire trip was a frantic blur to get everywhere on time.  The plane from DWF to Houston was the worst plane experience of my life.  Granted, it was cloudy and windy the whole way there, but I would guess that the plane didn't stay calm for more than 20 seconds at a time, and the rest of the time was spent winding, twisting, bumping, speeding up, slowing down and all other possible un-fun contortions.  I was holding onto the armrests in a death-grip.  We arrived in Houston 45 minutes late and I had to run to change terminals and find my gate for London.  The flight was already boarding as I reached the gate.

My aisle mates for the flight to London were a shockingly gorgeous, exceedingly polite, 20-something man with movie star good looks (married, unfortunately), and a sullen, flatulent teenage girl who kept trying to sit cross-legged in the seat, which would turn off the sound to my armrest headphones every time she tried, and who wiggled so much, and was up and down so much that she kept bumping my tray table and knocking my book, iPod, and drinks to the floor.  I was grateful to finally get off that plane.

The line for border inspection at Heathrow is nuts!  With all the international planes that land there, the line is massive and, given the ensuing crowds and my diminutive height, it is really difficult to see the small and badly labeled line marked "Students."  I chose a line and started up a conversation with a man from India who has travelled to 50 countries in pursuit of his bucket list and has decided that 10 days is really long enough to stay in any one place before he gets tired of it.  His funny stories of all of his adventures and misadventures had me in stitches!

 So... after a 45 minute wait in what I though was the correct line, I finally reached the front and was promptly informed that I was in the wrong one and would have to start all the way over.  :(  The "Student" line was about 45 minutes, too.  By that time, my flight's luggage had already come, gone, been moved to another carousel, and then thrown on the floor.  After a panicked 10 minutes spent desperately searching for mine, I eventually found it propped up behind a pillar on the floor.

I made the train to Paddington Station and followed the pigeons and the cute little black line on the floor to the taxi line which stretched on for about a block.  My turn finally came, and I hauled my massive mountain of luggage and bags into a black cab with a cavernous interior and and a driver on the "wrong" side, and we wound our way through central London to my apartments.  On the way, we passed Hyde Park, the Houses of Parliament, London Bridge, and the Tower of London/Tower Bridge! Yay, I'm in London!

Now I'm all settled in my TINY room (See pictures, soon to come.  My bathroom is hilariously small!), I've walked around the area that I'm familiar with and bought a few groceries.  I'm about to go have coffee with the roommates.  I guess that's all the news I have for now.  I have so much to see and I'm SO excited!  I finally made it!

Updated (P.M.):  I just met 6 of my 7 roommates.  We're a pretty multicultural crowd, all women, from Malta, England, Canada/Ireland, China, Texas, New Mexico and California.  We each have separate rooms and bathrooms on either side of a long hallway with a massive shared kitchen at the far end.

I've also discovered that there is a pretty substantial list of unexpected items I need to buy, because the apartments don't supply them: towels (I had to use a t-shirt today), plates, glasses, coffee cups, pots and pans, a cheap bedside table, a tolerable duvet cover (again, see pictures), and hangers (they supply four).

 I'm going shopping tomorrow and then maybe to a free concert tomorrow night.

PANIC!

I wonder if someone could have a heart attack from sheer panic.  It's Monday, my flight is scheduled for Friday, and I (in all likelihood) will not be on it.

I opened my email this morning to a message from the British Consulate.  Hoping that this was good news and that I would soon have my passport and visa ready to go for Friday, I read the message expectantly- only to have all my hopes and dreams come crashing down in splinters around my ankles.  "Congratulations!" it said. "Your visa is currently being processed and should be finished within 5-15[!] business days.  This estimate does not include shipment time."  I don't remember the next minute or so, except for a roaring in my ears followed by an overwhelming sense of shock and disappointment.  And panic.  Did I mention the panic?!  So I emailed both my department at King's College and my apartments to explain what was going on, to be advised what my next course of action should be, and to find out what the consequences (cringe!) might be if I failed to be there for enrollment and induction weeks.

Meanwhile, pneumonia week three continues, undaunted by the thousands of medications currently coursing through my veins.  On Friday, after ten days on one strong antibiotic and four days on another and distrusting the medical advice and competence of Brownwood Regional Medical Center (with good reason- a patient of my mother's friend recently died of a hemorage after being sent home TWICE and being told that the blood coming up out of his mouth must be a bitten cheek!) I went to Shannon Medical Center in San Angelo.  After four hours in the exam room, an x-ray, and a CAT scan, it was decided that I have a slow-growing pneumonia that's just going to take its own sweet time in going away.

I did my very best to make those poor nurses work for their money.  After searching my inner elbows in vain for a usable vein, the nurse took blood through the back of my hand, but the radiology technicians demanded that an IV be inserted in a certain vein and only in my inner elbow, so then I had two more nurses on either side of me, thumping and pressing at my arms, competing to find that elusive vein.  When the nurse on my right side finally got it, he was so surprised that he let it go, and it sprayed blood all over himself, me, and the hospital bed.  Fun and eventful day, I would say!

Then, after a round of IV antibiotics and steroids, I was sent home and told to have a new x-ray in a month in London to make sure the pneumonia was clearing up.  In total, I've had three sets of antibiotic pills, two injected antibiotics, an IV antibiotic, three forms of steroid, albuterol, and hydrocodone.  As I think about it, maybe all these drugs are a positive thing.  After all the antibiotics I've had, my body could probably kill all the London bacteria in a five mile radius- like a superpower.  And I have enough steroids in my system to supply a major-league baseball team for an entire season, so I should be all beefed-up and ready for all that walking I'm going to be doing.

In better news, I quickly received a reply from the Classics department at King's College that set my mind at ease again.  They apologized for the inconvenience I was having, and assured me that, should I miss any part of enrollment or induction, the department would be happy to accommodate me in an individual meeting and induction at the Classics office upon my arrival.  Thank God!  Cheers, KCL!

What Doesn't Kill You...

Ten days from lift-off finds me on my couch, literally gasping for air like a grounded fish, cursing my own stupidity, and racking my brain for where I had left my passport.  What (you might ask) could have possibly left me in such a predicament?  Well, apparently, double pneumonia and panic attacks don't go well together.

I imagined that at this point I would have nothing left to worry about except making sure that I had packed everything I needed, washing all the clothes that I'm taking with me, and boxing up everything I'm leaving behind.  Instead, two weeks of bronchitis culminated in a stabbing pain in my ribs on Friday evening, which escalated overnight until I was sure by Saturday morning that I had broken a rib from coughing.  A quick examination by the doctor at the walk-in clinic got me an immediate referral to the emergency room where (four hours later) I was diagnosed with double pneumonia and pleurisy.  The pleurisy is caused by inflammation and fluid in the lining of the lung, causing it to scrape and slide against my chest wall- hence the pain.  So I'm supposed to take it easy and not move or exert myself for the next ten days.  I'll be on a plane ten days from now, so I'm hoping that's a conservative estimate.

Additionally, I received my rejected visa application in the mail today because I forgot to include my original passport.  That brought on the panic attack, which was compounded by the fact that I couldn't FIND my passport (it was still in a briefcase in my car from when I had my fingerprints taken in Austin last week).  I've shipped it by overnight airmail and (fingers crossed) I'll have my visa and my passport safe and ready to go next Tuesday.  I'm trying very hard not to think of the alternative.  Instead, I'm going to thank my mother for her foresight in suggesting flight insurance, and to remind myself that I still have two weeks leeway from my departure date to the date that school actually starts.

I'm sure that someday these will all just be bumps in the road that I can laugh and reminisce about, but until then, if you're reading this, keep your fingers crossed and send a little luck my way.  I'll be here nursing my broken chest.  I used to be a fan of the phrase, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."  Now it just serves as a reminder that this just might kill me after all.