The English and their love affair with strikes, protests, and general unrest

Saturday began as a normal Saturday in London does: I went to Portobello Road with my friend Ashley, got annoyed by the hordes of tourists (as if I wasn’t one myself three short months ago, and probably would still be considered one), and we headed to Oxford Street to search for a maxi dress. There were hordes of people there, too, but instead of wielding cameras and fanny-packs (okay, okay: I didn’t actually see anyone wearing a fanny pack at Portobello), they had signs and chants. We had run into part of the strike.

Londoners (and people from all over England) were protesting about government cuts in the public sector, and they planned to march from Victoria Station through the city, ending in Hyde Park. But the mood at Oxford Circus, where Ashley and I eventually drifted to, was a little tenser. It was mostly younger people, and they weren’t marching—they were standing in a huge clump in the center of Oxford Circus, waving signs that read “We Are Fucking Angry” and “Globalise Resistance.” They were chanting at the police; they were climbing on traffic lights and the entrance to the Tube. Although Ashley and I didn’t witness it, they had also thrown paint and smashed windows at Topshop, who they accused of dodging taxes and therefore contributing to the need to cut public sector jobs.

Eventually, we made our way down Regent Street, and things got a little heavier. A bunch of police vans (at least 12, probably) lined one side of the street; as the vans moved, the mass of people moved to block them from continuing, chanting “Our streets!” When the riot police got out of the vans, the crowd quickly conceded that these were, in fact, the police’s streets too, and the crowd broke up. A scuffle and some cheering broke out outside a shop on the other side of the street; I turned around to see a cop draw his billy club and enter the fray. (I don’t think he probably used it, but it was still surprising to see.) Ashley and I, cameras drawn, continued toward the main march. We saw Fortnum and Mason, a London-owned specialty food store, get its windows smashed, and saw where protesters had earlier smashed windows at the Ritz.

Much later in the night, after I’d met Lisa and her sister, we were coming back into central from Lisa’s flat in south London, and we got off at Charing Cross station. We exited the station via the rail station instead of the usual exit into Trafalgar Square. We were trying to get our bearings when we looked to our left; across the entire street, a line of police with riot shields were standing, ready to hold their ground. A man came up to us and handed us papers that, in intimidating letters, read “BUST CARD”, detailing what rights we had in court and jail. “In case you get arrested tonight,” he said.

Even the most level-headed of ex-pats would’ve been paranoid, especially considering the rumors we all heard about abroad students’ run-ins with police. (“They’ll deport you on sight if you’re caught at a protest!” our overly cautious program coordinators had told us.) I was certainly in a frenzy, and we high-tailed it out of the area. But I went to bed that night with a sense of energy and love for the city I hadn’t had before. Don’t get me wrong: I’m thrilled that I didn’t end up in jail…but I certainly gained a newfound respect for Londoner’s love of civil unrest.

SUNdon

The following is a message to my loyal reader(s?)...hi, Mom.

Somehow, I haven't written since March 9th?!? I wish I could say it's because I've been off doing fabulous things and seeing fabulous places, and while that is true to a point (London is pretty dang fabulous, after all) the truth is that I've been plugging away, very slowly, at my mountains and mountains and mountains of homework which are currently plaguing me.
Which brings me to my next point, which is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to do homework, since spring has hit London. I passed yesterday afternoon sitting on the lawn outside our halls, hanging out with my beyond glamorous, mojito-sipping friends (seriously, how does one pull off wearing a floor length, gauzy skirt and blazer while sitting on the ground? I have no idea, but this girl looked utterly chic.) Today, after a morning of renegotiating Tube routes thanks to a flood and fire at Charing Cross, Lisa and I walked to Hyde Park and sat on the grass, watched people, kicked away pigeons and soaked up the sun. (Note: I am no longer Vitamin-D deficient!) We finished the day with dinner and a pint somewhere near Holburn.
Now that I've updated the blogosphere (hi Luke! You know how I love that term!) about my perfect day, I must return, for the majority of the weekend, to my library-dwelling, significantly-less-fabulous self.
One final note: I have been cheating on this blog with a couple others. I guestblogged for Preseli Venture, the lovely bunch who took me coasteering in Wales--read that blog here. I'm also part of a food blog for University of Westminster called The Fat Sausage. Check it out!

London: Pros and Cons

I was Skyping last night with Ingrid (that's us at New Years on the left), and she asked me if I miss anything about home. And so it’s time for the inevitable blog post: things I miss (and don't miss) about America.

-free access to the university gym. Sorry, Health, but I’m not paying 30 quid a month to work out when I could spend it on food. Therefore, I also miss
- muscle tone. See you in June, abs.
-Clean air. My brief foray into extreme outdoor sports in Wales was a blessed break, but still. My lungs curse the day I chose to study in London.
-classes in which grades do not depend solely on a single paper.
-a texting and calling plan where things are just taken care of, instead of the monthly top-up ordeal that one-semester-only students like me use here.
-Jon Stewart. Because I've always been DTF him.

But there are things I certainly do not miss about home, too. That list includes:
-Hershey’s chocolate. Even if Cadbury was purchased by Kraft, the recipe has remained the same. Give me a bag of mini Cadbury buttons, and I will be satisfied for days.
-Boredom. My mom would reprimand me for even using this word (“People who are bored when their time is their own are either lazy or unimaginative!”), but Ohio doesn’t offer too many opportunities for entertainment. It’s forced me and fellow Ohioans to make our own fun, which is a skill I’m thankful to have honed, but London makes life easy. There is always something going on. Always.
-At least 40 minutes in the car to get to something of note. Here, just hop on the Tube, and I’m to my museum/concert venue/restaurant/pub in less than 20 minutes.

On that note, I’m off to class… (Note: It’s been sunny here THREE DAYS IN A ROW.)

Copenhangin' in Copenhagen, and Cliff-jumping in Wales

WHOA. I haven’t blogged since February 22? Time is seriously flying. (And based on other people’s study abroad blogs that I’m stalking, time is flying everywhere else, too.)

A LOT has happened since I was in Ireland. The last weekend in February, my friend Spain and I ventured to Copenhagen to visit several of her close college friends who are studying at Denmark International School. It’s an absolutely lovely city: the pastries are phenomenal (…I may have eaten hundreds in our four days there); the streets are quaint; the people are beautiful.

I’m not saying that people in London aren’t beautiful—I pass by several ‘fit’ guys a day going to and from class. But in Copenhagen, 8 out of 10 are hands-down, all-out beautiful (but in a way that it doesn’t seem like they’re trying; they’re just naturally stunning.) Blonde hair, blue eyes, poreless skin…sigh.

Anyway, we ate and drank coffee and danced. We also went to Christiania-- Wikipedia that if you don't know what it is, because it's worth knowing. Best of all, Gen (one of Spain’s friends) was lucky enough to snag the number of the hottie Italian waiter as we lingered over delicious pasta. (Half of that sentence is sarcastic, and it isn’t the part about the pasta.)

A fun fact/sidenote about Denmark: it doesn’t use the Euro. A good traveler would have looked something like that up before heading somewhere, but not Spain and me. We had our Euros out and ready when Gen told us that the Kroner Denmark’s currency. (Also, to convert to dollars, you have to divide the amount by 5, so a cheap coffee—which is hard to find in Copenhagen, as it is a pretty expensive city—would be 30-35 Kroner. The previously mentioned nice Italian meal cost almost 1,000 Kroner--eek!)

My marathon travel tour continued this past weekend, when I went on an Arcadia (my study abroad program) sponsored trip to Wales. Last Friday, we headed west across England and Wales (a nearly 5 hour trip that included two trains and a van ride), and arrived at Preseli Adventure Lodge near the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park late-ish on Friday night.

On Saturday morning, we rose early, and my group’s first mission of the day was coasteering. Coasteering is basically a combination of swimming, rock climbing up cliffs, and cliff-jumping off of said cliffs. My friend Lisa and I (along with the other members of our group) squeezed ourselves into winter wetsuits (absolutely squeeeeeeezed- it was the tightest thing I’ve ever worn) and hopped in the van that took us to the coast.

The Welsh coast is really stunning in and of itself, and the day we coasteered it was sunny and blue-skied. We trotted into the water and, for the next hour and a half, climbed up cliffs and jumped off them. (The highest we could jump off was about 30 feet high.) We also explored water-filled caves, since it was low tide.

Later in the afternoon we kayaked in the Atlantic, which was fun but would have been more appreciated if we all hadn’t been tuckered out from coasteering that morning (and I would’ve liked it much more if I hadn’t been a bit seasick.) Sunday morning we took a 7-mile hike along the Welsh coast, and Lisa and I continued our now-tradition of lifetalks at high altitudes. (She and I climbed to the top of St. Paul’s Cathedral together and had an in-depth talk there, too, so it’s become sort of a pattern.) It was exactly the fresh-air weekend I needed, away from the bustle, pollution and noise of London.

So here I am, in month three of my semester, with mountains of homework to do. I have hardly done any homework since my arrival (taking in the culture is learning!), so the next couple of weeks I’m going to try to put my proverbial nose to the grindstone. It’s less than a month until my mom comes (hi Mom!) and we embark on our week of Scottish exploration, and five weeks until I head to Italy for a gelatathon.

Strange to think I’ve literally been looking forward to this semester for years, and I’m almost halfway through. Time goes way too fast.

Ireland: Craic'in me up

Well, it’s almost 1 AM and I still haven’t begun packing for my weekend trip to Copenhagen, for which I leave on Thursday. I just got back yesterday from Dublin, and may I just say this: the Irish are the friendliest people I’ve met, and DAYUM can they cook.

We arrived last Thursday night to Abigail’s Hostel, which is located right on the River Liffey and about a block from the heart of Temple Bar, an area full of restaurants, bars and clubs. We explored a bit that night, but we crashed a couple hours after arrival. The next day, we checked out Trinity College, Ireland’s oldest university (if I’m remembering correctly.) It was only a few blocks from our hostel; Dublin isn’t a huge city, so most of the major sights were within walking distance. We snapped photos, wandered around Parliament and the Museum of Ireland, then grabbed some of the best food I’ve had so far at a pub called O’Neill’s, which a guy at our hostel had recommended. The pub itself was really interesting; vintage Guiness ads and old photos hung all over the wall, and the dark wood floors and walls added to the old-world feel. It was set up buffet-style, so we glanced at a menu and ordered. I got Sheppard’s pie and did not regret it; the corned beef was obviously excellent, too. One of my favorite things about travelling is eating the traditional/local food, so this lunch was a dream come true…although we all immediately headed back to the hostel for a nap, thanks to a food coma.

We awoke and headed back out to Temple Bar, to a bar with a live Irish band and way too many guys in matching plaid shirts. We danced, chatted with Irishmen, and Spain successfully avoided a creepy German in a scarf.

The next day we checked out Christchurch Cathedral (absolutely beautiful) and went to the underwhelming and overpriced Guiness Factory. It’s less of a factory (I was expecting something akin to the Budweiser factory in St. Louis, where you actually go through the areas where the beer is made) and more of a museum, and since I’m not that into the history of brewing (sorry Matt) I wasn’t totally into it. But the Sky bar at the top of the factory gives spectators a view of Dublin and the mountains for miles, so that made it worth it.

The part of the trip that made me utterly fall in love with Ireland came on Sunday, when we took a paddywagon tour to Wicklow, the county just south of Dublin. The six of us piled into a small bus, along with about 7 others and our tour guide/driver, Ed. Ed, a surprisingly mobile at least 80-year-old, knew his shit and was hilarious. Since it was foggy that day, he delayed our venture into the mountains, hoping the fog would clear off. (It didn’t.) He drove us around the coast near Dublin (oldish—and obviously badass—men were swimming in the Irish Sea) and around Dalkey. The view, even on the cloudy, misty day, was absolutely stunning. Ed pointed out Bono’s house and the bar he frequents when he’s home, Enya’s mock castle, and Van Morrison’s residence. Then we continued into the mountains and, throughout the day, went to Glendalough (which used to be a Catholic monastery until Henry VIII ordered it destroyed when he broke from Rome) and the two lakes it’s named for (“Glendalough” means “place of two lakes”, and they are serene and breathtaking.) It made me want to visit Ireland in April, when blooming heather makes the mountains purple. The Craic will undoubtedly, certainly be seeing my face again.

VDay: Eye on the Prize

...I’m really not a hopeless romantic.

It’s just that I’ve always kind of liked Valentine’s Day. It isn’t that I love the commercialization of it, or the roses or sappy cards; in fact, I generally find roses pretty insincere. (I also don’t like the fact that so many couples seem to make a big deal of the occasion but then in everyday existence, they don’t treat each other particularly well…ahem, that’s a topic for a non-travel blog.)

But despite all the cliché declarations of love, I adore the traditional wearing of red, the eating of chocolates, the celebration of amore, and the romantic ride on the London Eye. Wait, you didn’t do that for V-Day? Sorry ‘bout your luck.

My Valentine’s Day agenda began with a train ride to Oxford to meet up with my brother Matt’s friend Nikki, who goes to Denison and is studying at Oxford for the term. Since I didn’t have much time, she showed me the main attraction (Oxford’s Christ Church, the cathedral and surrounding grounds…they were absolutely BEAUTIFUL), and we enjoyed sandwiches (mine was a bacon, Brie and basil panini), Cadbury caramel milkshakes, and Bailey’s lattes. It was the perfect rainy afternoon for a foodie like me, and I definitely intend on going back for more exploring.

Then I headed back into London and, seeing as I don’t exactly have a Valentine, met up with my friends Spain and Hilary at the London Eye. I was running late thanks to a very crowded Bakerloo line, and I told them when I got there that I’d felt like the London version of Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle: It was raining, and I was wearing a (in my mind, very chic) scarf over my hair and running toward the huge, brightly-lit, pulsating wheel that is the Eye, toward my true loves.

A ride in the Eye lasts about 30 minutes, and those who have paid clamber into one of 32 glass capsules, each of which could hold at least a dozen people. The view is really beautiful, especially at night. We took some pictures (the picture included in this post is a very blurry one, taken from the top), took in the amazing scene, and theorized as to whether any of the boyfriends who had rented a private capsule for themselves and their girlfriends had done so with the intention of getting busy 135 meters above London. (We decided that it would be possible but pretty difficult to pull off…so to speak.)

After our pseudo-romantic ride, we walked on the bank of the Thames and discussed our upcoming trip to Dublin over hearty dinners of chicken dumplings, prawn and chicken fried rice, and chocolate cake. It's interesting, though: if a guy had made V-Day plans that included the Eye and a walk by the Thames, I may have declined based on cheesiness. But for the three of us, it was the perfect date.

ADvantageous (ha! ...what a terrible attempt at a joke.)

The way companies advertise to countries tells a lot about the countries themselves, and I’ve seen enough ads in the last few weeks to recognize that British consumers and American consumers appreciate and respond to very different kinds of advertising.
It’s the example I see almost daily that’s my favo(u)rite. eHarmony advertises substantially on the Tube, and theirs is the particular ad that I read each time with fascination and/or disgust. The photo of the successfully-matched couple isn’t bad; an attractive, green-eyed woman leans over a dark-haired, not great- but okay-looking guy. But then there’s the blurb below the picture: “Every day I consider myself so lucky to have joined eHarmony and to have been matched with Matt. I truly believe he is the only man for me and that we will have a long and wonderful life together.”

….excuse me, but have I been launched into some starry-eyed and horribly written Nicolas Sparks novel? Do people actually talk like this in real life? Even if they believe sentiments like this when they themselves are in love, would British singles be convinced to use eHarmony thanks to this kind of rhetoric? Cynicism is a characteristic commonly associated with the Brits, so why have advertisers decided to use this kind of sappy language to lure them into using eHarmony? Maybe I’m speaking too broadly, but I think if something similarly trite was printed on an ad in New York or Chicago, it would warrant constant eye-rolls at the very least. (Then again, maybe the same can’t necessarily be said of middle America.)

Then there’s another ad that I didn’t see directly, but I saw on my British friend Ashley’s Facebook: "It’s the smaller things in life that I love. Like having strawberries and cream with my family in the sunshine. But unfortunately, strawberries have small pips in them that get under my dentures and it can be painful.”

1. There’s absolutely no way that ad can actually be helping boost sales of whatever denture glue it’s trying to sell.
2. I looked up ‘pips’ online and found nothing. This company is just making words up.
3. That was such a pathetic attempt at advertising, I literally can’t think of a way to end this post.