Cheers

I'm having an awesome trip so far! Let's see, what have I been up to since I last updated...
Well, to start with, the actual work I was sent here to do is going well. I don't write much about my job/schoolwork here and I'm not going to start doing that now, but those of you who know what I do for a living can probably guess where I've been working this week if I tell you, not-all-that-vaguely, "reconstructed building on the South Bank." Everyone there is so friendly. I always have someone to guide me from appointment to appointment, and every time I sit down for more than three seconds someone asks me if I want a cup of tea. I do realize that they're likely trying to impress me as much, if not more so, than I'm trying to impress them--if we go ahead with setting up this study abroad program it means money for them, of course--but I can't get over how accommodating everyone has been. I've also gotten a lot of people to talk to me about my dissertation research, and while I still feel all awkward and stutter-y and fumble-y when I'm conducting interviews, I feel like I'm not making a terrible impression. So that's all good. It's also just fun to do work there every day and see what goes on behind the scenes.
Anyway, I've also had a lot of free sightseeing time, which is wonderful. I went to the Tate Modern yesterday. I have to admit that I'm not fully capable of appreciating modern art. I think some of it is just ridiculous. I justify it to myself by saying, "Sure, I could paint four messy boxes on a piece of canvas and call it "art", but she's an artist and I'm not because she thought to do that and I didn't." I'm sure there is a much more sophisticated way of thinking about it and looking at it, but I have very little art history/appreciation training so I just judge by my own emotional reactions. So I don't like Dali because his images scare me (I know that's sort of the point, but blah), but I like Matisse because his colors please me, and sometimes I like Warhol (what's not to like about a room wallpapered in pink cows?), for example. Apparently the Tate Modern changes all of its exhibits almost completely every couple of years, which is exciting because it means I could go back and see different things next time. This time, my favorite rooms were a room covered from floor to ceiling in Soviet propaganda posters and a room that was a huge sculpture (or maybe I should call it a mobile?) of steamrolled silver pieces suspended from the ceiling and hanging in groups just inches off the floor. Oh, and the coolest thing of all was a room devoted to a table and chairs on a huge scale. I walked in and my eyes were at the level of the chairs' seats. It made me smile. I suppose that's how my Meatball must feel every day, laps at eye level.
Yesterday I also moved into the apartment I'll be staying in for the rest of the time I'm here. This apartment is, to use one of Penn's favorite expressions, "bangin'!" I was expecting it to be a tiny London flat, or maybe like the place I stayed last time I was in London for an extended period of time--perfectly acceptable, but full of cheap rental furniture and all scuffed up from years of use by people who don't take care of it like it's home. This place, though, is awesome. It's in a very modern-looking complex that was apparently only built a couple of years ago. It has a bedroom separate from the kitchen/living room area. I was expecting a dorm kitchen (mini fridge and microwave), but it's a fully-equipped kitchen: full-sized fridge, oven, stove, microwave, tea kettle (of course), dishwasher(!), even a tiny washing machine tucked under the sink! The bathroom is huge by European standards, too, and actually has a full bathtub/shower and not one of those tiny little closets you usually get over here. (Incidentally, I wonder if one of the reasons Americans in general are so much more into shaving their bodies than Europeans are is simply because Europeans don't have room to shave. Every time I try to shave in one of those closet showers I have to become a contortionist). So, anyway, apartment=amazing and relatively inexpensive! If you're coming this way sometime in the near future let me know and I'll give you the name of this place because I can't imagine staying anywhere better for the money.

The location rocks, too. I'm a short walk from the London Bridge tube station, and I can walk to where I'm working and on the way I pass all sorts of interesting things: the Southwark Cathedral, the ruins of Winchester Palace, a replica of Francis Drake's ship floating on the Thames...the history here constantly blows my mind. I get this feeling back home sometimes when I'm just going about my normal business and I happen to walk by a building I used to read about in my US history or government books, this "I can't believe this is my life and I'm really here!" feeling. But I don't know if it's just that the visible history is so many hundreds of years older here, or if it's just because I'm admittedly an Anglophile who has read way too much English historical fiction, but my breath is taken away by my surroundings much more often here.

Today, for example, I had one of those days that happens sometimes on good vacations when you're just going to do something generically touristy but instead you stumble upon something much more interesting. I was planning to go to the British Museum this morning, but when I looked up info on how to get there the transit website had all of these warnings about stations being closed because of the Lord Mayor's Show. So I thought, what is this Lord Mayor's Show? And I googled it and figured it out. Turns out it is a parade celebrating the newly-elected mayor of the City of London, a parade that has been happening annually for 784 years. It sounded interesting, so I went. It was definitely a cool experience. First I watched the parade, an hour of marching bands and horse-drawn carriages and floats from groups like "The Worshipful Order of Butchers" (the old-time guilds still exist to an extent, I guess!). Then it started pouring rain so I hopped on the tube and went to Covent Garden to grab lunch and look around. And then I headed back to the City, where I'd read that tour guides were giving free tours of the square-mile once-walled City of London. I got lucky because I came out of the underground station just in time to see the Lord Mayor arriving back at Mansion House. Since I had come out of a station that had apparently been blocked off until right before I arrived there, I avoided most of the crowds and had a good view of the mayor and the aldermen and the "livery company masters" (I just googled that; I had no idea who they were) doing celebratory toasts and posing for pictures before going inside. They were wearing red robes with fur collars. Fancy. It was cool to watch a ceremony that has gone on for hundreds of years. In fact, here is Samuel Pepys' account of the day in 1663 (yes, someone is typing up Pepys' diary like it's a blog. Some people are even nerdier than me). Anyway, the tour was two hours of nerdy historical fun. We went from Mansion House to the Bank of England (that bank scene used to terrify me in Mary Poppins) to Guildhall, to Postman Park (Closer, anyone?), to the ruins of Christ Church Greyfriars (destroyed in the Blitz during WWII, and Isabella of France, the she-wolf, widow of Edward II is buried there; I learned today that she was buried with her husband's heart!), to Temple Bar and St. Paul's and then down to the Thames and Blackfriars Bridge. There were other stops along the way, but those were the highlights. The guide was really good. I think I'm going to try to do another walking tour somewhere else in the city tomorrow. I can see things by myself, sure, but sometimes it's fun to go with a guide and a group.

Oh, and on my walk home tonight I stopped eat at a Wagamama. I love me some Wagamama.
I wish I could figure out a way to live here for a while. There's just so much exploring to do, and so little time! Anyway, five more days exploring London on my own and then Penn gets here. Hooray!