Bicycles in Hyde Park

Yesterday Camilia and I decided to take a bike ride in the park. It was just what I needed. The fall colors were out in abundance. Earlier that day I had tried to go to that Harry Potter tour again, and once again it was a bust. Later we found out that it costs 15 pounds! We thought it was free! I'm over that. My week unlimited tube pass ran out on Friday, so I had to pay 4 pounds to even get to the non-existent Harry Potter tour and that made me frustrated. I needed to do something great, and a bike ride was just the ticket!

There's a bicycle system here called Barclays. There are bike stations all over the city, and you can get a bike out at one station (using a credit card or you can get a pass), ride to where you need to, and leave the bike there. You don't have to return the bike to where you picked it up. They want more people to use bicycles as their main form of transportation. I see people riding them all the time!

Look at those trees! I was in heaven.

We decided to take a little detour and go to the Peter Pan statue. We had to walk our bikes there, because it was on a "no cycling" path. Then we couldn't really find a cycling path from there so we walked our bikes a lot.

One of the best things I've done yet! It also reminded me that Hyde Park is massive and that I hadn't seen most of it!

Occupy London

Looks like occupying places is all the rage. St. Paul's Cathedral is currently closed indefinitely due to protesters. Good thing we already went! I would have been super mad. I did really want to go to evensong there, so hopefully it will open up soon. My friend Kendal and I were on the way to the Tate Modern Museum and we decided to walk by St. Paul's to see the protesters. Turns out protesters everywhere are hippies.

All the business/ Wall Street guys used to eat their lunch on these steps! Now what?!

These guys wanted to interview me and Kendal. I warned them that we were not super informed and educated on the situation. They just wanted us to say that the situation is bullcrap (change of word). I just told them that it affects me because I'm a University student, and that doesn't mean I'll have a job when I graduate. Then he said, "what about the future. THE FUTURE!" And I said that normally the economy has somewhat of a cycle, and that hopefully we'll pull out of it. I don't think we gave them what they wanted. I should have said, "well last time the economy was really bad during the depression, WWII really helped. So let's bump up this war!" They would've loved that.

P.S. I don't want the war bumped up

Halloween Party!

Last night we had our Halloween party at the Centre. It was so much fun. So I had to find a costume. I literally didn't have time to go out looking for one, nor did I want to spend the money. Luckily I thought of the red rain coat I bought from Topshop for 10 pounds a couple weeks ago, and realized I could be little red riding hood! Just with a rain coat, not a cape. My friend was going as an animal because she has a grey fur vest, so I told her to go as a wolf and we could be a team! So we did. Granted, I really didn't look like Little Red Riding Hood at all. I couldn't get ahold of a basket to put bread in. Oh well, I worked with what I had and didn't spend any money. But everyone put costumes together and it was really fun!

Thais, our cook, made dinner in a pumpkin. It was a sea food cream cheese gumbo thing that we ate over rice. It thought it was pretty good. Then we frosted cookies and cupcakes with white, orange and black frosting! Thanks to Ashley for putting that together. After we had a dance party, and everyone came and danced! It was a successful Halloween and really fun!

Red Riding Hood and the Wolf!

The best costume was our professor and his son. They went as each other. Our professor is literally wearing his sons clothes. Look at those tight red pants! It was hilarious. It's funnier if you know their personalities too.

These girls dressed up as artists. Specifically artists from the program. Julie went as me!

Hippie, Esmarelda, a woman from a Roy Lichtenstein painting, Red Riding Hood, and a Native.

Thais and Alvaro, they run the London Centre. She's also our cook. Ham and eggs!!

Our dinner in a pumpkin.

Frosting cookies and cupcakes!

Roomies!

Ninja Turtles!

Laura Bennion (a girl in our program), a pumpkin, and Juno.

Most of the gang!

Dance party!

Success!

Jack the Ripper

Yesterday we also went on a Jack the Ripper tour! It was really fun and informational. Here's our tour guide, Richard. He had what he called 'ripper vision' which was a handheld projector that he could show us images with. He would find parts of buildings that were white and shine the projector on them. It really added to the tour. He had pictures of what the streets looked like back then, and then imbedded those images with photoshop onto pictures of the streets today to show the difference. Many of the streets are very much the same. A lot of the same buildings still stand. At one point there was a church to our right, a pub up ahead and a market to our left that were all there in 1888 when Jack was ripping. And the prostitutes and most likely 'Jack' hung around there. He also had pictures of the victims, which could be a little gory.

Richard said that he looked like Johnny Depp, (because Johnny Depp was in a Jack the Ripper movie) after gaining weight and having a stroke.

You can't really tell, but scenes for Diagon Alley were filmed on this street! We hope to go back and have lunch there. And buy a wand.

Yay for creepy history! Perfect for Halloween!

Imperial War Museum

Yesterday we went to the Imperial War Museum. I REALLY liked it. It's one of my favorite museums that we've been to. Which is maybe bad because I'm an art major, and we've been to a lot of art museums. Oops.

On the way we took a scenic walk along the river. Here we are with Big Ben and Parliament. Those are the windows that Robert Downey Jr. (or his stunt double) jumped out of and into the river in Sherlock Holmes!

Along that walk there was a man with his two little terrier dogs walking along. Both of the dogs were off their leashes and were having a jolly ol' time walking and sniffing along. But I was so impressed with these dogs because they are so well behaved. They always made sure that their master was in sight, even though they were walking on their own. They were also little best friend dogs. When one dog got ahead of the other, it would look back and make sure the other was still keeping up and if the other was far behind, it would wait! They did this several times. So cute. I'm just sentimental about dogs. It's because there are so many good dogs all around London, I've always loved dogs, and mine, little Molly, died last week.

Here's the museum. Those are real guns that were used on naval ships. They were huge!

All the placards told you information about the object like how much it weighed, how fast it could go, how far it could travel, etc. It also told you where and with what infantry each object served.

I was obsessed with all the planes. It made me want to watch Flyboys.

I'm in a plane!

Cute little boys looking in a plane.

A replica of the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

There was a children's part of an exhibit about WWII called "The Children's War." It was really interesting. I learned a lot I didn't know. I don't know if this is common knowledge, but I didn't know that a lot of parents shipped their kids off to America and Australia when the air raids were happening. Germans began air raids in 1940 and at one point they bombed the city 57 consecutive nights. I can't imagine living in fear like that! A lot of places we've gone still have the holes left by the bombs, like Westminter Abbey and St. Paul's. But it was really sad. There were quotes from children saying how they were scared or excited and how they didn't now when they'd see their parents again. It also showed the gas masks that the children had to wear. As part of the exhibit there was a model home that was made to look like it was from the 1940's. You could walk through it and see what a home was like during that time period. They gave figures about the number of people killed during WWII and it was astounding. Especially the number of civilians killed by enemy attacks- 60,000.

This was sad. It was the letter they sent out when one of the ships full of children got torpedoed. So impersonal.

These are propaganda posters showing how the kids wanted to stay but couldn't. And how Hitler would tell you to keep your kids with you, and bring them back from their safety abroad, but you shouldn't.

I felt bad having taken a smiley picture in front of the atomic bomb, so we did a somber face for the Berlin Wall.

I thought the museum was really well done. It was really sad too. There was a large part about the Holocaust that was really sad. It showed the progression and rise of Hitler. It also showed images and video from Auschwitz, as well as first hand accounts from survivors. You left feeling a little heavy. There was also a part on the lower level that walked you through all the wars Britain was involved in during the 20th century. I felt stupid that I didn't even know about some of them. One quote said "Since 1945 there has only been one year when a British serviceman has not been killed on operations somewhere throughout the world." That's probably true for many countries. There was just so much to see packed into the museum. We went when it opened at 10, and by the afternoon it was so busy! It's a must see!