Classes, Carnival

Yesterday was the last day of the Notting Hill Carnival. We got there pretty early before the crazy began" but we did manage to catch some really great parades. There was a procession of skeleton knights and a pirate ship and a giant plant woman and a Beijing Olympics caravan. There was also a lot of Jamaican and other Caribbean food, and I had curried goat (great) and drank out of a coconut that I watched a guy whack open with a machete (awful pretty much). By the time we left crowds were streaming in from miles away. I guess what impressed me the most about Carnival was how it made London seem to be a city with a really active, contemporary culture that's perfectly able to incorporate and celebrate outside influences (in this case Caribbean, but also South Asian, African, etc. etc. etc.) while simultaneously retaining such an innately British heritage. I'm not sure if every European city can do that so successfully (Paris, for example? Or so I've heard), and I'm not even sure if London can, but at the moment that's what it seems like.

We managed to do the most un-Carnival thing possible at night, which was to go to a BBC Prom concert here featuring Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony and selections from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet. This was the only free concert that Grinnell-in-London provides, but considering music is cheaper than going out to eat or pretty much everything else, I'd like to see much more.

Thomas and I went to the British Museum today and saw a wonderful exhibit on American prints, with a lot of Pollock and Hopper and some prints by a guy named Martin Lewis who used the coolest lighting effects I've ever seen in printmaking.

Classes also started today. My Shakespeare class is going to see A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Globe tomorrow. My Renaissance Art professor has the most over-the-top accent I have heard yet. But we're going to Bruges and Ghent!

Orientation, Produce, etc.

Well let's see. Two days ago I went to the Tate Modern (we were going to see the Klimt exhibit but oh wait, that's in the Tate Liverpool) after walking a long way along the Thames and ordering a £4 smoothie for lunch (not worth it). What's nice about the Tate and all the other free museums in Britain is that they're used for so much more than just the galleries; tons of people were just hanging out and eating lunch in the absolutely massive entrance hall (the building used to be a power station and is featured in both Children of Men and on a Pink Floyd album cover). I hope that I can somehow utilize this space when the homework starts getting piled on.

The next day we had our big lengthy orientation meeting, in which a few people talked to us with absolutely incomprehensible accents and our program director explained, among other things, the program's field trips. We're going to Bruges and Dublin, but perhaps just as cool is the trip to Stratford-upon-Avon to see a production of Hamlet featuring Patrick Stewart and Doctor Who. This is pretty much the coolest thing.

Today we went to Camden, which is filled with open-air markets and food stalls and a surprisingly huge variety of things. I found some t-shirts that had little transparent compartments on front that had Star Wars Lego figures inside. I'd imagine it'd be painful to be punched in the chest if there were a tiny plastic figurine lodged inside your shirt. There were also a lot of punks walking around, but a lot of them seemed to be employed by leather stores and the Doc Martens shop in order to hold signs advertising their stores. There was also a guy who described himself as the most pierced man alive, which I guess becomes more of a profession than an aesthetic choice after a certain point.

The best parts of Camden were food-related though. For one, I'm really excited that this city is as obsessed with international cuisines as I am, and the stalls and stalls of ethnic food in the market just made me all the more excited. I got an empanada for £1 at an Argentine stall. We also found a bunch of produce stands which had cilantro and limes and a lot of other really cheap pretty good produce that's a lot cheaper than it would be in a grocer. Upon returning home I made turmeric potatoes and really garlicky dal and both turned out fantastic.

Given the price of food here, it's a shame that I spend so much time thinking about it. But I do pretty much spend most of my time here thinking about food.

Speaking of which, tomorrow begins the Notting Hill Carnival, the biggest carnival outside the Caribbean. There is going to be so much good food (and music and costumes and everything else) and I'm tremendously excited.

Alissa is cutting Thomas's hair, despite absolutely no haircutting ability. I just googled 'man bangs' and got mostly porn.

Day Two

There's something wrong with my bed frame such that it always makes me feel like I'm going to roll off to the left and off my bed. It's really disorienting.

Yesterday we went to Regent's Park, which is right down the street from our flat. Then Maddie and I went to Wembley Stadium to watch the England v. Czech Republic friendly (2-2, with a really dumb sort-of-goal by England during the time added on). It was pouring on the field and nobody was too impressed by England's performance, which I guess are two pretty essential parts of being an English football fan. The stadium is gorgeous, although transportation to and from is a chore considering just how many English people use the tube. But mounted police officers were able to break the tens of thousands of people-sized mass into more manageable groups, and the ride back to downtown London wasn't packed at all.

Oh, and I think that the tendency to walk and use public transportation in London makes it a prime place for zombie movies at a level that only malls (and maybe New York) can really achieve in the states. That giant Wembley mass certainly made me think so at least.

We befriended an Oberlin student! His name is Madhav and he's from Delhi.

Also, I'm going to put my photos online here. Most I'll probably post on this blog but there might be some extras.

Day One

A lot of my first day in London involved me standing behind groups of people (in the airport, the underground, etc. etc. etc.) thinking that they were forming a line, only to later realize that they weren't so much a line as a family or tour group or something similar.

Our flat works! It's beautiful! Our toilet only sort of works. But there are high ceilings and what seems like a distinct possibility for haunting.

Oh, and the name of this blog is the title of a song by Lord Kitchener, one of the most famous Trinidadian calypsonians. It's a great song and one that's been stuck in my head since a few days ago at least.