EastEnders

I went to bed late last night so when I woke up today, I pushed the snooze a couple times. I eventually clawed my way out of bed and went to Sociology for the last time. Justin decided to finally take us to the East End and have a walking tour. He had been talking about doing this all semester so I was glad that it finally happened. The name of this post is the famous British TV show about people who live in the East End. We took the Tube over to Whitechapel. We walked by a pub, The Blind Beggar, where one of the Kray Twins killed a guy (picture 1). I don't remember the whole story but it is a famous place in the mythology of the Kray Twins. It is still popular nowadays. Then we walked by some football (soccer) fields (picture 2). It turns out that there used to be houses there but when the Lufthansa bombed London, they focused on the East End. They did that because the docks were located there and the largest concentration of people lived there as well. So all the houses in this area were bombed and never rebuilt. They were turned into recreation areas instead. We walked by the boxing club that the Kray Twins went to all the time. We also passed by the house where they grew up. Our second to last stop was a pub where all the victims of Jack the Ripper frequented, The Ten Bells (picture 3). It is a fact that that pub was the last place the last victim was before she was killed. We ended our tour at Spitalfields Market. It was a fruit/vegetable market for over a hundred years but recently has gone under redevelopment into a commercial area. There are still some little flea market stands inside though. This was where we all said goodbye to Justin. He went and had coffee with some people from the class but I wanted to go back to my flat. Before I left, I got my picture taken with him (picture 4). Justin was awesome and really taught us a lot about British culture and what it means to be from London. He was a really good teacher.

Back at Metrogate, I ate my PBJ lunch and did a little research for my Islam paper. I decided to write about head scarves. My plan was to write about the origins of them, their current application in some countries and some controversies surrounding them (ban on them in French schools, lifting the ban on them in Turkish Universities). I didn't get too far though because I had Senior Sem to go to. In Senior Sem, Phil gave us a packet about readjusting when we come back home. It had a lot of good points in it. Then he gave us the final plan for storing our luggage. Anna and Nick (two of my classmates) gave presentations on the independent learning projects they did here. Anna's was about the perception of art, more specifically music and theatre. Nick did his on comparing different kinds of performance (ballet, theatre, opera). They did a good job and had nice interactive elements to their presentations. After that Phil gave us money for our expenses on our HostUK trips. Then we left.

I came back and then immediately left for the library. I had a bunch of books I needed to return because they were due. I only took two books back, both just overview books of Europe. I want to do a little more research before I leave. I completely that chore I came back and started working on the Islam paper more. I made dinner and that's where I am at right now. I still have a little bit to go on the paper but I wanted to take a break and get this post done. Hopefully I will be in bed by around midnight. I cannot wait until this paper is done.

Just a short information note. In the left column, I added the list of tags I have made on all my posts. So if you scroll through the list, you can click on a label and see all the posts connected to that label. It is an incredibly long list but I figured if anybody is bored they can look up things. It's also fun for me to scroll through the list and see all the interesting and cool places I have been to. Also, as you can see below, I updated the post from yesterday to include more details of my day so have a read if you like.

Adios!