Cultures Destroyed

*Yet another super duper long post. You have been notified (I should put this above just about every post, shouldn't I?)*

Kind of depressing title for the absolutely spectacular day I had today. A contradtiction of sorts I suppose but that's they way life seems at times, the good vs. the bad and all that.

First off, I just wanted to mention that last night I bought tea, shortbread fingers, and Skittles after I wrote my blog entry. I was craving tea and cookies and I succumbed to the Skittles while I was waiting in line. They were just staring back at me with longing I couldn't say no. They were terrible. They don't use artifical flavors here, only fruit juices (health? come on, not with Skittles). Pardon my French, but they were a bastardization (not a word, I know) of what Skittles should be. I swear the purple ones tasted like tomatoes and I did not like that. It reminded me of what I would imagine hanging out with an ex would be like. You're so used to them from before and they keep begging you to hang out again so you finally say yes and then both of you realize, right away, that its just plain not the same and weird and you wish you hadn't hung out at all. It was just like that with the Skittles. Anywho, I bought raspberry and chamomile (sp?) tea. It was in a bright pink box. A little embarassing but who cares, it tastes really good and I like it. In fact I am going to go get some now.

Ok, I've got my girly tea and some cookies that I snagged from the Fanshawe's house so I am set to recount my day. It started off at 6:30 (boooo). I did my usual routine (shower, toast, yogurt, e-mail) and got on the bus at 8. We headed off to Salisbury. I grabbed a book from the common room before I left called "Company of Three". It's about a woman who moves in with two other people and their trials and tribulations. It is a very good book and I have almost finished it (already, its 350 pages long). Pleasure Reading, definitely not mind blowing or whatever. Anyway, most people slept on the bus and we arrived at Salisbury Cathedral. It was fantastic. The sky was blue and it was kind of breezy. We got a tour of the place from an older woman. Actually, all the tour guides looked well past retirement age. She told us a large number of different things about the cathedral. She talked a lot and fast. She would do this sort of walk fast/shuffle thing and say, "Come on! Times awasting!". I did remember a couple of things though. The spire and tower are the tallest in Britain at 404 ft. The oldest clock in the world is inside the cathedral. The cathedral is built on the only piece of shale within 40 miles or something like that. If the cathedral was built anywhere else, it would have sunk or something I guess.

One instance of cultures destroyed was at Salisbury Cathedral. The cathedral was built from 1220 to 1258 (only 38 years for the whole thing!!!!) but in the 1600's, after the reformation, some people came in and just defaced the place. They moved tombs, scraped off paint from just about everywhere, took away bones, destroyed priceless stained glass and other atrocities. I don't mean to be all righteous or whatever but that is just plain horrible. The sad thing that stuff like that is happening RIGHT NOW in places all over the world (even the US). Cultures and precious relics and buildings are being destroyed or "revamped" and it sucks. The theme will continue soon.

After the tour, we had time to ourselves so Vanessa and I walked through the town of Salisbury and visited another church and walked along some streets and stuff. Busy, kind of small, town. Saturday is Market Day so there was an outdoor market going on. I ate lunch on a bench that was in the sun and faced the cathdral. Awesome. (On a side note, I made ham and salami sandwiches and the salami stunk up my backpack a little bit, I think that was The Man Upstairs punishing me for not having PBJ). We hopped on the bus and drove through some more rolling hills and fields to Stonehenge. Along the way, someone behind me said that it looked like Iowa. I was completely offended and a little peeved. Iowa has NOTHING on the English countryside. Moving on...

We got to Stonehenge and grabbed some audio guides which told the story of Stonehenge as we walked around it. It is smaller than I thought it was. It was still really awesome. There was bright sunshine lighting up the rocks and blue sky. There was also a very gusty wind that was quite chilly (at least for England, I understand the weather conditions in MN, it's all relative). Stonehenge was made something like 4-5,000 years ago and its still standing. Just incredible. We did the whole circle around the outside of it (it was gated off so no National Lampoon's European Vacation moment) and hopped back on the bus. I didn't talk about Stonehenge that much here but there's not much to say other than you should go see it for yourself (try for a sunny day, hard to do but still).

Back to the depressing topic of Cultrues Destroyed. During the audio tour, it said that back in the day, people would visit Stonehenge and instead of an audio guide, they would get a hammer and chisel. This allowed them to take back a piece of the stones. I was horrified for the second time that day. I know it sounds naive but geez, that's not right.

Next we tried to drive to the Fanshawe residence but we got a little lost along the way not once, not twice, but three times! Oh well. We got there and we greeted warmly by David and Jane. Phil told me that Jane had searched for David's name and saw that I mentioned him in my blog! What a crazy coincedence! I am going to stop using exclamation points now! Anyway, they had small sandwiches, juice, pop, tea, all sorts of cookies set out for us to snack on. Then we went to David's studio and he gave a little presentation on what he does. He showed a whole bunch of photos. They were the most incredible photos I have ever seen. First I should explain about what he does I guess. David is a composer/explorer and he spent 7 years (in the 70's) in Africa going up the Nile recording different African Tribal songs and rituals. He turned all those recordings into the piece, "African Sanctus". After that, he went on a 10 year (yes, 10 year) trip to the Pacific Rim (in the 80's) recording music there. He's still working on the arranging of that music but it will be called "Pacific Odyssey". So he showed us a ton of pictures and talked a lot about his music and about life in general. He said two things that I remembered

• Music is a wound that never heals


• 2% of people DO. 98% of people WISH THEY HAD.

Two very powerful and inspirational quotes. A weird coincedence, David's best friend from the African tribes (he's on the cover of the African Sanctus CD), is the uncle of Barak Obama. How strange? Cultures Destroyed fits into this part of our day because as he was showing pictures, David would said that one of the tribes was completely massacred only two years after he met them in a civil war. He said that men, women, and children were killed, decapitated and thrown in the Nile. An entire TRIBE! Hundreds of thousands of people apparently. Just awful. Then showed a slide of people on Fiji gathered around a tv. He said that it was the end of their culture and that it was really hard for him to find the old music and tribes in the pacific because of the proliferation of tv and other things. Entire tribes and cultures just wiped out and David has their lasting songs and rituals recorded and we heard some of them. It was very eerie.

We had a GREAT dinner of bangers and mash (sausage and mashed potatoes). That was followed up with cake, fruit and custard, more cookies, strawberry cheesecake and just a million things. We all took doggy bags home with food. Some people took bottles of pop back and whole cookie boxes (they asked first). We all felt like beggars who never get food going somewhere and then just scavengering for things to take back with us (it feels like that sometimes). The Fanshawe's were amazingly hospitable and welcoming and I don't think anyone ever felt weird or uncomfortable in their home. If Jane is reading this, Thank You again, it was wonderful. Then we headed back. I set out like a million e-mails and wrote this NOVEL. Holy crap is it long, and no pictures (yet). I haven't gotten the pictures from Vanessa, I will though!

Well, it was a great and very enlightening day for me. All this Culture Destroying can get pretty depressing but its because of people like the National Trust (takes care of Stonehenge) and David Fanshawe (recorded now extinct tribes) that hope still comes. I think the quote, "if you don't know your history, you are doomed to repeat it" really holds true here. Knowing what we know now about how cultures and buildings and atrifacts acan be destroyed, we need to fight hard to preserve and keep them for everyone later. That's all the deep stuff for me today.

God be with thee! (goodbye is a shortened form of that, say that phrase fast and you'll hear it)

Camera Shopping

I was up until around 4 am talking on Skype last night so I slept in until 11:30 today. I got ready and Vanessa and I set out on a quest to try and find a store that would sell me a good camera cheap. Word to the wise: In London, those stores don't exist.

We walked across Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens to an area of London called Oxford Circus (no elephants unfortunately, just a lot of traffic). The parks were really nice, I had never really walked through them before so it was fun to do that. It was a really nice day out, breezy, not too cool, sunshine. Then we got to Oxford Street which we had to walk on and it was a mess. People would walk right into us and there were literally a million people walking on these sidewalks, it was insane. I'm not kidding. We were getting extremely annoyed. On the way back, Vanessa leaned over to me and said, "I think I'm starting to hate people." I said, "I'd rather be walking through mud like yesterday." Anyway, we got to a couple stores but they didn't have the cameras I wanted and their prices were ridiculous. So we walked back along the street again. Just bad. Anyway, as we were walking back, I decided to try High Street Kensington to see if it had any stores that might help. It didn't. We stopped at a grocery store and Vanessa got a bunch of groceries. As we were walking back she told me, "I thought YOU were the one that was supposed to spend money, not me." I just laughed.

I came back to the flat and ate a couple more quesadillas. I was really hungry (I only had toast so far). I had a really big headache so I laid down and watched some tv. Then I came down to the computer lab and did some more camera research and now, here I am.

Tomorrow morning everyone has to be ready by 8 am to get on the coach so its going to be an early night. I am very tired so it was going to be an early night anyway. I am super excited to see Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral. It is going to be really sweet. Plus, mostly sunshine and highs around 50 are expected. Yay!

I hope everyone has fun this weekend. I know I will!

Good News/Bad News

Ok. So I have some good news and I have some bad news. I will do the bad news first, just to get it out of the way. Here it comes... my camera broke. Yup. I was hiking (I will get to that) and I wanted to take a picture of myself so I put it on a fence post and it took the picture but fell off because of the wind and landed right on the lens part so now it won't turn on or whatever. To be more specific, it will turn on but the lens part won't extend at all, it just makes a grinding noise and then on the screen it shows E18. Then the camera shuts off. I was insanely depressed but I guess I have moved on now. I sort of wanted to get a new camera anyway, I suppose... Now I have my excuse. On the other had, I'll just say it, it sucks, a lot. That camera has basically been an extension of me since I got it two years and one month ago (exactly, as a matter of fact). It's like what I would imagine not having an arm would feel like. I feel very naked without it. Ugh. So there's the bad news.

More bad news I guess. Because of the broken camera situation, I can't post pictures today and I couldn't take pictures for half my day. So there will be no pictures until I can get another camera. Sorry!!!

Now for the good news! I had an idea in my head last night of something to do but I didn't post about it because the entry was kind of long and I wasn't sure if I would actually go through with it or not. Anyway, I went to Constable Country. That's an area about an hour train ride northeast of London where an artist named John Constable grew up and did most of his paintings. Constable Country itself is a very shallow valley made by the Stour River. That walley (before it was called Constable Country) was and actually still is referred to as Dedham Vale. It's mroe marshy and stuff than I had thought but it was still very beautiful. The most famous area of the Country is Flatford Mill. Constable made a painting of this mill with the bridge and the river and it sold for a ton of money. As a matter of fact, Constable's work is some of the most expensive paintings you can buy now. As I said, he is very famous (wasn't when he was alive though). He liked painting landscapes and sky and stuff like that and Constable Country is perfect for that.

I left my flat at around 8:30 this morning with a lunch and some books and other necessary things but no map of the area. The only information that I really had was some directions from the town of Manningtree (where the train stops) to Flatford Mill. I got on the train at Liverpool Street (picture 1). When I got off the train, it was really cloudy and I was worried because the forecast called for mostly sunny and I really wanted some sun while I was walking. So I walked and followed the directions. Turns out that in January the path is super muddy (picture 2). It made for an interesting hiking experience to say that least. I trudged on, avoiding mud as much as I could. Fields were the main land around me with the River Stour cutting through but they were still very pretty if you ask me (picture 3 and 4). I ended up taking the wrong turn somewhere and walked toward a town with a church spire sticking out it instead. On the way there, I ran into a group of people pheasant hunting. I had heard their gun shots as I was walking. They were nice and we talked for a little bit. I made my way to the church spire. It turns out that the town I came to was Dedham.

Dedham was where Constable went to school as a boy. He did some paintings of the town and stuff from far off. I guess I mean he didn't paint the town but he painted it within some of his landscapes. Constable's father owned a mill in Dedham and in Flatford (the famous one) and another mill somewhere else. John, being the oldest, was expected to take over the family business. He didn't want to; he had fallen in love in painting. So his dad let him. Back to my story, I walked through Dedham, I explored the inside of the church (picture 5) and church's cemetary (picture 6), walked along the main drag (not much to it but I still liked it), and even had a little conversation with a couple of older women who were on a walk in the town as well. Then I continued on my roundabout way to Flatford Mill.

As I was walking, I was thinking about the difference between being lost and not knowing where you where you are going. At this point in my journey, I was not lost, I just didn't know where I was going some of the time. I followed the well defined, and muddy, path but I wasn't sure how far it was to the Mill and all that jazz. I tried to take a detour to another little town where John's parents are buried but I wasn't sure where I was going so I turned around. I crossed over the River on a wood bridge (picture 7). By this time, the sun had come out I was at the top of a hill (picture 8) and it was really beautiful and I wanted to remember that moment so I decided to do something stupid. I put my camera on a small, woobly fencepost and take a timer shot. It took the picture (picture 9) but as soon as it did, a gust of wind came and knocked the camera down right on the lens part. I was devastated. I was depressed. I was really mad at myself. When I was putting the camera on the fencepost I knew it was risk but there wasn't anyone else around and the moment meant a lot to me. Oh well. Life happens. I walked back down the hill and continued on my way to the Mill by walking along the River. I was still very angry and sad but as I walked, those things melted away and I just had to smile because of the amazing scenary around me and the sunshine and the fresh air and the fact that I was hiking again.

I finally got to Flatford Mill and man did I wish I had my camera. I ate my PBJ sandwiches next to the mill, right on the river. It was fantastic. I decided to just keeping moving and not linger too long there. I was still mildly upset about the camera and none of the buildings were open, they are only open on Saturday and Sunday in Jan and Feb. Dumb. I walked my way back to the train station amid sunshine and blue skies. I proceeded to walk to the town of Manningtree inself. On the way there, I walked by a couple of city worker guys. As I walked past them, they looked me up and down and I heard one of them say, "Another one from London, eh" and the other worker grunted in agreement. That was awesome. One of the best compliments I have received. The town isn't much but I walked to the shore of the river. At Manningtree, the Stour opens up really wide before it goes into the ocean. It's a mix of salt and fresh water sort of. So I technically wasn't at the ocean but I walking along a big body of water. I loved it. I love walking by, looking at, and just being around water. It's very calming. I tried to walk back to the train station by another route but ended up not knowing where I was going again (not lost though). I eventually walked around enough to get my bearings (keeping the river on my right at all times was a good help) and got back to the train station at around 4. I estimate that I walked somewhere between 8 or 9 miles today. The train ride back was very pleasant, I had a book and my Zune and the there was a gorgeous sunset. I rode the Tube back and ate pizza for dinner and then read some more (I am devouring "Skinny Dip"). Now I'm here.

You know, even with my camera (probably my prized possession, at least 1A with my Zune) breaking today, this was still probably my favorite day here. That's saying something too. I mean with the Tower Bridge day or the first night I was here when I walked around with Vanessa or almost any other day that's a tough list to be the best of. I just plain forgot how much I love walking around outdoors with the sun on my face and a backpack on my back. I mean, it was just plain wonderful. The same thing happens on the first hike of each of our annual summer vacations. Anyway, i had a lot of fun with one bad spot mixed in. I wonder what tomorrow will bring? We'll just have to wait and see.

Au revoir!

Free Books

Why would I title this entry "Free Books"? Well there are a couple reasons I did that which will be revealed shortly.

I had Senior Seminar again today. We spent about forty five minutes just doing trip business, handing out information, talking about registration and volunteering and other stuff. The next forty-five minutes we talked about where we are going Saturday. We are going to Salisbury Cathedral (more on that after we visit there), Stonehenge (I am super excited about that), and David Fanshawe. I think I mentioned this before but David Fanshawe is a composer of music who rocks. He has a CD he made where he combines guitar and percussion, choir, and recorded African music. It's called African Sanctus. If anyone reading this blog has a chance to just listen to a little bit of it, you should. It is phenomenal. It is so different from anything I have ever heard. Anyway, on Saturday, we are visiting his house and having dinner with him I guess. It should pretty sweet. So we talked about Saturday and then we listened to some of the CD, African Sanctus.

After Senior Seminar, I came back and had a quesadilla for lunch (yummmmm). I bought some hot salsa but I didn't think it was that hot, at least not compared to Greg's salsa. Then I got Vanessa to come with me and we did a little walking tour of North Kensington (northwest of where I live). The main points of the tour were A) get out and walk B) see more of our neighborhood C) get a library card and visit the library. So main point C was one of the reasons I titled this post free books. Anyway, Vanessa and I walked by the church that I go to every Sunday (all 2 of them so far), Our Lady of Victories (picture 1). Throughout the walk, we passed by houses occupied by semi-famous people. People like Lord Leighton (artist, his house is picture 2), Linley Sambourne (drew cartoons for Punch), and Kenneth Grahame (wrote The Wind in the Willows). They all lived in Kensington in Victorian times. They had really cool Victorian houses along the entire walk. Lord Leighton's is now an art museum which we did not go into, but I will someday. We walked by a restaurant owned by Bill Wyman (guitarist in Rolling Stones) called Sticky Fingers (picture 3). Holland Park is in Kensington and it has manicured gardens that must be spectacular in spring (its not spring so they aren't as good as seen in picture 4). Holland Park was part of the gardens of Holland House, a mansion that was around since 1600, but was later donated and became the main part of the park. The two of us stopped by a garden shop which has peacocks as residents (picture 5). Vanessa freaked out when saw the head of it pop up above the fence line. We eventually made our way to the Kensington Central Library and got our library cards. Same policy as the US, free books for 3 weeks, then renewals. I for got to mention that on our walking tour, we passed by one of the oldest letter boxes in London. The whole walk took about 3 hours, it was very pleasant.

Another reason I titled this entry, Free Books, is because I just finished reading a book I brought with me (for free) called Final Exam. I really liked the book (except for the ending, kind of anti-climactic if you ask me, I was expecting someone to get busted but oh well). It's a murder mystery set at Kenyon College where my uncle, Barry, is a professor. Since I left I have also read Hatchet and An Abundance of Katherines. Both were very good (AAoF being one of my favorite books I think I have ever read, I basically finished it on the plane). It's crazy, I don't think I have read this much in a verrrrry long time. Those three books, plus reading for my classes, plus reading about Britain and Europe for traveling purposes. That's a lot of reading. That's part of life though, changing and adapting. Most nights I spend watching TV and reading (as opposed to last semester where I spent most nights on the computer, playing video games, or watching tv). I'm not making any judgements on myself or what I am doing, I am simply stating the difference.

Well, that's all I have to say for now I guess. More tomorrow I presume. Adios!

Good Day

Guten Tag! That means good day in German (Amy, correct me if I'm wrong). At any rate, I had a pretty good day today. I usually do. Today wasn't that exciting really but the sun was shining which almost automatically makes it a good day here.

I got up and went to my Islam vs. The West class. We spent most of the class taking notes while our teacher lectured on the early history of Islam. He started at Muhammad (obviously) and his minstry in around 680 and we made it all the way to about 1400 or something like that. About 700 years in three hours, not bad. He told us about what Muhammad did and how everything after him kind of got all messed up. The Shii believe that Muhammad only had one rightful heir but the Sunnis believed that Muhammad wanted there to be elections and the two sides have not gotten along well since then. The rift between them has gotten worse since the US invaded Iraq and there is a sort of civil war going on there right now. To think all that started with no one remembering exactly what Muhammad wanted after he died. That's a good lesson to make sure you have a clear will, if I have ever heard one ;-) Seriously though, it was a very interesting class. I've already said this before, but it's amazing how little I know about Islam. I am still amazed by it.

I went back to my flat and had, what else, a couple PBJ sandwiches and an orange for lunch. They were delicious. Then I took the Tube to the National Gallery (picture 1) in Trafalgar Square (picture 2, with Big Ben down the road and picture 3). I got there a little early and took some pictures of the square. I liked the fact that the sun was out for the first time in a couple days. I really like the fountain picture below (picture 4). I met up with the group and we spent the class period looking at Middle Ages art and the transition from that to the art of the Renaissance. We discussed paintings in churches in the Middle Ages and how they were all very religious based (saints, Mary, Jesus, etc.). Then we moved on to paintings in the Renaissance of Roman and Greek myths and how they were all done for patrons for their homes and furniture. Again, I know nothing about this stuff so its fun to just sit and listen to my prof tell us all this stuff in the paintings. Very interesting.

Vanessa and I walked back from the Gallery (to save money) and then sat around in the computer lab. I ate dinner (chicken and bacon tortellini with tomato sauce, under £2 total, awesome). From dessert, I am currently eating chocolate mousse (6 for about a pound, what a steal) and an apple. Very good and good for you. I spent about 2 hours looking up stuff about visiting somewhere in Britain Wed. through Fri. but I couldn't really find anything so I gave up. It was fun to just look up prices and read more about all the towns. I learned a lot.

I am getting excited about my Spring Break plans. We decided to start reserving plane tickets and hostels by the end of the week. We hope to have everything reserved that we can by Sunday, I don't know if that will happen however. Tomorrow I have Senior Seminar and then its's the weekend for me (haha)! Yay!

Bye!

Picture-less Day

Hi again! I did not take a single picture today. Believe me, I'm as shocked as you are. The last day that I didn't take pictures was probably a week ago Sunday. Crazy. There are many reasons for me not taking any pictures, the main one being that I had class during all of the light hours of the day. So without further ado, here's a recap.

In Sociology of the City, our homework was coming up with images that came to our minds when we thought of a city, things that are specific to cities and phrases and metaphors for cities. We discussed these in class. We would give an example of an image or something and then our teacher would say how that image does or does not apply to London and we would debate if the image was really true or not. The same thing happened for all the of the homework assignment things. It was pretty interesting and fun to have a conversation sort of thing with our professor as opposed to him just telling us stuff for the whole 3 hours (still not used to sitting for that long, even with a break). The last part of class, Justin lectured on the history of London, at least the recent history.

We spent the time inbetween classes down in the common room of Foundation House (where our classes are). I ate two PBJ sandwiches. Gourmet, I know. I looked at a couple books they have down there about Venice, Florence, and Rome. Very interesting and I'm still insanely excited about going there.

Senior Seminar was spent discussing two of the cases that we had to read for last week's class. I wasn't that interested, I felt like most of the discussion was just a re-hashing of what was said in the book. We then discussed Cultural Relativism. Haha, interesting, right? It wasn't bad. It was the reading we had to do for our class today. Cultural Relativism says that all things are right or wrong as long as they are right or wrong within the culture and that there are no universal moral truths. The author of the book ripped this theory apart and that was about it. We spent the last half hour of class listening to Phil give us a quick hits history of England, focusing on the Canterbury Tales and how they came to be (since we are going to be re-enacting them in a week and a half).

After Senior Seminar, a bunch of us went to Parliament and sat in on the House of Lords while they were discussing an embryonic stem cell research bill. It was interesting being there and hearing them discussing but the topic was kind of dull. They spent about 45 minutes straight arguing the merits of having "serious disability" or "life-threatening disability". Like I said, sort of dull. It was still good to go there and see them in action, plus it was free.

I took the Tube back and went to the grocery store. Good times. I spent £20 (Yikes!!!!) but it was money well spent. I got some stuff for quesadillas and I got some salalmi and ham and cheese for what hopes to be a few awesome sandwiches. Anyway, unloading my groceries is like Christmas and my birthday rolled into one. Its my favorite thing to do. Seeing all the stuff I get to eat this week, it makes me happy. I ate and read for my Islam vs. The West class tomorrow and now I'm here writing this entry.

Sorry for the whole no picture thing. Can't be helped on days like today and tomorrow when I have class. I promise pictures of some place sweet on Wednesday, I have a couple places in mind. Till then, bye!

Lazy Sunday

'Allo every one! So as the title suggests, its been a pretty lazy day for me.

I woke up at around 9 so I could get showered and dressed to go to church again. The walk to church was much better than time around though because I wasn't a dead man walking. Rachelle and I kept up a good pace and we were there in no time. The church service was loud, again. Little kids just running all over the place. Rachelle and I walked in and she asked where we should sit, me being a creature of habit, decided to sit in the exact same spot. It was nice beacuse all the same families and other people sat around us. It reminded me a lot of St. Als and how we have sat roughly the exact same area ever since I can remember. I did notice a couple differences in the mass today (I was too out of it to notice them last time). They change just a couple words during the Apostle's Creed and they don't sing the responsorial, they just read the verses out loud and everyone replies the chorus. Its different but not bad.

I got back from church and just sat around for an hour or so. I didn't really have anything that I wanted to do. I ate some lunch (mmm, PBJ) and just watched a little tv and read some articles online. Then I decided to do something with myself. I went to the Chelsea neighborhood.

In one of the books (Eyewitness London) they have walking tours of just about every neighborhood in London so today I picked Chelsea. Its a famous neighborhood for fashion. Mini-skirts started there in the 50s and 'Punk' was invented there in the 70s. It was a riverside town back in the day and Sir Thomas More, among other famous writers used to reside here. Chelsea is also just a 5 minute Tube ride away from me.

So I began the walk at Sloane Square (picture 1). Not much to say about the Square. It's actually a rectangle which is interesting I suppose. I continued on and walked for quite a ways along King's Road. This road has tons of shops and stuff along it. It's like High Street Kensington but fewer name brands. I walked by The Chelsea Town Hall and made my way by The Old Dairy (picture 2). That is a house that was built in 1796 when it was surrounded by cow pastures. I walked by Old Chelsea Church (picture 3) and just stepped inside for a minute. The old church was basically destroyed during WWII but they rebuilt it to almost the exact same dimensions. There is a sculpture of Sir Thomas More gazing across the Thames in front of the church. I walked along the Cheyne Walk (picture 4). Its nothing more than a path next a street which is next to the river but there used to be no road so the Walk was a little bit more romantic and scenic. Now, not so much. I walked by Thomas Carlyle's house. There was an admission charge to get in and I wasn't particularly interested so I didn't pay. Apparently a bunch of famous people used to visit Carlyle here. Dickens and Darwin are two. By the way, James Carlyle was a historian who wrote some famous books.

I continued on, walking by a ton of different brick row houses (picture 7). Very pretty and probably very expensive. I walked by Albert Bridge (picture 5). It is a suspension bridge over the Thames that has a huge amount of light bulbs along each suspension wire. It is very spectacular at night (I wouldn't know I suppose, but it was nice during the day). I walked around the Chelsea Physic Garden but it wasn't open during 'the winter'. Winter? It was like 50 degrees out today. Whatever. I moved on to the Royal Hospital (picture 6). Its not so much a hospital as it is a retirement home. It was built and designed by Christopher Wren (designed A TON of stuff in London). It is home of the Chelsea Pensioners (retirees, they call them pensioners here). I saw a couple of them as I was walking around. They have a very nice dining hall. I was looking out when at the end of the road I was walking on, I saw a bench with a wooden pensioner on it (like the ronald mcdonald things you see), and a little girl walked by with her mom. The little girl jumped up and stood on the bench and hugged the fake pensioner with all her might around the neck. Pretty much the cutest thing ever. It made my day.

I walked back to the Tube and headed for the flat. I stopped and bought some italian sausage and ham tortellini and tomato sauce for dinner. It was delicious. Then I talked to John on Skype and went out and bought some cookies for dessert. I also read for my classes tomorrow sometime during today, I don't really remember when. Anyway, it was a lazy day and I loved it. I hope everyone else had a lazy, relaxed day as well! Bon soir!