The BIG Photo Post

Big Church
Yesterday we toured Westminster Abbey with a guide. I love exploring places on my own, but having a private tour guide is the bomb. Britain's Blue Badge Guides are the best, most knowledgeable guides I've ever seen. There is A LOT of history here, and these guys really know their dates and events. They also know funny, interesting stories and aren't afraid to make jokes at the expense of their (and our) political leadership.

The last time I was at Westminster Abbey, in 1989, I dropped my passport and I spent many hours running around London trying to track it down. It had been turned in to the police, but I had to go to the US Embassy to retrieve it. No such mishaps this time around.

You are not allowed to take photos inside the church, so these shots are from outside or in the cloisters.

 

Heading to the group tour entrance.

 

The Cloister Garden

 

The ten statues above the entrance are 21st Century saints. 

Fifth from the left: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Big Wheel

After lunch in Trafalgar Square we headed across the Millennium Bridge to the London Eye. Don't call it a Ferris wheel, though, apparently this is an "observation wheel." The Eye opened in 2000, and was, at the time, the tallest observation wheel in the world.

I love Ferris wheels, so this was one of the things I most wanted to do in London. (I'm sort of hoping my daughter will want to ride when she comes to visit in a couple of weeks, so I can do it again.)

The London Eye takes thirty minutes to make a full revolution and rarely is halted. However, just after we got on, it paused briefly for some decorations and then a wedding party boarded the capsule after ours.

Just as we reached the apex, 

the couple getting married were pronounced man and wife.

 

The Houses of Parliament, with the clock tower that houses Big Ben.

 

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Big Build

Today we headed to East London to the main site of next year's Olympic Games. The Games open on July 27, 2012, so there is a huge push to get everything done. This phase of the Olympic preparations is termed The Big Build. Shawn, the same Blue Badge Guide we had on Sunday, was obviously very proud of how things were shaping up for the Games.

The site of the Olympic Park is a former "industrial wasteland," (his quote) so an incredible amount of clean-up and demolition had to be done before London's Olympic team could start building facilities. One of the hallmarks of this Olympics is sustainability, both in terms of the materials used in the construction and the legacy the Games will leave behind.

 

The Olympic Site is still a construction zone, with heavy security.

 

The Olympic Stadium will seat 80,000 people.

The ArcelorMittal Orbit, currently under 

construction, will be a 377 ft. observation tower.

Great Merlin's Beard!

Since I flew to London on July 13 (arriving on the 14th), I missed getting to see the final Harry Potter movie with my YA lit buddies. But the positive news is that I got to see the movie in London with some librarians. We finally had some spare time this evening and took the tube to Notting Hill to see the movie for only £3.50 with our student cards. It wasn't in 3-D, but the savings made it worth it. Typically a movie here would cost £10 more.

I would have thought that London would be a-buzz with Harry Potter madness this weekend, but it seemed strangely unaffected. However, I did see some cool stuff on Friday night that I saved for today's blog...

Hamleys is a London toy store. At seven stories and 54,000 square feet of floor space, it is the largest toy store in the word. It's also one of the oldest; Hamleys celebrated their 250th anniversary in 2009. According to a sales associate, the store is the exclusive outlet for Harry Potter replica merchandise licensed to the Noble Company. This means that they have HP collectibles, not just toys, that are unavailable anywhere else. HP merch is some of their best selling stuff and even though the final movie has just been released, Hamleys has a contract with the Noble Company for another three years.

 

Ever want to go to Ollivander's Wand Shop? For about £25/$40, you can have a replica of Harry's wand. Or Ron's, Mrs. Weasly's, Draco's, or many more.

You could also practice pulling Godric Gryffindor's sword from the Sorting Hat for a mere £180/$290.

I did see some wizards at Piccadilly Circus (near the limbo dancer.) It's not my best photograph, but the girl in the khaki pants was wearing a Gryffindor tie and had a wand in her back pocket.

 

Our tour guides have pointed out several places used as locations for the various HP films, such as building that stood in for Gringott's Wizarding Bank and the Millennium Bridge. I know I'll be seeing more as the weeks go by.

As you can probably tell, I'm having a magical time in London!

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Last minute bonus!  Hank Green sings his new Harry Potter song!

© Vlogbrothers/Hank Green

Performance: Street and Stage

There's a lot of talent in this town. Some of it can be found in in the tube stations or on the street. I caught this guy at Oxford Circus on Friday night when I was exploring on my own. I videotaped two minutes of his performance and then tossed 50p into the suitcase near his drum kit. On the way back to my flat several hours later, I saw him leaning against the window engaged in heated conversation with another person, en français.

Then last night, our entire group went to see Billy Elliot at the Victoria Palace Theatre.

You can take a virtual tour of the entire theater on the Victoria Palace website. My seat was in the front row of the uppermost balcony

Screenshot from virtual tour video. © Victoria Palace Theatre

I was fortunate enough to see Billy Elliot in Portland a few months ago. I was glad to see that there was very little difference between the two shows. This makes me feel as if the Broadway Across America touring shows we get in Portland at the Keller Auditorium are equal in quality to the shows we'd be seeing if we went to New York or London.

Naturally the best part of the show was the young dancer who played Billy Elliot, as well as the other kids in the musical. What incredible dedication these kids have to do such a demanding, professional job, night after night (even considering there are multiple dancers who play Billy.) And what incredibly supportive parents they must have as well.

Chick liked the show, too, though he was dismayed by all the f-bombs dropped by the child actors. Geez, Chick, don't be such a prude.

Money Matters

I'm not a saver; I'm a spender. But London is an expensive city. In a restaurant tonight, a bottle of Coke was listed at £2.95. At today's exchange rate, that's $4.75. (I mentioned that this was a good time to kick a Coke habit, and got some concerned looks.) It gets even worse when you realize that:

1. there are never free refills,
2. bread on the table will be charged to your bill unless you ask them to take it away, and
3. unless you specify "tap" water, you'll get bottled--and yes, there's a charge for that.

It's sometimes difficult to remember that the play money you're spending (look, the Queen!) is, in fact, directly connected to what is--or rather, what WAS--in your bank account back home.

Today I tried to stiff a street vendor out of 5p. That's 5 pence, and if you don't know, there are 100 pence to a pound (£). But a 5p coin looks remarkably like a dime. So I was just confused, not dishonest.

The British currency system was decimalized in 1971, making 100 pence to the pound. This is when they did away with the shilling. It used to be that twelve pence equaled a shilling, and there were twenty shillings to a pound. So, each pound had 240 pence (pennies). Confusing? Sure, but we Americans are still measuring things with twelve inches to a foot and 5280 feet to a mile!

Considering that so many of the European Union countries have adopted a single currency, the Euro (€), it makes me wonder why Britain hasn't made the switch. An article from July 14 in the Daily Mail, claims that "workers are £20 worse off than they would be if Britain joined the single currency, according to a European pay report out today." I think it's just a matter of time before Britain adopts the Euro and a person can travel all over Europe using the same currency.

Now, does anyone remember how many knuts to a galleon?

The Anglophile Explores

This is a bit of news for me, something I didn't realize before: I'm an Anglophile. I could blame it on high school BFF, Becky, who came to Oregon from the island of Guernsey when she was fifteen. She introduced me to my all time favorite music (80s Brit pop) and made it more likely that I would jump at the chance to spend a week in London a few years later.

But it actually goes back farther. Many kids pretend that they are being mistakenly raised by people who are not their real parents (King Arthur Syndrome perhaps?). I used to play that Queen Elizabeth II was my mother and my big brother Prince Edward and I were best friends. (Although I always say I was fine with being an only child, I did have a long and varied succession of imaginary siblings.)

And get this. As an adult, my two biggest expenses of the past couple of years: three weeks in London and a bright red Mini Cooper.

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Today we spent a full day in the classroom, talking about upcoming excursions, assignments, and Web 2.0 technology. I'm going to get the opportunity to try a lot of different things which I know will make me a better blogger, publisher, and librarian.

Our group activity today was a fish & chips dinner at The Marlborough Arms. Claire, our waitress was really cute and friendly. I also had a pint of Strongbow cider.

I left the pub to explore on my own. There is so much within walking distance of our Study Center and flats. I wandered a lot, finally making it to Piccadilly Circus, where I caught some street performers, including a limbo dancer.

Limbo - slide show made with Kizoa

Arrival

On the plane...so excited!

London is huge. When you fly over the city, you see just how massive it is. And as you get closer to the runway, the plane flies over all these neighborhoods full of matching houses--but unlike in the States, where the cookie-cutter houses were built with particle board in the last 10 years, these houses in London are really old. Almost beyond understanding for your average American, who thinks 1776 is the start of history.

You can't help but be surrounded by real history here. The building that houses the Florida State University Study Center was built in the 1700s in the heart of a ritzy area now known for publishing houses and education. The British Museum (we'll be there on July 22nd!) is just a block down the street. Many things are within walking distance.

I met my roommates. I unpacked. (And I think I packed well, since I made sure that I could carry everything I brought at once, by myself.) I walked around the neighborhood. I had dinner. It was all fun, and exhausting.

Tomorrow we have a long day of class. I'll be presenting information about Xtranormal, together with two other women. Apparently we're now experts.

Here's Chick, checking out a bigger chicken 

in the Bloomsbury Square playground, close to our flat.

Train-ing Day

Today I caught the train from Vancouver, Washington to Tacoma. This was the first leg of my journey to London. From Tacoma, I took a bus to the Seattle airport, where I am now waiting for Icelandair Flight 680 to Reykjavik, Iceland.

It's been a long time since I took a train anywhere--over eleven years, in fact. Back in 2000, I took my family from Lawrence, Kansas to Victoria, British Columbia for a two-week vacation. Part of that trip was the gorgeous north-bound train ride from Seattle to Vancouver, BC.

Americans don't take the train much. Before I spent my senior year of high school in Finland, I don't think I'd been on a train at all, if you don't count the monorail at Disneyland and the railray at the Oregon Zoo. In Finland, riding the train was commonplace, cheap and easy. I rode all over the country--to visit friends, attend music festivals, camp. Since one of Rotary International's many rules for exchange students was "no driving," we all used the public transportation extensively. (The other Rotary rules--termed the Four D's--were no drinking, no dating, no drugs.)

I think the 1980s were sort of the dark ages for trains in the United States. Amtrak now is efficient and clean. There is free wi-fi on the train. I'd much rather take the train than the bus. (Though the bus driver today did chat me up and give me a butterscotch candy.)

The London multimedia students have been requested to bring a personal mascot to star in photos and videos. I don't think Chick is particularly impressed by the train, particularly considering that he probably came to the United States on a container ship from China.