pictures of my campus!

that is all. cheers!

the o2, the theatre, the british library, the walk

first, i realized that i hadn't yet posted about the eric clapton concert at the o2. i don't even think i have too much to write here, but suffice it to say that it was one of the best concerts of my life, and one of the weirdest concert experiences of my life. the o2 was trippy-looking at night time, and new/clean/pretty inside the arena. we had GREAT seats (thank you gabe), and clapton was ideal. i take back everything i've ever said that may have included his being overrated and mediocre. silly silly me. now, to the weird part: the audience. i know that i may have had a particularly intense reaction--i really found it hard to grasp just how talented someone could be up on that stage--but the people around me (most were british, though we did come across a few groups from outside the area) seemed to be enjoying the show, but not really manifesting it. they sat, eyes wide, mouths open, in utter amazement of clapton (and beck), but they didn't stand, or scream, or cry, or laugh, or anything. i guess it's a testament to the british way to stay calm on the outside even if you're doing somersaults on the inside.

i got "out of zone 1"--a phrase whose importance NYU reinforces to us whenever they get the chance--the other day to see the importance of being earnest. my "english novel in the 19th century" class ventured together up to highgate -- about a 30 minute ride on the tube -- to see the production of it, which was quite witty and entertaining. the production was at a quaint local pub with an intimate theatre upstairs, so we were practically on the stage. overall, i loved the production.

on friday, i took yet another trip with my english novel course to the british library. this time, we went to check out some of the exhibitions they have right now: "points of view," which detailed the history of photography from the early 19th century onward, "treasures of the british library," a permanent exhibit that contains a wealth of VERY cool manuscripts (the manuscript of virginia woolf's mrs. dalloway, one of my favorite novels, and manuscript of charlotte bronte's jane eyre, opened to the page in which jane tells us "reader, i married him"), and an exhibit that holds some of shakespeare's folios. the library is just down the block from my dorm, and they do permit public studying on the first couple of floors even if you don't have a membership, so hopefully i'll find time to do some reading there.

as london was nice enough to share some sunlight on friday, i spent the rest of the day taking a seemingly never-ending walk around the city. i walked south to the somerset house, where there was a lot of stuff going on for fashion week, and where i consequently felt less than appropriate walking through in my hanes teeshirt and nearly destroyed vans, and then headed to the east side of the victoria embankment. i walked along the river thames on the embankment all the way west, passing the london eye and the aquarium until i reached big ben. after taking some pictures of big ben, i strolled past westminster abbey and the parliament buildings, deciding thereafter to venture north and east back home. it was a long but very easy walk back, and i was just about ready to pass out by the time i reached home.

i'm going to prague this friday to visit SARAH! which i'm so excited about, so hopefully i'll convince myself to take it easy and relax this week. i miss everyone at home!!!!

a city like london

"...for a city like london, as we have seen, could not easily be described in a rhetorical gesture of repressive uniformity. on the contrary, its miscellaneity, its crowded variety, its randomness of movement, were the most apparent things about it, especially when seen from inside." -- raymond williams, the country and the city

in the depth of winter, i finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

it's been a week since katie came to visit. i can't believe how quickly time passes here. katie and i had a perfectly exhausting time. london's been atypically sunny lately (sorry to rub it in, new yorkers), and i've been taking full advantage: we went to oxford street and hyde park on the first sunny day. i hadn't been to hyde park since i was in london last year, and the sun and the dogs and the birds and the green everywhere and the lake were perfect. we passed by buckingham palace on our way home--or what we thought was our way home--and inevitably got lost in the depths of soho, which i've discovered is one of my favorite parts of london. we went back to oxford street the next day with a strict goal to buy shoes, and after about 3 hours of unsuccessful shopping, we finally both found the right pair in the same store. go figure. i loved having katie here, and i love having people here in general, cause it gives me a reason to 1. neglect my homework and 2. explore and get ridiculously lost.

what i really wanted to post about was my first british culture class this week. we listened to our first guest speaker, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a journalist and regular columnist for london's the independent...she was so incredibly charismatic and insightful, especially on the status of the british cultural dynamic. since i've been here (and i remember thinking this last year, too), i've noticed a certain comfortableness in social situations among all londoners--regardless of the race, ethnicity, sexuality, whatever. but i couldn't really reconcile that with the fact that on a more official, legal front, london doesn't seem to be too far past new york. yasmin brown opened on this exact point, saying that "although society is much more open [in social settings]...when it comes to power, to the people who we have up there [in government], it is going to be a very long time until we have our own obama." mrs. brown's lived here for quite some time now, so it was really interesting to get her take on it. the rest of her talk centered mostly around immigration and national identities within london. i'm actually really excited for this class, despite its taking from me my otherwise free mondays, as we have the opportunity to hear some insightful, important, and respected people throughout london.

today's once again sunny, and i've already walked down to the oxford street/st. james park area and back. i'll be doing homework the rest of the day, going to a few pubs tonight, and continuing to be really excited that jay sean is british and listening to his songs! i can't believe i just found this out, but now i love him all the more.

some pictures of hyde park/katie's weekend here, at your leisure, below:

"wow, dublin."

i think it was on about the second day, as kristin and i walked along grafton street (one of the main shopping/pub streets there) that i said this. i knew dublin would be a great experience, since kris and i come from a pretty irish family, and we absolutely love the UK in general, but i had NO idea how charmed i would be by this city. the trip began really smoothly, with a great plane ride and a super easy and cheap commute to our hotel (which was in an incredible location in temple bar area), and now that i think of it, i dont think we hit a single bump throughout the trip. we jumped right into the local flow of things, heading immediately to trinity college, just up the block from us, and watching a college football match (pic below) with some of the local students. we met some people who told us a few of the hot spots for local college kids around the area, two of which we went to that night.


the days following were filled to maximum capacity with both live contemporary irish pop music and traditional irish jig music. the river was in the center of everything, so that we were forced to cross and appreciate it numerous times a day. there were a ton of local cafes and coffee shops. our favorite was a seeming hole in the wall, panem
, that had delicious coffee and belgian waffles that we ate while overlooking the river. kristin and i fell in love with a pub call Quays Pub, which had live music thursday through sunday from about 2pm to 2am. every single guy (it was mostly guys with acoustic guitars playing some irish pop classics like u2, van morrison, etc) was so talented. and yes, i did get asked by one of the musicians to sing with him, and i did so (i never thought i'd do anything like that, but it was actually incredibly fun--i sang u2: "one.").

we ventured to the financial district--or what we found out was a lack thereof--one night to see if we could mingle with some corporate locals, but it turns out that dublin's financial center pales in comparison to london's and manhattan's. oh well, i guess dublin can't have it all. we wound up returning to the temple bar area, which we could basically count on every night to be filled with locals, good food, and good music.

probably what i loved most about the weekend was the fact that we combined uber-touristy things (dublin castle, guinness storehouse, grafton street shopping, james joyce landmarks) with some awesome mingling with the locals. i'm proud of us for taking the initiative to really immerse ourself into the irish culture, which we found out mostly consisted of drinking and music. this weekend made me realize how awesome it is going to be to travel on the weekends here. next trip is prague during the last weekend in february to visit my friend from nyu studying there! kristin won't be my travel buddy, so it wont be AS epic as it was, but i can't wait to see prague. i'm attaching some pics below!



a seaside town called howth thirty minutes outside of dublin. absolutely gorgeous!




will be blogging about katies visit (room mate from home!) sometime at the beginning of next week.