SCIENCE!

My friend Moxey and I decided to spend a free afternoon at the Science Museum in Central today. At first, I thought it was kind of cheesy because the ground floor was basically a giant collection of antiques and I didn't quite understand what most of it had to do with science. But then we went up through the levels and that's where things got awesome.

Firstly, they had a hands-on area where you could see how different things worked. Basically a "Hey kids! This is science! Play with it!" kind of exhibit. And I loved it. But, being a designer, I like to see how things work. The coolest part was a station where you could pour water over a cold surface and watch it freeze through these magnifying lenses with filters on them. It was b.e.a.-utiful.

They also had an exhibition just about plastic, which I found quite enjoyable and Moxey kept laughing at me as I got excited when I knew what the different types of plastics and molding processes were. Like I said earlier: design nerd.

But the coolest (and I seriously me the coolest) exhibit was a special exhibition called "Listening Post". Basically, it's an installation of a bunch of small LED screens that are hung in a grid. And it's on a constant loop of display patterns. It was also called "The Sound of the Internet" within the museum because the screens pull fragments of conversation from the internet in real time. Sometimes it was just words, other times it was phrases. But it was simply amazing.



We ended up sitting in this room for at least half an hour just watching the screens. In fact, it killed most of the time we had left to go through the museum because shortly after we exited the room, they announced that the museum was closing and we had to leave.

I think I want to go back really soon to just watch the internet exhibit again. Seriously.

Stonehenge Stomp

So this weekend I decided to go for a walk. A walk that required me to get up at 5:00am, drive two hours, and pay £3. It took me just over seven hours to complete this walk, and by the end of it, my knee was hurt so badly that I am limping and can barely walk on it*.

I walked for 30 kilometers.



I know. Crazy right? Who does that? Well apparently, a lot of people do it. It's called long-distance walking and it seems to be quite a popular sport for the people of Amesbury.

There are a group of people called the Amesbury walkers and they organize several long-distance walks throughout the year. My friend Cillian told me he was going for a walk around Stonehenge and I decided to tag along without doing some research first.

So I participated in the Stonehenge Stomp - a mapped out walk through the backyards, fields, and farmland of the area surrounding Stonehenge. It was basically organized hiking. But instead of forests, you had giant pigs and hay bales for scenery.

Oh. And Stonehenge. Yeah. That was part of the scenery too.



*It should be noted that my knee hurting is the result of an old injury. In December 2009, I managed to dislocated my kneecap. Despite having no problems with my knee and exercising it for six months, it still seems to hate me. Figures, I injured it in a stupid way originally and I re-injure it by simply walking. Stupid. I'm going to go ice my leg now.

Winter Wonderland

After the Chocolate Festival, we decided to venture over to Hyde Park, where the Winter Wonderland was taking place. Basically it was a HUGE Christmas-themed fair with rides and a little German-style village full of eateries and shops. Jennifer, Andra, Yanan and I spent the afternoon enjoying the festive atmosphere, as well as a few German sausages.

I even managed to get up the courage to ride the roller coaster! Sure, it was small, but when you hate roller coasters as much as I do, it's quite the accomplishment to be proud of!

Chocolate Festival

After exploring the exhibition space for Made in Brunel, we decided to walk up the street a few blocks to the Chocolate Festival that was taking place.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from a chocolate festival, because I could only visualize, well, chocolate bars.

But instead we discovered TONS of booths with all sorts of chocolate faire. From spicy chocolate, to dark, to white, to hot chocolate. If there was a food item made with chocolate, it was there.

The air around the festival smelled not only of chocolate, but of cookies and pastries as well. And even though it was bitterly cold outside, you just felt warmer walking through all the rows of tents.

I decided to indulge myself and get a warm crepe filled with Belgian dark chocolate and bananas. And it was pretty much amazing. (If you remember my earlier post, I've really taken a liking to crepes - although I don't eat them that often!)

For someone like me who loves baking, this festival was awesome. Because at least half of the booths were baked goods that utilized chocolate rather than just chocolatiers.

And even though I knew everything would probably taste amazing, I think the best part was just looking at everything all organized and wrapped up on the tables. The presentation on many of the treats was just as extravagant as the treats themselves. It was really hard not to walk away with anything more than my crepe - because I was certainly tempted! Especially with the monster cookies all stacked up!

There's Beauty in the Breakdown

Every year, Brunel's design students put on an exhibition called Made In Brunel.

The show specifically highlights the work of the undergraduate product design students, but also features some of the MA students as well.

As a part of the planning committee for the postgraduate Made In Brunel team, we went down to the Bargehouse, which is right on the Thames by the OXO tower.

The Bargehouse is pretty awesome as a gallery space because it's kinda run down. But in a cool way. There's graffiti inside, exposed pipes, peeling paint, cracked windows, and old hardwood floors. It's a bit decrepit - but it will make for an AWESOME exhibition. I had fun just wandering through all four floors of the space just taking pictures of the remnants of past exhibitions and all the different rooms. I especially enjoyed taking photos of all these random chairs I kept finding throughout the space.

Seriously can't wait to transform this space!

Canterbury Tales

Anyone who's been through the Chesapeake Public Schools system has more than likely read Canterbury Tales as a part of the Honors English curriculum. (Any Hickory kids wanna back me up on this?) So when the opportunity arose to take a trip to Canterbury, I decided to make the 2-hour trek.

Aside from Chaucer's centuries-old tale of religious pilgrims, there's actually a lot of interesting places around Canterbury. In fact, the only references to Chaucer that I saw were a bookstore named after him, and a cheesy tourist-trap of a museum about Canterbury Tales (skipped it! English class was enough for me.).

The main sight to see of Canterbury is most definitely the Cathedral. It's one of the oldest churches in all of England, dating back as far as 597 AD when it was first established. And while I'm sure the current state of the cathedral is definitely not what it looked like in the 6th Century, it's still awesome to think that people were there that long ago.

Canterbury Cathedral is the home of the
Archbishop of Canterbury, who I guess you could of sort of say is like the Pope of the Anglican Church (the Church of England). Because the Anglican Church doesn't have a pope, the Archbishop is the symbolical leader. Part of me was kind of excited to be able to visit such an important place, since I'm Episcopalian (which is the American-ized Anglican church, because we have to take everything and make it our own...not really. It's more political than that. And we don't follow the Anglican Archbishop, we have an American presiding bishop, who's in charge of the Episcopal Church.).

I was also really excited to visit the cathedral because I am a bit of an architecture nerd/fanatic, especially when it comes to old cathedrals. Cathedrals have always been my favorite pieces of architecture, due to all the craftsmanship and detail that had to go into building these complex structures. I mean, have you ever thought about the physics behind a keystone in an archway? Or a flying buttress? But I digress...

Needless to say, this place was GORGEOUS! The ceilings in the nave were so high, and the light was shining through onto the stone below. And then other sections had this somber dimness to them. Sorry Pope, but Canterbury is much more appealing architecturally than St. Peter's - St. Peter's is just so over-the-top and flashy.


After wandering around the cathedral for a bit, we stopped off at a pub for another traditional English pub lunch. I think these pub lunches are becoming my favorite part of my day trips. They're cheap, delicious, and it's totally excusable to have a pint in the middle of the day.

Next stop was the High Street, where my friends and I stopped off to pick up some crépes for dessert. I hadn't had a crépe since I went to France in high school, but I always remembered how delicious they were. I got mine filled with Belgian dark chocolate and bananas. And it was delicious and totally hit the spot.

The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering to find the Norman Castle on the edge of the city center, walking around an old church graveyard, and perusing the shops along the High Street.

We made one last pit stop at this park that's where this old brewery used to be. There was a fire a long time ago and the townspeople chose to save their town rather than the brewery. In hindsight, this was probably a good idea. Although they were probably missing their beer for quite some time.

Another successful adventure.

From Hell

So, I didn't realize that Halloween is gaining some momentum here in the UK, and that people are actually beginning to really celebrate it here. Oops.

Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year, and usually I make some elaborate costume myself rather than buying one. And I usually start planning my costume about four months in advance.

But since everyone told me that the UK isn't big on Halloween (liars!), I didn't bother to think of a costume for this year. So on All Hallow's Eve, I made a last-minute stop at the shopping centers in Uxbridge and picked up a bunch of facepaint, and my friend Amber picked up some random bits to throw a costume together.

After about 30 minutes of makeup, I had been transformed into a zombie hipster. Thus me and my friends (Amber and Jennifer) set out on the tube to East London. More specifically the Tower of London.

We decided to celebrate Halloween by doing a walking tour that followed in the footsteps on one of the world's most notorious serial killers and greatest mysteries: Jack the Ripper.

Our journey began at the Tower of London, where one of the Yeoman guards (the guys that work in the Tower!) was actually our guide for the evening. We then spent the next two hours wandering down dark alleyways and stopping in creepy churchyards as he told us the gruesome tales of Jack the Ripper.

The most interesting thing I found about the tour is that there were over 1000 suspects at one point of who Jack was!! One of which was even a member of the Royal Family. Who would've thought?? Well, apparently the police did, because several of the prostitutes that were killed had previously worked at a gay house (brothel) that was right next door to Buckingham Palace - which the prince often frequented... Haha. I don't think having a brothel next to the palace would fly in today's times.

When Jack sent letters to the police, he signed them "From Hell" (creepy), hence the title of this post. He said that by killing the prostitutes, he was sending them to their rightful place in hell. Also creepy.

After the tour, our zombie-selves were hungry, so we ventured towards Soho to find some eats. We managed to wind up in the gay section of town, so we saw some very outrageous costumes (and people for that matter!) as we were wandering the sidewalks. I'm pretty sure I saw a transvestite in about 8-inch platform heels... she was at least 7 feet tall with those shoes! It was really cool to see that sort of subculture out in full force. It seemed to suit the holiday, and added a bit of light-hearted entertainment to the evening's festivities.

In Soho, we found ourselves a diner, called Ed's Diner. Probably the coolest restaurant I've been to yet. It was an American 1950's-style diner (think Johnny Rockets, but less cheesy). Everyone just sat at this bar that wrapped around the kitchen area. And there were jukeboxes. And fun people. And good food. And it was so much fun. Jennifer, who is from Ireland, loved it and kept asking if that's what diners in America were really like. I told her I wish they were.

And while brains weren't on the menu for this zombie, I still managed to appease my hunger with a chicken sandwich and some fries. (Yes, they called them fries on the menu! Not chips!!)

Mmmm. Zombie juice (Coke really, but work with me here!) What an awesome end to an awesome evening.

Cambridge

I went to Cambridge about two weeks ago. Yes I'm slow on the updates, but gimmie a break - I'm a graduate student!!

Anyways, Cambridge is about a 1.5-2 hour bus ride from Uxbridge. So I signed up on another day trip with some friends and made the trek. After all, Cambridge is very famous for its many intellectuals and universities.

And while I may not have the privilege (or the wallet) to attend one of the prestigious universities, I was still able to enjoy the many museums and and visit them.

The main college to visit is King's College - a private school that has its own church and chapel and everything. It's really old and very pretty, and has super-pristine lawns that you're not allowed to walk on and make me want to puke at the sight of them. My mother would be jealous of these lawns. For real.



I wandered around King's College for a bit before venturing into the rest of Cambridge. But rather than strolling the High Street like I did in Oxford, my friends and I decided to take advantage of the free museums that Cambridge University had open to the public.

The first stop was the anthropology museum. Cambridge has a large collection of artifacts, sculptures, and photos from cultures all around the world. And they have a small museum that contains them all. And while I was gaping at 12-foot-tall totem poles, and cases filled with old medical tools and African headdresses, my friends played around with a temporary exhibit on the human body. All-in-all an interesting spot.

The coolest museum though was definitely the natural history museum. It had row after row after row of cases completely FILLED with fossils, samples of stones, and basically all things ancient-dinosaur-times related. It also had a casting of a complete dinosaur skeleton (the original is in Belgium), and a T-Rex head. There was also a really awesome exhibit about Darwin and his travels around the globe.

The coolest part about the museum though, was that most of the samples had handwritten tags stating what they were. And most of these tags dated back to the time when Darwin was alive to present day - but they were all from people that worked for or were attending Cambridge. So all of the fossils and samples had been part of projects that had been worked on by Cambridge students and staff. So doing a project and then having it put into a museum for all of eternity - pretty awesome.

Walking around the town, you could almost physically feel the sense of wisdom and intelligence that came from the people that had studied at all of the schools there.

I feel smarter already.

Oxford

A couple of weeks ago, I went to Oxford. It was here that I discovered the concept of the "High Street."

Basically, almost every town in England has this main road running through the center that's called the High Street. In all the places I've been so far, it seems to be a pedestrian-only street lined with shops on either side.

And what I find really weird is that no matter what time of day it is, or what day of the week it is, the High Street is always packed with people! I mean, it could be 2:00p on a Tuesday and there will be a million people out shopping. Where do they all come from? Aren't they supposed to be working? And I thought Tuesdays were reserved for senior citizen discounts?

Anyways, back to Oxford. It was a lovely day trip arranged by the Brunel International office. About a hundred students piled on to three buses and make the journey to this gorgeous city. Aside from the High Street Shopping, there was a great market, some old churches, and of course, the university. While we didn't go inside the university buildings, we did walk through some of the gardens and passed by the main hall that was used as the great hall in the Harry Potter movies! Yes, nerdy, I know. Gimmie a break here.

It was also in Oxford that I discovered that there are sunny days in England. In fact, contrary to popular belief, we've gotten a lot of sun here in merry ol' England. And when the sun is out, all of the stone buildings look absolutely gorgeous!

The trip overall was nice, and it was cool to see an area that wasn't the big metropolis that is Central. Sometimes walking around in the smaller towns is a lot quieter and less crowded, as long as you avoid the High Street.