Blog Suspended

Hello! I have decided that I am rubbish at keeping a blog. I am sorry for anyone who has been checking for updates that simply will never come. I appreciate that you have stayed with me on this journey, but from now on if you would like to hear from me please send me an e-mail. I would love to hear from you!
Cheers,
Hanna

Vacation from vacation.

Hello neglected readers. I've missed you. 

I pretty much always feel like I am on a vacation in London, but last week was spring break. So I took a vacation from my vacation and went to Ireland. It was great, but I came home feeling like a I needed a vacation. Now try to wrap your head around what I just said (case and point).

I woke up in the wee hours of the morning on Friday 25 April to catch a train with a friend to the coast of Wales, where we hopped on a ferry over to Dublin. I slept for most of the train ride, sprawled across two seats. I have found that they hardly ever wake you up to check your tickets. I have now slept through three ticket stampings! Our ferry was quite luxurious, not what I was expecting. We were probably the only people on the ferry who didn't have an elaborate picnic lunch and many bottles of alcohol. The people sitting next to us got totally wasted (in the middle of the afternoon). They were a bit ridiculous and could hardly walked themselves off the ferry. But it provided me with entertainment. My friend and I exchanged many raised eyebrows. We spent the first half of our spring break in Dublin, seeing the sites and listening to as much free music as we could (that means every night). The highlights for me were the Guinness Storehouse, the Jameson Distillery (don't judge me, these are essential visits), Kilmainham Gaol (jail), and the full english breakfast included in our hostel. An english breakfast includes: hashbrowns, eggs, sausage, bacon, beans (like baked beans), and toast. Plus they had cereal and amazing bread and jam and juice and tea and coffee and I was pretty much in heaven every morning!  We did a ton of walking in Dublin (had to work off that breakfast!) and had very good weather. We even managed to have a picnic in the sun one day!

Our last day in Dublin we decided to get out of the city and take a bus tour to Newgrange. It was definitely one of my favorite parts of the whole trip! Our first stop on the tour was the Hill of Tara. While most people wandered around on the interesting grass mounds, I decided to stalk the sheep in the distance. I managed to get pretty close and discovered that there were a bunch of tiny babies! Anyone who knows me will understand that seeing baby animals makes me very happy. If only I could have kidnapped one and brought it home.

Tiny nursing lamb

The Sheep that I stalked at the Hill of Tara

Then we continued on to Newgrange which is a UNESCO world heritage site that no one seems to have heard of. It is a passage tomb that happens to be older than the pyramids in Egypt and older than Stonehenge (no big deal)! The stone carving was amazing and beautiful. The best part was that we were able to go inside the passage tomb and see a demonstration of how it works. Some of you may be familiar with Chaco Canyon in New Mexico (another UNESCO world heritage site) where cool stuff happens on the solstice. Well Newgrange works in a similar way, only it was built approximately 4,000 years earlier. When you go into the tomb you walk along a slightly curving path so that you cannot see the entrance from the chamber. It is pitch black inside (when they turn off the lights that were more recently installed). On the solstice, when the sun comes up it shines a beam of light through the opening above the entrance, lighting up the entire inside of the tomb. The demonstration was awesome, and I can only imagine what it must be like for the real deal. They hold a lottery for people to visit on the solstice. It was a beautiful day, and I was so happy to be just where I was. It was the perfect way to end our stay in the Republic of Ireland. The next day we departed for Belfast.

The Stone in front of Newgrange

I absolutely loved my time in Dublin. All of the people that we met were extremely friendly, and it is a small enough city that we kept bumping into people we "knew" on the streets (including the drunken folks from the ferry). We even came upon another student from our program in London one evening. The music every night was great and by the end of our stay in Dublin we knew the words to all the songs. It's like a party every night.



Belfast coming soon...

Today's Lesson

Despite the fact that I generally feel like I am on an extended vacation, I am actually going to school while I'm in London. I know, it's a shocker! So this post will be devoted to school and my internship.

I am taking two classes at AHA London Centre. My school is tiny! There are about 35 students total between the semester program (my program) and the quarter program. I am taking two classes, Britain Today: Issues and Perspectives and Empire: The British Experience. Most students take four classes, but I decided to do an internship instead!

Britain Today is mostly a politics class. We are learning all about the political system in the UK by going on excursions to Scottish Parliament, The House of Commons, Mayor's Question Time, and more to come. Our class time is often held as more of a Q & A session with the professor. We sit around asking questions about parliament, elections, the prime minister, political parties, healthcare, and whatever else we can throw at him. And he tries to help us understand what is going on. Coming from the U.S. and having not traveled before, it is sometime difficult for me to comprehend that a country could be run any other way. For example, the UK has no separation of powers between the executive (The Government) and the legislative (Parliament).

My other class is about the British Empire. The title pretty much says it all. We are learning about the great conquerors and how they acquired so many colonies. I recently gave a presentation about the British Empire in the Cape Colony of South Africa (real school work). It was interesting, but I would have been much more interested to learn about Apartheid and Nelson Mandela. But I guess that is the wrong country's history. It is also fascinating to learn about the British Empire from a British perspective. Growing up we always learned about the evil Red Coats and the American Revolution, but this class gives the other side.

The other half of my week is spent at my internship. I work about 12 hours a week at Johnson King, a PR firm that focuses on the technology industry. Most of my time is spent doing research for relevant news stories, updating lists of journalist who cover technology and social media, and writing blogs. I am hoping that by the end I will have the opportunity to sit in on client meetings and write press releases. The work atmosphere is extremely relaxed and the attitudes of the employees fits well with my nerdy side. But this internship has also shown me that I could never have a job that requires me to sit in a desk and stare at a computer screen from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. five days a week. I'm pretty sure that would kill me!

Even though I have to wake up at 6:30 a.m. two days a week and sit in a little desk for a few hours a day, I still don't feel like I am really in school. I am constantly learning in and out of the classroom, but it's mostly by direct experience; no textbook, no lecture. It's pretty wonderful!

Photos for your Viewing

Inspire Me!

Hello readers! I know you are out there somewhere. This is your chance to tell me what you want to know. Leave a comment, send me an e-mail, message me on Facebook, send a carrier pigeon! I need inspiration, so ask me a question, give me a topic, do your part to help out a desperate blogger!
Thanks!

Living life on the fast track

Golden Jubilee Bridge

It has only been a week since my last post, but I am a week behind. So today is catch up day! The last two weeks have been very busy. I will start with Monday, 28 February. On Monday I met up with a friend that I made here. It was nice to spend time with someone who has lived here for many years and to get a few minutes away from the 19 students I am with every day (as much as I love them). We met at the Southbank Centre near the London Eye. The Southbank Centre was designed by the architect that I mentioned a few posts back. It was a freezing night, but we walked along The Thames past the London Eye and crossed Westminster  Bridge overlooking the beautifully lit up Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, back down the other side of the river and across the Golden Jubilee Bridge. It was a beautiful little walk.

On Wednesday, 2 March a few friends from school and I went to The Barbican to see the London Symphony Orchestra. They performed Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No 2 and Mahler's Symphony No 9. The cello soloist, Mario Brunello, was amazingly expressive, but I was not a huge fan of the cello concerto. I absolutely loved the Mahler though. The whole thing was pretty amazing and made me want to go to more concerts. The great thing about music in this country is that the tickets are subsidized, so I was able to see a world class symphony for £9 (~$13). Sometimes you can even get a student discount as well!

The next day my school made a trip to Kingston (south of Central London) to see Shakespeare's, As You Like It. The show was wonderful! The stage was a huge mound of dirt (real dirt) with little water holes in the corners. It was as real as it could possibly be. It was also very entertaining. I've never been the biggest fan of Shakespeare so I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

My route from London Eye to St. Paul's

Friday I worked at my internship for half a day. So after I left I went over to the London Eye. It was a beautiful sunny day and there were lots of tourists out. There were various street performers on the embankment so I watched some of them and sat on a bench enjoying the sun and the view. Normally I would have hopped back on the Tube, but it was such a nice day that I decided to walk to my next destination. My housemate, Megan, and I met at St. Paul's Cathedral and attended the Evensong. Attending the evensong is the best way to see the cathedral because you don't have to pay (there is a fee for the tour) and there is music. The choir is really good and it was definitely an experience for me. We both enjoyed it very much. The only disappointment was that they didn't play the organ, which I would have loved to hear. The architecture was beautiful; you could stare at the ceiling for hours!

Now on to this week...

On Wednesday my school went to see The Mikado, a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. I recommend that you watch the trailer. I'm still on the fence about opera, but the set was beautiful (all white), the costumes were neat, and the dancing was great. There was even some tap dancing! Unfortunately, the seats were ridiculously uncomfortable, and my feet hardly touched the ground. It had also been a long day, so I was ready to go home by the end of the show. Early in the day we watched Prime Minister's Questions, which is a weekly half hour slot when the PM must answer questions (surprise!). It was very entertaining to watch and nothing like American Politics. The two opposing parties pretty much jab at each other in a very unfriendly way until the "moderator" tells them the time is up. Then we went down to Houses of Parliament and watched part of a debate about Welfare Reform. Honestly, it wasn't very interesting. I had no idea what they were talking about!

Richmond - I sat on those benches

Thursday after class I took the train to Richmond in Southwest London. It's a town along the Thames. I sat by the river and watched people rowing downstream and some men were building boats on the side. Someone decided to feed the birds, which was a terrible idea because they started swarming and I was slightly fearful for my life, but I made it out alive. Then I walked up to the top of a hill and watched a smoggy sunset. It was still pretty nice and the view was expansive. The top of the hill is also right next to where Mick Jagger has a house, pretty neat. I don't think he actually lives there anymore though.

Yesterday (Friday) my school made a trip down to Portsmouth. I wasn't very excited about the trip. It sounded like it was going to be all about military/navy history, which I get bored with really fast. But it ended up being pretty fun. Portsmouth is about an hour and a half train ride south of London. The highlights for me were touring two ships. First we went on the HMS Warrior (1860). On that ship we could just wander around and look at everything. Then we took a tour of the HMS Victory (1765). The tour was very interesting, although sometimes a little too graphic. I am very happy that I did not live on that ship; it sounded pretty wretched! And even I almost hit my head on some of the beams. We even had some sun when we first arrived, but it was freezing cold by the time we headed back home.

Whew, so that is what I have been up to for the last two weeks! More adventures to come and spring break is almost here. I have been planning a week-long trip to Ireland (Dublin and Belfast) so if anyone has any suggestions of what I should do while I'm there I would love to know!

Musical Education

For those who are interested here are samples of the musicians I mentioned in my last post: