Week 5: Oxford

This Saturday I took a day trip with a friend to the city of Oxford.  We were able to go into the dining hall at Christ Church College, one of the 38 schools of the University of Oxford, which inspired Hogwarts Great Hall in Harry Potter.  The thing that I have been noticing about being in England is that everything is so old and historic, but people continue to use the old buildings or household items as if it were no big deal at all.  It makes me realize how young the United States is in comparison, and how that’s something that would take getting used to.  Also have I mentioned that our NYU in London Academic Centre is in an old Georgian style house?  There are fireplaces and chandeliers in our classrooms, which is pretty cool.  Actually it seems that a lot of office buildings are just old houses in the city, which I just began to notice.

Great Hall at Christ Church College.

The Bodleian Library at Oxford is also very beautiful, and supposedly inspired the Hogwart’s Library.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to go in because there was a graduation ceremony going on at the time.

On Sunday I tried to attend an event for Open House London.  It’s a weekend every year where some of the most famous buildings in London are open to visitors.  This is a great chance to see some buildings that usually wouldn’t be accessible, or usually have an entrance fee.  I tried to go into the Gherkin, but upon arrival discovered that the queue was already closed off.  Some people had been waiting 6 hours or longer just to get in!  If I had another day, I probably would have planned ahead and picked one place I really wanted to see and gotten in line early.  After that we just decided to call it a day because we figured most lines would be too long at this point and we wouldn’t have much time left to explore the buildings.  The Gherkin is just an office building, but I really like the architecture of it.  “Gherkin” is just a nickname, but it is called that because it looks like a pickle—or a gherkin.  My friend studying at NYU Paris had a Open House Paris weekend, and she was able to see the French President’s office.  I think this is such a cool idea and something I’m sure would receive a lot of interest in New York.

Week 4: Two Palaces

This weekend I was able to go inside 2 palaces: Buckingham Palace and the palace at Brighton.  Of course a visit to London is not complete without a visit to Buckingham Palace, where you can ogle at and attempt to get as close as you can to the lives of royals.  Lucky for us, Buckingham Palace is open to visitors in the summer while the Queen and royal family is away on vacation at one of her many other palaces and castles.  We knew our time was limited before Buckingham Palace would close for the season, but somehow we failed to think about how many other people would want to visit as well.  We just made our way over on a Saturday afternoon and expected to be able to waltz in, but the guards informed us that tickets were booked up and we needed to get there early in the morning for a chance.  Thankfully, someone in line had 2 extra tickets for friends who weren’t able to make it.  Otherwise, there was a good chance we would have missed our chance for the season.

This year, the special exhibition was on the Queen’s diamonds, in line with everything being Diamond Jubilee crazy.  That was one of my favorite parts of the tour.  Other things that I found interesting was that there are secret (or perhaps not so secret if you’re lucky enough to already live in the palace) trap doors for the Queen to get around the building faster.  Makes sense because Buckingham Palace is huge, and is not only where the Queen lives but also where she works.  Everything in the palace has amazing history behind it but everything is fully functional for the royals to use.  I think I would be paranoid about damaging an artifact every time I tried to do simple things like eat dinner or sit in a chair.

My roommate and I in front of Buckingham Palace, with a view of the gardens.

On Sunday I went on the day trip to Brighton beach.  We had a tour of the palace there, and it was interesting to see two palaces in a row because I could notice and appreciate the differences.  This one had an Asian influence from the architecture to the décor.  The city of Brighton was also very cute and the beach was beautiful despite the bad weather.

Brighton Palace

Week 3: Two Markets and a Festival

This weekend I went to two street markets: the Portobello Road Market and Camden Market.  I also went to the Mayor’s Thames River Festival.

The Portobello Road Market was like a typical outdoor market that you would usually think of, full of little trinkets, art, thrift items, jewelry, clothes, and food stands.  However, it was massive.  So long that we didn’t even cover the whole thing.  The plan was to double back as there was a section where it split off, but by the time we got to the end we were simply too tired. Also,  this market had many stalls dedicated to antiques and there were many antique shops along the road.  There was a lot of cute handmade jewelry and so many things I was tempted to buy.

I didn’t know beforehand, but I discovered along the way that we were in the Notting Hill Area.   I had just seen the film Notting Hill, for the first time, in my British Cinema class that week.  I know, I know–it’s a classic.  I saw a bookshop that inspired The Travel Book Store in the movie.  Apparently, the iconic blue door of William’s house was auctioned off for charity.

That day I decided to stop by Camden Market as well.  I had been hearing lots of good things about it and figured why not since it was such a nice day out.  Camden Market is actually a series of markets in the area, and I also just barely scratched the surface of what it had to offer.  The vibe of this market, and the area of Camden Town, was definitely younger and more rocker and hip.  There were so many things I saw that I made a mental note would be perfect for my friends for Christmas.  I browsed the Camden Lock Market and the Camden Stables Market.  There was also a ton of mouthwatering street food.  I tried a bit of my friend’s fish & chips and agree that it’s much better here.  Usually I’m not a huge fan of fried seafood in the states, but here you could tell it was very fresh and it wasn’t just fried to cover up something mediocre.

Sunday night I checked out the Thames River Festival that is held every year.  The Paralympics Closing Ceremony also happened to be taking place at the same time, and I was able to catch some of it on TV as we had dinner in a pub (coincidentally, I was watching the Paralympics Opening Ceremony in a pub the first night we arrived in London).  There was a parade, and what I loved was that you were able to go into the streets to get up close to the parade participants.  They were also very open and came up to make faces at and take pictures with the crowd.  I feel like that’s something you don’t get to do in America as it is usually barricaded off.  Later on we watched the fireworks from the balcony of a pub, and I thought it was a great show.

A float from the Thames Festival.

Week 2: Welcome Week

Hey guys,

Well I’ve been here officially for a week now so I think it’s a good time to update about everything.  What’s weird is it really feels like I’ve been here much longer because of everything we’ve been doing and how tired I am.  But it’s a good tiredness 🙂

Hmm…so what’s been going on… well NYU has been very prepared with activities for us and it feels like Welcome Week all over again except kind of like in an alternate universe.

Some highlights:

• The first day we went on a walking tour of the area and it rained (like really poured) and I realized it would be a good indicator of weather for the rest of the time here -_-
• Pub Quiz put on by NYU where I met new people and discovered how much we fail at British trivia.
• Got to check out ULU, the University of London Union, where we have free membership.  It has it’s own bar and everything and I’m excited to meet other London students (real London students) when school starts up for them again.  (They don’t start until like end of September or even later…what?!?)
• Club Night at the Piccadilly Institute.  It’s mental hospital themed complete with kind of creepy mannequins hanging from the ceilings lol.  Also it was my first time on the Tube!  (I think I’ll do a post on comparisons between London and New York at some point but I’ll wait for some more things to add.)
• An NYU club called SPEX always runs a rummage sale…more on this later…but picture everyone lined up at 9 am in the morning in the basement of Byron (our dorm building) as if we’re trying to get into the most anticipated sample sale of the season and ready to fight for the last used hair dryer or clothes hanger there.
• A coach tour (bus tour) where we got to see all the famous stuff and I got so many points on Foursquare and the London Calling badge (sorry, I’m kind of obsessed :P)  But we didn’t have time to go into anything so I’ll definitely need to come back.
• Event at a wine bar.  Loved the atmosphere and definitely met a lot of cool people.
• Scavenger hunt around where we live.  Got to see Platform 9 3/4 with the half trolley stuck in the wall at King’s Cross!  Missed 1st place by just a few points, which we would have gotten if we had just managed to take a photo of the pink car we saw before it sped away.  For getting 2nd place we each got a deck of British-themed playing cards.
• After the scavenger hunt some of my teammates and I decided to eat at Nando’s upon the recommendation of many who had been here before.  It’s a chicken fast-casual restaurant, all over the place here, and definitely worth it.  The lemon & herb Peri-Peri sauce was delicious and goes with everything!  I don’t think mashed potatoes (or just “mash”) is served with gravy here, but not to worry, it’s a perfect canvas for Peri-Peri sauce!

Tower Bridge with the Paralympics symbol still adorning it, seen on our coach tour.