Friday was our last day meeting with the London crew as a whole and we had an appointment to be given the grand tour of Parliament. We got to actually go in and see where the Lords and Commons met to make big decisions. We also got to tour around and see where the queen gets dressed before attending these important gatherings. It was really interesting to be at Parliament with all the political turmoil going on at the time and England having members of Parliament stepping down. Before coming to London I thought that people were not really interested in U.S politics let alone any countries politics but after being here its different to see everyone so interested in the way their own country is run. SO many people pay attention to what is going on in London; mostly through news papers. The tour was very cool because I never got a chance to tour the capital building in D.C so this was really my first time seeing where a government makes history changing decisions.

Thursday was really hard to wake up for because the day before was so jam packed we were all really tired but we had a morning lecture at ULU about British media and the effect is has on British society. We talked about how in London specifically there are really only two major classes; upper and lower class. We talked about how British society was like an English sandwich, two pieces of bread with a little meat in the middle. The upper and lower classes were the two pieces of bread and the meat was the middle class; there is not a very huge middle class and it has never dominated British society. We then compared this English sandwich to the American super colossal sandwich in which the upper and lower class were the top and bottom bun and that the meat was the biggest part and the middle class America. It is the main goal of the media to hit the middle class straight on and really give them what they want to know.

Our lecturer went on the talk about how England has a lot of people that read the daily paper and that because of its size it is easy to distribute papers. With the States, there are different time zones and it is such a vast and wide country it is harder to get news from one side of the U.S to the other side. It was a good lecture but it was a topic that it mostly self explanatory. People need the news and the news needs its audience.

After the lecture we had the rest of the day to visit the Queens Royal home Windsor Castle. It was a gorgeous place and would have no complaints if I lived there. We were able to walk all over the grounds and we saw the queens view of her land and her gardens but we were able to go inside certain parts and see her majesty's doll house and doll collection as well as the different parlors with the royal armor and portraits of all the royalty that has lived at Windsor of the years. It was hard to not touch anything because it was all so shiny and beautiful inside; the detailing of the walls and ceilings were immaculate. For a little bit I felt a little royal and would move in in a heart beat if asked : )

The next day, Wednesday (June 3rd) was probably the busiest day we had since we have been in London. The group had a morning visit to the Tate Modern Museum but I unfortunately was unable to go because I had my interview for my internship. After my interview I had the chance to meet up with everyone at the Tate Modern for a little bit but we soon left for lunch and headed back to ULU (University of London) for a lecture with Bob Craig on WWII and the Blitz.

It was the most interesting and by far my most favorite lecture we had. In the states we learned about WWII almost every year in history class but hearing it from a British perspective brought whole new meaning of the effects of the war universally. Bob talked about people taking shelter in the Tube stations and building shelters in the gardens of homes and even shelters under tables if you lived in apartments. He also told us about children being evacuated out of the city and being sent to the country. It was successful but executed too early. Moms missed their children and often sent for them to return home. Many children became casualties of the German bombings. The most interesting fact about London and the war was them experiencing bombing for 56 consecutive nights and loosing 40,000 homes a week.

After our lecture Bob took us to the Imperial War Museum and showed us around the exhibits for WWI and WWII. It was very cool seeing the different air crafts and bomb shells the British used during the wars. There were also my recent exhibits we got to check out including one on the victims of the Holocaust.

We left the Imperial War Museum a few hours later and rushed off to catch the world famous show WICKED!!!!!!! It was by far the most spectacular most amazing show I have ever seen. My attention was focused on the stage the entire time and I would highly encourage everyone and anyone to go see it. The singing, the songs, the acting were all wonderful and I hate to admit but I did get a little teary eyed during some scenes.

This night was by far the best night of my life. I learned a lot, I got to experience a lot and i definitely got to see a lot as well. I think this was the point in my trip where it really hit my that I was actually in a different country and that I am getting to do what a lot of other people will probably never get the opportunity to do. Everyone should have to privilege to do what I'm doing and I think it is so important to want to take on the responsibility of being in another country and embrace the similarities and differences of cultures and customs.

After we finished up our tour in Westminster Abby we broke for lunch and all met at the BBC Studios main headquarters where "all the magic happens". The BBC is made up of seven floors of news room employees. There are over 2,000 people set up in a circular room where they work with news through T.V, media and online. It is the biggest broadcasting station in the world. The first broadcast was in 1922 and about 80% of the news is planned news; journalists write about 80% of their own scripts as well.

We learned that the building is in the shape of a big question mark and I think my favorite part of the tour was when we got to see the dressing rooms for celebrities and all the dirty stories about celebrities being difficult and demanding; it was nice being able to hear that most celebrities are fun and easy to get along with. It was definitely a tour geared to the Media Studies majors but I learned a lot of PR stuff as well. To wrap up the tour we were able to put on a game show to see what it was like to be in front of the camera as well as behind it helping with the scenes and such.

This was a good day that ended on a high note. I learned a lot about so many versatile things but it all plays into the history of London which I'm still desperately all trying to remember and retain considering before I came here I didn't know very much about this country besides the basics.

Tuesday (June 2, 2009) wasn't too busy either we all met up to tour Westminster Abby with our guide Marc Belben. A little background on Westminster...

It is the greatest known church in the world, there are over 3,000 people buried there today and the Abby used to be Catholic until the 1500's when King Henry the 8th separated the church and crown. What I thought was pretty cool was that there is a tomb for an unknown British warrior like they have in Paris as well as the U.S. It is a tomb that represents all the lives lost during WWI and it is lined with red poppies which symbolize blood shed and war.

Probably one of the greatest tombs was not a tomb at all but a commemoration to Winston Churchill who said when he became Prime Minister during WWII was "I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat, toil and tears".

Another crazy fact I learned was that out of everyone buried in the Abby there is only one who is buried vertical, everyone else is horizontal. That person was a man by the name of Ben Johnson who was a student of Westminster and a partisan of Shakespeare. When he dies he could only afford so much space within the Abby so he was buried vertical as opposed to everyone else buried there.

I liked this trip because I got to see graves of so many famous historical people that have made such a big difference in our lives and to not realize what they did for generations to come until then was a big awakening and made me want to go home and research all of the people further just to know what went on in their lives. It was cool seeing a church with so much history within the walls too because we have nothing even remotely close to this in the States.

Hey Everyone!

So this week has been a little crazy and I know I haven't written about last week so here it goes. Get ready....

The Monday we got back from Paris wasn't too busy we all met under the Big Ben and had a lecture in the House of Parliament with an actual member of Parliament named Graham Brady. He told us how things are ran within the British government and we were given the opportunity to ask questions about the problems within their government, his thoughts on them and his ideas of how they are going to be fixed. He also gave us a little background on the Prime Minister. The current PM is Gordon Brown, there are 646 members of Parliament and 97% of Parliament are white. What I found interesting that I didn't know before was that the Prime Minister can declare war and ask the queen to dissolve Parliament and be open for national elections.

After are lecture in the House of Parliament we broke for lunch and met back at ULU for another lecture on the European Union with Dr. Gavin Dodsworth. I actually enjoyed this lecture because I felt that he related what we were talking about to our generation. He had a way of speaking passionately about the EU but was able to convey the message to us in a clear way. We learned that there are 27 countries in the EU and that it is not automatic to be a member. If a country doesn't want to be in it they don't have to; by choice Norway and Switzerland are not in it. To be part of EU you have to feel as though if you give you will get something out of it and the only country to leave was Greenland. One of the main reasons to have started EU was to bring countries together and prevent WWIII. It has done a good job so far and by coming together in the EU, there will be more influence on the rest of the world.

We learned how the Euro came about and it was to create a United States of Europe through currency, goods, service, free movement of people and capital. There is one federal reserve and it determines the Euro's worth.

Monday was like a said an interesting day but it wasn't too chaotic which was good because we were all still trying to recover from Paris. It was cool learning about where the Euro came about and why it is so important for more countries to join and come together along with the majority of Europe.

The day after our tour of Kew Gardens we all got ready and met at the Eurostar train station to travel to PARIS!!!!!!! It was a 2 1/2 hour train ride from London to the heart of Paris so we left around 11:30 and got to Paris around 2:30. Yeah I know that's three hours but Paris is ahead by an hour so technically according to them it was 2:30. The ride was pretty fast but the best part was the fact that we had to go UNDER the English Channel instead of over or through it.

After we got off the train we were rounded up and told to board a charter bus. We then took a two hour bus tour of the area and got to see everything Paris had to offer including but no limited to the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Parthenon, and Napoleon's Tomb. After the bus tour was over we were taken to our hotel which overlooked the Trocadero and the Eiffel Tower. When were all settled in we decided to all go out to dinner as a big group to a fancy French restaurant. Everyone got to order French cuisine and I got to try foods I would never dare try in the U.S. I got to eat snail and duck and creme brule. After dinner we all wanted to explore so we went to a local store bought wine and sat under the Eiffel Tower and watched to light show. We got back to the hotel pretty late so we all hit the hay as soon as we got to our rooms.

The next day we got a reasonable start and probably the most decent breakfast since we left the states. Some of us wanted to go shopping and see the stores but others like me wanted to see the sites. The first stop my group went to was the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa by Leonardo De Vinci. It was breathtaking being able to be this close to a painting that is so famous and recognized everywhere as a masterpiece. The Louvre was HUGE so it took us a couple of hours to see all was wanted to see but it was well worth it because not only were the paintings and sculptures amazing the walls and ceilings themselves were incredible as well. It seemed as if every room had a different motif.

After the Louvre we went to catch a quick bite at a local Chinese restaurant. We then wanted to check out a modern art museum called to Centre Pompidou. It had exhibitions of modern art that I can not begin to describe but it was very enlightening, very French and very nude. After the museum it was getting late so we headed back to meet everyone for dinner and for a second night in a row we got some wine and hung out under the Eiffel Tower.

The last day we had to see Paris we got us early and went to first see Jim Morrison's (the lead singer of The Doors) Grave then to the local market where some of us bought gifts for our families and then to the Church of the Sacred Heart. It is a place where is you stand at the top of the steps in the front you can see all of Paris and was a fabulous view but way too many steps. After taking some pictures of and with the church we moved to another land mark the Arc De Triumph. From the top you could see in a complete circle the different streets leading out of Paris. It took forever to walk up but the view at the top was well worth it.

After we climbed down the Arc we all gathered up and got ready to head back to London. The train ride back seemed a lot faster then before but that must have been because we were so tired and the moment we dozed off we had to wake up.

Paris was up until now the most interesting place we've visited. I never realized the differences until now. When ordering water, you can;t ask for tap it has to be in a bottle and either still or sparkling. Their subway system is a lot more dirty then in London and in some parts Washington D.C. The french were a lot more easy going about the language barrier then I thought they would be. I sometimes heard horror stories of people not being friendly and not willing to help you when you needed it. Another difference is the pace of life in Paris. It isn't as fast as London but it isn't as slow as Amsterdam it is in the happy middle. The biggest difference I saw though in Paris was the amount of people that were homeless and the amount of gypsies. It kind of scared me at first but I came to find that most of them aren't that dangerous you just have to be aware and cautious. All in all it was a great weekend and I learned a lot about a city I've studied for years in high school and college and hopefully someday I'll be able to go back!

On Thursday, May 28th the group had to meet up in the morning to discuss with the professors about the intentions of our final projects. After we all had our individual time to talk about or plans of action we had a planned day at Kew Gardens.

Kew Gardens is roughly 300 acres of land today but when it was first resurrected it was only 9 acres. It was first thought up by Princess Augusta, King George III in the 1750's and about 80% of the plants do not come from Britain they are mostly from the America's.

It was a nice and relaxing afternoon getting a chance to see all the different types of plants but the best part was getting the chance to go on the Treetop Walkway and see all the gardens from high up. It was a bit rocky but so worth it to see above the trees. When we got down there was even a peacock walking around just hanging out.

The gardens were interesting because the majority of the plant life came from other places other then Britain. It gave me the sense that no matter what a Londoner says they do not have everything in their city they have to go pretty far out of the country to find a good sturdy oak.

After we left Stonehenge we traveled a little further to a place called Bath which was discovered by a Roman Prince who had been caste away from his kingdom because of his disfigured face. He discovered a hat spring in Bath and washed his face with its water, his face was miraculously healed and was able to go back to Rome and tell his amazing story. It is believed today that he was not really disfigured but just had a bad case of acne and the water helped his breakouts.

The town of Bath was a spa and recreation town not a military one. There was a religious temple to the Goddess of Wisdom Minerva and the Celtic God of the river. In 410 AD the Romans left the town of Bath and it fell into disrepair; the baths were used as rubbish bins. During the time of the religious era, Bath was known for its Christian Churches and bubbling hot water. Ralph Allen was the man who came across a stone quarry in Bath and decided to build and expand the town in the 18h century.

After learning all this history on the bus from our wonderful guide Bob we were actually allowed to explore the Roman baths. It was a self guided tour so we were able to walk around at our own pace. After the tour of the baths some of us were still interested in the history of the rest of the town so we were able to get a personal tour from Bob. We got the chance to see where Nicholas Cage and Johnny Depp live but we also learned where the term powder room comes from. During the era of powder and white wigs, one would go to the restroom after getting out of the carriage when visiting a friend. They would have to check to make sure their wigs were on properly and that they had enough powder on their faces hence it being dubbed the powder room.

I really enjoyed getting to see the area of Bath because before I came to this country I never really knew how parts of England were discovered, I figured they just appeared and thrived automatically. It was also cool to look around the town and get the chance to explore a different place other then the busy streets of London. People seemed to move a little slower and be a little bit more personable.

Hey blog followers!

OK so I left off talking about the play I saw at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. The next day, Tuesday May 27th, we had a day trip to Stonehenge and Bath. It was an amazing sight but the only down and messy side was that it was pouring and extremely windy and cold. On more then one occasion people were either loosing their umbrellas or having to turn them right side in when the wind picked up and blew them out.

A little history about the are of Stonehenge....
In 12,00 BC there was a change in culture from large family groups to smaller, more individualistic family groups and in this specific area archaeologists called them the beaker people because in their culture they were buried in the fetal position and their graves contained beakers or pots that stored food or valuables like money and jewelry.

A henge is a circular earthwork ditch with stones or wood. It was a slow process that took 1500 years to build. The people dug a ditch 6ft down and 300 ft in diameter. The first stones were brought in from the furthest places known as blue stone which were 8-12 feet high all the way from Whales. There were around 40 of them brought and placed in a ring. The second stones that were brought were known as marble downs across the ares; they were moved on rollers 20-25 miles, they were cut at the site and two were placed standing while one was placed on top. In 1500 BC Stonehenge was complete but there is no clue as to what happened to the beaker people because their burial rituals died out.

The Stonehenge as we know it today is in its collapsed form, over the centuries there was a road that went through it during the medieval times then a farmer owned the land that it rested on and would let people as they walked by break a chunk off and take it with them on their journey.

The beaker people were discovered by archaeologists to have over 7,000 burial mounds in the area surrounding Stonehenge. They were believed to be a spiritual people. The reasoning behind Stonehenge in not exact but it is believed to be astrological but have healing properties as well. People came from all over to be healed from curses or ailments.

I really enjoyed when we went to Stonehenge because I had heard of the extreme controversy of its origins. It made me think just how far back this area went and that I could have been standing where someone else walked or was healed at thousands of years before. It was quite a sight even though it was raining but it seemed to make the experience more memorable and appreciate the fact that I had to see this controversial wonder first hand.

Hey All!

I know it's been a while since I've last posted but I just got back from grand Paris yesterday evening and haven't had a moment to spare but I left off talking about my trip to Amsterdam. This past week we had a few really good and interesting days before the small excursion to Paris.

The first day we got back from Amsterdam, we had to rush on the train and head to class. If I'm not mistaken it was Tuesday May 26th. Our guest Lecturer Bob Craig was the one who talked to the class about the History of London. He went back to almost 2,000 years ago and explained how London came about. It was no major settlement but was founded by Cesar when he and his men crossed the what is now known as the English Chanel. The area known today as London was recorded by 60 AD by the Queen Boudica. She was unhappy with the taxes the Roman put on her people and when her kingdom was unable to fully pay the Romans off, they beat her and assaulted her two daughters. She then in turn raised an army and attacked London; her army killed 30,000 people.

Bob then went on to talk about many other very interesting things but there isn't enough time or energy to type everything into this blog ; ) but her talked about King Charles I and his war waged against his people and the Parliament. He wanted to arrest 4 Parliament men, London sided with Parliament and the King lost the war. He was put on trial and convicted of treason and sentenced to death.

Bob talked about a lot of things in the history of London lecture and it made me realize how young America is and how much further back English history goes more so then the U.S's. Compared to England and specifically London, the history is not as interesting but I think it is because I grew up hearing about the same things that happened to our country over and over and hearing about another country's' background really intrigued me.

After Bob's lecture we took a trip to the Victoria and Albert Museum. It wasn't my favorite museum but it as or the most part interesting. There are seven corridors that make up the building and if one were to read every single plaque in the museum it could take up to six months. Our guide showed us many things in the exhibit including art and historical pieces from the Greek/Roman period, the Chinese and Arabian cultures and the most interesting the Egyptian time period. We got to see the mummy of Cleopatra and some Roman statues of Greek Gods and Goddesses.

Later on that night we all went to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and saw the play " The Comedy of Errors" and it was fabulous! It was funny, it made you think and I didn't find myself board at all during the performance. I had no idea what the play was about going into this but i left feeling as if I had heard to story line before. It is about two brothers being separated as young boys and finding themselves in the same city when they are older. The dilemma come in when everyone including their wives and love interests keep confusing them for each other. They discover each other in the end and all returns to normal. i really liked the way the theatre was set up because it is an exact replica of how the theatre looked back in the time of Shakespeare. Some of the crowd stood while the rest of us got to sit in backless chairs which doesn't sound better but made all the difference.

All in all it was a jam packed day and a great learning experience. Cheers! More to come later!