Wednesday, December 3rd
I woke up at 1:30pm. I got dressed around 3:30pm. I practiced from 4:30-7pm. I went to dinner at the Market Thai Restaurant in Ladbroke Grove afterwards (awesome sizzling steak strips with thai sauce and coconut rice) to celebrate Andrew’s birthday. It was funny when they turned off the lights, walked out with a cake and lit candles, and walked right by Andrew to another table in the corner. You could see his hopes crushed as they walked away. Hilarious. I came back to the flat, had a glass of wine and listened to the Ranger’s game.
Note the lack of homework.
Tuesday, December 2nd
British Art & Architecture was awesome today. Why? Maybe because it was our last class meeting… or maybe it was because I got my first A on a paper. I’m not sure exactly how, but I’ll take it. Thank you, Susan Bracken. I even answered a question correctly today, just after waking up from a nap. I am so done with college.
After that, I practiced for a few hours then went grocery shopping at the new Waitrose that opened up right next to our flat. It’s beautiful inside, and the prices are comparable to Somerfield. I spent the rest of the night chilling out, watching the office and not doing work.
Monday, December 1st
Shakespeare was a trip this morning as we went over three comedies in 1 class (different than the usual 1 play over 3 classes). I have officially checked out of college. It’s so hard to stay motivated, especially when I’m a few assignments away from graduating. After class, I had a lesson with David Powell which went really well, considering I hadn’t practiced that much this past weekend. The lessons have changed from me playing for a teacher to me playing for someone who seems like more of a peer that can give me a few pointers. It’s not that I think I’ve mastered the euphonium or anything close to that, but I feel that he’s helped me to the point where I can fix the problems that he’ll critique me on before the lesson. I still really enjoy the lessons, as I get to play music for a great musician and we can bounce ideas back and forth about what is best musically.
That night, Omar, Andy, a girl named Ashley and myself went to see Spamalot. We got tickets, and ate in Chinatown at a very new, ritzy restaurant where everything was pretty expensive. I only had soup. Then we went to the show, and it was absolutely freaking hilarious. Everything I ever thought it could be. And I’m glad I got to see it when I did, since it’s closing in a month.
Wednesday, 3 December 2008
Thanksgiving in London
Sunday, November 30th
After another great breakfast, we set out to find the Harry Potter books down on Oxford Street and hit up the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. That was the only place where I have ever seen a hockey rink, a roller coaster and a giant slide all outdoors at one festival. Kind of odd.
Laura and Kim went to Big Ben again while I practiced, then Kim and I picked up her luggage and headed out to Heathrow to catch her flight. We forgot her passport, but luckily she remembered when we were only 2 tube stops from our flat. She made it on the plane fine, and I spent the rest of the night chilling out at the flat.
Saturday, November 29th
I made some bad-ass omlets, then went to the Wicked theatre to pick up tickets for the matinee performance. Kim, Laura and I went over to see Buckingham Palace and hung out in St. James’ Park for a bit before Laura left and Kim and I went to the show. Wicked is an awesome show, with the intricate stage set-up and scene changes, and the music was really interesting.
After that, we took a walk down the southbank, from the Millennium Bridge down to Tower Bridge. It was a chilly night, but the walk was fun. We got dinner at a pub behind my flat (The Larrick) and had real Aberdeen Angus burgers which were amazing. Then we met up with Omar, Andrew and Laura and we went down to Oxford Circus to check out the Christmas lights. We made our way over to Soho for a bit before heading back.
Friday, November 28th
After breakfast, Kim and I took a tour of Westminster Abbey then made our way down to ICLC. She went with Laura, Seth and Meagan to check out Harrod’s while Omar and I went to try to get tickets for Wicked that night. We couldn’t get the tickets, so I met up with the rest of them down on the southbank to check out the German Christmas village. We took a ride on the merry-go-round and walked all the way down to London Bridge where we went to a pub for dinner. We went back to the flat briefly and headed out to Wetherspoons Pub on Baker Street for some drinks. Not exactly what I had planned for today, but hey, we still saw some cool stuff.
Thursday, November 27th
I got about 3 hours of sleep when I woke up at 5am to catch a Picadilly train out to Heathrow Terminal 4 to pick up Kim. It was really easy to get out there, only took about an hour, and I was there just in time to catch her coming out of the arrivals door. We came back to the flat to drop off her luggage and went straight to ICLC for my Brit Pop class (we covered how crappy the Spice Girls were as well as awesome Irish bands).
After that, we went to some museums (Natural History and V&A) then went over to Big Ben, Parliament and Westminster Abbey before heading back to the flat to get ready for the feast. We had 11 people total for dinner (Me, Kim, Andrew, Omar, Eric, Ilyse, Laura, Ilyse’s friend Jen, Omar’s friend Richie, Meagan and Seth) and it went very smoothly, with tons of food and good wine. I gnawed on a turkey leg and ate a few of my baked potatoes. Awesome night.
Wednesday, November 26th
Today I went down to a primary school in Brixton to teach a euphonium lesson to two students in Omar’s class. The school was mainly Afro-Caribbean students, including the two euph students. They were beginners and only knew one note, D natural (or ‘mi’ as they refer to it as). I had to teach them in this large room that was very loud with classes walking through the middle randomly. Eventually we moved into a classroom when the rest of the class was warming up, and then I got to teach them two more notes, C and B-flat (or ‘re’ and ‘do’). They were very interested in learning new things on the euphonium, even though they were actually playing baritones.
After the lesson, they joined the rest of the class for their rehearsal, which was one of the most unorganized things I’ve seen. Students were raising all sorts of hell with each of their instruments, yelling, playing, fighting, not listening to anything the teacher, Alistar (or ‘Titch’), was saying. It was nuts. I decided then that this would be a poor choice to stay here to teach after I’m done. They were rehearsing for their concert next week (which is strange since they only know one note) and it wasn’t going very well. Afterwards, a clarinet player comes up to me and says “hi, can you help me put this away?” and hands me her clarinet. I turned around to officially meet Titch, and when I turned back around, she was gone. I found her wrestling with a trombonist, a tug-of-war match with the trombone slide, and got her to come over to a table to show her how to disassemble the instrument. We went piece by piece, and after it was finished, she closed the case, realized that it was her friend’s case and ran off. Awesome.
After that, I went back to ICLC to practice, then ran some errands and made my baked potatoes for the fest on the morrow.
Tuesday, November 25th
We forgot to pay rent yesterday, I hope that’s not a problem. My highlight for today was in British Art & Architecture when our professor, the lovely Susan Bracken, accidentally knocked the telephone off the receiver while leaning on it and had a heluva time putting it back up. It’s just hilarious to watch a very proper British lady curse at an inanimate object that doesn’t want to cooperate. She also expressed her severe displeasure with the current Mona Lisa exhibit at The Louvre, with its “hideous cream-colored walls and the millions of Japanese taking photographs next to the sign clearly marked ‘no photography.’ A terrible exhibit, indeed.” I love her.
I tried practicing again today, but my face was still not feeling quite ready to play well again after that marathon of playing on Saturday. It reminds me of last year when our ‘Heavy Metal’ tuba quartet would play at Moonshadows Tavern on the commons on Monday nights and I wouldn’t be able to feel anything in my face for a few days afterwards. Good times.
Tonight I made the perfect tikka masala chicken with orange (probably my 10th time making it) and it was great. I spent the rest of the night cleaning the apartment and getting ready for Kim’s arrival on Thanksgiving Thursday. We also started thawing our 17.5lb turkey. Boo-yah.
After another great breakfast, we set out to find the Harry Potter books down on Oxford Street and hit up the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. That was the only place where I have ever seen a hockey rink, a roller coaster and a giant slide all outdoors at one festival. Kind of odd.
Laura and Kim went to Big Ben again while I practiced, then Kim and I picked up her luggage and headed out to Heathrow to catch her flight. We forgot her passport, but luckily she remembered when we were only 2 tube stops from our flat. She made it on the plane fine, and I spent the rest of the night chilling out at the flat.
Saturday, November 29th
I made some bad-ass omlets, then went to the Wicked theatre to pick up tickets for the matinee performance. Kim, Laura and I went over to see Buckingham Palace and hung out in St. James’ Park for a bit before Laura left and Kim and I went to the show. Wicked is an awesome show, with the intricate stage set-up and scene changes, and the music was really interesting.
After that, we took a walk down the southbank, from the Millennium Bridge down to Tower Bridge. It was a chilly night, but the walk was fun. We got dinner at a pub behind my flat (The Larrick) and had real Aberdeen Angus burgers which were amazing. Then we met up with Omar, Andrew and Laura and we went down to Oxford Circus to check out the Christmas lights. We made our way over to Soho for a bit before heading back.
Friday, November 28th
After breakfast, Kim and I took a tour of Westminster Abbey then made our way down to ICLC. She went with Laura, Seth and Meagan to check out Harrod’s while Omar and I went to try to get tickets for Wicked that night. We couldn’t get the tickets, so I met up with the rest of them down on the southbank to check out the German Christmas village. We took a ride on the merry-go-round and walked all the way down to London Bridge where we went to a pub for dinner. We went back to the flat briefly and headed out to Wetherspoons Pub on Baker Street for some drinks. Not exactly what I had planned for today, but hey, we still saw some cool stuff.
Thursday, November 27th
I got about 3 hours of sleep when I woke up at 5am to catch a Picadilly train out to Heathrow Terminal 4 to pick up Kim. It was really easy to get out there, only took about an hour, and I was there just in time to catch her coming out of the arrivals door. We came back to the flat to drop off her luggage and went straight to ICLC for my Brit Pop class (we covered how crappy the Spice Girls were as well as awesome Irish bands).
After that, we went to some museums (Natural History and V&A) then went over to Big Ben, Parliament and Westminster Abbey before heading back to the flat to get ready for the feast. We had 11 people total for dinner (Me, Kim, Andrew, Omar, Eric, Ilyse, Laura, Ilyse’s friend Jen, Omar’s friend Richie, Meagan and Seth) and it went very smoothly, with tons of food and good wine. I gnawed on a turkey leg and ate a few of my baked potatoes. Awesome night.
Wednesday, November 26th
Today I went down to a primary school in Brixton to teach a euphonium lesson to two students in Omar’s class. The school was mainly Afro-Caribbean students, including the two euph students. They were beginners and only knew one note, D natural (or ‘mi’ as they refer to it as). I had to teach them in this large room that was very loud with classes walking through the middle randomly. Eventually we moved into a classroom when the rest of the class was warming up, and then I got to teach them two more notes, C and B-flat (or ‘re’ and ‘do’). They were very interested in learning new things on the euphonium, even though they were actually playing baritones.
After the lesson, they joined the rest of the class for their rehearsal, which was one of the most unorganized things I’ve seen. Students were raising all sorts of hell with each of their instruments, yelling, playing, fighting, not listening to anything the teacher, Alistar (or ‘Titch’), was saying. It was nuts. I decided then that this would be a poor choice to stay here to teach after I’m done. They were rehearsing for their concert next week (which is strange since they only know one note) and it wasn’t going very well. Afterwards, a clarinet player comes up to me and says “hi, can you help me put this away?” and hands me her clarinet. I turned around to officially meet Titch, and when I turned back around, she was gone. I found her wrestling with a trombonist, a tug-of-war match with the trombone slide, and got her to come over to a table to show her how to disassemble the instrument. We went piece by piece, and after it was finished, she closed the case, realized that it was her friend’s case and ran off. Awesome.
After that, I went back to ICLC to practice, then ran some errands and made my baked potatoes for the fest on the morrow.
Tuesday, November 25th
We forgot to pay rent yesterday, I hope that’s not a problem. My highlight for today was in British Art & Architecture when our professor, the lovely Susan Bracken, accidentally knocked the telephone off the receiver while leaning on it and had a heluva time putting it back up. It’s just hilarious to watch a very proper British lady curse at an inanimate object that doesn’t want to cooperate. She also expressed her severe displeasure with the current Mona Lisa exhibit at The Louvre, with its “hideous cream-colored walls and the millions of Japanese taking photographs next to the sign clearly marked ‘no photography.’ A terrible exhibit, indeed.” I love her.
I tried practicing again today, but my face was still not feeling quite ready to play well again after that marathon of playing on Saturday. It reminds me of last year when our ‘Heavy Metal’ tuba quartet would play at Moonshadows Tavern on the commons on Monday nights and I wouldn’t be able to feel anything in my face for a few days afterwards. Good times.
Tonight I made the perfect tikka masala chicken with orange (probably my 10th time making it) and it was great. I spent the rest of the night cleaning the apartment and getting ready for Kim’s arrival on Thanksgiving Thursday. We also started thawing our 17.5lb turkey. Boo-yah.
Monday, 24 November 2008
Lewisham Concert Band
Sunday, November 23rd—Monday, November 24th
On Sunday, I slept and wrote my Shakespeare paper on Othello. I also made excellent bangers & mash (sausage and mashed potatoes). A good day to recuperate.
Monday was spent sitting through my penultimate class of Shakespeare, and after handing in the Othello paper, our professor handed us the assignment sheet for my last paper of my undergraduate career: 8-10 pages comparing at least two of the comedies we’ve read with a thesis based on one of the themes he’s provided (mostly about love). Not exactly what I had expected, but that’s fine. It’s very strange to think that in three weeks from today, I’ll be back in the States. Scary.
Saturday, November 22nd
This morning, Andrew, Omar and myself checked out the Portobello Road Market near Hammersmith, and it was amazing: seemingly endless stands full of food and antiques. I ended up getting 5 giant (and I mean GIANT) baking potatoes for Thanksgiving and 6 oranges, along with a hot sausage sandwich with onions, all for under 5 pounds. Omar and Andrew bought some sea bass to cook Sunday night.
We came back to the flat, and Omar and I got ready for our gig with the Lewisham Concert Band that day in Catford (SE6). Omar left early to try to get to ICLC, which proved extremely difficult because the Circle line and parts of the District line being closed. I thought I had it easy (I only had to get to Charing Cross on the Bakerloo line), but when I entered the Edgware Road Bakerloo station, I was turned away saying “the station is closed, no Bakerloo line.” So, I had to get down to Charing Cross in 20 minutes by changing lines 3 times, and I eventually caught a National Rail train out to South-East London.
The rehearsal lasted about 3 hours, and my face was extremely tired after that. The other euphonium player was Tony who plays in the Guard Band at Buckingham Palace. He was pretty cool, a good player and we seemed to blend tone really well. After Omar and I grabbed dinner at Wetherspoons for very cheap, we made our way back to the Catford Broadway Theatre for our concert at 7:30pm. The concert lasted about 2 1/2 hours and was full of tunes ‘from stage and screen’, including Star Wards, Mama Mia, West Side Story, Disney, Mancini and James Bond. It felt great to play with a band that was really good for a community group, and to sit next to a good player.
After the concert many of the brass players went to a pub next to the train station (after nixing the usual pub they go to because there was an Elvis impersonator singing karaoke extremely loudly). We talked about brass bands and the like before Omar and I ran to catch the last train back into central London. Overall, a great day, even if my face feels like it wants to fall off from all of the playing.
Tuesday, November 18th—Friday, November 21st
After handing in the awesome BAA paper, I practiced for a while and took it easy the rest of the night, trying to soak in everything from the lesson and process all of the information that was crammed into that one hour.
On Wednesday, I slept until early afternoon and got to school to practice. That night, Andrew and I went to a jazz club called Ronnie Scott’s in Soho for a jam session that he wanted to check out. We met up with one lady he teaches with at the Lambeth Music Service, and it was great to hear some really good jazz. We had one hell of a time getting back to our flat at 2am, as the tubes stop running around midnight. We tried figuring out the buses on Oxford Street and realized that none of them really went to Edgware Rd, so we walked over to Oxford Circus and found the right bus. We got back around 3:30am.
Thursday was full of Brit Pop and practicing, followed by a trip to wing night at the American Sports Café near Piccadilly Circus. I had 20 wings (hot and BBQ) with plenty of Carlsberg along the way. After that, we went to the ISH bar for karaoke night, and Katie eventually convinced me to sing ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ with her. We left to go check out the spectacular Christmas lights by Bond Street, and walked back to our flats. It was a great night out.
Friday was spent sleeping and practicing again (that seems to be all that I do anymore) and making food. That night I met up with Andrew at Wetherspoons for a pint, and we were accosted by about 20 Indian men aged 18-21, who were all very interested in the fact that we were American. They asked us about TV shows, movies, even what girls are better (British or American) and what race we thought they were. They told us we had to check out one of the hookah bars on our street, and went to go take more pictures and drink more beer. It was a strange night.
On Sunday, I slept and wrote my Shakespeare paper on Othello. I also made excellent bangers & mash (sausage and mashed potatoes). A good day to recuperate.
Monday was spent sitting through my penultimate class of Shakespeare, and after handing in the Othello paper, our professor handed us the assignment sheet for my last paper of my undergraduate career: 8-10 pages comparing at least two of the comedies we’ve read with a thesis based on one of the themes he’s provided (mostly about love). Not exactly what I had expected, but that’s fine. It’s very strange to think that in three weeks from today, I’ll be back in the States. Scary.
Saturday, November 22nd
This morning, Andrew, Omar and myself checked out the Portobello Road Market near Hammersmith, and it was amazing: seemingly endless stands full of food and antiques. I ended up getting 5 giant (and I mean GIANT) baking potatoes for Thanksgiving and 6 oranges, along with a hot sausage sandwich with onions, all for under 5 pounds. Omar and Andrew bought some sea bass to cook Sunday night.
We came back to the flat, and Omar and I got ready for our gig with the Lewisham Concert Band that day in Catford (SE6). Omar left early to try to get to ICLC, which proved extremely difficult because the Circle line and parts of the District line being closed. I thought I had it easy (I only had to get to Charing Cross on the Bakerloo line), but when I entered the Edgware Road Bakerloo station, I was turned away saying “the station is closed, no Bakerloo line.” So, I had to get down to Charing Cross in 20 minutes by changing lines 3 times, and I eventually caught a National Rail train out to South-East London.
The rehearsal lasted about 3 hours, and my face was extremely tired after that. The other euphonium player was Tony who plays in the Guard Band at Buckingham Palace. He was pretty cool, a good player and we seemed to blend tone really well. After Omar and I grabbed dinner at Wetherspoons for very cheap, we made our way back to the Catford Broadway Theatre for our concert at 7:30pm. The concert lasted about 2 1/2 hours and was full of tunes ‘from stage and screen’, including Star Wards, Mama Mia, West Side Story, Disney, Mancini and James Bond. It felt great to play with a band that was really good for a community group, and to sit next to a good player.
After the concert many of the brass players went to a pub next to the train station (after nixing the usual pub they go to because there was an Elvis impersonator singing karaoke extremely loudly). We talked about brass bands and the like before Omar and I ran to catch the last train back into central London. Overall, a great day, even if my face feels like it wants to fall off from all of the playing.
Tuesday, November 18th—Friday, November 21st
After handing in the awesome BAA paper, I practiced for a while and took it easy the rest of the night, trying to soak in everything from the lesson and process all of the information that was crammed into that one hour.
On Wednesday, I slept until early afternoon and got to school to practice. That night, Andrew and I went to a jazz club called Ronnie Scott’s in Soho for a jam session that he wanted to check out. We met up with one lady he teaches with at the Lambeth Music Service, and it was great to hear some really good jazz. We had one hell of a time getting back to our flat at 2am, as the tubes stop running around midnight. We tried figuring out the buses on Oxford Street and realized that none of them really went to Edgware Rd, so we walked over to Oxford Circus and found the right bus. We got back around 3:30am.
Thursday was full of Brit Pop and practicing, followed by a trip to wing night at the American Sports Café near Piccadilly Circus. I had 20 wings (hot and BBQ) with plenty of Carlsberg along the way. After that, we went to the ISH bar for karaoke night, and Katie eventually convinced me to sing ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ with her. We left to go check out the spectacular Christmas lights by Bond Street, and walked back to our flats. It was a great night out.
Friday was spent sleeping and practicing again (that seems to be all that I do anymore) and making food. That night I met up with Andrew at Wetherspoons for a pint, and we were accosted by about 20 Indian men aged 18-21, who were all very interested in the fact that we were American. They asked us about TV shows, movies, even what girls are better (British or American) and what race we thought they were. They told us we had to check out one of the hookah bars on our street, and went to go take more pictures and drink more beer. It was a strange night.
Lesson with Steven Mead!!
Monday, November 17th
This was an awesome day, because I got the chance to have a lesson with Steven Mead (www.euphonium.net). The journey to the lesson at the RAF base in Uxbridge, however, was one of the most stressful experiences of my life. After going to a fantastic class of Shakespeare and giving my presentation on the performance of Othello, I warmed up and got all my things ready for the lesson. I left at 4pm, arrived in Uxbridge at 5:10pm, plenty of time to get over to the base for our lesson at 6pm. I asked some locals for directions on how to get to the base, but they all sent me in different directions. After literally an hour of asking and people saying “oh…that’s quite a ways from here…” I was about to give up. It was like a terrible nightmare, where you’re about to have the greatest lesson of your life, and you’re so close, but you can’t find a giant air force base in the middle of town.
Finally, like an angel descending from heaven, the U3 bus arrived at a bus stop and I asked the giant, bald bus driver who was built like a tank, “How the hell do I get to the RAF Uxbridge base?” He motioned that it was this bus, and I was extremely relieved. I then asked a person on the bus where the base is, and he told me exactly how to get to the main gates. I arrived at 6:05pm, and one of Steven’s students, Matt (a euphonium player in the RAF Central Band) signed me in and walked me to the rehearsal hall where my lesson was to be held.
I walked in and was greeted by one of the greatest euphonium players ever, 10 minutes after I was standing in the middle of a dark alley with no clue on where I was or where I was supposed to go to get here. Then we had an hour-long lesson in which we covered a ton of stuff from consistency in the low register to proper breath control. The ideas he mentioned helped me immensely in that one hour, and I left the lesson extremely happy. He even gave me and his student Matt a ride back to the tube station (I rode shotty in his really nice Volvo). After seeing how close the tube station really is to the base, it should have only taken 10-15 minutes maximum to walk there. Wow.
On the tube ride back, I talked to Matt about brass bands, and he explained how he’s in one in Oxford, and that the second euphonium player has to miss rehearsals occasionally, and if this happens, he’ll let me know so I can come up and sub for them. I’m not sure if this will actually happen in my last few weeks here, but that’d be amazing if it did. My next lesson with Steven Mead is slotted for Wednesday, December 10th. When I got back to my flat, I worked on the BAA paper until about 3am. Yeah college.
This was an awesome day, because I got the chance to have a lesson with Steven Mead (www.euphonium.net). The journey to the lesson at the RAF base in Uxbridge, however, was one of the most stressful experiences of my life. After going to a fantastic class of Shakespeare and giving my presentation on the performance of Othello, I warmed up and got all my things ready for the lesson. I left at 4pm, arrived in Uxbridge at 5:10pm, plenty of time to get over to the base for our lesson at 6pm. I asked some locals for directions on how to get to the base, but they all sent me in different directions. After literally an hour of asking and people saying “oh…that’s quite a ways from here…” I was about to give up. It was like a terrible nightmare, where you’re about to have the greatest lesson of your life, and you’re so close, but you can’t find a giant air force base in the middle of town.
Finally, like an angel descending from heaven, the U3 bus arrived at a bus stop and I asked the giant, bald bus driver who was built like a tank, “How the hell do I get to the RAF Uxbridge base?” He motioned that it was this bus, and I was extremely relieved. I then asked a person on the bus where the base is, and he told me exactly how to get to the main gates. I arrived at 6:05pm, and one of Steven’s students, Matt (a euphonium player in the RAF Central Band) signed me in and walked me to the rehearsal hall where my lesson was to be held.
I walked in and was greeted by one of the greatest euphonium players ever, 10 minutes after I was standing in the middle of a dark alley with no clue on where I was or where I was supposed to go to get here. Then we had an hour-long lesson in which we covered a ton of stuff from consistency in the low register to proper breath control. The ideas he mentioned helped me immensely in that one hour, and I left the lesson extremely happy. He even gave me and his student Matt a ride back to the tube station (I rode shotty in his really nice Volvo). After seeing how close the tube station really is to the base, it should have only taken 10-15 minutes maximum to walk there. Wow.
On the tube ride back, I talked to Matt about brass bands, and he explained how he’s in one in Oxford, and that the second euphonium player has to miss rehearsals occasionally, and if this happens, he’ll let me know so I can come up and sub for them. I’m not sure if this will actually happen in my last few weeks here, but that’d be amazing if it did. My next lesson with Steven Mead is slotted for Wednesday, December 10th. When I got back to my flat, I worked on the BAA paper until about 3am. Yeah college.
Edinburgh, Scotland
Sunday, November 16th
We woke up and left the hostel around 9am again, this time going into the center of the city with a few free hours to spend. I did some shopping before heading over to the Queen’s House, also known as the Holyroodhouse, which was very interesting. We saw the room where Mary, Queen of Scots, lived, and her second husband killed a man. We also got to see the ruins of the abbey, which Felix Mendellsohn saw in the 19th century and this sparked him to write his Scottish Symphony. After this, we had a few free hours (more shopping) before catching the train back to London.
On the trip back, there were a few middle-aged Scottish women who were raising hell and cackling extremely loudly. A few of our students went back to politely ask them to keep it down as people were trying to do work and sleep, but they were both turned away with extremely rude comments. It was amazing to see how they reacted, like a bunch of 15-year old girls, even though they were about 50. I thought American’s were supposed to act like that, but we were proved wrong.
Saturday, November 15th
We woke up and got out of the hostel by 9am, got to the center of town and made our way up to the castle for a tour. It was awesome being up in the castle and looking down on the town. We got to see the Scottish Crown Jewels and other really old objects around the castle. Omar and I made our way down the Royal Mile to the Scottish Parliament Building, where our next tour took place. It’s a very modern building (built around 2004) and it doesn’t fit in with the rest of the old city surrounding it. The inside is beautiful and uses many energy-saving and eco-friendly concepts.
After that, we all climbed up the giant hill to King Arthur’s Seat, 850ft up. When we got to the top, the wind was knocking everyone over, but it was one of the most astonishing sights I have seen yet. The sun was just about to set and there were storm clouds rolling in, and it looked almost ethereal. We stayed at the top for about 20 minutes before making our way down.
Omar, Zach, Andy and myself tried making it to the top of the Royal Mile for the tour of the Scottish Whiskey Experience, but sadly the tour was closed by the time we got there. We stopped at the pub on the corner, Deacon Brodies, and I had a bowl of tomato soup to hold me over (that restaurant was really expensive). We left on a hunt for a decent pub for some haggis, but every pub was jam-packed with rugby fans watching the Ireland game. We eventually made a giant circle and came back into Deacon Brodies for their expensive haggis. This wasn’t quite as good as the previous night, probably because they didn’t give me whiskey sauce, but it was still a decent meal.
Following dinner, we made our way to a pub on Rose Street called the Thirty Seven Pub, then over to the Auld Hundred. We then decided to meet up with Bill to go to a Ceilidh (Scottish folk dancing). Bill bought everyone (some 20+ students) a round, and then we made our way into the dance hall (basically a gym). I had no idea what I was doing, but it reminded me of when we went Contra dancing in Ithaca a few years ago: some type of square/line dancing with a band made up of stringed instruments, sometimes a keyboard and a bagpipe. I basically followed Bill’s lead the entire night, as he’s been on many of these and knows everything. I was worn out after an hour straight of dancing, and we hailed a cab to make our way back to the hostel. We hung out at the hostel’s pub for a little bit, trying to play ‘snooker’ (British version of billiards). We eventually gave up and passed out.
Friday, November 14th
We arrived on-time to King’s Cross this morning and hopped on the train up to Edinburgh. The train had free Wi-Fi, and I brought my laptop in an attempt to work on my BAA paper on the 4 1/2 hour train ride. Instead, I chatted with some friends and listened to music for the whole way up. When we got to Edinburgh, we immediately hopped on a bus and went out to the hostel (Globtrotters Inn), which was a ways outside of the center of the city. Then we came back into town for a walk with Bill where he showed us Rose Street, Grass Market, the castle, the Royal Mile and the old coffee shop (now Chinese restaurant) where J.K. Rowling wrote the Harry Potter series.
Following the walk we were free for the night, so we split off into groups for dinner. We went to a pub called The Mitre, and that’s where I ate haggis for the first time. It was actually really good: it looked kinda gross, sort of like a meat loaf, but it had the consistency of sloppy joe. They served it with whiskey sauce (extremely tasty) and sides of mashed potatoes and mashed turnips (or ‘neeps and tatties’). After dinner we went on a ghost tour in the Greyfriar’s graveyard. It was really creepy, but Laura was so frightened she wouldn’t let go of my arm. We eventually hailed a cab back to the hostel and passed out.
Thursday, November 13th
Today started out with Brit Pop followed by a quick lunch and meeting with Rebecca to go over our Othello presentation for Shakespeare class on Monday. Afterwards, I ran to the National Art Library to do more research with Laura for the BAA paper. We got some really good sources, and stayed until it closed at 5:30pm. Then we went back to ICLC and I had to decide what to do: to go to the play that night for Shakespeare (Love’s Labour’s Lost) or skip the play and practice, as this was my last chance to practice before the lesson with Steven Mead on Monday. I chose the later, and I didn’t feel bad at all. It was a really great practice session, and I definitely needed it.
When the building closed at 8:30pm I went back to the flat before going out to Wetherspoon’s Pub on Baker Street with Omar. It was our last chance to try the 50 beers they had on tap for their beer fest, and we made the most of it. We got home around midnight and quickly passed out as we had to be at King’s Cross station at 8:30am.
We woke up and left the hostel around 9am again, this time going into the center of the city with a few free hours to spend. I did some shopping before heading over to the Queen’s House, also known as the Holyroodhouse, which was very interesting. We saw the room where Mary, Queen of Scots, lived, and her second husband killed a man. We also got to see the ruins of the abbey, which Felix Mendellsohn saw in the 19th century and this sparked him to write his Scottish Symphony. After this, we had a few free hours (more shopping) before catching the train back to London.
On the trip back, there were a few middle-aged Scottish women who were raising hell and cackling extremely loudly. A few of our students went back to politely ask them to keep it down as people were trying to do work and sleep, but they were both turned away with extremely rude comments. It was amazing to see how they reacted, like a bunch of 15-year old girls, even though they were about 50. I thought American’s were supposed to act like that, but we were proved wrong.
Saturday, November 15th
We woke up and got out of the hostel by 9am, got to the center of town and made our way up to the castle for a tour. It was awesome being up in the castle and looking down on the town. We got to see the Scottish Crown Jewels and other really old objects around the castle. Omar and I made our way down the Royal Mile to the Scottish Parliament Building, where our next tour took place. It’s a very modern building (built around 2004) and it doesn’t fit in with the rest of the old city surrounding it. The inside is beautiful and uses many energy-saving and eco-friendly concepts.
After that, we all climbed up the giant hill to King Arthur’s Seat, 850ft up. When we got to the top, the wind was knocking everyone over, but it was one of the most astonishing sights I have seen yet. The sun was just about to set and there were storm clouds rolling in, and it looked almost ethereal. We stayed at the top for about 20 minutes before making our way down.
Omar, Zach, Andy and myself tried making it to the top of the Royal Mile for the tour of the Scottish Whiskey Experience, but sadly the tour was closed by the time we got there. We stopped at the pub on the corner, Deacon Brodies, and I had a bowl of tomato soup to hold me over (that restaurant was really expensive). We left on a hunt for a decent pub for some haggis, but every pub was jam-packed with rugby fans watching the Ireland game. We eventually made a giant circle and came back into Deacon Brodies for their expensive haggis. This wasn’t quite as good as the previous night, probably because they didn’t give me whiskey sauce, but it was still a decent meal.
Following dinner, we made our way to a pub on Rose Street called the Thirty Seven Pub, then over to the Auld Hundred. We then decided to meet up with Bill to go to a Ceilidh (Scottish folk dancing). Bill bought everyone (some 20+ students) a round, and then we made our way into the dance hall (basically a gym). I had no idea what I was doing, but it reminded me of when we went Contra dancing in Ithaca a few years ago: some type of square/line dancing with a band made up of stringed instruments, sometimes a keyboard and a bagpipe. I basically followed Bill’s lead the entire night, as he’s been on many of these and knows everything. I was worn out after an hour straight of dancing, and we hailed a cab to make our way back to the hostel. We hung out at the hostel’s pub for a little bit, trying to play ‘snooker’ (British version of billiards). We eventually gave up and passed out.
Friday, November 14th
We arrived on-time to King’s Cross this morning and hopped on the train up to Edinburgh. The train had free Wi-Fi, and I brought my laptop in an attempt to work on my BAA paper on the 4 1/2 hour train ride. Instead, I chatted with some friends and listened to music for the whole way up. When we got to Edinburgh, we immediately hopped on a bus and went out to the hostel (Globtrotters Inn), which was a ways outside of the center of the city. Then we came back into town for a walk with Bill where he showed us Rose Street, Grass Market, the castle, the Royal Mile and the old coffee shop (now Chinese restaurant) where J.K. Rowling wrote the Harry Potter series.
Following the walk we were free for the night, so we split off into groups for dinner. We went to a pub called The Mitre, and that’s where I ate haggis for the first time. It was actually really good: it looked kinda gross, sort of like a meat loaf, but it had the consistency of sloppy joe. They served it with whiskey sauce (extremely tasty) and sides of mashed potatoes and mashed turnips (or ‘neeps and tatties’). After dinner we went on a ghost tour in the Greyfriar’s graveyard. It was really creepy, but Laura was so frightened she wouldn’t let go of my arm. We eventually hailed a cab back to the hostel and passed out.
Thursday, November 13th
Today started out with Brit Pop followed by a quick lunch and meeting with Rebecca to go over our Othello presentation for Shakespeare class on Monday. Afterwards, I ran to the National Art Library to do more research with Laura for the BAA paper. We got some really good sources, and stayed until it closed at 5:30pm. Then we went back to ICLC and I had to decide what to do: to go to the play that night for Shakespeare (Love’s Labour’s Lost) or skip the play and practice, as this was my last chance to practice before the lesson with Steven Mead on Monday. I chose the later, and I didn’t feel bad at all. It was a really great practice session, and I definitely needed it.
When the building closed at 8:30pm I went back to the flat before going out to Wetherspoon’s Pub on Baker Street with Omar. It was our last chance to try the 50 beers they had on tap for their beer fest, and we made the most of it. We got home around midnight and quickly passed out as we had to be at King’s Cross station at 8:30am.
Wednesday, 12 November 2008
Galleries, Friends and Arsenal
Wednesday, November 12th
Today I gave my euphonium a bath (don’t judge me) and tried to do a lot of research for my BAA paper. I made it to the National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and spent an hour and a half looking for print material pertaining to Rubens’ ‘Winter.’ The one book I found that might have had that piece in it took another hour and a half to get to me. This is due to their process of filling out a sheet, putting it in the box, having the sheets collected once an hour, having their staff find the book for you and bring it to you. By the time I got the book, it was 20 minutes before closing time. I got some information out of it, but it was frustrating nonetheless.
After this, I went back to the ICLC to play a little bit of euphonium and meet up with other members of our Brit Pop class to head to Billy Elliot at Victoria’s Palace Theatre. It was a really great musical (never seen the movie), and the young kid who played Billy had a good voice and was a phenomenal dancer. It was a really fun, entertaining musical with its touching moments. I love going to performances like these for homework. Why can’t all of college be like this?
Tuesday, November 11th
Our British Art & Architecture class met at the Banqueting House by Parliament. The house was designed by Inigo Jones and commissioned by Charles I for his dad, James I. The ceiling was full of beautiful religious and mythological depictions of James I by Rubens (what a bad-ass). After this, we went to the National Gallery to look at a few portraits.
After that, I went back to the ICLC to warm-up for my lesson at 3pm. The lesson went fairly well, and was focused on playing all the way through pieces, something I don’t do nearly enough of. At one point, he asked me to “play something” so I noodled around for a few minutes, trying to make logical, cohesive ideas. It was really bizarre to just improvise for my teacher. That’s how I usually warm-up so I guess it isn’t such a strange thing to do, but it was weird to do that in front of a teacher.
That night we went to an Arsenal football match and it was amazing. The stadium was nearly maxed out at 60,000 fans, all wearing red and black, all chanting their crazy Arsenal chants. It was very different than American sports events where they pump up the music to get the fans into it. Here, no music was played because the energy everywhere in the crowd was electric. Arsenal won 3-0 against Wigam (terrible Premiere League team). It was rather crazy leaving the stadium and trying to get home, but we managed it in about 45 minutes. What a great experience.
Monday, November 10th
It poured all day today, which made it truly exciting to get around the city. Our Shakespeare class met at the Globe theatre for a ‘tour’ (short talk about the history of the Globe) and a discussion about how plays were prepared and performed back in Shakespeare’s day. Apparently the actors would only get scrolls of their own parts with 2-3 word cues, have a week or two to learn them, and they would rehearse the play at 10am the day of the performance. They would rehearse until 1pm (3 hours), take 1 hour for lunch, then the performance at 2pm. Nowadays, plays are rehearsed for about 4 1/2 to 6 weeks. The actors back then must have been amazing, or the crowd just didn’t care.
After that, I got to hang out with Maggie. We had lunch at the Wargrave Arms (pub around the corner from my flat) and hit up platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross (it apparently ruined her childhood because it wasn’t as cool as she had hoped… oh well). It was great to finally hang out with one of my good friends from back home and catch up.
Sunday, November 9th
I felt like crap today, but I still made myself practice and do some homework. I also went to the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace to look at their exhibit “Bruegels to Rubens: Masters of Flemish Painting” for my British Art & Architecture paper. It was a really awesome exhibit: 3 rooms, blue walls and amazing art. I’m finally starting to develop a much better appreciation for the artwork that we’ve been studying. I chose Rubens’ ‘Winter’ landscape painting, a giant oil on canvas depicting a beggar family around a fire under an open barn, taken in by a farming family with the dead of winter in the background. The skill Rubens had to create these landscape paintings is just phenomenal. Even though I felt terrible, I still really enjoyed myself for an hour and a half.
Today I gave my euphonium a bath (don’t judge me) and tried to do a lot of research for my BAA paper. I made it to the National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and spent an hour and a half looking for print material pertaining to Rubens’ ‘Winter.’ The one book I found that might have had that piece in it took another hour and a half to get to me. This is due to their process of filling out a sheet, putting it in the box, having the sheets collected once an hour, having their staff find the book for you and bring it to you. By the time I got the book, it was 20 minutes before closing time. I got some information out of it, but it was frustrating nonetheless.
After this, I went back to the ICLC to play a little bit of euphonium and meet up with other members of our Brit Pop class to head to Billy Elliot at Victoria’s Palace Theatre. It was a really great musical (never seen the movie), and the young kid who played Billy had a good voice and was a phenomenal dancer. It was a really fun, entertaining musical with its touching moments. I love going to performances like these for homework. Why can’t all of college be like this?
Tuesday, November 11th
Our British Art & Architecture class met at the Banqueting House by Parliament. The house was designed by Inigo Jones and commissioned by Charles I for his dad, James I. The ceiling was full of beautiful religious and mythological depictions of James I by Rubens (what a bad-ass). After this, we went to the National Gallery to look at a few portraits.
After that, I went back to the ICLC to warm-up for my lesson at 3pm. The lesson went fairly well, and was focused on playing all the way through pieces, something I don’t do nearly enough of. At one point, he asked me to “play something” so I noodled around for a few minutes, trying to make logical, cohesive ideas. It was really bizarre to just improvise for my teacher. That’s how I usually warm-up so I guess it isn’t such a strange thing to do, but it was weird to do that in front of a teacher.
That night we went to an Arsenal football match and it was amazing. The stadium was nearly maxed out at 60,000 fans, all wearing red and black, all chanting their crazy Arsenal chants. It was very different than American sports events where they pump up the music to get the fans into it. Here, no music was played because the energy everywhere in the crowd was electric. Arsenal won 3-0 against Wigam (terrible Premiere League team). It was rather crazy leaving the stadium and trying to get home, but we managed it in about 45 minutes. What a great experience.
Monday, November 10th
It poured all day today, which made it truly exciting to get around the city. Our Shakespeare class met at the Globe theatre for a ‘tour’ (short talk about the history of the Globe) and a discussion about how plays were prepared and performed back in Shakespeare’s day. Apparently the actors would only get scrolls of their own parts with 2-3 word cues, have a week or two to learn them, and they would rehearse the play at 10am the day of the performance. They would rehearse until 1pm (3 hours), take 1 hour for lunch, then the performance at 2pm. Nowadays, plays are rehearsed for about 4 1/2 to 6 weeks. The actors back then must have been amazing, or the crowd just didn’t care.
After that, I got to hang out with Maggie. We had lunch at the Wargrave Arms (pub around the corner from my flat) and hit up platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross (it apparently ruined her childhood because it wasn’t as cool as she had hoped… oh well). It was great to finally hang out with one of my good friends from back home and catch up.
Sunday, November 9th
I felt like crap today, but I still made myself practice and do some homework. I also went to the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace to look at their exhibit “Bruegels to Rubens: Masters of Flemish Painting” for my British Art & Architecture paper. It was a really awesome exhibit: 3 rooms, blue walls and amazing art. I’m finally starting to develop a much better appreciation for the artwork that we’ve been studying. I chose Rubens’ ‘Winter’ landscape painting, a giant oil on canvas depicting a beggar family around a fire under an open barn, taken in by a farming family with the dead of winter in the background. The skill Rubens had to create these landscape paintings is just phenomenal. Even though I felt terrible, I still really enjoyed myself for an hour and a half.
Liverpool Trip
Saturday, November 8th
The next day we went through the museum entitled ‘The Beatles Story.’ It was really well done, with an audioguide (commentary by Beatles members, Brian Epstein, George Martin, other famous people) and recreations of their recording studios, the first clubs they played in (including a full-size recreation of the Cavern!) and rooms of photographs (tons of John Lennon). Right at the end they had Lennon’s famous white piano in a white room. There was also a kid’s discovery section with a drawing/coloring section, which is where we spent a good 30 minutes coloring in pictures of the yellow submarine for our Brit Pop journals.
After that Omar, Rebecca and I took a tour of the Cains brewery, which is supposedly frequented by Prince Charles and Quentin Tarantino. The tour guide was a lady who must have been on speed or crack or some other ‘upper,’ and she explained the difference between ales and lagers. We saw the bottling room, the giant tanks where the beer is…well…brewed, and the rooms where they stored the ingredients back in the day. Not too much stuff to see as it’s all done by computers now, but we did get free food (tiny sandwiches) and two free pints. Omar bought a case of their Raisin beer (not really fruity, it’s actually dark and bitter and amazing) and we sprinted back to the hostel to catch the bus.
The final stop was Crosby Beach where the English artist Anthony Gormley (b. 1950) created 100 life-sized identical statues of himself placed at various points on the beach. Some are very close to the shore, while others are hundreds of meters out to sea, with many in between. The ones further out are visible when the tide is very low, looking like a swimmer’s head, way out in the sea. It was ridiculously windy, and Omar and I had fun walking around taking hilarious pictures with the statues. We loaded back on the bus and headed home.
Friday, November 7th
We left early for a 5-hour bus ride up to Liverpool. The ride wasn’t too bad because Emer McParland (our British Pop professor) came with us and brought some Beatles DVDs to watch. Once we got to L’pool, we dropped our stuff off at the hostel (a YHA 4-star hostel) and took a walk around by the docks. Laura and I were hanging out with Emer the whole time as she told us about the city (where she’s from) and some stories from her childhood. I told her about my former group, the Heavy Metal Tuba Quartet, and how we’d play Beatles tunes in bars in Ithaca. Apparently she didn’t think a tuba quartet could jam out, so I’ll have to play her recordings.
We got back to the hostel, put our stuff in our rooms (that were finally ready) and hopped onto the coach bus with a tour guide who took us on the Magical Mystery Tour. He took us out of the center of town, and our first stop was Penny Lane, then to the houses that Ringo grew up in, to the house George grew up in, over to Strawberry Fields, John’s house and finally Paul’s house. It is a very interesting city in that it hasn’t fully recovered from World War II; the center of the city is being built up quite well, but the outskirts haven’t been as much. Ringo’s neighborhood was especially rough. In fact, they’ve boarded up the windows and doors to most of the houses in that neighborhood because they’re going to flatten everything then build it all up again.
After seeing the houses, we went back to the center of the city to the Cavern Club, which is where the Beatles had many of their first gigs. The club is underground, made entirely of brick and isn’t exactly the type of place you’d think to have a “club.” The main room is long and very narrow, with a ridiculously small stage at the end. On the sides are two other rooms connected by archways in the brickwork. Basically, the place looks like a dungeon. Back when the Beatles would play there, the amount of people jammed into the club and the amount of heat they produced caused condensation to drip down the walls. Apparently after everyone left, the cleaners would go in and completely saturate the walls and floors with cleaners, so I can only imagine what it must have smelled like: cleaning solution and B.O. Awesome. Also, outside of the club there’s a brick wall, and each brick has the name of a person or group who have played at the Cavern, including the Beatles, Queen, Jimmy Page, Oasis, Bono, etc.. What an awesome place.
We ate dinner at the hostel, consisting of beef stew and French fries (I had about 3 plate-fulls). After a quick nap, we went out hunting for fun. In the center of the city, we happened upon a giant futuristic mall (that was mostly outside) equipped with Santa’s Grotto. This was definitely the part of the city where they’ve thrown tons of money to rebuild and it shows. There were so many Christmas lights, it felt like a city of Griswolds. We made our way to the Cavern for some drinks and to hear some music. Through the course of the night, I heard two solo acoustic guitarists (first was terrible, second was really good) and a rock trio, all playing plenty of Beatles covers as well as tons of American tunes (I heard ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ twice). There were plenty of sketchy Liverpoolian men that were handing out drinks to girls. One guy was so drunk he caressed my hair (what the heck is it with middle-age men and my hair?). It was still a fun night regardless.
The next day we went through the museum entitled ‘The Beatles Story.’ It was really well done, with an audioguide (commentary by Beatles members, Brian Epstein, George Martin, other famous people) and recreations of their recording studios, the first clubs they played in (including a full-size recreation of the Cavern!) and rooms of photographs (tons of John Lennon). Right at the end they had Lennon’s famous white piano in a white room. There was also a kid’s discovery section with a drawing/coloring section, which is where we spent a good 30 minutes coloring in pictures of the yellow submarine for our Brit Pop journals.
After that Omar, Rebecca and I took a tour of the Cains brewery, which is supposedly frequented by Prince Charles and Quentin Tarantino. The tour guide was a lady who must have been on speed or crack or some other ‘upper,’ and she explained the difference between ales and lagers. We saw the bottling room, the giant tanks where the beer is…well…brewed, and the rooms where they stored the ingredients back in the day. Not too much stuff to see as it’s all done by computers now, but we did get free food (tiny sandwiches) and two free pints. Omar bought a case of their Raisin beer (not really fruity, it’s actually dark and bitter and amazing) and we sprinted back to the hostel to catch the bus.
The final stop was Crosby Beach where the English artist Anthony Gormley (b. 1950) created 100 life-sized identical statues of himself placed at various points on the beach. Some are very close to the shore, while others are hundreds of meters out to sea, with many in between. The ones further out are visible when the tide is very low, looking like a swimmer’s head, way out in the sea. It was ridiculously windy, and Omar and I had fun walking around taking hilarious pictures with the statues. We loaded back on the bus and headed home.
Friday, November 7th
We left early for a 5-hour bus ride up to Liverpool. The ride wasn’t too bad because Emer McParland (our British Pop professor) came with us and brought some Beatles DVDs to watch. Once we got to L’pool, we dropped our stuff off at the hostel (a YHA 4-star hostel) and took a walk around by the docks. Laura and I were hanging out with Emer the whole time as she told us about the city (where she’s from) and some stories from her childhood. I told her about my former group, the Heavy Metal Tuba Quartet, and how we’d play Beatles tunes in bars in Ithaca. Apparently she didn’t think a tuba quartet could jam out, so I’ll have to play her recordings.
We got back to the hostel, put our stuff in our rooms (that were finally ready) and hopped onto the coach bus with a tour guide who took us on the Magical Mystery Tour. He took us out of the center of town, and our first stop was Penny Lane, then to the houses that Ringo grew up in, to the house George grew up in, over to Strawberry Fields, John’s house and finally Paul’s house. It is a very interesting city in that it hasn’t fully recovered from World War II; the center of the city is being built up quite well, but the outskirts haven’t been as much. Ringo’s neighborhood was especially rough. In fact, they’ve boarded up the windows and doors to most of the houses in that neighborhood because they’re going to flatten everything then build it all up again.
After seeing the houses, we went back to the center of the city to the Cavern Club, which is where the Beatles had many of their first gigs. The club is underground, made entirely of brick and isn’t exactly the type of place you’d think to have a “club.” The main room is long and very narrow, with a ridiculously small stage at the end. On the sides are two other rooms connected by archways in the brickwork. Basically, the place looks like a dungeon. Back when the Beatles would play there, the amount of people jammed into the club and the amount of heat they produced caused condensation to drip down the walls. Apparently after everyone left, the cleaners would go in and completely saturate the walls and floors with cleaners, so I can only imagine what it must have smelled like: cleaning solution and B.O. Awesome. Also, outside of the club there’s a brick wall, and each brick has the name of a person or group who have played at the Cavern, including the Beatles, Queen, Jimmy Page, Oasis, Bono, etc.. What an awesome place.
We ate dinner at the hostel, consisting of beef stew and French fries (I had about 3 plate-fulls). After a quick nap, we went out hunting for fun. In the center of the city, we happened upon a giant futuristic mall (that was mostly outside) equipped with Santa’s Grotto. This was definitely the part of the city where they’ve thrown tons of money to rebuild and it shows. There were so many Christmas lights, it felt like a city of Griswolds. We made our way to the Cavern for some drinks and to hear some music. Through the course of the night, I heard two solo acoustic guitarists (first was terrible, second was really good) and a rock trio, all playing plenty of Beatles covers as well as tons of American tunes (I heard ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ twice). There were plenty of sketchy Liverpoolian men that were handing out drinks to girls. One guy was so drunk he caressed my hair (what the heck is it with middle-age men and my hair?). It was still a fun night regardless.
Thursday, 6 November 2008
Obama-Rama!!!
Thursday, November 6th
I woke up today not feeling great, maybe from Mr. Jameson or perhaps I’m getting sick, who knows. I made it through Brit Pop when we talked about synthesizer and Indie music of the 1980s. Then I went to my lesson where I didn’t play great. We had a discussion about how to approach new pieces of music: he told me to be confident in the fact that I have the ability to sight-read a new piece and get the main musical points across and to not go into it blindly trying to fix every note and run. I suppose that’s the next step of musicianship.
Later on, I went to see a production of Othello at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith. It wasn’t a very enjoyable performance because the acting wasn’t great and there was a lot of random modern dancing going on that didn’t really make any sense. However, afterwards there was free pizza and wine/juice in the lobby, so I stocked up on OJ and cheese slices. That was the best part of the show. We’re leaving for the Liverpool trip tomorrow morning at 7am, so to sleep I go.
Wednesday, November 5th
Today is Guy Fawkes Day in England, celebrating his attempt to carry out the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. It is also Hooray Barack Obama Won the Election Day, and we threw a party that celebrated both. There was a good amount of people that showed up, and it was really nice to have a fun night hosting everyone in our own flat. It was also great to get to know some other ICLC students that I haven’t hung out with yet.
Tuesday, November 4th
This wonderful day began with a tour of Tate Britain with the lovely Susan Bracken as our guide. It’s pretty humbling to see a roomful of art that consists of 300-500 year old portrait paintings that total up to somewhere in the hundreds of millions of pounds. While it’s sorta hard to stay focused for two hours listening to a proper British lady talk about men’s fashion in the 1600’s, it’s still really awesome to have this chance to learn about English history from an amazing art historian.
After an intense practice session, I went home to prepare some wonderful twice-baked potatoes before hunkering down and watching the election coverage via Omar’s laptop and streaming live video from msnbc.com. When Obama was eventually declared the winner, it was one of the most surreal moments of my life. It’s one of those monumental moments in life that you will always remember. We cheered and Eric opened up a bottle of champagne (and almost took out a police officer with the cork when he shot it out the window). We stayed up for Obama’s speech, and went to bed sometime around 5:30am. Luckily I had nothing to do the next day.
Over the past few months, I’ve learned a lot about the feelings of the people in the UK and Europe towards the United States, and they have definitely not been happy. After watching both campaigns through this international lens, it made me realize that 1) we are an extremely powerful nation, in everything from military strength to globalization of our popular culture, and 2) there is way too much at stake to hand the office over to a candidate who may die soon and whose successor is an idiot. When Obama was declared the winner, I could, and can still, honestly say that I am finally proud to be an American again.
Monday, November 3rd
I didn’t know what I was talking about in Shakespeare today…big surprise. And I somehow didn’t get charged for having two pieces of music overdue for two weeks from the Westminster Music Library. Go me. However, I did nearly fail my first attempt at making homemade alfredo sauce. I bought sour cream instead of double cream. Oops. Somehow I still made it work. Probably thanks to the overpowering garlic flavor and loading on way too much parmesan reggiano cheese.
I woke up today not feeling great, maybe from Mr. Jameson or perhaps I’m getting sick, who knows. I made it through Brit Pop when we talked about synthesizer and Indie music of the 1980s. Then I went to my lesson where I didn’t play great. We had a discussion about how to approach new pieces of music: he told me to be confident in the fact that I have the ability to sight-read a new piece and get the main musical points across and to not go into it blindly trying to fix every note and run. I suppose that’s the next step of musicianship.
Later on, I went to see a production of Othello at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith. It wasn’t a very enjoyable performance because the acting wasn’t great and there was a lot of random modern dancing going on that didn’t really make any sense. However, afterwards there was free pizza and wine/juice in the lobby, so I stocked up on OJ and cheese slices. That was the best part of the show. We’re leaving for the Liverpool trip tomorrow morning at 7am, so to sleep I go.
Wednesday, November 5th
Today is Guy Fawkes Day in England, celebrating his attempt to carry out the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. It is also Hooray Barack Obama Won the Election Day, and we threw a party that celebrated both. There was a good amount of people that showed up, and it was really nice to have a fun night hosting everyone in our own flat. It was also great to get to know some other ICLC students that I haven’t hung out with yet.
Tuesday, November 4th
This wonderful day began with a tour of Tate Britain with the lovely Susan Bracken as our guide. It’s pretty humbling to see a roomful of art that consists of 300-500 year old portrait paintings that total up to somewhere in the hundreds of millions of pounds. While it’s sorta hard to stay focused for two hours listening to a proper British lady talk about men’s fashion in the 1600’s, it’s still really awesome to have this chance to learn about English history from an amazing art historian.
After an intense practice session, I went home to prepare some wonderful twice-baked potatoes before hunkering down and watching the election coverage via Omar’s laptop and streaming live video from msnbc.com. When Obama was eventually declared the winner, it was one of the most surreal moments of my life. It’s one of those monumental moments in life that you will always remember. We cheered and Eric opened up a bottle of champagne (and almost took out a police officer with the cork when he shot it out the window). We stayed up for Obama’s speech, and went to bed sometime around 5:30am. Luckily I had nothing to do the next day.
Over the past few months, I’ve learned a lot about the feelings of the people in the UK and Europe towards the United States, and they have definitely not been happy. After watching both campaigns through this international lens, it made me realize that 1) we are an extremely powerful nation, in everything from military strength to globalization of our popular culture, and 2) there is way too much at stake to hand the office over to a candidate who may die soon and whose successor is an idiot. When Obama was declared the winner, I could, and can still, honestly say that I am finally proud to be an American again.
Monday, November 3rd
I didn’t know what I was talking about in Shakespeare today…big surprise. And I somehow didn’t get charged for having two pieces of music overdue for two weeks from the Westminster Music Library. Go me. However, I did nearly fail my first attempt at making homemade alfredo sauce. I bought sour cream instead of double cream. Oops. Somehow I still made it work. Probably thanks to the overpowering garlic flavor and loading on way too much parmesan reggiano cheese.
Monday, 3 November 2008
Parisian Friends on Halloween
Saturday, November 1st—Sunday, November 2nd
This weekend was basically a recovery from Halloween. I think I only left the flat once on Saturday to get eggs to make my world-famous omelets. Omar was thoroughly impressed with my skillz. Sunday morning, Omar and I made our way down to Lewisham in South-East London (Zone 3) for a community band rehearsal at 10:30am. It took us an hour to get there, via two tube lines, a national rail train and 20 minutes of walking up a big hill. They rehearsed at this school next to a park, and as soon as we got there, we took a few moments to take in the fact that we weren’t in central London anymore, and that there still is such a thing as grassy fields where little kids and dogs roam free. The band wasn’t very big, probably only about 30 people, but they managed to rehearse in a room that was far too small. I made friends with a Scottish clarinetist and a few English low brass players. The other euphonium player is actually a trombonist (go figure) and is studying composition at the University of Greenwich in South-East London. The tuba player I spoke with was a golfer, and he told me about how he could have met Leonard Bernstein at the Guildhall school twenty-something years ago. After an hour and a half of rehearsing, the director (Col. Sanders, minus about 20 years…he even had a bow-tie) told everyone to take a ten minute break. Almost immediately, I heard plastic bags being opened and Leslie Lake (the spastic guy I spoke with in order to come to this rehearsal) said “Hey Mike, would you like a beer?” I looked at my watch, and it was 12:01pm. So I said “Well, sure, it’s about beer o’clock, sign me up.” Half the group downed a beer before going back for the second half of the rehearsal. We played gems such as Star Wars, West Side Story, excerpts from Carmen, part of Beethoven’s 6th Symphony (which had a transition into a Ponchielli piece…what was that conductor thinking) and some other less memorable ones. It was a great time, and we’ll have to decide whether or not to go to Ireland on Nov. 21st-23rd or to play in the concert with this band on Nov. 22nd.
Friday, October 31st
Today another clarinet-playing friend from IC, Erik, who is also studying in Paris came to meet up with us. Our goal was to find/make/acquire costumes for the Halloween party that night at a club south of the river. We had little luck going around to different stores looking for cheap zombie outfits/make-up. Then Omar and I had the great plan of going as Barack Obama/Joe Biden. Go us. We also hit up the Natural History Museum so Andrea could see the dinosaur exhibit, and got dinner at the Wargrave Arms again (fish & chips this time). Then we went back to our flat to get our costumes/make-up on. Laura spray-painted my hair white, and it looked ridiculously sketchy and absolutely terrible. Omar definitely had it a lot easier than I did.
We made our way down to the Swan in Stockwell. On the tube, there was a very drunk middle-aged man with a group of people, presumably coming from a party, and he thought I was Bill Clinton. I tried telling him I was Joe Biden, but he grabbed my head and said “Demons!!! I release you!!!” I can now say I was accosted by a drunk man on the tube in London. We got to the Swan, and they weren’t going to let Omar in for free because they didn’t believe his costume was real (after all, it was Omar in a shirt and tie). I came to the rescue as Omar’s running-mate, looking over-the-top sketchy, shaking the man’s hand while saying “Joe Biden! See ya on Tuesday!” The club was a lot of fun: loud music, a lot of sketchy people, plenty of bar staff to help us drink. We stayed until 4am, then made our way back to the flat via night buses. I got to bed at 6:30am just as the sun was coming up. Great night.
Thursday, October 30th
Today I had Brit Pop (talked about terrible 80’s pop groups/singers such as Kylie Minogue….blech) and a lesson. My lesson went pretty well, and it was a little awkward when I told him I may be having a lesson with Steven Mead. I tried explaining that it’s hard for a euphonium player to find a real euphonium player to study with, and that the tuba players at the Guildhall school were a bit standoffish. He explained that there’s a little bit different mentality between American and British brass players: Americans tend to be very hard-working and motivated to always improve, while British players just want to play the gig and drink afterwards. I suppose that makes sense.
Later that night we went to a gig for Brit Pop at the Jazz Café in Camden to see Sly & Robbie, the infamous drum & bass duo who have played with everyone big in the music business. It was pretty good for what it was (at least 2 hours of reggae music) but the amps were cranked up waayyyy too much for such a small venue. My ears were throbbing, as were Omar’s, so we decided to leave and get our drink on. We made it to Weatherspoon’s pub just before they closed, and I got a great pint of some pretty dark lager for 2 pounds. Awesome. Then they made us down it and kicked us out. Not so awesome, but it’s OK. We’ll go earlier next time.
Wednesday, October 29th
Today our clarinet-playing friend Andrea, who graduated IC last year, came to visit from Paris. She got in at 7:30am, but luckily I wasn’t woken up until 9. She spent the day with Andrew and his parents while Omar and I practiced. Later that night, Andrew, Andrea and I went to the pub around the corner from our flat (Wargrave Arms) for some dinner (bangers & mash!) and a pint. After that, we went to a blues bar “Ain’t Nothin’ But…” and it was a lot smaller than I would imagine for it’s reputation. It was really crammed inside, and when I got a call from Kim, I took a few steps outside so I could hear her. Within 5 minutes, a line formed outside the door and the giant bouncer guy wasn’t letting anyone in, including me. So I spent the next 20 minutes standing in a line outside making friends with some angry Brits. After Andrea and Andrew came out, we went to ISH for a few drinks then to Weatherspoons pub near Baker Street to meet up with Omar and Eric. Four pubs in one night, not too bad.
This weekend was basically a recovery from Halloween. I think I only left the flat once on Saturday to get eggs to make my world-famous omelets. Omar was thoroughly impressed with my skillz. Sunday morning, Omar and I made our way down to Lewisham in South-East London (Zone 3) for a community band rehearsal at 10:30am. It took us an hour to get there, via two tube lines, a national rail train and 20 minutes of walking up a big hill. They rehearsed at this school next to a park, and as soon as we got there, we took a few moments to take in the fact that we weren’t in central London anymore, and that there still is such a thing as grassy fields where little kids and dogs roam free. The band wasn’t very big, probably only about 30 people, but they managed to rehearse in a room that was far too small. I made friends with a Scottish clarinetist and a few English low brass players. The other euphonium player is actually a trombonist (go figure) and is studying composition at the University of Greenwich in South-East London. The tuba player I spoke with was a golfer, and he told me about how he could have met Leonard Bernstein at the Guildhall school twenty-something years ago. After an hour and a half of rehearsing, the director (Col. Sanders, minus about 20 years…he even had a bow-tie) told everyone to take a ten minute break. Almost immediately, I heard plastic bags being opened and Leslie Lake (the spastic guy I spoke with in order to come to this rehearsal) said “Hey Mike, would you like a beer?” I looked at my watch, and it was 12:01pm. So I said “Well, sure, it’s about beer o’clock, sign me up.” Half the group downed a beer before going back for the second half of the rehearsal. We played gems such as Star Wars, West Side Story, excerpts from Carmen, part of Beethoven’s 6th Symphony (which had a transition into a Ponchielli piece…what was that conductor thinking) and some other less memorable ones. It was a great time, and we’ll have to decide whether or not to go to Ireland on Nov. 21st-23rd or to play in the concert with this band on Nov. 22nd.
Friday, October 31st
Today another clarinet-playing friend from IC, Erik, who is also studying in Paris came to meet up with us. Our goal was to find/make/acquire costumes for the Halloween party that night at a club south of the river. We had little luck going around to different stores looking for cheap zombie outfits/make-up. Then Omar and I had the great plan of going as Barack Obama/Joe Biden. Go us. We also hit up the Natural History Museum so Andrea could see the dinosaur exhibit, and got dinner at the Wargrave Arms again (fish & chips this time). Then we went back to our flat to get our costumes/make-up on. Laura spray-painted my hair white, and it looked ridiculously sketchy and absolutely terrible. Omar definitely had it a lot easier than I did.
We made our way down to the Swan in Stockwell. On the tube, there was a very drunk middle-aged man with a group of people, presumably coming from a party, and he thought I was Bill Clinton. I tried telling him I was Joe Biden, but he grabbed my head and said “Demons!!! I release you!!!” I can now say I was accosted by a drunk man on the tube in London. We got to the Swan, and they weren’t going to let Omar in for free because they didn’t believe his costume was real (after all, it was Omar in a shirt and tie). I came to the rescue as Omar’s running-mate, looking over-the-top sketchy, shaking the man’s hand while saying “Joe Biden! See ya on Tuesday!” The club was a lot of fun: loud music, a lot of sketchy people, plenty of bar staff to help us drink. We stayed until 4am, then made our way back to the flat via night buses. I got to bed at 6:30am just as the sun was coming up. Great night.
Thursday, October 30th
Today I had Brit Pop (talked about terrible 80’s pop groups/singers such as Kylie Minogue….blech) and a lesson. My lesson went pretty well, and it was a little awkward when I told him I may be having a lesson with Steven Mead. I tried explaining that it’s hard for a euphonium player to find a real euphonium player to study with, and that the tuba players at the Guildhall school were a bit standoffish. He explained that there’s a little bit different mentality between American and British brass players: Americans tend to be very hard-working and motivated to always improve, while British players just want to play the gig and drink afterwards. I suppose that makes sense.
Later that night we went to a gig for Brit Pop at the Jazz Café in Camden to see Sly & Robbie, the infamous drum & bass duo who have played with everyone big in the music business. It was pretty good for what it was (at least 2 hours of reggae music) but the amps were cranked up waayyyy too much for such a small venue. My ears were throbbing, as were Omar’s, so we decided to leave and get our drink on. We made it to Weatherspoon’s pub just before they closed, and I got a great pint of some pretty dark lager for 2 pounds. Awesome. Then they made us down it and kicked us out. Not so awesome, but it’s OK. We’ll go earlier next time.
Wednesday, October 29th
Today our clarinet-playing friend Andrea, who graduated IC last year, came to visit from Paris. She got in at 7:30am, but luckily I wasn’t woken up until 9. She spent the day with Andrew and his parents while Omar and I practiced. Later that night, Andrew, Andrea and I went to the pub around the corner from our flat (Wargrave Arms) for some dinner (bangers & mash!) and a pint. After that, we went to a blues bar “Ain’t Nothin’ But…” and it was a lot smaller than I would imagine for it’s reputation. It was really crammed inside, and when I got a call from Kim, I took a few steps outside so I could hear her. Within 5 minutes, a line formed outside the door and the giant bouncer guy wasn’t letting anyone in, including me. So I spent the next 20 minutes standing in a line outside making friends with some angry Brits. After Andrea and Andrew came out, we went to ISH for a few drinks then to Weatherspoons pub near Baker Street to meet up with Omar and Eric. Four pubs in one night, not too bad.
Tuesday, 28 October 2008
Ska Concerts, Brass Playing and Cooking Shows
Monday, October 27th—Tuesday, October 28th
These days consisted of practicing a ton, doing a little bit of homework and hanging out with Andrew’s parents who are in town for a few days. On Tuesday night we went to a taping of the British cooking show “Daily Cooks Challenge” with Anthony Worrall Thompson, which was basically a laid-back version of Iron Chef where two chefs compete in three sections (making a dish in 5 minutes, making a dish with a 75-cent budget, and making a dish using an ingredient chosen by the celebrity guest judge). It was a lot of fun to be part of a live taping, even if we couldn’t taste the food. The guy who would talk between sections of taping, Miles, was trying to open the audience up and get us laughing while we waited. Omar randomly got roped into explaining how to make a green curry dish, and although his recipe didn’t really make any sense, he beat the other lady who, when asked for a recipe for crab cakes, told everyone to buy them at the grocery store and heat them up in the oven. Good job, Omar.
Also, Tuesday night was the first snowfall of the year. Apparently it’s not supposed to snow in London until late December/early January, but it definitely snowed tonight, enough for a light coating for a few hours, then melting into slush. This is much less intense than New Jersey, where they have 5 inches of snow and 50mph winds, knocking down trees and downing power all over the place. Sometimes I miss America, but tonight was not one of those times.
Saturday, October 25th—Sunday, October 26th
This weekend there was a Brass Festival at the Guildhall School of Music and Dance, featuring the German Brass (a group of 10 brass players who are phenomenal at their instruments and play together so well it’s hard to believe that it’s really them playing). The first day consisted of workshops and performances by students at the Guildhall school. This school is mainly orchestral, meaning the euphonium is seen as a “doubler’s instrument” (something that a trombone or tuba player should learn so that they can play the orchestral repertoire that calls for it, and nothing more). The tuba studio consisted of 6 students, all great players, and their professor, Patrick Harrild, is the principal tubist of the London Symphony Orchestra. I really liked the trombone ensemble performance and workshop because the teacher, Simon Wills, was so crazy and had a great attitude towards playing brass instruments. He said it’s not all about being a superhero, it’s about relaxing and making everything easier on oneself, and having the mentality that things aren’t as difficult as they seem. Later on that evening, there was the performance by the German Brass, which blew Omar, Erin and myself away. Omar almost cried after the first piece because Matthias Hofs, 1st trumpet player, is such a virtuoso and makes everything seem effortless. They played baroque/classical/romantic music on the first half, and jazz/pop tunes on the second half from “Around the World.” At the end of the concert, they played “The Peanut Vendor” song, starting out with the bass trombone player (principal of Berlin Philharmonic), then the two horn players coming out with maracas (there was a story about how God banished them to play percussion instruments until Judgement Day), then the other two trombonists, then the trumpet players coming out with slide trumpets (very small trombones) in continually smaller sizes, and finally the last trumpet player comes out with a trombone the size of a Christmas ornament, and he played it. I don’t know how that’s physically possible, but he did it. What an amazing performance.
After that, on the walk back, I thought long and hard about my future as a euphonium player. I didn’t really fit in at the Guildhall school because I was solely a euphonium player, and the tuba professor made a comment about how hard it is for euphonium players to make it professionally in the world today. I realized that I have only had one 20-minute lesson with a real euphonium player in my career (the other teachers have either been tuba or trombone players). As soon as I got back to the flat, I sent Steven Mead (world-renowned euphonium virtuoso who teaches at Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester) an email about the prospects of having a lesson. I figured nothing would come of it.
The next day there were master classes at the Guildhall school with members of the German Brass. They were educational and interesting, but everyone seemed a bit stand-offish to the fact that I was a euphonium player, and I left the school feeling really down about my playing. When I got back, I checked my email and found a response from Steven Mead saying that it would be possible for us to have at least one, possibly two, lessons before I go back to the states. This made my weekend, and possibly my life. It was great to hear all of that amazing brass playing this weekend, to hear the British style of playing and to hear students my age and younger playing their balls off of their instruments, but I don’t fit at that school. My drive to play was kick started from hearing this playing and from realizing that hopefully in a few weeks, one of the greatest euphonium players on the planet will listen to me. I’ve got a lot of work to do before then.
Friday, October 24th
I had a lesson today and it was awesome. I played through the 3rd movement of Vladamir Cosma’s Euphonium Concerto, which is ridiculous, and I nailed about 90% of it somehow. I was really surprised with how well I’ve played since taking 10 days off. I guess buzzing on the mouthpiece during breaks really helps keep your chops up.
Thursday, October 23rd
Tonight we went to a gig at the Scala (not the opera house in Milan, but a club near King’s Cross) for our Brit Pop class. We saw a couple of bands: RBG’s (a quartet of girls playing keytars jumping around stage), Mr. B (a banjulele (banjo and ukulele) player who sang hip hop songs using the Queen’s English, “from whence it came”) and Emperial Leisure (a British ska/punk/rap group who released a CD recently). It was an awesome concert, especially the final act, because they were so over the top that it was impossible to not have fun. And it was really hip music too. Andrew tried to crowd surf but that failed miserably. Kind of not surprising.
Monday, October 20th—Wednesday, October 22nd
These days were spent recuperating after the Italy trip. Basically we did a lot of homework and practicing to catch-up. For my architecture class, we went to the National Portrait Gallery at Trafalgar Square to check out excellent paintings from the Flemish artists and others from the Renaissance. I thought our teacher was going to kill the masses of schoolchildren that were running around the exhibit unsupervised. She used phrases such as “This is quite unfortunate” and “Oh dear me” which are pretty high up there on her list of negative phrases. It was still great to see amazing art.
These days consisted of practicing a ton, doing a little bit of homework and hanging out with Andrew’s parents who are in town for a few days. On Tuesday night we went to a taping of the British cooking show “Daily Cooks Challenge” with Anthony Worrall Thompson, which was basically a laid-back version of Iron Chef where two chefs compete in three sections (making a dish in 5 minutes, making a dish with a 75-cent budget, and making a dish using an ingredient chosen by the celebrity guest judge). It was a lot of fun to be part of a live taping, even if we couldn’t taste the food. The guy who would talk between sections of taping, Miles, was trying to open the audience up and get us laughing while we waited. Omar randomly got roped into explaining how to make a green curry dish, and although his recipe didn’t really make any sense, he beat the other lady who, when asked for a recipe for crab cakes, told everyone to buy them at the grocery store and heat them up in the oven. Good job, Omar.
Also, Tuesday night was the first snowfall of the year. Apparently it’s not supposed to snow in London until late December/early January, but it definitely snowed tonight, enough for a light coating for a few hours, then melting into slush. This is much less intense than New Jersey, where they have 5 inches of snow and 50mph winds, knocking down trees and downing power all over the place. Sometimes I miss America, but tonight was not one of those times.
Saturday, October 25th—Sunday, October 26th
This weekend there was a Brass Festival at the Guildhall School of Music and Dance, featuring the German Brass (a group of 10 brass players who are phenomenal at their instruments and play together so well it’s hard to believe that it’s really them playing). The first day consisted of workshops and performances by students at the Guildhall school. This school is mainly orchestral, meaning the euphonium is seen as a “doubler’s instrument” (something that a trombone or tuba player should learn so that they can play the orchestral repertoire that calls for it, and nothing more). The tuba studio consisted of 6 students, all great players, and their professor, Patrick Harrild, is the principal tubist of the London Symphony Orchestra. I really liked the trombone ensemble performance and workshop because the teacher, Simon Wills, was so crazy and had a great attitude towards playing brass instruments. He said it’s not all about being a superhero, it’s about relaxing and making everything easier on oneself, and having the mentality that things aren’t as difficult as they seem. Later on that evening, there was the performance by the German Brass, which blew Omar, Erin and myself away. Omar almost cried after the first piece because Matthias Hofs, 1st trumpet player, is such a virtuoso and makes everything seem effortless. They played baroque/classical/romantic music on the first half, and jazz/pop tunes on the second half from “Around the World.” At the end of the concert, they played “The Peanut Vendor” song, starting out with the bass trombone player (principal of Berlin Philharmonic), then the two horn players coming out with maracas (there was a story about how God banished them to play percussion instruments until Judgement Day), then the other two trombonists, then the trumpet players coming out with slide trumpets (very small trombones) in continually smaller sizes, and finally the last trumpet player comes out with a trombone the size of a Christmas ornament, and he played it. I don’t know how that’s physically possible, but he did it. What an amazing performance.
After that, on the walk back, I thought long and hard about my future as a euphonium player. I didn’t really fit in at the Guildhall school because I was solely a euphonium player, and the tuba professor made a comment about how hard it is for euphonium players to make it professionally in the world today. I realized that I have only had one 20-minute lesson with a real euphonium player in my career (the other teachers have either been tuba or trombone players). As soon as I got back to the flat, I sent Steven Mead (world-renowned euphonium virtuoso who teaches at Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester) an email about the prospects of having a lesson. I figured nothing would come of it.
The next day there were master classes at the Guildhall school with members of the German Brass. They were educational and interesting, but everyone seemed a bit stand-offish to the fact that I was a euphonium player, and I left the school feeling really down about my playing. When I got back, I checked my email and found a response from Steven Mead saying that it would be possible for us to have at least one, possibly two, lessons before I go back to the states. This made my weekend, and possibly my life. It was great to hear all of that amazing brass playing this weekend, to hear the British style of playing and to hear students my age and younger playing their balls off of their instruments, but I don’t fit at that school. My drive to play was kick started from hearing this playing and from realizing that hopefully in a few weeks, one of the greatest euphonium players on the planet will listen to me. I’ve got a lot of work to do before then.
Friday, October 24th
I had a lesson today and it was awesome. I played through the 3rd movement of Vladamir Cosma’s Euphonium Concerto, which is ridiculous, and I nailed about 90% of it somehow. I was really surprised with how well I’ve played since taking 10 days off. I guess buzzing on the mouthpiece during breaks really helps keep your chops up.
Thursday, October 23rd
Tonight we went to a gig at the Scala (not the opera house in Milan, but a club near King’s Cross) for our Brit Pop class. We saw a couple of bands: RBG’s (a quartet of girls playing keytars jumping around stage), Mr. B (a banjulele (banjo and ukulele) player who sang hip hop songs using the Queen’s English, “from whence it came”) and Emperial Leisure (a British ska/punk/rap group who released a CD recently). It was an awesome concert, especially the final act, because they were so over the top that it was impossible to not have fun. And it was really hip music too. Andrew tried to crowd surf but that failed miserably. Kind of not surprising.
Monday, October 20th—Wednesday, October 22nd
These days were spent recuperating after the Italy trip. Basically we did a lot of homework and practicing to catch-up. For my architecture class, we went to the National Portrait Gallery at Trafalgar Square to check out excellent paintings from the Flemish artists and others from the Renaissance. I thought our teacher was going to kill the masses of schoolchildren that were running around the exhibit unsupervised. She used phrases such as “This is quite unfortunate” and “Oh dear me” which are pretty high up there on her list of negative phrases. It was still great to see amazing art.
Tour of Italy!
It would make sense to have this one in chronological order. So here goes:
Friday, October 10th—Saturday, October 11th
Palermo, Sicily
Today we start on our 10-day trek of Italy. We (Andrew, Omar, Laura and me) caught our 3:10am bus to Stansted, and I pulled an all-star move going through security by leaving a lot of water in my Nalgene bottle. I got the excellent experience of going through security twice. Omar’s cheap camouflaged backpack started to fall apart on its trip through the security scanning machine. What a great start! Our flight to Palermo was fine, mainly due to the fact that we slept the whole time. I woke up once to see the mountains from above the clouds, and that was awesome. When we landed, it was 75 degrees and sunny. Boo-yah.
We hopped on a bus headed into town, and the driver was a crazy short Italian man who didn’t speak much English, and it was hilarious when Laura started speaking French instead of Italian to him. We don’t know much Italian, but we knew enough to get by. Once we were into town, we found our hostel which was down a random sketchy side street with a bunch of guys hanging out on their scooters. Our hostel turned out to be really nice, so we dropped off our stuff and went out on a trek about the city. We found a really awesome (and cheap!) “pizza” place (looked like more of a fast-food-type place) and the little pizza things were amazing. We stuffed ourselves for about 2 euro each. Then we went walking down to the water to check out the Mediterranean, and woah it was blue. We hung out on some rocks for a while and took some pictures, then checked out a villa nearby with beautiful gardens and a random courtyard area with a few old-style performance stages (not really sure what was up with that). After we wore ourselves out, we walked back up to our hostel and slept for a few hours before dinner.
The lady at the desk recommended a restaurant down a short ways from our hostel, so we headed out with our hopes high for real Sicilian food. The restaurant was this charming little place, very rustic-looking and full of locals. We had a lot of bread, wine, and awesome service. I ate some antipasta (slices of cheese and salami), noodles in meat sauce and potatoes (meat sauce meaning chunks of beef, similar to a stew, perfectly tender), then grilled swordfish stuffed with pine nut and raisins. What an amazing dinner. And all for under 20 euro. We were very happy, so we got a bottle of wine on the walk back and enjoyed it on our balcony at our hostel.
The next morning, we woke up, checked out of the hostel, went to the train station to buy our tickets for that night’s journey, then set out to see more of the city. We walked through some markets full of giant fish, chicken, beef, dogs…it was crazy. Probably not up to health code either. We also saw a museum with the “Palermo Stone” and a good deal of prehistoric drawings (caveman carvings). Along the way, we saw some beautiful churches and side streets with crazy old Italians and their clotheslines. Palermo is not a very touristy city, so it was a great chance to ease into the Italian way of life.
That night at 830pm we hopped onto a train to Messina (on the Eastern edge of Sicily), then changed trains at 1130pm to get to Naples. Soon after we boarded the second train, it went down some tracks for a few hundred meters then loaded onto a ferry boat to cross over to the mainland. What a bizarre experience, being on a train that’s loaded onto a boat...that was a huge boat. It was also a sleeper train (I felt like Harry Potter) so I got a little bit of sleep that night…probably about 3 hours.
Sunday, October 12th
Naples/Capri
We arrived in Naples (Napoli if you’re Italian) at 6:30am, and it was like a scene from the movie Mad Max: sun just coming up over a post-apocalyptic city of trash. That was a very dirty city. Maybe it had to do with the fact that it’s still mainly run by the mob. Regardless, it was a very bizarre experience, mainly because it was too early to check into our hostel and we didn’t really have an agenda. So, we hopped on a boat to the island of Capri (45 minutes off the coast from Naples) and spent most of the day there. What a beautiful place: random mountainous island town in the middle of the Mediterranean. We took a boat to the Blue Grado (a little cove on the other side of the island where the water lights up to an electric blue caused by weird reflecting of sunlight). Then we ate dinner (not nearly as good as Sicily, mainly because it was very touristy at Capri) and went up to the top of the mountain to see the sunset and the little shops up there. Later, we caught a boat back to Naples and crashed at our hostel.
Monday, October 13th—Tuesday, October 14th
Rome
On Monday, we caught a train that arrived in Rome at 3pm. After we found our hostel, we met up with Eric and Ilyse (our flatmate and his girlfriend) who gave us some pointers on what to see and where to go. We immediately went over to St. Peter’s Basilica, then found some dinner (it was OK, nothing compared to Sicily) and saw the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, the Hadrian Temple and the Pantheon. It was great to walk around a city with a ton of tourists and not feel so weird about being American.
The next day we took a tour of the Vatican Museum (including the Sisteen Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica), which was absolutely amazing. Michaelangelo’s work in the chapel is breathtaking and humbling. Right after that we headed to the Coliseum, which was just as amazing. It was also great to be part of a tour group for once and have information blabbed to us instead of us reading it from books and pamphlets. It’s so crazy to think that the Romans built that thousands of years, and the amount of technology they had back then, like a retractable roof, lift systems under the floor…woof. After that, we tried to get into the Roman Forum (archaeological grounds with Roman ruins) but it was closed.
So we set out on our trek to find our hostel out in Ciampino (a town outside of Rome near the airport for our flight the following morning). We got on the wrong train which went 3 stops past our intended stop, so we had to back track and met 3 nice girls from Amsterdam who told us about the wonders of their city. Once we arrived in Ciampino, we hopped on a bus and immediately thought we were going to die because the driver was absolutely nuts. He was going about 60 mph down a rather busy city street…not good. The last stop of the bus was right at our hostel, which was way out down a random access road and in the middle of nowhere. There was even an airplane in the parking lot of our hostel. We asked the guy working the desk where to go to eat since it was 9pm and we hadn’t eaten dinner yet. He told us about a restaurant “about 300 meters walk.” It was well over a mile, walking by a nunnery transformed from an airplane hangar, gas stations and soccer fields. We came upon the Italian steakhouse, and when we walked in it was obvious that we did not really belong there. However, our waiter came over and was very happy to take care of us and try his hand at English. This was probably our second best meal (right behind Sicily), and I had risotto and bruschetta, and a piece limoncello cake. Amazing. We left there extremely happy and ready for the extremely sketchy walk back to our hostel. I got about 3 hours of sleep that night before our 6:30am flight to Venice.
Wednesday, October 15th—Thursday, October 16th
Venice
We arrived at the airport around 11am and took a train out onto the island of Venice. We found our bed & breakfast, down a random side street again, but this time it was more charming because it was a city full of canals and gondolas and no cars/traffic. It was actually kind of strange to not have to look for traffic crossing the street as we only had to walk over a bridge every time we’d come up on a canal. There were so many shops full of masks (carnival of Venice) and glass (the island of Murano off of the coast which is famous for its glassmaking). We walked around the city and saw St. Marks Cathedral and Square, a bunch of tiny streets and little shops. Then we went to a grocery store to buy some food to make that night—Italian sausage, penne, alfredo sauce and garlic bread. Our B&B had a full kitchen to use, and we did. It was an excellent dinner, and very cheap. That night we went to the Venice Jazz Club to see a Brazilian trio playing some bossa nova. We bought tickets earlier in the day for 20 euro each which got us a reserved table and our first drink. It was a great night to hear some awesome music as it had been quite some time since we’d been to a concert. Since it was obvious we had to keep getting drinks when we were there, we ordered a bottle of the house white that actually had the Venice Jazz Club label on it…not great wine, but it was good enough to help us enjoy the night. It was a very relaxing ending to a great day.
The next day we walked around the city some more, did some shopping, found a historic instrument exhibit in a random church, and checked out the Peggy Guggenheim museum to look at some Picasso. That night we had dinner by our B&B, which wasn’t in a very touristy part of the city, meaning it was cheaper. Still not as good as Sicily, but it was still a good ending to our time in Venice.
Friday, October 17th—Sunday, October 19th
Milan
We caught a train to Milan and got in sometime around 3pm. We found the hostel (called the ‘Bed & Bed’) and set out to see some of the city. The first major thing was the Duomo, a giant church that had started to be built in the 9th century. It was gigantic, and extremely gothic. We decided to come back the next day to take an audio tour. After the Duomo, we wandered around the city and happened upon a restaurant by our hostel that didn’t have English translations on the menu (always a good sign) and was very cheap. I ordered four cheese penne and Milanese chicken (basically a big hunk of breaded chicken) and it was all fantastic. Laura ordered something called ‘carne cruda.’ We weren’t sure what ‘cruda’ meant, but we knew ‘carne’ was meat so she went for it. When her dish came, it was literally a platter of raw ground beef with olive oil and basil. She started giggling and drew the attention of the entire restaurant, including our non-English-speaking waiter who came over to see what was wrong. Omar tried helping out by saying “caliente” wanting him to cook it. He eventually got the idea and had the chef cook up the ground beef for Laura. Despite the mix-up on Laura’s part, it was a great dinner.
The next day we met two Americans studying in Rome for the semester who were in Milan for the weekend, and they told us the hot places to go that they heard about. We checked out La Scala (very famous opera house) and I noticed a sign for a concert that night including Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 and Also Sprach Zarathustra (more commonly known as the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey), and tickets were only 5 euro. We researched a bit about that and found out we had to go 2 hours early to get in line, and decided to do it. In the mean time, we had lunch by a giant castle and hung out in a beautiful park. Laura and I had hot chocolate, which was literally melted chocolate in a little cup. The plastic spoon they gave us would stand up on its own in the cup because it was so thick and delicious.
After that, we took a tour of the Duomo with an audio guide and spent about 2 hours walking around inside. It consists of 52 giant columns representing the 52 weeks of the year and beautiful stained glass windows depicting biblical stories. The relic held there is supposedly a nail from Jesus’ cross. It’s so beautiful inside, and to be surrounded by all of that history was extremely humbling. And it made me happy that I knew a relatively decent amount from just looking at the place (courtesy of my British Art & Architecture class). Then we went back to the hostel for a short bit to change rooms and head back to get the tickets for the concert. We met up with the American girls while Andrew went to the 5:30pm mass at the Duomo, and he said the organ sound was so big and full that it had a 10-second reverb.
We grabbed a quick dinner before the concert and I got us slightly lost on the way back to La Scala (oops). We got to our seats and realized that there was a group of pre-teen schoolchildren in front of us. Laura freaked out a little because they were a bit rambunctious, but hey, we were at La Scala. We couldn’t really see the stage from our seats so we stood most of the time, looking over the children. The Brahms was great and the pianist was amazing. Then Also Sprach was just…epic. I’ve never heard that piece live, and holy crap, what a difference. It was basically a perfect end to our tour of Italy.
After the concert I had the best gelato yet (double chocolate fudge mousse stuff, chocolate chip and “cookies”) then passed out. We easily caught our flight the next morning and arrived back in London at 11am. All in all, we did really well for a small group of poor college students traveling around a beautiful country where we don’t really know the language.
A few things I’ve learned:
- Everyone is in a big damn hurry, especially the ones in cars and on scooters, and they don’t have lanes on the roads or stop-lights at cross walks, so you just start walking and hope they stop
- The Italians are very aggressive sellers. Especially the creepy guys with the flowers who would just walk into a restaurant and push flowers in your face with a bizarre half-smile until they got the hint that you didn’t want them there.
-A good way to judge a restaurant is whether or not it has any translations on the menu, and also if there are any tourists inside. If not, you’re good to go.
Friday, October 10th—Saturday, October 11th
Palermo, Sicily
Today we start on our 10-day trek of Italy. We (Andrew, Omar, Laura and me) caught our 3:10am bus to Stansted, and I pulled an all-star move going through security by leaving a lot of water in my Nalgene bottle. I got the excellent experience of going through security twice. Omar’s cheap camouflaged backpack started to fall apart on its trip through the security scanning machine. What a great start! Our flight to Palermo was fine, mainly due to the fact that we slept the whole time. I woke up once to see the mountains from above the clouds, and that was awesome. When we landed, it was 75 degrees and sunny. Boo-yah.
We hopped on a bus headed into town, and the driver was a crazy short Italian man who didn’t speak much English, and it was hilarious when Laura started speaking French instead of Italian to him. We don’t know much Italian, but we knew enough to get by. Once we were into town, we found our hostel which was down a random sketchy side street with a bunch of guys hanging out on their scooters. Our hostel turned out to be really nice, so we dropped off our stuff and went out on a trek about the city. We found a really awesome (and cheap!) “pizza” place (looked like more of a fast-food-type place) and the little pizza things were amazing. We stuffed ourselves for about 2 euro each. Then we went walking down to the water to check out the Mediterranean, and woah it was blue. We hung out on some rocks for a while and took some pictures, then checked out a villa nearby with beautiful gardens and a random courtyard area with a few old-style performance stages (not really sure what was up with that). After we wore ourselves out, we walked back up to our hostel and slept for a few hours before dinner.
The lady at the desk recommended a restaurant down a short ways from our hostel, so we headed out with our hopes high for real Sicilian food. The restaurant was this charming little place, very rustic-looking and full of locals. We had a lot of bread, wine, and awesome service. I ate some antipasta (slices of cheese and salami), noodles in meat sauce and potatoes (meat sauce meaning chunks of beef, similar to a stew, perfectly tender), then grilled swordfish stuffed with pine nut and raisins. What an amazing dinner. And all for under 20 euro. We were very happy, so we got a bottle of wine on the walk back and enjoyed it on our balcony at our hostel.
The next morning, we woke up, checked out of the hostel, went to the train station to buy our tickets for that night’s journey, then set out to see more of the city. We walked through some markets full of giant fish, chicken, beef, dogs…it was crazy. Probably not up to health code either. We also saw a museum with the “Palermo Stone” and a good deal of prehistoric drawings (caveman carvings). Along the way, we saw some beautiful churches and side streets with crazy old Italians and their clotheslines. Palermo is not a very touristy city, so it was a great chance to ease into the Italian way of life.
That night at 830pm we hopped onto a train to Messina (on the Eastern edge of Sicily), then changed trains at 1130pm to get to Naples. Soon after we boarded the second train, it went down some tracks for a few hundred meters then loaded onto a ferry boat to cross over to the mainland. What a bizarre experience, being on a train that’s loaded onto a boat...that was a huge boat. It was also a sleeper train (I felt like Harry Potter) so I got a little bit of sleep that night…probably about 3 hours.
Sunday, October 12th
Naples/Capri
We arrived in Naples (Napoli if you’re Italian) at 6:30am, and it was like a scene from the movie Mad Max: sun just coming up over a post-apocalyptic city of trash. That was a very dirty city. Maybe it had to do with the fact that it’s still mainly run by the mob. Regardless, it was a very bizarre experience, mainly because it was too early to check into our hostel and we didn’t really have an agenda. So, we hopped on a boat to the island of Capri (45 minutes off the coast from Naples) and spent most of the day there. What a beautiful place: random mountainous island town in the middle of the Mediterranean. We took a boat to the Blue Grado (a little cove on the other side of the island where the water lights up to an electric blue caused by weird reflecting of sunlight). Then we ate dinner (not nearly as good as Sicily, mainly because it was very touristy at Capri) and went up to the top of the mountain to see the sunset and the little shops up there. Later, we caught a boat back to Naples and crashed at our hostel.
Monday, October 13th—Tuesday, October 14th
Rome
On Monday, we caught a train that arrived in Rome at 3pm. After we found our hostel, we met up with Eric and Ilyse (our flatmate and his girlfriend) who gave us some pointers on what to see and where to go. We immediately went over to St. Peter’s Basilica, then found some dinner (it was OK, nothing compared to Sicily) and saw the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, the Hadrian Temple and the Pantheon. It was great to walk around a city with a ton of tourists and not feel so weird about being American.
The next day we took a tour of the Vatican Museum (including the Sisteen Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica), which was absolutely amazing. Michaelangelo’s work in the chapel is breathtaking and humbling. Right after that we headed to the Coliseum, which was just as amazing. It was also great to be part of a tour group for once and have information blabbed to us instead of us reading it from books and pamphlets. It’s so crazy to think that the Romans built that thousands of years, and the amount of technology they had back then, like a retractable roof, lift systems under the floor…woof. After that, we tried to get into the Roman Forum (archaeological grounds with Roman ruins) but it was closed.
So we set out on our trek to find our hostel out in Ciampino (a town outside of Rome near the airport for our flight the following morning). We got on the wrong train which went 3 stops past our intended stop, so we had to back track and met 3 nice girls from Amsterdam who told us about the wonders of their city. Once we arrived in Ciampino, we hopped on a bus and immediately thought we were going to die because the driver was absolutely nuts. He was going about 60 mph down a rather busy city street…not good. The last stop of the bus was right at our hostel, which was way out down a random access road and in the middle of nowhere. There was even an airplane in the parking lot of our hostel. We asked the guy working the desk where to go to eat since it was 9pm and we hadn’t eaten dinner yet. He told us about a restaurant “about 300 meters walk.” It was well over a mile, walking by a nunnery transformed from an airplane hangar, gas stations and soccer fields. We came upon the Italian steakhouse, and when we walked in it was obvious that we did not really belong there. However, our waiter came over and was very happy to take care of us and try his hand at English. This was probably our second best meal (right behind Sicily), and I had risotto and bruschetta, and a piece limoncello cake. Amazing. We left there extremely happy and ready for the extremely sketchy walk back to our hostel. I got about 3 hours of sleep that night before our 6:30am flight to Venice.
Wednesday, October 15th—Thursday, October 16th
Venice
We arrived at the airport around 11am and took a train out onto the island of Venice. We found our bed & breakfast, down a random side street again, but this time it was more charming because it was a city full of canals and gondolas and no cars/traffic. It was actually kind of strange to not have to look for traffic crossing the street as we only had to walk over a bridge every time we’d come up on a canal. There were so many shops full of masks (carnival of Venice) and glass (the island of Murano off of the coast which is famous for its glassmaking). We walked around the city and saw St. Marks Cathedral and Square, a bunch of tiny streets and little shops. Then we went to a grocery store to buy some food to make that night—Italian sausage, penne, alfredo sauce and garlic bread. Our B&B had a full kitchen to use, and we did. It was an excellent dinner, and very cheap. That night we went to the Venice Jazz Club to see a Brazilian trio playing some bossa nova. We bought tickets earlier in the day for 20 euro each which got us a reserved table and our first drink. It was a great night to hear some awesome music as it had been quite some time since we’d been to a concert. Since it was obvious we had to keep getting drinks when we were there, we ordered a bottle of the house white that actually had the Venice Jazz Club label on it…not great wine, but it was good enough to help us enjoy the night. It was a very relaxing ending to a great day.
The next day we walked around the city some more, did some shopping, found a historic instrument exhibit in a random church, and checked out the Peggy Guggenheim museum to look at some Picasso. That night we had dinner by our B&B, which wasn’t in a very touristy part of the city, meaning it was cheaper. Still not as good as Sicily, but it was still a good ending to our time in Venice.
Friday, October 17th—Sunday, October 19th
Milan
We caught a train to Milan and got in sometime around 3pm. We found the hostel (called the ‘Bed & Bed’) and set out to see some of the city. The first major thing was the Duomo, a giant church that had started to be built in the 9th century. It was gigantic, and extremely gothic. We decided to come back the next day to take an audio tour. After the Duomo, we wandered around the city and happened upon a restaurant by our hostel that didn’t have English translations on the menu (always a good sign) and was very cheap. I ordered four cheese penne and Milanese chicken (basically a big hunk of breaded chicken) and it was all fantastic. Laura ordered something called ‘carne cruda.’ We weren’t sure what ‘cruda’ meant, but we knew ‘carne’ was meat so she went for it. When her dish came, it was literally a platter of raw ground beef with olive oil and basil. She started giggling and drew the attention of the entire restaurant, including our non-English-speaking waiter who came over to see what was wrong. Omar tried helping out by saying “caliente” wanting him to cook it. He eventually got the idea and had the chef cook up the ground beef for Laura. Despite the mix-up on Laura’s part, it was a great dinner.
The next day we met two Americans studying in Rome for the semester who were in Milan for the weekend, and they told us the hot places to go that they heard about. We checked out La Scala (very famous opera house) and I noticed a sign for a concert that night including Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 and Also Sprach Zarathustra (more commonly known as the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey), and tickets were only 5 euro. We researched a bit about that and found out we had to go 2 hours early to get in line, and decided to do it. In the mean time, we had lunch by a giant castle and hung out in a beautiful park. Laura and I had hot chocolate, which was literally melted chocolate in a little cup. The plastic spoon they gave us would stand up on its own in the cup because it was so thick and delicious.
After that, we took a tour of the Duomo with an audio guide and spent about 2 hours walking around inside. It consists of 52 giant columns representing the 52 weeks of the year and beautiful stained glass windows depicting biblical stories. The relic held there is supposedly a nail from Jesus’ cross. It’s so beautiful inside, and to be surrounded by all of that history was extremely humbling. And it made me happy that I knew a relatively decent amount from just looking at the place (courtesy of my British Art & Architecture class). Then we went back to the hostel for a short bit to change rooms and head back to get the tickets for the concert. We met up with the American girls while Andrew went to the 5:30pm mass at the Duomo, and he said the organ sound was so big and full that it had a 10-second reverb.
We grabbed a quick dinner before the concert and I got us slightly lost on the way back to La Scala (oops). We got to our seats and realized that there was a group of pre-teen schoolchildren in front of us. Laura freaked out a little because they were a bit rambunctious, but hey, we were at La Scala. We couldn’t really see the stage from our seats so we stood most of the time, looking over the children. The Brahms was great and the pianist was amazing. Then Also Sprach was just…epic. I’ve never heard that piece live, and holy crap, what a difference. It was basically a perfect end to our tour of Italy.
After the concert I had the best gelato yet (double chocolate fudge mousse stuff, chocolate chip and “cookies”) then passed out. We easily caught our flight the next morning and arrived back in London at 11am. All in all, we did really well for a small group of poor college students traveling around a beautiful country where we don’t really know the language.
A few things I’ve learned:
- Everyone is in a big damn hurry, especially the ones in cars and on scooters, and they don’t have lanes on the roads or stop-lights at cross walks, so you just start walking and hope they stop
- The Italians are very aggressive sellers. Especially the creepy guys with the flowers who would just walk into a restaurant and push flowers in your face with a bizarre half-smile until they got the hint that you didn’t want them there.
-A good way to judge a restaurant is whether or not it has any translations on the menu, and also if there are any tourists inside. If not, you’re good to go.
Thursday, 9 October 2008
Good Friends, Sketchy Dinners and Moody Blues
Sunday, September 28th—Thursday, October 9th
I haven’t updated this in a while, oops. A couple things of note from the past week and a half:
-I went to see a play at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre (The Merry Wives of Windsor) and they had musicians playing baroque period instruments (oboe, bassoon, sackbut (trombone), violin, drums and mandolin). Absolutely hilarious play with great music supporting it. Awesome.
-We went to Hampton Court to see where Henry VIII used to hang out and learn facts having to do with our Art & Architecture class. The Great Hall is absolutely beautiful with giant tapestries on the walls and decorations all the way up onto the ceiling. It’s so humbling to have all of this history surrounding you constantly. It’s also very humbling to take a test on a wealth of information that you don’t know very much about: that’d be my Art & Architecture midterm.
-Shannon and Ernest came to London this past weekend. It was great to see them and show them around town. We did the normal touristy things (Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, etc.) but we also got to go to the Borough Market on Saturday morning which proved to be amazing (I bought two organic onions for 50 pence). Also, on Saturday night we attempted to go to dinner at a Thai restaurant out towards Hammersmith. We got there and it was packed, so we decided to go to one of the Indian restaurants up on Ladbroke Grove. On our way, we see a sign for the “Little India” restaurant, and the sign also said “wellcome.” We should have known. All 10 of us pour into this tiny, dimly lit room with an old Irish lady smoking away in the corner underneath the “NO SMOKING” sign. The waiter took our orders, and it took 45 minutes for us to get our drinks, which were mainly waters. Then we heard random “cooking” sounds while the waiter kept leaving and returning with blue bags (probably with the food we ordered that they bought at a restaurant down the street). After our meal came, we ate it very quickly, and then there was a loud *pop* sound and the radio playing Indian music and half of the lights in the place went out. We immediately ordered the check. Before that came, there was a very large, sketchy-looking man who walked in with a sketchy-looking bag; he nodded to the waiter and went to the back. When we finally left the place (just about 2 1/2 hours later), I was laughing so hard it hurt. It was probably one of the “dodgiest” experiences we’ve had here yet.
-I had an awesome lesson finally. I had time to practice, and it helped not taking the entire weekend off of playing. The only downside is that he assigned me tons of things to work on for our next lesson, and I’m going to Italy October 10th-19th without my euphonium. Ruh roh. At least I’m bringing my mouthpiece so I don’t totally lose all of my chops.
-Andrew, Laura and I randomly acquired free tickets to see the Moody Blues at Royal Albert Hall. A student at the London Center has an internship with some company, and someone donated 4 tickets for this concert to the company, and no one could use them. She called the London Center looking for people to take them, and we got hooked up. It was a pretty good concert (even if we were the youngest ones in the audience by about 30 years), and I learned that old guys can still rock (as much as 70s power ballads can rock, which were pretty hard at times).
That’s about all for now. We’re preparing for our Italy trip and making sure that we’ll be up by 2am tomorrow morning to catch a 3:10am bus at Baker Street which will hopefully get us to Stanstead Airport in time for our 6:10am flight to Palermo, Sicily. After that, we’ll head up to Naples, Rome, Venice and Milan. Should be a great time.
I haven’t updated this in a while, oops. A couple things of note from the past week and a half:
-I went to see a play at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre (The Merry Wives of Windsor) and they had musicians playing baroque period instruments (oboe, bassoon, sackbut (trombone), violin, drums and mandolin). Absolutely hilarious play with great music supporting it. Awesome.
-We went to Hampton Court to see where Henry VIII used to hang out and learn facts having to do with our Art & Architecture class. The Great Hall is absolutely beautiful with giant tapestries on the walls and decorations all the way up onto the ceiling. It’s so humbling to have all of this history surrounding you constantly. It’s also very humbling to take a test on a wealth of information that you don’t know very much about: that’d be my Art & Architecture midterm.
-Shannon and Ernest came to London this past weekend. It was great to see them and show them around town. We did the normal touristy things (Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, etc.) but we also got to go to the Borough Market on Saturday morning which proved to be amazing (I bought two organic onions for 50 pence). Also, on Saturday night we attempted to go to dinner at a Thai restaurant out towards Hammersmith. We got there and it was packed, so we decided to go to one of the Indian restaurants up on Ladbroke Grove. On our way, we see a sign for the “Little India” restaurant, and the sign also said “wellcome.” We should have known. All 10 of us pour into this tiny, dimly lit room with an old Irish lady smoking away in the corner underneath the “NO SMOKING” sign. The waiter took our orders, and it took 45 minutes for us to get our drinks, which were mainly waters. Then we heard random “cooking” sounds while the waiter kept leaving and returning with blue bags (probably with the food we ordered that they bought at a restaurant down the street). After our meal came, we ate it very quickly, and then there was a loud *pop* sound and the radio playing Indian music and half of the lights in the place went out. We immediately ordered the check. Before that came, there was a very large, sketchy-looking man who walked in with a sketchy-looking bag; he nodded to the waiter and went to the back. When we finally left the place (just about 2 1/2 hours later), I was laughing so hard it hurt. It was probably one of the “dodgiest” experiences we’ve had here yet.
-I had an awesome lesson finally. I had time to practice, and it helped not taking the entire weekend off of playing. The only downside is that he assigned me tons of things to work on for our next lesson, and I’m going to Italy October 10th-19th without my euphonium. Ruh roh. At least I’m bringing my mouthpiece so I don’t totally lose all of my chops.
-Andrew, Laura and I randomly acquired free tickets to see the Moody Blues at Royal Albert Hall. A student at the London Center has an internship with some company, and someone donated 4 tickets for this concert to the company, and no one could use them. She called the London Center looking for people to take them, and we got hooked up. It was a pretty good concert (even if we were the youngest ones in the audience by about 30 years), and I learned that old guys can still rock (as much as 70s power ballads can rock, which were pretty hard at times).
That’s about all for now. We’re preparing for our Italy trip and making sure that we’ll be up by 2am tomorrow morning to catch a 3:10am bus at Baker Street which will hopefully get us to Stanstead Airport in time for our 6:10am flight to Palermo, Sicily. After that, we’ll head up to Naples, Rome, Venice and Milan. Should be a great time.
Sunday, 28 September 2008
Bath/Avebury/Glastonbury/Wells/Stonehenge
Saturday, September 27th
Today we took a tour of the Roman Baths from 2,000 years ago with a natural hot spring that is still pumping out tons of water every day. It was awesome to walk around on the same floors and be hanging out at the same bath just like the Romans. After we left there, we saw some street performers wearing just underwear hold themselves up on giant metal poles and do handstands while having flaming sparklers in their butts. Talk about a great time. We continued to learn more about the town when Bill took us on a short walk up to the circus (a big circular area where there are beautiful buildings sculpted by Thomas Moore) and the crescent (made my Moore’s son), and when you look at them from overhead, it looks like a giant question mark. Also, there were tons of pigs around town, pieces of art that were on top of buildings, in the middle of courtyards, in a market, in the Roman Baths, everywhere. This is supposed to be the symbol of the cit of Bath because, as legend has it, Bladud (who was supposed to be the next ruler of Rome) acquired leprosy, as did his pig. He was banished from Rome and he had heard about the magical powers of the bubbling springs found in Bath, supposedly work of the Gods, and he went there with his pig. His pig rolled around in the mud and its leprosy was cured, so Bladud did the same and, sure enough, he was cured and was able to go back to Rome and reclaim his honor. So, pigs in Bath.
Following Bath we made our final stop on this trip to Stonehenge. It was really awe-inspiring to see this monument still standing. It’s much smaller and more compact than the one at Avebury, but the stones had been hauled for an incredible distance to get to Stonehenge and they are sculpted so that they form a perfect circle, and even have little notches and groove on the trilithons (the thing that looks kinda like a lower-case n). It was a little strange to see where Stonehenge is though, which is in the middle of a giant flat field with a road going right by it. I thought it would be somewhere way up on top of a hill that we would have to hike 5 miles to get to and all of a sudden we get to the top and there’s a clearing with Stonehenge in the middle. But nope, just hangin out in the middle of a huge field. With cars whizzing by. Still really freaking impressive.
Friday, September 26th
We left very early this morning to begin the trip to Bath and beyond. Our first stop was Avebury where there is an ancient stone circle that is much bigger and a bit older than Stonehenge, but less popular for some reason. The circle encompasses part of the town of Avebury and there is said to have been a link to fertility with this circle (something about women would rub up against it in order to help them become pregnant). Also, there were sheep everywhere. It was really beautiful out in the English countryside and quite humbling to look at the work of these people over 5,000 years ago that still remains today.
After Averbury we drove up to Glastonbury, home of the remains of the Glastonbury Abbey which holds the burial place of King Arthur and is said to have the Holy Grail hidden in it somewhere. We thought we found it when we looked into a hole in one of the walls of the Abbey and saw a plastic cup, but apparently that wasn’t it. Also in Glastonbury is the Tor, a huge hill with a stone structure up at the top, which is where some people would be beheaded and all that fun stuff. It was one heluva walk, but at the top the view was extraordinary. We could see for miles and miles. And as soon as we got to the top, what’d we find? Cows. A whole herd of cows just chillin out at the top of a huge hill munching on all the grass and snuggling up to visitors. I don’t think I’ve ever been that close to a cow before. Regardless, it was an awesome place to be.
Then we walked back down the hill and stopped at a local pub to see what kind of English drinks we could find. I had some hard cider and Omar had a pint of some sort of amber beer. It’s so strange that they serve beer and cider at about room temperature in this country, and when you see “extra cold” on the tap, it really means just slightly under room temperature. The English are big into their “Bitters” which are supposed to be drank at room temperature, so I guess they just do the same for the rest of their beers.
Following Glastonbury was the town of Wells, home of the Wells Cathedral (which we studied in British Art & Architecture). It was a magnificent structure, and the inside was absolutely gorgeous. I think I have a better understanding and appreciation of architecture after being in this class, which I suppose is a good thing. The little town of Wells was very quaint and had all these awesome shops including a fudge store (where I got 100g of cider apple and maple walnut fudge) and a gelato place (where I had a bowl of strawberry gelato and it was amazing). I was on quite the sugar-high after that. Ah well.
The last stop of the very long day was the city of Bath, where we stayed at a YMCA for the night. We got in around dinnertime, so we headed out to find some food and explore. There was a restaurant/pub that had two meals for 6.95 pounds, which is pretty freaking awesome, so we did that. The service was absolutely terrible (probably because they had this terrible cowboy DJ coming in to help celebrate Jack Daniels’ birthday) but the food was awesome. I had a pretty big bacon cheeseburger, a Belgian waffle covered in vanilla ice cream and raspberry sauce and a pint of John Smith’s for 7.50 pounds. After Andrew ate two bacon cheeseburgers (thinking the ‘two meal’ deal was meant for one person) we waited for two hours as he finished his Guiness. That man was full.
We walked around town for a little bit, going into an Irish pub called Flan O’Briens and I was carded. The drinking age is 18…whatever. It was like student teaching all over again when I would get lunch in the cafeteria and the same lunch lady always thought I was a student. Maybe I’ll be happy that I look young in like 20 years, but not right now. After that pub, we slowly made our way back to the Y to crash for the night at like 11.30. Yeah, it’s lame to go to bed before midnight but it was an exhausting day.
Thursday, September 25th
We talked about Progressive Rock in British Pop music today, and also covered Led Zeppelin, Supertramp, Kate Bush (her voice sounds like stepping on a cat), Fleetwood Mac and Kraftwerk (a German group that were pioneers in using electronic music in the pop scene, especially with their hit “Autobahn”). Following class I went to my second euphonium lesson with David Powell. I felt like it was a bit easier to play for him this time, but I still sounded like crap. I don’t think I’m used to warming-up then spending 45 minutes riding the subway and walking to a random house in South London before playing again. It’s much longer than the 30-second walk up the stairs to Dave’s office back at Ithaca.
That night I saw a production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night at the Tricycle theatre/cinema and it was ridiculous. They left out a ton from the play, including whole characters and scenes, but it was very entertaining and only lasted 90 minutes. It was like a jazz/funk/fusion band up on stage performing Shakespeare, and there was a great deal of audience participation, such as getting up on stage and dancing during a crazy party, handing out pizzas to the audience and even bringing two audience members up to do tequila shots. Nuts. They definitely botched the traditional aspects of it and went for pure entertainment, and I left happy.
Today we took a tour of the Roman Baths from 2,000 years ago with a natural hot spring that is still pumping out tons of water every day. It was awesome to walk around on the same floors and be hanging out at the same bath just like the Romans. After we left there, we saw some street performers wearing just underwear hold themselves up on giant metal poles and do handstands while having flaming sparklers in their butts. Talk about a great time. We continued to learn more about the town when Bill took us on a short walk up to the circus (a big circular area where there are beautiful buildings sculpted by Thomas Moore) and the crescent (made my Moore’s son), and when you look at them from overhead, it looks like a giant question mark. Also, there were tons of pigs around town, pieces of art that were on top of buildings, in the middle of courtyards, in a market, in the Roman Baths, everywhere. This is supposed to be the symbol of the cit of Bath because, as legend has it, Bladud (who was supposed to be the next ruler of Rome) acquired leprosy, as did his pig. He was banished from Rome and he had heard about the magical powers of the bubbling springs found in Bath, supposedly work of the Gods, and he went there with his pig. His pig rolled around in the mud and its leprosy was cured, so Bladud did the same and, sure enough, he was cured and was able to go back to Rome and reclaim his honor. So, pigs in Bath.
Following Bath we made our final stop on this trip to Stonehenge. It was really awe-inspiring to see this monument still standing. It’s much smaller and more compact than the one at Avebury, but the stones had been hauled for an incredible distance to get to Stonehenge and they are sculpted so that they form a perfect circle, and even have little notches and groove on the trilithons (the thing that looks kinda like a lower-case n). It was a little strange to see where Stonehenge is though, which is in the middle of a giant flat field with a road going right by it. I thought it would be somewhere way up on top of a hill that we would have to hike 5 miles to get to and all of a sudden we get to the top and there’s a clearing with Stonehenge in the middle. But nope, just hangin out in the middle of a huge field. With cars whizzing by. Still really freaking impressive.
Friday, September 26th
We left very early this morning to begin the trip to Bath and beyond. Our first stop was Avebury where there is an ancient stone circle that is much bigger and a bit older than Stonehenge, but less popular for some reason. The circle encompasses part of the town of Avebury and there is said to have been a link to fertility with this circle (something about women would rub up against it in order to help them become pregnant). Also, there were sheep everywhere. It was really beautiful out in the English countryside and quite humbling to look at the work of these people over 5,000 years ago that still remains today.
After Averbury we drove up to Glastonbury, home of the remains of the Glastonbury Abbey which holds the burial place of King Arthur and is said to have the Holy Grail hidden in it somewhere. We thought we found it when we looked into a hole in one of the walls of the Abbey and saw a plastic cup, but apparently that wasn’t it. Also in Glastonbury is the Tor, a huge hill with a stone structure up at the top, which is where some people would be beheaded and all that fun stuff. It was one heluva walk, but at the top the view was extraordinary. We could see for miles and miles. And as soon as we got to the top, what’d we find? Cows. A whole herd of cows just chillin out at the top of a huge hill munching on all the grass and snuggling up to visitors. I don’t think I’ve ever been that close to a cow before. Regardless, it was an awesome place to be.
Then we walked back down the hill and stopped at a local pub to see what kind of English drinks we could find. I had some hard cider and Omar had a pint of some sort of amber beer. It’s so strange that they serve beer and cider at about room temperature in this country, and when you see “extra cold” on the tap, it really means just slightly under room temperature. The English are big into their “Bitters” which are supposed to be drank at room temperature, so I guess they just do the same for the rest of their beers.
Following Glastonbury was the town of Wells, home of the Wells Cathedral (which we studied in British Art & Architecture). It was a magnificent structure, and the inside was absolutely gorgeous. I think I have a better understanding and appreciation of architecture after being in this class, which I suppose is a good thing. The little town of Wells was very quaint and had all these awesome shops including a fudge store (where I got 100g of cider apple and maple walnut fudge) and a gelato place (where I had a bowl of strawberry gelato and it was amazing). I was on quite the sugar-high after that. Ah well.
The last stop of the very long day was the city of Bath, where we stayed at a YMCA for the night. We got in around dinnertime, so we headed out to find some food and explore. There was a restaurant/pub that had two meals for 6.95 pounds, which is pretty freaking awesome, so we did that. The service was absolutely terrible (probably because they had this terrible cowboy DJ coming in to help celebrate Jack Daniels’ birthday) but the food was awesome. I had a pretty big bacon cheeseburger, a Belgian waffle covered in vanilla ice cream and raspberry sauce and a pint of John Smith’s for 7.50 pounds. After Andrew ate two bacon cheeseburgers (thinking the ‘two meal’ deal was meant for one person) we waited for two hours as he finished his Guiness. That man was full.
We walked around town for a little bit, going into an Irish pub called Flan O’Briens and I was carded. The drinking age is 18…whatever. It was like student teaching all over again when I would get lunch in the cafeteria and the same lunch lady always thought I was a student. Maybe I’ll be happy that I look young in like 20 years, but not right now. After that pub, we slowly made our way back to the Y to crash for the night at like 11.30. Yeah, it’s lame to go to bed before midnight but it was an exhausting day.
Thursday, September 25th
We talked about Progressive Rock in British Pop music today, and also covered Led Zeppelin, Supertramp, Kate Bush (her voice sounds like stepping on a cat), Fleetwood Mac and Kraftwerk (a German group that were pioneers in using electronic music in the pop scene, especially with their hit “Autobahn”). Following class I went to my second euphonium lesson with David Powell. I felt like it was a bit easier to play for him this time, but I still sounded like crap. I don’t think I’m used to warming-up then spending 45 minutes riding the subway and walking to a random house in South London before playing again. It’s much longer than the 30-second walk up the stairs to Dave’s office back at Ithaca.
That night I saw a production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night at the Tricycle theatre/cinema and it was ridiculous. They left out a ton from the play, including whole characters and scenes, but it was very entertaining and only lasted 90 minutes. It was like a jazz/funk/fusion band up on stage performing Shakespeare, and there was a great deal of audience participation, such as getting up on stage and dancing during a crazy party, handing out pizzas to the audience and even bringing two audience members up to do tequila shots. Nuts. They definitely botched the traditional aspects of it and went for pure entertainment, and I left happy.
Wednesday, 24 September 2008
Salzburg/Munich/Oktoberfest
Monday, September 22nd-Wednesday, September 24th
In these few days I wrote my architecture paper, was assigned a Shakespeare paper (dang it) and planned our trip to Italy. Also, Andrew cooked a roasted chicken and potatoes while wearing only an apron and undergarments. Honestly, why? Chicken was delicious though. I realized I’m kind of running out of money. And by kind of I mean I have barely enough to pay the credit card bill and monthly rent. Sorry mom and dad. But hey, our 3 flights in Italy add up to a total of $133.80. Not too bad if you ask me.
Sunday, September 21st
We woke up at 6.45am and I felt like a million bucks. Really, I did. However, Andrew did not. We ate a quick breakfast and made our way to the airport to catch our return flight at 9.50am. We got back into Stansted at about 10.40am and got back to the flat around 12.45. I basically relaxed the rest of the day and focused on writing that darn architecture paper.
Saturday, September 20th
Today was opening day of Oktoberfest and we experienced it first-hand. We caught a 7.09am train to Munich, meeting up with our friend Margaret who’s living in Austria, so her German helped our communication problems immensely. We got into Munich at about 9.15am and made our way straight to the festivities. There were already a good number of people there, and we were told to go try to find a place to sit in one of the many beer halls there. Every place seemed packed, but we found one hall that wasn’t very crowded at all. We got a table and were waiting until noon when they officially start the festival and tap the kegs. We ordered a platter of meats, cheeses and breads thinking it would be 20 euro total. Nope, that’d be 20 euro for each one of us. I took a picture of that bill because it was so epic.
After they tapped the kegs, we had a beer at that hall (which we realized after was a wine hall, not a beer hall, which is probably why everything was so ritzy and expensive). Then we made our way around the grounds (much like the NYS Fair) and found a place to order up some Paulaner steins. This is where we spent the rest of our time at Oktoberfest, besides running back and forth to the “pissoir.” We made friends with Bavarians, including a punk rocker, who drank us under the table. I still don’t know how the human body could possibly handle that much beer. They were having two or three steins in the time it took me to drink one, and they were perfectly coherent. Boggles my mind…
We stopped at a Chinese restaurant on our way back to the train station, but I wasn’t in too great of shape and didn’t eat much of my 10 euro dinner. Also, Omar peed in the sink in the bathroom. Why? I have no idea. But it’s OK, cuz we got back to Salzburg safe and sound, albeit quite sloshed.
Friday, September 19th (Mike Day)
Today was my birthday. Looking back on it, it was probably the best birthday ever, but when the day started out, it just felt like another day with me being out of my element in a new place. We ate breakfast at the hotel consisting of Kaiser rolls, deli meats, pound cake, hot tea, hot chocolate, orange juice and cereal. Pretty friggin tasty. We loaded up and packed away a few rolls and some fruit for the road, then made our way into town. Since we flew in late the night before, this was the first time I saw how beautiful the mountains surrounding the city are. I was just soaking it all in and loving every second of it. We stopped in some small shops to get some post cards (that will be sent out soon…) and some music shops here and there. We eventually made our way to the Mirabell Gardens which were absolutely gorgeous. Then we checked out the old town, including Mozart’s two houses (his birthplace/where he grew up and then where the family moved to later). It was so surreal being in the same town where a musical genius grew up, the place we’d all read about in music history classes and were told was beautiful. Reading about it or seeing pictures is absolutely nothing compared to just strolling around the city for a day.
They had a random square with a market, a puppet show and some music going on. We each got some giant pretzels and heard the sweet sounds of a brass quartet playing. It was a group consisting of a tuba, a euphonium-looking-thing, and two trumpets. After they were done playing a few tunes, I went up to the euphonium player and asked him what his instrument was. He said something like a “denoa” but said it was very similar to the baritone. I explained that I play euphonium, and he handed me the horn to try. It was really strange to hold since everything was backwards and it was shaped all funny, but the mechanics of sound production were exactly the same. What an awesome guy.
I had my eye on the fortress up on one of the hills, so we made our way up there (we walked up the hill instead of taking the train up the 45-degree angle slope). It was really neat seeing this castle that’s 900 years old, especially after a few weeks of the architecture class. At one point we were at the very highest point of the castle and the view of the countryside was breathtaking. Mountains are bad-ass, I don’t care what anyone says, especially when they rise up into the clouds.
When we made our way down the giant hill, we came across this giant tent containing hundreds of people and a community band playing. Everyone was drinking and listening to the band consisting mostly of brass but also had a couple of clarinets and flutes. We ordered a small glass of Stiegl (brewed in Salzburg) and found a spot to sit down and enjoy the music. When the first band finished I went up to the euphonium section and talked to one older guy for a few minutes about euphonium playing in Austria and Germany. Euphonium players are the best people. Eventually we got a hankering for one of the giant steins of beer that we saw people drinking from, and Omar and Andrew offered to pay for mine since it was my birthday and all. We got them, drank them rather quickly and also had a shot of schnapps from these ladies walking around with little barrels on their hips with a little tiny tap and tin shot glasses. So freaking awesome.
When we were leaving the tent, we were a bit tipsy, and I had the awesome idea of playing a game which involved shooting an air rifle at small metal pieces on a wall in order to win stuffed animal prizes. I hit 2 out of 3 and won a small dolphin keychain for my mom (be proud, mom, it’s hard to shoot a rifle after consuming over a liter of beer). Then we set out to find our hostel, and that journey was exciting. We talked to some Spanish/Austrian restaurant owners, some trumpet players, and Omar peed in a back alley. We found our hostel, checked in, found our room, composed ourselves then set out for dinner at 9pm. We ate at a relatively nice restaurant in the old town said to have served Mozart and Schubert on multiple occasions. I had the Viennese Lamb (wiener schnitzel) with roasted potatoes and it was awesome. I'd say that's a pretty awesome birthday.
Thursday, September 18th
Today is the first day of a trip that Omar, Andrew and myself took to continental Europe, and it was freaking awesome. After British Pop (we talked about the Beatles for 3 hours, I love that class) we exchanged 20 pounds for about 30 euro and stopped back at the flat to grab our stuff (a backpack with a couple of pieces of clothing). Omar and I made it to a bus stop near Baker Street to catch our bus ride to Stansted Airport with a crazy bus driver who kept slamming on the brakes and running vespas off the road. Andrew took a train. Probably a good call on his part since he beat us there.
Once we got to the airport, it was really easy checking in and getting to our gate. The plane wasn’t very big (Boeing 737) and we boarded like the Beatles would have on those ladders. The flight wasn’t very long, only about an hour and a half, and we arrived in Salzburg, Austria at 10.30pm local time (one hour ahead of London). Once we got out of the airport, we immediately realized that not knowing German makes it hard to get around in this city. We couldn’t figure out what the hell the map said, or where our hostel was (I knew a general location but had no idea what bus goes there) or even how to operate the bus ticket machine. We eventually asked a bus driver on the #2 bus (only one that comes to the airport about every 20 minutes) and he told us we had to transfer to the #4 bus and that will get us there.
When we were dropped off at a bus stop to catch the #4, we had about 15 minutes until it came so we went on a search for food because I was freaking starving. We found a little shack next to a pub that had two older Austrian ladies serving food. I looked at the menu and had no idea what anything was. I saw a picture of a hot dog (nahh) and a hamburger with a happy face (that sounds right). Next to the burger it said “Ruck Zuck” so I go up to the window and say “Hello, one Ruck Zuck please” (like “duck”). They burst out laughing at me and say “No no, ‘Rook Zook!!’” I’m so all-star it hurts. I’m in the country for 30 minutes and I already have two ladies laughing at me. Ah well, the spicy chicken breast burger was pretty damn good, even if it did have 2 inches of mayo on it.
The hotel we stayed in the first night was really nice and had a nice cozy feel. They had toilet paper with cartoons of soccer players and jokes written on them, small but comfy beds, and porn on the tv. Europeans are so open when it comes to sex, yet don’t show much violence. Kind of backwards compared to America. At any rate, we got settled and passed out promptly.
Sunday, September 14th-Wednesday, September 17th
So during these few days I basically spent my time doing research for my British Art & Architecture paper on a statue of Queen Eleanor of Castile (made in 1291), practicing and packing for our trip this weekend…yup.
Oh yeah, we saw a play at Shakespeare’s Globe theatre, the Timon of Athens, and I didn’t like it very much. I think it’s because Shakespeare co-wrote it with another dude and it’s all about a guy giving out all his money and becoming poor when none of his “friends” will help him out; not too riveting. But the theatre was awesome. We had standing yard tickets, so we stood the entire time down near the stage. The theatre isn’t entirely covered and it was interesting because the play set in very olden times and there would be planes flying overhead. It was an amazing night to look at the city on the Millennium Bridge, right near the Globe theatre. London is such a freaking awesome city. It’s so bizarre how sometimes when you least expect it you can stop for a second, take a deep breath and take in the history, the beauty and realize that yeah, you’re in freaking London.
In these few days I wrote my architecture paper, was assigned a Shakespeare paper (dang it) and planned our trip to Italy. Also, Andrew cooked a roasted chicken and potatoes while wearing only an apron and undergarments. Honestly, why? Chicken was delicious though. I realized I’m kind of running out of money. And by kind of I mean I have barely enough to pay the credit card bill and monthly rent. Sorry mom and dad. But hey, our 3 flights in Italy add up to a total of $133.80. Not too bad if you ask me.
Sunday, September 21st
We woke up at 6.45am and I felt like a million bucks. Really, I did. However, Andrew did not. We ate a quick breakfast and made our way to the airport to catch our return flight at 9.50am. We got back into Stansted at about 10.40am and got back to the flat around 12.45. I basically relaxed the rest of the day and focused on writing that darn architecture paper.
Saturday, September 20th
Today was opening day of Oktoberfest and we experienced it first-hand. We caught a 7.09am train to Munich, meeting up with our friend Margaret who’s living in Austria, so her German helped our communication problems immensely. We got into Munich at about 9.15am and made our way straight to the festivities. There were already a good number of people there, and we were told to go try to find a place to sit in one of the many beer halls there. Every place seemed packed, but we found one hall that wasn’t very crowded at all. We got a table and were waiting until noon when they officially start the festival and tap the kegs. We ordered a platter of meats, cheeses and breads thinking it would be 20 euro total. Nope, that’d be 20 euro for each one of us. I took a picture of that bill because it was so epic.
After they tapped the kegs, we had a beer at that hall (which we realized after was a wine hall, not a beer hall, which is probably why everything was so ritzy and expensive). Then we made our way around the grounds (much like the NYS Fair) and found a place to order up some Paulaner steins. This is where we spent the rest of our time at Oktoberfest, besides running back and forth to the “pissoir.” We made friends with Bavarians, including a punk rocker, who drank us under the table. I still don’t know how the human body could possibly handle that much beer. They were having two or three steins in the time it took me to drink one, and they were perfectly coherent. Boggles my mind…
We stopped at a Chinese restaurant on our way back to the train station, but I wasn’t in too great of shape and didn’t eat much of my 10 euro dinner. Also, Omar peed in the sink in the bathroom. Why? I have no idea. But it’s OK, cuz we got back to Salzburg safe and sound, albeit quite sloshed.
Friday, September 19th (Mike Day)
Today was my birthday. Looking back on it, it was probably the best birthday ever, but when the day started out, it just felt like another day with me being out of my element in a new place. We ate breakfast at the hotel consisting of Kaiser rolls, deli meats, pound cake, hot tea, hot chocolate, orange juice and cereal. Pretty friggin tasty. We loaded up and packed away a few rolls and some fruit for the road, then made our way into town. Since we flew in late the night before, this was the first time I saw how beautiful the mountains surrounding the city are. I was just soaking it all in and loving every second of it. We stopped in some small shops to get some post cards (that will be sent out soon…) and some music shops here and there. We eventually made our way to the Mirabell Gardens which were absolutely gorgeous. Then we checked out the old town, including Mozart’s two houses (his birthplace/where he grew up and then where the family moved to later). It was so surreal being in the same town where a musical genius grew up, the place we’d all read about in music history classes and were told was beautiful. Reading about it or seeing pictures is absolutely nothing compared to just strolling around the city for a day.
They had a random square with a market, a puppet show and some music going on. We each got some giant pretzels and heard the sweet sounds of a brass quartet playing. It was a group consisting of a tuba, a euphonium-looking-thing, and two trumpets. After they were done playing a few tunes, I went up to the euphonium player and asked him what his instrument was. He said something like a “denoa” but said it was very similar to the baritone. I explained that I play euphonium, and he handed me the horn to try. It was really strange to hold since everything was backwards and it was shaped all funny, but the mechanics of sound production were exactly the same. What an awesome guy.
I had my eye on the fortress up on one of the hills, so we made our way up there (we walked up the hill instead of taking the train up the 45-degree angle slope). It was really neat seeing this castle that’s 900 years old, especially after a few weeks of the architecture class. At one point we were at the very highest point of the castle and the view of the countryside was breathtaking. Mountains are bad-ass, I don’t care what anyone says, especially when they rise up into the clouds.
When we made our way down the giant hill, we came across this giant tent containing hundreds of people and a community band playing. Everyone was drinking and listening to the band consisting mostly of brass but also had a couple of clarinets and flutes. We ordered a small glass of Stiegl (brewed in Salzburg) and found a spot to sit down and enjoy the music. When the first band finished I went up to the euphonium section and talked to one older guy for a few minutes about euphonium playing in Austria and Germany. Euphonium players are the best people. Eventually we got a hankering for one of the giant steins of beer that we saw people drinking from, and Omar and Andrew offered to pay for mine since it was my birthday and all. We got them, drank them rather quickly and also had a shot of schnapps from these ladies walking around with little barrels on their hips with a little tiny tap and tin shot glasses. So freaking awesome.
When we were leaving the tent, we were a bit tipsy, and I had the awesome idea of playing a game which involved shooting an air rifle at small metal pieces on a wall in order to win stuffed animal prizes. I hit 2 out of 3 and won a small dolphin keychain for my mom (be proud, mom, it’s hard to shoot a rifle after consuming over a liter of beer). Then we set out to find our hostel, and that journey was exciting. We talked to some Spanish/Austrian restaurant owners, some trumpet players, and Omar peed in a back alley. We found our hostel, checked in, found our room, composed ourselves then set out for dinner at 9pm. We ate at a relatively nice restaurant in the old town said to have served Mozart and Schubert on multiple occasions. I had the Viennese Lamb (wiener schnitzel) with roasted potatoes and it was awesome. I'd say that's a pretty awesome birthday.
Thursday, September 18th
Today is the first day of a trip that Omar, Andrew and myself took to continental Europe, and it was freaking awesome. After British Pop (we talked about the Beatles for 3 hours, I love that class) we exchanged 20 pounds for about 30 euro and stopped back at the flat to grab our stuff (a backpack with a couple of pieces of clothing). Omar and I made it to a bus stop near Baker Street to catch our bus ride to Stansted Airport with a crazy bus driver who kept slamming on the brakes and running vespas off the road. Andrew took a train. Probably a good call on his part since he beat us there.
Once we got to the airport, it was really easy checking in and getting to our gate. The plane wasn’t very big (Boeing 737) and we boarded like the Beatles would have on those ladders. The flight wasn’t very long, only about an hour and a half, and we arrived in Salzburg, Austria at 10.30pm local time (one hour ahead of London). Once we got out of the airport, we immediately realized that not knowing German makes it hard to get around in this city. We couldn’t figure out what the hell the map said, or where our hostel was (I knew a general location but had no idea what bus goes there) or even how to operate the bus ticket machine. We eventually asked a bus driver on the #2 bus (only one that comes to the airport about every 20 minutes) and he told us we had to transfer to the #4 bus and that will get us there.
When we were dropped off at a bus stop to catch the #4, we had about 15 minutes until it came so we went on a search for food because I was freaking starving. We found a little shack next to a pub that had two older Austrian ladies serving food. I looked at the menu and had no idea what anything was. I saw a picture of a hot dog (nahh) and a hamburger with a happy face (that sounds right). Next to the burger it said “Ruck Zuck” so I go up to the window and say “Hello, one Ruck Zuck please” (like “duck”). They burst out laughing at me and say “No no, ‘Rook Zook!!’” I’m so all-star it hurts. I’m in the country for 30 minutes and I already have two ladies laughing at me. Ah well, the spicy chicken breast burger was pretty damn good, even if it did have 2 inches of mayo on it.
The hotel we stayed in the first night was really nice and had a nice cozy feel. They had toilet paper with cartoons of soccer players and jokes written on them, small but comfy beds, and porn on the tv. Europeans are so open when it comes to sex, yet don’t show much violence. Kind of backwards compared to America. At any rate, we got settled and passed out promptly.
Sunday, September 14th-Wednesday, September 17th
So during these few days I basically spent my time doing research for my British Art & Architecture paper on a statue of Queen Eleanor of Castile (made in 1291), practicing and packing for our trip this weekend…yup.
Oh yeah, we saw a play at Shakespeare’s Globe theatre, the Timon of Athens, and I didn’t like it very much. I think it’s because Shakespeare co-wrote it with another dude and it’s all about a guy giving out all his money and becoming poor when none of his “friends” will help him out; not too riveting. But the theatre was awesome. We had standing yard tickets, so we stood the entire time down near the stage. The theatre isn’t entirely covered and it was interesting because the play set in very olden times and there would be planes flying overhead. It was an amazing night to look at the city on the Millennium Bridge, right near the Globe theatre. London is such a freaking awesome city. It’s so bizarre how sometimes when you least expect it you can stop for a second, take a deep breath and take in the history, the beauty and realize that yeah, you’re in freaking London.
Saturday, 13 September 2008
Stratford-upon-Avon
Saturday, September 13th
I got the best sleep I’ve had in a while, albeit for only 7 hours. It was so nice to sleep in a full bed with nice sheets and no loud sirens or motorcycles flying by the window all night. Actually this whole trip was a real pleasant break from the city life and constantly being bombarded with everything. The English countryside is beautiful and I’d like to see much more of it in the coming months.
I went downstairs for breakfast and had the privilege of eating a full English breakfast (which was really amazing) next to an older couple that apparently didn’t feel like being sociable at all (which was really awkward). I guess that’s what I get for signing up late and having to stay at a B&B by myself. Then I packed up my things and said “Thank You” to the owner (who is a rather awkward guy himself…he must be extra awkward if I’m the one saying he’s awkward…woof). We made our way to the Trinity Church (where Shakespeare and his family are buried) and listened to a 45-minute lecture by Dr. Tim Kidd all about Shakespeare’s life in Stratford. The church is right on the Avon and it was so beautiful and peaceful that I felt like staying there forever. After that we walked around town for a few hours, hitting up book shops (where this one guy called me an @$$hole for trying to walk by him as he was looking at books…awesome class), the farmer’s market (where I bought a “leather” belt for 5 pounds) and a pub for lunch (lunch for 2 people for just 5 pounds!). Then we loaded onto the bus and made our way to Oxford.
We only had two hours to explore Oxford and I think we made the most of it. Oxford University is made up of a ton of small colleges situated around town and we saw a few of them (one dining hall that looked exactly like Hogwarts). We also saw part of the botanical gardens, a 5-story bookshop, an indoor market with everything from jewelry to t-shirts to a butcher shop, among other stuff. We loaded up the bus yet again and headed back to London. Once I was back in our flat, the normal noisy annoyance of Edgware Road returned and I realized someone stole my chicken...Eric…
Friday, September 12th
Today we set out for the Stratford/Oxford trip, leaving the Marylebone station at 8:50am. We stopped for the afternoon at Warwick Castle, and it was a bit more touristy than I thought it would be (lame music being played by the “Ghosts Alive” exhibit, etc.). It was still really interesting though as they had a good part of the interior of the castle set up like a party in 1898 with life-like statues in each room depicting events that would commonly take place. I personally liked the tv remote in one of the bedrooms. They also had a bowman (who Laura is deeply in love with, though she won’t admit it…it’s absolutely hilarious the types of jokes you can come up with if you’re talking about a long bowman) and a falconer (the falcon seemed to like the pigeons nesting in a nearby tree).
We then made our way by train to Stratford-upon-Avon and once we were there it started pouring while I wasn’t able to get to my umbrella. Finally the bus came and I could grab my bag and umbrella and make the trek to the bed and breakfast that I was staying in (a few minutes down the road from where everyone else was staying…go me for signing up way late). I got settled into my room, crashed for 20 minutes then went on a walk with Bill, Laura, Erin and Robin to see Shakespeare’s birthplace and some of the town. It was still pouring, but it was fun. Bill bought us all a pint at the Dirty Duck and then we ate dinner with the rest of the crew (Omar, Andrew, Meagan, Seth, Chris and Rebecca). I guess English lasagna is a bit different than what I’m used to because they don’t really use ricotta cheese and there wasn’t much meat in it. Oh well, it was warm food and it filled me up.
Following dinner we made our way down the street to the Courtyard Theatre for a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was absolutely hilarious. My seat was right next to the stage (which protruded out like a peninsula into the audience) and that was a bit different than any other theatre experience I’ve had before. The actor who played Bottom single-handedly made the play my favorite production ever (he was so over the top and he even came out playing the sousaphone…that sealed the deal). Everyone else was hilarious too and the play at the end (put on by the simple-minded Athenians) was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.
The normal after party takes place at the Dirty Duck, which is exactly where we ran off to once the play ended so we could get our pints and get a table in the corner. It was packed with Ithaca students and just before we left a good number of the actors from the production showed up. It was a good night.
Thursday, September 11th
Today Steve Brown gave a lecture to the British Pop class about jazz (it’s importance, it’s history and what exactly it is). Apparently jazz=ding ding-da ding, and Steve was very adamant about this. He also had Omar and Andrew come up and demonstrate how easy it is to improvise, as long as you don’t play the wrong notes.
Afterwards I got a bit of practicing done then had some fish & chips with Omar, and they were drowning in vinegar which made it that much better (apparently people could smell our meals from 4 floors above). We then set out for Royal Albert Hall and the last Proms performance that we were going to see, which was the Orchestre de Paris performing Mahler 1 with Christoph Eschenbach conducting. We got our normal 5 pound Gallery tickets and found a decent spot to watch the first half (some piece with this lady singing atonal stuff…kinda neat, and I’m sure hard to sing, but it didn’t really move me). During intermission Omar and I made a dash to the lower level (Circle) to try and sneak in after we saw how many open seats there were. We almost made it, and an usher stopped us and asked for our tickets. I almost spilled the beans but Omar saved us saying “Oh, I must have thrown mine in the bin” and I followed with a quick “Yeah, me too…” She said “Well, I don’t remember you guys, but O.K.” Score. We got to see Mahler 1 in Royal Albert Hall sitting in seats that were much more expensive than what we paid for, and it was amazing.
I got the best sleep I’ve had in a while, albeit for only 7 hours. It was so nice to sleep in a full bed with nice sheets and no loud sirens or motorcycles flying by the window all night. Actually this whole trip was a real pleasant break from the city life and constantly being bombarded with everything. The English countryside is beautiful and I’d like to see much more of it in the coming months.
I went downstairs for breakfast and had the privilege of eating a full English breakfast (which was really amazing) next to an older couple that apparently didn’t feel like being sociable at all (which was really awkward). I guess that’s what I get for signing up late and having to stay at a B&B by myself. Then I packed up my things and said “Thank You” to the owner (who is a rather awkward guy himself…he must be extra awkward if I’m the one saying he’s awkward…woof). We made our way to the Trinity Church (where Shakespeare and his family are buried) and listened to a 45-minute lecture by Dr. Tim Kidd all about Shakespeare’s life in Stratford. The church is right on the Avon and it was so beautiful and peaceful that I felt like staying there forever. After that we walked around town for a few hours, hitting up book shops (where this one guy called me an @$$hole for trying to walk by him as he was looking at books…awesome class), the farmer’s market (where I bought a “leather” belt for 5 pounds) and a pub for lunch (lunch for 2 people for just 5 pounds!). Then we loaded onto the bus and made our way to Oxford.
We only had two hours to explore Oxford and I think we made the most of it. Oxford University is made up of a ton of small colleges situated around town and we saw a few of them (one dining hall that looked exactly like Hogwarts). We also saw part of the botanical gardens, a 5-story bookshop, an indoor market with everything from jewelry to t-shirts to a butcher shop, among other stuff. We loaded up the bus yet again and headed back to London. Once I was back in our flat, the normal noisy annoyance of Edgware Road returned and I realized someone stole my chicken...Eric…
Friday, September 12th
Today we set out for the Stratford/Oxford trip, leaving the Marylebone station at 8:50am. We stopped for the afternoon at Warwick Castle, and it was a bit more touristy than I thought it would be (lame music being played by the “Ghosts Alive” exhibit, etc.). It was still really interesting though as they had a good part of the interior of the castle set up like a party in 1898 with life-like statues in each room depicting events that would commonly take place. I personally liked the tv remote in one of the bedrooms. They also had a bowman (who Laura is deeply in love with, though she won’t admit it…it’s absolutely hilarious the types of jokes you can come up with if you’re talking about a long bowman) and a falconer (the falcon seemed to like the pigeons nesting in a nearby tree).
We then made our way by train to Stratford-upon-Avon and once we were there it started pouring while I wasn’t able to get to my umbrella. Finally the bus came and I could grab my bag and umbrella and make the trek to the bed and breakfast that I was staying in (a few minutes down the road from where everyone else was staying…go me for signing up way late). I got settled into my room, crashed for 20 minutes then went on a walk with Bill, Laura, Erin and Robin to see Shakespeare’s birthplace and some of the town. It was still pouring, but it was fun. Bill bought us all a pint at the Dirty Duck and then we ate dinner with the rest of the crew (Omar, Andrew, Meagan, Seth, Chris and Rebecca). I guess English lasagna is a bit different than what I’m used to because they don’t really use ricotta cheese and there wasn’t much meat in it. Oh well, it was warm food and it filled me up.
Following dinner we made our way down the street to the Courtyard Theatre for a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was absolutely hilarious. My seat was right next to the stage (which protruded out like a peninsula into the audience) and that was a bit different than any other theatre experience I’ve had before. The actor who played Bottom single-handedly made the play my favorite production ever (he was so over the top and he even came out playing the sousaphone…that sealed the deal). Everyone else was hilarious too and the play at the end (put on by the simple-minded Athenians) was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.
The normal after party takes place at the Dirty Duck, which is exactly where we ran off to once the play ended so we could get our pints and get a table in the corner. It was packed with Ithaca students and just before we left a good number of the actors from the production showed up. It was a good night.
Thursday, September 11th
Today Steve Brown gave a lecture to the British Pop class about jazz (it’s importance, it’s history and what exactly it is). Apparently jazz=ding ding-da ding, and Steve was very adamant about this. He also had Omar and Andrew come up and demonstrate how easy it is to improvise, as long as you don’t play the wrong notes.
Afterwards I got a bit of practicing done then had some fish & chips with Omar, and they were drowning in vinegar which made it that much better (apparently people could smell our meals from 4 floors above). We then set out for Royal Albert Hall and the last Proms performance that we were going to see, which was the Orchestre de Paris performing Mahler 1 with Christoph Eschenbach conducting. We got our normal 5 pound Gallery tickets and found a decent spot to watch the first half (some piece with this lady singing atonal stuff…kinda neat, and I’m sure hard to sing, but it didn’t really move me). During intermission Omar and I made a dash to the lower level (Circle) to try and sneak in after we saw how many open seats there were. We almost made it, and an usher stopped us and asked for our tickets. I almost spilled the beans but Omar saved us saying “Oh, I must have thrown mine in the bin” and I followed with a quick “Yeah, me too…” She said “Well, I don’t remember you guys, but O.K.” Score. We got to see Mahler 1 in Royal Albert Hall sitting in seats that were much more expensive than what we paid for, and it was amazing.
Wednesday, 10 September 2008
I'm a sicky
Saturday, September 6th—Wednesday, September 10th
So I’ve been sick this whole time. Awesome. But a few cool things have happened:
1-I found out that Pharmacists actually know a heluva lot about what drugs can help cure your sickness. But they apparently don’t know what cures mine…or how to give me proper change.
2-I actually made an awesome dinner on Tuesday (chicken stir fry… yeah, it’s easy, don’t judge me). It was like a Bob Ross Painting…everything just kind of came together at the end on this wonderful canvas that was my dinner plate.
3-I got to take a tour inside Westminster Abbey, and wooooof. It started to be built in 1066, so… 942 years worth of history in that place. Tombs of old Kings, Queens, Handel, Darwin, other neat chaps like that.
4-I straddled the Prime Meridian. Badass.
5-We tried to catch the mouse about 10 times and have failed miserably. This past time he ran out right in front of us, slipped around on the kitchen floor and flew behind the washer.
6-We got to meet up with a professor from IC and have dinner and tasty beverages. Good times.
7-I had my first euphonium lesson with my teacher, David Powell. He’s a pretty awesome tuba player and a great guy. Should be fun to study with him.
Hopefully I’ll become healthy again soon and be able to partake in crazy London antics. More on that later.
Friday, September 5th
I spent the entire day on the couch being sickly. At one point I took a shower and went across the street to get some medicine and food (10 oranges, 10 clementines, 2.75 liters of orange juice, and a liter of apple juice). The cashier did not like me very much as I was very out of it and wasn’t giving her the correct amount. At least it rained all day and was miserable, which made me feel less bad staying indoors. Also, we have a mouse in our apartment and Eric is going crazy trying to catch it, since it seems to fancy his room. We thought we found his hiding hole, but apparently that wasn’t it as Eric found him running around and complained about there being a rip in the space-time continuum.
So I’ve been sick this whole time. Awesome. But a few cool things have happened:
1-I found out that Pharmacists actually know a heluva lot about what drugs can help cure your sickness. But they apparently don’t know what cures mine…or how to give me proper change.
2-I actually made an awesome dinner on Tuesday (chicken stir fry… yeah, it’s easy, don’t judge me). It was like a Bob Ross Painting…everything just kind of came together at the end on this wonderful canvas that was my dinner plate.
3-I got to take a tour inside Westminster Abbey, and wooooof. It started to be built in 1066, so… 942 years worth of history in that place. Tombs of old Kings, Queens, Handel, Darwin, other neat chaps like that.
4-I straddled the Prime Meridian. Badass.
5-We tried to catch the mouse about 10 times and have failed miserably. This past time he ran out right in front of us, slipped around on the kitchen floor and flew behind the washer.
6-We got to meet up with a professor from IC and have dinner and tasty beverages. Good times.
7-I had my first euphonium lesson with my teacher, David Powell. He’s a pretty awesome tuba player and a great guy. Should be fun to study with him.
Hopefully I’ll become healthy again soon and be able to partake in crazy London antics. More on that later.
Friday, September 5th
I spent the entire day on the couch being sickly. At one point I took a shower and went across the street to get some medicine and food (10 oranges, 10 clementines, 2.75 liters of orange juice, and a liter of apple juice). The cashier did not like me very much as I was very out of it and wasn’t giving her the correct amount. At least it rained all day and was miserable, which made me feel less bad staying indoors. Also, we have a mouse in our apartment and Eric is going crazy trying to catch it, since it seems to fancy his room. We thought we found his hiding hole, but apparently that wasn’t it as Eric found him running around and complained about there being a rip in the space-time continuum.
Thursday, 4 September 2008
Week 3
Thursday, September 4th
British pop is such an awesome class. Today we talked about The Who for nearly 2 1/2 hours, and we watched part of their film Quadrophenia which is pretty messed up. I’m glad our teacher is so cool and laid back because if she wasn’t, this would be not such a great class to sit through.
Tonight I went to the Proms to see the BBC National Orchestra of Wales perform Tchaik 6, and it was pretty awesome. I went by myself, which was a little different and a lot more boring, especially before the concert and during intermission, but oh well. It was worth the 5 pounds. It still blows my mind that all of these amazing concerts are happening every night, and it’s just part of their culture here. I was thinking about what would happen if any of these orchestras came to Ithaca to perform the same programs, and they would probably be sold out very quickly. It makes me very happy that all of this great music is so readily available. The Proms rule.
I am definitely getting sick. Go me. I think I should probably get a lot of sleep tonight and tomorrow, and see if they have Sudafed over here because that would be clutch right about now.
Wednesday, September 3rd
Today I slept in ‘til 11am and it felt great. I’m trying not to come down with a cold, so sleep is a great thing. I didn’t really do anything too exciting today besides practice, buy some food and attempt to go to the Proms concert with the Berlin Philharmonic playing Shosty 10, but the line was at least a half-mile long and we didn’t get in. Omar and I went back to the London Center to practice and chill out until we were kicked out.
Tuesday, September 2nd
I hate the circle line. When Bill said it was the most unreliable line, he was not joking. I left my flat today close to an hour before class (should only take about 15 minutes to get to school), and got to class 3 minutes late. Ah well, yesterday the Edgware Road Station was closed due to a water main break at a nearby station. Relying on public transportation sucks.
I slept through a good part of British Art & Architecture today, and I sort of feel bad about it. The teacher is such a nice, proper British lady and her voice is so soothing. When it’s 10am and we’re looking at 85 different “illuminations” of Deuteronomy in the year 1365, with her narrating it all, I’m donskies. It’s great to learn about the history and what goes into making each of these pieces of art, but nearly 3 hours of that is enough to put anyone over the edge.
The wireless signal that we’ve been relying on for free internet at our flat is crapping out, so we took a chance and went to meet the students from Syracuse University that live in the flat directly below us. They’re all really cool, and they happened to have a wireless router that worked, and might be free. Go us. After that, we went to ISH to have some drinks and be happy about the free internet access we had just acquired. While Omar, Eric and myself were sitting at a table, this German college-aged kid walks over and asks to sit with us.
We met Phillip, a lad from Munich studying electrical engineering who happened to be in London for the summer at a language institute at Cambridge. He was pretty cool, and we had a fun conversation, ranging from politics to weather, and eventually to Octoberfest. Then we played the British version of pool which is much smaller (the tables, the pockets and the balls), and that makes it a bit more difficult. We were angering these guys that came in after us, who brought their own cues. Ah well.
Monday, September 1st
I’m still not diggin’ the Shakespeare class. I felt relatively confident in my knowledge of Revenger’s Tragedy, but that was quickly wiped aside when all of the drama majors started talking about what they read into the different aspects of the play. It felt like everyone was overanalyzing every little detail about the text and the production we saw, such as spending 30 minutes talking about one character’s room and what each piece of furniture symbolized. Most of it was quite a bit of a stretch. Maybe I’m not a deep enough thinker to appreciate that Lussuriosos’s pillar with a bench around it is phallic.
After class I checked out a sheet music store (Kensington Chimes Music), which is a 10 minute walk from the London Center. They had a ton of sheet music, scores, etc.. That might be a cool place to work, I’ll have to ask the next time I stop in.
Later on we went on a walk on Edgware Road to renew our Oyster cards and to see what’s down the other end of the street. It took me about 10 minutes to figure out how to operate the machine to renew my Oyster card, I felt like a stupid American. Then we walked down our street, saw a KFC, an SFC (Southern Fried Chicken) and an angry prostitute. We also stopped into an off-license shop to check out the price of liquor. One regular bottle of Jack Daniels was 20 pounds, or slightly under $40. Woof. I wanted to get a bottle and also buy a bottle of Coca-Cola to make our own Jack ‘n’ Cokes. They use sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup in soda over here and it makes mixed drinks taste amazing. Maybe I’ll save my pennies and buy a bottle of Jack before the end of the term…
British pop is such an awesome class. Today we talked about The Who for nearly 2 1/2 hours, and we watched part of their film Quadrophenia which is pretty messed up. I’m glad our teacher is so cool and laid back because if she wasn’t, this would be not such a great class to sit through.
Tonight I went to the Proms to see the BBC National Orchestra of Wales perform Tchaik 6, and it was pretty awesome. I went by myself, which was a little different and a lot more boring, especially before the concert and during intermission, but oh well. It was worth the 5 pounds. It still blows my mind that all of these amazing concerts are happening every night, and it’s just part of their culture here. I was thinking about what would happen if any of these orchestras came to Ithaca to perform the same programs, and they would probably be sold out very quickly. It makes me very happy that all of this great music is so readily available. The Proms rule.
I am definitely getting sick. Go me. I think I should probably get a lot of sleep tonight and tomorrow, and see if they have Sudafed over here because that would be clutch right about now.
Wednesday, September 3rd
Today I slept in ‘til 11am and it felt great. I’m trying not to come down with a cold, so sleep is a great thing. I didn’t really do anything too exciting today besides practice, buy some food and attempt to go to the Proms concert with the Berlin Philharmonic playing Shosty 10, but the line was at least a half-mile long and we didn’t get in. Omar and I went back to the London Center to practice and chill out until we were kicked out.
Tuesday, September 2nd
I hate the circle line. When Bill said it was the most unreliable line, he was not joking. I left my flat today close to an hour before class (should only take about 15 minutes to get to school), and got to class 3 minutes late. Ah well, yesterday the Edgware Road Station was closed due to a water main break at a nearby station. Relying on public transportation sucks.
I slept through a good part of British Art & Architecture today, and I sort of feel bad about it. The teacher is such a nice, proper British lady and her voice is so soothing. When it’s 10am and we’re looking at 85 different “illuminations” of Deuteronomy in the year 1365, with her narrating it all, I’m donskies. It’s great to learn about the history and what goes into making each of these pieces of art, but nearly 3 hours of that is enough to put anyone over the edge.
The wireless signal that we’ve been relying on for free internet at our flat is crapping out, so we took a chance and went to meet the students from Syracuse University that live in the flat directly below us. They’re all really cool, and they happened to have a wireless router that worked, and might be free. Go us. After that, we went to ISH to have some drinks and be happy about the free internet access we had just acquired. While Omar, Eric and myself were sitting at a table, this German college-aged kid walks over and asks to sit with us.
We met Phillip, a lad from Munich studying electrical engineering who happened to be in London for the summer at a language institute at Cambridge. He was pretty cool, and we had a fun conversation, ranging from politics to weather, and eventually to Octoberfest. Then we played the British version of pool which is much smaller (the tables, the pockets and the balls), and that makes it a bit more difficult. We were angering these guys that came in after us, who brought their own cues. Ah well.
Monday, September 1st
I’m still not diggin’ the Shakespeare class. I felt relatively confident in my knowledge of Revenger’s Tragedy, but that was quickly wiped aside when all of the drama majors started talking about what they read into the different aspects of the play. It felt like everyone was overanalyzing every little detail about the text and the production we saw, such as spending 30 minutes talking about one character’s room and what each piece of furniture symbolized. Most of it was quite a bit of a stretch. Maybe I’m not a deep enough thinker to appreciate that Lussuriosos’s pillar with a bench around it is phallic.
After class I checked out a sheet music store (Kensington Chimes Music), which is a 10 minute walk from the London Center. They had a ton of sheet music, scores, etc.. That might be a cool place to work, I’ll have to ask the next time I stop in.
Later on we went on a walk on Edgware Road to renew our Oyster cards and to see what’s down the other end of the street. It took me about 10 minutes to figure out how to operate the machine to renew my Oyster card, I felt like a stupid American. Then we walked down our street, saw a KFC, an SFC (Southern Fried Chicken) and an angry prostitute. We also stopped into an off-license shop to check out the price of liquor. One regular bottle of Jack Daniels was 20 pounds, or slightly under $40. Woof. I wanted to get a bottle and also buy a bottle of Coca-Cola to make our own Jack ‘n’ Cokes. They use sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup in soda over here and it makes mixed drinks taste amazing. Maybe I’ll save my pennies and buy a bottle of Jack before the end of the term…
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