Officially One Week Left

Only one week to go. It is unfortunate that I have to end this trip that would otherwise have been amazing, with exams. Oh well, I guess that was included in the price of admission. Not much is happening. A group got together to go to Icebar after class. I was going to go but cramming a group of 20 law students into a frozen bar presumably underground, went against my better judgment. -Was that a grown-up decision? See mom I told you.- This weekend we will be studying as much as we allow each other to. Hopefully there will also be some fun in there somewhere. Above is a video I took of a tuba playing pyromaniac? If you can think of any other way to describe it, please let me know. Until next time...

What I won't miss, at all, not even a little.

The Picadilly line at 5pm is brutal. There are so many people that it is tough to breath. Considering you are 175 steps down, the equivalent of 14 stories, it literally feels like you are fighting one another for air. Getting on the train is often difficult as there is probably one hundred people kneeing, elbowing, and punching their way past you. Then once on said train, if you are fortunate, you get to stand next to the guy who is 6'5, with a cut off shirt on, and his not freshly washed armpit inches from your face. Needless to say, it's a terrible experience. Until next time...

What Makes My Day!!!

Every day on my way to class, I take the tube to the Leicester Square stop. From there, I have to walk through Trafalgar Square to the building I have classes in. Walking through Trafalgar always puts a smile on my face. Here's why. The square is where all of the street performers congregate. Mimes, musicians, magicians, people in Darth Vader costumes, you name it. Today I saw my absolute favorite sight in the last five weeks and it wasn't even a performer. I saw a man, laying on his back with a back pack fastened around his front. In his pack, I saw what I thought was a baby sleeping. Upon further inspection, I realized it wasn't a human baby, but a baby chimpanzee with a British flag bandanna on!!! So cool. I couldn't believe it. I so badly wanted to take a picture but was afraid that it may upset the chimp and we all know how mean they can be. So this will have to do. Until next time...

9 Days Left

With only 9 days left and exams coming up around the corner, I am beginning to feel the crunch of having to fill every day with things I want to do. Therefore, I played hookie today. We went to the British Museum which had more stuff than I thought it would. The British Museum is home to 60% the Parthenon's stone work. I had no idea. There is a number of real mummies, skeletons, and random bones in piles. The British Museum also houses the Rosetta Stone, which, if I must say so myself, is quite amazing. The Rosetta Stone is what allowed us to understand ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs. It was neat. Tomorrow after class I intend on going to see the London Dungeons. The plan after Thursdays class is to go on a tour of the Tower of London. Other than that, we'll see what happens. The time has flown for the last five weeks so I can imagine this last week will go much faster. Until next time...

J'adore Paris

 Holy crap. Paris could possibly be the coolest place I have ever been. Even though we were only there for two days, we got a lot in. As WIFI at our hotel was only available in the lobby, I could not keep you all up to date with what was happening. On top of that, I couldn't figure out how to login to update my blog as being in Paris, the login page was all different.

We did make it to the Louvre which was the biggest museum I have ever seen. We waited in line for about 15 minutes to get a ticket because someone didn't buy theirs online. "Wasn't me." After we got in, we spent a total of probably 40 minutes there. We had to see the Mona Lisa, which was not as impressive as I imagined, along with the Winged Victory, a 190 BC statute of the Greek goddess Nike.

Everywhere you looked there was something really beautiful in Paris. The picture above is leaving the Louvre. The Seine river is between where this shot is taken and the Eiffel Tower, where approximately 50 artists have booths set up were they their drawings and paintings.

This is a picture of the Pantheon from the cafe where I had a glass of wine. This also happened to be the cafe we saw two couple getting into a fight. Evidently one woman threw water onto the man in the other car. The cars stopped, one woman took off running with the other woman chasing behind. Meanwhile one of the guys got out, walked to the other guys car, opened the door, and started punching him. Wild.

Here is the Arc de Triumphe, also known as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It was impressive. I got back to London last night about 5 pm and took it easy. I ordered a pizza and watched a little bit of streamed TV. I got a good ten hours of sleep and woke up feeling refreshed. This is my last week of classes before exams and then home. Until next time...

24,437

We went and saw Mousetrap today, and I liked it!!! I really liked it. I didn't love it obviously because it is still a play, but I was entertained. I enjoyed it much more than Wicked. It is reminiscent of a precursor to Clue and by all means could be, as I haven't looked into the inspiration of Clue. In any sense, the show was really intriguing, the acting was great, and there was not one, single, solitary song, lest you count the humming of Three Blind Mice song. This show has been going on for ages and if the advertisements are true, it is the longest running show in theater. My only problem with the whole experience was the seating. The theater itself was really neat, but it felt as though the people in front of me were sitting in my lap and I in the laps of the people behind me. I had to sit diagonally with my legs in the place were another person would have been sitting. Still, even through two hours of dialogue with cramped quarters, I would definitely recommend everyone see it. I'm sure it will be playing. France in less than 48 hours. Until next time...

Update

I went to the grocery store today to pick up some baguette, lettuce, and cheese. I decided I would also get some ranch salad dressing for the lettuce I didn't use in my sandwich. None. There is no ranch salad dressing. I'm not upset they don't have it, but so very confused. People in the states put ranch on everything; salads, pizza, sandwiches, you name it and chances are people put ranch on it. Even more surprising is the Italian dressing. It's terrible. I got it in place of the ranch and it tastes just like vinegar. And it's not especially good vinegar either. In any event, I needed to explain. Until next time...

I'm Still Here.

Hello all. Updates since my last post on Thursday. Thursday evening we went to Camden Town. It's a little part of London north of where I am staying. Camden Town has a bunch of restaurants and pubs. We just walked around there for a while. Friday a group of us went and saw the last Harry Potter. It was pretty good but I must say, I am quite relieved it is over. It feels like this phenomenon has over-stayed its welcome. After the movie I came back and did some reading and took it easy Friday night. Saturday I did some more reading. I really wanted to go to a jazz club on Saturday and did my best to recruit a couple people to go with. Come to find out, a group had already decided to go out. So I tagged along. We didn't leave here until 11pm and by the time we got to the place they had reserved, it was 11:40. Something came up with the pricing, I think it was the old bait and switch maneuver, but everyone decided they didn't want to pay the 15 pounds to go in. OK. So we left and walked to a number of other places which concluded with the same consensus as previously, no one wanted to spend the money to get in. It was really quite ironic that it was after midnight, on a Saturday, in London, and no one (more accurately, two individuals in particular) didn't want to pay to get in. As we were waiting for the other group to catch up with us, we landed on a place called Cafe de Paris. Wild. This place was really cool. It was decorated in an old burlesque motif and the dj even was playing cabaret tunes, decidedly club-i-fied. All in all it was really cool. Today marked the first day of the last two weeks of classes. Yay! I am anxious to get done with the classes but even more anxious to go to the real Paris. We leave Thursday morning and come back on Saturday. Bon au revoir, jusqu' à la prochaine fois...

21 Days Left

Only 21 days left, from today, until I'm home. I don't want to say I'm excited, but I kind of am. The thing that really bugs me about being here is dorm living. I can't stand it. You have one little room, a shared bathroom, and no where to cook. The cooking thing drives me crazy. How badly I would like to make a steak, some pork chops, barbecue chicken, or my own eggs. If I never eat another can of soup again it will be too soon. However, I do really love London. There is more to do here than you could experience in a lifetime. For Samuel Johnson said, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life." As a number of people are away this weekend, I will make a conscious attempt to get ahead in my classes. Finally we have departed from the dull and depleting into the world of interest and character. No longer must I pinch myself to keep my head from banging off of the keyboard. I will also attempt to go to another museum. My only qualm is whether that is a good idea considering it is a weekend. In any event, here is another picture having fun with Photoshop. Until next time...

Hello All

Not much has happened over here in the last few days. After class today, an Italian attorney working for an American firm in London, that's a mouthful, came and spoke with us about job opportunities here in London. He and I spoke after his presentation over tea, ha, and he said there is a shortage lot of young attorneys in U.K. firms. The reason for this is that over the past few years, while the American market is the single strongest market, Europe and Asia has been increasing. Much of this is because English law is predominant in a lot of regions. While American firms in the U.K. are mostly hiring British attorneys, that is not necessarily true for the British firms. Interesting little nugget of information that is. I have been doing some playing around with Photoshop and thought I would give you guys a couple pictures to look at. Until next time...

The Grim Reaper Tour, Tower of London, Tower Bridge

Yesterday I went on an amazing tour. It's called the Grim Reaper Tour and is a walk through of the city’s gloom through the site of gruesome executions, poverty, overcrowding, disease and criminality. Most notably is tracing the murders of Jack the Ripper. The name Jack the Ripper was coined by a false letter sent to the newspapers at the time. However, the name stuck and folks including the media began referring to the 'Whitechapel Murderer' as Jack the Ripper. It is believed, however, that the actual murderer did in fact contact the media twice; once to inform them that he would kill again and secondly, to prove he was in fact the murderer, by sending a portion of a victim's kidney, the other portion of the kidney was supposedly eaten by the Ripper. Interestingly, the Ripper never referred to himself as Jack the Ripper, but always addressed his letters as 'Dear Boss' and signed off with the now famous 'From Hell' moniker. Though a number of murders occurred during this time, only five are 'confirmed' to be performed by Jack the Ripper and are commonly referred to as the Canonical Five. All of the Canonical Five victims were prostitutes and the accepted contention is that the Ripper was a misogynist.

 The first murder was of Mary Ann Nichols near Buck's Row, now Durward St..

The second victim, Annie Chapman, was found on Hansbury Street.

The third and fourth victims, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes, were found near Mitre Square. This night of the double killing is referred to as the 'double event.'

The fifth victim, Mary Jane Kelly, was found in an apartment near this church.

This is a picture of 'Prostitutes Church'. It is referred to as 'Prostitutes Church' due to the sheer number of prostitutes that would work this area. What they would do is walk slowly by the front of the church and then run around the back of the church to walk slowly again across the front. The reason they did this was because of law enforcement. If police, which were a relatively new idea at that time, saw the prostitutes standing around, the prostitutes then could be arrested for solicitation of prostitution. By constantly moving, they could avoid arrest. Clever girls. The murders progressively became worse with the final victims throat being cut to the spine, all of her internal organs being removed, though only her heart was absent from the scene, and a number of mutilations. There is speculation that the Ripper stopped murdering because this last murder fulfilled his appetite. This speculation is based upon the fact that a letter was received from the alleged Ripper, claiming that he ate the heart that was removed from Mary Kelly's body.

This is a picture of The Ten Bells, the pub where all five victims are said to have frequented which is just two blocks from where Mary Kelly's body was found in her apartment.

This is Artillery Passage, a street reminiscent of old eastern London. The picture below is a sketch of the Ripper which is through a narrow pass on the left near the light post. Kind of creepy, isn't it?

In all, this was probably the coolest thing I have done so far in London. It does seem kind of morbid, but you could really feel the history here. Much of eastern London remains the way it did hundreds of years ago. What is disappointing is that the Great Fire of 1666 destroyed much of it, but what remains is truly remarkable. In addition to all of the Ripper events, we also saw the Tower of London, the most haunted place in London. I have not went into it yet, but it's on the list.

We also saw the Tower Bridge, which is nearly impossible to miss.

Here is what I think may be my best picture yet, it is Traitors Gate, the entrance to the Tower of London by sea. Until next time...

The British Library

After laundry yesterday, I walked over to the British Library. It's only a 5 minute walk away and even though I only had an hour or so before they closed, I figured I would check it out. Wow!!! I didn't realize what was all there. First, two of the four remaining originals of the Magna Carta are housed here. For those who can't remember back to high school history class, the Magna Carta was the first charter that was 'thrust' upon a king limiting his power. There are a number of reasons the barons wanted the king's power limited, but one of the most important was due to the property rights. As England was a feudal system, the king owned all the land which he would divulge to governors or dukes or whomever else. The rights of the people who actually lived upon  the land, whom had the right to possession, were constantly being infringed upon, hence the creation of the limits on the king. *That's in a nutshell.*  

This is a picture of the center of the library. It is a three or four story glass room that houses books and is only accessible by staff. The glass goes around all four sides of the room and books line every inch of the glass. Second, the library is home to two Bible codicies, the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Alexandrinus.

The Codex Sinaiticus, a manuscript of the Christian Bible written in the middle of the fourth century, contains the earliest complete copy of the Christian New Testament.

The Codex Alexandinus it is one of the earliest and most complete manuscripts of the Bible. Thirdly, the British Library is home to Leonardo da Vinci's notebook. It is one of several notebooks put together from loose papers after Leonardo’s death. Fourth, the British Library has Lewis Carroll's original manuscript of Alice's Adventures Under Ground. Fifth, the library also has a number of original writings of Beatles songs. Many of which that were written on scratch paper by John Lennon or Paul McCartney. *I'm not a big Beatles fan but it was still pretty cool.* There is a number of other things worth seeing, but as I mentioned, I was low on time. I will be making a trip back to see what else I can find. Until next time...

Before I Forget

Today is laundry day. Just down the block is a little Laundrette. That's what it's called. Anyway, I went in there to do some laundry and I was looking at the machines to figure out how to put money in. I couldn't find anything. So I started reading a sign about the increase in water prices and how the Laundrette had to compensate by charging more for each load. Then I noticed a sign on the wall that said the washes had to be prepaid. OK, i thought. Well a small wash was 9.50 pounds. Seriously? That's insane. As I was talking myself into the rationalization that no one would notice that I would always be wearing dirty clothes, I decided to do some investigative work. I discovered that we have laundry facilities in the dorm. Who'd a thunk? 2.20 pounds for a wash. So guess what, I have clean clothes. Above is an advertisement I saw in the subway the other day that I thought was hilarious. Enjoy!!! Cheers.

Wicked

Well we went to Wicked last night and I must say, I was disappointed. Mostly it was my fault. I, being the brilliant guy you all know me to be, didn't realize Wicked is a musical. I thought it was a play. After the first 20 minute song, I figured it out. On top of that, I read the book. Stupid me. The show wasn't anything like the book. The musical was happy, light-hearted, and even funny. The book on the other hand was dark, twisted, and more up my alley. The musical offered no character development other than the 40 minute song about how Elfaba and Galinda changed each other for good. I don't recall that in the book. However, if musicals are your thing, which clearly they aren't mine, I would recommend it. Especially if you haven't read the book and don't have the expectations I did. The actors were amazing, the lighting and sound were wonderful, and the stage, well the stage was Wicked!!! In all, I'm glad I went. Seeing a show in London's west end is one of the things to do here. Until next time...

Pottertime!!!!

Canadian girls waiting six days. At least they are in the front of the line.



I don't know how I did it, but I did. I forgot to mention that tomorrow is the premier of the final Harry Potter film. The red carpet ceremony will begin in Trafalgar Square and a make shift Diagon Alley, a fictional wizarding street from the film, will stretch to Leicester Square cinemas. My faithful followers may or may not remember that Trafalgar Square is where the University of Notre Dame London is located. Leicester Square is the tube stop I get off at to go to class. Small world eh? Actually, I think it's pretty exciting. I have always been a fan of the books (the movies are OK) so you can understand when I say there is something 'magical' in the air. J.K. Rowling and all of the actors will be here for it. Unfortunately, we bought our tickets to see Wicked tomorrow night so... oh well! I hear Wicked is amazing. Cheers.

Trafalgar Square

Holy Cheese

I consider myself somewhat inclined to the happenings of the culinary world. While I cannot make a rue, a demi-glace or even cookies, there is a number of things I can make or know how to make, with a little playing around. I went to the store today to stock up on some groceries and decided I would get a baguette and some cheese. Simple enough, right? Wrong. I walked into the cheese aisle and had to convince myself I was still on planet earth. There were more different cheeses with even more different names than I had ever heard of in my life. Why? Why could I not find Havarti? Swiss? Muenster? American? OK, I get why there is no American cheese. Still, I had no idea what to do. After looking through blocks, cartons, circle containers, square containers, plastic pouches, wood pouches, plastic containers, wood containers, and even some in tubes, I panicked and regrettably fell back on good old cheddar. Reflecting on that decision now I am somewhat disappointed in my lack of courage and zest for life. I should have got the green cheese in the clear tube for the experience. Still, the baguette and cheddar is quite delicious. Until next time...

Updates

These are a few pictures I found that I thought you guys might find interesting.



ND London Law Center Building Facade

Sign on ND

Faculty Lounge to Right

Faculty Lounge Center

Faculty Lounge Left

Downing St. where David Cameron, the P.M. lives.

Old Benjamin, interestingly, Big Ben is actually the name for the bell, not the tower.

Westminster Abbey

American Bobby

Australian Bobby

Countdown to Olympics

Happy 4th from Behind Enemy Lines

There he is, America's daddy right smack in Trafalgar Square. This was our rendevouz point for our pub crawl. Fitting, eh? Everything went swimmingly. Our pub-crawl started after class. We went to four different pubs, a bit of a mini pub-crawl but it was a lot of fun. One of the pubs was over 600 years old.

Another pub had the absolute worst smelling bathroom in London, England, Europe, and quite possibly the world. It was reminiscent of what a barn would smell like if someone threw it in a dumpster, nasty.

After that, we went to Big Ben, Parliament and Westminster Abbey for pictures. Between Big Ben, Parliament and Westminster Abbey, I was teaching Josh, the aussie, our national anthem. This turned into an impromptu singing of the national anthem in which nearly everyone in our group joined in. Don’t worry, I got it on video.

We had a dinner reservation at around 7:30 so we headed to the Texas Grill. We got into the restaurant and as we get to the second level, a bunch of Americans began singing and chanting USA. It was crazy. A bunch of them were US soldiers stationed in Germany on vacation and another group were US citizens who’ve been working in London for the past 10 months. These guys were crazy. They were bonging beers in the bar. Ha. See the picture.

I got to the table, took one look at the menu and decided I was out of there. The prices were crazy so I headed home.

I got back around 8 or so, ate some left over pizza, and went to bed. On my way home, I walked by Ripley's believe it or not and M&M City, whatever that is. Ripley's was cool.

 No fireworks for me this year but seeing Josh, in a bobby hat, singing the American national anthem was priceless. Until next time…