Coming Soon

I know, I know--I'm frightfully behind and have a lot of catching up to do. I've been on a trip out of London to Stratford upon Avon for the past couple of days. I have put together a couple of posts so far, but since I like to post chronologically, I'm waiting to post them until they're all done. So here's a little of what you can expect:

Stratford upon Avon: Bed & Breakfast, the theatre, Mary Arden's Farm, Anne Hathaway's Cottage, The Birthplace, New Place, Hall's Croft (places where Shakespeare lived), Stratford upon Avon Trinity Church (where Shakespeare is buried)

The Cotswolds and Broadway Tower

Oxford: The university, some cool architecture/places where they filmed Harry Potter

So rest assured--I am alive, and as far as posting goes, I'm working on it.

Like Night and Day

This was what I had written as of this morning:

These past few days I haven't been too active on le blog because I haven't been too active, period. I've been laying low a little bit because a) I feel gross, and b) I don't want to inflict myself/my illness on the London population at large because c) that just doesn't seem considerate, and d) it's not very fun to have people look at you like you have the plague. And blowing your nose/coughing/sneezing is even less convenient when you don't have a ready supply of tissues and a rubbish bin on hand. So yeah.

On Saturday my one outing was to the play Duchess of Malfi by John Webster in the Old Vic Theatre. And despite feeling like my head was going to explode from sinus pressure, it was kind of cool. The lighting/music/atmosphere was some of the most effective I've ever seen. The set was incredible, and all the effects combined to make a production with foreboding undertones that were very appropriate for Duchess of Malfi. Good theatre experience.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to blow my nose and go back to bed. Blech.

*****

And now, later this evening, I feel SO much better than I did this morning. Really, I would like to give a shout-out to my friend Kenzie who has endured my whining patiently, has empathized with me (she had the cold first) and has worked her magic with her Essential Oils so that I largely attribute my current good feeling to her. I have only had to blow my nose a handful of times in the last few hours, and while I still have a touch of cough and congestion/sinus pressure, I feel so much better that sometimes I even forget that I'm sick. Hooray!

After school (which was held in the LDS Hyde Park Chapel building on Exhibition Road today, by the way) I had to do laundry and write a paper, but I took a break this evening to venture out for some gelato with a few of the other girls--Abby, Janessa, and Kenzie. I got cookies and cream and caramel. Mmm mmm. It was a lovely evening walk through Kensington Gardens in the warm twilight.

Side note: On our way to get gelato we walked by the window of this store with a bunch of shoes labeled "5 pounds," and I saw the CUTEST red sandals/heels with flowers on them. I grabbed Kenzie and dragged her over to the window, pointing to those shoes, and said, "I HAVE TO HAVE THOSE. I HAVE TO HAVE THOSE SHOES!!" Needless to say, we will be returning to that store soon--it was closed when we walked by. I kind of have a shoe fetish, and it manifests itself sometimes at random moments... Yeah.

I had one of those "You're a foreigner, aren't you" moments at the gelato place tonight. One of the few I've been conscious of, actually. This nice British lady, seeing us pull out our cameras after we had gotten our ice cream, offered to take our picture, and in the process of getting that set up, I remarked that I didn't think I had ever had gelato before coming here. The lady, gasping in shock, asked, "You've never had ice cream before??" Apparently here ice cream and gelato are one and the same--there is no distinction between the two like there is in the U.S. We tried to explain, but I'm not sure we got the message across, but I'm sure we did communicate loud and clear that we were not from around here. Oh well.

Ice cream, gelato--whatever it was, it was delicious.

Baker Street

I've spent a good part of the day sleeping and sitting on the couch surrounded by tissues and sucking on cough drops (sneeze, blow, sanitize, cough, hack, repeat), but Becca and I did venture out to the "home" of one of London's more well-known citizens--Sherlock Holmes, 221b Baker Street.

Of course, being a fictional character, ol' Holmes didn't really hang his hat here, but it's fun to pretend. There's a gift shop and a museum inside.

Then, a hop, skip, and a jump away from Holmes's haunt is the Beatles Store. So I took a picture. Just to say I've been there, ya know.

Scene It?

I have!

And last night, despite being sick and the theatre being abominably hot (I now understand why it's "the thing" here to sell ice cream during interval) it was wonderful. Dream come true? Check.

Yay, Les Miserables!

Paparazzi

While strolling through Hampton Court, we caught glimpses of a few illustrious figures, including

King Henry VIII himself...

And his daughter Mary.

We also happened upon this guy right here. He was kind of a stiff.

Gaston, Much?

In Henry VIII's part of Hampton Court, I saw this, and it reminded me of that song in Beauty and the Beast:

"I use antlers in all of my deeeecoraaaating..."

Considering Henry VIII's reputation for going through wives quickly, he may have been a bit of a chauvinist.

Hampton Court

I went hobnobbing with the royals again yesterday--this time our group went to Hampton Court Palace, which is a 30-minute (or thereabouts) train ride outside of central London.

The whole time I kept turning to my friend Kenzie and saying things like, "This is so cool!" "I can't believe we're here!!" "It's so crazy that these people actually lived here! "Isn't this cool??"

We strolled thorough Henry VIII's extensive kitchens. Talk about a hot, sweaty, backbreaking job for the people who worked to serve meals for at least 600 of the king's guests every night. I worked for catering for a year and a half, and we ain't got nothin' on these people. My gracious.

Roast peacock was sometimes on the menu. Yum yum. Do you think it tastes like chicken?

We also explored Henry VIII's rooms, William III's apartments (William of William and Mary and the Glorious Revolution fame), and the Georgian State Apartments. Hampton Court Palace has everything you think a palace would have:

Ornate bedchambers...

Gorgeously painted ceilings...

Grand architecture...

Imposing staircases and priceless murals...

Impressive receiving ("presence") rooms with gorgeous chandeliers. My gracious. I cannot get enough of these beautiful chandeliers.

Lovely courtyards with fountains...

Beautiful dining rooms...

Beautiful gardens and meticulously manicured grounds...

Grand halls and corridors...

So why the skirt, you may ask? Because dang, it was HOT. And there was no way I was walking around all day in pants. It was also incredibly humid--I felt sticky all day. Gross. But it's better than the alternative (rainy and freezing), right?

...And there was even a plush-covered loo. Yep. Only the best for the royals.

You are free at this point to stop reading and carry on with whatever else it is that you have to do besides read this blog post. But I will continue (for those interested) and post some of the pictures that were too good not to post, but I didn't have the energy to caption them. So here goes.

Plagued

Too much Nutella + too little sleep + crowded subways + living with sick people

 =

I'm sick.

Darn.

I thought I had dodged the worst of the cold/cough sickness that has been going around our flat, but I spoke too soon. Thus, I am walking around with a nose that runs like a faucet, a sore throat, and a funny-sounding voice. It's kind of miserable. I hardly slept a wink last night because of the congestion.

So today I bought me some packets of tissue and soothing medicine drops, and I'm drinking lots of water, trying to get more sleep, and attempting to not sneeze on people. I'm sorry to all those people on the train yesterday--someone's probably going to get sick. I apologize.

I'm telling you--this is how the Plague spread in London all those years ago. Crowded conditions, living with sick people... Well, I guess they didn't have Nutella. Which is too bad for them, because Nutella is delicious. It just doesn't work so well as one of the primary food groups.

Here Comes the Sun

Well, I never thought I'd say it,

but it was hot today.

HOT. As in like, 70 degrees with humidity. Really.

This is a BIG DEAL, people. Have you been reading my posts about how frigidly COLD it has been here?? And now all of a sudden it's suddenly spring--no, SUMMER--weather. Never thought I'd see the day. It was so funny, because we all wore sweaters and layers to class this morning and then all came home afterward and changed into short sleeve shirts and shorts or skirts. We're keeping our fingers crossed for good weather for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Celebration next week.

This afternoon we went to a matinee production of Chariots of Fire in the New Hampstead Theatre. An Olympic play for an Olympic year. Quite appropriate, don't you think? I enjoyed it.

The New Hampstead. They had a cow.

It was such a lovely afternoon.

I can't help but be happy on days like today. There's something about seeing the sun and being warm that changes my attitude to match. So even though I had my first real "experience" with London transportation today--extensive Tube delays and an hour on a crowded, hot bus trying to get home after the matinee performance--I was cool with it. Because it was such an absolutely beautiful day. And I am in London. And I have absolutely been having the time of my life.

How can I complain?

No wonder the Beatles wrote a song about this. They must have been in London for awhile.

War and Peace

Yesterday was a long and kind of emotionally exhausting day, and I needed to have a little bit of time to process it all. But yesterday's experience provoked some deep reflection and perhaps some of the most important lessons I've learned here to date. And thus, this may be the most substantive and reflective post I  have done on this blog.

Yesterday we spent all morning in the Imperial War Museum and then saw the West End production of War Horse in the evening. In the Imperial War Museum I spent the most time in the exhibits for World Wars I and II and the very extensive Holocaust exhibit.

The whole time I was walking through, I felt a tightening in my throat and chest, like someone was squeezing them in a vise. It was

overwhelming

sobering

fascinating

horrifying

...

A lot of things that war is, I suppose. It kind of defies explanation. I apologize for the lack of pictures, but if you went through this, especially the Holocaust exhibit, it's not really something you can take pictures of. It just didn't seem right. I hope you can understand.

I walked around by myself, without talking much to anyone. I think it was appropriate. Some things should be experienced in silence. They had a World War I trench experience, where you could walk through a "trench" where still models of soldiers in uniform stood at their posts in the gloom. A dank smell permeated the air, and voices of soldiers murmuring to each other and officers barking orders gave you a taste of what trench life was like. Of course, if it were to be really accurate, there would be about five inches of water in the bottom of the trench and a coating of slime over everything. Conditions would be absolutely miserable. I tiptoed through, feeling a sense of eeriness looking at these people through the past.

I didn't belong there in the trenches, and neither did they.

I wondered to myself how people coped with all this, this overwhelming and horrifying thing called war, seeing things that no one should ever have to see. In their letters, in their conversations that I read and listened to, there were a lot of positive phrases uttered. It's okay. We're going to be all right. Everything is going to be okay, you'll see. I'll be home soon. This will be over before we know it. And one of the most heartbreaking things, in a letter thrown from a train that was on its way to one of the German death camps (paraphrased): I'll be all right, dear. I'll be home in a year at most. Give my love to the children. I don't know that these people truly believed their reassurances to each other. I don't think they were entirely delusional. I think they had to keep telling themselves these things to just make it through each day, to help them keep their spirits up, to retain their will to live through the living hell they were going through both on the war front and the home front. That was strange to think about--that the "home front" was literally home over here, with the bombing raids screaming over Europe and London, sometimes for twelve hours at a time. That never happened in America. It was a sobering thought.

I listened to an audio recording of a woman from London describing people's reactions during the Blitz--the intense bombing of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in 1940 during the war. She describes one night during a raid when an old woman, who had lost a loved one in the war, looked out from the shelter at the German bomber plane flying overhead and said, "That poor man. He must feel so alone." This woman said that many people who had just lost homes or property were often very bitter, but there was something about losing a loved one that made people more inclined to be kinder and more empathetic. Interesting how that is.

Walking through the Holocaust exhibit and thinking about all the horrible, awful things people have done to each other over the centuries, I thought about how so often violence begins with the dehumanization of another human being. When people first arrived at the concentration camps, their hair was shaved off and all their clothes and personal possessions were taken away. A survivor described the experience as stripping away every ounce of humanity from them. Naked and exposed, he said you no longer felt like a human being--you felt like a worm, helpless and weak.

It occurred to me that perhaps the opposite of war is not necessarily peace--perhaps the opposite of war is humanity. By "humanity," I mean truly seeing each person not as an enemy, not as a force to be conquered, but as an individual, as a human being like ourselves. If you truly see your enemy as human, he or she is no longer an enemy. Perhaps this--refusing to dehumanize other people, refusing to see other people as enemies, in loving your enemies--is the essence of peace. I think I'm beginning to understand that now.

As I walked through the museum, a lot of things ran through my mind.

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry that this happened to you.

If I were my age during one of the world wars, almost all, if not all the young men I knew would be gone or dead. Two, if not three or four, of my five brothers would be in military service.

At least one of them would probably be dead.

I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry.

You see, I have learned in the past couple years that when you have someone you love very dearly in military service, it changes things. It creates a very tender spot in your heart, and seeing things and experiencing things like what I saw yesterday prick that spot very easily.

Yesterday pierced me to the core.

The same thing happened at Dover, looking across the channel to France.

This is my brother, Air Force Cadet Fourth Class Nathanael Szuch, on a trip to West Point in 2010.

When I saw those uniforms

Thought about all the young men who have lost their lives 

Saw their faces in black-and-white photographs and flashes of old film footage

Saw their wounds

Saw their graves

This is the face I saw.

I hope we never lose him.

And right now, he's taking a break from military service for a different kind of service--an LDS mission for two years. And guess where he is?

France.

Now, our hearts are the home front. And history hit home for me yesterday.

I watched a video of an interview with a Holocaust survivor at the very end of the exhibit, just before I left the museum.

She said,

"We keep telling our story. We keep telling our story to our children so our past will not be their future."

This is why we learn of these things. This is why I came here, and what I will carry with me long after I return home. So that their past, and the horrible things that happened then and that happen now, will not be my--and my children's--future.

Hitting Halfway

So I have been MIA, and I apologize. I have chosen sleep over updating my blog, and have chosen trying to get my homework done over sleep. So the hierarchy here goes

Homework
Sleep
Blog.

With some things in between, of course.

ANYway, we hit our halfway point in the program this past week. How crazy is that?? And in a couple more days we will have been here a month. Also crazy. Of course, this means that I am in a semi-panic over how many things on my list I have not yet done that have to be crammed into these last three (more like two and a half) weeks. So here's my London List of Things I Have Yet to Do:

• See Les Miserables. This is NOT negotiable, people. I have to see this play.
• Go into Westminster Abbey
• Have cream tea (tea--herbal, of course--and a scone with jam and clotted cream)
• See the Impressionist exhibit at the National Gallery
• Go to the Tate Modern and the Tate Britain
• See the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum (lots of museums here)
• See London Bridge. Which, no, is not currently falling down, but has fallen down, burned down, been moved down, etc. in the past. Just thought I'd clear that up for ya.
• Ride the top of a double-decker bus through the city. After riding the Tube everywhere, you kind of get tunnel vision--I feel like I don't know the city from aboveground yet.
• See something in the Royal Albert Hall
• Bike through Hyde Park--you can rent bikes here. Of course, I am terrified to ride on the roads here (I can't even walk across the roads without almost getting hit) so we'll stay in the nice safe park.
• See the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace

Anything I've missed? Tell me quick, because I don't have a lot of time left!

Image is from this site

Stonehenge

If I thought all the places I've been to so far have the weight of years upon them, they're just kid stuff compared to where I went today. We're talking 3,500 years here. And that's just since it was abandoned. It was in use for nearly 1,500 years before that.

Stonehenge... What can I say? 

A circle of mysterious rocks.

An excellent backdrop for pictures.

An ancient sundial/calendar (which works better if there's sun, of course.)

A towering stone monument on the majestic rolling Salisbury plain...

...Surrounded by flaxseed fields and many fluffy sheep.

I went there, as many thousands of people have for thousands of years have come before me...

And will continue to come long after I've gone

Wondering who built it, how they did it, and how it was used. We can speculate, but we don't know for sure.

 And still the stones keep their secrets.