The Olympics in London

    For my most recent assignment, a podcast, I looked into the history of the Olympics in London.  As you may know, the 2012 Olympics are being held in London this summer!  The city, I can assure you, is very aware that the Games are approaching and the signs are everywhere.

Enjoy the history of the London Olympics!

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Musical Attribution:

"Olympic Fanfare and Theme" Boston Pops Orchestra and John Williams, 1987

Secret Mixter Selections March 2010 (Various Artists [ccMixter]) / CC BY-NC 3.0

Rain, Rain, Don't Go Away!

    This is what I love about London: the rain.  Is that wrong?  I don’t think so.  My love of rain (specifically, rainy days) began long ago.  Like any good mother, my mom would often tell us “Go outside and play!” when the sun was shining.  Don’t get me wrong, I love being outdoors, but the books are inside.  A rainy day means quiet indoor activities, without the guilt of "wasting" a nice day, and to me quiet indoor activities means reading.  A day with terrible weather means guilt free reading time! But enough about my psychologically driven antisocial behavior.  Why would I love rainy days when I’m walking around in it all day?  Good question, and a relevant one right now while I’m wandering around the streets of London during the rainiest summer in recorded history.  Keep in mind, London has an extensive recorded history.  I’ve yet to be here a full day without a few rainstorms.  The odd thing is, there might be a fierce downpour for five minutes, then I’ve just dug out my jacket and arranged my backpack again when it suddenly stops and the sun is shining bright again.  Today, especially, was full of these little, damp surprises interspersed in an otherwise lovely day.  This was a bit unfortunate because we climbed to the top of Primrose Hill and flew kites, just as they did in “Mary Poppins.”  We were interrupted quite quickly with one of our regular cloudbursts, but it was still great fun!  Luckily, there was a school group of youngsters there who sang the rain away with a rousing rendition of “Rain, rain, go away,” and we were able to get the kites flying once again.  I haven't flown a kite in years, I realized, which is a sad thing because I’d forgotten how fun it is!  I’m assigning everyone a homework assignment:

1. Dig out your kite (I know you have one somewhere, and if you don’t, go get one!)
2. Find an open field
3. Go fly a kite!

 The rain was a bit of a nuisance, too, while we were exploring Regent's Park (my old stomping ground!) with a photography focus of flowers.  I still managed to get some awesome shots, though, and am having a hard time picking my favorite!

  See my problem?  I just wish I could capture the beautiful aromas of these flowers as easily as I did the images.

  At the end of the day, I had the thrill of flying a kite, saw and smelled some beautiful things, and took in even more of this great city.  And I still love the rain.

Best Laid Plans

   Today is the end of week 1 of this lovely program.  As you may have noticed, I’m having a great time in London.  The weather’s a bit rainy (it has rained at least once every day, and many days off and on all day) but you expect that in London— it even adds to the experience.  Otherwise, my classmates are all fun and agreeable, our daily trips are exciting and informative, and I’m even learning some valuable multimedia applications!  Clearly a successful trip; I’m just sad there are only two weeks left!

  But, one cannot expect everything to go perfectly.  Today was basically a series of misfortunes.  Our original plan was to go to see the Olympic Village in Stratford, or London’s East End.  How exciting! Few of us are actually staying on to see any part of the Games, so we were very excited about this.  We piled on the Tube and when we alighted at our stop saw some intriguing preludes to the Olympic Park.

Walking, we saw many new buildings going up, lanes on the road specifically for Olympics traffic (painted on the road!), and it was clear preparations were well underway for the upcoming influx of spectators.  The place our professor, Dr. Everhart, had taken a group before is called the View Tube, so we were on the lookout for directional signs when we saw this:

Such disappointment!  Making the best of it, we tromped through a construction site and got as close as we could, which happened to be a train station.

 (Speaking of the Olympics, keep watch for my most recent

assignment- a podcast- in which I talk about the history of the Olympics in London)

   Plans had obviously changed, so we all agreed we would take the train on to Greenwich.  I was very excited about this because I had planned to do this myself at some point.  Some of you may know that the Royal Observatory in Greenwich marks where the Prime Meridian is located.  You can stand in the Eastern and Western Hemispheres at the same time!  Pretty exciting stuff.  We arrived at the quaint village of Greenwich and walked to the Maritime Museum . . . to find the Royal Observatory closed.  Another blow to our ill-fated day.  The museum was free, though, and housed some very interesting pieces.

This looks kind of small, but was actually huge!

Spinnaker!

The Children's "Hands On!" Museum was the best part!

Our day was salvaged by returning to center London via a Thames Clipper.  The weather was very nice at this point, and we saw many sites of London from the water.

Today was a lesson in planning.  Sometimes things are not going to go the way we plan, which can be disappointing, but often equally fun or better things come from those disappointments.

   Tomorrow we’re off to see Regent’s Park and Primrose Hill, where the Banks family flew kites in “Mary Poppins”!  We are planning to fly kites, too . . . but I hear the weather plans to rain.  We’ll just have to wait and see whose plans prevail.

The birds! The BIRDS!

So let me tell you about the birds in London. The pigeons, of course, are ubiquitous. You see pigeons walking, hopping, and flying everywhere you go. No street is safe from them. I've even seen them inside buildings! I’ll admit, even as an animal lover, I have a particular dislike for the pigeons. They congregate especially in tourist hotspots, or basically anywhere where there are lots of people eating. Kids are usually easy marks for getting bits of crisps (aka chips) or bread. But that’s also kind of risky (for the pigeons) because kids tend to entertain themselves by running at the birds full tilt and watching them fly away in a panic. The one good association I have with pigeons is “Feed the Birds,” of Mary Poppins fame. That scene in the Disney movie where the woman sells bags of seeds to feed the birds was filmed on the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and the careful reader will recall I’ve been there! Sadly, there was no old lady selling bags of seeds and calling out “Tuppence a bag!” And to compound my disappointment, there are signs around the square asking tourists not to feed the birds. They do make something of a mess . . . the birds I mean. Though, come to think of it, tourists aren’t the neatest breed. (You’ll note I no longer associate myself with the common tourist. I now consider myself a temporary resident of London.) Despite the ill will that exists between me and pigeons, I’ve been on a mission to get a picture of a pigeon in flight. Despite the number of times pigeons have skimmed my head, I’ve yet to get a good shot. My day will come, and I’m sure the pigeons will give me plenty of opportunities by flying straight at me many more times.

Other types of birds exist in the city, of course, but most of them remain politely in the parks. All the parks I’ve seen (not counting mere “squares”) have at least one pond. And usually, these are long and narrow. These are havens for many types of water fowl, such as the noble swan, the moorhen, the coot, and ducks, of course. According to www.royalparks.org.uk 90 different species of birds were spotted in the past decade in Greenwich Park alone. Quite impressive. There are a few spots where you can feed them, but for the most part visitors are asked not to feed the birds. Not only does it create chaos, but it also disturbs the natural habits of the birds. They are still fun to watch, though. When I was recently in Kew Gardens I saw what can only be described as teenaged swans! They were gangly, grey, and rather ugly. Those two small circular things you see on their backs are their developing wings! Rather scrawny still.

For some reason they enjoyed floating on their sides with one leg sticking out of the water. Teenagers, eh?

For the most part I have an amiable relationship with the birds of London. We acknowledge each other, but go our separate ways, and we’re OK with that.

Now, let’s talk about the mouse Callie Ann and Katie saw scampering across our kitchen floor last night . . .

A Walk in the Garden

I don’t like cities in general. I dislike the noise. I hate the crowds of people. The traffic patterns make me itchy. I feel like I don’t take a clean breath of air the whole day through. And the pigeons. I hate the pigeons. But I like London. There’s a quiet dignity about this place, despite all the bustle. The air is surprisingly clean (perhaps I’ll get into London’s congestion charge in another post), people are polite (for the most part), the streets and buildings are downright tidy (even the public transportation), and I’ve only seen one clock in the whole of London (and there are many) that didn’t have the correct time. Amazing. London is a well-oiled machine and I don’t mind spending time here at all (OK, I love it). But I still love the countryside. And it’s nice once in a while to breathe the open air and walk among the trees. Now, I know I’ve only been here less than a week, but it was a nice change of pace to take the Tube to one of the farthest out stops and visit Kew Gardens today. Kew Gardens, also known as “Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew,” is one of the world’s leading botanic gardens and is comprised of acres and acres of lovely gardens, forests, fields, and anything you could want – botanically speaking. The glass houses are amazing, and cover all kinds of climatic zones. I was in a rainforest and an arid desert today!

Another treat was “lunch,” which was comprised of a scone (pronounced “skon”), clotted cream, jam, and tea!

I joined fellow classmates Liz, Melissa, and Brandy and we had a wonderful time exploring the beautiful landscapes and generally soaking in the peace and quiet.

Because the Kew is so large, we felt like we were among the chosen few who were allowed to wander and explore, despite there being many visitors on this rainy/sunny/rainy/sunny day. Lovely. There’s not much more to say that will do the place justice, so here are a few more of the many pictures I took. I hope they will give you a glimpse of my charming day spent in the garden!

Buildings Galore!

Each day in London that we have an outing we have a photo focus. That means we’re constantly looking for photo opportunities that include a certain theme, and the best is posted to our group Facebook page (see link to right of screen if you haven’t visited there yet). These foci include such things as flowers, buildings, contrasts, and many more. Today was buildings, and let me begin by saying I was less than thrilled with this focus when we got to our first stop of the day, the Museum of London. The Museum of London is a wonderful, free museum that displays London’s history in chronological order. This begins in prehistoric times and goes right through to present day. The exhibits were wonderful and I learned a great deal. For example, did you know that London opened the world’s first underground railway in 1863? And, from the middle ages through the mid-19th century if you owed someone money you’d be sent to debtors’ prison until you could repay your debt as well as your prison expenses! I even got to walk into a prison cell that had prisoners’ carvings on the walls. Really neat stuff, that. Despite this, the building that houses the Museum of London is ugly. One of the few truly ugly buildings I’ve seen in London, actually. This obviously made my photography focus of buildings seem a daunting task. But as I found on Thursday when our photo focus was contrasts, when you start to look for a certain thing, it will appear. The rest of the day I was seeing beautiful, strange, and interesting buildings everywhere I looked.

This certainly included St. Paul’s, which was our second stop of the day. St. Paul’s is London’s Cathedral. As I learned today, “cathedral” literally translates to “bishop’s chair,” so the church which is home to the Bishop of London is the Cathedral. You may have seen pictures of this building before, but I can assure you they do not do it justice. St. Paul’s is not only massive, it is awesome, in the truest sense of the word. The beauty and grace of the architecture quite literally takes your breath away, and it’s not something you get used to. Our group had a tour with Chris and not only learned the fascinating history of the church but we were also able to see some of the behind-the-scenes places of the building, which was by far my favorite part of the day.

And, after almost 300 steps (and that’s just going up!) I made it to the highest point tourists can go, the Golden Gallery. There really aren’t any words except amazing, fantastic, breathtaking, and “I have to climb down all those stairs now?!” Sorry, that last one was just my sore feet talking. Seriously, though, if you ever get to London, make the effort and go to the top. Not to be missed.

So it turns out, despite my initial worry about finding a suitable building to photograph, I now have too many pictures to choose from. I shouldn’t have worried; there will always be a plethora of photo-worthy images to focus on in London.

Out and About

You can’t go two steps in London without the history of this city making itself known. Whether it’s a national monument with hordes of tourists milling about or a pub that seems to have been around since the first Queen Elizabeth, it’s clear that this is a city that has evolved over hundreds upon hundreds of years. I notice this especially because it isn’t something that you really see in the United States. In New England you see the occasional house that was built in the 18th century and is still standing—and that’s impressive! Here, any building younger than 400 years is still a newbie. Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit, but consider this: today I stood within a few feet of the London Wall, which was built in 2 AD. Not only that, but I also toured the Tower of London, originally built in the late 11th century. This is history!

In order to avoid the crowds that would descend later in the day, our first stop was to the home of the Crown Jewels of England. Unfortunately, no pictures are allowed in the vault (seriously, there’s a vault with doors at least a foot thick) but I can assure you, these trinkets are extraordinary. Here, again, it was impressed upon me how long not only London’s but England’s memory extends. Most of the original crown jewels were destroyed in 1649 just after the English Civil War, but when the monarchy was restored new crown jewels were created. The present day Crown Jewels, though, are still heavy with age and importance (and literally as well- there are many, many jewels on each piece). There are a few pieces which date back to the 11th century, and one of those is the Coronation Spoon. A spoon?! you may ask in bewilderment. Yes, a Spoon. This Coronation Spoon, or Anointing Spoon, is used to anoint the sovereign with consecrated oil upon the hands, head, and heart. While very impressive, one could even say awe-inspiring, this visit was also a lesson in Pomp and Circumstance.

The Tower of London is also right next to Tower Bridge (not London Bridge as it is sometimes mistaken for) and I took the opportunity to pose with my mascot, Prating Angus. We’re having a blast, as you can see!