Belgium: Day 1

Hey everyone! I'm on the Continent!

First stop on my tour of the European Union: Brussels, Belgium.

Here's some background info: languages--French, Flemish, and German, religion--98% Roman Catholic, but no one goes to the churches, so they're being repurposed as indoor markets and such.

Soon to become an indoor farmers' market

Mmm...Belgian Easter chocolate

On our first day, we had a walking tour of the city. It's a lot smaller than London, and even though we walked for two hours, it felt like nothing compared to what I'm used to. Good thing, too, because not only is it Easter weekend, but also the Metro is closed because the workers are on strike.

 

City wall and hotel

Our tour guide, Elisabeth, started showing us around Brussels. The first stop was a remnant of the city wall that is now surrounded on three sides by a modern hotel. What is so striking about Brussels is how the architectural styles are all jumbled together, combining multiple eras on the same street from contemporary to Art Deco to bourgeoisie imitation of elegant Parisian apartments. It is ugly but inspirational and so entirely different from the organized, uniformly Georgian and Victorian design of most of London's buildings.

According to Elisabeth, a lot of this mish-mash of architectural styles comes from the nouveau riche's desire to construct apartment buildings that advertised their wealth. They became prosperous in the Industrial Revolution of the late 19th Century. Belgium was the first country on the Continent to follow England into industrialization.

Another thing we saw is the cartoon art on "blind walls." This decoration is intended to beautify the wall and discourage people from urinating on it or stowing trash in front of it. The blind walls are a result of the extension of streets from the medieval period, but the new additions were built with wider roadways, so the sides of the buildings that used to be at the end of the road are now exposed.

Manneken Pis

We were issued a really cool map by our city correspondent, Anna. The map is made by local volunteers and gives tips about Brussels. It says that here everybody wants to have an easy-going style, and to be called "trendy" and dress like Parisians is not fashionable. I like this a lot. The feel of the city reminds me of Amsterdam, and they wear the kinds of clothes I like here. In fact, the first person I saw here was wearing a black bomber jacket and leather pants, hair over one eye, and angrily smoking a cigarette--like Lisbeth Salander from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo but less dramatic. Awesome! Both Brussels and Amsterdam feel like places I could live.

I also saw the Manneken Pis (pissing boy) fountain. I've actually seen that before--in my favorite video game, Animal Crossing! I didn't even know that was a real thing until I saw it on the street. Of course, I got a little Manneken Pis figurine as a souvenir.

On the way to dinner

Our welcome dinner was supposed to be typical Belgian food, but it was fish and chips. The chips are called fries here and are thinner and more greasy than English chips. They're pretty much American French fries. We also had tomato bisque, bread with delicious horseradish mustard, and then a fluffy chocolate mousse for dessert. It was tasty. All this travelling has left me with a severe shortage of healthy food though. I don't think I've had a straight-up vegetable in three days, so I'd better fix that.

Ok, see you soon! It's going to be a lot easier to blog because I have to journal for class, so I can just type my journal entries now. That is, if I continue to have internet access.

Hiatus

Hey there everybody,

I've got finals for the next week and a half--all papers--so there isn't much time to write for fun, but I'll be back on the blogging horse after that. I'll tell you about my weekend trips to Ireland, the Netherlands, and France, and we can talk about springtime in the park, heavenly cheese, vintage shopping, the best haircut ever, and a curious difference I've noticed between the States and Europe.

It's also just about time to register for classes again for the fall semester, and I'm tremendously excited to get back and take something in my major again that really makes me think. Even if it means I'll have to go back to only getting six hours of sleep a night, I still want to do it. A break is nice, but I just need the challenge!

In the meantime, here's some music to check out.:

• Clouds - Claude Debussy (a nocturne) that I read about in my music class (it's in the impressionist style of music that came at the end of the Romantic music/literary era). It's eerie but soothing.

These next three are from a playlist called "Winter to Spring" that I found on Bitch Magazine's website. They'll put a spring in your step. Heh.

• Another Green WorldAnother Green World - Brian Eno (great, mellow, super short)
• Pale Green Things - The Mountain Goats (sad lyrics, phenomenal guitar)

• The Sprout and the Bean (instrumental) - Joanna Newsom cover (beautiful harp)
• They Say It's SpringThey Say It's Spring - Erin McKeown (perfect, warm, swingy)

See you soon, and enjoy!
~Red

Acton

Hello everyone,

I've seen a lot of the city of London, but I wanted to get a feel for suburban English city life, so I took everyone on a day trip to Acton on the outskirts of London. We took the Tube to the West Acton station--it was a long ride into Zone 3 of the Underground.

Outside the Tube stop, there were many little Chinese restaurants. We strolled through a residential street and it looked just like Privet Drive from Harry Potter. I half expected to see a Professor McGonagall cat on the half walls around the yards. Didn't see any cats, but we did notice that the hedges are made of Christmas holly! It was refreshing to be out of London and in a peaceful place with fresh air and sunshine.

Our first stop was 3 Creswick Rd: Peacehaven. My mom went on this same study abroad trip when she was in college, and that's where the students stayed--not in London. So I got to stand on the front steps of the building she lived in when she was my age, halfway around the world from home. I got chills in a good way; it was one of those moments where you just feel really connected to everything.

Peacehaven

Past Peacehaven, which is now an international guest house, we saw a nice little park called Springfield Gardens and then a bunch of Middle Eastern fruit stands and grocery stores on Acton High Street. We went into a tiny shopping mall--this place was really miniscule: it had six stores! We went to our first 99 pence store (like a dollar store) and bought biscuits (cookies), gummy coconut mushrooms, and a Swiss cake log. It was a foot long and three inches across. Obscene!

Fruli in the background of a gummy mushroom

Gummy meercats: there are weird
gummy shapes over here

Springfield Gardens park

After the mall, we made our way down the street to the farmers' market on the Mount where I picked up some scarves as a souvenir. The best deal for patterned scarves you will get is 3 for £10. I talked to the woman selling scarves, and she was upset about the snow that was coming the next day and the cold snap they were in, which is our mild late-March weather in Wisconsin. I tried to be sympathetic.

Market on the Mount

St George & the Dragon signboard

By that time we were tired of walking, so we spent a few hours in a pub called St George & the Dragon, which has been there since 1759. We had a good time just talking, playing spoons, and eating that enormous Swiss cake. I got a pint of Fruli, a Belgian strawberry beer made of white beer and strawberry juice. It is absolutely delicious; try it if you get the chance. I just looked it up on the company website; it looks like it's available in the States--imported by PUSA in Littleton, CO. So get to it, folks!

My mom told me that the Indian food in Acton is really good, but I think the demographics have changed to more Middle Eastern and Chinese, and we had difficulty finding the Indian restaurant that I'd found online. We ended up walking a few miles too far and had to backtrack. Then when we finally found the building, it was closed for lunch on Fridays, contrary to the Google review page. Lesson learned: don't trust the internet for everything.

We were pretty hungry and tired, so we headed to the nearest Tube stop, Acton Town, and got lunch at--get this--an American diner! It's jarring to see your own culture as kitsch. The place was called Jump In Jack's, and we got the most stereotypical American lunch possible, burgers and milkshakes, and it was the most perfect ending to our day out. The food was delicious, and they even made veggie burgers for my friend and me.

Vegetarian food is widely available here; I haven't had a problem at any restaurant I've been to in any town, city, or country on this side of the world, so America better shape up before I get home! Vegetarian food is made differently here: the burgers and breakfast sausages I've had aren't the soy protein/fake meat that they do back home. Here it's actually a fried, breaded patty made of fresh vegetables (peas, carrots, green beans, corn) held together in mashed potatoes. It's quite good, and I like that it's made of whole vegetables. One other thing you should know about the chips (fries) here is that they're thicker, not greasy, and served with mayonnaise. We bring ketchup packets with us so we can mix it into the mayo and make Fancy Sauce. I'm addicted.

All in all, I had a great time in Acton seeing where my mom lived when she was my age, and we all had a grand day out.

~Red

Victoria and Albert Museum

Howdy-doo, Americans!

Outside the V & A

Silver sculpture

Here's a cool (and free) place to check out in London: the Victoria and Albert Museum. The building it is currently housed in dates from 1899 and has a cornerstone laid by Queen Victoria, but they've been collecting since 1852. This museum is absolutely enormous and has galleries of pretty much anything imaginable, from huge marble statues to iron works to a long hallway full of things only made of silver.

Marble statue gallery

I went on a weekday and it wasn't crowded at all. I browsed around for a bit through the Greek statues, the jewelry room (no pics allowed, sorry), and the silver room before honing in on the modern furniture gallery. I have visited the modern furniture gallery of the art museum in Milwaukee, WI, but I wanted to see British modern furniture too. I like modern furniture and already have a '60s Space Race living room theme planned out for my first house. Anyway.

I discovered something awesome in the furniture room: the design of chairs evolves because of changes in society! I'd always thought that styles change because of some frouffy whims on the part of designers--like maybe they just switch things up every season so they can get you to buy all new stuff to be in style again. But no. Way more interesting reasons are behind the changes.

LCW and CTW

Check this out:

During the 1940s, chairs—as well as other furniture—had to be as utilitarian as possible so as not to waste desperately needed materials that could otherwise be sent to use in the war. An example of utilitarian furniture can be seen in the stark, waste-free design of the plywood table and chair set, the “LCW” and “CTW” from 1946-1949, by American designers Charles and Ray Eames.

Festival Pattern Group chair

There was actually a ration on furniture in Britain that didn't totally end until 1952, by which point British designers and consumers were tired of utilitarian design and began to take up the American styles of plastic furniture, futurism, bold colors like those of the Mod style, and mass production. An example of this new trend is a red plastic chair with metal legs that was made in Britain in 1951 for the Festival Pattern Group. The pattern of the holes in the plastic body of the chair, arranged in regular square intervals like the holes in a graham cracker, is derived from the x-ray crystallography of atomic structures. This is reflective of the influence that even emerging nuclear science had on fashion and design.

Single-piece chair and
yellow egg chair

In a later backlash against the mass production of furniture that had swept the globe after WWII, specialist industrial designers then began to generate new models and styles of chairs and other furniture, some of which are represented in the museum’s collection. An example is that of a bright orange chair from 1960 that was “the first plastic chair to be conceived entirely as a single piece”. Another innovation of the designers was the creation of the egg chair which is yellow plastic with a bright yellow cushion and looks as if the back could be folded down into the seat to create a little M&M-shaped pod. However, the futurist plastic furniture trend was laid to rest in the early 1970s as a result of skyrocketing oil prices that made the plastic too expensive, and fashion took a turn back toward more natural themes and materials.

So how was that? You just learned about world history through chair design. Are you jazzed? I'm jazzed. It's fun to see how the world works behind the scenes. That's why I like writing: I can show you the things you wouldn't normally see.

Cheers!

~Red

Sightseeing Walk

Hi-dee-ho, neighborinos across the pond!

Today we are going to talk about famous sites in London--the places you see on postcards.

Trafalgar Square monuments

When you go to London, there are certain sites that everyone and their dog wants you to visit. Even though they're mostly tourist traps, I still felt like I should at least see them for the sake of seeing them. So, during our second week here--that would be in late January--we went on a 7.7 mile walk and knocked out all the main sites in one spectacular, if slightly crazy, day.

During our walk, we passed numerous little fruit stands both on the street and outside shops. I saw one that had all the different fruits set up in plastic bowls for only £1 each! Fantastic deal--and I completely recommend buying from the vendors over buying in the supermarket if you can. Even better is that the fruit here is absolutely wonderful compared to fruit in the States. I actually just had some cherries and they were perfect: dark red, juicy, and sweeter than summer.

[from thaifood.about.com]

[Side note: there is a fruit called a lychee that seems to be at all the fruit stands. It's pinkish and spiky, and I have no idea how to eat it, but I'd like to try it.]

Trafalgar Square lions

Our first destination was Trafalgar Square. It's in a bustling area across the street from the Charing Cross Tube station. The National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery are on the north side of the square. In the middle, there are is a thriving population of mangled-footed pigeons, some fountains, and a tall, typically phallic monument surrounded by four enormous lions, which we climbed for pictures, naturally. From Trafalgar Square, you can see three Pret A Manger [preht ah mahn-zjay] fast food shops (it means "ready to eat" in French). Pret has freshly made, pre-packed sandwiches, salads, and healthy sides, like muesli and cubes of mango with a slice of lime. Their food is tasty and has "no added nasties" as they are fond of saying over here, and at the end of each day they donate all their unsold food to feed the homeless. I can't help but think that this business model would make a great replacement for the revolting fast food corporations in the States. Anyway, on with our walk!

Artsy shot of Parliament building

Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament

After Trafalgar Square, we continued south to Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, passing by Westminster Abbey along the way. The buildings were done in intricate stonework and made for some beautiful pictures.

The Eye

Waffle with chocolate syrup

We stopped at a bench on the River Thames and looked out towards the London Eye, which is a giant ferris wheel that allows you to see over 45 miles away on a clear day. We walked across Waterloo Bridge to check it out, but it was a bit pricey at around £19 (about $30) per person, so we didn't go for a ride. By that time all the walking had made us hungry, so we stopped by the Eye for snacks. I got a waffle with chocolate sauce which was goodish, and all my friends got gelato.

River Thames

St. James Park

We decided to head towards Hyde Park, which I know from one of my favorite board games, 221b Baker Street, which is a super-awesome Sherlock Holmes version of Clue. We passed through St. James Park along the way, walking along the Princess Diana Memorial Walk. The park was nature-y and full of swans and angry geese, along with a large human presence, mostly mums pushing prams and couples. I have to say that I like the cultivated beauty of Regent's Park more though.
Then we walked down past Buckingham Palace, but it wasn't the right time for the guard change. That only happens on certain days at certain times, so you should really look it up before you go.

Our last stop of the day was Harrod's, the world's most famous luxury department store. We were completely overwhelmed by all the floors, and there were different rooms for almost every item you could imagine: a room full of only perfumes and cosmetics, a room of lingerie, rooms of men's clothes and hats, tons of rooms of women's clothes, several rooms of furniture, an art room, a chocolate room, a meat room, a cheese and deli room, a candy room..and all of it was connected by an Egyptian themed column of escalators with Harrod's sphinx heads. It was absolute debauchery at its finest. Unfortunately, no cameras were allowed, but I'm sure your imagination will work just fine.

By the end of the day, I was exhausted, well exercised, and happy to have knocked out all the tourist sites in one day so I could move on to the more interesting parts of the city.

Finally, an Update!

Hey hey, friends!

I do apologize for the lack of posts over this last month. February was absolutely chock-full of wonderful things, and I was too busy living them to get to write about them on time. I also had midterms in there somewhere to keep me busy. No worries, though, because I'm taking this whole evening off to catch you all up on my adventures over this past month. Even better: I'm getting good at taking artsy photos, so there will be plenty of eye candy for you.

Now off to set my hands to the keys for the evening. See you soon, and keep the comments coming!

~Red

Cambridge

Hey folks, how goes? It has been a busy week for me, as you'll see.

So what have I been up to lately, you want to know? Last weekend we visited Cambridge, a city 50 mi north of London. From what I saw when I was there, it seemed like a tiny, antique village, but I think we actually were only in the historic district because Cambridge is actually a little bigger than my hometown. In any case, most of the buildings we saw dated back to the 1400s. How cool!

Kings College courtyard

In Cambridge, we saw the outside of Queens' College from a bridge over the River Cam. We then went inside Kings College. The cathedral is a tall, one-room, rectangular Gothic church made of stone with a high arched ceiling and colorful stained glass in most of the walls. It was founded in 1441 by Henry VI.

Kings College cathedral

From there, the group moved on to see Trinity College, founded by Henry VIII , where Isaac Newton went to school and lived for 30 years. There's even a cutting of his apple tree there (apple trees only live about 250 years--did you know?).

Newton's bay window and apple tree cutting

We had a fantastic tour guide named Mary. She started off by telling us that Cambridge is almost always sunny--naturally, the day we went was absolutely frigid, rainy, and gusty, but as the Great Butter Queen, Paula Deen, once said on the Food Network, "There's nothing like rain to make a party more cozy!" And so it went once we got into a pub for lunch.

At first we tried to go to The Eagle, which has been in operation since the 1400s and was where Watson and Crick ran in at lunch to announce their discovery of the structure of DNA. The place was absolutely perfect, exactly what you'd expect of such a historic pub, but it was jam packed and we couldn't find a table.

My first fish and chips

The Regal--view from third floor

So we moved on to my other pub pick, The Regal. It is the largest pub in the United Kingdom with 3 floors and 2 bars. It was there that I made an exception in my 7 years of vegetarianism by ordering fish and chips with mushy peas. Yum! The fish was mild and not terribly fishy-tasting like the few aquatic creatures I ate in my childhood when I dared move beyond eternally classy fish sticks. I especially liked the mushy peas, actually. One of my friends in the group got a hot pear and raspberry dessert that she let me try, and that was really good. I also got another pint of Strongbow, which is quickly becoming my favorite drink over here--I like it more than Carlsberg or Guinness, but Kopparberg pear cider is fantastic too. It's from Sweden, I believe.

After lunch we wandered around town, picked up some souvenirs, and made it to the Fitzwilliam Museum. Unfortunately, no photography allowed. There were some paintings, even Monet, and a floor full of cool Egyptian stuff and Mesopotamian jewelry.

Evening at Kings College for the Evensong  choir

By then it was dusk and we headed back to Kings College for a church service and to hear the famous Evensong choir consisting of boys aged about 7 to 15. They were fantastic, and it was a beautiful service in the candlelit Gothic church.

Cambridge has been one of my favorite things so far about England; I really enjoyed getting out of the big city and getting to walk cobblestone streets with old-fashioned lampposts and little bridges across the river. I highly recommend it if you are able to get there.

British Museum

'Ello, dearies!

Guess where I went now: the British Museum. Egypt exhibit. Oh yeah!

The Egypt exhibit is always my favorite part of history museums, probably because my dad used to read me National Geographic Egypt books when I was little. So here I got to see some mummies, look at some mummy skulls, and use my anthropology skills to look at the dentition and post-mortem skull fractures. I was completely geeking out. I even determined the sex of the mummy skulls that didn't have it labelled on their info signs. Thank you, Professor Hawks!

Mummy crania

In the Egypt rooms, there were a ton of little British school kids in uniforms on their field trips, and they all had adorable accents and were telling their friends about canopic jars. I also ran into some German-speaking college students in the Japanese art room.

Shabti tomb statuettes

Before we all left, we went in the Greek sculpture room and the large Egyptian sculpture room. We got to see the Rosetta Stone, Lely's Venus, and even some sphinx-type heads that were absolutely enormous.

Lely's Venus (Aphrodite)

On the way out, while I was waiting for our group to collect in the food court area, I saw on the museum map that they have an Easter Island statue! Easter Island and Stonehenge are my two favorite mysterious monuments, so I'll have to go back to check that out.

In the food court area

In all, it was a very cool museum, and like most museums in London, it was free!

Camden Market

What's up, America-type people?

First of all, I should tell you that over the last 5 days, we have walked a crazy amount. Like imagine medieval peasants walking around between villages with heavy sacks over their shoulders. I've been trudging about in the misty rain with a heavy messenger bag for the last few days, and I'm getting really strong. I'm halfway to a neck like Daniel Radcliffe.

So to alleviate this problem, I bought a small black leather purse in Camden when we went to the Camden Market. I bartered for it! Camden Market is actually very sketchy and not particularly fun. It's all the same super chintzy dresses over and over and harassing-type salesmen, but that's to be expected.

However, the town around the market is crazy-weird-cool. It seems the main economy comes from selling piercings and tattoos. Imagine this: the whole street, both sides, is lined with goth clothing shops and men hold signs advertising piercings and tattoos outside the stores. One girl from our group got her ear pierced in the basement of one of the shops. It seemed clean enough, and she hasn't died yet, so... heh.

Anyway, this goes on down the entire street as far as the eye can see. Then, inside the shops, there are some other things like London souvenir bags, smoking and hookah paraphernalia, and bags of--seriously--shrooms and Super Skunk. What a place.

(Here's an article about the history of Camden Market.)

Arrival

Hey Americans!

I arrived today in London after surviving a wicked 8 hour plane ride. It started out looking down on the city lights of Chicago and the moon shining down on a foggy lake, but it ended more like a trip through what I would describe as the devil's womb. It was dimly lit and rumbling with turbulence for countless hours and many of us were seconds from puking by the time we got off. I know I was sleepless, migraned, and pretty much miserable. To add to the excitement, sometime just after I had finally fallen asleep around 5 am (London time), a guy behind us had a nightmare and screamed in his sleep during a bout of turbulence. All I can say is that I've never been as glad as when I set two feet solidly in the airport.

In the airport we did the money exchange, a lot of waiting for all of us to get our things together, and went through customs. Turns out, despite my worries of packing too heavy, I was actually the lightest at 20 lbs compared to everyone else's 45-50. Woot!

Due to the delays in the airport, we missed our reserved bus into the city and had to wait for 45 minutes in the airport for the driver to come back. The drive in was pretty cool. It was all blue skies all day! There were so many little brick houses smushed together so that the rooftops looked like a shot from Sweeney Todd. It actually just really reminded me of a quaint, brick Milwaukee. I don't feel out of place (yet?). Just remember to look right first when crossing the street.

The first animal I saw here was a pigeon. Heh. Also, most of the plants look normal except there are some strange trees that are all knobby and twiggy on the ends like mini Whomping Willows. I'll find out what they're called.

During the day we got lunch in the cafeteria here and had a meeting with the housing director. Then some of us walked around the neighborhood and checked out the stuff nearby, but surprisingly, a lot of places here are closed on Sundays. We did go in a few convenience stores--all the candy bars are different except Kit Kat and Reese's! They have descriptions that sound like some sort of extravagance like would come out of Willy Wonka's factory.

In the evening we went to the bar and got some Strongbow cider (so smooth!) and played cards. Now we're all watching the Packer game. I am so ready to crash...haven't slept or changed clothes in a day and a half (blech). The internet is a hassle here so far (None in my room for some reason, but the lack of internet is made up for with the presence of mice traps. My room is in the basement.).

I'll post more interesting things (with pictures!) as I collect them, but right now I'm too tired to think! Classes tomorrow and I'll write anything new I find interesting. We're also getting cell phones and Oyster passes, so the adventures will begin shortly. This is all so surreal that nothing seems unusual.

-Red