Great Scot!

Edinburgh (pronounced Ed-in-burah)

The city is located in a bowl, with high hills on one side leading down to the North Sea with a huge craggy hill in the middle with the Castle at the top.  

Here is the castle from the large public park at its base.

If you climb up to the Castle you can get a great view out to the sea: you can see the park (see above) at the lower edge of the photo with Princes Street (shopping!!) being the first horizontal road after the park.

For 2 pounds 50p  you can get an all day bus pass (i highly recommend it), we bussed out to Firth of Fourth inlet where we all got some bracing sea air!

Walking back up towards the Castle from the shore we stopped in the Royal Botanical Gardens (more photos later, Bloggers' photo format is making me angry.).  From the top of the rock garden you can see back into town.

So we lucked out with weather, it only rained for a bit when we first arrived then turned into a gloriously sunny blue sky day (shocking, i know.) But Edinburgh is very suited to an overcast day, full of blackened gothic architecture (see the Sir Walter Scott's memorial for a prime example), shady alleys, with the castle looming up in the distance-its no wonder it's full of ghosts and horror stories! This is a great little church and cemetery in that park at the foot of the castle.

Visuals Help

Bath

Peter Pan Statue in Kensington Gardens
Nevermore?
Swans across from Kensington Palace
Kensington Palace Gardens
                         View from our Flat-Clerkenwell along the Farringdon Rd
Gloomy Westminster
Westminster and Parliament from the South Bank
London at Night
Oxford

I gaze beyond the rain drenched streets to England, where my heart lies.

Apparently this was Museum Week in my schedule:

Sunday I dragged my poor friend Livi through Bath's Fashion Museum(not free): their permanent exhibit is rather small, in the form of a timeline to show the public how fashions changed through the decades, but there are some specialty changing exhibits. My personal favorite? Their case of about twenty gloves from the 17th century.  They were mainly "ceremonial" gloves worn only for portraits and court functions, but the craftsmanship that went into them meant they were carefully preserved and are in relatively good condition.  The fashion of the time-period had a wide gauntlet cuff, a perfect canvas for embroidery, beading, metallic threads and lace and metallic trims on the edge.  In the post-Industrial world it is a bit mind boggling to realize how much time and money was put into Gloves!

Monday I made a quick trip to the National Portrait Gallery(free), the Elizabethan wing to be specific, where one can gaze upon the faces of a few people you might have heard of: Henry the IIIVth, Queen Elizabeth the Ist, Shakespeare, Mary Queen of Scots, Sir Walter Raleigh,etc.  I intend to go back.

Tuesday we met with Lisa, or Art History prof. in the National Gallery(free), and we did a quick survey of western art from the Renaissance to the Impressionists. It was mentally, and a bit physically exhausting, a lot of things happened in that time! But it was also a good introduction to the National Gallery overall.  

Wednesday we returned to the Nat. Gall. with Adam but with a different purpose: to examine the museum as a space.  Now this is not a new concept to me, my dad is an art historian after all, but it is still one of my favorite things to do!  There are so many spaces that we pass through on a daily basis whose form and function are so understood that it has been shoved to the back of our minds.  So taking the time to step outside of the space, and observe it with a critical eye analyzing how people move in the space, what the architecture and flow pattern say about the space etc.  After class I went back to the Sainsbury wing to do some sketching.  Costume history books are full of these portraits, sometimes cropped in or with line drawings, but nothing can compare to being able to get your face a few inches away from the canvas.  Its incredible not only the technical skill of these early (the Sainsbury wing is Medieval-Renaissance) painters but how much fine detail they took the time to include.  It's invaluable research for a costumer since most of the actual garments are long gone.  I now have an entire page of jerkin ties, pattens, bodice lacing techniques, girdle buckles and draped headdresses in my sketchpad. 

Thursday I tagged along with the music class to the Handel House museum in Mayfair.  The museum is only a few years old, and you could tell, they're still working on their collection, but the tour guide was full of  information and the restoration done on the rooms was quite good.  Apparently Handel owned two Rembrandts, and Jimi Hendrix stayed in the flat.  

Friday was my first sojourn to the Victoria & Albert Museum.  I spent four hours there, and was only on the first floor. It's kind a big.  Their fashion collection contains some wonderful pieces: a pearl beaded dress worn my Princess Diana, as well as most of the big names: Channel, Lanvin, Madame Gres, Dior, Givenchy, YSL, Fortuny, Ballenciaga, Westwood, Poiret, Worth, on and on it was glorious.  A bit overwhelming but glorious.  The building the V&A is in was built as an exhibit itself.  The central courtyard with a fountain is quite pretty. 

No museums on Saturday but I did see Speed the Plough at the Old Vic and a baroque strings concert at the church of St. Martins-in-the-Field. 

Alive and Well and Living in Clerkenwell.

London: seven days

Oxford: one day

Bath: half a day

Exciting Events To Report:

1. Living across from The Guardian, which is not only a wonderful newspaper that is not owned by a conglomeration (how radical!), but more importantly was the newspaper the journalist worked for in the Bourne Ultimatum. Living across from a location from one of my top 10 Films kinda kicks ass.

2. One day after reporting it the Loose Man Hole Cover from Hell was fixed. I'm still in shock.

3. Seeing the Royal Mail van picking up mail at Buckingham Palace. The Royal of the Royal Mail. Took a picture.

4. Saturday was George Clooney day on BBC4 FYI.

5. Piccadilly is named after piccadills-late 16th c. collars, the  ones with a scalloped edge (as opposed to the earlier ones with a smooth edge from Elizabethan times) and lace trim that were sold there. 

6. Our FSU classrooms are on the same street as the British Museum. Which is Free! Also near a really nice park (Bloomsbury) 

7. Turned twenty-two in a foreign country! Celebrated with good weather, a walk down the Themes from Waterloo bridge to Tower bridge, Thai food, and an almond torte for a birthday cake!

8. I live near a Crusades-era gateway (St. John's?) off of what I call "Cow-street"

9. The restaurant chain Pizza Express near FSU is in a Victorian dairy, lovely tiles and windows.

10. The Standard of Ur is not as large as the pictures in Stockstad lead you to believe.

11. The Eagle, near the Exmouth Street Market is the nation's first gastropub.

12. It is cheaper to "take-away" then to "eat-in", and if you don't specify "tap" water you might end up buying a bottle of Perrier. 

13. Sicilian Alley offers good protection from HAIL.

14. Oxford has: the oldest coffee shop in the UK, the Queen's Lane.

15. Oxford: You can see the burn marks where some dude was burned at the stake in the olden days!

16. Oxford: There is a super secret insiders only pub, and I've had a drink there.

17. Oxford: Sunday mornings are the best time to be here, get brekkie to go and eat it in the meadows of Christ Church College. 

18. Bath: Roman baths smell like a musty basement and cost 14 pounds.

19. Bath: From the Royal Crescent you can see across the valley Bath lies in, walk back into town through the park.

20. Bath: Boston Tea Party Coffee Shop?? Oh yeah

21. Bath: Queen Victoria was ridiculously short and stout. More-so than you could possibly imagine, and black just made her a giant black hole.

22. Pets are allowed on the National Rail system as well as Bus connections.

23. Sushi bars-the kind with the conveyor belt are waaay sweet.

Bedtime!

Pictures later.