Extremely late posting #1: Victoria & Albert musuem, Oxford

Pictures from the V&A: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nedc/sets/72157606695875245/

Pictures from Oxford: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nedc/sets/72157606695953505/

Hi there,

Ugh, as time has gone on I’ve gotten worse and worse about blogging. Sorry about that!

Friday August 1 I visited the Victoria & Albert Museum (the V&A, as the British call it) here in London. It specializes in sculpture, pottery, textiles… basically anything artistic that you can touch or might use in every day life in your home.

The weird thing is, I almost missed going to the museum. I’d read on the website that it was open until 10 pm on Friday nights, and that there was an entrance below-ground from the South Kensington tube stop. So, I got off at South Kensington and walked to where the entrance was supposed to be… and it was closed. Uh oh. I debated about whether I should go above ground or whether I might have misread the times (as you know, this would not be surprising given my numerous intellectual failings since being here, ha). I decided to go upstairs and investigate. The first entrance I came to: Closed. I found another that had some staff near the door, so I asked if the museum was still open and if so, where could I get in? I had to go around the block to the main entrance, but am so glad I didn’t miss this one.

I have to say… This is my museum; these are my exhibits. I don’t know that I’ve ever been just so happy to be in a museum. Every gallery just gave me the best feeling inside for some reason. Don’t get me wrong, I love history etc. but I also love looking at things and imagining how they might look in my home or on my body! Yes, it’s true, one of the V&A’s major galleries is a clothing gallery, and they even have a SHOE display!!!! That’s what I’m talking about!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They just opened a fantastic jewelry gallery as well – examples of jewelry from ancient Greece and Rome until today. The tiaras and rings in this gallery were unbelievable.

True to the other public museums I’ve visited here, you could take pictures in the V&A. Except in the jewelry gallery. I didn’t know this and didn’t see any signs that photos weren’t allowed in this particular gallery but a guard let me know I was violating policy. Eek. If you go to flickr, you can see the few pics I was able to get in before I got spanked by the ring police.

The other great thing about the V&A was the gift shop. They had such a variety of options for gifts, and better than any of the other museum shops, they had a real range of prices so that you could find something for almost anyone here. I wish I’d spent more time at this museum but time just didn’t work out that way. Next time I’m in London, I will definitely go back.

I think I’ve mentioned in previous posts that Londoners love their newspapers. It’s so interesting to think that in the U.S., many papers are struggling to stay in business but here, they are everywhere. I’ve been analyzing the London Lite, my particular favorite free paper that I pick up on my way home from work to read on the train home. It’s pretty similar to most of the other free papers. Bottom line is, anything that is hard news (e.g., politics, domestic policy, etc.) is written up in very short stories – maybe 2 small paragraphs. However, anything that involves blood/crime/conspiracy, celebrities, television, or sports can be found in these free papers. No wonder I love it, it’s like a daily version of People magazine. The other thing I love about it is that it has a crossword, Sudoku (never do that because it involves numbers – we all know why I avoid that one), but my favorite puzzle – they show 2 pics of a celebrity side-by-side, one photo is untouched, the other retouched. But the retouch is very sneaky – very subtle changes – and you have to identify 5 things that have been altered from the original picture. I am actually going to miss doing this every afternoon after work. I know, I am not exactly an example of an intellectual powerhouse but hey, I love it anyway!

The other cool thing about these free papers is the variety of ads you see in them. I saw an ad for MI5 (British version of CIA) in the Lite; they are especially interested in recruiting people who speak a variety of languages found in North Africa to help fight terrorism. Another favorite ad is for Mr. Habib, a fortune teller who can give you advice on work, love, school exams, and break black magic. LOVE IT. If I don’t get tenure, I might go into business breaking other people’s black magic.

On Saturday August 2, Frances Cook had me back to her house (Finches, Hilltop Lane, Chinoor – love this address). I had written in my first or second blog what a lovely little village she lives in, but she told me this past weekend that it was a crap village and not that pretty. Maybe I’m just used to Woodville as a village or something because I think it’s pretty enough. Apparently, it was almost wiped out from bombing in World War II so a lot of the buildings were built hastily afterwards and therefore are ugly. I didn’t see these buildings.

Chinoor is in the Chiltern Hills, a very scenic area of Britain. I had to take Chiltern Railways from London’s Marylebone station to a little place called Princes Risborough, which is about 7 minutes from Frances’ house. She picked me up at the station and we then picked up her husband Kit and went to lunch at a beautiful pub called The Old Fisherman. On the way there, we passed through a village called Aylesbury, which has some of the oldest private homes in the country – some are from the 1100s and people still live in them (not the original homeowners, of course – now it’s mostly yuppies). Crazy factoid: Barry Gibb (yes, of the Bee Gees) lives in an ancient house in this village. We also went through a town called Thame. Remember that the river Thames in London is pronounced “Tims?” Well, Thame is pronounced…. Tame. Not Tim. Confusing.

The pub was lovely – on a “river” (really just a creek – none of their rivers here really are much bigger than a creek, in my opinion), and the food was great. We had a fun conversation – Kit was born to British parents who lived in India. When he was 8, they sent him to boarding school in England. At Christmas, they would rent a hotel room for him to stay in over the break because it was too far for him to go back to India to spend the holidays with them. So, here he was, a little boy living in a hotel during the holidays with no familiar adults around. Isn’t that wild? Kit has lived in India, Pakistan, and several other very interesting places – he’s brilliant, funny, and a really great guy so it was fun to be spending time with him.

From there, we drove to Oxford (actually, to a park-and-ride bus station because Oxford doesn’t really have much parking). I’d already been to Oxford for the conference, but hadn’t really done any sightseeing there to speak of. I’m so glad they took me back, because it’s such a beautiful city. It’s known as the City of Spires and rightly so. They are everywhere.

Oxford University isn’t really a single university; it’s 39 separate colleges. Some are ancient, others relatively modern. We took a walking tour through 4 of the colleges with a completely ADHD tour guide named Stewart. He took 2 cell phone calls while leading us around, couldn’t stand still when trying to explain something to us, often repeated himself 3-4 times, paid a couple of street musicians to play songs for the group (even though 1 was HORRIBLE – he actually paid this guy 2x – once walking in one direction, the other time when we walked back by, ugh). He was nuts. I was ready to force-feed him a pile of Ritalin about halfway through the tour.

The university at Oxford was established in 800 A.D. It’s not the oldest university in Europe (the Sorbonne in Paris is the oldest) but it is the oldest in the U.K. and the oldest English-speaking university in Europe.

The 39 colleges are where students live and are tutored. They don’t actually attend lectures within their college; instead, the college is the center of their social lives. They go to lectures a couple of times a week in common areas of Oxford, but the primary way they are educated is through meeting several times a week with their tutors.

Tutors (professors) are PhDs who are “fellows” of a particular college, and different colleges are known for specializing in a particular subject. Students attending one of the Oxford colleges do NOT take a variety of courses, say in English, Biology, History, Geography, etc. If you want to study history, that is ALL you study the entire time you are there. You are then tutored by one of the Fellows, meaning that you have several weekly, INDIVIDUAL meetings with the professor. If we did this at FSU, this means that I would only work with students who are interested in studying stuttering, and we would meet 1-on-1 several times a week to go through readings and information together. INTENSE. And the student wouldn’t study anything else but stuttering.

Each college has high walls and big wooden doors through which the students enter. In the early days of the university, townspeople hated the students and tutors and would rob or fight with them. There was a riot 700 or 800 years ago and 63 students were killed, thus, the need for the walls and a safe place for students to study. Each college is organized in a rectangular fashion, surrounding a quadrangle (courtyard) of grass inside. Each has a dining hall, bar, chapel, dorm rooms, and offices for the tutors. Most have their own libraries as well.

The main library for Oxford University is the Bodleian Library. It’s ancient and contains a copy of EVERY book ever published in Britain. You are not allowed to check books out of the Bodleian, but you can go there to read. If a member of the public wants to do any reading at the Bodleian, you have to apply and get special clearances – it’s not easy to get into for reading purposes. There’s another building, the Radcliffe Camera (it’s a round building and Stewart the ADHD guide said it’s called a “camera” because it’s circular… Me, Frances, and Kit are pretty sure that’s not true), that’s part of the library but the ONLY people allowed in the Camera are ‘readers’ (aka students and tutors). The public is never allowed inside the Camera.
It costs about $10,000 a year to go to Oxford, including room and board, if you are a resident of the U.K. Considering you get 1-on-1 tutoring from a PhD-level professor who is recognized as a world expert in his/her area of expertise, that’s a pretty good deal I think. American students have to pay about $30,000 just for tuition. There are about 20,000 students attending the 39 colleges.

In medieval times, students had to study all the subjects that Oxford offered: literature, medicine, law, English, archaeology etc. You couldn’t graduate until you passed all the subjects, so most graduates had to study for 13-15 years before they earned their degree. Today, students earn their degree in 3 years because they are only studying 1 subject.

The oldest college at Oxford that still has its original buildings is New College (how ironic is that?). New College’s buildings were erected in the 1200s and most are still intact. This is where the dining hall and cloisters scenes were filmed for the Harry Potter movies. We were able to go inside but weren’t allowed to take any pictures inside the dining hall or chapel.

After we’d finished the tour, we just walked around Oxford a bit. Oxford High Street looked like a street mall in America: a Gap, Burger King, McDonalds, etc. Kind of depressing when you think about such an ancient and cool city having all the crap chains on it’s main street.

On Sunday, Frances fixed roast lamb leg and fresh vegetables from her garden for lunch. Sunday lunch is a major family time in Britain – lots of people talk about what they do for Sunday lunch and which family members are there. Frances invited Sharon Millard (another clinician from the MPC) and her family for lunch and it was wonderful. Sharon’s kids are 8 and 5, and the 5-year-old girl Hannah is hysterical. We spent the afternoon mostly laughing at her. After lunch, I hopped back on the train and came back to London. Have to say, I LOVE train travel. Maybe I wouldn’t love it so much if I had to ride a train for 3 days or something, but I’ve been on trains for 10 hours (New York to Vermont) and 8 or 9 hours (Rome to Piacenza) and I’ve loved all of it. It’s just so much more relaxed and comfortable than flying.

As I mentioned, I had lamb at Frances’ house, and we also had lamb when I went to Willie’s house a few weeks ago. I have eaten more lamb in these two visits than I’ve ever eaten in my life and I have to say, it’s tasty! Speaking of food, I’ve decided that this would be the theme for this entry’s random observations:

-- Everywhere you go here, you can find lamb on the menu. And on the hillsides. I try not to associate the 2 or it makes me sad.

-- Indian food is EVERYWHERE. Might have something to do with the fact that there are Indians everywhere, which probably has something to do with the fact that India was one of Britain’s major territories or whatever you’d call them up until about 50 years ago or so. Curries are the thing. I had a mild chicken curry one night for dinner and it was pretty tasty. For some reason, I have an irrational food aversion (as in, no good reason for it especially considering I’ve never eaten it before) to anything that says “curry” but I decided to live it up and went with a mild version. I am really going out on a limb in oh so many ways on this trip, aren’t I?

-- You know I miss ice. Here, if you ask for a drink with ice, they give you about 3 cubes which melt in about 3 seconds because the diet coke, water, whatever is served at room temperature. I figured out that the reason there are no free refills is because in most places, when you ask for a diet coke, they open a can or bottle – not many fountain dispensers here. So, 2 main problems for me: no ice, and not a fountain drink. Oh I can’t wait to get home…

-- Breakfast sandwiches are called “buttys.” I have no idea why they are called buttys, but if you go to Burger King to get something for breakfast, your choices are several varieties of butty. I wonder if this has something to do with butter being a major condiment here? You can get butter on any sandwich, and actually probably DO get butter on your sandwich unless you specifically ask for it to be left off. The selection of Burger King buttys include bacon/egg butty, a sausage butty which is not a sausage patty but instead a big-ass sausage like a kielbasa all curled around on your bun. Not very appealing-looking, and then when you think “Hm, this is quite a weird looking butty” you sort of talk yourself out of eating it.

-- They also have fast food stands that sell “pastys.” A pasty, from what I can tell, is kind of like a combination pot pie/hot pocket. It’s pie crust wrapped around something like steak and kidney, or some version of lamb and vegetables. They’re not very liquid-y inside like a pot pie would be, so you can easily get them for “take away” (British term for “to go”). I don’t think they look very appetizing but I’m probably wrong about this because it involves pie crust and Lord knows I love pie crust.

-- When serving dinner, the British put the dinner plates in the oven first to heat them. The ovens I’ve seen in homes tend to be bigger than ours and have at least 4 separate compartments. This lets them cook dinner at one temperature in one compartment, then heat plates at another temp in another compartment.

-- Remember when I wrote that breakfast includes baked beans? One of the places I stop for diet coke in the morning offers the following for breakfast: baked beans and melted cheese on toast. Ok, sorry, but that sounds like someone gave BACK their breakfast onto a piece of toast. YUCK.

All right, then!

Love,
Lisa

Pictures from the V&A: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nedc/sets/72157606695875245/
Pictures from Oxford: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nedc/sets/72157606695953505/

So what if I'm a lazy blogger, are you gonna throw me in the Tower (of London)??!!??

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nedc/sets/72157606404552258/

Hi everyone,

Sorry it’s been a week since I’ve blogged. I wish I had a better excuse other than I’ve been tired and out of energy when I get home at night, but that’s the best I can do! Since I last wrote, I’ve (1) been to the Tower of London and the National Gallery, (2) the teen intensive course has started, (3) I visited the Victoria & Albert Museum, (4) I spent the weekend at Frances Cook’s house, and (5) we went back to Oxford so that I could actually see it (vs. just hanging out at St. Catherine’s college when I was there for the conference).

To keep this entry from being too long, I’m going to talk about the teen intensive course and the Tower of London/National Gallery. I’ll leave my visit to the V&A, Frances’ house, and Oxford for a separate entry. This will help keep the pictures straight as well.

There are 11 teens on this intensive course: 6 boys and 5 girls. FIVE GIRLS. This is highly unusual because by the teen years, there are about 5 boys for every girl who stutters. Even the folks at MPC are kind of stunned about having this many girls in one group. The boys are loving it but the girls are less impressed with the boys. HA. The format of the teen intensive is very similar to the 10-14 year old intensive course; they deal with similar issues, such as improving fluency, increasing confidence, improving overall communication skills, and looking at the relationships between thoughts/feelings/behaviors. They just do it with a more sophisticated approach and with less parent involvement. The parents did come in yesterday (Monday Aug. 4) but that’s the only time they’ll be here with the kids. I don’t really have any pics of the teens; I’m not sure if they’ll want me to take pictures and I feel as though I don’t know them as well as I did the younger kids. I’m not spending all day/every day with them because I’ve been doing some other things in the clinic. Plus, they’re teenagers and could care less about me or the other adults in the clinic, for the most part. They love being in a group with others who stutter; the rest of us are basically irrelevant!

Most of what I’ve been involved with as far as the teens are concerned are a few games about communication skills/observation, practicing fluency skills, and going out on “assignments” with the kids. In the 10-14 course, we took the kids out and stuttered for them to people while they observed. I did the same activity with the teen group with 2 of the girls who stuttered. One was VERY nervous about it, almost sick she was so nervous. However, once she saw me do it, her anxiety started to come down pretty rapidly and pretty soon she was asking me to stutter more/harder to all kinds of people. It was amazing to watch her start to feel differently right in front of my eyes.

As I mentioned, I’ve been observing other activities in the clinic in addition to helping out with the teen course. I’ve continued to watch some preschool fluency sessions conducted using what’s known as the Palin PCI approach, a therapy they’ve developed here at the Centre. I’ve also watched a few sessions with school-age kids and families, and today sat in on one of the consultation evaluations they do here at the clinic. The Centre gets referrals from all over Britain; they provide a comprehensive assessment and therapy planning to support the local therapist for the family. Today’s family came from about 3 ½ hours away and we spent right at 4 hours with them. The child was assessed, the parents were interviewed, and then there was a big discussion about what’s going well and what things might need to be shifted just a bit to help the child move towards better outcomes. It was great because the child’s local therapist was able to attend as well, so it became a very hands-on problem-solving session and everyone was really happy with how things turned out.

I know I’ve said this a million times already, but I’m really grateful for this experience. I have lots of ideas about how to structure things differently within the practice at FSU so that we can do a better job serving families. But it’s not just about our structure and procedures, it’s also about changing how I do therapy and teach my students. I want to be as good and as skilled as the clinicians here. I’ve learned so much watching them work and just watching them “be” with families.

I also got to sit in on a research planning meeting with the staff who are responsible for research here: Sharon Millard, Frances Cook, and Willie Botterill (primarily, although others are involved as well). They are very actively engaged in trying to document and build the evidence that supports why they do what they do and what is it about how they serve children that works. I had some ideas about some possible studies and it looks as though we may start collaborating on some projects – yaaaHOOO!

Ok, enough about work. How about the tourist info? And random British observations? That’s right, off we go to the good stuff.

Saturday July 26 I went to the Tower of London, the National Gallery, and Oxford Street (a “high street,” meaning major shopping area!). It was a blast!

The Tower of London (ToL) is a World Heritage Site, meaning that it has been identified by the United Nations as important to world history. For a list of sites and the rationale for their selection, you can visit http://whc.unesco.org/. The Tower is not one building but instead a complex of multiple “towers” or buildings. It was used as a prison for hundreds of years, but only for people we would today consider as political prisoners. Criminals such as thieves, murderers, etc. were never held prisoner in this complex. The ToL is still considered a royal residence; the Queen never stays here but she could if she wanted to, they told us. Given that the Royal Family owns a crap-ton of cool stuff here in the UK, I would expect the Queen could stay just about anywhere she wants much less the Tower.

The ToL is on the banks of the River Thames (Tims) and has had several different water entrances over time. When it was first built, there were even lions on the property but they haven’t been around since about 500 years ago. However, the gate you see when you visit the ToL today is the one that’s been in use since the 1200s or so. When prisoners were brought to the ToL, they were brought up the Thames and came in through a water gate – this entrance used to be the association for WaterGate until Nixon helped us out with that one. It’s also been called “Traitor’s Gate” because again, the prisoners held at the ToL were considered to be traitors against the country.

England started out as a Roman Catholic country, but through time, there was a lot of strife about whether the English kings should be loyal to the Pope in Rome. When Henry VIII was King, the matter was settled once and for all because he created the Church of England – not because he was especially holy but because he wanted to divorce his wife and marry Anne Boleyn, and couldn’t get a divorce if the country remained Roman Catholic. After the creation of the Church of England, anyone who was openly practicing Catholicism would be considered a traitor and sent to the ToL.

The Tower was built as the first Royal residence somewhere around 1080. Holy cow. It blows my mind that I could go inside a building that was built 900 years ago. The White Tower, the first palace that kings and queens ever lived in, is in the middle of the ToL complex. You can tour parts of the White Tower and see how the royal family lived in early times. The walls are incredibly thick so the building stays very cool even on a hot day (it was very hot the day I was there). It’s also really dark inside.

Some of the prisoners at ToL were tortured – racked (put on a big long table and stretched, yuck) as well as other kinds of torture. Unfortunately, I managed to miss the torture exhibit somehow, which really still has me CHEESED (note use of British vocab word) because I thought it would be cool and freaky to see how people used to be horrible to others in the middle ages. I’ll explain in a sec how I was so boneheaded as to miss exactly 1 of the 2 most popular things to see at the ToL.

If you’ve ever drunk gin, you know about Beefeater Gin (yum). Well, the beefeater guy on the front of the bottle is dressed exactly as the Yeoman Warders are dressed – these guys are the Beefeaters. Yeoman Warders, or Beefeaters, are the official guards at the ToL. They wear these crazy black and red costumes/uniforms with funny hats and guard the property as well as give tours. The ER on the front of their uniform stands for “Elizabeth Regina,” or Queen Elizabeth (Regina is Latin for Queen).

In order to become a Beefeater, you have to have had an exemplary career in the British military with a minimum of 22 years (random number? I think so) of service. Then, you can apply to become one of the Beefeaters and if selected, you have to learn the history of the place and be able to pretty much answer any question that could possibly come up. You also get free housing at the Tower for you and your family. In the pictures I’ve posted, the Beefeaters' residences are the brown/white buildings. The ToL has it’s own “governor,” chaplain, and doctor, and there’s a chapel on the property which is the local parish for the people who live at the Tower. No one knows where the nickname “Beefeater” comes from, but Yeoman Warders have been called this for about 400 years.

One of the things the ToL is most famous for is beheadings. For many years, if you were a political prisoner sentenced to death, you got your head lopped off. This only happened to about 10-15% of the people held at the Tower, even though they might have all carried this as a sentence. For most prisoners, they were just held a long time until the King/Queen in power died or there was some change in politics of the time and the prisoners were just let go. Henry VIII had 3 of his wives beheaded: Queen Catherine, Queen Anne Boleyn, and Lady Jane Grey who was only his wife for 9 days before he had her executed (and thus never crowned Queen). Famous people like the Queens were beheaded on the Tower Green in a private area; other prisoners had public beheadings that anyone could attend and watch. Apparently this was a very entertaining event to attend in those days. Yuck.

One of the stories our Beefeater guide told us was about a dude named James Scott, who was an illegitimate son of King Charles II. Charles was kind of a manimal and had a mistress named Nell Gwynn, who he had I think 13 children with. James was the oldest of the children, and in those days, even illegitimate children were recognized as royal. Well, for some reason (can’t remember it now), James was thrown into the Tower as a traitor and was sentenced to die. As a member of the royal family, though, he was entitled to have his portrait painted.

Well, the day they lopped his head off, they realized he’d never had his portrait painted and although they called the painter to the Tower to paint him REAL QUICK, the painter got there too late and the head had already been separated from the body. Bottom line: the guards and painter were afraid they’d get themselves landed in the tower, so they called a TAILOR who came in and stitched James’ head back onto his body. They then tied a white scarf around his neck to cover up the stitches and icky bits and painted the portrait. Gross. It now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery.

One thing about being a prisoner at the Tower was that you could actually live pretty well. Prisoners were allowed to have their own furniture, clothes, family, and servants around as long as they paid for the upkeep and brought in their own stuff. This also meant they could have their own food cooked, etc. It was kind of like living in a nice condo that you didn’t have a choice about leaving. And again, only 10-15% were actually killed, so most didn’t even worry that much about if they were going to be tortured or beheaded.

The other impressive thing about the ToL complex is that it’s where the Crown Jewels are kept. Several crowns, tiaras, ceremonial robes, swords, etc. are here. You get in a long line to enter the Jewel House and wind your way through the first floor. As you’re going through all the roped maze stuff, they have big media shows going on on the walls with scenes from Queen Elizabeth’s coronation ceremony and up-close pictures of the various crowns etc. As you get closer to the Queen’s jewels, you get on a moving sidewalk which takes you past them at a pace that doesn’t really let you stop and stare. However, that is exactly what you want to do because I promise you have never SEEN gems the size of the ones on the various crowns. The Imperial State Crown was unbelievable – shiny, HUGE diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and amethysts on it… Diamonds as big as your head, literally. Crazy to think that the rocks were real. No pictures were allowed in the Jewel House so I don’t have any in the folder on Flickr. You can google “British Imperial State Crown” and find some pics of it.

The Crown Jewels are 1 of the 2 most popular sites to visit within the ToL. The other, the Torture Exhibit, was the one I completely missed. I managed to visit the Tower Gift Shop, the loo, the little cart selling lukewarm bottles of water for $4 a bottle, narrowly escaped being bit by a raven who was irritated I was taking its picture (can a bird bite you?)… but I MISSED one of the main reasons to visit the Tower. I know YOU'RE not asking yourselves how I did this because you know I have done many boneheaded things since I’ve been here. I, however, am still asking myself. Here’s the deal. You can see the Tower Bridge from within the ToL complex. I kept taking pictures of it as I got closer and closer, and all of a sudden I realized there was a hole in the Tower wall that a bunch of people were walking through onto a sidewalk along the banks of the Thames. Perfect! I’ll go there and I’ll bet they’re walking through there because you can get a really good view of the Bridge there. So, I walked through the hole and realized I’d just walked through the side entrance and would now need another ticket to get back inside. I didn’t know they had a side entrance! Whose bright idea was that? There’s nothing at the front entrance about being able to go around to the side entrance, no sign at the side entrance saying CAREFUL YOU ARE NOW LEAVING THE TOWER OF LONDON. DO NOT PASS THROUGH THIS HOLE IN THE WALL IF YOU STILL WANT TO VISIT THE TORTURE EXHIBIT. THE TORTURE EXHIBIT WOULD BE NEATER THAN PICTURES OF A BRIDGE. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO WALK THROUGH THIS HOLE????

But I do have some cool pics of the Tower Bridge, right? Sigh.

From there, I walked along the Thames for awhile and had lunch, then got back on the Tube to go to the National Gallery, England’s national art museum. You can’t take pictures inside this museum although I did manage to get a couple of the mosaics in the floor near the entrance. They were absolutely beautiful. I didn’t spend lots of time here because I’ve found that if I walk around an art gallery for long I stop really appreciating all the paintings. Instead, I planned out what I wanted to see and only took in those paintings. My favorite painting in the world is “Sunday Afternoon at the Isle of Le Grande Jatte” by Georges Seurat. It hangs in the Art Insititute of Chicago. It just so happens that the National Gallery here has several paintings by Seurat, so I went to see those, as well as one of Van Gogh’s Sunflower pictures and some of the other Impressionist artists like Monet, Manet, and Renoir.

There was also a special exhibition on called “LOVE,” that was made up of different paintings representing, you guessed it, Love. The interesting thing about this exhibit though, was that Yoko Ono had an interactive artwork hanging – there was a blank canvas on the wall and a supply of Post-It notes and sticky square things you put on the back of the post-it to help it stay on the canvas. You could write anything you wanted about love on the post-it and hang it on the canvas, and when the canvas was filled the gallery would hang a new one until they had like 10 of these big canvases with post-its all over them. I have no idea what Yoko will be doing with these once she gets them, but if she puts them in her living room then y’all will be happy to know that there is a note to Ned on it from me.

Last stop of the day was to Oxford Street, one of the main shopping drags here in London. Holy buckets, what a sea of humanity it is on a Saturday afternoon during sales season. I thought I wanted to stop here to look for some things for the girls, but about 10 minutes after I got off the bus I was in meltdown mode – I was tired from the day and overwhelmed with people. In several of the stores, people weren’t even going in dressing rooms to try things on, they would just try them on over their clothes right on the sales floor. Couldn’t deal with that so I hopped on a bus and got the heck out of Dodge.

I have two more blog posts to write before I leave for home on Saturday morning. One will be about the Victoria & Albert Museum/visiting Frances’ again/Oxford sightseeing, and the second will be about my reflections on the whole experience here. On Sunday, I “topped up” my Oyster card for the last time – adding money to the automatic card I scan to ride the Tube every day. I’ve washed my last load of knickers in the sink here in the room and have thrown away a ton of random bits and pieces of things that I don’t need to take home with me. I’m having anxiety about leaving because I will miss the people here and just miss London period, but I can’t wait to be home with my family, friends, and Zoey. And ice machines. And caffeine-free diet coke. And about 6 hours of Project Runway episodes to catch up on.

Time for random observations:

-- When you want to cross at a crosswalk here, you press the usual sort of crosswalk button to stop the traffic. Here, though, when the crosswalk stops traffic, it stops it from all 4 directions instead of just the direction that you need to cross. How polite!

-- There are more short guys here in London than I’ve ever seen in my entire life combined. I’m not saying there aren’t any tall men here, I’m just saying that I have never seen such a herd of short ones. And not just my-height-short, I’m talking not even coming up to my shoulders. Irish Leprachauns, perhaps?

-- It seems that the restaurants are all staffed with (a) Russians, (b) Polish, (c) Indians, or (d) Pakistanis. The only place I’ve eaten where this hasn’t been true (both fast food and regular restaurants) is this little Italian place about a block from the hotel. Everyone there IS Italian.

-- If you get something figured out (e.g., figure out a person’s motivations, analyze and figure out a problem), you’ve “sussed” it. I don’t know yet if I’m a good susser, but I think so.

-- Brushing your teeth is “cleaning your teeth.” This just sounds funny to me.

-- All the kids and clinicians from the Centre comment on my accent. I'm not sure if they're aware of this or not, but I'm from Nebraska. We have no accent there. However, they insist I do and to prove it, they had me say the phrase, "When I marry Mary, I will be merry." According to them, the three "mary" words should sound different from one another. Mine all sound exactly the same. Try it out.

-- You “bang the door” when you want to shut it. “Could you please be sure to bang the door on your way out?” The first few times someone asked me this, I thought, why bang it, wouldn’t you like it closed instead? That one took me a bit.

-- Bandaids are called “plasters.” Can’t remember if I’ve posted this one already but this is another term that still catches me off-guard when I hear it.

-- And now, for the mother of all caught-off-guards … the other day I was sitting in Frances & Willie’s office (they share) working at Frances’ computer. Willie was in the office as well, working on some paperwork at her desk. Out of the blue, she asks, “Lisa, do you have any rubbers over there? Could you hand me one please?” WHHHHHHAAAAAAATTTT????????? What did you just ask me, you respectable, lovely, well-mannered, upper class Englishwoman? And what do I look like, some skanky American prostitute type woman? This is what I was shrieking inside my head. Instead, I politely said, “Excuse me?” and she repeated the request, saying she desperately needed a rubber because she’d made a mistake. A little late in the game for the rubber NOW, don’t you think, if you’ve already made “the mistake?” Turns out, the British call erasers “rubbers.” She was writing with a pencil and needed an eraser. Color me embarrassed, but please, just use an eraser to erase my embarrassment, ok?

All right then!
Love,
Lisa

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