I few weeks ago, I decided to take off Friday to visit Westminster Abbey, as I did not wish to brave the crowds on Saturday. The first abbey on the site dated from 1066, the year of the Norman conquest. Every coronation since 1066 has taken place in the abbey, and the new monarch sits in a chair dubbed the "Coronation Chair," which dates from the time of Edward I in 1296. That year, Edward defeated the Scots and captured the "Stone of Scone," an ancient Scottish artifact with supposed ties to the Biblical Jacob, and placed the stone in the Coronation Chair just under the seat. The stone was returned to Scotland in 1996, with provisions to transport it to Westminster Abbey for future coronations. The current building of Westminster Abbey, begun in 1245, is breathtaking, both inside and out. Like many older churches, Westminster Abbey contains numerous tombs and monuments, except that many of the tombs at Westminster belong to monarchs or notable historical figures. Among the most recognizable royal tombs are those of Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, and Edward the Confessor. James I, Queen Anne, and George II are also buried there. The nave contains the tombs of some famous British scientists, including Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, J.J. Thomson (discoverer of the electron), and William Thomson, Lord Kelvin. My favorite area of the Abbey, though, was Poets' Corner, a name given to the South Transept due to the number of writers buried there. Easily recognizable poets and authors laid to rest there include Robert Browning, Geoffrey Chaucer, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. George Frederick Handel and Laurence Olivier are also buried in Poet's Corner, due to their contributions to music and film, respectively.

The following day, Saturday, I went to Oxford, to gain a perspective on what students encouter at the world's oldest English-speaking university. The university is divided into 39 colleges, which have separate campuses throughout the city, and offer many of the same majors. Some families have attended the same college for generations, a source of tremendous pride for them. The most popular extracurricular activity is said to be rowing, where each college has several mens and womens teams of different skill levels. The colleges not only compete against one another, but also represent the university in national meets. Each college consists a four main parts: a dining hall, chapel, library, and dormitories. The oldest college, Balliol College, was founded in 1263. Christ Church College is perhaps the most famous college, being know for its aristocratic air, having produced 13 prime ministers, and being featured in the Harry Potter films. Christ Church is also the cathedral church of the diocese of Oxford. My favorite college, of the ones I visited, was Magdalen (pronounced "maudlin") College, founded in 1458. Its Great Tower, built from 1492 to 1509, is a prominent landmark within the city. The Grove, where deer roam freely, was, for me, the most serene spot in Oxford. Magdalen's large green spaces, combined with its medieval architecture, contrasted noticably to the many smaller colleges with less green space, making it the perfect ending to my day.

On Sunday, I went to Buckingham Palace to see the Changing of the Guard and tour the State Rooms. The Changing of the Guard was quite a spectacle, and I had to fight for every glimpse I got, taking advantage of those in front of me who were vertically challenged. On this particular day, the male guard on duty was being replaced by a female guard, easily identifiable by their differing uniforms. While I expected the band to play more formal marches, they instead played to the crowd, with tunes such as Micheal Jackson's "Beat It," and in a nod to the Beatles, "With a Little Help from My Friends," and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." Going on a Sunday made for a much bigger crowd, but I was able to get some decent photos by trial and error, aiming my camera over everyone's heads, in the general direction of the guard or band. The ceremony itself lasts about 45 minutes, and the band plays for the entire time, as each of the sentries on duty outside the palace is relieved of his or her post. In the afternoon, I toured the State Rooms of Buckingham Palace, which were stunning both in size and splendor. The public is allowed access to the state rooms only from July-September, while the queen is away for the summer. This year, the banquet hall is set up as it would be for a formal royal banquet, which is normally held when foreign heads of state are visiting Queen Elizabeth II. The staff spends days preparing for the banquet, ensuring that all of the place settings, some 60 in all, are perfectly aligned. During the banquet, the service of the different courses is perfectly choreographed by the director, who stands behind the queen to observe all of the waiters. The palace contains an art gallery which shows the good taste of the monarchs from the last two centuries, and it also contains portraits of a number of monarchs, including several family portraits of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, and their children. Numerous references to Queen Victoria exist throughout the city of London, as well as references to her beloved husband, whose death in 1861 from typhoid set her to mourning for her remaining 40 years.

As with most every city I've visited, one of the highlights of my trip to Dublin was touring the churches. The two primary cathedrals in Dublin are Christ Church, which is Catholic, and St. Patrick's, which is the only Protestant Cathedral in Dublin. Christ Church Cathedral dates back to around 1030, and took its present shape in about 1186. A major, seven year restoration of Christ Church was undertaken in 1871 by George Edmund Street, a well-known English architect of the time who also designed the Royal Courts of Justice in London. One of the walls in the nave has been out of perpendicular by 18 inches since the collapse of the roof and another wall in 1562. The crypt in Christ Church is the oldest structure in Dublin, and is atypical of most crypts in that it stretches the entire length of the cathedral. St. Patrick's cathedral sits near a holy well where St. Patrick is said to have baptisted Irish converts. A Celtic church dedicated to St. Patrick had existed on the site for some time, but the basic layout of the current building was begun between 1191 and 1270. The cathedral has undergone numerous restorations through the centuries, due to damage by fires, floods, and collapses. The site of St. Patrick's was once an island in the River Poddle, which is now diverted underground, thus flooding is a problem up to the present day. In contrast to the large crypt in Christ Church, St. Patrick's has no basement due to the high water table, approximately 7.5 feet beneath the floor. Jonathan Swift was Dean of St. Patrick's from 1713 until his death in 1745. He is buried in the cathedral, along with his friend Stella. Also of note is that the premier of Handel's Messiah in 1742 was given jointly by the choirs of Christ Church and St. Patrick's.

Late Friday afternoon, I set off for my most anticipated stop during my time in Dublin: the Guinness Storehouse. For those of you who haven't seen the light, or just don't drink beer, Guinness is saturated with nitrogen and a small amount of carbon dioxide, rather than carbon dioxide alone, which gives it less of a bite than carbonated beers. Lest you think that it goes down easy, it is a heavier beer called a stout, and the production of Guinness uses 10 times the hops of other stouts, so it has the reputation of being a "meal in a glass." In 1759, Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease for St. James's Gate Brewery in Dublin, which was vacant at the time. He once vowed to defend the brewery to the death, when the city of Dublin claimed he was using more water than allowed, even though his water source was seperate from the city's main water supplies. The Guinness Storehouse was built in 1904, in the new "Chicago" skyscraper style, and was the tallest building in Dublin at that time. It is now a museum on the production of Guinness. Also of note is that one of Guinness's employees, William Gosset, better known under the pseudonym "Student," was responsible for developing Student's t-distribution and t-test. Yes, this is the same company who publishes the famous Guinness Book of World Records.

On Saturday, I took a tour through the Wicklow mountains, south of Dublin, which are the source of Guinness's spring water. The weather that day was foggy and rainy, but we did get enough of a break in the rain to visit St. Kevin's monastic site, which was built between 500-600. This is the only surviving monastic site in Ireland, with some parts of the buildings still standing. The tower, around 70 ft tall, served both as a secure place from intruders and as a marker for pilgrims walking through the land, since the tall tower could be seen from far off. On Sunday, I spent most of the day at Trinity College, which has a long and rich history, with alumni such as Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, and Samuel Beckett. Trinity College was first incorporated by Queen Elizabeth I in 1592, but a university had been created on that site by the Pope in 1311. Women were first admitted to Trinity College in 1904, after the death of George Salmon, who had been provost since 1888. He had said that women would be admitted over his dead body, and he did end up being buried near an entrance to the campus. From the campus tour, I also found out that Trinity College has some old campus laws which have yet to be repealed, one of which is that a student is allowed to carry a sword on campus. It also has its own superstitions, once of which is that a Trinity undergraduate is doomed to never graduate if he or she walks under the Campanile, the bell tower. Another point of interest at Trinity College is the Book of Kells, which is an illuminated, or ornately illustrated, version of the four Gospels transcribed by Celtic monks around 800. This can be seen at the Trinity College Library.

Two Saturdays ago, I took a day trip to Bath. I left Paddington station on an 8:30 train to Bath, and the weather was still cloudy with light rain falling when I arrived in Bath at 10:00. After getting my bearings and finding the Tourist Information center, I decided to go on a 2-hour walking tour of the city, as I decided this would be more entertaining than going it alone. As one might expect, the history of the city is centered around the hot springs, which are the only such springs in the UK. Since people attributed healing powers to the water, the town has been a popular tourist destination off and on since Roman times. Queen Mary of Modena (wife of James II of England) bathed in the waters, and finally gave birth to a male heir in 1688; however, the Glorious Revolution occured later that year, in which the Catholic James II was overthrown. William IV, Prince of Orange (who married Princess Anne, daughter of George II) bathed in the waters in 1734 and his health improved dramatically. A small circular garden in Bath (the "Orange" Grove) was named in his honor, and an obelisk was erected using public funds. Beau Nash, who was the leader of the city's elite, chose to levy a tax on the city to pay for the obelisk, rather than use private funds from the wealthy visitors. Nash served as the Master of Ceremonies in Bath from 1704 until his death in 1761. He was basically the "fashion police" for the entire city, keeping a tight reign on the city's appearance to create the proper atmosphere for the members of high society who visited the baths in the city center.

At one point while I was on the tour, shortly before noon, I looked down and saw a large, white spot on my pants, near the knee. My first reaction was frustration, especially knowing that paper towels are hard to come by in most restrooms in the UK, due to their greater environmental sensitivity, so I would probably have the bird droppings on my pants for the rest of the day. My next reaction was one of great relief, realizing that if I had been half a stride further, my predicament would have been far worse. I eventually found paper towels at the pub where I ate dinner, but that was about 6 hours later. While on the walking tour, I did learn some intersting trivia about several of the green spaces in Bath. The Circus, which is a ring of Georgian row houses built in the 1760s, has small acorns adorning the front edge of the roofs. As the legend goes, King Bladud (the father of King Lear) was studying in Athens, around 860 BC, when he contracted leprosy. Feeling that an imperfect ruler could not take the throne, upon his return to England he diguised himself as a pig herder. He herded the pigs around the valley of the River Avon, looking for acorns, and the pigs contracted leprosy from him. When they arrived at the hot springs now known as Bath, legend says that the pigs rolled around in the hot mud and were cured of their leprosy. King Bladud saw this miracle, and likewise rolled around in the mud and was cured. Thus the the acorns were place on the roofs to remind people of the legend. The houses in The Circus are quite expensive: Nicholas Cage recently purchase one that used to be a nursing home, to the tune of £4 million. Another green space, that inside the Royal Crescent, has a unique place in history. It was here, in 2003, that the Three Tenors gave their final concert together, to celebrate the the opening of the Thermae Bath Spa, which didn't actually open until 2006, due to project delays. Bathing has been forbidden in the old Roman Baths since 1978, when a girl swallowed some of the water and died five days later from amoebic meningitis. While the Roman baths are clearly the highlight of a visit to the city, and are spectacular considering that all of the plumbing is Roman, visitors are sternly warned to not even touch the water, lest someone else become sick from the water. This is a bit ironic, considering the miraculous, healing powers that were once attributed to the water.

During the afternoon, I also had time to visit the local abbey. Bath Abbey is constructed on the site of an old Norman cathedral, which was completed in 1156, but fell into disrepair and was ruined by 1499. The Norman catheral was so large that it could have contained the current abbey inside its nave. A smaller abbey was under construction in 1539, when Henry VIII dissolved all of the monasteries in England in concentrate his power as the supreme head of the Church of England. The townspeople stripped the unfinished abbey of all its lead, iron, glass, and anything else of value. In 1574, Queen Elizabeth set up a national tax to pay for the restoration of the abbey. Today, visitors are led on tours to the top of the bell tower. On the tour, I saw the ringing room, where the 10 bell-ringers can play for as long as 2-3 hours for events such as coronations. I got to see the bells themselves, 7 of which date from 1700. The top of the tower provided a breathtaking, panoramic view of the city.

A couple of weeks ago, I went back to the Imperial War Museum and spent quite a while going through the exhibits from WWI & WWII. They have a mock-up of some trenches made to resemble those of WWI, and a lot of uniforms and weapons from that time period. My favorite WWI exhibit was related to the Red Baron: the engine from the plane in which he was shot dead. My most important stop at the museum was the Holocaust Exhibit, the first such exhibit I have been to, as I haven't visited the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. While the exhibit was emotionally and psychologically distressing, it serves as a reminder of the consequences of unbridled racism. At the time of WWII, Anti-Semitism was present in many parts of the world, not just in Nazi Germany. Both the US and the UK were initially reluctant to grant asylum to thousands of Jewish refugees. I didn't have time to see the other exhibits on more recent episodes of genocide, such as that in Rwanda in the 1990s, but I hope to make it back to the Imperial War Museum some time before I leave.

Last Saturday, I took the boat to Greenwich. I set out to take a 45-min cruise down the Thames, but it turned into a much longer affair. I got on a boat at Embankment Pier around 11:15 AM, and it went as far as the Tower Bridge, where I had to disembark at another pier and take another boat the rest of the way. Unfortunately, the company I bought my ticket from had a boat break down, and I had to wait until 12:45 PM for the next boat. Trying to be efficient, I went for a quick tour through the Tower Bridge. At the top, there is a small museum and historical information about the bridge. The walkways provide a great view of the city. I ended up missing the boat at 12:45, but decided I would take the next one a half-hour later. Due to a lack of space, I was going to have to wait until 2 PM to possibly get on a boat down river, so I ended up deciding to take a refund and try another company. Their boats were larger, but quite full on a sunny Saturday afternoon. The boat I ended up getting on went back up the river to Westminster, then down to Greenwich, where I finally arrived about 3:30 PM. Since most every tourist attraction here closes at 5 PM, I didn't have much time left. I dashed up the hill to the Royal Observatory and had about an hour there. I got someone to take my picture with me straddling the Prime Meridian. Of course, they use a laser now to accurately show the meridian, where all time begins. Outside in the courtyard, I saw the public standards of length. In spite of my short stay in Greenwich, I did enjoy being at the "center of the universe" for a few hours. This is another place I'll revisit, if possible.

While my parents were here, I was able to spend a lot of time with them, in spite of working a full week at school. They arrived on July 10, and on the following afternoon (a Friday), we went to the Tower of London. Our Beefeater guide had a good sense of humor, and tried to make light of the fact that he is single. All of the Beefeaters have at least 20 years military service, and live within the Tower walls with their families. Our guide had served in a psychological warfare unit, so he seemed especially eager to mess with our heads. Inside the Tower complex, the Crown Jewels are housed, as well as the armory museum, which displays guns and cannon and the armor of some of the kings. Henry VIII's armor was so big, it must have taken a Clydesdale to carry him.

The next day, we went on a tour to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Salisbury Cathedral. William the Conqueror built a defensive ring of castles around London in the 1100s, and Windsor Castle is the only surviving castle from this group. Queen Elizabeth II prefers to spend weekends at Windsor Castle, referring to it as her “home” and to Buckingham Palace as her “office.” You can tell if the Queen is in a royal residence by the colors of the flag. If the Union Jack is flying, she is not there; if the flag has any yellow in it, perhaps indicating a royal coat of arms, she is there. On the day we were there, being a Saturday, the queen was present at the castle. Once we got into the castle, my parents and I headed for the State Apartments, where the Queen usually hosts foreign heads of state and other dignitaries. We only made it through 2 rooms before the fire alarm went off; we had to evacuate that part of the castle, and were unable to return due to the time constraints of our tour. We were still able to tour St. George’s Chapel and see the Changing of the Windsor Guard.

After we left Windsor Castle, the tour proceeded to Stonehenge. Although a light rain began to fall while we were there, both my father and I were able to get plenty of photos. As the last stop of our tour, we went to Salisbury Cathedral. According to Wikipedia, the first stone was laid in 1220, and main portions of the cathedral were completed in 38 years, a remarkable feat for that period in history. The tower and spire, which at 404 feet is still the tallest in the U.K., were completed in 1320, adding a weight in excess of 6,000 tons to the building. Additional buttresses and inverted arches were installed over the next few centuries to prevent the tower from collapsing. Aside from the spire, the cathedral also contains the world’s oldest working clock, dating from 1365, and its chapter house displays one of the four surviving original copies of the Magna Carta.

On Sunday, we went to the National Gallery, off of Trafalgar Square, where the statue of Lord Nelson looks rather diminutive atop the 100-foot colonnade. The National Gallery houses works from many famous artists, from the early Renaissance to the 20th century. I think my favorite painting was “Belshazzar’s Feast” by Rembrandt, ca. 1635. This painting depicts the hand writing on the wall, and Belshazzar’s alarm. On Tuesday, we saw a production of Les Miserables, which was the first professional musical I had seen since I was a child. Having sung the music years ago in youth choir, I had some recollection of the major songs. Having once attempted, but failed, sometime around the sixth grade, to read an unabridged version of the classic novel, I knew very little about the plot save that Jean Valjean was an escaped con who took Cosette into his care and was constantly on the run from the egocentric Inspector Javert. Although, due to both time and budgetary constraints, this may be the only musical I attend while in London, I thoroughly enjoyed the performance.

While I was in Edinburgh, I took a break from the city last Saturday and went on a tour to Loch Ness. Within a couple of hours of leaving Edinburgh, the fan in the bus went out, so we had a full tour bus with no air flow (most buildings and cars here have no air conditioning to begin with) on about a 70 F day, which is warm for the Scottish Highlands. For me, it was worth the minor discomfort to get to visit the most famous lake in the world. As the tour was behind schedule, we only had time to take the one-hour cruise on the lake, but this afforded me a rare opportunity to capture some images of the lake's most famous resident and to take some beautiful pictures of the lake on a sunny day, which is almost as rare for that area as a sighting of the monster. On the way back, we passed through Glencoe, where 38 members of the MacDonald clan were massacred in 1692. All of the clans in Scotland were supposed to swear an oath of allegiance to King William, who had recently taken over from the deposed James II, the grandson of Mary, Queen of Scots. Due to some bad weather and some red tape, the representative of the MacDonald clan technically missed the deadline of Jan. 1, 1692 for this oath, although he attempted to give the oath before the deadline and it was evetually accepted by someone. English troops were sent in to live in Glencoe among the MacDonalds, then after about 12 days the troops carried out their orders to massacre the people living there. In the end, an inquiry by a Scottish council blamed the Secretary of State over Scotland, John Dalrymple, for the massacre, as well as the Campbell clan, with whom the MacDonalds had a long, bitter feud, which Dalrymple took advantage of in plotting the massacre. This remains one of the most tragic events in all of Scottish history.

On Sunday, I got to visit the Palace of Holyroodhouse, used by the Queen when she visits Edinburgh. The queen was in Edinburgh when I arrived, but had apparently left by Sunday morning, so the palace was again open to visitors. Mary Queen of Scots lived in the palace for a few years, so this palace saw its share of domestic violence, with Mary's private secretary David Rizzio murdered in the palace by her then-husband, Lord Darnley. Their marriage broke apart, and after James was born, Darnley was killed in an explosion at a house in Edinburgh, where he was recuperating from an illness.

Before I left Edinburgh on Sunday, I went to the National Galleries of Scotland. Since I was short on time, I focused on the most famous galleries, with notable artists from the Renaissance up to the 20th century. I knew the galleries must be good if a novice like me was able to recognize so many of the artists: Titian, Van Dyke, Raphael, Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens (NOT Pee Wee Herman for you wise guys), El Greco, Monet, Van Gogh, Paul Cezzane, Paul Gauguin, Edgar Degas (most noted as a sculpturist who made bronze molds), John Singer Sargent, and Thomas Gainsborough. You can tell that I was quite impressed with their collection, or at least the parts that I saw. Now I am looking forward to visiting the National Gallery here in London, whenever I get around to it.

A couple of other things I did in Edinburgh: the Scotch Whiskey Experience, and a Mercat tour under South Bridge. On the whiskey tour, I ran into a couple of undergrads from Georgia Tech, who are studying at Oxford as part of a large study-abroad group from GT, representing many different majors. The tour under South Bridge, which was classified as a ghost tour, took me through the vaults under South Bridge, which is actually invisible from the street, as it is covered by buildings. The bridge, featured last year in an episode of Cities of the Underworld on the History Channel, was built in the 1780s as a viaduct over a narrow valley between two hills. As the people of Edinburgh had been afraid of English invasion in centuries past, the city had been built upward within its walls, and buildings were likewise built around and on top of South Bridge, thus creating the enclosed spaces under 18 of its 19 arches. Many different tradesmen, such as cobblers, practiced their crafts in the vaults during the early days, but eventually the leaky bridge, which had not been waterproofed, forced the reputable trades to move elsewhere. Illegal businesses, such as body-snatching, moved in to the vaults. The ghosts that are said to inhabit the vaults range from the early period to the later criminal period. I didn't have any paranormal experiences, but I wouldn't say that the ghost stories are fictional accounts.

I have so many stories to tell from my 3-day weekend in Edinburgh. The trip got off to a slow start when I missed my 14:30 train out of King's Cross and had to upgrade my ticket to leave at 15:00. Although it was a painful lesson, at least in the wallet, I've learned not to cut it close with trains. They always leave on time, and you should really be there 15 min in advance to get a good seat, which brings up another point. This being my first time on National Express, I neglected to reserve a seat for both the outward and return journeys. Big mistake. While the train leaving on Thursday had plenty of unreserved seats, the train heading back on Sunday had precious few of these open seats. I must have walked up and down the aisle 3 or 4 times, suitcase in hand, while the train was moving, looking for somewhere to sit. Once I saw the £50 penalty for sitting in a reserved seat, I wasn't taking any chances, even if I thought the person who reserved the seat was not on board.

This trip was also the first time I spent the night at a hostel. Since I mistakenly left my earplugs in London, I didn't get a lot of sleep the first two nights. While I had made a provisional reservation for 3 nights, I got confirmation for the first two on the day I was leaving, with a note that the hostel was full for Saturday night. I ended up having to go out looking on Friday night, but the third place I went had some space, although it was £10 more per night than the first hostel I stayed at. Had I made plans for this trip sooner, I would have had fewer difficulties and would have paid less for my train ticket.

Aside from the aforementioned issues, I thouroughly enjoyed the weekend. On Friday, I visited Edinburgh Castle, which has been around in some form since at least the 1300s. The area seems to have received the name Edinburgh when the Angles settled it in 638 AD, after defeating a Celtic war band led by King Mynyddog. In one of the buildings on the castle rock, Mary, Queen of Scots gave birth to James (VI of Scotland, I of England) on June 19, 1566. After some marital problems, Mary fled to London, where she was imprisoned and eventually beheaded by her cousin, Elizabeth I, who feared that Mary might try to assert her legitimate claim to the English throne.

For me, perhaps the most interesting item in the castle was the One O'Clock Gun. The gun was first fired in 1861 to provide an audible time signal for ships in the nearby port of Leith, so captains could accurately set their chronometers before leaving on a voyage. Since ancient times, mariners had set their chronometers by the stars. Prior to the existence of the One O'Clock Gun, captains leaving Edinburgh had to climb up to the City Observatory to set their chronometers. As Scots are known for being shrewd with money, the time of 1 o'clock was chosen rather than noon, so only 1 ball had to be fired instead of 12. When the gun was first put into use, it was part of an elaborate system that also included a timeball, dropped at the top of the Nelson Monument. Both the gun and the timeball were electrically connected to the obeservatory, with about 3700 ft of wire connecting the observatory to Half-Moon Battery at the castle, where the gun is fired. Originally, just the timeball was used, but it couldn't be seen through the fog, so the addition of the gun alleviated this problem. The original One O'Clock Gun was a 18-pound cannon, but the gun has changed many times over the years and is now a 105 mm field gun. One of the guns recently retired was used in the battle of El Alamein in WWII. Locals expect to hear the gun, but it usually startles visitors. I got to witness the firing of the gun at 13:00 on Friday, and it was really loud from 100 feet away. After 4 weeks of use, the batteries in my camera died at 12:57, so I had to change them really fast to capture the firing of the gun.

Last Saturday, I went to Canterbury. The cathedral is breathtaking. It's difficult to put in writing how big it is, but the portion between the towers is called the nave, and that is only half the length of the cathedral. The choir sits in another section called the quire, and the sound carries through to the congregation seated in the nave. Since I got to hear the boy's choir practicing, let's just say that the acoustics in the cathedral are spectacular, as one would expect. Seeing the spot where Becket was murdered (pointed to by three swords) was, for me, a humbling experience. He got the position of archbishop as a political favor, but then began taking his duties seriously after a while. Henry II wished out loud that he could be rid of Becket, and the four knights took these words to the extreme. The other thing that was disturbing, although not surprising, is that Henry VIII destroyed the original shrine in the cathedral during his maniacal campaign to do away with the Catholic Church in England. The spot of the original shrine, which lasted for about 500 years, is now marked by a single, lit candle. The photos from Canterbury aren't labeled or commented, but I'll do that next week.

The next day, I went to the Cabinet War Rooms. This underground complex, near Parliament, is quite large, as it had accomodations for Churchill, his personal assistants, military officials, map rooms, and critical communications equipment. Churchill spent only 3 nights in the bunker, and often watched the bombing raids from the roof, much to the chagrin of those close to him. In one large room, there is a museums detaling Churchill's life and military career, in addition to his enormous influence over the people of the UK and his handling of the war. I'll upload the photos I took in the CWR sometime in the next week.

Here, again, is the link to my photo page:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22316703@N05/

Tomorrow I'm off to another destination outside of London. Look for details and photos next week.

Most of the time, my weekdays at school are fairly uneventful, so I don't have much to say until I go somewhere on the weekend. I know some people would like to hear more, since not all of you have been to the UK before. So, here are a few things that I've learned about living in the UK:

With regard to traffic/pedestrians:

You don't have to wait for the "walk" sign to cross, but it's better to do so, at least at unfamiliar intersections.

When the "walk" sign goes off, it's time to get out of the intersection. The British also have a yellow light before the green light, which coincides with the "walk" sign turning off. Some drivers do get impatient if you're in the crosswalk, as they could otherwise start through the intersection. This extra yellow light would never work in the US, as many drivers and pedestrians are generally unaware of their surroundings. Many more people would be run down on Peachtree Street, just like Margaret Mitchell.

In tube stations, people actually do stand to the right on escalators, so those in a hurry can move past. People here are actually capable of following directions. Again, this would never happen in the US.

Other miscellaneous trivia:

Most washbasins (sinks) in Britain have seperate taps for hot and cold, and you can't really use the hot tap without getting burned. The showers in my dorm are almost uncomfortably hot, and there is no temperature adjustment. There are two shower stalls in the bathroom, with motion activated lights, and in one of them the motion sensor is improperly placed, so the light goes out after a couple of minutes. Also, the bathrooms in my dorm are unisex, which seems a bit unusual to me, but I've never lived in a UK dorm before now.

Many of the smaller shops close earlier than I'm used to, say 8 or 9 PM. The Sainsbury's is open late, until midnight on weekdays. They still have some kind of a blue law here, such that many stores don't open until 11 AM on Sundays and close at 5 PM. According to Wikipedia, the Sunday Trading act of 1994 was passed after the UK joined the European Economic Community, to avoid breaking the rules of the community. Since 1950, buying and selling on Sundays had been banned in the UK. With the change in 1994, stores larger than 280 m^2 are only allowed to be open for 6 hours on Sundays.

I have been attending a small (about 400 people, so that's small to me) contemporary church, called Christchurch London, which meets in the Picadilly Theatre from 4-6 PM on Sundays. Afterwards, a group of around 20-30 will go to a nearby pub for drinks. This is a reflection of the culture, as alcohol is viewed differently here than in the US. This would go over like a lead balloon at any church in the US.

Regarding the phone numbers here, people write them in all sorts of ways. I think a lot of people who live here are as confused as I am. They apparently changed the system several times in the '90s, adding extra digits to the area code to create more numbers. At least in the US we have a fixed length for numbers, with a clear area code and exchange. I guess since the telephone was invented in the US, we should have the best system.

When I was at the Museum of London on Saturday, one of the museum employees saw me reading about the renovations they are doing to their galleries covering 1666-present. She asked it I wanted to have a look at a few of the exhibits from that period. She first took me to a case of flintlock pistols from the 1800s, one of which had been used in a duel by the Duke of Wellington. Of course, there was a catch. When she started asking my opinions about the exhibit & its layout, I realized I had gotten caught in a survey. I went along with it, because I was happy to see a few of the more modern exhibits. The next exhibit had various dresses and shoes, and some other fashion items from the 1960s, including a few pieces of Beatles memorabilia. Needless to say, I don't remember a lot about that exhibit, since it was geared toward 60's fashion. The final exhibit showed about a dozen photographs of London after the Blitz, with houses and tube stations nearly obliterated, and also displayed a few shell casings. I was more than happy to see some things not then on normal display, and it only took about 15 minutes with the questions.

Yesterday, I went through the Assyrian galleries at the British Museum. It was neat getting to see statues and wall reliefs from the palaces of Babylon and Nineveh and Nimrud. I think all of the objects I saw were from the palaces of Assyrian kings who are mentioned in the Bible. This really brought the Old Testament to life, and made me go back and look for these kings. There are so many kings of Assyria mentioned in the Old Testament. The Israelites never learned to trust God, so He kept sending in invaders.

I know you all want to see pictures of something besides museums. I will be outside of London the next two weekends, but unless I've told you already, you'll just have to wait and see where I go next.

While my advisors were here this week, I went out to dinner every night through Thursday. Outside of lunch on two days, all of my meals were paid for by someone else. I definitely appreciated this, since I have to stretch my budget as far as possible. Next week, I'll be back to £ 5 take-away for dinner. There is a good variety of small shops (restaurants) all over London, and Camden is no exception. Some of the ethnic shops close earlier in the evening, before I get to the Camden Town station, so I haven't had a chance to try them all.

Thursday night, we went to an Indian restaurant on Gloucester Road called "Memories of India." I decided to have the lamb vindaloo, as I like to go for the spicier foods on the menu. One of my advisors, Joe Schork, not to be outdone, decided to have the chicken vindaloo. To backtrack, the night before we were at a Portuguese restaurant that seemed to make a big deal out of the spicieness of their different sauces for chicken, but neither Joe nor I thought that their "hot" sauce was all that hot. I assumed that Londoners, given their generally bland native diet, have a weak tolerance for spicy foods, and that any restaurant labeling their food "very spicy" was probably gearing the warning towards locals. Now back to Thurday night. The vindaloo at this Indian place was noticeably hotter than any I've had in the US. Both Joe and I finished our dishes, but it took every bit of rice and nan that we had to take out the burn. I don't think either of us will forget that experience.

On Tuesday, myself, Joe, and Martha (my primary advisor) went to Hampton Court palace, once used as a summer getaway from London. This palace was originally built for Cardinal Wolsey, who later fell out of favor with Henry VIII. Henry VIII wanted the palace for himself, so Wolsey wisely gave it up willingly. Additions to the palace were later made by William & Mary in the 1600s and George II in the 1700s, each in the current architectural styles, so the palace is really a patchwork from different periods. Some of this disparity is revealed in the pictures that I took. A lot of areas inside the palace were off-limits to photography, due to the fragile nature of tapestries and paintings. This was definitely a fun experience, not only touring the palace, but also learning about some of the different monarchs who occupied it.

Today, I went to the Museum of London, which covers the city from prehistoric times to the present day. Unfortunately for me, the lower section, covering from the Great Fire of 1666 to the present day, is closed until 2010 for renovations. I did get some nice pictures of Roman and medieval artifacts. Much of their collection was behind glass, so the glare from the lights was too much to get good pictures of some objects.

The Great Fire of 1666 started at 1 AM on Sept. 2, in the bakery of Thomas Farriner, who was the baker for King Charles II. It burned until Sept. 6, and destroyed about 13,000 houses, or 4/5 of the city, although only 5 deaths were reported as directly resulting from the fire. Farriner's bakery was in Pudding Lane, and the fire went out at Pie Corner, so some blamed the fire on the sin of gluttony. At the time of the fire, buildings had no insurance, so many people were left homeless, or worse, in debtor's prisons. London had no fire brigades in 1666, and the first proper fire brigade was not formed until 1866.

Since my last post, I have stayed busy every day. Thursday, I cut out of work a little early to go to the Science Museum, which is near Imperial College. I went through part of the Energy exhibit, which shows the history of steam engines. The early steam engines were very large machines, and were quite impressive to see. Friday evening, I went for a stroll through Hyde Park. The Albert Memorial there is breathtaking. I tried to take some pictures of it, but the lighting wasn't good at 6 PM with cloudy skies. I will definitely take more pictures outside, but I am waiting for some sunnier days. My friend Mark got a group of his friends together from Imperial, and we went out to a pub on Friday night. The weather was downright chilly; it felt like 50 F or less. It was good getting to meet some of the people I'll be working around this summer.


Saturday afternoon, I went to the British Museum. If you've ever been there, you know that the place is enormous. Granted, I was taking my time, but it took me about 4 hours to go through the Egyptian sculpture gallery and half of the Enlightenment gallery, which houses many pieces of the museum's original collection dating from the 1750s. Saturday evening, I took the tube down to the north side of the Thames, then walked across the Millenium Brigde. My main purpose for doing this was to get a good view of Big Ben and Parliament, which I haven't yet visited. I stopped and ate dinner at a restaurant on the south bank, near the London Eye. On Sunday, I went to the Imperial War Museum. If you have a keen interest in WWI or WWII, then you would really enjoy this museum.

Here is a link to my photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22316703@N05/sets/

My advisors from GT are visiting London this week. Tomorrow, we are going to Hampton Court, Henry VIII's palace southwest of the city.

The weather here has been really cool, although it has threatened rain each of the past five days. Few, if any, buildings here have air conditioning, as it is not usually needed. The highs here have been in the low to mid 60s since last Wed., which feels really good compared to a summer day in the ATL.

Camden Market, not too far from my dorm, is actually made up of six markets, five of which are outdoor. It is a popular tourist attraction, drawing as many as 100,000 on a Sunday afternoon. To avoid overcrowding, the Camden Town Station, on the Northern line of the tube, does not allow passengers to enter the station from 1-5:30 PM on Sundays. This tube station, the one which I enter every morning, is a bit of an anomally in itself. The Northern line is in two branches both north and south of the station, with the X-interchange just south of the station. Northbound trains must commit to a branch before they reach the station, but southbound trains can go on either branch after leaving the station. When the line was being constructed, London Transport wanted to build the tunnels under streets, to avoid purchasing buildings for demolition. The streets along the tube route are narrow, so the northbound and southbound platforms are stacked on top of one another. These features supposedly make Camden Town station the most complex station on the entire tube network.

After a few minor hiccups, I am getting settled in to my UCL dorm room and my desk at Imperial College. It's about a 50 min journey to get from my room to my office at Imperial: 30 min on the tube (with one line change), and a 10 min walk on either end. This being my first time in a city without a car, there is a good bit more walking than what I am used to. I should be in better shape when I return in September.

Now that I am mostly over the jet lag, I am ready to start seeing some of the sights. I pass by three museums every day on my walk from the South Kensington tube station to Imperial College: the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, and the Victoria & Albert Museum. Most of the museums close at 6 PM, so I will probably use those to break up my afternoons. Hyde Park is only a block north of Imperial College, so that will be a great place to eat lunch or take an afternoon stroll. I know a picture's worth a thousand words, so I will start taking some tomorrow.

I ran into a group of law students from U of Miami (FL) who are living near me and studying at UCL, so I'm sure I'll hang out with them some.