[September 21] London: Museum of London Museum (for class)

On Tuesday, my British Women's Social History class met at the Museum of London so we could spend a couple of hours looking around at the exhibits of England's social history for traces of women in history.

This pic has nothing to do with why we were there but it's a huge collection of twitter updates...

Yeah, right, dress. Why this was attractive, I have no idea, but then there are plenty of things we wear today that would have boggled the owner of this dress, I'm sure!

This dollhouse was marked c1760; it was given to Lady Blackett by her husband Sir Blackett after the birth of their first son. It is incredibly detailed and if I ever have a daughter one day, I want to make her a special dollhouse.

This Pleasure Garden was one of my favorite parts... The atmosphere of the dark room filled with fantastical displays was just great. I wish it were 'real'...

As usual, I was particularly interested in the fashion which I think I might do my paper on for the class. More specifically, I would like to concentrate on a certain era of fashion and how and why the manipulation of women's body shape took place. The dresses pictured below are some examples of what women wore in the 1920s, as I'm sure you can tell. Women's bodies are constantly being manipulated to fit into whatever is popular at the time. During the 1920s, women would even wrap their breasts so they could appear flat-chested and boyish and wear the bag-like dresses that were all the rage. The information below the display said that with the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922, Egyptian-inspired clothing, jewelry, cosmetics, and hairstyles became very fashionable. I had never known that!


I LOVE these pastel drawings:


I now realize that WWI was a HUGE turning point for women because with so many men away at war, women had no choice but to take over the more 'masculine' positions the men once held. With the death of millions of men, many women would never have been able to marry and would have to find a way to take care of themselves. After this, there was no turning back...


And of course, 1960s & Beatlemania... I would love to own the black and white Beatles dress.


This is a sculpture that was randomly at the end of the exhibit and I know it's not a very good picture of it but I just really liked it—I don't know if you can tell but a bird is emerging form the top:

[September 16] London: Shopping & Studying

And so it begins: the 'study' part of 'study abroad'. I'm excited because all 5 of my classes sound truly interesting, but it is a bit daunting at the same time. By this Monday I have to read 'The Wasteland', by Tuesday I have to read 150 pages of 'A History of London', and by Wednesday I have to read 'Romeo & Juliet', Virginia Woolf's 'A Room of One's Own', and Austen's 'Northanger Abbey'. The week after I have to read 'Mrs. Dalloway', 'Frankenstein', and Shakespeare's 'Richard II'. Luckily, I will be able to borrow most of these required books from the small but useful IES library!

As you can see in the picture above, a few of the books aren't required. I found the copy of 'Alice in Wonderland' at a used bookstore today on King's Road for a few pounds and I found 'The Glass Palace' in a thriftshop on King's Road for 1 pound. Jette recommended the latter; it's about Burma. Then there's my planner, or 'diary', as all of the British seem to refer to it as, that I bought from Paperchase today. Yes, an entire Paperchase store! You know all of that cute stuff they have in Borders? Yes! The same brand and I love it. I bought a really cute water bottle there also.

On the left is a picture of 'The Chrysanthemum and the Sword' which I saw in the used book shop but didn't purchase... I just had to take a picture of it because of Mad Men, and you will only understand this if you saw the episode it's in. Random, but anyway.

Another random picture is the one shown below... Just reminded me of the song 'Rococo' off of the Arcade Fire's new album. Not related, I'm sure.

I found 2 dress/shirt things and a jacket at a thrift shop today that I'm excited about!

The rest of the day has been spent attempting to read for my classes.

Virginia Woolf is tough reading, in my opinion. I've only read 'To the Lighthouse' and 'Mrs. Dalloway', and both were hard for me to get through but at the same time, I loved each, especially 'To the Lighthouse'. Now, as I already mentioned, I'm reading 'A Room of One's Own' and I'm only on page 31 and there are a few passages which I adore.

"London was like a workshop. London was like a machine. We were all being shot backwards and forwards on this plain foundation to make some pattern... Here [to the British Museum in London] had I come with a notebook and a pencil proposing to spend a morning reading, supposing that at the end of the morning I should have transferred the truth to my notebook. But I should need to be a herd of elephants, I thought, and a wilderness of spiders, desperately referring to the animals that are reputed longest lived and most multitudinously eyed, to cope with all this" ('A Room of One's Own' by Virginia Woolf, Chapter 2).

[September 15] London: Duckies, Dears, & Darlings, But Mostly Hyde Park

Throughout the course of one of my classes, the professor referred to us as "duckies", "dears", and "darlings". Adorbs, right?

On Wednesday after 5 hours of class, a few other girls and I walked to Hyde Park from our dorm. It's a pretty big park...! We were only able to over park of it, from Alert Hall along The Serpentine to Hyde Park Corner. I will definitely have to spend another day there.

(map courtesy of http://london-bus-tube-map.blogspot.com/)

Good afternoon, Hyde Park! The entrance:

Royal Albert Hall. Name this song: "Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall..."

'A Day in the Life' by The Beatles! Did you get it right...

Prince Albert Memorial:

Hmm, a mysterious stump:

"Hey you guys I found THE rabbit hole!"

"And I can't see the bottom of it!"

"Okay, count of three and down I go..."

"Oh hi everyone! Bye everyone!"

(image courtesy of http://dreamphemera.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/alice-falling-down-rabbit-hole-2.jpg)

*A Brief Intermission Whilst Alyssa Discovers Wonderland*

Part of the Princess Diana Memorial. It was basically just a big circle with water running through it. It was pretty and I'm sure holds some kind of symbolism to it...

Me being unexplainably weird, as usual...

The six of us who explored the park together:

Just a pretty little waterfall in Hyde Park...

I saw this neat gate as we left Hyde Park:

The group split up and three of us ended our evening out by having 'dinner' at cremedelacrepe which was delicious but at the same time, not what I was expecting. It had more of a doughy taste than I expected and I should have gotten something more filling than cinnamon crumble and strawberries...

[September 13] London: First Day of Classes, Shopping, Bar, & Clubbing

*I ADDED MORE TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST IN CASE YOU ALREADY READ THE FIRST PART BEFORE*

Monday was my first day of school in London! My new friend Laura and I left for the IES Centre (where our classes are) 2 HOURS EARLY. Yeah we were a little anxious about taking the tube by ourselves and getting there on time...!

First, we stopped at Ben's Cookies which is right by the South Kensington tube station, the station we use to most easily get to classes. There are so many of DeLiCiOuS fresh cookies there. I was boring and got a dark chocolate chip cookie... and I couldn't even eat half of it because it was so rich (but I finished it happily right before typing this)! Good thing I walked A LOT today...

Anyways, the Piccadily tube line was delayed! What will we do! We took a different line! And then oops we had to take it back the other way! And then got on another line! And then we arrived! And we high-fived each other!

It took awhile BUT we even had time to buy school supplies and get to class in plenty of time. There are 10 people in my class today and half of them were very, very late. GOOD THING we left 2 hours early. There is really no reason not to because you can sit in the centre or nearby in a park or cafe and do homework in the meantime... Which I do indeed plan on doing...

Anyway! Here are the five classes I am taking here in London:

• Literature: The Bloomsbury Era
• History: From Aphra Behn to the Blitz: 300 Years of Women's Social History
• History: The History of London
• Literature/Women's Studies: British Women Novelists of the 19th Century
• Literature: Shakespeare the Dramatist

AHEM AHEM O HAI LONDON BTW I AM VERY EXCITED FOR EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE CLASSES KTHXBAI.

-Sincerely,

Alyssa the Nerd

Each class takes place once a week for 2 1/2 hours. I only have class 3 days a week, can you believe it? 4 day weekends...! I'm going to need them.

After class, I went around to a few bookstores looking for some of the books I'll need. No purchases were made, I'm just scoping out prices and selections for now. Today I only had the Bloomsbury Era class and our first assignment is to read "The Waste Land". I do not understand that poem but I'm going to try extra hard to this time around...

Afterwards, I went shopping by myself. I looked at some souvenir stuff but most of it is pretty tacky and I don't plan on buying any of it (besides postcards)... I went into Dorothy Perkins, a really cute clothing shop I have never seen or heard of before. It's a lot like H&M I guess. I bought a dress and a top there. Walked back to the tube and took it BY MYSELF! I'm such a BIG GIRL! lol.

Didn't get lost. Feet hurt. Whew.

Later that night, there was a social planned and whoever wanted to headed out to a bar for drinks, and afterward we went to a club that I think is called TigerTiger.

At the bar:

Me and my roommate, aren't we so ADORBS??? I am soooo lucky I got a great roommate YET AGAIN. I have AMAZING luck with roommates; Thank You infinite powers aboveeeeee!

I won't tell you how many drinks I did or didn't have, but either way it would probably surprise you. Take it as you will.

It was a nice bar with 'cheap' drinks.

Later at the club, TigerTiger:

As I'm not yet 21, I've never been to a bar or club in the States, so all of this was a completely new experience for me. They didn't check ID for drinks in the bar, which I'm pretty sure they would in the states, however I really wouldn't know! I ordered some beer. Nothing fancy. While I really enjoy sweet things, I also really enjoy bitter things like beer and strong tea. So unlike a lot of people I've talked to, I actually enjoy the taste of beer.

After everyone was loaded up at the bar, we walked to a club that our student assistants got us VIP passes to. It felt pretty cool cutting a bunch of people in line, ha, ha... it seemed like a club full of people my age and most people were dressed up a bit. Especially the girls.

It was a bizarre experience.

First of all, I loved it. I LOVE dancing, and I dance pretty much the same with or without alcohol involved (just ask some of my friends at home). I loved the remixed popular music, which is very new for me... in high school and my freshman year of college, I thought most of it was pretty lame and I shunned it. But for some reason during this past year, I've gotten into Lady Gaga, Britney, and Beyonce. This music is trite, formulaic, and mindless, but at the same time genius. (That brings up my fascination with Lady Gaga but that's a whole other blog post). Moving on.

I loved the crowd and the lights and I just had fun. I probably seemed like the typical party girl, going with the crowd and 'livin it up'. Or something.

But something the 'typical' party girl might not do is sit by herself and observe (minding her purse and surroundings and safety the whole time I must add!). I hate to sound pretentious, as if I am 'above it all' or anything. Because like I said, I was very much a part of what I also observed.

People obviously tend to gather in groups/circles. Some people are very confident in dancing and enjoying themselves, some people are very uncomfortable in this situation but put themselves into it nonetheless. You can really see it if you look for it—rigidness, crossed arms, looking around a lot, not making eye contact... and there are also a lot of people there trying to get lucky. You can just tell!

It's strange because you might think TigerTiger is the LAST place you might feel peace inside. But sitting at that table alone (and yes I had longggg been completely sober at that point so these feelings were NOT alcohol-induced), taking a break from dance dance dancing, I felt completely comfortable with myself and I felt at peace. "Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt." It was a really fantastic feeling, and I would never have thought I would feel it in a club in London. I think that is the real test.

It's easy to feel peaceful in nature where it's quiet and beautiful and serene. To feel peace in a place that is filled to the brim with people being ridiculous, music so loud your ears ring for the rest of the night, in a place thousands of miles from home, is a really thrilling feeling.