It's been a while...

Hello to all my eager followers (mum and dad),

I realized that I haven't posted in a while, and I will go ahead and be upfront in my confession that I don't have any pictures with me in them (my parents can attest that they did see me on skype.. proving my existence, though I will try to take a few pictures with me in them as requested by the fam...) You see, it's a bit tricky since usually I am on my own. I like exploring on my own and being able to plan what I want to see when I go out, but it can be a bit lonely and not exactly conducive to picture-of-me-taking, but I'll try my best!

So since my last post I did a bit more exploring, returning to the London Bridge area that I had visited with Mark's mum and aunt. My total distance walked in the day only amounted to about 13/14 kilometers, so not quite up to my previous explorations. From the London Bridge Tube stop I walked along the Thames, saw the Golden Hinde and some lovely buildings, decided to hold off on the Design Museum and Tea Museum as they both cost money (though they remind me of my friends Drew and Sally Ann, so I will have to go back at some point!), visited Southwark Cathedral, dined on some lovely free samples at the Borough Market (decided to forgo the raw meat/fish section of the market as I enjoyed my free baklava), and visited the Tate Modern. I was excited to go to the Tate Modern because they have a collection of Gauguin paintings on exhibit, though I found out that the exhibition was only free to members and came with a price tag to non-members, so I just wandered around the rest of the museum. I have the BIG Book of Art at home and it has become a part of my travels to put post-it notes on all of the paintings I have seen in person (Italy pretty much knocked out the Renaissance section), so I am looking forward to updating the book over Christmas break :).
From the London Bridge area I walked to St. Pauls Cathedral then down Fleet Street (Sweeney Todd- demon barber of fleet street, anyone? I might have just made that up...), to the Temple Church area (Davinci Code..http://www.londontown.com/London/Da_Vinci_Code_Temple_Church), and had a cup of tea in the Victoria Embankment Gardens. After failed attempts to find a photography gallery and a bit of time window shopping, I met up with a few friends to head to Covent Garden (I tipped them off on the free samples..). Yet again, we positioned ourselves right where they walked out with the free samples, and treated ourselves to some 5 star cuisine :). (Don't worry mum, I do buy real food from time to time...)

London bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down....

Tower of London

Golden Hinde

This wall/window is one of the many things that proves the US is still a newborn historically speaking

Southwark Cathedral

Shakespeare hung out here.. aka the Globe

View of St. Paul's Cathedral from Millennium Bridge

Following my day of explorations and evening with friends, that weekend was spent volunteering as a notetaker at the Taking Part: Art and Civil Society Conference run by my professor. There were a few of us from the program that volunteered together, and even though we were so worn out afterwards, it was a good experience together. It was interesting for me as an outsider to hear all of the debates about art funding cuts. There were a few speakers from the US and they brought up that the gov't funding that arts organizations receive in the US is such a small percentage of overall funding. In some ways this could be seen as a negative factor, but at the same time it forces the organizations to be creative in order to gain funding through other avenues. To some extent it was sad to see how narrowly focused the dialogue was on gov't cuts to arts funding, especially in a room of such creative individuals. Despite some of the debate, the conference was a really good experience to see the work that people are doing in the field. Though I have only been here a few months, I've learned a decent amount about British/European politics from the conference, talks with friends, news, and the recent student rioting (don't worry, I was nowhere to be seen, those kids have no idea what we have to pay in US schools!!  :P). American government/politics, welfare, and the economy are all messed up and in a constant state of confusion/turbulence... but it's pretty messed up in the UK as well. All I have to say is I am glad I am not a politician, seems like the worst job ever.