Advertisement
Published: November 22nd 2007
Edit Blog Post
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
We had a large meal here together around noon time and had nearly 70 people, as families and professors were invited as well. It was hard seeing other families here & not being home, but I'll be home for Christmas. So I'll be okay. We had turkey, green bean casserole, creamed corn, fruit salad, buns, stuffing, and sweet potatoes. And then desert with bought apple pie (blah) and ice cream. There was cheesecake available, but I thought I would try the pie. Bad choice. Ice cream was good though.
I am packed and ready to leave at 3:00 am for Barcelona in the morning. While Paris was my original goal, a small group of people were booking flights for Spain, so I joined in. It'll be a good chance to use my Spanish (though I guess they don't really speak it there (which doesn't make sense to me) but a whole different language! And I certainly hope its warm and sunny because London the past week has been all rain all the time. Very miserable.
I've been keeping busy with my internship doing different events. One day, I went with the artistic director to a
Lord Mayor's Parade
Even in London they have Case tractors! showcase for senior actors at one of the top theatre schools in town. One of the girls we saw actually had a small role in one of the Harry Potter movies as a Slythern Seeker. Crazy. And yesterday I went to an award ceremony for a girl that wrote a play that one a big award. The artistic director was on the committee that helped decide the winner. I had McDonalds afterwards as I made my way slowly back to the office. That was the first time I've actually bought McDonalds here and my McFlurry & McChicken cost me a dear $7, but it was worth it.
Ahh, here I am. The end of November is looming, and there’s finally sight to the end of this trip. Things we’ve said we wanted to do all semester are now being pressured to fit in to the next couple of weeks. Eek. I’m finally starting to get to know people in this program a little better - nice time to start Kelly, at the end.
I’m finally starting to get the hang of making meals for myself. I’m starting to move beyond the ham sandwiches, and actually waiting more than
Lord Mayor's Parade
There was a lot of bands at the parade, including one that could play while riding horses! 5 minutes for my food to cook. This is a good sign.
Never have I left a place feeling more depressed then when I stepped outside the Imperial War Museum. Even sitting in Daniel Radcliff’s chair for his recent war movie couldn’t cheer me up. Okay, so maybe it did a little and I had randomly just run into Monica a little bit before that, and she took a picture.
I started to explore the museum with the “The Children’s War” exhibit. It included a lot of interesting information to read along with toys and artifacts actually belonging to kids who went through the process. However, I think it was officially “bring as many school kids as you can to the museum day” as it was packed with screaming 10-year-olds pushing everyone aside. When looking closely at the pictures of children before the war, one of the guides in the exhibit pointed himself out as a young lad in one of the photos with a canoe. An older gentleman nearby joked that the guide looked better then than he does now. I chuckled, but it was unbelievable to think about the man himself going through everything. Since the
Fireworks
Later in the evening, after the parade, they had fireworks for this Lord Mayor's Day...I really don't know the meaning behind the whole thing. older gentleman hogged the guides attention, I didn’t get to ask any personal questions. So I kept going through, seeing a tiny bomb shelter that said could fit 6 people. There was no way, the thing was little!
The house in the middle was neat to look through. It reminded me of what movies set in that decade look like, with the big radios and tiny furniture that looks uncomfortable to sit on. A quote I noticed on the wall for post-war celebrations that really stuck with me was, “It’s a soldier, mummy, with a knit bag. I think it’s your husband.”—Boy seeing his father for the first time. I can’t even imagine growing up with a father away at war for so long, and to never have even met him, *shakes head*. That’d be hard.
Since I’m not a huge war buff, I kind of skimmed the first floor with all the first and second war information. I went through the trench. It smelled a little funny. Yet, it was a little scary to think these men were so close to being killed all the time. Yikes. War is a scary thing. The line for the Blitz exhibit was long every time I tried getting near it, so I put it off to the end of my tour. There was a lot of war memorabilia to look at! Another quote I found interesting in a post-war discussion about soldier returning to what was home was, “Somehow I’m still waiting to go home.” Sad.
I enjoyed the Weapons of Mass Communication exhibit, but then again I’m a media studies major. So, in other words, my area of interest. However, I had issues with the posters aimed at women and glad they would not be issued in today’s media. “Gee, I wish I were a man, I’d join the navy!” Gee, I wish I someone would have burned that poster! Gross. Other posters I noticed that I didn’t quite get talked about gossip or keeping quiet because you never know who was listening. So there were spies everywhere? But upon seeing the, “Keep mum, she’s not dumb” poster with the pretty blond surrounded by prominent men, I understood.
I also really enjoyed the Secret War exhibit. I played the enigma game, losing terribly. I’ve had that game on my computer, but I had no idea it was based off a war coding process. The last room with all the light effects really made me excited. I nearly looked into a flight home earlier so I could join the secret service. Okay, so not really, but still, it’s creepy to know there are people out there with jobs that they can’t tell anyone anything about or they’d have to kill them. *eyes light up* I’d totally do it.
I then made my way up to the Holocaust exhibit. I was really kind of excited to look at it, because I guess I’m twisted like that. But, ugh, I definitely was anything but excited upon leaving it. I was glad I did it, but, oye, it was tough. Being 100% German with blue eyes, fair skin, heterosexual, and Christian, it was not an easy thing to look through. The picture that had the most lasting affect with me was the one of a crematory with black smoke coming out of the chimney. I immediately felt sick to my stomach. I sat down and listened to the interviews with the people that had gone through the Ghettos and saw the dozens of shoes piled up they had stripped off the people. I was surprised to find among the pictures of the killers, a picture of a woman, stating in her profile that she enjoyed inflicting pain. I raised my eyebrow a bit at that. Mainly because I didn’t think women were actually given such a privilege to be so close to the action.
I tried going upstairs to the last exhibit “crimes against humanity,” but it was only a movie and I couldn’t sit through it. So I made my way back down to the Blitz experience, but was oddly disappointed. All I wanted to do was see something funny, and the blitz was anything but. It might have been cooler earlier in the day to have gone through, but after the Holocaust, it was just sort of blah. I breezed through the gift shop and toyed with the idea of purchasing a “gee, I wish” navy postcard but I held back. That may be better.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.09s; Tpl: 0.022s; cc: 6; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0356s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb