Emirates Stadium

After the brewery we took the tube to Emirates Stadium, home of the Arsenal Football team. 

This is the view from the Director's Club.  Before sitting down for the game, important guests of the teams can have food and beverages in the lounge.  The seats sell for 4,750 pounds a season but can only be purchased through a four year deal meaning 19,000 pounds must be paid up front. 

Here is where the players, home and away, enter the stadium.  The room is filled with pictures of past players and memorable games in the stadium.  The room also serves as an initial intimidation for the away team. 

The next stop on the tour was the locker room which was much more simple than I expected.  There is a room where players can get massages before, during, and after games to loosen their muscles.  The hot tub is ultra-sensitive meaning when players step in the jets start up. 

Here is where the Arsenal players enter the field for the game.  I felt such a rush of adrenaline going through the tunnel like they would.

The second to last stop was the press room where interviews are held after the game.  The stadium also has a room where journalists can go to finish up stories before leaving the game.  Some of the perks include free food and beverages all day when a home game is in session. 

 The last stop on the tour was none other than the gift shop where you can buy expensive jerseys and other items.  My bank account wasn't in favor of a purchase there. 

Beer and Football

This weekend was the "Love London" weekend at school.  They offered a range of London based events such as Billy Eliott the musical,  a tour of the Tower of London, Trocadero Ballet, Fuller's brewery, Arsenal stadium, festivals, and shopping.  We went last week to sign up for the activities that we were interested in.  Everything was either free or super inexpensive.  I ended up getting on the lists for Fuller's Brewery, a tour of Arsenal stadium and the Turning Point Music festival which will be held on Sunday (a blog to be posted on that later).

We met up with around 50 other students from SU London, and three guides at the tube stop closest to the brewery on Saturday around 11AM.  We walked through a quiet residential area to get to the brewery. 

Here is Fuller's Brewery.  They produce 12 brands of beer including the ever popular London Pride.  We went through the factory and then got to try samples of course.  Bear with me on the captions... it was a lot of information in a little time about something I know very little about.

Okay, well I don't remember what this pot was for but I think it was pretty important in the brewing process.

These are both ingredients necessary for making beer.  First is a large barrel of hops.  Below are containers of the different kinds of malt.  Some include crystal, brown, and amber.  From what I remember, the malt correlates to the tint of the beer.

This is the production line area.  The kegs moved along the conveyor belt to the delivery area and are then brought to pubs and stores all over the UK.  It reminded me way too much of my summer job in the plastics factory.  Next we were off to the tasting room.

Of the 12 types I tried only 3.  My favorite of the three was the blonde ale.  Coincidence?  I think not! 

The Mayor's Thames Festival

On Saturday we decided to venture to the River Thames festival.  We had seen several advertisements on coaches and thought it might be a fun day trip.  The tube ride was about 40 minutes but well worth it.  The stop we got off at was on the other side of the river so we had a lovely walk over a bridge and got to see some great sights in the distance.

The festival is an end of summer celebration with food, crafts, books, and various tables that much of the London population visits.  We walked through the entire area which spanned about a half a mile along the river.  Here are some of the sights I saw while there

After walking around for a few hours, everyone but Jake and I decided to head back to the flat.  Since we were still in the area, we decided to walk around for a bit.  We thought about going on the London Eye but decided a weekday with less of a line would be better for that.  The farther we walked, the better the picture taking became.

 As you can see, we were pretty close to several large London monuments.  Guess what we did? We kept walking across the bridge and right to Big Ben and the House of Parliament.  Parliament is closed at the moment because of interior renovations.  We'll be able to visit after the 20th though.  It was getting late so instead of going on long tours we just walked around everything and scoped it out for a more thorough visit later in the semester.

Once my feet started hurting we headed back to the flat.  We were very proud that we were able to see so much in the day.  I think our roommates were a little jealous they went back early.  Class again tomorrow.  This update doubles as procrastination for the reading I'm supposed to be doing.  Sharing this with you was way more fun though. 

Stonehenge Rocks!

Like the pun?  You can buy T-shirts with that saying at the gift shop.  As you can see, I went to see Stonehenge on Friday along with school.  Jake and I were able to get on the trip last minute luckily.  It was a two hour ride there but we had a great guide who knew a lot about London and made it entertaining.

These are my roommates, Paige, Ashley and Emily.  After a 30 minute walk around Stonehenge, we got on the bus to head into the quaint English town, Salisbury. Our bus guide gave us a tour of the cathedral in Salisbury.  A lot of maintenance is being done on the exterior so don't mind the scaffolding in the picture.  

The cathedral was started in 1220 and finished only 38 years later.  It is massive!  The inside is absolutely beautiful.  In one room where they do not allow photography, you can find one of the four surviving original copies of the Magna Carta.  The world's oldest working modern clock can also be found in this cathedral.  It has no face and rings on every hour. 

Here are a few pictures in town.  We just walked around for an hour after touring the cathedral.  I found a pound store! 

The British Museum

Today for a class visit I went to the British Museum.  The tube strike is still underway so my roommate Paige, and I walked there.  We had to push our way down busy Oxford Street for thirty-five minutes to get there. 

Here is the pediment(a new word I learned today) of the British Museum as seen from the Great Russell Street entrance.  By focusing on the attributes of the figures we were able to see what concepts they represented.  The figures from left to right show the progression of civilization such as hunting, agriculture, architecture, painting, and sculpture.  Because this is above the entrance to the museum, you can understood the museum will be about ancient civilizations.

Inside the museum we looked at a tomb that has been removed from Turkey and put on exhibit.  Again, we looked at the attributes to understand why this building was a tomb and not a temple.  As a class we went through the Parthenon Gallery and saw how the curator recreated the room to be a stimulation of the actual temple.  The size of the room is the same as the temple and skylights are in place to allow us to understand that in throughout time, roofs began to decay or become destroyed.  The frieze(another new word I learned) which is like the border on the outside of the Parthenon, was also brought into the gallery for viewing. 

On the way out we stopped to look at the only remains of the Rosetta Stone.  It is specifically placed in the beginning of the museum to represent a significant part of civilization, for it helped us understand hieroglyphics and past culture.

 I was done with "class" for the day at 12:15 so I hung out, went for a run through Hyde Park and made stroganoff!

My first day of school

I started class today while everyone in the U.S. had the day off.  There's a proposed tube strike going on but it didn't affect the Central line which we take to school.  I had a class called Reading Pictures, Seeing Stories with a man named Forbes Morlock.  It sounds as though it will be a lot of writing and analyzing of art.  We will have museum visits every week along with an exercise to complete while there.  We'll be going to the Victoria & Albert Museum this Wednesday. 

My second class of the day was called Masterpieces of Art which will also include museum visits every Tuesday.  These visits however conflict with a Shakespeare class I'm supposed to be taking so I'll most likely have to drop Interpreting Shakespeare and take a course similar to it over the summer or online to fulfill requirements.  The professor is a middle-aged women who has been teaching the course for 15 years.  Tomorrow we'll be going to the British Museum for a class visit.  The class seemed really interesting and a great one to take with all of the art in London.

At least one of the girls from my flat are in every single class so I'll never have to go to class alone.  We are also sharing books and planning to study together/help each other with work.  

I straddled the Prime Meridian

On Sunday we went with school on a bus tour to Greenwich.  The tour itself was about an hour long and made it possible for us to see some great sights such as the London Eye, and Big Ben.

When we got to Greenwich we walked through the tunnel under the Thames River.  On the other side were several tents selling food, clothing, and other various products.  I decided to support the fajita booth AND the crepe booth.  Doesn't this make your mouth water?

We went into the first shop in the world, Nauticalia.  It didn't have anything I wanted to buy but I can say I've been there now.

We walked through Greenwich Park to the top of a hill to the Royal Observatory.  Most museums here are free which is great for poor college students like myself.  Here is the main building with a red ball that ascends at 1PM so ship captains can set their clocks correctly. 

This 28' telescope is held in an onion dome which opens so the telescope can view almost every position in the sky.  The telescope was completed in 1893 to keep the Royal Observatory on the forefront of astronomy.  If you book in advance, you can look through the telescope at night allowing you to see Pluto.

Here we are straddling the Prime Meridian.  Ashley, one of my roommates is the girl to my right in the green.  The other two girls are from Syracuse as well. 

Next stop was the Queen's House which overlooks the Thames River as seen in the bottom picture.  When the Olympics are held in 2012, the equestrian events will be held on the grounds.  Inside, there are several rooms of marine paintings from the 17th to 20th century.  The tour guide on the bus told us the Queen is the largest art collector in the world.