Out and About

I've had another busy week here in London so let me tell you about it. I've got more pictures, too!

Monday I just chilled at home and got some work done, no big deal. Tuesday though, I made a venture all about the city. See, on Tuesdays we have school groups in at the BFH and so our tours are done at two. At two, Ana, the education manager, needed all the interns to take two cardboard displays each to schools that were participating in the BFH science fair tomorrow. My school was all the way in Plaistow, which is in East London. I've never been over in East London before! I took the District Line from Embankment straight to Plaistow but it took forever. It shouldn't have taken so long but the District Line is famous for delays. Boo. So forty five minutes later I arrived in Plaistow and it looked so different from central London it was hard to believe I was still in what is considered Greater London. Plaistow is basically like it's own little town. It had a high street, some homes and lots of lush greenery and football fields and what not compared to the cement jungle and tall buildings of central London. The primary school was easy to find from the tube stop and so I got buzzed in there and dropped off my posters. English primary schools don't look too different from American elementary schools but I think it had a different vibe, maybe because it was an urban primary school.

After dropping off the posters it was only three in the afternoon and I had the rest of the day off from the BFH so I figured I'd go check out the Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green, which is also in East London.
This is what it looks like >
It was a free museum. It was much smaller than I thought it'd be but I really did like looking at the doll houses they had and the exhibit on the children's clothing throughout the ages. Way different from the stuff I wore, for sure. I was also mildly alarmed that they had a lot of toys from when I was little in the cases on display. I didn't think 22 was old haha!

I breezed through the museum in an hour so I decided to go back to Oxford Street in central London so I could go check on Carnaby Street, which is this little road full of quirky cool shops, one of them being the Lazy Oaf which I like. I went to the Lazy Oaf looking for these cute London postcards I saw online but they were out. Boo. So then I visited all the crappy little souvenir shops looking for a good deal on some decent postcards. In one of the little shops I found these two stands of personalized socks because, ya know, everyone needs Union Jack socks with their names on them. Good thing I didn't really want personalized souvenir socks because my name is a boys name in England! Proof right there > Imagine that!




Friday was a pretty normal day except that I got asked to switch my days that I work at the BFH to Mon, Tues, Thurs Fri for July because we have some new interns coming in and I'm needed more on Mondays. I guess I'll have to do proper house tours on Monday but that's ok, I think I'll do alright with them. Tez didn't get home til five am Saturday morning but I made him get upand take me to Camden Market in London for some shopping because I really felt like getting out of the house. < Here's me and my tired boyfriend on the train ride down. We really love going to Camden, it's such a great area full of unique stores and tons of independent stalls. I didn't find anything I really wanted to buy that day but we did get some delicious Mexican food from a stall. I got a vegetarian quesadilla and it had all sorts of veggies on it like chick peas whatnot. So filling and good for me! But seating is at a premium in Camden Lock so we had to eat it standing up and it was very messy haha. Then we scooted home and watched a movie and had ice cream! Good Saturday.

Sunday I met up with my friends Ada and Iain to go to the We Make London craft show down near Holborn High Street in London. It was a pretty small show, much smaller than I had thought it was going to be. The one in Detroit has about fifty vendors and this one only had about ten but I did buy a tote grab bag for one pound (result!) that I can use as a shopping bag and it came with some soap and undies (yeah, weird but they are my size) in it too. And I also bought a new purse because the one I got on Etsy before I left was killing my shoulder. I should've taken a picture of it! It's pretty cute. I think it's big enough I might be able to get away with using it now instead of taking my dorky bookbag everywhere with me. We'll see! Then we were off and wandering after being at the show for a half hour and we went to Fopp, a store that sells books, dvds and cds at pretty good prices. I got the first two seasons of the Mighty Boosh on dvd for 12 pounds, yay! Then we went to the Maison Bertaux, a cake shop in Soho, for some cake and tea. I skipped the tea though. Tez, Ada, Iain, Jan and I had stumbled upon this cake shop like three years ago and ate there only to find out that Lily Allen had shot her LDN video right where we sat and I had thought that was cool. This time though we walked in and Noel Fielding from the Mighty Boosh's face was plastered all over. He's my celebri-crush and I love him, just to let you know. He had an art show at that cake shop that we had missed by only a day, argh! But it was still cool to know that we eat at such a posh and celebrity populated cake shop haha. Cake was expensive though, four pounds for my one slice! OY! I really splurged on myself this weekend but it's ok. It has to happen sometime!

Then I left the lovely Ada and Iain and went and sat in Soho Square to kill sometime because Tez was working and we thought maybe he'd get his clients off in enough time that we could go home together in his car since he'd driven down. While I was in the square I saw this African street performer act playing the drum and balancing steel bowls. It was really impressive. Check him out! He was doing back flips and everything and balancing the bowls while doing summer saults. They attracted quite the crowd.

After they were gone, I was off as well to visit Tez at work since Sundays are really quiet at Envy and his shift was supposed to end in less than an hour. He works in a really posh place! I took a sneaky picture of him working. He says he was conforming some tapes. Don't worry if you don't know what that is, I don't really know either. All you need to do is nod and smile!

But alas, it wasn't meant to be. He was supposed to be able to leave at six but seven rolled around and a client refused to budge so I had to run and take the train home myself while he came home around midnight. Poor kid!

Having only really eaten cereal and cake that Sunday I came home completely starved and ate everything that Mrs. Tsang had to give me, much to her delight bwaha. She's always trying to feed me and I just don't have any room for it all.

Today was a completely a lazy day. I just worked on transcribing for the archive and did my laundry, watched the first episode of season 2 of Dexter and checked out the extras on my Mighty Boosh dvds. Tomorrow is an early day for me, I have to be at the BFH at nine on the dot because I'm off to help with the science fair. I've a few more pictures to show, mainly showcasing the different bits of transportation I have to take but that'll have to wait for another time!

A Tour of my UK Life

I'm feeling talkative so prepare yourselves! I come bearing photos! Not too many but I just wanted to point out some places I've been talking about and to start to show you a few of the features of English homes that I find weird/different to what is back at home that you guys might enjoy.

While I'm waiting for my photos to upload though I'll tell you about my weekend: I was a complete bum. Ughghg. I had so many ideas of what I could get up to this weekend with my expensive weekly travel card and I did nothing. I'm a bum! By the time I get back to Luton on Friday evening it's just so easy to go to sleep and relax for the weekend rather than getting back up the next morning and sorting out train times to book it back down to London for the day. I need more GD motivation, people.

Let's see, Saturday Tez had to catch up on his sleep after the night shift so he slept most of the day while I was tucked up in his living room working on a transcript for the archive and watching Dexter instead of going down to Camden or the Victoria and Albert Museum like I had planned. But Dexter was kind of worth it. What a great show! I totally recommend you guys going out and renting the DVDs. It's pretty violent but I don't even like detective-ish shows but this one is good. Mom, if you're reading this--watch it! It's so for you. Once Tez got up we continued being lazy and cooked ourselves some food etc.

Sunday, Father's Day, Tez and I and his mom all went to the Arndale Mall in Luton to have a look around. I went into Primark, a cheap clothing store I kept hearing about and have wanted to check out. Assuredly the clothing isn't of the highest quality but they have great deals on basics which is a good thing for a poor American girl who may need to add a bit to her wardrobe here and there as the weather changes. And let me tell you, the weather is all over the place here! It was in the eighties for a few days and now it's firmly settled in the sixties for the foreseeable future and I'm pretty chilled. Everyone else in England has their windows wide open enjoying the weather and I'm wearing my flipping blanket like a cape! I only have one warm jacket here and I'm wishing I had more.

So, to remedy this I set out to purchase one of these summer scarves I keep seeing the cool indie kids and other such people wearing around here. Urban Outfitters and Topshop (a really popular women's clothing store here) sell these scarves for 15 or more pounds but at Primark they're three pounds. Score! And Mrs. Tsang insisted she bought it for me so she did and thanks Mrs. Tsang! Now I'm sporting a summer scarf that's actually keeping me warm enough to not have a cardigan on now. And yeah, it's supposed to be tied like that. It's not so much a rectangular scaft as a square one so it ties weird. Check it out > I can now check off "Wears scarves in the summer" in my indie kid handbook. :P Yikes, I'm going to need a hair cut soon.

Oh, and then Tez took his parents out to dinner for Father's Day and I got to come along. We ate at the Moathouse which is a pub in Luton. Whoo hoo! I ate in a real pub for the first time. Too bad I couldn't have a pint of beer but I did have a pint of water. Bad ass. I had a Yorkshire pudding and stuffing that was pressed into a really dry hush puppy sized ball and beef and some cheesey cauliflower and some peas and corn in case you were wondering.

Today has been another crapshoot. I've just worked for the archive, flipped Tez's mattress (oh gah, my back was killing me this morning. Every vertebrae popped and now my muscles hurt. I miss my bed!) and wrote this blog. Fun.

Anywho, what else do we have to show you here? Ah yes, here is a little area at the Victoria Embankment Garden's near the BFH that I sometimes go and eat my lunch in because the chairs are comfy and there's usually a band playing.
Annnnd here's my friend Jan and I last week when we met up after work:
Ok and here's the station I get the train at in Luton to head down to London:
The other day a girl brought her dog to the station to take her on a train somewhere. I have no idea where she might need to take her dog on a train but fair enough. I miss my dogs so much that I was about to dog nap her dog so she'd better watch out! I haven't pet (petted?) a dog in three weeks and I'm getting desperate!

Here's the room where the interns work at the BFH. It's on the top floor facing the alleyway between the buildings so there's not much of a view out that window. I think this floor was the one where the anatomy school was. Ewwwww.

This is the light switch for the bathroom at Tez's house.

I think quite a few bathrooms in the UK have a string to pull from the ceiling to turn on the bathroom light. It's the only room that has this. I don't know why for sure it's like this BUT I like to think it's because the Brits are too scared to flip a light switch when their hands are wet. Tee hee. Also, to the left there is a plug for a shaver. For some reason the electric shavers here have a completely different plug than all of the other electronics and therefore need their own plug. Why? Who knows. Seems inconvenient to me. Anyway, I'll have to get you a picture of the sockets and plugs they normally use here. They're HUGE.

And lastly, here is another string pull in the bathroom to turn on the hot water heater right there next to the shower. You have to turn it on before you even run your shower otherwise, brrrr!
Also, you can only turn on the shower from that little box. You turn it to the right to turn it on and adjust the temperature. You can't adjust the pressure at all and let me tell you, it could use some more pressure. When I go back home at the end of the summer, our shower is going to knock me over!

Go ahead and click on the photos to make them bigger!

Ok, one last thing from me. I'll be commenting back to your comments now. All you have to do is click on the comments link under each post to read all the comments. So, now when you see my name in the comments list you'll know I'm talking back to ya!
Oh, and P.S. I'm not really homesick anymore so you guys can stop worrying about me :D

I'm waiting on a subway line/I'm waiting for a train to arrive

Every time I'm waiting for public transportation The Walkmen's song "Thinking of a dream" pops into my head. All I can think of is "I'm waiting on a subwaaaay liiiiiiiiiiine, I'm waiting for a train to arrive, I'm thinking of a dream I had, I'm thinking of a dream I had *sweet organ playing*" Yup. Just thought I'd share. No real point to that. If you want to hear that song I'm sure it's on the Youtube or Hype Machine haha.

Just a quick post before bed here because time goes so flipping fast after I step out of the Benjamin Franklin House. It's like the day drags on there foreverrrr and as soon as I step out, BAM! Time for bed. Not to say that I'm not enjoying my time at the BFH. Actually, I am so don't worry.

It's just been slow at work. I don't really have much to do and the tours aren't really raking in the people lately. Hmm!

I had an interesting task to do on Tuesday though. I got to assist in making a conservation list for the house. Basically, we need a list of all the things wrong with the 300 year old paneling, floor boards, stairs and windows and see what is really desperately in need of repairs so that we can apply for a grant that will give us money to get those repairs!

So that was my job. I got to go around the house analyzing every nook and cranny for problems and let me tell you there was a lot. Like 8 typed pages worth. I mean, the house is five stories tall so I had a bit of space to work with there. I had to be pretty specific about what I saw too. For example, I'd have to write like "3 inch hole in floor board 3 feet out from main entrance, 4 inches from the right hand side wall" for example. Literally though, there is a 3 inch hole in the floor boards of our main entrance. Dangerous! We're not allowed to wear high heels in the house because the heels could go right through the floor boards haha. I guess two guests in the last two years have actually broken through a floor board or two. Yikes!

The house was in really bad shape before the Benjamin Franklin group took it over. It was originally built quite close to the banks of the Thames but the Thames was diverted so it sits farther back from the banks than it did before. But thanks to being built on coal dust (ok, not a suitable foundation AT ALL) the house is trying to relocated itself nearer to the Thames again because the foundation is so poor it's sliding to the south. Plus! During the Blitz in WWII, the houses across the street were hit with a bomb that blew out the facade of the house and made it all the more unstable.

A huge steel skeleton had to be put onto the outside of the house and covered over to keep it upright and a large steel beam had to be installed horizontally under the ground floor's floor boards as well. You can tell where the steel beam is because it creates a very noticeable hump in the middle of the ground room floors. Unsightly but pretty much necessary.

The paneling is all oringinal and for being 300 years old I'm surprised it's doing as well as it is. A lot of the panels are cracked and are gapping away from the wall but those can always be sealed and painted over. The original stair case is a mess still though and I think that's the project we're going to write the grant about. Basically all of the stair cases that face to the back of the house slope to the right and all the cases that face the front of the house slope to the left. It makes for some very uneven walking!

So yes, I've turned in my conservation list and the operations manager thought I was very thorough and did a good job so I'm glad that I got the opportunity to do some historic preservation work hands on and this is just the start of that as well. I'll be allowed to be more hands on as more work gets underway.

Also, I really like most of the interns there and it's nice to make new friends! It's still early days but maybe I'll be able to hang out with them outside of work sometime.

The other day I did get to hang out with my friend Jan after work and I hadn't seen her for two years so it was great. We got smoothies and walked about the Oxford St area together. We didn't get to hang out very long but it was quality time at least! I've a picture of us but no time to upload it at the moment.

Tez is still working the night shift. Yesterday I felt like a stalker because as I was leaving London from St. Pancras International, Tez was arriving and I saw him get off his train on the opposite platform but he didn't see me. If I had had a signal on my phone I so would have called him and freaked him out hahaha.

I feel like I've been neglecting my blog and picture taking and communication with people back home and work I need to be doing for the archive. There just aren't enough hours in the day.

I might head into London on Saturday to go visit some museums that I've not had the opportunity before though because damn it, I've got this expensive Travel Card with unlimited travel for the week and the more I use it the more I feel better having paid for it, so there!

Take me back to the States?

It's barely been two weeks since I've arrived in England and things are still pretty dodgy. It's very frustrating.

Tez and I are still in Luton which means that I'm paying about fifty dollars a day to get down to London. Punch me in my face. I really didn't budget paying THAT MUCH for traveling since I had planned on being in London. I absolutely cannot keep paying that much money. I'm going to run out of funds quickly if it keeps going that way and I don't know what to do.

Tez is still looking for places in London so here's hoping he finds something soon because Ashley is going to be super poor. We did find a fare that we thought was a great deal, only 96 pounds a month but the website is terribly convoluted and the customer service people here are atrocious so what we had been told we could do and what we thought was a great deal has turned into a headache and probably false. So, whatever.

Furthermore, living with Tez's parents is getting a bit uncomfortable on account of the culture clash between us. I guess they don't really understand me and I don't understand them that well either. All the more reason for me and Tez to be on our way.

They did take us out to lunch yesterday for dim sum. It was pretty tasty. I liked the steamed pork buns. I even did my own grocery shopping afterwards at Asda and I'm still not used to all the different flavors and products England has to offer.

Anywho, I'm pretty stressed out about it all at the moment and frankly, I just want to go home but I can't. So, yeah. I don't know what I'm supposed to do but these last two weeks haven't been what I thought living in England would be like. I'm really hoping things change for the better because it just seems like a big black cloud has been following me since I got here.

Tez has been lovely though. Unfortunately, he got stuck with the night shift at his job this week so we'll be on opposite schedules. Odds are I won't see him til Saturday morning. Oy.

Super sighs.

The Benjamin Franklin House

Sorry for a delay in blogging. I'm sure you've all been wondering how my internship has been going. Well, let me tell you. I've been there for three days and yet it's felt like months. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing yet haha.

So Monday I set off for the first day of my internship. It takes me about two hours to get there and two hours to get back to Luton. I take a bus then a train then the subway and then I walk the rest of the way. It's pretty different to just getting into a car and driving myself somewhere. I admit that I don't really like adhering to the schedules and waiting around for my transportation to arrive. It's pretty frustrating really that it takes me that long to go thirty miles!

Anywho, I got to the Benjamin Franklin House at 36 Craven Street (check out the website here) on Monday and it was my and another intern Max's first day. We got shown around by Ana, Steve and Alice who are all the management of the museum. We're a bit short staffed at the moment so I don't really get to do much training. I have to just kind of jump in there and do everything!

The house is pretty amazing in itself. It was built in 1730 and it's a Georgian Grade I listed house which means it has its original paneling, floorboards, ceilings and fireplaces. Oh, it also has the original staircase too which means that all of the stairs slant crazily. And there's only like five stair cases to go up and down, so ya know, I probably won't fall down them one day. :P The interns work on the fourth floor so it's quite a climb. I'm going to have some solid thighs by the end of the summer hopefully haha.

The other interns are really nice and friendly too. There are a mix of Americans, Canadians and Brits there.

Monday I didn't have to do much. I just got some tasks to do on the computer. Tuesday was a different story though. On Tuesday I had to help with the school group tours. Basically, there are two one-hour tours to do on Tuesdays for the school kids. It consists of four things that they do. First they meet in the basement addition to start the historical experience which is when the children are taken on a tour of the first two floors (both of these floors are in original condition. The first floor belonged to Margaret Stevenson, Franklin's landlady. The second floor Franklin rented from her for sixteen years. The other floors have been converted into offices and such). Then they're split into groups. One group goes to see a lightning rod demonstration with a Tesla coil. Another group goes to do computer games about objects that might have been used in the house and the last group does some games with the circulatory system, organs and bones (William Hewson, an anatomist, also lived in the house at the time Franklin did and he also ran an anatomy school. He did many body dissections at the house and tossed the bones out in the garden when he was done. 1200 bones have been found in the garden so far! Don't worry though, I don't feel like the place is haunted).

I worked the circulatory game. The kids were all pretty good considering. After the kids left we went to the Ship and Shovel Pub just a few doors down but man, the guy working there was pretty rude. More than half of the group ordered drinks while some of us just wanted water. We got yelled at for just wanting water and nearly got kicked out. Apparently ordering a water in a pub is some sort of crime (though it is a crime for an establishment to refuse customers tap water). I mean, he could have just sold us bottled water. Rude! So we went to the Sherlock Holmes Pub instead and a good time was had by all. I got to know the other volunteers and interns and I felt pretty good about that.

Today (Wednesday) was another different experience. Wednesday through Fridays we give our regular historical experience tours in which an actress playing a resident named Polly Hewson takes people around the house. Videos and audio interact with her as if the tourists were really guests in the home in 1775 just before Ben Franklin left. It's pretty cool. I got to do a smorgasboard of things today. I got to do the front of house position which entices people to come into the museum (we're quiet a new and small musuem on a quiet side street in the heart of London so no one really visits in droves yet). I did get one guy to come in but he was already planning to come in anyway. He was a professor from Berkley and I actually took the tour with him because I hadn't seen it yet and I had to. He said he was going to go to Detroit tomorrow, pretty crazy! He was really nice and the tour was good. Afterwards he wanted to see the scholarship center we have (which is also our intern work room at the top of the house) and we let him. I think he asked to just so he could see more of the house but that's ok.

I also got to run the box office/bookshop which means I have to ring up tickets and merchandise. Not terribly exciting but it has to be done. Lastly, I got to help start and stop the historical experience tours and answer questions about the house. Not too bad for my third day.

So now you pretty much know what I'm up to. I'm glad I got a chance to write it all down for you guys!

Now I have to go sort out my bus schedule and train schedule for tomorrow's sojourn back into London. SIGH.

Fingers crossed still Tez finds a place in the city borders!

I'm in your city, navigating your transportation systems

Well, well, well.

Where did I leave off? I believe I left off saying I'd be getting a phone and hopefully Tez a place. I got a phone but Tez and I are not having luck on finding a place. We called several places but they had all been snatched up. So, any good luck vibes in finding a place would be appreciated if you sent them our way. He's going to go look at a place tomorrow while I'm at my internship so fingers crossed like whoa.

So for most of Thursday we just hung out down in London in the rain really. We went and stood in front of the Benjamin Franklin House to check it out. It is on a really picturesque street! Check it out:
That's where I'm off to tomorrow. Eep. I'm really nervous about it. I have to ride a bus and a train and a subway to get there and I'm hoping I make it on time and furthermore I am hoping that I like it there and everything. Because if I don't...well, I guess I made the trip in vain.

So Friday I had my trusty new phone with me and Tez and I set off to go to the BUNAC meeting. I got there and immediately met someone from Ann Arbor haha. The orientation was nice and pretty quick and then I was off navigating the tube all by myself. I made it to Tottenham Court Road to see Tez at work and from there I visited Trafalgar Square and went up and down the Thames all by myself! See?

Me! On the Thames taking a picture of myself. Note the London Eye and Big Ben in the background. I was pretty proud of myself for finding my way around.

The big feat was making it from the Thames all the way back to Tez's house in Luton which I'm also proud to say I accomplished (though I did skip the bus bit but now I can't avoid it). I traveled on the Circle Line to King's Cross where I took a train to Leagrave Station in Luton and from there I walked to Tez's house. It was all pretty easy thank goodness. But let me tell you, traveling to London every day is EXPENSIVE. So I figured while I was there I'd ride the tube as many times as I wanted to get my money's worth. So I did that but I still think I got ripped off. :P

Anyway, this is a short entry. For more pictures go ahead and click this link here
If that link doesn't work, let me know.

Also, I wanted to say thanks for the comments you guys. I have to admit I'm starting to get kind of homesick again and it's good to hear from you all. I will try to start commenting back when I can!