Hallowe'en with Neil Gaiman

Naturally, I should pick up from where I left the catch-up process before I left in all senses -- London.

The first time I set foot in London this trip that didn't include an airplane hanger was on Hallowe'en, a holiday the British don't find worth much celebration. This whole idea was a bit of a shock to me as I've always loved Hallowe'en the best of the holidays for multiple reasons: my birthday's near it enough to warrant costume parties each year, it's a holiday that celebrates getting free sackfuls of candy from strangers, and it's a bit macabre. You can imagine my delight, then, when I found out that I was going to be able to celebrate my Hallowe'en in one of the world's best-known cities attending a reading by one of my favourite authors, Neil Gaiman.

A couple friends of mine, Katie and Lisa, rented a room in a hotel that night and got all dressed up to see Neil Gaiman at the UK release of his newest book, The Graveyard Book. Both Katie and I dressed up as 'characters' from his stories -- she was Coraline from the book of the same title that is currently being made into a film, and I was a babycake.



We got decent seats in the balcony in an event that sat 600 and we tucked in for a fantastic narration of Chapter 5: Danse Macabre, followed by a signing. It was an exciting moment for me for a few reasons: I got to meet the Neil Gaiman, I got my roommate's favourite Gaiman book signed (for whom I have to thank for getting me into Mr. Gaiman in the first place), and Neil ate one of the cookies I baked for him (a GF spicy chai cookie). And about my costume he said, "That… is… perfectly disturbing. I love it." It was nerd-heaven.





The night ended well enough and when we woke up the next day we ran around doing more nerdy things, seeing some sights we were looking forward to viewing in London. Admittedly, it wasn't the mainstream tourist stuff -- all three of us had been to London before and hit all the notable landmarks on walking tours. We became fast friends with the Underground system and were on our way to seeing the sights of the city.



Of course we went to Platform 9 3/4 -- what kind of proper nerds did you think we were?



We also went to the British Library, the British Museum, and Kensington Gardens, of course. It was pouring, though, and it was hard to enjoy it completely. Plus, how could it ever live up to the night before? Haha.

Soaked through, we made our way home and recovered for a couple days before decided it had been far too long since we had had frozen yoghurt. Katie and I grabbed Janine and dragged her along with us for a nice day out.





All of this was just a bit before the next holiday celebration, though -- Guy Fawkes Day!

Starting to play catch-up

Hmmm, an update, finally!

I haven't been up to much in the past month -- and at the same time, I have. I didn't really get to doing anything, though, until Hallowe'en weekend, but then I've pretty much been busy every weekend after, or thereabouts.

Right before it all, though, was an exciting epicurean adventure: sushi on a conveyer belt. I hope you'll forgive me for being a bit… tipsy… but the sake was strong that night, and warm, and it was cold outside, plus I had just finished a presentation. It was my 30-somethingthed hour awake and it was a night of relaxation.


You see, school had been consuming me up until Hallowe'en weekend, I even made a photostrip documenting it, kind of, at a friend's request. She asked what I was doing and I replied, 'consuming literature.' I decided to be literal.



It's been more of that, really, lately. Lots of schoolwork, mainly just loads of reading, with final papers looming in the horizon. I'm in my last three weeks, though, so I'm trying to push to get it all done and fit in a small trip before the end.

We did manage to visit a proper teahouse, though, the other day, and make a feast of the scones, clotted cream, jam, and tea. It was amazingly delicious. And I felt so British! Pinkies out for fancy tea time!





We were then able to follow it all up with some photography expeditions around Brighton, capturing bits of the city we've lived in for the past 2 months. I hope to do more of that before the end. I want to be able to reconstruct the city a bit for when I get home and show everyone all my photos.

I'm hoping that popping in here will motivate me to play catch up so I can share what I've been up to, including going to a book signing in London and doing the tourist thing there, experiencing Guy Fawkes Day/Bonfire Night, observing Remembrance Day, and spending time with friends. I'll be commuting back and forth to London from Brighton all weekend with my German friends who are flying in, but after that, no excuses!

Oktoberfest! Prost!

A long overdue post, for sure!

I just got back into England late Tuesday evening after a crazy, fun, amazing visit with my good friend Iris, a resident of Munich. She was kind enough to host me while I visited and took me around the city, sticking by my side to help me get around since I don't really know a drop of German. I was really grateful for that. It was fun, too, because she was translating and teaching me how to say things the whole time. Such a patient person!

I was visiting at a fantastic time, of course, because it was the middle of Oktoberfest and the whole city was bustling with activity. On top of that, one of our friends came and visited us over the weekend and we all got to have a walk around the festival on one of its most crowded weekends there is.

We went up in a gigantic ferris wheel to see the city while there and it was a breathtaking view of Munich.



It was impressive from so high up, as was the entirety of Oktoberfest. It seemed like there wasn't a free square foot of space on the main grounds. I didn't even get a shot of all the different sides, but this is about only half of the festival.





If you look in the above photo, you can see the enormity of the city's statue of Bavaria, the region's patron saint. We ended up walking over to it after the ride to get some breathing room on the grassy knoll where she resides. It was really impressive -- and it should be since it's one of the biggest bronze statues in the world, weighing in at just over 95 tons.



We ended up running around the city after that, being silly, because the Oktoberfest was just too crowded that Saturday. We couldn't even get into a beer tent that day, which is apparently the only place you can purchase beer at Oktoberfest. It's a really misleading from the media I've seen; I thought there were places you could just run up and grab a beer at throughout the fest. It was all right, though, because Iris took me down to the festival on Monday to try to get into one and we did!


(don't mind the apparently extremely disgruntled German woman who Does Not Approve in the front there)


The tent was downright enormous! I was shocked!

Iris' mom gave us tickets for beer and chicken that she had received from her workplace and so we enjoyed a plate of delicious roasted chicken and I got a Great Big Beer -- I'm not kidding here, they sold the special brewed, high proof Weizen by the litre only! It was delicious, too!



It was a crazy atmosphere that supposedly only gets crazier at night, but we had rides to ride, places to run around to, and things to see since we went there on the day before I left. We happily toasted one another once the drinking song was played (oh, and they place it so often to keep everyone ordering more beer!), which you can download here; if you listen you can hear the German woman next to me and then all the clinks at the end as we toasted one another with our behemoth glasses of beer.


You can hear Iris' fantastic commentary throughout most of the thing. ;) I dropped the camera, of course, but hey, it was still fun trying to record it! Their coasters are so much faster than ours! We also went on this awesome ride called The Insider, a spinning coaster type ride that had two-seated cars that roated back and forth, upside down and around, so that you were being spun at least 3 directions at once. Let me tell you how fun that one was after my litre of beer! Haha!

I had so much fun in Germany, just spending time with Iris and Stacy! And Germany… I think I'm in love with it! I'll certainly have to go back there someday! It's truly an amazing place, perhaps one of my favourite places I've ever travelled to.

Since I've been back I've been taking it easy mostly, just going into town to enjoy frozen yogurt and fresh made hot chocolate at Katie and my favourite place in town, Lick. I have a small update with photos to make about that eventually, but until then…

Prost!

Drive-By Update

Last weekend we ended up going bowling -- that is, Katie and Janine and I did, while everyone else went on the pub crawl. Since nightclubs and dodgy bars are less our style, we spent the night throwing balls down the gutter with one of our favorite staff members, Charlotte. Then walking around the Marina area.




That's me, Charlotte, Janine, and Katie.

We also ended up having the geography of Germany explained to us by Janine while we ate our dinner at Subway. It was the only thing open, unfortunately, and it was terrible… I threw most of my dinner out. Blech. Anyhow, she made a little Germany out of a napkin and there was much learning to be had.



Of course it's been a bit hectic here lately… finishing u class, writing my final paper, packing for Germany…

Yep, that's right! I'm going to Munich, Germany in about 7 hours to stay with my friend Iris! I'm so excited! I'm planning on visiting Berlin while there as well as a day trip to see Dachau. The inner history nerd in me is pretty excited. Well, you know… as excited as you can be to see the history even though the location is kind of horrific.

I also booked my birthday celebration… I'll be going to London with a couple friends on Hallowe'en night to hear a reading and attend a book signing with Neil Gaiman!

Obviously lots going on! I'll probably catch up in a week's time again! Catch you later!

A nice place for a picnic...

Oops, almost a week's gone by since I've updated this thing! It's been a pretty busy week so I'll have to play catch-up in two parts. First up, of course, is the trip to Ashdown Forest, the real 100-Acre Woods!

We took a bus ride form US to the forest and it only took about 40 minutes to get there. We disembarked and were immediately confronted by wild English countryside and beautiful views in every direction. We took a small hike to our first destination, the Enchanted Spot, rising up from Gal, where the real-life Christopher Robin used to spend his days staring up at the trees and counting them.



Playing around a bit and taking silly pictures, we soaked up the almost quiet magic in this small gathering of trees. It was a very different feeling within the circle than without and it was a great place to start our trek around the forest.



Soon after leaving the clearing we came upon a wall of earth with a very green looking circle sprouting at the base. Because of the amount of rain England receives, the Heffalump Trap from the books was very much less a hole or a trap and much more a small rain-catcher where the greenest of plants grew from the small reserve of water.



Of course, that wasn't the only thing that Sussex's recent rain has kind of changed in the Ashdown Forest scenery -- it also changed Roo's Sandy Pit to more of a… quicksand pit. It was full of water, too, so we didn't venture down in there, and we certainly didn't even attempt to go to Eeyore's Gloomy Spot because, fittingly, it is mostly a bog, and not a very pleasant place to walk to when it's been wet at all.



We had a picnic in the 'nice place for piknicks' then made our way to Poohsticks Bridge and were treated to some gorgeous bits of nature on the walk there.





Once we got there it was picture time!



And time for a think!



Finally, then, it was time to play Poohsticks! We all grabbed our sticks from the area around the bridge and got in a line atop the bridge. It's essentially letting go of a stick at the same time from one side of the bridge, running over to the other side, and seeing whose stick has reappeared on the other side the fastest once the current has carried it underneath you. All of us played, even (or is especially?) Therie, our professor.

I'm not a ship and not a boat,
I am a twig and I can float.

Happy I'll be, if you choose me,
to float away down to the sea.

I am a twig and can be found,
please look for me upon the ground.

You want to play the Poohsticks game,
so pick me up and change my name.

No more a twig, alone and sad,
I'm your Poohstick and feeling glad.

It's good to play, I hope you win,
count to three then drop me in.

Downstream I float, the game is done.
Poohstick island, HERE I COME.

-The Happy Twig: A Poohem, A. A. Milne

We finished the trip with a visit to the tiny town of Hartfield, at the edge of Ashdown Forest, to visit the small gift-and-tea shop there, and that's where I'll leave you.

Ghosts Don't Haunt Us Here

Friday night we went to downtown Brighton for the ghost hunt (photos from that are here). It wasn't what I was expecting, more of a walking tour and less of an exploring tour, but it was still good because it showed us new parts of Brighton that look like they'll be fun to explore in the future.

The tour didn't end up going into any of the supposedly haunted buildings but we went to a few notable places!

We stood in front of The Cricketers, a haunted pub in Brighton where Jack the Ripper is said to have planned his London murders. Next to it is another haunted pub, the two separated by a haunted twitten (a narrow British alleyway that's betwixt and between the pubs). I'll have to return to that pub as some point, though, because there's a Jack the Ripper room where you can see the pub has paid homage to the unidentified murderer.

We also went by a wall that had obviously been re-bricked in modern times only to discover it was home to Brighton's Grey Lady. This ghost is of a young woman who was studying to be a nun. She had been caught giving a few men naughty glances and her Mother Superior decided to brick her up, live, into the wall of a building. Rumours floated around for several hundred years whether that was a true story or not and finally the wall was knocked down to reveal bones of the young woman. She still haunts the area by walking in and around the alleyways that surround the wall she was put in.

One of the most interesting places wasn't even photographable, or at least worth it, because it was just a public park, or so it would seem. Apparently a tractor was coming in to flatten the park and make it more public-friendly when, about 40 feet into the small area, the tractor immediately plunged 20 feet into the ground, front first, falling into a chasm of sorts. Immediate inspection revealed over 600 skeletal remains of infants and toddlers in the makeshift catacomb, none of which had a record of existing in the town of Brighton. They solved the mystery soon enough, though: all of these children had died of smallpox and Brighton, being a resort town, couldn't let this fact mar the idea of it being an escape, especially when rich Londoners were escaping the smallpox outbreak by coming seaside, so they simply made these lives (and deaths) a secret, creating a small catacomb under the city.

If you were wondering, though… no, we didn't see ghosts. No, we didn't feel ghosts. No, we didn't hear ghosts. We even sat in a graveyard, on the side of tombs, having a chat as our guide gave us stories about the hauntings of this place, and nothing! Not one bit of psychic activity, even! Bah!

By the time we got back most of us flopped into bed because the very next morning was the Stonehenge and Bath trip!



We drove for hours with scenes like the above surrounding us, true English countryside. Needless to say it was gorgeous, huh? This was taken from the bus, too, alongside the highway as the sun rose. I don't know why more people don't live in the country, it's so beautiful!



We got to Stonehenge and it was amazing! …ok, and a little disappointing. I had always pictured great, grand stones that rose up at least 80 feet and… it wasn't. It's much smaller than they'd have you think, in my opinion (kind of like the Statue of Liberty, come to think of it). Plus, who knew, but on one side there was a sheep farm and on the other… well, they put a major highway right next to it! It's shocking, really. It was very cool to see in person, though, and to get to see the light hitting it in all the different ways, being able to tell what month it was by the light streaming through the archways, and knowing people put that there by hand was awing.


The rest of the Stonehenge pictures are here.

Bath was an adorable little city! If it weren't 4 hours away I think I'd return just to walk around the city and check out the little shops and streets! As it turns out, we didn't do a whole lot once we got there: the glass-making studio was closed at the time and all of us are so burnt out on British Literature that a group of us couldn't bear the thought of having to go to the Jane Austen house/museum. We, instead, went and got authentic Italian pizza (we had an Italian girl in our small group to verify this!) and had gelato for dessert. I actually don't regret that decision at all because we were with two US staff members, and then our table was mixed with nationalities instead of being the normal 80% American representation that the SiS program seems to offer.


(2 US staff not pictured, but both were British; a Jamaican man not pictured, US student and friend of the staff) Poland, Italy, US (south western), US (north eastern), Turkey.

We then went into the Roman Baths as the entire 40- or 50-something group and toured around just so we could see the beautiful mineral waters.



The water is dirty, true, but it's actually normally that colour because of the minerals present. The whole area was warm and humid because the waters are form a hot spring, so it was a nice change from the cold rainy days we had been seeing all last week. We all seemed to enjoy running around, looking at the couple presentations, and exploring the city again until it was time to meet back at the bus.


Rest of the Bath album is here.

I've a paper due tomorrow so I've got to go work on that. I'm hoping for sun and warm weather tomorrow, too, because we're visiting Ashdown forest tomorrow and I don't really want to see the 100-Acre Woods all muddy and wet! Plus, that'd ruin our picnic, and I so want to picnic in the forest!

Come on, sunny day!