Rule, Britannia!

Hello! You found the compass!


Today marks a glorious day! (Okay, technically the glorious day happened four days ago. Just work with me.) Earlier in the semester, I had applied through CCIS (College Consortium for International Studies) to Kingston University in London. I experienced three of the most anxiety-ridden weeks of my life before finally getting an email saying...


...that they had accepted me as a student for next semester! Huzzah! I cannot adequately depict the glory of the happy dance I did when I opened the email, so here is Christian Bale doing something similar:

Judging by the thing over his suit, I'm assuming this is American Psycho. Can anyone confirm? I'm too scared...

So, dear reader, this means that I will have plenty of pictures to post and stories to tell from good ole England. I arrive in late January and will be there until some time in May. If you have any suggestions regarding things to do, places I should visit, things you want me to take pictures of, and so on, please leave them in the comments! (I love comments!)

I am extremely excited to be a part of Kingston University in the coming months! Three cheers for England!
 
"England," you might say, "you mean the place with all the gross food, bad teeth, terrible weather, bulldog-lovers, and people who always say things like 'spiffy' and 'cheerio'?"

No. That's not right. England has far more to offer, as you shall see...

Now that the stereotypes are out of the way, let us focus on a few things we can thank England for and what England means to me. For writers, England had Arthur Conan Doyle, Shakespeare, and John Milton (to name the first three that come to mind). TV shows: Sherlock, The Office (yes, the U.K. had that first), and Monty Python's Flying Circus (again, only the first three to come to mind). Music: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Moody Blues. (Remember the rule of three. I know there are MANY more.) England is also very culturally rich and I cannot wait to dive in headfirst! I want to see and do everything I possibly can in the time I am there. If I am not tired from running around, exploring, and learning new things at the end of almost every day I will be disappointed in myself. I want to take advantage of the four months I will spend in England and make sure that I have plenty of photos and stories that I can share with you!

So where exactly will I be and what will I be doing in college? Well, here is a map of the Greater London area with the Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames highlighted in green (courtesy of the official website of Kingston):

 That's where I will be, at Kingston University. Here is a website for some fast facts about the school:

http://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/kingston

As for what I will be doing: taking classes and adventuring! It looks like I got into all of my first-choice classes, which is absolutely thrilling! I'll be taking British Life and Culture (the class for international students), an independent creative writing study, a songwriting class (which makes me nervous as I've never written a song, but it sounds fun), and Japanese I. Japanese language classes aren't available at MCLA, and I want to go back to Japan someday, so I figured that I should take the class at Kingston! If my schedule changes due to time conflicts, Kingston University offers many other courses that I would be happy to take. They have a wide variety of subjects that MCLA doesn't. I'll have access to great classes that I can't get here, which makes me a happy student. To top it off, Kingston is only a 25 minute train ride from the City of London.


I am already extremely excited about studying abroad! I've started making a mental list of places that I want to visit (which I should probably turn into a real list, as my memory isn't the best). Of course I am nervous as well, but the excitement helps balance the nerves. I have a feeling that I'm going to enjoy England very, very much. I hope I do! (Really, though, how could I not? This is all so amazing!)

Now, I am afraid I must go finish a short paper that I have been putting off for a little while now. At least I'm staying on the same subject (England): the paper is an analysis of a monologue in John Milton's "A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle".

Oh, Milton. What a fine writer were. Good man!

I Took A Visit To Our Nation's Capital

Hello! You found the compass!


For my twenty-first birthday, I took a trip down to Washington DC to see the capital of the United States for the first time. My brother was an excellent tour guide, and I have plenty of pictures to post and stories to tell!

To begin, have a look at this picture of the city (courtesy of visitingdc.com):

Notice anything? There are no skyscrapers in DC! That is because no building in the city is allowed to be taller than the Capitol Building, or so my brother told me. Out of curiosity, I did some research online and found that my brother's explanation was not exactly accurate (sorry, Mat). Back in 1899 that was the case with a building height regulation act (saying that no building could be taller than the Capitol), but in 1910 the act was amended by stating that no building could be twenty feet taller than the width of the street that it faces (so if a street was 80 feet across, the building could only be 100 feet tall). Then again, the internet isn't always entirely accurate so perhaps the explanation that I found isn't correct either. You decide!

No matter the reason, I was pleased that DC didn't have the skyscrapers of a "regular" city. It makes the city feel lighter, and I didn't feel as small as I do in Boston or New York City.

After picking me up at Regan International Airport, my brother decided that we should hit as many of the big monuments as we could in one night. I liked the idea of getting to see the famous monuments at dusk, so off we went. Our first stop (after dropping off my overnight bag, that is) was the White House. We weren't sure if the President was home or not and, though I tried, I couldn't catch a glimpse of any snipers on the roof (which I suppose means that they're good at what they do). Rather than seeing the White House from the front (google "White House" and it's probably the first picture that comes up) we decided to check out the back. It turns out that even though the iconic pictures of the White House are taken from the front, people can get much closer to the building if they go around back.

There you have it: The White House. (I apologize for the over-exposure. I hadn't practiced with my camera before the trip and I was rusty.)

After getting the best picture I could (which involved wading through pools of other tourists), I turned and noticed a tent was set up across the street in Lafayette Park. I snapped a photo and my brother told me a story.

Apparently, there is an elderly woman living in that tent and she has lived there since the early 1980's. She is there to protest the use of atomic weapons and have a permanent "peace vigil" outside of the White House. Any money people donate to her is used to buy food, and she has friends watch her tent if she needs to use the bathroom (as you can see, she was not home at the time we were there). Here are a few more pictures of Lafayette Park:

Ugh, so much over-exposure. I get better.

Our next stop was the Washington Monument, and I got some pictures along the way. One was of the Treasury Department, and the others were of a beautiful monument that we found. Neither one of us was sure of what the monument was commemorating (the area was closing, so we had to take the pictures and skedaddle) though we deduced, judging by the uniforms, that it was something to do with the Civil War.

The Treasury Department

The Washington Monument (or, according to some, the Clinton Memorial. Har har.)

All of the famous monuments are very close together. From where I took the picture of the Washington Monument, directly behind me was the World War II memorial. If you are ever in DC, you absolutely must go visit the World War II memorial. Both sections (one for each war theater) are beautiful. Here is the Pacific Theater memorial: 

Each of those columns has the name of a state on it. Mat and I walked around until we found Massachusetts, our home state and the state that our grandfather (who fought in the war) lived in. 

Aaaaand, it's crooked. I'm sorry. Someday I'll go back and re-take it.

Moving right along from the World War II memorial, we saw the memorials for Korea and Vietnam, as well as the Lincoln Memorial. We didn't get close to Lincoln, so I don't have a picture of him. Here is what I got:

The Korean War Memorial.

 I wish that I had remembered how to make pictures darker when I was at the Korean War Memorial. When Mat and I got there, it was already pretty darn dark out (much darker than the picture makes it seem). The darkness made the horrified, pained, and zombie-like expressions on the soldier's faces that much scarier. It is a disturbing memorial, both in how terrified and soulless (read: like they had lost their souls, not that they never had them) the soldiers look and in that it rings true to how they must have felt.

We passed through the Vietnam Memorial next, but no photographs were allowed of the actual wall  so you'll have to Google that. Needless to say, it was sobering. The sheer number of names on the wall is both overwhelming and angering. As my brother said, "Look at all these names, look at all the people who died. And for what?" No doubt that crosses the minds of anyone who visits. Here is the one statue of Vietnam that could be photographed, and my picture doesn't do justice to the intricate detailing of the soldiers. They looked real!

Shortly after the Vietnam Memorial we saw Lincoln's Memorial! We decided not to walk up the steps as it was getting dark (my camera is good at brightening things, because it was really dark at this point), so here is the one halfway-decent photo I got.

The reflecting pool, Washington Monument, and Capitol Building. Also crooked. Sigh.

That wrapped up the first day in Washington DC. 

The next day was mostly filled with resting, but since it was my birthday we hit a restaurant and a few bars. The restaurant we went to was called Hill Country. Let me tell you that if you are ever in DC and like barbeque that you are doing yourself a serious disservice by not going there; this place is delicious. I had the most scrumptious corn bread with Ancho Honey butter, green bean casserole, and beef rib of my life. All of the meats are smoked, which makes them so incredibly delicious. I also tried my first margarita, courtesy of my brother, which he had to finish for me. I stuck with Amaretto for the rest of the night. (Even now, the only alcohol that I like the taste of is Amaretto. I've tried just about everything else with no success.)

After Hill Country, we went to a "speak-easy" of sorts. It's a hidden bar in a Living Social building (you need to be an employee to access it), and you can tell that the bartenders are true professionals by the way they make their drinks. When we told the bartender what I like (Amaretto) she recommended I try an Amaretto Sour. I had never had a sour drink before (and the thought of drinking egg whites seemed odd) but I gave it a shot. It was delicious!

Thanks, Living Social!

That about wrapped up day two.

Day three, the final day where we could do just about anything (I had to leave early the next morning), kept us busy. My brother lives in Virginia, just outside of DC. He knows that I love Civil War history, so after a stop at Dunkin Donuts we headed out to Manassas Battlefield (one of the few major battlefields in Virginia that my family hadn't visited). My history on Manassas was a bit rusty so,when typing this, I'll have to look up a few facts. Hopefully I can get across the story well enough, along with pretty pictures to assist me! Before I get to Manassas specifically, here is a graph that was in the Manassas Battlefield Museum:

Unbelievable, isn't it?

To avoid confusion (though, actually, this might cause more) I should probably explain that there were two battles at Manassas and that Manassas has two names. The battles were called "The First and Second Battles of Manassas" by the Confederacy (the South) and "The First and Second Battles of Bull Run" by the Union (the North). For the sake of keeping things straight, I'm going to refer to it as Manassas, the Southern name. (Manassas is the name of the city that the battle took place near, so I think it's fair to say that is it's proper name. Bull Run was just the name of a stream. Come on.) Moving on to the history lesson...

(I will try to make this brief. If you wish to research more details, I encourage you to do so!) The Battle of First Manassas began on July 21, 1861. An army of men lead by Union General Irvin McDowell was trying to break through Southern lines to capture Richmond, Virginia, and end the war. It was in this battle that Thomas Jackson got his nickname "Stonewall". The Confederates were being pushed back, and some type of exchange happened between Jackson and a fellow officer (I can't find anywhere that seems sure of what exactly the exchange was). Either way, the other officer shouted "There stands Jackson like a stone wall! Rally behind the Virginians!" Hence the name Stonewall Jackson. Much of the fighting took place on Henry Hill, so named after the house of Judith Carter Henry. Judith was an elder who either couldn't leave or refused to leave her house once the fighting started. As Captain James Ricketts (of the Union) received fire from Henry Hill (where the Confederates were), he believed that some of the fire was coming from the house and turned his guns on the building. A shell went through Judith Henry's bedroom window and mortally wounded her. I won't go into excessive battle details, but essentially the Union retreated and the Confederates won the day. 

The Battle of Second Manassas was fought on the same ground from August 28-30, 1862 with many more soldiers than the first one. It was fought between Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and Union Major General John Pope's Army of Virginia. Quick summary so we can get to the pictures and more stories: Stonewall Jackson's army was posing a threat to John Pope's men. Pope retaliated on August 29th and bloodied up Jackson's men. On August 30th, he thought that he had cornered Jackson, so he initiated an assault against him. Little did Pope know that General Longstreet had arrived to assist Jackson, and Longstreet's men crushed Pope's men. The Union retreated, and Confederates won the day again.

(How did I do, Dad?)

It always amazes me how beautiful the battlefields are, considering what violent acts took place on them. Manassas was no exception.

The restored Judith Henry house.

There was one really amusing thing at Manassas:  the statue of Jackson. Standing where Jackson stood upon getting his nickname is a statue of his "likeness" (assuming that Jackson's father was Thor and his horse belonged to one of the Four Horsemen).

He was kind enough to share his leftover breakfast steroids with his horse. How sweet.

After departing Manassas, we went to the famous Spy Museum! It is absolutely worth checking it out if you ever get the chance to. If possible, pay the extra ten bucks and do the interactive spy mission. It's a lot of fun! Essentially, you play the role of a spy in a team of anywhere from four to eight people and try to get to the bottom of a betrayal that involves nuclear weapons and all sorts of James Bond-y stuff. At the end, you get a score out of five and our team got 3/5! (According to the guide, 3/5 is pretty good. Apparently most groups get 2/5, rarely is there a 4/5, and the only people who get 5/5 are employees.) Right near the Spy Museum is a pizza place called Pi, and there I ate one of the best white pizzas ever made. The pizza isn't greasy, the crust is crunchy, there are deep-dish options, and (of course) create-your-own pizzas. It's a great place to go after working up an appetite by solving an international crime. Spy on!

Our final stop before ending our DC adventures was Ford's Theatre, the place where (as you should know) Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.

The new theatre.

The old theatre.

The house across from the theatre, where Lincoln died.

That's about it for my DC adventure! It's a marvelous city. I didn't get to see the Presidential Motorcade (now THAT would have been cool), but I did get to see some beautiful memorials and got to experience my country's capital!

Thank you for reading! Hopefully, I will be going abroad again soon and can post more often. Farewell for now!