videos

here's two videos from the last two days...

kara explaining Stonehenge:


little did we know, Stonehenge was originally a place for raves due to the good acoustics.

and my video of the climb up the tor, accompanied by Florence and the Machine: The Dog Days Are Over.

fuck snow.

Seriously London?! 5-8" and your entire tube & bus system shuts down?! Idiots.

Here's a rough list of things I've learned while I've been here.

-it's the states, not america.
-short flush on the toilet is completely useless. it does nothing.
-dryers in washer/dryers don't work, except for my clothing for some reason.
-tesco is the most convenient store, yet lacks thyme, limes, lemon, ziploc bags, and other essential things. don't ask me why.
-cursing is totally okay. ESPECIALLY on public television. so are boobs.
-you walk on pavement, not the sidewalk.
-pop into means go into.
-bangers and mash means meat & mashed potatoes.
-toad in the hole is disgusting. scratch that... ALL of their sausage dishes are disgusting. picture the worst ever breakfast sausage you ever ate, then stick it in a horrible sauce.
-NOBODY knows how to make coffee. Somehow they all burn coffee mix.
-Saying "Fags" is totally acceptable if you're talking about cigarettes
-Brilliant & fab mean cool / awesome.
-Mad/nutters means crazy.
-bloke/chap/mate/lad means friend/guy/buddy/pal/bro/etc.
-It's the lift, not elevator... queue, not line... and loo/toilet/WC, NOT bathroom.
-whatever you say, DON'T SAY PANTS. it means underwear. it's called trousers here.
-mind means "watch out for..." as in mind the gap.
-way too many people commit suicide by jumping on the tracks of the tube.
-the tube is completely and utterly pathetic. it stops from signal failures, the wrong kind of leaves on the track (what's the right kind?), fires, snow, rain, people being under the tube, and probably more things that i haven't encountered yet. plus it's only open from 5am-midnight. SO useless.
-give way means watch out / caution.
-give way aka caution
-it doesn't rain every day.... just like every 3 days it'll drizzle overnight/in the morning.
-fart jokes are acceptable for some reason here. i hope to change that.
-british food is horrendous - the only tolerable thing i've had so far is fish and chips and it's just fried fish and french fries... not that difficult.
-the clothes are all gorgeous, and making me become sort of self-conscious about mine. EVERYONE WEARS SKINNY JEANS AND I FIT INTO NONE OF THEM. I'm like wayyy over a size 16 in these stores... I've never felt fatter in my life (and I've lost about 5 pounds probably / gotten into a lot better shape from walking everywhere).
-the men are either really attractive or not at all. not much of a middle ground.
-the phrase "british teeth" is DEFINITELY TRUE.
-the people you meet here are better than the people in america.



to be added to later...

It's February?!

I just came back from Chinese New Years in Leicester Square, and it was SNOWING. A LOT. It snows maybe every 2 years in London. It's not sticking, but still.



It's been a long time since I updated. I've had 2 EXTREMELY sketchy club experiences, and I'm not putting up with them anymore. Next time someone weirds me out I'm just going to confront them. I can't stand people thinking just 'cause they're a guy they can sketch on a girl and won't get any complaints.

Second complaint: the tube. It's the worst. I've already had 2 people 'under the tube' while I've been on it (evidently the gray skies lead to lots of suicides - it's a wonder half of Ithaca isn't dead), they shut down entire lines for no apparent reasons, there's ALWAYS signal delays, it's ridiculous. I miss NYC for the Subway SO much.

Other than that, this has been probably the best three weeks ever. Hands down coming to London has been the best decision of my life. I love my classes, I love my internship (not enough work to do but the people are really awesome and I can't complain about free concerts), and the other people here are amazing. I miss my friends at school a lot, but I've gained so much independence already over the last three weeks and I can't wait to see how much more I evolve in the next few months. I even gave directions on the tube to a guy that just got out of prison on Saturday. I really can't believe it's February already.

Since I last wrote I've been to two concerts with my internship - at the Soho Revue Bar (now closed, which is a shame cause it was a GORGEOUS venue), and the evidently really famous Troubadour, where Hendrix, the Who, Bob Dylan, and tons of other famous people have played - which is really surprising because it seems like somewhat of a shitbox to me. The venues in London are SO much different than the ones in NYC - it's not just a stage and a floor. The Soho Revue bar had velvet walls, chandeliers, stripper poles - it used be some sort of burlesque place evidently. The Troubadour is pretty much hidden under a restaurant/bar, and it seems really small but can somehow fit 200+ people. I'm really psyched to see other venues.


Soho Revue Bar, RIP.

Skins is an AWESOME show. I LOVE it. I still haven't caught up with my American shows, and we still won't have internet in the flat till the end of the week, but surprisingly I don't miss everything as much as I thought I would. I'm SOOOO behind on music - I haven't really listened to anything new at all since I got here except the new N.A.S.A. album which is beyond awesome.

We went to the Bath trip Jan 30-31, which consisted of Avebury (a bunch of rocks), Glastonbury (an Abbey), Wells (an AMAZING chapel), I climbed the tor (beyond beautiful, Bath (the Roman baths and another chapel), and Stonehenge (a bunch of rocks). It was a really fun trip, and I took about 300 pictures the last 3 days. Yesterday we went to some club that I don't even know the name of and we were by far the youngest people there - the music was all early-mid 90's but we loved it. Next weekend is John's birthday, so I'll probably be at clubs nonstop. I have to write 600 words on John Peel by Wednesday and a theatre review in the next week of Private Lives which I saw last week -- realllyyy good. Tomorrow night I'm seeing Pittman Painters which sounds so bad (miners learn how to paint and somehow that's heartwarming), Tuesday is a football match!! so excited.


The Baths


being rocks in front of stonehenge


the view from the tor


the tor


in front of the church

Oh! Also, me and Chris booked a trip to Venice/Milan for Carnival Feb 20-23. Words can't express my excitement. This is my trip schedule: Next weekend, nothing. Feb 13-14, LIVERPOOL; Feb 20-23 - Venice/Milan, Last weekend in Feb- right before midterms, staying home; March 6-13ish, Spring Break: Greece/Spain (still have to plan it), 3rd Weekend in March - Edinborough Scotland, Last weekend: Amsterdam!, 1st Weekend in April: Stratford-upon-Avon, 2nd weekend Paul is supposed to come I hope, 3rd would be Paris, 4th is right before the last weekend of classes so I'll be overwhelmed with work and then we go home after the first week in May, unless my parents come and drag me to Italy as semi-planned.

Hopefully I'll be able to write a more interesting blog post when I actually get internet and don't have to type so fast before my 50 pence run out. Photos up tomorrow, I'll probably shove some in this entry and link to the facebook albums.


edit: here they are!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015102&l=73194&id=1379550005
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015940&l=ea6ff&id=1379550005
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015941&l=59f89&id=1379550005
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015943&l=f3a16&id=1379550005
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015944&l=8eb1a&id=1379550005

i've also taken some videos, which will be uploaded soon.