Friday, February 26, 2010

Loverly London

Apologies for the long delay in posting. The "study" part of "study abroad" got in the way. I did, however, find time to spend a day in London, which I have determined is one of my favorite major cities. It's a beautiful city, and it doesn't have the claustrophobic feel that plagues so many of them.


Above, views of the front and side of Westminster Abbey, where pretty much everyone who was anyone in England is buried. Every monarch between Henry III and George II (1272-1760) is buried there except Henry VIII and Charles I, who were buried at Windsor Castle. A few other names include Darwin, Newton, Henry Purcell, Charles Dickens, Chaucer, and Handel, to name a few. We didn't have time to go in, but hopefully I'll be doing that with my family in a few weeks.


Big Ben and the London Eye.


This is the famous statue of Boudica, the East Anglian warrior queen that I mentioned in my previous post who gave the Romans a run for their money. The statue was built by Thomas Thornycroft, started in 1856, completed in 1885, and erected by Westminster Bridge in 1902. Rather embarassingly, the Victorians spelled her name incorrectly on the statue: Boadicea. And she most certainly didn't look like a young Queen Victoria in Roman garb. But we'll let that slide--it's still a pretty statue.



View of Parliament and the Thames over Westminster Bridge.



A second view of Parliament and Big Ben over Westminster Bridge.



Monet's view of Parliament over Westminster Bridge.

Inside of Westminster Hall, the entrance to the Houses of Parliament, a.k.a. Westminster Palace. It was built in 1097 and is the oldest building in Parliament. The rest were built in the 19th century after a fire in 1834 destroyed most of the original medieval buildings. There are 100 staircases and over 1,100 rooms in Westminster Palace!

Westminster Hall has been the site of a number of famous trials. Here are some floor plaques commemorating a few of the biggest ones:

"In this hall Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England, Speaker of the House of Commons, author of Utopia, was condemned to death 1 July 1535." Thomas refused to acknowledge the annulment of the marriage of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon and accept Anne Boleyn as the new queen. Henry had to work really hard at it, but after a few foiled plans, false accusations, and botched forgeries of supposedly incriminating documents, finally managed to have Thomas condemned to death. The Catholic Church responded by promptly making him a saint.

"This tablet marks the spot where Charles Stuart, King of England stood before the court [...] when the sentence of death was pronounced upon the king." Charles I was charged with treason against the realm and executed. Then followed a period of ten years in which the monarchy was abolished and the country was led by Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell and, for a brief period after his death, by his son Richard. The monarchy was restored in 1659 when Charles II came to the throne. Cromwell was originally interred in Westminster Abbey, but Charles II had his body exhumed, put on trial (three years after his death--eew!) and posthumously hanged.


Near this spot, a the the King's Bench at the south end of the hall, took place the trial of Sir William Wallace the Scottish patriot on Monday, 23rd August 1305." William Wallace was then hanged, drawn, and quartered, a popular death sentence at the time. The person is hung by the neck until nearly dead, but not quite ("He's only mostly dead"). Then his entrails and genitalia were cut out and burned before his eyes. His body was then cut apart and sent to the far corners of the kingdom. It gives new meaning to the term "overkill."



One of the entrances into Parliament from Westminster Hall. It only gets more opulent from here. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take photographs inside of Parliament. However, there is a virtual tour available at http://www.parliament.uk/visiting/onlinetours/virtualtours/commons-tour/index.htm.


Here is the entrance to the Royal Academy of Arts museum, where we saw the Vincent van Gogh exhibit. It was a combination of his sketches, paintings, and letters to his brother Theo. He often wrote to his brother about his paintings, and would include thumbnail sketches of the works-in-progress and notes about how he wanted the finished product to be. The exhibit paired up the letters with their corresponding finished artworks. They also had a variety of pieces from the beginning of his artistic endeavors to his final famous pieces. You could see how his skills developed over time. Also on display was the letter to his brother found on him when he committed suicide, complete with blood spots. He wrote two copies of the letter. The first one, the one found on his person, was unfinished, trailing into despairing thoughts. The second was one he actually mailed to his brother a couple of days before, that started off the same, but then remained deliberately positive and evasive. It was really touching to read both versions.


A glimpse of Downing Street, where the Prime Minister lives.

Admiral Nelson's Pillar in Trafalgar Square. It's really tall.

A "loverly" view of Covent Garden. It is here that Audrey Hepburn sings and sells flowers as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady.


Notice the building with the pillars on the right side of the screen. It's the same building as the second and fourth ones in from the right in my photo above.

A somewhat distant view of Piccadilly Circus. Piccadilly Circus wasn't at all what I expected it to be. I'm actually not really sure what I expected, but I suppose something a bit more chaotic.

Overall, a lovely, 'loverly' city.

Next up: Oxford!

Monday, February 8, 2010

Snowflakes Keep Falling On My Head

It snowed again today. It's snowed a lot since I arrived. It doesn't usually stick for very long, but for England, this is very unusual weather. The whole country ran out of deicer on the day I arrived, or at least that's what the airline told us.

In other news, I'm sick again. I got borderline laryngitis (not quite voiceless, but close) within the first few days of my arrival, and now I've got one humdinger of a cold and cough--as do several of my flatmates and classmates. I expected to get sick as soon as I got over here (new diseases + stress of new country = recipe for illness) but I really could have called it good at just the sore throat. Oh well--this too shall pass, and in the meantime, I'm not alone in my miseries.

As a side note, I'm of the opinion that laryngitis is one of the most pleasant temporary illnesses one can contract, relatively speaking. Think about it: no runny nose, no clogged sinuses, no headaches, no fever or chills, no annoying cough, no unsightly rashes, infections, or blemishes, no fatigue or aches, and to top it all off, a perfect excuse not to have to talk to people. What's more, you solve all discomfort with candy-flavored throat lozenges and tea with liberal amounts of honey added. If you must contract an illness, laryngitis is definitely the one to wish for.

On the bright side, Lisa (Am.), Kassy (Am. FM), Ben (UK FM), and I booked our transportation (combination bus and plane) and hostel for a spring break trip to Dublin! Yay!

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Hail, Hail, The Gang's All Here

Actually, the title is a complete misnomer. The gang's not all here; but these are the flatmates I have pictures of so far.

Top: Me, Luke (don't ask), Ben, Rob Middle: Rachel, Kassy (American), Anisha
Bottom: Ruth


From left: Lisa (American, too), Kassy, Luke, Harry, Me. Apparently British guys don't like behaving nicely in pictures.


From left: Ed (what?), Rob, Luke, Kassy, Me, Rachel (the Aussie) Front: Ben

Ed and Lisa are honorary flatmates, as is Lloyd, who isn't pictured.

Camera-shy: Taylor, Matt, Zahra, Sonia, Lloyd, and...I'm not sure who else I've mentioned in the blog.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Fit for a King

At long last, I have here Part III of the Cambridge trip, the longest and final section: Kings' College.


Front of Kings' College, or at least part of the front. It's huge!


Here is the main entrance. The college was founded by Henry VI and finished by Richard II and Henry VIII. It was built between 1441 and 1544, during the height of Gothic architecture. It took so long because the War of the Roses was going on at the time, and the builders had to keep stopping and starting.


It's a bit difficult to see, but if you look at the farthest section of the base of the building, you will notice that the stone is much lighter than all of the other base sections. This is because work had to be stopped in 1461, after this first section was built, when Henry VI was taken prisoner by the future Edward IV. The builders, hearing that the man paying the bills was no longer in a position to do so, just packed up and went home. When building got underway again, they had to get the stone from a different quarry.


The entrance to Kings' College chapel. There are tall spires going up from where the photo cuts off, much like those that can be seen in the first two photos.

A detail of the entrance to the chapel. If you click on the photo, it will enlarge. The two circular crests above the door are just a little bit different from each other. All of the emblems found on the doorways and in the chapel are Tudor symbols.


A humble side entrance. As I said before, if you click on the photos, they will enlarge and you will be able to see more carving detail. The roses are Tudor roses--a two-toned rose that combined the red rose of the House of Lancaster and the white rose of the House of York, the two major parties in the War of the Roses. The crowns are imperial crowns--notice the cross-banded top. Imperial crowns have been in use in England since Edward the Confessor (1003-1066, before the Norman Conquest). Regular English crowns are just circular, with an open top.


The front half (antechapel) of the chapel. The other half (the choir) is past the wood structure (the screen) with the organ pipes. The chapel was only intended to serve 70 or so members, but it's enormous!


A detail of the ceiling. This style is called "fan vaulting," and it is absolutely magnificent. The ceiling is 12 meters across and built with 2,000 tons of French stone. It was completed in just three years, and is still the largest fan-vaulted ceiling in the world. If you were to clamber up into the ceiling, you would encounter a timber walkway above the stone, and a layer of lead structuring above that. The backside of the stone, the part that one can see when standing on the timber walkway, is covered in coded chisel marks from the 15th-16th centuries, telling the builders how to fit all of the pieces together, much like the "assembled, then re-assembled" log homes you see today.


The Tudor crest and emblems. There is one of these under each of the stained glass windows, and there are a lot of stained glass windows. In each one, the dragon and the greyhound are just a little bit different--different stances, different facial expressions, etc. The dragon and greyhound were the animals of the Tudors until 1528, when Henry VIII changed the greyhound to a lion (because, let's face it, lions are way cooler than greyhounds). As the college wasn't finished until 1544, and the crests feature the greyhound, he must have already commissioned the carvings before he switched to using lions and didn't want to pay for new ones to be made.


As I said before, there are a lot of stained glass windows and Tudor carvings--twelve bays, to be exact. They wrap all the way around the chapel.


This is the stained glass window in the back of the chapel. Each of the windows tells a story from the bible, and each of the panels tells a different part of the story. Each window has two rows of panels. The upper row tells stories from the Old Testament, and the bottom row tells stories from the New Testament.



Here is another window. The level of detail is incredible.


A row of one of the windows on the side walls.

A close-up. The windows were commissioned and put in last, so they reflect the highest stained-glass technology of the time. Even more than that, Henry VIII commissioned glassworkers in Flanders to make the windows, as Flanders had the best glassworking in all of Europe. That's why, even though they were installed in the 1540s, the same time as the chapel was built, it's Renaissance art in a Gothic building.


Here we have a physician circumcising Jesus. Notice he is wearing spectacles. Up until this point, any visual aid came in the form of a monocle or carved stone/glass held up to the eye. Spectacles were...a spectacle. Henry VIII wanted the physician to be wearing them to show that these stained glass windows were the most modern and advanced as could be had.


A picture of the organ pipes, built between 1666 and 1668.

The back side of the organ, as viewed from the choir. Henry VIII commissioned the screen and all of the interior woodwork.


A close-up of a part of the screen. We weren't allowed to use flash photography in the chapel, so I'm afraid it turned out a bit dark, but you can still see a great deal of the level of detail put into carving the screen. Inside the arcs are carved the initials "R. A." standing for Regina Anna--Anne Boleyn. So this entire screen was built between 1533 and 1536, which, given the size of the thing and the amount of detail, is incredible.


The choir benches. Each panel has a different carving. The center panel on the right side has the emblem of Cambridge, and on the left, of Oxford--or as it is referred to in Cambridge, "the Other Place."


Behind the altar is the painting "The Adoration of the Magi" by Rubens, c. 1634. It was originally painted for a convent in Flanders. The nuns couldn't really afford the painting, so Rubens dashed the whole thing off in three weeks. The convent closed in the French Revolution, and the painting was sold to a private owner for 1/4 million pounds (about $390,000), making it the most expensive painting up until that time. The owner wanted to donate it to the Kings' College chapel, but there was a huge debate by the heads of the college as the whether the painting would dominate the space too much. Finally they agreed to accept the gift (agreed to accept it! The most expensive painting of the era!) and it has been hanging here for 40 years.



Dorm buildings and the grassy area in back of the college. The peasants were angered at having their homes and fields destroyed for the purpose of building a college, so Henry (I'm not sure which one) tried to pacify them by promising that they could let their cattle graze on the back lawn. To this day, people still let their cattle loose, just to remind everyone that they can.

One of the side-courtyards. At the end of the term, the professors post everyone's grades up on the fence. Apparently a few years ago some student, displeased with his grades and with this practice of posting them publicly, disassembled his car, reassembled it on the roof of one of those buildings, and drove around on the top of the college to show his displeasure. Another student, whose identity remains unknown to police record, scaled the front of the college one night and placed an orange traffic cone on top of one of the spires. Just about the time that the college had finally built up enough scaffolding to reach the cone, the midnight climber scaled up again, took the traffic cone, and moved it to a spire a few meters over. They had to entirely rebuild the scaffolding.