A Beautiful Weekend

At Holland Park

The weather this weekend in London was absolutely lovely!  With bright sunny skies and a high of 68F (20C), it was a great weekend to be outside.  And that's just what Brandon and I did.  We ventured out to the west side of London to the Notting Hill area. We explored the charming Holland Park, which has a giant chess board, Japanese garden and Ice Cream shoppe.  We even packed a picnic lunch and enjoyed lunch on a park bench.

Waterfall in the Japanese Garden

Japanese Garden

Cherry Blossoms in Bloom

Giant Chess

Rose Garden

Following our jaunt through the park we stumbled across an American Food Store.  They had all the items we've been craving this whole year, that you cannot find in the UK.  Items such as: Chex Mix, Velveeta cheese, Kraft mac and cheese, and Ranch dressing.  So we walked out with a nice variety of food to remind us of home!

We also had a special surprise earlier this week.  My friend, Megan, whom I know from college, and her husband Chad visited London this week and we got to have dinner with them one night, before they headed off to Paris!  As you can see, it was quite a bit cooler that evening (my hair being crazy in the wind), but here are Megan and I in Trafalgar Square.  I hope they had a great trip and it was so lovely to see them.

Friends reunited in Trafalgar Square!

Boy, I sure wish more friends would come visit us!  We are great tour guides!!!

Wishing you all a lovely spring!

The Beatles, Irish Pubs, and Sea Shanties

Liverpool City Center

Brandon and I had a chance to visit Liverpool this past weekend, in order to attend an ethnomusicology conference at the University of Liverpool. For those who are unfamiliar with the geography of the UK, here is a map, so you can see that Liverpool is much farther north than London, and was therefore much colder than the fantastic weather we have been experiencing here.  As you can see, it is also close to Ireland and therefore has a large Irish population.

The conference we attended had a theme of 'Trans-Atlantic Journeys' and focused mainly on preserving and researching old sea shanties, so one evening we had a special pub experience, listening to an Irish band, and singing sea shanties along with other ethnomusicologists.  Watch a short video here:

Liverpool is also known for being the hometown of the members of The Beatles, so of course we had to visit some famous Beatles sites.  We actually forgot to bring our camera when we went out to visit some of these places, but we were lucky enough to meet a nice young man from Brazil while on the bus and he kindly took our pictures for us, then sent them to us via email.  He was on a whirlwind tour of the UK and Ireland, and was a die-hard Beatles fan so he was on a mission to visit all the famous spots. 

At the Strawberry Field gate

In front of John Lennon's childhood home

"Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes..."

John Lennon statue outside the Cavern Club

Liverpool is historically a sea port, and was the home of the White Star Line, which was the company that built and owned the Titanic.  Although the ship never actually docked in Liverpool, there is a memorial to all the workers who lost their lives on its famous voyage, and we also saw the historic building where the White Star Line had its headquarters.

Titanic Memorial

Plaque at the Memorial

The building that used to be White Star Line Headquarters

And here are a few more pictures from the trip.

City Center

World Museum

At the docks

Panorama of the docks area

It was nice to stay in a hotel in a big bed and take a little time for ourselves.  Now we are quickly preparing for hand ins at the end of April and the arrival of the Stover family in mid May (with a trip to Edinburgh and Bath). 

Nostalgia and other things we miss

Our days in London  are flying by.  Emily is interning in the communications department with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (oae.co.uk) and Brandon is interning in the Marketing, Outreach and Recruitment department at Goldsmiths.  Each of us work at these positions three days per week and our studies take up the other days.  Our days are slipping by quickly and our dissertations are due in only 5 months!

Living in Europe is nice, don't get us wrong, but there are a few things we miss. 


1. I miss my telescope (Brandon).  Back in Princeton our house was in a small town with a big backyard and a field behind it.  Light pollution was low and I had a fancy telescope.  I could take wonderful pictures like this.

(My version of the Orion nebula)

You can see with the below picture, astrophotography has come a long way (This photo is what spawned this blog post). 

(The first photo of the Orion Nebula (Left) and one taken by an iPhone (Right)!)

2. Food - Shrimp chips, Tacos, and all the things that are outlawed in the UK (like velveeta cheese, chex mix, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese...)  They are banned in the UK because of dangerous chemicals and such, but sometimes they just taste so good.  No tacos because that's a Tex-Mex thing, without the Mex (or the Tex) you just have  -  (Blank).  (However, we just found an oriental food store down the road from our flat that sells shrimp chips!)

3. Road trips - Road trips don't happen for us because we don't have a car.  Instead we have rail trips, but they aren't quite as fun (less work than driving, but also less fun).

4. Paper Crafts - Emily misses making cards and scrapbooking. For the past two Christmases we have created our own homemade Christmas cards to send to friends and family, however we could not do that this year, due to all of our supplies being left in Illinois.  We even sold some of our cards once at a craft fair and made over $100!! 

5. St. Matthews Church - Although we have found a good church to call home while in London, we really do miss our church family at St. Matthews.  (Emily especially misses the handbell choir and playing with the church praise band!!!)

6. Lastly, We miss our friends and family - We made new friends, but we have not forgotten our old friends.  Emily's parents have visited and Brandon's parents are getting ready for a trip over in May.

Stay tuned for our next post after we journey to Liverpool.  

The Winter that Never Was

Last winter, Emily and I checked the weather for London once or twice a week to see what we would be getting ourselves into by moving here.  This winter, we checked it every day because you never quite know what the weather will be like here in London.  Some days have magical symbols that look like this.

If you can tell me what that means, more power to you.  I believe it means "Today it's going to rain, be sunny, be cloudy, and windy all in one (not at the same time, of course, but oddly, sometimes it is all at the same time)".  Needles to say, the weather here is predictably unpredictable.  That means two things...

1. You always don't know what the weather is going to be like because the forecasts are often wrong or change so often and quick that it doesn't even matter.

2. You can safely assume the weather is going to be mild (no hurricane, tornado, blizzard, etc.)

Since we have been having nice weather these past few days (Sunny for at least 4+ hours and above 55°F ) I decided to bring the camera on my walk to school today and take some pictures.  For those of you locked inside because it's frigidly cold outside, enjoy my little album I like to call "The Winter that Never Was."  It never snowed here (yet... last year they said it snowed on Easter, in April).  It never even got below freezing, it rained A LOT and now it is warm, which has caused the flowers to bloom early.  Enjoy.

"In a field of yellow flowers, underneath the sun..."

Waiter, There's a fly in my flower!

Deptford Town Hall, 

1. It stands outside the "city" limits of Deptford.

2. The Metropolitan Borough of Deptford no longer exists.

Because you made it to the end of the post, Thanks for reading and have a great rest of winter... Officially three more weeks

Our Canterbury Tale

The Stover Jr. family recently took a trip to Canterbury, UK over reading week (a week off from school, like spring break).  We spent 2 nights there and saw much of the city.  Canterbury is the setting of Chaucer's 14th Century collection of stories, The Canterbury Tales. This was one of the first books ever published in English.  It describes the pilgrimage many people made from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of a famous Archbishop, after he was murdered in the Canterbury Cathedral in the 1170.

So, of course, we had to visit the Canterbury Cathedral.  It is a beautiful Gothic cathedral, much like Westminster in London, and is a World Heritage Site.  It is also the symbolic leader of the worldwide Anglican church and home of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the principal leader of the Church of England.  We even got to attend a short service of Evensong while there and it was a very lovely and powerful service.  Fun fact: Canterbury was where Christianity was first brought to England!

The Canterbury Cathedral

A selfie in front of the Cathedral

A street in downtown Canterbury, with the cathedral in the background

Since we considered this little trip our Valentine's Day gift to each other we decided to have a fancy dinner out while in Canterbury (this is a big deal for us, since we don't have a lot of money right now, and usually just purchase cheap food...) So we found this nice little restaurant on the river called 'The Old Weaver's House' and had a lovely dinner in a charming historic building.

The quaint restaurant where we had 'Valentine's Dinner'

Canterbury is a rather small town, with cute little boutique shops up and down the main streets.  It is easy to walk through the whole town in a matter of hours, perusing the little shops and historic buildings.  There are also a few museums to check out, such as the Canterbury Roman museum which gives you a look into what the city was like in the Roman period.  The Beany House of Art and Knowledge was another museum we visited, which houses random artifacts and collections from around the world.  Here you can see Emily playing with some dolls, really she just needed a break from walking around!

Emily playing with dolls

Then there are the historic gems that we found in the town - like the ruins of an old castle and the Westgate into the city, which is the largest surviving city gate in England, built around 1379.  While wandering through the streets we ran across this out-of-the-way path that lead to a pretty park. We also walked through an old hospital, but not in the sense that we use the word.  It was actually a place of hospitality for pilgrims to who were coming to Canterbury to visit the cathedral in the 12th Century.  We don't have any good pictures of that, but it was an interesting visit.

Ruins of the Canterbury Castle from 1066

The Westgate into the city

A river running through town

The 'out-of-the-way path' we stumbled upon

While we had a lovely time in Canterbury, it is a place you can see in only one or two days.  It is a quaint little town, that is easily walkable, with many historic buildings and stories.  A worthwhile weekend trip from London!

The Making of Harry Potter (and other things)

Yesterday, the Stovers made a trek out to to boonies of London...Watford Junction which is in zone 9.  London has 6 zones for the tube/overground/DLR trains.  In the far North West of London, they extend the zones to have a special zone 7, 8, & 9.  In other words, it's a long way away from central London.

Why were we out that far you may ask?  The answer to that comes in just two letters.  WB.  The Warner Brothers studio is located in North West London and they have an exhibition on "The Making of Harry Potter".  They had lots of sets from the movie, costumes, props, and videos explaining the making of the movie.  It was very much like the Dr. Who Experience we went to in October in Cardiff.  We walked through the great hall (without it's famous ceiling), walked down Diagon Alley, took a ride on the night bus through Privet Drive (which looks remarkably like the street we live on!), and drank some butterbeer.  This is only a quarter of the pictures we took that day, but take a look at some of the things we saw...

Welcome to the HP Studios!

Harry's cupboard under the stairs at the Dursley Home

The Great Hall

Dumbledore and Snape

Gryffindor costumes, including Daniel Radcliffe's first set of robes on the far left

The Gryffindor boys bedroom

Gryffindor common room

Dumbledore's office

The chamber of secrets door

Enjoying butterbeer in front of the Hogwarts bridge

Butterbeer and the Knight Bus

Diagon Alley

In front of the Hogwarts model

The Hogwarts model covered in snow

In other news, classes are moving right along (already on Week 4!).  We attended 'American Psycho' a brand new musical at the Almeida Theatre featuring Matt Smith (Yes, former Dr. Who Matt Smith). We waited afterwards for an autograph, but he didn't sign any that night as he was meeting a friend for a drink afterwards... oh well.  At least we picked up a prop business card from the show to keep as a souvenir (found it on the ground!).

American Psycho poster

Matt Smith in the musical (pic taken from the internet, as we were not allowed to take any during the performance)

The Stover Sr. family have come back from their trip to Key West and have booked their tickets to come to London so we are busily planning that trip. They will be coming in May.

In a few weeks we head to Canterbury, stay tuned for an update about our trip!