Ramsay Hall

Woohoo!!  I got to move in to Ramsay today!  I'm very excited about it and love the new room.  The people in the hall are very friendly as well, really looking forward to spending the year here.  It's actually the same hall that Chris Martin was in!  But anyways, it's cheaper, I can see campus from outside the front gate, and they feed you breakfast and dinner Monday through Friday.  To top it off, there are common rooms with TVs and study areas as well as a piano room with the piano that Trouble was composed on.  Such an improvement!  To get a "virtual tour" you can check out this site... http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/accommodation/residences/halls-of-residence/vtours/ramsay-hall

The view out my window.

Brendan helped me move my things to his place and then to my place yesterday and today.  Thanks Brendan!

I don't have my own bathroom anymore but I do have my own sink!

An American Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

Brendan and I hosted 10 of our friends (2 American--Ran (sic?) and Kierthena (sic?), 8 British) at his dorm to share an American Thanksgiving with us and it was a total success!  We were so surprised at how well everything worked out.  We definitely had plenty of food to go around and I think everyone really enjoyed the American dishes (even though we had chicken instead of Turkey haha).  Turkeys are surprisingly difficult to find around here when it is not Christmas (unless you get a frozen one...).  I walked the two miles home after because I'd have certainly succumb to the food coma on the tube and would have ended up in Brixton for sure!  Thanks to everyone who made this great holiday possible!

The feast!  A special thanks to Holly for the biscuits.  In the UK they call cookies biscuits and call biscuits scones (pronounced "sk-on-s").  We have a rough time communicating sometimes.

(Some of) Women's Hockey! 

Feasting.

Engin: "Are you sure Thanksgiving is this week?  Because I called my uncle in Canada and he said that it was a few weeks ago..." Oh Engin...

Half of the dozen! 

 Another half of the dozen!  Wine courtesy of Newton!

Soph, Beth, and Cleasby.  Beth made a really good green bean casserole!

 Max and Ran (sic?)

The feast preparation...

Hannah and Kierthena (sic?) carving and cooking.

Apple Sauce--not exactly the same but close enough I'd say!  The apple pies were delicious! Thank you, Tesco.

Turkeys.  And by turkeys, I mean chickens.

Thank God Liv showed us how to make chicken!  Best Thanksgiving Chicken yet. :)

 Liv the life saver.

Potatoes pre-mashing.

Mashing potatoes and stirring stuffing.

 Mashing potatoes.  Specifically, ten.  So much left over "mash"!

Cranberry sauce--what Thanksgiving is all about, right? :)

The soft drinks.  Sometimes they call Sprite "lemonade"... so confusing.

Lil' Soph with the sweet potato casserole (topped with marshmallows).  The Brits thought it'd be disgusting but were pleasantly surprised at how delicious it was!!!  My favorite dish.  Mmm. 

Stuffing pre and post baking.

Utterly Butterly... apparently it's margarine... haha oops!  On the right are the wonderful vegetables that Soph, Hannah, and Boho made!  Delicious!

Ice cream and apple pie... yum.

Brendan "washing up".

Football Match at Wembley

Went to Wembley to see England play Sweden in a friendly!
Everyone stood to sing the English national anthem and it was the same tune as "America 'tis of Thee" so it was strange hearing that haha.  And they don't put their hands over their hearts.

 The match!  England won 1-0.

The Wembley Arch!

My friend Ben, clearly upset over the massive queue we had to wait in for the tube... haha

The next chunk of photos are stolen from Brendan Maxon.  My camera wasn't cutting it inside the stadium unfortunately.  I hope Brendan doesn't mind....... :)

Brendan, Me, and Sam!  The RPI crew.  Our seats were great!

The lonely Swedish section.

The never ending wave!  I think it went around the Stadium at least five or six times.

 

As opposed to half time.

Supreme Court

I got to go to the Supreme Court of the UK with my British Politics class.

If you care to know more...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_Kingdom
It's incredibly new.  Pretty cool!  : )

The Supreme Court of the UK (across from Parliament)

The Judges (left).  We got to meet Lord Mance.  This is the room they use when they have 5 judges I think.

They do wear the wigs.  I didn't take a picture when I was watching the case haha but I took a picture of them on the TV in the basement of the building.

Museums

London has free Museums, yayy!  They are some of the nicest buildings around too!

The Natural History Museum had an ice rink and a merry go round!  So cool.

 

The Natural History Museum (left) and the Victoria and Albert (V&A, right) court yard.  They're across the street from each other so Brendan and I hit them up last Saturday.

They had a scale model of a Blue Whale... crazy!

It was unusually hot when Brendan and I got here so the leaves fell on the hot asphalt that had just been laid and are now somewhat permanently laid in this bit of road.

The Tate Britain Museum.  Ben's favorite.

Natrional Portrait Gallery Museum in Trafalgar Square.  I actually have an Italian Renaissance Art class that meets next door at the National Gallery.  The Portrait Museum was pretty cool though.  Brendan and I perused the halls and it was really interesting.

In case you're ever looking to visit museums in London, here's how they were in my experience:

--National Portrait Gallery: Pretty cool!  A lot of, well, portraits from old Kings and Queens up to current day people.

--National Gallery: Also quite nice.  I've really only seen Italian Renaissance art there but they had an exhibition on Da Vinci and appear to have mostly paintings.

--Tate Britain: A little weird... Some of the paintings were nice but some of the exhibits (sculptures, photographs, paintings...) were a little too abstract for my taste.

--Natural History: Your regular science museum I suppose.  Reminded me a lot of the one in Boston.  Quite interactive and you'll find a lot of kids there as well.

--V&A: Sculptures, and lots of them!  If paintings and pictures aren't your thing, then I recommend this place.