London 2010

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Barbie Goes to London Part Duex

My photo story features my mascot Barbie and her summer romance in London.

Yesterday

Yesterday was the last day of my so-called “not quite a summer vacation” because today I returned back to work in the Language Resource Center at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. I felt a little like Cinderella when my alarm went off this morning because there would be no five-minute walk to Starbucks for coffee and croissants for I was no longer a jet-setting, international student flitting about in London. Instead of three flatmates and four different morning routines there was only one routine, my routine, which consisted of a dog to be walked and clothes to be ironed. While those chores may not seem too appealing, there were also good things to be had: a definite hot shower, complete with water pressure and a Dunkin Donuts drive-thru for coffee and a muffin.

On Friday it seemed unfathomable to me on that Thursday, I woke up in London and went to sleep in Charlotte. Even more unfathomable to me on Friday morning was that I shared my bed with Blue, my dog, who before my departure was not allowed to sit, let alone sleep on the furniture.

While waiting for my luggage to make it’s appearance on the carousel on Thursday afternoon, a noticed a boy who was about ten-years-old standing with two flight attendants waiting for an otherwise nondescript black suitcase to appear. Michael had also taken U.S. Airways flight 733 as an unaccompanied minor. And though his bag was nowhere in sight, he was as cool as a cucumber with the steel resolve of a man three or four times his age. Even when one of the flight attendants grew impatient with the child and his phantom luggage he remained calm and did not even flinch when she abandoned the effort to locate his bag.

I admired the young traveler because hours earlier I had been a nervous wreck about taking the flight back home and here he was seemingly unfazed by the Transatlantic journey and potentially lost luggage. As my bag finally made its way around the carousel, I told myself that I would be as confident as he the next time I took a flight.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief when an airport official asked if I needed directions to a connecting flight to which I replied, “nope, I live here, I’m home.” It felt good to be home! I could not have been happier than when my best friend picked me up, but I was a little disappointed when she said, “I talked to you everyday so it doesn’t even seem like you’ve been gone for three weeks!” And she was right, I felt a little silly recounting the details of my experience since she had been getting daily updates all along. Later that evening and for the rest of the weekend, there was a constant barrage of, “How was your trip?” “Did you see the queen?” “Did you ride double-decker buses?” and so forth from family and friends. Each time I answered, I smiled as I remembered some my flatmates, classmates, and even Elvis. Three weeks went by in a flash. It was a blur, really, and I do not know how to do the experience justice by way of description without rambling on and on and possibly annoying my captive audiences.

The one thing that I have not been able to convey was the overall awesomeness of the entire experience, cold showers and all. As cliché as it sounds, there are just no words to sum up three weeks of doing, seeing, and experiencing things that I had never imagined.

Sitting in the theater with Kathryn seeing Wicked on our last night, I felt like “Defying Gravity” was my anthem. Maybe the next time someone asks me about my trip I’ll tell them that defying gravity is exactly what it felt like especially since that's probably as close as I will ever get to an accurate descriptor.

Random Musings on this My Penultimate Day in London

As I sit here among the luggage that I've packed and re-packed at least three times anxiously trying to finish so I can go to the "swing dance party" next door I'm finding it very hard to believe that The Great London Adventure of 2010 is actually over. I have literally been there, done that, and got the t-shirt.

I think it's fitting that we ended the day with a tour of the inside of Buckingham Palace since it was one of the first places we visited to see the changing of the guard. I also thought it was fitting that our final group meal was at the Hard Rock Cafe, an Americanized "pub," if you will, that was actually founded in London. We had lunch at the original Hard Rock cafe among the mementos of international music legends, past and present. Even our lunch was historical and cultural.

Following lunch I helped Kathryn to re-create pictures that she took in front of Westminster Abbey with her family when she was a child. Don't tell her, but I felt honored that she asked me to share that experience with her and I was so happy that she got her shots, especially the one that seemed impossible until the friendly Bobby allowed us behind the locked gates.

I wrapped up the evening and the trip with an impromptu outing to see Wicked, the prequel to The Wizard of Oz. The story of Elphaba and Galinda was really sweet and it was fun to see the classic children's tale reinvented to explore the events before we first met Dorthy, Toto, Auntie Em et al. The only issue that I had was that near the end something kept getting in my eye! Maybe it's the theaters because I had the same problem with Love Never Dies.

I definitely ended my London experience on a high note: palaces, burgers, and theater, there's not much more I could ask for...Well, there is the fact that I never had fish and chips! I guess that will have to be first on the agenda next time I'm in London.

Pip pip cheerio!

God's Garden

Our visit today to the Princess Dianna Memorial Playground was like a trip in a time machine to me. After walking through the gates and seeing the Peter Pan themed park, I couldn’t resist climbing aboard the pirate ship. I hung out in a teepee, said hello to an owl, and skipped across some lily pads before taking a rest on a ram. It was quite possibly the best thirty minutes of my day.
Earlier in the trip I learned to distinguish parks from playgrounds, as here in London, usually the word park is used to describe gardens. We’ve seen many beautiful gardens during our time here and each one has been very special to me.

Have you ever met a rose? In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet Juliet asks the question, “What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet…” I knew a rose. Her name was Dot and she was the epitome of sweet. She was my mother’s older sister who passed away last year after battling breast cancer.
Family is very important to me and there are a host of cousins, aunts, uncles, a mother, father, sister, and niece back home, living this experience vicariously through me, but my Aunt Dot is not. Even though she cannot see my Facebook photos or read my blog, I wanted her to be with me on my journey so I have worn a pink bracelet in her honor every single day.
The bracelet is simple, just like my aunt. It’s made of pink elastic with a silver circle that with the words “hope” and “awareness.” It also has a charm of the breast cancer awareness ribbon and two “jewels,” one clear and one pink. The funny thing about the bracelet is that I never left the flat without it and when it got too tight on my arm I wore it in my hair. It was the perfect accessory for my “librarian’s bun!” Each morning when I slipped it on it was almost as if I could hear her voice saying “Hey Alesh!” (that’s not a typo—she’s the only person who called me that) and every time I felt like I was coming undone, you know, feeling homesick, hot, cold, tired, frustrated, or lost I could her hear her voice saying “Alright!” which was her signature way of letting us know as children (and adults) that it was time to straighten up or be straightened up. Thinking of her so many miles away from home always gave me hope that things would get better. Thoughts of her also reminded me of how fortunate I am to have this opportunity and to take everything in, thus awareness.

When she died last year, my sister found a poem online called God’s Garden and during each visit to a garden, she felt so much closer to me. Gardens were as much a staple during this trip as was my bracelet. Kaitlin and I even stumbled upon a random garden in France. I was tempted to leave my bracelet behind in France attached to a bridge since it’s pretty gross and germy at this point but I could not do it. I thought of leaving it there because I thought Dot would have liked the City of Lights but I was just a little to selfish to leave her behind. I don’t know what will come of my dirty, germy bracelet when I return to Charlotte, but for at least the next two days it will be where it has been, on either arm or tangled in my hair, exactly where it should be.

Please visit the following sites to learn more about breast cancer or to make a donation to support breast cancer research:

Susan G. Komen for the Cure

Feel Your Boobies Foundation

Mind the Gap

My short digital video provides an overview of navigation tube stations in London.

Library Thing

The Bodleian Library is one of the oldest libraries in Europe and serves as the main research library of Oxford University. Today, our class split into two groups to tour the facility and learn about its history. There were strict regulations for using the reading rooms. Among them, a rule stating that only laptops and pencils may be carried into the reading rooms, but no ink pens.

There was one lone book still chained to a shelf to illustrate how libraries once operated and on that same shelf, there were books shelved with their spines facing inward to illustrate the same. On our extended tour, we were able to see how books are transported through the facility using a conveyor system as well as walk through the stacks.

While I enjoyed the visit to the library I could never quite get too comfortable because I was afraid that I might break some unspoken rule, or even worse, an irreplaceable historical relic. In the back of my mind I kept thinking of the scene that follows and how I did not want to have a "Mr. Bean Moment:"

Maybe he would have benefited from a guided tour.

The second part of our day in Oxford was spent at Christ Church College. I enjoyed the tour of the college grounds, especially the asides and anecdotes about Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell. After reading about the people and places that inspired characters and places in the Alice titles, it was fun to give them some context.

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The video included in this blog is not my own, nor is any copyright infringement intended. The video was obtained from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwOrp6Q7kCE on 2 August 2010.