Music Major's Paradise

Just after I arrived, I discovered the most wonderful thing: the BBC Proms were happening just a few blocks away at Royal Albert Hall. This would have been exciting enough in and of itself, but it got even better: there were £5 rush tickets available before each show. If you waited in line, you could get a standing room only ticket for the arena floor (they took out the seats on the floor in the center of the auditiorium) and see great musical performances for a fraction of the normal cost.

It was a fortunate thing that the Proms, which is an approximately 9-week series of 70-odd concerts featuring world class musicians and repertoire, was in its final week when I arrived, or--£5 tickets or not--I would have been completely broke and my flatmates wouldn't have seen me for weeks. As it was, I went to four concerts in the first week I was here!

I saw Handel's Messiah, which I already love, but it was thrilling to have the opportunity to see it live in the country where it originated. I also got to see a performance of Mendelssohn's concert overture The Hebrides (Fingal's Cave), Sibelius' Symphony No. 5, and a few decidedly 20th century works by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, who was conducting the orchestra that night in honor of his 75th birthday. In fact, the musicians and the audience actually sang "Happy Birthday" to him at the end of the concerts (there were two concerts back-to-back that I went to that night). The fourth and final Proms concert I have the privilege of attending was Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble. Yes, Yo-Yo Ma, live, for only £5! I was so excited! I really like music that combines different cultural traits, and that is exactly what the Silk Road Ensemble does. They bring together both the instruments and the musical traditions of the East and the West and blend them into an exciting and interesting new style. Complex polyrhythms were regularly present, and some of the melodies used Eastern scales. However, there were also passages that featured traditional Western scales and instruments. I absolutely loved it. And I think the musicians performing were having as much, if not more, fun than I was having. It was contagious--they clearly enjoyed working together and sharing such fun and different music with their audience. That's the kind of ensemble atmosphere that I'd love participating in professionally someday. Anyone want to start an ensemble with me?

Home Sweet Home-away-from-home

The time has come to describe where I'm living, since a lot of people have been asking me about it. I live in Hyde Park Gate, just across the street from the Queen's Gate entrance to Kensington Gardens. My flat is on sixth floor (in the US sense); you can see a little round window at the top of the narrow white building in the center of this photo. That's our lovely window, set in a little bay window-style alcove.

For a 360˚ view of the street, click here. From the street view, the big brick building on the right is the Dutch embassy, and the building immediately on the left (attached to ours) is a royal family from Dubai--or so I'm told, at least. A few doors down on the left is the Algerian embassy, as well.

Now for the inside. That little round window mentioned above looks out into Kensington Gardens directly. It's a lovely view; I can't believe how blessed I am. There are four of us sharing this flat--Mallory, Lauren, Tyson, and myself. Lauren, Mallory, and I share a room, and Tyson (logically) has his own. We have a cute little kitchen and a common room with an abundance of couches and chairs, a TV, a table, and a couple of coffee tables. The bathroom has the tiniest shower I've ever seen. It would be almost cute in its minuscule state, if it weren't for the fact that it is just barely large enough to fulfill its function! Because we're the top floor--in what would have been the servants' quarters when this Victorian townhouse was first inhabited--we have slanting walls in every room. I like it; it really adds to the character of the place. There is a lonely wall hook in the middle of the biggest (and only unslanted) wall of our common room, so we're hoping to find a print or painting at a craft market or something like that to make it not look so forlorn. I'll put up a picture if we find one.

Please Mind the Gap

Someone once said that Great Britain and the United States are two nations divided by a common language. There are quite a few things here that are clearly different on first glance and others that are different in more subtle ways. But as the days go by, I'm growing more and more comfortable with the culture.

The first strange cultural experience I had was when our program provided us with a boxed lunch the first day (which my flatmates and I took over to Hyde Park for a picnic), which contained a bag of crisps (potato chips in the States). However, these were no ordinary crisps. They were "prawn cocktail" flavored crisps. After debating amongst ourselves what prawn cocktail was, we decided to be brave and try them anyway. I was pretty sure that prawns were shrimp (turns out I was right), and the crisps had a very, um, distinctive taste, like ketchup mixed with barbecue sauce along with something else that was kind of spicy/tangy mixed in there. We were brave enough to try them, but not quite brave enough to actually finish off the bag. Since then, I've noticed an abundance of prawn- or prawn cocktail-based dishes on menus all over London. What is it with these people and their shrimp??? It would probably have been a more positive (though less amusing) experience if I were fond of shrimp to begin with...

One of the most obvious differences between the States and Great Britain (and the British Cultural Fact Of The Day for this post) is that they drive on the left side of the road (and the steering wheels are consequently on the right side of the vehicles). Any Brit will argue that they drive on the correct side of the road, and I've had at least one or two joking debates with British individuals about whether the British or the rest of the world is right about this. This directional difference adds another level of hazard to crossing busy city streets. However, as if in condescension to the rest of the world who drive on the "incorrect" side of the street, the Brits have kindly labeled the sidewalks at crossings with helpful reminders like Look Right--> or <--Look Left to prevent us from checking the wrong direction out of habit and walking blithely out in front of an oncoming taxi. Turns out that the exhortation to "Look both ways before crossing the street" like we were told when we were little really can save you from being run over here! Speaking of getting run over, I've had several close calls myself. Day one, I nearly got hit by a cyclist. Not a motorcyclist, but a regular peddling cyclist. He was not about to stop, and I accidentally walked out in from of him, then jumped back just in time. Next day, the same thing happened with a double-decker bus. In addition to those instances (and other similar ones), I think the reminders on the crosswalks have probably saved my life on a number of occasions.

Speaking of transportation, I've been quickly getting used to the public transportation. The Tube (London Underground System) is extremely efficient and relatively easy to navigate. I wish we had one like it in the Greater St. Louis area--I would definitely use it! It's also an interesting example of little differences between British and American English, like "Mind the gap [between the train and the platform]" instead of "Watch your step" and "Way Out" signs instead of "Exit" signs. As an extension of the Tube system, the buses here are also useful. Some British buses are double-decker ones, like this picture:
I can, for example, navigate from my flat in central London all the way to the South Bank of the Thames and not have to make more than a few blocks of it on foot. It's pretty impressive how efficient and problem-free the system usually is, especially considering that there are approximately 7 million people living in London, and approximately an additional 1 million commuters and tourists on any given weekday. It's truly one of the most impressive things about this amazing city!

Delayed reactions...

My goodness, has it really been two weeks since I last posted? Wow. My apologies to everyone who may have taken the time to check this in the interim! I hope I never go that long again without writing again. So much happens in just two weeks--I've been keeping a daily travel journal and I've already filled at least 40 pages. I'll break these weeks' updates up into several smaller posts to get caught up. There's way too much to try to compress into a single, coherent post!

Somebody please pinch me

I actually get to live here until Christmas? Wow. I can't quite believe it. I'm living right across the street from Hyde Park, sandwiched in between the Netherlands Embassy on one side and the Algerian Embassy a few doors down on the other side. I can see the top of the Prince Albert Memorial over the tree tops from the front window in our common room. I haven't gotten to take pictures of the flat yet, but hopefully I'll have a few to post within the new few days. I'll describe the flat in more detail then. For now, it will suffice to tell you that it's on the sixth floor (US definition), which is the top floor of our townhouse, and there is no elevator. Dragging my luggage up there was more than enough exercise for today, but the view is definitely worth it! My flatmates and I ate lunch today in Kensington Gardens in Hyde Park, and then three of us walked around Cromwell Road and the nearby shopping district. Also more than enough exercise for the day! I guess I'm going to be in really good shape by the time I come home.

In other news, I've decided to start including an interesting fact, cultural difference, or language difference/definition with each post:

In the USA, building floors are numbered as follows: The street level is the "first floor," the one above it is the "second floor," and so on and so forth. Makes sense, right? Well, in the UK, the street level is called the "ground floor" and the floor about it is the "first floor" and so on. This means I am currently living on the fifth OR sixth floor, depending on how you look at it. Makes things a bit confusing at times, doesn't it?

Hogwarts Express

And so it begins.

September has come, and with it, a new adventure. Next time I write, I'll be on the other side of the ocean. How weird.

Just for the record, I won't have my same cell phone number--I'll probably get an international SIM card just for local calls. So if you call or text me between 6pm CST tonight and December 21, 2009, I won't know that you did until December 22nd. So now email, Skype, Facebook, or owl post are the preferred methods of communication (just kidding about that last one).

Countdown to Launch

My flight is in less than 12 hrs. I'm packed and now it's time to wait. I don't particularly like waiting--I'm not exactly the most patient person. I hope I can sleep tonight.