On Monday I ventured to Whole Foods in Piccadilly Circus. It was actually a really nice day, and it gave me a good excuse to get some fresh air. It is certainly not as big as the one in Richmond, although it is two stories (food downstairs, beauty and health upstairs). They had some things I had been searching for-peach salsa and refried beans, as well as some cool things I wanted to try-a block of fake cheddar cheese. I circled the store about 3 times making sure I saw everything, before unloading about 20 pounds on groceries. Whoops! Probably won't go back there very often, though. I found sunflower seed butter, but was very disappointed-it tastes like dirty sunflower seeds. I worked on a 5 page paper about Romeo + Juliet (the Baz Luhrmann movie) that was due on Thursday, until my flat mate brought me a package!! I was so surprised since the only mail I'd gotten so far was letters from my parents (which are greatly appreciated and are hanging on my bulletin board). It was FOOD from Paige! Yay! She sent me sunflower seed butter, Glutino pretzels, and Martin's blue corn chips. SHE KNOWS ME SO WELL. I've been talking to Paige almost every day, but it's always nice to be surprised by something nice :)
Tuesday morning in Media and Society, we talked about the recorded media. We actually talked more about newspapers, as our "letter to America" due that day was about print media. Mo talked about the progression of recorded music, from country to modern rock. Our outing was to SoHo. Per usual, most of the places Mo pointed out had nothing to do with the recorded media, but we did go into some cool record shops. The first place he took us was the Hare Krishna temple where we walked into their worship room. It was very strange; I felt like an intruder even though I know they are a very open religion. I just felt like a tourist, and I didn't really like that he made us walk into the room where people were praying. We did see some cool things on the walk, though:
After returning home and eating dinner, Kara, Megan, Bronte, and I set off for the Millwall Football Club match our entire group was attending. We left with plenty of time and decided to take the bus instead of the Tube. For reasons unknown to us, the bus randomly terminated at a stop before we had reached our destination (not supposed to happen). 2 more of the same bus route passed, saying they were terminating there too. We waited about 30 minutes total until a bus FINALLY came to take us to the place. Of course this club is in a not so nice part of town and we were a little unsure of where we were going. Luckily, we made it, but we were about 30 minutes late. It was a very different sporting experience from any other I've had, and I'm not really sure why. Yelling at the teams is totally normal, but the English fans were more rowdy and rude. It didn't seem like a social event, just somewhere to go and YELL. Everyone seemed so angry and every other word out of the people's mouths around us was some curse word. It was definitely a cultural experience. We decided to leave a few minutes before the end of the game to beat the rush out. This didn't really end up happening, but we still made it home okay! I believe Millwall won, so that's good!
Wednesday was history day! We talked about the lovely subject of Hitler's rise to power in European history before walking to the Weiner Library nearby. The Weiner Library is a Holocaust and Genocide research center and museum. Our guide talked to us a little bit about the artifacts they have from the time, as well as a cool exhibit of Stephen Roth's cartoons from the time. It was really interesting to see the humorous take on the events of Nazi Germany. Toby, our guide, showed us a magazine published just last year in Germany that still has Nazi propaganda. I was shocked. How can any one deny the 6 million deaths that occurred during the Holocaust? It was incredible to see this magazine.
In art people presented (including me) about their midterm paintings. We had to choose one painting from Rembrandt and one from Rubens and compare them. I chose a portrait of a woman from each. My Rembrandt is of an elderly lady that is almost monochromatic, while the Rubens is of a young lady with very vibrant colors. I really liked the contrast, and my professor seemed to like my choices too! We then walked to the Wallace Collection, which was like stepping into (what I imagine) Versailles. It was SO Rococo it's ridiculous. So much gold and pastels and cherubs. So over the top, but so beautiful. Definitely something I like to look at, but would never want to live in.
On Thursday, I finished up my film paper in the morning and got some things done to prepare for Ireland. We talked about Pride and Prejudice in film, which was great. While the book is a bit difficult to read, I love the Keira Knightley movie. For film, everyone is going to see "No" tonight, a film about General Pinochet in Chile. Should be heartwarming (not). We're all probably going to go right to sleep afterwards so we'll be slightly rested for our early morning departure for Dublin!
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