Summing Up New Cross and Some Final Tips

Okay, some things about New Cross!

After talking with many British people about it, apparently New Cross is not exactly the place to be in London. It’s been known to be a bit shady (although it seemed completely fine to me) and to not have too much going on. However, my experience was generally a good one and New Cross definitely grew on me over the three months that I lived there.

There are plenty of food options, although various restaurants and stores seemed to be closed on random days of the week. There is a lot of fried chicken in New Cross– you just have to accept it and embrace it (if you’re a meat-eater). After trying out a few of the local chicken places, I determined that Chick Chicken has the best value for your pound and is very tasty too. However, my favorite food spot was a little restaurant called Chinwag, which is right across the street from Goldsmiths. It has a really cute atmosphere and serves amazing food at a decent price (which is important since  things are generally really expensive in London). Another place that I wound up at a lot was the Goldsmiths Cafe (right next door to Chinwag), which is good for a cheap breakfast or just a quick coffee to go. Other local places to eat include: Cummin’ Up (a Caribbean food place with an (un)fortunate name), a couple of Chinese takeout places, Nouvelle Spice (an Indian restaurant with pretty good food), Subway (the only American chain you’ll find in New Cross), and the Goldsmiths Garden Cafe (a cheap place that offers hookah, mediterranean food and an assortment of other things). Generally the food in London is not so great, so when you find a good restaurant you stick to it!

New Cross House

 

 

 

Amersham Arms

The latter claim about New Cross (that there’s not much going on) is sort of true. There are definitely places to go out on the weekends or weeknights but generally things are pretty low-key. There are a few pubs within short walking distance including the Hobgoblin, which is right next to Loring Hall. The Hobgoblin is very laid back but it can get crowded on Fridays and Saturdays and it’s a pretty big hangout for Goldsmiths students. It’s a nice place to get cozy and hang out and they have a bunch of games at the bar that you can take to your table including Jenga and Scrabble! They also offer a student loyalty card which gets you money off drinks! I went to the Hobgoblin pretty often and I also went to the Amersham Arms which is a little farther away from Goldsmiths. The Amersham is a better option if you’re looking to dance and have a crazier night. It’s split into a front room and a back room, which each have a DJ on Friday and Saturday nights (the front is usually an older crowd with more classic music and the back is usually a younger crowd with bigger dancefloor and different music depending on the night). Then there was the New Cross Inn, which is a typically seedy-looking pub that hosts live music as well as DJs and has a pool table and lots of picnic tables to sit at inside. They host a pretty good open mic night every Tuesday, which a lot of students perform at. I’m not going to say much about the New Cross Inn because it could be a whole blog post in itself, but I will tell you this: you should definitely go to the New Cross Inn, but you definitely shouldn’t make a habit of it.

Telegraph Hill Park (a short walk away from Goldsmiths)

weird cat mural in New Cross

There is also a lot around New Cross, if you look for it. I spent a few days wandering around the area, just seeing what I’d find and I stumbled upon Deptford which is just north of New Cross. There are a lot of restaurants there, a few coffeeshops, a food coop, many pound-stores (!), and I even found a semi-hidden public art space/cafe called the Deptford Project right off of the main street. Lewisham is another area that’s a short bus ride away and there you can find the Lewisham Shopping Centre which has a bunch of clothing stores (including a smaller Primark and an H&M) and a Poundland among other things.

at the Deptford Project

at the Deptford Project

in Deptford

Alright, it would be cruel not to leave you with some general London tips, so here we go:

• Not only is the conversion rate from dollars to pounds pretty lousy, but everything is just more expensive in London. If all normally priced items were in dollars instead of pounds, they would still be a lot more expensive than in the U.S., which sucks. There’s no way of avoiding it. However, I did find a few ways to save a little bit of money:

1. Get an Oyster card for your transportation needs! You have to buy an Oyster card outside of the tube stations (still unclear on why this is…) but you can find them at most convenience stores. A regular oyster card reduces all of your fares by about 1/4. There is a student Oyster card which you have to apply for and receive in the mail, but it reduces fares even more and I really wish I had gotten one.
2. The tube is pretty cool and convenient, but it’s usually more expensive than the buses are. When you take the tube (especially from New Cross, which is in Zone 2), your fares are determined by your travel between zones which can make things pretty pricey if you’re traveling over a long distance. With an Oyster card, the bus fare is only £1.60 (although transfers aren’t free), so if you’re just going into central London, it’s cheaper option!
3. For all of your grocery needs, the best place to go is the local Sainsbury’s which is super close by. You should definitely get a Nectar card! It’s free to get and will allow you to get coupons in the store as well as accumulate Nectar points, which you can redeem for cash value towards your groceries. In the three months I was at Goldsmiths, I accumulated about £15 worth of Nectar points which got me a close to free grocery trip!
4. Shop at Iceland! Iceland is a sort of discount (mostly frozen) food store that sells many things for one or two pounds. Obviously, it’s not the best quality food but they have cheap basics like toilet paper, paper towels, soda, tea and coffee, and even beer.

• London’s double decker bus system provides an awesome, cheap way to tour the city. Bus routes go all around the city and past all of the sites you’ll want to see. This is also a great option for sight-seeing when it’s cold out (which it will be).
• London is full of great free museums, so you should take advantage of it! A few that I visited for free were: the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Tate Modern, the Tate Britain, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Saatchi Gallery.
• When you are at a store or at a restaurant or just on the street, people will say “You alright?” It basically means “How are you?” but I’m going to be honest, I hate it. For the first month I was in London I thought that must have been looking really distraught or something because everyone kept asking me if I was okay. I’m still not sure what the proper response is, but a “yes” will do.

Okay, I think that’s it for now! To sum up my summing up posts, I had a really great time during my semester abroad. Some things were strange at first but I met some wonderful people and it’s an experience I will never forget. If you’re getting a little tired of the Pioneer Valley and want a change of pace, going abroad (not necessarily to Goldsmiths) is really something to consider. Also, the London exchange is pretty cool because it finishes at the end of March so your summer starts early! I had some time to travel and now I’m back home and have time to find a job and even pass Div. II in the spring 🙂

Summing Up Goldsmiths…

So my blog kind of dropped off right as finals were starting at Goldsmiths and then I was busy traveling and doing other things! But looking back on this blog, I realize that there is a lot of information I left out about Goldsmiths College and New Cross and the Hampshire study abroad program that might be very helpful to any Hampshire students who are thinking about doing the London exchange program in the future.

I’ll start with my experiences and impressions of Goldsmiths, since you’ll be studying there! Overall, I had a good academic experience although it was different from Hampshire in many ways. During your semester you take four courses in any departments of your choosing. You choose your courses by order of preference before arriving at Goldsmiths and then during orientation you find out which courses you’ve been put into. You can change courses but it’s more of a process than at Hampshire since you have to notify Hampshire about it and then provide proof that your change has been okay-ed. Each course also meets only once a week for two hour-long periods; an hour lecture and an hour seminar (which can be back to back or at different times in the same day). This was a little weird coming from Hampshire’s discussion-based classes, but the lectures were mostly interesting and each professor (or ‘tutors’ as they’re called in England) approached the seminars differently.

It might be hard to find courses that are exactly what you’re studying at Hampshire (after all, Hampshire courses are absurdly specific a lot of the time) but it’s very easy to find courses that relate to what you’re studying– you just need to make the connections yourself. A good way to do this is with the final essay which is the end product of each course. Every course has its own requirements but generally I had little to no coursework aside from weekly readings and the final essays. Goldsmiths didn’t feel as academically rigorous as Hampshire feels, but this turned out to be a good thing since it left me more time to explore London and do some traveling! Between the lack of busy work and courses only meeting once a week, I ended up having quite a few days off each week to do other things.

Loring Hall

As for housing, it was pretty much what I expected. International students are all put in Loring Hall, which is right on campus and is a short walk away from all of the academic buildings. Goldsmiths is also right in the middle of New Cross and right off the main street, which is convenient for eating out, grocery shopping, and going out to pubs 🙂 Loring Hall is a big complex of student housing buildings, which are divided into flats of about eight people. Each flat has a shared kitchen/common space with two stoves, two sinks, and two sets of fridges and freezers (but small British ones), so there was a lot of space to cook. The rest of the flat is just individual rooms (all singles) which are about the size of a single Hampshire room but with a small personal bathroom attached. The bathroom was definitely a plus. I was surprised to find that I was put in a flat with four of the other Hampshire students who came and then two other international students (one of which mysteriously disappeared to some other flat…). I was expecting to be housed with some British students, but it was a great experience living with everyone in my flat and it was great to get to know people from Hampshire that I didn’t know well or at all previously 🙂

My room

 

other side of my room (bathroom on the left)

 

view out my window

 

Mo in our kitchen 🙂

Overall, Goldsmiths has its differences but the general vibe of the students and faculty is very Hampshire-esque. A lot of students that I met and talked to seemed to be both open-minded and politically-minded in a very Hampshire sort of way. There is a lot of student activism going on around campus and there are constantly events and screenings having to do with different issues of awareness.

Since Goldsmiths isn’t an isolated campus and many students live off campus in other parts of London, there isn’t as much of a solid community feeling to the school but you can still find that sense of community if you look. There are many societies (clubs) that you can join even if you’re only going to be there for a semester and there are a lot of student events at the Student Union that run on a weekly basis, so it’s easy to meet other students.

Since I mentioned the Student Union, let me just say that this place is fantastic. The SU is all in one building and the second floor houses the Natura Cafe, which is an all-natural vegetarian cafe that serves up great breakfast and lunch options as well as coffee and tea and it is also full of comfy couches. It’s a good place to get work done and it was a nice option in New Cross where bustling coffee shops with wifi like the ones in Amherst and Northampton are pretty hard to find. On the top floor of the SU there is a bar and two outdoor patios as well as seating and a dancefloor/stage. The bar seems to be open pretty much all of the time, so if you need a drink in between classes that’s the place to go (just kidding, kind of). The SU also hosts student events on weeknights which are a good option for getting out of your room and having a fun night while not traveling too far away. Every Tuesday night is quiz and karaoke night, which we all started going to every week, and every Wednesday night is Club Sandwich, which is just a big dance party with a DJ and deals on drinks. The SU was definitely one type of place that all of us Hampshire students wished we could see at Hampshire as well (and we all agreed that the Tavern could use some more excitement, just saying…).

Overall, studying at Goldsmiths was a good experience. It was a little different that what I had expected when I arrived, but the students and faculty were welcoming and supportive and I came away with a valuable academic experience. It was good to take a little break from Hampshire and experience a different college setting as well.

 

Kelley’s Visit!

the London Eye

Last Thursday, my girlfriend Kelley came to visit me! She had never been to London before, so I promised that we’d go sight-seeing and find gluten-free fish and chips (she’s gluten-free…). I picked her up on Thursday evening at London Bridge and after some confusion trying to meet up, we headed out to find a place to eat. We walked around the area for a while and then found an Indian restaurant that was on the second floor above a bar. We were a little skeptical but decided to check it out and it turned out to be very nice! The food was good too! It’s been fairly difficult to find good food out here, which is something you should anticipate if you’re traveling to the UK, but the Indian food here has generally been very good (and slightly different from American Indian food) so that’s one cuisine definitely worth seeking out. After dinner, we headed back to New Cross and hung out with everyone at our flat. Kelley’s also a Hampshire student but wasn’t too close with any of the other Hampsters that I live with, so it was nice for everyone to get together.

Kelley and I in front of Big Ben

On Friday, we headed out early-ish to do some sight-seeing. We took the tube to Westminster and just happened to exit right across the river from the London Eye, so we took some pictures since it was a great view. It’s beautiful during the day and at night when it’s all lit up, but unfortunately it’s extremely expensive to ride! Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament were right behind us so we walked over and got a better view then walked down the street to look inside. You can’t go inside, but you can look at it from behind the gate! After that, we checked out Westminster Abbey, which is across the street from Big Ben, and walked around the area for a bit.

I decided to take Kelley to see Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery, so we walked up that way and stopped into a little London gift shop on our way to pick up souvenirs for our families. When we got to Trafalgar Square, Kelley wanted a picture with one of the lions, but she had some trouble climbing up. Luckily, these two nice men (who had jumped up like it was nothing) helped lift her up, so she got her picture 🙂 Then we decided to check out the National Gallery (which is free entrance), which was pretty cool. Neither of us realized that there were so many famous works in there, but it was pretty amazing. They had paintings by Monet, Van Gogh, Manet, and Cézanne to name a few. It was weird but great to see a lot of iconic paintings in person!

Micah and I at the restaurant

After the National Gallery, we headed out to meet up with our friend Micah who also goes to Hampshire but has been studying at Oxford for the year. We had found a restaurant called the Mermaid’s Tail, that serves gluten-free fish and chips, so we decided to meet Micah there. The restaurant was supposed to be in Leicester Square, but when we got there we couldn’t find it! We walked around the area for a while and then found Micah and all of us continued to look, but even after calling the restaurant we couldn’t find it. In the end, it turned out that the Mermaid’s Tail had changed its name to Blue Grill (or something like that), which we had passed like ten times, but we went in and got a very good late lunch/early dinner and Kelley got her fish and chips finally!

On Saturday, we decided to (finally) go see Buckingham Palace with Katie. We took the tube to Green Park and walked through the park to the palace. It wasn’t a super nice day out but the park was beautiful and very green (as is every patch of grass here, even though the sun is never out…). At the end of the park was the Canada Gate and the Canada Memorial, which is a very orante gate dedicated to the members of the Canadian Forces killed in World Wars I and II. We walked past the gate to the palace, which is the official London residence of the Queen. The palace was situated on a large plaza  with the Victoria Memorial in the center. We wanted to take a tour of some of the palace which is usually open to visitors, such as the state rooms, but unfortunately tours were not resuming until late March, so we made due with just seeing the palace from outside the gates. It was huge and surrounded by a beautiful gate, and we got to see some royal guards pacing around outside the main entrance! After seeing the palace, we did get let into the gift shop where we oogled at some very expensive tea sets and tried on beefeater hats 🙂

Buckingham Palace

 

Me in front of the palace

 

the Victoria Memorial

 

Kelley trying on a beefeater hat

The three of us then walked around in search of somewhere to get tea and a bite to eat. We found a little cafe where we got tea and Katie and I got croissants with butter and jam. The waitress was not very nice, but it was good to have something warm to drink on such a cold day! At this point, it was getting late in the afternoon and we wanted to go to a clothes swap that Katie had found out about in Brockley, which is just south of New Cross, so we got back on the tube.

When we got to Brockley we didn’t really know where we were going so we asked multiple people for directions and eventually found our way to the clothes swap. We were surprised to find that it was in a community center of sorts, but it was super cute and a lot of families were there. It was a five pound entrance per family, but the three of us got in as one family and we all picked up some good clothes! I acquired a new sweater, Kelley got a jacket and some shirts, and Katie got a skirt and other great things. As we were getting ready to leave, the space was cleared and a man got up to play some music for everyone, so we decided to stay. It was pretty cool– he played guitar and had a mini drum kit that was all pedal controlled, and a bunch of little kids went up to sing with him. It was an unexpected, but cute/fun evening!

Kelley crossing Abbey Road

 

signing the wall again…

On Sunday, Kelley wanted to see Abbey Road, so we made our way out to go see the studio. It was a terribly cold day, but we got to Abbey Road and set out to take a picture of Kelley crossing. Maybe it was just because it was a Sunday, but the road was a LOT more crowded than it was when Katie, Mo, and I came before. People kept crossing and the traffic was heavier too so it was pretty hectic and hard to get a good picture. But eventually, I got a picture of Kelley crossing Abbey Road without too many cars in the background! After taking the picture, we headed over to the studio to go sign the wall. We brought a big fat sharpie, and Kelley signed the wall. I also signed it again, and we walked along reading the funny things that other people had written. While we were taking pictures in front of the studio, an old man came up to us and handed us a flyer to go see a Beatles memorabilia shop down the road. We decided to check it out, so we walked for a bit and found the shop (which was tiny). There was a nice man working there who told us all about the shop and the various records and souvenirs that they had for sale. They also had a TV monitor with the live webcam of Abbey Road displayed in the store, which was funny to watch (maybe they had been watching us before?). Kelley bought a few little things, including a funny sign for her door that said “BEWARE! SUPER FAN!” under a very retro looking picture of the Beatles.

When we left the shop, we headed back to the tube to go to Portobello Market. I hadn’t been to the market before, but it is known to have a flea market and it’s on Portobello Road, which has many antique shops and other stores along it. We walked for a long time and couldn’t find the flea market, but we stopped to get hot chocolate (where I think my debit card and ID got stolen) and kept walking until we found it. Unfortunately, we got there a little too late because everyone was packing up their stands, but I’ll have to go back some other time a little earlier.

After that, we left and went back to New Cross since Kelley had an absurdly early flight back to Berlin on Monday morning. It turned out that after waking up at 2:00 and taking a bus to a train to the airport, her flight was bumped to the next day by EasyJet and they wouldn’t change her ticket free of charge, so she came back and spent an extra day here before doing it all over on Tuesday morning. All in all it was a lovely weekend though and I’m really happy she got to come!

Edinburgh!

Now that I’m all caught up, I can write about my trip to Edinburgh at the end of last week (reading week). This trip was sort of a last minute decision between Mo, Katie, and I but I’m really glad that we made it happen because Edinburgh was such a cool city!

We decided to take the train from London to Edinburgh, which was about a 4 1/2 hour trip each way. On the way there, the overground train we needed to take to Kings Cross was cancelled and the next one arrived 20 minutes later, so we had to hustle through the underground making transfers until we got to Kings Cross and we ended up running to the track that our train was leaving from, only to get there just as it was pulling out of the station! We had literally missed it by seconds, so we were disappointed but we got our tickets changed for free and got the next train which came an hour later. It ended up working in our favor since we had time to get lunch and take cash out at the station. I was really glad that we ended up taking the train instead of flying because the train ride to Scotland was beautiful and I got a good view of the English countryside and the seaside. There were a lot of horses and sheep grazing along the way and everything was so green! I actually took a bunch of pictures while on the train but my camera somehow deleted those ones 😦

We got to Edinburgh around 3:30 so we had some time to get settled in our hostel and then walk around and explore a bit. We stayed at Princes St. East Backpackers which was one of the cheaper options on such short notice, but ended up being a pretty good deal at  £17 for two nights (princes depend on rooms and dates). The hostel was very centrally located, which was definitely a plus. We booked three beds in a mixed six-person dorm but it turned out that we were the only ones staying in that room for both nights so we had the room to ourselves, which was nice. The hostel wasn’t anything fancy but it had a lot of character and the people who worked there and who were staying there were nice. There were a lot of murals all over the walls in the hallways which was cool too! We were only staying for two nights so I didn’t bother showering (don’t judge me), but if you do end up staying there, they don’t provide towels so that would be something to bring. There is also no breakfast provided, but they do have self-catering facilities so you can get food at the grocery store and cook it there. The one thing that I wasn’t crazy about was that the doors had no locks for the dorm rooms. They did have lockers in each room but you had to either bring your own lock or rent one from the reception desk. But it didn’t end up being too much of a problem since no one else was sharing our room and we kept our valuables on us for the most part.

our bar food feast

 

Rose Street

So on Thursday we checked into the hostel (which was right across from the train station) and then headed outside to check out the city. We walked along Princes Street where there were a lot of shops like Primark (our favorite), H&M, and Top Shop, as well as some touristy Scotland stores. Then we walked around through the Princes Street Gardens, which is a fairly big park in the center of Edinburgh that’s located right at the base of the hill where the Edinburgh Castle is. We decided to come on a very nice day and the sun was still out, which was definitely a nice change from the dreary London weather that we’ve been having recently! We passed by the National Gallery and continued walking down Princes Street and onto Shandwick Place, where we stopped at a pub for some drinks and a snack. We all got different flavored ciders which were crazy good (I got wild berry, Mo got strawberry lime, and Katie got orange ginger) and we shared a humongous plate of onion rings, chicken wings, sausage, garlic bread, and potato wedges. After that we were tired and full, so we decided to walk around some more and head in the direction of the hostel. We stumbled upon Rose Street, which is super cute and has a lot of restaurants, pubs, and shops. At the end of Rose Street was a Sainsbury’s so we stopped there to pick up some alcohol and snacks for later.

Back at the hostel, we rested for a while and then went to the dining room for their Anti-Valentine’s Day party which we were told about. It was cute and they had someone DJ-ing and lots of candy. We talked to a few people- a woman from Australia who had just decided to come to Edinburgh, and a guy from New Castle (where Geordie Shore [the British version of Jersey Shore] takes place!) who was studying at the University of Edinburgh. We stayed there for a little while and then decided to go out and find Cowgate Street, where the guy said there were good places to go out at night. We headed in completely the wrong direction and were sent further in the wrong direction by two people that we asked for directions, so we didn’t find Cowgate but we ended up getting fries (or chips here) and pizza at this little shop. We then realized that we were exhausted and full again so we decided to call it a night and go back to the hostel.

the three of us in front of Edinburgh Castle

On Friday we got up early so we could do a full day of sight seeing. Our first stop was Edinburgh Castle which was amazing. The castle is located on top of a big hill in the middle of the city, so we had to walk up it to get there (we all have very nice calves now) but it was totally worth it because the castle was beautiful up close and you get an amazing view of Edinburgh from there! We thought going inside the castle would be free, but it turned out to be £14.50 for tickets. We splurged anyway and weren’t disappointed- the castle was beautiful inside and it was a nice sunny day again. They were also running free tours by the hour so we were shown around by an adorable tour guide who told us all about the history of the castle and all of the buildings inside of it. We got to see St. Margaret’s Chapel (which is the oldest building in the castle since it was once destroyed completely except for the chapel), the Scottish National War Memorial, the Royal Palace (where the Scottish Crown Jewels are), the Great Hall (soldiers’ barracks), the Prisons of War (where POWs were kept), and the One o’clock Gun (which was never fired for some reason…). It was a pretty cool experience and the views of the city were unbelievable.

view of Edinburgh from the castle

 

walking on our tour of the castle

 

St. Margaret’s Chapel

 

Scottish National War Memorial

 

Royal Palace

The Elephant House

After the castle, we decided to make our way to where Cowgate really was just to check it out for later. We walked down from the castle to the Royal Mile, which is the city center. There were a lot of shops there and restaurants as well as some street performers and a lot of bagpipers! St. Giles Cathedral is along the Royal Mile as well. We continued to wander around and ended up finding The Elephant House cafe, which is where J.K. Rowling wrote the Harry Potter books on paper napkins. This was one spot that Mo wanted to visit in particular, and we were going to find it on Saturday but since we stumbled upon it, we decided to go in and get some lunch. It was pretty crowded but we got a place to sit and the food there was amazing. They have a lot of lunch options and a whole case of delicious-looking sweets as well as coffee and teas. I got a sweet chili chicken sandwich, which was one of the best things I’ve eaten while being in the UK, and we all had to get dessert because it looked so good so I got what was called something like a ‘crispy Mars square’, which was basically a rice krispie treat baked between two layers of chocolate and it tasted vaguely like a Mars bar (although I’m not sure how that actually factored into it). The cafe was super cute and had elephants all over the place! There were pictures of them up on the walls, a case of little elephant figurines, and even wooden elephant chairs. Mo also told us that the bathrooms were a hot spot for Harry Potter fans to come and write on the walls so we all took turns going to the bathroom and looking at all the little notes that fans had written to J.K. Rowling as well as funny Harry Potter-related comments:

Once we were fueled up, we headed back out and wandered around some more. We made our way down to Cowgate and we found the clubs and bars that we had been looking for. We then followed the street onto Grassmarket where there were little cafes, shops, and art galleries. We stopped into a

a cow on cowgate street

vintage-y thrift shop, which had some cool clothes and a buy one get one free sale on belts so I picked up a couple of those. We also stopped into a joke shop, a cute little hand-painted tea pot/ tea cup store, and an old book store as we made our way back to High Street (the Royal Mile). It was getting later in the afternoon so we decided to make our way back to the area our hostel was in so we could drop off some stuff and get ourselves together before the ghost tour that we were taking at 7:15 that night. We made our way back to Princes Street and popped into a couple of clothing stores along the way to kill some time. None of us really got much but Top Shop was having a good sale on underwear so I got a few pairs and Mo got a cute romper there too! After shopping, we went back to the hostel to rest for a while before going on the ghost tour.

The ghost tour left from High Street at 7:15 so we went and got our tickets a little beforehand. Both Katie and I were nervous about going because we’re both scared of ghosts and graveyards at night, but Mo was really excited and agreed to let us both cling to her the whole time… so that’s what we did. The tour was led by a very theatrical Scottish woman who took us around some backstreets and areas of the city that were supposedly haunted by various ghosts and she told us some pretty gruesome (true) stories about everything from children who had the black plague and were taken away to be boarded up in houses together until they died, to a Scottish family who came to Edinburgh shortly before citizens began disappearing one by one until they were discovered to have slaughtered and eaten them and left their body parts in a cave that was discovered by a family that survived their cannibalism, to the story of two Irish men who came to Edinburgh and started a business of getting young people drunk and then suffocating them to sell their bodies to medical students for a hefty price. She took us through the oldest graveyard in Edinburgh, which was really creepy and is supposedly the most haunted graveyard since a tremendous amount of people were buried there. The tour ended with her showing us one of Edinburgh’s underground vaults which were used for many terrible things. The one that we went into was used to torture women who were suspected of being witches. We did make it through alive and we didn’t see any ghosts (thank god), so it was a good experience in the end and we learned a lot!

After the ghost tour we got dinner at a Thai/Indian restaurant on High Street that was actually really good. I got my Thai favorite, massaman curry, and it was great! After dinner we went back to the hostel for some drinks and then went back out to Cowgate and ended up at the Cabaret Voltaire which was a cool club. We got free entry vouchers from a guy outside and discounted drink bracelets so we gave it a try and found that the music and atmosphere were great. There were two DJs in different rooms and it was pretty crowded but the music and dancing were good and we stayed there for a while.

On Saturday, our last day, we had to be out of the hostel by 10:30 am even though our train didn’t leave until 5:00. So we got all of our stuff and left to go see everything that we had missed. We headed over to Calton Hill, which is a park where there are some monuments including the National Monument, Nelson’s Monument (which you can walk up), and the Dugald Stewart Monument. The City Observatory is also on Calton Hill and you can stroll along the Hume Walk for a panoramic view of Edinburgh. We also got a good view of Arthur’s Seat, which is the largest part of the Arthur’s Seat Volcano (which isn’t active, don’t worry). You can climb up Arthur’s Seat but we didn’t have the time or energy to do it so maybe if I come back I’ll make that hike.

National Monument

 

Dugald Stewart Monument

 

Nelson’s Monument

 

Arthur’s Seat

After Calton Hill, we decided to make our way towards St. Mary’s Cathedral, which is on the other side of Edinburgh, to the west. Luckily, Edinburgh is a fairly small city so although the walk took a while, it wasn’t too bad. Along the way, we stopped for lunch at a pub on Rose Street where I got another chile chicken sandwich (I must have a problem…) with chips. We left after lunch and found St. Mary’s and were able to go inside and admire the architecture and all of the stained glass windows. The inside was beautiful and they had a huge organ which was being played while we were there.

St. Mary’s Cathedral

 

inside the cathedral

After the cathedral, we walked down along the west side of the city because we hadn’t explored that part before. We passed by the Lyceum theatre and the Filmhouse and back towards Grassmarket Street again, where we stopped into a little cafe called Cafe Jacques (and since Jacques is Mo’s last name, we had to go in). I got some tea and Mo got cheesecake and we sat for a while. At this point, we were heading over to a shop that we had seen the night before called Miss Katie Cupcakes (and since, Katie’s name is Katie, we had to go in) that was closed then. Of course, we wanted to go get cupcakes there before we left so we made our way over only to discover that they didn’t sell cupcakes at all! The shop was cute though, and sold little gifts and cute jewelry, but we were still disappointed.

We had passed another cupcake shop on Rose Street that looked really good, so we decided to circle back around to that one since we still had some time before our train. When we got there, there was nowhere to sit but we still got cupcakes and all of them looked crazy good. I ended up getting a Smarties cupcake (Smarties here are an entirely different candy and are kind of like m&m’s but the chocolate is slightly fruit-flavored), which was amazingly good and Mo got a chocolate cheesecake cupcake 🙂

We then headed over to the train station to sit down and get food to take on the train with us, and we ended up making the right train that time!

The past week (and a half)

It feels like I haven’t posted here in forever, which is weird because I had this week off for what Goldsmiths calls ‘reading week’ where we have a week-long break to read (?) and start to get our final essays rolling. We basically just have reading work to do all semester until the end when we have a final essay due for each course. As an international student, my essay requirements are different so mine has to be shorter than full-time students, but it’s good to have some time to start thinking about which prompts I’m going to respond to and what sources I’ll be using. I did do some of that, but for the last part of the week I was in Ediburgh with Katie and Mo (I’ll do a separate post on that trip).

Harrods

A lot has been going on. Last week I made a trip to Harrods, which is a HUGE department store in London that has been around since the 1880s. It’s a pretty high-end department store that sells everything from bedding to toys to fresh food and groceries. I wanted to go and get gifts for friends and family, especially since Harrods teas are known to be very good! I spent a good while wandering around the store, which occupies a 5-acre stretch of the city. They had delicious looking baked goods everywhere, including in their tea room which I didn’t go into but I admired the little cakes they had displayed outside of it. I also went up to their gift shop where I got some gifts to bring back home. There’s a huge candy/toy shop which I went into, of course. I actually found a Papabubble stand right inside of the candy shop, which is funny because it’s one of my favorite little candy shops in New York (they make little fruit-flavored hard candies and you can watch them hand-roll and bake them right in the store).

little pastries outside of the tea room

the Queen’s Jubilee tea!

huge meringues!

the food courts

I also had to venture into the Harrods food markets which are expansive and include a full meat market, a produce market, a Godiva chocolate room, a copule of restaurants, and a prepared food room with baked goods, cakes, sushi, traditional British pies, sandwiches, salads, and a lot of other yummy things. I spent way too much time walking around trying to decide what to get for lunch, but I finally settled on a mini pie filled with turkey, gammon, and cranberry, which was really good!

After Harrods I wandered around London for a while since it was a pretty nice day. I walked towards Hyde Park and went through some nice neighborhoods right in the city as well as through my first subway (which isn’t a train station, like in New York, but a little tunnel under a busy road that acts as an underground crosswalk so traffic isn’t disturbed). I made it to Hyde Park and walked through it for a while, then exited and headed towards Oxford Circus where I got the tube back to New Cross. The walk was really nice and helped me get a better sense of the layout of London 🙂

some nice houses on my walk

the Wellington Arch by Hyde Park

On Thursday night, Maggie and I went to go see a play called One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show at the Tricycle theater by Kilburn in northeast London. Tricycle was actually a pretty cool space because along with the theatre there was also a cinema there where they show art films, mainstream flicks, and family-oriented movies, and they host creative learning workshops for young people. The theatre was set up really uniquely as well with sort of a cozy scaffold-like seating set up that was really intimately placed with the stage. And of course, the play was really really good! It was set in the 1970s and was structured like a 70s sitcom about a black family living in Philly. You can read about the plot if you click on the link above, but the play did a really good/interesting job of commenting not only on issues of race and class relevant to the 70s and also today in the U.S., but it was also a hilarious and provocative critique of the black family sitcom and representations of black people on TV. Overall, we were both laughing the whole time and we got a lot out of it, so it was a good night out! The only qualm we had was that the American accents could have used a little more work 😛

Last Saturday I met my second-cousin Laurie in Camden Town to get lunch and walk around for a bit. We met up and walked into Camden Market where we soon found a little Mexican restaurant called Cafe Chula where we got the best Mexican food that both of us have had while being in London (and she’s been here a lot longer than I have!). I got some great chicken tacos and we both got glasses of some very tart (but delicious) limeade.

After lunch, we walked around the markets a little bit more, although it was a dreary drizzly day so we tried to find the indoor part of the market but eventually just ended up walking to The Regent’s Park which was about ten minutes away. Even though it wasn’t the nicest day, the park was still beautiful and really big! Laurie told me that one nice thing about London is that there are a lot of big parks spread out all over the place so wherever you live, there’s probably a good park nearby. I’ll have to come back in late March and hopefully the gardens will be in bloom! We walked through the park and then found a cafe in the park where we got tea and scones and sat for a while. The scones were really good and were raisin scones sliced in half with jam and creme fraiche sandwiched in between the halves. We then had to leave the park because it closed at 5:00 (early because it gets dark early still) and we headed towards the nearest tube station, which was Baker Street (by 221B- Sherlock Holmes’ residence, where there is a big statue of him as well). It was really nice to see her, since I’ve been away from my family and I haven’t seen her in a while!

Abbey Road and a teeny bit of Camden…

Abbey Road Studios

So last weekend I didn’t do much because my throat hurt a lot and I practically lost my voice (but really, sounded like a middle school boy because my voice was cracking all over the place!). But last Friday before I fell completely ill, I managed to make it over to Abbey Road with Katie and Mo. Abbey Road is in Westminster, right outside of Camden, which is like northwest London. The iconic road/crosswalk is located right by Abbey Road Studios, which is still a fully-functioning recording studio and apparently doesn’t do tours or allow people inside. However, they do run a live webcam of the crosswalk so you can watch people taking the same picture on the their website- haha

We took the tube to St. John’s Wood where there was already Beatles memorabilia for sale in the station. We thought we’d have more trouble finding Abbey Road than we did, since Mo wrote down a complicated set of directions on her phone, but we asked a newspaper guy how to get there and he pointed us in the right direction. It wasn’t too far of a walk from the station and when we got there, we were surprised to find a fairly empty street aside from another group of boys who were standing outside of the studio. Here’s the thing: the crosswalk pictured in the Beatles’ cover art is not regulated by crossing lights of any kind so you just have to walk across as cars stop and because of that, the consistent traffic-stopping for tourists to take pictures is probably very irritating to drivers. So we crossed over to go look at the studio while we thought up a game-plan for taking our picture. We were already one Beatle short since there were only three of us (Grayson was going to be our fourth Beatle but he was having medical troubles that day) and we were nervous about holding up traffic.

The studio itself was pretty cool (the outside of it, that is) because there’s a wall/gate thing in front of the building where people come and write things to mark that they were there or to pay tribute to the Beatles. It was neat seeing all of the writing on the wall and all of the favorite Beatles lyrics from around the world! We made our own little mark on the wall too: 

this one made me curious…

one of my favorite Beatles songs…

our Argentinian friends outside the studio

The boys were standing next to us and I thought I heard one of them speak Italian so of course, Katie and Mo wanted me to go over and ask them to take a picture of us crossing the road in Italian. I was hesitant to do it because I barely remember any Italian since high school, but finally Katie asked them if they would take the picture and they said they would (in English), and it turned out they were Argentinian so it was probably a good thing that I didn’t try to speak to them in Italian! But they were very nice about it and one of them even volunteered to be our fourth Beatle 🙂 Since they had taken the picture before us, they tried to direct us and stopped traffic but despite a couple of attempts, our picture was not quite right. But it was still fun and funny and here’s our rendition of the photo: 

Katie and Mo

some Camden art…

stores with funky ads/art above them in Camden Town

After Abbey Road, we decided to hop on over to Camden Town, which was a short train ride away. We didn’t really spend too much time there but we were starving so we stopped at a Spanish tapas restaurant for lunch where they were having a special on tapas and sangria… so we got a few tapas and a jug of sangria to share. We left the restaurant and then walked down the main street which is full of stores and touristy shops and we stopped at an outdoor market with lots of souvenir stands and food. We kind of rushed through it  since we had to get back to New Cross, but I did get an awesome shirt with a big pocket that has a giraffe in a Hawaiian shirt sticking out of it (new favorite item of clothing). I will be back to Camden next weekend though, since my aunt offered to show me around and get lunch there!

Brick Lane and Other Stuff…

some artists at work by Brick Lane

I’m trying to be better about keeping a consistent blog, so I’ll tell you a little about last weekend and what I’ve been up to more recently! The last big event was last Thursday, which was Katie’s birthday 😀 We all went out to get Mexican food at this restaurant called Las Iguanas, which was right by the river and had a nice view of the London Eye from outside. Not only was everyone excited to be celebrating Katie’s birthday, but a lot of us were excited to be getting Mexican food because for some reason, ever since we got here, that’s all anyone’s wanted and it’s seemingly hard to come by in New Cross at least. A couple weeks ago, my friend Jordan discovered a Chipotle in London and Grayson and Mo went along to get burritos, but I think I had class and missed out on it. Anyway, Las Iguanas was really good! I got a chimichanga and shared a raspberry tequila drink with Maggie, which was also delicious (but expensive hence the sharing). We then went to a bar in Shoreditch that Sofija had been to, but the upstairs where there’s usually a DJ or live music, was closed off that night so we hopped around to other places in search of somewhere to hang out and dance a bit. We eventually found a bar called Traffik, which was fun and had good music so we stayed there for a while. Unfortunately, Katie’s phone and ipod went missing so that put a damper on things, but overall it was a good night.

Katie and a cat

 

a light tower (?) on Brick Lane

Over the weekend, I went out to Brick Lane (which is also in Shoreditch) with Grayson and Katie. Brick Lane is basically a street full of shops and art galleries but on the weekends there are different markets with food, crafts, art, and vintage things. The best day to go is apparently Sunday because the biggest market happens then, but we went on Saturday and there was still a lot going on. There are also a lot of Bangladeshi curry houses along Brick Lane. We stopped by an artist’s shop where there were about four or five cats just wandering around and Katie freaked out because she loves cats- haha. We also popped into a bunch of vintage clothing stores which were all having good sales, but a lot of the clothes were way too expensive to begin with! There was one cool vintage store that was in like a basement/warehouse area and was almost like an indoor vintage market with a bunch of stands with different clothing and accessories. We stopped and got lunch in The Old Truman Brewery, which is the former site of a brewery that was converted into an open food market full of stands from different cuisines. After eating, we just wandered around for a bit and saw a lot of the street art that Brick Lane is famous for. It was cool to experience the street art there because although New York has a lot of street art as well, the art was framed in a way that seemed more ‘high art’ than ‘street art’ but it was still outside. We passed a couple of large canvases that were just hanging up on the side of a building and there were random sculptures on top of buildings and in unexpected places, which was cool.

my rose plant 🙂

And then today, I finally went to the infamous Poundland (which is just like a dollar store that I’ve heard a lot about…) in the Lewisham Shopping Centre. It was only a short bus ride away and the shopping centre was kind of like a mini mall with a bunch of other shops like Primark (my new favorite store), H&M, and even a Sainsbury’s (our local grocery store). Poundland was awesome though, and I got some good stuff for a very good price. I also picked up a potted pink rose plant from a stand at an outdoor market right outside of the shopping centre because I’ve been missing having a plant in my room even though I’m a notoriously bad plant mother. But hopefully this plant will not die on me and I’ll get to enjoy its presence for a while!

Greenwich Market and Last Week…

Walking around Greenwich…

It’s been about a week since I’ve last posted and I’ve mostly been pretty busy with schoolwork but some other things have been going on too! Last week, I made a trip out to Greenwich (which is an area not too far northeast from New Cross) with some other students to go to Greenwich Market and explore the rest of the neighborhood there. It was a pretty short bus ride getting there from New Cross, which was nice. The tube is pretty good for travelling into and around central London, but out here the buses are a better bet sometimes (and cheaper!). The bus system’s a little more complicated, though so I’m still getting used to navigating it…

Greenwich Market

Of course, we chose a super cold day to walk around Greenwich, but the market was still really cool (no pun intended). There were a bunch of food stands of all different cuisines, including traditional British roasts and sides, Indian dishes, Japanese teriyaki, Italian snacks, and Portuguese dishes. There were also so yummy dessert stands including a Dutch pancake stand (teeny tiny pancakes with lots of good toppings), a churro stand, a vegan/gluten-free cupcake and baked goods stand, and a crepe stand. Aside from the food, the market was filled with local artists’ stands and crafts. There was a lot of nice clothing and jewelry and other fun gifts. The cool thing about the market was the middle part was all outdoor stands but on the edges of the outdoor space, there were a bunch of storefronts that had good food and gifts as well. A lot of restaurants advertised hot mulled wine (which was tempting) and there was a cute little old-timey candy shop.

National Maritime Museum

We spent a while at the market looking around and then got something to eat. I got some great chicken tikka masala at the Indian food stand and then all of us just HAD to get  crepes for dessert. We got to the crepe stand just as the lady running it left to go somewhere, and we waited (very impatiently) for about 20 minutes until she came back, but the anticipation made the ultimate crepe experience much better. I got a crepe with nutella and bananas.. mmm…

The Royal Observatory up on the hill

Our group split up before and a few of the girls we were with went off to find the Greenwich Prime Meridian Line, which is a site to see in Greenwich. The Prime Meridian is the line that marks zero degrees longitude, so it’s special! So we decided  to try to find them and see the line ourselves. We wandered around for a while, following signs to it and found ourselves at the National Maritime Museum which had lovely grounds and big anchors at the entrance. We walked around the museum for a bit and finally found more signs to the Meridian Line, which is at the Royal Observatory. We did find the Royal Observatory after some walking, but we found that it was on top of a very large snowy hill which was pretty much blocked off for sledding. Between feeling like our toes were going to fall off and not knowing how to get to the Observator (we asked a museum guard about it and he basically just laughed at us), we decided to try again on a less snowy day. But we did get a good walking tour of Greenwich!

Let’s see, what else happened last week? I’ve mostly been pretty busy with my courses now that I’m getting into the swing of things here. I’ve had a decent amount of reading each week, which is good, but we never seem to talk about it specifically in class (which isn’t too much motivation to read…) so I’m definitely getting used to things being different than they are at Hampshire. I also did my laundry for the first time since being here just as I was running out of clean underwear. Apparently the laundry at Goldsmiths is not so great and the dryers only dry your clothes partially… and you have to pay for the laundry on top of it. So Maggie and I decided to take a chance on the laundromat in town instead. Ultimately, it was worth it. It was a little expensive but our clothes came out dry and it didn’t take too much time so I’ll be back at least a couple more times!

Tate Modern and a Great Walk Around London…

Me in front of Big Ben!

Yesterday was the touristy day and it was jam-packed with excitement! I woke up to a snowy morning and the snow was actually sticking, unlike the other day when it snowed and turned into slush within an hour… But yesterday the snowflakes were substantial and it pretty much snowed all day. I planned on going out early with Katie and Mo (Hampshire flatmates… and to avoid further confusion, my flatmates are Katie, Mo, Maggie, and Grayson from Hampshire and Samantha who is also a visiting student from the U.S.) to go sightseeing in London today and even though it was snowing, we still wanted to do something fun so we decided to go to the Tate Modern museum. The Tate Modern is cool because it’s all modern art and has cool exhibits, but most importantly it’s free! It’s also in South Bank, which is on our side of the Thames River, so it was a short tube ride away.

One of the many John Heartfield collages commenting on the Nazi regime in Germany

“Variation on the Form of An Anchor” by tristram Hillier

It took us a little while to actually find the museum after exiting the tube, but we’ve pretty much lost all sense of embarrassment about asking for directions in our ignorant American accents, so we got directions and found it soon enough. The museum was huge! Each floor had different collections and there were three floors open to free visitors, so it took a while to get through it before we got too hungry and tired. I really enjoyed a lot of the art (although with modern art some of it is a little unimpressive for me sometimes…). Here are some pictures of things I liked…

Shakespeare’s Globe

After walking through the galleries, we stopped for a hot chocolate break in the cafe at the museum and got some really good hot chocolate with marshmallows and whipped cream– crazy! Then we left the museum and walked along the river to see the view and look for a place to get lunch. We saw Central London across the river and passed by multiple bridges, including Millenium Bridge, Southwark Bridge, and London Bridge in the distance. We also walked past Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre (which isn’t the original Globe because that one burned down, but is a recreation of it and a museum) along the river.

At this point, we were starving so we found a burger place that looked nice and got fantastic food there. They had a good discounted lunch menu so we all got burgers and fries for a good price. I got a BBQ burger and a side of fries, which turned out to be really really skinny, but really really good. They even had malt vinegar to put on the fries!

Southwark Bridge

After lunch, we decided to suck it up and do some more sightseeing in the snow. We crossed Southwark Bridge in hopes of ending up by Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, but unfortunately we realized that we were definitely not in the right place once we had crossed the bridge. We ended up by St. Paul’s Cathedral (which is cool too) and we were supposed to be much farter west. We weren’t quite sure how long it would take us to walk there, so instead of hopping on the tube, we decided to chance it and ended up walking a longgg way. It was fun though, because we got a good mini walking tour and saw some more of London

Somerset House

that way. We passed by the Royal Courts of Justice, King’s College, Somerset House, Trafalgar Square, and finally made it to Westminster.

When we finally saw Big Ben up ahead, we knew it was worth the walk. All of the buildings were beautiful and the walk up to the Houses of Parliament was beautiful too. We passed by the Guards Museum and many statues. Everything looked nice in the snow too! Big Ben was the first thing we saw and it was definitely something to see, it was all lit up since it was dark when we got there, and the Houses of Parliament were lit up behind it too. The buildings were so old and beautiful and really big! We had a good view of the London Eye, which was lit up in blue behind everything. Westminster Abbey was also magnificent and a lot to take in. It was huge and had beautiful stained glass windows and very ornate old architecture. I don’t really know what else to say, but I took a lot of pictures so here are some of them!

Big Ben

The London Eye

Houses of Parliament

Westminster Abbey

more of Westminster Abbey

 

 

A Day with Denise…

A couple days ago, I met up with my friend Denise who is a friend from home, who’s also studying abroad in London this year. She’s been at LSE (London School of Economics) since the fall, so she knows a lot more about London than I do… and will hopefully impart some of her knowledge on me.

I met her at LSE and we got free food from the Hare Krishna cart on campus, which provides free meals to people who can’t afford food and in this case, to struggling college students. It was pretty good! We got big helpings of lentil and potato dishes with a side of bread. I got to see a bit of LSE’s campus, which is pretty integrated into the city.

street performer

Later, we met up with a girl from Denise’s home college in the U.S., who’s studying at King’s College this semester. We all got some hot drinks and then headed out to wander around London, heading towards Oxford Street. We went through Covent Garden Market where there are shops and a big plaza. There was a shirtless street performer in the plaza who was standing on top of a skateboard on top of a bike, with a stringless tennis racket around his neck. He proceeded to fit the racket down his whole body by dislocating both of his shoulders (which was admittedly, disgusting), and he got it fully down and stepped out of it.

After more wandering, we found our way to Primark, which is like Forever 21 but cheaper. This store was nuts. It had at least four floors and everything from shoes to clothes to bedding. I got a pair of jeans for £5 and a cute sweater as well as some cheap new boots (because mine are wearing thin)! It took a lot of self-control to not buy everything though, because they had a lot of cute stuff for really good prices…