Exploring Underground and Pub Crawling

We began the morning with a bus tour of London. We saw many of the imposing buildings in the financial district, some of the expensive homes around Grosvenor Square, the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, and St. Paul's Cathedral, just to name a few. Our guide was able to answer every question posed to him without a second's hesitation. Since it was Sunday, we didn't even have to fight the traffic.
Since we had the afternoon free, I grabbed my Oyster card (which is used to get around on the Underground) and headed for Whitechapel. I wanted to visit Hanbury Street, where one of Jack the Ripper's victims, Annie Chapman, met her demise. Today it is a thriving commercial and market area. I found not one, but two, flea markets, the first in Petticoat Lane and the second at the Old Spitalfields Market. The latter is a sort of open air/covered market all at once. It has a roof, but the sides are open to the street. Inside this establishment were tables with every imaginable item, pastries, salads, books, jewelry, knickknacks, clothes, etc. While I hadn't intended to do any shopping, I couldn't help coming away with a bag of goodies. I did walk the length of Hanbury Street, but it was far from being the isolated, spooky area it must have been in 1888. There were cars and people everywhere. There were one or two dark alleys, but it took a little searching to find them. I stopped at the Ten Bells Pub, which several of Jacks victims frequented. It was renamed the Jack the Ripper Pub for a time, but when women's rights groups protested, it became the Ten Bells again. There are several posters on the wall in the stairwell dedicated to the Ripper's crimes.
After leaving Whitechapel, I took a tube ride back to Picadilly Circus and stopped at the John Snow Pub. This pub commemmorates Dr.Snow's discovery that the cholera epidemic of 1854 was being spread through contaminated water from the Broad Street Pump. A replica of the pump, minus the handle he had removed to halt the spread of the disease, is across the street from the pub. Once I entered the pub, the barmaid was kind enough to take me upstairs to show me a replica of the pump handle itself.
On my way back to the flat, I passed a perfume store with a large crowd around the front. Inside was a young man who was offering to give everyone in the crowd free perfume. He was even flinging samples among the bystanders and spritzing those closest to him with perfume.
London is certainly an amazing city. There are so many people from so many places. And the tube is a marvel. One can go just about anywhere in London in a few minutes just by hopping on the Underground. I can't wait to see what new discoveries tomorrow will bring.

The Tower of London

The Tower of London has been many things to England over the years since the white tower was built in the 1200's. It has been a palace, a prison, a home for the Crown Jewels, an execution site, and a major tourist attraction. The photo on the right is of the Traitor's Gate, through which prisoners were brought into the Tower from the Thames. Some of the famous celebrities who entered through this gate were Ann Boleyn, Sir Thomas More, and Catherine Howard. As they passed by London Bridge on the way in, they could view the heads of anyone who had been recently executed, as they were displayed from London Bridge. Alas, the executioner's block is now behind glass, and no photos are allowed, but it is well worth a look. Also on the premises is an impressive collection of Henry VIII's armor and weapons.

A Day of Orientation

, Today was a day of getting acquainted with our surroundings. First we had a meeting where we heard from school staff members about the ground rules and programs here at the Study Center. Then we met with the two officers pictured above, who introduced themselves as Fred and Ebiye. They gave us some tips on how to stay safe. Even though London is one of the safest cities in the world, we still need to watch out for pickpockets and ATM scams. Later in the afternoon we had a walking tour of the area to learn about all the best restaurants. We're only a block away from the British Museum. The building we're staying in, the London Study Center for FSU, is 300 years old, and there is supposed to be a ghost here somewhere on the premises. Our flat has two bedrooms, a kitchen, living room, and two baths, and is on two floors. We have a library, three computer labs, a lecture hall, classrooms, and all of London to explore.

We have arrived!

After a perfectly on-time flight from Fort Lauderdale to Atlanta, I caught a second flight to London's Gatwick Airport. Once on the ground, I was met by the London FSU crew, who were waiting in the wings for our arrival. During our coach trip to the London Study Center, we saw a number of places of interest, including Big Ben, Parliament, and the London Eye (which didn't even exist the last time I was in London). After getting our room assignments, we visited the library to get our Internet wireless connection. Later this afternoon we have a welcome get-together to meet everyone. There are six of us in our apartment, but luckily we have two baths and a separate shower. The temperature is pleasant, and life is good.

Gun Control in England

I've been practicing my digital photography and helping my sister with her homework at the same time. She was doing a paper on the NRA and wanted to show what the police in this country are up against. The bullet on the left is a .40 caliber bullet such as a police officer would use in his regulation Glock. The one in the middle is a 7.62 mm bullet for an AK-47. The one on the right is a .50 caliber bullet for a Barrett military rifle. While it is meant for battle conditions, it is becoming popular for street use over here.

Gun control in Britain is very strict. It is illegal to own a handgun or assault weapon there. Bans have become tighter over time, as they have had several unfortunate incidents where large numbers of people were killed with firearms, including an incident in Dunblane, Scotland, where 16 children were killed in a school shooting. Possession of a firearm carries a stiff jail sentence, minimum five years for an adult. Gun licenses may be issued for hunting or if your job requires it, but even most policemen in England still don't carry guns. There are strict application guidelines, including approval by your doctor, a face-to-face interview with a Firearms Enquiriy Officer, and an inspection of your house. This is one of the cultural differences between England and the United States. The British are strong supporters of gun control in the interest of public safety. According to an article in the Washington Post, there were three times as many shooting deaths in Washington D.C. in 2006 as in all of England.

Education Broadens Your Horizons

Like travel, education definitely can broaden a person's horizons beyond the everyday. As I have been practicing digital photography for my upcoming class, I have twice walked around the lake behind our city hall building to take pictures of the scenery and wildlife. I have twice seen a family of moorhens and watched the male valiantly try to distract me from watching his little family. This heron obligingly posed to have his picture taken right next to the library. I have gotten out of the house and experienced nature as a result of my studies.

I have marched out into fields and marshes to collect insects for an entomology class, scooped up a dead rat from the road for zoology, and rejoiced upon slipping in a patch of algae I needed as a sample for botany. My sister and I love to visit cemeteries to look at the headstones. After our botany class, we realized that we were wandering through the cemetery in Micanopy (near Gainesville) studying not the tombstones, but the lichen growing on them. We have examined paintings by Bosch and Botticelli at the Prado Museum in Spain after studying them in class, and taken classes on the Holocaust after visiting Auschwitz in Poland. Education can lead to travel, and travel is always an education. The two go hand in hand. I can think of no better ways to expand one's life experience than these.

More Digital Photography

Today I went for a
walk to practice
taking pictures
of flowers with my new camera. I decided to be
very careful not to invade anyone's privacy by taking pictures of the front of their house or even of plants in their front yard. I would look for
pretty flowers hanging over fences or near the swale. It didn't take long to realize that people very seldom plant really beautiful flowers close to the street. However, I did get a few good shots and managed to take about fifty pictures. I can imagine how quickly I will be able to use up the 1000 photos the salesman promised me I could get onto my memory chip while walking around places like Oxford or Hampton Court. I think I had better buy a couple more before I leave.

This charming little fellow is a curly tailed lizard (yes, that's the name as well as the description). He and his relatives have moved into the neighborhood within the last few years and made themselves right at home. They seem to be flourishing. They get to be about six or eight inches long and very thick around the middle. They aren't afraid of people either. This one just sat and watched me aim and shoot and didn't even bat an eye.

The John Snow Pub

My sister recently finished reading a book called The Ghost Map, by Steven Johnson. This is the remarkable, but true, story of a cholera epidemic that swept through London in 1854 and the doctor who brought it to an end. Dr. John Snow studied the lives of approximately 600 disease victims and came to the conclusion that everyone infected had used the same Broad Street pump for their water, a pump that was in close proximity to a neighborhood privy. He was eventually able to persuade the Parish Council to take the handle off the pump. Once no one could drink from the infected well, the epidemic came to a rapid halt. Dr. Snow was one of the first doctors to study the epidemiology of a disease, and today there is a pub named in his honor on Broadwick Street (Broad Street was renamed in 1936 because there was another street with the same name). Across the street is a replica of the pump in question. One of my tasks once I get to London is to visit the site of this pub and take pictures for my sister. The good news is it appears to be within walking distance of our London quarters.

Digital Photography

This is the first photograph I printed from my new digital camera. This little burrowing owl posed for me for several minutes atop a signpost while I experimented with my zoom feature. When I didn't think I was getting the image as large as I wanted it, I said, "I guess I'm not very good at this yet." With that, he gave a weary owl sigh, rolled his beautiful green eyes, flew down towards me and began walking in my direction, as if to say, "Do I have to do everything?" These owls are protected, but their habitat is still disappearing at an alarming rate.

Primrose Hill

One of the things we're going to do in London is fly kites on Primrose Hill. I found this prospect rather intriguing, as I knew there had to be a reason why we would be doing this particular activity in this particular place. Apparently this is a very high and windy hill and, as such, is a good place to fly kites, but there had to be more to it. According to Wikipedia, a group called Appleton has a song with the lyrics, "Let's go fly a kite on Primrose Hill." Now I was getting somewhere. Searching our textbook, Once Upon a Time in Great Britain, revealed that Mary Poppins herself sought out Primrose Hill for kite flying; and Pongo and Missis, of 101 Dalmatians fame, barked forth their plea for assistance in finding their stolen puppies from its heights. The Martians camped here in War of the Worlds, and a murder was committed here in The Lodger.
There was a real life murder committed here, too, or at least that was where the body was discovered. Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey was found on Primrose Hill, run through by his own sword, in 1678, but evidence indicated that the body had been moved there from another location. Godfrey was surrounded by a great deal of political intrigue and scheming involving an alleged plot by Catholic clerics to murder the king, so there were a number of suspects. Eventually three men were convicted of his murder and hanged on Primrose Hill, although the chief witness against them changed his story so many times nobody knew if it was true. Today the case is considered to be one of history's unsolved mysteries.
On a lighter note, many famous people have lived in the Primrose Hill area, including Helena Bonham Carter (Mrs. Lovett of the version of Sweeney Todd starring Johnny Depp) and Adam Ant.