+107

..."Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."

(ps, lies! I didn't take any new pictures. Sorry.)

+101

101 days in London, 1 week left.

Yep, this time next week I'll have been on a plane for a few hours already, making my thousands-mile journey back to the ones I love. So what have I been doing with my last full Sunday in London? Homework, of course. Sigh.

But oh, after tomorrow at precisely 11:30 am, I am free from class and free to spend 5 1/2 days documenting everything about London I'm going to miss for you (and, you know, experiencing it too, but I just realised how few pictures of London I've actually taken).

In honor of pictures to come, I suppose I'll grace you with part two of my Germany photo series: Tour of Darmstadt.

Darmstadt is the city I spend most of my time in whilst in Germany, because it's where my friend Marie lives. Darmstadt is about 20 minutes outside of Frankfurt, and full of its own historical vibrancy. Of course, we visited Frankfurt too, but it wasn't a whole lot more than some banks and skyscrapers and tourists, so we didn't visit it for THAT long.













What an adorable city!

+99

The discarded carcasses of daily newspapers are reduced to pulpy mash beneath the feet of a restless herd, pawing and pushing their way down rain soaked stairs and into the underground station; disinterested eyes look at everything while seeing nothing.

My days with London are winding down; in a short week I'll be back in the warm arms of home. Today was my last class for Art Appreciation, and my school schedule has been reduced to a due paper and a test on Monday. Then, I'm free. I also stopped by the IE office to retrieve my activity deposit (or what was left of it) and my prints as well (I won a photo contest, only an honorable mention and a 2nd, but good enough, so they made prints of my photos for me).

Oh, but Wednesday! Wednesday we toured the Tower of London, very nice, and then I split an order of fish and chips with my friend Sarah. After that I headed to South Kensington to view the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibit, and naturally I fell in love (no pun intended). Then I went to Regents Park to eat that elusive meal hidden between lunch and dinner, and to read the end of my second free sci-fi book, The Godwhale (which I picked up rather spontaneously at the Imperial College Union some time ago).

Yesterday, my friend Crystal and I had some Chinese in Chi-town and then paid 10 pounds to watch Madame de Sade, featuring Judi Dench and Rosemund Pike (of Pride and Prejudice fame). Of course, we were at the very top of the theatre and had to stand for the entire hour and 45 minutes, but in my mind, it was completely worth it. The set, costumes, and ambiance were magical, and from that height you're really forced to admire the pitch and sway of their voices. Sigh. ^^


My I'm chatty today.

+99

Germany!

Friday, my friend Marie's parents took us on a boat ride to go explore a fortress in St. Goar, along the River Rhine. It was a beautiful, sunny 75 degrees all weekend, and there were castles along the river as far as the eye could see. Rowers joined cargo ships in enjoying the weather, and our boat was full of tourists headed to destinations of their own.

+99

An image of the Hindu temple I was telling you about, the Shri Swaminarayan Mandir.

It was quite a trek to get out to it, but I think it was worth it. I really wish our teacher had told us we needed to wear skirts that hit BELOW the knee before we got there, though. I mean, I was modest by today's standards, but I still had to wear a bedsheet before they would let me in. Goodness.

+90

So, I fly out for Frankfurt tomorrow.
Have I begun packing yet? Well, no. Not yet.

I also have to register on Monday (I'll still be in Germany) for my Fall 2009 classes, though I'm not sure what classes I'm going to take yet and we've got a new system this semester besides. So I'm trying to get that figured out first.

Today we went to the Globe Theatre, ole Will's place. It was pretty fun; we had a very entertaining guide to tell us all about it. An American had the bright idea of rebuilding Shakespeare's theatre as it was back in his time, and it opened in 1997 with Henry V. 12 years later work is still being done on the building to make it as accurate as possible, as is the establishment's mission.

I also took a trip to a Hindu temple, which was absolutely astounding. It was made of white marble, almost every inch of which was intricately hand carved by thousands of craftsmen.

Pictures and elaboration to come...I really need to get back to my work.

+89

Hey y'all, what's up with you? Not tons going on in Londontown at the mom., at least for me.
Classes, you know, that sort of thing. Long walks.

I just thought I would supply you with a link to one of the exhibits we visited a couple weeks ago for art class called Mythologies. It was hosted at Haunch of Venison, an art gallery off of Piccadilly Circus, and was actually quite good/very thought provoking. The first line of the program detailing the show goes something like this:

Mythologies explores the stories we tell about the world in order to understand it.

I urge you to keep that line in mind as you look through the works in the current exhibition (which is a feature of the site!) and question what stories the pieces might be telling.

A quotation I would like to leave you with (that was boldly featured on a wall in the exhibition) is from a man named Jorge Luis Borges, which upon recent googling I have discovered had quite a love for quotations and made many of his own. He said some very poetic things, though I'm not sure I agree with all of them.

...animals are divided into (a) those that belong to the Emperor, (b) embalmed ones, (c) those that are trained, (d) suckling pigs, (e) mermaids, (f) fabulous ones, (g) stray dogs, (h) those that are included in this classification, (i) those that tremble as if they were mad, (j) innumerable ones, (k) those drawn with a very fine camel's hair brush, (l) others, (m) those that have just broken a flower vase, (n) those that resemble flies from a distance.

(for those of us with a deep and abiding love for the discreet science of taxonomy)