Holiday Reflections (aka An Ode to Skype)

Hello all!

I am afraid this post is long overdue (and will therefore be a long one). I am sorry and I hope you will stick with me and not get too bored. I wanted to take a bit and tell you about my winter break. I already told you about my trip to Scotland and about the day I saw Les Mis (the movie). Those were sort of the bookends to my break so I would like to fill in the middle. I went to a lot of museums over break. Break was my time to start checking things off the long list of places in London that I want to see. I've decided that the best way to arrange the post will be bullet points and some pictures interspersed. Some will be significantly longer than others, but this will give you the highlights of what I did. I have tried to put things in essentially chronological order. So here goes...

-Christmas: (We'll start with the longest section.) In case you hadn't figured it out already, I stayed in London for my winter break. This meant that I spent my first Christmas away from my parents. We all knew that this was going to be hard. But to be honest, it was better than I expected (Mom and Dad, let me explain!). While I wished I could have been with my parents, this was still a very special Christmas for me and I am glad I decided to stay here.

See, my Mom knew this Christmas was going to be hard so she tried to make it special. And let me tell you, she succeeded! (Thanks Mom!) She sent me a lovely advent package at the beginning of December that had a little Christmas tree and small gifts (mostly ornaments from home) to open each day until Christmas. It was so thoughtful and really made me happy! She even sent some of my favorite  ornaments that we usually put on the tree together back home. She and Dad also sent a wonderful Christmas package with my gifts!! It was great! But, the Royal Mail failed royally (see what I did there?) and my Christmas presents didn't arrive until New Year's Eve. This would sound like a recipe for a sad Christmas, but on the contrary! I'll admit, I was sad that I didn't have my gifts on Christmas (rather too upset for a 23 year old actually), but the great thing was it made me focus on what is really important about Christmas (and hint: it's not the gifts).

Christmas (for me and I understand this is not true for everyone and that is fine) is about Jesus and family. This year, religion played a particularly important role in my holiday. I went to more Christmas services than I ever have before. I was going to go to a variety of churches for these services including Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's, but I ended up going to St. Martin in the Fields for all the services and that was really special for me. In fact, I went to two different services on Christmas Eve (a Carol Service and the Midnight service) and one on Christmas morning (which I have never done before that I can recall). Since St. Martin's has started to feel like home, it was very nice to go there.

And for me, Christmas is about family. This year, I couldn't be with them, but that is where Skype comes in! Mom, Dad, Liesl (my dog), and I Skyped for over three hours on Christmas Day! I got to watch them open their presents (and I had a few of my advent packages saved up to open and some gifts from my wonderful Godmother), which was great! I got to experience the joy of giving gifts without then immediately focusing on what I got in return. It was such a joy to see how happy they were with the gifts I had sent (LSE themed for the most part) and to just "be" with them through the wonder of the internet and Skype. It was a truly wonderful and memorable holiday even though I was far from home.

Opening gifts with the family on Christmas day! 

-National Gallery and the Portrait Gallery: In the week after Christmas I went to these galleries. They are right on Trafalgar Square so I had passed them everyday, but now I finally made time to go in. I had a lot of fun. And discovered a new passion/talent (although neither word is quite right as the talent is minimal and the passion is really more a passing interest sometimes)--drawing/sketching. I started doing my own sketches of paintings I liked. I went out and got some sketching materials and a book on drawing and had fun with that for the rest of break!

-Tate Britain: Following up with my art theme, I went on another day to the Tate Britain. This is not to be confused with the Tate Modern which is probably the more famous of the two. The Tate Britain holds British works of art, including a fair amount of Turner (who, by the way, it turns out I really like).

-Imperial War Museum: On another day, I went here. This Museum is great, but was also a bit of a disappointment. See they have what I understand to be wonderful exhibits on WWI and WWII that are quite interactive (I think they have a simulation of the trenches in WWI and the Blitz in WWII). Unfortunately, both the World War exhibits were closed for renovation. In fact, a few days after I was there, they closed the entire museum (until the summer) to renovate in preparation for the 100th anniversary of the start of WWI (wow, has it been that long?). So I didn't get to see everything I wanted to--I'll just have to go back. What I did see was the Secret War exhibit which is about spies (not as fun as it sounds) and the Holocaust exhibit. The Holocaust exhibit was very moving. It made me think about my history class last year and what we read about the Holocaust. It was just a very moving exhibit.

-New Year's Eve: Wow. Well this is something I never thought I would do, but I'm so glad I did! On New Year's Eve there is a huge fireworks display on the South Bank at the London Eye. In the past, I think there have also been some fireworks set off of Big Ben (but alas, not this year). Anyway, a lot of people stake out a spot along the river, but I decided to take a different approach (which was certainly not unique as I had tons of company!). I stood by Westminster Abbey so that I had a view of the top of the London Eye and Parliament in front. While I couldn't see the lowest fireworks, I maintain that mine was the best spot in the city! The show was spectacular! The only downsides of my position--St. Margaret's Church, which is right by Westminster Abbey, rang their bells for hours on end in the lead up to midnight which got rather annoying and I spent four hours staring at a really big clock, which does NOT make time move any faster, let me tell you! But it was worth it. I made friends with some young women around me and the fireworks were amazing!! I'll let you see for yourself.

See what I mean? Best spot in London! 

-The New Year's Day Parade: Again this is something I never thought I would do (and let me tell you, ONCE is enough!), but I'm glad I did it. I had a spot right at the intersection of Whitehall and Trafalgar Square. The Parade was cool (although there were an awful lot of American groups--they were good, but I was left wondering why I came to London to see American marching bands and cheerleaders, but oh well). Actually, by the end I was in a rather bad mood because I was freezing! Way colder than I had been the night before and the parade wasn't as great as I hoped. But again, glad I did it once--can check it off the bucket list and move on with my life. :)

-Natural History Museum: Turns out that my tolerance for crowds is not that great. By midday or early afternoon I start feeling really overwhelmed with the crowds and this was one of the days that I learned that lesson (I was reminded in coming days as well). Highlights of the Natural History Museum include the dinosaur exhibit (but there were too many people for my tastes), a "vault" with a lot of really cool precious stones, and a rock from Mars (it was a meteorite that came from Mars)!

-Victoria and Albert Museum: Also cool and definitely worth seeing. They have so much there! My favorites were some paintings and a cast of Michelangelo's David which was HUGE (and in an area where they were renovating so I wasn't expecting to see it, but saw it from above. It reminded me of the time I saw the real thing in Italy-you turn a corner, and BAM there is this really big, really famous statue!)!

Cool instrument sculpture at the V&A. They were flattened and painted black! 

-The Science Museum: On this day, I wasn't feeling well so I really only went in here to see the space exhibit and then left pretty quickly afterward. Frankly, it would be great for kids, but was a slight disappointment (again my headache and aversion of crowds played a role in this opinion). To be honest the Museum of Flight in Seattle has such as good exhibit on space that this was a bit of a let down. But they did have a moon rock which was cool!

-Royal Albert Hall, Albert Memorial, Kensington Palace, Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park (including Speaker's corner and Marble Arch): This was another busy day. I saw the outside of the Royal Albert Hall and of course the Albert Memorial. After that, I went through Kenington Gardens to Kensington Palace. Highlights of the palace (which is the current London residence of Will and Kate, was the residence of Diana, and was the residence of Queen Victoria), include the room where Victoria was born, the room where she held her first Privy Council meeting, and a staircase (at the top of which is a room where Victoria was told she was Queen). Highlights of Kensington Gardens included the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain. This was a really cool fountain--it was in the shape of a circle (although not a perfect circle) and one side was a bit higher uphill than the other. This meant the water ran down along both sides of the fountain over different textures of cement. It was really worth seeing. After that, I went though Hyde Park and saw Speaker's Corner, where for a really long time (sorry, don't remember when it started) people have been able to stand up and say whatever they want, and Marble Arch which used to be the entrance to Buckingham Palace. All in all, a good, if tiring day.

Me at the Albert Memorial

The Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain.

One side of the fountain. So cool.

Kensington Palace.

Speaker's Corner

-Les Mis the musical (stage show): I saw this a few weeks before I saw the movie. It was awesome to see it in the West End! The only downside was the Jean Valjean was played by an understudy that night who wasn't as strong as I would have liked (the part is extremely difficult to be sure). But let me tell you, at the end of "One Day More" it was all I could do to stay in my seat and not jump up to join the revolution!! (It's a good thing intermission is right after "One Day More!")

-Canterbury and Canterbury Cathedral: On another day, I took the train out to Canterbury to see the Cathedral. I thought of it as my own little pilgrimage. It was really cool although to be honest, I found Salisbury Cathedral more moving and impressive. Anyway, the inside was beautiful. Canterbury became a pilgrimage site after Thomas Becket was killed/martyred in the church (the King thought he would, as bishop, be fairly weak and follow his instructions but Becket didn't so the King had him killed). The site where he was killed, the stained-glass windows and the chair where the Archbishop of Canterbury (the head of the Anglican Church) sits were all highlights for me.

Canterbury Cathedral. Part of the reason it wasn't overwhelming is that it is surrounded by buildings.

The spot where Becket was martyred. 

The alter with the chair for the Archbishop of Canterbury behind. 

This was really cool--the stairs are really warn down from where all the people made the pilgrimage to where Becket was killed. 

-The British Museum: I had been here before, but it was a whirlwind tour so it was nice to go back with more time. They have a ton of history in there. But for me the highlights were the Rosetta Stone (which, with the same text in three languages, was the key to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphs), the Elgin Marbles (sculptures from the Parthenon in Greece, so called because they were brought to Britain, with permission at the time, by a guy named Elgin), and a statue from Easter Island.

The Rosetta Stone

-Twirties weekend away: This was a retreat that I went on with the twenties, thirties, and beyond group from St. Martin in the Fields. I wanted to go to meet people my age from the church and I was not disappointed. It has been so wonderful to have friends at church and to do things with them (ever since the retreat I have enjoyed going to church even more because I actually know people and have people to talk to)! It was a really special weekend (sorry, I'm running out of steam writing this and I'm sure you are sick of reading it, if you are still with me at all...). I felt like not only did I get to know people, but I got to experience English culture a bit more--I took the opportunity to ask questions and they were great about explaining cultural differences to me! I even tried Marmite (developed during the War to get people much needed vitamins)--I don't recommend it!

So that is what I did over winter break! I'm sorry that the post was so long! It probably wasn't as interesting as I hoped it would be, but we are basically caught up (I'll save the fun I had with snow in London for another post as that was after break). I really did want to share these things with you and let you know what a special holiday I had.

Thanks for sticking with me and reading all of that!

Abbey