Mom and Dick made there plane reservations!

I talked to Mom on email today and she and dick made their reservations to come for 9 days at the end of July! I am really excited to see them. We found them a great apartment that they will rent for the whole time they are here - really cute and cheap and in a great part of the city that i really want to check out. And on my recommendation, they are going up to Edinburgh for 2 days. There will be so much to show them when they get here! I better start making a list!

Shakespere's Globe

The week before last we went to see a Shakespere play at the Shakespere's Globe - the reconstructed theatre based on the original place that he wrote his plays for. It was great! We saw Coriolanus, I had never heard of it, but it was great. And it was very authentic - we paid 5 pounds (cheap!) and stood at the base of the stage in the pit for the whole play and it was 1.5 hours, a 15 min intermission and then another hour. Our feet were so tired of standing when it was over. Oh, and freezing! There is no roof, and it wasn't nice weather, we were actually afraid it was going to rain, and they don't cancel for bad weather. It was really fun, but next time I would pay 12 pounds for a seat.

That is the stage behind us in the photos - and they even used us for props in the play. At the end the guy dies (sorry to ruin it for you) and he falls off the stage into the crowd (into some well placed members of the theatre company) - you should have heard the screams from the crowd!

It is just one of those days...

Today is my dad's birthday - Happy Birthday Dad! I had a really great conversation with him today. Well it started out not so good, both of us have had a hard time as of late, nothing espeically bad, just not great.

My tough time has been focused around the fact that I am realizing that my friends here are moving away, not right now, but they will both leave me soon - Maria on the 6th of June to go to Ireland for 6 months, and Marjie leaves to go back to Toronto around the end of July. That will leave me alone again here in London. I mean I have great flat mates, Emma and I get along great, but still. That leaves me to start over again. And I dont' know if I want to do that. It just really makes me think that I really need to access if I want to stay past that time. I need to look into the Visa stuff (no I haven't done that yet, and yes I will get on that this week). I don't even know what it would entail to stay. And i need to figure out if I want to stay this poor for the next year or so. I feel tired of doing it.

I guess i just need to do some serious thinking in the next few weeks. What do i want? I am tired of having to make these big decisions - but as my Dad so wisely said today, that is what happens when you grow up.

Near the end of the conversation, just as we were about to get off, he said the most touching thing. That even though he doesn't call (can't figure out the whole international calling thing) and hates computers so doesn't really email, he thinks about me everyday and really misses me and wishes that I could be closer to home. He said that is the problem with having a cave man for a dad, and I said that is the problem with having a traveler for a daughter.

I think i am a bit homesick today...

It's a Small World...

I was walking home from work last week, Thurday I think, and I was passing Liverpool Street Station and this guy walked past me going the opposite direction that I could have sworn was Brian Kelly, a professor of mine from University of Maryland. I had a little conversation with myself in my head, trying to figure out why he looked so familiar. I seriously had to convince myself that it was actually him, so I stopped him and it turns out yes it was him. How random is that! He had just flown in that morning and was wandering around where I work looking at the Gherkin and an old baroque church that is across the street from my work. We chatted for a bit before continuing on our way. But i just thought how small the world must really be if I could run into a former professor in a city of 9 million people on a random thursday afternoon.

Australia???

Next summer I might just get to another one of the destinations on my list - Australia. I might join another 2 week design program, similar to the Ghost program that I went on last summer. This time it is led by Glenn Murcutt, a Pritziker Prize winner (the nobel prize of architecture) who teaches something called Master Class every summer for 2 weeks. It involves traveling around to various sites of his work around Sydney and some design work, much like a studio in school i believe. This summer it is happening in the second 2 weeks in July and will likely happend around the same time. But I have to save up for a year cause it is quite spendy, and hopefully I will be able to travel around a bit while I am there. If I am going to make that big trip, distance and plane ticket, I have to make it worth it! And maybe my roommate from Maryland, Sarah, can come with - she studied in Australia for a few years and would be a great travel buddy!

check out the website if you want! The photos page is amazing! www.ozetecture.org

I LOVE EDINBURGH!

I am sure it was a combination of many factors, but I love this city! It was amazing weather while I was there, I had the opportunity to teach (in a way) and the city really reminded me of Seattle. The people are so friendly and very outdoorsy. So many people own bikes and bike to work and around the city and there are so many parks in the city too. On Saturday afternoon, i took my book and went to the park and relaxed - it was great! I am seriously going to look into moving to Edinburgh if the time and circumstances arise. I definately recommend visiting if you ever have the chance.

Seeing the sights

After a fun day of being a crit at the College, I had the rest of Saturday and Sunday to wander around the city and see the sights, and let me tell you, there are lots of them. I decided to follow the recommended walking tour in my guidebook - it was great. Took me to lots of little tiny streets and squares that I would have never seen otherwise. These pictures are from the walking tour, the castle from one of the many viewpoint in the city and a close- Edinburgh's version of a really small alleyway filled with steep streets and steps, and amaizng views over the city. And the last one is the castle and the ancient part of the city from the top of the Scottish Museum.

Hi from Edinburgh!

I had an amazing time last weekend in Edinburgh, Scotland. This is the view from the top of the Edinburgh Castle. It was beautiful weather, I totally lucked out. I met up with my friend Felicity, and stayed with her on Thursday night and we went to the lecture that our professor gave at Napier University in the city . The next day, I went to the Edinburgh College of Arts where Felicity teaches first year studio. Our professor gave his lecture to her studio, and after a cup of tea, they were all going off to the studio for crits and I got roped into it. It was terrifying! But so great!!! I was on a panel with Brian MacKay-Lyons, and I was so scared. I really enjoyed it, althought I didn't say much. It was really amazing being on the other side of academia - facinating really. I was so nervous, but as soon as I got going, I had a great time critting and really loved it. I would love to continue being a crit - and i never thought I would ever do that!

London Panorama


This is the view from the top of the observatory where the Greenwich Mean time is. The line runs right down in the middle of the white building at the bottom of the hill. The tall buildings in the middle is the new financial center that is east of London, Canary Wharf. And you can see the Millenium Dome, the big white thing to the right.

Center of the Universe!

This weekend I stayed in town, which in a wierd way seems really lame and lazy, considering there is so much to do and see in the UK and Europe. But in order to do that, I need money, which I don't always have after long weekends out of the city. Anyway, this weekend my friend Marjie and I went to Greenwich, a burough of London to the Southeast. It was a beautiful day so we went up to the Observatory which is also the center of the planet, time wise anyway. It is where Greenwich Mean Time is. That imaginary line that runs around the globe and is official time of the world. It was actually pretty cool.

London Heatwave

Spring finally arrived last week after a seriously long and cold winter. It got up to about 75 degress F and the headline on the newpapers here was "Heatwave cripples the tube". And the Hammersmith and City Line was delayed due to the heat. What is wrong with these people??? The transport system is great on some days, and horrid on other days. That is why I try and keep to the busses, plus they are cheaper.

Balloch, Loch Lomand

After spending two days wandering around the city of Glasgow, we decided to get out to the country that we had heard was so beautiful - and they weren't joking! It was amazing. It was only a 1 hour train ride north of the city and it was a completely different place! Just what we needed. It was a bit chilly, but nice. We wandered around the national park for a few hours and had lunch in a funky hometown diner, it was fun! The lake (loch) was beautiful, very hilly across the lake and lots of ducks and such. This was what I think of as typical Scotland - so beautiful.

Glasgow School of Art

Here it is! I was amazed to find out after I got off the bus from the airport and was walking to my hotel that I was walking right by it! Our hotel, which was crap, was right down the street from the school, seriously a block away. Unfortuntely it wasn't open on the weekend, so i didn't get a chance to look around the inside, but the outside was great. And come to find out, when i got back to work this week, a new guy started and he went to school there, how great!

Willow Tea Room

On Sunday afternoon we had lunch and tea at the Willow Tea Room, which you can barely see on the sign. It is above this weird jewlery store on the ground floor. But it was designed by Charles Renne MacKintosh, one of the most famous designers from Glasgow. He started the Glasgow School of Art and was and amazing designer. It was really fun, and they had a room upstairs of some of his chair designs and other things he worked on.

The bus tour of Glasgow

Here we are on the bus top tour. It was fun! Marjie is the fashionable one with the sunglasses and curly brown hair. It was kind of weird cause in order to hear the info on the tour you had to plug headphones into the side of the bus, so it really prevented you from talking. And the headphone cord was too short, so mine kept coming unplugged! Luckily you could use your ticket for 2 days, so we hopped of this bus and caught the other leg of the tour the next day, that was great! No headphones that time, just a woman with a microphone, much better!

Glasgow, Scotland

Last weekend my friend, Marjie, and I went Glasgow for the weekend. We had a fun time, but had hoped that it would be lots different from London and it wasn't. It was surprisngly very urban and had a ton of shopping, which didn't expect. We took a bus tour on the first day which was fun, except for the woman that wouldn't sit down the whole time and was totally in our way! We did lots of wandering around the city. The weather was beautiful the first day, we totally lucked out.

This picture is of the Glasgow Cathedral, which is the only standing church to date from the time of the Reformation. It was impressive. The organist was playing while we were there, and playing a very dark song and it made the tour a bit creppy.