8 days and counting

Most of you have probably heard by now that I aquired Swine Flu this past week. It's super funny if you think about: what are the odds of a person coming to study in London for 6 weeks actually getting to partake of a pandemic. I am living history, ladies and gents.

The weekend was absolutely lovely in London. No rain. Warm. Sunny. So today I reached into the depth of my being and mustered up energy to go outside on a walk. I ended up finding a new park with pretty flowers and a quaint Catholic church. Quaint, but still painted fire-engine red. I don't really understand it all.

I'm planning on using my last 8 days to a) catch up on the tons of studying I need to do.
b) visit everything I either haven't or wanted to again
and
c) enjoy every moment.

What have I learned? What have I discovered? Well I figured out that I really can only write in unlined, leather journals. Snobbish? perhaps, but I bought a travel journal for this trip and I sit down to write and there is nothing. There are probably 12 or 13 journals sitting around my room, stuffed in boxes under the bed, hidden on the bookshelf, that I have only partly filled. The only two complete journals are leather bound, simple, and have no lines. So I've discovered that I can really only write my thoughts on one medium.

London has the coolest trees. Big trees. Trees with large tumors. Trees with high branches and trees that have leaves proportioned in such a way that they appear to be weeping.

I don't really plan on having a wedding. I never really pictured myself living past the age of 18, and now that I'm here I'm sort of lost. It's like that with weddings. I never really pictured myself as the married sort of girl. But if I were to have a London wedding, I have discovered that I have the whole thing planned out. Place: Wilmington Garden Dress: Jacqueline Byrne Flowers: Nic's Flowers near Angel. Cake from the cake shop on Theobalds Road.
See, London Wedding. The end.

I've also learned a lot about money. Economists who make jokes about sex are probably more popular than you'd think. When you have the ability to plot how much money someone else has on a little graph, it makes you more money (or less money if you are really bad at it). But if you can both plot how much money people have on a graph, have a sense of humor, and have compassion: then you might just be able to change the world.

I've also learned that I think becoming the senior editor for the Economist would be way cooler than working for the UN.

Moreover, the city is not for me. I need woods and lakes and fields. I need to climb cliffs and jump off of them into waterfalls and kayak down rivers (even if they are yellow) and sleep in hammocks. I love the smell of horse and farm. I am a 3rd world sort of girl. I believe my next adventure will take me there.

That is the randomness of the moment.
Signing off,
Lizziey Brown

Mornings

I may like to sleep but there is something about mornings, especially in foreign nation, which draw me in. London is sunnier in the mornings. If the sun isn’t greeting you by 7 am, I’ve discovered, then the day is probably going to be pretty blah. I stare out my window and a jet makes a rapid line in the direction of Ireland. His jet stream is beautiful against the spring blue sky, a sort of blue that I’d expect to see on a “calming” tea package. This dorm is a square of brick of different layers of brick. As I breathe in deeply, I expect to smell the exquisite scent of Mexico or the salty aroma of the Costa Rican sea side. London’s aroma is one of mist; the absence of this smell leaves me completely disoriented. Mornings are empowering. Today it is cold. Cold is a temperature that is pretty normal to my mother and the rest of the world. Those outside walk around in shorts and t-shirts; I sit here with my window wide open in a sweatshirt and jeans. A green tree peaks its unpruned head over the corner of the lowest point of my dormitory. The brown of the building with the blue of the sky and the little blotch of green, give me an outdoorsy feelings. Mornings give me the momentum to believe that I am capable of anything. Today I want to jump out of an airplane. I’d love to raft down a river with the water splashing against my skin, or climb a tree in a dress and hang out of it like a monkey. But alas, I shut my window. My morning dreams cease to my morning reality. I open a book about the Solow Model and Neoclassical methods of European Integration. My mind must focus, but my heart desperately wants to meet, to know rather, the souls impacted by the graphs that will direct, and have been captaining for decades, their very lives.

Horses, Somalia, and a Clock Named Ben

London did get better for Troy and myself. Since our lovely Wednesday we have done all of the touristy London stuff together (except for the London Eye..which is happening tomorrow). We took a bus to Buckingham Palace and I had ton of fun watching the guards patrol. In fact, I probably had a little too much fun as I elaborately told Troy how I bet that the guards create a secret code to converse with one another while they are on duty. If the boy didn't think I was crazy already...he most certainly does now. Our adventure took us to Westminster Abby, Westminster Bridge, and oddly enough a statue of Abraham Lincoln and William Tyndale (and a lion but that's besides the point). We ended up in Trafalgar Square, ate at a really cool pub, and then walked The Strand back to campus. Oh wait..before we did all that we got on the right bus going in the wrong direction. We ended up in Wandsworth, one of the poorer areas of London. So then we had to take the bus back....public transportation has not been our best friend.

In Exmouth Market, located directly behind my dorm, there is a bookshop that just opened called Clerkenwell Tales. Troy and I talked to the owner (the shop just opened last Monday) and I really want this cute little store to succeed because this is its story: the guy who opened it was a journalist who actually really wanted to open a book shop all his life. He reads a lot, and he just seemed cool. He was like, "Yeah, my girlfriend is in Malaysia, she's a zoologist, but we decided that I'd rather do want I've always really wanted to do and make little money over doing what I've always been told I'd be good at (being a journalist) and making reasonable money...so we may both end up back at my parents house but we'll see"

Someday, that's going to be me. I'm going to be starting my own coffee shop after quitting whatever occupation I really end up in. I'm seriously rooting for Clerkenwell Tales.

So the picture at the top is of the royal horses. Troy took it, but I stole it from him to show you!

In other news: my essay is finished and my class is absolutely amazing. Today's assignment?

You've (me and a team of four others) been granted $5 million from the US State Dept. to start a media outlet in Somalia. You have 1/2 hour to present your plan of action to the board. Go.

My classmates and I get pretty serious about hypothetical role-playing games. You could almost feel the adrenaline rush through the room. But alas, we designed a plan to create a "mobile phone" (who knew that Somalia, and most of Africa, has greater mobile phone access than any other media with the slight exception of radio) media outlet. Most of our budget went to pay off the Somalia government, and the other large portion went to create safe havens for our journalists. But together we decided that by going into Somalia and creating this program, more good would come than harm. I think that in itself gives hope.

From Advenutre 101 to Adventure 202.

So I should be writing my 1500 word essay or enjoying the London sunshine or getting ready for class in 30 minutes, but I am here instead because I know that if I don't record the last two days they are not going to get recorded because I have been a slacker about keeping a journal.

Troy arrived on Tuesday, and we are both super excited about going on grand adventures in London.

However, I'm pretty sure God decided that it was time for us to move from a course in Adventure 101 to Adventure 202. Or 303. or maybe even 707.

Tuesday was a lovely day. I went to class, and then hung out with Troy. I can't even begin to describe how great it is to have someone to share London with. We walked around Spa Fields and Exmouth Market. Troy saw some cool cars, we ate pizza at this authentic Italian restaurant just down the street (hey...guess what! Most cheese isn't "foreign" here and it makes it a lot less expensive...that is the only thing that is less expensive in London)

Yesterday I wake up and make phone calls trying to figure out how in the world to get to Dunsfold Park to see Top Gear. Take the Angel Tube to Euston, switch to the Victoria Line to the Victoria Station to hop a bus to Guildsford, which is still 7 miles from Dunsfold Park. But we figured, we're young and we could at least hitch hike or even run those 7 miles.
It's a 15 minute Tube Ride to Victoria Station. We leave at 10:15 and the bus to Gildford is scheduled to leave at 11am, arriving at 12. But Troy and I couldn't find the bus station. We asked people and read signs, ALL of which said it was just around the corner. Which, it was....just around the corner and 5 or 6 blocks down! Not only that, but there were large busses lined up all over Victoria (which is also a train station). We finally find the bus stop at 10:50. We even find the bus to Gilford that tells us we have to buy tickets at the ticket booth (we pretty much knew that but thought maybe he'd take pitty on us for being two worn out Americans). So we stand in line at the ticket booth, and when we approach I ask "When is the next bus for Gilford leaving?"
"at 11:15"
"Really?!" I reply, "I thought another train didn't leave until 12!"
"Nope, there are several today. That will be £26 for the both of you"

I tell Troy that's more expensive than I thought, but we didn't really think twice about it. We race down the bus station to terminal 10, which is conveniently the farthest away. Troy and I step on the bus and ask "Is this the bus going to Guildford?"

"Yes, yes, hurry up we are about to leave"

15 minutes later the bus announces that we must wear our seatbealts and will arrive in Oxford in about an hour. Oxford? I look at Troy, and then check the tickets. That's right the tickets say we are going to Oxford, which is in the opposite direction of Guildford.

An hour and a one half later Troy and I are in Oxford, UK. We've now missed Top Gear (the reason Troy came to London) and have wasted the day. So we wandered around, ate some fish and chips, and went back. Oxford really was lovely, but Troy didn't have his camera so it was all-in-all a sad day.

Oh but wait! Troy and I are scheduled to see Harry Potter at 10:45 this night. We purchase our tickets and make a time to meet up with some of my friends from LSE to make the 8 minutes walk to The Vue in Islington together. But at 9, Troy decides to go get food and gets lost. So instead of being incredibly early to Harry Potter, we are now pushing it close time wise....We get to the theatre and Troy asks, "You've got the tickets?" and I pull out two glossy pieces of paper.
"Lizziey, those aren't the tickets....Those are the things that came with the tickets. I put the tickets on your desk."

"Oh. That's a problem"

Troy is still tired from sprinting back to the dorm to get the tickets..but thankfully my friends saved us seats, and we sat down in time to watch an amazing production once again.

I don't live with regrets, but I can say that I am very glad that day is over.

And what did you learn in class today?

Today I sat in class with Nick Sturdee, and independent film maker who has recently made several film reports for Channel 4 news here in London. While he's done much work in Chechnya (the war zone between Georgia and Russia), his new focus is taking place in both Somalia and Ethiopia. I found it really interesting and thought I would include the link to his work:

www.smiproduction.com From there click on the "recent work" link at the bottom.
We watched the video entitled "Ethiopia" in class, and it was incredible to ask and find out about how reports deal with interviewing persons such as starving mothers and how journalists can just be really creative and get into countries. Actually, it kind of made me want to take my backpack, Kelty, and go join the fight for feeding Somalians.....

Magic in Kensignton Gardens

I watched Wendy fly away with Peter Pan tonight, and I am lost in the magic of it all.

“That's the thing with magic. You've got to know it's still here, all around us, or it just stays invisible for you.”

Magic. Despite of, or conceivably due to, the intermittent rains of London, the city is a spring for the mystique, the exquisite, the charm that can only be found in a olden town where the presence of queens and kings from a time long before is mingled with the ever growing cosmopolitanism of the world’s financial center. Like cupid shooting a flaming arrow into my heart, the winsome London has captured my attention and I stand in amazement at the world around me.

Mara and Lydia are two sisters from Texas also studying with me at LSE. Tonight the three of us ventured to Hyde Park’s Kensington Garden to watch the live theatre performance of Peter Pan. First of all, Kensington Garden in and of itself is awe inspiring. Only a few steps away from the tube we were greeted with a massive fountain spraying it's water in every direction. On our walk to the theatre we passed all sorts of beautiful trees (I kind of have a thing about cool trees, let's face it: I am a granola...). This is one of the only instances that I can truly say the theatre didn't distract from nature, but complemented it...quite nicely I might add. The theatre-in-the-round was “just a tent” set up in the middle of the park. Around the top five or six feet stood a beautifully animated scene: the same scene that made the flying of Wendy and Peter Pan absolutely alive and real. Tink was a comical sight: she wore a pink tutu with twinkling lights in her up-do hair style, but on her feet she was decked out in grey theater shoes…it worked perfectly for the setting of Never Never Land! Tink but was spunky and mean, and still her demeanor led the crowd to shake our little pink bells and whisper “I do believe in fairies” to revive her after she had fallen to the vicious tactics of Captain Hook! I learned way more about Peter Pan through watching, and despite the differences I love it all the more.

Intermission was great: even though there were many children in the audience (who giggled oh so cutely), the deck outside (but still covered due to the ever present London rain) was very classy. The image below was show above the bar: which had an expanse much larger than my classroom wall. The tables were covered with sparkling white clothes. For a night, I was a spectator of the enchating tale of the boy who didn't want to grow up, and for a moment I, too, want to move to Never Never Land to live a life full of adventure and wanderlust. I want to fight the daring Captain Hook and tell stories to the Lost Boys. And, like Wendy, I also want to take the friends I've met along the way with me to grow up together. Maybe that's part of the magic...that my life is a form of Peter Pan in and of itself..and that thought a lot alone is enchanting.

Monday

Today was the first day of classes. In that regard, London is no different than any other nation.(well except for Costa Rica, which was cool because palm trees grew out of my classrooms. But, hey you can't ask for everything.) I sat in a lecture for 3 hours, which oddly didn't seem any longer than the normal 50 minutes.

After class, each department had a "welcome party". Unless you are a major suck-up (which I totally am), students don't generally attend these in the states because they are down right boring. But not in London! I enter the Senior Dining Room on the 5th floor of the Old Building on Houghton Street to be greeted by men in suits carrying around trays of food of Goat Cheese and English Sausages. Bartenders walk around filling your goblets with your choice Chardonnay, a host of red wines, or Pelligrino. I meet the chair of the Economics Department. He's a slightly peculiar old man. He has the grey, wiry professor hair, and continually wipes his mouth as he is engaging in conversation with me. Actually, I expect Einstein acted very much the same way: super intelligent, but a little socially awkward.

I started chatting with Sunny, whom I shared ice-cream with the day before. We ended up meeting people from Hong Kong and Brussels, from Harvard and Yale and South Korea. Yes, I put those three of those together. I'll leave it up to you to figure out why. Anyway, The group of us went out to Cafe Rouge after the party to celebrate French Food and get to know each other better. It was super cool, and I am excited to be in London, to meet new people, to drink Chardonnay at school sponsored events, and to learn.

In fact, that's the most spectacular thing about studying outside of your comfort zone. You find that you are learning both in and out of the classroom, while you are awake and searching for knowledge and when you are asleep and knowledge just comes to you.

I was debating (one of only numerous times) with Troy over if I should change majors. Do I really want to pursue economics? What am I going to do with my life? And his subtle questions of , " What happened to working for the UN?" refocused me. I realized, once again in this impressive city, that I do want to impact this world. It may sound (or possibly even be) arrogant, but I am from the States. That automatically makes us wealthy and intelligent. So, I'm slowly learning that I am going to change the world. Like it or not, we all change the world, when we are standing in line at the supermarket or playing with the kid in the park or watching the news at night we all make decisions that will influence the world we live in. Apathy really isn't even an option for Americans, we either are impacting in a positive or detrimental matter. We can't choose to not be. So right now, that's what I'm learning, and I am content to be in London: to talk to the men who have been camping out 24/7 at Exmouth Market to inform people about the situation in Iran, to watch the magic that happens as the sun pulls the cover over its head slowly revealing the sparkle of the city night over the Thames, knowing that each adventure, each experience, is shaping me to influence the world.

I was hanging out with some guys tonight (haha. That statement is SO weird. I went from all-girls school to like 90% boys school) and this kid from Poland was saying how he just didn't understand religion and started asking me about it since I was from the Midwest (I'm not really from the bible belt, but that's the view he had of what the Midwest was like). I wish I could tell you that I pulled out this amazing testimony of who God is and what He can do for you, but I didn't. I simply said, it's sad that people don't read the Bible or Qur'an or the religious texts before making the decision for themselves. He asked me if I had, and I said truthfully, "yes" and left it at that. Should I have said more? Should I have told him "I totally believe in this crazy story that God sent his son to earth to die this horrible death for all of us, so that we may be able to not be separated from Him, so that we could personally understand more and more about our God each day?" I walked away feeling as if I had disowned my God a little bit, and for that I will always regret. The point of this paragraph, is that I'm so not perfect. I'm so not even used to being around unbelievers anymore that I don't know what to say or how to act, and that scares me.

So my challenge to myself while in London is to rediscover who I am, and how I fit in my community. Oh yeah, and to get an A. That's always one of my goals. :)