Sunday, August 25, 2013

LONDON, BABY!

WOOF. i am leaving london today! sorry about the delay in posts. . .

i have fell in love with this city while i've been here. i've been more social than usual - staying with a friend of a friend (hi paul!) and my old housemate, alexis (hey girl!), was in town randomly too. so, not as much sightseeing as the other places, but definitely enough. and i need to save some for when i move here next year.......

my trip here was great - thursday night was a chill night in just relaxing and getting ready.

friday : i had a lunch meeting with pamela lidiard, who is in charge of piano studies here at the guildhall school of music. the school seems amazing - closely associated to all things musical: royal opera house, lso, barbican centre, etc... i would love to join the student community! seems very welcoming and inspiring.

 the rest has been parties, eating, sleeping, sightseeing. here's some photos!

cute kitty i'm staying with!!
a train station

st. pauls!

another church

market - there are tons here!

ship near the thames

old and new

the actual london bridge

another indoor market

tower bridge from afar

tower of london across the thames

crazy buildings

weird color scheme, right?

metropolis!

look how old and cool!

that spire on the right is ALL GLASS.

tower of london

tower of london

another view of tower of london
 if you hadn't noticed, it was RAINING. alexis, betsey, and i were getting really wet - so we decided to go to the saatchi gallery. highly recommended!!!

they had a paper exhibit -
this was done with pen and graphite

this is a GRAPHITE DRAWING.

a huge face made out of paper

a rock

ok, so the bottom half of this is OIL. it reflects the ceiling blahblah. 

paper roses

paper origami hanging thing

these were hanging from the ceiling!

then they had an exhibit on new british designers/artists

new best friend
alexis' new hair style

alexis' new boyfriend

redroom



alexis

the only view of buckingham palace

it was RAINING.
other things i did that i didnt take pictures of :
  • the tate museum - amazing collection of art
  • westminster abbey
  • millenium bridge
  • inside st. pauls
so, london is amazing - very much a metropolis, but the arts are so alive here! i can feel that everyone appreciates culture so much more over here. it's pretty much the perfect city...

off to paris for three days with two best friends, jayme and kate!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 



then. flying. home. wednesday.

see you soon everyone!

d

Thursday, August 22, 2013

a day in bruges

i took a day trip to bruges yesterday! here's what happened:


  • due to a little bout of insomnia, i started my day yesterday a little later than expected. it turned out fine because bruges is a tiny tiny city that took only 4 hours to see! 
  • it was all really pretty - everything was so incredibly old. obviously the churches were old, but i'd say around 90% of the houses were at least 100 years old. 
  • there were carriages and horses and abbeys and brick roads and... h&m?! random new parts of the city sprung up which was ... interesting. 
  • i also had my first taste of belgian chocolate... i don't think i'll ever be the same. and, of course, had another waffle.
here are the photos!!

it was a beautiful day.

the first of many archways

i'm sorry, where am i?

ughhhhh

old.

one of many churches

detail

architecture!

archways II

church

wow.

organ

amazing wood sculptures

tall

all the streets are like this

another church... surprised?

this one had an amaaazing organ

large wooden sculpture at the end.

beautiful stained glass

wow

city square

umm...

yeah...

my waffle! yummmm

more city center

what beauty.

off to london! BYE