I reckon its time for another post

Yes, they use 'reckon' here, not just in the good ole south....

Since I came back from Ireland I have decided to keep it local except that I went to Hampton, Winsor, Bath, Stonehenge and Cambridge (so intranational at least). Through these day adventures I am getting to know the less metropolitan areas of England, the more pastoral and perhaps quintessential parts of the country. One very interesting aspect of all these places is that they are all somewhat similar in that they are all nestled between pastors and hedges, and quaint towns or villages or are quaint towns or villages but they are all extremely unique as well. Physical aspects of these places are only an outline of the deep history and culture that truly embodies these locations. I could take up a whole entry to describing each place. My favourite I believe was Bath though. It reminded me of two places I had visited before: Hot Springs, AR and Ashville, NC. Like both these places, the city of Bath has integrated itself perfectly to its environment. The city almost seems like it is a natural feature of the hills and valleys that house it. This could partly be due to the fact that the city is so old, its location going back the time of the Romans in Britain. My friends and I walked around the elegant downtown as well as visited the Roman baths that are fed from the hot springs that made this area famous originally and are still thought by some to be a panacea. Just in case it is I drank a little of the disgusting, warm and extremely minerally water that they still serve as a tonic in the café attached to the ancient baths.

To move away from the rustic for awhile, life in London is continuing to be a never ending exploration physically, intellectually and of experience. At my internship we are putting the finishing touches on our research into the affects of media’s portrayal of the stereotypic youth on young people’s impetus to engage themselves politically and socially. We have an event in a couple weeks where we are going to be presenting this research as well celebrating all the accomplishments of the amazing students who have participate in the Youth Act program and went on to make substantial differences in their communities.

Now that I am more or less done with this research, I am learning how to and starting to work on fundraising for the foundation at large. Basically my job for the next few weeks will be to sell the ideals and goals of the foundation to larger trusts and foundations that maybe willing to donate some money to our various causes. Also over these next few weeks I will be working on some more video editing for the foundation, as well working on improving the quality of the material of the Citizenship Foundation’s youtube page.

This week should be a fun one. People in the city are starting to get a little wild for Halloween and Guy Fawkes Day, which is on November 5. Londoners seem to use both this week, the week of Halloween, and next week, the week of Guy Fawkes Day, as one big celebration period. Lots of parties, public celebrations and mayhem. Also, apparently on Guy Fawkes Day there are lots of fireworks and bonfires around the city; sounds like the good ole’ south on New Years. Not quite sure what I’m going to do to celebrate either but I want to experience both celebrations as a true Londoner (and I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough how to do that).

Great Times, Great Places and Great Works

Life is great here in London still!
Since last I wrote I have been filling my time by acculturating myself, studying, working, traveling and having an all-around enjoyable time.
I went to three more museums in London. The weekend before last I went to the Natural History Museum and the Imperial War Museum (which isn’t a bunch of old school imperialistic and euro-centric mess like it sounds like it might be). In fact, it is quite an incredible museum that covers Britain and the Common Wealth’s involvement in WWI, WWII and subsequent wars. It has amazing artifacts from all these wars as well as some great ‘experience exhibits’, like the trench experience and the blitz experience. The former lets you walk through a scale model of a WWI trench while the later puts you in a simulated underground bunker in London that is being bombed by Nazi planes.
I also went with my class to the Francis Bacon exhibition at the Tate Britain last week. It was a huge collection of his life’s work. Very interesting but also very dark and almost overwhelming at times. His work makes one feel bleak but also enlightened. My professor walked past me in the exhibit and whispered, “it reminds me of The Heart of Darkness, ‘the horror, the horror’”.
Then this last weekend I traveled to Ireland! It was an amazing time. I found it really hard to not be jolly and smiling in that wonderful nation. As I found in Holland, everyone is so nice and knows the meaning of a good time.
I went with two of my friends from London and the three of us crammed a whole proper holiday’s worth of sightseeing, fun and relaxation into one weekend. We got into Dublin Friday night and went straight to the Temple Bar area, which is the main night life section of Dublin. We went around to several Pubs and clubs utterly crammed with tourists and true Dubliners alike.
The next morning we started sightseeing. We went to the historic Trinity College, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the Dublin Castle, the National Library and the literary museum they have housed in it, and of course the legendary Guinness Store House. We spent at least an hour learning about Guinness and how it is made and then got to have a pint of fresh Guinness in their gravity bar, which is the tallest point in Dublin. After that we went to the Jameson Distillery for a whiskey sampling and sampled Jameson’s most select reserves that are only available at their distillery. One of the Whiskeys had been aged for 40 years in a Spanish oak barrel.
Somehow throughout the course of the day I was able to find time to enjoy a traditional Irish stew of lamb, potatoes, barely and rosemary for lunch and smoked salmon from dinner.
That night we went on a Dublin pub crawl. We were guided by a very Irish and very nice and interesting Trinity student to some of the most historic and unique pubs in the city.
The next day we woke up at 7:30 to go to Bray, a seaside community that is surrounded by breathtaking mountains on one side and a breathtaking landscape of cliffs leading down to the sea on the other. It’s a very surreal place. We got off the train we took there and walked down a black rock beach to a mountain that lies adjacent to the town. We climbed (literally as we had to climb up some rock faces) to the top of the mountain where we then climbed once more to a jetty of pure white and rugged rock mass where a giant cross stood stoically positioned way above the little town and the great sea. We then walked to the next peak and descended from there to a seaside path that took us back to Bray.
While my work at the Citizenship Foundation might not be quite as awe-inspiring as the top of Bray Head (as the mountain is called), it has been quite rewarding these last few weeks. All the hard work that the Giving Nation team and I have put in to making the Giving Nation award ceremony a very memorable experience for the students being honored really paid off. The ceremony went very well and the students really enjoyed the activities we planned for them, including the riddles about various historically and culturally interesting places in London that I wrote for them. And I most say that my video for the awards ceremony that I have been working on for almost a month now came together quite nicely, if I do say so myself, and I think everyone enjoyed it.
Now that the Giving Nation awards are done with it is full steam ahead on the research project I have also been working on for the Citizenship Foundation. It is on the British news media’s portrayal of young people and how that portrayal affects young people’s self-image and inclinations toward political and social engagement in their community and country.

Amsterdam

I'm back in London now after a whirlwind holiday on the continent. Last Thursday night I took a bus from London to Dover, which is quite a remarkable place. The bus drove down threw the great white cliffs of Dover that somewhat glow at night from the reflection of the vast span of lights that illuminate the enormous seaport that sits at the foot of the cliffs looking out into the English Channel. From Dover I took a ferry to Calais, France and then from there I took another bus to Amsterdam. I had never been to the European continent before, it was very exciting for me to be driving through the countrysides and cities of France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Once I got to Amsterdam I instantly feel in love with it. I walked outside of Amstel Station not to be met by a cramped car lot but instead rows upon rows of bike racks neatly placed on brick sidewalks flanked by rows of trees and other greenery. This is exemplary of the city. It is so green and beautiful and everyone rides around on their bike with a big grin on their face or a song on their lips. There is literally more bike traffic then car and tram traffic put together. The priority for transportation in the city is bicycles first, then their electric above-ground trams, then cars. So many of the streets don’t even allow cars on them or if they do you hardly see any. This all makes for a very beautiful and peaceful city. And it really seems to make a difference in the life of the people there. Everyone is very friendly and happy and laid back. I found myself having to check the speed of my stride on many occasions because I was used to the bussel of London and not the calm of Amsterdam.
Not only is Amsterdam’s aesthetic and personality amazing but they really have good taste too. Their food and drink is amazing. I had the best food of my time abroad thus far in Amsterdam. I had herring and smoked salmon from a open air fish cafe, their famous Frites (fries) a couple times from little stands, Dutch pancakes from a Dutch pancake house, and an amazing Mediterranean meal from a restaurant serving food typical of a little Dutch island in the Mediterranean that I had never heard of and can't remember the name of. The drink is just as good if not even better. After only two days there I am finding it hard to drink the espresso and coffee in London now, which until I went to Amsterdam I thought was very good. The beer is also great there, Heineken is ten times better fresh then it is bottled and transported like we have it in the US and the UK.
I did not spend all my time making myself fatter though. I also did tons of walking just exploring the city. There were so many museums I wanted to go to but I only made it to the The Rijksm, the Van Gogh Museum and the Ann Frank House. The city has as much culture and artistic and intellectual curiosity and brilliance as cities 4 or 5 times its size.
My travels are not over yet, either. Just before I left for Amsterdam, I booked a plan ticket and hostel for Dublin for next weekend. I just got done reading James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man for class. I felt after reading it I had to go to Dublin to witness for myself the city that Joyce so intimately describes in his amazing novel. I also picked up a book of poems by Yeat's, A famous Irish literary contemporary of Joyce's, who also writes a lot about Ireland, its people, and especially Dublin.
Speaking of class, it is going very well. We are now reading a couple novels by Virginia Wolf and some of her social/political essays. There are only 4 other students in the class so it is a very nice and intimate setting to discuss these great works. Our professor up and gave us tickets to the Frances Bacon exhibit at the Tate Britain and also tickets to the new exclusive installation galleries at the Tate Modern. I am so excited to go and see them both. I am kind of going museum wild but I think I'm going to try to go to the Natural History Museum and the Imperial War Museum here in London this weekend.
My internship is still going well, also. I am currently working on making a film for the Giving Nations awards ceremony that I described in an earlier post.
More soon to come.... Cheers!