Pictures of Scotland!

So, once again i'm on Kylie's computer, for the sake of posting pictures. Last night I went to an Ani Difranco concert, and heard a few other bands as well, and that was awesome- almost surreal. I didn't think i'd ever see her live, so to be in the front row of a sold out HUGE theater in London was amazing!
In this photo I was climbing unassisted up the North face of the mountain. I probably should have had someone with me, but I just kept repeating to myself the saying I'd heard so much as a child: If you can get yourself up, you can get yourself back down again. Then I remembered that it was Chris that used to say that, when I was all of 9 years old, climbing trees at the park with him underneath. A far cry from climbing mountains in Scotland, with hundreds of feet beneath me and no hospital for miles. Oh well!

This is the Irish sea, as the sun was setting and clouds were coming in. The sun is still poking through a bit though. I have probably 60 photos from this day alone, because the views were just breathtaking. However, for lack of space and motivation, I picked this on as a highlight.
This is near the top of the mountain from the first day. I'm standing on the very edge of a very steep cliff, and it was very windy, so my face is one of nervousness. I didn't take any pictures at the top because by then we were in the clouds, so not only would my camera get wet but all you'd see is white reflection. Oh, and yes, those are jeans I was wearing, and yes that was a horrible way to climb a mountain, but no I did not have anything else to wear. Pay attention to the mountain you see in the upper left corner, you'll see it again in the next photo.


This is the near-end of the moutain from the first day. This day was much wetter, but still amazing. Behind me is the river we followed down from up top, and you can see mountains beyond it. The peak you see in the upper right is the same peak I pointed out in the previous picture, from the other side. Where we are here is where the vegetation is finally cropping up again (trees, bushes, etc) but we are far from the being at the bottom again.


This was on the way up the mountain from the first day (I know, out of order, so sue me). Sorry, no Lochness monster in the lake down there, but there are some sheep behind me! I think I have an odd expression on my face, but I blame that on the fact that I didn't realize the photo was being taken just then. Had I known I assure you there would be a look of utter joy ;)







And I guess that's it for now. I have to go write a 700 word review of the show White Devil, which is all about Italian corruption and the catholic church. So off I go, i'll write again soon!

And then the homework comes...

So, I realized today that I have a paper and a presentation due next wednesday, as well as another paper due on Friday. *le sigh* Ah well, I suppose the time of no homework had to end at some point. Today I went to see a show called 'The White Devil' and guess who sat across from me at the theater? Alan Rickman, AKA Severus Snape from the Harry Potter movies. So that's the fourth actor from the HP movies that i've seen thus far. Funny funny. I'm working on uploading images from Scotland, but my computer really is broken (I had hoped it would be temporary) and there's no memory card reader in the public computers upstairs. This weekend i'm hoping to (in between writing papers/presentations) get to Brighton, on the coast of England. I'll try to post pictures from that as well, someday.

In food news: I cooked proper food this week, making my mum's Chicken Chicken recipe. There was an epic hunt for tin foil (I don't have a pan to bake chicken in, and I also only had £1.20 in change, these were the hurdles) but in the end I found success. Today I splurged and bought some delicious chinese food from a street vendor at Camden High Street. It just looked so good...It called to me. That was quite exciting, and I think I ate it so fast it would be more aptly described as inhaling it. Mmmmm.

And now it is nearly half midnight, and I still have to do my biotech homework for tomorrows class. Remember the good old days when I was just in London going to classes but not actually doing any homework? Yeah, I miss those days. Strange to think i've been here a month already- it's nearly halfway done! Crazy days. I'll try to write again soon, and thanks for the comments, they're much appreciated!

Lame lame lame.

My computer is broken! I'm on a friends computer, and there are a few upstairs (so don't hesitate to email!) but mine is royally screwed up. It whirrs when I turn it on, but the screen never turns on. I've tried everything I could think of, but my RA has informed me that we have no tech support available, therefore it will have to wait till I get back stateside. If anyone has any ideas let me know, otherwise i'll be doing very sporadic posts, with no pictures for lack of ability to upload them. It's your loss though, because the pictures I took in Scotland are AMAZING. For now my friend needs her computer back, so i'll head off. Boo computer: Epic fail.

South Wales!

My trip to Wales was amazing! The country side was gorgeous, and we could see the seaside from the hills when the clouds weren't too low. We left friday night, drove for five hours, stopping to spend 150 quid on food for the weekend, and arrived round 1am. The University of Kent was there as well, and we stayed up till 4am playing games. Among them was the squeezebox game: Two boards, held together by two screws, which can be tightened to narrow the gap. Try and fit through, tighten screws, repeat. The stick game: You stand on a bottle, each with a stick, and try to knock the other person off balance by hitting their stick with yours. The rock game: Put your head on one chair, your heels on another, pick up a large rock and try to pass it round your body as many times as you can. Record was 48 times. And the can game: Place your feet at the line, place your hands on two cans. Stretch forward and, while leaning precariously on one can, place the other as far as you can (marked by the green bottle) and then try to make it back to the starting line using just the one can.

Saturday we spend about 8 hrs in the cave, climbing waterfalls, dropping into streams, and chimneying all over. It was a great combination of a lot of things: Length, technical stuff, great photo ops. We were soaked by the time we reached the last waterfall, also the biggest, and we got a great picture of us all standing beneath it. I haven't got it yet (it's on someone elses camera) but i'll post it eventually. Sunday we did another quick caving trip, as well as some hiking, and then headed back. All in all it was TONS of fun, and I can't wait till next weekend! Meanwhile though my computer has been acting up, with the screen sporadically not working/functioning. My RA said her computer did the same thing just before the motherboard fried. Lets cross our fingers for my not having to buy a new computer in London! That's it for me, i'll post again soon. Hope you like the pics!

Nearly a week later...

Well, I suppose thus ends the keeping up with the blog regularly, huh? It is now thursday, nearly a week since the last post. Lets see if I can't remember what i've done...Well, saturday I went to portobello road and walked through the market. I'll have to go back on a weekday, when there are less shops and more food. Not that I bought any of the deliciously fresh produce, but I enjoy walking through and people watching in that sort of a setting. Reminds of the farmers market back home I suppose. Sunday was a completely gorgeous day, so of course I spent the morning and afternoon reading on the grass near round pond and promptly falling asleep. I have a lovely tan line round my watch band as proof. I had lots of stuff with me (my camera, bag, jacket, books, etc) and I didn't want any of it to get stolen while I slept, so I tried to have my hands/arms/legs draped over all of my things, and i'm sure it must have been an odd sight.

Monday tuesday and wednesday were all days filled with classes. Tuesday I did go and see a Harold Pinter show called 'No Man's Land'. The most exciting thing about that show was the fact that the actors that played Dumbledore and Filch in the Harry Potter movies were the lead actors in the show. Other than that it was dreadfully slow and dull. Last night's (wednesday night) show, on the other hand, was wonderful! It was called 'A Disappearing Number, and was about the Indian mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan. Well, there was a bit of other plot in there, but the most interesting story was Ramanujans. He's close to my heart because when I wrote my Calc II paper in High school on predator/prey relationships through series, I had to use Ramanujans name as my alias so that my peers could review it objectively. That's beside the point. Point is: Classes and theater are keeping me busy. Though as it turns out there are only three people taking my bio class as an advanced course, therefore we get to do lots of 1:3 discussions with our Prof, which is kind of cool.

Anyway, i'm sorry there are no pictures today. I took lots, but my camera is over 5 ft away, which qualifies it as 'too far'. However, it has been suggested that I post my address here, if only so I can't complain at not receiving any post yet. So here's my address, you can put any name you like on there so long as it ends with 'Miller'.

[Insert Name Here]
London Centre
7 Brechin Place
London, Eng
SW7 4QB

I leave tomorrow at 6pm for Wales, but i'll be back on sunday and i'll post again soon. Till then, cheers!

A good two days.

Alright, scratch the whole Covent Garden idea, but I did spend the afternoon in Greenwich instead. A group of five of us took a river boat to Greenwich, and I even passed by one of my favorite buildings. I don't know what that egg shaped building is called, but anyone that can tell me gets bonus points. Once we arrived at Greenwich we met up with two of our professors and their son at the market. We grabbed sandwiches and had a picnic, followed by a tour of the National Maritime Museum and a trip up to the Prime Meridian. The view was amazing, and in the background of this picture (taken from the building housing the Prime Meridian showcase) you can see the Queens House (middle) attached to the National Maritime Museum (left).

Today my evolutionary biology class to a field trip to visit the Down House, where Charles Darwin wrote "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection". We toured the house (sorry, no pictures allowed) and also the grounds. Boy-oh-boy were his grounds spectacular. There were rows of gardens, fields, forests, hills, hedges with doorways cut out, and stone walls weaving throughout it all. Hide and seek must have been AMAZING round there. After we finished up there we went to go eat at a local pub, but I only had a card on me so there was no food to be had for me. The day finished with us checking out the local church/cemetary in front of our bus stop, and the nicest old man came up and offered us an impromptu tour.

All in all it was a very productive two days, and we'll see what this weekend yeilds. I've attached a picture of all the exchange students and me in front of our dorm. I was told folks liked the pictures of me in all these different places, so I swear that's why i've added so many, it's certainly not because of any photogenic confidence ;) And that's that for me, i'll write again soon!

Not much to report on

Well, not too much has been going on. My first week of classes just wrapped up for the week, and i've got a mountain of reading to do over the weekend. But that's not going to stop me! I think i'll maybe go to Covent Gardens tomorrow, i'm going to visit Darwin's house and property on friday, I think i'll take a day trip on saturday to the seaside at Brighton, and sunday shall be my day of reading. Sounds like a productive weekend, yeah? And things look good for the trip to South Wales the weekend after, so keep your fingers crossed.

Tonight Kylie and I sat around for a good hour naming off all the food we miss from home. Many notable recipes were mentioned, including (but not limited to) chicken chicken, frog eye salad, strawberry pie, cottage cheese pancakes, yams, stuffing (there was actually a whole 15 minute set about thanksgiving in general, so i'll just breeze over that), apple crisp, and much much more. In the end we realized we have A) No baking supplies B) No kitchenware with which to bake the supplies we don't have and C) No oven in which to put the kitchenware with which we can't bake the supplies we don't have. It was a sad conclusion to a nostalgic hour, but we made a trek to Sainsbury's (the nearest grocery), bought some instant cookie dough, and sat round the kitchen table eating it with a knife. I think of the poorly spent evening and it's made better by the prospective productivity of this weekend.

And sad to say I haven't taken any pictures since I last posted, but fear not there will be many more to come following this weekend i'm sure. I did see a show at Picadilly last night, but since I didn't bring my camera i'll just post a picture of the program. It was an excellent show, based off of the Hitchcock film, based off of the book. This is me signing off, i'll write again soon!

Clubs clubs clubs!

So many clubs, so little time! Today was the 'freshers fair', which is basically a crazy huge activities fair where all the uni clubs and societies set up recruitment tables. The one at Lawrence takes up the first floor of our main rec center gym, the one here at Imperial was about five times as big. It was nuts! There were too many clubs to name, but in the end I settled on a few select groups to join: The Juggling club (of course), the Mountaineering group (rock climbing and ice climbing), the outdoor rec group (camping, hiking, canoeing, more climbing, etc), the Caving club (wahoo! There's a trip to South Wales two weekends from now that I DEFINITELY want to go on!) and alright, I signed up to receive info about the rowing club (but I swear i'll only watch! ....) I briefly entertained the idea of the riding club, till I saw the price listings, and i'm sure my email ended up on a number of other groups that i'll never actually attend. There were three clubs I found especially entertaining: The Tea club and the Cheese club, both created to sample, discuss, and ingest the many variations of their chosen dishes, and the Meat club, created specifically in retaliation to the vegetarian society.

We took a stroll through Hyde park yesterday after classes were up (they all seem like they'll be fun enough) and I took some pictures. The last one is from my window in my room, a look down Brechin Place. Hopefully i'll actually become active in the clubs I joined, and hopefully i'll continue to enjoy the classes I signed up for. And that's it for now, i'll write again soon!

What did I learn today?

Today I learned that I should carry a compass. Actually I learned that lesson a few days ago, when I went on an epic 7 mile journey from chelsea, to the thames, to westminster, up to Buckingham palace and the royal parks, over along Knightsbridge, and back down cromwell to home. Had I had along a compass it wouldn't have been nearly so long, but the exploration was not necessarily regretted. I also learned how to use a calling card today, which was lovely, and I brewed up my first bit of english tea when I got home. I've finally bought an oyster card, so soon i'll spread out beyond western london, and i'm sure there will be a whole new set of lessons to be learned when that comes about. I suppose I ought to add some pictures at some point. Right, off I go on that mission!

London at last

Well, I finally made it! Got here early, i'm staying in a hostel. The directions were quite misleading, but in the end i'm here. Today we walked around, wandering till we got lost. We went quite a few miles but in the meantime we were able to locate all the nearest grocery stores, laundry mats, parks (except Hyde park) and hospitals. I bought the fixin's for pb'n'j sandwiches, which i'll likely live off of till I get to the dorms. The weather is nice and cool, no rain yet, and its been a blast just taking in the natives from a less touristy perspective. Tomorrow: Hyde Park shall be conquered. Tonight: A group movie in the kitchen and then pass out time!

Also, trying to cross the streets here has led me to think hard about my own mortality. Its a combination of fast cars in opposite lanes than i'm used to, more cars in general than I usually have to deal with, and motorcyclists who don't have to heed any sort of lane lines at all. I can't decide if getting a bike for while i'm here is worth my time or asking for death. Only time can tell. Gotta fly!