Recap

I haven't had a chance to sit down and write, so I'll try to recap my week. For the most part I just went to work and researched destitution. It's so hard to sit at a desk for 8 hours straight! I try to find reasons to get up and walk around the office. Generally I work through lunch, so twice this week after I ate and finished reading whatever article I was on I went for a walk. Thursday was the first time I actually went out, and when I said I was going for a walk one of my coworkers, Eleanor, suggested that I go to the cemetary. The suggestion sounded odd at first, but when she explained that there are famous authors buried there it made more sense. It's just down the street from the office, but it was a nice little walk. It's called the Bunhill Fields Burial Ground. Some of the people buried there are John Bunyan (Pilgrim's Progress); Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe); Henry and Richard Cromwell (sons of Oliver Cromwell); and William Blake (poet). Lots of people eat lunch in the cemetary -- there are benches by the graves of Bunyan, Defoe, and Blake. It was really interesting. Yesterday for my walk I stopped in some of the shops across from my office building. I get really cold at work, so I picked up a sweater to keep there. There's also a big grocery store and the prices are better than some of the ones I've been to, so now I know that I can pick up a few things on the way back from work.

For my day off on Tuesday I went to a few museums -- which does NOT include the British Museum, for once. My supervisor was shocked! I went to the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, which is amazing. I also went to the Sir John Soane Museum, which is a lot better than I thought it was going to be. John Soane was an architect and he built the house which is now the museum. It's filled with things that he acquired while he was alive: furniture, paintings, artifacts. He had the sarcophogus of Seti I! I plan to go back to both of the museums at some point. The Sir John Soane Museum will take some planning, because it's best to go on a sunny day. The house isn't very well lit. When it gets dark they light some candles, but that doesn't do very much good. There are lots of skylights, so you just have to hope for a clear day when you go. Actually, the Petrie Museum isn't well-lit either ... I had to walk around with a flashlight (although they called it a torch, I'm not sure if that's because in England they call flashlights torches or because it was supposed to add to the atmosphere).

Thursday night I went on the Jack the Ripper walk with Alisha, Amber, Elizabeth, Kim, Liz, Steph, and Tara. The tour guide brought us around the areas of the City of London and East London where the victims of Jack the Ripper were found. It actually wasn't as creepy as we thought it might be, which was nice! Really the only time we were creeped out was when the tour guide said "Even though you don't know it, you've walked in the footsteps of Jack the Ripper. The cobblestone you walked over is the original cobblestone that was here in 1888, which he walked over to kill his victim." I know I had chills up and down my spine when she said that. It wasn't scary, but it was definitely creepy. That was one of the two things that are the same as they were in 1888, for the most part everything else is different. Between making things modern and having to rebuild after the war, there aren't too many things that have survived.

Other than that, I finally joined the gym after figuring out where the building is! The facility is pretty good. It's bigger than the gym at Clark, but smaller than I would have thought for so many students. So far I haven't had to wait for a machine though.

I don't have much planned for the weekend other than writing a paper that's due for my class on Tuesday. I am going on the London Eye today! Very exciting. Pictures in the next entry I write. :)