Good news for people who love junk

Here are some photo's from my days rambling around Notting Hill's Portabello Market and Camden town market. I love junk, people watching, and food so a sunny day wasted in these places wasn't wasted at all...

The Food Series...

Dublin

This past weekend I finally made my way outside England and flew up to Dublin! Two other CGS girls and I left late Thursday night and exhaustedly arrived at our hostel "The Ashfield" on D'Olier Rd. The hostel is right outside Temple Bar, Dublin's happening neighborhood made of narrow roads, silly pubs, all types of restaurants, and all types of characters. Our first day we got tea at a place called Bewley's. We just went for refreshment but the food looked delicious. After that we spent most of the day exploring, or Rambling if you will. I wasn't feeling to good so I ended up staying back at the hostel that night. It was actually had a lot of fun just mingling with the other travelers and watching a Rugby game (I've been wanting to learn the rules for a while). The next day I got up at 6AM to catch a train for my day tour to Ireland's west coast. The tour was through Galway and Connemara by way of coach. It was a long day but the landscape was very beautiful. We went to a site called Kylemore Abbey, with a beautiful Gothic church, structured gardens, and a castle-like estate. The main thing I got from the site was that a drawing/reading room will be essential in my future home. I learned a bit of Gaelic and listened to some classic Irish music. My train ride to and from the tour was three hours. I Actually enjoy long train rides though and it gave me plenty of time to reflect since it was in fact Rosh Hashanah. Lauren (travel buddy) and I had apples and sugar later that night at the hostel. The honey was 5 Euro, which is $10, so we settled for sugar.
The following day we took a tour of the Guinness warehouse and at night, roamed the crazy streets of Temple Bar once again. Finally, on Sunday, we made it back to South Kensington in the late afternoon...just in time to study protein synthesis for our Monday morning test.

One of many Dublin bridges across the river

Outside the warehouse

Guinness's take on the ever crucial ingrediant, water

Lauren and I in the "tasting laboratory"

Pretty Ireland

Kylemore

Kylemore Gardens, now cared for by nuns

Gothic Church

Man with pipe & bright blue shirt

My pub meal, homemade vegetable soup and hardy bread

Connor! The sweetest man ever, made us feel at home in the hostel

Crowds gathering in the street on Sunday for a rivalry football game

Apples and Sugar for Rosh Hashanah 

Field Trip 2 - Chelsea Physic Gardens

Gardens Gardens Gardens. So far I've seen a lot of Gardens. All beautiful, but the UK really loves gardens.  For Natural Science (201 to be exact) we had a visit to the Chelsea Physic Gardens, aka the Botanic Gardens. The day was cold and cloudy which put a damper on things a bit, but it was still nice. The way the staff organized the garden was by mostly by use. There was a section of cooking plants, pharmaceutical plants, etc. They also had a world medicine section, which showed plants and what region of the world uses them most often. Of course it reminded me of my mom. My favorite section was the pharmaceutical section, which was divided into categories like cardiology, dermatology, psychiatry, and parasitological. I liked seeing the anti-malaria plants the most. 

Anti-Malaria Plant (above)

       

I know I know, I have far to many pictures of flowers but I go to a garden at least once a week!

Cabinet War Rooms

As I mentioned earlier, our curriculum incorporates field trips around London at least once a week. The field trips are great because they're a chance to see museums and other exhibits that we would want to go to anyway. While most field trips are for Natural Science, there are a couple for our British Culture & Identity class. Our first one was to the Churchill Cabinet War Rooms. These are a series of underground rooms that Churchill and members of his administration lived in during WWII. For the most part, they have been preserved almost exactly as they were. I though the exhibit was really interesting and it was pretty incredible to see history from that perspective. On the other hand it brought a WWII and war in general to a tangible level that I found hard to get excited about. As I walked through and saw maps of strategy as well as death toll charts, my fascination with the exhibit shifted more toward sentiments of sadness. Of course all the rooms were interesting, worth seeing, and worth preserving. However I think a lot of visitors get caught up in the glorification and excitement (perhaps by the influence of Hollywood) of it all, and forget what a tragedy the very existence of war is. Most eerie was the sketch of Hitler drawn over his territory on a giant map (shown below, a bit blurry)

                              

Entrance

Strategy Map

Churchill sat in the centered chair behind the red box

The man below is my professor Dr. Weight. He was wearing a khaki pinstripe blazer, a straw fedora, and Miu Miu sunglasses.

Tourist Perspective

       

Smaller pictures = Not so impressed with Buckingham Palace