Welcome to my Vanderbilt OHS Summer Experience ’09 blog. With assistance from a Vanderbilt stipend, I was able to spend July in Cambridge, England studying international, American and English law. It was my first overseas experience – and what an experience it was!!!
ABOUT MY PROGRAM
I’m very fortunate to be one of Vanderbilt’s ENGAGE Law Scholars. ENGAGE stands for Early Notification of Guaranteed Admission for Graduate Education. The program allows a small group of first-year students to gain early conditional acceptance to one of Vanderbilt’s graduate or professional schools. The ENGAGE Law program encourages students to pursue coursework throughout the University to receive a truly liberal education, but it also provides a unique connection to the law school via a personal relationship with a law school student mentor and our ENGAGE Law advisor. The program also provides a stipend for students to pursue law-related summer internships or studies after the sophomore or junior year.
This summer, I chose to attend the Cambridge Pre-Law Institute, sponsored by the University of Kansas. The program, held at Trinity Hall, Cambridge University, Cambridge, England, was designed for upper-level undergraduates interested in international law and politics who are considering law school. The program consisted of two courses, History of International Law and Topics in the American Legal System, taught by University of Kansas (KU) History Department and School of Law faculty. It also included a residential stay at the beautiful, historic Trinity Hall; several class excursions to legal points of interest in Cambridge, Oxford and London; and one long weekend break for individual travel.
Learn more about the program by clicking on the link to the right.
ABOUT MY BLOG
This blog is not exactly a “blog” or a “travel journal” in the usual sense. It’s actually a combination of my during-the-moment observations, drawn from my personal journal, personal blog and email correspondence with friends, and of post-experience reflections written exclusively for this site. Hopefully, this won’t be too confusing, and instead will provide for an interesting and informative read. I’ll indicate the “source” of each of my during-the-moment observations and the date when it was written.
Getting to Cambridge
Note: Originally posted in personal blog, July 7.
I LOVE IT! Enough said. :-D
...Well, I suppose I'll go into a bit more detail, although it is 3 a.m. and I have to get up early to visit Oxford tomorrow.
Here's the skinny version of my trip thus far:
Saturday, July 4th. Left the U.S. on my first transatlantic flight, first time leaving the country. Very exciting. Good accommodations on the plane, decent food, not much rough air, nothing too noteworthy, aside from the fact that I didn't sleep much. I didn't want to recline my chair back too far because the guy behind me had long legs, so I was in a bit of an awkward position while trying to sleep. Eventually gave up and started playing video games on the little flight TV.
Sunday, July 5th. I arrived at Gatwick Airport at 7 a.m., and it was surprisingly empty for London's second busiest airport (even though it's technically outside of London). Construction is ongoing and there were at least a dozen long empty hallways to walk through before getting to border control. I felt like a mouse in a lab maze (although no one offered me cheese, lol). Got my little passport stamped, nothing eventful happened in customs. Confirmed my coach (bus) reservation. Have an hour to kill before the bus arrives, and I hear an announcement that Anglican services will be held in the chapel shortly, so I decided, hey, why not? It was a very lovely service. About ten people attended, including the priest (or whatever his proper title is), a divinity student who delivered a lovely sermon, four travelers and a few airport employees. A very diverse group ethnically as well. I enjoyed the service, although I was last to take communion and was a bit hesitant since everyone else had already drank out of the (same) cup. Sanitation issues aside, I had a great experience, and service ended just in time for me to make the coach.
Bus ride not too eventful, took about three hours to get to Cambridge since we made several stops. Mostly listened to my iPod and dozed.
We arrive in Cambridge, and it is absolutely gorgeous, like a quintessential "English" town. Beautiful houses, big green park-like lawns, little stone and brick streets, specialty shops, cafes, pubs, and of course the colleges with their amazing and varied architectural styles. And several churches that are absolutely beautiful. My exploration of Cambridge inadvertently began as soon as I stepped off the bus because I got lost and it took me 45+ minutes to find Trinity Hall!!! Lugging a 47 pound suitcase, laptop, and carry-on around downtown Cambridge for nearly an hour on one of their hottest days of the year was NOT fun! Lol. I blame it on the map, which I still maintain was ambiguous. I never really knew when to turn, so when I started feeling tired, I'd just assume I'd gone far enough and would make a turn then, but I was usually about 3 blocks too soon and would always end up in some obscure location. But I survived. :)
I'm residing in Trinity Hall, which is very beautiful. Old-style architecture, a courtyard square, pictures of old guys with white wigs in the classrooms...the whole nine yards. We heard a rumor that you're not allowed to walk on the grass unless you're a Fellow. The grass is so beautiful that I don't know why anyone would desecrate, although someone or something left an Oklahoma-shaped dry patch of dead grass near our building. Shame on them.
Met my first new peer as I was desperately trying to shove my suitcase up the second flight of stairs to my room, and she graciously offered her assistance. I invited her into my room for a short chat and apologized for smelling less than savory and sweating profusely, although she didn't seem to mind. Perhaps her suitcase was 47 pounds as well, although she wisely took a cab to the dorm and didn't have quite the experience that I had.
Took a shower then lay down went out for a late lunch with Carody (the girl who helped with my suitcase) and Katie, my new next door neighbor who had just arrived as we were leaving for lunch. We went to an interesting place that specialized in potatoes. I was boring and simply had a ham and cheese sandwich, in part because of the insanely high prices! The pound is nearly twice as strong as the dollar (esp. w/ the terrible exchange rate I got at the airport), yet everything costs nearly the same as in America...so everything is twice as much! For example, a coke at home might be $1.25 and here it's 1.25 pounds, which is nearly $2.50. A reasonably priced lunch here is about 6.50, which is about $13, and I have to buy lunch every day and all my meals on the weekends. Yikes.
Anyway, we had a lovely lunch at the potato place, walked around for a bit, and then I came back to the dorm and took a nap before our group dinner. Met my two professors and the other 13 participants just prior to the dinner. The professors are very personable and the other kids are a lot of fun. Excluding one girl who will be leaving the program, we now have a total of 12 students: 8 boys, 4 girls; 10 KU students, 1 Mizzou student, and 1 Vandy (me); 11 whites and 1 black (me); 1 Jewish student (who has promised to take me to synagogue to meet the rabbi that he's already had extensive conversations with), 1 guy allergic to nuts, 1 guy that giggles excessively while drunk. Although being a non-KU student, non-white, or even a non-guy are sufficient reasons that one could feel a bit different, I seem to fit right in, which is awesome. I'm still learning the guys' names, but I hang out with the girls constantly, and the entire group is together quite a bit as well. Everyone is very intelligent and fun loving and generally pleasant to be around. I'm definitely looking forward to spending the month with them.
Our law professor gave us our homework reading assignment at 10 p.m. after dinner, so we students briefly visiting a quaint, nearly empty pub (I had water- jet lag and beer don't mix) and then retired for the evening.
Monday, July 5th. First day of classes. Jessica mistakenly woke me up at 6 a.m. for breakfast because she thought it was 8. :) I was (mostly) awake anyway, so I took a shower and arranged my room. There's lots of shelf, drawer and closet space, and they were nice enough to supply hangers. Breakfast at 8. A carb fiesta, with toast, croissants and cereal. Also milk, orange juice, water, tea and coffee. Very pleasant. Classes begin at 8:45 but the professor had to take care of some type of emergency, so we didn't begin until nearly 9:15.
Class one-8:45-10:15 History of International Law. History class
Class two- 10:30-12:15 Topics in American Legal System. Law class
Both seem highly interesting, at least according to today's discussions and the syllabi.
After class, our entire group had lunch at a Thai place (delicious, but 6.5 pounds! grr, lol) then I ran a few errands with Katie. She got fruit and some rock art from the market, and I got a pay-go cell phone from a place called Orange (6 pence a min calls to the U.S., not bad at all) and a plug adapter from the market. Then back to the dorm for a nap. I slept through dinner, but went to the pub with everyone later in the evening and got dinner there. Got a beer, didn't really like it (first time trying beer). Had a great time though. We got back to the dorms at a decent hour, but I've seemed to waste away the past three hours and will now get only approximately three hours of sleep.
We have a field trip to Cambridge tomorrow to visit Oxfam, which is an NGO that provides assistance to people in developing countries. We should get to talk to some 'international lawyers' and see firsthand what that field (or at least a small subset of it) is like, and that should be interesting. Then we'll visit Oxford (the college), wander around for a bit, and then head back to Cambridge. No classes, but we're responsible for quite a bit of reading on Wed., which I'll probably do on the bus.
Other notables:
Restrooms here are "Toilets." Very straightforward, lol. It's funny to see signs that say "toilet" everywhere.
Cars are smaller. Haven't seen any Yukon’s, Suburban’s, Tahoe’s, Hummers, etc. Little cars like Hyundai’s, VWs, Hondas, etc. I saw someone driving a Mercedes sedan, which is a reasonably-sized car by U.S. standards, but it looked so huge and obnoxious trying to maneuver the little Cambridge streets.
I can understand people! I thought the accents would drive me up the wall (not a Bond fan) but I don't think about it much and can understand most people.
No air conditioning in dorms. It almost never gets hot enough to need one! :-)
Travel weekends. We get one long weekend, and I really want to go to Ireland (if I have any money left). Other weekends- no definite plans, but I want to see Stonehenge and visit Scotland. We have two class trips to London already planned.
Now I absolutely MUST go to bed.
I LOVE IT! Enough said. :-D
...Well, I suppose I'll go into a bit more detail, although it is 3 a.m. and I have to get up early to visit Oxford tomorrow.
Here's the skinny version of my trip thus far:
Saturday, July 4th. Left the U.S. on my first transatlantic flight, first time leaving the country. Very exciting. Good accommodations on the plane, decent food, not much rough air, nothing too noteworthy, aside from the fact that I didn't sleep much. I didn't want to recline my chair back too far because the guy behind me had long legs, so I was in a bit of an awkward position while trying to sleep. Eventually gave up and started playing video games on the little flight TV.
Sunday, July 5th. I arrived at Gatwick Airport at 7 a.m., and it was surprisingly empty for London's second busiest airport (even though it's technically outside of London). Construction is ongoing and there were at least a dozen long empty hallways to walk through before getting to border control. I felt like a mouse in a lab maze (although no one offered me cheese, lol). Got my little passport stamped, nothing eventful happened in customs. Confirmed my coach (bus) reservation. Have an hour to kill before the bus arrives, and I hear an announcement that Anglican services will be held in the chapel shortly, so I decided, hey, why not? It was a very lovely service. About ten people attended, including the priest (or whatever his proper title is), a divinity student who delivered a lovely sermon, four travelers and a few airport employees. A very diverse group ethnically as well. I enjoyed the service, although I was last to take communion and was a bit hesitant since everyone else had already drank out of the (same) cup. Sanitation issues aside, I had a great experience, and service ended just in time for me to make the coach.
Bus ride not too eventful, took about three hours to get to Cambridge since we made several stops. Mostly listened to my iPod and dozed.
We arrive in Cambridge, and it is absolutely gorgeous, like a quintessential "English" town. Beautiful houses, big green park-like lawns, little stone and brick streets, specialty shops, cafes, pubs, and of course the colleges with their amazing and varied architectural styles. And several churches that are absolutely beautiful. My exploration of Cambridge inadvertently began as soon as I stepped off the bus because I got lost and it took me 45+ minutes to find Trinity Hall!!! Lugging a 47 pound suitcase, laptop, and carry-on around downtown Cambridge for nearly an hour on one of their hottest days of the year was NOT fun! Lol. I blame it on the map, which I still maintain was ambiguous. I never really knew when to turn, so when I started feeling tired, I'd just assume I'd gone far enough and would make a turn then, but I was usually about 3 blocks too soon and would always end up in some obscure location. But I survived. :)
I'm residing in Trinity Hall, which is very beautiful. Old-style architecture, a courtyard square, pictures of old guys with white wigs in the classrooms...the whole nine yards. We heard a rumor that you're not allowed to walk on the grass unless you're a Fellow. The grass is so beautiful that I don't know why anyone would desecrate, although someone or something left an Oklahoma-shaped dry patch of dead grass near our building. Shame on them.
Met my first new peer as I was desperately trying to shove my suitcase up the second flight of stairs to my room, and she graciously offered her assistance. I invited her into my room for a short chat and apologized for smelling less than savory and sweating profusely, although she didn't seem to mind. Perhaps her suitcase was 47 pounds as well, although she wisely took a cab to the dorm and didn't have quite the experience that I had.
Took a shower then lay down went out for a late lunch with Carody (the girl who helped with my suitcase) and Katie, my new next door neighbor who had just arrived as we were leaving for lunch. We went to an interesting place that specialized in potatoes. I was boring and simply had a ham and cheese sandwich, in part because of the insanely high prices! The pound is nearly twice as strong as the dollar (esp. w/ the terrible exchange rate I got at the airport), yet everything costs nearly the same as in America...so everything is twice as much! For example, a coke at home might be $1.25 and here it's 1.25 pounds, which is nearly $2.50. A reasonably priced lunch here is about 6.50, which is about $13, and I have to buy lunch every day and all my meals on the weekends. Yikes.
Anyway, we had a lovely lunch at the potato place, walked around for a bit, and then I came back to the dorm and took a nap before our group dinner. Met my two professors and the other 13 participants just prior to the dinner. The professors are very personable and the other kids are a lot of fun. Excluding one girl who will be leaving the program, we now have a total of 12 students: 8 boys, 4 girls; 10 KU students, 1 Mizzou student, and 1 Vandy (me); 11 whites and 1 black (me); 1 Jewish student (who has promised to take me to synagogue to meet the rabbi that he's already had extensive conversations with), 1 guy allergic to nuts, 1 guy that giggles excessively while drunk. Although being a non-KU student, non-white, or even a non-guy are sufficient reasons that one could feel a bit different, I seem to fit right in, which is awesome. I'm still learning the guys' names, but I hang out with the girls constantly, and the entire group is together quite a bit as well. Everyone is very intelligent and fun loving and generally pleasant to be around. I'm definitely looking forward to spending the month with them.
Our law professor gave us our homework reading assignment at 10 p.m. after dinner, so we students briefly visiting a quaint, nearly empty pub (I had water- jet lag and beer don't mix) and then retired for the evening.
Monday, July 5th. First day of classes. Jessica mistakenly woke me up at 6 a.m. for breakfast because she thought it was 8. :) I was (mostly) awake anyway, so I took a shower and arranged my room. There's lots of shelf, drawer and closet space, and they were nice enough to supply hangers. Breakfast at 8. A carb fiesta, with toast, croissants and cereal. Also milk, orange juice, water, tea and coffee. Very pleasant. Classes begin at 8:45 but the professor had to take care of some type of emergency, so we didn't begin until nearly 9:15.
Class one-8:45-10:15 History of International Law. History class
Class two- 10:30-12:15 Topics in American Legal System. Law class
Both seem highly interesting, at least according to today's discussions and the syllabi.
After class, our entire group had lunch at a Thai place (delicious, but 6.5 pounds! grr, lol) then I ran a few errands with Katie. She got fruit and some rock art from the market, and I got a pay-go cell phone from a place called Orange (6 pence a min calls to the U.S., not bad at all) and a plug adapter from the market. Then back to the dorm for a nap. I slept through dinner, but went to the pub with everyone later in the evening and got dinner there. Got a beer, didn't really like it (first time trying beer). Had a great time though. We got back to the dorms at a decent hour, but I've seemed to waste away the past three hours and will now get only approximately three hours of sleep.
We have a field trip to Cambridge tomorrow to visit Oxfam, which is an NGO that provides assistance to people in developing countries. We should get to talk to some 'international lawyers' and see firsthand what that field (or at least a small subset of it) is like, and that should be interesting. Then we'll visit Oxford (the college), wander around for a bit, and then head back to Cambridge. No classes, but we're responsible for quite a bit of reading on Wed., which I'll probably do on the bus.
Other notables:
Restrooms here are "Toilets." Very straightforward, lol. It's funny to see signs that say "toilet" everywhere.
Cars are smaller. Haven't seen any Yukon’s, Suburban’s, Tahoe’s, Hummers, etc. Little cars like Hyundai’s, VWs, Hondas, etc. I saw someone driving a Mercedes sedan, which is a reasonably-sized car by U.S. standards, but it looked so huge and obnoxious trying to maneuver the little Cambridge streets.
I can understand people! I thought the accents would drive me up the wall (not a Bond fan) but I don't think about it much and can understand most people.
No air conditioning in dorms. It almost never gets hot enough to need one! :-)
Travel weekends. We get one long weekend, and I really want to go to Ireland (if I have any money left). Other weekends- no definite plans, but I want to see Stonehenge and visit Scotland. We have two class trips to London already planned.
Now I absolutely MUST go to bed.
Punting, Oxfam, Oxford.
Note: Originally from a personal blog entry, July 8.
I just went punting, and it was quite the experience.
Punting -- at least according to my experience -- is when you get in a little boat called a punt that's kinda like a canoe but has a flat bottom and flat surfaces on either end that you can stand on. One guy stands in the back with a long rod and steers the boat by sticking the rod in the water, all the way down to the river bottom, and using that leverage to push the boat forward. I didn't take any pictures b/c I didn't want my camera to get wet, but here's a picture that I took later (when I was safely back on dry land):
There are tour guides who'll take you for a fee, and dozens of them harass you all day long on every street corner, demanding to know whether you've been punting yet, even if they saw you say "no thank you" to the pushy punt guide standing 3 centimeters away from him. Anyway, the Trinity Hall porter kindly offered us the use of the college's punt for free from 6-8 p.m. today because another group cancelled, so we pounced on the opportunity to punt on our own. ...Who needs a tour/punt guide, right? It can't be that hard, right?
Wrong.
So we (7 of us students) get to the river bank, and our grad teaching asst and his wife are standing there in front of this rickety little punt that has water inside. Does not look seaworthy at all. We decide to try it out anyway, and when the 9 of us got in, the thing sank so low that if anyone sneezed and rocked the boat, the whole thing would flood. So the teach and his wife got out and decided to just let us go. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm skirmish around bodies of water, and this ridiculously low punt was too unnerving for me, and I got out, too. So off they went.
Jeremy (the teaching asst) told me that Prof. Jahanbani and her spouse were coming, so I decided to give it another try and punt with them. I felt a lot more comfortable with just five people in the boat, and I had a great time. It was a nice, relaxing way to spend an evening, and the scenery, with the ivy-colored colleges, arched walking bridges, manicured lawns, ganders of geese and willow trees, was absolutely perfect. And the teachers turned out to be a hoot-- to say the least. :) Punting is a skill that takes practice, and Jeremy's first go at it was amusing. Our boat kept drifting off to the sides, hitting both river banks back and forth, like a pinball. We even went in a circle at one point. And it didn’t help that other punts were in the water -- we hit at least three of them. But I came to the rescue, using my mini-oar to push off against the banks and steer us back in the right direction. Prof. Jahanbani's partner steered next, and things stabilized a bit. The teachers were very laidback, joking around and having fun with the whole thing, and I think we all had a blast.
The past couple of days have been extremely busy. Yesterday was the field trip to Oxford. We visited the world headquarters of Oxfam, and international nongovernmental org whose mission is to fight poverty. We heard from two people who work there, one who is a KU alum and started in Oxfam's communication dept and went on to work on several relief projects, and an English gentleman who spent a few years in the West Bank helping the Palestinians. We covered a lot of ground, getting a sense of how Oxfam operates, what the day-to-day jobs of the people are like, how they choose which projects to fund, what they can and can't say in the press, where money comes from, etc. We also talked a lot about how international law relates to the whole process.
We then spent the rest of the day exploring Oxford on our own. I was a bit bummed about it at first, because it was rainy and I wasn't feeling too well, and I just wanted to go home asap. But then I decided that I shouldn't waste the day, since I may not go back to Oxford, so I decided to tour the city on my own and get some much-needed quiet time to myself. The group is great and I really enjoy their company, but I've been so social lately that it was just nice to have a little alone time. I saw a few of the colleges, saw the Oxford Castle and ate and read a bit at the cafe there, bought some homemade jewelry at a little outdoor market and just casually toured the streets. I had dinner at Pizza Hut, which was like a weird comfort zone, since it reminded me of home. (Except for the "Texas barbecue" wings with sauce that tasted nothing like Texas barbecue, lol.) Took a couple dozen pictures, although it's hard to capture the beauty of the buildings in a snapshot, since you can't capture the full view.
Today was class, then lunch at an Italian place with the other girls, then some window shopping. And we got fruit and sandwich meat at the grocery. (Maybe that'll keep these outrageous food costs down a bit.) And then a nap, dinner in college (quite the experience...the plates, mugs and napkins have the official Trinity Hall crest on them, and these official-looking cooks serve the food to you at your seat in courses) and the punting, of course.
I'm tired, but I have reading to do for class. And I need to finalize my weekend travel plans. ...No big plans for tomorrow. Jessica and I want to visit the outdoor market after class, and maybe I'll try to look inside some of the churches (they charge you to enter some of the chapels). It'll be one of the guys' birthdays, so we'll undoubtedly go to a pub or a club, or both.
I just went punting, and it was quite the experience.
Punting -- at least according to my experience -- is when you get in a little boat called a punt that's kinda like a canoe but has a flat bottom and flat surfaces on either end that you can stand on. One guy stands in the back with a long rod and steers the boat by sticking the rod in the water, all the way down to the river bottom, and using that leverage to push the boat forward. I didn't take any pictures b/c I didn't want my camera to get wet, but here's a picture that I took later (when I was safely back on dry land):
There are tour guides who'll take you for a fee, and dozens of them harass you all day long on every street corner, demanding to know whether you've been punting yet, even if they saw you say "no thank you" to the pushy punt guide standing 3 centimeters away from him. Anyway, the Trinity Hall porter kindly offered us the use of the college's punt for free from 6-8 p.m. today because another group cancelled, so we pounced on the opportunity to punt on our own. ...Who needs a tour/punt guide, right? It can't be that hard, right?
Wrong.
So we (7 of us students) get to the river bank, and our grad teaching asst and his wife are standing there in front of this rickety little punt that has water inside. Does not look seaworthy at all. We decide to try it out anyway, and when the 9 of us got in, the thing sank so low that if anyone sneezed and rocked the boat, the whole thing would flood. So the teach and his wife got out and decided to just let us go. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm skirmish around bodies of water, and this ridiculously low punt was too unnerving for me, and I got out, too. So off they went.
Jeremy (the teaching asst) told me that Prof. Jahanbani and her spouse were coming, so I decided to give it another try and punt with them. I felt a lot more comfortable with just five people in the boat, and I had a great time. It was a nice, relaxing way to spend an evening, and the scenery, with the ivy-colored colleges, arched walking bridges, manicured lawns, ganders of geese and willow trees, was absolutely perfect. And the teachers turned out to be a hoot-- to say the least. :) Punting is a skill that takes practice, and Jeremy's first go at it was amusing. Our boat kept drifting off to the sides, hitting both river banks back and forth, like a pinball. We even went in a circle at one point. And it didn’t help that other punts were in the water -- we hit at least three of them. But I came to the rescue, using my mini-oar to push off against the banks and steer us back in the right direction. Prof. Jahanbani's partner steered next, and things stabilized a bit. The teachers were very laidback, joking around and having fun with the whole thing, and I think we all had a blast.
The past couple of days have been extremely busy. Yesterday was the field trip to Oxford. We visited the world headquarters of Oxfam, and international nongovernmental org whose mission is to fight poverty. We heard from two people who work there, one who is a KU alum and started in Oxfam's communication dept and went on to work on several relief projects, and an English gentleman who spent a few years in the West Bank helping the Palestinians. We covered a lot of ground, getting a sense of how Oxfam operates, what the day-to-day jobs of the people are like, how they choose which projects to fund, what they can and can't say in the press, where money comes from, etc. We also talked a lot about how international law relates to the whole process.
We then spent the rest of the day exploring Oxford on our own. I was a bit bummed about it at first, because it was rainy and I wasn't feeling too well, and I just wanted to go home asap. But then I decided that I shouldn't waste the day, since I may not go back to Oxford, so I decided to tour the city on my own and get some much-needed quiet time to myself. The group is great and I really enjoy their company, but I've been so social lately that it was just nice to have a little alone time. I saw a few of the colleges, saw the Oxford Castle and ate and read a bit at the cafe there, bought some homemade jewelry at a little outdoor market and just casually toured the streets. I had dinner at Pizza Hut, which was like a weird comfort zone, since it reminded me of home. (Except for the "Texas barbecue" wings with sauce that tasted nothing like Texas barbecue, lol.) Took a couple dozen pictures, although it's hard to capture the beauty of the buildings in a snapshot, since you can't capture the full view.
Today was class, then lunch at an Italian place with the other girls, then some window shopping. And we got fruit and sandwich meat at the grocery. (Maybe that'll keep these outrageous food costs down a bit.) And then a nap, dinner in college (quite the experience...the plates, mugs and napkins have the official Trinity Hall crest on them, and these official-looking cooks serve the food to you at your seat in courses) and the punting, of course.
I'm tired, but I have reading to do for class. And I need to finalize my weekend travel plans. ...No big plans for tomorrow. Jessica and I want to visit the outdoor market after class, and maybe I'll try to look inside some of the churches (they charge you to enter some of the chapels). It'll be one of the guys' birthdays, so we'll undoubtedly go to a pub or a club, or both.
Thurs, Fri, Sat, London
Note: Originally from a personal blog entry, July 13.
I've gotten a bit behind on my blog, and although I have a long to-do list and am insanely tired, I figured a post is in order. So here's a brief recap of my past few days, with just the highlights (...or the ones that I still remember):
Thursday: Class. Explored the Cambridge marketplace with one of the girls that afternoon. Had a nice dinner somewhere in city centre with the group, declined to go to the pub afterwards. Called my mom to complain that I missed my friends. She was just like, "Well, make new friends." Thought that was the dumbest statement ever...it's not like I'm on the kindergarten playground or something, right? I really liked my new classmates from Kansas/Mizzou and we'd been getting along great, but I still missed my Vandy girlfriends a lot and was constantly thinking, "So-and-so would love that scarf..." or "So-and-so probably would've had a great time there with me..." I wasn't quite ready to admit to homesickness, so I rationalized my pity party by reasoning that travelling with new "friends" just isn't the same as being with old buddies. So I went back to my room and played Bejeweled online until I fell asleep.
Friday: Law class. Instead of having our regular history class, we visited the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, which is affiliated with U of Cambridge. The Centre's deputy director gave us a wonderful presentation on what "international lawyers" do, some of the different roles lawyers play during the decision-making processes of states and nongovernmental organizations, the roles of international legal scholars, some various ways to prepare for a career in international law, and even to what extent international law even exists. This may be a boring way for most people to spend an evening, but my class was like a bunch of kids in a candy store. :-) We got to ask a lot of interesting questions, and the director had even prepared tea and biscuits for us!
That evening I decided to end my pity party and "put myself out there" a bit more. During dinner and post-dinner conversations, I discovered that although most of the others were from KU, they didn't know each other prior to the trip, either, so we were all pretty much in the same boat, at least as far as "making new friends" was concerned. So it's like we're all grade schoolers at summer camp all over again, except we travel the country together and share college stories over a round of ale and cider instead of camping and sharing marshmallows over a campfire. Lol. ...I never liked camping anyway. I'm always the one who gets bit by a million bugs. (Speaking of bugs, England supposedly has "nidges," whatever those are, instead of mosquitoes. So I've taken to referring to all bugs as "nidges" just because it sounds funny, even though I've yet to hear of a local refer to one.)
So anyway, I bonded with my fellow Americans and went to bed contented and filled with a sense of belonging and purpose.
Saturday: The plan was to visit the local Fitzwilliam Museum, which I'd been looking forward to all week, but I felt very ill that morning/early afternoon and stayed at the dorm instead. I was very disappointed, especially after my wonderful bonding experiences earlier, but everyone was really nice and over the course of the day, each person individually offered to go back and visit the museum with me another day, not knowing that other people had also offered the same thing. It just shows how thoughtful everyone is, and made me feel even happier to be here with this group.
The Tylenol was working by that evening, and those of us who'd stayed in town for the weekend had dinner at the Eagle with Professor Westerbeke. The Eagle's a popular pub with some history; some WWII pilots sketched their names and initials in the ceiling of one of the rooms.
Prof. Westerbeke teaches the law class; he specializes in torts, and we'd been discussing The Buffalo Creek Disaster by Gerald Stern. It's a great book, about a huge personal injury case that coal mining community members in West Virginia brought against a coal company after a large coal refuse dam broke, killing 125 people (mostly women and children) and destroying thousands of homes. The book reads like a play-by-play of how Stern progressed through the case, from learning of the case from a partner in his firm, agreeing to represent 400+ defendants pro bono, interviewing clients, filing the claim, countering a motion to dismiss and allegations of unethical solicitation of clients, engaging in discovery, doing depositions, playing the media, preparing for trial, settlement negotiations...the whole nine yards. It's a true story, of course -- an important case that raised some important issues -- but perhaps the most interesting part of class discussions was Prof. Westerbeke's commentary and digressions about his own cases. He practiced law in one of the big California law firms back in the day, defending corporations against personal injury cases like the one brought against Pittston, the company in Buffalo Creek. So whereas Stern, the author, was the class hero, the defender of the little guy, our professor was the big man's lawyer and represented clients like the big oil companies, who he'd successfully gotten a mere $500 settlement after causing a huge oil spill in Santa Barbara. We all love Prof. Westerbeke, who is very intelligent yet down to earth and a real joy to be around, so we had (and are still having) a bit of a problem wrapping our minds around the fact that he could represent such unsympathetic and arguably guilty clients. But that's what corporate law is, right? You represent corporations, which aren't exactly warm, fuzzy, benevolent institutions. And corporate law is where the money is, and an area where a lot of us plan on practicing at least for a few years. Food for thought...
In any event, at dinner, we put our moral and existential questions aside for another day and had a fabulous dinner. Prof. Westerbeke is just as personable outside of class and was the highlight of everyone's evening. This is the professor's last week in Cambridge, as he team-teaches his course with another professor who will teach the final two weeks.
Here we are at The Eagle with the Professor:
Sunday: London Day.
We took the train into the city for the afternoon and had an amazing time. I saw Kensington Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden, St. Paul's Cathedral (We saw several other impressive churches, too), Shakespeare's Globe Theater, the H.M.S. Belfast, the outside of the Tate Museum (lol), the Thames River and London Bridge. We went inside the cathedral but couldn't tour it or Westminster, as it was Sunday, so we decided to do those things and explore the Tate and Globe Theater during free time on our class visit to London this Thursday. This was our low-budget sightseeing day, but we did shell out 3.5 pounds to tour the Clink Prison Museum, which was a somewhat corny but informative little exhibit about medieval London prisons. The corny part was the life-sized paper mache dolls that were made up to look like prisoners. They were as realistic as possible but just didn't seem to have the desired effect. :-) But the artifacts were indeed interesting: I saw an actual iron chastity belt (quite painful-looking) and several torture devices: a boot (an iron boot that they stuck your foot in and then filled with wood chips, then put water in it to make the wood swell and effectively chop your foot off, leaving a nubby end that would become infected and kill you slowly and painfully), some stocks, a ball and chain, a thumb crusher, a whipping rack and a torture chair. They definitely took "cruel and unusual punishment" to a whole 'nother level.
We had dinner in a restaurant in Soho (didn't know London had a Soho, too, but apparently it does) that's made to look like a cinema. There's one in Cambridge, too, and I'd love to eat there; best prices I've seen over here so far, and great food.
Riding the underground (the tube) was an experience in itself. I didn't expect it to be a big deal, but thank goodness that Carody's friend, a native Briton, was with us! I found the NYC trains pretty simple and straightforward after a day or two, but I couldn't find any rhyme or rhythm to the London trains. The lines on the map squiggled in all sorts of directions, half the trains were closed (presumably because they do most of their repairs on Sundays), and my rail card randomly stopped working so I always had to go through the special gate (which seems like a fairly common problem). ...It didn't inspire fear or paranoia or anything like that, but I just hope that most cities' trains are more like New York's than London's. :-)
...Just looked out my dorm window, which overlooks the Trinity Hall courtyard, and there is a group of students with backpacks on the roof the building next door, which looks like a church (but of course everything looks like a church, here, so it could be a university building). ...That can't be normal. Or safe. Esp. since it's about to rain.
Maybe I can go up there tomorrow...
I've gotten a bit behind on my blog, and although I have a long to-do list and am insanely tired, I figured a post is in order. So here's a brief recap of my past few days, with just the highlights (...or the ones that I still remember):
Thursday: Class. Explored the Cambridge marketplace with one of the girls that afternoon. Had a nice dinner somewhere in city centre with the group, declined to go to the pub afterwards. Called my mom to complain that I missed my friends. She was just like, "Well, make new friends." Thought that was the dumbest statement ever...it's not like I'm on the kindergarten playground or something, right? I really liked my new classmates from Kansas/Mizzou and we'd been getting along great, but I still missed my Vandy girlfriends a lot and was constantly thinking, "So-and-so would love that scarf..." or "So-and-so probably would've had a great time there with me..." I wasn't quite ready to admit to homesickness, so I rationalized my pity party by reasoning that travelling with new "friends" just isn't the same as being with old buddies. So I went back to my room and played Bejeweled online until I fell asleep.
Friday: Law class. Instead of having our regular history class, we visited the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, which is affiliated with U of Cambridge. The Centre's deputy director gave us a wonderful presentation on what "international lawyers" do, some of the different roles lawyers play during the decision-making processes of states and nongovernmental organizations, the roles of international legal scholars, some various ways to prepare for a career in international law, and even to what extent international law even exists. This may be a boring way for most people to spend an evening, but my class was like a bunch of kids in a candy store. :-) We got to ask a lot of interesting questions, and the director had even prepared tea and biscuits for us!
That evening I decided to end my pity party and "put myself out there" a bit more. During dinner and post-dinner conversations, I discovered that although most of the others were from KU, they didn't know each other prior to the trip, either, so we were all pretty much in the same boat, at least as far as "making new friends" was concerned. So it's like we're all grade schoolers at summer camp all over again, except we travel the country together and share college stories over a round of ale and cider instead of camping and sharing marshmallows over a campfire. Lol. ...I never liked camping anyway. I'm always the one who gets bit by a million bugs. (Speaking of bugs, England supposedly has "nidges," whatever those are, instead of mosquitoes. So I've taken to referring to all bugs as "nidges" just because it sounds funny, even though I've yet to hear of a local refer to one.)
So anyway, I bonded with my fellow Americans and went to bed contented and filled with a sense of belonging and purpose.
Saturday: The plan was to visit the local Fitzwilliam Museum, which I'd been looking forward to all week, but I felt very ill that morning/early afternoon and stayed at the dorm instead. I was very disappointed, especially after my wonderful bonding experiences earlier, but everyone was really nice and over the course of the day, each person individually offered to go back and visit the museum with me another day, not knowing that other people had also offered the same thing. It just shows how thoughtful everyone is, and made me feel even happier to be here with this group.
The Tylenol was working by that evening, and those of us who'd stayed in town for the weekend had dinner at the Eagle with Professor Westerbeke. The Eagle's a popular pub with some history; some WWII pilots sketched their names and initials in the ceiling of one of the rooms.
Prof. Westerbeke teaches the law class; he specializes in torts, and we'd been discussing The Buffalo Creek Disaster by Gerald Stern. It's a great book, about a huge personal injury case that coal mining community members in West Virginia brought against a coal company after a large coal refuse dam broke, killing 125 people (mostly women and children) and destroying thousands of homes. The book reads like a play-by-play of how Stern progressed through the case, from learning of the case from a partner in his firm, agreeing to represent 400+ defendants pro bono, interviewing clients, filing the claim, countering a motion to dismiss and allegations of unethical solicitation of clients, engaging in discovery, doing depositions, playing the media, preparing for trial, settlement negotiations...the whole nine yards. It's a true story, of course -- an important case that raised some important issues -- but perhaps the most interesting part of class discussions was Prof. Westerbeke's commentary and digressions about his own cases. He practiced law in one of the big California law firms back in the day, defending corporations against personal injury cases like the one brought against Pittston, the company in Buffalo Creek. So whereas Stern, the author, was the class hero, the defender of the little guy, our professor was the big man's lawyer and represented clients like the big oil companies, who he'd successfully gotten a mere $500 settlement after causing a huge oil spill in Santa Barbara. We all love Prof. Westerbeke, who is very intelligent yet down to earth and a real joy to be around, so we had (and are still having) a bit of a problem wrapping our minds around the fact that he could represent such unsympathetic and arguably guilty clients. But that's what corporate law is, right? You represent corporations, which aren't exactly warm, fuzzy, benevolent institutions. And corporate law is where the money is, and an area where a lot of us plan on practicing at least for a few years. Food for thought...
In any event, at dinner, we put our moral and existential questions aside for another day and had a fabulous dinner. Prof. Westerbeke is just as personable outside of class and was the highlight of everyone's evening. This is the professor's last week in Cambridge, as he team-teaches his course with another professor who will teach the final two weeks.
Here we are at The Eagle with the Professor:
Sunday: London Day.
We took the train into the city for the afternoon and had an amazing time. I saw Kensington Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden, St. Paul's Cathedral (We saw several other impressive churches, too), Shakespeare's Globe Theater, the H.M.S. Belfast, the outside of the Tate Museum (lol), the Thames River and London Bridge. We went inside the cathedral but couldn't tour it or Westminster, as it was Sunday, so we decided to do those things and explore the Tate and Globe Theater during free time on our class visit to London this Thursday. This was our low-budget sightseeing day, but we did shell out 3.5 pounds to tour the Clink Prison Museum, which was a somewhat corny but informative little exhibit about medieval London prisons. The corny part was the life-sized paper mache dolls that were made up to look like prisoners. They were as realistic as possible but just didn't seem to have the desired effect. :-) But the artifacts were indeed interesting: I saw an actual iron chastity belt (quite painful-looking) and several torture devices: a boot (an iron boot that they stuck your foot in and then filled with wood chips, then put water in it to make the wood swell and effectively chop your foot off, leaving a nubby end that would become infected and kill you slowly and painfully), some stocks, a ball and chain, a thumb crusher, a whipping rack and a torture chair. They definitely took "cruel and unusual punishment" to a whole 'nother level.
We had dinner in a restaurant in Soho (didn't know London had a Soho, too, but apparently it does) that's made to look like a cinema. There's one in Cambridge, too, and I'd love to eat there; best prices I've seen over here so far, and great food.
Riding the underground (the tube) was an experience in itself. I didn't expect it to be a big deal, but thank goodness that Carody's friend, a native Briton, was with us! I found the NYC trains pretty simple and straightforward after a day or two, but I couldn't find any rhyme or rhythm to the London trains. The lines on the map squiggled in all sorts of directions, half the trains were closed (presumably because they do most of their repairs on Sundays), and my rail card randomly stopped working so I always had to go through the special gate (which seems like a fairly common problem). ...It didn't inspire fear or paranoia or anything like that, but I just hope that most cities' trains are more like New York's than London's. :-)
...Just looked out my dorm window, which overlooks the Trinity Hall courtyard, and there is a group of students with backpacks on the roof the building next door, which looks like a church (but of course everything looks like a church, here, so it could be a university building). ...That can't be normal. Or safe. Esp. since it's about to rain.
Maybe I can go up there tomorrow...
...Worth a Thousand Words?
They say a picture’s worth a thousand words. But with my awful photography skills, my pictures are usually worth a thousand questions…and the first one is usually, “What the heck is that?” ;-D
While my photos may not be the most breathtaking shots and do little justice to the beauty and utter magnificence of the places I’ve visited, I cherish them because they record my travels in ways that I could never record in a journal.
For instance, take this photo of a plaque on an external wall at one of the Oxford colleges.
It’s dedicated to the members of the colleges who perished in service during the Second World War. You can find such plaques at the colleges in Cambridge as well, and the lists of the names of the fallen can be quite long. For me, they served as a subtle but powerful reminder of the effect that the war had in Europe.
I was surprised by how much I could feel the presence of the war, especially in London, and even after so many years. There were countless memorials scattered throughout the landscape, and even a few dedicated to American soldiers. And since the bombings of London did so much destruction, each building and neighborhood had its own little story to tell.
For example, Inner Temple was all but destroyed during the bombings. Many of its facilities had to be rebuilt after the war, its buildings look ridiculously, sadly new next to the history-laden, centuries-old Middle Temple campus. However, Middle Temple has its scars as well; it lost a portion of one building, which was rebuilt using the original materials after the war. A black-and-white photo showing the damage immediately after the bombings also hangs in the building.
I’ve been to Andersonville Cemetery and a few Civil War battle sites in the U.S., but nothing ever moved me as much as seeing the effects of the bombings at the Temples. Perhaps what was most disturbing was witnessing the way that war had invaded the public space, affecting the landscape beyond any militarized zones, battlefields or war memorials. I experienced a sort of memorial in the least expected of places, a reminder of the totality of war and the many unexpected (and expected) consequences it can have.
While my photos may not be the most breathtaking shots and do little justice to the beauty and utter magnificence of the places I’ve visited, I cherish them because they record my travels in ways that I could never record in a journal.
For instance, take this photo of a plaque on an external wall at one of the Oxford colleges.
It’s dedicated to the members of the colleges who perished in service during the Second World War. You can find such plaques at the colleges in Cambridge as well, and the lists of the names of the fallen can be quite long. For me, they served as a subtle but powerful reminder of the effect that the war had in Europe.
I was surprised by how much I could feel the presence of the war, especially in London, and even after so many years. There were countless memorials scattered throughout the landscape, and even a few dedicated to American soldiers. And since the bombings of London did so much destruction, each building and neighborhood had its own little story to tell.
For example, Inner Temple was all but destroyed during the bombings. Many of its facilities had to be rebuilt after the war, its buildings look ridiculously, sadly new next to the history-laden, centuries-old Middle Temple campus. However, Middle Temple has its scars as well; it lost a portion of one building, which was rebuilt using the original materials after the war. A black-and-white photo showing the damage immediately after the bombings also hangs in the building.
I’ve been to Andersonville Cemetery and a few Civil War battle sites in the U.S., but nothing ever moved me as much as seeing the effects of the bombings at the Temples. Perhaps what was most disturbing was witnessing the way that war had invaded the public space, affecting the landscape beyond any militarized zones, battlefields or war memorials. I experienced a sort of memorial in the least expected of places, a reminder of the totality of war and the many unexpected (and expected) consequences it can have.
Paris!
Note: From an email to a friend, July 20
Just got back from Paris: it was absolutely amazing!!! I loved it. And I made three new friends, international students who are studying English in Cambridge this summer: one from Brazil, one from Macao and one from Taiwan. Hung out with them a lot, had a blast… we're supposed to be getting lunch together later this week.
But yeah, Paris...my hotel was incompetent and gave us two occupied hotel rooms before finally checking us into an empty room, so the Brazilian girl and I missed the bus when it left for our first sightseeing tour!!! We were furious/confused/disappointed, and the tour guide didn't have his cell phone on so we couldn't get in contact with the group, and I was mad and freaked out because I didn't know French and felt like I would miss out on seeing the city, so I went back up to the room and started crying, lol. My Brazilian friend came up and patted me on the shoulder and told me it would be ok, we could figure it out on our own. In broken English, she assured me, "we're not babies...we can do it by ourselves." :-) The group was doing a bit of sightseeing downtown in the coach, and then doing a river tour on the seine, so we figured we could at least do the river tour. So the incompetent but nice hotel girl told us we could take the tube to Chatelet and go to Pont Neuf for the boats, so we did that, and got there without incident. (I like the tubes in Paris better than in London...maybe because I had simple directions, lol).
I absolutely loved being on the river, which is funny for someone who doesn't like water. It was raining on and off that day, and surprisingly cool. After the boat tour, we walked up the street parallel to the river, on the opposite side from the Louvre and Notre dame, and we walked all the way from down there to the Eiffel Tower!!! We knew it wasn't close, and we were enjoying the sights while walking and didn't want to take the tube…but we didn't realize just how far it was!
When we finally reached the tower, it was just breathtaking. It was just getting dark, so they had the lights turned on. When I first got into Paris, I was amazed at how beautiful the city was and how unremarkable/ugly the Eiffel looked in contrast…a huge metal thing, like something a guy would design. Lol. But up close, it was totally different. And the drizzle and wind made it more dramatic, quite a surreal experience.
Unfortunately, we couldn't go inside it because of the weather, so we took the subway back to Bercy, where our hotel was, and found a little sandwich/pizza shop for dinner. I felt silly when ordering because I couldn't say 'pepperoni' in French, and the guy thought I wanted a brownie. I ended up just getting a ham pizza, and I got a brownie, too, because it looked good. Then we were pooped and went to bed.
...Ooh, I forgot some stuff…on the way to Paris, we left at 4 a.m. (!!!), and drove there on a coach, and so we took the ferry from Dover in the UK to Calais in France. Cliffs of Dover are very pretty. And I LOVED being on the ferry! It was so cool!!! It was my first time being out on an open sea (granted, the English Channel isn't that big, but it's bigger than the lakes and rivers I’ve been on). I liked being on deck, watching the cliffs get tiny in the background. We took the SeaFrance ferry, so everything was in French, although most stuff had the English in small print underneath, and I was taken aback by how much it bothered me that everything was not in English and that I couldn't understand some of it. Not that I dwelled on it or anything, but it was just really weird...unsettling is the best word that comes to mind. Maybe that's why I cried when we missed the coach later that day...I wouldn't have cared if we were in London, but something about not being able to read made me skittish at first. But anyway, we ended up having a lovely day and appreciated the fact that we weren't with the group because we could do what we wanted at our own pace. So it worked out well.
On the next day, Saturday, we went to Montmartre and saw Moulin Rouge and the big church on the hill (Sacre Coeur) and a bunch of sex shops. Then we went back downtown and had a free hour, supposedly to see Notre Dame, but it was so touristy and crowded that most of us just wandered the streets, which were also touristy and crowded. I got some nice cheap souvenirs for my little sisters. I really missed them all weekend, kept thinking about how lucky I was to be there and how I wished they were with me.
Anyway, after that, we went to the palace at Versailles. Stunning! Absolutely amazingly beautiful. By the time we got back to the hotel, we had just enough energy to slink over across the street to get food and then went to bed early. We watched a little "who wants to be a millionaire" in French first though. It was funny because I could understand the questions written on the screen but couldn't understand a word they were saying. They just sound like they were about to throw up at any moment… everything sounds like, "le bleuggghh." haha. I know "merci" is thank you, but whenever anybody said anything to me on the streets, especially in stores, I’d always forget even that one word and just smile dumbly.
My three new friends were very excited that I was a native English speaker and asked me all kinds of questions. And they were excited that I was American, because they said my accent was easier to understand than the British one. By the second day, I was talking a bit more slowly and using simpler sentences than usual because I'd been hanging with the girls so much. You know how sometimes when you're around people who speak differently, you start to pick it up? Well I picked up broken English! haha. One guy even asked me, "are you learning English too?" lol. It was really funny. ...I also met two American law students, rising 2Ls, who were studying in Cambridge. One was studying at Nebraska, and he was very nice, and the other was from Chattanooga and at Mercer Law in Georgia, which excited me at first. But then he talked the ENTIRE way there and back, while saying absolutely nothing at all! :-) I felt so sorry for the Nebraska guy. It was quite funny, and fun to watch the two law students interact all weekend. They were like an odd couple, with the Nebraska kid being bigger but quieter, like a henpecked husband. lol.
This morning we went to the Louvre. It was stunning as well. I saw the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo statue, this sphinx-looking Egyptian tomb thing (I sound so intelligent, I know, lol), and Hammurabi’s Code. There was so much that we couldn't see it all, but we did a pretty good job of covering what we could. I enjoyed it a lot.
Then we headed home, leaving Paris at about 1 p.m. and getting to Cambridge at about 11:30 p.m. Needless to say, I'm very tired, but I had the most amazing weekend ever. The girls and I bonded so well, which made it even more fun. Paris is so interesting that I would love to go back. The only weird thing was that the beggars and street people were very forceful. Everywhere I went, men were trying to make me buy these little Eiffel Tower key chains. And there were even some that tried to tie these little strings around your wrists and then make you pay for them. Creative, but weird. Lol.
But yeah, it's 1 a.m. and I have class tomorrow, so I should be getting to bed. More later.
Just got back from Paris: it was absolutely amazing!!! I loved it. And I made three new friends, international students who are studying English in Cambridge this summer: one from Brazil, one from Macao and one from Taiwan. Hung out with them a lot, had a blast… we're supposed to be getting lunch together later this week.
But yeah, Paris...my hotel was incompetent and gave us two occupied hotel rooms before finally checking us into an empty room, so the Brazilian girl and I missed the bus when it left for our first sightseeing tour!!! We were furious/confused/disappointed, and the tour guide didn't have his cell phone on so we couldn't get in contact with the group, and I was mad and freaked out because I didn't know French and felt like I would miss out on seeing the city, so I went back up to the room and started crying, lol. My Brazilian friend came up and patted me on the shoulder and told me it would be ok, we could figure it out on our own. In broken English, she assured me, "we're not babies...we can do it by ourselves." :-) The group was doing a bit of sightseeing downtown in the coach, and then doing a river tour on the seine, so we figured we could at least do the river tour. So the incompetent but nice hotel girl told us we could take the tube to Chatelet and go to Pont Neuf for the boats, so we did that, and got there without incident. (I like the tubes in Paris better than in London...maybe because I had simple directions, lol).
I absolutely loved being on the river, which is funny for someone who doesn't like water. It was raining on and off that day, and surprisingly cool. After the boat tour, we walked up the street parallel to the river, on the opposite side from the Louvre and Notre dame, and we walked all the way from down there to the Eiffel Tower!!! We knew it wasn't close, and we were enjoying the sights while walking and didn't want to take the tube…but we didn't realize just how far it was!
When we finally reached the tower, it was just breathtaking. It was just getting dark, so they had the lights turned on. When I first got into Paris, I was amazed at how beautiful the city was and how unremarkable/ugly the Eiffel looked in contrast…a huge metal thing, like something a guy would design. Lol. But up close, it was totally different. And the drizzle and wind made it more dramatic, quite a surreal experience.
Unfortunately, we couldn't go inside it because of the weather, so we took the subway back to Bercy, where our hotel was, and found a little sandwich/pizza shop for dinner. I felt silly when ordering because I couldn't say 'pepperoni' in French, and the guy thought I wanted a brownie. I ended up just getting a ham pizza, and I got a brownie, too, because it looked good. Then we were pooped and went to bed.
...Ooh, I forgot some stuff…on the way to Paris, we left at 4 a.m. (!!!), and drove there on a coach, and so we took the ferry from Dover in the UK to Calais in France. Cliffs of Dover are very pretty. And I LOVED being on the ferry! It was so cool!!! It was my first time being out on an open sea (granted, the English Channel isn't that big, but it's bigger than the lakes and rivers I’ve been on). I liked being on deck, watching the cliffs get tiny in the background. We took the SeaFrance ferry, so everything was in French, although most stuff had the English in small print underneath, and I was taken aback by how much it bothered me that everything was not in English and that I couldn't understand some of it. Not that I dwelled on it or anything, but it was just really weird...unsettling is the best word that comes to mind. Maybe that's why I cried when we missed the coach later that day...I wouldn't have cared if we were in London, but something about not being able to read made me skittish at first. But anyway, we ended up having a lovely day and appreciated the fact that we weren't with the group because we could do what we wanted at our own pace. So it worked out well.
On the next day, Saturday, we went to Montmartre and saw Moulin Rouge and the big church on the hill (Sacre Coeur) and a bunch of sex shops. Then we went back downtown and had a free hour, supposedly to see Notre Dame, but it was so touristy and crowded that most of us just wandered the streets, which were also touristy and crowded. I got some nice cheap souvenirs for my little sisters. I really missed them all weekend, kept thinking about how lucky I was to be there and how I wished they were with me.
Anyway, after that, we went to the palace at Versailles. Stunning! Absolutely amazingly beautiful. By the time we got back to the hotel, we had just enough energy to slink over across the street to get food and then went to bed early. We watched a little "who wants to be a millionaire" in French first though. It was funny because I could understand the questions written on the screen but couldn't understand a word they were saying. They just sound like they were about to throw up at any moment… everything sounds like, "le bleuggghh." haha. I know "merci" is thank you, but whenever anybody said anything to me on the streets, especially in stores, I’d always forget even that one word and just smile dumbly.
My three new friends were very excited that I was a native English speaker and asked me all kinds of questions. And they were excited that I was American, because they said my accent was easier to understand than the British one. By the second day, I was talking a bit more slowly and using simpler sentences than usual because I'd been hanging with the girls so much. You know how sometimes when you're around people who speak differently, you start to pick it up? Well I picked up broken English! haha. One guy even asked me, "are you learning English too?" lol. It was really funny. ...I also met two American law students, rising 2Ls, who were studying in Cambridge. One was studying at Nebraska, and he was very nice, and the other was from Chattanooga and at Mercer Law in Georgia, which excited me at first. But then he talked the ENTIRE way there and back, while saying absolutely nothing at all! :-) I felt so sorry for the Nebraska guy. It was quite funny, and fun to watch the two law students interact all weekend. They were like an odd couple, with the Nebraska kid being bigger but quieter, like a henpecked husband. lol.
This morning we went to the Louvre. It was stunning as well. I saw the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo statue, this sphinx-looking Egyptian tomb thing (I sound so intelligent, I know, lol), and Hammurabi’s Code. There was so much that we couldn't see it all, but we did a pretty good job of covering what we could. I enjoyed it a lot.
Then we headed home, leaving Paris at about 1 p.m. and getting to Cambridge at about 11:30 p.m. Needless to say, I'm very tired, but I had the most amazing weekend ever. The girls and I bonded so well, which made it even more fun. Paris is so interesting that I would love to go back. The only weird thing was that the beggars and street people were very forceful. Everywhere I went, men were trying to make me buy these little Eiffel Tower key chains. And there were even some that tried to tie these little strings around your wrists and then make you pay for them. Creative, but weird. Lol.
But yeah, it's 1 a.m. and I have class tomorrow, so I should be getting to bed. More later.
Post-Trip Academic/Career Reflections
I chose the Cambridge program because I wanted to learn more about international law and test the waters of legal education before entering law school. This proved to be a very wise decision.
I have found international law to be an extremely frustrating field! There is no agreement on what constitutes international law, most international is not binding on the parties, and that little principle called sovereignty is always getting in the way. And as for my “Topics in American Law” course…I’ve found that while law can be interesting, I shouldn’t expect to remain on the edge of my seat for the next three years. :-)
While I still plan to apply to law school in the fall, I’ll be looking for slightly different qualities in a law school: those with international study opportunities and courses or programs in human rights, an area for which I’m discovering a newfound passion. I’ll also make sure that the school has strong programs in other areas as well, since one never knows how one’s interests will change or develop.
In the shorter term, I’m looking forward to studying European Culture and History in Copenhagen, Denmark in the fall. My experience in Cambridge has shown me that I can succeed academically while abroad.
I have found international law to be an extremely frustrating field! There is no agreement on what constitutes international law, most international is not binding on the parties, and that little principle called sovereignty is always getting in the way. And as for my “Topics in American Law” course…I’ve found that while law can be interesting, I shouldn’t expect to remain on the edge of my seat for the next three years. :-)
While I still plan to apply to law school in the fall, I’ll be looking for slightly different qualities in a law school: those with international study opportunities and courses or programs in human rights, an area for which I’m discovering a newfound passion. I’ll also make sure that the school has strong programs in other areas as well, since one never knows how one’s interests will change or develop.
In the shorter term, I’m looking forward to studying European Culture and History in Copenhagen, Denmark in the fall. My experience in Cambridge has shown me that I can succeed academically while abroad.
Post-Trip Cultural Reflections
I’ll definitely treasure these summer experiences for a lifetime. I couldn’t have hoped for a better first trip abroad. I’ve learned a lot about law, about Europe and about myself.
Surprisingly, my trip also taught me a lot about my approaches to culture. Embracing internationalism comes naturally to me; I have always had a diverse group of friends and I enjoy learning about other cultures and engaging in new experiences. I’ve continued these traditions at Vanderbilt, taking classes in various cultural and religious traditions, and joining a multicultural sorority. However, when deciding to attend the Cambridge Pre-Law Institute, culture was farthest from my mind. I was going to study international law, not necessarily to experience culture. Culture is found elsewhere: in Africa, in Asia, in Latin America, even in Denmark, where I’d be studying in the fall. But the United Kingdom…aside from its history, it’s just another U.S.
That couldn’t be further from the truth. Of course, you’ll hear American music on the radio stations (there’s more British music on my iPod than on British pop radio) and there are McDonald’s and Pizza Huts on every corner. And yes, we speak the same language and have similar governments. But as I dug deeper into British history and questioned what I saw and experienced around me, I learned that although British culture may not seem so “foreign” to an American, there is a lot to be appreciated.
Just to name a couple things:
- The European sense of history and time. Europe is so old that 100 years is “recent history.” Thus, the sense of what’s recent and what’s “ancient history” is different and leads to a different appreciation of time and connection to the past. When you’re surrounded by medieval architecture and your university is celebrating its 800th birthday, an event like World War II seems very recent in comparison. But if you’re from the U.S., a frontier land with less than 300 of (Western) history, you may define “recent” a bit differently.
- The Justice System. The English have some different ideas about what constitutes justice than Americans do. For example, they have no death penalty (as most of the world doesn’t). Sentences tend to be lighter than in the U.S. Lawyers are divided into two groups: solicitors and barristers, the latter group being those who advocate in actual court proceedings and solicitors doing almost everything else. Big brother is everywhere, via CCTV (closed circuit television). Defendants don’t sit next to their barrister in court, but in a closed-off section in the back, complete with its own entrance/exit. And of course, the judge and barristers still wear robes and those funny-looking white wigs. :-)
Although my stay was short, I did learn a bit about English culture and that there is much to appreciate anywhere you go, no matter how similar the people may be.
Surprisingly, my trip also taught me a lot about my approaches to culture. Embracing internationalism comes naturally to me; I have always had a diverse group of friends and I enjoy learning about other cultures and engaging in new experiences. I’ve continued these traditions at Vanderbilt, taking classes in various cultural and religious traditions, and joining a multicultural sorority. However, when deciding to attend the Cambridge Pre-Law Institute, culture was farthest from my mind. I was going to study international law, not necessarily to experience culture. Culture is found elsewhere: in Africa, in Asia, in Latin America, even in Denmark, where I’d be studying in the fall. But the United Kingdom…aside from its history, it’s just another U.S.
That couldn’t be further from the truth. Of course, you’ll hear American music on the radio stations (there’s more British music on my iPod than on British pop radio) and there are McDonald’s and Pizza Huts on every corner. And yes, we speak the same language and have similar governments. But as I dug deeper into British history and questioned what I saw and experienced around me, I learned that although British culture may not seem so “foreign” to an American, there is a lot to be appreciated.
Just to name a couple things:
- The European sense of history and time. Europe is so old that 100 years is “recent history.” Thus, the sense of what’s recent and what’s “ancient history” is different and leads to a different appreciation of time and connection to the past. When you’re surrounded by medieval architecture and your university is celebrating its 800th birthday, an event like World War II seems very recent in comparison. But if you’re from the U.S., a frontier land with less than 300 of (Western) history, you may define “recent” a bit differently.
- The Justice System. The English have some different ideas about what constitutes justice than Americans do. For example, they have no death penalty (as most of the world doesn’t). Sentences tend to be lighter than in the U.S. Lawyers are divided into two groups: solicitors and barristers, the latter group being those who advocate in actual court proceedings and solicitors doing almost everything else. Big brother is everywhere, via CCTV (closed circuit television). Defendants don’t sit next to their barrister in court, but in a closed-off section in the back, complete with its own entrance/exit. And of course, the judge and barristers still wear robes and those funny-looking white wigs. :-)
Although my stay was short, I did learn a bit about English culture and that there is much to appreciate anywhere you go, no matter how similar the people may be.
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