Brothers Abroad

So my little bro came to visit for a few days a while back. He was here for several days in February before leaving to tour Europe for about a month and then back here for a couple more days in March. It was our first chance to play tour guide and a great opportunity to explore some new areas and sites for ourselves as well. What follows are some pictures from that visit. Among the more unique shots are pictures of us at Chinese New Year in Trafalgar Square and (on the same day) some pictures we took outside of the BAFTAs (British Academy of Film and Television Arts, I believe). Anywho, enjoy!!

The first night Jordan was here, despite his jet-lag, we managed to see the Tower of London, walk across Tower Bridge, head past the Globe to the Tate Modern for a beer and some modern art and finish with a walk across the Millennium Bridge towards St. Pauls. This is during that walk.

Jordan got a great shot looking down the Millennium Bridge towards St. Paul's. Laura and I have tried to get this shot many times with limited success. Nice work Jordan!

The next day was a day of stumbling. We stumbled upon Chinese New Year, cheap tickets for Waiting for Godot with Ian McKellan and William Rees (the Sheriff of Rottingham), a changing of some lesser known guards, the BAFTA's, and some fun street performers in Covent Garden. The above is a picture of Chinese New Year.

The BAFTA's. Jordan, despite knowing George Clooney quite well for many years, couldn't get us in.

Laura and I dressed to kill at the BAFTA's

This was the next day. The above is a picture looking down the staircase of the Great London Fire Monument, which was built in the late 1600s.

Looking up the staircase. There are 311 steps, but the view at the top is worth the journey.

Upon Jordan's return from the mainland, we visited Wimbledon, but choose not to go in because of the steep tour fees, but here's a picture of Center Court from afar.

After Wimbledon, we headed up to the Victoria and Albert Museum and then to the Natural History Museum. This is the former. While we were in there taking pictures of the animatronic t-rex, the museums alarms went off and we had to evacuate. Thus, we got to leave through the fire escapes and probably saw a part of the museum that not many get to, as uninteresting as it actually was. We still don't know why we had to leave, but we're pretty sure it wasn't because of the t-rex.

Since we'd been kicked out of the Natural History Museum, we decided to walk down to Harrod's, a department store which claims to have anything you could possibly want and, if they don't have it, they'll (try to) get it for you. Inside we found mammoth tusks (priced at about £60,000) an Elton John piano (£75,000) and an antique globe (just over £90,000).

Finally, we finished off the day with supper and beers at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a pub that was rebuilt, that's right, rebuilt in the late 1600s after the great fire (see monument above). The cellar, where we are here, was constructed sometime in the 13th or 14th century. Laura likes to think she's shared a barstool with Chris Marlowe.

Our Flat

Derek was surprised to return to a snowy London after Winter Break! By the time Laura returned in February, it was still snowing!!! (Alright, so it hadn't snowed continuously during that period, but it is still an atypical happenstance to have as much snow as we did). Anyway, here's a picture of our street (taken from our second-story flat).

Then we realized most of you haven't seen where we live! So, here are a few photos of our place:

Laura enjoys taking care of our cilantro and basil plants. We also have some adorable little peppers that just sprouted! YAY!

Derek does NOT enjoy taking a shower in the smallest shower in England.

Looking into the kitchen from the Living Room/Media Room.

Another view of the living area, looking towards the stairs. We don't have an actual "downstairs," it's simply the entrance (which is our very own). "Downstairs" belongs to a man called Mr. Snoringson.

This is looking back toward the bedroom & bathroom, from the living room. Toshiba has paid us a truckload for this product placement. Whew. No more worries about student loans!

Westminster Abbey

So, we're almost up to speed on this blog now that we've gotten through the Portugal trip. However, there is one other kind of interesting thing that occurred in the fall which I (Derek) want to mention before we start posting things on this Winter and Spring. I have a professor here who actually lives in Westminster Abbey. He's basically sharing a place with one of the priests who resides there. It's pretty incredible. Anyway, we had one of our classes there and then later we established a Gramsci reading group and we met there once again (Gramsci was an Italian Marxist in the early 1900s who got thrown in prison by Mussolini for his ideas and opposition to Fascism. While in prison he wrote what have come to be known as the Prison Notebooks. He died in prison and never really got the chance to finish them. Plus, he had to write in such a way as to escape the censorship of the prison guards. So, it often makes for rather cryptic reading, but it's also quite interesting and very important work for almost anyone involved in social science, and, especially, issues of international relations, I think). In any case, It was a remarkable opportunity and so I snapped a few photos while I was there and I thought I would share them. I'm also including some picture of the Abbey during the day so you can get a better idea of what the outside looks like. Sharad (my professor) lives in one of the buildings near little cloister, which is a little walk from the main cathedral, so it's not as if he lives right in the most ornate part of the Abbey, but it's still pretty cool. You have to make your way through all these old passageways to get there and under the cobblestones are the graves of various important people of the church from ages past. It's pretty wild. Enjoy the photos!

The Abbey from afar.

The Abbey from the front.

Our class hanging out in the Abbey. Clearly class was pretty lax that night considering the amount of wine you see on the table.

The main living room in Graham (the priest) and Sharad's place. The cabinet in the background is quite beautiful. On the left hand side there are various priestly robes and the like, and on the right hand side there are a bunch of whiskey glasses and various bottles of that alcohol. He's a pretty cool priest.

A picture of the flying buttresses that I snapped on our way out of the Abbey at about midnight.

And finally, the group (sans me as I took the picture) leaving through some of the passageways to the residencies. Overall, a really great night.

Right on Kew

...Gardens, that is!! OK, so as if being a Cloak wasn't enough to make me a really poor punster, apparently being in Britain has. Yesss.

We went up to Kew Gardens

(aside) in November...

and it was an absolutely GORgeous day. We really enjoyed ourselves. We brought a picnic lunch and ate on benches overlooking a lake and some very bizarre duck-geese.

Kew Gardens is a botanic garden, but has royalty written all over it. Henry VII built Richmond Palace there in the 16th century. I could go into great (and boy, oh boy, do I mean GREAT!) detail here, but essentially that's the farthest back the royalty link goes, I think. If you're interested in the history, or anything else about the place, their website is www.kew.org

Otherwise, it was lovely. They have pretty flowers: (This is in one of two or three tropical greenhouses)

...and they have a treetop walk, from which you can spot acres of beautiful trees--at the time we were there, the leaves were changing, which was really nice.

They also have dashing, bearded men who are willing to take their picture with you on the treetop walk.

The Treetop walk was very tall. There were a lot of stairs. We climbed them. It was strange, in a way, to climb stairs made out of wood, to get to the tree tops. Then, at the top of the stairs, we found this:

The trees behind those glass elevator doors are not a reflection. There is nothing there. The bad part about this is written on the sign to the left of the invisible elevator (which the Brits call a lift, by the way). Here's a close-up of that sign:

Kew Gardens: Making their contribution to the Mobility Impaired. For those of you who are finding this humorous in any way, don't be alarmed. We laughed quite hard. The worst part was, no one else in the immediate vicinity thought it was funny. They were staring at us weird Americans...apparently they could not see the irony.

Other than that, they have a Japanese pagoda...and peacocks!

And a tree or two:

We can hardly wait for Spring...