Tuesday and Wednesday

Yesterday was a blast.

Started out with class again, which is turning relatively boring although I'm learning a lot. After class we went to a travelling exhibit that is in London right now called The Body Museum. Essentially what happens is these scientists use people's bodies that they have donated towards science to learn from them. Some of them they use for this exhibit to teach people about the human body. There were a lot of interesting exhibits, but the overwhelming sense that I got of how short life is, how quickly it passes, and the absolute need for the body to be in great shape to give someone the best chance possible at living a long, healthy, disease free life. It was one of those type of deals that struck me rather hard. It was totally an awesome exhibit and something that was definitely worth seeing. Weird, but worth seeing.

After that we went to another park and just relaxed until we went to the London Eye, which was sweet. It's a 435 foot Ferris wheel that goes around oen time and you can see tons of things from all over Westminster. We got a pretty cool group photo, and I got one with Big Ben in the background that I absolutely love. It gave London a whole new perspective.

After that we went on a SANCTIONED BY THE UNIVERSITY SOCIAL PROGRAMME COMPLETE WITH UNIVERSITY TOUR GUIDE pub walk. I sat there and got to watch all of my friends get drunk. We went to four different pubs (many stopped going after they got a little drunk and kept at the same pub). We made it to all pubs and I learned some history on the way. Got to go back tomorrow probably and get some other pictures that I've been wanting. I got to help carry a drunk Mexican guy up the hill this time.

Yesterday I also realized that I was halfway done. I don't want it to be over. There is still so much in this city that I've haven't seen yet! But it's life.

Wednesday:

So class today was boring. We tried for an hour to get the projector to work. But in the meantime we talked about our topics. My topic is going to be somewhat difficult... especially to pull off in a week. Even though it's a rudimentary presentation, I feel like I really want to do well. Tomorrow he told us we are going to a mosque so that should be very interesting.

He's obsessed with the United States and our viewpoints. He keeps asking us about various things. While he was talking today, he said that he had a job offer at Georgetown University, but had been banned from entering the United States. He didn't give us many details, but I would imagine it has to do with some of his political viewpoints, although I'm struggling to understand what those are becuase he specializes in Arab Democraticization. So I'm going to look into that.

After class my group went to Windsor castle. Which is where the King lives. The first thing that we did was go into the Church. While almost everyone was marvelling at the various beauties such as the gold plated chairs, the jewels, the stained glass windows, I was disgusted and felt that it represented everything that was wrong with organized religion. Those types of cathedrals miss the entire point of the religion they profess. The realm could have used 3/4 of the money used, made a moderately less amazing chapel, and then used the rest of the money to give to the poor or something... do something Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Ghandi, the Buddha, etc. would have done. Rather, chapels like these, and other places of worship all over the world represent the bastardization of religion and the struggle for wealth and power all over the world manifested through religion. It's sad.

The rest of the castle was much the same. There were entire rooms in the castle that could have fit my entire house. One room could have fit 3 or 4 of my houses. While it was amazing, awesome to see since it represents "England" for a lot of people, it was nonetheless astonishingly materialistic. And I know she's the Queen of England and Great Britain was once the most powerful nation/empire/figurehead in the entire world, but honestly... does a Queen need a closet that's the size of my house? I honestly don't think so. And the other thing was it took us about 45 minutes to walk through less than 5% of her entire castle... we just went through what was open to the public.

After the castle, I just came back and have been doing some research for my presentation/research assignment. Since I came in with a knowledgeable background in the topic, I don't I've learned as much as the other students in the class... but I know exactly what I need to study next in order to really get a full grasp on this topic. I think I can do it. I also think I know exactly what I want my honor's thesis to be on. We'll see how the rest of the class shapes up in that regards.

I've also found a new favorite food. English Breakfast. Because it's amazing. And because they serve baked beans with breakfast. Who would've thought? But it's amazing.

Now to some research and uploading photos!

I'm out!

Ryan