DIS takes LONDON - Part 1

OK, I just have too many pictures and exciting stories to tell you about this past week, so I'll have to do it over several installments :)
This past week, each core class took its exotically-located LONG study tour!! Ours was in...LONDON!

We met at the airport Sunday morning. The Copenhagen airport has the only Starbucks in the whole city, so I grudgingly spent approximately $20 on a sandwich and a latte thinking it would be my only Starbucks fix all semester (of course, I soon found that London had about three reasonably priced Starbucks per block). We had a lovely flight into Heathrow. Apparently London loved us immediately - the rain stopped and the sun began shining as soon as we left the airport! This was a very good thing because the first thing on our London itinerary was a guided bike tour that took us through all the major sites (Buckingham Palace, Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, etc).

Our goofy British biking guide :)

Our guides were great, and clearly loved talking about London's rich culture and history (one of them was actually American! A TEXAN no less!). The highlight of the tour just may have been the detailed and lengthy description of the process through which people were executed hundreds of years ago in front of the Parliament building (I'll spare you the details here, but please do ask me about it if you're curious - I remember it all vividly!).

Buckingham Palace and the very gray sky behind it

Westminster Abbey!

Buckingham Palace! I was bummed we couldn't get close enough to annoy the guards.

Arriving in London was such a rush! First of all, it was super busy and city-like. No surprise there. Most notably, though, it was surprisingly weird to be back in a country wherein English is the primary language. I got fairly used to awkwardly mumbling things under my breath when ordering coffee or bumping into someone on the street because I don't want to let on the fact that I'm not a native Dane! I don't exactly know enough of the language to prove that I DO in fact belong in Denmark, but I have to make SOME kind of noise when interacting with other human beings, so awkward mumblings and giggling it is! I tried to take full advantage of interacting with the local Londoners because, lets face it, it's much easier conversing with people who speak your language.

After our bike tour, we checked into our hotel and walked to our pub dinner. We had a traditional English dinner (YUM YUM - they're famous for how WELL they can cook, right?) that consisted of roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, and mashed veggies. It was accompanied by DELICIOUS bread and tomato soup! We were all starving, so this was much appreciated by all.

Monday was JAM PACKED. Our first stop of the day - The Daily Telegraph headquarters (The Daily Telegraph is a British newspaper, the highest selling British newspaper in 2009, for anyone who doesn't know). This was fascinating! I'm not sure what his technical title is, but we talked with the person in charge of the newspaper's advertisements - he's in charge of maintaining the newspaper's image through the ads it chooses to print, and ensuring that the ads the newspaper does decide to print are accurate and beneficial to its readers. There's a lot that goes into newspaper-ad company relations, and it was interesting listening to him talk about all the ways in which a poorly-chosen or researched ad can ruin a newspaper's reputation or cost the company a LOT of money. We also got to see the newsroom! I was blown away by how quiet and peaceful it was in there! I guess they all communicate by email, so there isn't a whole lot of shouting and sprinting across the room to converse with coworkers, which was kind of how I pictured it. This facilitates a peaceful, comfortable environment. It seemed like a lovely place to work!

The newsroom - where all the MAGIC happens!

After our newspaper visit, we had lunch and were then given a choice between visiting the Saatchi Gallery or the Tate Modern. The Saatchi Gallery presents work by largely unseen artists, and aims to present contemporary (read: wacky modern) art to the public. The Tate Modern is the national gallery of international modern art. It turns out everyone in the class chose to visit the Tate Modern but me and one other student in the class! This worked out well for us, because our professor accompanied us and took us on our own private tour of London afterward :) The Saatchi Gallery was fascinating. Modern art, to me, is so hard to define - a lot of the exhibits were creative, impressive, and thought-provoking, but several of them also seemed...too easy. This might be my ignorant-about-art side talking, but some of what was in the gallery looked like it was thrown together in five minutes! It made me wonder about the artists' motivations - even whether or not they necessarily had any. It was without a doubt my favorite of all the art museums/galleries I've seen - I was very taken with it!

This one was my favorite! Behind all 300 speakers is a pianola, which is connected to a vacuum, which somehow plays piano notes. Very cool, but I can't come CLOSE to explaining how it works.

The black things moved up and down!

TONS of paper rhombus cutouts hanging from the ceiling - this must have taken MONTHS.

Clock, comprised of a whole lot of mini-clocks! Each minute, the clocks all change...

...and look like THIS, then magically jump to cohesively display the correct time :)

We had some free time afterward, so our professor Alex showed us around the city! It was great to have some (almost) one on one time with him and get to know him outside of the classroom. He's very intelligent, but so down to earth and friendly he wasn't intimidating at all. AND, he knows London quite well since he went to school there at some point, so he knew exactly where to take us :) We stopped at the Tate Modern (mostly so we could say we went to both), and walked through the city with Alex commenting on buildings, restaurants, and various other points of interests. We saw the London Bridge, more of the Parliament buildings, and the GLOBE THEATER! It was such a cool afternoon! After a few hours of this, we walked to Brick Lane (cool, indie/artsy street - it's also right in London's Middle Eastern district) to have dinner and see London's Short & Sweet (London's only weekly short film evening). I LOVED this place - the streets was vibrant and so off the tourist map, which was refreshing after a day of sight seeing. The films we saw were mostly submitted by film students from surrounding areas, and a few of the creators came up and introduced their own films before they were shown. They covered a variety of topics - one combined animation with reality, a few were silent, and one was comprised entirely of post-its. All were very impressive, and I would have been happy staying there all night. So we pretty much did, and that ended our first full day in London!

Next - Tuesday! Our class was divided up into small groups prior to our departure according to what our interests were regarding careers in the communications field. Tuesday morning I went with three of my fellow students to "Delicious Edits," a film and graphics production company. They mostly work with ad corporations to create commercials, but they also work with a lot of freelance producers and short filmmakers. We talked with Elle, a receptionist and producer at the company, about how to go about pursuing a career in her field. She was very encouraging and helpful, and it was interesting to gain insight into a career opportunity I really hadn't even considered (I haven't even TAKEN communications before this semester!). After our meeting, we had several hours of free time! I spent this time hanging out with myself :) I explored the rest of Soho (our interview location), and then decided to get on the Tube, get off at a random stop, and see what happened. I found BBC headquarters (with very official-looking security - I didn't get far!) and some lovely shopping (SO much cheaper than Copenhagen).

Then, I headed Russell Square - it's where the University of London's main buildings are located, so there's a lot to do! I went into some old bookshops, a record store, a comic book shop, a tea tasting room, and some art galleries. I walked through Russel Square Park and met a hilarious old man from Dublin who was walking the goofiest looking dog I've ever seen! Here's a sampling of pictures:

It's AUTUMN!

Being a creep in Russell Square Garden.

Some very confused drivers on the LEFT side of the road?!?

This afternoon FLEW by! It was nice to explore London alone - I really only learn how to get around a new place once I take it on by myself. I met up with the rest of my class for an academic session (We had SCHOOLWORK in LONDON! Can you believe it?!?), and then a lovely dinner with the other DIS Communications class. Everyone was all dressed up from our meetings in the morning, so we fit in well at the fancy restaurant :)

Later that night, Sarah and I went to the bowling alley turned NIGHTCLUB next to our hotel! It was the COOLEST place; there was bowling, dancing, and very cheap drinking :) There's no better way to wrap up a Tuesday.

Well, that completes the first installment of LONDON BLOGS 2010. Tomorrow I'll write all about Wednesday, Thursday, and maybe squeeze Friday in there too. Vi ses!

HAD to put him in here somewhere :)