A Work in Progress

I started last weekend by hitting the Brick Lane Sunday market in London. This was pretty cool, but I felt not hipster enough. Most of the market was overpriced new clothes, but more so, overpriced vintage clothes. Outside of that there was some awesome street food to be had, which frankly interests me way more than clothes of any era. I had an awesome Japanese 'rice thingy' and a Thai pumpkin curry which I plan to attempt to replicate when I get home. The Sunday market spreads to the street where tiny yard sales take place right on the pavement set in 'Banglatown' where there are about a million curry houses as well as cool foreign grocery stores and sweet shops. I stopped in to the Brick Lane Beigel Bake because when the queue for a place doubles back and out the door, it is almost always worth standing in. Here you can watch them bake the bagels and then buy one for 20p. A true London bargain. In the evening, I took in a free organ concert at Westminster Ab...

A few days ago, Andy stopped over for a visit on his way to Greece. Shout out! He came to visit sunny Coventry and then we headed down to London for a night on the town. We had dinner in Leicester Square then double- decker bussed it over to the Apollo Victoria Theatre to see Wicked. It was a very clever and great show that made me want to a. reread that book and b. sing loudly and proudly as much as possible. It seems like such an awesome job to sing like that every day. There are some amazing voices in that show, wow. Great costumes and set design too, but what do I expect from a proper west end show? Of course the costumes and sets and voices were good! I do wonder what L. Frank Baum would think of it. In the morning, Andy left at some un -Godly hour, and I slept until a more reasonable time before heading to the London Transport Museum. I have just a minor obsession with the London tube which makes this museum awesome. From the beginnings of public transport to how ...

I'm proud to ride the tube today.

It was a bit strange playing tour guide in my own town, but I enjoyed it. For the first time since they started charging admission I visited the cathedral and was pleasantly surprised by the changes they've made. There was also a wonderful display of pictures from Afghanistan in the 70's that was touching and frustrating. I'm very happy to report that in my absence, they removed the scaffolding from the ruins, and now they look great. Well, they're still ruins. And how could I take anyone to Coventry and not go to the transport museum? I constantly underestimate the size of the place, and it too has changed a bit since my last visit. I'm proud at its Coventry-centric displays and they've added some stuff to show how the car industry impacted the city. Still, needs more ambulances. Then, of course we got real ale and had dinner with some friends before heading back to London. He even got to experience an early morning fire alarm. I know he was both honore...

Since I already had the tickets, I headed down to London on Monday. I kind of forgot, but Monday here was a bank holiday. Which meant two things to me. One, the museum I had hoped to visit that is free on Mondays, was not actually free, and even though I was right there, my frugality made me wait until I am there again on a non-holiday Monday. Secondly, it meant that tons of people were out and about. So, I just kind of wandered. I got some fancy cupcakes near Covent Garden, and gave their market a second chance. It being a holiday, there were far more interesting vendors, and I got myself a WWII British Army issue field dressing. Nerdy, I know. But awesome. I visited my old stand by, the National Gallery. Even with 5 million other people there, it was enjoyable as ever, and is always bigger than I remember it. I had a lovely walk back to the hostel through St. James park, fast becoming my favorite green space in London. On Tuesday, my plan was a little more clear and led m...

The Old Operating Theatre

Early attempts to make up for the lateness of this post. I owe you an explaination. It'll come. I'm tired.

A hostel can be a great place to meet other people from all over the world and be annoyed by their personal habits and noisemaking. But that only happens if other people are in your room. Normally, I would be thrilled to be alone in a hostel, but the other night, it echoed my disappointment. But, it did make for a quiet night and I used all the pillows I wanted. In the morning, renewed by the unseasonable weather, I continued in my quest to discover new places in the city. I love markets, which makes England a great place for me because every town has a market going on all the time. I especially love the ones that sell beautiful looking vegetables and on the other end of the market spectrum, the ones that sell weird-ass stuff. I was advised to visit Camden to see their market. Camden market/lock area make all other markets I've seen look like boring. None have so much color, flavor, and culture. Foods from almost every continent were fresh at lunch time. New, delicious smel...

Firstly, thanks to everyone who has been looking out for me in the last couple of days. I feel truly blessed. Not to mention my parents whom I will see soon! (there are always cargo freighters, right?) Today I enjoyed a hearty included breakfast and set off to the Imperial War Museum, as suggested to me by a classmate. Wow. I have at best a passing interest in wars, yet spent an easy four hours in there. Yeah, four. It is massive and strangely fascinating. It starts with World War I and II which of course garnered huge areas of the place. In the WWI area they have a trench experience that was very cool, and in the WWII area they have a 'blitz experience' where they shake the floor and have rubble and other destroyed stuff much to the delight and horror of patrons. I knew it would be good when exiting school groups exclaimed “That was cooool!” and “That was scary!” (boys and girls, respectively). From there they had displays from almost every conflict that occurred af...

Can be easier to undo than to make. I thought I'd live somewhere far more exotic than England to have a volcano interrupt my holiday making. This morning, my parents were due to join me in London to embark on a UK adventure for two weeks. A UK adventure that I had spent hours researching and booking (not to rub it in). I had planned to go to London to meet them, and since I had bought the ticket decided to go hoping that some miracle would bring them to me. Sadly, that was not the case, which left me last night apologetically cancelling reservations. All were understanding save one, so I guess that's not too bad. I spent yesterday fretting about air travel and volcanoes but I didn't let it stop me from enjoying the greatest city on Earth. Determined to make the most of my non-vacation, I booked an extra night at the hostel and a late train home on Thursday. Though I was feeling sad, the usual sights didn't fail to lift my spirits; gleaming Westminster Abbey and pa...

I arrived in Coventry six months ago today, wide-eyed, nervous, and excited. I am still wide-eyed, nervous, and excited , just in smaller doses...and not every day. I don't honestly have much to say about this momentous occasion, but I figured I'd mark it with a blog post. Today, I am only panicking a little concerning the several assignments I must finish in the next couple of weeks. I have just completed my sixth module, (don't make me explain the strangeness of the class distribution for this degree) marking that I have only two left before embarking on my thesis research! (don't tell anyone, but I've already started) This most recent module, I'm sad to say, marks one of the most boring and seemingly pointless weeks in my academic career. Well, it may not be true, but when classes are squeezed into a five day period, the boring parts are more obvious. The high point of the week was a good old fashioned field trip to London to help the London Fire Brig...

I am fascinated by public transport, and although I have great faith in it, it can be a little confusing and I am always kind of surprised when I successfully arrive at my destination. After taking the train last weekend to London I am more confident in reading the confusing timetables, which is great because until now, they made no sense to me at all. There's something about the London tube that I find especially appealing, and as it took us to Chinatown I don't know if I was more excited to be zooming around under the city or getting to learn some Chinese New Year customs. The streets of Chinatown were teeming with people, it was amazing. It took us 20 minutes to walk one block there were so many enjoying the parade of a good luck lion zig-zagging its way down the street, visiting each business to, well, give them good luck. In each doorway hung an offering of lettuce which the 'Lion' would take, break up, and throw back onto the proprietors. Everything I found s...

LDN. We had a free trip to one of my favorite places today. The post grad center here offers free trips around the country throughout the year, the first to London today. On the way there I met a few people who were really great. They had never been to London so I took them around and showed them some of the places I knew how to get to. We only had a few hours so we hit some of the touristy highlights. I made sure to give us an hour at the national gallery (didn't see Sister Wendy this time.) I have a very warm place in my heart for this museum. I know it's nerdy but I love it! I was thrilled when we saw a RRU, a couple of ambulances and a motorcycle response unit throughout the day. When we went back to our bus, we stumbled upon the picture below. I was excited of course to be anywhere near an ambulance and accident scene. Yes, now these people know that I'm a nerd and a freak! But really, how great. I'm not sure why this scene required no less than 10 pol...

A rude awakening today. My parents and I arrived last night and Jon called me this morning. I didn't want to believe him. Pretty freaky considering I was there a week ago. All I can say is that London and it's people are in my thoughts today.

I'll apologize in advance for my spelling and the length of this entry. And, for the record, I knew there was more to see than London. (the outskirts have ambulances too!) We have been to several places outside of London. After my last entry we visited Westminster Abbey so that we could catch up with all of our friends: Chaucer, Darwin, Newton, Oliver Cromwell, and some kings and queens. Now, unless you’re very unorthodox, you’re sitting down already, but Mom, Dad, and I flew the eye. Unbelievable, yes. (well, only if you really know us, actually) It’s quite a feat, believe me. This was awesome to say the least, ‘Flying’ above London at about 500 feet. Then we visited the British Museum. This is a vast and frustrating place. They have 5 million objects to see, and we had about 2 hours to do it. Impossible. But, we saw the Rosetta Stone, The Marbles ‘acquired’ from the Parthenon in Greece, a statue from Easter Island, plus a ton of other stuff. We also visited Shakespeare’s birthpla...

Just as I left you. We are here after one of the longest days of my life. There could have been 10 rapid response units outside our window last night and I would have slept through it. Half of the battle was over when we survived getting to our layover in the smallest plane I had ever been on (I think it was produced by Matchbox). Our hotel is lovely except for the minor a/c problem (actually it's not a problem, it just doesn't exist). But, we can have a full English for breakfast, included! (hurrah, as they say.) Today we had a nice bus tour of the city and visited St. Paul's cathedral built by Sir Christopher Wren exactly 295 years ago (after the 'great' fire of London destroyed the city of London in 1666). Turns out that I didn't remember a thing about this place from out last trip. We also saw the building that served as the backdrop for Gringotts Bank in Harry Potter. Our tour guide today was hilarious and told us to 'chillax' a combo of chill and r...

Here are a few left over things from London and an update on the rest of my summer. I have fixed my questionable spelling and grammar in the London entries. Now you sticklers can breathe easier (mom). Hey, mannequin and souvenir are hard to spell! In London, they call a cardiac arrest a ‘suspended.’ They never clarified to me if this meant functioning has suspended or if the patient was ‘suspended’ between heaven and wherever. Paramedics in certain areas carry a set of large and unhandy keys for unlocking exclusive gated communities. Every paramedic in London is issued their own paramedic bag. They can take it to and from work, the grocery store, library, or pool. They are responsible for its contents and also get to organize it in any way they want, pretty cool. For the next two weeks I’ll be on vacation. I’ll paraphrase a conversation I had this morning: “Where are you going?” “Um. London and Paris.” “Weren’t you just there?” “Er, Sort of……yes.” The original plan was for my ...

Well, almost. I'm here at school, a logical rest stop between Newark and home. We arrived yesterday around 7:00 here time (midnight our time). Getting back was a trial at times. It started out with our airline weighing our carry-on bags and saying that they couldn't be more than 6kg. We were kind of freaked out about this; I knew mine was way more than that. I was carrying a grocery bag with orange kit-kats in it (yes, for you) so I decided to throw stuff from my bookbag into that bag. Working the system, I guess, but they didn't care. This was so ridiculous because you could have bought a million kilos worth of stuff at the duty free shop. I guess that my extra few kg didn't affect the plane too much. Maybe they should weigh each passenger as well. Or, put a huge scale on the runway to measure before planes take off. Then they can stop the plane and announce that they can't go until they jettison some cargo, guilting you into throwing your duty-free vodka, souvenir...

Our last official day in London was just as fantastic as the others. We visited the LAS museum located in Ilford. This is probably about 10 miles away as the crow flies, but in London it takes about an hour to travel it. We ended up in an ambulance station with a section dedicated to the 'museum.' They have old British ambulances parked outside. Inside they have stuff everywhere. There was a section with ancient training devices including the mask of a woman who we know as "Anne" (the CPR mannequin). Interesting story that I never knew before: In the late 1890s, this young woman was pulled from the river Seine in Paris. It was assumed that she committed suicide and because she was unknown, a death mask was made of her face. The story was romanticized throughout Europe and years later Asmund Laerdal decided to use the death mask to produce a resuscitation mannequin in order for more people to learn live-saving skills. And, the rest is history; we all use Laerdal produc...

Quick note on yesterday's activities. I rode out in Wimbledon with a First Response Unit. We had a fun day. The best call was for a diabetic with a blood sugar of 1.7 (gasp! horror!). Pretty bad yes, but we gave glucagon while waiting for the transporting unit to arrive. Glucagon, you ask? Their EMTs can give glucagon. In fact, speaking of gasps and horror. The guy I was riding with was shocked at the lack of skill out EMT-Bs have. Really couldn't believe it, I had to slap him around a bit; he just glazed over when I told him we couldn't give any drugs with needles (save epi), do 12 leads, do 3 leads (for that matter), check glucose levels, manage intraortic balloon pumps, or perform thoracotomies, and I agree, it's just terrible! Practically skilless, our EMTs. I need to get a more powerful job and get EMTs some fun skills. We also got to see the All England Lawn Tennis Club Wimbledon (that must be said with a posh English accent). This is where the Wimbledon champions...