Since it is Reading Week for the Anthroplogy department here at Brunel, I headed to Stratford-Upon-Avon with my classmate Angela on Tuesday. Our day started with a very wet walk in the rain to the tube station at 5:30 am. Despite the rain, we made it to London Marylebone train station with plenty of time. Luckily the rain stopped and by the time we reached Stratford-Upon-Avon a little over two hours later it was only overcast although rather chilly. Some of the s...

On Saturday I spent part of the day in London at the British Library. I know what you are thinking...why is she telling us about a library? How boring is that? You will be happy to hear that there was no studying involved (although I will probably get a Reader Pass to do some research there for my dissertation). Instead I went to see the free exhibitions. In the Sir John Ritblat Gallery I saw the "Treasures of the British Library." This is a permanent d...

Since it has been a while since I've up-dated, let me take you through my recent "excitement" in chronological order:Thursday, Feb. 8: We got snow! Ok, so it was only about 2-3 inches but for London that's a significant amount. The roads and the tube were a mess and it was obvious that campus maintenance does not have a snow shovel. The atmosphere on campus was one of pure excitement. Before this year I never really thought about the number of p...

Keeping with my plan to see and do more off campus this term, I spent another Saturday in central London. Thanks to the Brunel International Newsletter I signed up to receive, Yiota and I were able to see City Hall on one of its open weekends. That means that we got to see parts of the building which are not typically open to the public. City Hall, opened in 2002, is located along the River Thames and is the headquarters for the Major of London, the London Assemb...

The past couple weeks have been pretty busy--a good busy though. Term 2 is in full swing and in addition to the regular readings and classwork, I am also trying to sort out my topic for my dissertation. The weather has also gotten much colder, and we even had snow Wednesday night. Nothing much compared to what people at home are dealing with, but enough to cause problems on the roads and trains for the morning commute. Lots of people in my classes and building we...