London Calling

This past week was spent in the wonderful city of London. Every core course class at DIS has a mandatory week long study tour to another country (awful right?). And it just so happened that my class had the fortune to go to London, England with our sweet and quirky British professor. It was by far my favorite city I've been to on this study abroad adventure. The city was ginormous and, though it didn't have quite the same culture as Rome, it felt very alive. There were also lots of very distinct neighborhoods. While Copenhagen has distinct neighborhoods, they are, over all, very similar and do not vary as much as they do in London. The whole trip lasted from Sunday to Friday night/Saturday morning and I did not want to leave.

Sunday

My entire class (23 students, 1 professor, and 1 intern) met at the airport and left Copenhagen at noon. Getting off the plane, getting our bags, waiting for the bus, and getting to the hotel ended up being quite a process that took at least two hours.  We then had half an hour to regroup before we had to meet up again for a two hour walking tour of the area....in the freezing cold rain. It was a wonderful welcome to London. The tour probably would have been more interesting if it hadn't been raining. Our tour guide, however, insisted that it wasn't actually rain and that it was really liquid sunshine (clearly he knew we were positive psychology students) but none of us bought it. We were all perfectly happy to wallow in our miserable coldness as we passed museum after museum but didn't go inside a single one. Over all I'd say the tour was interesting but I didn't get much out of it. Even though the tour itself wasn't the best our tour guide was awesome. He had this stereotypical dry, British humor which I loved. It was certainly a nice change from the Danes who only think they're being dry and sarcastic but haven't quite got the measure of it the same way the British do. It was a welcome change (as was the fact that everyone spoke English and not some language I couldn't understand). 

 

Random rode in London

After the tour we had a class dinner at an Indian restaurant. DIS had pre-ordered everything for us so I'm not entirely sure what we ate...but it was delicious. The dessert was the best part though. It was similar to a carrot cake but it was really more of a carrot crumble. 

Monday

We had our first academic visit on Monday. We went to a community college to have a talk with a group called the Tavinstock Institute. Basically they deal with group psychology in the workplace and help to mediate between different institutions and businesses. They help a lot of more technological companies communicate with people emotionally. For example, England is building a high speed train from London to the north and the company building the tracks has to disrupt and displace many homes and communities. So, the Tavinstock Institute was hired to help this construction/technological company communicate on an emotional level with the community. It was really interesting to learn about. 

After that, the class went to a Peruvian restaurant for lunch and then went to another group visit called Moving Pieces. This group was founded by a woman who is a registered psychotherapist and combines psychotherapy and physical theater to help people with trauma or high levels of emotional distress. It was...interesting. We basically did a workshop with a lot of physical theater. While I definitely see the benefits of physical theater and think it can be really helpful in therapy, this group seemed to be much more focused on theater and performance than they were on the psychology aspect of it all. The patients they see are required to be seeking help from other sources. 

Once the workshop was over, we had the rest of the evening off so I went with a friend from my class to London's Chinatown. It was pretty much like every other Chinatown but I really enjoyed it. Then I met up with a few of my Grinnell friends who are studying in London. Teddy, Joe, Lauren, Kate (who was just visiting) and I went out to a pub for dinner. We sat in the pub for about three hours and it was absolutely wonderful to see everyone and catch up with everything. I definitely needed that small does of Grinnell. 

 

Chinatown!

Tuesday

Tuesday morning was spent entirely on our own. No lectures or visits. It was nice to have a solid four to five hours to see the city. I met up with Kate to see Westminster Abby and Buckingham Palace.  We had to pay to get into Westminster Abby but once we were in we were given a free audio tour so it kind of evened itself out. Westminster Abby was beautiful but there were so many sculptures and memorials in there that it was kind of overwhelming. Then we went into the gift shop and they had tons merchandise with pictures from the royal wedding. All I could think about whenever I saw any of it was my aunt Cindy who absolutely loves the royal family. I couldn't help but smile every time I saw a mug or biscuit tin dedicated to the wedding. 

 

Big Ben!

 

The London Eye!

 

Me in front of parliament

 

 

Another view of parliament

 

Hallway in the courtyard of Westminster

 

Westminster

Once we finished there (which took a couple of hours), Kate and I walked over to Buckingham Palace. Honestly, it looked more like a parliament building than a palace (the parliament building looked more like a palace) but it was still cool. When we were about to leave, we noticed a crowd forming around the gates to the palace.  Curious, Kate and I lined up with everyone and after a few minutes, saw extremely fancy horse-drawn carriages heading towards the gate. The woman to my right informed me that the people in the carriages were foreign ambassadors. No idea what country they were from though. So, no royal family but pretty close I'd say. 

 

Me in front of Buckingham Palace!

 

Kate in front of Buckingham Palace

 

Foreign ambassadors

 

Telephone booth and Big Ben

Later on the street Kate and saw someone famous. We were walking towards Westminster Abby and passed two men in suits. Then we saw the couple in front of us stop and say "was that so-and-so?!". The couple then doubled excitedly and tried to introduce themselves to these men while the men hurried away. They were very clearly trying to keep a low profile and not draw any attention. So, Kate and I have know idea who we saw but we definitely saw someone famous.

In the afternoon my class met up for a lecture on positive psychology. Unfortunately, it was very boring because it covered everything my class had already studied and discussed. But after than we had an hour to wander around the British Museum. They had prints by Goya and Hiroshige so that was amazing to be able to see. I was really excited about them. 

 

Goya's  The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

 

Hiroshige!

After the museum, my class went to a pub for a wonderful dinner of fish and chips. That was the first time I had eaten fish and chips and it was probably one of my favorite meals I had in London. 

As if the day wasn't long enough, after dinner most of the class went on a Jack the Ripper walking tour. I was expecting this to be awful and terrifying but, thank goodness, it was more of a historical walking tour through the city with an emphasis on the Jack the Ripper story. It's amazing to me that they still don't know who he was. 

 

Cozy pub with all my classemates!

 

Fish and chips dinner

Wednesday

Wednesday was the second best day I spent in London. We started with a tour of the Tate Modern. Our tour guide placed an emphasis on the psychology involved in modern art so I naturally found that fascinating. 

Later in the day we went to Shakespeare's Globe and had both a tour around the theater as well as a workshop. Not being particularly fond of acting, I was extremely nervous for this workshop. I've always admired actors but never quite felt comfortable doing it myself. But this workshop was so much fun. It was a lot about the physicality of acting and how that can influence your mindset and help you to further understand the characters in a play. We did a lot of exercises in which we analyzed the characters in Hamlet. Though as much as I enjoyed it, I still don't see acting in my future career path. 

 

Shakespeare's Globe

Next, we went to high tea. Basically, we sat at a restaurant for two hours and drank tea and ate finger sandwiches and sweets. It was wonderful. I could happily go to high tea everyday. 

 

High Tea

 

Millennium Bridge

 

After high tea we went to a lecture on how personal development should be implemented as a school subject. And I must say, after all that I've learned about positive psychology and education here, I  completely agree. It seems to me to be an important aspect of life and development that most people don't spend enough time on. 

The lecture didn't finish until eight and since we hadn't technically eaten dinner, a bunch of my classmates and I went to Chinatown to eat. We ended up walking around there for quite a while and then found a giant four story M&M store that we played in for a while. We also bought a ton of M&Ms that we ate as we walked around the city. 

Thursday

Thursday was the best day in London by far.  My class met up with another DIS psychology class that was also in London for a Gangnam Style flash mob. I was stoked about this. We modified the dance to that everyone could do it and then performed it in the middle of London. And, for some unknown reason, I decided that I was going to be in the front row. But it was awesome. The people watching us really enjoyed it too. Some started dancing along but most of them just took lots of pictures and videos. Our intern took a video of it but she has yet to put it up anywhere. I promise post the link as soon as it's up.

After that we broke off into small groups to perform random acts of kindness. My group walked into a cafe and, as a woman was about to pay for her sandwich, walked up to the cashier, handed her a ten pound note and told the woman "this one's on us". She was shocked and kept asking us why and tried to pay us back. We just told her that we wanted her to have a good day and then refused to take her money. It was amazing how good it made everyone feel. I felt so happy and this woman was clearly extremely happy about it as well (though still a bit baffled). And to my surprise, it also made the cashier happy even though she didn't benefit from the interaction, she even said, "that was the nicest thing I have ever seen". 

Next we had three hours on our own so I went with two other classmates to see the Peter Pan statue and then we went to King's Cross Station. Two lifelong goals were crossed off of my list that day. It was so exciting. After both of those, we went to Camden Markets which was so overwhelming that I didn't even know where to begin looking. There were just so many shops and food stands.

 

Me posing like the Peter Pan statue

 

Me flying like Peter Pan

 

Look! I made it though platform 9 3/4 ....kind of

In the afternoon we went to laughter yoga. That sounds really great right? But it's nothing like it sounds. It doesn't involve any actual yoga. The woman leading it came in high heals and a mini-dress (definitely not yoga material). She then proceeded to lead my class outside to this dingy area that was half under a bridge where we had our laughter yoga session. All we did was find different was to fake a laugh. So we walked around an mingled while angrily laughing at each other (I'm still not sure how you even do that) and another exercise we did involved walking around like zombies and mimicking their laughter because yes, zombies do in fact have a very specific kind of laugh. You learn something new everyday. It was all very strange. We haha-ed and hehe-ed and hoho-ed a lot. (The last one made me feel like Santa.) Even though it was bizarre, and my face hurt at the end, I found great amusement out of the whole event. That's a lot more than I can say for most of my classmates. 

We then had a class dinner in which we celebrated my professors birthday. We're all kind of in love with her. She just so nice and funny. Afterwords I went out to a pub with a bunch of classmates and chilled there for the evening. 

 

My professor opening her birthday card

 

Friday

Our last day in London was much more low-key. We had a lecture in the morning that was about positive psychology and relationships. Then we went to Harrods and basically spent the afternoon wandering around the city. 

By five we were back at the airport and, naturally, our plane was delayed so we spent three hours sitting at the airport before we even found out what gate we were at. During that time I occupied myself by buying and looking through three cookbooks, two of which are all for desserts. Now all I want to do is bake. This is going to be a problem especially because Izabel can't eat most of the things in the cookbooks. Though I plan on using baking as a method to keep me sane in these coming two weeks. Hopefully that will get me through all the tests and projects and papers I have. We'll see.