Downton Abbey Locations & Blenheim Palace

I am so behind on my personal blog, I know, I’m sorry. My Mom keeps bugging me about it though, so I’m going to try harder (though she knows more about everything I’ve been doing than anyone, so what she thinks is going to be new here, I don’t know lol).

About three weeks ago, I was able to go on a tour that included stops at various Downton Abbey filming spots and an afternoon visit to Blenheim Palace (birthplace of Winston Churchill).

Our driver/guide for the trip, Tony, was very friendly, humorous, and informative. He was a fan of Downton Abbey himself, so everything he said was interesting and engaging. In fact, he knew a few “inside scoops” about the show because he is close friends with the father of the actor playing Tom Branson (Allen Leech). He was actually an attendee at Allen’s christening lol

One of the “insider secrets” he told us was that even though Tom and Ms. Bunting have chemistry onscreen, the actors dislike each other in real life. Apparently, the actress playing Ms. Bunting overheard Allen say that she was unattractive to others on set when she’d arrived. He tried to save himself when confronted, but the two could never reconcile that moment (which makes it all the more interesting that **SPOILER** she gets the boot halfway through the season when it feels like there was more story to tell).

When we got to our first stop on the tour, Cogges Manor Farm (Yew Tree Farm in the series, home of Mr. Drew), we had about 15 minutes of the farm to ourselves before the school groups started arriving, which was nice. The scones in the cafe were also homemade and delicious!

After the farm, we made our way to the village of Bampton, where several filming sites are located including the post office, church, hospital, Crawley house, and even the shed where Thomas stored his ration loot and then realized he’d been scammed! We then drove through the Cotswolds to various filming sights including The Swan Inn.

We then drove further to Winston Churchill's grave site, along with other family members, before heading to Woodstock for lunch. Tony dropped us off in a great spot and pointed out four different eating locations to choose from. I ate at The Buttery and had a yummy sandwich with a pot of tea.

After lunch we met back up and took the short walk through the gardens up to the Blenheim Palace entrance. Tony gave us a tour of the place himself. He was extremely knowledgeable of each room and answered any questions we threw at him. One thing I did not enjoy about the palace was the weird modern art on display in each of the rooms by Ai Weiwei. It was all very ugly and distracting in my opinion. The furniture was pushed out of the way toward the walls to make room for the art pieces, which dampened the beauty of seeing the rooms. In one room there were dozens of pictures of holding the middle finger up in front of famous landmarks. It was just dumb…what if you had children with you? Ugh, how annoying.

Anyway, after touring the house we were let loose to explore the surrounding gardens. I loved how vast the grounds were. There was a gorgeous bridge over a lake and a bunch of different kinds of birds hanging around the water.

After a bit of exploring, we met back up at the coach and headed for London. It was a lovely day and a fun experience seeing the DA filming spots in real life. Blenheim palace was also a site that had been on my list, so it was nice to be able to cross that one off (even with the WEEWEE art).

Harry Potter and Oxford

This post is long overdue, I know....



Two weeks ago I went to the Warner Bros. Studio Tour in Leavesden. The day started off with deciding what to wear. Should I be a normal Joe or sport my colored stockings in support of the Hufflepuff house? I chose school spirit in the end and am glad I did. They were just whimsical enough for the occasion!

I was very excited for the tour. I admit I was a bit of a latecomer to the world of Harry Potter, but I still enjoyed the books and absolutely loved the movies! Getting to see basically every prop from the series and so many costumes was too awesome to even describe. I took over 400 photos that day, which I am simultaneously proud of and horrified by! Even the most casual fan of the movies would enjoy this tour though. Just from a filmmaking stand point, the amount of BTS information and access is incredible.

The moment I got really excited was at the very beginning of the tour. It was a total surprise the way they kick it off! I won't say exactly what it was in case you make it there someday, but I will say that it involved the Great Hall...I got chills.

Inside the two hangers were basically every single prop and main set from the series. Amazing. My favorites were Dumbledore's office, the Gryffindor common room, and the Great Hall! I also got to try the famous butterbeer drink, which I actually enjoyed. They must have tweaked it over the years because (as you can tell from my apprehensive face) I'd read many reviews that it was sickly sweet. It was barely sweet though, a perfect taste.

Diagon Alley was especially overwhelming. It was so cool to see the details of the shops up close! I so badly wanted to go inside and explore them, but alas, they're not real.

My souvenir of the experience (apart from the mass photography), a chocolate frog with a 3D Salazar Slytherin inside.

Here are the rest of my favorite pictures from the day:

After all the Harry Potter fangirling, we headed to Oxford. I actually think my favorite thing about Oxford was the huge homes along the way to the colleges (you all know I love houses). They were gorgeous! I can only imagine how many millions they must cost.

We got a tour of Oxford from an Oxford student who showed us several colleges and talked about how the education system works at the University. We passed by Exeter, Jesus, and Trinity. We also saw the Sheldonian Theatre and walked through Christ Church and its gardens.

We had some free time to walk around the streets. There were street vendors and food carts. I bought a cute scarf and had some yummy gelato ice cream!

Overall, I thought Oxford was nice, but I could have spent much more time there actually going into the colleges and seeing where other parts of the University were since it's so spread out.

The Interiors of London

This past "weekend" (Thursday through Sunday woohoo!) I've had the chance to look at the exclusive interiors of London, from Buckingham Palace to personal homes. Building interiors are one of my favorite things to see. I'm the kind of person whose idea of a fun afternoon is going out and looking at model homes on the market and scrolling through various versions of staircases on Pinterest. So getting to walk through Buckingham Palace and see a few architecturally significant residences during London Open House, was pretty darn cool.

Touring the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace was incredible and possibly my favorite London site so far. Unfortunately, photos aren't allowed inside the Palace, but I did buy some nifty postcards afterward. Normally, I don't gravitate toward listening to the audio tours while visiting sites, but here it was very well put together and really pretty necessary. With many audio tours, you simply walk up to whatever you're interested in and put in the corresponding number on the sign. However, this tour was an amazingly immersive experience that felt like a real guide was with you. Plus, without it, I would have missed vital information about portraits, furniture, and even the locations of secret passageways!

There was an excellent exhibition for the 2014 tour cycle as well centering on childhood and what growing up as a royal was like. They had over a dozen outfits worn by young Prince William and Harry, as well as Princess Elizabeth and Beatrice. There were lots of royal toys, furniture with their names inscribed, and even drawings they had done (Queen Victoria was the best artist). Actually everything Queen Victoria was my favorite part, from a surviving dress she wore as a child to the portraits of her family she had hung on the walls of the Palace. I'm not sure why she's my most-looked-up-to royal figure. Probably a mix of the time period she ruled, her love of husband and family, and the fact that her rule was a true golden age.

When the inside tour was over, we were led out into the gardens. They were so beautiful! I took a lot of pictures. I can (literally) only imagine what it must be like to have a royal garden party there. It would be so incredible to see something like that!

Also this weekend, an event was going on called London Open House. These sites are either normally open-to-the-public sites which then become free or are personal homes that have been architecturally praised and are open for public tours. On Saturday, housemate Janel and I went to two private homes. The first was called "The Small House". It is reportedly one of the smallest self-sustaining homes in all of London and wow was it small! Before becoming a home it was first a flower shop. The owner lives here "occasionally" and the house is apparently worth around 250,000 pounds. Yikes!

The next home we went to had a bit more room to move! It was a pink traditional Victorian home that had been purchased by an architect and completely redesigned. It was gorgeous and also very sustainably built with special insulation, windows, and rain-catchers.

So that's pretty much been my weekend! It was fun and also exhausting....but every minute has been worth it. There's so much to see and do here. It's never ending really, which is both awesome and sad, since I won't be here forever. I just really have to concentrate on the things I know I want to see and do, while still making room for the spontaneous life that is living in London! Hope you enjoyed.

-Emily

The Nitty Gritty

So, a lot of the details about things I've been doing and how everything is going haven't been explained in very much detail. This is my attempt to fix that! There's just been so much happening in the last week and a half that I haven't been able to find the time to get everything down, so I do apologize for that as I know so many of you are eagerly awaiting these posts, right? ;)

And I'm just going to put everything in nice little categories because, well, it's Sunday afternoon and I'm lazy like that.

Homestay

I love my homestay. I am so glad I went ahead and decided to live with a family. I live with a married couple in the Southgate/Enfield area. It's about an hour and 15 minute commute to central London. The couple are Greek and Russian, which has been really interesting, they've also had guests over in the evenings and it's been so much fun talking, laughing, and eating together!

Our set-up is pretty great as well. Janel (fellow CAPA student) and I each have our own room and there's a kitchenette, table/chairs, and bathroom in between.

Internship

I actually quit my internship. So much for that $700 visa....oh well. It was a huge combination of factors that led to my decision. Trust me, I didn't take throwing that much money away lightly. If anything, I think I've learned to trust my instincts more. Ever since I applied for the internship I was torn thinking about it and how much time I would have to spend on it. With commuting time it ended up eating about 28 hours of my week. In addition to my class time and the 4-5 hours I spend on my blog each week, that was 39 hours. I know someday (someday soon) I will have a 40 hour work week with commuting time in addition to other involvements, but for me, my only semester abroad is not the time to start being crunched for time. It just wasn't a good schedule for what I want to accomplish while I'm here. And since I don't plan on doing much after dark, living farther out, it didn't leave much time for anything apart from Saturday and Sunday in the afternoon.

I think the real reason I clung to the idea of an internship as long as I did was because of two things. First, I knew that some of my desire to drop the internship was fear. Fear that I would mess up. Fear of answering the telephones. Just fear of not knowing how to do things. Second, was the doubt about what field I should go into after I graduate. About halfway through sophomore year I realized that what I wanted to do with my life was help people, students in particular. The prospect of an internship in an industry like publishing, marketing, PR, etc. made me doubt what I was passionate about. I was thinking that this would be my last opportunity to "throw myself" in a new direction, to actually have a "professional career". I was telling myself that I wasn't passionate about student affairs, that I was only choosing to go into it because it's familiar and "easy". But none of those things were true.

I did interview for the position and actually went to the first two days. I was able to face some of those fears I'd had like being in a new place and, especially, answering the phone and the door. Once I got over the initial horrible fear of those things though, I realized I simply didn't want to be there.

I also realized that I have no professional passion for film and especially not indie film. I love movies, don't get me wrong, but most of that love actually comes from my love of books and seeing those books become movies. There were so many cool things happening in the office like social media and drafting articles--of which I definitely have skills in--but the idea of trying to use those skills toward something I have no passion for was impossible. Every minute I was there, all I could really think about was not wanting to be there. And I absolutely do not mean to blame my program or anyone else involved. I think they do a great job of getting students international experience in the workplace and most of the students seem to really like their internships. I just wasn't right for me and wasn't the industry for me.

Classes

Since I dropped my internship, I am now taking four classes this semester. Two I attended last week and the other two will be new for me this week. They are...

Writing the City: London - I haven't been to this class yet, but it focuses on creative writing with London being the subject.

Theatricality: Understanding the Possibilities of Theatre - This class is awesome! In the first session we talked about Greece and the formation of theatre. We are meant to learn how the audience plays an important role in theatre and are going to be attending three shows. The first being The Woman in Black.

20th and 21st Century Art - Haven't attended this class, but thought it would be interesting since I've never taken an art course before and what a better time to do it than when I'm surrounded by amazing artwork!? We will be going on field trips to various art museums.

Understanding Modern Britain - The professor in this class is hysterical. Should be great fun. We have lots of field trips planned in this class including walks around the city, the Imperial War Museum, a Mosque, a talk with a previously homeless woman, and others. It's all focused on why Britains are the way they are and how they are different/similar to us.

Getting Involved

After dropping my internship, I feel like I actually have time to be involved in the things I would like to be. I was able to join CAPA's Student Council which is awesome. I've haven't been on a student council since 4th grade. I think it's going to be such a fun way to be connected to fellow CAPA students and CAPA staff. We get to plan events for the rest of the students and I can't wait to start!

I also was able to attend a church service today for the first time since arriving. It was a fun experience, though the service was very traditional. I am going next week to the more student oriented service and once the school term starts here, there'll be student small groups and hang-outs to attend.

I'd like to check out the other clubs/orgs. offered at Imperial College as well. Hopefully there's a volunteering club or something education related that I can be a part of this semester. I really want to meet more British students and be active in the student community.


So that's pretty much everything thus far. I've seen a lot of sites and things as well, but you'll be able to get more of that on my CAPA blogs so you don't need me to repeat everything. If there's anything else anyone wants to know, just leave a comment or message me or whatever!

(Also, sorry there were no pictures...)

-Emily

First week in London

I have been here just a week and already so much has happened. I feel like I have gone from a really confused and timid student to a real London commuter! Everything about being here has been amazing. I love London even more than I thought I would. There's so much to see and do in this city!

I had CAPA orientation, have gone on a sightseeing tour of London, started my first week of classes and am headed to Bath tomorrow. It's been a very busy, but wonderful week. I was so nervous to ride the buses and the tube the first 2 days, but it was also really cool to finally be commuting in London. I felt a little bit like this (I've also been to this station!)....



Here are some highlights of the sites I've visited as well. Now I know it looks like I'm wearing the same thing every day, but my orange coat is just so perfect for walking around London. It's decently warmer and is long enough that it covers my pant pockets, so nothing can be easily stolen from them.

            

           VA Museum

VA Museum

Shakespeare's Globe

Tower of London

Wobbly/Harry Potter bridge

Changing of the Guard 

View from my window

Big Ben & Parliment

Buckingham Palace

St. Paul's Cathedral

CAPA Afternoon Tea Reception @ Regency Hotel

Pub near my homestay

View of the London Eye

London Bridge

As you can see from some of the pictures, it's actually been great weather here! Usually around 70 degrees and clear sunny skies. It hasn't rained yet, just sprinkled for a few minutes one day. This weather is kind of difficult. It's kind of like the time of year in Arizona when it's really hot under the sun, but then move into the shade and it's freezing. Except here it's just the sun moving out of or behind a cloud every 5 minutes. It also can be either really cold or really warm down in the tube stations depending on the time of day and the amount of people. I usually end up leaving my coat on and sweating though when it gets warm because I hate taking it on and off...

There are more photos on my Flicker page! You can also follow along on my blog through CAPA (which is more coherently written...) which goes up every Monday morning. There'll be a lot more details of my first impressions of London there, but I just wanted to update since I haven't had the chance to until today! More to come!

-Emily