Work + Play

I'll start with describing these pics a bit. The first contains the butt of the Globe during our walk along the Thames. Next is us in front of Buckingham Palace and the Queen Victoria Memorial. The next is of Southwark (pronounced "Suth-ick") bridge with the Feast on the Bridge happening. After that we have yours truly at the hole-in-the-wall that is my work (it's better inside :) And then we have Cait and I at a club for a friends birthday...mmmmmm.

Well, the internship is finally happening. I've been sorting through 136 year old maps of the Middle East, mainly from what is now Israel, Syria and Jordan. I'm just verifying the information (the date, who did the surveying, the information on the map, condition of it, what areas it shows, and what other maps you can look at of a nearby area). Then I put it on the computer. Fun stuff. We'll have more to do in the coming weeks, as I only have to put the info on the computer after going through each individual map. There are some amazing maps of what is now the Gaza strip and, of course, Jerusalem. The PEF was the first major documentation of the Holy Land. They cover everything too...elevation, land features, buildings, even trees, wells, cisterns, ancient burial sites, vineyards, "ancient roman roads,"...some get incredibly detailed with amazing shading. I'll try to snag some copies of good maps to post. Anyway, its basic now, but once our supervisor gets back from a conference in Jerusalem, we'll be able to talk more about other tasks on top of our archival stuff (since we're just the bitch interns...but at least the hours are flexible and we get free tea).

Classes seem interesting too. Three hours, though. The Eastern Europe Politics class was still a bit of an intro session, just talking about the term "eastern europe" and what we associate with, why we call it that, blah blah. Just kinda basic discussion topics. They have an entire library here, though, with all sorts of records about the area, though - biggest in the world. It'll make paper writing easy. Politics of the Middle East kicked off with Egypt as the top topic. Just lecture for now though. All in good time.

So, today we hit up the River Thames festival (goes all weekend). Woke up around 8AM (on a Saturday, mind you) and started off at Buckingham Palace, since it was the last day of the summer palace tours. Amazing. Just amazing. No pictures inside, however, but just amazing. The detail and opulence were just mindblowing. Even the paneling bordering the doors...there were leaves going up the side, and each leaf was gold, with the stem and veins clearly visibile on each one. The special display was Queen Elizabeth's Wedding. They had the dress, wedding gifts, jewlery, all of it. Incredibly opulent as well, of course. Anyway, after that we made our way to the Thames and walked along it for a while. They had tango lessons going on, japanese street music, music performances by people from all over the world, art displays, every kind of food imaginable, a closed bridge covered with sand (Feast on the Bridge) and tons of people (at least 50 people touched my butt inadvertantly)...madness! We ended at Borough Market, which is a more upscale street market. It's where experts go to find the finest wine, cider, cheese (from Cheshire, where the Chesebro name originates, which is why it may be pronounced "Chez-bro!"), bread, meaet, and baked goods. Oh, and it has yet to rain since we've been here - the weather today was sunny and around 70. Perfect! We were going non-stop rom 8:30 AM until about 3:30. Then we passed the fuck out when we got back.

Tomorrow is Sunday, so we're going to The Church. Not church, The Church. It's a pub only open on Sundays. Awesome. Also the festival continues tomorrow, and we'll see fireworks in the evening. Anyway, clubs tonight. Got to rest up.