My first week (or rather three days of classes) were wonderful. I love the material that I'm going to be learning in my classes and I am enjoying the city. For my Art and Society class we went to The Banqueting House and learned about Charles I - and the whole messy monarchic history leading up to the English Civil War - the king who commissioned and about Rubens the artist. One of the things I found most interesting was the paintings on the ceiling, which we learned are painted on canvas and hung from the ceiling rather than painted frescos into the plaster on the ceiling itself. In fact, Rubens himself didn't even paint all of the ceiling, only the "important bits." Artists during that time (1600's) had workshops and their assistants painted most of the works and the master would paint only a fraction of it and then put his name on it. There would be a guy who painted the flowers, a guy who painted clothing, a guy who painted furniture, a guy who painted hands. If it was a portrait Rubens would have painted the face, especially if it were of a monarch or an important person. It's really a brilliant idea I think. Like an art factory churning out masterpieces, for really there is no way Rubens could have painted as many works as he did all on his own, especially because he was designing buildings and acting as a dipolmat also. Instead, many apprentices learn the trade, and speicialize, becoming absolutely perfect at certain features of painting, creating more art and in general probably better art. On the other side of the coin however, all of those faceless assistants do most of the work and get none of the recognition. It's an interesting concept and something that I had no idea about until this past thursday.

Speaking of beautiful art, the API group went to Windsor Castle on Saturday. It was absolutely fabulous! It is probably the biggest, most sprawling building I've ever seen. As far as spectacular architecture goes I'm most used to sky scrapers - this place is more like a small town than a single castle. I wish we were allowed to take photographs of the interior because the decor, the carvings, the artwork, the exquistly crafted furniture, was incredible. I've taken some nice pictures of the outside of the building but it looks very similar, at least in style, to the tower of London - the same type of stone work and that. I am working out how to use Picasa on my mac and organizing the photos into an online album. I'll try to find a scanner and scan in the post cards I bought that have the images of the inside on them.

That evening I went out to see Slumdog Millionaire with Jon from my Creative Writing class. It was a very good movie. Thought provoking, excellant musical score, and still a happy ending. The next day Mable and I went to the market on Bricklane which was so cool! There were all sorts of hand-made craft items, bags, watches, jewelry, clothing, and vintage clothes and coats and all kinds of amazing food! Sushi and tandoori, scones and crepes! Yum! We didn't eat at the market however, we found this Indian restuarant that our director Rachel had told us was really good. It was probably the best food for the best PRICE that I've found in London. For less than 10l I got a starter, Dahl soup, a main, Chicken Curry, and a coffee and a diet coke.

Okay, and they say Americans are loud! This student cafe on the Uni's campus just became screaming loud! I'm going to go find a quieter place to work on the rest of my homework and reading.