This was the Lindow Man, a mummified dude who had been preserved in a peat bog. I had learned about bodies preserved this way in Intro to Anthropology freshman year, so I was really excited to see one in real life.
More funny faces on jugs!
The museum was fun, but it was, well, a museum, and there's not really much to say about it at the moment (you really have to be there and see it).
On Friday my British Media class took a field trip to BBC, about a 40-minute tube ride away but completely worth it. After passing through a mandatory security check, we were taken to the front of the main facility which housed none other than the Tardis from the infamous Dr. Who TV show.
I've only recently discovered Dr. Who, but I was nonetheless tickled to see the movie prop in real life.
This is just part of the building -- We were only allowed to take pictures in certain areas for "security and copyright reasons." They took us into a conference room that overlooked an extensive room of monitors where television shows were written, edited, and aired.
Our 2 tour guides were extremely enthusiastic, with shiny, happy TV personalities, but it was clear the *really* enjoyed their jobs. They showed us the celebrity entrance to the building that had hosted such stars as Jennifer Lopez, Paul McCartney, and Mariah Carey.
Just outside this entrance was a huge statue of Helios the sun god. Further into the bowels of the 13-acre facility we were shown various studios (all of which are extremely small, contrary to what I expected), the Green Room, the BBC Weather studio, etc.
In one of the studios, we got to watch them filming an episode of Dancing with the Stars. In the Green Room, they told us stories about some of the crazy celebrity's requests (such as J.Lo insisting the room be completely done over in white for her 40 minute stay, and Mariah Carey wanting puppies to play with before her show). In the weather area, we got to play with a blue screen, and finally we were taken into a mock-up studio where they had a demonstration of a TV show production.
A lot of it seemed very staged (after all, it was a tour, and it was a production company) but it was still a unique experience nonetheless and I had a lot of fun.
Today was spent trying to plan my excursion week trip, which is currently not going well. I'm trying to coordinate with 3 other people to go to Ireland, but with each person working on a separate research project it is turning out to be quite the challenge.
My original plan was to go visit Giant's Causeway, an impressive geological phenomenon in Northern Ireland with one of my roommates, while my other roommate did a project on photography, and our friend studied local fairytales and folklore. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, now it turns out we have a dozen places we need to hit in about 8 days which quickly becomes very expensive and time consuming.
So, we're all pretty frustrated and kind of back to square one again. In case you've never tried it before, take my word that it's *really* hard to make travel plans with 3 people you've only known for a couple weeks and all have varying needs.
I guess we'll see what happens. In the meantime, I still have lots of reading, homework and exploring of London to do.
So, cheers to that!
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