First day of classes/National Gallery

So, there is not much to report from Sunday. It was basically a day to recuperate. I will however include a story about Benedict (you might want to get used to these kinds of stories because I'm infatuated with this kid). On Sunday we went into the family room (where we usually don't go) to pick out some movies, and Benedict was in the room helping us. When I saw the movie "Willow" I got pretty excited and mentioned that it was one of my favorite movies as a child. So we picked out some movies, blah blah, and when we went into the kitchen at around 8PM to make dinner, "Willow" was sitting on the kitchen table. He also gave us some little fruit snacks, because he said they were his favorite. ...!!!

Today everyone from Earlham had our first class, History of Photography, with Walt at 10:45AM. Luckily we missed most of the commuter traffic. After class (we talked about camera obscuras, which I knew about thanks to my Calculus class, if that makes any sense) a small group of us headed over to Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery. We had a short lunch out in the center of the square (short because it was so cold!!) and went inside. Have I mentioned that I love how all of the amazing museums and galleries here are free?!?! Today I got to look at some random Italian paintings that all involved the Virgin Mary and angels and Christ, then a pretty strange exhibit on the Red Light District in Amsterdam, some really amazing works by Monet (the water lillies!), Manet, a sketch by Da Vinci, which was still amazing just as a sketch (they used to have "Madonna of the Rocks" but they took it down for maintenance), Van Gogh (my favorite was the sunflowers he painted to hang in the guest room when his friend was coming...I want to go back in time and give him a hug, and maybe buy one of his paintings so he could have sold more than one painting before he died), Goya, and Picasso. That is a place I will definitely be returning to--they have a whole room on landscape and nature art, which many of you know I love.

From there we headed over to Covent Garden, where there were so many places to buy things it was overwhelming. This has nothing to do with Covent Garden, but just for your information, if you want an elephant, you can buy it at Harrod's. Anyway, Covent Garden had a lot of open-air vendors (which are always great) with lots of homemade rings, scarves, silverware, carved animals, gloves, etc. We also saw a few street performers, including a really quality violin-playing group. If I'm saying "really" a lot, I blame the English.

We headed home and got some dinner and watched a UK version of something like "House Hunters," and I've decided I'd like to live in Shropshire. Wherever that is, it's beautiful.

Tomorrow is going to be inteeeense. Class from 9AM to 9PM with an hour lunch and two-hour dinner break in between. Two of those classes will be mixed in with other FIE students, so we'll see how they go!