Greetings to all! I am more than pleased to inform you that I have returned from London and had a splendid time. In fact, I enjoyed my stay there so much that from hence forth, I will be speaking exclusively with a British accent as a means by which to bring a bit of the British culture back to Denmark. I will keep you posted on my linguistic endeavor as time goes on. 


Now, my week in London was jam-packed to say the least, so in an effort to prevent you from becoming angry with a 100 paged entry explicitly detailing the ins and outs of my British adventure, I will be writing multiple entries about my trip, splitting them up into 2-3 day intervals. Also, I will do my best to refrain from doing anything even remotely interesting in the next few days so as to not fall too far behind in my blogging efforts. 


So let us begin. 

I must begin by saying that, as a proud graduate of Winston Churchill High School in San Antonio, TX, a city that is also, interestingly enough, home to both Ronald Reagan High School and Robert E. Lee High School, visiting London felt just like going home. In fact, I spent the first three days incessantly humming the British National Anthem, which I definitely think earned me the respect of the locals. 

My Communications & Mass Media group arrived at Heathrow on Monday afternoon after a seamless flight (and by 'seamless' I mean that my suitcase was only 42 lbs., 3 lbs. under the limit, and only one out of four of my cans of tuna were confiscated by security personnel) and were then bussed to the Bayswater Inn, a charming little hotel on the west side of the city. Monday evening, the group dined at Hung Drawn & Quartered Pub, a dining experience that was sort of a miracle in and of itself seeing as we all almost sweated out the entire contents of our bodies on the tube during rush hour. And we got a bit lost. But that is neither here nor there. 


The dinner was lovely and enabled our stomachs to endure the Jack the Ripper Walking tour we went on post-meal. Much to my dismay, I learned on this tour that Johnny Depp was not actually a detective on the case and was therefore not present on said tour. Nonetheless, the event was fascinating. So fascinating, in fact, that I took rather extensive notes on my iPhone that, as I glance at them now, I realize are actually quite disturbed. Therefore, I will spare you the (literally) gory details of the experience in favor of a bulleted list of "fun" facts I gathered (I recognize that "fun" and "Jack the Ripper" do not typically belong in such close proximity to one another, but I am still a bit tired from the trip and my internal thesaurus is not functioning to its fullest potential). 

• The murders presumably carried out by Jack the Ripper occurred in London in 1888
• The legal age of consent at this time was 13
• The River Thames was a sewer filled with dead bodies and Cholera was also quite prevalent (which makes my bedroom sound comparatively clean) 
• The first murder took place in August and the last in November - the period in between was deemed "Autumn of Terror"
• Murder Victim #1 - Mary Nichols, 42: alcoholic, forced into prostitution after husband died
• Murder Victim #2 - Catherine Eddowes: had been arrested and released on the night of her murder on September 18; She was made to look like a clown by her killer with triangular figures on each cheek, leading some to believe that the Free Masons were somehow involved in the Jack the Ripper Murders
• There were two police forces at the time and both were competing to find the murderer
• There was a large Jewish population in the city at the time (this somehow relates to the murder of the man who built the Temple of Solomon and the Free Masons, as well, but unfortunately, I was still looking for Johnny at this point in the tour and did not fully get the connection)
• Murder Victim #4 - Elizabeth Stride: Swedish prostitute; Israel Shorts thought he witnessed a domestic dispute in an alley on this night but later, a man discoverd Elizabeth's body in his yard, still warm, indicating that the killer was hiding on his property. Because Jack was caught mid-action, he went after a second victim on the same evening
• Murder Victim #5 - Mary Kelly: killed in her own apartment and discovered the following morning by the milk boy. Neighbors 'saw' Mary leave her apartment that morning, indicating that either the killer disguised himself as a woman or possibly WAS a woman. This remains unsolved. 
• There have been over 150 suspects in these murders, including the man who killed Abe Lincoln
• Letters were sent to a journalist supposedly from the murderer, revealing his or her identity but no one knows how valid they are
• James Mabrick is one suspect. His watch had the initials of the victims etched on the back and his journal said "Time Reveals All," a possible allusion to said timepiece. 

I apologize if you found this information to be incredibly disturbing. I also apologize if you found this information to be incredibly boring. Moving on... 

Tuesday morning, we had a traditional British breakfast that included an impressive variety of white breads and eggs before heading to Al Jazeera English. For those of you not familiar with the organization, Al Jazeera is an international 24-hour English language and current affairs TV channel headquartered in Qatar, the first of its kind in the Middle East. The London office opened in 2006 and today there are over 70 bureaus worldwide. The station covers issues in global terms and prides themselves on not being 'pro-anyone.' Al Jazeera is funded by the Qatari government, but is licensed to be as universal as possible and aims to report the underreported. 

We met with Richard Gizbert of The Listening Post program who explained to us that Al Jazeera is challenging the mainstream media that shapes us by reporting the stories that have not been previously and also by commissioning filmmakers who are not employed by Al Jazeera. [Below is a promo video for Richard's show.] 

For example, if a Turkish filmmaker sends in a tape on an obscure story from his or her homeland and it is well-made and tells a good story, Al Jazeera English will likely broadcast it. A similar sort of film is iProtest, an Al Jazeera special that follows activist Debby Chan in her work against Foxconn and Apple (NOTE: Yes, I was actively taking notes on my iPad when they played this video for us, which made the whole experience mildly uncomfortable for me and all others involved...namely, my iPad.) 

Despite everyone at the station probably thinking I am a horribly selfish, iPad-using capitalist, living a meaningless consumer-driven life, the trip went well and I really learned a lot. It was very interesting to hear the point of view of a news station that is truly international in its scope and I very much enjoyed the experience. 

After leaving Al Jazeera, we headed towards The Smith's Square Bar & Restaurant for lunch. En route to lunch, we passed a large crowd of individuals with cameras standing outside a hotel. Our journalistic tendencies forced us to stop and investigate the situation. We discovered that the crowd was, and had been for the past three hours, waiting for none other than Lady Gaga to emerge from the building. We did not see her, but it was still quite an exhilarating moment in time. 

After lunch, we had free time to work on our Branding London video projects, an assignment that asks us, in groups of four, to create a 2-3 minute film that in some way "brands" the city of London. More on the progress of this video to come. Below are some photos I snapped during the creative process. 

Later that afternoon, our group visited Bloomberg Europe, a firm dedicated to aggregating and sharing international business and financial news. The company was founded by Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 1986 in New York and is best known for its creation of the Market Master terminal. In 1990, Bloomberg News was founded as a further means of sharing the financial data gathered by the company. The Bloomberg office was very modern and Google-esque. In fact, the furniture in the meeting rooms are made out of old computer parts (i.e., ethernet cords and USBs) and each floor is surrounded by uniquely colored plexiglas walls, meant to stimulate different parts of the brain, taking Feng Shui to an entirely new level (For more Feng Shui tips and advice, I encourage you to visit www.fengshui.com). Another highlight of the tour included our guide, a Swedish UCLA grad, allowing us into the cafeteria for a snack (i.e., I stuffed my purse with apples, bananas, instant oatmeal, and Special K cereal bags), which was a real selling point for all of us, even those of us who, despite taking AP Economics, know little more than that money is required for making purchases... 

After leaving Bloomberg, we were on our own for dinner and then met as a group at Her Majesty's Theater for the Phantom of the Opera, which was even better than I remember it being last time I saw it London. In fact, I did not like the show at all when I saw it the summer before 7th grade but absolutely loved it this time, a testament to the rapid rate of emotional maturation I have experienced as a direct result of becoming an adult in the eyes of the Jewish people (i.e., I had my Bat Mitzvah the summer after 7th grade). After the show, there was a mass exodus of sorts as we all navigated the tube as a group of 23, which I hear the locals totally love. 

Anywho, that is all for now. I will not pain you any longer, seeing as I have four more days worth of material to share with you. Get ready, baby. Thanks for tuning in.

Farvel!

ord af dagen: "hvidt brød" = "white bread" (As in, "I was incredibly overwhelmed by the immense variety of 'hvidt brøds' served at our hotel.")