Day 28 & 29 - Mrs. Dalloway & Gurdwara

Day 28 - Once again, I had another literature class...woo hoo. Ha sorry I'll try to contain my unenthusiasm in this post! Ok so we had another class in which we talked about Mrs. Dalloway...this book was the inspiration for the movie The Hours, maybe you've seen that? The reason we read it is because it's set in London and the characters are in all different places around London so later in the day we went on a walking tour in London of where these characters would have been throughout London. Three hours later of walking...our class decided to quit early because we were all too tired, and it seemed pointless seeing as we never stopped or talked about where we were walking. But good news, I got to do a little shopping at Cath Kidston!!

Here we go people, this is about as exciting as our walk was!!

Meercats in London?! Niehgbourhood watch I guess!

Coming home Mary and I fell asleep on the train, it just rocks you to sleep it's amazing! I feel like a big baby on the train with my eyes slowly getting heavier and heavier until I wake up to finding my mouth wide open...woopsies!! But we decided to take our negative energy from class to good use by going out with our friends Lee and Jordan to Oceana. Of course we were mostly in the "cheese" room, which is apparently what they call the room with all of the cheezy music, the one I loved, and we danced the night away!!

Mer mer, me, Lee & Jordan

Moose in the Aspen room...I still think it's funny to have a room at a club themed after a ski lodge but hey the Moose was a fun picture prop!

Day 29 - This morning we headed to the west side of London to the Southall Sikh Gurdwara. People often refer to this part of town as "Littly India" because it has the highest proportion of Indian/Pakistani residents. We got to go inside of the Sikh's Gurdwara, their place of worship and hang out spot. We were welcomed with such hospitality and it was so neat because it felt like we stepped into their culture for an hour. We had to take off our shoes, they gave us these bandana type things to wear on our heads to cover them up and we got the chance to eat their food! Their religion is very interesting and they are all very devoted. I liked what our tour guide said, he said no matter what religion you are, we all have the same God and we are all of his creations. It just seems so simple when he puts it that way. Also they do alot of things on the floor like praying, meal times, etc. and that is a way to create equality throughout their culture and religion. I thought that was very interesting too.

Outside of the Gurdwara

Here are the bandana things we wore inside to cover our heads

Their culture is so different from ours and it is so distinct. The Sikh men, for the most part, were all wearing turbins around their head because they've never cut their hair ever and they have long beards and the woman are all dressed in beautiful saris. They were very welcoming and offered us their traditional food...see picture below. Despite its close appearance to baby food...it actually was really good! Seeing their culture made me think about what it would have been like had I grown up in their culture, it just seems like most of who you are comes from where you grew up...ya know?

I swear it's not as bad as it looks!

Afterwards we headed back to class for lecture and discussion. The theme of today was about Britain being a multi cultural place. From what I learned today, Britain seems to be well adapted to the various cultures that preside in the city, although it may have been like pulling teeth at some points nonetheless, Britain has adapted quite well simply because multiple generations now have lived in London so they, as well as English people are much more integrated together.


Tonight I worked on homework and got all packed and ready to leave for Paris tomorrow morning at 5 am! Ouch that's going to be early! I'm not counting on having internet so I won't be able to post...check around Monday or Tuesday to hear about my adventures in Paris...Bonjour!