outside learning

Hey all! The blog entry this week is coming to you from a very sleepy blogger. As you may be aware, Brenda and I tend to be night owls, which works really well for her operatic lifestyle. There are those occasional days, however, when the world demands that we get out of bed a littler earlier than we would like. Today was one such day for me, but the loss of sleep was worth it. First thing this morning our class met outside the Houses of Parliament (aka the Palace of Westminster) and enjoyed a guided tour through the impressive building. We were taken into the chamber for the House of Commons (green is their color) and the chamber for the House of Lords (they get red). As you can imagine, both rooms were beautifully decorated. They were also surprisingly small - the members of each house won't all fit in their respective chambers at the same time. Unfortunately, photography was not allowed so I don't have any pictures to share with you.

I do, however, have pictures from a tour we took through Middle Temple's dining hall. Barristers in England must belong to one of the four Inns of Court of which Middle Temple is one. On Friday, our class took a walking tour through London to see the buildings for the four Inns of Courts. We were told that Middle Temple has the most beautiful dining hall which, like so many places in London, has a long and interesting history.

A picture of the dining hall from the balcony.

This is Middle Temple's symbol (excluding the fire escape part), which can be seen all around Middle Temple's buildings. 

 Several members of Middle Temple made their mark on the United States.

As you can see, a lot of the learning I'm doing this semester is happening outside of the classroom. And that's fine by me. Less time spent with my nose in a book allows me to take advantage of being in Europe and to maximize my time with Brenda. Speaking of which, my wonderful wife decided to fly to London this weekend after she was told that she wouldn't be needed for rehearsals for a few days. Now there's something we couldn't do when I was studying in the U.S! We had a really nice weekend together - Brenda got a lot of practicing done and we saw the movie American Hustle - and we look forward to being together again next weekend when I go to Munich to see Brenda's show and help her celebrate her birthday.

Where's Waldo? Er, I mean, where's Brenda?

Oh, I almost forgot. It seems that some of the underground (aka subway) workers are going on strike starting in about 45 minutes and not stopping until Friday morning. Our apartment in London is 3.5 miles away from my school. Looks like I won't need to go to the gym tomorrow.

Have a great week, and we'll talk to you next Tuesday!