This time, pictures from the London Eye, when Sami was here, and pictures from Richmond Park – fewer pictures of me and my friends, as requested.

I went into Central last Friday with the usual crowd, plus Cassady and Sami, and we went up the London Eye – beautiful at night, and I got some pretty good pictures. I pretty much sat on the floor of the little pod the entire time trying to get the right exposure time to get a decent picture of Big Ben and Parliament… some time I want to go back with my cable release and just set my camera down for the full half-hour to see what comes of it. I really want to go into Central at night and just mess around with night shots, but I haven’t had a chance yet. I have plenty of time, though!!

Saturday we went to Camden Market – a huge outdoor/underground market – but didn’t get too many pictures. Samangie was decidedly unimpressed by the whole place; I think it was a bit too hippie-ish for her. After that we went to Stamford Bridge, the Chelsea (football club) pitch… very exciting for me, as I’m sure you can all imagine… I know how she feels, though, I check the A’s and MLB websites at least three times a day to keep tabs on what’s going on! Saturday night we ate at a restaurant called Wagamama – it seems to have become something of a weekly event for us… not something I’m totally thrilled with as I’m dying to find a really good Italian restaurant, but, again, there’s still plenty of time.

Sunday we actually managed not to leave campus all day… really rather impressive given how much gallivanting we’ve been doing this past month!

At any rate, I’ll start with the pictures from LAST weekend… sorry I’m still a week behind, I’ll improve, I promise!

Me and Sami in the London Eye pod… yes, that’s as crazy as I get!

Parliament and Big Ben…
not my best picture ever, but it’ll suffice until I can get up there again!

Sami and me and Big Ben…
The picture of us is actually in my room, but I superimposed it over a picture I took on the London Eye…I love Photoshop!

Just Big Ben

Me and my ever-present map…
I swear that’s how I hold a map… honest!

Musarrat, Me, Sami, Cassady in front of Big Ben

Me in front of a red phone booth…
I hate touristy pictures, it wasn’t my idea!

Sami in the phone booth… also not my idea…

That’s all I really have from that night… I have a ton of other pictures from the London Eye, but they didn’t come out too well, so I won’t bore you with them. You really only need to see one picture of Big Ben and Parliament to get the idea. The rest of the pictures are from Richmond Park. I was feeling kind of restless Wednesday afternoon so I packed up my bag and went into Richmond Park. If you look at the map, Montford House is pretty much right across from the road that leads to the Cambrian Gate, so it’s really close. I walked around a bit, but it was kind of discouraging because, at least where I was, it was really hard to find a section where you couldn’t see the city or any cars. I love London, but I was really hoping to just be able to relax and feel the quiet. I did manage to find an empty bench near a little swampy pond where I sat and wrote for a while, which was nice. I stayed in the area pictured above that main road, so I’ll have to go back another time and explore the rest of the park – it really is so huge that I should be able to go to the middle and not see any cars or anything!

Map of Richmond Park – the Cambrian Gate is in the upper left corner.

Okay, so you can’t see any cars or the city, but there wasn’t a place to sit!

All those plants at the bottom kind of remind me of how I picture Virginia
when it was first settled… or the South during slavery… kind of disturbed my peace a bit.

Just part of Richmond Park… a bit more dry than I might have thought, but, then again, it is fall!

Again, just Richmond Park…

Still Richmond Park… if you’re bored, blame Dad – he wanted sites over people!

Richmond Park with some apartment-looking buildings…
I loved how the split in the trees afforded that view, I wonder what the view was a hundred or more years ago…

Yet more Richmond Park…

Some kind of ditch… I was intrigued…

I kind of felt like this tree when I was there – all knotted up.

Trees and a falling picket fence.

Gorgeous path… a bit of the countryside for me…

Some kind of metal work at the end of the pond I sat by to write.

My bench… empty because it’s sort of falling apart; seemed a bit appropriate that the American would get the reject bench by the reject swampy-pond. Oh well.

You can't really see it because the picture is too small, but the blue outline is my campus, and the red circle is Montfor House... The lower right corner, then, is Richmond Park. Thanks to John Bolton for the picture, by the way!

That’s it for now… again, I hope everyone is well. Classes are still fine – my stats test felt pretty good, if you were wondering. It could just be because it’s still early in the semester, but I don’t think I’ll have much of a problem. I’ll have quite a few term papers to write, but they shouldn’t be too bad. I’ve written term papers before. The only thing I have a problem with is that the school makes a huge deal out of plagiarism, to the point where we have to submit all our papers through an online site that checks our papers for plagiarism. I’ve heard that the site comes up with false-positives with some regularity, as well, and I really don’t appreciate the feeling that we’re all guilty until proven innocent. I’ve never plagiarized in my life, but this whole thing has gotten me a bit worried. They’re saying that even having friends edit your papers is plagiarism, in which case, actually, I guess I have plagiarized, because I’ve helped plenty of people with their papers over the last few years – my last English professor encouraged peer editing! It shouldn’t be a problem, though, I’m sure I’ll be fine – I’ve never had a problem expressing my opinions!

Again, much love,

Dominica