Ordinary Day

Today was our last field trip for the Jane Austen class. Unfortunately, it was not memorable. We took two trains and a bus to get to the Brentford area of London to visit Syon Park. The tour guide himself told us that it had little to nothing to do with Jane Austen and he mentioned her for 30 seconds in all the 3.5 hours that we were there. It was disappointing. The Park was home to a magnificent mansion, extensive gardens with a conservatory and a big garden shop. The tour guide was very thorough in his information about the history and architecture of the house; it just had nothing to do with Jane Austen. We listened attentively to most of his descriptions of all the architectural details, paintings and sculptures within the house before we realized that there was nothing more to look forward to in the tour. The area belongs to the Duke of Northumberland and has been visited by famous monarchs. Its most recent claim to fame, however, is the fact that it was used for filming a significant portion of Gosford Park. There really isn't much I can say about the place...no photography was allowed inside so I cannot point to things and describe them further. Here are pictures of the exterior, however.


The Conservatory in the grounds.

This is Syon House.
After we were done with the tour, we boarded the trains back to the city, but a trio of us stopped at Westfield mall, which is the biggest mall in all of Europe. We ate lunch at a Japanese restaraunt, which was excellent and incredibly spicy, and then proceeded to explore the mall. I cannot even begin to describe the size and grandeur of the mall. We entered from the "wrong" end of the place and the shops that we saw were Louis Vuitton, Prada, Tiffany & Co, De Beers, etc. There were some stores that had good sales, but the UK sizes still confuse me and I didn't quite want to spend time trying on outfits that I knew I couldn't buy, so I just window shopped. The mall was pretty packed, even for a Tuesday, and I left feeling jealous of all the people that earned in pounds and could afford all that the mall had to offer.

We got back in time for dinner, but it was practically inedible, so I had to rely on snacks and water to fill me up. Then a friend and I decided to go watch Coco Avant Chanel (Coco before Chanel), a French movie starring Audrey Tautou (of Amelie and Da Vinci Code fame). I don't know why but it never occurred to me, even during the movie, that the movie was about Coco Chanel, the designer. I recognized the Chanel part, and I did know that she was Coco Chanel, but I never pieced it together until the credits when we were given a glimpse into her future. The movie was phenomenal. For being the story of a designer, it wasn't particularly girly or glamorous at all. It completely touched me and I am very inclined to go out and buy the first Chanel item that I can find. I was especially glad to see it because it would never come to Murray, at least not for a while. The movie was in French, with subtitles, and was very beautifully done. Needless to say, that was the best part of my day.
Tomorrow is the last day of class. People are starting to panic about the imminent departure on Monday and hardly anyone is ready to go home. We are having somewhat of a departure meeting tomorrow with the entire group, with no idea of what it is going to entail. I am, of course, going to make the best of every minute I have left here. I all ready have plans for the rest of the week, all of which will be unraveled in time.