2/26/09

First Tiger Stadium, then Yankee Stadium, now this. Out of all my favorite places in the world, the Borders on Michigan Avenue has been one of the ones I've had the most history at for around ten years, and it's only come to mean more to me as time went on. Hanging out with Ralph and Bill and walking down there every Thursday and on my breaks at lunch. I'm really upset to see it go, that was among my favorite things to do in Chicago. Guess I should have bought more books (I don't know if I really bought any when I was in Chicago for four years, so maybe that says something).

Anyways, I'll save my eulogy for when it actually closes, looks like it has about a year left. I'll have to make it down there.

Speaking of heading down there, I applied for my cap and gown for graduation. It looks like I'm really going to do it. It's on the 14th at 8 am at the All State Arena. On the form you had to fill out the pronunciation of your last name. I wasn't really sure how to do this, so I wrote this: "Bo-la-hann (like hand, not Han Solo). I hope Father Holtschnieder reads that.

Today I got up at 7:30 for a meeting about a paper I have to write (my first one here after six weeks) about a place in London. I'm going to compare Westminster Hall with the Banqueting House. There doesn't need to be much research, it's more what you think about the places, so it should be easy.

In class we went around and saw mostly thing I walk past every day going to school, which was pretty cool. We talked about the All Soul's Church (which I went in) and Regent Street and Portland Place, which I walk down every day. Apparently across from the Langham Hotel (where Mark Twain stayed) and behind All Soul's is the BBC headquarters, which I had no idea was there, even though I've been by it a ton. Pretty cool.

I came back and got to the second paragraph of my paper before I fell asleep. I was pretty tired and the nap felt great.

I walked down to the Royal National Theater again for the backstage tour, this time walking down Marylebone High Street, which is really cool. I want to explore Bond Street and the area around there soon.

I was a little disapointed with the tour, mostly because the building is incredibly ugly and only from the '70s, so it just wasn't that cool. But seeing backstage at the place where I saw a play on Monday was neat.

I walked back to Trafalgar Square because I knew that they were lighting up the National Gallery with Picasso paintings, so I thought I'd check it out. I climbed up the base of Nelson's Column and took some pictures. It was nice outside, another clear day and not too chilly. Now if we could only get some sun during the day.

Since it was Thursday, my hall went out to eat. We went down to an Indian place off the Liverpool Street stop. I had some sort of like sampler dish where I had bread and rice and a bunch of different dips and toppings. Once again, I really liked it. Who would have guessed?

Tomorrow I'm not really sure what I'll be up to, I'm going to rule out Windsor Castle mostly because I'm pretty tired and I need to write that paper for next week, so maybe Saturday? Who knows. Probably I'll go to a museum for a bit of it. I'm interested in the Transportation Museum, that stuff I find so interesting, at least the Tube part of it.

I traded my first round pick to Fras for his 2nd and 4th. I'm really liking this deal, I wasn't too thrilled with any of my options and I feel I can get the same talent in the 2nd round basically. I'm excited.