Thirst and Chatsworth House

'Ello!

More than a week since my last update! Whew! Anyway, I don't have much to report in terms of the school week except for the fact that the lectures seemed to be painfully slow last week. Our finance class consisted of the different areas of the art business world we could go into if we wanted to, but we had gone over that in our first week of class! And then in our Arts Marketing class not only did we find out that our professor is taking another job at a different school at the end of the month, but she gave us an entire lecture on how to do citations! It's too bad that she's stepping down though, she was very cool. But I guess it was an offer she couldn't refuse, I think she's going to be the head of a Masters Program at some other school.

Anyway, so Friday we went with Alex and some of her friends from the photography program to this book launch thing at the Tate Modern. It was sponsored by Ketel One vodka so we got some free drinks and hung out in the gift shop at the Tate Modern, which is a pretty cool gift shop. We then went over to a pub and got a few drinks and some dinner which was really nice. They were all really nice girls and I had a really good time hanging out with them. After dinner we decided to go and grab a drink somewhere else and went to Brick Lane on one of the more uncomfortable bus rides I've been on since I've been here. Brick Lane seemed really cool, though everything was pretty packed and we were all tired and decided we should get home somewhat early.

Saturday we slept in and pretty much hung around in the flat for most of the day, in preparation for celebrating Randi's birthday (which was actually yesterday), though she insisted that she didn't want us to go out to celebrate her birthday, we were just going out to go out. However, once we did go out, she was telling everyone it was her birthday, which Alex and I thought was pretty funny! Anyway, we had planned to go out dancing and we tried to find this place near school that was supposedly free before 11 to get in. We couldn't find it in time and ended up in this little place called Thirst (Randi got in for free because she told the bouncer it was her birthday haha). We ended up having a really great time there! We met this funny group of guys and hung out with them for a bit. We left the club at around 3:30 or 4 and took the bus home. All in all a very successful night! I had a great time boogying with Randi and Alex, and I've got the pictures to prove it!

On Sunday we all woke up starving and ready to go to our usual breakfast place before going to the grocery store. We again went to Porridge which has quickly become our favorite Sunday spot, especially since there always seems to be a table free for us! We all got our usuals, Randi got the English Breakfast, while Alex and I split both the butter, cinnamon and brown sugar porridge and the "chef's special" of bubbly cheesy goodness. We also split a pot of tea, and I got an Orange-Raspberry juice! Randi and I had been planning on going to an auction preview at Sotheby's in the afternoon, but there was a burst water main on the route our bus takes us to and from our flat and the big Sainsbury's. After much confusion and running around, we found our rerouted bus stop and waited for a really long time before it came. By the time we got home, it was too late for us to get down to the preview before it closed.

Monday was Randi's birthday and also the MAAB trip to Chatsworth House! This meant that we had to be at school by 7:15 in order to leave on the buses at 7:30 and get to Chatsworth House by 11:30. We were going because Sotheby's has this yearly monumental garden sculpture sale and it is set up on this huge estate, in the huge and gorgeous gardens! It was really cool! Also the house has been used as a set for period films like the new Pride and Prejudice and The Duchess. The Duke and Duchess of Devonshire (I think it's Devonshire... I could be wrong...) live there as well, even though it is a public site. It really is unbelievably gorgeous, and it was a perfect day out. I took a lot of pictures. I was kind of bummed because I didn't have time to see all of the sculptures, though I did try. I had signed up for a tour with DB to look at some of the highlights of the sale (and it's a sale, not an auction, which is interesting... I don't think any other auction house does anything like it) and explaining some of the pieces. I liked it because I really don't know much about contemporary sculpture, so it was really interesting to get a quick run through. Then Randi and I met up with some friends and went around to see all of the sculptures in order on the map! Then we all grabbed some lunch, and since we had met up with them about 8 sculptures into their exploration, Randi and I were planning to go look at the first 7 pieces after I finished the tour of the inside of the house with DB (which I also signed up for because the inside of the house has an awesome collection of antiquities and old master paintings and murals and so on! Also a FABULOUS sculpture room!). The tour ended kind of late though so we weren't able to go around and see the first 7 sculptures, which I was kind of bummed about because 2 of the pieces that I was really looking forward to seeing were in those first 7 pieces. Oh well. Maybe I'll just buy the catalogue so I can have the pictures of them. It's a really fabulous catalogue, great photos of the pieces. So we then took the buses back to London, getting us in at around 9:30. We got home, kind of munched for dinner (Alex and I split quiche and some soup because Randi had a wrap at the rest stop on the way back) and then surprised Randi with a cake and present for her birthday. We had been planning it for a while and had to sneak the cake into the house, and even sneaked buying it when we were ALL shopping for groceries... Alex and I kept disappearing to scope out the prospects and then Alex went and bought it and hid it in her purse (it was a small cake). It was very fun, especially because the cake was sickeningly sweet! Below is a picture of the Chatsworth house, and above are two pictures of sculptures in the sale! I'm going to post some more pictures from the trip to Chatsworth on Facebook in the next few days, but those are just a few sneak peeks!

Today we had an ordeal getting to class in time because they had scheduled a mini lecture by the guy that developed Artfacts.net which is a website that pretty much ranks artists based on a point system on how well they are doing in the market and so on. But this lecture was scheduled before our normal lecture, after our long day at Chatsworth. Also, there were major delays on not only the Bakerloo line, but the Central line as well... the two tube lines that we take to get to school! We got to the lecture late, but fortunately, it hadn't started yet, so I guess technically we weren't really late. But then after class I went to Sotheby's on Bond Street to go to the preview that Randi and I had missed on Sunday. I ran into some classmates there which was nice because we got to sort of stroll around looking at everything together. It was really cool, I like going to auction previews. It looked like the Cafe there had a very fine tea setup going on, I almost considered getting a fine cup of tea with a scone but decided that I was probably better off without it, especially since I'm going to high tea at Brown's with MOMMY!!! She gets in tomorrow morning and I'm very excited!

Anyway, its now 1:20 a.m. and I plan to wake up at 6 to go to the gym... maybe I'll sleep in until 6:20... hehehe! Goodnight everyone! I love and miss you all! xoxoxoxo