Quiz Time!

I had a great day on Tuesday, a day packed full of new London-y experiences. I started off by hitting the British Library again for a new exhibit on Propaganda. I really do love the British Library. Not only does it house an amazing collection of rare books that you can visit for free any time you fancy, but it also brings in new exhibits fairly regularly that are inexpensive and very interesting. I've always been fascinated by government propaganda and so when I saw a poster advertising this new exhibit, I had to check it out.

The British Library

You're not allowed to take photos inside the exhibit, but the collection was pretty interesting. There were many different examples from propaganda from all over the world, organized according to topic. As you moved through the exhibit, you went along the different topics: Origins--explaining how propaganda has been around longer than the word itself; Nations--how states establish their legitimacy through propaganda used in education, on currency, in national monuments, etc.; Enemy--how we demonize other nations to get citizens to accept war; War--the extensive use of propaganda in war time used to maintain morale; Health--public information programs used to protect citizens from disease; and Today--21st century mass media propaganda. The whole exhibit was fascinating, and I was particularly struck by the Nation section (I'd never thought of national monuments as propaganda before) and the Heath section (again, I'd never considered health campaigns to be propaganda but they most certainly are).

The exhibit made me realize how lucky I am to be living in such a huge city where it's so easy to visit quality exhibits like this. Back home, we have to wait around for them to come to Seattle, but in a city like London, it's already here waiting for us. I'll most definitely miss this.

After the exhibit, I met my friend from work, Jess, for a canal boat ride at Camden Locks. Jess invited me to meet her for this little adventure back when the weather was warmer and more dry. But if you waited for good weather in England, you just might wait forever, so we decided to go for it even in the rain.

Camden is a really funky part of London 

About to board our canal boat

The boat was cute and we enjoyed the cruise. I love checking out little canal boats, especially the ones with clever names, and imagining what life on a canal boat would be like.

Jess and I on the canal boat

Rain pouring down the windows

There were some really posh stately homes along the canal.

Our destination--Little Venice

When the boat dropped us off in Little Venice, the rain was really coming down. So instead of touring the area, we pretty much headed straight for the tube, where we made a quick stop to pick me up some new cheap shoes (mine were soaked) and went on to meet our colleague Adam, my Fulbright friend Rebecca and her friends from Alabama who were visiting. Adam lives in a cute area of Southwark called Bermondsey and planned to give us a little tour of the area before we all met up with other school friends for a pub quiz. I was super excited about the pub quiz because it's such a tradition here in Britain, and I'd not done one yet.

That's the Southwark Cathedral and the Shard (the tall triangle building)

Jess, Adam, Rebecca and her fun friends from Alabama 

A handful of other work friends came down for the pub quiz, and I was really happy they came! I love seeing everyone outside of school. The pub quiz was fun but WAY too difficult for us non-UK folk! We were a big group, so we had to split in two and it was the Americans versus the rest of the world (we had English, Irish and New Zealanders on the other team).

The American team--aptly named "Merica Ya'll"

Me sitting with the "Everyone Else" team. Alison, Adam, Donal (hiding),
Charlie's boyfriend Andrew, Charlie, Me and Jess.

Time to get this sorted! 

They knew WAY MORE answers than we did! But then again, they grew up here... 

This is the "easy" round of TV shows.

Even though we seriously flunked the quiz, we had a lot of good laughs, and the evening was pretty fabulous. The best part was just spending time with some many people I adore!