London 12

This morning we discussed the production of Macbeth that we saw last night with Professor Kinney on her last day with us on the program. We talked about the choices of the director (so much blood, gore and death) and evaluated the actors and then discussed how we felt our time in London was going. Paul Michel said it best when he called us "sophmores" who were beginning to own the city but still couldn't get overconfident.
After our discussions, we met with Roger Bowdler and went on a walking tour around Hampstead and Hampstead Heath. Though we'd been in the neighborhood just two days prior, Roger's tour was excellent and he told us about the historical origins of the city (as a health haven to get away from the smog of the city and as a hotbed of clean, natural spring water) and the changing politics of the region.

On our walk, we talked about the social provisions that were trademark of English government and forged out a kind of understanding of the different values that the UK and the US have. England values culture and the family unit not in the religiously conservative but self-earning manner of the US, but in that the family (not necessarily a traditional, nuclear family, mind you) and the individual who has fallen on hard times is provided for and helped to find stability by the government and all the other classes automatically. There is no afterthought on whether or not the NHS should exist or whether or not the poor or disabled should be aided... but only on how to most efficiently finance the system. I very much respect this British system and was struck by the different definitions of Conservatives in the US and the UK. A British "conservative" is more left-leaning than an American Liberal!
On our tour, we also saw several famous homes: the home of Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island), the poet John Keats' home, and also some interesting modern American-based architecture.

I also found my new favorite barbershop.

Just you wait, 'Enry 'Iggins, just you wait!