Providence College Podcast | Civ in London – Stephanie Boeninger, Ph.D. & Margaret Manchester, Ph.D. ’83G (Rebroadcast)

Prepare for the new year by revisiting on our most popular episodes of the Providence College Podcast in 2022: our conversation with the faculty directors of the Civ in London Program, Stephanie Boeninger, Ph.D., associate professor of English, and Margaret Manchester, Ph.D. ’83G, associate professor of history. The study abroad program for second-semester sophomores continues this spring with two new faculty-in-residence: Elizabeth Bridgham, Ph.D., and Robert Stretter, Ph.D., both associate professors of English.

Show Notes

Creators & Guests

Host

Michael Hagan

Assistant Director of Marketing & Communications

Producer

Chris Judge

Multimedia and Live Event Producer

What is Providence College Podcast?

The Providence College Podcast features interviews with interesting members of the Friar Family. These in-depth conversations with PC students, Dominicans, faculty, staff, and alumni provide a rich look into the lives of noteworthy Friars. Occasionally we will also bring you on-campus lectures and presentations. Go Friars!

00;00;01;22 - 00;00;23;17
Unknown
Hello and welcome to the Providence College Podcast. I'm Liz Kate. Let's prepare for the New Year with a look back at our most popular podcast episode from 2020 to an interview with two faculty leaders of Set in London. The Study Abroad program for second semester sophomores kicked off in the spring with Dr. Stephanie Berninger of the Department of English and Dr. Margaret Manchester of the Department of History and Classics.

00;00;24;09 - 00;00;47;09
Unknown
The program continues in the Spring 20, 23 semester with two new faculty in residence. Dr. Elizabeth Praeger and Dr. Robert Streeter, both of whom teach in the Department of English. If you missed this conversation when it aired originally in January, listen now. Hello and welcome to the Providence College Podcast. I'm Michael Hagan from the Class of 2015, and I'm joined by producer Chris Judge of the Class of 2005.

00;00;47;20 - 00;01;08;04
Unknown
Today, we're excited to welcome Dr. Margaret Manchester, Associate Professor of History, and Dr. Stephanie Berninger, associate Professor of English, who are currently the faculty in residence in the inaugural year of Providence College's seven London Study Abroad program. The two have been in London since early January and recently welcomed students to the program. Margaret and Stephanie, thanks for joining us.

00;01;08;05 - 00;01;30;20
Unknown
It's nice to be here. Thank you, Michael. So my first question is, after multiple years of travel restrictions, how excited are students to be able to travel abroad again? And how excited are you? Margaret, you can start this one. I think it's indescribable. We're we've been just beyond excited, especially as some of the restrictions on travel began to ease.

00;01;31;04 - 00;02;10;05
Unknown
It was pretty complicated for a Stephanie and I to get here because we had to do all of these pre-testing and post-test things. But things are seem to be easing up. And, you know, finally, it's wonderful to be able to to be here. And I think with the pandemic still, you know, having pretty serious consequences on the continent, it's the kind of thing where it's going to really encourage our students to explore London fully and also to explore the UK more fully as well, rather than always jetting off to some exotic place.

00;02;11;15 - 00;02;36;11
Unknown
Anything to add, Stephanie? Yeah, I just I think that the prolonged experience of the pandemic has really given our students a renewed appreciation for just the simple things. So the ability to travel to an amazing location like London is just blowing their minds. A lot of these students are sophomores, and so they spent their entire first year of college virtual.

00;02;36;21 - 00;02;59;16
Unknown
They didn't really have the college experience, and so they're just really delighted. They're just like sponges on our field trip, just soaking it all in. So it, of course, wasn't a given that this program could even happen this semester, given the volatility of the pandemic situation. What is it like to be abroad during a pandemic? And are there any differences between this and say, pre-pandemic study abroad programs?

00;02;59;28 - 00;03;28;00
Unknown
Stephanie It's certainly different from what it was pre-pandemic, but it's a lot of the same things that we've become used to in the United States. You know, mask wearing on public transit and in crowded locations. I'd say the U.K. is doing a nice job of making sure that everybody wears their masks in theaters and in public spaces. So now that we've all adjusted to that, it isn't really that much of a burden.

00;03;28;12 - 00;03;59;29
Unknown
It doesn't occur to me on a daily basis that we're living in the midst of a global pandemic. I mean, we still have in our facility here at IESE, which is our organization that we're working with. You know, we still have a mask mandate, for example, in the classroom building to keep everyone safe and we're still getting alerts periodically about new cases of COVID amongst not just our students, but the other students that are participating in the IESE program.

00;04;01;04 - 00;04;34;21
Unknown
So how would you describe London to someone who's never been Margaret Bustling and metropolitan and cosmopolitan and so international? You hear every language spoken. For example, I went for to get my first haircut in London this week, and my colleague is from Poland, and she recommended her hairdresser who's from Greece, and I'm an American, so there were no English people in the salon while I was there.

00;04;34;26 - 00;04;56;04
Unknown
And that's really, really typical when you go into shops and different establishments. Stephanie, what about you? How would you describe London to someone who's never been It's just so alive. One of the books that we're going to be reading while we're here is Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. And basically that entire book is just people walking around London streets.

00;04;56;04 - 00;05;23;11
Unknown
And it's June, the month of June when they're walking around. But just one of the characters thinks to herself, this is what she loved. London in June, walking on the streets and just hearing she hears all the sounds and it sounds like singing because there's just so much going on and so much life. My kids have been really enjoying all of the different methods of public transportation.

00;05;23;16 - 00;05;44;04
Unknown
The other day my youngest, my five year old, said to me, Mommy, I love the subway and I love the overground train and I love the double decker bus and I love the like. He just goes on listing all of the different ways to get around, to get around the city. So it's it's a wonderful experience for us and for our students.

00;05;44;18 - 00;06;08;10
Unknown
I'm glad that you mentioned June in London, because one of my fondest memories of my time abroad in the UK was really it was the end of the academic year when towards May and June, the days would just get so long because because England is closer to the North Pole than we are. So it just the days would just go on forever, it felt like, which was just the best because there was so much to do.

00;06;09;12 - 00;06;34;03
Unknown
So I really appreciated that extra daylight. What experiences did you have of London before this program? Stephanie So I think this will make after the semester. This will make almost a full year of my life in London all through study abroad opportunities. I studied abroad as a freshman in London, and that just really opened my mind to the world.

00;06;34;17 - 00;06;55;07
Unknown
I remember just the the jaw dropping surprise of being able to walk into a museum and see a Van Gogh or just walk into a church and see Roman ruins. I went back. I loved it so much that I went back as a junior, as kind of a resident assistant for the same program. And then I went back for a semester in grad school as well.

00;06;55;09 - 00;07;26;11
Unknown
So I love London. It's, I think, my favorite city in the whole world, and I'm delighted to be here again. What about you, Margaret? What experiences have you had with London before? I've been here several times, but more in terms of particularly from my first book. I was doing research, so I would come for short periods of time, a week, ten days to do work at the National Archives, which is in this really lovely section of London called Kew, not far from Kew Gardens.

00;07;26;23 - 00;08;01;01
Unknown
And so I've been back a few times for prints, but the patient but I've ever lived here, so this is a new one for me as well. And why is London an ideal place for students to spend their fourth semester of Civ? MARGARET You know, it's it's unbelievable. For example, yesterday we took our schools on a guided tour of Westminster Abbey and Westminster Abbey has either buried or commemorated important people from British history.

00;08;01;01 - 00;08;33;24
Unknown
And so many of them were topics or related to themes that we've studied with our students in in Civ, Sir Isaac Newton, these literary figures Henry James, Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, important science tests. So for our bio majors, for example, there were commemorative plaques for Joseph Lister and other important scientists who have contributed to our understanding of the natural world.

00;08;34;03 - 00;09;16;00
Unknown
So it was just amazing musicians that we've studied and composers so being just in that one place, in that one example, it related directly not just to our colloquium, but to studies that I'm sure our students have had in the previous semesters of Civ as well. So that was really great. I remember when I was I forget if it was at Westminster or at St Paul's Cathedral, but I have a very distinct memory of walking around one of those spaces and looking down at my feet and realizing that I was standing on top of J.M.W. Turner, which yes, I just, you know, I was just struck with all in that moment.

00;09;16;00 - 00;09;39;19
Unknown
And to be right there, I mean, we walked on Charles Darwin's great work, so amazing. So, Stephanie, how would you or why would you describe London as an ideal place to study self? You know, from the moment I was hired at Providence College, I've said Civ needs to take place in London. I've been asking for this since day one.

00;09;39;19 - 00;10;02;11
Unknown
It just is the best place to study the history of Western civilization in all of its good, bad and ugly forms. And that's one of the things we're trying to do, is to introduce not just, you know, the amazing sights of London and Westminster Abbey, but to also think about London as the heart of the global empire that did some pretty awful things.

00;10;03;04 - 00;10;29;29
Unknown
And we're going to be asking our students to think not just about what is remembered here, but what isn't remembered here and what isn't memorialized here. But it's just a wealth of opportunities, artistic, literary, historical. Yeah. So what are some specific ways that and you mentioned you mentioned the great example of seeing the graves of these luminary figures from British history.

00;10;30;13 - 00;10;58;05
Unknown
But what are some other sort of tangible examples of how Civ lessons come to life in London? Stephanie I'm teaching a contemporary drama class here, which is an amazing place to be doing that. You know, we're going to go see theater in the West End, which is the heart of the theatrical world, and we're going to be able to students are going to be able to write their own theater reviews, to respond to plays.

00;10;58;09 - 00;11;22;07
Unknown
The plays that we're going to be seeing, for the most part, our plays that aren't even written down yet, you know, they're brand new, hot off the presses, exciting things for students to be reacting to, things that give them insights into immigrant culture and youth culture in the UK, things that they may not be exposed to otherwise. And so we're going to try to make the best of every opportunity here.

00;11;22;21 - 00;11;44;18
Unknown
MARGARET What are some other ways that Civ comes to life in London? Well, for people I'm teaching class on World War Two, and not only are we going to go to the Imperial War Museum that have these amazing exhibits on British participation in World War Two and the Holocaust, but also we're going to go to Churchill's war rooms.

00;11;44;18 - 00;12;18;25
Unknown
We're going to Bletchley, where the Enigma codes were broken. I would say we're going to see the battle of the the the blitz bunker. So there's all of these amazing sites that we're going to visit related to our class materials. And I think, you know, just that tangible presence there. Students learn in a different way rather than just through seeing slides on a PowerPoint or reading about it.

00;12;19;04 - 00;12;49;21
Unknown
I think it really makes a difference when they're actually in these places that they're studying about. It's transformative, really. Just a note to add to that. When we were in Westminster Abbey yesterday, there was a whole all the way through the wall from shrapnel from the Blitz. And thankfully, Westminster Abbey wasn't terribly damaged during the Blitz. But I also ran into the same thing when I was visiting the Victoria and Albert Museum for my contemporary drama class.

00;12;49;21 - 00;13;07;06
Unknown
I was looking at their theater and performance studies. But you walk in through the gates and there's a big chunk out of one of the big, beautiful, ornate gates, and there's a sign there that says this was damaged during the Blitz, and we left it here so that people could remember what happened to London. And I think students would be running into those things all the time.

00;13;07;06 - 00;13;35;27
Unknown
When they're just walking around London grocery shopping, you find these reminders of history that are surprising. We had them do a pre assignment for our battlefields and one first class, and the assignment was for them to walk around London and find a war memorial. And it could be a memorial dedicated to any of the wars. It could be, you know, a general memorial or it could be dedicated to a specific group.

00;13;36;10 - 00;14;09;00
Unknown
And they had to take some photos and do a posting. We also gave them some introductory reading materials that asks some important questions about who's remembered and how are they remembered and so on. And they did amazing work already in this first week. And such a diversity. They didn't all end up at the same memorial, but there was this wide diversity of places that they visited that they somehow connected to the readings and the course theme.

00;14;09;00 - 00;14;38;11
Unknown
So it was really a great beginning for a class that's, that's awesome that they that they spread out and saw different memorials because, I mean, London is just such an inexhaustible trove of that kind of history. It's it's really amazing. And I remember when I was I was studying in Oxford, but I spent a lot of time in London, but just, you know, on the topic of history being all around you, I mean, on my walk to the grocery store in Oxford, there was this really interesting looking old church.

00;14;39;05 - 00;14;59;14
Unknown
You know, you could tell it was particularly old, not just a couple of hundred years old, but but really, really old. And but I didn't realize just how old until, you know, months into being there, I finally walked up and read the plaque. This church pre-dated the Norman invasion. I mean, it's amazing what is there. Yeah. So that's really exciting to hear.

00;15;00;12 - 00;15;34;23
Unknown
So where in town is the program located and what is the surrounding neighborhood like? MARGARET It's located in Bloomed, which is just this really beautiful part of London minutes. It's really, what, 6 minutes from the the British Museum, really easily accessible from a variety, you know, from the bus or from by the tube. And it's in this what is it, eight The building is dates to the early 19th century, maybe late 18th century.

00;15;34;23 - 00;16;04;11
Unknown
So it's this historic building in a historic neighborhood, in a in an area where many writers and artists lived or worked in the 19th century, people like Virginia Woolf and others. So it's got all of these connections. Yeah, it was the home of the Bloomsbury group. Virginia Woolf, her husband, Leonard Woolf, people like Anne Forster were involved. John Maynard Keynes, I think, was part of the group.

00;16;04;11 - 00;16;30;09
Unknown
And so it just has this history of intellectuals and literary people being there for centuries that I think would be really meaningful to our students. I was just thinking about how and when we teach Mrs. Dalloway, I kind of just want to stop in the middle of our three hour class and say, Let's walk over and visit Virginia Woolf, because she is literally her statue is literally a probably a 5 to 8 minute walk from our our building.

00;16;30;18 - 00;16;47;05
Unknown
So we may just do that just to let the student stretch and then we can walk back and return to our discussion. In all the buzz that I've heard about civil seven, London, one of the terms that I've heard tossed around a lot is excursions. So tell me about these excursions. Where are you all headed? You want to talk about Belfast?

00;16;47;18 - 00;17;19;23
Unknown
Yeah. So the one that I'm, I think, most excited about, given my area of specialty, which is Irish drama, is we're going to take them to Belfast, We're going to be studying the Irish War for Independence and then the subsequent troubles that rocked Northern Ireland during the sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties. And so we're going to take them to on a tour of Belfast where they can witness the murals that have been painted all over Belfast's to by both sides.

00;17;19;23 - 00;17;57;19
Unknown
We're going to try to do a tour of the loyalist area and a tour of the the Republican areas of Belfast so that they can get it from both sides and really see what a sectarian conflict looks like. And we're also going to be doing some amazing sightseeing on the way. We're going to go to the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, which is one of the most beautiful natural sights I've ever seen, just these insane, hexagonal rock formations that are natural but look entirely like somebody's sculpted them and put them there.

00;17;58;04 - 00;18;23;18
Unknown
So for our battlefields, we're one of the topics that we're considering is women and warfare and the ways in which women contribute not just to combat, but also on the home front. And the play that we're reading is Aristophanes Lysistrata, and we're going to Athens with our students. So that's another one of the big trips that we're going to do.

00;18;23;19 - 00;19;02;25
Unknown
And we've got some activities, you know, guided walks, a visit to a theater, and some other things that correlate with with our our curriculum. The one big disappointment and this is a pandemic disappointment from my World War Two class, we were going to take our students to Normandy to visit the beaches and the cemeteries. And because of the restrictions back in late November, early December, we had to, at the time, make a quick decision about whether we were going to chance it or not.

00;19;02;25 - 00;19;30;26
Unknown
And because of all of the requirements at the time, we had to cancel that trip. And that's that's the reality of teaching during a pandemic. You really have to be it's like a moving target. You have to be flexible in terms of your planning and have a plan B, plan C, and indeed for Normandy. The other options that I had, there's a prisoner of war camp in York, but we found out that it's under construction.

00;19;31;03 - 00;19;52;17
Unknown
Then we wanted to go to the cliffs of Dover, and I wanted to show them the underground tunnels that were used during World War Two. But the tunnels are closed, so we ended up with Plan D, which is also going to be great. But I think one of the hallmarks of teaching during a pandemic abroad is being flexible.

00;19;52;17 - 00;20;13;15
Unknown
And that's, you know, I use the word inexhaustible to describe London and the surrounding region in terms of what's there earlier. It is truly a place where you can it's a part of the world where you really can have a plan A, B, C, D, E, f, g, You can have endless plans because there's there's just so much to do.

00;20;13;15 - 00;20;36;26
Unknown
So what I'm curious, what are some little surprises or moments of culture shock that you or your students have experienced so far in your time in London? Stephanie, do you want to start? My the first thing that's coming to mind is that one of our students said the sirens are so quiet here, but that's not really a major culture shock at all.

00;20;38;09 - 00;21;02;17
Unknown
I remember walking around walking around in Oxford. I always thought the bike bells were such a pleasant sound. I didn't realize that that was the European equivalent of laying on your horn, telling somebody to get out of the way. I think the biggest way that I've I've noticed it and my family has noticed it has been with our children because they are really used to living in a rural area.

00;21;02;17 - 00;21;21;02
Unknown
We live in Gloucester, so 25 minutes north of of the college and and we have a big wooded yard and my kids are used to hiking in the woods, but they've never really spent any time in the city. And so the first time my five year old saw an escalator on this trip, we were all lining up saying, step on to this escalator.

00;21;21;02 - 00;21;43;23
Unknown
He was right in front of me. You just turned around and bolted the opposite direction and there wasn't a big crowd of people. And I will say that even that very same day, he kept asking to get back on the escalator and wanting to try it again. And he is now an expert at riding escalators. But there are a lot of shocks related to living in the big city that have faced our family.

00;21;44;07 - 00;22;13;06
Unknown
I think for the students at time management, you know, because they're used to being on campus. And it's not uncommon sometimes to roll out of bed and bolt across campus in 5 minutes and make it to class, maybe with your pajama pants on. I know that I've seen that happen once or twice, but here they really have to plan ahead because they need to get to use public transportation to get to our campus.

00;22;13;15 - 00;22;39;15
Unknown
When we met them at Westminster Abbey, you know, a couple of students had gotten on the the tube going in the wrong direction and had to get off and then find their way back. Another student that turned around and was running late. So, you know, navigating public transportation and managing their time so that they get to places on time has been a challenge for some of them.

00;22;39;15 - 00;23;05;14
Unknown
Either they arrive too early or too late so far. So I have a little game I want to play with the two of you. It's a a lightning round game of this or that UK versus US edition. So I'm going to give you two two things. One, one from either side of the ocean and I would like you to choose this or that you can answer at the same time.

00;23;07;01 - 00;23;32;14
Unknown
The first one is easy, so there's this one. This one should be a no brainer. It's 3:00 in the afternoon. You're ready for your afternoon. Pick me up. Are you sleeping yourself a nice cup of PG tips, Black tea or Lipton PG tips? Could you tell Stella right? Yes. Easy answer. Yes, I sometimes I order boxes of PG tips from overseas to bring over here.

00;23;33;12 - 00;24;01;01
Unknown
So I start off work study here, which is really good. Another good choice. Yes. So next question. Tomato baked beans with breakfast or barbecue baked beans with dinner. Neither. Making barbecues. Baked beans for dinner, I would think. Okay, so not fans of the breakfast beans. Okay. All right. Next question, would you? It's the end of the it's the end of the school day.

00;24;01;11 - 00;24;27;08
Unknown
You're ready to relax a bit. You're headed to the pub. Are you having a cellar temperature, British ale or an ice cold? American lager? Stephanie's going for the cider. That's right. Okay. I drink the ciders here. Another good option. None of the above, I say. All right, Margaret, You like your coke? Might be a cold. Yes. So. Okay.

00;24;27;08 - 00;24;46;21
Unknown
Yeah. And most of it is, I have to say, I. I was skeptical about cellar temperature when I went over there, but I it's funny, I've had I was at a place that was serving British ales over here and they served it ice cold. And I was like there's there's something just a little off about this. But next question.

00;24;46;25 - 00;25;13;09
Unknown
You're going to a cafe in the morning. Are you going to have a European style espresso drink or an American, as they call it, filter coffee? I'm definitely for the European. I'm choosing the European, too, although I think that's you still have a difficult time finding filter coffee here. You can get an Americano, which is, you know, espresso a watered down to make it taste like coffee.

00;25;14;03 - 00;25;39;07
Unknown
But yeah I in my in my memory I you know, I generally prefer the espresso, but occasionally I would feel nostalgic for a watered down cup of filter coffee. You know, I spent a year in Italy and I became completely addicted to Italian coffee. While I was there, I was directing the PC Rome program. So when we came back to the States, I couldn't.

00;25;40;03 - 00;26;09;18
Unknown
American Coffee just didn't cut it for me. And so I've been a European coffee person ever since. Are either of you vegetarians? You know, okay. Because the next question concerns breakfast meat. Are you having a rasher of British bacon or. Christie American bacon. I'll take either bacon in any form is good. I'll go with pancetta. All right. Okay.

00;26;10;21 - 00;26;41;00
Unknown
It's. You're going to the big game. Is it a international football game or an American football game? International football 100%. All right. And my final question is, you're taking transit or would you prefer to take the London Underground or the Boston D. The London Underground? So the writer as well. Yeah. Yeah. The transit systems here are amazing. Yeah.

00;26;41;07 - 00;27;12;16
Unknown
But, you know, the other good thing too is just walking in the States. You, you get in a car to go grocery shopping, you get in a car to do all your errands, and here we walk everywhere or we use public transportation. And I just, I just love the fact that we're walking everywhere. And, you know, we're discovering some of the little shopkeepers cars and, you know, grocers and butchers and bakers in our neighborhood.

00;27;12;16 - 00;27;36;21
Unknown
And they're starting to recognize us. And it's just it's just a great feeling. So I much prefer that to driving everywhere I've walked 11 and a half miles already today. That's amazing. Yeah, I, I remember when I would go to London and when I would bring friends visiting who were studying in other countries who were in London for just a weekend.

00;27;36;21 - 00;28;01;04
Unknown
It was always I made it a point to take them out on foot. I mean, as as cool as transit was. There's something about I would just I would always do like a triangle from Westminster Bridge up to around like the Millennium Bridge and St Paul's Cathedral and then over to like Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park. I mean, we'd walk miles and miles and miles, but it was the best way to see the city.

00;28;01;26 - 00;28;28;06
Unknown
You got to see the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey. And in the Palace of Westminster, there's just there's no better way to do London than on foot. I feel like on a Sunday afternoon, if the sun is shining, you should see the people just strolling. Families, couples, single people strolling along the Thames. It's really great.

00;28;28;06 - 00;29;10;09
Unknown
Or in the park. St James Park or Regent's Park. I haven't been to Hampstead Heath yet, but that's on my list. So for you both personally, what is your number one? Absolute. Can't miss London destination. Yeah, for me, it's the National Gallery. It's my happy place. I think in another life I was an art history major and I just love I love just the fact that all the museums are free and that you can literally just walk off the tube, decide to go see an amazing medieval era painting or something at the Tate Modern.

00;29;10;11 - 00;29;34;14
Unknown
That's like brand new and exciting. I, I adore the art museums here and I intend to spend every spare when it's there. Yeah, the museums, I and Stephanie and the museums. But I have a particular fondness for the for the Tower Bridge. I just love walking along that bridge and seeing what's on both sides of the Thames River.

00;29;34;14 - 00;30;03;19
Unknown
And I never get tired of it. So that part of London along the Thames, I just I love to bike, but I'm still very, very nervous about trying it in London because there's so much traffic and because from my American perspective, they're all driving in the wrong direction. And I'm afraid I'll end up squashed. So I haven't ventured onto a bike, but walking those areas is just really special.

00;30;03;19 - 00;30;30;28
Unknown
And what are students saying that they're most looking forward to this semester in terms of sights and experiences? You know, I was just we asked our students when we had our orientation with them, what's one goal that you have? And so, for example, one student, Emily, said she wanted to just visit every museum possible. Another student wanted to, you know, learn to manage his time.

00;30;30;28 - 00;31;00;14
Unknown
And several of them because they're there's no food program with this for the students. So several of them mentioned the challenge of learning to cook for themselves. But I think they just want to they want to take advantage of all of the opportunities, cultural, artistic, literary, whatever, historic, you know, whether it's drinking coffee or grabbing a beer at a pub, they want to experience it all.

00;31;00;27 - 00;31;23;03
Unknown
So I think this program is really geared to allow them to do that kind of discovery on their own. I know I talked to some students who were really eager to get on the London Eye, that giant Ferris wheel that's along the Thames, and unfortunately, it's closed for about two or three weeks in January. It's the only time of the year that it's closed.

00;31;23;09 - 00;31;38;02
Unknown
So they had all gone down. They're excited to get on the London Eye and discover that it was the one time of the year that it was shut. But they will they'll still get on the London. I am sure. It's exciting. It is. It's an amazing view. It took me being being the Brook College junior I was at the time.

00;31;38;02 - 00;32;03;21
Unknown
I resisted it for a while, but but eventually went up and it was it was totally worth it. So what advice are you giving your students to help them make the most of their time in London? Stephanie I'm really trying to push them to go into the museums and if that takes mentioning that the museum has an amazing bar with a great view of the Thames, I'll do it, you know, because they're going to walk by some art when they go up to that bar.

00;32;05;16 - 00;32;37;24
Unknown
But yeah, I really want them to go to the museums. I really want them to get out and about every single day and take advantage. One of the things that I really pushed for when we were designing this trip and you know, since we're the first faculty leaders who are its been chosen for this trip, we had some we had some say in how things go, but one of the things that I pushed for was for them to have an unlimited oyster card so that they could go anywhere they wanted within zones one and two, which is central London, and they could go as many times ride the bus or the tube as many times

00;32;37;24 - 00;32;57;17
Unknown
as they want during the day. So that, I hope, puts the students who are from economically privileged backgrounds on equal footing with the students who may have less spending money in their pockets while they're here. They can all go anywhere they want and walk into a free museum or walk in the park or see the sights of London.

00;32;57;17 - 00;33;23;19
Unknown
And it's equal access, an equal opportunity for all our students. At The advice I've been giving students is, you know, some of them are already thinking about heading to the continent. And I've really been encouraging them not just to stay and explore London, but also to explore, you know, these day trips that are an hour, hour and a half train ride from London.

00;33;23;19 - 00;33;55;08
Unknown
There's lots of youth hostels where they can get inexpensive overnight, stay. So go to Bath, go to Brighton, go to Rye. You know, we're going to take them to Stratford with the program, but just explore different parts of England that are accessible and so beautiful. And it gets you out of the completely huge metropolitan kind of setting into smaller, more intimate spaces that are beautiful and historic and have everything that might be of interest to them.

00;33;55;21 - 00;34;23;15
Unknown
And how can traders on the US side of the ocean, how can we follow and learn about student experiences During the semester in London, we have an Instagram account which is sort of underscore London, underscore London, and we're also we also have a blog which they can get to by navigating to this live in London page on the Providence College website and there's a button, I think, in the top right corner that says seven London blog.

00;34;23;27 - 00;34;49;10
Unknown
And there they can find not just my thoughts and Margaret's thoughts, but the thoughts of our students. We're going to have them blogging on a weekly basis. We should be updating the blog most days because we'll have a lot of student input in the blogs so they can hear about the places that students are seeing, the coffee shops that they're discovering, and also their insights from our more academic visits and classes.

00;34;49;10 - 00;35;13;06
Unknown
Excellent. And we'll be sure to put those links both to the Instagram account, the program page and the blog in the show notes so listeners can find them there. They can. You. Well, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast. I've really enjoyed this conversation and it sounds like you guys are off to a fantastic start of the semester in London, so can't wait to hear more about your experiences.

00;35;13;15 - 00;35;40;21
Unknown
Thank you, Michael. Thanks for having us. Subscribe to the Providence College Podcast and all the usual places, including iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, Google Play and Spotify, as well as your smart speaker. If you like what you hear, please review and share with others. Thanks for listening and go Friars. Thank you for listening to the Providence College Podcast. Episodes are available in all of the usual places, as well as the college's YouTube channel and on your smart speaker for producer Chris Judge, I'm Luke.

00;35;40;22 - 00;35;41;12
Unknown
Until next time.