Week of Lasts

For weeks and weeks I've watched my apparently more organized classmates continue to faithfully blog and post photos about the various things that have happened since April, among them spring break, the Harry Potter Studio Tour in London, family visits, a visit to Stratford-upon-Avon to see some Shakespeare, and even a trip to Paris thrown in.

Have I felt guilt about not blogging these happenings in my life?

Yes.

Has this guilt induced me to blog them all?

Clearly not.

While there are many stories I could tell within all these experiences, the motivation to write about them has simply not been present. I've even had to force myself to post pictures to Facebook, and I'm still way behind on those.

And now to add to it all, we're entering our final week in Bath. Which I don't want to think about at all, but which, of course, I'm always thinking about. The problem is, there's so much left that I want to do, but thinking about going out and doing it makes me want to stay in my room forever. If I don't accept that I have to leave, can I stay? Or at least find some sort of portal that will allow me to travel between Baltimore and Bath forever and ever? No? Worth a shot.

So, on this my last full Saturday in Bath (*sobs*) I have fully recognized the need to soak up every moment. In that spirit, some friends and I went to the Prior Park Gardens not too far from the city center. We bought some picnic food and ate on the grass and Bath rewarded us with beautiful 70 degree shorts weather. It was pretty perfect.

I know for sure that this will be my last blog post from Bath. I have plenty of stories still to tell, which I will gladly do for anyone willing to hear once I am home. But until next Saturday, I'll be out and about, soaking up what I can of Bath before I have to leave it. Cheers, friends!

Snapshots of Oxford

In the words of Lord Peter Wimsey, "Hullo -ullo -ullo!" I'm currently trying to get five thousand (accurate number, I counted) things done before I leave for Venice TOMORROW but I would face massive amounts of guilt if I left the country before catching up the blog. I really am stressed though so unfortunately I'm going to have to reduce Oxford week to some choice highlights.

1. Living at Univ
University College, known as Univ for short, is the oldest of the 44 or so colleges that make up Oxford, and that's where we got to live! Each of us got our own single room, some with common rooms attached. My personal favorite part was the sink right in my bedroom -- how have I lived this sinkless life?? Imagine waking up and immediately being able to brush your teeth and wash your face without leaving the comfort of your sunlit bedroom...such was my life last week. Ahh, I could go on and on about Oxford sinks and their glorious locations, but why would I, when I can talk about the food? Every day we were able to get breakfast and lunch from the Buttery and eat it in the dining hall. Which, in England, means feeling like you're in Hogwarts' Great Hall every day. Just another Oxford luxury. (No sinks, though.)

The Univ quad

The dining hall

The view from my window

2. Punting
Ah, punting in Oxford. Collegiate. Glamorous. Graceful. WRONG. Harrowing. Painful. Psychologically damaging. Allow me to quote an excerpt from Gaudy Night. Dorothy L. Sayers wrote about punting, "either you look graceful or you look ghastly". Friends, guess which one I was? To be fair, as soon as I laid hands on the pole it began hailing. This didn't serve to help anything, as the metal pole was already ice-cold and felt as though it weighed about 300 pounds. Furthermore, punting seems as though it should be a pretty intuition-based thing. It is not. When you try to move one direction, you find yourself going the other. When you finally get the pole in position to correct your last move, you're heading back too far the other way. When you finally get some good speed going, some equally unqualified person punts too hard in your direction and knocks you off course. Still, it wasn't all bad, and I don't want to sound too grumpy. I'd put "punting in Oxford" up there as one of the coolest things I've ever gotten to do. It's not something everyone can say they've experienced.

Before the hail/tears

3. Christ Church Tour
Christ Church is one of Oxford's colleges and home to many famous views. On our tour we got to go inside the gardens that inspired Lewis Carroll -- remember those from last time? We also saw such things as the dining hall that inspired the Great Hall in Harry Potter, as well as some of the corridors and staircases used in the movies. We also saw a guy get thoroughly rebuked for accidentally trying to get into a room where a lecture was taking place. Seriously people, DO NOT mess with Christ Church, they will find you and they will cut you, or at least yell at you sternly in a British accent.

With Amanda on the Harry Potter stairs at Christ Church

4. Formal Dinner
Our last night at Univ ended with a formal dinner in the dining hall. Some of our tutors joined us for a 3 course meal followed by entertainment provided by an Oxford professor who once performed in Liverpool at the same time as The Beatles! Seriously, how are these amazing things happening to me? I'm kind of just in awe 99% of the time here. Dinner was delicious, two types of wine were served, and after dinner we migrated to the Univ bar where we had the chance to drink and play foosball with our tutors. Strange? Not at ASE!

Well-played, ASE.

5. Blenheim Palace
After leaving Oxford but before going home, we stopped at Blenheim Palace, residence of the dukes of Marlborough and birthplace of Winston Churchill. I saw the very bed where Winston Churchill was born! Awesome or gross? That's for you to decide. After our tour of the palace we were allowed to roam around the gardens and grounds. It was simply gorgeous, and luckily the rain held off until just as we got onto the bus.

I didn't notice a sink though...

How palatial of you.

Okay you win this round.

So, tomorrow I leave on an 11 am flight for Venice, after which I'm headed to Florence, Rome, Thessaloniki, and Athens. Not a bad lineup if you ask me! And pretty much as soon as I get back, it will be time to welcome Kristin to Bath! Oh happy day! So, you won't be hearing from me for a while. I have a busy couple of weeks lined up -- time to test how well a person can run on very little sleep! Ciao!

Oxford Part 1: How I Came to Eat Turkish Delight in C.S. Lewis' House

Hello friends/family/strangers who hit the "Next Blog" button on Blogspot! Tomorrow I leave to study in Oxford for a week and exactly one week ago I went to Oxford for the first time. What an appropriate time to write about my trip! It's not at all because I was too tired/busy/lazy to update days before now!

Last week I went on my second study trip of the semester with my Worlds Beyond Oxford class and my magical elf-lady professor, Cara (not exaggerating, she is beautiful and wonderful and she looks like she walked straight off the set of The Lord of the Rings). Our staff chaperone was Jonathan, the director of the program, who is equally wonderful and charming so basically it was a chaperone match made in heaven.

Foggy Oxford

We started our trip with a walking tour of Oxford, learning a little about the college system and a few of the specific colleges including Pembroke College, Exeter College, Merton College, and Magdalen College (pronounced MAWD-lin). We also caught a glimpse of University College (Univ) where we'll be studying this coming week! Given the focus of our course, most of these places had specific ties to Lewis, Tolkien, and Pullman, i.e. they attended school there, taught there, were interviewed there, or were just inspired by something in the area.

Tolkien's home from 1971-1973

Tolkien's favorite tree, the Botanic Garden

Pullman's Bench, plot point in The Amber Spyglass, the Botanic Garden

 

 

The Narnia Door

There were also a few little nuggets here and there about other authors; for instance, this is the gate to a garden that was possibly Lewis Carroll's inspiration for the garden where Alice and the Queen of Hearts play croquet:

Note the red roses!

Bonus! We saw the Hospital Wing from the Harry Potter movies from the outside:

I'LL BE BACK FOR YOU.

We ended the tour at The Eagle and Child, the pub where Lewis and Tolkien met as part of their literary group The Inklings.

Lemony Snicket is not an Oxford alum but it sure did feel like it when after a series of unfortunate events we were unable to go with our original plan of getting lunch at the pub (was that joke trying too hard? I don't care I like it and it's staying). It was late in opening and our schedule was too tight to wait around. So instead we got some sandwiches from a place nearby and ate them in a park where we discussed which of us matched certain Lord of the Rings characters. The only thing missing was a "Please Do Not Feed the English Majors" sign. (Cara, obviously, is Galadriel, and was told so quite blatantly by one of my classmates.)

By mid-afternoon we arrived at the Kilns, aka C.S. Lewis' home.

The house is owned by the C.S. Lewis Foundation and operates partly as a place for scholars and graduate students from the University of Oxford to live and study. It's a little strange to think of students (many of whom are Americans) living in Lewis' house. We were given a tour of the house by an American currently living there for a year.

The sitting-room, where Lewis and Tolkien chatted about their books.

Turkish Delight

Lewis' bedroom

We left the house and drove a short distance to the cemetery where Lewis is buried and the church he used to attend.

Unreadable...but it says "Here sat and worshipped Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963)"

It was a surprisingly somber way to end the trip. I can't wait to go back to Oxford tomorrow and see all the places we could only pass by. We have a pretty full schedule since we're having all our regular classes plus lots of scheduled events, but it should be a really fun week. I'll update when I can!

Don't Fall Asleep On the Bus Or You Might End Up in Wales

One of the coolest things about the ASE program is that most classes get a designated day during the semester to take a study trip. At the beginning of the semester I decided to drop one of my classes, Ghosts and the Gothic, the reason being that each of my classes at that time averaged one book a week. While that might be doable in Lancaster, it wasn't something I wanted to be stressing out about while in Bath. So instead I transferred into another class, The Romans in Britain. Last Friday Romans in Britain had a scheduled study trip to the Roman fortress towns of Caerleon and Caerwent.

What I did not know was that these places are in Wales. I was unexpectedly in Wales last week. Europe is glorious.

Our tutor Rob lives near Caerleon so our class of seven (along with Andrew Butterworth) met him there. When we got out of the van, Rob gave us a breakdown of the day and then in true ASE fashion asked if we were ready for a coffee break. It was literally an hour and a half drive and we were rewarded with coffee. The British are apparently worn out by any trip longer than a few hours. Obviously we weren't complaining.

Breakfast (coffee and cake; it seems in England cake is acceptable at any time of day) was had in a place called "Cafe Ffwrwm" which is pronounced Cafe Forum. Of course. The Welsh seem to have an irrational fear of vowels. After that we went to the Roman bath houses which was ironically my first experience with them in the U.K.

Kind of cheating because it's just sand.

The description of the bathing process is really interesting. A person (soldier or civilian) would have the option of working out at the bath house. Then he would coat his body with olive oil and go into a sort of sauna in order to sweat impurities out. The oil would trap the sweat outside the skin. Then he (or his slave, if he had one) would use a tool called a strigil to scrape all the oil and sweat off the skin, after which he would take a dip to rinse everything off.

a strigil in the museum

Honestly, the process sounds quite nice to me. I wouldn't mind a good old Roman style bath once in a while. Of course, there's a gross part. Most people would just have their sweat and oil mixtures thrown away, but the mixture from gladiators was saved and given to women because gladiator sweat was considered a luxury. Gross, and frankly, TMI.

Rob modeling a gladiator helmet in the bath house.

After the bath house we went to see the remains of the barracks.

View from the latrine! Yippee!

We also ate our lunch at a nearby amphitheatre.

Luckily there was beautiful weather so we could eat outside. Unluckily there was a British couple who decided to canoodle across the way. Awkward.

We then drove about half an hour to Caerwent to see another fortress there.

Caerwent also has the best preserved town walls in Britain. We walked the whole length of what remains, and it was an impressively long walk.

Of course they used to be much higher, but it was cool to be walking around something that is so old.

Caerwent was the last stop of the day so after seeing the wall we drove back to Bath. My next study trip is this Friday -- my Worlds Beyond Oxford class is going to Oxford (appropriately enough) to visit some relevant places in the lives of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Don't get me wrong, seeing the Roman fortresses was very cool and something I'd never be able to do if not for this program -- but my English nerd side is really pumped to be back in familiar territory. Expect updates on Oxford soon!!

Edinburgh in a Day

Or, How I Almost Spewed Fish and Chips All Over The Royal Mile. But more on that later...

Yes, it's official -- I've taken my first European trip via plane! I'm feeling like a proper study abroad student now. Let the collection of boarding passes grow! And what better trip to start it all off than Edinburgh?

On Thursday after my internship I met up with my flatmates and we caught a bus to Bristol Airport, about an hour away. Toward the end of the journey we were chatted up by a kind but scatterbrained Scottish man living in Bristol who kept dropping his iPad and forgetting things on his seat. He made sure to stress that if we wanted to see the authentic side of Scotland we should go to his hometown of Glasgow, not the tourist hub of Edinburgh. A reassuring way to start the journey.

Getting through security was more of an event at the tiny Bristol airport than at BWI -- a guard took my whole tube of toothpaste plus my travel sized contact solution (which I'm almost 100% sure would have been fine as a carry on, because my friend Amanda got to keep hers that was identical). Luckily everything after that was uneventful and within a few hours we landed in Edinburgh. Flights that take you to other countries in under an hour will never cease to amaze me.

After a small mix-up in which we missed our bus stop, we made our way to the West End Hostel where we met up with the other three girls in our group. Sleeping that night was glorious since I'd woken up early for my internship and had a full day of work and travel. Then again, I can sleep almost anywhere. Give me a semi-flat surface and I'm happy as a clam.

The next day we rose bright and early and opted to save money by eating breakfast at the hostel. (Note for future travelers: £2 continental breakfast means all-you-can-eat toast, cereal, and hot tea. Underwhelming but it gets the job done.) Then we headed off to Edinburgh Castle. We were teased with views of it all the way up. It looms over the whole city.

We were rewarded with beautiful views at the top. Here's a picture of our group in front of the castle:

Hadley, Allison, Melanie, Megan, Amanda, and Cae, who's studying in London

We went inside and did a self-guided tour of the various mini-museums that make up the castle. But my favorite thing by far was the views from inside the castle grounds.

Can't beat this view.

After our jaunt through the castle and gift shop (which included being charmed into some surprisingly smooth whiskey samples by a nice Scottish guy...at 11 am...) we decided it was time to find some lunch. And of course, we weren't going to settle for anything less than the one, the only...

That's right folks. I had lunch in the very same cafe where J.K. Rowling penned the first Harry Potter book. Well, parts of it at least. Here is a picture of me cheesing hard in front of it:

The food was delicious too. I had a mango, brie, and bacon sandwich that was divine. Before leaving we all passed around a pen so we could leave messages in the bathrooms. I thought the bathroom was the coolest part of the whole place. Every single inch of it is covered in messages and quotes that were a delight to read. I could have stayed in there all day, but it's still a bathroom and I didn't want to be that weirdo. Of course, I left my own message in the hopes that Joanne herself will stroll in and find it. One never knows.

After lunch we went back to the Royal Mile, hitting shops and taking in the sights on our way down to the bottom. We also stopped to sign up for a ghost tour that we'd take later that night. At the bottom we saw Holyrood Palace, the royal family's palace in Scotland. The royals follow me everywhere, I'm tellin' you, it's like they want me to join their family already...

Of course, one can't go down a road without hiking all. The way. Back. Up. All in all it probably took us the better part of 30 minutes to get back to our hostel to take a break. And by that point, we were ready for a break. At least I was, considering I was the first person to pass out for an hour nap. Allison, ever the planner, opted to stay awake and plan our next moves, so when we woke up all we had to do was get ready and follow her to dinner.

Dinner was at a pub where I was too afraid to order haggis but hungry enough to order -- you guessed it -- fish and chips. I just can't quit the stuff. Even though we had plenty of time before our ghost tour, we managed to lose track of time near the end and realized we only had about 10 minutes to pay and take the hike back to the Royal Mile to get there by the time we needed to meet.

Have you ever speed walked up a steep incline after a full fish and chips meal?

I don't recommend it.

By the time we got to the meeting place I was really regretting the last few chips I'd eaten. But we made it -- with about five minutes to spare before the tour began.

Our guides were a very entertaining, very theatrical pair called Niall and Apolline (I challenge you to come up with better names than those). The first half of the tour took place above ground where we were led around some of Edinburgh's most gruesome sites of torture. The Mercat Cross, for example, is a place where merchants would meet to trade but also where public punishments were carried out. Some of these were reenacted by not-so-willing volunteers. Other stories included the switch from slow, drawn-out hangings to quicker, more humane deaths (because the Scottish crowds became sensitive to anything too gruesome but still wanted the option of watching someone's neck snap, of course); a botched hanging where a man took EIGHT HOURS to die; and the tale of a crazed man whose murderous ghost still haunts the city.

The second half of the tour took us to Edinburgh's underground vaults, and this is where the mice were separated from the men. Meaning we all found out there were no men on the tour group. Apolline and Niall led us from vault to vault, telling ghost stories by candlelight. I was way too preoccupied with the anticipation of someone jumping out and grabbing me from the shadows but luckily, nothing of that sort happened and the tour was actually really fun.

We had paid a few pounds more with our tickets, so afterwards we got to have a drink and listen to Apolline and Niall tell a few more ghost stories. It was at this point that things went south for me, as during the witchcraft portion I admitted to having two characteristics of witches (a mole or birthmark and occasionally talking to myself). Apolline latched onto this and accused me of witchcraft, explaining the many tortures I would be put through until I was finally drowned. Also, I picked the wrong week to paint my nails a dark color, because she saw them and shrieked, "Black nails! I knew she was a witch!" (My nails were actually painted green, but I didn't think pointing that out would help anything.)

Apolline holding trial

After the tour was over a few of us stopped for a drink at The Beehive Inn which was surprisingly anti-climatic for a Scottish pub. We didn't stay long because we were tired already and had an early flight the next morning. I didn't even order a drink because I didn't have the heart to ask my wallet for more money.

On Saturday we went back to the airport and while the rest of the group continued on to Dublin, I caught a plane back to Bristol and a bus back to Bath. I needed to be back in town for the Bath Half Marathon, where I volunteered with the Cats and Dogs Home. I'm really glad I did it though, because it was a lot of fun. I met some really nice people who were running the half marathon for the Home and I got to hang out with some of my coworkers (who I love, by the way. They're all so nice and I'm going to be really sad to leave them come May. Hopefully they'll get their own post one of these days).

All in all, it was a successful weekend. Even though I had to miss Dublin, which I would have loved to see again, I'm glad I got to cross Edinburgh off my Travel Bucket List. I'm also glad I didn't hurl on one of Edinburgh's most beloved attractions.

A Birthday Done the Cotswold Way

I never know how to start these blog posts, but I'm starting this one by saying SORRY!! I know it's been a while since I've updated but I wouldn't count on this being the longest gap between posts. My to-do list suddenly got very busy this week -- not only is there a ton of schoolwork to be done here, this is also the week that applications are due for things like next year's campus jobs and housing. While I have a tiny break I thought I'd update you on the Cotswolds.

On Friday morning we boarded a bus and headed to Broadway Tower which is at the second highest point of the Cotswolds (which, by the way, means something like "hills of the sheep enclosures"). It was literally built for no other purpose than to be a place where one could look out and see for miles in all directions. Well, mission accomplished, I'd say, because we climbed to the top and it's a marvelous view.

It's worth mentioning that they didn't make us hike to the tower without first offering us breakfast. There's a newly-refurbished cafe that we stopped at and boy did everything smell delicious. I limited myself to a hazelnut hot chocolate (which was pretty outrageously priced, but it was my birthday after all).

After descending the tower we had the option to take a once-in-a-lifetime hike through one and a half miles of the Cotswold Way or be total duds and sit in the cafe before meeting the hikers at the end of their journey. (Honestly I can't imagine why anyone stayed behind. It was all downhill anyway.)

Views like this the whole way down...

...which prompted many refrains of "The hills are alive..."...

...plus the chance to get up close and personal with real English sheep butts.

But go most of us did, with only a few staying behind. With Andrew and his retractable walking stick leading the way, we hiked down the picturesque hills into the village of Broadway.

Walking through the small town in a group of about 40 Americans wearing wellies and backpacks was hardly inconspicuous but we do things our way.

We met up with the bus outside the village and continued on our way to the village of Bourton-on-the-Water. We were only there for about an hour, and only got to see as much of the town as we passed on the way to lunch, but it was a really cozy little place that reminded me a lot of Salisbury because of the way there is a river that cuts right through town.

Snapped this sneaky pic of our chaperones crossing the bridge.

Lunch was at a cafe that specializes in fish and chips. I'm starting to sense a real addiction to that crispy, fried goodness...

Also, I got this shot for all of my Baltimore peeps:

Unfortunately I never got to see how their Birdland compares with ours but I guarantee theirs is a lot more quaint.

After lunch we left the "Venice of the Cotswolds" (their words, not mine, though I didn't get a picture of the sign to prove it) for the Rococo Garden in Painswick. The Garden boasts the largest collection of snowdrops in England and let's just say I was given no reason to doubt their word.

Snowdrops.

Snowdrops EVERYWHERE.

And then we ended the day the way we started it -- with chocolate in a cafe.

Served, as with all things British, with a personal pot of tea.

decorations in the garden restaurant that I fancied were for me

Back on the bus, the staff had everyone sing Happy Birthday to me (and Andrew too! It was his birthday the day after.) which was a self esteem-boosting way to end the day.

Unfortunately they don't give you birthday passes on homework, so I'm going to wrap this post up and go spend some time with Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings. If anyone has any tips on getting through the first two books of the trilogy in a week, I welcome the advice.