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.

A Diplomat Comes to Bath

It's been almost three weeks since our arrival in Bath and we're starting to get the hang of day to day life here: classes and homework during the day, fun events or pubs at night, and putting together weekend trips when we can. This week was especially exciting because on Wednesday I had a visitor! One of my best friends from F&M (and roommate of two years!) came over from London for the day to hang out and see some of the city. This trip was especially necessary since, as I mentioned before, Alex and I weren't able to meet up in London when I was there last weekend. In fact, before this week, the last time we'd seen each other in person was May of 2013 -- the better part of a year! Apparently the fates wanted this reunion to happen, as both of my usual Wednesday commitments were cancelled this week, so Alex hopped a bus and got into Bath around 12:30.

After quite a touching reunion in the bus station (where we most likely freaked out several older couples -- like I observed when I got here, the place is practically swarming with them) I took Alex back to my flat, pointing out where I go to classes along the way. After we'd done some catching up, Alex gave me the loveliest of birthday presents -- an assortment of mini wines!

Wine from Winer

Alex bought them all with specific purposes in mind, which I love; for instance, "I've Had Enough" wine for hard days and "Girls Night" wine for...obvious intentions. I was also pretty impressed with the fact that she basically smuggled them onto the bus in her purse without the clinking raising suspicion. Well done, friend.

We waited for one of my flatmates to get back from class and then Alex and I and two of my flatmates, Amanda and Allison, went to get lunch at Sally Lunn's. Sally Lunn's is the oldest house in Bath and the home of the famous Sally Lunn Bun -- other buns are just imitators. It's a Bath must-do but none of us had been there yet and after Hadley described the sweet and savory topping options we were basically salivating. I ordered a bun that came with a cinnamon sugar topping and clotted cream on the side, plus a personal pot of House tea.

If I called it delicious it wouldn't be kind enough. When I bit into it I think I saw the face of God.

Unfortunately I don't think I'm of the caliber of people that usually dine at Sally Lunn's, as halfway through the meal I accidentally shot half of my bun across the table trying to cut it and let out the world's most ridiculous gasp. I can't take me anywhere. I'll need to brush up on those etiquette lessons if Prince Harry is ever to bring me to dinner...

After lunch my flatmates went back to Nunes while Alex and I walked through the center of town. We went inside the Abbey (which "encourages" donations to enter but really that means, "Seriously? You're not going to donate to a church? Do you also make babies cry?") and eventually made our way to the Royal Crescent, which I hadn't gotten to see yet! It was a day of firsts for everyone! At this point it was necessary to get a picture in order to be able to prove that Alex and I actually were in the same place together:

And then in true American fashion we walked around peeking into the windows of each house to see how the other half lives.

We decided to get ourselves a bit lost and our poking around got us into the Botanical Gardens in Royal Victoria Park. We walked and chatted and judged the parents who let their children get excessively close to what were definitely killer swans.

I saw God and the devil in the same day.

I do not fear you, sweet sleeping ducks.

Just as the sky was turning grey, we meandered back to the center of town and my flat. We talked some more, speculated on life at F&M this semester, and watched an episode of New Girl (Bonus Blog Fun: spot the New Girl reference in this post!). Just before 6:00 we headed back to the bus station and Alex was off to London. Never fear, though! We shall be planning another rendezvous soon, in Alex's neck of the woods this time.

Today I had my second official day of interning at the Bath Cats and Dogs Home (which I will be writing about soon -- it's an awesome place and an awesome job!) so now I've got to catch up on all the reading that didn't happen today. Tomorrow we are off on an Andrew Butterworth tour of the Cotswolds -- I'm sure there will be more on that too! Cheers, friends! Enjoy the weekend!

Day Trippin' in London

Saturday was probably a day I'd rank somewhere in the top 10 Best Days of My Life because I finally got to go to London, the city I've been dreaming of for years. Weirdly enough I was not that into the idea when my friends first brought it up last week -- I did some private whining about only staying one day, not being able to meet up with my college roommate Alex, and not having nearly enough time to see everything I wanted to see. I even seriously considered skipping it this time and joining another group on a day trip to Wales. But London's magnetic pull on me won out and on Saturday I found myself waking at the crack of dawn (i.e. 7:00, LOL) to join 8 other friends for a trip out to the city.

The day before my flatmates and I had bought tickets that covered trips to and from Bath, plus all public transport in London for the day for just £30. We caught an 8:13 train which was, for some reason, packed. Not with people. Just with the signs reserving their seats. So many reservations. Not so many passengers. Which meant some of us ended up standing until we could snag some vacated seats at the next few stops. There was about a fifteen minute delay because of flooding that's been impeding travel to and from London all week, but we reached Paddington Station without any other problems. 

Once there, we hit the ground running, trying to cross everything off our itinerary (which was essentially a list of tourist must-sees). I handed over my map (Thanks, Mom! That really came in handy!) to my much less directionally-challenged friend and we were off to Abbey Road. It wasn't too bad a walk, maybe 20 to 30 minutes, plus we got to see what seemed to be some of ritzy residential London.

And then, we were there. Sort of. We had to walk along the road a bit to find the actual crosswalk. And then there could be no doubt we had reached it, what with the giggling tourists and the exasperated drivers. We admired the graffiti outside the studio, stuck our cameras through the gates to get pictures of it, and contemplated how best to get the money shot without a) getting run down or b) making British enemies and then getting run down. But finally, after waiting our turn and (sort of incorrectly) judging when the traffic was lightest, my flatmates and I walked in the footsteps of the Fab Four.

Grinning like a maniac because I got to be Paul (not worth going barefoot though)!

There was actually much less freaking out than there could have been, though maybe we were all distracted by the surprisingly heavy traffic. Seriously, you would think there would be more regulation in the area but it's really all down to driver-pedestrian trust. (Incidentally, we got honked at for taking this. I guess the driver who WAVED US ON, I will add, thought we were just casually crossing. But I mean, come on. You're driving on Abbey Road and there are people poised with cameras on the other side of the street for Pete's sake. But I digress.)

We (successfully) interpreted the bus schedule and caught one to take us to the next stop on the list, King's Cross Station. Though it took way longer than we anticipated and seemed to make about twenty extra stops, it was a thrill to actually get where we needed to be, on our own and using public transportation. At King's Cross we met up with one of my flatmate's friends who's living in London, grabbed some quick lunch, and waited in line for our quite necessary and very touristy Platform 9 3/4 pictures. 

Unlike Abbey Road, this one felt a little strange. For one thing, nothing actually happened there at that spot. An author just wrote about something happening at it. For another, everyone else in the station is just sort of going on with their lives, not caring about the tourists queuing up to take a picture with a wall. It makes you feel sort of weird to care about half a cart sticking out of a wall that's really not special in any other way. But we'd come all that way and were not leaving without our pictures, so queue up we did.

After waiting patiently for us, our guide took us to the tube station right by King's Cross and amazed us with her ability to almost immediately recite which lines we needed to take to connect to other lines to ultimately get ourselves to Westminster. It was truly a sight to behold. Twenty minutes later we were emerging from the tube, right into the line of sight of the London Eye (HA, see what I did there?).

Seriously, right there.

The Eye, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and the Houses of Parliament are all in one pretty close area, so we just sort of walked around in awe for a little bit, taking pictures of everything. We thought about taking a ride on the Eye, but when we saw the price (£20!!!) we were suddenly way less interested. Instead, we walked back across Westminster Bridge (I swear we crossed that thing at least four times) and headed for Buckingham Palace.

I've been on this bridge enough to last a few decades at least.

There really isn't much to say about Buckingham Palace except that, of course, it's beautiful, and of course, it reawakened my urge to be swept away by Prince Harry. But I think anyone would fall prey to those desires standing in front of this.

I'd like to gain entrance to your social club.

Here's a picture of me being a tourist in front of the Palace:

This picture will go viral once I'm sippin' tea with Kate.

We were then feeling pretty drained so we went in search of caffeine. The French cafe our guide was planning on taking us to was too busy (and VERY fancy) so we ended up in (drum roll) Starbucks. This sort of clashed with my previous and steadfast avoidance of the Starbucks in Bath, but now it's starting to sound like a new sub-section of my bucket list: sip Starbucks in every iconic city, maybe? I've got New York and London down already!

After Starbucks my flatmate and her friend broke from our group to go to dinner with some friends while the rest of us headed to Trafalgar Square.

Trafalgar Square had a nice vibe to it, with people milling around, hanging out and taking pictures as the sun went down. It also felt like the place where it finally sank in that we were in London, because we had a few lazy minutes where we could just stop and look around. A few of us ventured to climb the giant lions surrounding Nelson's Column. I'm super glad I did too, because it was a nice photo op (though I did use a boost from my roommate, Hadley...she really got the job done).

Between the Lions(' paws)

(As I anticipated, getting down was even scarier. Luckily a nice foreigner came to the rescue after I insisted to Hadley that I couldn't make the jump without crushing her. No, no one was crushed to death beneath an iconic landmark this trip.)

We sort of hung around the square for a while, taking group pictures and watching some sort of mime character confuse everyone by doing literally nothing, and then we headed off to find dinner.

One of many favorite pictures of the day -- Big Ben peeking out behind my lion friend

Dinner was at a pub sort of place called Walkers of Whitehall. It looked pretty fancy but the prices didn't seem too outrageous (though we are still easily misled by the exchange rate) and the food was pretty scrumptious. It only seemed fitting that I order my first official English fish and chips in London, and it was some of the tastiest food I've had here so far.

All too soon we were meeting back up with the other two and being coached on which tube line to take back to Paddington Station. The tube doesn't seem all that confusing; I would love to spend enough time in London to really navigate it like a pro, but a couple of rides on it will have to do for now. We made it back to Bath Spa Station just after 10:00, ready to fall into bed.

London was a perfect first trip out of Bath; I'm already mentally planning my return trip, because there's so much more I'd love to see. Until then, I'm ready to start my second week of classes back in Bath -- the first without tedious syllabus speeches. Cheers!

Stonehenge Rocks

Yesterday officially ended Orientation week -- hurrahs all around! I think we're all pretty anxious to get into a set schedule instead of just being whisked around to different events and meetings and opportunities to sign up for things. But the program made up for making us take tests while still jet-lagged by making our last Orientation event a trip to Stonehenge!

I blame the wind for that very uncomfortable picture up there. It was the strongest wind I've ever encountered in my life. As in, one small misstep could send you toppling over that little rope fence, something that would have been frowned upon in a big way.

It's kind of hard to know when to stop taking pictures of something like this.

Andrew Butterworth called it "perfect weather for Stonehenge" but he did not have to brush the knots out of his hair later so he seems a little biased to me.

With my three flat mates!

The visitor's center is apparently brand new. There's an interactive experience sort of thing that lets you feel as though you're standing in the middle of the stones while the walls around you show the timeline of their construction. I meant to get a picture of it, but we had to catch one of the trolleys that takes visitors up to the stones.

This is a picture of one of many small hills used as burial mounds. Also behind it is a major road which I didn't realize would be so close to the stones. One of our students helpers casually mentioned that he drives past Stonehenge on his way to work but he'd never actually been to see it before then.

After Stonehenge we headed to the city of Salisbury. The main attraction there was a tour of Salisbury Cathedral conducted by Andrew. We were given the option to go explore the town instead but obviously no one took it.

Saints all lined up and ready to go

 

Andrew imparting some serious wisdom

The Cathedral is, of course, beautiful inside, and Andrew had plenty of amusing stories to share about many different parts of it. My favorite was about this guy:

The tomb of William Longespee

Longespee was the illegitimate son of Henry II and died shortly after being invited to dinner by the man who wanted to marry his wife. Suspicious you ask? Suspicious indeed. When Longespee's body was moved into the Cathedral, a dead rat was found mummified in his skull, having eaten his brain, and inside the rat were traces of arsenic. Most interestingly of all, I think, is that the Cathedral kept the mummified rat on display, proving that sometimes hoarding does pay off.

 We split up to get lunch in Salisbury. My group ate at a cafe type place called Boston Tea Party. It was our last resort because there is one in Bath as well, but to be honest everything in that area was a little chain-y. At least we weren't among those eating at Burger King.

After Salisbury we headed to a village called Lacock, our last stop of the day. Lacock is the kind of place you probably picture when you think of a small English village, and there's a good reason for that. It's illegal (at least in the area we visited) to have anything like power lines showing on the street; those things are hidden behind the houses. Because of this it's often used in films like The Wolfman, Pride and Prejudice, and Harry Potter.

Albus Dumbledore walked here!

 Also, we managed to get some pictures of the house used as James and Lily's in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. It was used in the scene where Hagrid tells Harry how his parents were killed. It felt very strange to be clustering in the driveway taking pictures of it though, because someone definitely lives there.

Visiting our good pals the Potters

Unfortunately, Lacock Abbey was closed to us. That building was used to film scenes in Snape's dungeon, Quirrell's classroom, and random corridor scenes. Some people are already planning a trip back when we'll be allowed to go inside.

We ended our day trip with dinner at the George Inn, the oldest pub in Lacock where we were given a delicious roast dinner and a quiz on what we'd learned that day from the ASE staff. My group placed third overall -- not too shabby!

 It was a long day and everyone was excited to get back to Bath. Even though it's only been a week we've already started to feel what the staff told us we would -- that Bath is our home away from home and we'll be glad to come back to it after days like the one we had.

On an unrelated note, I've really enjoyed reading everyone's comments, so keep them coming when you're so inclined!