This is the video from the first day of my trip to London. It’s mostly Kensington Park and the London Eye. Enjoy! I’ll get the second day posted eventually! Stay tuned!

12/27/11

This section of the journal I’ll cheerfully title “The Journey Home” subtitled “How I remember it ten days later after being home, having my wisdom teeth ripped out, bad news over Christmas involving my kitty, and while in transit to California to see my dad’s side of the family.”

On the morning of Saturday, December 17th I woke up around 5am so I could shower and finish packing and move all the things I hadn’t gotten rid of yet into the kitchen so that whoever might be staying over the holiday could take them. All the other American students were also leaving that morning, flying back to Gettysburg, where they all go to college. They were dressed up really nicely, so me, in my jeans and sweatshirt, commented on the dress-pants and ties and smiley guy jokingly said to me “It’s the only way to fly.”

Mindy is the best person I’ve probably ever had the pleasure of meeting while over in England and she not only hung out with me the day before (because she wasn’t going to be flying home till the 21st. I hope she made it back alright!) but showed up by 6:20am to help me move all my stuff out of my room and drag it across campus with me to where we met the taxi I’d bravely called for the night before (called a “cab” over in England. I don’t think they use the word “taxi”) who took us to the train station.

Also the night before was the last night of writing club. I’m really going to miss writing club. They were all really sweet and I got hugs and well wishes. I should have stayed and hung out at the bar because I do regret not doing that one last time now considering how rarely I did while I was there, but I had to keep packing, so I didn’t. It was still really nice. They were my most normal-English-University-experience of the whole visit.

Anyway, Mindy stayed at the platform with me to catch the 7:22am express train to Manchester airport until it arrived. For being ridiculously early it was rather packed, and although I had a seat, the British guy on my floor warned me that when traveling over the holidays you don’t want to leave your luggage in the big main areas by the doors on the train because it would be so easy for someone to come along and steal it, and since I had too much to take with me to my reserved seat I just put on my iPod and leaned up against my big pink rolling duffle bag in the area by the doors, looking very cool like I was a regular commuter (I thought) and being prepared to move a little when we stopped along the way if my side of the aisle was the one the doors would be opening on.

I got to Manchester airport with no problem. It was actually a really lovely train ride, watching the sun rise over the English countryside. Some areas had light dustings of snow and it was a misty sort of morning. England is the sort of place I feel like I could really belong, despite any hostilities I had toward any singular things there, the countryside and the attitude as a whole is something I felt really at home with. It’s a beautiful country, it really is. Also at the airport I had my last proper cup of tea along with a nice big blueberry muffin once I had my luggage checked and the barista offered to take my tray over to a seat for me and I sat there a good half hour enjoying my tea and muffin and being in England for the last time with English accents and English tea with good whole milk.

But before the tea and muffin and luggage check I got ridiculously lost.

There were two ways to go after you got off the train and into the airport, on that lead to terminals 1 and 3, and the other which lead to terminal 2. Because I couldn’t figure out based on the signs where to go, I thought my chances were better with 1 and 3  and I was wrong. I dragged all my heavy luggage to the completely opposite side of the airport, took the lift up and down, finally got directed to an information desk that kindly pointed me in the right direction, toward terminal 2. Once there it was easy to find the Delta check, and I was the only person in line, so a nice man took my passport, did the scan check with it, asked me some questions and was really friendly. Then I checked my luggage with no problem at all, got my tickets, and the woman at the desk directed me up to the security check, which was up an elevator, around some corners, past a desk where two nice people asked if I had any liquids or aerosols, which I did not, and then into a queue where you stand and wait till a desk opens and the person at the desk calls you forward and they help you to put your things on the conveyor belt. I thought that was a much better system than we have in the States. I realize we have busier airports than Manchester at around 9am on a Saturday in December, but the English system seems more personalized. There’s someone walking you through all the steps and so it feel safer even though there are fewer “safety precautions.” I didn’t have to take off my shoes or actually even go through a metal detector. After my stuff went through the scanner I was just directed to go pick it up. Simple as that. I gathered everything up and went on my way. This was the point at which I got my muffin and tea, ate it slowly, and finally walked through a very smelly fancy perfume department store, and over to my terminal, where I was completely exhausted and could barely stay awake until it was time to board the plane. I hadn’t exactly had much sleep the night before. Once onboard I just went straight to sleep, but once we were in the air and the stewardesses came by to give us drinks (somewhere around Pennsylvania according to the map on the screens I believe) I made acquaintance with the guy I was sitting beside. It turns out he was traveling to the States to propose to his girlfriend over Christmas! How sweet is that? He grew up outside of Liverpool but loves America and we spent a long time discussing the differences (especially in food) between the US and Great Britain. They served chicken with spiced rice and salads for the meal and we talked about how you can’t get Ranch dressing in England and if you ask they look at you like you’re speaking Yiddish. He says that and steak are two things he can’t get enough of when he comes to the states. Eventually I slept again and (possibly this is the time we were over Pennsylvania? I can’t remember the timeline of the flight exactly. I was really tired.) the next thing they served were these microwave sort of cheese pizzas that were really very good and gelato. I decided that I wouldn’t mind traveling internationally all the time if they’d serve gelato every time! It was vanilla with fudge. Yum!

Once we landed in Atlanta we were directed into lines and I was directed into one that I quickly realized had almost entirely foreign people in it. There were signs for US citizens and for foreigners and I was directed to the foreigner one, but it turned out not to matter. I just stood in the long line with a woman who was on her last legs with her three young boys who were antsy and probably tired, and when I got to the front of the line I had a really nice chat with the guy at the customs desk. He just took my passport and asked what I’d been traveling for. I told him I’d been studying at Lancaster University. He asked what I was studying and I said English Literature and we talked a little bit about creative writing and how essays are terrible to write. It was actually really nice.

After that desk I had to go around another area and pick up my big pink suitcase and drag it along past another place where I was asked if I had anything to declare, and since I didn’t, I just got directed onward, then directed to where I simply handed by suitcase to a guy who tossed it on a conveyor belt and that was it.

Then I had to go through security again. Shoes off this time. Also because I had so many wires tangled up in my backpack they took it aside to look in it. Luckily the girl looking through it was really nice. She told me she’d have to take it and waited for me to gather everything else so I could come with her, and she said there were a lot of wires so I told her in that case it was the front pocket, and she opened it and pulled it all out and said I must be a college student. She was really friendly. She said she had the same backpack and that it was fantastic and we talked about how much it can hold (it’s a Swiss Army backpack. Literally. Logo and all.) and she pulled out my gameboy and said “Oh! I have one of these too!” and then she just scanned it again and it was no problem. For how terrified I was of going through customs, it was really a nice experience. It’s possibly I was loopy on my lack of sleep and the people working were just psyched to be dealing with someone who spoke English as their first language without an accent, but it was really nice.

I went to Panda Express and bought a nice big dinner, found a window by my gate with a view (of the tarmac, but still a view) and ate and listened to my music. I had an unnecessarily long layover. I ended up sitting around watching Glee and eventually compiling the Oxford video while I waited at the airport.

Once on the airplane I pretty much slept again. It was night time again. I was heading even further into the past, but I had already been traveling for something like 20 hours. The flight was pretty much fine. Nothing special because of the sleeping a lot. When we landed they made us stay for a really long time with the doors not even opened yet because the gate had been an inch too short or something? We had to wait there for a long time just to get off. Of course, once I was off it was just a nice short walk and my parents were waiting to welcome me (at sometime past midnight) and to begin the nice long drive from Phoenix up to Flagstaff, which we got into around 3am.

Home at last after something like 26 hours in transit, but still arriving at 3am Sunday morning after beginning at 7am Saturday morning. Fun times.

Like I said, since then I’ve had teeth out, we’ve had some tentatively bad news involving our youngest cat, Christmas happened, and we’re driving up to California.

I feel like I have a new appreciation for the American landscape now, having been away. England is so green and small and rolling, but from Needles to Barstow is two hours of flat and brown that’s broken up by some really spectacular little mountains, and in all that time, in all that big, wide space you don’t run into anything major. You could cross England twice in the time it’s taking us to drive two states over and there is something I never noticed before in the enormity of America. It’s not as green, but the brown is striking. I think I want to go back to England, but I never would have had an appreciation for what America is and the way it works if I hadn’t gotten the perspective of it from another country.

Not everything was perfect, but the experience of traveling out of country was. Right now, I think studying abroad in England is the most important thing I’ve done with my life. It sets me up for a whole lot more. It’s very exciting. 

I’ve finally put together the video from my tour of Oxford. The city was great, and I apologize for shaky camera work, but the posh accent that the tour guide had was hysterical, so this video is awesome simply for that, in my opinion.

I am safely back home. Everything went well through customs and I’ll put up a full report of my long travel back once the jet lag wears off into a nice sugary holiday stupor. 

I’ll continue posting all the videos I haven’t posted yet and any more things from my trip through the end of the year, so keep checking in, and also thank you to everyone who have been following me. England was amazing and I’m so glad I went. It seems so surreal now, and I already miss it, but it’s good to be back with family. Happy Holidays!

12/17/11

All my final essays are turned in, my goodbyes are said, fingers crossed that I didn’t fail, and I’m ready to fly back to the States!

I’ll be catching a cab at 6:40am to the train station, the 7:22am train to the airport, 3 hours of waiting around at the airport, hopefully things go well, and then I’m flying to Atlanta and then back to Phoenix. I’ll be getting in 7 hours in the past at 1am. I’ll be pretty much reliving the same night twice and it won’t even rock because I’ll be flying through it. XD I think that makes me a zombie?

Anyway, I’m really going to miss England. I think the changes will start to become apparent once I get back, all the little different things I both loved and hated about England that I didn’t even notice. I kinda wish I had more time here. It felt long, but it also feels really short. I’m definitely coming back someday. Watch out, UK! 

Because writing essays is no fun (only 2 1/2 left to do by Thursday!) but taking pictures of money IS, I thought I’d take this for posterity’s sake! That’s some English money over there on your left and it has the Queen on it, and some Scottish bills I picked up this weekend over there on your right! The Scottish money is a lot brighter colors and makes me incredibly happy. There’s a US dollar hanging out there on the top for comparison. The coins on the bottom are all of the kinds of coins you can get here and the values go like this: 1P, 2P, 5P, 20P, 50P, 1pound, 2pound. Pretty cool, right? Actually, now that I’ve gotten used to the money here, I’m going to miss it. I like the weight of the pound coin and how pretty the 2pound is and I love having colorful money! View high resolution

Because writing essays is no fun (only 2 1/2 left to do by Thursday!) but taking pictures of money IS, I thought I’d take this for posterity’s sake!

That’s some English money over there on your left and it has the Queen on it, and some Scottish bills I picked up this weekend over there on your right! The Scottish money is a lot brighter colors and makes me incredibly happy.

There’s a US dollar hanging out there on the top for comparison.

The coins on the bottom are all of the kinds of coins you can get here and the values go like this: 1P, 2P, 5P, 20P, 50P, 1pound, 2pound.

Pretty cool, right?

Actually, now that I’ve gotten used to the money here, I’m going to miss it. I like the weight of the pound coin and how pretty the 2pound is and I love having colorful money!

12/10/11

Took the bright and early train up to snowy Edinburgh this morning with Mindy and I’m about 56% sure J.K. Rowling was on our train.

I have no way to prove it, because taking a shifty picture would have been just ridiculously weird, but I swear she looked just like her. She was with a large group of women and they rode the train till the stop before ours, and she could tell I kept looking at her, and Mindy had no idea if it was her or not, and it was just driving me insane. She just looked so much like J.K. Rowling! I know Rowling has a house in Edinburgh. The stop she got off at is less than 10 minutes from central Edinburgh where we got off, so it’s perfectly logical that her house could be closer to that stop…

I know it sounds absolutely insane to people from the States that one of the wealthiest women in the world would be casually taking the same morning train as me with a group of her friends and that I could be sitting two seats back and one over, facing her, and that that would just be normal… but it’s a different world over here. I mean, I was 10 feet from Royalty in London(and no one can prove otherwise). No one makes a big deal about celebrities here. Or, at least it’s different. It’s less of a big deal.

I’m probably delusional, but I think I just saw J.K. Rowling in public and was less than 4 feet from her. If I ever become famous and meet her formally I’ll find out if that’s even plausible. She’s sure to remember the loud, sleepy American with the purple hat who kept glancing at her suspiciously on a random day in December on a train… right?

Anyway. That was amazing. Other than that, we toured the Castle, which was huge and beautiful and has so much history and so many little museums inside it, we had lunch at a pub, we went to the Christmas market which was crowded and pushed our way through crowds and sang along to Christmas music. We wandered about in the cold on the slushy streets with peppermint hot cocoa, stopped to see the amusement attractions and the people “zamboni-ing” an ice rink with shovels. We went into every tourist shop, and just generally had a lovely time.

Now I have a ton of essays to get written this week, I have a super early train to catch next Saturday (SUPER EARLY) and nothing packed and nothing ready and I’m feeling really stressed out… but I may have just made eye-contact with J.K. Rowling. And even if I didn’t, I’m living a pretty incredible life right now.

Maybe my 10-year-old self would have thought I’d be rich and famous by now, or a Pirate, but I’m sort of on the adventure of a lifetime. School included, I’m doing things I never thought I’d actually be doing, and I’m writing things I’m proud of, and I’m seeing things that are absolutely incredible and seemingly impossible, and I’m saying things like “cheers” and “nicked off” and “boot” and meeting people who have turned out to be really great friends. No matter what I expected… what a great place to be, right?

Merry early Christmas, everyone!

Oh ho!!! Look what I finally got to work?

I had to cut out a lot of things that told you where we were, and it wouldn’t publish in HD for some reason, so don’t try to enlarge it because that makes it look shaky…

But this was my first trip to Windermere back in October! This will give you a basic idea of where we went and all the amazing things we saw.

12/7/11

Two essay tests done. One essay test to go and four 2,000 word essays after that due next week. Also a poetry portfolio. I think I’ll be okay. The portfolio writes itself.

This weekend Mindy and I are planning to be in Edinburgh, so I need to finish as much as possible!

It’s almost time to come back. I’m torn. There’s so much more to see, but there are a lot of things I miss back home too.

Pictures from our very cold, but mostly epic day in Windermere this weekend.

12/4/11

After our hectic adventure of freezing cold and excitement in Liverpool yesterday, Mindy and I decided to go (back for me) to Windermere today!

It started off great! We met at 9:30, took the train straight to Windermere, got off, walked along, knew where we were going, stopped at a little coffee shop for some tea, it was raining, but not too bad. We got across the same 50P ferry Aiya and I had taken last time, everything was sort of vaguely wintery and beautiful even with the rain, we enjoyed walking on that same trail by the lake and didn’t turn off to climb up with ridiculously steep hill and kept going. We were looking for Wray Castle.

Well for starters, Wray Castle is not open this time of year. We didn’t know that. For another thing, it is WAY farther than I anticipated!

What is worse is that the closer we got to it, the colder and rainier it got. I assume we were heading North. There was snow on the mountains ahead of us as we walked, but it was only raining on us. For a long way the trails were okay, just muddy so we were hopping around trying to keep our feet dry and mostly failing. Once we caught a glimpse of the castle, however, it was a different sort of story. See, the path split off to keep going on the same muddy road, or to veer off and go what looked like a more direct road on a rather nicely paved stone road. We took the stone one. We were already sort of tired by that point. The whole walk was easily 5 miles. Well that well paved path ended. Just… ended. It wasn’t complete. There was no sign saying that, it was just completely not finished. It was so close by that point and so far to turn back to the other road that we thought we’d just trek it through the grass.

Mindy slipped and got mud all down one side. We barely avoided killing ourselves falling again as we slipped and sloshed through the mud, and our feet were wet and cold at this point and we were muddy. Then there was no clear way up to the castle, so we ended up literally climbing a steep little hill to make it around the back, following a fence, and sneaking in a gate.

But oh, that’s all okay because it turned out that Wray Castle was closed. Completely closed. We could look at it from the outside, and it was beautiful, and the view from there was absolutely breathtaking, but we were hungry, tired, and cold by that point, so that was no good.

Also, the nearest village, Wray, had nowhere for us to stop and rest and eat. So we kept going. We kept going all the way to Hawkshead, having no other choice as there was no bus or anything and we couldn’t just stop in the middle of nowhere, which was easily another 5 miles on foot. It was 3:45pm before we even saw Hawkshead and that’s when the sun starts going down this time of year (early, right?) and when we reached the town it was after 4 so everything was closing. Everything. We were able to get in and get hot cocoa and scones at a little café before it closed but that was it. The bus was then over an hour from coming to Hawkshead and my feet were feeling frostbitten in their wet socks and wet shoes. We popped into shops that were still barely open just to keep warm. When we finally got on the bus, it was practically an hour ride to get back to Windermere, which was fine, since we were so cold and tired.

We rode the bus all the way to the train station, and then our train wasn’t coming for forever so I took off my shoes, rung out my socks (huge pile of water in the train station. Sorry Windermere train people!) and attempted to dry them (to no avail) while it began to snow outside.

Snow. The first time I see snow in England, big, fluffy flakes of snow, and I’m so cold and hungry and tired that I don’t even care.

Windermere is lucky it’s such a naturally spectacular place, and I’m lucky Mindy is such a good travel buddy or I would have hated this trip.

Don’t get me wrong, I still want to live in Windermere someday, but it was kind of miserable. Also the people in this country are super rude! Normally they’re nice, like if they’re helping you, but getting on or off the train everyone shoves! Actually shoves past you to get in front of you as if that makes a difference. It was just so rude! Mindy and I have been talking a lot about American manners and Southern manners specifically and how the way people act here would not be tolerated. There was an old woman with heavy bags getting off and people were pushing past her to get on rather than stopping to help her lift them off. Ridiculous.

I have taken a shower and warmed my feet up, and eaten, so things are better. I really do still love England, but on a day like today some of the things here really do tick me off. Can NOTHING stay open after 4?? Can NOONE be polite and not act like they’re in a huge hurry everywhere?

I have an exam tomorrow, two papers due this week, and four due the next. Looks like it’s time to be studious! If I get it mostly done we’re thinking about Edinburgh next weekend…

Sorry for never posting videos of my other trips. They’re in progress, but I thought I’d jump right in with this one!

Mindy and I spent today in Liverpool, but most of the trip was being lost and wandering the shadier parts of the town. We had a fantastic time at the museum which reminded me a lot of the Denver museum of Natural History (or whatever it’s called now) and then we had a proper Beatles experience followed by peppermint hot cocoa and lots of Christmas lights!

Tomorrow we’re being spontaneous and going (back) to Windermere and we’re going to see the Castle! Here’s hoping for pleasant weather!

Today Aiya and I went into town. I had sort of a headache all day, but it was nice to get off campus. We walked through the market and we each bought bags of Satsumas because they’re small, but you could choose your own and they were only a pound for 15!!! They’re not amazing, but they’re certainly worth that!  We also got ourselves cheap bottles of Mulled Wine, which, although cheap, doesn’t taste cheap. It’s really good! So now I have a bottle of Mulled Wine, which I’m pleased about. I also got some cheese. I haven’t tried the Wensleydale, but the other one I got was Stilton and Apricot which I don’t particularly love, but am trying to finish along with some crackers. This is me… gearing up for Christmas already. :) Happy Thanksgiving, America!! View high resolution

Today Aiya and I went into town. I had sort of a headache all day, but it was nice to get off campus. We walked through the market and we each bought bags of Satsumas because they’re small, but you could choose your own and they were only a pound for 15!!! They’re not amazing, but they’re certainly worth that! 

We also got ourselves cheap bottles of Mulled Wine, which, although cheap, doesn’t taste cheap. It’s really good! So now I have a bottle of Mulled Wine, which I’m pleased about. I also got some cheese. I haven’t tried the Wensleydale, but the other one I got was Stilton and Apricot which I don’t particularly love, but am trying to finish along with some crackers.

This is me… gearing up for Christmas already. :)

Happy Thanksgiving, America!!

11/19/11

Spent all of none of my Leeds trip in Leeds. Instead, Mindy and I focused on where we really wanted to go which is Haworth, where the Bronte Museum is!

My alarm didn’t go off, so I only woke up this morning to Mindy texting me at 7:40am, ten minutes after we were supposed to meet, asking me if I was going to be there in time for the bus. I was not. I missed two buses trying to stop panicking and throw my stuff together and run all the way across campus to the bus station. No time to even shower or brush my teeth, which I sort of really regretted as the day went on, but it was my own fault. I showered the moment I got back this evening.

When we finally got into town it was too late to catch the early bus into Leeds, so we had to wait over an hour and stopped to get some breakfast and tea from a shop in Lancaster. It was actually really nice. Just some toast and tea stopped me from feeling so bad about making us miss the train and we got to talk a lot. Mindy and I can always seem to talk up a storm. We also end up singing song quotes back and forth quite a bit. We like a lot of the same songs.

When we finally caught the train at 10:50ish, it had a stop exactly where we needed to get to, which is a little town called Keighley (which sort of sounds like “Kingly” when they say it) which is where we got on a real steam engine to take us to Haworth!

The steam engine was all old fashioned and nice and the people at the station were super friendly. I got a chocolate chip cookie while we were waiting for the train because I’ve been wanting one.

Also riding the train into Haworth with us was a wedding party. Not a bad idea for a wedding actually, it’s a beautiful area and would be a lot of fun. A little kid who had just grown in his two front teeth was sitting in a tiny suit and blue socks and smiled at us on the way there.

It was fairly easy to find where we were going in Haworth, because we pretty much followed the wedding party straight up the steepest cobblestone hill that just kept going. It went up into the town where there was a series of really cute little shops. I get the feeling they get a lot of tourists for things like wedding parties, and they also are all prepared for Christmas because once we’d finished at the museum and had some hot, spiced, mulled wine from a street vendor, which was so delicious and I need to find more, and also some fish and chips, we walked down through the town and there were all these market vendors set up that hadn’t been there earlier (this was around sunset) and they were all Christmas themed and we got hot cocoa with Bailey’s in it, also from a street vendor (we were never carded. This country is so strange but also amazing because it was very good) and immediately after that we came to the end of the market and there was a huge lit-up Christmas tree. America has nothing on England when it comes to Christmas here. They start early and they do it right as far as I can tell.

So the Bronte Museum was fabulous. I started having a fan-attack before we even got inside. I read Wuthering Heights for the first time when I was in 5th grade and loved it immediately. I feel like I always have to defend it to people because so many people get bored with it or dislike it and it is absolutely my favorite novel of all time. It’s almost like a romantic ghost story… I won’t have a lengthy rant about why it’s great or how great it is here, but suffice it to say I was beside myself and we were both jumping up and down for joy. Mindy was one of the majority about Wuthering Heights, so she got to listen to me rant and rave, but she’s a bit Jane Eyre fan, and I read that just this last Christmas, so we talked a lot about that. I need to read Agnes Grey, because apparently it’s meant to go along with Wuthering Heights. That will be my goal for this Christmas I think. Anyone still looking for Christmas shopping ideas for me? :)

Well you get to go into the house, and it isn’t the one they were born in, but the one they lived in, and where their mother died, and although I believe Emily and Anne died elsewhere, they were living there when they died. Charlotte also died there, possibly of complications with a baby? Mostly it’s very depressing. The father outlived his entire family, but all of his girls were incredibly successful and his son was a good artist and painted the best known painting of the three girls.

Basically, the town of Haworth didn’t used to be very clean. There was a lot of history to learn while in the Bronte house, and the deaths were a big part of it. People died practically every day, and not far from the house is an incredibly extensive graveyard that we saw while the sun was going down and in the cold and it’s just graves upon graves upon graves all crowded together and almost stacked upon each other and the ravens were going crazy and the church was looming and we only walked a very short way in before we realized that if the zombie apocalypse had struck RIGHT THEN we’d have been goners.

That was the point at which hot mulled wine sounded so good.

The house was adorable. Maybe a bit small for such a large family, but lovely. Seeing where they sat writing their novels was another fan-attack moment for me, and I recognized a portrait of Charlotte on the wall before we read the plaque to confirm it was her, so I was really proud of myself for that.

The front part of the house was set up like their rooms were, but the back part of the house was mostly a museum with many pages they’d written and things which were theirs and quotes from their stories and Charlotte’s or their father’s letters. It was just really nice. I feel like I learned so much about them.

Also there were just little things that they mentioned in their lives that reminded me of their stories, like I don’t remember who it was, maybe not their father but an uncle perhaps? But someone who drank heavily and immediately I thought, “I’ll bet that’s who became Hindley Earnshaw, among other influences.” It was just little things like that. Probably losing their mother hit them all rather hard as well.

I just felt like the day was so successful. Even when we got maybe a little lost on a dark street and ran into a man dressed as a pirate walking with another guy and who I could only assume was the daughter and son and a puppy, and stood at a bus stop for a half hour singing every song we could come up with that had “Don’t Stop” in the title, and that being shifty as it was, it was an amazing day. A bitterly cold day, but a wonderful one. Of all the places I’ve gone here, this was really high on my list of places I needed to see, and now I have! It’s another places I could easily imagine living. I would love to do an intense study on Emily Bronte and Wuthering Heights and sort of prove to people why it’s an amazing story (for people who already know it’s amazing, we can be best friends.) and possibly I’ll think about doing that if I ever have a fantastic opportunity to do a massive research project and live out at Haworth for a year or so.

Dreams coming true is what this was. Maybe I’ll head off to Liverpool for my next trip? Maybe I’ll wake up on time…

Part 2 of my journey to Oxford. If you have a lot of money, enjoy school, and want to live somewhere spectacular, you need to seriously consider looking into Oxford. It was breathtaking and the tour guide couldn’t go on enough about all the famous people who had attended Oxford and where they’d lived.

11/14/11

Having stayed up late talking about everything important in the world, we found waking up for 8am breakfast very difficult. After eating croissants and tea, we walked up to Paddington station, stopped for a few more souvenirs, and got on a 9:27am train which took us to Oxford in about an hour. We immediately go on a bus tour of the town which was a fantastic idea. We had our bags with us and by now my feet were blistered from the day before, so sitting down was a great way to see the city. Beyond that, our sunny day limit was up and it was bitterly cold and misty the whole day.

The tour was given by a guy with an actual pretentiously posh accent which I found hysterical but which also set the mood for the tour. It went by every major college and also the town center and around some of the more important buildings and structures. The city is very small, especially if you compare it to London. It is essentially just a college town now.

The tour guide could not go on enough about the famous people who had lived and studied at Oxford and where they’d lived and what they’d studied. It was pretty interesting. Apparently Bill Clinton and his family are regular visitors still, but they weren’t there while we were.

We rode the tour full-circle then got out near the center of town where we stopped at a partly-indoor counter-style shop where some very cheerful women convinced us we wanted Boxing Day pastys, then after finding out we were Americans were even more enthusiastic about it because they said it was perfect for Thanksgiving! They were right; it was filled with turkey and cranberry sauce and things very much like what we’d have as a day-after-Thanksgiving sandwich filled with leftovers, but this was in the form of a pasty (which is a hand-held pie). It was delicious and warm, which was good, because it was cold and we were sitting outside.

We walked around the town feeling pretentious, but we didn’t really fit in due to our backpacks and bags giving away our tourist status. We didn’t go into any of the buildings because they all had visitor’s fees, which weren’t unreasonable, but we’d already spent so much on our weekend so we admired mostly from the outside. We walked close around Christ Church and saw their cows, and we got in to see the Botanical Garden which is the oldest in the country (possibly in the world?) and in the end we decided to take the tour of Oxford Castle which was the best decision we’d had since the pastys!

Basically, and this is something I really just never knew before coming over here, a Castle is always something which was made and used for defense and normally a castle has at one point in its life been used as a prison. Royalty and castles were once in combination because they were so safe, but royalty live in palaces. Castles are prisons and defensive structures, Palaces are luxury. That’s how I understand the system now. It’s very interesting.

The guy giving our tour had only the two of us to deal with, so, it being a private tour essentially, we got to sort of take our time and he probably specialized it somewhat to make it interesting for us. We got to put our bags down and go up this insane, steep, winding, high flight of stairs that lead up to a tower and gave us a panoramic view that was spectacular in the mist, although cold, and made the stairs worthwhile. Oxford was an incredibly safe city, but with a lot of history. Back down the stairs there were all sorts of stories about the Normons building the first defense tower and the history of how that got torn down and the rivalry with a woman named Matilda who should have been Queen as she was the daughter of King Henry I, but because she was a woman her cousin got the crowd and they had a war and she was besieged in Oxford Castle. The story is that her cousin was willing to wait her out, but it snowed and she and her servants dressed all in white and escaped under his nose in the snow and got away over the river. Her son, King Henry II, became King, and apparently any time after Matilda, when there was a question as to whether or not a woman could be the queen, they always looked back on her and remembered what had happened when the crown was given to her cousin and how resourceful she’d been and eventually got the crown back and so really she gave rise to the country’s acceptance of a matriarchal monarch long before the country actually had one.

There were lots of stories of escaped prisoners, which could be part of the reason why the prison was closed as a prison after 1996, which is quite recently, but not as recent as Lancaster Castle. Our tour guide talked a lot with us about Lancaster since we told him we’re going to school there. He was a good guide. We really loved the tour!

The best part was going down into the basement where the original church base was first built and the lighting hadn’t been working so they’d put up candles around instead and it made it incredibly creepy down there with the flickering lights, but apparently it’s haunted, and it certainly felt that way in the dim light. It was used as storage for the prison, but before that it was the morgue for the church. How grim is that? There are several ghosts that are supposed haunt down there. For an arm and a leg you can also rent out that space for very highly supervised parties, he said. Pretty cool! Also spooky!

After the Castle we were exhausted and ready to go home, so we picked up some chicken wraps and chips (fries) and went to the station to catch the next train back to Lancaster. We had to change trains in Burmingham, and it took us till 9pm to finally be back at the University, and that was with leaving from Oxford at about 5:30pm I believe.

Overall it was the greatest weekend. I feel so much more confident about traveling because Mindy and I got the systems down so fast. She’s a fantastic travel partner because she is neurotic about having maps of everything and knowing where we’re going and it was so great. We had so much fun and we’re planning to see Leeds this next coming weekend!