Kayla in the UK

Three Weeks Later – August 23, 2009

2009-08-24T21:50:00.001-07:00

Well, here I am three weeks after returning to the states….I miss Oxford more and more every day, honestly. Whether a song on the radio, a random memory, or the epic amount of money I owe my parents from the trip….I think about it constantly.

The Monday after returning, I immediately started spending basically all day every day at the sorority house doing rush stuff. That kept me busy and exhausted, so I didn’t have a lot of time to think about the trip. I managed to unpack at the same time, and somehow got over my jet lag…but it wasn’t fun to say the least.

As soon as rush was over there were meetings and trainings and appointments then classes. Throw in a little bit of being social…and well, it’s been hectic.

I’m ready to get back to going to the gym regularly and eating a healthy diet…let’s just say Hot and Tasty shack and beer every day didn’t really help out my routine I had going before my trip.

Now I’m working and taking classes and my weeks are scheduled and structured and super busy. Definitely a change from Oxford.

After coming back, I saw Bobby first…we went to see Harry Potter again during rush workshop week. I later saw Elizabeth at El Rincon, then Candice came to my bid night party with me, and Sarah and I finally saw each other the Thursday after classes started. I run into other people around campus, and it’s weird that we all have this bond now. Really cool though. I mean, it was the same with Brazil, but there were only 4 of us then.

Last night John threw a reunion where several of us showed up….it was a little weird (Sarah and Candice couldn’t come) but we watched the videos of the last night there and caught up a bit…I plan to throw another reunion soon where even more people can come. It was a weird, fun, sad experience…

I’m even doing my CBH independent research project on Oxford.

Looking back, Oxford was one of the best experiences of my life. It truly was. I want to talk about it all the time, to anyone that will listen. I’m actually probably really annoying because people don’t want to hear all my stories.

I love wearing my Oxford dresses too 

Right now, I wish I was in my dorm room at Worcester, getting ready for a night out with the girls at the Bridge or Kukui, with Hot and Tasty Shack to look forward to, then a couple hours sleep before inhaling apple juice and delicious breakfast before fighting to stay awake through English and going on some adventure with Arts of Oxford, then naps and adventures and cramming in homework, then starting it all over again. Oh well, I’ll always have the memories.

Oh, city of dreaming spires, how I can’t wait to return one day.

Moving Day – August 2, 2009

2009-08-24T21:49:00.002-07:00

I slept for a few hours, but my sleep schedule was really off because of jet lag and sleeping on the plane. I woke up pretty early and immediately got to work washing clothes and unpacking. I shockingly got through with that fairly quickly, then started packing again to move into my apartment.

Phil cooked me mexinoms for lunch…oh how I missed them. Delicious. Afterward we took the first trip over to my new apartment…okay I was expecting to have like my bed and a cardboard box for a table or something…but no, my amazing parents went ALL OUT and my place looked AWESOME!! I almost cried I was so excited. It’s the most precious thing in the world. Love love love. We ran some errands and what not, then Phil grilled burgers and Bethany, Caitlin, Grant, and Matt all came over to hang out for dinner. It was so nice to see everyone. Afterwards we headed back to my house and Jennifer came over as well and we just sat around talking and catching up. We called it a pretty early night because everyone was exhausted.

It was a jam-packed day of all sorts of things…I came home, unpacked, moved into a new apartment, hung out with friends….about as different from Oxford as possible. Complete culture shock. Miss it already.

Goodbye City of Spires – August 1, 2009

2009-08-24T21:49:00.001-07:00

The end of Friday leads right in to Saturday and my dramatic exit of the city….

I got home around 4:30 and hung out with Sarah and Candice for a bit. I was planning to get up at 5:30 to shower and finish packing, then take a 7:20 bus to Heathrow…so Sarah and I both set alarms and agreed to make sure we got up and got going….

…well….next thing I know, Anna is walking in my room at 8:05 to make sure I’m awake…which I clearly wasn’t. Oops. Enter complete panic mode, since I should already be practically at the airport at this point. Needless to say, a shower was not part of the picture, and Candice and I indiscriminately threw my toiletries and other random things into my suitcases. I threw on my t-shirt and was out the door and off to the bus station in…take a guess….20 minutes. Yes, I looked hot. You have no idea.

In panic mode, I arrived at the bus station. I knew I had hidden away 20 pounds for my bus fare the night before, but of course couldn’t find it and had to buy a ticket on my credit card. Luckily I made a bus that was leaving right as I arrived. On the bus I was so busy freaking out and trying to make myself look presentable I barely registered that I was leaving Oxford. It’s probably really better that way though, as I probably would have been bawling my eyes out otherwise.

I arrived at Heathrow for a 12:15 flight at 10:15, which ended up being perfectly fine. I waited in line to check in, then proceeded on to my gate, after stopping to buy a couple of bottles of water, haha.

Then began my horrible journey back to the states.

Once we got on the plane, we had an hour long delay on the ground. Those are never fun. Once we were finally in the air, things weren’t so bad though. The meal was good and my neighbor didn’t bother me….so it was shaping up okay….until they told us the movies did not work. Okay, an 11 hour flight with no movies is...awful. Especially since it was a mid-day flight…like my body was not programmed to be sleeping at that time….oh dear. Well, I spent those 11 hours taking as much Tylenol PM as I could without dying, fading in and out of sleep, draining my iPod battery, and reading Alice in Wonderland (which was so cool this time around since I know so much about it and have seen where it was written…). It was not a fun flight. At all. Add on the fact that I was disgusting…you can only imagine how happy I was.

We finally arrived in Dallas, where I was supposed to have about a 2 and a half hour layover. I successfully made it through customs and pushed my thousands of pounds of luggage around the airport…then finally got to my gate with plenty of time to spare. For my first meal back on American soil, I definitely went all American and ate delicious buffalo chicken fingers and TGI Fridays. I’m pretty sure my waitress thought I was insane…this sketchy, really disgusting girl sitting alone in the corner inhaling buffalo chicken fingers and drinking 40 glasses of free ice water (it’s FREE)….oh yeah, I was cool.

I also got to know my blackberry again….I called and talked to several friends and definitely enjoyed being able to text again! Fun times.

Well, unfortunately, the weather in Dallas was not so good, and my flight kept getting delayed. My short layover turned into a long long fiver hour layover, where I hadn’t showered in about 48 hours. Don’t even get me started on how disgusting I was.

By the time I finally made it on my flight to Birmingham, I was exhausted, gross, and cranky. The flight home was nothing horrible, I was just ready to be done traveling.

I arrived in Birmingham around midnight, and Phil met me with a sign  We grabbed my luggage, loaded up, and headed home. It was a long day to say the least. I was so excited to just take a shower and climb into bed.

Last Day (No Other Title Fits) – July 31st, 2009

2009-08-24T21:47:00.000-07:00

The morning started out much like any other. Breakfast in the dining hall – my last bacon, hashbrowns, and toast for a long long time as I’m going to have to refrain from such to lose the weight this delicious food has put on me, haha. After breakfast it was back to the room to shower and get ready, and read over all my notes from English – as that was really the only way to study.

Our English exam was pretty exhausting. Three essays in an hour and a half – 2 were based on comparing and contrasting examples of poetry (Yeats and Blake to be exact), and the third was discussing why learning British lit in England is different than learning it in the states. That one was pretty easy, and awesome – it makes all the difference in the world.

For our Arts of Oxford final, she just told us to show up, bring cameras and water, and wear comfortable shoes. My guess was a photo scavenger hunt – and I was right. My group was super competitive – but we had a huge loop we had to make to complete our list….which was…

The 12th century structure on Worcester campus that looks like it could belong to Gryffindor (one of the original monastery structures has a red and gold shield on it – isn’t it great that this is the kind of group of students where you can make a Harry Potter reference and you KNOW at least 1 out of 4 students in the group will understand it?)
There’s a pub called The Turf where it has 2 entrances but neither are from a street – both are tiny passages. We had to photograph one of those.
The place from where they took the material to construct a platform that should never have been built – inside St. Mary’s Cathedral there is a column where they chipped away a piece to make the platform for the trial of the protestant martyrs.
The place where the singers still sing from on May Day of each year – the bell tower of Magdalen college.
Parrots and owls, parrots and owls – has to do with some of the architecture and design at the University Museum, which we learned about in class.

The hunt ended at Tolkein’s bench in University Parks, and even though we hurried as much as we could, we didn’t win the scavenger hunt. It was really cool though, because all the groups had different clues, but we all knew the answers to everyone’s…it was just remarkable because it really made us realize how much we learned about the city in the short time we were there. After checking out pictures, we had an “un-birthday party”, Alice in Wonderland style, and just enjoyed the weather and the park and our last afternoon in Oxford.

After the scavenger hunt, Sarah, Bobby, and I, struck out on the epic journey of finally going punting. Punting is basically going in these little boats, bigger than canoes and with flat bottoms, and one person has a really long pole which they stick into the mud at the bottom of the river, and that propels the boat. We had been wanting to do this the entire time we were there, and finally went on the last day. Before we could go though, we first stopped to grab a picnic for while we were on the river, then had to walk all over the place to find somewhere we could go to the restroom – I do miss public bathrooms. But finally we made it out on the river.

Now, for Sarah and I, punting involved sitting in the boat, enjoying our picnic of sandwiches and wine, and watching while Bobby actually steered the boat and we played bumper boats with all the inexperienced punters. It was quite fun. We finally found a calm spot where we just kind of hung out and floated and fed the ducks…we didn’t go far but we got the experience. And we got lucky because it was a beautiful afternoon to be out on the river. To get a better idea..check out facebook pictures.

After punting, we hurried back to the college to get ready for the evening festivities. I fully intended to take another shower at this point, but was tired so I took a nap instead. This point becomes important later…haha.

Before our last dinner, we had drinks in the provost’s garden, which was really cool because it had been off limits the whole time. It was a beautiful garden though, and the provost was extremely nice. And we drank Pimm’s – the official summer drink in England…and it was just so very British.

After drinks we headed into the hall for our last dinner. It was formal hall, so we had all sorts of fun things for dinner…like prawn and duck….I liked guinea fowl and lamb, but I’m not a big duck fan. And of course at the end of dinner they made us sing Yea Alabama one last time.

Once dinner was over, the whole group gathered for “Alabama in Oxford Follies 2009”, where different groups in different classes got together and put on little skits and stuff. The highlight of the evening was the Shakespeare class. One of the guys, who has a real talent for writing parodies and stuff, as well as playing the piano, wrote several song parodies. There was “I am a Tyrant” about Julius Caesar, sung to “Survivor” by Destiny’s Child, “Let it Bleed” instead of “Let it Be”, and “I Just Can’t Wait to be King”, which involved actual royalty instead of lions…the best was the final, which had nothing to do with Shakespeare but was “Sweet Home Alabama” but about our time in Oxford. It was absolutely fantastic to say the least.

Finally, it was time to go out for our last time.

We began our evening around 10:30 or 11 at the college pub, where we stayed until it closed. A few last pints of Carlsberg and car bombs served up by Collin…almost the whole group was down there so it was really fun. Afterward, we headed out to the clubs. We ended up at Thirst, the hookah bar, just hanging out in the garden area, then dancing with lots of foreign boys as usual. Collin showed up and got us free drinks, and it was a really fun night, just hanging out for the last time. We might have stayed out kind of late….I called it a night around 4:30 AM. Unfortunately I had already had to turn in my key and swipe card, so the Oxford porter kindly walked me back to my room :)

How much can we get done in one day? – July 30th, 2009

2009-08-10T15:56:00.000-07:00

Definitely didn’t want to get up this morning, but had to so that I could rewrite the final draft of my last English paper, as well as write some Arts of Oxford responses. I wasn’t really irresponsible on the trip…I mean, I turned all of my assignments in on time every time, but I still did a lot more “waiting until the last minute” than I usually do. Oh well, I am going to have a really busy semester, so I’m having fun while I’m here.

Last day of classes! Well, really just English for me since Arts of Oxford has been going on excursions all week. Today we ventured out to Keble College to see their beautiful chapel and the original Light of the World painting – a very famous painting. It was quite beautiful.

After our journey, Sarah and I ate at Noodle Nation for the very last time. So delicious but so sad. I shall miss Noodle Nation a lot.

After lunch, we did some flea market shopping at the Gloucester Green open market. We didn’t really buy anything (although it was very difficult to resist an early edition Alice in Wonderland), but browsing was lots of fun.

We finally made it to our goal for the afternoon, the University/Pitt Rivers Museum. The University Museum is this awesome natural history museum, and Pitt Rivers is an anthropological museum. Both were awesome, but naturally I was obsessed with Pitt Rivers, as I am an anthropology major. The University Museum had lots of dinosaur fossils, and a dodo skeleton, which was quite cool. The architecture of the building was awesome too – if a train station and a cathedral had a child, it would be this building.

The Pitt Rivers Museum was totally different though. It was about as far from the type of museum you would generally imagine as it gets. There was tons and tons and tons of stuff crammed in to standing display cases, and it was dark and things were tagged with handwritten tags….none of the sterile lighting and neat organization of most museums. Everywhere you turn you’re looking at different artifacts of culture and human history – I was looking at religious icons, turned around and was staring at shrunken heads (which were really really really creepy). It was awesome, to say the least.

I was exhausted after all of this, so I headed back to the college to take a quick nap. Then I headed to Primark to grab a dress for Molly that I really thought she would like, and just do my last bit of shopping in Oxford. Oh, I’ll miss it.

Headed back to the college for dinner, then had an open evening, since we weren’t going out because of exams the next morning. Bobby still hadn’t been to a classical music performance for Arts of Oxford, so I went with him to a concert at the Sheldonian theatre, the official theatre of the University where they do graduation and such. It was absolutely awesome. We sat in the cheap, nosebleed seats, but it didn’t matter. We had a good view, and the sound was what mattered anyway. We had a really awesome time.

After the concert I was supposed to go meet the girls in the pub to hang out, but it was 10:00, and no joke, I was exhausted. So off to bed I went – had to rest up for my last day in Oxford!!

Books as Far as the Eye Can See – July 29th, 2009

2009-08-10T15:54:00.000-07:00

Again..the usual morning of getting up, breakfast, and class. English is just so exciting…not. I mean, I guess it could be worse. And Dr. Halli is pretty cool to listen to, even if his grading does make me angry sometimes.

For Arts of Oxford, I finally got to visit the place I had been dying to go to since I arrived in Oxford…but I had to wait because you have to have a group of a certain size to go on the extended tour --- which I had to do – and which is what we did today. Anyway…the Bodleian Library.

The Bodleian is the official library of Oxford. Each college has a small library, but the Bodleian is the main thing – the place to be. It is absolutely unbelievable. Miles and miles of shelves – many of which are underground; and over 8 million books. 8 million!!! Oh my goodness, I was in heaven. We got to see the Duke Humphries library which is extremely old and beautiful…they use it to shoot the library scenes in Harry Potter. And inside the Radcliffe Camera, which is the reading room of the Bodleian….and the conveyor belt they use to get books from the shelves to the reading rooms. Oh my gosh, it was amazing. You can’t check books out of the library – even the king himself tried back in the 1600’s and was denied – and to have a reading card you have to take an oath that you will not harm the books. It is probably the coolest place I have ever been. I know I’m a dork, but I don’t care. It was absolutely awesome.

After browsing the library store and limiting myself to a poster and bookmark, a bunch of us headed to the Four Candles for lunch. Can I reiterate how much I love pub food? What am I even supposed to eat when I go home? After lunch, it was again raining, so we walked around for a little while but ended up at the college, just working on stuff and starting to get ready for our departure --- so sad.

We had dinner in the hall as usual, and I just hung out on the grounds for a while and took in the beauty. I will miss it so much.

Finally, it was time to get ready and go out. We headed down to the college pub for a while, as usual, then a big group of us headed down to Jericho to the Jericho Tavern. It was cool – I mean, it’s always cool to go somewhere I haven’t been before…but the group was really big and it was kind of awkward, so Ashley, Bobby, and I decided to go do our own thing. We wanted to go to the pub Jude the Obscure, but it was closed. Sad. We headed back to the college pub and hung out with Collin for a little while – Collin is our favorite bartender. Then we decided to try something different and headed to the hookah bar/club, Thirst. We actually ended up sitting around talking to a bunch of Brazilians, which was really cool. Even though I love England so much, I will always love Brazil too. We danced and hung out…and it was a really awesome night. Except for when a very large, very drunk man celebrating his birthday fell. On top of me. Like, pushed me off my stool. It hurt...a lot. His friend who was supposed to be taking care of him was super nice though, and hey, we've all been there. And now I have an additional reminder to take home in the form of huge bruises, haha.

It’s like the Sahara in here! --- July 28th, 2009

2009-08-10T15:53:00.001-07:00

Usual morning of rolling out of bed, stumbling into the shower, and heading down for class. So much fun.

For Arts of Oxford we walked over to Harris Manchester college, which has a fully collection of Pre-Raphaelite stained glass windows that are absolutely beautiful. I suppose if you don’t know what Pre-Raphaelite is then that means nothing – but the artist William Morris designed them – he really cared a lot about making art functional…he didn’t paint on canvas or anything, he made things people needed anyway beautiful, like stained glass windows or chairs…stuff like that. Anyway, to have a chapel fully done by him is remarkable, I mean, Harris Manchester is the only place in the world. We also had the High Steward of Oxford give us a little tour and tell us the history of the chapel and everything – it was quite interesting.

Afterwards, Sarah and I were starving, but couldn’t figure out what we were craving. As we walked along, it hit us! Pizza! So Pizza Hut has a lunch buffet, even in England, so that’s where we headed. It was quite delicious, except they were a little slow putting pizza out on the buffet…and there were a lot of people trying to get it…so people would crowd around and like attack whenever food came out. It really was like some kind of animals in the Sahara show or something. Pretty amusing…but we were hungry. Sarah is so non-confrontational though, it definitely stressed her out. Haha. It hit the spot though. I have now eaten Pizza Hut on 3 continents. Woot.

After lunch we had grand plans to go out running errands and shopping and just walking around taking pictures and stuff…but of course it was pouring rain and freezing. Not exactly conducive to our plans. So we ran to the Varsity Shop which sells all the college stuff – like sweatshirts and hats and t-shirts and stuff with your college’s crest and everything – and I picked up the Worcester fleece I had decided I wanted, then we headed back to the college for homework, naps, and general walrus-ing all afternoon.

Since GA Tech had formal hall, our whole group ate dinner together in the hall. And we had the magical time of getting to wear our “Where in the World is Big Al?” t-shirts…these (awful) t-shirts given out by Capstone International, because afterward we had a group picture and our last group meeting. Oh, those t-shirts were beautiful.

Group meeting was super sad because it was all about how to leave. I don’t want to leave.

After the meeting we got ready then headed down to the college pub to hang out with everyone and play darts and whatnot – the usual. I wanted to go out to Kukui, but I was just too exhausted…so I made the responsible decision and went home at the decent hour of midnight, haha.

3 days left.

Primark = Life – July 27th, 2009

2009-08-10T15:52:00.000-07:00

Last Monday in Oxford. Boo. You know I love Mondays.

So, it started out like pretty much any other day…getting up at the crack of dawn to have delicious breakfast and finish papers we should have finished sometime before 2 hours before class. We were always prepared.

After class, a bunch of the group headed to Bath, but Candice and I had already been, of course. Instead, I headed to the train station for a completely different reason…to meet Kelsey!! Yes, Kelsey was already in England visiting a friend, and she had a free afternoon so I convinced her to come take in the glory that is Oxford.

Our first stop was Worcester, where I showed her my dorm room and whatnot, and we met up with Sarah. We struck out for the Red Lion for lunch…one of my favorite pubs. Delicious. What will I do without pub food? Afterwards I gave Kelsey a walking tour of Oxford…at least the main area. It’s amazing how much I know about the place after being here for only a couple of weeks. I was able to take her to Exeter, one of my favorite colleges, and Blackwells, my favorite place in the world….then we headed down to see Christ Church where a lot of filming is done for the Harry Potter movies…then to the Alice Shop, where everything in the shop is Alice in Wonderland based. We had a really fun afternoon of just walking around, taking pictures, and being silly. Even though she was only there for like 3 hours, Kelsey deemed Oxford her favorite city in England. I couldn’t agree more.

After seeing Kelsey off at the train station, I met up with Candice and Sarah to do a little shopping. We had heard about this magical store called Primark, but had not yet checked it out. Well…it was amazing. No joke. Imagine Forever 21, but 20 times better. Dresses were like 5 pounds (about $7-8), I got a really cute pair of heels for 6 pounds, and they had like everything you could possibly imagine. Needless to say we spent quite a while there, trying on like everything in the store. You can’t resist a good deal! Who cares if you have to cram it in a suitcase later…?

After shopping we headed back to the college for dinner in the hall and reading/homework time. Then we finally began our very last Eurotrash Monday….

Of course we had to make it epic, and we did J We hung out at the pub for a while, then headed to the Bridge for our last Monday night dance party. Lots of people were out, so we had a great time just hanging out with people from our group and lots of GA Tech people and random people we met. It was a lot of fun, of course. Clubbing in England is so much fun – like, I don’t go out to bars and stuff at home, but here it’s so much more fun. I mean, I guess it helps that I can actually buy drinks…but more than that – it’s just a different atmosphere. And it’s such an international crowd; it’s really cool to just start talking to people and they could be from anywhere.

After we were exhausted from dancing, Sarah and I jaunted over to Hot and Tasty shack for some late night food – delicious, of course. What in the world will I do without Hot and Tasty? And we had a nice political conversation with the guy working there. Always nice when it’s 2 in the morning and you’re barefoot … haha.

Finally headed home and hung out with the girls for a little while, then headed to bed. Starting the week off right.

Word of the Day: Anticlimatic -- July 26, 2009

2009-07-29T09:02:00.000-07:00

So, this morning we woke up nice and refreshed from our evening in, and headed off to the train station early. Our first destination of the day: Stonehenge.

After a 2 hour train ride, we finally arrived in Salisbury, where we were lucky to catch a Stonehenge tour leaving right as we arrived. The tour is done on a bus, and the driver tells you things about the town and surrounding area as we drive, so that was nice. It's always cool to learn about new places. As we drove throught the middle of a bunch of lovely fields, Stonehenge just kind of appears out of no where...I mean, it is a bunch of rocks in the middle of no where. It's pretty anticlimatic...you're driving and driving and all excited...and then...there you are.

So, we arrive and get our headsets and off we go into pagan ritual land. The headsets took too long and were boring, so we spent our time taking lots of pictures and discussing pagans, of course. It was really windy and rainy. And we were hungry. But....it was pretty cool to be there. I mean, it is Stonehenge.

After a bit of exploring, we grabbed some food and chilled out for a little while, then took the bus back to town. We got lucky and didn't have a long wait for a train to Bath, and the ride was only an hour.

Once we arrived in Bath, we set off for the Roman Baths and Pump Room. I was really really excited about this because I love love love Roman history and architecture -- like the Forum in Rome is one of my favorite places in the world. So, we do the tour of the Baths...and well...I think I would have liked them more if they hadn't been sooooo crowded. I mean, it was really cool, but also a little anticlimatic. It had been updated and renovated A LOT...like there wasn't a lot of original structure left. But I still liked it and am glad I saw it. The water in the bath is really warm...and you're not supposed to touch it...but myhand hasn't rotted off....

Afterwards, we did a little shopping in Bath, and Candice managed to get us on the complete opposite side of the city from the train station. At which point we had to hike back across the city. It was raining and we were tired and hungry...needless to say this was not the high point of the day.

We eventually made it back to the train station and on a train for Oxford, and I worked on a paper for a while. Once we were back in Oxford, I got cleaned up then headed to Exeter for a candlelight concert.

This ended up being one of my favorite experiences on the trip so far. The concert was held in the college chapel, which is beautiful, and there were 3 people - a singer/reader, someone playing the lute, and someone playing the harpsichord. They played Elizabethean music, read Shakespeare's sonnets, and talked about the love life of Queen Elizabeth. It was absolutely beautiful.

After the concert, I came back to the college, fully intending to write my stupid Heart of Darkness paper due the next day. Since it worked so well last time, we took our books and met up in the pub to work...but this time it didn't work as well. This time we ended up sharing a pitcher and talking to friends. So Sarah and I had magical paper writing time until like 2 in the morning....which wouldn't have taken that long if we could have stopped laughing and started focusing. Oh well, we got our work done eventually, and it was a really fun/funny night.

I can't believe I'm in my last week at Oxford. Got to make this one epic.

London Calling - July 25th, 2009

2009-07-25T15:38:00.000-07:00

Full Saturday of free weekend today.

Woke up early and headed to breakfast, then drug Candice out of bed and we got ready and made it to the train station for the 10:45 train to London. It took about an hour to get to London, then we purchased our tube passes and set off.

So, I've gotten really good at navigating the tube. Unfortunately, on the weekends they are doing a lot of repair work and things, so I didn't know what would be closed. We spent some time walking about uselessly at stations that ended up having the lines we needed closed, but it all worked out in the end.

Our first destination was Westminster Abbey. I finally got to go inside!! My third time to see it, and I finally get to go in. It was so crowded, and expensive -- 12 pounds to go in a church! But definitely worth it. Most of the past monarchs are buried there, as well as a lot of poets and famous people. The building was huge. It was cool because an audio tour was included with your ticket, so you could go around and listen to information about each thing -- I like that a lot...it just makes it so much more worthwhile and meaningful. Once we got to the poet corner I kind of felt like we were flipping through my EN 216 book...which was cool. I mean, reading works by them is one thing, but standing over their grave is another. Adds another dimension of meaning to it, I think. I also got to see Newton's and Darwin's graves as well - awesome. I wish I could go in sometime when tourists weren't allowed in...I think it would be really amazing. Another reason to one day become important in the academic community...

After Westminster, we wandered about a bit, and found a Subway for lunch. Don't judge, you know how we love Subway. And you get a lot of food for cheap. While we were eating, we spotted an Oxfam Bookshop, so of course we had to stop in there. Then we found this awesome store where all the clothes -- like cute dresses and everything -- were just 5 pounds each. So of course we spent some time in there and in a few other stores along the way...

Eventually we made it to the tube station and headed over to the area where all the museums are -- and headed to the Natural History Museum. It was awesome. They had tons of dinosaur skeletons that were really neat. And a blue whale skeleton. That terrified me. I don't even know what I would do if I ever saw a blue whale. Other than die from fear.

After our museum excursion, we caught the tube to Leicester Square, and looked around for some cheap play tickets. We thought they would be really cheap because they were trying to fill that night's seats...but they were still like 40 pounds each, so we decided we're going to look around online and maybe go in one night this week and see a show. Instead of a play, we walked around in Chinatown for a little while and ate dinner.

After dinner, we caught the tube for...King's Cross Station. Yes, the station in Harry Potter where Platform 9 and 3/4 is located. We had a bit of a stressful journey, then all this walking...and....it was kind of a letdown. There was no platform. Haha.

We finally boarded the tube for the final time, headed to Paddington, and caught our train back to Oxford. Quick naps aboard, then arrived in Oxford around 9:30 or 10....tonight was resting and accomplishing things night. Tomorrow we head out to Stonehenge and Bath!

We really got a lot done for how little time we spent in London - we got the stuff we really wanted to do. It's no fun if you're so scheduled and trying to cram stuff in anyway.

I can't believe I'm starting my last week at Oxford. There's so much I still want to do!!

I Think I'll Go to Wales Today - July 24, 2009

2009-07-25T15:27:00.000-07:00

When I woke up this morning, I had the plan that a bunch of us were going to head into London after class, spend the day, grab a hotel room for the night, then spend tomorrow as well. Well...this plan just wasn't coming together very well. And I really like having a plan. Not having one bothers me. And really, there wasn't that much stuff I had left to do in London....sooo....

Candice and I went to Wales instead.

After English class (we didn't have 210 today), we grabbed some Hot and Tasty Shack (obviously a clear winner just because of the name -- but cheap delicious food just around the corner) and headed to the train station. Since we have our BritRail passes with the program, might as well use them. The train up to Wales took about 2 hours, and was through beautiful countryside. I wish my pictures had turned out.

Once we got to Cardiff, the capitol city of Wales, we headed for the main street, which turned out to be this awesome shopping area. So...we couldn't resist. We did a little shopping. I got some really cute cheap dresses though! So great!!

We headed over to the Cardiff Castle, which turned out to be really cool. It was very pretty, and manageable...not too big and stressful to see. At one point we ended up in this probably not open to the public room that had the original castle walls on one side and these awesome, really detailed wooden carvings all on the other side. That was really neat.

After the castle we attempted to go to the art museum, but unfortunately it was closing just as we walked in. Instead, we headed down to the bay area to grab some dinner. This area was absolutely gorgeous, and so quaint and nice. There were little restaurants and such all by the water -- well, we passed this "American diner" -- like 50's music and milkshakes and everything...and, well, Candice has this little obsession with nacho cheese....so we just had to eat there because they had cheese fries. It was pretty funny to witness her excitement. But I had a nice cheeseburger...with French's Mustard!! I know that's not exciting to you, but the English mustard is not good. I didn't even realize how much I missed my mustard until I had some!

After dinner we meandered back to the train station and headed back to Oxford since everything was closing up. We grabbed quick showers then got dressed, then met up with a bunch of the GA Tech people who stayed in town this weekend. We were just going to have a chill night, but ended up going out to Kukui for the night...which was really fun. I met some people from all over the place - I love that about here. Like, there's people from anywhere and everywhere. Even Albania.

In the end, I'm really really glad we headed up to Wales for the day instead of London. The weather turned out to be beautiful, the city was really pretty and a lot of fun, and it was just cool so now I can say I've been. I've now been to every part of the UK except Northern Ireland. Oh well, I'll pick it up next time!!

We Just Wrote a Paper..in a Bar - July 23, 2009

2009-07-25T14:31:00.000-07:00

Another eventful day in Oxford, as usual.

Got up this morning and headed to class as usual...boring, boring, boring. Finally finished discussing things in Arts of Oxford though...next week we go on little excursions every day as a class so that's fun.

After class, I had a magical day full of napping, homework, and generally walrusing. I didn't even leave the grounds -- sandwich for lunch, nap, then homework homework paper paper hanging out with Sarah nap homework homework. So much fun, I know. But I had so much to get done!! Boo.

Finally, I took a shower and became human again since we had another formal hall tonight. Tonight's speaker was a fellow at Kellogg College who spoke on the architectural history of Oxford. It was pretty cool, since I go by most of the places he mentioned like every day. It's so weird to think that's the kind of lecture he gives to people who have never seen Oxford...but I see it every day. At least for now.

For formal hall dinner we had...lamb! It was delicious. I ate roughly a whole lamb, haha. No really, it was awesome. They made us sing the fight song again. I have a video this time.

After dinner, Candice, Sarah, and I had the great fun task of writing a paper for English - about contrasting the essence of the war as depicted by war poets to the essence of academic Oxford. I know how exciting that sounds, so try to remain calm. Well, we really didn't want to sit around in our rooms all alone...and we decided if J.K. Rowling can get inspired in a pub, then so can we. So we gathered our papers and poems and headed down to the college pub, grabbed a table, and got to work. Now, I know this sounds really silly, and like we looked stupid and didn't get anything done...but actually it worked wonderfully. We were able to bounce ideas off each other, take breaks and socialize, and get it done without being hermits. Winning idea. So yes, we wrote a paper in a bar.

After paper writing we were pretty exhausted and needed to rest up for free weekend, so off to bed!

The Tales of SlugFoot - July 22, 2009

2009-07-24T01:30:00.000-07:00

Oh, what a day.

Woke up early this morning to finish up a few things for class, then magical class time. For UH 210 we headed to Holywell Cemetery which is a cemetery/nature reserve and was really cool. Check facebook for pictures. Afterwards we headed back to The Mission for lunch. We just couldn't resist. It was too delicious. I can't wait to get home and have some Los Calientes. Like, I miss it so.

Let's see, after lunch we split up, and I headed off to the Botanic Garden (probably my favorite place in Oxford) to read Heart of Darkness all afternoon. It was such a beautiful day, and I sat on Will and Lyra's bench (from the Dark Materials Trilogy) surrounded by flowers and such. So beautiful. If I was going to be forced to read such a god awful book at least I got to read it in such a beautiful and peaceful place.

I eventually got a little chilly in the gardens, and was sick of reading for hours, so I headed back to Worcester. The weather was so pretty still though, so I walked around the grounds for a while and read out by the lake. If you look at my facebook pictures, all the pictures of ducks and the lake with the big trees hanging out over it...yeah, that's Worcester college grounds. I know, it's so beautiful. Amazing really.

I got close to finishing, then headed to Evensong at Christ Church for UH 210. It wasn't my favorite Evensong service - I prefered Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin...but it was nice nonetheless. After Evensong we ate at...Noodle Nation. I know, I know, once we pick a place we like though it's hard to change it up again. Oh Noodle Nation.

We finally headed back for showers and finishing up homework...then time to go out! Yay!!

First we started out at the college pub as usual, then everyone gathered to go out. We started out at Lava, but it was kind of boring, so headed to the karaoke bar we went to last weekend, then back to Lava later in the night. Tons and tons of fun. Except for one thing...the title of the post. Well, I wore heels out, not knowing we were going to be prancing all over town...so by the end of the night I was in a bit of pain. I made it back to the college with my shoes on, but as soon as we got in the main door I took them off, I just couldn't stand it anymore and the cold ground felt much better. Until I was about 8 feet from my door. And stepped on a slug. Gross. So, now I have a fun new nickname....hahaha.

Minus the slug though, it was a really awesome night, and an awesome day all together. Time goes by so quickly here!

Noodle Nation - July 21, 2009

2009-07-23T08:55:00.000-07:00

Just another usual day in Oxford. Ha, yeah right. Like there's a usual day at all.

Got up early this morning, and unfortunately there were a few issues with tracking down my key...so that was fun, but I made it. Class as usual, then exciting afternoon adventures.

Sarah, Bobby, and I headed to this place everyone has been raving about...NOODLE NATION...for lunch. Oh my goodness. Discovering The Mission and this in one week is just too much. It's chinese food, but not really like we have at home...but close. Oh, so delicious. You don't even know.

Afterwards, we headed to the Oxford Union to view the Pre-Raphaelite King Arthur paintings in the library. Basically, these guys went in and painted these fantastic huge murals all over these walls, but didn't prepare the walls correctly first, so they faded. It's actually really difficult to see them because they are so faded now, but it's kind of cool because you have to try harder. Like, you have to walk all around to see where the light gives you the best view. And the paintings are gorgeous, of course, so it's definitely worth the work.

After that, Sarah and I walked around a little bit and found the Oxfam Bookstore...Oxfam runs all these thrift stores all over England. So of course we ended up spending a while in there. You know how I feel about books. Mmm....

When we finally drug ourselves away from the books, we walked about in Oxford looking at some of the different colleges, trying to pick a spot to write our English papers. We had to pick a place where collegiate architecture and nature interact and write a response to it. We both chose places within Exeter College -- if you look at my facebook pictures, there's a picture of a big domed building and it looks like it's rising out of the garden, right along with the plants and flowers. That's what I wrote about. We ended up sitting around and talking for a while, before finally heading back to the college to start our epic amounts of homework we constantly have.

Since GA tech had formal hall tonight, we got to have bagged lunches for dinner. It wasn't too bad, but I miss healthy food so much. I feel like all I eat are sandwiches and chips. I mean, I eat fruit whenever I can, but it's tough, ya know?

After dinner and homeworking, we decided to head down to the pub for a little while and hang out. Everyone was busy and tired, so we decided to just hang out there instead of going out out...I played some darts and billiards and overall it was a fun night. I really like hanging out with a lot of the GA Tech people, and the Oxfordians who are around are always really fun to hang out with as well.

Called it an early night...around midnight or so, haha. Hey, you can sleep when you're dead.

I am already thinking about how sad I'm going to be when I have to leave here. It's so beautiful and amazing...there's just something about Oxford that can't be captured in words. But now, whenever I read where others have attempted to do it, I understand that spirit or feeling that just can't be described...only experienced.

Homework? Who needs it? - July 20, 2009

2009-07-21T12:38:00.000-07:00

This whole schoolwork thing is just tragic. Haha. No really, I guess I just forgot how much reading is involved in Lit classes. Do not laugh...it's also all crammed in really quickly. So I feel like I spend so much time reading and doing schoolwork. Which, I really do, I just don't write about that part because it's not very interesting. Haha. Okay, so on to my life...

This morning I slept in a little bit, then got up to finish up the final draft of my paper and finish up the reading for class. First we had English, which was fine, but for Arts of Oxford we did something kind of cool -- instead of actually having class, we went out into the college grounds and just found a place to sit. We sat totally still and quiet for about 45 minutes, then wrote a little about our reflections. It was really nice -- I forget how nice it is to just stop and sit. I'm the most programmed person there is. Oh..and my reflections...well, I'm basically a type-A hippie, and I came to all sorts of life conclusions based on staring at a fly. Haha.

Afterwards, we ventured out for lunch...okay, I found this Mexican place that I have been dying to try for like a week and a half, but it just never worked out. Well, I finally went. And it was amazing. I mean, definitely no Los Calientes, but almost exactly like Qdoba. Mmmm...I think one of my friends almost cried he was so happy to have a burrito. It was amazing. After lunch we split up to run some errands and whatnot, and I got my eyebrows waxed because they were driving me insane...and it was amazing, then headed back to the college.

For the afternoon, Sarah and I had a great adventure - the laundry adventure. At the school there are 2 washing machines and 2 dryers, and they are not very big or very good and you still have to pay to use them. And practically everyone in the program needed to do laundry. So we had the great idea to find a laundromat .. here it's a laundrette.. to get away from the crowds. Well, the closest one was quite far away, so we took the bus for the very first time -- Oxford is a very walkable city. Except not like 6 miles with huge bags of laundry. We managed to successfully navigate the bus, locate the laundrette, and get all of our laundry clean. It ended up being a bit more expensive than at the college, but it was totally worth it to get it all done and not have to worry -- and we got to see a totally new part of town that we probably wouldn't have seen otherwise -- so it was really cool.

After laundry, we headed back to the college for a rush of homework, dinner, showering, group meeting, more homework, getting ready, and finally going out. Since it was Monday, it was European night...which basically meant we wore heels for once, haha...but this time the GA Tech guys decided to do it too...which meant button down shirts almost completely unbuttoned, tight pants, and gelled up hair. Needless to say, it was awesome. We all hung out in the college pub for a while, then headed out to The Bridge, our favorite Monday night place, for a fun night of dancing and hanging out.

Monday nights are so much fun, it definitely makes starting the week a little easier.

I can't believe I'm in the last half of my stay here! I'm already sad about leaving!

Climbing the Crag – July 19th, 2009

2009-07-19T16:56:00.000-07:00

So, this morning we left the hotel at 6:30…to climb King Arthur’s Seat…this EPIC mountain in Edinburgh. It’s on the outskirts of the city, and it is absolutely huge. Pictures will be on facebook soon, but google it so you get the full idea. Luckily it was a pretty day, so it wasn’t too slippery. There are “stairs” to climb on, but it’s more like a rock path. The trick is to not look up to see how far there is to go, and not to look down to see how far you've come. Just look at the path and where your feet are going and eventually you'll get there. I was actually the first girl in our group to the top! And there was only one boy. So that was cool. At the top though I literally almost got blown off of the mountain. Like, we were so high up that the wind was ridiculous and it caught my jacket and I had to cling on to not get blown down.

I know you're reading this and thinking how unsafe and scary...and it was. But it was totally worth it. I mean, I climbed King Arthur's Seat. Rite of passage.

So, post climb, Brooke and I grabbed breakfast, then headed back to the hotel to shower and pack up. After we were ready we went out for a little bit of last minute Scotland shopping, then grabbed sandwiches for the train and headed to the train station with the group.

Not going to lie, the train ride sucked. I guess we were just anxious to get back because we had so much to do, but it seemed to take forever. I did get my reading for class tomorrow done, and type some blog entries up...but mostly we just talked about how awkward we used to be, and at one point we saw a rainbow. And we all cheered when we finally pulled into Oxford Station.

After getting back and dropping our stuff off, Sarah, Candice, Ashley and I had the fun time of venturing out to South Parks, a park on the south side of Oxford where you climb a hill and have a view of the city. We had to go in order to write our paper that is due tomorrow. Well, that was not fun. We got a bit lost. And it was cold and wet. But we eventually made it, and that's all that matters.

On the way home we stopped and had dinner at a pub. Finally, a hamburger. So good. I miss cheap food though. And Mexican food. So so so much.

We finally made it back and worked on our papers for a while, but then of course we had to take a study break down at the pub. I mean, it's just what we do. We hung out for a little while and saw our favorite bartender, Colin. Good times.

Now I'm here, posting away on my blog when I should really be working on my paper due in 8 and a half hours. Haha, good.

I really love it here :)

Coos in the Highlands – July 18th, 2009

2009-07-19T16:55:00.002-07:00

This morning we had to arise at the crack of dawn again…this time we boarded a bus for a 12 hour bus tour of the Scottish Highlands. I know the fun level of this sounds questionable…but it ended up being one of my favorite things on the trip so far.

We started out just driving, and quickly ended up in the highlands among the lochs. It was seriously the most beautiful countryside I have ever seen in my entire life. Absolutely breathtaking. Huge huge rolling mountains covered in green, with smooth lakes underneath. Really unbelievable.

We made a few stops along the way…the first being to see the “Highland Coo”…the Scottish pronunciation of cow. It’s name was Hammish and it was covered in fur. Haha. Beautiful. Later we stopped for lunch and had some delicious pub food and bought dessert for later on the bus.

We eventually made our way to Loch Ness to search for the Nessie. Yay! We walked around for a bit, then had a boat cruise on the Loch. It was a bit slow, but the scenery was awesome.

Also while driving, I was able to finally finish The Amber Spyglass…it was AWESOME. COMPLETELY AMAZING!!!! Oh my gosh. I’m obsessed. So so so so so good. And it was cool to be where I was while I was reading that. Really awesome experience.

Once we made it back to Edinburgh, some people in the group and I headed off to the restaurant where J.K. Rowling wrote HARRY POTTER!!! It was called The Elephant Café, and it was really really cute. You could see the Edinburgh Castle from the window…so magical. And the food was delicious too, I had crusty bread with a trio of dips. Yum.

Afterwards we headed off to a ghostie tour! It was sooo cool. Our tour guide was unbelievably attractive…mmm…and we got to see all kinds of cool stuff, like where they used to staple peoples’ ears to the door for doing bad things. We also saw a torture museum, which was extremely disgusting. We learned the true meaning of “getting shit-faced”…apparently they used to throw the waste buckets out each night at 10pm, and people would be coming home from the pubs after a few too many drinks and…well, you can guess the rest. The final part was going down into the vaults underneath the city that were originally merchant storehouses but then became slums later on. There was this big deal about this enchanted circle where people would get attacked by spirits…I stepped in the circle. I’m a bit of a skeptic, so I decided to test it. I didn’t get attacked. I’m still alive. Overall, it was a cool tour though because we got to learn a lot about the city and some history. It wasn’t all that scary, but ya know.

We didn’t get back to the hotel until like 12:30, and I immediately showered then went to sleep after a very awesome awesome but exhausting day.

Great Scot! – July 17th, 2009

2009-07-19T16:55:00.001-07:00

This morning I arose at the ungodly hour of 5:45 am to get ready and pack up for Edinburgh. Good times. We set off for the train station at 7:30, for our 8:30 train. It was a good thing we left early though, because it was the start of school holidays and a very busy travel day so we were lucky to have seats on the train.

The train ride was about 6 hours long. Epic, I know. We had one change in Birmingham. It wasn’t bad though, I was able to catch up on some sleep and do some reading for class. And I did a fair amount of reading of The Amber Spyglass….I’m obsessed.

Upon arriving in Edinburgh, we set off for the hotel to drop our things off and headed out for a couple of hours. We first headed up the Royal Mile to Edinburgh Castle and toured around for a little while. We saw the Scottish crown jewels…pretty, but not nearly as impressive as sparkly as the ones in the Tower of London. Afterwards we did some tourist-y shopping on the Royal Mile where I bought a wonderful Celtic ring and necklace that I love. The symbol on my necklace represents the unity between mind, soul, and body – very cool.

After shopping, we headed to a pub for a bit for dinner…I finally had fish and chips! Mmmm….fried fish soaked in malt vinegar…delicious. Then we headed back to the hotel to rest for a little while.

We were considering going out, but we have a very early tour in the morning and it was raining and cold. So instead we headed down to the hotel restaurant and shared some desserts…and when we were down there Candice and I spotted a lot of cute guys in the hotel bar….so of course we went back up and changed and headed back to the bar….and of course all the cute boys were gone by the time we got down there. Haha. So we just had a G and T and chatted before heading up to bed.

Friends, Romans, Countrymen – July 16th, 2009

2009-07-19T16:54:00.001-07:00

This morning we did not have class, instead the whole group boarded a bus for Stratford Upon Avon – the home of one of the greatest writers history has ever seen and will ever see. So cool. Upon arriving, we had a short meeting with someone in the Shakespeare Institute to learn about the kind of research they do there, then were on our own for lunch. Subway. Mmm….so good. We walked around the city for a little while, then made our way to the theatre.

The whole group went to see Julius Caesar…and it was AMAZING. I was afraid I wouldn’t like it, since it’s one of my favorite plays to read but I was afraid I would think it was boring on stage, but definitely not. I adored it. It was a wonderful show.

After the show, we had more free time, so I ran over to Shakespeare’s birth place and managed to get in right before it closed. It was a pretty cool experience. Knowing I shared space with Shakespeare. Pretty cool indeed.

When I left I met back up with the girls, and of course everything was closing, since everything closes at 5 or 6 pm here…like everything. Except restaurants, of course. There was nothing to do, and our bus didn’t leave until 8. So we found this cute little Italian restaurant and actually ordered a nice meal for once, then just sat around talking and eating. It was expensive as all get out, but it was nice to have a nice meal instead of..Subway. Haha.

After dinner we grabbed some dessert at Sainsbury’s (our favorite grocery store) then meandered back to the bus for the ride home. We didn’t arrive back in Oxford until around 9:30, and we have to be up and leaving for Edinburgh at 7:30 in the morning, so we decided to stay in for the night. Eventually the aloneness in our room got to us so we headed down to the college pub for a little while – I can’t believe Candice beat me in darts…I was down to 3 and she was still at like 190, but then she came back and won because you have to hit your score exactly there at the end. She so got lucky, haha.

We didn’t stay out too late though, had to head home and be responsible and get ready to go to Scotland tomorrow!

HARRY POTTERRRRRR – July 15th, 2009

2009-07-19T16:53:00.002-07:00

So, there were no midnight showings of Harry Potter in England. It made me want to kill myself. And thanks to the time difference, when I got up this morning people in the states were just getting home from their midnight showings and were posting statuses about the movie…it was killing me. I wanted to cry. Luckily, we had quite a busy day so I couldn’t just sit around on facebook and read about the movie…

First we had English, then instead of Arts of Oxford…today was The Alice Walk. Now, the Alice Walk is sort of an Alabama in Oxford legend. It’s like an 8 mile walk, and we go outside of Oxford into the countryside and walk along the Thames where Charles Dodson (Lewis Carroll) took the Liddell sisters in a row boat on July 4, 1862, and wove the tales of Alice in Wonderland. It was extremely cool to say the least. Oxford is the kind of city where you feel like you’re in the middle of the city, then walk 2 blocks and you’re in the middle of the country. It’s amazing. We trekked out…stopped at a small, old church with the “Treacle Well” in the back. It’s the well formed when St. Frideswide, patron saint of Oxford, performed her miracles, and then became known as having restorative healing powers. It didn’t actually look like a well, more like a little room in the ground with a hole in it…I happened to have an almost empty Diet Coke so we now officially have healing water from the well…though I definitely did not dip my hand down into sketchy land. Someone braver than me had to get it.

After the well, we stopped at a pub called The Perch, then continued walking, then a pub called The Trout. As we sat at the Trout, Dr. Halli pointed out a statue of a lion in a garden across the river…the statue of a lion that C.S. Lewis saw while sitting at the Trout and came up with the idea for The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Oh my god.

To finish the walk, we walked through Port Meadow, this huge huge huge public grazing ground that is literally right outside Oxford. People just let their cows and horses and sheep out there to graze…it was pretty cool. Very beautiful. And we actually had beautiful weather for the whole walk.

We finally headed back to town and were in the process of planning our evening…which unfortunately was not going to include Harry Potter since we did not have pre-ordered tickets. While walking through Jericho (a part of Oxford) though, we passed this little movie theatre that happened to be showing Harry Potter at 5:15. It was 5:05. We walked right up and got tickets. I almost passed out with excitement, no joke. I was the happiest person in the world.

The movie was amazing. Awesome acting, and tons of awkward. Obviously they left out a lot, which I hate, but I think it may be my favorite movie.

Oh, Harry Potter was just beautiful. After leaving the theatre we grabbed dinner at the grocery store since we missed dinner at the college for the movie…then headed back to the dorms to eat and get ready, and of course discuss my love, Harry.

We finally managed to get ourselves together though, and headed down to the college pub to hang out with everyone. Tonight they had a special at this one club where they let all the Alabama and GA tech people do free karaoke. We basically had the basement of the club to ourselves…it was quite fun. Yes, I did do karaoke. With a group. No one who heard is deaf now, so it turned out all right.

Awesome awesome awesome day!!

What? KFC doesn’t have Macaroni?? – July 14th, 2009

2009-07-19T16:53:00.001-07:00

So, exhausted would definitely be the descriptive adjective for this morning. We stayed out pretty late last night. I definitely did not want to get up and go to class, but I did anyway…because I’m responsible and that’s what responsible kids do. Haha.

After class I headed back to my room to shower, then met up with Sarah and Candice as we struck out in search of food. We were craving something American…yes, hot, fried, and with roughly 9000 calories…so KFC it was. Candice did not approve of the fact they don’t have macaroni…but I still thought it was pretty good.

Afterwards we ran a couple of errands, then headed back to the dorm to do homework as usual. Good times.

After dinner, the three of us headed out to see the Oxford Shakespeare Company’s production of Romeo and Juliet in the Wadham college gardens. It was probably the most Oxford experience ever. The gardens were beautiful, surrounded with flowers, and the weather was awesome…at first. About halfway into the second act or so, it started pouring rain. I don’t even want to talk about how cold we were. Hypothermia. But we did get to see a BEAUTIFUL rainbow when it finally cleared up a little bit. Overall the show was pretty good…it had a weird, like, 50s theme, but it ended up being really good. I’m glad we went.

When we finally made it home after epic cold night, we changed and headed down to the pub for a little while, with every intention of just making an appearance then going back and going to bed. But then of course we started having fun and everyone was going out so we didn’t want to be left out. We went to a club called Kakui…every night clubs have specials for all the American students over studying so we can get in free and stuff like that. The club ended up being really cool. Blowfish instead of disco balls J I ended up leaving pretty early anyway, and heading home to catch up on some homework and go to bed.

Going Out European Style – July 13th, 2009

2009-07-19T16:52:00.002-07:00

Even though I rested yesterday, it was still tough to get up and go to class this morning. For Arts of Oxford we toured Magdalen College grounds, which were beautiful. There’s a walk – the Addison walk – which goes through the grounds…like 2 miles long, which we did. It was absolutely beautiful; the same place where C.S. Lewis and Tolkein stayed up walking at entire night discussing religion and its place in the world…kind of a cool feeling. Needless to say our conversation wasn’t as sparkling as I’m sure theirs was, but it was still a lot of fun.

Afterwards we were going to head up to Southparks to get a view of the city, but stopped for a late lunch then realized we really had no time to go this afternoon, thanks to that magical fun thing we like to call homework. So instead, after lunch, we headed back to the dorms to do reading for class.

This week I have 5:30 dinner…so early. After dinner I got ready for our evening expedition..then we had a meeting at 7:30 and finally it was time for the night.

So, basically…European girls really like to skank it up when they go out to clubs and whatnot. Like…sequined booty shorts and sparkle bras or something. Like, it’s epic. So we decided we would start a Monday night ritual of dressing a little more European. Haha. Don’t worry though…we avoided the sparkle booty shorts. We all bought cute dresses in Canterbury, and actually wore heels out for the night. So basically, we were just putting more effort into it. But still, it was really fun. We hung out and got ready, then hung out in the college pub for a little while and met up with GA Tech people. Afterwards we headed out to The Bridge to go dancing for a while…clubs are so much more fun here…people actually dance and have fun, instead of like bars in the states where people just creep on you and get wasted.

Awesome night.

Stopping to Smell the Roses – July 12th, 2009

2009-07-19T16:52:00.001-07:00

Sunday in Oxford…finally a chance to slow down a little bit. This morning I slept in for a while, then got up and got ready for the day. I headed off to the Oxford Botanic Garden first; the garden was founded for medical research centuries ago, and now is probably the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life. There were just tons and tons of different kinds of flowers and plants, and the weather happened to actually be gorgeous for once. It was so surreal though, because I walked in one greenhouse and it felt just like being in the middle of the Amazon rainforest…but I could still hear the Magdalen college church bells ringing just outside. Very cool. I also took about 300 pictures of different flowers and things I thought were pretty – definitely filled up the camera card.

When I finally drug myself out of the garden, I headed to the Christ Church picture gallery with Sarah to work on a class assignment. We were supposed to go to the museum then select a work and write a response to it…kind of “Ode to a Grecian Urn” style. Pretty fun assignment overall.

Afterwards, I did a bit of shopping, then headed back to the dorms to do more homework and chill out a little bit. For nighttime entertainment we headed down to the college bar to hang out with GA Tech people and play darts.

Overall it wasn’t the most exciting day in the world, but it was a much needed rest.

The White Cliffs of Dover - July 11, 2009

2009-07-11T15:44:00.000-07:00

This morning, after breakfast at our hotel, we struck out for the cathedral. Oh my gosh. I'm pretty sure it's the biggest cathedral I have ever seen. I kind of wish I had bought some postcards or something because I'm sure my pictures (which are on facebook) do not do it justice. Oh well, google it.

Anyway, we had a guided tour of the Canterbury Cathedral....oh, fantastic. The choir and orchestra were either putting on an informal show or just practicing, but the music was resonating throughout the building during our tour...it was really powerful and beautiful.

Seeing where Beckett was actually murdered was intense as well. Trying to imagine what life was like almost 900 years ago is just impossible. And to be standing in a spot where something so important happened so long ago...it's still a really powerful thing. I can't describe it.

Overall, the cathedral was amazing. I'm almost positive it's bigger than Notre Dame, which would definitely make it the biggest cathedral I have ever been too. I can't imagine a bigger one....like Candice and I talked about earlier - no matter what religion you are or are not, you have to respect it all the same.

After our tour we did a bit of shopping...it was crowded since it was Saturday afternoon, but I was able to find a cute dress on sale and get some leggings since I didn't think I would need them but definitely do. We grabbed some Italian for lunch and snacks for later, then hopped on the bus with the rest of the group.

We headed out to Dover for the afternoon, which was amazing. It's on the English Channel, 22 miles from France. The beaches and cliffs were so beautiful, and the castle/fort was pretty awesome too. The coolest thing was this tunnel system that was built in World War II...there's this entire system of tunnels dug into the cliff that were secret back during the world. There's underground barracks and a hospital and everything -- really huge. We got to tour through there, and even snap a few pictures thanks to a sympathetic tour guide (check them out in the Canterbury album). Like, all of the WWII stuff was still in there, as if they were just used yesterday. It was very very very cool.

We spent the rest of the afternoon just scampering about the battlements and taking pictures with various military weapons...I know, we're cool. Haha.

The bus ride back was nice and relaxing, with a stop for sandwiches for dinner. We arrived back in a very cold and rainy Oxford around 9:30, so we decided to use our night to catch up on homework and sleep so we can have an awesome week coming up!

So...biggest sadness of the day though...apparently there are no midnight showings of the new Harry Potter movie in England. I want to cry. People in the states will get to see it before me. And even worse, we have this epic walk for class on Wednesday, so we won't even get to see it til night time! Sad.

Oh well...I'm still having the time of my life :)

To Canterbury We Go - July 10, 2009

2009-07-11T15:34:00.000-07:00

First day of travel as a group today.

Woke up early this morning and finally checked out the campus gym...one crosstrainer, two rowing machines, and some weights. Haha, not quite as stocked as the rec center but oh well.

After first class, my English class, we loaded up on the bus and headed to Canterbury with our bagged lunches. Mmm...cheese and salad, haha. Everytime you order a sandwich here, salad just means like lettuce and tomato, and usually costs extra. Eating gets tough around here, ha.

Before heading into Canterbury, we stopped off at Leeds Castle, a beautiful castle just outside of Canterbury. It was used for tons of years, up until fairly recently. Henry VIII put Catherine of Aragon there, so that was cool. If you look at my pictures on facebook, all the pictures of peacocks were from there. There were birds everywhere! It was great.

After a couple of hours at Leeds, we headed into Canterbury. Our hotel was pretty much in the city center, so after dropping our stuff off we walked around and grabbed a snack. I was craving Mexican so much...and so we ordered chips and salsa, without thinking. Well, chips, of course, are french fries here. And yes, they brought us french fries and salsa...not exactly what I was craving....oh well.

We walked around for a while, then headed back to the hotel for dinner. Mmm...chicken. Then we had to have "walrus" time which is apparently our new phrase for that time after you eat a big meal and just need to lay down and digest before doing anything. Good phrase.

After a bit of walrus-ing we headed out to a pub in the city center, The Cricketeers. There we met up with several people from the group and just sat around and had a few drinks and hung out. It was fun. Eventually a lot of people showed up and we met some other people - I met a guy who just became a history teacher in Canterbury and who speaks Spanish, so that was really cool.

We had planned to go out to a club, but by midnight or so everyone was exhausted. Instead we stopped off at the ...Turkish?... food place on the corner by our hotel and enjoyed a nice plate of lamb. Yes, lamb. Like gyro lamb. I'm eating all kinds of new things over here. Oh well, it was delicous.

I expected Canterbury to be really tiny, but it's actually a pretty large town. A lot of shopping areas. Oh, and the countryside -- what I was awake for, was beautiful. And the hour and a half talk about Harry Potter on the bus was also awesome, of course :)

I am a little freaked out because I am now completely used to the driving over here - you know, how it's on the opposite side of the road? Like, I can't picture what it's like back in the states anymore. Me driving in 3 weeks should be cool. Haha.

I miss Mexican food and ice water!

Wordsworth on Oxford

2009-07-11T15:30:00.001-07:00

Just thought I would share this - one of the poems we read for class. I really like it.

Ye sacred Nurseries of blooming youth!
In whose collegiate shelter England's Flowers
Expand, enjoying through their vernal hours
The air of liberty, the light of truth;
Much have ye suffered from Time's gnawing tooth:
Yet, O ye spires of Oxford! domes and towers!
Gardens and groves! your presence over-powers
The soberness of reason; till, in sooth,
Transformed, and rushing on a bold exchange,
I slight my own beloved Cam, to range
Where silver Isis leads my stripling feet;
Pace the long avenue, or glide adown
The stream-like windings of that glorious street -
An eager Novice robed in fluttering gown.

Thank you, I really enjoyed the...Guinea Fowl? - July 9, 2009

2009-07-11T15:15:00.000-07:00

Another exciting day in Oxford, of course :)

This morning I was just too tired to get up, so I slept in pretty late, then got up and got ready and headed to class. What fun. Really though, I like my classes, and they are probably less like sit down and do stuff work (but more go out and do stuff work) than they would be in the states. Dr. Halli is cool as all get out (and def. has game - haha.)

After English, we climbed up to the top of St. Mary's tower for my Arts of Oxford class. See facebook for awesome pictures - beautiful views of the city of spires. It was quite the hike, up a very narrow stone staircase...and I was freaking out for my knees the whole time because if one person had fallen on that staircase it would have been super super bad. But it's cool, because we all made it :) and it was definitely worth it!

After the climb, I headed to Cornmarket to grab a Cornish Pasty for lunch, because I was starving. Basically, it was meat, gravy, carrots, onions, and mashed potatoes all mixed together and baked into a pastry. Haha, yum. I headed back to the room to do a bit of homework and take a nap during the afternoon. I had to finish up a paper for English, among other things.

Tonight was our first Formal Hall, which was pretty cool. Everyone got dressed up, and at 6:30 we had a group lecture - a professor from Princeton studying the significance of meter in English history spoke on her research, which sounds crazy, and it was tough to understand at first, but it was really cool. Basically, in the past, English people have written the country's history in poem form to help school children understand it and she is trying to understand how/if there is a correlation between the social climate of the country at the time and the meter the poem is written in. Afterward we headed to the hall for a very formal dinner, which felt both very official and serious, and also a little like we were in a Harry Potter movie.

For dinner we had...course 1) grilled cod served over different types of peas with bacon; course 2) guinea fowl with...something on top...and veg. and potatoes; then fruit tart for dessert. Mmm....I had no idea what guinea fowl was..and still don't. But it tasted like chicken. And it was really good.

After dinner, the staff requested we stand up and sing the Alabama fight song. That was embarrassing. Candice and I joked that we should have started having like a ho down and playing banjo music, just to really live up to those stereotypes. Woo....

Dinner took a while, and we still had homework to finish up, so tonight wasn't a very exciting night. We just worked and hung out in the college bar for a little while.

Still, an amazing day in Oxford.

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse -- July 8, 2009

2009-07-09T16:41:00.000-07:00

Well, since I stayed up all night doing random stuff last night, I was a little tired. Oh well.

I woke up early again and headed out to the park. It was freezing!! So cold. I froze. But it was nice. Made it to breakfast - hashbrowns and bacon and stuff every day - delicious. Good thing I go out for my run, ha.

Class this morning was tough, I really just wanted to go to sleep the entire time. One of the history classes took a trip to Blenheim Palace after class, and I was going to go, but I decided I needed to rest more. I mean, I love palaces and stuff, and I know this sounds pretentious, but once you've seen as many as I have, you really have to know the history behind something to enjoy it - and I knew nothing. But I heard it was beautiful and will probably go sometime next week.

Anyway, instead of the excursion, I re-read part of The Golden Compass for later activities, then took a nice long nap. When I started having crazy golden compass-like dreams I finally woke up and decided to carry on with my afternoon.

My original goal for the afternoon was to go see Exeter College, which is Jordan College in the Golden Compass. Oh my gosh I'm obsessed with these books. Obviously not as much as Harry Potter or anything, but they are really awesome. So I headed out...and of course I got sidetracked and a little lost. Well, it's not really lost when you know the general direction you want to go in. It's more like finding the roundabout way. When it started raining pretty hard, I dashed into the History of Science museum since it was dry and admission was free and ended up spending like an hour and a half in there. Even though I know nothing about science, it was really cool. The old artifacts and instruments were amazing...it's hard to believe how far we have come technologically, and all of the things people could do with so little back then. Also, when Einstein lectured at Oxford they saved one of the chalkboards, so I was able to see a chalkboard Einstein had actually written on. Of course I didn't understand the formulas, but it was still cool.

I finally made it to Exeter and walked around the grounds for a little while, just imagining little Lyra running about. Beautiful. I can't imagine going to school here. Really, all of the colleges are so unbelievable.

I wandered back to campus in time to finish up my homework for the day and eat dinner in the hall.

Afterwards, the group was going on a pub crawl, Candice, Sarah, and I were not really in the mood to walk around in the cold, and the GA tech people invited us to hang out anyway, so we decided to hang out with them. We ended up staying in the college pub for a while, just hanging out and talking to people. We eventually headed over to this club - Club Lava - apparently the GA tech people know a lot of club promoters (they have been here like a month longer than we have and will stay a week after as well, so people want them coming out to their places) so we got in free. It was really fun, just hanging out and dancing and meeting people from all over.

The title is the name of a shot one of the guys bought for one of the other guys since it was his 21st birthday. A shot of Jack, a shot of SoCo, a shot of Jose, and a shot of Captain Morgan (I think) all poured into one glass and taken. I would rather die, thank you.

Overall, really awesome day.

Romantics and Really Good Cake - July 7th, 2009

2009-07-07T17:25:00.000-07:00

It's 1:30 in the morning and I really should be reading or asleep, but I'm blogging instead. Do not judge me for my post titles.

This morning I got up and had another jog/adventure, bright and early. This time I actually knew where the park was, so I got lost in the park instead. Not really lost...the kind of lost where you know you'll be able to get back out, so you let yourself get lost. Turns out the park goes right up to the river...it's so beautiful. It's hard to believe I can do something so normal as go for a morning jog in a place so unbelievable.

After my jog I had breakfast and got ready for class - class was super exciting, of course. Note the sarcasm. They aren't bad though, really. Dr. Halli is amazing. He's just so knowledgable of everything, and so fun to have as a teacher.

For lunch Anna and I grabbed sandwiches at the grocery store around the corner, then ate back in our rooms so we could get a bit of reading done as well. That school thing again.

This afternoon we headed down to Christ Church, which is one of the 30 something colleges here in in Oxford, but they are really kind of snobby and call it only Christ Church, without college at the end. Anyway, it has tons of historical and literary significance, which is great....and IT'S WHERE SCENES OF HARRY POTTER ARE FILMED!!! The great hall and the staircase in the HP movies are the dining hall and staircase at Christ Church. Ahhh...just knowing I was walking where Daniel Radcliffe has walked before was ah-mazing.

More than that though, the cathedral and grounds were beautiful. It's amazing how many significant and amazing buildings and sites can be packed into such a small area.

Afterwards Sarah and I journeyed up to Cowley Road to explore a bit for one of our Arts of Oxford class assignments. Oxford is kind of like Tuscaloosa in the sense that yes, it's a college town, but it's more than that as well. There is an automobile industry, as well as a few other things. Cowley Road is quite a contrast from the "university life" part of town - it's full of ethnic grocery stores, shops, and restaurants. It's so cool. Like a global tour within a few blocks.

When we returned I finally got to do laundry! It was getting desperate. I'm so excited about having clean clothes. Although most of my shirts don't go in the dryer and it rains too much for me to put them on the clothesline, so my bedroom looks like a shirt museum right now...

For dinner we had hamburgers that were pretty delicious...but then we had the most amazing chocolate cake. I was afraid I was going to go into a sugar coma, but it would have been worth it. Obviously it was so good it got a blog mention, haha.

Tonight is not full of wild adventures and fun things - more like Wordsworth and responses for classes. Woohoo. Oh well, grades come first anyway. And the rest is nice.

On one hand, I feel like I've already been here forever - I'm really getting used to the culture and getting familiar with the area....but at the same time, I just keep finding myself pleasantly surprised at how amazing everything is and how happy and lucky I am to be here. Like, really, it's indescribable. I can't imagine what it would feel like to actually go to school here. I would just think I was living in a dream world or something.

I'm a dork. I don't care. Oh my gosh, I forgot...Harry Potter premeires tonight in Leicester Square in London. Like, the red carpet with actors and such, I believe. Oh, if I had been there I probably would have exploded with excitement. Probably a good thing I wasn't there as a) I would much rather be in Oxford, un-exploded and b) I'm not sure how Daniel would feel about exploding girl.

I hope this post makes sense. I should go to bed. I think I shall. Cheers :)

Classes? What? - July 6th, 2009

2009-07-07T17:13:00.000-07:00

First day of classes today - I am definitely not too excited. Why can't we study abroad without the studying? Oh well.

I don't have class until 9:50, so I woke up early this morning and decided to go for a jog/exploration journey. I stopped off to ask the porter (he's kind of like a doorman, I suppose, he works in the front office there is one always there 24 hours and they are really nice and know basically everything) for advice on where to go, and he suggested University Parks. He gave me directions, but of course I forgot everything he said as soon as I got out the door. I got a little lost, but I did manage to find the park. And it was beautiful. I will definitely be venturing back there in the mornings. Very relaxing as well.

We did have our first classes today - I'm taking British literature and Fine Arts of Oxford...they should both be pretty easy, even if a bit time-consuming. I like that we are focusing a lot on things in Oxford, so that when we read about something we can go out and see it. That's the coolest thing.

For lunch I had a baguette with ham and cheese in my room, since we were heading off for an epic walk shortly after lunch. Today was the Iffley walk, so we followed the Thames and the Iffley rivers to the village of Iffley, saw this really old, beautiful church, stopped at the pub, and headed back. Overall the walk was 5 miles, so it took most of the afternoon. It was absolutely beautiful though.

The weather here is ridiculous, btw. It can be sunny and hot and within 3 minutes it will be raining and you have to break out the umbrella. Of course, as soon as you get your umbrella out it stops raining. It's insane. You have to pack a jacket, an umbrella, and sunglasses at all times if you want to be prepared.

After our epic walk, I rested for a bit before dinner. Dinners in the hall are amazing. Everyone is seated and we are served a 3-course meal. Imagine that for campus dining. And the dining hall is beautiful, along with the rest of the college. I'll have to take pictures around campus soon and post them on my facebook.

After dinner we got dressed and did a bit of reading for our classes - I know, having to do actual work. Awful. We spent some time hanging out in the college bar for a little while, then headed out to a club called The Bridge to go dancing. We met some more new people, and it was a lot of fun. Don't worry, Mom and Dad, I'm not going out every night - promise. School comes first :)

I love Oxford.

Walkabout Oxford Style - July 5th, 2009

2009-07-07T17:04:00.000-07:00

Finally, a day of rest, sort of.

Woke up in Oxford for the first time this morning. Had some crazy dreams, but overall slept pretty well. I decided to be extremely lazy this morning, and slept til like 10 something, then sat around on the internet and stuff and finally got ready and showered by like 12 or 12:30. I know, I know, I shouldn't be lazy when I'm in Oxford...but I was exhausted. It was nice to just chill out for a bit.

Around lunch time we headed out to find a pub to watch the Wimbledon final. Anna, Sarah, Candice and I ended up eating roast beef sandwiches at the Red Lion and watching the final, then we just walked around Oxford for a while to kind of a get a feel for the area some more.

Did I mention how beautiful everything is? Because it is amazing. Breathtaking. Hard to believe I'm not just walking around in some fairy tale or something. I love it.

We purchased hair dryers and straighteners as well! Oh my gosh, I'm obsessed with my English straightener...so much better than my one back in the states. I'm going to have to get a converter for this one.

For dinner, we headed back to the Four Candles, since food and drinks are really cheap there, and it's close to the college. While we were hanging out, we met a couple of local guys who were really nice; I actually ended up talking to Sean for a long time. He's lived in Oxford his entire life - we had a whole conversation about whether people who live here really appreciate how magical it is. They don't. But I guess that would be true for pretty much anywhere. Still seems sad though.

So, our college has a bar in it. Like, a college pub that only serves students and faculty. It's really cool because it's cheap and laid back and a good place to meet other students - there's a ton of GA Tech students here with us right now, and some regular Oxford students as well. We spent the rest of the evening just talking to people in the pub and meeting new people. It was a lot of fun.

Crazy story - imagine being in a pub in Oxford and running into someone you went to high school with. It definitely happened to me. He was a senior when I was a freshman, and now he's studying law at Oxford. Talk about surreal.

I know it sounds cheesy, but I am obsessed with Oxford. It really is...magical. To just imagine how long it has been here and like this, and all of the people that have studied in this city. It's almost too much to handle.

In Transit -- July 2-4, 2009

2009-07-05T09:59:00.000-07:00

So I've been a little slow with posts, mostly because we have been in transit over the past couple of days. A quick update...

Thursday morning we woke up early and checked out of our little hostel in Cork and headed to the train station. We caught the train for Dublin - a nice long train ride. Once we arrived in Dublin, we caught a bus to the airport so we could catch our flight back to London. While checking in at the airport, I got slammed with a 178 Euro charge for my luggage which made me really angry -- but apparenlty I should have been charged going over there as well, which I wasn't, so I guess overall I got lucky. But don't fly bmi. They were rude.

After checking in, we had a nice long wait in the Dublin airport -- about 5 hours. Intense, I know. We just hung out and read and ate sandwiches and scraped together the last of our Euros to buy some final snacks. A chicken sandwich, a bag of salt and vinegar chips, and a Cadbury's bar totally counts for a suitable lunch and dinner....We finally boarded and flew back to London, where we gathered our luggage and took the Hotel Hoppa to our hotel - the Sheraton right out by Heathrow. Definitely worth the money -- it was so nice. We had a huge comfortable bed - much better than our rock beds in Cork. And all sorts of television channels. Very nice.

Friday morning we woke up and got ready then spent some time working out how we were going to get from London to Oxford. Finally we took the tube into London and started out at the National Gallery - well, after grabbing lunch at McDonald's. No judging - I'm all about trying different food. But it's soooo much cheaper, esp. in the city. So we had some hamburgers. The National Gallery was amazing. 8 Monets in one room. And Van Gogh Sunflowers. So beautiful. Definitely had to buy a few prints and things -- just couldn't resist.

After walking around a bit (we definitely walked through Leicester Square where they do movie premiers....HARRY POTTER comes out there on TUESDAY. I would do ANYTHING to be there. Oh Daniel...) we took the tube over to London Tower and toured the Tower of London. It was AWESOME. I thought it was just the crown jewels there but there's so much more. There's a lot of different parts open and you can see all sorts of things and they do a really good job of telling you a lot of the history while you tour, which of course I love. Also, you get really good views of London Bridge. Which did not fall down.

But even if the Tower wasn't fantastic enough the crown jewels were worth the $20 something dollar ticket. OH MY GOD. I want to be royal. Please please. I don't care if the crown weighs 5 something pounds....I'll wear it for hours....it's encrusted with over 2000 diamonds! Oh my god. So beautiful. I so badly wanted to buy a tiara from the gift shop. It was hard to say no, haha.

After the tower things were starting to close down and we were getting pretty tired, so we found a grocery store and picked up some cheese and grapes and baguettes then headed back to the hotel where we just hung out and watched tv and rested for a while.

Saturday morning we got up and checked out of the hotel, then headed to Heathrow. At the airport we caught a coach for Oxford...it was cool to drive through the countryside a bit. We arrived at Oxford about 3 hours before the rest of the group, so we were able to unpack, have lunch, and do some grocery shopping before everyone else arrived.

Once everyone got here, we had orientation for the session, then a tour of the grounds. Oh my god. I want to go to school here. It's seriously the most beautiful place I have ever seen in my life. Ever. No wonder all these famous writers come out of Oxford...they only go to school in the most beautiful, inspiring place ever.

We then had dinner in the hall - so cool. Dinner is a sit down affair every night and is served in 3 courses. How cute. After dinner we had a quick walking tour of Oxford so we could kind of figure out where things are. Afterwards Anna and I decided to head out to the Four Candles pub for a bit...add another creeper to that creeper count. This one was British though. Haha. We called it an early night though, since we were still pretty tired from traveling and such.

My dorm room in Oxford is precious. So much nicer than I was imagining. We have a nice big room, and we have private rooms with private bathrooms. Twin beds, and a big desk with lots of shelves and things. The bathrooms are tiny...and the showers are weird because it just sticks out of the wall and there's a curtain...but there's no actual like shower room place....everything gets all wet when you shower. Oh well, they are really nice. I'll have to take some pictures so you have a better idea.

I loved loved loved the traveling, but it felt so good to unpack my suitcase! And I definitely know I'll be back in Ireland one day. I'm too in love to never go back.

Granted the Gift of Eloquence – July 1st, 2009

2009-07-05T01:56:00.001-07:00

I finally kissed the Blarney stone! This morning we got up early and headed down to the bus station to go out to Blarney. We grabbed some French bread for breakfast and ate on the bus – about a 15 minute or so ride out to Blarney.
The castle was amazing! The grounds were so pretty to walk through, and the castle was beautiful. Of course we took tons and tons of pictures. There were a lot of informative signs and stuff, which I really liked – it’s always more fun to know something about what you’re seeing.

After winding through Blarney castle – there’s a hundred steps to the Stone – we finally made it to the Blarney Stone. We were surprised to find a short line. Unfortunately, today was our first day of real Irish weather…it was cool and rainy…so everything in the castle was wet. To kiss the stone, you have to lay down on your back and grab some bars behind your head, then slide backwards. One guy holds on to you and one guy takes your picture. Unfortunately, it was a little wet when I slid backwards, and not only did I kiss the Blarney Stone but I also hit my nose quite hard on it.

After our famous kisses, we made our way out of the castle, bought our pictures of us kissing it which we couldn’t pass up even though it looks like I have something poured all over myself in mine, and strolled through the castle grounds. We definitely got out my ipod and listened to our new favorite Irish song “Galway Girl” – there’s even a video of Anna doing an Irish jig….haha.

By the time we made it out of the grounds it had started to rain pretty hard, so we headed back to Cork on the bus. Sightseeing day in and day out has started to take it’s toll, so we bought lunch at a grocery store and headed back to the hotel to watch Wimbledon, eat lunch, and take nice long naps.

After our naps we headed back into city centre to do some shopping, which was fun. Penneys is an awesome store – I bought a cute dress and a smaller purse for going out. We decided to have another relaxing night since there’s not much to do in Cork and we were running out of money and didn’t want to withdraw more Euros for just a day. We bought bread, cheese, and grapes at the grocery store, and ate back at the hotel and used the internet for a long time. It was quite nice. Then we just relaxed in the room and watched Gossip Girl and the Italian Job on television before calling it a night. Overall it was quite nice.

I definitely think Blarney made up for Cork not being too exciting. It was really great. Besides, we didn’t really realize how exhausted we really were, so Cork was a nice break. Tomorrow we head back to Dublin and fly back to London! Long day of travel ahead.

I’m on a Beach! – June 29th, 2009

2009-06-30T09:55:00.000-07:00

This morning we woke up early and headed out to Malahide Castle for the day. Malahide is on the coast, not far from Dublin. Our first adventure was finding the train station, which thankfully we managed pretty easily. We then had to wait a while for the train, but it was a good chance to rest. Obviously the traveling is starting to get to us, when we rest at like 9:30 in the morning. Oh well.

The train out to Malahide was nice; it was cool to see outside the city. When we arrived, we made our way to the castle first. The town is really small and cute. The castle has huge grounds with gaelic footall fields and cricket fields and playgrounds for kids and all sorts of stuff, and we saw lots of families out enjoying the weather. The castle itself was also pretty cool, but a little disappointing. The tour was weird…we thought we would have an actual guide like in most places, but instead you walked through the rooms with a group and audio played in each room. It was informative, but not as much fun as a guided tour. Also, we didn’t get to see very many rooms. But it was fun, overall. It’s hard to believe that one family lived there for over 800 years.

After our castle tour, we grabbed lunch at a café in the village…you guessed it, pizza. It was delicious though. Then we made our way down to the harbor…it wasn’t very pretty, but there was a very pretty stretch of beach that didn’t look too far away….it was pretty far away. But completely worth it. The beach wasn’t white sand like in Alabama…it was much darker, but the sand was really soft and the water was FREEZING. It was lots of fun though, very pretty and very relaxing. We played on the beach and just sat around and collected shells. It was great. We finally made our epic journey back to the village, and caught the train back to Dublin.

In Dublin, we did some shopping on Grafton street, a very popular street with lots of cool shops. I bought a new Swatch, as is my tradition on all my overseas trips – it’s cute J Also, H&M is my favorite new store in the world. I wish we had one in Alabama. Apparently there is one Atlanta, according to Anna, but the clothes in the US aren’t as nice. Boo.

We headed back to the hotel to lay down for a bit after our exhausting beach day. Then we took our computers over to the mall to use the internet like hobos and figure out when and where we had to get on our train to Cork. We then spent some time repacking our suitcases, as we have purchased a few things and had made quite a mess in our room. For dinner we had….Burger King French fries. Haha. We just weren’t very hungry because we had a big lunch, so we just had some fries and some Bulmer’s and watched Private Practice. Awesome.

For our last night in Dublin, we though we might try a new place, but then John, our friend from last night, texted and invited us out to Temple Bar again where he was there “with some mates”. Btw, I think I’ll add mates to the list of words I want to start saying because they are precious. We headed over to Temple Bar, where there was another live band, but definitely not as good as the one the night before. But it was much less crowded, so we hung out in the courtyard and talked. The other two guys were both Physics professors – needless to say, I felt a bit dumb around them at times. Although I did learn a bit…like the importance of actually studying physics. As well as that kangaroos are actually quite violent, and like deer in Alabama, will run out in front of your car and stuff. Oh, and Australia has more dangerous or poisonous animals than the rest of the world combined, according to Jason. And they have a lot of animal epidemics, like rabbits and foxes toads.

It’s really hard to try to explain Alabama to people who have never been there, especially when the only thing anyone knows about is “Sweet Home Alabama” (that the band definitely played)….but I guess it’s better than people thinking we still have slaves like the people I met 2 summers ago. The physics guys did seem pretty interested in the space and rocket center though, and the idea that kids go to space camp. Quite hilarious.

Overall, I would call our trip to Dublin a great success. Our hotel wasn’t the nicest thing in the world but it was clean and safe and worked out fine. We really got to see a lot of cool things in the city, and I really liked that we didn’t have to stick to a schedule, so that gave us flexibility. Everyone we met was ridiculously friendly, from people hanging out in restaurants or Temple Bar, to people on the street we had to ask for directions in County Sketch. Dublin is really an awesome city. We saw a lot, but I feel like there’s so much more we didn’t have the chance to see…and I definitely plan on coming back!

Wandering about in County Sketch – June 28th, 2009

2009-06-30T09:54:00.000-07:00

This morning we woke up and took our time getting ready, as well as spent some time in the shopping center across the street using the internet. I miss having the internet all the time. The funniest thing is, I don’t even miss Facebook or anything that much, we just miss being able to look things up. It’s really annoying to not be able to figure out the bus schedule…and don’t even get me started on how many things we have to Google once we have internet access for real.

Anyway, we began our day by walking through Trinity College – beautiful. Although, I bet Oxford will be even more beautiful. And we actually get to study there. How cool.

Afterwards, we began our journey to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Oh, what a journey it was. We began walking, and on our way there we passed this cool looking old church. We went in, since we weren’t really on a time schedule, and admission was free…it turned out it was the oldest still used church in Dublin, and was really cool and beautiful inside. The staff were really friendly and told us tons of old history about the church, and we rubbed the “lucky stone” that has been in use since like the 1100s.

Upon leaving, we saw a spire in the distance and assumed that that was St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and we should just head that way….not our best idea. We finally got to “St. Patrick’s” and it definitely was not. Another old church instead. We were a bit lost. We walked around a bit trying to figure it out, and finally had to ask directions. Let’s just say we managed to find ourselves in a bit of a sketchy part of town. Not like, gangs on the streets or anything scary or anything, but just a bit sketchy – hence, County Sketch. Eventually we found our way and made it to St. Patrick’s just in time to see it before it closed for the afternoon.

After leaving the cathedral, we had a nice long hike to the Guinness Factory. Funnily, the factory was actually only a few minutes from where we had been walking around in our search for St. Patrick’s…not so funnily, we were exhausted by the time we finally got there.

The Guinness Factory was AWESOME. I really liked it. The way it was laid out was really cool, and it was cool to get to see the way they make it, and have been making it for 250 years. Quite exciting. Then, at the very top of the building (it’s like 7 stories) there is a big bar where you can enjoy a free pint of “the black stuff” and look out over views of Dublin. I drank my pint, and it wasn’t as bad as the first time I tried it in Brazil last summer…but I don’t think it will ever be my drink of choice.

We decided to take the bus back from the factory to the hotel, since we were exhausted from walking all day. We hung out at the hotel a bit to rest, then grabbed some dinner at a nearby restaurant. Pizza again. It’s quite popular and one of the most inexpensive things you can get, so we’ve had it a couple of times.

After dinner, we headed down to the Temple Bar area to watch the football game between the US and Brazil. I’m pretty sure I was the only one in the whole bar cheering for Brazil, but whatever, I’m glad they won. I mean, it would have been cool for the US to win, but just a little much to soon…we beat Spain, we didn’t have to win overall.

We then made our way down to Temple Bar again, where they had live music. It was quite fun. We talked to a lot of entertaining people…and I must say that Australia is officially on my list of places I want to go now. First, there was John, the Australian calculus professor who was in Dublin doing research and giving workshops. He was really cool, a lot of fun to talk to. Then, there was Hugh Jackman look-a-like cultural anthropologist who was hilarious. At first he tried to convince me he had no idea where the US was or that it was separate from Canada and I was getting quite frustrated, but he turned out to be really cool. He told me about one of his colleagues who is an anthropology professor at Oxford that I should try to get in touch with, as well as gave me ideas for a future thesis. It was cool.

The band was great, they played a mix between traditional Irish music and American music – like Johnny Cash. It almost sounded like walking into a bar back in the States…I guess drinking music is practically international?

We finally made it in later, after an exhausting day in Dublin.

Pictures

2009-06-28T03:13:00.000-07:00

By the way, I added the first few pictures so far....they are all of London. They are on facebook. I will go back and clean them out so I don't have 12 thousand pictures of the same thing, and I will add captions...at a later time, as I would much rather spend my time in Dublin actually in Dublin. Enjoy though!

The 20 Mile Walking Tour – June 27th

2009-06-28T02:56:00.000-07:00

Our first full day in a city! Yayyy….

We slept for like 8 hours last night and were still exhausted when we woke up. So tired. After we finally got up and got dressed, we journeyed over to the shopping center across the street to take advantage of the free wi-fi (unfortunately it was slow and my battery was dying, which is why none of these have actually been posted so far – in case you’re wondering, I’m typing whenever I get some time, but I don’t actually have internet so I’ll probably post like a ton at one time). After using the internet, we tossed our computers back in our room, then set out for a fun day of adventure in Dublin J

We walked by/through St. Stephen’s Green – an awesome park- and were making our way to the art museum when we passed a cool looking building. We happened to stop and ask what it was, and found out it was the Taoiseach’s office - basically the Prime Minister of Ireland. It happened to be open for free tours, and the tour guide invited us to join in, so we did. It was really cool. We learned a lot about Irish government and history.

Afterward, we made it to the art museum as planned. The National Gallery of Ireland, to be exact. It was amazing. A huge collection of Irish painters, but some others as well. A wonderful Picasso, a Monet, Goya, and El Greco. Pretty cool.

After the museum we grabbed sandwiches from a café on the street…mine was delicious. Chicken, bacon, lettuce, and like…garlic mayonnaise? I don’t know. It was delicious though. But expensive. As is everything.

While we were at the Taoiseach’s office we also learned that the house of parliament just happened to be open for public tours today. It only opens up maybe once or twice a year. We found the building and the people working were really nice and grabbed us tickets and showed us right in. While standing in line, we got started talking to an older couple behind us in line – okay, so what we were doing was actually a lot more awesome than we originally thought. Apparently, only 8000 tickets were offered for these tours of the buildings, and otherwise the public is not allowed inside the buildings. The tickets got snatched up within a day. They made people who wouldn’t be able to attend send back their tickets though, and those are the tickets we managed to get. So, that was really cool. The people we were talking with also taught us a lot about Irish history and government, especially compared to the US. Don’t laugh at me if you think this sounds boring…because it was not. Not a bit. We saw stuff that most Irish people don’t even get to see. And we learned a lot. It was cool. Very.

After our journey through parliament, we finally headed to our next planned stop of the day – Dublin Castle. It was the original city center, back in the day. Of course, it was a nice long walk to get there, and then we got lost, well – sort of. We couldn’t find the entrance. We eventually made it though, and were able to rest a bit before touring the castle. We even got to see the parts of the castle that are still standing and have been there since the 1200’s, as well as the river that used to be the moat for the city but now is completely underground.

Finally, we headed to Christ Church. We thought we would make it in time to tour, but we got there right at 5:00pm, which is when Evensong starts. So we went to that instead. Anna is Episcopalian, so it was totally normal for her, but new to me. But it was really interesting, and a great way to get to see the church as well. Except I wasn’t such a fan of the incense…I was a bit light-headed at the end. Also, today was the last day of gay pride week and culminated in a huge parade and festival (which was pretty awesome to see, to say the least)…and while they were saying the nice long prayer in the church, the artist playing at the festival definitely covered Kings of Leon “Sex on Fire”. That was weird. (Oh, at the bar last night I definitely met a huge Kings of Leon fan. It was great. EVERYONE listens to American music).

After Evensong, we strolled along the river a bit, then Anna had a crepe at a café. We finally made it back to the hotel to rest for a bit, but not before I stopped at a market to buy a Bulmer’s Cider. Bulmer’s is made in Ireland and is really popular, but I didn’t want to buy it at a restaurant or bar and not like it, since it’s so much more expensive there. I definitely liked it though. It’s just like drinking apple juice!

After a bit of rest we got ready and headed back out for the night – back to the temple bar area. We had Turkish kebobs for dinner, and I tried lamb for the first time. It was actually delicious. After walking through temple bar a bit, we ended up back at the actual Temple Bar, where we happened to run into Max’s football team from last night minus Max. The guys remembered us though, so we hung out with them for a bit. Highlight of the evening – they wanted to go somewhere less crowded but I still had like two-thirds of my pint left. They told me to just finish it…so I did, and they definitely did this great German cheer thing. It was absolutely hilarious, and apparently I earned a great deal of respect for being able to finish a Heineken like that (although I swear the beer here has lower alcohol content or is watered down or something.)

Anyway, we journeyed up the street, stopping to talk to people and check out hen parties and street artists. It was quite hilarious. When I have my hen party, I’m definitely making t-shirts, as everyone does here. But no one is wearing tu-tus because that’s just unfortunate looking. Also, I decided I want to be married in the National Gallery – it has the most perfect place. Haha. I guess I would actually have to agree to get married to do all of that though.

We ended up at a different pub down the street, but it wasn’t as much fun and the guys weren’t as much fun, so we left and went back to Temple Bar for a couple of Bulmer’s and some people watching, which was lots of fun. Although the curse of the creepers definitely continues. Good thing I’m used to it.

We called it a bit of an early night since we were exhausted from walking around so much today and have a lot we want to do tomorrow. It was quite a fun evening though. My computer is still on home time…it’s hard to believe it’s only 6:21 while I’m typing this, it’s 20 after midnight here.

My favorite new words: fortnight, queue, and cheers.

We are future expatriates in the making…why does anyone live in America when being abroad is so much fun?

Off to sleep for a bit before an excited day of sightseeing, shopping, and checking out the Guinness factory tomorrow!

Instead of comments about my tan…I bring you…the INTERNATIONAL CREEPER COUNT! Woo!! Okay…let’s see. Cedric the Parisian, creepy local who wants to hook up with foreign girls, roughly the entire German football team save a few, the guy who propositioned me while waiting outside the bathroom, add a couple randoms throughout the bar, guy with indistinguishable accent who randomly grabs me while we’re walking through the crowded bar and starts talking to me, the Italian guy who I started talking to who then proceeded to grope Anna’s leg and invite us to a party at some flat, and the guy I bumped into leaving…”Oh, I’m sorry.” “Not as sorry as I am, stay here with me..” Round it off to around 10 so far. Awesome.

Raise a glass of Bulmer’s! Cheers J

Kayla Lisenby = International Creep Magnet? – June 26th

2009-06-28T02:55:00.001-07:00

So, we arrived in Dublin yesterday evening and had a wonderful time dragging our luggage to our hotel and getting lost a few times. Thank god the Irish are even nicer than the English. We finally made it to our lodging, which is technically student dorms…well, let’s not talk about how much fun it was to drag our luggage up to the third floor. But hey, at least it’s not the 6th like we originally thought.

After getting to our room, we died. Basically, died. For a little while. Took showers and whatnot. We finally decided to grace the great city of Dublin with our presence, and headed out to the Temple Bar area, a part of town full of bars and restaurants and people on the streets playing music and all sorts of fun. We stopped and had some pizza for dinner, and I had my first beer of the trip – I chose Heineken. Great. Started talking with the Norwegian guys next to us a bit – their accents were so great..so unfair.

Btw, I’m having a hen party. It’s a bachelorette party, but better because it’s in England and/or Ireland. And girls where matching t-shirts (or corsets and lace if you’re really lucky…) and it just looks like the most fun ever.

Anyway, after our pizza we strolled through the Temple Bar area and along the river a bit. We then made our way into the Temple Bar itself – the most famous bar in Dublin – where…yes, this is completely true….Sweet Home Alabama started playing as soon as we walked through the door. Clearly, this was a sign.

I later found out that the “maximum number” of people allowed in Temple Bar is 600 people. This bar is probably the size of a bar in Tuscaloosa, maybe one and a half…it’s not big. But there were probably more than 600 people there. No joke. You can barely move. Ordering a beer requires a great deal of strategizing. It was crowded. And really interesting. It’s a big tourist place, so obviously there’s people from all over there.

This guy starts talking to us…Max the German…he’s really nice. He and Anna totally have apparently everything in common and start talking. He’s here with his football team, so he introduces us to like half of them. This is amusing, to say the least. So…Anna and him start talking and stuff and I’m just kind of hanging out, sort of talking, whatever. This is where I realized a very sad thing.

I am, in fact, an international creep magnet.

I thought, that perhaps, it was just confined to the US, and I even thought it was starting to fade a bit. Oh, but no.

Let’s see, I’m quite sure I got hit on by a creepy representative of every country in the Western world. Yes. My favorites of the evening were definitely Cedric, the French guy, who was very upset that I had been to Paris before…because he wanted to be my first French guy. I’m not sure exactly what he meant by that, but I have a few guesses….creepy. Also, he possibly licked my hand.

My other favorite was a guy from Dublin. Clearly this guy hangs out at Temple Bar to hit on foreign girls. He’s a “big tennis player” apparently. He was fun to talk to though. He spent time in Fairhope, AL. How unfortunate. His friend plays tennis for LSU. Also unfortunate.

They asked me why people in Alabama are so racist. What exactly do you say to that? Awkward.

Anyway, we hung out in Temple Bar for several hours, then finally headed home before it got too late and creepy outside.

All in all, an awesome night in what seems like an awesome city so far.

Off to Dublin – June 26th

2009-06-28T02:54:00.000-07:00

We slept in this morning until about 8:30, then got up and had breakfast at the hotel. At breakfast we found out that MICHAEL JACKSON DIED!!! WHATT?? No way! I can only imagine that the States’ news channels are packed – even the news here has it everywhere! After getting ready and doing a bit of repacking we journeyed back into the streets with luggage in tow to head back to Victoria station to get on the tube to Heathrow. Oh, what fun. By the way, there are few elevators here, and lots of stairs. They don’t have codes here about making things handicap accessible or anything…so dragging suitcases around is tons of fun.

We got to the airport and got checked in, and now we are just waiting for our flight to Dublin this afternoon. Unfortunately, the internet is rather pricey here, so I’m hoping for free internet in our place where we are staying in Dublin. I’m currently sitting in the airport typing this, and will post it later…

Things I miss already: water and things being cheaper. You have to pay for water everywhere here….and it’s very expensive. Oh well. People here are so nice though. We’ve had a lot of fun.

Comments on how nice my tan is by strangers: 4

Eye Spy….Big Ben! – June 25

2009-06-28T02:53:00.000-07:00

Bright and early this morning…okay, around 11:30, I finally arrived in London Heathrow airport – after a fun-filled 9 hour flight. A recap of the flight – sitting on the plane for an hour waiting for passengers who had been delayed, watching The Office and Confessions of a Shopaholic, magical lasagna plane meal, and about 5 or 6 hours of freezing cold and/or burning up restless sleep, where I’m sure the guy sitting next to me probably got to know me more than he wanted to. Overall, it was a good flight though.

After arriving in London, I hiked roughly 12 miles through the airport, then went through customs. On the other side I was happy to find both of my checked bags had also found their way to London, as had Anna. After meeting up, we made our way to the tube station, purchased our tickets, and settled in for a 45 minute ride into the city. Unfortunately, we had no idea how many sets of stairs are in London tube stations, and getting around with our suitcases was not very much fun…at all. Luckily, there were lots and lots of nice people who were willing to help out some struggling American girls.

We finally made our way to the hotel, after much struggling and fighting with luggage and traffic. Our room was really cute – tiny, but cute. After quick showers and relaxing a bit, we headed out into London for the afternoon. Our hotel was about 2 or 3 blocks from Buckingham Palace, so that was our first stop. We then wandered down to Big Ben and Westminster, wandered back up to Trafalgar Square in search of something to eat, the stopped in Trafalgar Square for sandwiches. After our late lunch, we purchased cell phones – they are international cell phones…how cool! They won’t work in the US, but they work anywhere in Europe, you just get a new SIM card in each country and put money on it. It’s awesome! With new cell phones in hand, we crossed the Thames and strolled along the south bank, checking out a cool used book sale, and sitting around in the park, just resting and calling home. Then it was time for a flight on the London Eye. The half hour, 17 GBP flight was definitely worth it – the views were AMAZING! Of course, we took tons of pictures. And had to give a big Roll Tide to the Florida fans in our pod.

After the London Eye, we crossed back over the Thames right by Big Ben and Westminster. We walked through government square and checked out the house of parliament and Westminster Abbey. We finally journeyed back towards our hotel, and stopped a couple of blocks away for dinner – crisps (salt and vinegar potato chips), nuts, olives, and a bottle of wine. Afterwards we were exhausted and headed home to go to bed early, around 10.

Overall, it was a pretty awesome day, just walking around London and seeing what there was to see. It was nice to be able to just walk with no strict plan of where to go.

Comments on how nice my tan is by strangers: 2

Jetsetting

2009-06-24T13:08:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!
As I sit in the lovely Dallas airport, having just enjoyed some "authentic Texas Mexican food" (I'm not sure an airport taco salad counts), I have decided to start a blog so that anyone who cares can see what I'm up to on my trip to the UK - and so I'll have something to look back on when I'm old and gray.

Currently I'm hogging a free internet/charging station, and will continue to hog it until I either have to go somewhere, or board my plane to London. It's almost too much fun to handle. Seriously.

Anyway, I'll do my best to keep this updated over the course of my trip, and hopefully I'll be able to add pictures and stuff too!