Argh

So it's been a week since I went to York and I have yet to write a summary of the trip. So this is going to be quick and dirty. I'll add pictures when I get back to my room (I am working a beast of 8 hours in the library at school today - a pretty low key job).

But here it goes...YORK!

Friday - My travel buddy, a girl named Safire, and I catch the early (8:10) shuttle into Grantham. I should mention that on Friday, I had been sick for two days. I was feeling a little better, but I definitely sounded like a man. So Safire and I hit up Boots (CVS/Walgreens to all those States-side). I buy cough syrup and "black lozenges of death" - black cough drops that are AMAZING. We head back to the train station and get some coffee and sit and wait for our train. I decide that this would be a good time to take my cough syrup. Note: If in the UK, buy kid's medicine. The cough syrup tasted like liquefied black licorice - a flavor I do not enjoy at all. So I manage to get what I think is a dose down into my stomach...but man, it was difficult. The train comes, we hop on board. Now, Safire and I bought our tickets through the train website pretty much back to back, but we were at opposite ends of the car. That's cool. I sit at a table facing two people. No one sits next to me! We ride for about 30 minutes and get off at Doncaster. We find the next platform and stand for the next train. At this point, a cute little old lady kind of stands awkwardly close to us. A man (assuming, her son) stands next to her. She turns and asks something about going to York. I say something because her accent was ridiculously strong, and Safire and I had to ask her about 3 times what she says. But yes, we answer, we're going to York too. She goes "Americans!" excitedly and ask us if this our first visit about. We say yes, and she just gets really excited! Too cute. The man/son with her mumbles sorry and something about her talking to anybody, but we quickly informed him that we didn't mind. She was such a sweetheart.

We get on the train. I locate my seat with some difficulty, but I do manage to find it. I sit down next to the classic example of "the absent-minded professor". He was old (hearing aids old), and he muttered to himself the whole 45 minute train ride and wrote out math notes longhand. I just looked out the window. We arrive in York! The train station has an info station where we pick up a free map, and we set out to walk around the city. It's about 11:30, and we told our hostel that we would check in around 1. So we have some down time to just wander. And wander we do. We walk along the Roman walls, find the ruins of an Anglo-Saxon church that also served as a hospital. We eventually walk the way of our hostel - it's a mile outside the walls of the city. It's not a bad walk.

The hostel staff is super nice, letting us check in early and all. We claim our beds, leave our stuff, and take a different route back to the city. There's a path along the river that's much shorter, and we wind our way past football (read: soccer) and rugby pitches. Lots of people out with dogs. We find the center of the city and a sign for a free walking tour. Being college students, Safire and I are not going to pass up a free tour. The guide is very nice, and our group was very diverse with Australians, Britains, and an Icelandic person. The tour takes us everywhere in the city: the walls, ruins of St. Mary's Abbey destroyed in the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the Shambles (old butcher road still pretty much in the same condition from the middle ages), around the outside of the Minster. It was really good.

We finish the tour and are very hungry. We wander down by the river, figuring there are pubs and places to eat. We are so right. We find one, duck in, and order fish, chips, and two pints of Guinness. A perfect dinner. We sit and enjoy being off our feet for awhile. The sun goes down, time ticks away, and it's time for our only really "planned" event in York: a ghost walk.

The tour guide is perfect: he has a radio voice and has the stories down to a performing art. It's wonderful. Not too creepy, but it was historical based, so I got a little freaked out. It was cool to see the city lit up at night, too. The tour finishes, and we high-tail it back to our hostel. Luckily, the road is well-trafficked and lit so we arrive with no problem.

We sleep. And I crash. I got the top bunk, being taller than Saffire, and the bed is built up around the mattress like a coffin. It is kind of strange, but I am so tired that I pass out quickly. We wake up the next morning, strip down the beds per requested, get dressed (no shower!) and head down for free breakfast. They have REAL coffee (drip coffee) with REAL cream, not the crap that comes out of a machine here at school.

Anyway. We walk along the river again back into the city, and lots of people and dogs are out. It was a beautiful morning; we lucked out with the weather the entire weekend. We go to the Minster and go in. My goodness. What a beautiful church. I love the churches here; we usually spend like four hours in them. We pay to go in, and right in time too: there was a string ensemble giving a free concert. It was amazing to walk around, looking at this breathtaking and historic church, listening to live music. They even played Pachabel's Canon in D, a song that usually drives me nuts, but this time brought tears to my eyes. In the Minster, there are huge panels of stained glass. The Rose Window is there, as is the Heart of Yorkshire. The giant East Window that tells the story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation was being restored, but they had some panels in boxes scattered around the Minster.

We also paid to go into the undercroft and tombs under the Minster. Underneath was a Roman road and well and walls to the original Roman military base built in York, the foundations of the Anglo-Saxon church, and other various artifacts. The tombs have various archbishops' memorials and tombs and also have the base of Roman columns. It was mindblowing to think that some of these artifacts and building traces were seen by Constantine when he came to York. Wow!

After spending a solid three hours in the Minster, our stomachs were grumbling at us. We head off to find some lunch. We manage to find a parish hall that served light lunch and tea items, with tables out underneath the trees. Did I mention this was still in the middle of York? Safire and I arethe only Americans - it was so cool. I get scones and tea for 1.50. It isfilling and so relaxing just to sit with the "locals" and enjoy some food. We walk around a bit more, just looking and enjoying York. We find the Viking church, a tiny little stone building nestled down near the river. We make it back down to the river and delightfully discover that there is a regatta! We sit down and watch rowers practicing for the afternoon races. After seeing some adorable children and awesome dogs, we stand to leave. As we walk back to the train station, ice cream catches our eye - Magnum Bars are a must if ever in the UK! We board the train, this time changing in Leeds. We catch the last shuttle from Grantham back to school.

It was a perfect weekend trip, and I really enjoyed the city. It's small enough to walk around easily, but there was so much to do! And it was nice just to wander around and see what York has to offer.

Yesterday, I went on a school-organized trip to Coventry and Stratford, but my hands grow tired of typing. So I promise to update before my next big trip on Wednesday: five days in Ireland!

Until then!

This (previous) week

So, you will get my York post tomorrow.

But until then, I will give you some amusing anecdotes from my week. We will start out with a story from last weekend. I know what you're thinking; I did already post about last weekend. But, I left out this story because I didn't have the pictures yet. Well, now I do!

My friend Libby and I went for a walk. We hiked up a dirt path behind the manor just to see where it led.

That's what we walked up. It was a little muddy, but overall not too bad. There were some nice cardio moments where we were walking up quite a steep incline. Once we got to the top of the hill, we found a field!
The field obviously was full of a crop that remained a mystery. That is, it was a mystery until Libby pulled a plant out of the ground. And out came a turnip! It was pretty nifty. We pulled a small turnip, so we didn't feel bad about doing it. Plus, the farmer had already driven by on his tractor. We walked along the edge of this field til we came to a road. We crossed the road and jumped over the hedge to find another field.
You can tell it was a beautiful day for a walk. These fields stretched on for awhile, so after walking around the edges for awhile, we decided to turn back.
This is Libby, still holding the turnip, walking through the field. This is where we hit a problem. We crossed the road, but to get back into the turnip field and back to school, we had to crawl through the hedge. We had walked down far enough that our short, jump-height hedge was gone. So we crawled on our hands and knees through the hedge. Problem was - there was thistle. It makes your skin break out and BURN and itch. More on that later.

We get back to school and try to find somewhere to discard our turnip. Being college students, we can't just throw it away. We have to put it somewhere humorous.
So we put it in a lion's mouth. It was there for a good 24 hours before it disappeared. It was pretty funny. After dinner, I noticed my ankles were still burning pretty bad from the thistle, so I went and stood in the dorm bathtub, running cold water over my ankles for a solid five minutes. It took til about Tuesday for the rash and burn to go away completely.

Lessee, I already blogged about the quiz and such on Monday. Tuesday was a pretty uneventful class day; my day was occupied with Shakespeare and my travel writing class. Wednesday was a FIELD TRIP (aka the reason I loved elementary school). We went to Lincoln, not the zoo or the aquarium. We saw a castle, a cathedral, Roman ruins, and other things. It was SO COOL. Here are some picture highlights.

The minster spires and the top of a tower that was part of the castle.

One of the towers of the castle and our tour guide. We eventually hiked up a bunch of stairs to get to that tower! I was out of breath halfway up.

THE ROMAN ARCH. Constantine passed through that arch. Crazy! And it's still standing and cars drive under it all the time. So cool.

The inside of the Minster. It is truly beautiful in there. And lots of interesting facts about the cathedral I learned from my tour guide, one of the professors here at school. Many of the saints' statues in the cathedral had their heads knocked off during Henry VIII's reformation. Somehow, they didn't completely destroy the church like they did with St. Mary's Abbey in York. You'll see those pictures tomorrow.

Well, that was my Lincoln trip. That plus a little shopping. I got some really bright cute socks, and they were much needed. I didn't bring enough socks; laundry over here is expensive!

Thursday was more class (gross!) and I worked in the library Thursday night. Since we had a regular 3-day weekend this weekend, a lot of people left Thursday night. And of those still on campus, no one wanted to study :). So it was a pretty easy four hours. I got bored really fast.

Then Friday was an early morning for York departure! I promise to write all about that tomorrow. I finished one huge chunk of homework; now to finish the other chunk. Until tomorrow! Have a wonderful start to the week!

This weekend!

Finally, the end of a crazy week. I promise to update on the entire week's happenings come Sunday but I will give you a preview:

This week included: a BS quiz, a surprise Shakespeare analysis test, sleeping in, another fire alarm, getting sick, sounding like a man, a field trip to Lincoln, cathedrals, castles, lots of dead people, booking Ireland, meeting my British family, and finishing Dexter Season One. 

Now, tomorrow I head off to York for Friday and Saturday. We catch an early train, staying the night in a hostel, then return mid-afternoon on Saturday. A nice jaunt, and we will still have Sunday left, which is good. I have much reading to do this weekend. 

Everything is going pretty well. Like I said, I caught a bit of a nasty cold. Felt worse yesterday, but I sound pretty bad today. At least I don't feel too shabby.

Well, I am off to bed since it's an early morning tomorrow. Happy Friday to those who still have to work! Haha.

The weekend and such

I am trying desperately to get into a schedule of updating this, but I failed miserably this weekend. I apologize!

So, Friday we had classes. They give most of Fridays off to encourage travel and such, but this Friday was an exception. We have a field trip on Wednesday to Lincoln to see the cathedral, castle, and Roman ruins - the classroom come to life! It is an early morning, but I think it will be fun. I am sure Lincoln will love to see three charter buses pull up with tons of American students!

Anways, I digress.

After classes on Friday, we just kind of chilled around campus. We watched Snatch that night in the Lounge - a big room with a tv and nice couches. Snatch is very funny and extremely well-made. After that, I went to bed fairly early. Friday was pretty chill.

Saturday, I got my lazy butt out of bed to grab some breakfast. The refectory is only open from 7:30 - 8:30 every morning, including weekends. So I had some Wheatabix, hot chocolate, and promptly went back to bed. A quick shower and I was ready to go into town.

We took the 10:10 shuttle into Grantham. We hit up ASDA (the British Wal-mart) and I got some things I was needing - another sweatshirt, some biscuits, tea, and a travel mug (to steal hot chocolate from the refectory!). We then walked through the open-air market they have every Saturday morning in Grantham. It's not just food; they have everything - clothes, electronics, dogs (a Yorkie rescue table). I wish there were things like this in the US in every little town. We bought some nuts and dried apples (only 60p for a bag of each) and snacked a little. Then, we found the Salvation Army. They are very nice stores here - much nicer than Goodwill or their sister stores in the States. I got a raincoat (very much needed) for 3 GBP and a wool sweater for 4. I was quite proud of myself!

After that, we wandered through the grocery store and the rest of downtown. We ate lunch at a little sandwich shop off the 'square' and people watched. There were lots of adorable little English children with their parents out. The weather was BEAUTIFUL, and the forecast was calling for rain all day! Everyone was taking advantage of the good weather.

Rode the shuttle back and spent the rest of the day doing homework and relaxing. Then, at 11, two girls and I met up to get some munchies and camp down for the USC - OSU football game. The college is nice enough to have purchased the North American Sports Network, and they were showing the game LIVE. However, that means it did not start til 1 am my time. One girl bailed around two, and Safire and I finally called it a night around 3:45, with USC dominating the third quarter. It was nice to watch something that I knew my friends in the States were watching too. Not to mention it was a good game!

Sunday I slept in very late. I stumbled to brunch in my pjs and felt revived after my second cup of coffee. I spent most of Sunday typing notes and studying for the first British Studies quiz (more on that later). I also met with my BS small group to put together a short handout on the history of Oxford. Some of us got the munchies and ordered pizza, then I went to bed.

And now I'm all caught up to today! Mondays are pretty typical. I wake up at 7:40, go to breakfast at 7:50 in my pajamas, then go grab a seat in the Long Gallery for lecture. The gong is sounded promptly at 8:30, and the doors are shut. Lecture is anywhere between 50 minutes to an hour, then it's back to my room for a nap til around 10. Then I shower and make myself look normal. Seminar is from 11 to noon, followed by lunch. Then it's back to my room for studying or whatever I feel like doing (read: probably nap).  Writing class (oh joy!!!) is at 4:10 til 5, followed by dinner. 

Sidenote: Wine Gums may be the best gummy candy ever. Just had to get that out there. 

Anyways, today we had the first British Studies quiz. Everyone was kind of nervous, but the professors kept telling us they were easy. I overstudied by a ton. I thought it was pretty easy. For some reason, Dr. Green, my seminar teacher, looked over mine as he was collecting them and said "You must have thought it was easy." SWEET. That makes me happy.

I finished my Shakespeare reading early today, so I went to yoga tonight at 8. It was nice, but the room was crowded. We had about 35 people there! I hope I can go weekly. It was great to focus just on breathing and stretching.

I guess I'll get a jumpstart on next week's reading. 

Hope the gas prices go down, the stock market stabalizes, and everyone has a great day!

Sorry bout that

Sorry for the delay in the rest of my London updates. I do work-study in the library and work 4-hour shifts from 7-11. I worked last night, then I had a little bit of homework to do. When I got around to blogging, I was so tired.

A little anecdote before I get on the ball:

They had warned us that there would be a fire drill sometime in the next two weeks. Well, at 7 this morning, it happened. I sleep in earplugs because where I stay, the walls are made of paper. I hear this noise through my earplugs and think "Man, my roommate's alarm clock is loud!". Well, about when I realize that it is definitely not an alarm clock, my roommate hits me and goes "Fire alarm!". I roll reluctantly out of bed, shimmy down the ladder (top bunker!), grab a sweater and flip flops, and stumble outside. I am NOT a morning person in any sense of the aspect, and I still had 30 minutes until my alarm clock went off. I was not happy. When we get outside, all of us from the carriage house realize that we have to walk to the yard in front of the manor. It's a solid 10 minute walk. People are in various states of sleep undress, one poor girl is in a towel. Needless to say, no one loved it. Better yet! They told us we were 2 minutes too slow in getting everyone out of all buildings, so we have to do it again sometime in the next two weeks. Oh geez.

Okay! London, Day 2. Saturday.

I wake up fairly early (7:30) to shower and dress. My friend Kaitlin and I venture downstairs to eat the provided continental breakfast. After we negotiate the multiple "breakfast rooms" of our hotel, we find the continental breakfast line. Breakfast consisted of rolls, toast, Rice Crispies, or corn flakes. Definitely had rice crispies with sugar sprinkled on. We found one of our friends in the chaos of breakfast and get ready to head out. We walked to the 2nd closest tube stop, since the one right across from our hotel was closed on the weekend for updates. It was a good 3 block walk (and London blocks are kind of large), but it was so wonderful. Apparently, no one in London gets up early, so the streets were very dead. But it was so nice to walk about the streets of London with no crowds or honking cars! We hop on the Underground and ride to Westminster, where all the big "sights" of London are located. We get off the tube, walk the stairs up to ground level, and BOOM. There is Big Ben!

Seriously. That's what it looks like. Talk about breathtaking! Well, right behind Big Ben are the Houses of Parliament. Those are beautiful too. Here's Oliver Cromwell, standing guard.
And the Parliament buildings are beautiful. I mean, I've seen the White House and the Capitol building, and they are nice. But really. These are gorgeous. They don't look like government buildings at all.
We were waiting for some friends to meet up with us at the Westminster stop, so while we were waiting, we walked around Westminster Abbey. Also a beautiful, awesome building.
And this is sort of the "cornerstone" of the building. I loved the inscription:
Well, by the time everyone met up, it was time to head to Buckingham palace to see the changing of the guards. We hopped back on the tube and walked through St. James Park to get there. A bridge over a pond allowed us to get some great pictures.
Buckingham Palace.
The Eye! (Note: we did not do the Eye. Not only is it around 22 GBP, the line is freaking forever.)
We also found some funny-looking birds in the park. They kept us amused for awhile!
We get to Buckingham Palace, take pictures, and camp out to watch the ceremony. There were TONS of people there. We were packed in like sardines.
All those little splotches right in front of the palace are people! It started raining, and so we all pulled on hoods and rain gear. Yours truly didn't have a rain coat nor an umbrella, but the young woman next to me was nice enough to share an umbrella.

Regarding the actual ceremony: it was crap. I mean, the only thing we saw was a brass band and the new guard enter, then some leave. It was very overrated. The weather might have put a damper on things. It was windy, pouring, and cold. So promptly left the palace area, found a coffee stand, and I had an espresso that made everything seem better.

We hit the Underground and make our way back to Westminster. This time, we pay the 9 GBP to go into the Abbey. The audio tour alone is worth the price of admission. We spent at least 3 hours inside, wandering around. There are TONS of historical figures buried there. Did you know that Elizabeth I and "Bloody" Mary are buried on top of each other? Their inscriptions talk about their divisive faith choices, but in death, it is all washed away. Other people I recall are Henry V, Lawrence Olivier (that surprised me), and COUNTLESS literary figures that I can't even remember them all. It was SO cool. Unfortunately, the Abbey doesn't allow pictures to be taken inside, so all I have is my memories. But, right as we sat down to pray a little at the end of our tour, the choir started warming up for the Evensong service. I got to hear the Westminster Abbey Choir sing INSIDE the Abbey. It was beyond beautiful. Not gonna lie, I definitely teared up. The Abbey was definitely the highlight of my trip this time.

We again get back on the tube to go walk around Trafalgar Square and see the sites down there.
There are lions all over Britian!

We then went to Leister Square to find some grub. We ate at a little Italian place called Bella Italiana. It was not too pricey with great food. I had penne pasta with cherry tomatoes, basil, and goat cheese. Delicious!

After dinner, everyone kind of went their separate ways. A girl named Safire and I ended up just people-watching in Leister Square, then got Haagen-Daz ice cream. We then took the Underground to the shopping district and walked through Harrods! It was so nice, but so pricey! I couldn't believe it. And we didn't even go through all the clothes! We loitered in the purses, stationary, and of course, the food courts. But I managed to not buy anything. After Harrods, we got on the Underground, got off kind of early, and wandered back to the hotel. It was wonderful just to walk around London.

We went to bed fairly early on Saturday, most of us being very tired and footsore. But, not until we watched all of King Kong in our hotel room. It was good bonding time.

Sunday!
We ate breakfast with fairly little incident, us knowing where we were going and everything. We quickly packed, grabbed our stuff, and headed to the coaches. The coaches departed and we headed to Hampton Court. Hampton Court was the palace built by Cardinal Woseley but taken by Henry VIII wanted it. He lived there with Catherine Howard. It was even the place he condemned her to death, and her ghost supposedly haunts the hallway where she pleaded for her life. Also, William of Orange and Mary built on, with Christopher Wren building their apartments. As did King George II. And we toured all of the apartments of these people! Again, the audio guide was amazing. It was rainy and gross that day, so we walked in the gardens a little, but no one really wanted to be outside. Pictures:
It wraps around a lot of the "lot" and doesn't look that big. But go inside, and I promise - you will get lost.
The primary gate

The entrance to Henry VIII's apartments.
The primary window to Henry's Great Hall.

The chapel at Hampton is gorgeous. None of the pews or anything are original, but the ceiling is! It was wonderful.

After we had a quick lunch at a little sandwich shop in the village around the Palace, we loaded the coaches again for a three hour drive back to the manor. We almost didn't make it! Grantham and Harlaxton had a lot of bad storms and rain, and the Harlaxton village roads were flooded. One cop was not going to let us through, but he found a backroad for us to take that took us right to the manor driveway. What a close call!


Well, now I feel quite accomplished. There you are. The entire story for my weekend. This week, we have class on Friday (a rare occurance) because we have a field trip next Wednesday to Lincoln. So it's a shorter weekend. We are planning on going into Grantham on Saturday to pick up some necessities (like a raincoat...). Aside from that, who knows what's going to happen!

I may blog tomorrow or Friday night just to give a general update for the week.
Have a wonderful week!

London!

Okay, here it goes. A recap of my weekend, broken down by days, complete with pictures. Oh goodness, hang on tight!

Friday:
We pile into coaches as it's raining (should have seen it as a sign) and drive to London. We have a break at Mimms, the nicest truck stop in all of England, so says our President. It reminded me of the skymalls that Southwind occasionally stopped at. After eating my (free!) bagged lunch, I get back on the coach. Most of you know that in a moving vehicle, I can fall asleep at just about any time. So that's what I did. I slept for three hours. We arrived in the city and rode around a bit in the buses. We saw the major sights and drove through the major districts of the city. At about 2 pm, we go to check into our hotel.
This was our hotel room:
Pretty nice. The attached bathroom was actually quite large but had no ventilation, so the steam quickly built up. Anyways.

View from our hotel room:
Not so spectacular, but hey. Notice something? It's raining. Yeah, a trend of the weekend has developed! Ha.

We throw our bags down and hit the closest Underground stop. Being college students and wishing to do anything but homework, three friends and I had divided up what we wanted to do each day. We all buy Oyster cards (best deal ever!) and navigate the system to get us to Kensington Gardens.

Oh wow. It's beautiful. The gatehouse was designed by Christopher Wren, and there are lots of fountains and ponds with crazy birds. See below!

The beautiful gatehouse:
Swans:
Fountains:
A fountain that had creepy children head underneath it all covered in moss.
Well, we walked an awful lot through the Garden. We were on a mission: find Peter Pan. And after lots of walking, we found him!

The statue was put up by J.M. Barrie in the middle of the night as if it appeared there by magic! It was really neat. The base of the statue is incredibly detailed with all sorts of figures and images from the book (yeah, I'm a lit major!).

After some more walking, we found Prince Albert's memorial and Kensington Palace.
Now, I'm not exactly sure what Prince Albert did to deserve it, but his memorial is spectacular! And truthfully, Kensignton Palace is a little disappointing. It's not magnificant, but it sure is large.

I'm not kidding about the grandeur of Albert's memorial!

And the Palace, with a statue of William III in front, holding down the fort

(it wraps all along the left side of this picture too. I just couldn't get back far enough to get it all in one shot!)

The Palace was the home of Diana, and the gates are still covered in memorobilia. And I learned, upon returning home, that Saturday was the anniversary of her death. It was very moving. All sorts of things were there.
After the Palace, we hopped on the Underground and went to the British Museum. It is free!
The sheer amount of things they have in the museum is daunting, so I picked out what rooms I wanted to see and made a dash for them. We stayed until it closed at 8:30. Here are some of my favorite things:
The original decorations from the Parthenon. To give you some scope - that's my friend Kaitlin taking pictures, and this is half of a wall. They had TWO whole rooms like this, lined with carvings. In the middle were statues.
The Rosetta Stone. How cool is that?!? I have seen the ONE way we were able to understand hieroglyphics.

The fist bump. I mean, there is a huge arm (and only the arm!) in the middle of a room, making a fist. Who wouldn't give a fist back in return?

After they kicked us out of the Museum, we walked around trying to find something to eat. We were slightly picky for awhile. But after about thirty minutes of this, we were cold, extremely wet, and very hungry. We found a thai place that was fairly close to our hotel and sat down to eat. It was wonderful. We went back to the hotel as we were all very tired and footsore and crashed in preparation for Saturday.


Speaking of crashing...I am very tired, so I will put off updating you on Saturday and Sunday until tomorrow.
Until then!

London

Hey! I am back from London safe and sound, although a little damp. It off-and-on rained a lot while I was in the town. Then today, we almost got thwarted in our mission to make it back to the Manor, because Harlaxton Village roads had flooded. What a nightmare!

But I had a wonderful time and can't wait to go back. Two days is definitely not enough time there! I will edit photos tomorrow and hopefully do a full recap tomorrow night.

Thanks and love you!

Classes and such

So, it's the last day of classes in the first week. I like most of my classes. I'm only taking three for 12 credit hours - one of them is worth six alone. Here's my schedule:

M and W: 8:30 - British Studies Lecture
11:00 - British Studies Seminar
4:10 - Creative Nonfiction Travel Writing (Not on Wednesdays)

T and Th: 10:15 - Shakespeare
4:10 - Creative Nonfiction Travel Writing

British Studies (aka BS) is a lot of reading and presenting things in small groups. Not too daunting, but it requires a lot of outside class time. Shakespeare will be pretty good, I think. Unfortunately, we have a very large class of about 37, but I have several friends in it with me. My writing class is the one I'm least excited about. The professor is...interesting. I'm trying to reserve judgment on that class, so we will have to see.

Aside from going to classes and reading, I've been fairly busy. I am working in the library this semester for about seven hours a week. It won't be too demanding, and we can study if there is nothing specific for us to do. Also, there was a London trip briefing, an independent travel seminar, and a historic tour of the manor this week too. Add that plus social time in the Bistro, a run into town to ASDA (the British wal-mart), and taking walks and naps and I have had a very busy week!

Tomorrow we leave for London at 8:30. Once we get there, we are going on a bus tour, then have Friday evening and Saturday free. Sunday, we are going to Hampton Court, a "summer palace" for Henry VIII. I will be sure to post pictures and tell you all about it when I get back on Sunday!

It's lunchtime now, and that's good, because my stomach is growling.
I hope everything in the States is going well! Leave me a comment telling me what's going on.

I love you all!