My Travels

Traveling home and thinking back...

2011-01-20T17:52:00.001-08:00

Deb and I fell asleep before we packed a thing. We woke up bright and early at 4am to accomplish the task. We fit everything in our suitcase, but were a little concerned about the weight factor. We left our hotel at 5am to venture to the metro station. We had three connections that were actually perfect timing for us before we caught a shuttle to the airport, arriving in plenty of time for our plane and right after Jenny landed back in Maryland. We were able to explore the terminal a bit before our flight and do some last minute souvenir shopping before we sat down at our gate.

Our plane was to board at 9am and right at the time we got the news that our flight was canceled. Now I had promised Deb to be calmer for this pre-flight journey (I stress over bags, checking in, security, etc.) But at this news I could not remain calm. We quickly got in line at the counter and Deb called a number they gave us to try to rebook a flight very soon. She got through and found a flight that landed at 12:50am the next day, but I heard 12:50pm and was very firm on that not being sufficient as I had class the next day at 11am and 2:10pm, neither of which I would be able to make with a flight at that time. She finally got me to understand the time so she booked it, but we stayed in line as people seemed to be booking earlier flights as they got to the front of the counter. When we were the next ones in line the staff informed us that they had to move to the next flight coming into that gate and we needed to relocate to a different area for information. Deb and I booked it to that place and waited in line to find they were booking most people on a flight that departed at 1pm and arrived in Dulles at 8:50pm. While not ideal it was good enough. We were switching airlines to United so we were directed to baggage claim; in less than an hour our bags would be there. That proved to be completely inaccurate.

Regrettably we learned we would have to go through security and check-in all over again so we had to throw away some of the food and beverages we bought, but we waited patiently at the baggage claim. For one hour, then two, and in the end over three. They placed our flights bags back with the mainstream ones and were now trying to locate them. It seemed completely disorganized to me and ridiculous as we neared closer and closer to our new flight's departure time. We got our bags finally, after all their promises that they would be a few minutes for hours a little before 12:30pm for our 1:05am flight. There were some other students coming from New Zealand that were having our same issue so at least we weren't alone. We were at terminal 3 for our bags and our flight took off from terminal 7. We ran, with all of our bags, from one to the other (no short distance let me tell you), my legs were about ready to fall off when we rode the escalator up to check-in. We were met with a line at United and only one worker. (At baggage claim we were asking the staff if they could call over to our check-in and security and see if there was anyway for them to speed us through since our bags were not coming very quickly, but they simply told us they could not guarantee anything). A couple was at the counter for over 15 minutes, we have no idea what was taking them so long. Thankfully we learned our flight was delayed thirty minutes giving us a slightly larger window and one of the members of the other group was able to check in slightly earlier (his bag came before the rest of us) and he went to find assistance from United who helped us all cut the line and check in. We had to pay for our bags all over again, which American promised us we wouldn't, but time was running out so we did that before rushing over to security. Taking off your shoes, belt, coat, removing your liquids and computer from your bag all for the second time was very annoying when we were under such a time crunch, but we made it through and hurried to the gate. No one was even boarding yet and the time of the plane's take-off was getting delayed, leaving me wondering if our flight at 3:15 which had a layover in Dallas and had us landing at 12:50pm but was at least with American (so we wouldn't have had to check our bags all over again and such or run from terminals) would have been the same landing time at this point. We did board an hour late and Deb and I were not seated next to each other because of our late booking of the flight. She did get a seat with more leg room, which was good for her, and I was in an aisle seat. The stewardesses rushed to get us airborne as many of the people on the plane had connecting flights to make.

The overall plane ride was pretty boring and I was not able to sleep for very much at all. We landed after 10pm and it took a while for our bags to come through (not over three hours, but still a while), but our bags did make it YAY! While we arrived much later than we anticipated, but it did mean we did not have to deal with the rush hour traffic of DC. When we got home I literally grabbed clothes and shoved them in a bag and we were off to school. I did say hello to my brother before we departed and apologized to my dad for our very quick departure. We were on the road by 11:30pm. We stopped at a McDonald's in Clarksville for our first "meal" of the day (having had a small breakfast before our original plane was to take off. I guess you need to be flying for at least 6 hours to get a meal because for 5 hours you don't even get peanuts or a bag of pretzels). It was below freezing on our drive and it did begin to rain/sleet, but we did make it safely to school around 1:30am. I took minimal items into my dorm because it was so late and so cold. I ended up simply taking a shower, throwing some blankets on my bed and going to sleep at around 3am. I was pretty tired as I had gotten around 2 hours of sleep the night before and had been up for almost 24 hours that day, with a full day of classes awaiting me when I woke up.

Looking back, I am very glad I went on the trip, but it did not leave me wanting to move to LA and become involved in the film industry. First of all the traffic is absolutely horrible out there. Secondly, the experience did not leave me with a positive outlook on making it into the movie industry; you basically need to know someone who knows someone and not have a fall back plan or you will never make it in the industry because there are no openings out there. Even though the weather was nice and warm, it became too warm by the end of the trip (partly because we were not expecting it to be quite that warm so we did not have the appropriate attire) and we were ready to go home. When we got back Deb and I had so much fun just blowing in the air and seeing our breath. The snow seemed out of place on our drive back to school. After walking to class and back in the morning and at night though I wish it was a little bit warmer over here sometimes, but I couldn't trade the snow.

Our time in LA draws to a close

2011-01-17T23:48:00.000-08:00

Today was our last official day in LA. Jenny was scheduled to depart at 11:30pm. We started off the morning by exploring downtown LA. Many sources affirmed the necessity to see this monument in downtown so we went. We left the metro station and saw no such monument, which was supposedly right there as you exited. We did see a Denny's however and we decided to eat brunch there. After a little exploration we found this "monument", which we thought was not really all that exciting, but at least we could say we saw it. We ventured a little bit more and then went to abc studios. The studios were on private lots, so we were not able to go inside and tour them, but we did see them and walk all the way up the hill to try and see if we could say more (I am not a hill climber). We never really got too much of a better view, but we did walk all around the studios and explore a bit more of the area than we planned in the process.

We did a little bit of shopping on the street near our hotel, where we were able to find Deb a suitcase and high heels! We went back to the hotel to pick up Jenny's suitcase and then took Jenny to Universal City area, since we thought it was something necessary for her to see. After a little bit of exploration we decided to have a nice sit down dinner. There was very little time to explore afterward and we ventured down the hill and to the metro with her. We thought she was pushing it close, as evident by my worries, but she did catch her flight. Deb and I went back to the hotel to begin the task of packing up and prepare for our flight home in the morning.

photos from our last day in LA

Walking in the path of the Stars

2011-01-16T23:31:00.000-08:00

This morning we walked along the streets with stars, but there are just so many we were not able to see them all. We were asked about five thousand times if we wanted a tour, and it was very hard to politely keep saying no thank you, especially when some of them proceeded to be rude. We also explored the hand and foot prints outside the Chinese theater; included were such individuals as some of the Star Wars cast, the Harry Potter trio, Johnny Depp and many others. We ventured to this little mall area for lunch and a bit of shopping and spontanity. We tried to take a picture with the Hollywood sign, which you could see in the distance from the third floor of the mall, but the sign was too far away to get a really good shot.

For the afternoon we took public transportation to Beverly Hills. Getting off the bus in Beverly Hills felt like were were so out of place because it was unbelievably nice. Jenny had a map of famous individual's houses and we explored a little. I felt extremely stalkerish and weird so I did not do as much exploring as Deb and Jenny. We did find Tom Cruises' house and saw a couple limos.

From Beverly Hills we walked towards the Golden Globe location. Our first hotel was actually the wrong one so we ventured further to the correct one. We learned upon arrival if we had been there around 10am we might have gotten passes to go in and see the stars enter, but we were simply across the street trying to catch a glimps of anyone, to no real success. Many limos did pass us by and we even used my long lens to try and see farther. There was some satisfaction in knowing that we were merely feet away from where all the stars were gathered together and we could hear some of the commentary.

We arrived back at the hotel in time to catch the second showing of the Golden Globes and then we passed out before midnight once again.

photos from today

A Day at the Beach...in the middle of winter?

2011-01-15T23:21:00.000-08:00

We decided to venture to the beach today. Getting off to a slightly later start than anticipated we traveled on metros and buses to make it to the beach. Along the way we ate lunch at Johnny Rockets, and continued our love of milkshakes on this trip. We also watched a street performance that Deb ended up being a part of. Upon finally sighting the beach we realized it was in fact much lower than us and across a major highway (we were looking off of a cliff). Fortunately they have a tunnel bridge across the highway to assist with this dilemma.

While it has been very warm for us in LA it ended up not quite being warm enough for a beach day excursion, at least not to dip in the water anyway. We laid on the beach for a little while, touched our feet in the water, and took many sunset pictures before deciding to explore the nearby pier. It ended up being dusk and nightfall so the lights came on and it was very pretty. Deb attempted various games: whac a mole, ring toss, darts, and ended up with a killer whale stuffed animal before we started our trek back. It was interrupted to get my name done in creative letters, which I've always seen and thought were cool, but never actually gotten one done before. :) Today was considerably less walking than yesterday, but still a full day of traveling and experiencing LA which left me wiped out again.

photos from today

"Look to my right, and I see the Hollywood sign"

2011-01-14T23:56:00.000-08:00

Today was the end of our career immersion part of the trip and the day of Jenny's arrival. We had breakfast for the first time at our hotel. It was pretty good food, but the service was not quite up to par. Deb and I hung out at the hotel after everyone else departed for the airport. We just stayed in the open courtyard awaiting for word from Jenny that she was close. We checked in to our other accommodations with a little arguing with the manager who wanted to change things at the last minute, but it all worked out in the end.

Today's adventure involved going to the Hollywood sign. Now the base of the trail you climb is approximately 3 miles from our hotel, so we walked that. Right as we arrived at the entrance to the trail Deb veered off to climb a separate hill she took an interest in. As Jenny and I climbed this large hill, the sun began to set rapidly so I told Jenny to run on ahead and I would meet her there. Little did I know the adventure this would ensue. Later on in the trail I hit a v and I wondered why Jenny had not waited to inform me which direction she went. I realized that I had Jenny's bag and she had mine and my phone was in my bag. I searched her bag, but alas found no phone. As I stand perplexed at the v in the road I consider the two options: the first is to stay on the front of the mountain, but go down and the second is to go up but go what appears to be behind the Hollywood sign. Neither of these options seem like the correct choice, but I decide to take the path that continues going up, reasoning that maybe it wraps around. After hiking for a while I have officially gone on the other side of the mountain and can now see out to the other side of the city. The sun is almost complete set, and I reason that the next person I see I will ask to borrow their phone and call my phone to find out where the other two are. I do not see anyone else on the hill and it has become completely dark. Needless to say I start to worry a little bit as I climb up this mountain, in the dark, with no phone, and no idea if I am going the correct way. Suddenly I hear a phone ring so I move things around inside Jenny's purse in search of it and find it in a hidden compartment. I answer, but her phone has seen better days and that is no easy task now, and the service goes out (we are up a mountain on what we find out to be opposite sides). I eventually get a signal and call back to find she is on the other side of the mountain and has found Deb and they are perplexed as to where I am but they think they know where I might have went so they are heading that way. I decide to continue up the mountain ans I have reached the side and it looks like it will wrap around and I will hit the Hollywood sign, perhaps both paths come to the sign just from different directions. I reach the end of the path with a tall telephone tower type structure and look below me to see the Hollywood sign is in fact underneath me; I had climbed the entire way up the hill and over the sign. I call Deb and Jenny back and tell them, to their shock, that I am above the sign.

We did eventually meet up and I took them to the top of the sign, as their path never actually took you to the sign. It is completely night before this point so we take pictures, but the lighting was not very good. We even venture up a little mound to take more pictures and look out at the city, before we embark on the trip down the hill and back to the hotel.

On the way back we decided to find food and we ended up going to the Hard Rock Cafe again for dinner. Being pretty exhausted we crashed after that.
photos from today

Dwarves, Walt, and Mickey

2011-01-13T23:58:00.000-08:00

Today was our earliest wake up to date on the trip with a meeting time of 8:15am. We then trekked off to Santa Monica to give our presentations. The first group had an idea of pro fighting with kids. Our idea was a beer and wine show around the world. Two hosts would take you around hte world to experience the local drink of the region. You would go from the small family business to the big corporation in each area. Jim called us out on using hand held cameras because "everyone does that" probably because I was in charge of talking about the cinematography. He also applauded us for having Anskar and me seperated int he line-up; he seems to think Anskar and I argue every single moment. The final group did a cheap travel show.

Disney Studios was our next stop and it was AMAZING! We got to go on the lot exploring different stages and we even got to go into the archives. The archives were started by Dave Smith. He retired in November, but he just happened to be there today so he gave us a personal tour of the archives. It was so awesome. We got to see the Wardrobe from the Chronicles of Narnia and so many other things. It was definitley one of the highlights of the trip. They took us back to the hotel from the studios and a few of us decided to go to the Hard Rock Cafe in Hollywood. We trekked up the metro in Universal and got off at a stop right outside the restaurant. The restaurant was expensive! Our waitor was also pretty bad at service causing Rachel to ask to speak to the manager. Nevertheless it was fun to hang out with a larger group from the trip on our last night. We even got to see a live band (Paper Factory). The next band on was Lifehouse, but it was a closed show so we were not allowed to stay.

Anskar, Paul, MJ, Steph, Deb, and I hung out in our room for the rest of the evening finding really obscure things on television to keep us occupied and producing a great deal of laughter. It's sad to think our trip is over, but it is right in the middle for Deb and I as Jenny arrives tomorrow for our continuing adventure.

photos

Oscar himself

2011-01-12T23:32:00.000-08:00

We were told we did not have to dress up today in fact the people we were visiting would look at us weirdly if we did, so today was a jeans day. We made our way to the Academy Film archives. Jim's classmates from Wisconsin grad school work there and gave us a special presentation. We saw some old movies and how they go about restoring the film. Most of us thought it would be a pretty tedious job, but they love it.

From the archives it was a complicated adventure to make it to Jay Leno. We have reserved tickets, but that doesn't mean you get to go in, it simply means you might get in. We had to venture up the same hill to find a taxi cab. I got yelled at walking to the studio because I took a photograph on the street (I guess when you get into the proximity of the studios it is a bad thing). She proceeded to shout at me for a good few minutes. We made it to the studio and waited outside for quite some time and then ventured to right outside hte studio where we got a ticket and then got in another line. It was a long wait and it was a question of whether we would get in. The whole group did get in and our section of the group (Deb, Chennelle, Kathleen, and I) sat in the back left corner. It was really cool to watch a live taping of the show (well sort of live). He films it in an hour segment but it doesn't air until later that night. It was interesting how he was all smiles when the camera was rolling, but then he gets rather solemn when it goes to a "commercial break". They had two guys who came out to keep the energy of the audience up during those breaks. I really liked watching the camera switches and movement of hte steady cam when the signer came on.

After Leno we went to city walk and a bunch of us ate at Panda Express, to the disgust of Jim who told us many times that it is not real Chinese food. Our conversation consisted of many thigns but mainly Jim warning us that our metabolisms would go bad. We went to a brewery area next and explored that a little bit before adventuring back to the hotel.

Since Thursday is our last official day we had to prepare our presentations for the next morning. Dominique, Thomas, Steph, Anskar, and I were in a group and we spent forever trying to come up with an idea. Our idea is a tv show called Port to Port. Hopefully our presentation will go well tomorrow.

(pictures in the same album as the first day)

Does Zeus Live Up Here?

2011-01-11T22:19:00.000-08:00

Today was our second day in LA. It was really our first official day. We had to look all professional and meet downstairs for a panel discussion in the missions room. Steph, Deb and I ventured down to the lobby and realized we had no idea where the admissions room was. We must have looked confused because a nice man from Brazil came up and asked if he could help us with anything. Rather than simply telling us where the room was he took us there :) We were the first students to arrive.

The discussions began with three panelists who were Gettysburg Alums: a comedian, and two women who work on the business side of the industry. After them there was a discussion by a UCLA attendee and then recent graduates from Gettysburg who made the move out to Gettysburg. It was a lot of information to take in, but most of them were fairly positive.

After that discussion we made our way to a different alumni's house. We took these little shuttle buses and we went up this massively curvy huge hill. It was quite an adventure and I was so glad I was not driving. It was an incredible view though. We got to meet five individuals in the film industry: actors, directors and such. They were really informative and we had some time at the end to chat with them individually. It was a little awkward with one a group of us were talking with.

There was then a dinner party with President Janet Morgan Riggs in attendance as well as many other alumni and current students. It was really nice. What was funny was everyone was apologizing for the cold weather (it's gorgeous here) and they had stand up heaters on the patio because it was "cold". We all assured them that the weather was quite nice and we all had blizzards back on the East Coast.

(pictures are at the same link as yesterday)

Arriving in LA: Good call little old lady

2011-01-10T20:17:00.000-08:00

Since Friday Deb and I have been preparing for our trip to LA. It involved a lot of shopping, much of it very unsuccessful. We were shopping even as we arrived in Gettysburg on Sunday for our pretrip meeting. They took us out to eat at O'Rorkes to eat and I had a crab sandwich. Deb and I then went off to staples in hopes of finding professional type bags and folders for our resume, but it was closed. Walmart lived up to the challenge and Deb and I got matching bags and folders. The next task was finding Eagle apartments, which proved difficult. It is right across from Gary Owens. The apartment is huge, but it was quite cold last night. We ended up getting very little sleep before waking up to meet the group at 5:45 am in Masters Lot. From there we embarked to Dulles airport. Baggages were checked and I made it through security without any hiccups. We had a little bit of time to grab a few items of food before we boarded the plane. Deb was randomly checked with her bag. The planes are getting smaller and smaller. It was quite cramped quarters and Deb and I struggled to sleep on the plane.

We arrived in LA around noon their time so 3pm East coast time. It was so much warmer than the East coast and there are palm trees everywhere! I really like the palm trees. There were no plans scheduled for today so after arriving at the hotel, Steph, Deb and I got changed and decided to go exploring. We first set out to find food. Deb asked an older woman if there were good places to eat and she recommended a little place next to the laundromat. It was an Asian American combination with hamburgers and terriyaki all on the menu. The three of us got turkey club sandwiches and we had milkshakes for dessert. A nice guy offered to take a group photo of us telling us to say "California cheese." Then we went exploring until we came upon a very complicated intersection with a lack of crosswalks. We decided to go a different way which lead us to the Universal area and up a huge hill to the city walk. That area was full of shops and a ton of lights. Walking around in simply t-shirts was comfortable during the day, but it quickly got cold at night. We took a shuttle back to the hotel. We are all getting very tired and even though it isn't even 9pm here we are all getting ready to go to bed. We need to be ready at 9am tomorrow for our full day of activities.

photos from today

The End: back in the US and missing Bath

2010-07-12T09:31:00.000-07:00

I can’t believe my trip to England is now over. Today is my first real day at home and unpacking, cleaning, and laundry are in store for me.

I did not get to bed very early Friday night so the morning came too early. We ventured down the hill at 6:45am and the bus was incredibly full. Since this was an issue when they picked us up at the airport at the very beginning you would think they would have planned better this time. I sat next to Professor Ryan and he was very chatty for early in the morning and was all interested in my schedule for next semester when I didn’t want to think about it because I just finished classes let me have some time without any classes.

England security is even more intense than US security. A guy came and asked us a bunch of questions in line and then we went up to check my bags. They were both under 50lbs YAY! The plane ride was pretty uneventful, but longer than the way out. We landed in Newark with announcements on the plane several times telling us that everyone must pick up their bags even if they are connecting. It was a long wait for our bags to come so we all said goodbye while we were waiting. No pictures because its not allowed in the baggage claim area and we all split off there when our bags came because people had connecting flights to catch. Greg was waiting for me and we ventured on to the farm party and I made it home on Sunday at around 3pm.

The trip was absolutely amazing and I’m so glad I went. I can’t believe it’s over already. Five weeks really fly by. It was just an incredible trip and as I unpack now I am already thinking to my scrapbook when I will organize all my adventures. Hopefully I’ll see you all soon if I haven’t seen you already!

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10 things to remember from the trip

1. I found almost 40 lions in Bath

2. I walked up and down that wonderful hill (or slope as they say) over 35 times

3. I realized I am a B+ / A- student who can not break the threshold of a true A

4. Going to London three times is still not enough time to see it all

5. You accumulate a lot of things in 5 weeks

6. Getting around England is so much easier than the US with trains and the tube

7. The Brits dress nicer than Americans and you almost never see them wearing sneakers

8. The Brits are really nice, saying "of course you can my love," remembering your usual, and saying they are going to miss you at the gelato place

9. It doesn't actually rain all the time in England, and most of time it is nice and hot (though they are going into a drought so I'm not sure that weather is typical)

10. I met some really great people and I will miss seeing them all the time

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our first housemate picture (minus Chelsea who hadn't arrived yet)

and our last

July 9: The final tea and the final day in Bath

2010-07-09T17:50:00.000-07:00

Our last day in Bath was a busy one and as much as I would like to tell you all about it I should really get to bed as the bus is picking us up at 7am. So this will be brief. After a late night last night I got up a little after 10am and did some shopping. Laura and I then met up to go to the huntsman for lunch complete with fish n chips and our English beer made in Bath (It wasn’t our favorite). Back up the hill to get ready for the tea and then to the hotel down the hill.

The final tea had homemade tea, cucumber sandwiches, something I can’t remember with clotted cream and jam that involved a dispute over the order based on north or south, and lemon cake. We also picked up some goodies including a picture and t-shirt and then headed out to queen park to take a housemate picture. There was little hang out at the Huntman and it was all sad to realize it was all over. The end of the evening was pretty uneventful with packing and cleaning. I am checking two suitcases that both weigh under 50lbs so cross your fingers that all works and the whole baggage issue and customs goes well. Security too we can’t forget that. Tomorrow has me at the Quinn resort so no post, but soon I will leave a wrap up post. In less than 24 hours I will be on US soil.

photos

We've had some great times here and met so many great people. We had such a wonderful house. Thanks for being great guys.

July 8: Last day of classes

2010-07-08T20:43:00.000-07:00

Today was the last day of classes. In Jane Austen we did fun activites and a quiz that was not meant for a grade. Laura actually won at that. Between classes Chelsea took us out to find some clothes and I bought a dress. Film class was long, he let us out 15 minutes late (really! It’s the last class, we had to take a quiz and be ready for write night and he lets us out late). The quiz was hard of course. We practiced our reading again and then we headed over to the Huntsman.

We were on the list first. It went pretty well there was a lot of laughter and later people said it was really good so yay! A lot of the other acts were really good too. (It’s kinda late so I will spare long details and a long post so I actually get to sleep) After write night we came back up to the house to get ready. All the girls decided to go out. Chelsea helped us figure it all out and did a real intricate updo for my hair. Everyone looked amazing. Peter accompanied us but MJ and Jason opted out. It was a lot of fun and we ended up staying out pretty late. Tomorrow looks like a busy last day.

photos of today (#74, page 4)

In Search of Mr. Darcy what we performed for Write Night

Amelia – Janie aka Jane & Barbara

Me – Beth aka Elizabeth

MJ – Will aka Darcy, Butterworth & Computer

Catherine – narrator

Peter – Chuck aka Mr. Bingley, Dr. Fallon & Security Guard

Chelsea – Su & Jonathan

Laura – Claire, Lindsay, & ASE student

Jason – George aka Wickham

July 7: Relaxing at the spa

2010-07-07T16:59:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening ending with a most of the house honesty room chat in Laura and my room. It was good since we were planning on just heading to bed because we didn’t really know what to do with ourselves. We ended up staying up til around 2am. I was so tired I just decided to pass out on my bed and get a shower in the morning.

Yesterday evening was celebration because papers were done. As a result when we arrived in Jane Austen class and he asked if we had done the reading we all started at him blankly. Then upon realizing we had readings we searched for our packets filled with the reading only for him to tell us it was online. With no possible way for us to pretend we’d read it we shook our heads. The class was mostly spent watching the adaptation for Persuasion. The actress who plays Anne was soooooo depressing. On a side note she was also the actress in the Jane Austen video at the centre that we watched yesterday. Aunt Petunia was also in it.

Between classes I got a nice salmon sandwich again :] wonderful and Laura, MJ, and I had a nice chat in the basement of Nelson house. Film class was boring as per usual. We finished watching The Last of England, an avant-garde film. He also said we could get out of class earlier, but that did not really happen.

After finishing class Laura, Chelsea, and I ventured off to the Bath Spas. We got the cheapest package which only included the pools and the steam room. It cost £3 to simply get a towel. We started out in the steam rooms. We inadvertently ended up in the lavender smelling room, which we went back to later. We tried the other rooms later, but the scents were not nearly as good and the one room that was good in scent was not nearly as warm.

After the steam room we went up to the terrace pool on the top floor. No pictures are allowed up there unfortunately, but it is a beautiful view and the waterfall is very nice for a back massage type feeling. We then ventured to the Minerva pool. We concluded back at the steam rooms and then got a shower and headed out. We went to a Thai place for dinner and took it back to the house to eat while watching the football match of Spain vs. Germany. We were rooting for Germany, but Spain won. Now we are rooting for the Netherlands.

I haven’t actually gone upstairs this evening Laura did and brought my computer down. We’ve been practicing a story “In Search of Mr. Darcy.” Catherine wrote it as a parody of Pride and Prejudice with ASE staff. I was assigned the part of Beth (aka Elizabeth). We were practicing and hopefully my secret acting talents will emerge tomorrow.

Other than that we’ve chatted a little and are now watching Pride and Prejudice to prepare for our performance tomorrow in which all of the house is participating. We won’t be filming it, but hopefully someone will take pictures. Wish us luck!

p.s. it took me forever to figure out what was in fact causing me to still smell like the spa but the lavender scent is very present in my hair despite the shower ;)

photos (page 3 #52)

July 6: With papers done now it is starting to feel like the end...

2010-07-06T14:11:00.000-07:00

First things first HAPPY 21^st BIRTHDAY DEB! I hope you have a great day! Today I turned in my last paper and I am officially on the home stretch.

For Jane Austen we went to the Jane Austen Centre. It wasn’t actually that exciting, but it beats sitting in class discussing and we had to go since we were here. After class I went and printed out my film paper and did a little bit of shopping. I also tried a new sandwich with salmon, SO GOOD! I am definitely getting it tomorrow too. Film class had us watching another avant-garde film that I found boring. Why can’t we watch something happy and entertaining? After class I decided to go to an atm. I was going to try and make it, but with the bus and gift and lunch I just can’t make it. Of course I then found a 20 in a pair of my pants later.

Laura finished writing her paper that is due tomorrow so we had a little movie night. Now it is just a little after 10 and I am not sure what I am going to do with the rest of my evening. I may get a shower and head to bed because yesterday was a long night, but I am actually not that tired.

It is hard to believe that my time here is coming to an end. Nothing too exciting planned for the rest of the week: some shopping, relaxing at the spa, going out to a pub, and the final tea. Packing must start taking place soon too. I will be seeing you all before too long.

photos (today starts on page 2, second row, #29)

July 5: Having fun is more important than writing papers right?

2010-07-05T18:33:00.000-07:00

Today I woke up later than I intended, got a shower and headed off to class. Nothing too eventful in Jane Austen. I edited my paper one more time during my lunch break before submitting it and then it was off to film class where we watched an unexpected film; now don’t get too excited as it was an avant-garde film and I fell asleep a few times while watching. It was very weird. After class I spent most of the evening writing my film paper before a bunch of us from the house decided to go out. We weren’t out too long and it was a lot of fun. We are planning to go out later this week and it may just have to happen tomorrow in celebration of completing the papers. I have just reedited my paper again and worry that it is not very good, but I just want to be done. I think I am going to call it quits and just submit what I have. It is a grand 2,209 words with the lower limit of the paper being 2,000 and the upper being 2,500. Hopefully it is alright as his instructions are very, very vague for this assignment and it is unclear what he really wants. Tomorrow during lunch I also have to pick out all the pictures I am going to give to Jonathan for his slideshow at the final tea, but I think it is time for bed now.

pictures from today (page 1 #15)

July 3-4, 2010: Celebrating the 4th in England seems ironic

2010-07-05T09:22:00.000-07:00

So I realize I got a little behind in my blog, but a paper was due. As I have now submitted it I thought this 15 minute gap between my classes would be a good time to catch you up on the weekend happenings.

We went to London bright and early on Saturday, making this my third Saturday in a row in London. Still we did not manage to do everything, but just more of a reason to come back to England ;] We began the day a little later then planned and going straight to the changing of the guard instead of doing Westminster Abbey first. The changing of the guard was long and we got rather annoyed. We stood on the monument and they had ropes all in front of the gates, but they still let people walk in front of the gates between the guards entering them. We thought that was rather pointless as there was no where for them to go. We distinctly saw several of the same individuals continually changing sides just to take photos. After the long process that the changing of the guard takes we ventured back to Westminster Abbey. The Abbey was cool and we got to see a lot of tombs, but no pictures allowed in there. We split from Amelia at this point and Laura and I continued on to The Tower.

Now you could easily spend an entire day at The Tower, but we only had a couple hours. We got to see the beefeaters and visit some of the different towers where famous individuals were housed such as Walter Raleigh, the princes, and Anne Boleyn. You even got to vote on who you think orchestrated the presumed murders of the princes, y opinion being their Uncle who then ascended the throne. Other areas included the new armory exhibit as well as the torture exhibit. Not an entirely happy place.

Laura, being the avid tennis player, and I on simply the idea that we were in London ventured to Wimbledon. We did not realize how very far away it is being one of the last stops. It was then quite a hike to actual Wimbledon where we could only see the outside. We took a few pictures and then hiked back to the station. We did get to see the scoreboards and some cheers. The plan was to go on the eye but the long line and the uncertainty of the timing made us avoid it in favor of not running to the train station and avoiding being stranded in London overnight.

photos from London

Sunday was an early morning, but not quite as early as we went to the Abbey for a church service. It was a small gathering and seemed very like a Catholic service to me, which I wasn’t entirely expecting. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, no fireworks or anything signifying the 4^th of July. Instead I worked on my Jane Austen paper for the majority of the day.

photos from Sunday

July 2: Today I went to Hogwarts

2010-07-02T14:56:00.000-07:00

Today was the Oxford adventure. We left at 8am and upon arriving got a short tour by Jonathan. Then we were left to our own devices and we chose to go to Christ Church College, a main point for Harry Potter productions. We went to the great hall, which actually wasn’t as exciting as I thought it would be. The staircase was so much better! It was my favorite part. The library was sadly not open to us, but we did get to go to a room that was the basis for the Hospital Wing and the Gryffindor dancing lessons. We also tried to find specific Oxford sweatshirts, but failed. Furthermore I split off and then was a few minutes late getting back because I got lost. But the rational is to ask a cute old couple where the main library is, no well the big round building is and they will direct you. They then took us to go punting, which was quite an endeavor. It is not our forte. Some groups got Jonathan or were just naturally gifted, but that was not how I would describe us. We did not get very far, but we did all try our hands at it. I ended up directing us the whole way back.

So in conclusion of the day we visited Hogwarts and discovered that punting is not as easy as it looks (and make sure you wear appropriate clothing, clothing you can get wet if you are inexperienced). Tomorrow we head back to London bright an early for a 7:13 train. We plan to see Westminster Abbey, then the changing of the guard, followed by the Tower a possible trip to Wimbledon to just take a photo (as there is no way we can get seats because it is finals for the women) and conclude with the London Eye. Hopefully we won’t be out too too late because we have papers due Monday and we want to have fun on the 4^th of July. We need to get to bed so we can wake up in the morning for our trip though we did catch a few fireworks. Not only are we in the wrong country but it is a few days early :P Enjoy your weekend everyone!

photos

July 1: I want the real Obi-Wan Kenobi

2010-07-01T16:11:00.001-07:00

In Jane Austen class we learned all about the navy and I zoned out through most of it. Film included a very depressing movie and an incredibly difficult quiz. He said they would get harder, as if that was normal, but since the quizzes are supposed to help our grade I don’t know why as they are certainly bringing down my grade and not helping. I mean he asked what one point someone made in class was. He just expects us to be a sponge and absorb absolutely everything. Anyway, what you need to remember about this movie is it has Obi-Wan Kenobi (the original) in it and he is fat and mean, which he just can't be. I want the real Obi-Wan, the guiding, nice Obi-Wan.

After class, Laura, Catherine and I ventured to the old Roman Baths. We tried to convince Amelia but she was too dedicated to her papers. The baths were alright, cool to see, but some places were really creepy and dark. After the baths we came back to the house where there were no boys! They went to Scotland for the day and are missing Oxford tomorrow. Speaking of that I should probably start getting ready for bed, I still need to get a shower and as is the case with most of the trips I have to get up earlier than I do for class. Hope everyone has a nice weekend!

photos (page 5, third from the end or #98)

June 30: Just as one thing works out another breaks down

2010-06-30T16:03:00.000-07:00

Today was going so well too. Classes brought nothing of interest, but after class was the skyline walk. Now this was to be a strenuous walk including many steep hills and over 2 miles. We started on this voyage and not too far into it my stomach decided it was not going to be happy. So for the over 2 hours that this hike took I felt like I was going to throw up. The hike itself was not that bad; I was expecting much worse if only my stomach had decided it would cooperate. We walked back to the apartment later than usual and had pasta for dinner.

Interrupting the work of the evening was a declaration of trash day as we all burst into song and made an assembly line of our trash and recycling. We forgot to take it out last week so we were on a mission not to forget this week. And why not make a game out of it? It was quite amusing. "IT'S GARBAGE DAY!"

On a positive note the baggage issue seems to be resolved, but now my camera is not cooperating. It takes photos, but after a little while says there is an error and must shut down. It only has a little over a week to last and then my handy warranty will be used as I take it into Best Buy and they fix it up. You can do it little camera!

photos (page 3, third to last picture or #58)

June 29: We may be starting a bad habit

2010-06-29T14:41:00.000-07:00

So Laura and I may be starting a bad habit of going to this little gelato shop after classes. It has been a hard start to the week so we felt it necessary.

In our Jane Austen class we had presentations. Hopefully ours went ok, but as he hasn’t given us grades on our last presentation so there is nothing to gauge it on. Between classes I went to Retro for lunch where we had already put my bacon on for my sandwich :]. Amelia did a great presentation on a British tv show, she’s so knowledgeable. The film we watched afterwards was pretty boring and lacked a plot, but did have the father from Pirates of the Caribbean. As I mentioned Laura and I went to the gelato place and we had thought to go shopping, but we forgot to bring extra money so we have decided to do it during lunch break tomorrow.

Chelsea and Catherine made a nice pork, potato, salad, and tomato dinner complete with chocolate cake, icecream, raspberries, and strawberries for dessert. Amelia, Laura, and I then had a brief discussion about places to see while in Oxford on Friday including some Harry Potter places :] I’m pretty excited.

Otherwise nothing much of interest has happened today. Hope all is well in the States and you guys are doing fun things!

photos (today starts on page 2 at the bottom #36)

June 28: They didn't say the miles uphill it would take to get to Prior Park

2010-06-28T12:45:00.000-07:00

Today was an earlier Jane Austen class so we could venture to Prior Park. Now what they didn’t say was that it was miles to Prior Park and all up hill. This was quite an unexpected uphill battle. Upon arriving at the park we discovered it was closed and didn’t open for a little while, sigh why did we rush up that hill then? Dr. Fallon took us around a bit and we took some scenic shots :] The focus was basically the picturesque of Jane Austen’s times and landscapes looking like paintings. We then made the walk back to Nelson House where I had to prepare for my presentation.

I was significantly flustered when it was time for my presentation to begin, but I made it through. I forgot some things on my notes and felt like I missed some points, but I had some active participation, mostly by Amelia (thanks) and Professor Ryan went on a totally different tangent with one of my points. Furthermore in his powerpoint he had scheduled to talk about something that I talked about so he skipped it :D Amelia said I did really well.

I met with my Jane Austen presentation partner after class and we worked on our discussion on Highbury (the city in Emma). The common room is amazing in Linley house and they have a real dinning room. Afterwards, Laura and I went for some well deserved gelato. I called the credit card company to sort it all out. They were calling just to make sure it was me, but wasn’t that the point of me telling them I was going to be in the UK?

The rest of the evening holds little excitement and may turn into an early evening as I have a headache. I’m also craving some real food and it is lacking in our house so I shall have to see what I can actually muster up for dinner.

photos from today

June 27: castles, polo, and all things welsh

2010-06-27T15:18:00.000-07:00

Today is the father’s day feast at the Fulton Veasey’s. I am sad I’m not there, but hope you all are having a great time. Just because I’m not eating crabs doesn’t mean I didn't do something today so Laura and I ventured to Wales. It is only a short train ride away. Upon arriving in Cardiff, Wales we discovered we left the map back at our house. Great planning I know, but we continued on in the city and spotted the castle. It cost us a bit to go in and there were signs everywhere about the polo match, but we ventured on. Inside we watched a little video, just the two of us, that was quite weird. Upon its completion we went down some sketchy passageways and up to the wall. We walked around looking at all the different flags before climbing the steps to the keep. This was no easy feet as they were pretty steep and included a spiral staircase, which is easier to go up then down. Next was the mansion where we were allowed to take photos YAY but no flash.

For lunch I picked up some chips and a hot-dog (very American though the hotdog was very bizarre and I ended up not liking it). We then went back up to the wall and sat to take in the polo. Now these people who were actually there for the polo match sitting down by the field (we were elevated up at the wall height) were dressed like they were going to a wedding. Polo is a very proper sport. And as I said in the photo album I consider it a combination of croquet and soccer with horses. Though when they were doing it with the castle backdrop it made me think of medieval jousting. After the first match they had the people go out and level the grass where divots were formed – seems weird if it is such a proper sport but Amelia says the king and queen used to do it and it was considered quite an honor. We watched one game and then a British cowboy did a sort of between game show. A British cowboy seems interesting to begin with and he said lassoo instead of lasso, which was very funny. He further commented on how he went to Dallas to compete and I feel as though Laura and I were the only ones who knew what he was talking about. We had a very relaxing day and headed back to the train station at our leisure. There ended up being a hold up on route because two trains got stuck, but we arrived. On the train we heard updates about the England Germany World Cup Match. In Bath all the pubs were silent as people watched the game near the end. No riots in the streets tonight.

Back in Bath I got to talk to some lovely people: My Dad, Uncle Bob, Ren, Kendy, Uncle Michael, Frances, Granddad, Grandmom, Allyson, my brother for a brief moment, David, Uncle Michael T, and Granddad T. and see the wonderfulness that is the father’s day crab feast. So jealous! I hope you guys enjoyed it as well as the croquet and horse! We had our own fun chat in the little landing on the staircase. It was nice to just chat and ignore schoolwork, our unplanned hang outs are best. Homework is calling me now and I suppose I must give into it, or I may delay a bit longer with a shower ;)

photos from wales

p.s. the magic cookie bars that Ren and Kendy made looked great! Were they as delicious as they looked?

June 25-26: Study Trip to London

2010-06-26T16:39:00.000-07:00

It is again late and tomorrow is an early rise so I will try to be brief. The past two days were spent in London on our study trip. Each class had a different agenda. Ours seem to be the most haphazard and not related to our class, but I’m not the organizer. Friday began with our bus not starting so instead of being picked up at 8:15 we were picked up at 9:30. Of course we didn’t know this ahead of time so we bonded over an episode of Columbo. The bus ride was long and upon arriving we found ourselves on the other side of the bridge from where we were when we visited London. Our “walking tour” if you can even call it that was random along the water point out a few things. They took us past the Film institute, but we had other random sights to see and the tube to take back to our hostel. Now they said it was not up a hill, but that was a lie there was a slight hill and it was about a mile from the tube stop to our hostel. We entered finding out that all 11 girls would be staying in one room with triple bunk beds. I’ve never seen that before. We all conquer that they should do these trips with these hostels first and then take us to Coverrack where the hostels are infinitely nicer. For some reason they thought it was a good idea to take us to the hostel only to have to leave after dinner to go right back where we were before dinner for the movie. They also didn’t leave enough time so we had to run that 1 mile back to the tube. The movie was intense and depressing. You felt like you needed to watch an episode of Winnie the pooh or something after that.

Catherine, Amelia, Christina and I were the only ones to stay in London after the movie. We walked around a bit, took some photos, had some ice cream and then made our way back. The next day was met with a cornucopia of alarms all going off at different times and people putting them on snooze and refusing to get up. We ate breakfast and headed to met our guide, but upon arriving there they told us we were almost an hour early so we could go explore. We walked down the street and found nothing to go into so we simply walked back. The tour was of Notting Hill, which didn’t used to be as nice as it is now. More celebrities live there than anywhere else in London and London has the most celebrities of anywhere in the world. The tour was fine, but I felt like we were going in circles as we passed right by our hostel. We ended at portabella market, which was way more expensive than I thought it would be at the little shops and it was super crowded. Furthermore, we had way too much time there and most of us sat in an alley waiting for the time to pass, getting some amusement from the pigeons. We then had to hike all the way back to our hostel to catch the bus (why the bus couldn’t meet us I have no idea) and embark on the long bus ride back to Bath.

In Bath we watched the USA vs. Ghana game :[ so GO ENGLAND! The rest of the evening was uploading pictures and such. Laura and I are going to Cardiff, Wales for a short day trip tomorrow. Hope the Veaseys have a great crab fest! I wish I was there! Have tons of fun!

photos from the trip

June 24: Bristol, Bath's ugly twin

2010-06-24T17:25:00.000-07:00

In the interest of the hour (and because I have to get up in a very short amount of time) , this will again be a short post. Tomorrow we leave for London, at least the Film and Politics classes do. Laura departs with the Holmes class for Dartmoor. In London the politics class will split from the film class with the politics going to parliament and the film class going to some obscure places.

Today our Jane Austen class went to Bristol. This meant getting up earlier for class and from Nelson house catching the train to Bristol. The train ride was only around 10 minutes. The tour of Bristol itself wasn’t all that interesting and it didn’t actually have a lot to do with Jane Austen either. None of us really thought it would be quite that long either. I’m glad we went so I can say I went to Bristol and saw a few things of interest like the abbey and St. Mary Redcliff’s, but otherwise not that different from a U.S. city. In Jane Austen's time Bristol was a trading city and was not viewed as highly as Bath for that and other reasons. It was often smelly and more dirty as well.

In film we watched A Room With A View which I did my paper on. The quiz we take once a week on the computer after class was incredibly difficult, a drastic change from last week’s quiz. It was as though since we all did so well on that quiz he felt he had to make this one harder but he went to such the other extreme. And there was a typo and one wasn’t even a question it was simply a statement. The quiz is timed so we couldn’t ask him about it, but hopefully he’ll give us credit for his mistake. Other than that we tried to do a bit of shopping, but failed at the store we’ve been eyeing. We hoped to catch the end of the really long match from Wimbledon, but we missed that as well.

The rest of the evening passed fairly uneventfully. We were all pretty tired and we think it might have to do something with the fact that we’ve basically had one day off this entire trip and it’s catching up to us. Well I am off to bed so I can get up in a few hours and go down to catch the bus at 8:15. Oh the joys of being the first group to get picked up. I’ll write when we return on Saturday, though it will be late so perhaps not til Sunday. Have a great crab feast Veaseys!

photos from today (page 4 #72)

June 23: The Best of Both Worlds - USA and England advance in the World Cup

2010-06-23T16:34:00.000-07:00

In an effort to not go to bed incredibly late tonight, I shall write a fairly short blog entry tonight. Classes were not that eventful. In Jane Austen we talked a bit about Emma and Laura, MJ and I were in a group. We were talking about mysteries and puzzles with characters. Our second class was pushed up to 1:30pm instead of 2:30pm. This was all because of the world cup games. Our classes were to get out by 3:20pm so we could watch the game that started at 3pm. My teacher let us out a little bit after 3, but I waited for Laura and 3:20 and then we headed up to watch the game. We switched between the USA and the England match. They were really exciting with the USA scoring in the 92^nd minute! Yay for both advancing. The USA now plans Ghana and England plays Germany.

We went on a walking tour at 6pm with a guy named Andrew Butterworth. It wasn’t as good as the Bizarre Bath tour, but it was alright. He invited us all into a place called Porter’s afterwards for a drink. There we watched the Ghana versus Germany game and then headed up to our house at halftime. We caught a bit of the Wimbledon game that is so far lasting for over 9hours. I then ventured down to use the telephone booth and make a few calls.

Tomorrow the Jane Austen classes head to Bristol, the opposite of Bath during Austen’s time. This weekend is our study trip weekends too and we are going to London, but the non-touristy parts of London. Nothing else too exciting happened today I just hope my roommate feels better soon! Oh and the minutes on your phone card are not actually the number of minutes you get; it is a lie! You get a ton less actually, which is weird.

photos from today (staring with #24 page 2 first row)

June 22: tacos, clueless, and emma lead to fun discussions

2010-06-22T16:04:00.000-07:00

Nothing of interest really happened today. I was awoken this morning by the cleaning ladies. They came before we went off to class, which was slightly odd. It is nice that they empty our trash and vacuum our room though. I went to class as usual and got assigned our next presentation assignments. I am doing the Highbury in Emma. I talked with Lindsay between classes about our possible trip this weekend. We are thinking of going to Cardiff in Wales on Sunday and possibly Tintern Abbey as well. We watched High Hopes in our film class, which wasn’t really my cup of tea, but a lot of other people liked it.

After class Chelsea and I went to a little grocery store to search for taco ingredients. We were successful and I made tacos for everyone. The seasoning over here is a little interesting and Chelsea said it gave it a bit of an Indian flavor. We chatted for a bit and then started to watch Clueless. We have to watch Clueless or Emma for our Jane Austen class. In that time I also chatted with Jenny and she told me she got a 36 on her mcats. CONGRATULATIONS JENNY! You’ll make a great doctor!

We are currently watching Emma after finishing Clueless and having quit ea fun time criticizing and comparing, but I thought I should write a little blog. Sorry that there is nothing too exciting to talk about. We are having some very interesting conversations, but they would not relate well here.

photos from today (starting with #12)

June 21: Is it really week three already?

2010-06-21T16:13:00.001-07:00

Happy first day of summer everyone. If we were at Stonhenge today instead of last Friday we would have been greeted with quite the variety of individuals. Today was the beginning of week three, I can’t believe it. As Laura and I planned out the things we have left to do we realized how little time is left for us to do them in.

My first class was Jane Austen where we talked about social rank, status, and morals. I felt like I understood it more than usual and participated a great deal. Between classes I was proud that I made it to Reyman’s to purchase some dvds for pictures. My second class was a discussion on the film Another Country and concluded with the handing of our papers. He sufficiently worried most of us with his speech beforehand, but concluded by saying no one did poorly. I got an A- which isn’t bad, but it’s frustrating I can’t break into the true A range. But it’s done and I can just hope to do better on the final paper, however unlikely that may be.

Laura and I ventured to Iceland and M&S after class to get some food, but alas they failed me and did not have everything I need so I must venture to the true grocery store tomorrow after class. The majority of the evening was spent reading Emma and discovering that I don’t really like her as a character. She is in stark contrast to many of Jane Austen’s heroines and she seems to represent a different kind of female character who doesn’t aspire to marry and has a certain amount of money. I didn’t actually finish, but had to consult summaries for the ending, but as I was only required to finish Volume I, I still have time to truly finish.

No major plans for this week, but we shall see what the week holds. My roommate Laura is now sick (a different kind then mine) so I’m not sure how much adventuring will happen this week. Hopefully she makes a speedy recovery.

photos from today (starting with #7)

June 20: A day with no plans, what a nice change

2010-06-20T14:42:00.000-07:00

Hello again. It was a very short time ago that I wrote my last blog for yesterday, since I wrote it this morning, but that shall not stop me from writing a blog today. Nothing really of interest happened today. It was our very first day with nothing on the schedule, which was actually very refreshing. No alarm had to be set, didn’t have to go anywhere or do anything. I still woke up before noon, which for the adults seems very late, but as I didn’t go to bed until after 3am and I haven’t been getting a lot of sleep the past few days that was not that much sleep.

I didn’t do much today either. I woke up and had some cereal for breakfast. I uploaded a bunch of photos and read some of Emma. Later I had some eggs and more cereal (haven’t been to the store recently so this is what I have to eat. Furthermore it’s Sunday and Bath stores close really early but even earlier on Sundays). I called my dad to wish him a Happy Father’s Day! Happy Father’s Day Dad! I hope you had a good day and sorry I wasn’t there to give you a hug and tell you what a great dad you are!

That was pretty much the end of my eventful day, so I will not bore you with more ramblings as you will likely be reading yesterday’s post and being absorbed by the large number of photos. Have a good start to the week everyone!

Happy Father's Day Dad! I Love You!

photos from today

June 19: Running through London, literally

2010-06-20T08:34:00.000-07:00

What is there to say about our trip to London? Let us start with a checklist.

Nearly get run over on Abbey Road...check

Ask how to get to platform 9¾...check

Sit on a big book in the British Library...check

Walk in the footsteps of Sherlock...check

See the Rosetta Stone...check

Recreate the image of Harold framed by the Tower Bridge...check

Witness three different weddings going on in the city...check

Fight to get on and ride a double decker bus...check

Spy on the guards at Buckingham palace with my long lens...check

Take phonebooth photo...check

Pose with Big Ben (both in the day and at night)...check

Eat at a London pub...check

Flag down a taxi (after failing twice, third time's the charm)...check

Well we certainly made the most of one day. We got up at 5:50am and headed down to the train station at 6:15am to catch our train at 7am. The train ride was fairly uneventful with most of us reading Emma or falling asleep or in my case both. There were some technical problems so we didn’t end up arriving until after 9am. From there we purchased all day tube tickets (well worth it for how much we used them). From our detailed planning earlier in the week Amelia typed up a list of our stops and coordinating tube stations. We first got off to take the very important Beatles photo on Abbey Road. With our assigned parts in two groups we set out to recreate it. We did not expect it to be such a busy road! It was a bit ridiculous but we were comforted by the fact that a group of four guys were attempting to recreate it as well. It took several attempts, but we finally got a couple that we decided were good enough and we ceased risking our lives on the crosswalk.

From the delay on the train to the amount of time for the abbey road picture we were set back in our schedule a bit, but next on our agenda was King’s Cross Station. Here we culminated our experience by asking a guard where Platform 9 ¾ was. He kept an amazingly straight face for a bunch of college kids asking this bizarre question. We proceeded in the direction and were guided by people saying Harry (like Harry when he is searching for the platform only he follows people saying muggle). After this stop we split up and Casey and Christina went to the globe whereas the rest of us went to the British Library. My statement on Friday about seeing the oldest document I will ever see was a lie for we saw much older pieces today. We also saw another copy of the Magna Carta (there are four in total and I think I’ve probably also seen the one in DC so now I just have one left to go). The globe ended up taking the other group a great deal of time so went on to meet them at 221b baker street. The tube station was covered with Sherlock as well which was cool.

Now this stop was probably Laura’s favorite as she loves Sherlock Holmes and is taking the seminar class on him. I went in with her to visit the house and we took lots of pictures, but probably my favorite is our one with the guard at the door complete with hats and pipe. They even had wax figures on the upper floors depicting characters from some of the stories. The globe crew was still delayed so we headed over to the British Museum and did the quickest museum trip ever ;) Trying to get back on schedule. I saw the Rosetta Stone and some of the Parthenon sculptures.

The last true stop and not simply a photo shoot was the Tower of London, however we arrived there a little after 4pm and they said it would not be enough time. This was a little disappointing as I really wanted to go in, but never fear for Laura and I are already planning a trip back to London so we can see the changing of the guard, the inside of Westminster Abbey, and the tower. We got rained on a bit here and waited a while for Casey and Christina to rejoin us. Laura and I went down to look at the Tower Bridge where we took a picture framed by it. It made me think of Harold, who is in the movie The Long Good Friday and delivers a moving speech while being framed by that bridge on a boat. It took some coordinating to finally find Casey and Christina but Amelia discovered them and we headed onward.

The next part of our journey involved the touristy parts of London. First we had to get on a double decker bus because they close certain lines on the weekends to work on them. This was quite a difficult task as everyone seemed to want to get on the bus. We managed to get on the third one that came by and went on the second level. Getting off in Trafalgar Square we discovered that the museums there were closed (our guide books lied to us) so we took some photos and decided to make our way down to Buckingham Palace. It was quite a walk, but upon arriving we got to see the guards move around and take some pretty photos. On the way back we stopped in a gift shop that was just entirely overwhelming and then we made our way to Big Ben. The main sightseeing things in London are all right by each other so we got some photos with Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey before finally stopping for food. It was nearly 9pm by this point so we stopped in a pub where I ordered a coronation chicken sandwich. It was ok, but not my favorite. The chips were really good. After eating, it was sufficiently dark to take our night photos with Big Ben so we did that and then got on the tube followed by the train to get home. The train was fairly full for so late, but we were the very first ones on it. It also was a bit delayed on the way back too.

Upon arriving back we discovered that it was quite cold and quite a long walk to get back up to our house. We elected to see how much it would cost to get a taxi, but that task was more difficult than expected. We got one and as he pulled around he picked up someone else. Another taxi said he would come around but he drove away. We finally got one and she said it would be £6. I sat in the front seat. Now I never really thought that driving on the other side was that weird, but when you are sitting in the space that should have the wheel and when you can see out the front window it is a bit weird. I looked at the temperature gauge in the taxi and it was just 40 degrees outside! Furthermore, in a bizarre twist, Bath was a happenign place at 1:30am. So it shuts down at like 6pm but is bustling with people again later, very strange. Upon arriving back the plan was to upload photos, but I was just too tired to finish so I got a shower and went to bed.

photos from London part 1

photos from London part 2

June 18: Stonehenge & Salisbury

2010-06-18T14:08:00.000-07:00

This morning started early, but not as early as tomorrow is going to be. We departed for Stonehenge at 9am. Stonehenge was cool, but it’s one of those places you see and take photos of and there is really nothing else to do. They no longer let you go up in the rocks, which is a shame, but people were defacing them and chipping parts away as souvenirs so now it’s roped off. The main thing there was the beetles! They were ridiculous. They loves Amelia and my hair and were not easy to get off. After that we departed for Salisbury where we saw swans, beautiful churches and the Salisbury Cathedral. It was amazing and beautiful! To think how long ago it was made and all the detail that went into it! A bunch of us went to lunch at the Haunch of Venison and I decided to try something new. That didn’t go very well. I had a salmon sandwich, but the salmon was weird, thinly sliced and I’m not sure if it was cooked. We got a guided tour through part of the Salisbury Cathedral and got to see the Magna Carta, which was pretty cool. That is probably the oldest piece of paper I’ll ever see. The ride back should have been a half an hour, but it took considerably longer because of traffic issues.

Today’s blog seems incredibly short for such a busy day, but nothing too exciting happened it was just a lot of pictures and touring. Tomorrow is bright and early for a 7am train to London. Now that is going to be a busy day and I’m sure I’ll have quite the stories to tell.

photos from today

June 17: I saw the sun rise this morning...

2010-06-17T15:45:00.000-07:00

As evident by my picture from today, it has been a long week. I was up until a little after 5am working on my papers this morning. The sun came up at around 4:00am, which is so weird. It was hard to get up this morning, but I did it. Then we ventured down to print out our papers after a final look over. I felt bad for our Jane Austen professor because no one seemed to be with it this morning. Between classes I took Laura to Retro for her first sandwich there. The guy was so nice and gave her two stamps (once you get five stamps you get a sandwich free). When I walked up to the counter he said hello and asked if I wanted my usual :] he has learned who I am. The people here are so nice!

I edited my paper between my two classes and then went on to film where we watched Another Country. I had my bottle of coke ready for keeping me awake during a very anti-action packed movie. We then unexpectedly had a very long thought out discussion on what we are going to do in London. It was quite a planned out endeavor that culminated in us purchasing our train tickets. Here is what we are planning ot at least see

1. Abbey Road (complete with Beatles picture photo shoot)

2. King’s Cross Station (for the harry potter picture)

3. British Library

4. The Globe

5. Holmes’s House

6. British Museum

7. Tower of London / Tower Bridge

8. Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, London Eye, Portrait Gallery, Ben Franklin’s house, Downing Road

The things at the end are all together and we are just planning to take pictures of them and not actually go in them. If you have any suggestions of major things we’re missing let me know asap!

Next we had to take our cinema exams that we have every Thursday. It wasn’t that bad actually though and I’m pretty sure I got a 100. The original plan was to go out to dinner today, but the planning of London took such a long time that we just chilled out here as a house and had a nice chat in the common room before attempting to watch The Matrix. After battling with the tv and vcr I came upstairs to meet Kendy on skype.

Tomorrow will be a busy day as we go to Stonehenge and Salisbury bright and early, but not as early as our planned excursion to London on Saturday. Well I think I’ll go to bed before too long since it was a late night last night. Talk to you after I've witnessed these mysterious stones that have perplexed people for years.

photos from today (page 6 the second to last picture on the page or #119)

June 16: I'd rather be trying on corsets than writing these papers

2010-06-16T17:36:00.000-07:00

This morning was a slightly earlier morning as the Jane Austen classes were to meet at the fashion museum. That was a fun class, I mean who wouldn’t take a field trip over discussion any day? We got to see a lot of dresses, obviously including some that I would definitely not consider stylish, but apparently someone did. The most fun was trying on the big skirts and corsets though. Especially seeing our professor in his stylish corset and green hat complete with feather.

We finished the museum at 11:40 (ten minutes after my class is normally starting) and instead of venturing back to the house (which was actually only a short ways away) I decided to go down to the Nelson house to try and be productive. The house has so many distractions mainly my computer and photos that returning would inevitably result in negative work. I walked with Abbey and Casey to retro to get some food. While eating I worked on editing Amelia’s film paper. Hopefully that was helpful to her and then I went to the computer to work on my Jane Austen paper. I forgot to email my work from last night so I ended up starting from scratch (mind you my Jane Austen paper did not get very far as I decided to go to bed and think on it than stay up for hours getting nowhere). I ended up getting around 900 words in my lunch break towards the total count of 1000-1500.

Film class had us discussing The Beautiful Laundrette that we watched yesterday. Nothing too noteworthy discussed. As Laura asked her professor a question I went in and talked to Claire about things to do in London. We are venturing there on Saturday for the day. If you have any suggestions feel free to pass them along.

The entire evening has been basically working on my two lovely papers. I had the film paper pretty much written last night, but today I elected to rewrite it. Since then it has gone through some edits and I am now stepping away to look at it again hopefully with almost new eyes. The Jane Austen paper was seemingly more difficult, but for two of my roommates I think it was a lot easier. I have successful written drafts on paper and have edited them both. They are both slightly over the word limit (less than 100 words over each) so I will go back and fix them in a few minutes. I think they are good and I have been working on them for an awfully long time, but I am not sure my professors will share my belief. In addition to those papers I also have reading to do, so it is going to be a long night.

Tomorrow is the last day of classes for the week, which is surprising, but welcomed as its been a stressful week with the papers. A bunch of us are thinking of going out tomorrow to celebrate our completion of the first draft of papers. Then Friday brings Stonehenge and Salisbury and Saturday London. No plans for Sunday, but possibly walking along the canal or something close by in Bath.

My entries seem to be steadily decreasing in length, a reflection on the workload I think, but hopefully they are still informative of the happenings over here in Bath. I must go back to the bane of paper editing and reading now...

photos from today (same album as yesterday. they start on page 2 in the second row or #27. there are a lot from today enjoy!)

June 15: "I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours"

2010-06-15T15:47:00.000-07:00

As I seem to be the queen of procrastination what better way to further delay other than writing my blog. I wouldn't want to skip a day you see so I better write a little something of today's uneventful happenings. I woke up on my own accord before Laura. SHOCKING! I went down to class early to meet with Baxter, my presentation partner. Our presentation could have gone better, but its over. Nothing too exciting happened today in classes. We made a trip to the train station to inquire about tickets for the weekend, but we are going to plan out a bit more before purchasing since the ticket rates are fixed.

I made it to and from class today all on my own. Today was pretty much going to class and working on my papers, the source of my procrastination. I have two papers due Thursday, which I'm trying to create drafts of tonight, but as its already midnight it seems that I am procrastinating quite well. As anything else I write will just further the procrastination I will end it early. Facebook must also know that I should be writing papers because it will not let me upload the photos from today so I will have to do those tomorrow. Hopefully the next time I write here I will have made substantial progress on my papers.

photos from today (same album as yesterday photos start on page 1 #9 or the picture of the chocolate cake)

June 14: Sadly it's a school day

2010-06-14T15:13:00.000-07:00

Today was sadly a school day. After a weekend of being a tourist it was not easy to try and switch back in the mode of schoolwork. After spending quite some time last night trying to figure out why facebook was being particularly annoying with photo uploading I finally went to sleep and got out of bed at 10:15am. This required some coaxing. I was awakened earlier by a heated debate over the internet between Jason and Peter, but when I asked them about it this evening they had no knowledge of such a debate, but Laura and I both heard it this morning. I had plenty of sleep and more than once my body tried to insist I arouse from bed earlier but I adamantly refused.

I can’t believe it is already the second week. Time is really going to fly by. Today’s classes were uneventful except for the handing out of the assignment sheet for the Jane Austen paper due on Thursday. It was revealed to be quite a bit longer than we anticipated, but it will be done sometime in the next few days. Our film paper is also due on Thursday. Tomorrow is our Jane Austen presentation. I met with my partner after classes today and worked on it a bit after returning here.

I find myself quite tired after a restful night sleep so I feel as though I may head to bed soon to prepare for the long nights ahead writing papers. There are very few photos today but a couple of the town as I walked back to the house after classes. I managed to make it back on my own after some confusion on meeting up with others. It is quite a miracle that I managed to navigate through the city after only a week, but I did!

I broke with my eating British things as my housemates decided on ordering Dominos for dinner. This proved that we are all not math majors and trying to calculate the divided cost with random coupons added was far beyond us.

As I prepare for bed Laura is diligently working on her papers for later in the week proving herself a much better student that I. I will consider it quite an accomplishment if I prove successful in writing drafts of my papers tomorrow.

small selection of photos from today

I also added a brief bit about a piano in the mansion and a group photo on yesterday's post

June 11-13: Weekend in Cornwall - of King Arthur, lizards, and millionaires

2010-06-13T13:50:00.000-07:00

I'm playing around with different backgrounds of this blog as I try to decide what I like (it may change again ;) I also warn you that there are a lot of pictures that go with the links (around 250 from all three days. You were warned)

So this weekend involved a lot of walking. On Friday we left at 7:30am for Tintagel, arriving there a little after 1pm. Tintagel is the legendary birthplace of King Arthur. According to legend (and recorded in some medieval romances, including ones I read last semester), King Uther fancied the wife of a Duke, Ygerna. King Uther disguised himself as the Duke, snuck into the castle, and conceived Arthur with Ygerna. The Duke subsequently died in a battle that evening and King Uther made Ygerna his queen. Now saying we went to Tintagel Castle is a little misleading. There is no castle actually there, but simply ruins. And it is quite a ways down and then up some steep steps to get to the actual “castle”. They started this part with the warning “Do not stray from the path because the grass overhang is just grass and there is nothing underneath. A student died a couple years ago from straying off the path.” Needless to say we didn’t really stray off the path (but we went on some rocks a couple times (far from the edge but not on the designated path).

Now they said that the major hike was going to be on Saturday, but many of us felt that these stairs warranted a warning of their own. Not really enough time to walk along this area, have lunch, and shop so we found ourselves quickly hurrying along to get back on the bus to head to the Roskilly’s Farm. This was a farm, but very few animals were there, just some cows. They described it on a handout to us as “whilst here for our BBQ, you can explore the farm, meet the cows and donkeys, amble along paths through charming valley of ponds, meadows, and woods, feed the ducks, or follow the path to ‘Joe Stones’, a great look out place from which you can see over the sea to St Mawes and the Cornish mountains.” Now we went exploring and all we found was a little pond, some cows in a pasture, and a major road. We had barbeque for dinner and ice cream for desert, which they are famous for. I had coconut bounty and green mint chocolate (interesting to note that Mint Chocolate Chips is called green mint chocolate in the UK).

We then got on the bus again and drove to the hostel we would be staying at. The bus parked and they pointed way across town and upwards to where we were staying. We lugged our bags up many more hills until we arrived at the hostel. Now the hostel was much nicer than I ever expected a hostel to be. Many of the rooms were quite spacious (not ours) and they served hot breakfast in the mornings. After settling in, we ventured down to the coast for some pictures before heading back up and calling it a day.

Photos from Day 1

Day 2 of the weekend had us, of course, riding on the bus to the Lizard. Breakfast was at 8am leaving the hostel at 8:40 to make the trek to the bus pick up point to depart. The Lizard is the most southerly part of England and the National Trust owns much of it so it protects it from development. This is the hike they had been warning us about and made sure we wore proper shoes. Now this was a hike, but it was much more level than Tintagel or even the city of Bath with a few inclines and such, but not too bad at all really. Laura and I are also convinced that it was not close to 4 miles but more like 2. Before beginning on the hike our guide showed us the most southerly football field and proceeded to make comments about the game that night. We walked along the path, stopping at the most southerly loo in England and the most southerly café (where I fell, but who can say the fell at the most southerly part of England? Only me from our crew). We walked along the lizard and around the Southern part of England for quite some time, taking many photographs along the way. We eventually got back on the bus and headed for St. Ives. St. Ives is a little town at the bottom of a hill (noticing that a hill is included in everything). We had very little time for this part of our exploration, but we decided we wanted to accomplish it all. We got lunch at a little sandwich place, went to the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden, visited the Tate and went to the ocean. I was the only one in our close crew who ventured into the ocean, but some of the other sin the large group choose to sunbath and be on the beach the whole time. It was quite cold as was expected since it is the Atlantic, but I couldn’t not go in the water! MJ and I even stopped for a picture by (well with the) lighthouse from Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse in the Background for Professor Flynn (our English professor at Gettysburg College who loves Virginia Woolf and To the Lighthouse.)

We departed St. Ives at 5pm and passed a military barracks and the Goonhilly Satellite Communications Earth Station where the first trans-Atlantic telephone call to the U.S. was transmitted. It was then up the hill to drop stuff off at the hostel and back down the hill to the Paris pub. Here we had a pasty supper (not my favorite) and watched the much anticipated US vs England football game in the world cup (The two have not met in a World Cup since 1950 when the US beat England 1-0. They were interested in some long awaited payback). The England supporters sang their national anthem so naturally the Americans got up to sign our national anthem (I should say tried as it was a bit more difficult to coordinate and sing in tune than the English one). Within the first five minutes the English supporters were up with cheers singing “Engaland Engaland!” with their first goal. Thankfully the US scored a goal not too much late, but to say they scored gives them some sort of credit rather than acknowledging that it was simply a goalie error. Laura and I felt bad for the goalie after that. There was much yelling and differencing perspectives throughout the game, but as climatic as it was it ended in a tie, which didn’t seem that satisfactory. It meant there could be no boasted from either side, but it seemed unfinished. It was quite fun to be in that atmosphere for the game and it was completed by drinking their special cider, which was quite good.

Happy 18^th Birthday Steven! Sorry I wasn’t there to celebrate. Hope you enjoyed your week at the beach!

Today we woke up for breakfast at 8am again and departed for Knightshayes at 9am. We arrived at Knighshayes a little after noon and had until 3pm to explore, which proved to be more than enough time. Knightshayles is a house built by a millionaire in 1867. It remains the only example built of “a medium-sized Burges country house, to the ‘standard’ Victorian arrangement.” Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pictures of the interior of the house but we made up for it with the large number of the exterior and in the garden. I also played a short song on the piano thus starting a trend of other's playing on the piano. But I figured I had to do it because when else would I have the opportunity to play the piano in a mansion? The trek back to the Bath seemed to drag on for quite some time, but we eventually were back in our house around 5:30pm. A letter was waiting for me from Jenny :) Thanks Jenny! We had a group dinner made by Chelsea, had a conversation about movies including Harry Potter, and then split up to do homework and sort through photos.

After the weekend is said and done I came out with pink cheeks (big shocker there since no matter how much I apply sunscreen I always have pink cheeks), a red right arm that will make a nice farmers tan and red behind the knees, but compared to many others I did well. Not a lot of homework for me tonight, but there are quite a lot of pictures to sort through and later this week will not be so fortunate for homework with a presentation on Tuesday and two papers due Thursday. But Thursday is the end of the week and Friday has us going to Stonehenge and Salisbury and then probably off to London on Saturday. Hope you all had a nice weekend and hopefully my dad, brother and Mary are enjoying Steven’s birthday dinner out!

Photos from Day 2 & 3 (too many to all the days to fit in one album ;))

the entire group minus our academic advisor Jonathan just so you have a gauge of how many people are in the program (the teachers are in the photo too)

June 10: manapu...minapi....manipula...oh you know what I mean

2010-06-10T15:36:00.000-07:00

I can’t believe today was my last day of class from the first week. Time is really flying by. Right now I am trying to figure out what to pack for my trip to Cornwall this weekend, which is proving difficult since I’m just a bad packer to begin with, but I have decided I should try to write my blog before I just go crazy trying to decide what to bring.

Today was our first real Jane Austen class and we talked about some extra articles we were given to read concerning Jane Austen and Northanger Abbey. When I tried to participate I had the hardest time trying to say manipulative which was pretty embarrassing, but aw well, I participated that’s the important part right? Between classes I found the post office! And I bought them out of house and home with my stamp purchase, but post cards went out in the mail today. On the way back a British guy (who was cute) said good afternoon to me :) In film we watched Chariots of Fire which was good, but very different than the other movie we watched. It was hard to take notes and try to figure out what he would ask us to talk about on Monday. Still no word from my presentation partner, but I have emailed him and hopefully will try to corner him this weekend to ask him about it. I wanted to ask him after class, but as I stood up the table collapsed so MJ and I spent a few minutes trying to put it together.

The evening was pretty uneventful, but I took pictures on the way home. Not very many at all, but I’m sure the many this weekend will more than make up for the lack today. I’m a little nervous about this weekend, but it should be fun and I can hopefully do this long hike. Tomorrow we have to be ready to be picked up at the bottom of the hill at 7am. It is quite a long bus ride but we stop at Tintagel, the legendary birthplace of King Arthur. We end at the Roskilly Farm for a bbq and it's famous for its icecream. On Saturday we are hiking along the Lizard, which is a walk around the most Southern part of England. It is around a 2 hour hike.In the afternoon we are visiting St. Ives with swimming in the Atlantic (and you bet I will be swimming despite the cold), the Tate Gallery and the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden along with exploring the little town. That evening we return to Coverack and have pasty at a pub where we will be watching the England vs USA world cup match! On Sunday we depart at 9am for Knightshayes court, which was a house commissioned by Sir John Heathcoat-Amory. It is the only example built of a medium-sized Burges country house to the standard Victorian arrangement. We will be arriving back in Bath around 5pm.

I have a busy weekend ahead of me and I still need to finish packing and get a shower. Hope you all have a lovely weekend and I will talk to you on Sunday night!

photos (only a couple today starting on the last page #124)

June 9 : Bunnies are brillant

2010-06-09T17:25:00.001-07:00

Today was a fun day after a long night last night. My coughing seemed to get worse as I decided to go to bed culminating in two severe coughing episodes the latter being at 2:45am. I finally got to bed sometime after 3am so I was fairly tired this morning and tried to stay in bed as long as possible.

My first class was a walking tour of Bath again by my Jane Austen tutor. It had both sections of the Jane Austen class in the tour today because our tutor got stuck in a backed up train this morning so he missed the first section. The tour was nice and we got to see the first place Jane Austen lived and Sydney gardens which are quite pretty – a photo shoot will have to take place there sometime). I got a BLT without the T for lunch and it was so good. I might have to get the same thing tomorrow because it was so good. A random British man also complemented me today. I was walking back to the Nelson House after picking up my sandwich and a bloke just stopped and said he liked me t-shirt and I looked really pretty. I thanked him and he then told me to have a great day. He was really nice, but the whole incident was also a little weird as well. It was nice to be complimented though J

My film class had us talking about A Long Good Friday with MJ, Jason, and myself talking about cinematography in it. I think we covered the main points though MJ did all of the talking. I participated a bit later on in the discussion though so hopefully the couple times I talked were sufficient. He was very into us talking about what’s upside down about the film and none of us could come up with anything and I’m still pretty confused about what he means by that.

After class I tried to find the post office and did in fact find a very large older building with Post Office written across it but it was not in fact a post office. I entered it feeling quite proud of myself for finding it because as most people know I am very directionally challenged, but I found it all on my own and it was filled with clothes and mannequins. Being thoroughly confused I did not find stamps today and must ask tomorrow where to go since I am having so much trouble locating a post office. I then messed around and did some work until our Bizarre Bath walking tour.

The tour was a ton of fun. It was the guy making a bunch of jokes and doing a series of illusion and magic kind of tricks. It was so funny and great I’m really glad I did it. A couple things he did were walk around blind folded, drop a tied up bunny in the canal that then floated up, let a ring go on a balloon and then have the bunny from the canal reappear on a motorized truck with the ring, make balloon animals, and chop through carrots while avoiding someone’s head in the same stocks. It was a lot of fun and we even got a picture with him and I got Stewart the Third (There was the first Stewart who got dropped into the canal and floated to the top but then left there as we all continued on the tour. Then there was Stewart the Second who appeared on the motorized truck. I would have loved to have one of those large rabbits, but I got one of their children who I named Stewart the Third). We arrived back at our place at 10:30 and I have since been fighting with facebook about uploading photos, showered, and tackled my blog.

Tomorrow is the last day of classes from week one. I can’t believe that it is the end of the first week already. Time is just going to fly by. I think we are going to go out to the pubs tomorrow night and then a fun weekend at Cornwall. I’m going to get to bed and hope that coughing holds off and maybe even disappears for good.

photos (the photos are in the same album for the week. they start on page 5 the last photo in the first row or #65)

June 8: me a history expert? I don't think so

2010-06-08T14:02:00.000-07:00

Laura and I woke up a little bit earlier today so we could go down to South Gate to buy some school supplies before class. It proved to be harder than yesterday for both of us to get up despite that we went to bed earlier than Sunday. We made it down to the Southgate where I bought paper and folders for classes and then we still had time so we stopped to pick up postcards.

Our Jane Austen class today was a walking tour, but before we left he told us our partners for our presentations next week and the topics; I am with Baxter and we are doing Social Rank in Pride and Prejudice. Our walking tour took us all over the city of Bath (well not too terribly far but to a lot of different places) including to her few former residences and places described throughout Northanger Abbey – we even followed exactly where Catherine and Isabella went in pursuit of two young men, which was really cool. We took a fair amount of pictures on the walking tour, but to be honest I don’t remember the significance of all the buildings I took photos of. Halfway through the tour it did begin to rain significantly, but what else can be expected of England? I brought my umbrella so it wasn’t really a bit deal, but hopefully some sunshine will appear when we go to take pictures of the abbey one day and when we decided to do our lion photo shoot. It has been decided (mostly by me) that we all need to pose with a different lion in Bath while we are here because they are just everywhere!

Between classes I went to Scoffs for lunch and then went back to the common room in Nelson House to read for Jane Austen’s tomorrow class (reading ahead!) In film class we watched A Long Good Friday, which had Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan in it and was fairly good. I became a bit tired at points though and my coughin has not stopped all day despite the fact that I bought plenty of cough drops (they appear to be useless in stopping coughing).

After class it was our goal to find a post office in South Gate, but we did not but Catherine did manage to buy a phone and I bought a couple cards. Furthermore, while Laura and I were waiting for Catherine an English woman asked us for directions. Now I don't know why she would ask us for directions we must have looked British - well that can't be true - well we look like we know where we're going - no we were just standing there looking like lost tourists - we were talking in English accents - definitely not we were talking like regular old Americans - rationale there is no reason why she should have asked us for directions. As we were walking up towards our house I apologized for something and Laura and Catherine told me I said sorry with an English accent (I had no knowledge of this and was in disbelief) but they were very adamant that I did. I'm adopting an accent without knowing it on the fourth day here. LOL.

Back at the house I organized my papers in my newly bought folders. We were on our own for dinner tonight and I had leftover pasta and made some shrimp to go with it. For a lot of the evening I was reading for my film class and I am all done with readings for this week! I feel really good for getting ahead, but papers and presentations in addition to readings are in order for net week so I have to start thinking about all of that soon. I then decided it was time to decorate with pictures, which was an interesting task since we are not allowed to put any on the walls. I found a way to decorate with them as you can see if you look at the photos near the end.

It is almost 10pm but that is pretty early for me to write up my blog (so far on this trip anyway) so I am exciting to be on top of it. Although I say that I am ahead in film reading I don’t feel very confident about the film readings so I think I will be going back through those tomorrow during my class break. The rest of the evening entails some postcard writing and then Laura and I are going to try to tackle some planning. We are going to make a huge calendar with all our assignments and trips planned as well as nightly events so we can see where we can fit in the other things we want to do and decided what the other things we want to do are (I feel this will take more than one evening, but we need to start soon!)

Hopefully all is going well back in the States. Tomorrow might be a more interesting day since we have the Bizarre Bath Walking Tour in addition to another Jane Austen walking tour. My film class will be a little nerve racking because we will be talking about the film in relation to the book which I found confusing, but hopefully my class will be in the same boat as me since most of them haven’t’ taken a film class before. Though he seems to think I am his film history expert along with Peter and neither of us seem to be able to remember the specifics he is pointing to and Jim wasn’t really interested in British cinema so it was definitely not a focus of our previous instruction.

photos (today's photos start on page 2, the 2nd photo or photo #22)

June 7: classes begin, but blogging and pictures shall not cease

2010-06-07T15:38:00.000-07:00

Today was a more traditional English day with overcast and rain. The day did start with some sun, but quickly turned to overcast skies with intermittent sprinkles and eventually slightly heavier ran on our way back from the grocery store (perfect timing I know).

It was our first day of classes and Laura and I got up at 10:15am for our 11:30am class. I showered and decided to look cute today so I wore my white dress with yellow cardigan (I don’t know that this looking nice streak will continue, but if I didn’t at least look nice the first day than I would never do it). I then had some cereal and we headed off to class at 11am. We think we went a slightly roundabout way to get there, but it was they way they showed us before (we are convinced we will find a more direct way eventually). It took us 20 minutes. We had to wait outside the Nelson house for our tutor to come and take us to the other building because you need a key to get in that one. My first class is Jane Austen and our tutor went over the class and such and I could not stop coughing which was highly annoying and embarrassing (the coughing has been worse in classes of course, but I’m coughing pretty consistently now too. Hopefully it will stop pretty soon so I can stop feeling so self conscious about it!) Nothing too exciting to report from that class except that he told us all about her life and tomorrow we are going on a brief tour of Bath like Catharine did in Northanger Abbey.

After class I went across a circle type thing (not a true circle it was more of a semicircle) to the Retro to try a different sandwich place for lunch. I got a bacon baguette type thing, which had so much bacon on it, oh my goodness or bloody ridiculous as they might say here! I ended up only eating half of it in the basement of Nelson house (the first few pictures). Laura and I then went upstairs and got some information on weekend things and signed up for Bizarre Bath this Wednesday and the two optional Friday excursions to Stonehenge and Oxford. We also checked out the computer lab for a bit between our classes (the first one ends at 1pm and the second one starts at 2:30pm). While we were in there we got our first letters!, but they are not that exciting as they only say how much we own for our course books.

My second class of the day was in Linley House (which is where my first class also is) and it was Fires Were Started: British Cinema 1979-1994. He went through a lot of the information awfully quickly I thought and I think many of the other students thought so too, but hopefully it will all make sense to us. We ended the class by watching a couple clips and choosing our meals for our study trip with the class in a couple weeks. Somehow I will have to manage all this course work with touristy things, excursions, and socializing and I'm not sure how I am going to tackle that.

The girls of the house then ventured to the grocery store, which is down past South Gate, and bought some groceries for dinner and a few to hold us over for a bit. But since we knew we would have to walk the long trek back up hill, we didn't purchase all that much as we didn’t want to have to carry a lot of heavy baggage. It also ended up raining when we exited the grocery store, which was great to trek back in (four of the five of us had umbrellas though so that worked out alright. We are prepared for stereotypical British weather).

We had a group house dinner made by Jason and Chelsea of pasta with two different sauce choices: bolognese and carbanara, cheese, tomatoes, and baguettes with garlic. It was very good and we ended up having a ton of pasta left over, but leftovers are very good. Laura, Amelia, Catherine and myself cleaned up the dishes and then it was time to start to tackle some homework. Jane Austen only required reviewing Northanger Abbey, but seeing as I already did that yesterday I just decided to do my film reading which was actually scheduled for tomorrow, but I had already done tonight so I decided it would be good to stay ahead.

The only bit of interest was a random hello I heard from the top floor so I went downstairs to find a man with his dog standing in the rain, protected by an umbrella mind you, at our front door, which was wide open. He very nicely hinted that our door probably shouldn’t be open and we ought to keep it closed because our neighbors at the bottom of the hill were, well he didn’t say a word after but I think our term would be sketchy and a laptop could easily get stolen away. Some of our housemates must have not pulled it all the way closed on their way out is our only explanation so we’ll have to stay really on top of that.

Otherwise, nothing too exciting has been happening, though our power did go out this morning and we had an electrician come and fix it this afternoon, but nothing too exciting on this first day of classes. Hopefully I’ll get to bed at a slightly earlier hour tonight.

photos from today

june 6: info, tours, and parks to avoid

2010-06-06T16:49:00.000-07:00

Today was the day of information. Someone came to meet us at 8:45am so we woke up at 8:20ish and were out the door when she rang. We were directed to our destination which when they sent out the housing information they said it was a short 10 minute walk – lies. It took us 20 minutes and that is with someone directing us where to go. Tomorrow we must do it on our own. The trip down is all downhill but the trip back is not so easy. We arrived at Pratts Hotel to meet the staff and Laura and I braved the first row (we were the last group so there was not much choice in seating but I shall say we braved the first row instead of we were forced to the first row because there was some choice and we chose the first row. I shall move on from this subject now). Barbara told us a lot of basic information and then we were given tea and coffee (or water if we so chose as I did chose. I will brave tea at some point but it did not happen today). We were then given another informative session about various policies and lots of information that did not entirely sink in because it was far too much information all at once and then on to academics. We were then given tours of the academic building Nelson House that has the staff’s offices as well as three classrooms, the computer area, laptop area, and library. I however do not have either class in that building but in the other one, but will have to venture over there in case of packages or information from them as well as to use the library and printer facilities.

After the tour we picked up our necessary reading materials for our respective classes, which only ended up being around £4 because they were, used which was great! Our group consisting of my fellow housemates decided we would go to lunch as it was approaching noon and we had an hour break. So we asked the academic director (whose name escapes me at the moment but I do know he is a footballer, Frisbee goer, and yoga doing man) recommended Scoffs or Retro for slightly cheaper places to eat. We decided to venture to Scoffs and completely bombard them with our eight group of people, but we seemed to be very similar in our choices of sandwiches with only two real varieties of chicken and pesto and bacon with cheese; someone did get a salad and another sandwich choice and we had a variety of white bread and brown bread but our actual sandwich choices were not that varied. We then decided to venture to the park across the street and half of us made it in whereas the trailing half (myself included because my sandwich was originally forgotten) got called to pay to go in the park, which we elected not to do. It said you did not have to pay if you were a resident and we asked later and we are technically residents so we should be able to get let in if we show our letters. The other half was utterly perplexed when they looked up at us (this park was down stairs you can see if you look at the photos) but we told them you had to pay so they left too. We ended up instead walking and eating until we went across a bridge and happened upon a cricket match. Many of us do not understand that basics of cricket, but I am sure we will pick it up in some time. Furthermore there was a lovely older woman who thought we were all lost and proceeded to tell us all the bus stations close by. She very much reminded several of us out of a woman in Mary Poppins as she was elderly with the hat sitting on a bench across from a church. We should have broke out into song "Feed the Birds, Topins a day!" And we are all quite perplexed by this whole coins being worth something with £s being in coin form and so forth.

There was another orientation bit about social excursions and social activities that we went back for and we learned about some of the trips including the one to Cornwall this weekend and the two optional excursions of which I will be doing both (Oxford and Stonehenge). The one this weekend to Cornwall sounds quite intense with hiking in there which I am not sure I am ready for, but I guess I’ll have to make it happen. They keep mentioning hiking shoes as well so hopefully my sneakers will suffice this hiking trip and hopefully it is not too strenuous (though after a few weeks of walking to class and conquering this hill I may be able to tackle anything.

They then took us for chocolates and fruits at Linley house and proceeded to do an icebreaker that thoroughly confused all of us. They attributed it to us not being on their same wave-length yet as the sequence of stickers was not important but the actual stickers themselves. My only interest according to my stickers was film and other people felt the same way so it was not all together as truthful and informative as they might have liked it to be and had most of us utterly confused. A shopping tour that didn’t allow us to do any shopping took place next and Laura and I have decided that there is much shopping we wish to accomplish (not all clothes and such father do not worry, but just going in and looking at all the shops. A photo taking day is also necessary and we are just adding to our count and not entirely seeing how all of this is ever going to fit on top of our schoolwork, excursions, and social activities). We discovered where our grocery store is and the quite a long walk it is going to be to get back to our house ending with the wonderful uphill, but we will somehow make it work. We then tried to go to stores, but many were closing because it is Sunday and furthermore the British do not feel the urge to keep things open nearly as late as we do. The shops were closing at 4:30pm. So I didn’t end up getting any school supplies so hopefully my borrowed slips of paper will suffice for one day and I will make it to the store tomorrow as Laura and I are planning to go to a few tomorrow after our class.

After arriving back at our houses I began reading for my film class, which proved pretty boring on the parts of Thatcherism in British cinema and modernism as well, but it was interrupted by our house and the house across the way (fellow North Hamptoners who also have to trek up a hill but not the end which is the steepest) venturing out to dinner together. We had planned to go to a pub, but upon entering several and looking so much like a deer in headlights only to find out they had stopped serving food for the evening, we found ourselves at a Spanish restaurant. We took forever to order and finally resolved on things, but it wasn’t exactly my favorite place and I think we made a consensus that it was just entirely too many people to venture out together and try to figure everything out. Our poor waitress.

Upon arriving back I finished up my reading for film class including skimming on paper writing and refreshed my memory on Northanger Abbey which we will be discussing in class tomorrow. I hope that I can actively participate. My first class is at 11:30am and Laura and I are thinking of heading down around 11:00am. We are not meeting at the house but at a separate place with the tutor and then entering the house all together. Hopefully we will be able to find it all right and wake up in time (no alarm issues or lack of time or finding things in the morning). We plan to wake up at 10:15 and although I had originally intended to get a shower this evening I am feeling more and more as though the night is escaping me and I will wait until the morning. I remember us all saying we can make it to 10:30 and that would be good and her it is 1:15am and we are all still awake. A great way to start our school session, no? Hopefully I will find a way to allocate times for schoolwork in addition to the traveling and socializing – I am a little worried about it all fitting in.

Today I also got to talk to several people online which was nice to hear from home, including my dad on skype despite the first lack of communication (apparently headphones negate speakers). Hopefully it wasn’t too disruptive for my roommate but she insists not and assures me that she would tell me if it was. I’m glad as I hope to do it again before too long, but seeing as the time difference is proving more noticeable than I originally thought it might not happen for a while. This week hopefully won’t be a lot of late nights and this weekend is packed full with the trip to Cornwall. Hope to talk to you all again soon!

Quote of the day: “Bloody rubbish”

photos (same album as yesterday. they start on page 3 picture number 43)

June 4-5: Arriving in Bath

2010-06-05T12:48:00.000-07:00

What is life without a little adventure? So I arrive at the airport at around 3:45 and I assure my dad that he doesn’t need to park and come in I can check in just fine. I go over to the ticket counter, they ask me my flight information, they then make phone calls and converse resulting in the woman coming to me with tickets and papers. I need to go downstairs to catch a bus to the train station then convert my ticket at the counter and get on the train that will take me to Newark where I will then catch the monorail to my terminal and catch the flight to Bristol. If i wait for my plane that I booked I won't make my connecting flight in Newark to Bristol. Now this was enough to cause me to panic a bit and worry so I made my way and caught the bus. I got confused with stops however and almost missed the stop for the train because it was labeled something else, but I made it an converted my ticket and went to the platform to wait. Now the limit is two bags on the train, but I had three because on a plane you are allowed to check one and have two carry ones so this was making me nervous. Furthermore I had never ridden a train in the US before and it needed to get to Newark at a certain time so I would not miss my flight to Bristol where a bus would be waiting only if I made it in on that flight (so many things have to happen in a specific order).

Nevertheless I caught my train, but it appeared very full but there was an elderly woman (just for you Deb) who offered me a seat next to her. We didn’t converse very much at the beginning of the ride, but we talked a bit later. She was from Australia and visiting her daughter. But nothing can go without incident it seems as after we arrived at another Baltimore stop one of the employees comes on to tell us that the reason for the light flickering and the failure to move is because they are experiencing some technical difficulties (of course they are). With only a few minutes of a delay the train was moving again and eventually arrived.

I made my way to find the monorail which was no easy task and then I had to figure out the stop which was not entirely clear either, but luckily I found a helper and she directed me to the gates, but I needed to go to baggage claim so I had to reroute and go back. My bag weighed 48.5lbs don’t ask me how it weighs that much I have no idea, but it was under the limit so it was good to go. So on to the horrible part that is security. Besides that I had to empty everything out of the bags so the liquids and computer could be seen it was relatively simple and I didn’t get pulled over or anything. Yay for one thing working to my advantage. I then went to the gate with my pants proving to have stretched about five sizes by now (no idea why and my belt packed in my checked luggage). I went to the terminal where I met Laura (my roommate in Bath) yay! We sat together for a bit before we realized we had to check in and then board. They moved my seat from row 9 to 7, I have no idea why so I was the very last one to board. I ended up sitting in the aisle seat in the very first exit row so there was no one in front of me except for the upper class seats but they were separated. There was a big fiasco when I got on board because apparently three babies were booked in the same row and there are only 4 oxygen masks in each row so they can’t have more than one baby in a row. One family was twins so they wanted to sit next to each other and another insisted they booked it. They had to call down special people who firmly told them that a reservation is simply a request not a guarantee. Eventually disgruntled baby parents went to other seats and we began to take off. Now an exit row is great especially when there isn’t even a row ahead of you, but it means you can not have your baggage under the seat in front of you so you must stow it all above so I had to take only a few things to sit on my lap. Now I am not an evesdropper but when the flight attendants sit across from me and talk very loudly its kinda hard not to listen and one is not ready to move into his boyfriend and can get a really cheap place whereas the other one is married but can’t move out of her current living place. The flight was pretty turbulent with them not really turning off the fasten seatbelt signs but otherwise uneventful. Yes there was the occasional baby crying but nothing exciting. I tried to sleep but in the end I didn’t sleep more than two hours at the most and I was trying to read my book for the rest. Our first meal on the flight was beef or chicken. I chose chicken but I think I would have liked the beef meal a bit better than the chicken one, but it was still good. It was chicken with penne pasta in a tomato sauce but the tomato sauce was only on half of the pasta and not the chicken. I also discovered that I like honey Dijon dill vinagrette and that lemonade is sprite in England. He asked me which version I meant only to tell me after I answered that he did not have American Lemonade. Why ask then?

We landed at 8:30am there time so 3:30 US time. We flew into Bristol, but it’s a very small airport so we got to use the stairs instead of the ramp things which I thought was really cool so I wanted to take a picture but after I took one the security guard came over asked me what I was doing made me show her the picture delete it and then all the other pictures on my card. I took one later from a different angle but I don’t know what was so top secret about the plane. We picked up baggage without incident, took out some money from the atm and went through customs where no one was even checking which seems rather odd to me. From customs we road a bus to our houses. The countryside was fairly unpopulated and lots of green with no shortages of the telephone booths I love! The driving is a little weird to be on the other side but I didn’t really notice it on the bus.

Living in 18North Hampton Street meant we were dropped off last and at the bottom of the large hill. None of the pictures can do this hill justice. It is quite a hill and I am on the top floor. Let’s just say walking will be enough of exercise with this location. We explored everyone’s rooms and ventured out into the city a bit, but we are a bit far from downtown and the other houses if you can see from the map. Being so jetlagged we were all pretty giggly and indecisive but we finally settled on a Panini place for lunch and we’ve decided “of course my love” is our new favorite British phrase. He was so nice! A woman came over to discuss the program a bit with us, but ultimately we will find out more tomorrow. I’ve been reading one of my books for homework due Monday and I finished it a bit ago. I still have some film reading for Monday but I will do it tomorrow after our very long day. We have to leave our rooms at 8:45am and then we are busy with orientation and such til 4:30pm. I’m sure we are all going to still feel the jetlag and the homework in the evening is not going to be fun. We were instructed not to go to bed before 9pm tonight to help with adjusting to the time change and that is 15 minutes away. Tomorrow they will hopefully show us some grocery and convenient store type shops to buy some necessities and it won’t be too boring with all the lectures.

I know there was more I was going to say when I had this playing in my head, but I can’t remember it all now. I’m trying to put everything in it’s place and make it all seem a bit more homey, but we can’t hang anything on the walls so its proving a little difficult. I’m still feeling a little nervous about this whole experience and about all the activities and hiking we have to do, but I’m hoping that will settle down in my stomach as the time goes on. Hope everyone is enjoying themselves in the states!

click for photos