Boom Boom! Guy Fawkes Day!

I can't think of any Briticisms at the moment so that will have to wait for another time. Sorry!

Remember remember the fifth of November
The gunpowder treason and plot
I see no reason
The gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot


Today was Guy Fawkes day! You could almost equate Guy Fawkes day to Independence Day in the states. Almost. Really the only major similarity is the fireworks and the love of booze. So what does Guy Fawkes Day (also known as Bonfire Night) celebrate exactly? Since I'm the laziest blogger in the blogosphere, I'm not going to tell you myself, but will instead send you to a very reliable source that will explain the whole thing.

The fireworks were going to start at about eight, we were told, so we wandered off, bundled up against the English cold, to The Huntsman, a pleasant little pub near the Abbey Square. We figured that our coats and boots weren't going to be enough; we needed a little something more to keep us warm. namely this:

Once this was acquired, we made our way back outside and stood amongst the throngs of British people, watching the skies for the first sign of lit-up goodness. When it finally happened, it was EXCELLENT. I may post the video I took later...the Brits aren't too shabby with their firework displays.

On the way home, we were discussing the weird fact that England celebrates the thwarting of a gunpowder plot with a fireworks display. It would be like everyone dressing up as British soldiers and waving British flags on the fourth of July.

This is a super short and semi-pointless post, but I've been so neglectful of the blog and I figured I'd put up at least a little something before PAPERS come sneaking up on me again.

Cheers!

Why I Don't Blog for a Living: Oxford Week

Today's Briticism: A pharmacist is a "chemist". This is how i will refer to my parents from now on.


Can you tell that I've been through paper week(s)?


I've been neglecting my poor beautiful readers (again) but I promise I've got some juicy 4-1-1 for you today. It involves a hidden door, Frankenstein's ghost, and the birthplace of a few well-known hobbits. It's Oxford week! Which actually happened about two weeks ago, so I'm going to have to do some serious time traveling here...


We took a bus to Oxford, and I made the mistake of trying to fit my entire life into one suitcase for one week. This was only further proof to me that I cannot pack light to save my life. I'm instating a new rule of never traveling with a suitcase, ever. But I digress.


Oxford is pretty much known for...um...EVERYTHING. It's one of those places that is just so famous that pretty much everyone has that "one thing" they want to see while they're there. Oxford is divided up into several different college campuses, and we were stationed at University College, which is a name that, to an American, sounds extremely redundant. But since this is the place where both Narnia and Middle Earth were born from, it's kind of hard to make fun of it having a ridiculous name.


We all got our own rooms for the week, which was nice. So I drag my 500-tonne suitcase up a billion flights of stairs, imagining the ghosts of scholars past (hey, they exist!) laughing a me as I go, and I eventually reach my "room" for the week:

Are you sure this isn't the headmaster's suite...?

More like palatial suite.


I consider this compensation for the crappy rooms I've been given at Denison thus far.


I had my own common area, a huge bay window with this beautiful view:

A fireplace (although it didn't work) and essentially enough space for three people to be comfortable in (which means that Denison would put like six people in here).


Of course the first thing I did as soon as I closed the door was start hunting around for secret passageways. The room was lined with dark wooden walls and had this aura like it was hiding something incredibly important that no one had ever laid eyes on before. Anyone who didn't know my thought process would have thought I was crazy: I was tapping on the walls (a late apology to any neighbors I may have had) and listening for that hollow sound that indicates a hidden corridor leading to some forbidden room somewhere. Or the kitchen. I'd take either one really. 


All of a sudden...criiiiiiiiccckkk...

Peek-a-boo!

Ok, when I first saw the door there wasn't a person looking just like me emerging from it, but you get the idea. Sure enough, there was a hidden door in the wall panels in my room. There weren't any skeletons or hidden passageways in it: it was basically a place to keep the pipes separate from the room itself. There were a few old drink coasters in there though. Good to know the oxford students party hard. 


The main quad of the college is absolutely beautiful! The weather flip-flopped between being really sunny and miserable rainy while we were there, yet the quad managed to stay beautiful the entire time:

In rain...

...or shine!

The actual town of Oxford itself is quaint. Not in a Granville kind of way, since it's much bigger than Granville, but in a more "i'm-old-and-have-a-lot-of-history" sort of quaint. I lived right above a yummy patisserie shop and there was this old-fashioned candy store down the street as well. The place I really wanted to go to, however, was this:

A pub frequented by the likes of 

JRR Tolkien

and

CS Lewis

I have probably stated this a few billion times before, but I love the whole feeling of pubs; it really does feel like you could sit down and write a great work of literature. The same can't be said for American social culture. If I tried to write my magnum opus at a frat party, it would end up getting crackjuice all over it. The creativity seems to flow better in this country overall. 


In true touristy fashion, I took a picture of what I ate/drank. Here you go:

Fish and chips!

Pear cider. Yum.

Ok, now I'll tell you my stupid moment of the year my life: We're studying Wollstonecraft and Godwin in my British Romanticism class, and the child of these two literary greats was Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. So, we went to the Bodlein library to see the ACTUAL ORIGINAL manuscript of Frankenstein. We weren't allowed to touch it. So guess what I did? Yep. Touched it. BY ACCIDENT, but still. It will probably deteriorate in 400 years and the scholars will go, "Why has page 52 disappeared and the rest of the manuscript is fine?" This is why you can't take Americans anywhere, folks.


We ended our stay at Oxford with a beautiful four-course meal in the Great Hall. It was set up just like Hogwarts: the professors at the long table in the front, with several perpendicular tables for the students lined up in front of them. One of the Oxford professors then stood up and proceeded to give a little speech about how he hoped we had enjoyed our time here, and peppered it with various inside jokes from the week, including a little bit about Frankenstein's monster's angry ghost coming to visit one of the students who had touched his sacred manuscript. I hid my face in my wine glass. At least it'll be a good story for the Oxfordians to tell for many years to come! :)


After Oxford, it was time to go home...OH WAIT JUST KIDDING. I actually went on a whole new adventure after our time at University College was up. I don't know if I'll post about that tonight, but it'll definitely be sometime soon. *suspense*


For shorter, more frequent updates about my life and the copious amounts of homework I have, follow me on the tweet machine. I'll be sitting here in the UK, hanging around until December...or will I? *more suspense* Thanks all for reading, and don't get attacked by ghosts!

The Week in Review

Today's Briticism: A parking lot is a "carpark"


Soooo it's been about a week since I've written a new post. Don't worry, I haven't eloped with Mr. Darcy or Prince Harry. Instead, I've spent the week exploring this amazing city and getting back into the swing of schoolwork (bleh). 


So Tuesday was the England vs. Wales football (or "soccer" as we say) game, and a bunch of us went to the Pig and Fiddle to watch the game and become acquainted with England's pub culture. The pub is sort of like a sports bar, but with an older, almost historical feel to it. They had excellent cider: 

England ended up winning, 1-0. Yay! It was an excellent first visit to the pub and I DIDN'T GET CARDED! For that reason alone I'd stay in England forever.


Wednesday night we experienced the Bizarre Bath Walk, one of the big tourist attractions in the city. It was essentially a mock-up of your average historical tour, mixed in with a few magic tricks and stand-up comedy routines. It was pretty funny, and we managed to stay dry through most of it...

Thanks to umbrellas, wellies and raincoats!

On Thursday (the start of my four-day weekend), one of my lovely housemates and I stood outside the Theatre Royal for a half an hour, waiting for stand-by tickets to the play "The Syndicate". We had no idea what the play was about, but we did know that Sir Ian McKellen (a.k.a. Gandalf from the Lord of the Rings, one of my favorite book/movie series of all time) was starring in it, and that for us was reason enough. We managed to get tickets, and a whole herd of students from our program ended up at the very tip-top of the balcony, watching Ian McKellen being awesome just a few hundred feet away from us. The play itself was meh, and I found myself seated behind the World's Tallest Woman, but Ian gave a great performance and, I mean, it's Gandalf.


Last night (Saturday) was the first time I experienced the vibrancy of Bath on a weekend night. We went searching for St. James' Wine Vault, a pub that had been recommended to us by a former ASE student. After stumbling through the city in various directions and getting lost a few times (which allowed me to finally see the Circus and the Royal Crescent!) we finally made it:

St. James drinks wine, you should too

And I had my first glass of beer beer, not cider beer:

Notice the difference in coloring

It was such a quiet, chill kind of place (and it was hard to find a quiet pub last night, as it was the rugby world cup and Bath is  HUGE rugby city) and I would definitely go back again. It was nice to just have a conversation with friends over a drink. So much classier than what you find on most American college campuses these days.

Then (this is the exciting part, don't stop reading!) we met up with some more of our friends from the program and stood outside the stage door of the Theatre Royal, trying to get an autograph from Ian McKellen. I wasn't really nervous about meeting him until the other lesser-known actors started coming out, then the butterflies started. Finally he emerged and OH MY GOSH I was freaking out on the inside but managed to hold my composure. He was very nice and asked us where we had been sitting during the show and if we had liked it. He signed my program:

And it was essentially the best moment of my life, the end.

It was a fantastic first week of classes (i realize I never actually talked about my classes, but still) and I have loved every moment of all of my adventures so far. Stay tuned for more this week because i've got stuff on my calendar that I am very excited about. Cheerio, lovelies!

History in a Day: Stonehenge, Salisbury and Lacock

Today's Briticism: Gasoline is called "petrol". It's not a significant briticism but it's the only one I could think of because my actual post is going to be a lot more interesting!


In reflecting back on our trips today, I've finally realized how young America is as a country. There are thousands and thousands more years of history in Great Britain, and while I had always been aware of this, it was never more clear to me than when I was sitting eating chicken at a pub that had existed since the fourteenth century. I mean, Columbus hadn't even sailed the ocean blue when this place was being built. Mind blown yet? Just wait. Let's start at the beginning of the day, with this little-known piece of modern art:

Kidding, of course. Obviously this is Stonehenge, and every American child who has actually read their history or geography textbook knows what this is. At least, they know as much as the historians know, which is actually very little. Julius Caesar had originally predicted that it was built by the Druids, but today's archaeologists disagree. We do know that the stones used in the sculpture aren't from the area; they're actually from what is now South Wales, and it's unclear how the primitive civilization was able to maneuver the several-ton stones from one part of the island to another. The stoney circle has been roped off, so you can't weave through the stones like my dad was able to when he visited back in the 1970's. It was still so cool to see something that I'd only witnessed in 2D photos before:

Next we traveled to the nearby town of Salisbury, where we saw the cathedral:

The amazing thing about the Salisbury Cathedral is that it took only 38 years to build...that's fast for the thirteenth century! (the huge spire wasn't added on till later though) It was absolutely HUGE. I've been to Notre Dame before and I still thought this was absolutely enormous. 

Just like Bath Abbey, there are several historical figures buried at Salisbury. If you are a TUDOR HISTORY NERD like myself, stay tuned, you'll like this next bit:

This is the tomb of Katherine Grey and her husband, Edward Seymour. Katherine was sister to Lady Jane Grey, the infamous "Nine Days Queen" who would later be executed by her successor, Queen Mary. Katherine was considered a rival to the throne when Queen Elizabeth I ascended the throne, and Elizabeth even threw her and Edward in the tower for a while when she found out they had married without her permission. Edward and Katherine had two sons, and you can see statues of them on the right and left sides of the tomb. Katherine has been mentioned in almost all of the Alison Weir books I've delved into, so as soon as her name was mentioned I silently started freaking out.

ALSO TUDOR RELATED: I didn't get any pictures of this, but in a little chapel in the cathedral Henry VIII had his emblem (a rose) carved into the ceiling, as well as the symbol of his first wife (Katherine of Aragon) which was a pomegranate. He did this in several cathedrals across the country. When Henry was in the midst of his divorce from his wife, he had most of the pomegranate emblems removed from the English cathedrals. Salisbury is one of the few where the pomegranate still remains intact. 

After getting over the insane rush of being so close to so much Tudor history, it was time to travel to the absolutely amazing town of Lacock, which is the home of Lacock Abbey:

The sheep were kind enough to pose

Some might ask why this is such a significant part of English history, since it was included on a trip to both Stonehenge and Salisbury. It was built by a woman named Ela as a nunnery, but when Henry VIII broke away from the church, he disbanded all abbeys, including Lacock, and gave the properties to his loyal elite subjects. Lacock Abbey was also the childhood home of William Henry Fox Talbot, who invented the photo negative and is considered a major pioneer in the field of photography. But the real reason so many flock to Lacock Abbey is because:

Look familiar? Picture three Gryffindors walking down this hallway, discussing whether a certain Slytherin has opened the Chamber of Secrets. That's right! Lacock Abbey has been used in several scenes for the Harry Potter films. Snape's classroom, the room holding the Mirror of Erised, the Hogwarts courtyard, and these hallways are all found here.

The town of Lacock itself is fascinating: it has literally been frozen in time. No above-ground cables or anything remotely twenty-first century (apart from cars) can be seen in the town, giving it the air of a town from around Robin Hood's time. The pub we went to for dinner, the George Inn, was built in the 1300's and hasn't changed much since:

Even the cars are old...

The food was fantastic, though very filling. I highly recommend their chocolate torte, just be sure to have plenty of water to wash it down: it's VERY chocolate-y.

Then began the great search for Slughorn's house (I almost wrote Slugworth. Wrong movie). The exterior shots of Slughorn's house in the 6th Harry Potter were filmed at a cottage just down the street from the inn. We thought it was this one:

Yes? No? Maybe?

...but it is in fact the one next door, that I didn't get a picture of. Still cool though. Now I want to watch all the Harry Potters again :)

We drove home through miles of breathtaking British countryside and once again I have affirmed that I do not want to come home yet. Which is ok, because I still have three and a half-ish months left before I have to go back to my baby country. Signing off for now because tomorrow the real work begins: first day of classes. Eek! Goodnight!

The Sun Finally Got His Passport Approved!

Today's Briticism: When you need things to be orderly, you don't ask people to "line up", you ask them to "form a queue"

I didn't take any pictures today (I have been horrible at taking pictures) so I'll just put in lots of colorful words to keep this postcard somewhat interesting. I think the reason I didn't snap any images today was because I was so shocked at the sight of this guy today!:

Ok I lied. This is a picture.

Today was the sunniest and warmest day I've experienced so far in Bath, and it probably won't get any sunnier or warmer. It was fantastic. We all bought sandwiches at the Roman Foodhouse by the Abbey and sat on the square while listening to the street musicians. We made another trip to Sainsbury's, and my arms didn't feel like they were going to fall off this time, so either I'm getting stronger or my grocery load was lighter (I like to think the former). The day when by in a blur of diagnostic tests (ugh) and roaming around the city, trying to become familiar with which-shop-is-where and I-think-we-turn-here. Tomorrow is our fancy reception to officially welcome us to the program, so I will definitely be taking pictures of everyone in their "smart" outfits. Sorry I don't have much to tell you today, but there's lots of cool stuff coming up this weekend so keep checking your mailboxes!