Travel Schedule

So... For those who care and/or want to be creepy and know where I am all the time, here is my travel schedule for the rest of semester:

Feb 26-28 Budapest and Vienna (Thursday morning, Fly into Budapest- Thursday night in Budapest- Friday, train to Vienna- Friday night in Vienna- Saturday night, fly back to London from Vienna)

March 6-14 (Spring Break) Italy & Malta (Fly into Pisa- spend Friday in Pisa- Friday & Saturday night in Florence-Go to Venice- Sunday night in Venice- Go to Rome- Monday-Wednesday nights in Rome- Thursday, go to Pisa for flight- Fly to Malta- Thursday and Friday night in Malta- Saturday, fly back to London from Malta)

March 28- April 6 Switzerland and France (All program trip- Trip organized by professors)

April 16-20 Last travel break (Not planned yet but, maybe Germany)

Day trip to Bath

So, I guess yesterday was Valentine's Day... I kept forgetting that it was. I went with a group of girls, seven including me, to Bath for the day. When we got there we kind of wondered around until we found the Sally Lunn's Restaurant where we were to get the famous "Sally Lunn's Bun." The house in which the restaurant was located is the oldest house in Bath; it's from the 1400's. We got our buns, which turned out to be very similar to heated up hamburger buns with cinnamon butter melted on top. It was good, but probably not worth the £4. 

We then found signs that pointed us to the area with the Abbey and the Roman Baths. After grabbing a map in tourist office, we saw a crowd and went to see what they were watching. We found that there were two men putting on a torch-throwing, sparkler-holding kind of show... wearing only thongs, shoes and socks. I guess you never know what you'll find in Europe. The funniest part of the whole thing was that a wedding reception was taking place right inside from the show. You could see the bride through the window looking out with a bothered look on her face. I also found it interesting that parents were encouraging their children to watch the show and to give the men money at the end. Europeans seem to have a very different view of decency than Americans. I don't necessarily think all of it is completely terrible, since some Americans can be overly cautious. It's just something I've noticed through experiences like this and watching British commercials. 

Anyways... After the show, we toured the Roman Baths. The baths are really well-preserved and full of a ton of history. There are spas in the town that still use the water from the same spring. A few of the girls were going to do that later in the day but it ended up not working out. We went to the famous Royal Crescent street built in the 18th century... And looked at it for a couple minutes and then left. After this we went to the Abbey... and found out that it had closed for the day 30 minutes earlier.

We went for high tea at the pump room attached to the Roman Baths. The room used to be used for balls and other similar events. The water from the hot spring would be pumped into the room (hence the name, the pump room) and people would drink it by the glass as a "healing beverage". We tasted it and could not understand how it would possible to drink gallons a day of that stuff as people used to do. After tasting the odd-tasting, warm water, I had tea with some pastries which were delicious!

After tea, we went to the Fashion Museum. They have outfits from the 16th century until present. We got there about 45 minutes before it closed so we had to rush but we were able to see the crazy styles and beautiful styles from a lot of decades. When our adventure through the museum was complete, some of us went on towards the train station, but made a couple stops in stores and for food. The other group went to do the Bath spa, but ended up not doing it because of lines. It was a really good day trip. I might have to go back since we were not able to see the inside of the Abbey and we didn't make it to the American museum... Ok I was joking about that last one, not about its existence but about wanting to go to it. 

Another piece of information of note: I booked my flights for my next travel break. I'm going to Budapest, Hungary and Vienna, Austria! More on that later... Thanks for reading my blog.

Kissing the Blarney Stone= a really eloquent post...

The summation of my trip to Ireland is: Awesomeness.

The people are super friendly, the country is beautiful and the group was fun. 

The journey started with a bus ride from Oxford to London's Stansted Airport, followed by a flight to Cork, Ireland. We got in kind of late, so after finding our hostel we stayed in and watched karaoke. I was going to join in the singing, with three others girls, definitely would not subject others to my singing alone, but we were too late in signing up. 

Our first full day in Ireland started with a trip to Cobh. It was the last port of the Titanic. I guess they don't like to dwell on that because, even though there were grand statues for different events, Titanic had a very unimpressive plaque:

The city was beautiful though and we saw a gorgeous cathedral at the top of a hill.

After Cobh, we went to Blarney to see the castle and, yes, kiss the stone. I thought that the germ thing might freak me out but that was completely forgotten when I realized I would have to do a back-bend at the top of the castle over a gapping hole.... But I did kiss it. The stone is supposed to give the "gift of gab," which is good since I had a group presentation yesterday and another one tomorrow. I know I've been using this adjective a lot but... Ireland is BEAUTIFUL. It is really green and the architecture fits in just perfectly. It's a complete contrast to the the brownness of New Mexico. 

Saturday, we walked around Cork. Four of us went up a bell tower where we were able to get a great view of the city and play some music with the bells. 

When we came down to the rest of the group, we found them talking to some kids who asked for a rap-battle. Apparently, they were a legit rap group, if only in their minds. It was a cool experience but a little strange to hear a 12-year-old boy rap about chain saws. When the battle was over, and they had definitely won, we parted ways, with "goodbye" from our side and the parting question of "do you have a cigarette?" from the other. Since the famous Butter museum was closed (Cork is known for their butter), we went shopping after this. The store we went into was very similar to a store here in Oxford (it was a different name but run by the same company), so I ended up only getting a Cork hat.

Sunday morning we started our trek back to Oxford at 5:40 AM. 8 hours, one plane delay, three bus rides and one sprint through the airport later, we made it back to the wonderful world of excessive amounts of homework.

Oh... and for the sake of my parents and anyone else who was worried by all my comments about expiring food and what not- I did go to the farmer's market and grocery store today. Don't worry, I will not starve to death.

For those without Facebook- here's the link to my Ireland album- Facebook album

Hogwarts, Castles and SNOW!!!

Thursday I got to go to Christ Church… AKA Hogwarts. It was pretty amazing. In addition to being the place where Harry Potter scenes were filmed, the college’s cathedrial was also the church of Charles Dodgson… AKA Lewis Carroll… AKA creeper. We took a tour of the great hall and the cathedral where our tour guide, Winnie, showed us her top six favorites in the cathedral. There was some pretty sweet stained glass in the church from a lot of different eras. I’ll put a link at the end of the so those of you without Facebook can see my Facebook photo album.
Friday brought very little activity of note… It was kind of a chill day for me. So moving on to…
Saturday, we had to be ready by 9:15AM, which is an insane hour to expect college students to be up at on a Saturday. We headed to the Oxford Castle where we went on a tour. The castle was decent but nothing terribly earth-shattering… Mind you, I hadn’t had my coffee yet and I had to walk up and down a claustrophobically small staircase, so I might not have been particularly open-minded. After the castle, and some donuts and coffee, my Oxford through the Ages class went to the town of Iffley. The walk was about 45 minutes, but we were promised a bus ride back home. In Iffley, we visited a small church that was an example of Norman architecture with some Gothic alterations. After that we took the much-appreciated bus ride to City Centre, where I bought a triple chocolate cookie to eat on the way home… or for the first couple minutes on the way home.
Sunday morning I went to church. It happened to be Children’s Sunday. Unfortunately I was not able to participate in the scavenger hunt during the service. Later that day, we went to a candlemas at Christ Church cathedral. Candlemas, as Wikipedia.com informed me, is a celebration of the encounters of Simeon and Anna with the baby Jesus. It was a cool experience complete with chanting reminiscent of the monks in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. After our 9@9, it snowed!
Today, Monday, Taylor, Ashley, Emily, Jen and I went for a walk to City Centre after Humanities. Oxford looks so beautiful when coated with fresh snow. Here’s a link to my facebook album so you can see the snow and the other adventures of the past couple days: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2090635&l=845fb&id=71005864