Italy, Part 3 (Rome): How Many of These Ruins are Actually Schools?

Once again, we had to stop at a rest area on the way to Rome.  And once again, there were no toilet seats on the toilets.  That really is annoying!  We got to our hotel in Rome around 5 and got right into our rooms to drop our stuff off.  Then a big group of us went across the street to the train station to get our Roma Passes, which are passes that get you three days of free public transportation and into your first two museums/archaeological sites free and a discounted ticket at most other ones (excluding the Vatican Museum).  Christine and Mike had already bought their tickets online, so we eventually lost them as they tried to find where they had to go to get them.  So though I highly recommend buying the Roma Pass, I don't recommend buying them ahead of time!  Our group then split further as we disagreed over where to go for dinner.  My part of the group (6 of us) went to a little fast pizza place and got some pretty good pizza.  Then we hopped on the metro and headed over to the Spanish Steps, which were absolutely beautiful.  There were all these flowers!  Gorgeous.  And I made everyone climb all the way to the top of course.  It was really cool.  Then we walked over to the Trevi Fountain and threw some coins into it and took pictures.  We were actually there when the lights came on!  It's really pretty all light up like that.  We got some gelato (chocolate) which was really good and took the metro back to the hotel.

The next day Christine, Mike, Rachel, Rachel's friend Abigail, and I headed over to the Colosseum to start our day.  We were really far up in line so we got right in before it got crowded and were able to get some good pictures without lots of people in them.  It was really cool to see the Colosseum and walk around on it and see the underground area where all the slaves and gladiators and animals were kept before being led up to the arena!  Probably my second favorite thing that we did in Rome.  Right next to the Colosseum is a big arch that we stopped and took pictures of.  I know it has some significance, but I don't remember what Mike said about it.  Then we headed right across the way to the Roman Forum, which is absolutely massive!  We spent a good long while walking around in there.  It was really cool to see, especially when Mike or Rachel (who have studied it) told us the simple version of what things were.  Plus they kept looking at the ground for pottery and licking it to see if it was pottery or just dirt/clay.  Apparently it's something that you do a lot at a dig site.  We split up after the Forum, Rachel and Abigail leaving to do something else, while Christine, Mike and I stayed together.  We just ate something from one of the vendors, which wasn't very good, quickly before heading off to try to find Trajan's Market/Forum/Column.  It was pretty cool to see, Mike explained some stuff to us and we got some cool pictures.  After that we headed to Circus Maximus, which is where they used to do the chariot racing.  It's just green-space now.  We did see some Harlaxton independent travelers though, which was fun to sit for a bit and talk with them about what we had all done.  We then walked to the Bocca della Verita (The Mouth of Truth).  It's featured in (I think I have the movie right) Roman Holiday.  The legend is that if you stick your hand in the mouth and it's chopped off or whatever you're a liar.  We're all ok!  Then we walked to the Caracalla Baths, which were absolutely massive!  So incredibly tall!  And I really liked walking around them.  After that we took the metro back to the hotel and I grabbed some food from a market and went back to the room while the two of them went to find another bath that Mike wanted to see.  When Christine came back, we turned on the TV for a bit and watched infomercials and took a nap before going out to dinner.  We went to this cafeteria place down the road, which was alright, but it took forever to get the check!

The next day we took the metro to the Vatican and waited in line for the Vatican Museum.  We spent hours inside the museum!  It was awesome!  My favorite thing in Rome!  There was so much stuff!  And paintings everywhere!  We got to see the Sistine Chapel too, which was cool.  We were really hungry by the time we finished the permanent collection in the museum, so even though we would've liked to see the Fabergé eggs and the Aboriginal collection, we left the museum and went across the street to a restaurant for lunch.  The fettuccine alfredo was absolutely amazing!  We then proceeded to circumnavigate Vatican City when we went the wrong way to find the plaza that everyone knows as the Vatican.  We eventually found it and took plenty of pictures of it and all the things out for the Beatification of Pope John Paul II, which was going to take place on May 1, hence the 3 million Polish people that were arriving in Rome while we were there.  We got in line to go into St. Peter's Basilica and Mike and I got into a fight with a Spanish guy when he cut us in line and proceeded to let 20 kids in front of him.  The basilica is absolutely amazing.  Once we walked in there, we instantly understood why people hate Catholics.  It is so elaborate and the wealth is so evident!  We spent a fair bit of time walking around in there and looking at everything.  By then, we were pretty Vatican-ed out, so we left and started walking to the next set of Roman spots on Mike's list.  The first was the castle that houses Hadrian's Tomb.  We didn't go in, just walked past it and took some pictures.  We then crossed the river and walked to the glass building that houses the Ara Pacis (Arch of Peace) and took pictures of it through the windows.  Then it was a walk down to the Pantheon, which we did go inside.  It's a basilica now, so the inside looks different than it originally did.  But it was really cool to see nonetheless!  The hole in the top is really neat.  We then walked to Piazza Navona to see the Fountain of the Four Rivers (and the Egyptian obelisk located in it).  Mike wanted to see it because of the obelisk.  I wanted to see it because the fountain features in Dan Brown's Angels & Demons, which was exciting!  We then walked to the Spanish Steps, in part because they hadn't seen them yet, and partly because that's where the nearest metro station was.  We took the metro back to the hotel for a rest.  Christine and I watched MTV in Italian.  We went out to dinner at a restaurant near the Trevi Fountain.  I had some really good 4-cheese gnocchi and we had a bottle of white wine.  We were about to ask for the check because we had finished the wine and water off when the waiter brought an opened bottle of wine over and poured us each another glass!  We're guessing they just needed to get rid of it, because he didn't charge us for it!  We left him an extra tip because he was really nice. We ended up having to walk all the way back to the hotel because the metro line stopped running at 9.  Good thing we had a map!

Our last day in Rome, we attempted to go out to Tivoli to this villa and gardens that Christine really wanted to see.  So we took the metro out to one of the last stops and got on a bus to Tivoli.  After we were on the bus for awhile, another set of tourists asked us if we knew where to get off, and we didn't exactly and an old Italian man behind us heard our conversation and told us to get off at the next stop.  So we did and walked a mile or so to where we though we were supposed to go.  Once we got inside we realized that it wasn't where we wanted to go, but Hadrian's Villa instead.  The old guy had apparently misunderstood where we had wanted to go.  Although a little disappointed, we stayed there anyways.  I didn't really care, so I still thoroughly enjoyed it there!  It was really cool because it was really big and we actually were able to walk on some of the ruins, which you don't always get to do.  And Mike was able to tell us stories about Hadrian and his Greek lover boy, which was interesting.  We had to walk over a mile back to the main road and find a bus stop and wait for the bus.  The bus eventually took us to a metro station and we got to get on that and go back to our hotel stop.  We immediately went across the street to a restaurant and got pizza (which was really good!) and gelato (chocolate and yummy) because it was 2 and we were starving!  Then we walked back to the hotel and sat in the lobby and watched the highlights of the Royal Wedding, laughing every time they showed a good shot of William's bald spot.  Around 5 we got all of our luggage and headed out to where the coach was going to pick us up.  We had to wait a bit, then we got on the coach and headed to the airport.  The plane was awesome!  For some reason we had really roomy seats and we could just not get over this fact!  Our plane got into Heathrow around 10 and we finally got through customs, got our bags, and made the transfer to terminal 3 around 11.  Our luggage from Harlaxton arrived around 11:30 and we formed a line to get if off the van faster.  Then Alana, Anna, and I shared a van to the hotel that we were all staying at and I checked in and got some much needed sleep before my flight back to the States the next morning.  And gelato count for Rome=3, Italy=14.  Definitely got a lot of that stuff!  And since Hogwarts looks like ruins to Muggles, I wonder how many of those Roman ruins that I visited were actually wizarding schools!

So, obviously, I am now back in the States.  And I am glad to be home!  I absolutely loved my semester at Harlaxton College and would recommend it to anybody and everybody.  Studying abroad is an amazing experience and I think everyone should try to find a way to do it, if not for a semester, then at least for a summer.  As I am home now, this is my last post.  I hope you all enjoyed sharing my experiences abroad!  I certainly enjoyed sharing them with you!

Italy, Part 2 (Florence): These Men Were Wizards

Picking up where my last post on Venice left off, the next morning we all checked out of the hotel and walked back to the bus station, across the bridge.  Once there we waited for nearly half an hour before Ian figured out that the coach that we were waiting for had been there the whole time!  (In case I haven’t mentioned, Ian was my Marketing professor this semester and he and his wife were our trip couriers, the best couriers ever!!)  Apparently the coach didn’t look like the one the company had told Ian to look for and neither he nor the coach driver thought anything of a coach sitting there empty for that long/a huge group of people just standing on the sidewalk for that long.  Ah well, we got on the coach eventually!  Then it was just a 3 hourish drive to Florence, in Tuscany.  We had to stop halfway through at a rest stop, which are way more intense than ours in the States!  They have toilets and a café and a place to buy food and it’s all huge!  For some reason though, they decided that we don’t need toilet seats in the restrooms in order to go to the bathroom.  That’s always interesting to try to work out.  It seemed to be like this at half of the places I went to in Italy.  Really annoying!  We eventually got to the hotel, which was the nicest one of the trip and at first they told us that the rooms weren’t ready for us.  About 5 minutes later though they told us that they were and we got to go put our stuff in our rooms rather than have it chilling in a lobby area in the hotel.  Although a nice room, it was really funny because there were three of us staying in there and the beds were almost pushed all the way together because there almost wasn’t enough room for all the beds!  But they were all singles so we were fine.  =)  After dropping all of our stuff off, 8 of us headed out together and got some lunch at a restaurant that’s on the way to the center of town.  I had some good pasta, but I was so hungry that it didn’t fill me all the way up!  After lunch Christine and Mike headed off because they had a date with David and the rest of us headed off to the Duomo.  The Duomo is a huge basilica made with beautiful white, green, and redish pink marble, with lots of mosaics.  There’s a baptistery in front of it and a huge bell tower to the side.  We waited in the fast-moving line to go inside and it was just as cool on the inside as on the outside.  And it was Catholic, so I actually really knew what everything was in there and what it was used for and all of that, which was nice after being in England for so long, where most churches are Anglican, but they were originally Catholic, so they just look confusing!  After leaving the Duomo, we all got gelato, because I mean, we’re in Italy and we’re hungry, so of course we’re going to get gelato!  I got chocolate, which is decidedly my favorite.  The guys all headed back to the hotel after that, but Rachel and I chose to walk through the markets surrounding the Duomo and look around.  I really wish I had a 100+ euro to spare so I could’ve gotten a leather jacket!  Some of them were beautiful!  I did buy my first scarf though!  It’s cream and really pretty and should look good with lots of stuff.  We got our fill of the markets for the day and headed back to the hotel and took advantage of the free internet in the hotel (which is when I wrote the Venice post).  Later, Christine, Mike, Rachel, Tim, and I went out to get some dinner and found a nice restaurant.  I got a good margarita pizza and we shared the white house wine, which was really good!  Probably one of my favorites in Italy.  We got gelato on the way back, cookies this time.  Thought I’d go for something different.  It was quite good.  =)


The next day was Easter Sunday, so after breakfast Rachel and I headed back to the Duomo to get good spots for the traditional Explosion of the Cart.  It started with a procession of people dressed in medieval clothing, from guards in suits of armour to pages and drummers to nobility.  Then the cart came in, pulled by oxen (I think, something of that sort at least).  The cart is massive!  Then came a random little cart pulled by a donkey and a cart pulled by two women in more peasant-type clothing full of flowers, which they passed out to the crowds.  We had to wait awhile while they finished setting up the cart, but entertainment was provided by the drums and trumpets and the flags, who twirled their flags much like guards, but it was really cool!  Finally, the cart was ready.  A dove on fire (paper of course) flew out of the open doors of the Duomo and ran into the cart, starting the explosion, which went on for a good 15 minutes or so.  It was really cool because everything was timed!  They went off in layers around the cart (firecrackers and fireworks).  Sometimes it literally sounded like a battle was raging, with the screaming fireworks and the staccato-fire ones, which was a bit unnerving (probably because I spend most of my time studying wars!) but overall the Explosion of the Cart was really cool and definitely worth going to see!  The guys who orchestrated it were wizards, getting everything to go off when it was supposed to and not before!  After the explosions were over, Rachel and I grabbed some pizza at a shop on the piazza, then walked over to the plaza where the fake David is located.  We had fun taking pictures of all the statues located in that plaza and got a little happy with all of the lions there (well, they were our mascot at Harlaxton!).  Then we walked over to the Ponte Vecchio, which is a bridge with shops along either side and another bridge on top of the shops for the Vecchio family could walk from their palace across the river to wherever they were going without being seen by the commoners.  (If you remember, I think I mentioned in my Bath blog that they had a bridge that was modeled after the Ponte Vecchio, just without the second bridge on top of the shop one).  Now, the shops on the bridge are all expensive jewelery stores, but it was still fun to walk across it.  I did grab some gelato on one end of the bridge (chocolate again, and yes, I was using the I have a cold and the gelato helps my sore throat excuse.)  We walked back across the bridge and through the markets around the Duomo again.  I bought Allison an awesome gift there.  We stopped at the train station and bought tickets for Pisa for the next day, then headed back to the hotel.  Christine and Mike were in the room when we got back, so Christine and I watched The Lizzie MacGuire Movie, because we had to watch it before we got to Rome!  While Mike and Christine went to mass, I wrote the Venice blog, then Rachel and I went to the Duomo to meet them and go to dinner.  Tim and Jim were there too, so all six of us went over to the plaza with the fake David to have dinner on the patio of one of the restaurants there.  I had a gnocchi and we split some red house wine, which was all really good!  After dinner we walked back to the Duomo and got some gelato at one of the places around there (triple chocolate) and walked back to the hotel.


On Monday, Rachel, Anna, Alana, Betsy, and I took the train to Pisa, where Betsy, Alana, and I were annoyed by some kids the entire way.  Once we got to Pisa, we took a bus over to the basilica and bell tower (aka the Leaning Tower of Pisa).  The Tower is a lot smaller than we all thought it would be but it was still really cool to see!  We spent lots of time taking fun, cheesy, tourist pictures of the tower.  We chose not to pay 15 euros to climb it, even though it would have been really cool to do.  It was just too much money!  They had a little tourist market in the square area, so we walked around that a bit, and some people bought some stuff, then we took the bus back to the train station.  We just got some quick food and ate it on some benches outside the station, sitting in the sun.  And we took the next train back to Florence.  Once back in Florence, Rachel and I went to go to the Archaeology Museum, but once we got there, we found out that it was closed on Mondays!  With that option out, we walked back to the wine store I had found by the Duomo on the first day and I bought some wine I had liked and shipped it home (it should be here soon!).  We got some gelato (chocolate again) and walked back to the hotel (we didn't really have anything else to do.)  At the hotel, we looked up things to do in Rome and how much things cost and when they were open.  So it was pretty productive.  We went back to the fake David plaza for dinner and I had a really nice gnocchi for dinner.  We got more gelato on the way back (stratechella), we sure do love that stuff! and headed back to the hotel.  The Italy 1 group was in the hotel that night as well, so I went over and hung out with Lyndsey, Gretchen, Sarah, and Jordan for a bit, which was a lot of fun.  And it was nice to see them all one last time before we all went home.  (they all live in Wisconsin.)  I then had the joy of completely repacking my suitcase, as we were leaving the next afternoon for Rome.


This last day is going to be split into two posts, since I was in two different cities this day.  In the morning, Rachel and I stored our stuff in the hotel and headed over to the Archaeology Museum, because it was open today!  It was a really cool place!  There were tons of Greek, Etruscan (where the word Tuscany comes from, as Mike told us many times), Roman, and Egyptian (mummies!!!!) stuff.  Everything from pots to armour to dead people (my morbidity comes out when I say the dead people were my favorite. =] )  We had extra time after we left the museum, so we sat on the Duomo steps for awhile, just watching people, before starting to meander back to the hotel, stopping in Accesorize (definitely love that store!) for a while and browsing and finding a cafe to eat lunch at.  The chicken sandwich was really good!  We had to wait a bit for the coach to get to the hotel, but once it was there, we got ourselves and all our stuff on it and we were off to Roma!  (Roma=Rome, Firenze=Florence, Vinezia=Venice)  Oh, gelato count=6 for Florence, 11 for Italy.

Italy, Part 1 (Venice): Apparating Would've Been Nice

Yes, I am still in Italy, Florence in fact.  However, there is free internet access at the hotel and time to kill until dinner so I thought I'd write about my first Italian stop this trip: Venice.

I'll start off by telling you about my last day at Harlaxton.  (I know, it's crazy it went by that fast, right?!)  We all had to sit our last exam, British Studies, that morning.  Then people started leaving.  Alayna headed off for Heathrow and a flight home the next day at 4:30.  The Italy 1 trip left at 2 am on Thursday, taking with it Lyndsey, Gretchen, Sarah, and Jordan, my Eau Claire friends.  Loads of people left in between.  We were the last 30 students in the manor when we left at 2:30 am.  It was crazy how fast everyone left and you could feel the emotion in the buildings.  Everyone made some really good friends from other schools this semester and it's hard leaving them and not knowing when you'll ever get to see them again.  So I slept for about an hour in the Pearson Room before the early breakfast (my last cereal and toast in the manor!) and checking out.  Then it was just waiting until it was time to load the coach and be off to Gatwick.  We were all so tired!  We got a 3 hour nap on the coach, then Ian woke us up and made us get off and check our bags and go through security.  We got there and still had time to kill, so off to Cafe Nero Rachel, Christine, Mike, and I went for some caffine and food!  Then it was back to the waiting area until they showed which gate our flight was going to be at.  (I hate how they don't just tell you on your ticket!)  We finally got it and went off to the terminal, got on the plane, and left England a little after 7 am.  It was a 2.5 hour or so flight and we landed in Venice around 11 am (they're one hour ahead).  Then we had to go through customs (my stamp bearly showed up!) and get our luggage.  And we were out to find our coach in the parking lot, after which it was a 20 minute ride to the bus station area in Venice.  Once there we had to get off the coach and walk to our hotel, which involved a bridge with lots of steps!  (There are no vehicles in Venice other than boats.  It's a walking city.)  That walk took us about 15 minutes and then we were standing in the little street/alley that our hotel is in, waiting for Ian to figure out our rooms and it turns out that they wouldn't be ready till 2!  There was a place to store our luggage though, so that was good.  Turned out to be Rachel's room, as we later found out!  Whew!  Apparating would've been so much easier than all of that!  We would've gotten a full night's sleep and wouldn't still be trying to make up for it now.

Christine, Mike, Rachel, and I proceeded to get lunch of pizza, followed by gelato (chocolate for me).  Then we hit the town.  After gettting a little lost, our first stop was the Rialto Bridge and Market.  It was really cool!  There were all these stands selling everything from novelty souviners (I got my keychain) to Murano glass.  And the bridge has shop buildings on it, so unless you go to the outside, you don't even really realize you're on a bridge.  We walked this way on the way back as well, and (other than my Italy keychain) I picked up this cute glass owl and a present for Allison (I sold her original present of a Claddagh ring when she bought one in Boston over her Spring Break.  Oh well!).  After Rialto Bridge, we went to Plaza San Marco, which was awesome.  The Basilica San Marco is there, which is absolutely gorgeous.  It built out of pink and green and grey/white stone and has these awesome horses sitting on top and is awesomely decorated and everything.  And that's just the outside!  There's also this really old clock in the Plaza that has the hour in Roman Numerals.  And there are lions everywhere in Venice (it's their symbol).  There's also Doge's Palace, which we proceeded to go into.  We went at a great time because there actually wasn't any line and it wasn't really crowded!  The Doge was the president-type figure of the Venice city-state, so we got to see his appartaments and the council chambers, which were all really elaborate and had amazing paintings all over the walls and ceilings.  It was a bit overwhelming, how skilled and beautiful it all was.  And there was this map room, with paintings of maps covering the walls (of the entire world!) and two ginormous globes in the middle of the room.  It was awesome.  We sat in there looking at them for some time.  We also got to go into the prisons, which were dark and a bit dank.  Basically how you would expect a medieval prison to feel like.  It was still really cool though, because I didn't really get that feel whenever I visited castles in the Uk as much.  The last thing we did in Doge's Palace was walk across the Bridge of Sighs.  It's a really famous bridge and it's called the Bridge of Sighs because it was the bridge that prisoners would walk across on their way to being executed and you get a great view of Venice from the windows and it's said that they would all sigh at their last site of the city.  After we finished getting our money's worth walking through the Doge's Palace, we retraced our steps back to the hotel.  Once we checked in, we all headed to our rooms for a 2 hour nap.  We needed it in order to be able to go out to dinner that night!  We met down in the lobby after our nap (minus Rachel, who was still asleep and didn't hear Mike knocking at her door) and we headed out and down the road to find a restaurant.  We found this really nice one where we got to sit outside.  We ordered the house wine (red), which was really good and they gave us bread and olive oil and parmesan cheese to eat while we waited for our food.  I had a 4-cheese gnocchi, which was absolutely amazing.  I loved it!  So good!  After taking our time over dinner and wine (which was hard because we were so hungry!) we went and got gelato (Kit-Kat) and walked around the Grand Canal a bit.  Then it was back to the hotel for an earlier bed.

The next day, Christine, Mike, and I headed back to Plaza San Marco because we wanted to go inside the Basilica San Marco, since it was so gorgeous from the outside.  We got there before it opened, but there was still a huge line.  Luckily, there was a guide asking if people wanted an English tour, so we took advantage of that and hopped to the front of the line!  The tour was totally worth it too.  She not only told us about the Basilica, but also about Venice itself.  For example, Venice is a group of islands (which we already knew), over 100 of them (I didn't know that!), connected by over 400 bridges (wow!).  The islands are protected by a lagoon, which is why they don't have any walls, they don't need them because the lagoon does the protecting for them!  The ground wasn't solid enough to build on, so they shored it up with wood, which has petrified over time, becoming stronger.  That doesn't mean that buildings don't still sink every now and again (which accounts for the undulating floors in some buildings), but they fix that with concrete injections now.  The Basilica is the resting place for St. Mark, the writer of one of the gospels.  At least according to Venicians.  If you ask anyone from Alexandria they'll say he's located there.  But Venician merchants smuggled his body into Venice and buried him where the main alter in the church now is.  That's why the basilica is named after him!  Inside the Basilica the upper walls/ceilings are absolutely covered in mosaics!  (easier to keep good in a humid climate and Venice just happens to have plenty of what you need to make glass: sand!)  The background is gold, so there is a ton of gold mosaic tiles that glitter in the light!  The mosaics tell stories from the bible and were created either 800 years ago or 400 years ago, depending on which one you're looking at.  It was totally worth going in there and looking at everything.  It was just as beautiful inside as it was outside!  We left the Basilica and walked around the Doge's Palace to take a picture of the Bridge of Sighs, since we didn't do that yesterday.  It was funny because I think they're doing something to the outside of the palace and so to hide the scaffolding they let Toyota put up a massive ad!  Which is why there's all this blue in my pictures where stone should be!  We also got to see loads of gondolas while we were there (but we didn't feel like paying 80 euro between the three of us to go on one).  We left Plaza San Marco on a mission, to find the Indiana Jones Church for Mike.  Apparently the outside of it was used in the third movie as the outside of a library or something (Mike or whoever can correct me if I'm wrong, I'm going off what I remember them telling me).  I had gotten a cold the night before and my throat was hurting, so I decided to use that as a legitimate excuse to get me a gelato on the way (an excuse I'm still able to use!)  (and it was chocolate again).  After much map-pulling out we found the church!  Once Mike realized we were there he got so excited!  It was cute.  I imagine it was how I look with Harry Potter stuff.  After he took his pictures, we headed back towards our hotel, stopping for some pizza on the way.  We dropped some stuff off at the hotel and then headed back out.  Our first stop was the gelato place on the corner (strawberry this time!).  Then we bought our tickets for the water bus out to Murano, the Island of Glass.  (aka, where they make all their glass because way back when the buildings were all made out of wood, the Venicians were afraid of fire from glass-making and made all the glass-makers move out to the island of Murano so the city would be safer.)  The boat ride was really cool.  We got to see Venice from a different point of view on the canals and then looking at it from the island was really cool as well.  The island itself is pretty neat.  We got to watch them make cups, which is always fun to do.  And there were loads of glass shops there!  We went into a ton!  I bought a really cute giraffe in one of them.  After taking our time looking at all the glass on Murano, we took another water bus back to our hotel and proceeded to take another short nap (in our defence, we were still catching up from our night of no sleep and both Mike and I have colds).  We met up in the lobby again around 7 and headed out to dinner, this time at a lovely restaurant right on the Grand Canal.  We sat outside again and watched the boats and gondolas go by, watching out for some of the guys (they weren't on any of the gondolas that passed).  I had an amazing 4-cheese pizza.  AFter dinner we got some wine and drank it on the terrace at the hotel.  Then we proceeded to go out for gelato again (this time I got Nutella, which was really good!).  We walked along the canal again and then went back to hour hotel.  Before we got there though, Mike wanted another gelato and the same server helped him and she laughed out loud when she saw him back again within half an hour!  Once we got back to the hotel, we had to pack because we were leaving Venice for Florence the next day.  Venice is honestly one of the best cities I have been to this semester and I wish we had another day there!

So my gelato count for Venice was: 5.  I feel like I should keep track, so you'll know how much I had over the entire trip!  I probably won't get to write about Florence until I get back to the States because I believe that we have to pay for internet in Rome.  If I prove incorrect though, you may just see a post within the next few days!

Nottingham and Tonight's Excitement: Angry Wizards, Magic, and the Yule Ball

So today my friend Christine and I took a quick trip to Nottingham.  Basically all we wanted to do was go shopping at Primark and find the Robin Hood statue.  Primark is this massive store where you can buy cheaply made clothes really cheap (like 5 pound dresses, no joke).  They may not be the best made stuff, but when you're on a budget and you'd like something a little cooler for your impending Italy trip, it's always a good option to go there!  Christine and I spent forever in the store, picking up all sorts of things.  She was lucky and found some stuff, I was not.  Nothing looked right!  I did buy a 2 pound pair of aviators though (silver) because I left my own in my car in the States, thinking that I wouldn't really need them in England and I'd be ok for 9 days in Italy.  Thanks to this wonderful warm, sunny weather we've been having in here (thanks, African winds!) I've rethought my need for sunglasses and bought a pair.  When we were checking out, a group of protesters came in and were yelling into megaphones about something or other (I couldn't understand them).  With all those bobbys (police) around those must've been some angry wizards!  After Primark we went off in search of food and ended up at this awesome shake place where they made me a yummy oreo and fudge shake and Christine a shake with real strawberry cheesecake!  After sitting in the sun enjoying those, it was off to find Robin Hood and a shop Chloe told us about that was on the way.  We literally walked about 2 store fronts down before we saw the shop she had told us about, Chocolate Utopia.  They make the most amazing hot chocolate.  It's just like magic!  They steam the milk and then pour that and melted chocolate (yeah, like from a fountain except not as glamorous) into a mug and mix it up.  And you get a free chocolate with the hot chocolate!  I got a chocolate truffle and it was amazing.  A very good stop and very worthwhile!  We easily found the Robin Hood statue, which is right next to the castle (we didn't go in, just creeped on the gardens through a fence).  We took our picture next to the statue, read a bit about Robin, then headed off back to the train station to go back to Grantham.

The afternoon passed uneventfully enough (though I did get to see some intense horse racing!  Lots of fences and falling down and Chloe's friend Laura's horse she bet on won the race!).  Then it was time to get ready for the Costume Ball (better known as the Easter-time Yule Ball).  There was dinner and dancing and costumes and it was great fun!  Chloe was Minnie Mouse and I was Mickey.  Alayna was Mystery Peacock (we have one randomly roaming on the grounds).  Christine was a Zebra.  Alana was a flapper.  Lyndsey, Gretchen, Jordan, and Sarah were the Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Craig/Patrick was Edward Cullen.  And there were loads of other awesome costumes as well!  As in high school, the getting ready was almost more fun than the dancing.  And, as in high school, they played a lot of the same songs (a crazy-weird version of the Cha-Cha, Macarena, Soulja Boy, Spice Girls, etc.).  It was still fun though.

Alright, so I think the next time I post I will actually be State-side!  Italy is a 9 day trip that starts in a week and a half!  I'll probably split it into three different posts by city to keep them shorter.

Northern Ireland: Here there be Giants! (need I say more?)

This past weekend I picked my self up and out of the manor and headed off to Northern Ireland (yes, by myself.  no, I wasn't nervous.  and no, I don't regret it.)  I left Friday morning (early!) and took the trains to London Stanstead Airport, then hopped on a plane to Belfast.  Once I got to Belfast, I took the bus into the city center and went off looking around.  I ended up at City Hall.  In the lawn in front they have this cool exhibition of pictures (and explanations) of the building of the Titanic, since it's the 100th Anniversary this year and it was built in Belfast.  It was cool to see those pictures and learn more about how they built it and get a sense of the scale of it!  City Hall also had free tours, so I went in there and got myself one.  Their city hall is really ornate.  The guide told us not only about the building itself, but also about the history that took place in the building and Belfast itself.  It was really interesting!  After the tour I walked around the city centre a bit, picking up something fluffy for Mindy and grabbing a quick bite to eat for dinner.  Then it was off to find my hostel.  It seemed pretty easy to get to, but mapquest didn't take into account the fact that Europeans have a love for not posting street signs!  When I ended up at the other end of the university by the park, I knew I had gone too far, so I sat down on a bench and pulled out my various maps and figured out what I had to do to get there.  I was only a block or two away, so that wasn't a big deal.  However, once I got to the street, I walked right past it!  Still not entirely sure how I did that with the massive signs they have in the windows (one of which was mine) but I did.  I figured out what I did wrong though and got there eventually.  =)  The hostel was great.  The owner and employees are really nice and friendly and it was really clean and everything.  Breakfast was included in the price!  And they had a single room for me (I had to share a bathroom, but let's face it, I'm in college so I'm always sharing bathrooms with random people I don't know!).  I spent the evening in my room, watching a movie and such.  It was nice and relaxing, especially since I didn't have anyone to go out with or feel like I had to interact with (for a change of pace).

The next day I took a Paddywagon tour of Northern Ireland.  I got to the place they were picking us up and had to wait a long time for the bright green coach to roll up (I had overestimated the time).  As I found out throughout the day, I was apparently the only one in the entire group of 40-some people who was alone!  That made it a little lonely at times, but overall it was good.  =)  Our first stop on the tour was Carrick-a-rede Rope Bridge, which goes from the mainland to a little island (cliff to cliff) and was built by salmon fishers according to our guide.  It was about a km hike/walk from the car park to the bridge, but it was absolutely gorgeous, so you didn't even notice!  And yes, I did go across.  I was scared as heck going across and stared straight ahead the entire time and had a firm grasp on both sides of the bridge, but I made it across and back! And it was worth it.  The bridge isn't as long as I thought it was before seeing it in person, which made it better, and you got some amazing views of the coast from the island (and the birds!).  Our next stop was the Giant's Causeway, which is this little stretch of coast that has all these rock formations on it that look like carved stones, as if it's the ruins of something.  The story goes that the giant Fionn McCool had gotten tired of yelling obscenities across the sea to the Scottish giant Benandonner and wanted to go over there and fight him instead.  So Fionn carved all these stones by hand and built a causeway over to Scotland (on a related note, you can see Scotland from both the Giant's Causeway and the rope bridge).  Once Fionn got over there and saw Benandonner, he realized that the Scot was 3x's his size and hightailed it back across the causeway!  He ran to his wife for help, because he knew the Scot would come looking for him now and she told him to get into the bed and dress up like a baby.  The Scot did come over and Mrs. McCool invited him in for a cuppa tea, saying that Fionn would be out until 5.  While the Scot was drinking tea he noticed Fionn and asked Mrs. McCool who that was, to which she replied, why that's Fionn's baby.  Now the Scot got nervous, thinking, if that's how big Fionn's baby is, how big is Fionn?  So the Scot ran back across the causeway, tearing it up as he went so that Fionn couldn't follow him across!  Now, the geologists say that the Giant's causeway was made from an ancient volcanic eruption, but personally, I like to think that some of Hagrid's ancestors were involved.  The walk to the causeway was about a km again, but it was still beautiful to look around, so you wouldn't get bored on the walk!  And it was awesome to come around the corner and see the Giant's Causeway!  This is the reason that I made the trip!  It's amazing how the rocks look!  Because they really do look like some giant sat down and carved each and every one individually!  I really enjoyed clambering up and around on them as well.  It was quite a lot of fun.  I was getting hungry though, so eventually I made my way back up to the car park and the hotel where I got some lunch (which was pretty good).  While I was eating, the four Welsh gentlemen that were on the tour came in for their lunch and asked me if I was all by myself.  When I answered yes, they started talking to me and for the rest of the trip made sure I was on the coach and on the tour and everything!  It was so cute!  And apparently (because my name's Caitlin) I should tell people that I'm the daughter of some famous Welsh poet and was named after my mother (his wife, whose name was apparently Caitlin as well, though I didn't ask how she spelled it.  I had a feeling they'd be disappointed if I told them it was different.).  Anyways, it was fun to meet them and have their random comments the rest of the day!  Our last stop on the tour was Derry (also known as Londonderry).  The city has the most complete city walls in the United Kingdom and had a lot of IRA activity during the Troubles.  I chose to take the walking tour of Derry, and throughly enjoyed it!  We had a guide who grew up in Derry, so he knew about everything first-hand, which was really interesting.  We got to learn about the older history of the city, like the fact that the London guild built the city walls, which is why they added London to the name of the town officially, and about the more recent history of the Troubles.  Murals and things like that are still up and it was interesting to hear the stories behind them and everything.  I'd really like to learn more about the more recent history on the island, picking up where my Irish history course left off last semester.  After Derry, it was the coach trip back to Belfast, where I picked up some food on the way back to the hostel for dinner.  I spent the evening in my room, happily eating and chatting and watching a show and went to go get ready for bed early-ish since I had to be up so early the next morning in order to catch the bus to the airport and get my flight.  However, that didn't happen because as I was walking back to my room after brushing my teeth, the owner and one of the employees nabbed me and the owner wouldn't let me go to bed until I had stayed up and talked with them awhile!  It turned out to be fun and I got to learn a lot of stuff, but I certainly regretted it in the morning when I only had 5 hours of sleep!  The employee was really nice though and offered to make me toast in the morning before I left, even though it wasn't breakfast time (and I took advantage of that!).

Sunday morning it was simply breakfast, a walk to the bus centre, a bus to the airport, a flight to Stanstead, a train to a station, the underground to King's Cross, and a train back to Grantham.  There, Chloe met me and her mum cooked us (Alayna too) a lovely Sunday roast dinner for Mother's Day!  It was really nice!  And yummy!  I really appreciated it.  It was so good to have homecooked food again!

So, I think I have one more post for next week, when Christine and I go find Robin Hood, then nothing for a couple of weeks until Italy (and I'll actually be back in the states when I write them!).

France: Beauxbatons and Wizard Soldiers

This past week we had a long weekend here at Harlaxton and headed off to Paris, France.  Although entirely practical, I think that the fact that we took a coach to the Grantham train station funny.  From there we took a train into London King's Cross, then walked across the street to St. Pancreas International where we went through French Boarder Control.  Yes, I got my passport stamped for France while I was in London!  Then we sat around and waited for our platform to be announced so we could go get on the Eurostar.  While waiting I finally found an English keychain!  (not British, English!)  That definitely made my day.  I've been searching for one ever since I got here!  We took the Chunnel to France (which I didn't even realize we were in because we were in so many tunnels on the way there!  It was a little over 2 hour trip.  Then we all (50ish of us) had to hop on the metro and take that to the hotel.  Little did we know when we got on that our station was closed!  So we had to go down one more and get off there.  It wasn't a long walk, so it was fine.  It was funny to see Kingsley walk off on his own in order to make sure he knew where we were though!  So we eventually got to the hotel and (after some problems) got our room keys to work and dropped our stuff off and headed back downstairs to find dinner.  Kingsley recommended a restaurant to us, so we headed there and had some good food!  By the time we finished dinner, it was 11, so we went back to the hotel and went to bed, that way we would be ready to go come tomorrow morning!

Thursday started off with some amazing croissants for breakfast (yes, you will be hearing about all my food because it was so good!) and then I headed off with Sarah, Jordan, and Christina to the Eiffel Tower.  We too so many pictures!!!  It was absolutely beautiful.  The sun was shining and made for some awesome pictures.  Plus it was warm!  (like, t-shirt warm with just the perfect amount of breeze so you don't sweat.)  We then proceeded to climb!  (that's right, climb) up the Eiffel Tower!  It was scary as heck climbing up, but totally worth it.  I can now say that I have climbed up the Eiffel Tower.  You can only climb to the 2nd level, then you have to take a lift if you want to go to the very top, which we did after taking loads of pictures on the first two levels.  It was really cool at the top because they showed you which direction to look for all these countries capitals!  And, if you wanted to pay 10 euro (I didn't) you could have champagne at the top!  Back down on the second level, I picked up a couple of souviners and waited for them to come back down, then we climbed back down to the first level and Christina and I got a waffle with chocolate/nutella and I wrote a couple of postcards (well, I had to send some from the Eiffel Tower!).  Then we went back down to ground level (well, I ran and got there a good 5 minutes before everyone else!  It's even scarier going down for me!). Then we took some more pictures and headed off in search of food and one of the Statues of Liberty.  We found this take-away place near the Seine, where I had this amazing hot dog!  I know, a hot dog in Paris?.  But let me tell you about this hot dog.  It was in a baguette and had white cheese melted on top.  It was sooo good!  We ate in this little green area on the Seine, then continued on our way to the Statue of Liberty, stopping to watch a wedding on the way. =)  The Statue of Liberty in the Seine is a lot smaller than the real one in New York (obviously) but it was still really cool to see!  After that, we headed to a metro station and then to the Arc de Triomphe and Champs Elysees.  We didn't go up in the Arc, because we had just gone up the Eiffel Tower, but it was cool to see it!  We didn't walk down Champs Elysees either, because someone had told us that more affordable stores were on this street next to it so we went down that one instead (there weren't).  We did find a grocery store though and bought some baguettes and nutella and chocolate-covered waffles for dinner though!  I loved it.  Noming on a baguette is probably one of my new favorite things to do. =)  We also found a souvenir shop where I found something awesome for my sister!  We went back to the hotel around 6 and just chilled the rest of the night.  My feet hurt!

Friday Jordan, Christine, Meredith, and I were off to Normandy!  We had some problems getting our e-tickets for the train, but we eventually got them and headed off to Bayeaux! (a 2+ hour train ride.)  Once we got to Bayeux, we had about 40 minutes to kill before our tour picked us up from the train station, so Jordan and I pulled out the food we stole from breakfast that morning for lunch, and Christina and Meredith grabbed some food out of the vending machine.  Our tour group consisted of our guide who learned to speak English from watching Seinfeld, 2 retired men from Columbus, Ohio, a teacher working on her masters from New York City, and a middle-aged Texan man.  Our first stop of the day was Pointe du Hoc, which was a German outpost on the bluffs between Utah and Omaha beaches (the two U.S. beaches).  It was really cool to hear the story of how the Ranger had to scale the bluffs and take out all of the Germans in the bunkers and they found the guns that were hidden in a field about 500 meters away and destroyed those too.  There must've been some wizards among them!  And it was amazing to see the bunkers, which we could go into, and look out over the sea and see what the Germans would have seen in 1944.  Plus, there were all these craters from bombs all over the place there!  They were massive!  And they've naturally filled in over the years, so they were almost twice as deep in 1944!!!  I kind of scampered around on my own most of the time we were on the tour, because I tend to just start wandering to wherever I feel like going and look around me 5 minutes later and realize that no one that I came with is there anymore!  But that's fine with me, because I get to see what I want to see.  Our next stop on the tour was Omaha Beach.  It was high tide unfortunately, so it was hard to imagine the sea 500 meters farther out and how far they would've had to run and dodge and they didn't have any shelter except German defenses to hide behind because all of the bombs landed too far inland, on the bluffs, so the guns were still working when the engineers and soldiers landed on D-Day.  They do still have some of the gun bunkers there though.  One still has a gun in it and there is a memorial to the U.S. National Guard on top of it.  It was really cool because all the words were in both French and English.  While at Omaha, we also saw the memorial to the first American Cemetery in France from WWII, which was right off the beach.  All of the bodies were later moved when the American Cemetery opened up in 1954.  Speaking of the cemetery, that was our next stop!  The American Cemetery is absolutely overwhelming!  When you first walk into it, you walk into a memorial for all the soldiers whose bodies have never been recovered or identified.  Each name is listed on a massive wall.  If there is a black dot next to the name on the wall, it means that the body of that soldier was found after the wall was built.  It was good to see some of those dots.  After you pass through the memorial, you are in the cemetery proper.  It is absolutely massive!  There are almost 10,000 bodies buried there, with around 900 unknown soldiers and 600 or so Jewish soldiers, who have a Star of David gravestone rather than a cross.  Just walking through the cemetery made the sacrifice that these men (and women) made so much more real and the numbers made so much more sense.  The cemetery is located on top of a bluff, overlooking Omaha beach, where many of them died.  The requirement to be buried there is that they had to die in Normandy.  Recently, they've started a program with the families in the area where they each get a soldier in the cemetery and bring flowers to put on the grave at least once a year.  This tradition will be passed on through the generations.  It's a way of remembering the soldiers and all that they did for the people of Normandy and France.  On a slightly happier note, I was on American soil!  France gave that land to America, so it's technically American soil, so I was home last Saturday!  It felt so good to be back. =)  We were able to be there for the lowering of the American flags and the playing of taps, which was really cool to see.  We also kind of followed the Ohioans around at first because one of them had brought flowers to honor the soldiers and we wanted to see where he would put them.  He chose to put them on the grave of a soldier who died on D-Day.  He thought it was appropriate.  The last stop of the day was Longues-sur-Mer, another German outpost located on a bluff, this time between U.S. beach Omaha and British beach Gold.  This one is really cool because all of the original guns are still in the bunkers!  So I actually got to touch a German gun!  I really liked walking around there and seeing all of this stuff.  It really made the war more realistic and I can imagine things better because I've actually seen some stuff!  We were dropped off back at the train station and grabbed some food out of the vending machine to eat while we waited for our train to take us back to Paris.  My original plan was to go see the Eiffel Tower light show that night, but by the time we got to the metro station it had already started and I didn't want to wait until 11 to go see it, so I just headed back to the hotel, stopping at a grocery store on the way to pick up another baguette (which was even better than last night's one!).

Saturday, Hilary, Lyndsay, Meredith, and I headed off to Versailles (or, as I see that this could be completely plausible, Beauxbatons).  We took the metro to the RER station and bought tickets to take us out to Versailles and back.  The RER took about 40 minutes or so, but walking out and seeing the palace was so cool!  Versailles is so ornate!  And crowded.  All of the rooms were absolutely gorgeous, but it was so crowded that you couldn't really just stand in the rooms and look around, you were kind of pushed from room to room.  But that's ok, because I still got to say I was there and I have some awesome pictures and memories to show for it!  We went out to look at the gardens, but we didn't really get to walk around them because it was our last full day in Paris and we all still had stuff we wanted to see back in Paris proper.  So we made sure we were heading back on the RER around noon (or as soon as it actually left the station after 12).  Meredith and Lyndsay got off to go see the Eiffel Tower, while Hilary and I got off at the same stop and then parted ways, she went to meet some friends at the Opera House, while I headed off to Notre Dame.  Notre Dame was absolutely gorgeous.  I love all the detail in the stone!  And the stained glass windows were beautiful.  I was so glad that I went there!  I didn't go up and see the gargoyles,because the line was long, but I did walk around the outside and get some great pictures!  I also stopped at a souvenir shop and bought some prints of paintings, which are really pretty!  I next attempted to walk to the Louvre, but got lost and ended up just finding the nearest metro station and taking the metro there (it's hard to find your way around when street names randomly change, not all of them are on the map, and there's no signs pointing in the direction of the Louvre!).  My original intention was just to take pictures of the Louvre, but after doing that, I decided that I actually wanted to go in!  So I got my ticket and headed off to see the Mona Lisa, which was cool to see in person, but there was a crowd there, so you couldn't just stand there and look at it really.  After that I just wandered, ending up in the Oriental and Egyptian sections of the museum instead of the painting sections.  Which was fine because that was more history type stuff, so I'm sure I enjoyed that more than I would've enjoyed the paintings!  I actually ended up getting lost in the Louvre and it took me half an hour to find the exit!  I finally found it though and made my way to the souvenir shop and bought a couple magnets and a gift for a friend.  Then I went to the cafe and got some dinner (another hot dog, a really good pastry with chocolate in the middle!, and apple juice, which was really good.)  I was then planning on going out of the Louvre through the pyramid and walking through the garden to the obelisk at the other end, but it was raining!  So I stayed inside and walked around the mall instead, stopping to get some really good dark chocolate gelato!  By that time, it was about time to go meet Meredith and Lyndsay at the Eiffel Tower, so I hopped on the metro and headed off to that stop.  Since it had just stopped raining, there were some great pictures to be taken of the Tower!  And WWF was there doing something on the terrace, so that was really cool to see.  I almost stole one of their pandas, but I don't think they would've appreciated that too much.  Our plan was to see the lights on the Eiffel Tower, but they never came on!  I thought since it was dusk it would be fine and they would come on but they didn't!  I was (and still am) so mad!!!!!  That was one of two things that I wanted to do in Paris, climb up the Eiffel Tower during the day and see the light show at night!  And I didn't get to see the lights!  We couldn't go back later, because the three of us were going on a pub crawl that we had booked.  Sad, I gave up and we went back to the hotel to drop stuff off before heading over to Moulin Rouge (the group was meeting right across the street from it, so we got some cool pictures before the pub crawl started).  The pub crawl was a lot of fun!  We went to 4 different pubs before we left (we weren't sure whether there was another one to go to or not, but we were tired by that point in time, so we just left).  And we got drink discounts at every pub too because we were on the tour!  We met people from all over the world, so that was pretty fun.  Then, on the metro home, we met a Canadian girl who is a au pair over there!  It was fun talking to her and everyone else.  We got back to the hotel really late, so we crashed.

Sunday, we packed, and took the metro, Eurostar, train, and coach back to Harlaxton.  It was a really fun weekend, even if I didn't get to see the Eiffel Tower at night.  Guess that just means I'll have to go back sometime!  School's almost done here.  I can't believe it went by this fast.  My last real weekend trip is this coming weekend when I head off to Northern Ireland!

London Field Trip: I Saw the Bridge and This is What Scrimegour's Offices Must've Looked Like!

Yesterday was our third (and last) British Studies field trip, this time to London.  The four coaches taking our college to London were supposed to depart at 8 a.m.  Two of them did.  One waited a while before leaving.  While we were left waiting for an hour before the last bus (which had broken down on the way here) got to Harlaxton to pick us up.  It turned out to be a double-decker bus, at which point I pulled out more motion sickness medicine to take and offer my friends.  We weren't able to sit in the bottom, so we got as close to the front as we could at the top, which made it a lot better!  It actually wasn't too bad on the almost 3 hour drive down there.

Our bus (as well as one other) went to St. Paul's Cathedral for the first half of the field trip.  I shot off the bus with about half of the other people and went to find a toilet, but it took so long that by the time I got back up there and was about to go looking for Taylor, who was leading my group around, Bujak stopped me and told me to go with that group down there!  So I went around the cathedral with Welsh's group instead.  St. Paul's is the first truly Anglican cathedral built in England (because all the others were originally Catholic from before the Reformation).  It was built after the Great Fire in London in 1666 destroyed the original St. Paul's by Christopher Wren.  We started out in the crypt, which had lots of memorials to different people, including Montgomery, Slim, and Wren.  The two main tombs down there are Arthur, Duke of Wellington's (he was the one who defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo) and Horatio Nelson (who defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Trafalgar).  They are both massive!  Wellington's actually had to be lowered through the ceiling in order to be installed.  Interesting story about Nelson's: it was originally made for Cardinal Wolsey, but when he fell from grace and King Henry VIII confiscated all of his property and Wolsey died on the way to prison, he wasn't buried in it.  Instead it went into storage until they decided that Nelson would be buried in it.  The matching candelabras are upstairs on either side of the high alter.  The cathedral itself is gorgeous!  The Victorians added beautiful mosaics on the ceiling (they were in Wren's original design, but the London Elders or whatever wouldn't let him put them in).  And you can see the entire way up the dome, which is really cool.  In the cathedral, there are more memorials to a lot of people, including big ones to Wellington and Nelson.  There is also a memorial to the fire brigade that was in charge of putting out the fires that were started by the German's incendiary bombs during the Blitz in WWII.  They are responsible for helping St. Paul's escape nearly unscathed, and St. Paul's became an emblem of hope for the people since the Germans couldn't seem to destroy it (even when they do hit it [a bomb fell on the high alter, but it didn't explode, making the impact decidedly less] ).  Behind the high alter, at the back of the cathedral, is a big memorial to the American soldiers that served in the Second World War, from the British People.  It's a really nice memorial and has a book with all the American soldiers who died in Europe, and, significantly, those who died on the crossing to go fight due to German U-boats.  Also important, this memorial was built entirely from donations from the British People, not the Government, so it really is a sincere thank-you for all they did.  At the end of the tour, we had the opportunity to go up into the dome, which I took full advantage of.  The first stop is the Whispering Gallery, which looks down into the cathedral, and is really cool to see everything from that view.  The next stop is outside, which offers some great views of London (even when rainy).  I got an awesome picture of the Millennium Bridge from here (yes, the one from the beginning of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince).  Apparently there was a third stop, but I couldn't find the stairs, someone told me about it on the bus on the way home.  After making it back down all those spiral stairs, and with legs shaking, I met up with Kathryn, Annie Rose, Jon, and Matt and off we went into the rain to try to find the nearest underground station.

The five of us had decided that, instead of going to the National Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery, our time would better be spent by going to the Churchill War Rooms (yes, I started this because I didn't get to go to them last weekend =) ).  And the War Rooms were awesome!  Everything was set up (largely behind glass) as it would have been when Churchill was fighting WWII out of it.  There were even creepy mannequins that we half expected to start moving in many of the rooms.  They had some awesome original papers hanging up and maps with all these pins in them showing where everyone was.  It was really cool to see.  I could totally see Scrimegour having rooms like these to fight the war against the Death Eaters and Voldy (you know, if he hadn't tragically died before an underground government military movement could be launched).  I took a ton of pictures in there.  I wish I could've spent a bit more time in the war rooms, and we somehow managed to skip the little museum that was in there as well.  But it was still fun and interesting!

After that, we were all hungry, so we set off in search as a McDonald's (don't judge, we were really hungry and craving fries!).  We ended up walking nearly to Trafalgar Square before we found one, but it was so good and we were so happy that it was totally worth walking by a protest for Libya for it!  After that, Annie Rose was still hungry (because she can't eat meat on Fridays, it being Lent and all) so we stopped at a little convenience store so she could get a sandwich.  While she's getting a sandwich, the rest of us find the Krispy Kreme's in there and each get one!  I got a Kookie and Kreme one (chocolate doughnut with white icing and cookie crumbs on top) which was absolutely amazing and I'm pretty sure we don't have it at home!  We were all in heaven they were so good!

Since we were already there, we walked across the street to Trafalgar Square and took some pictures and looked around.  Kathryn had us all make a wish and throw a penny into the fountain.  Then Annie Rose decided to try out her waterproof digital camera in the fountain.  It worked!  That was really cool.  In the square, they have an awesome countdown to the 2012 Olympic and Paraolympic Games.  They also have a really random massive ship in a bottle, which is actually really cool.  After spending some time here, we had to head back to St. Paul's so that Kathryn could meet up with Jessica, since they're staying the night in London.  Once we got there, I met up with Hope and we went to Pizza Express for dinner.  We split a really good garlic bread and cheese pizza.  Then we got back on the bus and talked until it was time for the bus to leave at 7 and take us back to the manor.  On the way back, the coach driver took us by the Olympic Village, which looks like it's going to be so cool!  I want to make it back here so badly for that!

Next week I have a long weekend in Paris, so be looking out for that!  I can't believe that there's only 4 or 5 weeks of the semester left!

London, Round 2: Like Walking into Honeydukes for the Very First Time

This weekend I chose not to go on the Lake District trip with the school and stay at the manor, get some work done, take a day trip somewhere.  I decided on London, since there were four places that I really wanted to go see that I didn't have the chance to when I was there one weekend back in January.  Since everyone is basically gone this weekend, I went into London by myself; not a big deal considering no one would've come with me even if we had gone into the city together, they wouldn't have wanted to go to the same places as me for as long as me.  My travels started at 7:30, when a cab picked me up and took me to the train station.  There, I grabbed some breakfast, since the Refectory wasn't open before I left (I don't think so anyways).  Then it was an hour and 15 minute train ride into London King's Cross Station.  I then took the Underground to my first destination: the Tower of London.

I absolutely loved the Tower of London!  I literally spent 3 hours in there, just roaming about!  I saw everything I could.  I saw Traitor's Gate and the Royal Jewels (which were absolutely breathtaking) and Henry VIII's (and load of other people's) armor (you saw Henry get fatter and his codpiece get larger to compensate) and where they kept prisoners and the Tower Green where people like Queens Anne (Boleyn) and Catharine (Howard) were executed and where the Princes of the Tower were found and the chapel where they reburied all those in unmarked graves (traitors).  I loved every minute of it.  I had lunch at the cafe in the Tower, just odds and ends that were yummy.  I also went to the Tower of London Store and bought a couple of postcards to send out, since I hadn't sent any of English stuff yet.

I went to get back on the Underground to head to my next destination, but, turns out my ticket doesn't want to let me in or out of the stations anymore.  Luckily there's always an attendant there who'll let you through once you show them your ticket!  Not the first time it's happened to me, but it is annoying.  The Imperial War Museum definitely made up for it though.  It was like the museum of my dreams.  Literally over half of the exhibits were World War I and II!!!!!  I was in historical heaven.  Well, you know, scholar-wise, in reality, those wars were hell.  But they had all this stuff that I had read about and to actually see an Enigma machine and a Hitler Youth uniform and to go in replica trenches and see Hitler's plans for the invasion of Poland and oh so much more stuff, I was literally like a kid in a candy shop.  I couldn't stop smiling whenever I saw something that I knew about or was related to something that I'd read about.  The people next to me probably thought that that was a bit weird, especially when I was smiling over and taking pictures of Nazi stuff, but whatever!  I may not like them, but I think getting to see all their stuff is just about the best thing ever.  I was surprised there was so much of it there!  I guess since Germany can't display or destroy it, Britain took it.  That's my guess.  To top all this awesome stuff off in the museum, there was an exhibit solely on General Sir Bernard Montgomery!  I was so excited!  Mainly because I just spent a lot of time researching him and writing a paper about him and how he won the battle that turned the tide that won the war (or however Bujak so eloquently put it).  He's the general of the British Army that won the first battle in 3 years against the Germans at El Alamein in North Africa, beating Rommel.  As a side note, that's also the last major battle Britain won without American troops (we were just starting to get there and weren't in battle or anything yet).  So that was really cool to see all his stuff.

By the time I finished up at the Imperial War Museum, I realized that I didn't have enough time to see both the Churchill War Rooms and the Sherlock Holmes Museum, so I decided that I'd probably have time to see the War Rooms next Friday after the field trip and before the coach ride home, so I just took the Underground to Baker Street and went to 221B.  This was awesome.  They have this really cool sign outside of 221B Baker St. and someone's dressed up as a policeman from the late 1800s, letting people into the house!  So you go in and go up the stairs and Sherlock Holmes meets you in the study!  That's right, they have an older gentleman dress up as an older Sherlock Holmes and he tells you what all the rooms are and points out some things.  And I got a picture with him!  Made my part of the day, that.  So the study is really small.  It now makes sense when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle writes about how a large man nearly filled up their study!  There's Watson's desk and medical bag in one area of the room, and Holmes' chemistry set and violin in another.  And on one wall is the bullet holes that Holmes makes when he's bored and needs another case!  They're in the shape of 'V R', Queen Victoria's initials.  Next door to the study is Holmes bedroom, which was cool to see.  Then you go up the stairs and you get to see Watson's, which is a lot tidier than Holmes' was!  Also on that floor is what I call the memorabilia room, with lots of Sherlock Holmes stuff in cases and on walls and a very impressive bust of him in one corner.  Go up another floor and they've got scenes from the different stories!  There must've been at least 10 different scenes, including ones from The Speckled Band, The Gloria Scott, The Red Headed League, and A Scandal in Bohemia.  Next door to the museum is a Sherlock Holmes Store, which had so many really cool things that I really wanted to buy.  I managed to limit myself to a Sherlock Holmes bear, which is absolutely adorable, and a matchbox that has Sherlock Holmes images and such on it.  I'm pretty happy with what I got.

After meeting Sherlock Holmes, it was back on the Underground to Kings Cross, where I picked up some food for dinner before getting on the train back to Grantham, eating on the way.  Then it was a cab back to Harlaxton and in for the evening, being very productive on things surrounding this day's travel!  I don't really know what will be coming next, I believe my London field trip, as that's scheduled for Friday, and I don't have anything planned for that weekend yet, so we'll see what that ends up holding!  'Till next time!

Harlaxton Manor & Southwell Workhouse: Hogwarts and Definitely not Azkaban

Ok, so I was looking through my travel journal and realized that I had actually written about my first field trip to Lincoln in there and it turns out I wrote about it on here too, so I figured I should write about my second British Studies field trip as well!  This field trip was to Harlaxton Manor (yes, where I live) and Southwell Workhouse (this should go directly before the post about Barcelona).

We started off the day (well, half of us did, then we switched) at Harlaxton in our seminar classes.  There, we spent half an hour learning about the different places that inspired Gregory Gregory when he built this manor.  They ranged from houses in England to houses on the Continent, since he collected much of the marble and other items that he put in his house there.  Then we had several hours to do a self-guided tour of the manor.  Four professors were stationed around the manor to tell us about the different parts and to answer any questions we might have.  Dr. Snow was in the library.  There she told us about how it used to be the kitchen and how it was run and the food got from there across the manor to the State Dining Room and about the other work rooms on that half of the manor.  Next we meandered over to Dr. Green in the Stone Corridor.  He told us about the different levels of servants and how to distinguish between the servants quarter and the parts of the house where the family lived (ornamentation and wood floors).  He also took us to the butler's room (what's now the Music Room) and showed us the staircase leading from there to the Long Gallery directly above it and the safe where the silver was kept.  He also had a view of the drive so he could see people coming, and he had wooden floors and a marble fireplace, meaning that he was the highest servant.  Next we went to Dr. Taylor up in the Blue Corridor.  There, we got to see Gregory Gregory's room, which is one of the bay windows in the front of the house and is very nice and elaborate.  We also got to see where the Governess' room was and how she got from her room down to the classroom and nursery without being seen by the family (another secret staircase).  Lastly we got to see the sitting room upstairs, what is now the Senior Common Room for faculty and it is absolutely gorgeous!  Lots of bookcases full of books and ornamentation.  Then we went back downstairs to Dr. Bujak in the State Rooms.  He showed us the various ways that servants got around without being seen and pictures of how the rooms used to look (with actual furniture in them and everything) and the heating system that was put in (a series of vents).  After our tour, it was back to the seminar rooms to go over what we learned, then lunch in the Refectory.

After lunch we got on a coach and headed to Southwell Workhouse, about 45 minutes away.  I was really excited to see this, because I had learned about the workhouses that the English tried to put into place in Ireland during the Great Famine and really wanted to see one.  Turns out that this workhouse is the one that all other workhouses were based on!  The workhouse is split, with one half being women and the other half men.  The Master and Mistress of the workhouse and the children living in the workhouse lived in the center area.  Men, Women, and Children weren't allowed to see each other except on Sundays, where families could meet in the Meeting Room if all of them had behaved that week.  They got clothes upon entry and the women cleaned the workhouse and cooked and dealt with the food in the cellars, the men worked in the gardens and did pointless work, just to make sure they were always working.  The point of the workhouses was to make them do repetitive, boring labor and reform their morals so that they would go out and get a job and become productive members of society (they also helped them find jobs, especially the orphans).  We got to see the work yards, the cellars, the kitchen (on the women's side, bread making was on the men's), the meeting room in the center, the schoolroom, the children's dormitory, the Master's living rooms, the women's dormitory, the Master's study, the inside work/lounge rooms, and the exercise yard (which was actually where they went after dinner to relax.  the privy was also out there).  It was really interesting to see all of it!  The workhouses also were where those unable to work (the poor elderly, injured, etc.) went.  They didn't have to do any labor, because they couldn't, and each half of the workhouse was further separated in that way as well.  The majority of the half of the building was for the innocent/deserving poor (aka those unable to work) and 1/4 to 1/3 of the half (on the outside) was for the poor that were able to work (their side was smaller because there were less of them and they moved in and out more frequently).  The workhouse was very clean when it was run (because the women were always cleaning) and they were fed well, if it was a bit repetitive (they got meat every other day).  After visiting the workhouse, it was back to the manor for dinner.

Ok, now that I've written this, I promise the next one will be about my trip to London tomorrow!

Harlaxton: History of Magic and Care of Magical Creatures

I promised a post on everyday life here at the manor, and since I have some free time before lunch, I thought I'd let you know what goes on here in any given week!

Monday, the entire school piles into the Long Gallery for an hour lecture on whatever topic of British history that the British Studies lecturers have decided on for that day.  For example, towards the beginning of the semester, we had a lecture on the Three Edwards, and more recently we had a lecture on Industrialization.  We get there early in order to get the seats by the best radiator, since it's so cold in there!  After lecture, half the school goes to their seminar, while the other half does whatever until their seminar starts.  I usually head back up to my room and get some homework done in that period of time.  Seminar (at least for me) is in one of the stone corridor rooms, meaning that it's warm in there.  Seminar basically goes into a bit more depth on one point of the lecture from that day, often using primary sources.  We all have an individual presentation to give in there, mine was on John Locke and his two Treatises on Government.  We also do group work, where we have to meet outside of class to discuss things and make a handout for class.  Lunch follows seminar, then it's afternoon classes.  For me, this is Marketing, again in a warmer room, where I get to learn all about different aspects of marketing.  Following that is Environmental Science (a gen. ed.) where we get to be depressed all class because we're talking about death and destruction all the time, though right now we're talking about the death and destruction of creatures, which makes it a Care of Magical Creatures Class. =)  This is located in the State Dining Room, which means that it's cold, which doesn't help the sadness.  Following ES, it's either down to the Bistro for free coffee/tea/hot chocolate or back up to my room to do more studying.  Dinner is around 5-5:30, then it's usually back up for more studying before a snack and show and bed.

Tuesday and Thursday consist of getting up at a decent time in order to get some work done before lunch and my afternoon classes (Marketing and Environmental Studies).  I try to get up in time for breakfast since I get more food that way, but sometime I just don't feel like going down there, so I have some dry cereal in my room, along with some cereal and nurtrigrain bars.  There's no free drinks in the Bistro on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I head back up to my room to do some work, sometimes making some hot chocolate myself.  The same routine follows for the rest of the day.

Wednesday, all I have is History of Magic (British Studies) lecture and seminar in the morning, like on Mondays.  Wednesday is usually the day that I go into town if I need anything after lunch since that gives me the most time.  Usually it's just an hour+ trip in for the grocery store, though sometimes there's clothes shopping involved.  I usually forget to go down to the Bistro in the afternoon, but Wednesday is the other day that it's open.  Wednesday is usually the day that I stop procrastinating on work and get things done, because I am usually gone on Thursday night or Friday morning for my weekend trips.

If I don't go on a trip (which is only happening a couple of weekends this semester) I'll pretty much hang around the manor Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, doing some work, hanging out with friends, going into town for various reasons, ordering food so I don't have to eat the Refectory food all weekend.  I have one of my last big projects to complete this weekend, but most of my papers were due last Thursday and this past Monday, which meant that I was hard at work!  I'm looking forward to this weekend basically off.

So yes, that's my time here at Harlaxton during the week in a nutshell.  Obviously it's a bit more filled out than that, depending on the week.  Harlaxton is good about having different events for the students, which are fun to go to if you have time.  And everybody knows everybody here since there's literally like 200 people here, including professors!  So you never have to eat alone.  More in a few days, this time about London!

Barcelona, Spain: I Bet Hermione's Read the Books

Sorry it's a bit late this week, but school work was calling when I got back, pushing everything else off until it was done.  This past weekend my friend (and roommate) Alana and I jetted off to Barcelona (quite literally).  Getting there was quite an adventure, but not as much as getting back!  We left Harlaxton in a cab around 10:30 on Thursday night in order to catch our 11:08 train into London King's Cross.  Once we got to the train station, we actually met up with 2 other Harlaxton girls who were going on the same train as us all the way to Gatwick before each heading off on their separate weekend trips, so they were super excited to find out that they wouldn't have to travel alone.  After a train, a bus to a different train station, and another train, we arrived at Gatwick airport around half 2 in the morning, leaving us sitting around the airport and waiting until our plane left at 7.  By this time, warm drinks were a must, so we found the closest Costa and ordered up some hot chocolate and coffee.  Eventually the ticket booths opened up and we could get our tickets and go through security.  Then we had to do some more waiting until they told us what gate to go to!  Our gate showed up literally half an hour prior to departure.  I was surprised how nice Easy Jet's planes are.  I had a good six inches in between my knees and the seat in front of me!  Despite this flight being the loudest one I have ever been on (there was a bachelorette party on board), the two of us were out as soon as our seat belts were buckled and didn't wake up until our plane hit the ground in Barcelona.  Once we went through customs (yay passport stamps!) we took the Aerobus into the center of town, Plaza de Catalunya.  This is where our hop-on hop-off bus tour starts from.  We took that around the city, not really getting off much, but getting lots of good pictures! Especially of Gaudi buildings and the Sagrada Familia cathedral (still in construction, which is really cool to see).  We got off back at Plaza de Catalunya and had a late lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe because we were hungry and it was right there.  And the food was really good!  Then we hopped back on our bus, on the other line this time.  We didn't get off this one at all, since Alana ended up falling asleep on it (she had a cold and hadn't slept at all last night).  So I didn't get to go up Montjuic on the cable cars, but I got to see them and ride a bus on Montjuic, so that was good.  We got off the bus at the nearest stop to our hotel, which was still about half an hours walk away.  We saw lots of palm trees on the way, and even an orange tree!  Our hotel was a couple of blocks off the beach, right across the street from the Forum.  We didn't get a chance to go down to the beach because we fell on our beds as soon as we got up to our room and slept for a good hour or two.  Once we got up, we walked down to McDonalds so I could grab a little something to eat before we went to bed.  We were asleep by 8:30!  (yes, we really were that tired.)

The next morning we had breakfast at a little cafe in the mall (Diagonal Mar) right next to our hotel.  It was amazing.  The hot chocolate literally had a piece of chocolate melting in it and the croissants were dipped in chocolate on either end and had chocolate in the middle!  I would eat that meal every day.  After breakfast we took the tram line (we had asked reception the best way to get places) to one of our bus stops and got on until we got back to Plaza de Catalunya.  We got off there and spent some time on La Rambla, a big shopping/art/tourist -y street that runs from the Plaza down to the sea.  It had a big walkway in between the buildings where all sorts of stalls and outside restaurants were set up.  We saw a lot of street performers, some of whom were quite clever!  I really liked the guy dressed up as a bunch of flowers and the guy sitting on the toilet.  There were lots of artist stalls and I totally would have bought some artwork if I would have had a way to get it back to Harlaxton without it being folded up or anything.  I did end up buying some really nice rings from a stall, which I really like.  Also, a few souvenir things, postcards, key-chain, a mosaic twisty mug.  There were also flower stalls, where Alana bought her mom some bulbs.  We had lunch at one of the outdoor restaurants, where we split a seafood paella (the rice was absolutely amazing!!!!!!), a four cheese pizza, and a quart of sangria (which was good, and which we finished after finding out how much it cost us!).  It was really nice to sit outside there and eat, a really good atmosphere.  On our way back to Plaza de Catalunya we stopped at one of the many gelato stalls and had some absolutely amazing chocolate gelato in a cone.  I wish I could have had more!  After our fun on La Rambla is was back on the bus, first for a quick stop at the Sagrada Familia so we could get some better pictures, then to Mount Tibidabo.  We rode the Tramvia Blau halfway up Tibidabo, which is an old-fashioned blue trolley.  After getting some pictures there, we hopped on the Funincular Tibidabo (a cable car, on the ground) to go up to the top of the mountain.  At the top they have a little amusement park and a church, which you could climb up the out side of to some amazing viewing decks.  Barcelona looked so beautiful from up there!  I would have liked to spend a bit more time up at the top of Tibidabo, but we needed to make sure we got back down and didn't miss the last bus to take us back to the Plaza.  Once back at the Plaza, it was time for dinner, so after asking for directions from the information place, we went off in search of Taller de Tapas, a restaurant recommended to Alana.  The restaurant was very nice.  I had chicken kebab and potato tapas and  Alana had mussels and mushrooms tapas, all of which were good, according to their respective eaters.  We finished off the meal with some dessert tapas, chocolate pofiteroles and white chocolate and milk chocolate mousse, and a dessert wine, Moscatell.  The dessert was absolutely amazing.  If I could have just had double of that for dinner and dessert I would have.  And the wine was the first wine that I really, really liked.  It was the underground and tram back to the hotel after dinner, our last real meal in Barcelona.

Sunday morning we had the croissants from the same cafe, which we had picked up the night before, for breakfast in our room.  Our flight left around noon, so we left the hotel at 8:30 so we would have plenty of time to get to the airport.  First, we had to wait forever for the tram to come, and when it did, it only took us one more stop before it was finished!  Because of the Barcelona Marathon that was taking place that day, which we did not know was occurring.  So we got off and found the nearest subway station and got on to Plaza de Catalunya, where we planned on taking the Aerobus back to the airport.  Unfortunately, that wasn't going to start running until 11:30!  Out of options, we found a taxi queue and took a cab to the airport.  It took longer than it should have because half the roads in Barcelona were closed because of the marathon.  You could tell the driver was a bit upset.  We finally got to the airport, after a 40 euro cab ride!, around 10.  It took a bit to get our tickets, but going through security was quick, and we got another Barcelona stamp on our passports (random, I know, but whatever.  plus he put it like 5 pages past the current stamp page.).  Once we got to our gate we went to a cafe and got some hot chocolate, and a chocolate muffin for me!, and waited for our plane to start boarding.  In the mean time, I went to the duty free store and found the rum that my parents were wanting me to get for them, rom de miel (honey rum), so that's going home to them now.  I was excited to find it though, and it was cheap!  We flew into London Luton and got some lunch to eat on the train at M&S.  From Luton airport we took a shuttle to Luton Airport Parkway, the train station, and took the train to St. Pancreas, crossed the street to King's Cross, took a train back to Grantham, and a cab (that was late picking us up) back to Harlaxton, in time to drop our stuff off in our room before dinner.

I absolutely loved Barcelona and wish I could've spent more time there and really gotten to see everything.  Because I, while I wanted to go to Spain in general, I wanted to go to Barcelona because of books.  Two of my favorite books, The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel's Game, both by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, take place in Barcelona and I loved getting to see all of the places that I had read about in those books.  The Shadow of the Wind has a self-tour in the back of the book that you can do in Barcelona and I definitely would have done it if I had had more time there.  These are the books that I bet Hermione has read.  You can't go wrong with them, even if you're a witch!

This coming weekend is basically a well-deserved break for me.  I'm going into London for one day to see all the museums that I ran out of time to see the last time I was there!  Look for that next!

Oxford, Bath, Stonehenge: The Real Hogwarts

This past weekend was the Oxford, Bath, Stonehenge trip.  In case I haven't mentioned this before, England is the land of roundabouts!  Where we have our complicated over and under interchanges, helping to keep traffic from slowing down, they have millions of roundabouts, which causes traffic to move slower.  The smaller roundabouts work just like Troy's, with a quarter-turn lane and another lane for going farther than that.   The bigger ones remind me of Troy before the circle change, with 2 (plus) lanes going around a massive greenspace. These roundabouts will occur if a road intersects the A1 or if the M1 (or some other such highway) intersects it. In addition, most cars here are manual.  In fact, if you don't get a manual drivers license (in other words, you take it in an automatic and don't learn how to drive manual), you have a limited license and can't legally drive a manual, even if you learn later! (thanks go to Chloe for this information.)  So these coaches that we go on these trips in are manual and, despite the hours upon hours that I've spent on them, no driver has managed to stall the coach.  Until this weekend when the driver stalled it 3 times!  I thought it was pretty comical, though I didn't appreciate the jerkiness of his driving and the millions of roundabouts and windy roads he was taking us on.  Anyways.  Enough about that.  Onto my trip!

We left Harlaxton at 8 in the morning in order to get to Oxford by 10:30.  We only got 4 hours in Oxford, so priorities were made.  This meant that I didn't end up having enough time to go through the Oxford Castle, but I got to see it and the trade-off was definitely worth it!  Alayna and I headed to Christ Church College, Oxford University straight off the coach.  Not only did we get to walk around the campus of one of the most prestigious universities in the world, but we also got mistaken for students!  Christ Church College is important to us for a number of reasons.  1) Alayna would kill me if I didn't mention that J.R.R. Tolkien was there.  2) Lewis Carroll (which is a pen name) taught there and was influence by it for the Alice stories.  3) Parts of the college were used in the filming of Harry Potter!  I already knew about the Harry Potter filming locations, so I was prepared when we walked into the entryway, but Alayna either didn't know or had forgotten and it was great watching the realization dawn on her face!  Because in this entryway is the staircase from Harry Potter!  The two scenes that I always remember from it are: 1) when the First Years are waiting to go into the Great Hall and Neville finds Trevor the toad and Malfoy introduces himself to Harry; 2) at the end of Sorcerer's Stone when Ron and Hermione are standing at the top looking down from the banister at Harry, who had just left the hospital wing to join them for the End-of-Term Feast.  Many pictures were taken of me and this staircase.  But wait!  The Harry Potterness doesn't end there!  At the top of the stairs is the Great Hall!  We got to go into the room that was used as the Great Hall as well!  (it doesn't look exactly the same, but it's still awesome!)  We also found Professor Trelawney's ancestor in a portrait on the wall there!  (Also, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, which I thought was interesting.)  We also got to visit the church in the College and walk by the massive library and around the grounds, which is where we sat and ate our sack lunches.  After that we headed over to Alice's Shop, where the real Alice (inspiration for Alice in Wonderland) bought her sweets, which is now an Alice souvenir shop, and the Oxford Shop next door.  I of course picked up a few Alice-related things, and a something for Ellen as well!  After the shops, we walked back towards Oxford Castle, stopping to watch some street preformers (I went to go to the bathroom and when I came back out, Alayna had bought their cd!).  We found Oxford Castle but I didn't feel I had enough time to really go through it, so we just looked around the shop, where I found some Sour Plooms! (hard sour apple candies that are amazing but really hard to find), and played in the stocks.  We had about half an hour or so left before we needed to get back on the coach, so we went into the museum across the street from the coach pick-up point and looked at the special exhibit on one of the printing presses from the 19th century, which I found really cool.  (except most of the books were in French, so I couldn't read them.)  Then it was back on the coach and on to Bath!

We got to Bath around 4, a bit late to do any museums or anything that day.  Alayna tried to go to the spa baths that night, but it was too long a line, so she decided to do it the next day instead and we met for dinner. We went to Pultney Bridge (a bridge over the river that's lined with shops, so you don't realize you're on the bridge) and found this absolutely amazing Indian restaurant.  Seriously the best Indian food I've had here!  We also saw some fellow Harlaxton students (though not from the group).  I wish I could've had another plate of that chicken tikka masala and nan.  It was soooo good!  After dinner we walked around Bath a bit, just seeing what's there for tomorrow.  Then we hiked back up the 2 mile steep hill to the hostel (why pay for a cab or bus when we're perfectly capable of walking?).  We were planning on doing a little bit of homework, but Gretchen and Lyndsey were in the room, so we ended up talking with them instead!

The next morning we were back on the bus at 9 and at Wells Cathedral by 10.  We only had 45 minutes to look at the cathedral and try to get some lunch.  We kind of walked quickly through the cathedral (since by this time I, for one, am pretty tired of seeing cathedrals) and went to the cafe for some food (which we had to scarf down.  try doing that with a hot drink!).  Then we were back on the bus for another 15 minutes or so for the reason I went on the day trip (other than the fact that we had already paid for it), Glastonbury Abbey.  The ruins are absolutely gorgeous!  And flowers were coming up, so it really was perfect.  This is the Abbey where King Arthur and Guinevere are supposed to be buried.  And Arthur's grave is marked.  Thanks to Mr. Davis Senior year (and the King Arthur movie a bunch of us watched a few weeks ago) I was pretty excited to see this.  There was plenty to look at there, but I was ready to get back to Bath by the time we had to get on the coach to leave.  We got back to Bath around 1 and were dropped off down towards the center of town, so we didn't have to walk down the hill from our hostel and that saved some time!  Alayna and I (and a lot of other Harlaxton people, it turned out) headed straight for the Jane Austen Centre.  She spent time in Bath, both as a visitor and living there, and two novels are set and influenced by Bath.  Northanger Abbey shows Bath in a good light, influenced by her visits there, while Persuasion shows Bath's faults, influenced by the time she lived in Bath.  The Jane Austen Centre showed her Bath and her life there and how it influenced her and such.  It was pretty interesting, especially because those are two of my favorite novels of hers.  I bought a couple of little souvenirs there as well (some one's getting a surprise when I get home!).  After Jane Austen, Alayna sped off to the baths, where she ended up waiting almost 2 hours for her hour and a half spa time.  According to her it was totally worth it though!  Left on my own, I happily meandered around Bath.  My first stop was the Assembly Rooms and Fashion Museum.  The Assembly Rooms were absolutely gorgeous!  And the Fashion Museum had so much to look at!  When you first went in there, there was an exhibit on wedding dresses throughout the centuries, which was perfect since I had gone to see a similar exhibit in Charleston over the summer.  Then there were the changing fashions from the 1600s to 1900.  Some absolutely gorgeous dresses, along with some styles that were just plain interesting.  The last part in the museum was fashion from 1900 to the present.  I loved seeing the changing styles there too.  One of the guy mannequins even had a tattoo on his arm!  One of the 2009 outfits was totally something I could see people wearing.  And there was a white dress with black lace on the front that was I absolutely loved!  After getting my fill of fashion and talking myself out of a 15 pound reusable bag (I can make my own) I walked through the Circus, which was a roundabout with curved terraced buildings surrounding it, to the Royal Crescent.  The Royal Crescent is a set of terrace houses that were (and are) for the well-to-do and have a great view of the city.  By the way, the city buildings all look exactly the same!  They are all basically the same design and are made out of the same yellowish tan stone.  Not exactly my type of town.  I next walked through a park on my way back to the city center.  There I went into Waterstone's (like a Boarders) and bought a copy of Philosopher's Stone.  I splurged a bit and bought the hardcover, because it still had the original cover on it, unlike the paperback ones which have the crappy new cover on them.  They had a Costa in Waterstone's, so, since I was hungry, I went in there and bought myself some hot chocolate and a muffin and proceeded to relax and read some Philosopher's Stone.  After a bit I left and roamed the city center, doing some shopping. I met Alayna around 6 and we went to KFC for dinner (we needed to save a bit of money).  I cannot get over the fact that they have fries at KFC and shakes (which were quite good-the shakes, not the fries) but no mac-n-cheese, mashed potatoes, or biscuits!  I think Alayna got a bit tired with my exclamations over the fries after a bit to be quite honest.  But seriously, fries at KFC?!  I needed to do some reading that evening, so I headed back up to the hostel while Alayna went to go look at the Royal Crescent.  Some reading was accomplished, so that was a plus.

Sunday we left went as a group to the Roman Baths, which were quite interesting to look at, but I personally didn't need the entire almost 2 hours there.  Luckily there was a pasty shop with absolutely amazing hot chocolate right next door, so I passed my time drinking that and talking to Josh while we waited for the rest of the group to get done.  Some of the baths still had water in them, which was pretty cool.  Some parts were kind of dark and creepy to go look at, but I went in anyways because I wanted to see everything!  They also had a little exhibit on the Romans there, and there was a skeleton!  I love looking at skeletons and wishing I knew forensic anthropology.  After we finished at the Roman Baths, it was on the coach an on to Stonehenge.  We had 45 minutes at Stonehenge, which was plenty of time.  It was quite windy there, which made it cold and not incredibly cold.  For me, Stonehenge was just a stop on the trip that I wanted (Oxford and Bath).  It was a lot less impressive in person.  Plus I had kind of gotten my fill of it Senior year with Mr. Davis!  Unfortunately, no aliens were sighted, but I did see a girl with a Dr. Who Sonic Screwdriver, which i think should count!  A little over an hour stop in Salisbury for lunch followed (yummy Pizza Hut, and more Costa) then it was back on the bus for the long ride back to Harlaxton.  Actually, there was one more stop.  Alayna had the bus stop for an emergency bathroom break (which elicited a few cheers from others with full bladders).

I've got a super busy week this week, but I'm going to be rewarding myself with Barcelona!  Tune in next week for my Spanish stories! (probably not written in Spanish)