Twenty-three Days

That's how many days until I come home. Needless to say, I'm excited to go home, but it also feels like there's still a lot here I want to do. And I will have time; it's just that I need to be aware of how I'm spending my time. I do have two very exciting trips coming up. Tess and I are going to Cornwall (southwest coast of England) over Easter break (Friday to Monday) and we're going to be hiking from town to town, starting in Penzance and staying in a different B&B each night. It should be lot of fun. It's a coastal path with about 12 miles between each town. A test of endurance, certainly, but I'm really looking forward to it. And then, we're going to Cardiff (capital of Wales) at the end of the semester for 3 days. There are a bunch of castles and and national park nearby that I hope we get to spend a lot of time in.

Also, yesterday, we went to Stonehenge. It was a really incredible and I think it was built 1) as a gathering point, which it is still doing, and 2) as a testament of humanity's spirit. It was built to last, which it has, and to impress people, which it does. I think it was built to say, "We were here and we are leaving our mark and our mark does not end after we die." I was inspired by it and wrote a little about it about how I think that's what the soul is: vaguely our impressions and memories and our impact. I still need to work on that definition a little, but it involve a metaphor with a vine as well, with roots and flowers and rain and wilting.

Overall, Stonehenge was worth the journey. I got some really cool pictures and I was very impressed by it.

What I did today

Getting over feeling sick and now planning trips.

Tess and I have planned out a trip to Cornwall (the south west coast of England) where we'll start in Penzance and hike each day along the coast to the next town! We'll be going over Easter break, leaving Thursday evening (arriving Friday morning) and getting back to Oxford early, early Tuesday morning. It's going to be a lot of hiking, maybe 10 miles a day, but we've got our bus tickets and now we need to get our hostel for each night. And then at the end of term we're planning on going to Wales to Snowdonia (snowdonia!?!) which is a huge park in Northern Wales where there's lots of places to go hiking (no hostel or travel reservations yet, but foggy plans that will get cleared up). We'll probably be flying out of Heathrow after our Wales trip.

Also, now that tutorials are over, we have more time to get to know each other and go to museums and explore Oxford. Looking forward to that.

It's been a while

Home stretch. Last paper for Shakespeare seminar done tonight. Last class for Russian tomorrow.

Sorry I haven't updated in a while.

Since I last did I:
Walked to the other side of Port Meadow
Went to London with Tess and met up with her au pair
Finished with my magic class
Got a job offer for a Civic Justice Corps job with the Maryland DNR
Watched a really cheesy movie- Decoys
Created a Roman Gladiator costume out of cardboard
Went to the Tower of London

I'll try and put up pictures soon as well. I've got a lot.

Venice Part 2: Pigeons, Parishes, Pizza

Today has been another long day, but I'm still really enjoying wandering with only a general sense of location and the knowledge that there are pizza places everywhere.

This morning we went out to a bakery and bought a huge loaf of bread to nom upon, bought a big ball of fresh mozzarella cheese and ate at the Piazzo de San Marco. It was kind of foggy all day and we got hassled by pigeons while we were eating, but we managed to keep them at bay. They have an incredible sense of knowing when a crumb is accidentally dropped. It will draw at least 8 per crumb.

We then explored the Basilica de San Marco, which was huge and detailed and wonderfully enormous. I could just imagine the priests walking through with candles, their vestments billowing behind them as they walked.

Then we went to an art museum, which was the collection of Peggy Guggenheim. Saw some works by Dali, Picasso and Jackson Pollock, among others. Going to the museum was a nice break from walking out in the cold and I did see a couple of pieces of art I really liked, such as Paduan Landscape by Umberto Boccioni and Solidity of Fog by Luigi Russolo.

Then we travelled to a another church, Santa Maria Della Salute, which was built in honor of the Virgin Mary because it was believed she saved Venice from the plague in 1630. We just saw the huge domes of it in the distance and decided we wanted to go there. I really like that about this city; that you can see something, say 'I want to see that,' and then just go. It's wonderfully easy to walk and explore here.

For dinner we went to a nice, cheap italian restauant, with checkered red tablecloths, dark wooden bar, candles on the table and wine lining the walls. We got two pizzas. Went to the grocery store for some snacks for tomorrow and came back to the hostel.

We have plans again to go out and walk around again, but some people have fallen asleep again. Last night we didn't end up going out, but instead watched an episode and a half of Rome, which was on HBO a couple years ago.

No solid plans yet for tomorrow and we just met a couple German guys staying in the hostel.

Venice: The Beginning

Today, we arrived in Venice! It's been a pretty busy day so far and Ally and Tess are napping right now, but I think we will go out a little later after Napfest to see Venice at night.

We woke up at 3AM, caught the bus at 4 and got to the airport around 5:30 and our flight left at 8:30. A very busy morning. I did get a little sleep last night and on the plane. On the plane I woke up close to the end of the flight to see us flying over the Alps and then over the Mediterranean. The Alps were so expansive and the whole range looked like a giant piece of paper that someone tried to reflatten, but didn't do a very good job.

We caught a bus from the airport and it brought us into Venice on what I think is the only road in the city. It's very strange to be a city without any traditional roads, just canals, which by the way are beautiful. I really like the idea of waterways instead of asphalt.

Our hostel is a little sparse but comfortable and the host seems very nice. We get breakfast every morning and we have our own set of keys to open the 4 different doors in order to get into the hostel. Not too many worries about security. The place, Sweet Dreams, seems pretty quiet. It's off the main street, about 3 stories up a building that has a very intriguing inner courtyard full of hanging plants and narrow stone stairwells.

 After we dropped off our bags, we walked about without any real destination and walked though the Piazzo de San Marco and along the Mediterranean.  We stopped at a little "snack shop" for lunch/ dinner and got pasta stuffed with ricotta and spinach and a pizza. 

I think Venice is and will be a very easy city to mosey about in and explore. There are nooks and crannies and back allies everywhere. Very easy to get lost in. I think we are going to try to limit our destinations so it doesn't turn out like London did; rushing from one place to the next without every really enjoying anything fully.

Some words I have learned from using them today. 
Uscuti - exit
Prego - you're welcome
Aspetta - wait!
Vattene, bestia immonda! - Begone, foul beast! 


I will keep you all updated on any new Italian words I learn and my continuing adventures in this ever sinking city.

London Long Review Part 3

Ally went off on her own while the rest of us went to British Museum. A thoroughly impressive building with a mindboggling amount of stolen stuff. I was reminded of my day in the Egyptian Museum and just the sheer number of items in that building. By the end of the day there I was barely even taking in what I was seeing simply because I had seen so much. That didn't happen in the British Museum, but it easily could have. Instead we spent about 30 minutes looking at mainly the Elgin Marbles (which used to be on the Parthenon) and seeing a couple other items from Greece and the Rosetta Stone.

It was really cool to see the Rosetta Stone. I think that was my favorite part because I had seen a copy in Egypt and read about it and just to see the very thing that helped us understand hieroglyphics and because it was just so old was very awe-inspiring. Thinking of what would have been if it had not been discovered or understood: for example, my trip to Egypt would have meant a lot less to me if I didn't understand the history and significance of the ancient Egyptian artifacts and locations.

After this, Tess and I rushed off to meet Ally at the London Eye to ride it. When we got there, Ally wasn't, so we decided not to go on. Instead I took a picture of it.

Then (quite tired by now) we met Ally at Covent Gardens, which was nice collection of outdoor shops and restaurants with street performers (your standard robots and jugglers and musicians, etc). We ate dinner at little Italian restaurant where we were tucked into a table in the basement. Felt a little like the Cask of Amontialldo. 

Finally, at the end of the day we caught the Subway back to Paddington, took the train home and fell promptly asleep.

London was...a lot. I really enjoyed my trip, but we did a lot of walking and, in retrospect, not enough resting. We were a little too ambitious in the number of things we wanted to see which meant we didn't get to see any of them in really good detail. But I do think I got a good feel for London as bustling, busy city that the visitor needs to adjust to; it doesn't work the other way around. And depite the problems I sometimes have with big cities: anxiety about crowds, feeling lost, stressed, etc., I think I did okay with London because I knew where we were going, and how we were getting there.

It illuminates, I think, the type and amount of control I feel that I need to be comfortable and fully functional. I really would like to go back and see the Globe and more of the British museum. Maybe soon. But it'll have to be after Venice!

London Long Review Part 2

Next we decided we wanted to go see Harrods andBuckingham Palace. On the way to Harrods, which was first, we walked through Hyde Park, which was a nice break from cars, but still full of people (probably because it was a nice day). Especially prevalent were the runners. Crowds of them just going down the path. We were just going to go straight to the famed luxury store, but realized Kensington Palace was right next to Hyde Park/ in it, so we stopped there.

But in actuality, we couldn't really see much. The gardens were laid out nicely but nothing much was growing and we couldn't see much of the "palace" or what I expected to see, so we moved on instead turning to watching small children get almost attacked by geese.

Which is what happened/ will happen if you give a baby bread near a pond full of giant swans. Seriously, they were probably 4 feet tall and not scared of people at all.

Moving on so as not to killed Birds-style, we found a memorial and concert hall dedicated to Prince Albert, which were a gilded golden statue and a giant collesium-esque building.

We found Harrads and then found Harrods completely overwheleming. We didn't get past the second floor. There was just too many rooms, and I felt the whole place was very contrived. Not fancy, just tacky; like the store was trying too hard to be high class and just putting in too many costumes, too much gold, too much polish. So we left, and it was relief to get back out onto the street, where we took the subway close to Buckingham palace.

Buckingham Palace was super crowed and though we missed the changing of the guard I still really enjoyed seeing it, even though once again, it wasn't quite what I was expecting from a palace. I guess I was envisioning more of a castle rather than just a really big stone house...

We walked more. We walked a lot and by this point I was getting kind of tired and hungry. But we saw Big Ben and Parliament and Westminster Abbey (all from the outside) before we went to get sandwiches and rest at a Costa near Trafalgar Square. Big Ben, etc. were all very impressive in their size and how they imposed their presence over the city, as well as the incredible amount of detail in all the stonework. I wish I had been a little less tired, so that I could appreciate them a little more, but I do plan on going back to London.

Next, the end of the day at the British Museum, London Eye and Covent Gardens.