1000 Miles

First of all, just so yall know, I set my blog so that anyone can comment now, you don't have to have an account...so you should comment so I know people really read this. Sylvia is my number one commenter - thanks steggy! :)

ok, so i have a lot to catch yall up on! let's start with thursday. I didn't have class on thursday so i slept in and woke up to a nasty, windy, rainy day. This really messed up the plans i had for the day so I just hung around the house for a while, but around 1:00 we decided to brave the weather and get one of our class walking tour assignments out of the way since we had the time. We were told that these walking tours around oxford would take about 45 minutes to an hour - they were supposedly around 3 miles long - a nice stroll, we thought. well, we left at 1:00 and finally made it back to Canterbury Road around 3 and a half hours later, exhausted and sore. The directions on the walking tour were not the best, and we definitely got lost out in the middle of who knows where. we started through port meadow - familiar ground - but then crossed the thames on the back side and headed off to some village called Binsey(that's us walking in the picture) we did get to see a really beautiful church, St. Margaret's. But that was about the only destination on our list of 8 that we reached. The rest was mostly just aimless walking through the countryside. Luckily the weather got better and we enjoyed some sun, but it was an incredibly long walk no matter what the weather! On our way home, Ben spotted a piano shop and we went inside and I got to play the pianos! I miss being able to play whenever I want SO much, especially when everyone has their guitar out and we're all jammin - i need my piano! So we finally got home and I felt like I would never walk again, but I only had enough time to do a little homework and make dinner before Battle of the Bands! We walked down to the church where the concert was and "enjoyed" some interesting local Oxford bands - the last guy was incredible though, i definitely voted for him. Ironically his name was Joe Allen - as in the Joe Allen's barbeque? I dunno...probably not. Well, afterwards, Jeremy introduced us to a few people he had met there (of course Jeremy would make random friends with the locals). They were interns at St. Aldate's and they asked us if we would like to go down to the pub with them! So of course we said yes, eager for any opportunity to get to know people who live here. So we went with Tom, Sam, Isaac, Rachel and Naomi to The Head of the River pub and had SO much fun getting to know them! I'm so excited to actually have some british friends now! We were out pretty late with them, and when we were walking back, we realized that it was 8 minutes til midnight and the airline ticket prices were all going to go up because the month was changing - we hadnt booked our austria flights yet! so we high-tailed it back to the houses (im sure we looked ridiculous, a bunch of americans sprinting through the street) but miraculously, we got our tickets in time and now we're going to Vienna March 5 - 9 and im SO excited!
The next morning (yesterday) we woke up early to go to London! We started the day at the British Museum (pictured above) where you would have to spend days to see everything they have. We saw what we could in the short time we were there and it was all very interesting. My favorite exhibit was the mummy room - it is so strange to me that there are actually bodies still inside those things. It's a strange tradition - I personally wouldn't want my body "preserved" for that long, but they did a pretty good job of it, considering it has lasted over 1000 years. After that museum, we headed to Trafalgar Square (picture on the right) where the National Gallery is located. Molly, Jill and I were the smart ones who brought our own lunches so we ate in the square on the steps in front of the museum and enjoyed the bright sunshine and all the people there. A couple of us even got to be on tv because some camera crew was going around doing a study on accents - apparently the Nintendo DS doesn't recognize my "texas drawl" according to the reporter. He went through the whole "the rain in spain stays mainly in the plains" thing with me because he didn't like how I said "black". Oh well! apparently I was on British tv! Then we went in the national gallery and saw amazing artwork! It was so cool to see actual paintings from Monet (my absolute favorite - the waterlillies are beautiful!), Picasso and Van Gogh! We were exhausted yet again when we finished with that, but we had to go climb on the huge lion statues (on the left) in Trafalgar Square for the experience - it seemed like the cool thing to do. Jill and I had way too much fun getting up there (see facebook pictures - hilarious!) After we were done with that, we took the underground to St. Paul's cathedral (below) which is incredibly huge and beautiful. We didn't get to do the tour but the outside was amazing in itself. We relaxed in a cafe for a while after that (we needed a rest!) and then met up for dinner. A lot of the group went to some mexican restaurant (they were having withdrawals and apparently this restaurant had free refills!) but sondra, eryn, jill and i went to have indian food! apparently London is the best place, outside of India, to get Indian food, and i definitely believe it. it was delicious - we enjoyed every last bite! After dinner we headed back to Oxford - after those 2 full days, I couldn't take much more! But now it's saturday and I have lots of homework to catch up on, but it's nice to have a day to just relax and not walk so many miles! Hope everyone is having a great week! I love and miss you all! Cheers!