2/04

Hi everybody!!
Once again, greetings from the United Kingdom! It's slightly damp here, but we've had a weekend with temperatures in the 40s-50s, so no complaining from Kirsten! :) I love European winters!!
Here's a short summary of my week in London. Towards the beginning, the highlight was two pieces of good news: 1) my boyfriend is coming to visit for 11 days at the beginning of March (from Italy), and 2) my best friend from CT is coming to visit for 7 days arriving three days after my boyfriend leaves! (Can I buy a frequent-visitor-pass to Heathrow Int'l? Just a thought!) On top of that, I am now in the process of planning my month-long backpacking-through-Europe excursion for the end of March-end of April! School? What school? Who needs it?
Actually, I am here for school, or so I need my parents & advisor to believe, so let me fill you in on school-related activities. At some point over a week ago, I went to a Lib-Dem party meeting...pretty interesting, and it's probably the only school organisation I'll join...there's not very much school enthusiasm here (although definitely more than at home!)...British politics rule! As of last week, I did all of my reading for "Themes of Japanese Religions" only to find out that I was the only student out of 8 to have done any of it. :oP In a discussion, that makes it pretty interesting. By Wednesday I was stressing over a 10-page paper that will be due March 22, so I researched it Wednesday and wrote it Thursday. :oP I figure I won't have any time coming up! Anyway, it's called "Who is a Jew?," although I prefer the title "Who wants to be a Jew?" (If anybody wants to read it to comment on how poor my interpretation of Judaism is, please let me know!!)
Well, fast-forward to this weekend...using my handy-dandy b&b guide, my orientation roommate Maryam (who goes to Oxford) and I booked a room at a B&B in Bath, in southwestern England. We met up on the train, along with Maryam's friend Sophia, which was the nicest British train I've seen yet!
It took two hours to get to Bath, which, is famous for the influence of the Roman invasion from the 1st century BC to the 4th century AD. Thus, Bath bears more of a resemblance to European cities on the continent than to other British cities I've been to. Anyway, in Bath, we ate a picnic sitting next to the River Avon (yes, the same river that runs through Shakespeare's hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon) and toured the Roman Baths, discovered in the 18th century by people working on the sewers. Incredible! We also walked around the downtown area a lot, hit the San Francisco Fudge Company, went to the Circus and some other places on the hillside offering a gorgeous view of the town (Bath is quite hilly), and ate at KFC for dinner before returning to our B&B. The B&B was an absolute adorable place--there were three bedrooms total, including for the people who owned it, and it was an older couple...they were very personal and we enjoyed it quite a lot! I highly recommend B&Bs for anyone travelling through the UK!
Anyway, we were going to head back early today, but we saw a tour to Stonehenge, Avebury Stone Circles, Lacock National Trust Village, and Castle Combe (Cotswolds) today for only 15 pounds, so we had to take advantage of it! The tour itself was quite cute, a tiny mini-bus for 16 of us, mostly American and Australian students studying abroad here. We hit Stonehenge first, in the pouring rain but neat anyways! After a 40-minute ride, we arrived at Avebury Stone Circles, which is a circle of stones that is the largest in England, before going to the white horse that's carved into the landscape. (Hard to expalin) We hit a pub in Lacock (home of 180 people) for Sunday lunch and bakery desserts before heading to the Costwolds' village of Castle Combe...it was a really great day all in all! Finally we got back to Bath at 4:30 and managed to catch the delayed 4:13 into London...although the Tube has gone on strike I caught the last circle-line train from Paddington to King's Cross and got back at 7...all in all a good weekend!
Whew! I've said too much! You probably won't be receiving a letter from me next weekend, as I'm going up to Edinburgh for the week, but I'll write when I return! As always, my pics are already online:
http://www.geocities.com/lemonaid_98
Love ya!