Last weekend in Oxford

So in the craziness of the last weekend, I forgot to post. So here is what happened on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

On Friday I woke up, and did some studying for my afternoon final. Then I took that final, which I did pretty well on. After that I did a lot of packing and cleaning.

On Saturday I slept in, and then me and Holly did some shopping and had some lunch at the Eagle and Child. After we came back, we had a graduation ceremony for one of the girls who graduated from LCU, but missed the ceremony to be here. It just so happened that our ceremony was at the same time as theirs too. It was a lot of fun. She had a blue sheet for a robe and a construction paper hat with a shoestring for a tassel. We through confetti, hummed pomp and circumstance, had a comencement speech, slideshow, presentation of the diploma. We had the whole works. It was a lot of fun, and then afterward we all went out to dinner to celebrate.

On Sunday I went to church at St. Aldate's for the last time. After that I came back to the house and did some more packing. Sunday night we had our last nine at nine, and it was sad and wonderful.

Monday I woke up early for my last final, C.S. Lewis. I wrote 8 pages, and was done with school. I got a sandwich from On the Hoof for lunch, and after lunch we had an afternoon of cleaning and packing. After we were finished, we got ready for our last group dinner. We had a group picture, and all went to a really nice italian pizza place, where we were told we could get anything we wanted, so we all had sodas and starters and sides and pizza and dessert. It was wonderful. The bill for all of us was something like almost 900 pounds. That's almost 1800 dollars, although, keep in mind, there were 40 of us. Still, it was really cool.

May Day

So, I woke up this morning at 4:45. You may wonder why, and with good reason. Today is May Day, and in Oxford, May Day is a big deal. Many of the college students spent all night April 30th partying, and early in the morning, dawn to be specific, thousands of people gather on High Street at Magdalen Tower to hear a choir sing and greet the coming summer.


So me and several friends dragged ourselves out of bed, left at 5am, got to High street at 5:30, and then waited till six for the very short but nice ceremony. It was fun, we grabbed some breakfast on the way back, and then slept a little before class.







Today I also had my last class time of the semester, for C.S. Lewis. I have two more finals, one tomorrow, and one on Monday. And then it's time to pack up and come home.

After class I started to study a little for my final, more not studying than studying, but, there was a little bit of productiveness.



And now, in the evening, I really am studying.

Finals week.

Okay, so it's the last week of school, and it's really overwhelming.

Monday I went to Oxfam for the last time, and said goodbye there, and bought some groceries on the way home. I did some homework, and went to my last KEEN session on Monday night.

Tuesday I went to both of my classes, did more homework, finished my tutorial/research paper, and baked three batches of cookies to share, all of which were gone within 12 hours. That's what happens here.

And today I slept in, turned in my tutorial, studied a little bit but mostly procrastinated, went to our last prayer group at the Wiggins (teachers), and had a game night with some girls in the other house.

I have my last class tomorrow, one final Friday, and one final Monday, and early early Wednesday morning we leave for Texas! One week from today!

And if anyone in Abilene is reading this, I'll be in Abilene on the 8th and 9th. Come find me.

For anyone in the Dallas area reading this, I'll be back around after my Maymester class in Abilene ends May 23rd, so seek me out. I will very much want to see people before leaving on June 9th for my summer in Mexico, soon after which I return to be a Junior (Upperclassman!) at ACU in the fall. CRAZY.

Busy Weekend

Okay, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. And Sunday too.

Thursday, I woke up, went to class, and then met Katie and we took the train to London. It was pretty neat. We went to see Westminster Abbey, and paid too much money to go inside, so I took pictures, even though I wasn't supposed to. After Westminster, we took some telephone booth pictures, went to Tower Bridge and Tower of London, and took pictures at platform 9 3/4. Then we were heading to eat dinner, when we stumbled upon a huge crowd and wondered what it was. It happened to be the London premiere of Iron Man, and we got to see Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrance Howard, and Robert Downey Jr. on the red carpet. It was so amazing. Then, after quickly getting some pizza from a stand, we ran for 5 or six blocks to get to the theater where Phantom of the Opera was. We saw that, and it was amazing as well.

On Friday I didn't do much. I did some homework, and I slept a whole lot.

On Saturday I woke up and went with another friend, Jessica, to London again. We were going to see Les Mis, but they were sold out when we got there, so we went to the London Zoo, and the went to eat at the Texas Embassy, which has fairly authentic Tex-Mex, and had all sorts of Texas bumper stickers, like "Don't Mess With Texas", "He's not kinky, he's my governor", and almost all of the colleges (UT, Baylor, A&M, Hardin Simmons, McMurry, ACU, TCU, and the like). After a wonderful meal, we went to see Westminster again, and then caught several buses and made our way home to Oxford.

On Sunday I did homework, and watched some movies online. 9 at 9 was wonderful, we just got to sing and pray the whole time. I'm going to be so sad to leave this wonderful place.

Crazy Thursday

Okay, so Thursday, yesterday, I slept in and woke up just in time for my C.S. Lewis class. That was fun and interesting as always. After class though, the real fun began.

I met one of my friends, Katie, and we went to the train station to go to London. We were late, but our train was even later, and because of that, we didn't have and stops, we just went straight to London. After we got there, we went to Westminster Abbey, and went inside to look around. They charged me 10 pounds, and that upset me, so I took pictures inside even though I wasn't supposed to. We saw lots and lots of famous dead peoples tombs, like Queen Elizabeth I, Issac Newton, Charles Darwin, Lord Byron, Lord Tennyson, Geoffery Chaucer, and more. It was crazy. We also saw the coronation chair. After that we walked by Downing Street, where the Prime Minister lives, but it had lots of guards. On the way we took some red phone booth pictures.

After that we went and picked up our ticket to Phantom of the Opera, and went to see the Ritz...which is very ritzy. We went and saw the Tower of London, and the Tower Bridge, and stopped on the underground at King's Cross to take pictures at Platform 9 3/4.

After that we were on our way to dinner at Leicester Square, where we stumbled upon Gwyneth Paltrow, Robert Downey Jr, and Terrence Howard and their London red carpet movie premiere. Crazy! We got pictures too! That was very exciting...Katie and I had been talking all day about how so many people on our trip have seen famous people in England, but we hadn't....and now we have!














After that we got some pizza from a stand, and ran about five blocks to make it to the start of Phantom. We mad it, got our seats, and enjoyed a really wonderful show. I loved it. Afterwards we took a train back to Oxford, where we finally got to sleep.

Italy

Wow. So I have seven crazy days to write about.

Last Wednesday we left around lunch time, and caught a bus to the airport, and flew into Rome. We got in late, took a bus into the city and then walked to our hostel. It was very small, and only two bathrooms for almost 30 people, but not too bad.

We woke up on Thursday and walked to the Colosseum. We waited in line, and then got to walk around the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. We saw where Shakespeare placed Julius Caesar's death, (not the actual place though), and after we saw all of that, we went out to lunch. After a long lunch (the Italians like to eat slowly), we walked across town. We got the first of many gelato, saw the Trevi fountain, and I threw in two coins. You can find out what that means if you want to. After that we saw the Spanish steps, went to several piazza's, and eventually got dinner at a little pizzeria. We ate, and then went back to the hostel and played cards.

On Friday morning we got up and took the metro to Vatican City, where we went to the Vatican Museum and to St. Peter's Basilica. The Sistine Chapel was really cool, but a lot smaller than I thought that it would be. St. Peter's was really cool, and I didn't realize that St. Peter is buried there. After we saw that, we went to see the Pantheon, which was cool, and then went to relax at the Circus Maximus. After an hour or so there, we headed back to the hostel. I met my friend Catherine who's studying in Rome this semester while everyone else had dinner at the hostel. We got to walk around and get lost in Rome, catch up, and even enjoy some really good pizza, and then she left to catch the metro before it closed. I met back up with my group at the hostel, and we went and walked around the Colosseum at night, before heading back to sleep.

On Saturday we caught a morning train to Florence, and took a bus to our hostel. After settling in, we went and walked around the town. We went to see the famous Duomo, and I went to go see Michelangelo's David, which was incredible. We went to the market, and did some shopping before dinner. For dinner we went out to a little pasta shop, and then afterwards, we walked over to the hostel that two others from our group were staying at, and swam in their swimming pool before walking up to the roof to look at the city. Becky also hit her head, and probably had a concussion. So we headed home, stopping only for gelato on the way.

The next day we slept in, which was wonderful, and then me and Karissa went to Pisa for the afternoon. I also bought some Italian sunglasses along the way. We had a beautiful train ride through Tuscany, and walked through Pisa to get to the leaning tower, which really is leaning, it's kinda creepy. We spent a couple of hours there, and took lots and lots of pictures before heading back. On the way back to the train station, I had the best and cheapest gelato I think I had in Italy. It was so wonderful. So after going to the market in Florence, we met back up with the rest of the group and went out to an Italian restaurant for dinner. After walking around a little more at night to see the town, we went back to the hostel to pack and get ready to leave in the morning.

Monday morning we got up, and walked to the train station, and took a train to Venice. The trip took longer than we thought, and we got there around 1. However, the buses had changed routes, and I found out that I can read a little bit of Italian. I let the group know what had changed, and we finally caught the right bus to our hotel, not hostel. It was outside the city, and still expensive, but everything inside the city was at least twice as expensive. Everything in Venice is expensive. We got checked in, and went to explore the town for a few hours. Venice is very confusing and we got lost several times, but we found our way eventually. We did some shopping, fed the pigeons in St. Marcos square, walked along the riverwalk, got ripped off at dinner by cover and service charges, saw the Bridge of Sighs, and most excitingly, got an evening gondola ride. It was amazing. Like everything else in Venice, expensive, but oh so amazing. After the gondola, we went back to St. Marcos square, which was flooding due to high tide. All around Venice there are raised platforms for people to walk on when it floods. Apparently Venice is sinking.

The next morning we left our bags at the hotel, as they were going to meet us in the city with our bags to take us to the airport later. So we went back to Venice, fed the pigeons again, walked around, did some more shopping, played cards in a restaurant for a while, visited a church, and slowly made our way to the place where our shuttle would meet us. Then the shuttle took us to the airport. However, our plane was 40 minutes delayed, and while they boarded both the front and back of the plane, they only let us out of the front, so we were the last ones off. Plus we didn't land at the terminal, so we had to take a train there, and there were only two people working immigration for 3 or 4 planes of people. All that combined, we missed our bus, and had to change our tickets to get back later. By making several connections and begging one bus driver, we made it back to Oxford around 5am. I got to sleep all morning, which was wonderful, but everyone else had class at 9.

Well, for the rest of Wednesday, I slept in, did some homework, went out and got some groceries and lunch, and generally relaxed. It was a lovely day.

Worship in St. Michael's at the North Gate

Wow. Okay. So today I didn't do much other than homework. I didn't go to church because I slept through my alarm. I worked on homework, and was productive. So far I've written 1400 of the 1800 that I need to have done in the next hour or so.

However, tonight was amazing. We were told that we needed shoes and jackets for 9 at 9 tonight, and without knowing our destination, we went to St. Michael's at the North Gate, the church that used to be at the North wall of the city. The church was dark and quite, and Chris Shim (who provides) somehow was given a key to the church. So we had worship there. We took communion, prayed, read scripture, and sang. And during several of the songs that we sang, I almost started crying it was so powerful. It was amazing.

My Canterbury Tale

So this morning I took a personal pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral. I woke up early, caught the train, and then the other two trains, and finally made it to Canterbury around lunch. I was a little frustrated because on the underground there was a whole lot of German high school students who were screaming across the train at each other. I walked around Canterbury for a while, relaxed, and had a Subway Sweet Onion Chicken Teriaki sandwich, which may sound unimportant, but I've been craving it for a long time. It was so good.

After that, I went to the Cathedral. It's actual name apparently is Christ Church Cathedral, but everyone calls it Canterbury Cathedral. Another interesting fact is that the great gate into the Cathedral is bordered by a Starbucks. I got there, walked around, loved it. They had a really amazing modern stations of the cross in the crypt that I went through, and I stood in the place where Thomas Beckett was murdered, also the spot where Archbishop Robert Runcie and Pope John Paul II knelt together in prayer. I also saw the candle that marked where Beckett's shrine used to be, before it was destroyed by order of King Henry VIII.

Interestingly enough, this was also the destination of many pilgrims, as noted in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, in which the pilgrims were on their way to the shrine in Canterbury Cathedral.

I walked around the Cathedral, enjoyed the chapels and the cloisters, and the crypt. The Kent Youth Orchestra was playing, so there was a nice sound in the background the whole time.

After walking all around the Cathedral, I walked around the outside, and enjoyed the ground. It then started looking like it was going to rain, so I headed back to the train station. Only a few minute after I had gotten to the train station, the downpour began, so I had good timing and stayed dry. Yay! After a long train ride home, I got to relax all evening. I felt a lot better, having had some time to myself, and now, there's less than a month before I come home! For a little while that is.

Motivation

Well, today was not nearly as exciting as the last few days in Paris.

But I did manage to work up the motivation to write two of my papers, search my room and find my alarm clock, and get train tickets to Canterbury. That last part was the hardest. I really don't like the 30 minute walk there and back. So I got a muffin to make me feel better. It worked.

I also watched some movies online. That was not productive. But it was entertaining.

Paris

Okay, so it's been a while, since I've been in Paris. And now you, reading this, will get to hear more than you want about it. Because it was amazing.

We left early on Saturday morning, to the bus to London, and then took the Eurostar train to Paris. It goes through the "chunnel", the tunnel under the English Chanel. After we got there and settled in to out hostel, I went with a group and walked to the Eiffel Tower, which was about 50 minutes from our hostel. We walked by Notre Dame, which was right down the street. We finally got to the Eiffel Tower (which is so much bigger than it seems), and we took pictures there, and then got food from an overpriced tourist stand, and spent the rest of our evening on the Fat Tire Bike Tour, which was amazing. It was probably the best night of the semester. We started off with a warning that we were playing sharks and minnows, we were the minnows, and buses and other traffic are the sharks. But no worries, we stayed together and had florescent vests on. We ate ice cream at this amazing little cafe, and our tour guide was a cute college grad from Texas. In fact, most of the people who work there are Texas college grads, since the founder is as well. It was interesting for the first few minuets as I had to learn to relearn how to ride a bike. On the tour we saw Pont Neuf which you may recognize from the Bourne movies, or as the oldest bridge in Paris. We rode our bikes through the outside of the Louvre, and build a human pyramid by the Louvre pyramid. We saw the tunnel where Princess Diana was killed, and the little Statue of Liberty. We saw the Eiffel Tower sparkle as it does every hour on the hour after dark. At the very end of the evening we had to race back to get to it in time to take pictures. We got to take a boat down the river and look at all of the sights. We rode our bikes through tree lined streets in Paris at nights. Amazing. After the bike tour we got crepes at a stand, and then took the metro back to the hostel late at night.

On Sunday morning I got up, and went to Notre Dame, but we misunderstood the church times, so we only caught the end of the service. But we stayed and took a few pictures, and then went to the Louvre. I saw the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and Winged Victory. We walked around for a while, but since it was Sunday, and it was free, it was hot, crowded and stuffy inside. So we left, got some sandwiches at a stand, and then went and climbed to the top of Notre Dame. We saw the Great Bell, a.k.a. Quasimodo's bell, and learned that a Chimera is an ornamental monster while a gargoyle drains rainwater. There was a great view of the city from there. However, after climbing those 400 steps, we were tired, and went back to the hostel for a nap before dinner. We had dinner at the hostel, and then went out for crepes. I had a nutella banana crepe, it was so good. Then we went back to the hostel to sleep.

On Monday we woke up, took the metro to the Arc de Triumphe, saw it, and then walked down to the Eiffel tower to see the olympic torch. I was with Becky and we were going to meet Krisann and Karissa at the bridge by the tower. But we got there and it was blocked off by police. So we walked down to the next bridge and back, and found that the road leading to the tower was blocked. I had some nice conversations with French police offices as we tried to figure out what do to. By wonderful change, we found Krisann and Karissa in the crowd that was already gathering to watch. After a few more conversations with police officers, we found a place on the other side of the road to watch the torch come by. While we were waiting, there were some fights that broke out between the human rights/tibet supporters and the Chinese who were there. It was the most police I have ever seen in my life, and they all lined up agains the crowd like you see in movies with riots. They even had to tackle some people who ran out to extinguish the torch and drag them off the street. It was rather dramatic. When the torch finally came through, it was surrounded by three levels of security. After that chaos, where we did get to see the torch (that was really cool), we went to a Chinese restaurant around the corner for lunch. After that we went to the Opera house were the Phantom of the Opera was set or created or something. The auditorium was closed, so me and Becky didn't pay to go in, but we waited for Katie and Karissa, who did. Then we walked home, did a little bit of shopping on the way, rested and then had dinner at the hostel again. After dinner me and Becky and Krisann went to get ice cream at the cafe we went to on the bike tour. As we were coming back, I was feeling a little sad and homesick. I passed a group of girls going to Sacre Cour and Moulin Rouge and thought that I wouldn't go with them, that I would just rest that night, but then I knew that resting would just be an excuse to lie in bed homesick. So I ran to my room, grabbed my bag, and caught up with them. And I'm so glad that I did. After a metro and way too many steps, we got up to Sacre Cour, took pictures of the city at night, and walked around the church, which was beautiful. After that we walked down the red light district to Moulin Rouge to take some pictures. We got some very yummy Parisian pastries on the way. And finally, after that, we went home to bed, and by that time I was tired, and reconnected to community, so I felt better.

On Tuesday, I got up, and went with a group to Versailles. We waited in line for several hours to get tickets and get in, but it was so lovely. I saw the Hall of Mirrors, the King and Queen's rooms, the door that Marie Antionette escaped through, and the beautiful gardens and fountains. On the way back into Paris, I asked for a milkshake from MacDonald's, and got a sundae, but it was delicious. I was late meeting Krisann and Becky at the Eiffel Tower, but just as I was leaving the metro, they walked by, and we got to walk there together. We got to the tower, and the other girls were going to go to the top, but having a slight fear of heights, I wasn't going to go. But I ended up going. The tower is 1,063 feet tall. According to Wikipedia, "when the tower was completed in 1889 it was the world's tallest tower — a title it retained until 1930 when New York Citys Chrysler Building (1,047 ft tall) was completed." And I went to the top of it. I think it was the highest I've ever been. We took the elevator, but I still think I almost passed out of fright. It was good once I got to the top though. And it was an amazing view. After we went down, we went to this cute little cafe for dinner, where I had roast chicken for dinner, with French fries in France, and Creme Brulee for dessert. Yum. Our waiter was so sweet too. When dinner was over, Krisann and I went to go take some more pictures, and then split up for a minute so she could go to the bathroom and I could check out a stand. When I was walking to meet her under the tower, I noticed all of the street vendors running. Apparently it's illegal for them to sell there, and they were being chased by police on bikes. Well anyways, one of the vendors dropped some of his little Eiffel Towers, and so I got one. Just one though, I was sad that the mob of other tourists noticed as well. But after that, it was starting to get late, so we went back to the hostel for the night, and I read and then went to sleep.

On Wednesday morning I went with Becky and Katie first to a really nice pastry shop named "Paul". I got a strawberry tart. Then we went and saw a bookstore Katie liked, did some shopping, and then went to see Victor Hugo's house and the place where the Bastille used to be. After that we did a little bit more shopping, and went to go get one last crepe before we left. As it was lunch time, I decided to get a savory crepe instead of a sweet one, and got a ham, egg, and cheese crepe. It was huge, and I couldn't finish it (we met one of the boys there, and he gladly helped me out), but it was so so so so good. mmmmm. After that we went back to the hostel, got our bags, and all 40 of us trouped through the metro to the train station, onto the Eurostar, on the bus in London, and back to the houses where we crashed after traveling for so long. I got nothing productive done that evening.

Today I slept in because class was canceled, and worked on homework. Slowly I'm getting everything done, but on Wedesday, I leave for Italy for a week. Oh goodness, it never stops.

And I'm Off Again.

I'm gone until Wednesday night. Don't miss me too much, I'll be in Paris.

Today I tried to catch up on schoolwork and get ready for Paris. Oh, and laundry too. Terribly exciting, I know. Sometimes life is like that.

Someday though, I'm gonna make a list of all the cool things I've done, and it's going to be pretty neat.

And as for Mexico this summer, now I'm going to Morelia, and the dates are still working out. Wow, I hope this all works out.

Two days.

Okay, so yesterday was kinda cool, today, not so much.

Yesterday I woke up, and went and toured three different Oxford colleges: Keble, New College, and Magdalene. Keble is interesting because they broke the mold and build out of brick. New College was the first to use the quadrangle, and they also have a large chunk of the original city wall, as well as some really interesting and cool decor in their chapel. Magdalene is beautiful, and also the college that C.S. Lewis taught at. And on the way home I went to Ben's Cookies for a double chocolate chip cookie and a cup of milk. Mmm.

I forget which day it was, but one day this week we also got to go eat dinner outside because it was beautiful and warm and still light outside. Amazing.

Today however, was my day that I got to spend inside writing papers.
Tomorrow may be that day as well. Woo!

What a beautiful day.

It's been such wonderful weather here in England for the past couple of days. I love it.

Today I woke up, and went to "class", where we met in the common room and watched the first half of "Shadowlands" because Cole Bennett, my C.S. Lewis teacher is teaching at this huge English conference in New Orleans. They paid to fly him in from England. He's such a good teacher.

After class I went to work at Oxfam for a few hours. After grabbing some milk at Sainsbury's I came home, read an Agitha Christie novel, had some dinner, and now I'm trying to do homework while watching a movie.

Getting things done.

So yesterday I slept in, took my time getting ready, and then met a friend for some coffee and some shopping. After that I came back, was productive and got some homework done. After that, I got to go meet another friend of mine, Catherine, and a friend of hers for dinner. They're studying in Rome this semester, and it's their travel break. We ended up going to the Royal Oak pub, mostly because it's the only pub we could find that was still serving food. So I ordered the fish and chips, cause I love fish and chips, except when they served this fish, it still had skin on it.

Now, you have to understand, I have a rule. I don't eat things that look like animals. And fish with skin...looks like an animal. Yuck. So I didn't eat a lot of it.

So after that I came home and went to bed.

Today I slept in (through church...oops), and then went to meet Catherine for lunch at the Eagle and Child, where I had the Sunday Roast, that was wonderful. Then after that we walked to Port Meadow and relaxed with the horses for a while, and then after a stop by to show them the houses I live in, we walked by some of the more important Oxford monuments. After that I came back home, and was productive some more, then had nine at nine, and now have to be productive again.

Strange fact: I've recently, as in the last two weeks, picked up an interest in coffee mugs. Who knew?

I don't want to be sick.

I don't want to be sick, but I think that I am. I've been really achey all day long, and have spent most of my day in bed. I slept as often as I could, cause that's the only time that I didn't hurt all over. And now I've got the chills as well, my head is pounding, and I still have sinus issues from when I had that cold a few weeks ago.

I really don't want to be sick. I have a lot of school work to catch up on, and I'm going to Paris in a week.

Although, me and my roommate make quite a pair. I haven't gotten out of bed all day, and this last week she suddenly developed symptoms of diabetes, and has an appointment on Monday to get tested.

What a pair.

A lovely weekend.

So yesterday I got up, and went to the Ashmolean, the oldest public museum in the world. I walk by it almost everyday, but it took me until yesterday to go. It wasn't really all that amazing yesterday, they're doing a lot of remodeling, and so a lot of the museum is closed. But it was still cool to say that I've been. I also went grocery shipping, so now I have food!

The only other thing that really happened yesterday was I signed up for classes for the fall. So that was cool.

Today I went to C.S. Lewis class, and had some cool discussions about Perelandra. Then I talked to my teacher about a grade I disagreed with, and got a better grade.

Since then I've been unproductive, but I figure it's okay, cause I'll be here in Oxford all weekend, so hopefully I can relax and continue to catch up on homework.

A Day of C.S. Lewis

Okay, first, yesterday not a lot happened, I had my tutorial meeting, and went out to dinner for one of the girl's birthday's. It was a lot of fun.

Today, we took a bus out to the graveyard where C.S. Lewis is buried, right next to the parish church he attended. I've decided that I would much rather be buried in an English cemetary than an American one. American cemetaries have chain link fences around the outside, roads running by, and very industrialized graves. English graveyards, on the other had, are normally by churches, they're quiet and peaceful, and very lovely.

After that, we went to the Kilns, where Lewis lived with Mrs. Moore and his brother Warnie for a long time. We went out to the forest where it's rumored that he sat to write the Chronicles, we walked all through the house, saw the study where he did most of his writing, his bedroom, the attic that reminded one of the Magician's Nephew, the "Children's Room" where children evacuated from London stayed, and all of the rest of the house. It was really cool.

Although, here's some news for the day. I've been planning on spending the summer in Mexico City on an internship, but one missionary was on furlough, and just today I found out that the second missionary has something preventing him from taking interns, maybe a death in the family. So now, plans are in the process to transfer me to Morelia, Mexico. Hopefully all of this will work out with my finely tuned scheduling for the summer.

Scotland

Okay, so I had a wonderful short little trip to Scotland over the weekend. We traveled to Edinburgh by train, a very long seven hour train. But we made it there on Wednesday night, took the shuttle to our hostel, looked around the hostel a little bit, and then went to sleep. This hostel was cool because they gave each person a locker for their stuff, and you had a curtain on your bed to make your own mattress sized room. Plus they had a computer lab, and a free movie room, which we didn't use, but it was still cool that it was there.

We woke up on Thursday morning and walked up to the Royal Mile. It's basically the main street in Edinburgh, with the castle on one end, and the palace on the other. We did most of our shopping this morning with all of the shops lined up and down the mile. After wandering around for a while, we went to the Elephant House for lunch. This place is known because it's where J.K. Rowling started writing Harry Potter. She's from Edinburgh. So we ate there, and I got a coffee mug from there. We also saw the nearby statue of the Greyfriar's Bobby. After lunch, we walked up the mile to Edinburgh palace. It was pretty, but we didn't pay to go in, because we were already spending money on other things. But it's very lovely from the outside. From the castle we also got our first glimpse of Arthur's Seat, the really big hill/little bitty mountain. You'll hear more about that later.

After seeing the castle, we walked down the mile to Holyrood Palace, the Queen's residence in Scotland. We didn't go in, first because we didn't want to pay, second because it was closed. But we walked by. After that, I went back to the hostel with Holly, while the other two girls with us went on a ghost tour. We saw most of what they saw the next day. But back at the hostel we relaxed and did some homework due the next week.

On Friday morning we woke up, and went to the cemetery where some of the ghost tour was. It was there that J.K. Rowling found some of the names for her characters in the Harry Potter books. We found McGonagall, Tom Riddell (Rowling changes the spelling), and we heard that a Crookshanks was buried there, but we were never able to find it. It's a big grave yard. We also saw the school behind the graveyard that was the inspiration for Hogwarts. After exploring the graveyard, we went to go hike up Arthur's Seat.

We started hiking up, it took us around forty five minutes to get up. The view from the top is amazing, and we looked over the city and the sea. There was a storm out over the sea, but we didn't really worry about it. We took some pictures, and then we sat down to have a Good Friday devotional. We had only just started when we looked out and saw the storm moving remarkably fast towards us. The several teenage boys who were playing around decided it was time to get off. We decided likewise. The snow started coming down, but not the light fluffy snow that's nice. Since Scotland in generally is very windy, and we were at the highest point for a long long ways, right next to the sea, the wind at normal rates can knock you over. And this is storm rate winds with pelting snow.

We began our decent, clinging to the sides of the rock so that we wouldn't fall over. For a while, I was really scared we wouldn't get off. It was intense. However, it was very fitting that the storm moved in just as we were starting our Good Friday service, and "darkness came over the whole land" (from Luke's description of the crucifixion.)

But as quickly as the storm moved in, it moved out again. By the time we were down, the sun was shining again. All was well. After the excitement though, we went and had some dinner, and then went back to the hostel to sleep.

On Saturday morning we woke up very early and went to go on a Loch Ness tour. We meet in town at eight, and began our 13 hour tour. We drove in the tour bus for most of the morning, stopping for breakfast and lunch. We got commentary along the way of what we were passing. We passed by the Birnam Wood, which was quoted of in Macbeth. "Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be, until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill Shall come against him." We drove through the Highlands, which are beautiful, and saw Ross Castle. A little after lunch we finally made it to Loch Ness, and Urquhart Castle. We saw the castle, and got to see the Loch, no Nessie though.

After an hour or so at the Loch, we headed back to the bus, and on through more of beautiful Scotland. We saw a lot of film sights, such as the forests from Last of the Mohicans, the Mountains that Mel Gibson ran across as Braveheart, the site of Hagrid's hut, and the cool train bridge that is in Harry Potter when Ron and Harry steal the car. We traveled through the moors, saw the mountains, more of the highlands, and got a whole lot of history. It was amazing. The sights were great. So far, I think that Scotland might be my favorite scenic place.

Always on the Move

There's always somewhere to go. Tomorrow I'm leaving for Scotland until Sunday. But, I think after that, I get to stay in Oxford for almost two weeks before Paris.

Today I still felt really sick. I got dizzy and lightheaded, and I'm still stuffed up and coughing. I'm hoping it's all on the way to being better though. It's too expensive to be sick over here.

Today I mostly laid in bed, resting up for my trip to Scotland, and trying not to get more sick.

More rain and clouds.

So last night my group led our Sunday night chapel, 9@9. It was really cool, and since this week is Holy Week, we did stations of the cross. More specifically, Everyman's Way of the Cross, the stations that we do at Happening. And it was mostly Church of Christ kids who had never even heard of stations, so it was really cool. And after that we had a time of worship and scriptures. I thought that it was really cool.

Today I woke up and went to work at Oxfam. Today we talked some about the differences in British and American currencies, how our coins have names, and none of theirs do. Also, I found out that while I say "math" they say "maths", for some reason. Interesting.

Well, most of the rest of my day was spent reading or doing homework. Cause that's just incredible fun. I did go shopping and I bought a purse at Primark though. I'm kind of anxious, but I think that's mostly because I keep thinking of all of the homework I haven't done. Oops. There's always something more to do...and there a whole lot due at the end of the semester that it's soooo hard to bring myself to do now. Lame procrastination. Hopefully I'll get some of it done tomorrow, and maybe I'll feel better. Hopefully.