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.