June 27 Wrap-up

I'm still not feeling well. I'm tired, I have a sore through, and I had a really, really high fever this morning. I couldn't stop shivering, but it seems like the advil has mostly controlled that. I still don't feel like myself, but I think I'm on the mend. We had class from 10 until 2:30 this afternoon, and I could barely keep my eyes open. There are a total of 13 people in the english class, and the double-mint twins from my flat plopped down next to me and began to chat. They were talking throughout the entire class, and it finally pissed me off enough (and our prof wasn't doing anything about it), so I asked them to quit it. They stopped for a few minutes, then started talking quieter, then looking at me. Greeeeat. So after class, I came home and just collapsed. I thought that I just blinked my eyes, but I think I woke up like 3 hours later. Time is so weird around here. Every day is very long, and all of them blend together. Part of it is certainly the jet lag, but the other part is probably just how busy we are. Tomorrow we're going to Leeds and Canterbury, and I'm looking forward to both of them. Well, except for the walking up the stairs on the knees. I think I'll skip that part. I'm still not feeling like myself, but taking a day to relax has probably done me a lot of good.

Windsor Castle Recap

I have to keep journals for school, so this is actually for my assignment. I hope to keep these interesting, so I figured I might as well combine my purposes and put it on here. So here we go!

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The trains are different here. Going from the ciminally inefficient Amtrak to the thus-far reliable British railway system is pretty cool. Windsor is an easy hour-long train ride outside of the city. The scenery we travelled through was an interesting blend of old and modern buildings, and everything was lushly green because of the recent rain. It was a very interesting contrast to the brown and khaki landscape at home.

We walked up a long hill to get into the Windsor castle, and the streets were lined with tourist traps. It reminded me a lot of Solvang back home. However, once we got inside the gates, the tacky shops seemed very far removed. The castle's form reflects its intended function: a fortress. The walls are high and it makes for a wonderful view of the surrounding area. We went through to see the dollhouse, but that really didn't strike me. The next room we went into did, though. I was amazed by the sketch room, especially the Leonardo da Vinci sketches. They were so amazingly detailed, and it really made me appreciate how difficult this must have been in a world without photographs. Even the simplest studies for other, larger works were transcendentally beautiful.

As I walked through the apartments, I was really struck by the passage of time. I have mostly regarding history as "a long time agao" and made little distinction between time periods.
What fascinated me was the juxtaposition of the modern world (bobbies with assault rifles) and the armory room. It made me remember that this castle has been around for a long time, and visitors to the castle 5, 10, 25, 50, and 100 years ago would have also regarded it as old. The point I'm trying to make is that history isn't just a matter of "recently" versus "a long time ago." I have always understood this fact intellectually, but this was the first time it really struck me in such a visceral way.

Monday Evening

So, my wrap-up for the day:

In the morning, we took a bus tour of the city. It seems pretty wasteful that they use a huge coach for just the 16 of us, but I can't complain too much. It seems like the only roomy place in the city.

Speaking of complaining, yeah, I found out that they put us all together because they just don't have any other rooms available. *sigh* At least my two roomies will be travelling on the weekends, so I'll be able to have the place to myself whenever they're out and I'm in. Only 27 more days, right? So, I take out the 6 days they'll be travlling and we're looking at only 21 more days. I can deal with that! :)

Anyhow, after the bus tour we had lunchtime to ourselves, so I went to some oddly-named place for lunch (Pret A Manger, I think) which was pretty tasty. We had our orientation meeting at the FIE place, then we went to Imperial College to go work with the travel agency to plan our weekend trips. (Whoo, more on that another time.) A few of us stopped in for a quick drink, then I took a walk in Hyde Park. I came home, putzed on the computer (oh, how I miss you, fiber-optic connection at home!), then attempted to go to the Hard Rock Cafe. Oh, that turned out interesting. Long story short, people should not doubt me when I say "You need to hurry up, quick, quick" when I'm telling them to get on the tube. Our group got split up, and Hard Rock had a 1.5 hour wait. This is at 9:30 at night on a Monday. Good god. Anyhow, I ended up just walking home because... well, because I'm an idiot. I know that I'll get familiar with the neighborhood and stop ending up on these long excursions, but in the meantime, I'm freakin' beat.

So, my fun story of the day was on my way home. I didn't have dinner, and I hadn't eaten a thing since lunchtime, so I was hungry and tired. I stopped into a Marks and Spencer fancy-pants grocery/snack place, and picked up a *tiny* thing of grapes (maybe about 3/4 of a cup... 130 grams is you want to do the math: $2.10), a 4-pack of chocolate mousse ($3.58) and box of 80 teabags ($4.18). Yeah, everything is definitely more expensive here (except the tea!), but I was just scandalized by the price of fruit. Anyhow, I was about to go check out, and I realized that I forgot to get teabags, but I hadn't seen them. So here's my conversation with the girl who was stocking the stuff in the back:

Me: Excuse me. Sorry to bother you, but do you carry tea?
Her: Carry tea? No, but we certainly have tea. You're so fancy!

So yeah. I was called "fancy" by a Londoner. Worship me! Actually, she was really funny, and pretty amused with my valley girl impression, ohmygawd! So my day has ended on an up-note, and I'm going to go take a nice shower and try to fall alseep before my roomies get in. We'll see how that goes.