Week Three & Week Four

Hello!


Sorry for skipping last week and not posting - these past few weeks have been very hectic.
The biggest thing I had to deal with these last couple of weeks was my health. In short, I was pretty sick for about 3 weeks with some sort of virus and then eventually pink eye in both eyes :( Yet as of today I feel basically back to normal and so happy about it!


The other things that caused some craziness around here was traveling! We've been all over these last two weeks! We went to London on the 12th and 13th, London on the 16th, Oxford on the 17th, and Windsor, Bath, and Stonehenge all on the 19th. I was sick for all of those trips, unfortunately, but still managed to have a good time.


The first trip to London was 18 of us; all American and most from ISU. It was everyone's first time in a hostel so that was kind of an adventure all on its own. It went well though. We had 16 people crammed into a very small room. We did basically everything someone could want to do in London in two days: Big Ben/Parliament, Westminster Abbey, a market, The Globe Theatre, Millennium Bridge, St. Paul's Cathedral, Tate Modern Museum, Big Ben at night, Piccadilly Circus, Covent Gardens, Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guards, London Eye, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, and the British Museum. 


The reason we went back to London a few days later (5 of us did) was because we planned to go to Oxford, but it was much easier to get there from London so we went a day early to finish up anything we didn't get to see, which wasn't much. We went to King's Cross (for Harry Potter's Platform 9 3/4), Abbey Road, Harrods, and an Icebar! The Icebar was exactly what it sound like - a bar where everything was made of ice! The cups, the tables, the walls, and even the seats. They gave us "designer" thermal jackets to wear because the room was at about 22 degrees. We were allowed in for 40 minutes and had an absolute ball. It was right by Piccadilly Circus and I couldn't imagine ending a trip to London on a better note.


The next day we went to Oxford and it blew me away. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect - just a campus in a small town I guess. But the campus isn't a set campus, it's more integrated throughout the city than any other campus I've seen before. The city was basically the campus. All the building were so different looking and unique too. There is so much history in the town and so many interesting things to see! Like we went into a bookstore that has every book ever published in the English language! We saw two different spots were Harry Potter was filmed and another room that they used to base a scene from. We saw the building where penicillin was invented and the building Lewis Carroll (author of Alice in Wonderland) lived. I was so glad we made the trip out there. 

A few days later we went on a guided tour to Windsor, Stonehenge and Bath. I had never heard of Windsor or Bath until recently, and I've been to Stonehenge, so this was another trip that I was not sure of how it was going to go. I really enjoyed it though. I loved that we did a guided tour (got on a bus in London and they took us to each of the places and the tour guide gave us a lot of information during the ride). It was so convenient and thank goodness someone thought of doing that! (That would be me :) ) We first went to Windsor, which is the town but the main reason we went was for the Castle. WIndsor Castle is the "official resident of the Queen", and as our tour guide described it - Buckingham is her office, Windsor is her retreat and her place for the weekends. A certain flag was flying the day we were there which signaled that she was in the Castle when we were! But no Queen sighting can be reported. Sigh. It was really beautiful though. We were only allowed like an hour and a half there, which was half of the time we needed. We got an audio guide but couldn't listen to all of it because we had to get back on the bus. We couldn't take pictures in there, and while we were outside it was raining so I didn't get too many pictures. 

Stonehenge was next and we had enough time there - we walked around them once and were done. It didn't seem to significant to anyone and now we just joke around how it's just a bunch of rocks. I'm glad we went and I think it is very interesting, but it's something where you go, see it for a few minutes and are done. I got a little mini stonehenge though! It goes with my mini Eiffel tower and my mini red British telephone booth :)

Bath was the last destination for the day. Bath is a city where old Roman bathhouses are and again, I had no idea what to expect. It was, again, very beautiful. The baths were really interesting to see and I definitely had moments where I just though, "Wow. I'm standing on something that is thousands of years old. How amazing." How the baths work (which I did not know) is that there are natural hot springs that have water that about 115 degrees. I took pictures of some diagrams that tell how it all works. After seeing the actual Baths, we walked around the city for just a little bit and the scenery was breathtaking. I took a ton of pictures of it but feel like the did no justice to what I saw. I've been constantly told how beautiful Bath was, and I'm so glad I went and can come back agreeing. 

So that is mostly what I have been up to these past two weeks. Classes have been good; The food has been bad... Nothing new. We aren't going anywhere (Thankfully! I needed a break!) until next weekend so this week will be a slower week. 

The rest of the pictures are on my MobileMe account by the way. I uploaded the two weeks separately but everything I wrote about is there.

- Lauren