21 years, 3 days, 7 hours, and 40 minutes

I can't believe I only have 3 more weeks here in Bath.  Where did the semester go?  Today I turned in my last paper of the semester, and finished my 28th book.  Crazy.  Since my schoolwork is in a lull until exams, that means I now have time to start planning for the future.  It's strange to think that in about a month I'll be down in Williamsburg finally completing my Monroe project!  It's even weirder that I've registered for the GRE and am starting to put lists of grad schools together.  I feel like this chapter in my life has gone by so quickly - and it's really sad that I only have a year left at William & Mary.  I feel like there is so much I still have to do there (like finish the Triathalon! haha).  But anyways, I'll stop pondering the future for now, and move on to what I've been doing for the past two weeks!

Outside Windsor Castle

My sweet family arrived on the 16th, and we had a wonderful week together!  It was so nice to visit with them and show them my life in Bath!  This is definitely the longest I've gone without seeing my family, and I've missed them!  The day after they arrived, we went on a day trip to the Cotswolds, a collection of quaint towns and villages in  southwest England.  The day was absolutely beautiful!  Actually, I'm convinced that they brought the warm Virginia weather with them because Bath was in the 70s the whole week, which is incredibly unusual for April!  Monday and Tuesday I had class, so the fam had some time to explore the city on their own, and then on Wednesday, Momma, Daddy, and I took a trip over to Windsor!  We continued the family adventure as we voyaged up to St. Andrews for a visit with Jessica on Thursday.  I stayed until Easter Sunday, so we had lots of time to visit, celebrate our birthday and easter, and even take a trip to Crail!

Hello 21!!

After travelling for the weekend, it was actually really nice to get back to Bath.  My roommates made Easter Dinner for us and a couple of our friends, and even made me a birthday cake!  My actual birthday was rather uneventful, but we all went out to celebrate on Tuesday night, which was so much fun!  We started the night at the Huntsman, as per usual, and ended with dancing at one of the local clubs, Moles.  I had such a great time - it was really a wonderful way to celebrate being 21! :)

Looking ahead, next week is Stratford week (or really, Stratford three days), and I may or may not have internet access during that time.  But I will definitely update again once we get back!  Until then, Tschues!

Springtime in Oxford

The House where Tolkien
wrote The Lord of the Rings

Yes, yet another post on Oxford!  But I promise this one won't be as long as the last few! :)  Today, I spent the day walking the streets of the old city with my "Worlds Beyond Oxford:  Lewis, Tolkien, and Pullman" class.  It was such a beautiful day - perfect for a walking tour!  The southern UK seems to have learned the meaning of spring since I got back from Spring Break.  It's been wonderfully warm (well comparatively! haha) and sunny, and the trees finally have leaves on them!

The Kilns

We started out our day at Oxford with a walking tour focusing on the locations of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Philip Pullman.  We got to see some very famous sites, like Exeter College (the undergraduate home of Tolkien and Pullman), Magdalen College (the undergraduate home of Lewis and Andrew Lloyd Webber!), the houses where Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, etc.  We also learned some "succulent bits of knowledge" along the way.  For example, apparently the poet Percy Byssche Shelley was notorious for swapping babies.  He would legitimately take babies out of their carriages and switch them!  And mothers knew it was him, and so would go to his college, Univ, and complain that they didn't have the right baby!

The Narnia Window at
The Holy Trinity Church

After our tour we went to the Eagle & Child (Lewis & Tolkien's favorite pub) for lunch, and then drove over to the Kilns, the home of C.S. Lewis!  We ended the day with a visit to Lewis's church and gravesite.
It's kind of sad to think that this was my last study trip of the semester.  I've had so much fun getting to explore various parts of England in connection to my studies!  However, the next few weekends are still very busy.  I'm SUPER EXCITED for my parents and grandparents to visit this upcoming week, and then we are all traveling up to St. Andrews to see Jessica for Easter weekend!

Ciao Bella

After a crazy week of travel and sightseeing, I have finally arrived back in Bath!  It felt so good to sleep in my own bed last night, though now the task at hand is shaking this cold that has been following me throughout my travels!  It's really strange to go away for Spring Break.  I've always thought of break as a time to go home and relax/rejuvenate for the rest of the semester. But when you are an abroad students, break is a time for more travel, and then returning to your homebase and studies.  Because there is so much to talk about, I'll just point out the highlights of my trip - I've already posted pictures on facebook, so you can check those out too!

Eiffel Tower!

Saturday April 2 - We woke up not-so-bright, but very early (I believe my alarm went off at 3:30 am) for our 5 am taxi to the Bristol Airport.  Margaret Ann, Jessica, and I landed safely around 9:30 at Charles de Gaulle, and took a bus into the city of Paris.  After checking in to our hotel, we wandered the surrounding area before meeting up with Cathy for lunch!  We then walked down the Champs Elysees and saw the Arc D'Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower!  We took an elevator to the 2nd floor of the Tower (the top was closed due to crowding issues), and took some awesome pictures of the city!  Our day ended with a much-needed nap, a crepe & strawberries with nutella/speculoos dinner, and a beautiful walk along the Seine.

Margaret Ann and I
in the Paris Opera

Sunday April 3 - the only "rainy" day we had on our entire trip!  We toured the Paris Opera in the morning, and I was constantly reminded of one of my favorite musicals, The Phantom of the Opera. :)  We then walked down to the Louvre, and spent a couple of hours wandering the galleries.  That evening, we metro-ed out to Cathy's foyer, and went out to a nice French dinner in Elysia.  And of course, we stopped at a crepe stand for our dessert!

Jess and Marge found
the cutest mugs!

Monday April 4 - Our original first destination was the Musee D'Orsay, but when we got over to the museum, we learned that it's closed on Mondays.  Lame.  So we continued our walk to Notre Dame, and then spend some time souvenir-shopping!  After a quick lunch, we walked to the Bastille, a monument in honor of the location of the Bastille prison.  From there we tried to find the Maison de Victor Hugo, but had no luck.  :(  So that remains on the list of things to do during my next visit to Paris.  After a quick rest, we then took our longest walk up to the Moulin Rouge, and then back down again to our hotel.  We bought wine, baguettes, and cheese for dinner, and picnicked back in our room.

San Pietro

Tuesday April 5 - Another early morning of travel.  Our flight out of Beauvais was delayed about 45 minutes, but somehow we still arrived in Rome 10-15 minutes before our scheduled arrival time?  I'm convinced that RyanAir and EasyJet build in copious amounts of time into their flight schedules.  We finally arrived at our hotel (seriously right next door to San Pietro, or St. Peter's Bascilica) around 12:30-1 pm, and set out to explore the Vatican around 2pm.  After a quick gelatto snack, we walked around St. Peter's and then the Vatican Museums.  The Vatican Museums are actually rather hard to find - we had to ask the Vatican guards for directions twice (it's the only part of the Vatican that you can enter, so there is a very specific entrance) before we finally found it!  Part of the Vatican Museums include the Sistene Chapel, which I definitely took a couple of illegal pictures of! :)  There is such a rich history of art displayed in the Vatican Museums, it is really spectacular.

Toasting to Spring Break!

Wednesday April 6 - We started bright and early out at Palantino (Palantine Hill) and Foro Romano (the Roman Forum).  We then moved over to the Colosseum, followed by gelatto by Trajan's Column.  We wandered the city for a while until dinner time (it's actually really easy to walk around Rome - everything is much closer together than the map would have you believe).  Margaret Ann's dad was so sweet and treated us to a nice Italian dinner - THANK YOU SO MUCH MR. HAZELTON!  It was such a perfect ending to the day. :)

At the Trevi Fountain

Thursday April 7 - Though the day was sprinkled with shopping ventures, the major sites we hit were the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, and the Pantheon.  Of these three, the Trevi Fountain was definitely my favorite.  It is an absolutely beautiful spot, though often flooded with tourists.  We tried to walk along the Tiber, but quickly gave up this endeavor.  If you ever go to Rome, do not try walking along the River.  The Tiber is extremely dirty and nauseatingly smelly.  I don't know if this was a result of the heat we experienced in Rome or not, but I would not recommend it hahaha.  Once again we had an Italian dinner - and our waiter let us watch our pizza being made in the kitchen!  It was so cool to see them make real Italian pizza! :)

At the Vatican Museums

Some final thoughts before I wrap up - I know this is getting quite lengthy!  Rome and Paris were very different experiences.  Paris was a very posh city - very clean and safe-feeling.  Despite its being a big city, there seemed to be very little crime, and very few impoverished persons.  Rome on the other hand is a much more grungy city.  Pickpocketing is much more prevalent, and so tourists have to be much more aware of their surroundings.  There is also a large network of con-men/women who specifically target English speakers.  They usually try to get you to take their "exclusive tour" of a building/area/museum, saying that you won't have to wait in line to get in to said site.  There are also many more street vendors that are rather in-your-face about selling knock-offs.  They will try to push sunglasses, roses, jewelry, into your hands so that you buy it from them.  The very apparent presence of such people really showed how economically different Rome is from Paris.

The Paris Opera

Another thing I noticed about Rome is how much the three of us stood out with our blonde hair and fair skin.  Just by looking at us, Italian vendors could instantly tell that we spoke English.  And actually what I found to be very interesting, is when we didn't respond to their attempts to sell us things, they assumed that we were German.  There were actually a fair number of German-speaking tourists in Rome while we were there, interestingly enough!

With these differences in mind, I can't say whether I liked one city more than the other.  I liked the feeling of Paris - it felt very posh, stylish, and just pretty.  But, I liked the history behind the sights we saw, and the actual points of interest better in Rome.  So really, it's a toss-up for me; they were just very different experiences!