Punting Adventures

In Oxford many of the local citizens participate in a fun little sport called punting. Punting is more of a leisure sport than anything else. There really isnt a point behind it, you just kind of push the boat with a large pole and then sit and talk while going up and down the river. There isn't much to it, you just watch out for the trees, birds and shore banks. Each punt fits 5 people, and of course, to cut costs we made sure all 5 of us fit in one punt. Jess and I were the two Americans, Olivia is from Belgium, Rags is from Norway and Boris is Denmark (Sorry, I know as a Swed I should shun the Danes but I just cant!). We all had our fair share of hitting the trees, with the execption of Boris, since he was the expert. Jess even managed to turn the punt all the way around. Thank goodness we had a paddle, if not we may still be stuck in the old willow tree. The pictures are much more enjoyable than me trying to explain the madness behind this odd British outing...

Sunset over the Thames

"Boris, I just ran into a tree! Hand me the paddle and take this pole thing away from me!"

The Punting Station

Our fearless leaders, Michael and Boris

Looking North

Boris and I

Rags, Olivia and Jess

Beautiful Bath

Beautiful Bath

If we were to all sit down and think of things in true English fashion, our minds would do nothing more than picture the beautiful city of Bath. It is a small little town in the middle of nowhere. The windy road takes you down into a beautiful valley surrounded by rolling green hills and overwhelming amounts of green trees. And of course, you know Bath is worth the trip because Rick Steves says it is the one MUST SEE side trip from London. As usual, I would have to agree with Rick.

We started our day off in Bath with a little walking tour. The guy who is in charge of all of us USD kids, Paul, gave us the short history of the city. We saw all the great sites: the bridge, the circus and the royal crescent. Like the rest of Europe, Bath is very well preserved. Many of the buildings date back to the 16th century. If you are a Jane Austen fan you will see that many of her movies (ok, not hers, but you get what I mean) were filmed in Bath. She lived in Bath for some time, but according to local legend hated the city. Not sure why a few of her books have large sections that take place in Bath or the area, but apparently she did not like it. Speaking of Jane, while we were in town there was a Jane Austen Festival going on. All the locals were dressed up and sporting umbrellas, corsets and knickers. It was most comical when we would walk by one of them all dressed up talking on their cell phones. My favorite was this man dressed in military uniform talking on his iPhone. Classic.

After our walk we were able to split up for a bit. Stephanie, Megs and I went to the British Fashion "moo-ze-umm." We tried on hoop skirts and corsets, not very comfortable at all. My favorite thing was the models with the wool speedos on. I couldn't help but laugh trying to think of people swimming in wool based speedos.

Later we met back up with our big group and entered the Roman Baths. The first thing they told was that we could not touch the water nor could we swim in it. I was very disappointed. Apparently the Roman Baths are the only hot springs in England. I'm not sure I believe that but Ill take their word for it. The building is very well preserved and the museum part of it offers a lot of educational tid-bits about life during Roman rule in England.

Bath its self was beautiful. We also made a quick stop into the Abbey, very well done. They also have an American Flag over an American senator who was buried there in like 1864 or something. It was an odd sight considering what Nationalists the Brits are. When you make your way out to England I suggest you take a nice side trip here. It is beautiful, breathtaking in a way.

Check back in soon. I will be posting pictures from our Punting excursion we took last night!

You may want to watch the video HERE, the pictures will be bigger.

Oxford - The First Week

Wow!

What a week it has been! I cant believe that its only been a week (ok, now its been a week and a half but we are gonna pretend that I posted this on Sunday night like I intended). I feel like I have known everyone here for so long and been to the city many times before.

My friends and I visited many of the famous Pubs here including the Red Lion, The Kings Arm and The Trout Inn. We have yet to go to The Eagle and Child (where JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis would meet) but I think that's in the works for this weekend. I have also tried my hand at Squash, its very fun. I hope to keep it up while I am here, and its fun to watch the boys play because they all grunt like the Williams sisters. On Thursday I play indoor soccer, and that is fun as well. The Brazilian and Italian kids get really into the game and get mad at each other when they don't get the ball and they don't like to pass the ball, but sooner or later they will figure it out!

We also had our Formal Dinner one night. It was fun... free wine... that pretty much sums it up! Haha! It was nice because all the "senior" students were there so we got a chance to meet everyone who was in the program.

On Saturday we visited London and on Sunday we explored Oxford. During my "free time" I have had my nose stuck in about every Cold War book that our library has. As much as I love history, I HATE the cold war! But only a few more weeks till we move onto Korea, Vietnam and the 70's. All my classes are really nice. I have one class where it is just me and my professor, and that is kind of scary. Especially because the man has two PhDs! All my other classes have 2-3 people in them. Its weird not having the lecture classes like at home, everything here is discussion based. The educational culture is totally different and so much to learn about as well

I think for the most part I did a pretty good job explaining everything in the blog. There are some good pictures so I put a bigger version of it on YouTube. YOU CAN FIND IT HERE.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from this last week.

Michael, Jordan, Meghan, Cole, Myself and Stephanie at Christ Church College

Clockwise - Me, Jess, Jordan, Michael, Kelly and Cole at the British "Moo-ze-umm"

Ali, Myself, Boris and Jess at Formal Dinner

St.Gile's Fair

Ragnahild (from Norway) and I at The Trout

Lovely London

Oh London....

So heres the thing... If you have been to London before you already know all about it. If you have not been to London before, you still know all about it. So that leaves me with not a lot to say about the history and facts of London, just more about what we did. And thats not all that exciting.

London is, to say as Chelsea Handler would say, a "hot mess." Its home to over 8 million people with another 3 million coming into the city to work every day. Granted that London is about the size of LA so there is a lot of room to fit everyone, but unlike LA everyone here is concentrated into two main area, which are the two main places in the city. Of the 8 million people in London some 2 million of them don't speak English and another 3 million are bilingual. So as you can imangie there is a true smorgishboard of language running though your ears at all times. All of this is what truly makes London such an international icon, even more than America I think. As busy and wild as London is, it is really a place that everyone needs to visit, cause its one crazy ride!

But now, about what we did...

First off - John was not a happy camper. There is only one expression that fit John for this part of the trip --> a fish out of water. If you know John at all you probably can just picture the expression on his face. Which is why there aren't many pictures of him during this part.

We flew into Heathrow, which is probably the size of SDSU and USD combined, if not bigger. With all the luggage (my luggage) we caught a cute little black cab to our hotel in the Belgravia area and check in. Once realizing we were close to Harrods, we went there first. Oh My GOD... this place is huge. Its not normal... is big its like shopping heaven, if you can afford it. I personally did not know that they sold avant-garde clothing for children. But at Harrods, you can find it. The food courts were amazing, there are zillions of little eateries and even a sushi bar. We found a place to eat lunch and then met up with our exchange student, Elien, and her cousin Jozifine. Somehow we found our way out of Harrods and onto the underground and getting around with 5 people was quite hard.

After a short ride on the underground we ended up at Westminster Abby. Being all kinds of touristy we took the audio tour (which was very good, in case you ever go) around the Abby. There are soooooooooo many dead people buried there. Everyone who was someone between the 15th and 18th century is there, including Charles Darwin and Jane Austin. The place is very spectacular. I would say that next to the Vatican and the bo-dunk cathedral Samantha and I found in Paris, it is the most beautiful church I have been in. But, enough of that, you can go see all the dead people there for yourself. For the evening we went to a nice little Italian place for dinner. It was very nice...and tasty. After traveling very early we went back to the hotel and hit the sack... hard if I may so!

The following day, was of course, another day of touring. As all tourist do in a big city, especially London, we did the wonderful hop-on-hop-off bus tour. For the most part the guides are very funny and well educated about the city. Ours was funny, he even made John laugh. We got to see all the sights and then once we did the loop we went back to the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London to do more sightseeing. At the Tower of London we got to see the Royal Jewels. Pretty much these crowns and swords and other, to be honest, useless things are just decked out in rubies, diamonds, pearls, emeralds, sapphires and everything else. They are just stunningly beautiful and breathtaking. It was a good way to end our sightseeing for London.

Back on the underground we went to the center of city to find our theatre where we saw Dirty Dancing on Stage. And if I may say, it was amazing. I would be all for Dirty Dancing to come back to the big screen in a musical version. It made me love the movie all over again. The dancing was spectacular and the singing was great. After the play and a long day of being silly tourist it was time for bed!

Our last day in London was short. I went to Harrods with Elien and Jozifine and got lost, then lost my sweater. But because Harrods is so amazing by the time I figured out how to get to lost and found (a good 15 minutes) it was already in Lost and Found and wrapped up and marked. I was flabbergasted by their impeccable service.

At noon we headed over to Paddington Station and got on the train to Oxford where we spent a day, and I will spend the rest of my semester. But all that fun can be saved for next time!

Happy Travels!

The Emerald Isle

Oh the Glory of Ireland! The shades of green are too many to count!

After a wonderful time in Sweden we headed off to Dublin. Had a little run in with the Ryanair baggage thing... I still think their weights are a bit heavy!!! But at least all of our (ok, mine) luggage is safe in London now.

We started off in Dublin. Busy, crazy, wild, loud Dublin. As much as it was fun it was a whirl-wind day and a half. When we first arrived it was like culture shock! There were so many people and so many pubs. The first day we were there we just walked around and saw the temple bar area and visited Trinity College. Trinity was nice, very big and spread out. Its one of those schools where they have nice grass but you cant walk on it. I always find that funny.

The next morning we woke to find the weather in a bit of fit, it was raining. But then 2 minutes later it was sunny. The rest of the day continued like that as well. As this was our last day in Dublin we went on one of those wonderful tourist buses around the city. I know they are tacky but they are the best and cheapest way to see the city. We hoped on right by our hotel and made our first stop of the day the Guinness Brewery at St. James Gate. The place is AMAZING! They dont only call Guinness "black gold" because it tastes good, but because the whole idea of it and the way Authur Guinness carried out the deal is golden. For 100 pounds he has the land for 9,000 years with an unlimited water supply, and the grounds are about 300 acres or something. Its amazing. The best part, of course, was the pint we got at the top of Brewery overlooking the city. We finished the day at Christ Church and St. Patricks... The most logical places to go after drinking beer all morning. Yes, we found it ironic as well.

Our flight from Dublin to Kerry was EMPTY. We had a Boeing 737 airplane with about 18 people on it. And 18 people would be pushing it. It was the smallest flight of people I have seen. Once in Kerry we got our rental car (a nice little Toyota) and headed out to Dingle. When we first attempted to go around the beautiful Dingle Peninsula it was pouring rain, horrible fog and not to mention driving on the other side of the road with Jayne screaming in the back seat. If you have ever been in the car with Jayne in Mexico (or even america) you know what a horrible experience it can be. But we made it, barley. The rest of the day we just relaxed, ate dinner, went to pubs to listen to music and then back to our pub to have a pint.

Luck for us the next day proved to be much better weather, so we drove Dingle again. It was soooo much better! The views were amazing. Everywhere was so breath taking. Only pictures can describe how amazing it was. In the afternoon Jayne and I shopped around the town - dont worry, we didn't to too much damage. Haha. We spent one last night in the pubs and then went to bed early so we could get an early start to Blarney the next day.

The drive to Blarney was a scenic three hour tour (minus the shipwreck and annoying skipper). The Castle was pretty, the grounds were well kept and the Blarney stone was HIGHLY overrated. But thats just my opinion. Ill leave the rest of how that day went up to your thoughts, but it was very uneventful.

Once we got to Cork we had a chance meeting with an old friend of mine from Valhalla, Christina, who had started school this semester at UC Cork. We went to dinner with her and then of course, to the pub for a pint. Followed by an early bed time for our 715 am flight to London!

Overall Ireland was a adventure. Beautiful country, nice people and good beer. Who could have asked for more?

See you all in the London Blog!