Lil' Update.

I'm in Spain! Which is about all I have to say about that.

So Germany. How do I even begin. It was hands down my favorite place I've been here, and definitely one of my all time faves. I left France by trains, planes, and automobiles. I loved it, I got to see the Rhineland and all this beautiful countryside. It looks like a fairytale, like the Brother's Grimm will come riding out of the forrest at any second.

I have a whole bunch more to say about Germany, but I'm quite tired right now and sick again, so I think I will save it for another time.

It's like getting my big break and laryngitus...

Julia Bovee is a saint (which you say “sahnnnn” in French). I’ve been really really sick the last couple of days, and she’s not only given me her bed, but also done things like bought me food and played translator at the doctor, which even for a easy thing like a sinus infection/icky cough is pretty tough. There are a lot of colloquials when it comes to being sick. But the doctor also was good at pantomiming, (his rendition of a fever was my fave), and I’m on the road for recovery just in time for Germany.

I’ve been super negative the last week or so, partially because I was so bummed that I had to stay in bed instead of like traipsing around Le Mans, but it’s probably a good thing I got sick here instead of the other places I’m going. Plus traveling all grown up style, I’m finding, doesn’t go as smoothly as I thought in my head. It’s pretty easy to miss a train or mess up a budget or be on the wrong page with weather or language. It’s hard that it’s so different from what I planned, but it’s also kind of cool that I’m the one doing everything. I dunno. It’s good because I am a real person in a year when I graduate, but it’s nice to feel like an adult now.

Le Mans is nice. It’s been on and off rainy/sunny which feels like Spokane, and the other night we went to this buffet thing that I swear was Sweet Tomatoes. Oh, and it is Spring here. In Chester, Spring was teasing all of us, like buds were showing up but everything was still brown, but here, nuh huh. It’s definitely already sprung. There are birds everywhere, flowers, and leaves on the trees, it’s like happiness bursting out of nature’s finger tips. I’m sad I have to leave soon, but I’m excited to see what March has done to Germany.

Paris with Friends

I'm on break and off traveling.

I got into Paris on Thursday, and it was lots of things. This is going to sound dumb, but I always think it is fascinating when I go to another country and they speak another language. I just love the everyday things like ads and signs that are all in (this case) French! It is so cool. Unfortunately that awesome factor wore off too quickly. I speak no French. None. Everyone is always like “all the Romance languages are so similar, you can totally manage”. Well yes and no. I speak Spanish, but let me tell you. French is not Spanish. In between landing and eventually finding my friends, I managed to pay too much for a taxi and take a lovely tour of the outskirts of Paris. I only cried once, and even though I was super late, I found Julia and my hotel eventually.

Paris was beautiful. French people are so nice. Even to a stupid American who could only point.

It’s interesting being with people I know and other Americans. I found myself getting frustrated by group traveling and sort of just weirded out by being with American kids. I feel like it’s sort of a mini snap shot of what going home is going to be like. I think I’m a lot more independent than I feel.

I’ve been a little jealous of my friends since I’ve been here. It’s hard to compare experiences, but they all want to stay in France forever, and while I really like Chester and England, that’s just not how I feel about it. I think it’s good that I am traveling for a while, so I can adjust my attitude and come back refreshed to England, but right now I’m just sort of feeling like there something wrong with me for looking forward to going home.

That being said, I love my friends, and it was so so so wonderful to be with Natalie and Julia. We did everything in Paris. The museums, the shops, the tombs, the meals, the churches, everything. I love France. I can understand why everyone wants to move here (to teach English/get married and have French babies). There were so many things that were so different from England. London and Paris are both international culturally, but in really different ways. It was odd too, Paris had so many American tourists. I couldn’t tell if it was because it’s now spring break time, or there are just more Americans there, but I couldn’t go more than five minutes without hearing American English. It was nice to see new architecture too, Gothic Churches start to all look alike after a while, so places like Sacre Coeur were a welcomed sight.

Paris just feels like a smile. Everyone seems to hum to themselves or bring you bread or chocolate or the kiss kiss thing on the cheeks. It’s a lot sunnier and warmer here too. It’s amazing what the sun does for your mood. Laughing with great friends doesn’t hurt either. Julia, Natalie and I sang the "Three's Company" theme song off pitch waaay too much.

While Paris was incredible, I love Le Mans. Julia is doing exchange here, and it’s so nice. It looks a lot like Spokane, (which is weird), but prettier. Like maybe if Spokane and San Francisco had a baby. I picked up a mystery illness in Paris, and so I’m looking forward to taking it easy and getting better while I sample Julia’s life.

Short and boring.

Ugh. It’s warming up which means our room was super hot last night which mean bed at 4 and up at 1 today. I feel like a wasteman.

The last week has been pretty normal, school, groceries, working out you know routine.

Here’s an interesting fact about the gym here. Well for starters they don’t say “working out”, they say doing exercises or training. But another cultural difference is that everyone looks super nice at the gym. Like wears polo shirts a bucket of cologne and occasionally slacks. Commmmmmpared to me, who wears basketball shorts and a giant baggy t-shirt. I’m not really planning on changing, but I feel a little left out seeing as everyone else must know something I don’t. Like that there’s some cool party in the gym. Or some attractive person I should try to ask out. Or some celebrity that’s visiting. But since so far, the only thing the gym seems to be good for is working out, I’m not going to dress up.

This is going to be a very busy week. I actually have a fair amount of homework to do before spring break and the end of the semester.

Still need to do laundry…story of my life.

London

London

So Suvi and I went to London this past weekend. I had been a few years ago and was a little nervous that it was going to be different then I remembered. Wrong. It is the best. Chester is someplace I live, London is like…fill in this space with all cliché about souls and love and home.

We started got there around noon on Saturday after one of my first non-motion sick train rides, (hurray!), and Suvi showed me around the Tube, ending up at our hostel. It wasn’t really a hostel; it was the Finnish Church that had rooms for rent. Nice rooms. Like super clean, had a semi-private bathroom, delicious breakfast, and no bed bugs. It’s the little things in life. Anyway after a lot of Finnish conversations that I understood none of but enjoyed thoroughly, we hopped back on the underground and sped off to the West End.

I love Trafalgar Square. It was so sunny on Saturday, which made everything stunning. I just loved the pigeons, the people, the Bobbies, the behemoths of building, everything. We enjoyed the sun for a bit, and then headed off to find the Novello theatre to collect our tickets. It was so fun traipsing around the West End. I think if I’m ever a resident of a giant city and really posh, I will go to the theatre whenever a new play comes out. After getting our tickets, we had sandwiches at the best café ever. You got to pick out your own fillings, like Subway, but unlike that fine establishment, this place had fillings like sun-dried Italian tomatoes, grilled zucchini, goat cheese, smoked salmon, capers, and cutlets of beef. Listen folks, I live off of soup and toast most days, so this was like Christmas in my mouth. We then hopped on back to the Novello to watch Cat on A Hot Tin Roof. It was fantastic. James Earl Jones starred as Big Daddy, and the rest of the cast absolutely held up their own. I love Tennessee Williams, (really anything out of the Southern Renaissance), but it is so nice to be able to see his work instead of read it. Especially when in the hands of such talent.

After the show we had some pricey but tasty dinner and found out that our seats for Waiting for Godot had been cancelled by Mr. Internet, but the lovely man at the box office upgraded us three balconies down and kept our same price. Someone should beatify him.

I can’t even tell you how good the show was. So I won’t. But I will tell you that Beckett is brilliant. The cast was brilliant. And it was the best production I’ve ever seen. I was speechless at the end.

Thank goodness Beckett’s god isn’t my God.

Afterwards Suvi and I were like, hey let’s go stalk the cast at the stage door. So we did. Which meant we were rewarded by meeting the entire cast, and last not but not least, Sir Ian McKellen. Oh. Em. Gee. When we were waiting in line, Suvi, the guy next to us from Bellingham (weird right?) and I were all talking about how we had no idea what we would say if he came out, and that was accurate. Oh man, he was just the picture of an English gentleman. He was tall and polite (although I was expecting him for some reason to be like 6’11, probably because of Gandalf’s pointy hat…). He went through the entire line in front of me, and got to me and said:

“So we have France, Italy, England, Finland and…”

“Phoenix” (omg omg omg omg)

“Ah, Phoenix. What a lovely place. I’ve been there, so warm. Did you see William Hurst come out earlier?”

“Yes I did, that was neat… I really enjoyed the show, thank you so much…”

“Ah, I am glad, why thank you.”

(Rude-interrupting-French Kid) “Excuse me sir, may I picture?”

“Yes if it’s quick” Walks away after shaking my hand.

So that was like the highlight of you know, my month.

We finally after a lot of wandering and giggling made it back home. The next day was like knowledge overload. After taking our pictures at platform 9 3/4, we went to the British Library where I saw pretty much every famous manuscript ever. Including but not limited to:

Magna Carta, Guttenberg Bible, Beowulf.

Wow.

Then, we made a mad dash to Camden Town. Interesting place. Sort of like if a farmer’s market, punk music, and the Oriental Trading company had a baby. It was fun though. Suvi met a friend from home, so she was really happy. I kind of went off and did my own thing, mostly consisting of eating Mexican food and finding fun hats.

I got burned out pretty fast from all the crowds and selling and yelling, so I left Suvi and Camden to try to squeeze in a few hours at the British Museum. If the British Library has every manuscript ever, then the British Museum has the history of humanity. In four buildings. There is nothing like it in the States, save maybe all the Smithsonian’s put together. How do you even describe artifacts from Nebuchadnezzar, Egyptians, Assyrian, Greeks, Romans, Mayans, Anglos Saxons, the Americas, Chinese explorers, Indian temples, ancient masks from central Africa, ugh. Literally every culture in every epoch. Trying to narrow it down leaves me with, the Rosetta stone, the Sutton Hoo burial artifacts, a jade mask from South America, an Easter Island head, Ramses II stuff, and lots of things from Babylon. It was incredible. I basically ran through it because I only had an hour and a half, but I could have stayed in there for months.

I spent the rest of the day recovering from little sleep and lots of walking in a coffee shop, then met up with Miss Suvi, and headed home. I can’t wait until I live in London someday. Or at least go back this semester.

Here are my pictures.

http://s982.photobucket.com/albums/ae305/sglady11/London/

Canterbury and Tales

Ugh. Keeping up a blog is sometimes hard to remember to do. Well let’s see. Last week was bad. My mom left and the sun didn’t come out at all. Between those two things I was like the most homesick I’ve been yet. I also was just like in my room the entire week, pretty much just sleeping and going on facebook. Not a healthy routine. I also got kind of frustrated about deadlines back at home that I was sort of out of the loop on, and I made several upset phone calls home.

Because of all of that I was not excited to go away for the weekend with a bunch of choir kids that I only sort of knew. However, it turned out to be the best weekend ever. We drove all day Friday, (which meant I got to skip my worst lecture, YES), south, which was like about 6 hours, mostly because of traffic when we hit the edge of London. It was funny, at one point we started crossing this river, and I asked my friend Tony what it was, and he said “that big muddy ditch is the Thames.” EEK! So exciting. I don’t know how many times I can bring up how lovely the English country side is before it starts to get boring to y’all, but here I go again. It’s beautiful. Pastures of green with docile, loving sheep munching away, all set to the back drop of fairy tale towns. Love. Well after some time, we pulled into our hotel, which I was expecting to be barely above a hostel, but it wasn’t. It was sooo much better than that. It was a nice hotel with a TV, clean sheets, oh man, like civilized life. We then went to the first rehearsal at the school in the town of Canterbury with the 300 other choir kids, and then came back and crashed. Then the next day we did Canterbury in full glory. We started the morning off with a dress rehearsal in the quire of Canterbury Cathedral. Canterbury is probably my favorite cathedral I’ve been to yet. It is stunning. Absolutely breathe taking. Even in this time, it makes you feel utterly miniscule and mortal, but it also made me feel like I was protected by an awesome and terrible God. I think that’s really the point of Gothic Architecture, but in our modern day world, there aren’t many opportunities to feel insignificant in a good way. And I can’t even begin to describe the stain glass. It was like the walls of the church were on fire. Well, anyway we had our rehearsal and then we had like 7 hours of free time. A bunch of us decided to walk around the Cathedral first. There is so much history there. We saw the place that Thomas Beckett was martyred; we saw where his shrine was, the black prince, and the chapel of modern day martyrs. I was really touched at the display and prayers from around the world. One of my friends in choir is a monk named Nelson, and he showed us the page in the book that talked about his brothers who had been murdered a few years ago for standing up for their faith. It was a pretty powerful experience reflecting on the lives and deaths of those people.

After spending a ridiculously long time in the church, and an even longer time in the line at the gift shop, we went to next most visited point of worship, meaning of course, Starbucks. We had a good laugh at my new friend Heather’s impression of an American accent and a good long think on the implications of a Starbucks in an old vicarage from like 1430, and then went on our merry way to the wax works Canterbury Tales. Now it’s a little bit misleading to call them wax works, because what is really was, was a fully animatronics and life size recreation of a good portion of Chaucer’s work. My favorite was probably the Wife of Bath, but that’s my favorite in the actual story so…

Oh! I should mention how we got into this little attraction. We were waiting in line, and we started chatting up the cashier. She found out we were a choir, and then told us we should sing for her. We did, and then she let us in for free. It pays to be a choir kid sometimes.

Anyway. After the Chaucer extravaganza, we went walking through town determined to find the Norman Castle we’d seen on our way in. Canterbury was a Roman fort that became an Anglo-Saxon stronghold (hence the “bury” in its name), that then became a walled city. Just like York. And Chester. So naturally, it looks just like York and Chester, only with different colored limestone. Well, after meandering through the lovely shops and narrow streets, we emerged with the ruins of this magnificent castle in front of us. Because of its location, the Norman’s chose Canterbury for one of their first settlements post-conquering, and this castle was the ruined remains of that jaunt. It was so cool. I can’t get over how cool castles are. They look just like every book I read as a kid. This one was especially cool, because some of the staircases were still intact, which meant all sorts of Repunzel type posing and fake sword fighting ensued. We finally went back to the school, grabbed some dinner, and then headed back to change and take our seats for the concert.

It was so eerie and beautiful in the Cathedral at night. It seemed just, I don’t know, reverent isn’t even a strong enough word. It was utter blackness, with columns of light where we would be singing. I was in awe. But then the concert started, and it was different. The second half was my favorite part. We as a collective group sang Rutter’s Requiem. It’s one thing to sing liturgical music with a choir. It’s another thing entirely to sing it with 300 other people in an ancient and colossal space. That’s about all I have to describe it.

Afterwards, we had a fair amount of fun back at the hotel with the other choirs staying there. I learned a lot of English drinking songs. And football songs. And rugby songs. And was reminded again how much British people like living life to the fullest. It was great though. Then it was a spot of Olympics and bed. The next day was entirely new friends on a happy (slightly tired and…well you know) bus and then rest at Chester.

Since then we’ve had several days of sunshine, Suvi and I booked tickets to London this weekend, and basically just overall happiness. My scary spider bite is even almost healed. Yay life!!

Scotland and York (also known as THE LONGEST BLOG POST EVERRR!)

Phew. Finally got this all done. Y'all better read this...

February 14^th

Yesterday mom got here and I whisked her all around Chester. I got up super early, well, as in my alarms didn’t go off and Morgan woke me up, and I rushed off to the train station, then to Manchester Piccadilly, then finally to the airport where I rather impatiently waited for my mum to walk through the baggage claim doors. I haven’t cried here yet, but all the families were waiting with flowers and banners for all the people they loved and I am a total softy so I shed a few tears over how much I missed my family and how nice it was that all these people just cared about the people on the other sides of the doors. ANYWAY. My mom finally walked through the doors, and I was so so so happy. We got back to Chester, (I was chattering the whole way, because that’s how I get when I haven’t seen people in a long time), and my mom was a saint and listened even though she was super jet lagged. We then went on a whirlwind three hour tour of everything in Chester from the walls and museum to the pubs and my campus. It was nice to show everything off.

Today, we started our northern adventure. We took train to Warrington, met two nice ladies who were going our way, then a train to Preston on the super nice Virgin Rail long distance, then to Carlisle on bus. The bus ride was lovely. We passed about a bajillion mountains (okay, large hills) with sheep, rock walls mom thought was cool, the edge of Lake district, met two middle school guys who could only talk about New York, food portions, burger king, our new prime minister. Then we get to the train station at Carlisle, and it’s painted like Willy Wonka’s factory, had sandwich with delicious cheese, and took another train ride to Edinburgh. The ride in was different then I was expecting. It was really foggy, and there were tons of pine trees. By the time we got there, we were pretty tired, but as we emerged from the station, we were greeted by the most incredible sky line and bag pipe music. Life. Is. So. good. And it was freezing, just like Spokane.

The rest of our day went something like this. We went to our hotel that looked like a castle with our amazing room, went walking, reflected how everything there looked like Harry Potter, went to St. Giles, and went to dinner.

St. Giles has Scotland’s Thistle Chapel, was John Knox’s church, and also the birth place of Presbyterianism. It was really meaningful to see his church, go where he went, see the actual 1500’s break contract, and reflect on all the history. The whole time we were there, a very talented boys’ choir was performing, and it just sort of perfected the experience.

On a totally different stream of philosophy, we saw the Hume statue, and Forrest Baird was right, he’s not as fat in marble. We then heard this fabulous boys’ choir who sang Loch Lomond and Hakuna Matata, followed by dinner at pub where I had haggis, (which is DELICOUS) and my mom had steak and ale. This perfect day was ended with the longest, best bath ever.

February 15^th

This morning we had a fabulous big breakfast, lovely food, with real bacon and fruit and everything.

We spent the morning on a bus tour learning all about Edinburgh, (including about the guy that RLS based Jekyll and Hyde off of) from a woman that I’m pretty sure was a witch in her spare time. I love the Scots. I can’t wait to come back here. We then went to the castle, through the gate guarded by William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, where we saw the room King James numero uno was born, the Scottish crown jewels, Mons Meg, and just overall cool castleness.

The whole time with the backdrop of Old Edinburgh and The Crags behind us. It is such a spectacular dramatic view, it took my breath away every single time. We learned tons of weird facts, like about how poor people used to put oysters on their roof to scare witches away, things about Sir Walter Scott and so many other authors, like Robert Burns. We had scones and puddings and other yummy things, and I really enjoyed hanging out with my Mom. It’s so nice to have her here.

For you Arizona folks, Scotland looks like Prescott in the winter, tons of brushes and grassland and volcanoes that have been rounded down by time and the Picts and Celts.

I’m so excited for tomorrow. I just go back and forth between being absolutely in love with Scotland and exhausted. It’s stunning. Everything looks like Harry Potter and Brave Heart, and it’s everything that is great about Paris and London, but it is so much better. I adore it here. It’s also really nice being here with my mom, eating well, sleeping well, taking a bath, having clean things, feeling stress free. Back to Edinburgh, I love it; it’s so clean, nice, warm, full of history, people, food, joy, music, faith, and magic. Seriously. I can’t wait for the high lands tomorrow. I want to move here. I also adore haggis and the other food. Still need to try scotch.

Did I mention Scottish guys are really really...good looking. and sounding.

February 16^th.

Today was our Highlands trip. Got up had yet another delicious breakfast. Then we waited outside in the cold, I admired a group of Italian guys walking by and then Bill the Scotsman pulled up in our minibus. First we drove to Glasgow. It was very industrial but had pretty parts. We heard a really interesting story about a holy ring swallowing fish . It was foggy. We drove west for a while through fields and sheep to Loch Lomond. I was very excited. Then we got to a very foggy arena, we found out our cruise was cancelled. No matter, Bill the Scot was determined we still have a good time so on we went. We went to the little village decorated with holly and ivy and tried to get to the shores. I kept thinking about the song, but it wasn’t exactly how I pictured it. My mom and I trekked through this bog that had this beautiful Celtic cross with stain glass and a prayer walk to the shores. It looked very witchy. I could totally see Macbeth’s lady friends hanging out here boiling trouble. We got to the shores and it was pretty but not what I was expecting. It looked a lot like the Salt River in Arizona where my family used to have picnics. Afterwards, we were sort of verbally assaulted by this very spirited Scottish shop owner who wanted to tell us all about his pet lynx and imported deer. Then we stopped at about five hundred cheesy tourist shops. There were lots of beautiful wool and cashmere clothes in Edinburgh, but here it all seems to be sheared off the rare acrylic sheep. So naturally, Mom and I bought more shortbread cookies. After that we drove through this gorgeous mountain pass, which supposedly is called the highlands in miniature. Stunning view of Ben Lomond. It was like a combination of Switzerland and Maine and Central Arizona. The deep brown and burgundy of the sleeping heather covered the hills, just waiting to catch on fire into various shades of pink and purple. It was so so so beautiful. Then we passed through town where last Scottish wild boar was killed like 500 years ago. Then we stopped at this little tartan weaving thing where Hamish, the most photographed highland cow/bull lives (he was in the Rob Roy movie). Then we rolled into wooded area where the Edwards (Longshanks and Son) and Wallace and Bruce all fought and lived. The fog thickened. We came through the woods into the town of Sterling with both the castle and the Wallace monument looming in the clouds in front of us. We passed the King’s knot, an old jousting arena thing, and climbed the steep cliffs up to the castle. The city looked like the old Edinburgh, was stunningly beautiful. I know I keep saying “then we….” and “stunning! Beautiful! Gorgeous!” but I just don’t have enough words to describe what it was like there. We did the castle in an hour. From the walls, we saw the whole valley. It has been interesting to see the old architecture. There is so much beauty, but it absolutely reinforced class differences. It’s so easy to understand why Royalty was considered to be given power from God when you compare all these incredible buildings with the shacks the poor serfs got. Anyway, my mom and I finished our time in Sterling with a walk through this super old cemetery. We were about halfway through when the thickest fog I’ve ever seen rolled in and from somewhere downhill, bagpipes began Amazing Grace. Ugh. You can’t make that kind of stuff up. PS, speaking of fog, Scotland is frigid. I mean like Spokane, punch you in the gut, reminds you you’re alive cold. I love it. We then hopped back on the bus and relaxed all the way back. Back at home, went to Italian food and had the best ice cream, followed by a quick stop at the hotel bar to try Scotch. I had The Highlander and Mom’s had Bonner something or another? Mine was better : p We went back to room, and since the BBC sucks, we continued our Olympic marathon. (I LOVE THE OLYMPICS). And enjoyed another bath and poufy bed.

Feb 17^th

This morning we had breakfast, went into St. Giles to buy things, picked up some last minute souvenirs (namely a kilt, jewelry, and more post cards and scarves) tracked down North Bridge to train station. I loved loved loved Edinburgh. I already miss it. I fell in love. At the train station I bought the student rail card and paid for immaculate bathroom. See Manchester! See England! It’s not that hard to have a clean train station bathroom. The Scots, well they know how things are done. Ugh, the train ride was just wonderful, and SO BEAUTIFUL. The coast was a fairy tale, tons on light houses and cliffs and sheep and green fields and wooded areas. The most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, our train seats were backwards, which meant very quickly a very ill Sarah. Then we crossed into England and hit Newcastle…interesting. At least the graffiti was lovely. I was really sick at this point, but found some humor in the fact that the toilet, instead of saying “occupied” like it does in the states, said “engaged”. Congratulations toilet! I didn’t even know you were seeing someone! I mean people come visit all the time but…well, send me your address so I can send you and Bidet a nice set of silver.

We got to York, and were a little put off by how huge it was, both Mom and I were expecting a tiny town. I felt less sick and we walked into town, passing the giant racecourse and a place where the highwayman was hung and catholic priests were killed for their faith. This whole continent is drenched with religious history. York is just like Chester, only way bigger. The rest of the day was basically walking by the river, expensive shops, and closed museums. However, we did discover the International food market, and had a dinner of cold quiche, then a Polish cheese and tomato and cabbage dish, Swedish pancakes with Bailey’s and an Italian canolli. So naturally we felt like death. We turned in early and have now spent the rest of the night blogging and watching women’s downhill skiing. It hit me tonight that Mom is leaving soon. I’m kind of frustrated about not going too; I’ve just had such a wonderful time in Scotland and hanging out with her.

Feb 18^th

I’m really sad Mom is leaving.

Today we got up early, then went back to sleep. But we finally got up and walked into town and had a great day. We saw cool antiques, found this street that seriously was Diagon alley, tea shop with cookies and chocolate eggs, and then went to Yorkminster. This cathedral has half of the stain glass in England. Think about that for a second. My favorite parts were: the Jesse window, which showed the entire lineage of Jesus, the 5 sisters window, which paid tribute to all the women who had fallen in combat for the country, the funny archbishop tombs, where they all looked like very seductive dead priests, the rose window in honor of the peace and end of the hundred year’s war (yay Tudors!) the embroidery, the St. Nicholas chapel, and the carvings of all the British kings. After some time, my mom and I realized that it was waaay later than we thought, and so we hurriedly ran to the Viking festival. Everything was sold out but the Jorvik Center (the main museum), but that was okay. Oh man it was cool. The first part was a Lucite floor over the actual dig of the Viking camp. THEN! You got on a ride. It was just like the Peter Pan ride at Disneyland, but instead of Neverland, you went through what life-size reproduction of York when it was a Viking town, full of people and buildings and smells and Old Norse. Man it was cool. Then you enter the museum. It was super interesting; there’s been tons of research on Viking DNA (from the bones and the poo they found) as well as normal archaeological stuff. We saw a lot of artifacts, like weapons, shoes, jewelry, bones with battle wounds, and other stuff. It was really neat. Seeing as I am Norwegian, it was cool to find out all the havoc my ancestors wrought upon England. Bomb guys. Then, after delicious Indian food, we started our late night travels back to Manchester. I got really sad and cried for the first time since I’ve been here. Mom and I called home, and it just sort of sucked. I had such a great week, and it felt so much like vacation that it just feels awful to not be leaving for home, either home actually, Phoenix or Spokane, but anyway. Mom leaves tomorrow. I had a great trip. I am excited for Canterbury next week.

February 19^th

Mom flew back this morning. I took the train back to Chester through Crewe, which was pretty nice actually. It’s really quiet here on campus because no one comes back for a few days. If you want to see my pictures from the trip go here. I’m not exaggerating, there are about 800. Enjoy!

I also forgot to tell you the kilt jokes I heard.

What’s under a kilt?

The Future of Scotland.

What’s worn under a kilt?

Nothing worn madam, everything in fine and working order.