Glastonbury

Glastonbury is another wonderful pilgrimage site--or "thin place" as they call it--full of all these spiritual vibes that make your hair stand on end--it's awesome, where it is claimed King Arthur lived and was buried with Guenevere, where Joseph of Arimathea was buried and brought with him the Holy Grail (what that is exactly of course is a debate, one which we tried to debate over in Seely's class, but none of the girls knew anything about Indiana Jones or the Da Vinci Code, so that debate died pretty quickly), and some other crazy things like that. It's a beautifully quaint little place, and it really does have a strangely wonderful feeling there. Rachel, Katy and I converted and we are now monks, just in case any of you were wondering why we are no longer seen at large organized church meetings. ;) Beno said we looked like assassins, Andrew thought we looked like Sith.

The Abbot's Kitchen--that bread is older than you ever want to know, and it has a mouse in it! :P

Some nice roasted pigs from the middle ages... all the food here was authentic and ancient. YUM.

King Arthur's Grave.

Playing dead on King Arthur's grave--yeah, I have some morbid issues sometimes.

The legend says that when Joseph of Arimathea came to Glastonbury, he planted his staff in the ground and up sprouted this thorn tree.

Bath Water

The Roman Baths: apparently the hot spot back in the day, though it boggles my mind why (besides a bunch of naked people)--the water is green and full of lead! Yuck. But it is actually pretty cool.

Look at that yummy green water...

The wishing well! I'll let you know when my wish comes true.

Anne, Rachel, Caitlin and Katy.

The spa water of life, or something like that. They offer spa water there that is supposed to heal you or something. To me it was like drinking hot sweat.

But Rachel loved it oddly enough...

Tonight is Comedy of Errors at the Globe, and I am behind on my homework, so I should probably get back to work. Until next time!

City of Bath

Oh my word, I finished my test! I've definitely had worse (ahem... Dr. Macfarlane... but I did LOVE that class), and at least I'm done.

Anyway, in my attempt to catch up on recent activities, next is the City of Bath. Of course I went to the Roman Baths, but that will be the next post (they weren't my favorite--too touristy). The city itself is actually quite cute. Bath is one of the central locations for many of Jane Austen's novels, so Dr. Bird was super excited and pointed out all the places where her movies have been filmed, like the Ballroom in the Assembly Rooms where all the 18th century dances were held (Jane Austen actually went to dances here too, AND they filmed her movies here--pretty cool), and the main street, and such (I guess I should watch those films again so I know what she's talking about--I'm one of 4 girls not in the Austen class and so sometimes I find myself lost).

Admittedly this one is just for fun--I have no idea what a hot pink lion was doing outside of the Assembly Rooms.

The Grand Ballroom:

Anne playing the wallflower:

And the city!

Oh, and here is Bath Abbey--my favorite Abbey (yes, I can say that--I've seen many Abbeys as of late), but sadly the University of Bath was having graduation so we couldn't go inside! :( But the outside is just as cool--look at the cute little angels climbing up the ladders on the facade. Dr. Seely said they came here when Beno was younger, and he thought the angels were stupid for using the ladder when they have wings. Cute.

I did get to peak in though for a brief second--admire the fan vaulting!

From Humanities 101 to the Real Deal

Since I am stuck here for a fireside (I suppose stuck is the wrong word--I actually really do enjoy these firesides, it's just that today is one of those lovely days that makes you question life and its meaning) I guess I have some time to do some blogging, because I am terribly far behind.

A while back I spent an afternoon at the British Museum, which in and of itself is quite the story, but we'll save that for those privileged few who are so blessed to hear me vent. Once I finally got to the museum it was a wonderful experience, and I am anxious to return (I barely made it through one room of the entire place--you could spend a lifetime in London and never see it all). My favorite part of the museum was The Elgin Marbles--can you believe it??? I actually saw THE ELGIN MARBLES! The Greeks and Romans are among my favorite things to study, so this was a big deal for me. Not to mention that Paul once sat on the steps of the Parthenon to preach to the people--right in front of these sculptures! I daydreamed about that a little bit as well. It was wonderful--one more thing to cross off the bucket-list of my life. From my freshman Humanities 101 class (which I took just to fulfill a GE but turned my entire life around) to the real deal. Unbelievable. ;)

P.S. The Elgin Marbles are a collection of Greek marble sculptures that used to be part of the Parthenon in Athens. There is major controversy over the fact that they now reside in London and not in Greece, but I'm not complaining one bit--although I understand the Greek's claim to them, since they happen to be here I got to see them!

Chillin' in front of The West Pediment:

Amphitrite, consort of Poseidon:

Some other gods/goddesses chillin' here with me:

Head of the horse of Selene's chariot (the moon-goddess):

Iris, the messenger God (corresponding with Hermes):

Okay, now these next pictures will never do this justice, but hopefully you can get somewhat of a feel for this room: it is quite literally the largest I have ever seen--it's huge!--and completely filled with all of these wonderful sculptures. I'm still in awe of how many there are!

Just another afternoon here in London. Crazy.

Marathon

I feel like I just ran a marathon. I want to sleep for the next 100 years. Was it worth it? What kind of question is that--it's ALWAYS worth it! Paris was surprisingly enjoyable; I admit I had extremely low expectations for the place, but I found it to be so much funner than I ever imagined. I think that we fit in just about as much as one physically can in only 4-5 days, which is why I am so exhausted, but it was worth every minute. I will post more soon--for now I need to sleep and study for Dr. Seely's midterm (which I am surprisingly not worried about... is that bad?). Paris taught me several things: sleep is good, food is better--especially when nutella is involved, the rain actually is wonderful, love's not too bad either, I love school/learning more than anyone on this planet, people will always surprise you, life is too short to worry, Saint Chappelle needs a better electrician, the tube beats the metro any day of the week, blessings come in infinitely large numbers, you can learn to love the people you hate and the people you love will do things that you hate, gypsies are very sneaky, it's NOT just another cathedral, life will never cease to surprise you, there's never EVER enough time so get going, a good dessert is always the answer, and getting to know people tends to fix many problems.

So since I am absolutely exhausted and my head is pounding and I probably gained 20 pounds in the past 5 days and I have a major midterm on Monday I should study for and I ran out of clothes and the laundry room was packed and I'm out of food and did I mention that I'm tired... so of course, what's the best thing to do? Skip the shower and studying and go out for some fun! Albeit I didn't go too far or do too much, but I did take a stroll through Camden Market today, which wasn't spectacular but did have the best doughnuts in the world:

A triple chocolate chunk fudge filled extra large doughnut. I know you're jealous right about now. I would be too. ;) J.K. Rowling was right: chocolate can act as a tonic to the mind. :)

Canterbury Tales

Have you ever read Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales? If you haven't, how about the movie A Knight's Tale? Either way, guess what I did last week: I lived the Canterbury Tales. Well, I visited Canterbury at least! It's a cute, quaint little town that makes you feel like you've traveled back into Chaucer's stories, it's awesome.

First we stopped at St. Augustine's Abbey, or at least the ruins of what it once was.

I grew tired of waiting for all the girls to finish taking their model shots in front of the Abbey, so I laid down on a bench and actually found some pretty cool looking things through a hole in the wall.

Yes, we came all the way to London, and I was spending my time looking at rocks and flowers.

These are some of the old houses of Canterbury. If London hadn't burned down so many times, this is what it would look like.

And of course Canterbury Cathedral!

Below is Thomas Beckett, the whole reason people came to Canterbury back in Chaucer's time. In fact, the 29 travelers in his tale are all on a pilgrimage to Canterbury to see the relics of Beckett. Beckett was killed here in Canterbury Cathedral because he would not give into the government over the church. I won't go into detail, but it was a pretty horrific story. His relics are associated with all sorts of miracles, and so after his death pilgrims came from everywhere to see them. If you look closely, you can see a sword coming out of the side of his head (not a pretty story).

And this is the spot where the murder occurred--it actually does have a very cool feeling being in that area of the cathedral. They light a candle here to remember his martyrdom and sacrifice.