Day Tripper

Yesterday we all went on one of those touristy buses from London to Windsor Castle, Bath, and Stonehenge. Windsor Castle was very cool, although I definitely remember going there before! It's where the Queen lives (but of course she was on holiday so no possible sightings). Our tourguide gave us a little history lesson about the Castle and William the Conquerer, and talked about the Battle of Hastings. I had a solid memory of 1066 for the year, thanks to Ms. Massie's 6th grade history class...

Windsor Castle (and our sweet audio guides)

The town of Bath was the next stop -- very cute little town in the country with beautiful scenery that would be perfect for a weekend trip. We didn't get to see much, though - just the old Roman baths. The tourguide told us that when the Romans conquered England, they couldn't take the food and weather and they went to Bath for a little detox each year, with spas, exercising, massages, and good food. Unfortunately we only got to see the remains - no swimming pools or saunas like in Turkey or Hungary!

Roman Baths

Last was Stonehenge! It's so funny - it's on the side of a highway in the middle of nowhere, with all of these sheep around the outside. It's roped off so you can't go inside the area, but it looks really cool! I got plenty of photos (I've always wanted a photo of me at Stonehenge) so that's good of course. I don't know which version of the story I believe about why the stones are the way they are, but the general calendar idea sounds pretty reasonable to me.

Sami and Brandon being the stones...

Sami and me with the classic Stonehenge photo

Today I did some more touristy things -- no class yet so why not? We took a ferry to Greenwich and straddled the Prime Meridian! We were in the East and Western hemispheres at the same time. They had an interesting museum about time and astronomy with all sorts of old telescopes, and I relearned about latitude and longitude. There was also the National Maritime Museum - tons of models of huge cruises and boats. Everything was free so that was really nice, and it was a beautiful day today.

We also went to the Fresher's Fayre (Freshers is Freshmen here) -- it's like the NSO student activities fair with all of the clubs trying to get you to sign up. They have SO many here - I think way more than Penn and way weirder clubs! Plus the whole drinking age thing is weird because there are a lot of things that clearly revolve around drinking (the Irish Club, for example). Come to think of it, I haven't mentioned the whole open container idea yet. It's crazy! It's very bizarre when you see/do it for the first time, and feels very wrong, but it's totally legal.

I'm ready for classes to start - it's a little weird not having a routine (or anything to do, for that matter) yet. I got into the history class I wanted -- Britain and the Wider World (18something - 1992), and also the London Architecture class. The Bartlett is sooo disorganized and we still don't have our classes for that. And they start Monday! Oy.

Portobello Road again tomorrow (obvy) and maybe some Bangers and Mash at S&M cafe?