Till Seattle

Some things can be awfully cyclical. When I arrived in Leicester I was maddened by my clocks. All my clocks were off, I continued having to add eight hours to everything until I had the proper time to set them, or to get them connected to a device that would syncronize them to UK time. There I have officially set my laptop's time back to Vancouver time. I am... almost... home.
At the moment I am writing this from Seattle, when I post it I will be home, having slept and eaten and said hi to a few of my loved ones. But, while I have this rediculous stall period in the lovely, and well decorated for the holidays, Seatac I thought I'd relay some o my travel experiences for you. I know I know, how terrible I've been at blogging! You didn't get a thing about Liverpool or Nottingham (wait, Liverpool...) or any of the sundry posts I thought to write about Leicester and English culture. If they keep me in here long enough, and if my battery lasts you most surely will though, get these posts. I have nothing better to do.

Well today's travel has been long and I still have about nine and a half hours until I'm officially grounded in Vancouver. Wow. I started off by waking up at six thirty in the morning, an unheard of event for me, and I'm still disgusted at the necessity, but feel that I gave myself the perfect amount of time, unlike Bethany who I heard was seriously rushed. Poor doll. Got up, got dressed, ate and did all those boring things, and was waiting outside my door at seven ten in the morning for my cab. I'd called using a flat mate's phone the night before, took two tries before I found someone with enough time to loan out, but I figure that it was worth it. Beth had warned me, from Vancouver, that walking from our old dorms to the Leicester train station was by far the worste part of her trip--hm, she got the worste part over with first, good for her I say--I had told her of course that it would be a nasty process, but little miss girl guide wanted to tough it out. Of course, her toughing it out nearly convinced me to do the same and save the six to four pounds. I didn't. After hearing about the agony, and after having her look up which train to London I should get, I decided that a taxi would be choice. Let's also keep in mind that I'm little-miss-delicate shoulders (the bits on me hurting the most right now) I'd have probably pulled something and been in agony right from the start. Yeah, take a cab.

So the loverly cabby got me to the train station at the perfect time, he even used a short cut. I gave him a respectable tip, so he carried my luggage up a bit and didn't make me haul it on up on my own. To the train station! The people there immediately directed me to the elevators which were very very well hidden. I didn't have long to wait for my train, until it was delayed. I thanked the heavens above that my plan got me to Heathrow aproximately two and a half to three hours before my flight. The train wasn't delayed too long though and I was soon at St Pancrus station. This was a little more confusing, as it's bigger, but I figured it out without issue. As Beth mentioned the tube station that connects to it is very well laid out with lots and lots of elevators, and in one case an escelator, but I let that go. They did such a good job overall.
Now, as someone who was once prone to trying to get to Surrey when they really didn't want to go to Surrey on the Vancouver skytrain she'd ridden on a million and nine times, I was a little nervous about this whole tube thing on my own. I mean I've gotten way better at looking at signs since then (it's Beth's and my defence technique in new places, always look up, you'll find a sign--sounds spiritual) and since Beth had told me to look out for the Heathrow terminals 4 and 1,2,3 NOT Heathrow terminals 5, 1,2,3 I knew where to go. But I swear not all the signs and train departures on the Picadilly line matched with the map, though that's probably just my inexperience. I didn't make a lot of questions on the matter, but remained confused about the whole situation regarding it. "Just get on the one that you KNOW you're supposed to get on. I told myself, and so I did.

I knew I wouldn't have to stand up long, but I was annoyed by this one fellow who pushed his way in to the front of the line past people who were clearly going to be on longer than him and nearly pushed people getting off out of the way so he could grab a seat. All was cleared up about his rude behaviour (sitting in seats clearly designated for people who have lots of luggage) when I realised he was crazy. I don't mean 'a little slow' I mean crazy. He had that haze about him. That and he whacked some girl on the head with a news paper while smiling and I think trying to make a joke, but he just turned out creepy. She looked quite offended, but I still thought she knew him. She clearly didn't when she got off the train shooting him wierded out glances but obviously trying to not make eye contact.

The rest of the tube trip was nice. Got to observe a lovely Norwiegian family--the girls kinda looked like me in the face--and got to Heathrow just fine.

I must say this about Heathrow, everything is quite well organized, with the exception of the tube entrances. They really don't want you to have luggage, seriously. The tube entrance for your ticket was closed down, myself and an American lady and a pack of lovely East Indian women were disugsted, we had to wait sevevral minutes for someone to saunter out of his office to open it as useless workers of some other airport denomination stood by and stared at us. We then encountered these zig zag things that required careful manouvering and dragging to get through these things. It was rather comical "They really don't want people to have luggage" I stammer, catching my breath from this silly process.

"It is absolutely rediculous" my American friend agrees. She rushes on ahead of me and catches the next elevator full of people, I wait aproximately twenty seconds longer and get one all to myself.

Bag check was easy 19.9kg, I do believe that that's less then I came here with, but will have to consult a converter (not my head). Thus, whatever concerns I had were needless. Away with my luggage it was and onward to Heathrow shopping. I had a whole twenty one pounds left to spend and a rediculous amount of change in the form on one and two pence coins. Bought some presents, and then got a drink at the airport bar. Pomagranite juice is yum, the bar tender totally understood my paying him with the remaining rediculous coinage too. I still have a pound though, I feel like I haven't done my best. Ho hum.

As I went through customs I asked if I'd have to take my laptop out here to one of the other passengers in line. He stated that I would, and that Heathrow was pretty tight. I laughed and told him to wait for the states, they make you take your shoes off there. He was rather astounded. I still think that that's a rediculous process by the way. My shoes... pfft. Oh and I questioned the laptop thing because in other parts of the airport I was told to do stuff, but keep my laptop in the bag. It was all rather confusing.

On to the flight. Delta does nice enough international flights. Really no complaints... except one. On their forms they really should ask people about dietary restrictions. On my way to England I couldn't accept their last meal because it was a grilled cheese sandwitch *waves lactose intollerant flag* they gave me an extra fruit cup and something else as compensation, but it still kinda sucked. On my way to the States though I thought "hey I've been goodish with dairy, why make the hypo-glycemic part suffer on account of the lactose intollerant one?" So I ate the tiny piece of cheddar and it began. Nothing much actually, but I really should not have accepted the ice cream cup... which just did it. Flat out. That POOR person sitting beside me, though, she may not have noticed what with her head phones in. They could have used me as propulsion... so of course, once I settled my stomach a bit with a trip to the bathroom or three (from the window seat, I was totally the best stranger to be sitting beside) so of course, I ate the pizza with cheese on top that they gave me for a last meal on the plane... of course. And no, I didn't attempt to scrape off the cheese. Yes I'm brilliant. Needless to say it was not a plesent flight for obvious reasons.

Well we made it to Georgia. I have now seen Atlanta from above. I will start by saying that I really didn't think it was going to be this particular air port that trapped me, but uh, it's freaking huge! It's old and has art from the nineties all over the place, really nothing modern even their food areas look ancient very eighties, but it is positively huge. How huge? Well, much like Heathrow it has a train that will take you to the various concorses. Before I had to figure all this out though, it was through customs with me. Pick up my luggage, and shuffle it to a new belt, then shuffle myself to the carry on check. At least Georgia thinks I'm awesome. Seriously. To start, the first customs fellow I had laughing, yes customs agents can laugh! He thought I was a very funny Canadian. Then the people with the metal detectors, the two I delt with thought my collar was a hoot. I didn't take it off, just forgetting it was on my neck, it's very comfy. But I remembered just as I was about to go through with it on. It hadn't turned the sensors at Heathrow so I thought I was safe. Beep beep beep. "Ah, guess it's turn'n them on today" the lovely girl says grinning at me, so I take it off and put it in a bowl to go through again. I don't turn them on this time.

As I put on my shoes and snatch my collar from its bin a funny young man looks at me and says "Is that your dog collar miss?"

I smile wide and proud and go "Why yes, it is" which makes him laugh. Well I guess I'm little miss harmless in the south. I practically skipped through that process. Aw well, away I go.
I got lost, got lost until I found a guy to tell me about the train station. Took the train to concorse A where my flight was supposed to go from. I figured then would be a good time to get some food in me... in fact, thinking about it, it would be the last chance until such time as I got on my train from Seattle to Vancouver. Hm, that would be more than fifteen hours without food, I can do it when sleeping but uh, when moving around. Likely not. So I looked around: hot dog world, something or other the southern tradition, some chinese place that looked sketchy, and dunkin' doughnuts. None appealed, but hey, there was a chilie's I could go to. Never been there before, but as it was a sit down resturant I figured it had to be better than hot dog world. How right I was. One of the best chicken sandwitches I've ever had. They even had hot sauce on it, which I adore... unfortunately it also had ranch. Kind of a double edged sword that, on the one hand it tasted amazing, on the other... DAIRY! Not much, but in my current state it didn't help. What ever. I pissed the poor waitress off by not tipping her (the only southerner that didn't think I was the cutest damned thing--seriously, going to spend time in the south one day, if you take away my tendancies towards bohemianism for a month or two I'd fit in well I think--but I didn't want to 'cause I wanted to make a call, unfortunately the person I was calling didn't answer and I couldn't leave a message cause the connection wasn't good enough. The waitress and I remain pissed off about that.

As I mentioned about the clocks, mine was off. I was pretty sure that it was supposed to be seven something, but mine kept telling me that Atlanta time was eight somehting. So I asked some people about that and generally amused them as well. "My iPod liiiieees" perhaps they thought I was immitating southern inflection? Dunno. Wasn't. Off to my gate. Or what I thought was my gate...

It was the gate on my ticket at least, and apparently I wasn't the only person fooled by the sudden change. It started to dawn on me when, very close to my own boarding time people were just finishing boarding at the gate for Florida. Suspicious, yes.I asked the nice people at the gate about that and they informed me that yes, my flight was relocated to gate B23. I was at A25. Remember the comment about BIG airport? At that moment a very flushed man ran up beside me and yelled "what's that B23? Where's this damned flight going to now? Seattle where do I go to get to Seattle B23?" He asks the person at the desk, who nods yes "B23?" He asks in a flush, I nod and hurry that way with him.

"Our flight leaves at 9:35, it's not 9 something" he informs me, and runs off. I don't run. Not only have I not had time to take my asthma meds since I first left Leicester, but I also happen to have a huge back pack and carry on. I'm not running, especially when I realise how many motorized side walks there are and how close B actually is to A--far closer than D was. So I get there just as they starte boarding real people. I get on just fine and get my spot. I don't mind being one of the last people borded, I know I have a seat, so what's the big hooplah, right? I get on board and sit and meet my seat mates who are far more tolerable than the ones from Seattle to JFK were. The flight was delayed just over an hour. My ass was already starting to numb and we hadn't left the ground yet. It was something about their weights being off. Whatever the case, as soon as I got my refreshing beverages I was off to the land of nod (I had to wake up for the drinks, practically, actually). That's five hours of sleep. Good for me! So far I'm going at 13 hours over three days. Hey, there wasn't a movie on this flight to keep me up. The one to Georgia was showing this one show called "Ghost Town" which was fun, "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" which was the part of the flight I decided to sleep through, and to my upmost joy "Wall-E" that just thrilled me to bits, and was an adorable movie. Absolutely adorable! If I was a kid though, I might not have liked it. Damned those target audiences eh?

So now I am in Seattle, my waiting time here is slightly less than it would have been, especially if we take into consideration how long it took for my bag to arrive on the carosal. I've met some lovely Chinese girls who are going to Victoria, I've exchanged about half of my Mandarin with one of them in saying "thank you" because she looked after my bags as I made yet another trip to the bathroom. My organs still haven't forgiven me the dairy, or maybe now it's the lack of sleep, they're always quite bad at that. It is 3am now, and writing this has taken up a goodly chunk of time. I am listening to the tiny bifs that live in the airport at this moment as they chirp around the fake trees hung with iceicles that bear a great deal of fake snow that occassionally falls from the sky to the sound of wind chimes and lovely music. It is wintery but warm. I like Seatac.

I guess that's a good thing. I now wait for the coach that will take me to the shuttle which will bring me to the train station which will provide me with a seat on a trian that will take me home. You won't have read this in time but, wish me luch anyhow.

Higher education

Pausing now between clearly critical games of computer mahjong (nah, I don't have homework to be doing) I thought I'd take a moment on anachronistically update this blog. You see, before the lovely trip to London that Susan so elegantly wrote about a few days ago, we went to the great educational city of Cambridge.

We had heard it was a nice place to go, and we thought it seemed reasonably low key. Susan was only just getting over sickness and we wanted to avoid any Everest-like tors, if you know what I mean. So we picked Cambridge. And what a lovely city it turned out to be!

So we get into Cambridge reasonably early. We wander into town from the trainstation, taking in the fairly banal parts of town. Even this we enjoy though because as we've noticed England is extraordinarly regionalistic, and even cities not that far apart from eachother have such different regional flairs to them. They're all quite unique and in sometimes unexpected ways -- be it architecture (Bath has so much sandstone) or cuisine (Leicester with its Indian) or what have you, even the most "boring" parts of the city provide us something neat to look at and think about.

As we're wandering, we've got only a fairly general idea where to go. We're following what we call the handy tourist signs towards "city centre". We think we're getting close, but we're not too sure. Then we turn a corner and our jaws drop:

We shuffle aside so as not to be in the way of pedestrian traffic and stand staring in near silence at King's College Cambridge. Now you have to understand that by this point we've both had almost a full semester of art history classes, more than half of which at this point have been about architecture. And this... well let's just say you don't turn corners in Vancouver and see this kind of building. Interestingly, the next art history class we were lectured about the chapel at King's College. The professor asked if anyone had been to it and we both shot up our hands rather excitedly and the prof kind of chuckled and was like "ok then... that's good."

So we tear ourselves away from King's College and wander down to the river Cam. On the way we stop at the most adorable of little bakeries with the most delicious looking baked goods and get ourselves some goodies to go with lunch. We get to the river. We had heard of this thing they do in Cambridge called punting. A punt is a small flat bottomed boat, kind of like a gondola in Venice. A dude stands at one end with a long pole and pushes you through the water. So we took a punting tour down the river Cam, along the banks of which sit the colleges of Cambridge University. We got to see all these amazing buildings and were told a bunch about their history. We went under the most quaint of bridges, saw ducks paddle by... while we were on board we brought out our baked goods (having eaten our lunch while waiting for our punting appointment) and the punter asked if we had gone to FitzBillies. "Uh... maybe?" we reply, and check the box. Indeed, that was the name of bakery. Turns out it is apparently a famous bakery. Go us. The goodies were amazing: A chocolate eclair, a Napoloeon slice, and a chocolate mouse truffle.

After punting we went back to King's College and took a look at the chapel. We were planning on going back later, but wanted to have a chance to look abotu inside. We were excited to check out the perpendicular style of gothic architecture (yay nerding out). Then we went on a bit of a wander through town, ending up at the FitzWilliam museum. They had a bunch of neat artefacts from all over and we spent a grand time just looking about. It was named the best small museum in Europe by some group or other -- small isn't quite what I'd call it!

Wrapping up at the museum, we made our way back to King's College Chapel (it sounds like we spent more time there than we did...) this time to take in Evensong. You see, King's College Chapel has a world famous choir -- you might have seen them singing their carol service on CBC sometime at Christmas. Every day there is a free choral service given and Susan and I were so on top of being a part of that. Yes, it was an actual church service, so it was something of a change of pace for the both of us, but we both really enjoyed it -- definately a highlight of the day. The singing was so beautiful and set up such an amazing atmosphere. I'm glad we were able to be a part of it.

After that we went towards the general direction of the trainstation, looking for somewhere to eat dinner. We ended up deciding we wanted Chinese food because there was a much better selection of that in Cambridge than there is in Leicester. We ended up at a place called Charlie Chan's (oh I know, the political correctness is enough to blow one's socks away) where we enjoyed a great meal, the hightlights of which were the chashew chicken in yellow bean sauce, and the toffee bananas we had for desert. Mmm.

Then it was time to head home. That... didn't quite go as planned. You see, we took a wrong turn and got temporarily lost. We had to double back a bit to get to the train station, and in so doing missed the last direct train to Leicester. This shouldn't have been a problem because it was only like 9:00 and the website had said there was another way to get home that just involved changing trains somewhere... Well we got all the way to Ely and then was told we couldn't get back to Leicester until 5:26 the next morning. We had to get back on a train. We needed to spend the night. NOT in Leicester. If you wanna hear more about how that went down, ask us in person. It's a much better story told with voices. Trust us.

All in all it was a fantastic day out. That list bit about the trains only served to teach us that we had to be just that much better with our planning. And we were! Note the London trip where nothing went wrong. And while Cambridge may not be on the very top of a tourist list, it turned out to be a city that we enjoyed even more than we thought we would. Yay!

London Bridge is Falling Down!

I feel like I've spent an obscene amount of my time in Britain trying to escape London. "What's this!" You may say, "But Susan, London is historically one of the most brilliant cities in the world!" To them I say, yeah yeah yeah! Tell me about it...

It's nice, and after our most recent day out I'm no longer liable to say the London is evvviiil! You see, my first experience in London was my first day in Britain where I got to wait over two and a half hours for the coach that would take me to Leicester... for three in the morning. I wasn't impressed, but didn't blame London for that. My second experience in London was the one where my toes turned blue... fantastic. My third experience involved a tragidy involving the Ely train station and Beth and I being forced to stay in London TILL THE 5AM/8AM LEICESTER TRAIN CAME IN. Long story, one on its own, I won't go into it... gr. Needless to say, I was unimpressed with London. So, it's no wonder when I told Beth that it was up to her to pick our second to last outing and she chose LONDON that I cringed and muttered under my breath. That city's not been good to me.

But I went, because Beth really wanted to go to theatre in London--she later told me that the only travel related regret she would have had if we hadn't done this, would have been... that we hadn't done it--so we went and I didn't complain, though clearly I was very cautious. Beth made sure she had a variety of clearly written out ways home by the train, exact times and everything. We had a lovely illustrated map of London, also produced by Beth, and we had our lunches packed. We were so ready.

And it wasn't a disaster!

First things first was a mad dash to Leicester Sqare so as to get in line for theatre tickets at discount. We did this and made friends with some lovely queer men from Cork Ireland. They were very excited over Bethany's Irish heritage and even more excited over the fact that we were from Vancouver, because "Vancouver is just lovely!"

We were happy with getting tickets for Avenue Q, Wicked, Chicago, or The Lion King. Any of those four would be good. Well, our little friends wanted to see Avenue Q, and then they later realised that they would be happy with a show that--when translated--is called "The Birdcage" it's based on a Robyn William's movie that is very good. We went up to the ticket people and paid exactly what we were hoping to for our tickets, not the best seats we're told, but whatever, we'll cope!

The little men were directly after us, I guess we got the last two tickets because they had to go to Birdcage, but then, they wanted the evening show so, *shrugs*, we did nothing!

After our tickets we wandered the square a bit, noticing a priceless sign warning us that "criminals operate in this area" which I got pictures of. We did a section of London that I hadn't seen, going to such places as the TATE Modern Art museum which I'm now in love with. The Globe theatre is right beside that, and after seeing these two biggies we walked across the Millenium bridge to go see Saint Paul's. We got day passes for the tube, which was handy, so travelling about a bit wasn't a hassle really.

We did end up back at Leicester Square again, as that's around where our theatre was located. Once we found it (using a rediculous route, though neither of us knew that) we noticed that it was right next to a British Pub, so stopped in there for dinner. This was a rather large accomplishment for us as thus far we've only eaten at British Irish pubs! Yes Irish pubs in Britain, we're so bad. This pub was quite nice I had steak and ale pie, to be all British and stuff, and Beth had chicken kiev (she says that she was going to get fish and chips but this dish just sounded too yummy, I maintain my eye roll).

We were going to have apple pie, but felt that we'd rather get settled into our seats in the theatre as, this pub was super slow, so we paid and left--not letting the London time crisis get the better of us.

Avenue Q was amazing... no joke. Sure the Noel Coward theatre isn't the best known, DON'T CARE. I feel like Avenue Q was designed with my joy in mind. Muppets, silly dancing, songs like "What do you do with an English degree," "If you were Gay," and "The internet was made for porn!" as well as a very stimulating stage design and charming actors... I'm good to go. Beth and I were helplessly giggling throughout this entire play, more so when the "Bad Idea Bears" were on stage--famous for the line "More drinks more fun YAAAAY!"

To quote Bethany, "The bad idea bears are not fictional... nope."

We went home straight after this, but not before running into a mob of feminists protesting for violence against women to end. This insighted some truly... enlightened... mysoginist comments from the gentlemen leaving the tube station. Yes, most of them. Oh and when I say mob I mean it, couldn't see their beginning or end, they took up and entire street!

Sure, it was windy and full of angry feminists (I like my feminists happy and reasonable) but London didn't do me wrong this time. The train home was relaxed if not a little tiresome. Both Beth and I got home and happily drifted off at a reasonable time: home safe, sound, and un-traumatised.

Her hair is black and her eyes are blue

Hello all!

Last weekend Alex and went to Dublin. We had a grand time, dampened by the fact that Susan wasn't there. She got sick and simply wouldn't have been able to handle a plane ride and sightseeing and drinking. But considering I've already blogged about Dublin, I'm going to let Alex have the honour of recording our trip ;)

You might be wondering how life is going for us Leicester gals when we're not all globe-trotty. We're having a pretty good time. As I mentioned, Susan was pretty ill lately but she's getting better. There were a few down right pathetic days, but we successfully did both grocery shopping AND going out for dinner yesterday, so she's clearly improving.

School's going reasonably well. The marking system is quite different from home. We're not going to be assessed on anything until the last week we're here. There has been one practice essay, but it won't count for marks. So that's different.

In general we're unimpressed with the English classes, especially the lectures. They lack the spark they can have at home. We've come up with a number of hypotheses to explain this. Our top at the moment is that they teach English almost scientifically. It's like they're saying "this is what this is about -- now let's discuss it," rather than what we're used to which is more like "here's some basis for ideas, but let's discuss what you think it's about." It feels a lot like there a right and wrong answer -- moreso than at home. In addition, every English student here takes the same core modules. At home this isn't the case. Even in classes that pretty well every English student will take (i.e. Intro to Fiction and Intro to Poetry) the course outlines and texts are always different and taught by different profs. Here they all take the exact same course. So there's not a lot of new perspectives being brought in. I talked about Plato in one seminar and was looked at like a crazy person because no one else had read Plato and no one could quite understand why I had.

History of Art, on the other hand, we're thoroughly enjoying. It feels like we learn from that class, especially when the lecturer is Phil. There are two lecturers for that class and while they're both really knowledgeable and all that, Phil is especially passionate and communicates in a way that works really well for both Susan and myself.

Other than school, things are going well too. We're getting really good at grocery shopping. We're getting to know our flatmates and a couple of people from classes. It seems weird that we go home in about a month.

We've both still got a bunch of days on our rail passes so we're going to do a bit of a whirlwind tour of England over the next couple of weeks. We're thinking day trips to places like Cambridge. Next week we plan on training up to Liverpool for Alex's goodbye party. He's made a bunch of Liverpudlian friends and they've invited us up for his last hurrah before he (really this time) goes home.

Hopefully sometime soon Alex will get on writing about our Dublin trip. I figure if I have to put up with homework, I can give him some too :P

We took the low road.

Beth and I were super excited. We were going on a trip, a whole day out to the National Art Gallery in London for only ten pounds. The trip was subsidised by the school and would last all day. Yes it would...

So. Yay us. We get dressed super quick in the morning, pack our lunches for the day, and hop on the bus with ease. Actually, quite a lot of ease considering that I was sick and thus a right pig to try and get out of the house on time... actually... it's almost impossible to ever get me out of the house on time. But, Beth and I are pretty good at coaches. We're not those people who disrespect the fact that we have a schedule to keep, and thus always try to get there on time. Which is what made us give somewhat amused looks to the clearly still sleepy Halloween casualities as they rushed their way on to the bus about ten minutes late, by the grace of their friends saying "Oh please wait just a bit longer!" Whatever.

Doctor (Mr?) Clarke took that moment to tell us that on the way home there would be no waiting, 4:45 you were on the bus and we were leaving. Ok. Off to the gallery!

This gallery, can I just say, was huge! I have never been to a more intimidating place for the arts. It's a good thing it's free, 'cause it's not something you can do in just a day. Beth and I were overwhelmed, we were swamped, we were sick and frigging tired of looking at St Sebastion pierced with a thousand arrows, and the creepy depictions of the Christ child--I'm not saying Christ is creepy, but some of the images of him as a baby are. Occassionally it looks like the kid was popped out lifting weights, which completely negates the naturalistic beauty of the Nativity. Also, there was no way that the Virgin was wearing silks when she gave birth, give me a frigging break.--we were pretty sick of the common themes dealt with in the same mannor over and over. I was beginning to feel like, because it was the free part of the gallery, it was the part where they put up the works of the Great's minions "Yeah these guys were pretty good, you have to pay to see the amazing stuff though." Granted it was better than anything I could do. Granted.

Well, we took leave of the gallery after eating lunch in the Gallery's no-man's land, where people who wanted to eat lunch and talk on their cell phones went. Good thing no one looked there.

The gallery is just across the street from the Canadian embassy, and on the other side, Trefalger (oh the spelling) square. Unfortunately, the square of containing a free concert that day... a bunch of unknown rappers and Kelly Roland. Huh. Well, we got a free can of Coke Zero out of it. I start noticing at this point that the wind is picking up, and so is the rain. My shoes, haveing taken a beating on this trip, could definitely be more water proof. Getting a bit soggy at this point. Have I also mentioned that I'm sick right now. Yeah.

Anyway, we make it to the Parliment buildings, which really are beautiful, and then Westminister Abbey right near. Took a bunch of pictures and nerded out over some architecture. Took in the tourist shop. Then back out to check out the river, even though by this time my feet are pretty god damned soaked, and disturbingly... starting to ache. Whatever. By this time it's about ten to three, or about three on the dot. I suggest we find a pub and hang there until four fourty five. First things first, we have to figure out where our bus was supposed to meet. We ask a tour guide, who gives us a neat story about how the term "break a leg" came about, and why Her Majesty's Theatre is thus named. We find our stop and look around for a nice place to wait out the hour and a quarter we have as it is now about three thirty.

We're given a lot of options, we choose Pizza Hut. Hey... it's cheap.

We get pizza, we get drinks. My feet experience a frightening cramping, Beth's fingers figure out that they can move again. Well, we figure it's about time to get the check. We get the check. We go outside where my feet feel deformed and spastic. Pained. Very pained. My hoody too... quite soggy (I don't have a coat in England. It's turning out to be an issue, but they're so expensive). This is when, while we're about four minutes ahead of schedule, is when we see the bus pull away from our stop. Our big, white, heated, coach... pulling away. Oh. God.

"Maybe it's another group's coach. Surely we're not the only group in London today." One of us says optamistically to the other. We go and wait. Quarter to five strikes on Beth's watch. Our bus still hasn't arrived, and no one from our trip is at the stop. I have a sudden horrifying idea, turn to a lovely woman waiting under the same awning as us and ask "Do you have the time?" She does. It's four fifty by her cellphone. Both Beth and I look at her watch which says four fourty six. I think we both smacked our heads.

So. We are stuck in London, in the pouring rain, in soaked clothes, me with a cold which is very unhappy with me, and SOAKED feet which are giving me new sensations every minute.

Well we ask two lovely men how to get to St Pancrus from where we were. To Piccadilly Circus it was, and the tube. Beth turned to me on our way up to the Circus, "You want to buy a tacky sovenier?" We were both still in disbelief.

I looked at her with my most pathetic of pathetic faces "I want warm feet!" I say all cutely pathetic. She laughs and we keep laughing. Through out the rest of the story you can just pretend that the feet mantra is what's threaded throughout. 'Cause I said it a lot.

So, we got onto the tube. That's eight pound for both of us.

Our bright side number 1: "You got to see Piccadilly Circus, and you got to ride the London Tube Susie!"

We get to St Pancrus and buy tickets. That's 86 pound for both of us. I'm complaining that my feet are starting to loose feeling, but not that very distressing ache...

Our bright side number 2: We'll probably still get there in the same time, maybe earlier, than the people on the coach.

We use the loos at St Pancrus, which were less than fresh smelling and hygenic.

Our bright side number 3 and 4: Hey now we know that St Pancrus has an all you can eat sushi joint in it. The toilets weren't pay toilets.

We managed to get a pretty direct train from London to Leicester. As we moved through the station we noted some fun people, and one very distressed (see wailing) little girl in a soggy jumper, I think I made comments about her having no right to complain. Petty? Yes.

On the platforms area we were directed to our platform specifically, as the sign had not previously indicated where to go. Outside I was afraid that my feet weren't stinging at all anymore... But I found a one pound coin!

Our bright side 5: We recooped some of the cost.

We got onto the train on the side that said coach, instead we walked through possibly the longest first class section ever. So when we finally got to coach it was a bit of a press to get seats. But I didn't have to fight grumpy guy again, thus...

Our bright side 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9: We found un-reserved seats together. The seats and area they were in were warm. By walking through first class we didn't have to walk outside anymore. We could take off our soggy jackets. Finally, it would be a short trip, shorter than the coach would have been.

Well we settled into our seats for a bit of a haul, watching as people who weren't as prompt as us showed up and settled in to find their own seats, and last on the train, much to our surprise (and yet not, 'cause it's us) was a troop of mimes.

Yes mimes.

A bunch of people in stripy shirts and black spandex pants who only spoke with their hands. We have no idea why these mimes couldn't be off duty mimes, but there you have it. I considered giving one of them my seat, as they too had clearly been in the rain--you could see some of their makeup running--but I would feel obligated to mime it at them, I so wasn't in the mood to mime. Also, my feet were only just remembering what a vague sense of warmth was like and I was hacking up a lung. I needed it more than the mime did. Beth spent a good portion of that trip giggling and pretending it was my fault. I insist that it's ok to giggle at mimes, they're there for our amusemet, but she didn't want to be offensive. I clearly have the better poker face.

Our bright side 10: We have great imaginations.

By the time we got the Leicester the mimes had left, they got off the stop before us, which was quite disappointing. I would have enjoyed some mimes in Leicester.

I think it was the mime's fault. But at this point we got a bit turned around in Leicester station. We can navigate Birmingham, Edinburgh, and London but not freaking Leicester? What's with that. Well, we made it out.

Well, it was one more leg of our journey until home. We didn't talk much during our walk. I was busy trying to breathe and Beth was probably feeling a similare sense of "just get me to a shower!" Also, I had to pee.

There was no bright side for me on our 2.5-3 km walk to home from the station. I was so cold. There was only blind focus. If I kept walking at a good pace I wouldn't think about the fact that I was so cold (and had to pee). Beth was a doll and offered me her coat, but that seemed kinda silly. She was warm, and then wouldn't be. No. Not cool. Also, I was already soaked through, why get her coat wet? So we powered through.

Blissfully, no one was in my shower or the downstairs washroom, when I got home.

When I took off my shoes and socks I was horrified to figure out that my worry hadn't been for naught, my toes had turned blue. Eek. Thus, I spent about a half hour under the hottest setting my shower had. My feet still weren't warm after that, but the rest of me was. Hey, my toes weren't blue any more. Bonus.

The rest of the night was spent not thinking about money and rain... though the rain was hard as it was pounding our windows but hey...

Our Bright Side 11: We were at home and not out in it any more!

I'll Take the High Road

Scotland! Okay, I know, that was ages ago. Where's the post?? Well folks, *hint hint* you'll get more posts out of us if you demonstrate you read the blog. That means, *hint hint* we want you to leave comments.

So Scotland was quite amazing. We started our journey by meeting Alex at the trainstation in Birmingham. From there was a direct train ride, four and a half hours, up to Edinburgh. We got great seats and just enjoyed being together after what I maintain felt like AGES apart.

We got into Edinburgh at night time. It was about 6:30 or so. Dark. WINDY. We went to Scotland and met weather. We laughed basically the entire way to our hostel because the wind was blowing so hard we could barely walk into it. We found the hostel with little issue. It was a cool place. A converted 19th century church, which meant it had all kinds of character. It also meant that the individual rooms did not have their own roofs. The three of us were in a room with six beds and there was no one else for the first two of our three nights. Sounds perfect, yes? Well unfortunatelly the no-roof situation meant that we heard every little sound that everyone in the hostel made. Now this might not have been a problem if it hadn't been for some very noisy people. Most notable of them was the guy who shouted out every few seconds "Has anybody got a joke?" along with a few other sundry comments.

Well the first night there Alex and I stayed up chatting until a silly late hour (made more silly because we knew we had to wake up early) and we kept up later because of the yelling guy. And the laughing obnoxious Italians. And the chipmunks. Well those were Italians too, but they were doing this *tch* *tch* *tch* sounds that as bizarre as it was annoying. Well we all got up early anyway, and headed out to our first tour.

We took a tour from Rabbie's Trail Burners called Highlands Lochs, Glens, and Whiskey. Click the link to see exactly where we went. We had a chance to go on a little nature walk in the low lands, which was a little unnerving because it almost felt like we were in Lynn Valley or something. The scenery was very familiar to home. We were at a place known for it's salmon jumps for goodness sakes. But it was neat anyway. A highlight of the day was definately the tour of Blair Atholl whiskey distillery. We're now whiskey experts. We know how it's made, we know how to drink it (never put ice in a single malt!!) and it was generally very cool. There was then a scenic drive through the highlands, which were spectacular.

That night we were pretty bushed and we happy to go to bed fairly early. It's a good thing we did, because at our early bed time there weren't that many people in the hostel. It wasn't until later when the people got back that things got noisy. "Anybody got a joke?" *the hostel grumbles as one* "Anybody got a joke?" *We turn over and try to ignore obnoxious guy* "Anybody got a joke?"

Pause.

"I'LL SHOW YOU A FRIGGIN' JOKE!!" In steps angry scottish man.

We hear doors opening. We hear general threats, not all of which are PG-Blog rated. We hear some furnature. We hear joke guy say "Holy **** you're like twice my size!" We hear some running. Yelling. Oh the excitement. By now the three of us are kind of sitting there hoping they just don't come near our room. We kept hearing doors open and didn't know why. Was joke guy trying to hide? Was scottish guy systematically looking for him?

Well after a couple of thoroughly exciting moments we hear the distinct sound of police walkie-talkies. The commotion is broken up. Somehow all this excitement made both Susan and I have to pee so we go out to the washroom and on the way see police talking to various people. Commotion over. The next night was nicely quiet.

So the next morning we had another tour. This time it was through Scottish Tours and went to Loch Ness & The Highlands. Yes, we went up to Loch Ness. How very... legendary! The bus ride was a bit longer and both Susan and Alex grabbed a few moments to nap. Loch Ness was beautiful. The monster, they say, comes twice every day: five minutes before you get there, and five minutes after you leave. We also went into Urquheart Castle, which at one point was held by the Grant clan. Grant, of course, is Susan's born surname. When we found out that the Grants were suck ups who literally blew up their own castel, it became something of a joke for poor Susie who was glad to have abandoned that clan for the Curries who are known in Scotland as the "Warrior Poets" -- at much better fit, I'd say.

We also had a chance to see the capital of the Highlands on this tour. Inverness was very cool, though we spent most of it in a pub eating appetisers. Yay.

That night, when we got back to Edinburgh, we did a ghost tour of the city. It was a fun nighttime walk. Amusingly, the tour was given by a Canadian. We got to go into a really old cemetary, climb a faerie mound, and go through some neat areas of town. The tour ended at a pub where we got a free drink. We took advantage of that drink as well as a few more, occupying ourselves until the establishment closed at 1:00 -- what kind of pub closes at 1am? Really now.

We went back to the hostel, had a slightly better night of sleep, and checked out the next morning. When we got to Wannaburger for breakfast we were surprised to hear that daylight savings had just gone into effect. Cool, another hour in Edinburgh! We did some casual shopping on our way to the train station.

The train home was less fun than the one there. We had a really long ride on a train where we were only able to sit for a small portion. Then we changed train, and there was a grumpy guy. Travel wasn't fun that day, really. But we got back just fine.

Alex spent a couple of days with us, and has now gone off to flitter about the country again. We'll see him next week.

Overall scotland was a blast, and I'd love to go back to Edinburgh some day. The city was beautiful with so much history and so much that we didn't have a chance to see. Who knows, maybe one day we'll go on a 100-mile trek through the highlands.

The End of the Asterisk

Alright so I figured it best to do a small schedule for various people on here before I conclude the last two weeks of my trip.

These dates are subject to change.

Tuesday 28: Leicester
Wednesday 29: Leicester -> London
Thursday 30: London -> Liverpool
Friday 31: Liverpool -> Manchester
Saturday 1: Manchester -> Sheffield
Sunday 2: Sheffield -> Leicester
Monday 3: Leicester
Tuesday 4: Leicester -> Bath
Wednesday 5: Bath -> Cardiff -> Bath
Thursday 6: Bath
Friday 7: Bath -> Bristol -> Dublin
Saturday 8: Dublin
Sunday 9: Dublin -> Bristol -> Bath -> London
Monday 10: London
Tuesday 11: London
Wednesday 12: London -> Vancouver

I STRESS subject to change. I need a whole day just to contact people and look at hotels! URGH!

Love
-Alex

We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet

Oh it's exciting times here across the pond.

Tomorrow the three of us reunite! Susan and I are quite stoked to see Alex after what feels like AGES of being apart. We have so much to talk about! And of course, not only are we going to be together again, we're going to SCOTLAND!

That's right folks, the three of us are off to discover the Highlands. Clearly there will be more to be said about this when we get back.

Just thought I'd leave you with this tantalizing teaser.

... I'm so excited!

Glastonbury and Stonehenge

Ok, so as I promised... a while ago... Stonehendge and Glastonbury. Now, I knew that I was going to adore Stonehendge, but Glastonbury. What the heck did Glastonbury have to offer me, now really! It had a lot of nerding out is what it had!

This little town in England, for one, is adorable. It seems as if it was designed with the word "quaint" in mind. But beyond that, the Abbey, the Abbey of Glastonbury has some beautiful runes, and with a tour guide as great as ours, they really came to life. This is the misty and mystical England that Marrion writes about. This, my dear folks, is Avalon *Sqeal!*

So we went to the Abbey where Joseph supposedly stuck his staff in the ground and made a thorn tree pop up. Yay Christianity. But more to my interest was the tomb/grave of King Arthur. How outstanding. From here we made our way to the Tor, yes the Tor, and got to walk all. the. frigging. way. up. it. Now, for me it was tough, but for poor Beth who had just gotten quite sick... well I believe she describes the process as "Death with every step and breath." Poor girl. She could have done it with way more ease had she been able to... breathe. A fairly important function when climbing up a miny mountain. A very steep miny mountain.

So, we climbing down from there, and it was to the Chalice Well Gardens. This was simply fantastic. The story behind the Charlice Wells Garden is that, in the well resides the Holy Grail, and all the water of the Well passes through it, thus, it is a garden of reflection and peace, tranquility and healing. Once again we're confronted with "Healing" waters. Well, after the climb that felt like "death with every step and breath" Beth was more than happy to take on some healing waters.

This garden was everything it advertised "I wonder, if you live in Glastonbury, if you could get a season pass" Beth ruminated, and I certainly hope you can, I know I'd want one!

Next it was on to Stonehendge. Well, not much to say, you KNOW it was amazing. Those stones radiate mystisism. And, to once again quote Beth "Those stones much know the their primary contemporary purpose is to have their picture taken. They're really good at it." Are they ever. I think every picture I got of those stones turned out quite well.

The gift shop wasn't as horrendously priced as I thought it would be, and the lines not nearly as bad.

On our way home we passed through Oxford, which looks like a beautiful city to go visit, though I don't think I'll get the chance. Hey I could be wrong though, Beth and I do have rail passes after all!

After all this was home, and some serious crashing. It was a long trip.

We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed

Alright, time for my weekly update.

I left Lincoln last wednesday and went to Liverpool. When there I met up with my friend Lee who I wasn't planning to meet up with originally, but ended up doing so anyways. We went to a concert (Los Campesinos!) which I was supposed to be going to with Nathan, but he was busy getting a job...

We ended up having... a few too many... and I can't really recall all that much of the concert! How terrible!

Spent the night at a hotel and then met Lee and his other friend Lee (yes too many doubles in the world!) for breakfast. Got lots of pictures and whatnot and had English Chinese food... which is mostly the same as Canadian Chinese food but with more English things like Fish and Chips... Asian style...

Went to the Natural Museum across from the train station because it was free before leaving for Manchester.

The train to Manchester was the worst train ever! It was jammed so full of people I had to squish like 5 people just to get my bag on. I was standing at the door... which is NOT allowed apparently but I really needed to get to Manchester... Nathan would be waiting and the next many trains after that would be as busy. The ride was only an hour.

Manchester was amazing! My favourite city in the trip so far (Liverpool being a close second) Nathan was so much fun to spend a weekend with! He toured me around and took me for cheap cheap drinks! (yay £2 cocktails!) How alcoholic this part of the trip seems...

... I may have accidently gotten a body alteration...

Anyways, he was rather sick so I buggered off later Saturday to return to Bath. I was planning to go to Leicester, but I'm going to have to be in Bristol on tuesday anyways for a concert so I figure I'd save a train pass day (which I've used half of now)

The train from Manchester to Bath was MORE hell! It was 7 hours long and it involved me ''accidently'' going to Wales (I didn't have a pass that let me to go Wales, but Wales wasn't a destination so... I was planning to play dumb tourist)

By the time I got to Bristol it was already really late, and it turns out the reason I couldn't take a more direct route to Bristol and thus Bath and had to fake my way through Wales was that half of the south western stations were like under construction or something. I had to catch a coach from Bristol to Bath. Joy. A fifteen minute train ride becomes a ninety minute bus ride UGH!

Anyways made it here. All is well. Tomorrow (Monday) will be a laundry day. Tuesday we go to Bristol to see Los Campesinos! so I can remember them. Wednesday will be... something restful... and thursday I take a lovely seven hour train ride up to Edinburgh. I shall be meeting Beth and Suse in Birmingham, but their journey shan't be nearly as long as mine.

We were going to go to Dublin, but we decided to hold off for pricing reasons. Edinburgh is a train ride whereas Dublin requires a plane. Just made sense.

Till next week

Alex

Susan, after drinking the healing waters of Bath

I just thought I'd share that.

Bath and Bristol (Glastonbury and Stonehendge soon to come)

"This is so bizarre, the order of our Stonehendge, Glastonbury, and Bath tour is going to be completely oposite!" I thought I'd mention that right off the bat. You see, poor Beth was thrown for a momentary loop when this happened. Honestly she didn't know what to do with that "It's completely backwards!"

I laughed.

As you know, Beth and I went on a tour of the above mentioned places and we had a fantastic time. You may not have known the fantastic time bit, but I bet you guessed it! We took about a million pictures, soon to be placed on facebook, and well... had a great time lol.

Bath was our first stop. We got picked up by our coach at about eight in the morning, threw our stuff into the back and promptly met the nicest bus driver we've ever encountered and our absolutely lovely tour guide. John and Susannah. The trip to Bath was three hours with a break inbetween to stretch our legs. Boy did we need it! The bus we were on was comfy for discount, I suppose, but ment for people with much shorter legs than either Beth or I possess. We forgot that we owned knees after a while. Eek.

But yes, Bath was lovely. On our drive in we were told all about the specific lime stone quarried and used in the city. All houses and buildings that are errected in Bath MUST be faced with this stone. It leaves the city looking ancient and spectacular. We went into the Roman Baths first, had a tour of the ruins and enjoyed the hokey audio guide. I quite liked looking into the different rooms and noting the decimated structures, but this wasn't my favourite part of my stay in Bath. An amusing part though, was when Beth and I both tried the healing waters of Bath. Normally you have to pay fifty pence to get a glass of this stuff, but because Beth and I were with Procentium tours we didn't. Beth got her glass, and I got mine. She drank hers first. Then I mine.

It was tasty... seriously... I love the taste of sulphur. Thirst quenching really. Beth and I were amused at least. She had a cold, so we were waiting to see if it worked on her congestion (we're thinking it didn't, I insist that it's because she didn't believe enough in the powers of Minerva Sulis).

After this we were both hungry for lunch and thus pulled out our pre-made lunches and snacked down. We did a bit of self-exploration and shopping after lunch, but it was a bit dull when we stumbled out of Bath's main city core. After a bit of this it was time for the walking tour. I enjoyed this part the most. We got to see the city and be told all about the interesting stories and such associated with it. My favourite was about the way three of Bath's city streets were named. Aparently this guy was really trying to get a council to agree on a name for these three streets, but they felt they had better things to do. Eventually one of the council members got so frustrated with him that he stood up and shouted "Be quite John [whatever his last name was]" and thus this fellow name his streets Quite, John, and his last name. I thought that was pretty great. To finish off was my favourite part of Bath, which was the Abby.

Queen Elizabeth called it the "Lantern of the West" when first she entered it, and Beth says it's a much deserved name. Without too much interior lighting this Abby is very bright and sparkly. Beth, who has been to far more Abbies than I have, says it is by far the best lit. The outside face has beautiful carvings and stonework of angles climbing up and down a ladder. Aparently this image came to the creator in a dream--as do many such things for artsy people.

I love going into old places of worship, or areas where there is true meaning instilled into the very air of the place. It's calming, or emotional... whatever it is, it makes you feel and that is spectacular.

Overall I think Bath is a beautiful city, but better explored by people with larger budgets than either Beth or I have. For instance, I'd love to go to the spa at Bath. Oo lala.

From Bath we got the surprise of going to Bristol! How cool is that? VERY! We didn't know that we'd be going to a different city for our overnight stay and found it to be a bit of a bonus. So once we got settled into our rooms at the Holiday Inn Express Beth and I went out in search of food. We'd decided that since we'd spent time hanging around Roman ruins all day, we should go for Italian. Thus our quest began.

We learned in Victoria that a good way to get recomendations on how to find a quality meal was to ask the front desk. We did so and were directed to Baldwin street for our dining needs. Unfortunately we ended up on the wrong street when trying to get past a roundabout and had to find our way back to Victoria street which would then lead us to Baldwin. We asked a nice looking couple where to go and they gave us directions that seemed a bit strange, but we followed them. We didn't have a lot of hope as we found ourselves behind a bunch of buildings, looking around (in a well lit area) and thinking "Aren't we just walking around this tower here?" Well, that's what we thought, but aparently if you walk in a semi circle/circle around this building you end up on a different street. Mind boggling.

We found our way just fine from here. One of the highlights of my night happened around the time as we were crossing over the Avon and saw a bunch of swans floating on it in the light of the walk way paths. So picturesque. Unfortunately in the pictures I tried to take, this scene is not at all portrayed.

So, now that we're on Baldwin we find a few restaurants, but only three that were Italian. The first looked shady to me, and thus I opted against it. The next looked fabulous, cozy, and reasonably priced... but we wouldn't be able to get in for an hour. That was fairly disheartening, but we set out to search again and found a nice place to rest our feet and fill our stomachs. I don't remember the name of it, which makes it hard to give you a meaningful review, but, I would say it was more Southern Italian and catered to the idea of Italian restaurants. It's decore was exactly what you would expect of a smaller Italian restaurant.

We were told that we'd have to wait for our food, but I didn't really feel that was the case. The food was nice, but nothing special even though both Beth and I ordered dishes that should have been something special. It really felt like something I could do at home with a tinned sauce, but then, I'm a good cook! Again, I sound negative, but I don't mean to be. My standard for Italian at an Italian resturant is quite high after being spoiled a year ago at Il Teratza in Victoria. Hard to beat that. I just felt the portions and quality were out of sync with the price. Doesn't mean it wasn't good, just mediocre. It sure hit the spot though, and as usual Beth and I had a lovely time dining out together. At the end of our meal, just as we were going to pay the bill our waiter stopped at another table first and dropped off their dessert... dear god.

He was about to hand us the bill, but asked us first if we'd like anything else. "Um..." we both said, sending covetous looks towards the amazing mystery dessert handed to the couple across from us "Uhhh... you know... giving them that dessert before handing us our bill was a clever move... uuummm..."

He told us to take our time, laughing, and we asked him to give us a dessert menu. Oh dear. We ordered what we thought it was the other couple had ordered--though we were between the tirimisu (eek spelling) and the chocolate thing we ordered. Well turns out that their monster AMAZING dessert was the tirimisu, but that's ok because what we had was AMAZING as well. It was a cake with milk, white, and dark chocolate mouse layered densly over a chocolate truffle crust and dusted with coco. Now, you all know my feelings on chocolate, and that is that less is more, well this dessert was perfect. Absolutely perfect. It was high quality, rich, and lovely. It's not often I say that about chocolate desserts, but this one earned it.

As we walked back to our hotel room, hopefully burning some of the calories as we went we noticed something a little odd about Bristol... the youth dress up as super people and myth figures and roam the streets... We're not kidding. On our evening out we saw a few Super Men, Spider Man, Bat Girl, Nacho Libre and three drunken leprochans... I'm sure we saw more than that, but those were the most memorable. We were trying to figure out the occasion but it escaped us and we still don't know...

Well it was back to the room to enjoy some television (which will likely be the last time till we're home) and get some rest. We were both foot sore and Beth was fighting off a cold--I was as well on a lesser level--and thus we both took some Lemsip (neocitron) and had a lovely drugged sleep.

The conclusion of our tour will be written toot sweet, but I have homework and a day to start!

Leisure Suite

Okies so my second week of England is now coming to a close so I figured it'd be best to update.

Bath was grand fun. Less touristy mind, and more living like a Briton; which isn't terribly too unlike Canadians.

I left Bath on Monday and took a three and a half hour train ride to Leicester. I had to kill some time in Bristol -- which I adore -- and Birmingham which is like chav (think gangster but less intelligent and more chaotic) territory; not too fun.

Leicester wasn't touristy either. Beth, Suse and I more just did living type things such as grocery shopping and laundry. Days were very centered around meals (which is fine by me ;) ) and involved some out and about, but not in excess - which is good because I was sick for half my time there!

I left Leicester friday afternoon and took a very painful train journey to Lincoln; the place Alex is from. His place here is so much fun! It's in the country (Lincoln makes Bath and Leicester look like huge party cities) and it's rather large. There's really like two houses on this one really giant plot which has a huge garden! There are cow fields around us which is totally a strange change of pace for me. Mind I could never live somewhere like here no matter how much fun it is.

Alex's family has been very kind and hospitable. Alex's mother started to do my laundry pretty much as soon as I got in the door! This was a bit odd since I feel strange with other people doing my clothes, but it just seems to be what Alex's mother likes to do. I got glared at for trying to do some myself...

I've been bad... I've now purchased a few too many series of English television on dvd! I've got series 1 and 2 of Skins, series 1 to 5 of Shameless, series 1 to 3 of Little Britain, and now series 1 to 3 of The Catherine Tate Show is on it's way over! HMV does it to me... I enter the store and there are like boxes of sets of series for like £5! I mean like the entire of Little Britain was only £5! I spend more on lunch at subway than that!

Ohhh! I also bought tickets to French and Saunders (Absolutely Fabulous, Vicar of Dibley, Jam and Jerusalem -- the list could go on for ages!) and I am SO excited! This is like their farewell tour thingie since they are going to go retire for a while (they are getting a bit old...) I cannot express this excitement enough! Bethany saw how I lit up when I got the email about these (very reduced in price) tickets! I'm also searching for tickets to see David Tennant and Patrick Stewart in Hamlet, but that shall be a bit trickier to do... I WILL PREVAIL I SWEAR!
Hmm... not much to tell. These haven't been big touristy weeks, but those begin as I travel from here to Liverpool in a day from now! I am very excited to get the bigger cities going! The camera is charged and ready for mega photoshoots!

Talk to you all later! HOPE YOU VOTED/WILL VOTE!

-Alex

PS. I predict Conservative Minority which has a 35% of being forced down at the throne speech leading to a Liberal coalition with someone else.

Dispersing for the weekend

Hello all,

Just a super-quick update on what's going on with us. Alex departed this evening in order to spend the weekend in Lincoln. In the morning (the eeeeearly morning) Susan and I get on a bus headed for Bath. We spend all day there touring about and then on the way home on Sunday we're stopping by Stonehenge and Glastsonbury, returning to Leicester around 7pm Sunday night. Alex will be rejoining us here on Monday.

I'm sure we're all going to have much more exciting things to say about all this after it actually happens.

As for this week, we had a good time. Susan and I made it through our first week of classes. We had a great time with Alex. My voice has been scratchy all day and we think I'm coming down with something, but great amounts of citrus products are being used to try and avoid that.

As we're leaving so early in the morning, I'm going to get ready for bed now.

Brandy Alexander

Hi. Alive.

I was without the internet for a whooooooole week. I thought it would be tricky for me, but apparently I can live without it afterall. Who knew?

So where to begin...

Well the flight was a bit of an annoyance. Not as bad as Susan's domestic flight to JFK, but still not glamorous. The flight was delayed an hour, which wasn't great, but I lived. The demographics seemed to be old and french. I don't know why the retirees of Paris all chose my flight to come to England, but they did. I ended up sitting beside someone interesting; Lubka, my old boss from Sears. Not just Lubka... but Lubka's hideous, horrid, noisey, smelly, stupid looking, scrunched up faced, icky, potentialess, spoiled, child. Apparently shortly after I left Sears she had found out she was preggo. woops. Poor mister lubka. Fortunately we did not converse too much, and mostly pretended that neither of us existed. Also BA gives a LOT of freeeee wine.

I didn't sleep on the flight as I had wanted to. When I got to heathrow I felt like crap. Then the evil lady at customs decided that Bethany didn't deserve noodles. Fortunately I changed her mind; they had travelled with me across and ocean therefore I was not parting with them yet! They also found it odd that I wanted to go to Leicester. I suppose it isn't the most thrilling English city, but it seems fairly nice.

I first went to Bath where I met Alex who I have known for 5 or so years. He didn't show me too much of Bath because he was still moving in (I had to sleep on the floor cause the spare bed had not come yet) but we still tiddled about. Went to eat quite a bit. Had me some wine... and stuff... We'll do the city later.

That friday night we went to what I call Bethany's perfect club night; allll sappy power ballads. It was disappointing that Bethany wasn't present, but I'm sure the club will do it again; there seemed to be a feel of sappy night regulars.

Saturday I went to Bristol to go shopping. I bought the first and second series of Skins since we can't get it at home and I thought it fitting to get that series seeing as it was based in AND filmed in Bristol. We went to a GIANT shopping centre. Not giant because of it's ammount of stores, but because of how spread out it was; an observation I have made about pretty much all structures and urban planning in England so far.

Sunday I went into London really late for a birthday present! (yay) We went and saw The Noisettes in concert. We really only went there, watched, and came back, so I will have to do London again later before I leave or else my trip will be very very very lame.

Monday I finally came to Leicester. We've really only gone to the grocery store, but it seems nice. We got three bottles of wine for 9 pound. They're sitting right behind the computer. They're watching me type, comments Bethany from behind.

Umm... not much else to really say. I swear things have been more adventurous than that. We've already made cultural observations! Most working class people seem to want to be dead as they move at a snails pace when working, and look like zombies; particularily the ones Morrisons (grocery store). It reminded me of watching Jenn work at safeway before; and made me nostalgic of Sears.

Tomorrow we're having a traditional English breakfast that Bethany will be making before her and Susan go off to class. I'll likely watch the leaders debate in English and mayyybe in French if I so please; I've gotten so disconnected from Canadian news and politics the last week that news of the English cabinet shuffle made me giddy - even though it was just quackery.

This weekend while Beth and Suse are in Bath, I shall be in Lincoln with Alex to see his family. From there I'm off to Liverpool and then Manchester to visit Nathan. Should be good. I'll blog and have photos then.

Lots of love

Pear jelly bellies remain the best

A little more in depth

So, as has been noted, Beth and I are pretty settled in. I'm getting to giving my room a clean up from my sickie carelessness. I'm not completely better, but I'm getting by on nearly better. I hope to be CURED in a day or two. Mornings have been good.



But, what have we really been up to? Well, we've been on a few walks through town, today through a park, the other day... through a graveyard. Yes yes yes, how very strange. But, you see, the British, they know how to do death.



Beth and I discovered this graveyard as each of us made our respective ways to the main campus, which is right across from the graveyard. You walk along side a fence which has graves practically kissing the iron bars. They are beautiful and ornate, old, and heartfelt. Full of character. Normally I wouldn't be so thrilled about this graveyard situation. At home, in Vancouver and the surrounding area at least, graveyards have such superficial characters. There's nothing unique about them, they are shiny and devoid of history. But, something I've found about Britain is that, everything has history. And thus the appeal of this graveyard, which I can see from outside my flat's window. It is my scenery.



Morbid? No, not really. Beth and I wandered the paths, and occassionally went somewhat off the paths to get to some of the more unique sites. We read what they said, and we apreciated the art, and the love, and the loss. It was nearly a tragic parody of poets on the wander. So very... Shelly.



But, it was a nice walk. After that we headed over to a party being held by my flat, just a small one with the people who lived there and Beth. We got to meet everyone, chatted about what we're all doing, got to know eachother, ate, drank, and eventually got into some very in-depth discussions about the music that we share/don't share.



Beth's right, my flat mates are all quite nice, a few in particulare... but... they are also kinda messy. There are a few in particulare that are making me begin to feel as if I live in a swimming pool. Something drastic may have to be done, because I refuse to CONTINUE mopping up after everyone.



The next day was a poker night with our new friend Simon (lol, poor kid never saw us coming). He has a poker set with the chips and cards and the like. I would like to say that, if we had been playing for money, I'd have cleaned them all out! I didn't mention that I'm decent at poker to the people at the table, but I am. Didn't want to talk myself up and turn out to be morbidly out of practice. As it stands we had pleanty of laughs, lots of practice, and ended up losing track of time and going to bed around one thirty in the morning.



But Beth has told you all this.



What I would like to share is the sheer fact that Leicester is so QUAINT. I mean this utterly. I mean it thoroughly. Everywhere I go is a house or a building that, at home, would be qualified as a heritage building. I've taken a few pictures now of things that British people would consider batty to take a picture of, but heaven help me it's just too cute.



So there it is. We are settled and having a blast, in a quiet, toned down manner.

Settling In

So we've been here for a while now and I'm happy to say that we're starting to settle in quite nicely. Our rooms are livable, with all the amenities we'll need for the next couple of months. We've located the grocery store and visited it a few times. We're beginning to think of things like meal planning. As you read, we've accomplished laundry.

The registration thing is still rediculous and we're still working out little kinks in our time tables. Susan just found out she has a conflict with two lectures, and I had a seminar conflict and need to track down my other seminar. We have some books to get us started. We've both picked up Middlemarch.

We're even starting to meet people. The people in my building are oddly ghost-like. I almost never run into them. There were a couple that I saw for the first time today. Very strange. I know all of Susan's flatmates though! They're very nice.

Last night I learned how to play Texas Hold'em. Woot poker. Now I really am a university student. We were playing for fake money and it was quite fun. It was Susan and I plus a couple of guys from her flat. It was nice. Today Susan and I went for a walk. We went through Victoria Park and made our way into the fringes of town and then came back. It was a nice brisk day and the walk was nice.

Overall we've kept things fairly low key, but that's okay because it's like we're establishing a liveable pace. Had Susan been less sick this past week we could have gone to all kinds of parties and pub nights and bar crawls and all kinds of things, but then we'd be broke and exhausted and we wouldn't be able to keep it up. So it's been nice.

Alex gets here soon and we're excited to meet up with him. I just wanted to do a little post to let y'all know that we're alive and well, and that we're pretty well... settled.

Suds

You know what I've never done on my own before? Laundry. You know what I did on my own... kinda... the other day? Laundry. You've all been wondering, don't deny it, how Bethany and I would get along sans mommies. Well, I can safely say that we're doing pretty well: we're fed--with healthy food, we're clothed--in clean clothes, and while our rooms may not be up to firecode standards, when have they ever been?

Yes mums and pops we're succeeding in existing quite well, quite frugally, on our own.

Of course, that doesn't mean that there haven't been shennanigans...

So, I've never done laundry, and do you know why? Why not laundry when I've successfully proven that I can do just about every other chore they throw at me? My mom, she likes doing laundry. She gets stressed, she does laundry. She can't sleep? She does laundry. As well, I've been told that I don't fold properly... pah. Me? Not fold things to standar? Never.

But, that's why I've never before done laundry. UNTIL RECENTLY. This Tuesday Beth and I trucked on down to the laundry room. We had previously sought it out, and spent some time looking through the nooks and crannys of Freeman's Common calling out softly "Laundry room, laundry room where are you?" But it would not reveal itself until such time as a very pixie like Asian girl showed it to use, darting and speeding around corners at speeds that we never thought we'd be able to keep up with. It felt vaugly like a quest in a Zelda game. But, we found it, and we were ever so happy. We didn't do laundry that day though, too sleepy, and I was too sick, and Beth was too unmotivated.

But, on came Tuesday and Beth was down to one outfit and no underwear. Unfortunate. So we found the laundry room, and little miss traveled Ireland and then came home to Leicester with limited resources was delighted to finally have the option of cleaning her clothes.

We sorted, and we paid the machines, and quite suddenly found ourselves stuck. We were both used to a liquid soap, and in a front loading (not top loading) laundry machine, where the heck do you put the soap? We found the flap on the top of the machine, and we read the instructions on the box and very quickly we were back on track.

Three machines full of just our clothing later (mostly hers) we were rolling... for thirty eight minutes. We didn't really feel like leaving the machines, so we looked around and came to the conclusion that, hey, the laundry room is the place to be. We're not kidding, there were two german boys, a german girl, a British guy, and later on, two more German girls... ok... maybe Germans just like hanging out in the laundry room.

Anyways, all this company, obviously, meant conversation. Socialisation in the laundry room. Unfortunately, the only person who could understand our rapid conversation was British boy. He started conversing with us when he realised what laundry dunces we were, mocked us, read his paper, we mocked him, continue and repeat as necessary.

It was actually quite fun, and boarded (in a way that boardering means completely was) on flirting. Beth and I had a great time harassing this poor kid, but he held his own in a way that only the British could against our awesome powers.

Interesting note--emergancy condom machine, tampon machine, and tylonal machine, all kept in the laundry room next to the folding table. Try folding a piece of lengerie next to the thing and not get mocked... oi.

So, we're doing just fine, we're starting to raise hell, and we have clean clothes sullied by shameless suds.

Registration Day

Before we were allowed to leave SFU we were forced to attend a lecture about culture shock. All right, I'm in England. My family is quite in tune with the culture of the UK. We knew what we were getting into. We're not exactly in Zimbabwe. We're not feeling culture shock. We're experiencing...

CULTURE BITCH

This mostly has to do with registration. Perhaps it is an unfair reflection of the British culture, but we feel the need to bitch. Because -- seriously??

We applied through SFU International. We filled out a lot of paper work. Really, we did. We picked out classes. We had them approved by advisors. We sent them to Leicester. Leicester said no, special topics can only be taken by Leicester students, so we had to pick from a comparetively lame list of only a couple of courses. Fine, whatever. We'd mostly come to terms with this, but were harbouring a hope that we could change that when we got here.

We get here. We have to go through an online registration process. Okay, fine. Then, then we get to the really annoying bit. We have to register with our department(s).

So to the English department it is. There is a specified time and place, we follow directions. There's a bit of a line, but not that many are in front of us. We're optimistic. We're in the line up for ALMOST TWO HOURS because they only take people in two at a time. They literally sit down and discuss it with you.

I'm going to take this moment to point out to those who don't know, that SFU does all this online in a perfectly civilized time efficient and convenient manner.

We get into the little room with the little advisors and are told that it's not that we're not allowed to take special topics, it's just that we can't take them. There are so few spots that they're always filled with Leiecester students. I kinda thought that by doing this exchange thing I am a Leicester student for this semester, but whatever. I ask when we'll know if there will be any spaces. There won't be, I'm assured. Fine. Growl. Moving on.

The reasonably friendly lady asks for a photo of me. "Uh... don't you have one? I've sent a tonne of photos to this school" Because I have. International kept saying to send them, so we kept sending them. Well no, apparently the department hasn't got one. We have to aquire those.

Then we get really annoyed. Because the next part of this registration shennanigans? We have to pay them ten pounds (approx $20.00) for a photocopying fee. Excuse me? I can take care of my own photocopying thank you (Susan: we did buy photocopy cards afterall). Somehow I doubt you're going to go through twenty bucks worth of photocopying on my behalf. And have you people never heard of the internet?? Because it's remarkably easy and cheap to send us information through that dandy online format. Seriously.

So we leave this rediculous office a little more than annoyed. We've now "registered" with the department, but do we have timetables? No. Have they told us what books to buy? No. Have they given us our library cards yet? No. Have we accomplished ANYTHING through this rediculously archaic ritual of registration? No.

Leaving the Attenborough building, we head back to the international office so they can at least give out library cards (well for Susan anyway... I got to repeat this rediculousness the next day with the History of Art department -- at least they didn't charge me money). International is at least able to give us some pictures of ourselves so we don't have to deal with that. The friendly lady there, in response to our frustration, assures us that it's the British way: they're a grumbly people and they feel obligated to give us something to grumble about. That, and they just really like to queue.

Well we were certainly grumbling. We were calling ourselves "The Huffy Canadians" -- you should have seen us in the elevator. We were huffing about the talking elevators and how at home we don't need to be told that the doors are opening et cetera. (Susan: oh yeah, and we ended up being the huffy Canadians because we relayed our annoyance to an elevator stuffed with people, I think I literally stomped my foot).

An entire day was devoted to this process. We still don't have a timetable. Classes still don't start until next week. We've at least mostly figured out what books we'll need, but are kinda unsure because at least one of the reading schedules literally looks impossible.

At home this whole thing would have been done in about fifteen minutes online. We'd have built our own schedules. We'd have registered ourselves. It all would have been nice. As it remains, it looks like I'm going to have a Friday class for the first time in my undergraduate career. Even that I could get over if the rest of the process hadn't been so... rediculous!!! (Susan: also, I was sick and in uncomfy shoes throughout this whole process)

And that, my friends, is the

CULTURE BITCH

Going, Going, Gone...

I'm SO not supposed to be writing this this early, but I really have no idea how much time the computer will suck me in tomorrow! Or if I'll have the energy or motivation to write. I'm waiting for laundry to dry right before I put things away in my luggage (yes at 3am) so now is perfect for my maiden blog journey!


Things have finally tied together! (yay!) I'm going to go to Bath right away when I get to England as it is more financially sensable to do so. Also Alex doesn't have classes on wednesday so I'll have someone to show me what this England place is all about! I'm quite excited as it'll guarentee I'll have a bed to sleep in! The only problem is that my train leaves at like 8:30... and I get in at 1:30... so 7 hours to toodle about! It'll only take me 20 minutes to get to Paddington so this will be interesting! Anyone know what's around Paddington station to check out? Meh if not I'll just crawl into some pub and look as non-touristy as possible!

I so had more to say... but I suppose that'll come my first post post-flight!

Love!
-Alex