So, I haven't written in a while -- Sorry about that! However, there are now many exciting things that I can share with you all. Yay! This is going to be pretty long, so I apologize in advance. If you actually finish reading it all, you get brownie points, lol!
This was our first weekend after settling down in Oxford, and as such, several of us took that opportunity to travel using our BritRail passes. Jenna and I woke up very early Saturday morning and -- backpacks in tow -- hopped a train to Cardiff, the capital of Wales. (Actually, it was several trains, but same thing, lol.) When we go to Cardiff Bay, I was pretty much in Doctor Who heaven! We took pictures in front of the Millennium Centre (AKA, on the rift) and visited the Doctor Who Exhibition where basically every third room I was like, "Ooo, Jenna, take a picture of me with --". As a museum, it wasn't that great, but for the sheer amount of Doctor Who-ness that was all collected in one place, I loved it! After another two trains to get us back to the City Centre, we wandered around downtown Cardiff for a bit (again, backpacks in tow. This is very important to the mental image that I want you to conjure up of our wandering.) and then popped into Cardiff Castle for about an hour. It was a very cute city. Not as clean as London, but much smaller, calmer... It was nice.
After another couple trains, we alighted at Chepstow, a small town on the border between England and Wales. When we got off, we wandered into this cafe to ask directions to Tintern Abbey. The girl behind the counter goes, "Oh, I'll just ring a taxi for you... [dials] Hey, Patrick. It's Jane. There are two girls here who want to go to the Abbey..." It cracked me up that she was on first name terms with the cab driver! However, he was great and got us to the abbey, which was breathtakingly beautiful. I'm not really sure that I have words to express how lovely it was, so I will spare you all any feeble attempt that I might make, save to say that it was totally worth it.
After the Abbey, we called Patrick up again and had him take us the Chepstow Castle. Ont he ride over, however, he told us that there is a little bridge about a half a block down from the castle that crosses the river which is the border between Wales and England. Of course this was an opportunity we could not pass up, so I have now been in Gloucester, England (my left foot) and Chepstow, Wales (my right foot) simultaneously!
That night, Jenna and I took two more trains and a bus, then finally arrived at our rooms in the University of Bath. I didn't know that one could stay in so many dorm rooms whilst traveling, but apparently it's pretty common practice (at least over here) to turn dorm rooms into hotel/hostel rooms for tourists during the summer. They weren't bad rooms, either. We shared a community bath, but we each had single rooms with a bed and desk, so it wasn't horrible or anything!
The next morning Jenna and I went to the parish communion service at Bath Abbey. That's like the non-touristy one, that all the people who just live in Bath attend, so everyone knew everyone else by name, etc. It was spectacular! The abbey is beautiful. It looks sort of like Canterbury on the inside (that same ornateness), but the stone used is much whiter, and the upper windows are all clear, so the whole thing was just flooded with light! I knew it was going to be a good service from the very start, because when the processional hymn started, no one knew the song. I mean, in a church full of probably about 200 people, I think maybe 5 were singing. About two stanzas into it, the priest signals to the organist to stop. Then he turns to the congregation and goes, "Ok, does anybody know this hymn? ... Right. Ok, I'm making the executive decision that we are skipping this one and jumping all the way to the recessional. That way by the time we get to it at the end of the service you all will be brilliant because you will have already sung it once this morning." Then we started completely over with a new hymn! It was fab, lol! But seriously, it was a very powerful service, and you could really tell that God is using the people of that church.
After mass, we went to the train station and met Amy and Kaitlyn who had come up for the day, then we all went around and hit up the major touristy sights in Bath (Jane Austen Centre, the Roman Baths, No. 1 Royal Crescent, the Assembly Rooms and Fashion Museum, etc.). We all lamented the fact that we actually have homework to do and can't just curl up with Northanger Abbey for the next few days, lol. Then a couple more trains (one of which was standing room only, ugh!) and back to Oxford. All-in-all it was a very, very fun weekend!
Today was spectacular as well! Classes in the morning, which was fine, but no big. Then, as I'm walking out of history, Meghan calls across Tom Quad to me, "Hey, Jennifer. Would you be interested in going punting this afternoon?" Um, YES!!!! So, at 2:30, Meghan, Ashley, Kylie, Micah, and I met Joe and Sam and three of the Oxford Experience people and went punting down the river Isis for a couple hours. It was magnificent! We had Pimms and Lemonade (I felt like such an Oxfordian. And it was really good, lol!) and sat in the boat gliding down the river. Our soundtrack was varied, and we listened to everything from "I'm on a Boat" to Hannah Montana. Somewhere near the middle, Joe pulled out his pocket Shakespeare and so we got some recitations from that, as well. The weather was beautiful, and the whole afternoon was just lovely. (I seem to be using that word a lot, but that is simply the best way to describe it.)
I think that's it for now. I just have one more thought that I guess I'll share, though make of it what you will. I kind of feel bad being waited on at meals and things or the fact that a scout comes in and makes my bed everyday while I'm in class. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's really, really nice! I think maybe I just read Gaudy Night a little too close to coming here -- I keep worrying that one of them is like a single mother whose husband died as a result of academic dishonesty and that he/she is really harboring all of these feelings of resentment toward me, lol. Yeah, this definitely is a result of reading too much fiction set in Oxford, lol...
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