A Week of Brooksiness!

Oh my goodness, so I apologize profusely for the length of time that I have gone without posting on this blog. Things have been quite busy... I am currently sitting in First Class on a train to Edinburgh for the weekend, which should be quite exciting. Then on Monday we have finals, and on Thursday, I leave for Texas... I'm very depressed about it, lol. England is so amazing, and Oxford is so wonderful... ugh. Anyway, I'll stop whining now, and attempt to give you a recap of the past few days.

On Thursday we headed to Paris, where I got to meet up with Tyler and spend the whole weekend having one big Brooks reunion, lol. The first night we got some picnic stuff and had dinner on the lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower; I also got to meet some of Tyler's EF friends before they left for the summer. We were there until almost midnight, which meant that Tyler almost missed the last Metro out to his house in the boondocks. Everything worked out, though, lol.

The next morning, the Baylor groups (all like 100 of us -- we met up with the Baylor in Great Britain group, which is huge...) went to the top of the Eiffel Tower, then while everyone else went to Versailles, I headed off to the Musee de Cluny -- the medieval museum in Paris. It was so much fun! I wasn't always sure of what was going on in the exhibits, because most of it was only in French, but I feel like my prior knowledge of medieval topics got me through it alright. There were some really cool pieces in the museum, including a horn that totally reminded me of Chanson de Roland, a manuscript of Aquinas's City of God, and The Unicorn tapestries. The tapestries were especially neat -- I think I spent a good half hour in that room alone, lol. After the museum, I wandered around for a while, and ended up having lunch at a little cafe across from the Luxembourg Gardens. Again, everything was in French, so I sort of just picked something randomly and hoped it would turn out to be good. It was, lol! Then I walked over to the Ile de Cite and met Tyler to go through Sainte Chapelle and the Conciergerie. Sainte Chapelle was probably the most beautiful church we've been to thusfar, which is saying something, because we've been to a lot of churches. It was built by St. Louis as a reliquary to house the true crown of thorns, and the whole thing is covered in stained glass and repainted to give an idea of how it would have looked in the middle ages. We also wandered around the Latin Quarter for a while, and visited "Shakespeare and Co.," an English bookstore/haven for aspiring writers. It was really neat! That night, we met Kylie, Meghan, Ashley, Micah, Jenna, and Kaitlyn for a repeat picnic under the Eiffel Tower. Micha, Jenna, and Kaitlyn left pretty early, but the rest of us stayed out there for quite a while. Omg, best night of my life! ... So, there's that....

The next morning, the five of us went out to Sainte Denis, the prototype Gothic cathedral, designed by Abbot Suger. It was very exciting to be there, after having read so much about it in Master Works. Tyler and I spent like three hours looking at everything, much to the chagrin of the other girls, I am sure, lol. That afternoon, we split up, and Tyler and I went to the Opera Garnier (the inspiration for the Phantom of the Opera). It was so beautiful, but we were both so tired that we kept getting confused about what was a hallway and what was a mirror, which proved to be quite humorous. We also went to Cafe de Flore, which was Picasso's favorite cafe, and had purely intellectual conversation and the best hot chocolate of my life! That night we all just chilled at the hotel in Meghan and Kylie's room... had story-telling time, etc. Apparently there were even some Dane Cook recitations after I left for my own room, lol.

Sunday morning, we dropped by the Pompidou Centre and took pictures out front. Then we had to catch the Eurostar back to London. All-in-all, it was a very exciting trip. That night Ashley and I hung out in Meghan and Kylie's room with several guys from Oxford. I added a couple more experiences to the list of things that probably should have happened in middle school, but
I'm just now getting around to at 20, lol. In short, however, it was another fun night.

This week has been pretty chill. Just staying in Oxford, taking classes, enjoying the awesomeness that is the city of dreaming spires. Even though I love all the traveling, I think I like the times when we are in Oxford the best. It's very relaxing just to go to class in the morning, wander around the city in the afternoon, have dinner in the Great Hall in the evening, and go out at night. I'm gonna miss this all so, so much... On Wednesday, we learned about Dylan Thomas and the villanelle in Brit Lit. We each had to write one, and I wrote mine on our visit to Sainte Denis. I will include it here, but feel free to skip it, as I am definitely not a poet, lol:

We saw the church of Sainte Denis that day.
First thing we did was to take jumping pics,
So much to view, three hours was our stay.

There was no service as 'twas not Sunday,
Thus tourists filled the air with camera clicks.
We saw the church of Sainte Denis that day.

Down on the ground upon our backs we lay
To view the ceiling's architectural tricks.
So much to view, three hours was our stay.

The robes of kings were also on display,
So coins were thrown through glass with several flicks.
We saw the church of Sainte Denis that day.

In tombs the French Capetian royalty lay,
So old that many of the tombs had nicks.
So much to view, three hours was our stay.

Then Tyler broke a column he did say.
We hope 'tis not too difficult to fix.
We saw the church of Sainte Denis that day.
So much to view, three hours was our stay.

So, there you go, lol.

Wednesday afternoon, I went over to Regent's Park College and babysat Zachary. I wasn't quite sure what to expect going into Regent's, because I had heard that I would be vastly disappointed after living at Christ Church, but that was not the case at all. Yes, it is much smaller, and one can tell that it is not one of the richer colleges in Oxford, but on the whole it seems much cozier, like people actually live there and can feel like it's their home. As opposed to Christ Church, you're allowed to walk (or in Zach's case, run around like crazy) on the grass in the quad, so we had a really fun time doing that. We even found the college's mascot, a forty-year old turtle named Emmanuelle -- I think I might have been more excited that Zachary, lol! While we were playing on the quad, we ran into a couple who actually graduated from Baylor, and he's now finishing up his PhD in Philosophy at Regent's. I'm not sure why, but there's something terribly familiar and refreshing about sitting under a tree half way around the world and discussing the relative quality (or lack thereof) of Penland cafeteria with a perfect stranger...

So this post ended up being way long. If you actually read it all, you are my new favorite person in the world, lol! I'll probably post again when we're back from Scotland. Bye!