My "Boyfriends"

For some time now, I've had boyfriends" for different genres. For example:

• Movie boyfriend: Daniel Craig

• TV boyfriend: David Tennant

These two boyfriends were chosen because of their sexy hotness. However, a recent talk with a friend of mine has inspired me to widen both my genres and specifications. So I now have a poet boyfriend: Robert Browning. Yes, he's been dead for more than a century, but he wrote some really awesome poetry. How can you not like "My Last Duchess"? My novel boyfriend would be Mr. Darcy--well, because he's Mr. Darcy. Anyone who's read Pride and Prejudice would understand this. I think my options with this are endless. It's fun, and much less work than an actual relationship.

Downward to the depths of London

Deborah and I had a great time while she was here. We saw Equus (and now I can never think of the Harry Potter films in quite the same way), rode the London Eye, took a day trip to Bath, and went to an excessive number of museums. We spent so much time travelling on the tube that I definitely feel like a London subway pro. Some of the tube stations in London are quite old, dating back a century, and for some reason I found this incredibly fascinating (I still do actually; I'm totally going to the London Transport Museum the next time I go to London). I would get very excited when we found an old one. My absolute favorite was the Russell Square station, seen here.
At Russell Square, the trains apparently go and come far far under the ground. There is a sign at the top of the stairs directing passengers to the trains and under that is a small note informing you that these trains do their going and coming exactly 175 stairs underneath you. Since the queue at the lift was pretty long, Deborah and I decide to brave the stairs. These stairs are like a long spiral staircase to the depths of hell with periodic, but very picturesque tile signs, informing you that you are in fact approaching the train platform.
After what seemed to me that we had been walking since time began, we met a woman coming up the stairs. She was very out of breath, and she pitifully asks us if it's too terribly much farther to the top. We gave her some encouraging words and Deborah congratulated her on her fortitude for braving the stairs on the way up (and in high heels no less). But really, that staircase went on and on in a never ending downward spiral. I felt like I was in some sort of really bad Beckett play a la Waiting for Godot. But at last we (finally!) made it too the bottom and hopped a train back to the hotel.
The next evening we were at the Covent Garden stop, yet another really cool old station with yet another spiral staircase which the sign helpfully informed us was 193 steps long. Needless to say, we took the lift.
A week full of fun-ness in London and a staircase in a London tube station is my favorite anecdote.

The Universe really really hates me now.

I haven't posted anything lately because I haven't done anything terribly interesting. I've been pretty sick the last two weeks. I've been stuck in my room for days, so the most exciting thing I've done is read Lady Audley's Secret and swoon over Paul Bettany in Wimbledon.
Unfortunately I had a relapse of some sort today, so I'm starting to get sick all over again. I've made numerous pitiful phone calls to my mother, who is a saint to listen to me whine and complain about how much my throat hurts. I'm trying to look on the bright side though. Being stuck in my room so much means that when I'm awake I can get lots of reading done. I figure I can get quite a bit of my reading done well before my classes next week. And my mom is always there to listen to my pitiful complaints. It's always nice to have a sympathetic ear, especially when I'm so far away from home.

Far Away From the Comforts of Home

Well, I've had another English adventure today, but not one that I particularly wanted to have--the National Health Service. That's right, I've been sick. So this morning, when my throat was so sore it made me cry (literally), I decided it might be time to see a doctor. He confirmed that I am in fact sick, and then proceeded to tell me there was really nothing he could do for my throat beyond giving me a spray that will numb it long enough for me to eat.
I hate being sick in a different country. It makes me feel so small and far away from home. Everything seems even more unfamiliar and foreign and what I'm wanting right now is familiarity (and a cough lozenge that isn't black currant flavored).

Stonehenge! Salisbury!

I can say I've been to Stonehenge now. It's smaller than I thought it would be, but it's 4500 years old, so who cares how small it is; it's 4500 years old. How many of us can say we've seen man made structures that were made four millenia ago? Probably not many. In Texas, there aren't many buildings more than 200 years old. It pales in comparison to millenia.
Anyway, you get the picture. Stonehenge is really old, and it's a huge tourist trap. There were people everywhere. In the movies you always see it as some solitary figure on the Salisbury plain with absolutely nothing around it. You don't see the gift shop (which includes such wares as a Stonehenge Rocks t-shirt, Stonehenge Socks, and the ever popular Stonehenge decorative spoons. I totally bought the Stonehenge socks, and I'll sport them proudly), the large car park, and snack bar.

Then we moved onto Salisbury, site of the Salisbury Cathedral. It's 800 years old and possesses one of the four original copies of the Magna Carta, which is also about 800 years old. The cathedral is absolutely awe-inspiring. It's massive and it sports one of the tallest church spires in the United Kingdom. And I was lucky enough to climb to the top of the spire because we roped a guide into taking us up to the top. I climbed a lot of really tiny spiral staircases. It's a miracle I didn't trip and fall. And I saw some thirteenth century wood and two hundred year old graffitti. It was pretty awesome. But when we got to the top and went outside on the balcony, the view was breath-taking. That's all I need to say. The view speaks for itself.

A little bit of culture

I travelled to London on Thursday to see Patrick Stewart perform in Antony and Cleopatra. It was one of those Oh my God moments. He was amazing, and I don't just say that because I'm a huge trekkie. I did have a trekkie moment at the beginning of the play when I marvelled at being in the same room as the man who played Captain Picard. I mean I couldn't divorce myself completely, I've loved Star Trek for way too long. It really was a dream come true for me to see him perform.

Everyone in the play was incredible though, so--no suprise--it was a production of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Antony and Cleopatra is part of the Complete Works festival they've been holding for the last year (I bet their staging of Titus Andronicus was really cool). I've been gushing about this for the past three days. I can't say enough how amazing it was, as anyone I've talked to since Thursday has seen full well. It is by far, my favorite England experience.

And who am I kidding--it wouldn't have been nearly as exciting without Patrick Stewart. I'm such a trekkie nerd. I'm going next month to see him as Prospero in The Tempest. We're also travelling to Stratford to see Ian Mckellan as King Lear. I bet that will be a really really great performance.

Feel free to be jealous of me now.

It's Bath! Aren't you Excited?

Well you should be excited. I went camera crazy in Bath. I took 116 pictures, so if you'd like to relive the entire experience in minute detail, I'll be happy to show you all 116 of them when I get back to the states. Here's a few, and I'm going to post as many as I can on flickr. Here's the link if you want to see more pics--I did manage to take quite a few really good ones as well : http://www.flickr.com/photos/barbi7/

First we went to the Roman Baths. Looking back at my pictures, I seemed to have been fascinated with odd bits of brick. It probably had some sort of significance when I was actually taking the picture, but what that was is lost to me now. The water actually bubbles--apparently it's some reaction to underground gas or something like that. There I am in my requisite red coat at the Baths--every picture from England that I've been in I've been wearing that red coat. I'll be really glad when it's warm and I don't have to wear it any more. Next, we went to the Bath Abbey. We were particularly happy to go there because it was free, although I did leave a small donation to help with the church's upkeep. Besides, the volunteer at the front desk was really the nicest man. There are tombs and memorial plaques everywhere, and I saw one dated as early as 1683. It was cool just to bask in the historical oldness of it all.
Here's a picture of the Abbey I took right before we left to return to Leicester, one of my better efforts if I do say so myself. We went to an evensong service that evening, and it was really beautiful--very calming and majestic. I wish you all could have heard it.
Of course, we had to take a tea break and where better than a place with a clever name--they serve really good tea too. So if you're ever in Bath, and you want a pot of tea, I recommend the house blend. Yummy.
And just because I had to throw in something really weird--and there's not much stranger than two men on really tall unicycles wearing hot pink tutus and holding torches (they juggled those torches as their big finale). This street show was truly one of the high points of my trip to Bath. I haven't laughed that much in a really long time.