Early to bed, early to rise, makes for bad business sense.

Today was a long day. A very long day. We set off for Warwick castle at 9. I still don't know when we got there, but we explored the castle for a few hours, and it was all pretty cool. The history of Warwick is really colourful and full of a lot of blood and political intrigue. For that reason they also had a dungeon display, which was alright. More cheap thrills than anything substantive. The castle itself was really cool, though, and the view from the top was worth the major climb it took to get there, even though some of the others might disagree. Joe and Bernice certainly didn't enjoy the heights...

From there we were off to Stratford-upon-Avon, which is where essentially everything Shakespeare happened. We toured Anne Hathaway's cottage and Hall's Croft, the former of which was more interesting simply for some of the pictures I got while walking the forest around the cottage. Then we toured the house where Shakespeare was born, which was far more interesting, for me at least.

After a good dinner at a cafe in Stratford, and a general lament of the fact that nearly everything in England closes by 5-6, we went to see The Winter's Tale in an indoor-Globe experiment that wennt pretty well. It's a tourist area..and yet all the restaurants and shops were closing by 5:30, and were all closed by 6. It seems to me that they could make a fair bit more money by having hours better than 10-5. That's not even a full business day! As for the theatre...the seats were more comfortable than the original Globe, and there was no chance of rain or bad weather while at the play. Right now, however, I am very tired, and lectures continue in the morning. Have a lot to do after we get done there, so I'm off to bed.

Students, Townies, and Oxford

The Purple Turtle has come to represent so many great things in my life here now. It's the Oxford Union's club, and it's not bad. Now, I must issue a disclaimer here: British people can't dance, and that kind of detracts from the club atmosphere. Also, British people don't really know, due to the fact that they don't know how to dance, what kind of music should be played to be danced to. Therefore, we end up with a bunch of people swaying slowly to "Eye of the Tiger". Yeah. that wasn't even close to the worst dancing song they played. Also! British people like to ruin American songs, apparently. I don't know how many chipmunked versions of good songs I heard tonight, but it wasn't cool at all.

Aside from all this, our trip is finally reaching the most interesting point. People are now getting tired of each other! I know that for normal people this might not sound so cool, but for me, it's great. At the beginning of any new situation where a bunch of people are thrown helter-skelter into a new place, everyone tries to get along. Everyone makes friends, and everyone likes each other for a while(kinda, exceptions are always made). But now we're finally onto the point where people aren't "new" anymore, and therefore less interesting, and therefore cut less slack. Now we've been friends for a while, and nerves are grinding, and anger is flying. this might sound uncool, but I absolutely thrive in this kind of situation. I'd never be able to explain it completely, but I love this kind of drama; there's nothing greater.

In other news, we toured Kelmscott Manor on Friday. This is the Manor that William Morris and his family owned for many a year, whiched contained a lot of great art and architecture. Rosetti also housed here for a while, who apparently had quite a number of flings with Mrs. Morris while William was off to Iceland and such places, though our tour guide failed to mention this to us.

Thursday we toured Oxford with a focus on Shakespeare, and saw, among other things, the fountain where his (probable) illigitimate son was christened. We also saw a room in which he oftened stayed in his travels, and two courtyards where early productions of Hamlet and Othello would have been performed, on of which still contained the original pub which was still in service.

Wednesday, as I mentioned before, we headed to The Globe to see Shakespeare's As You Like It. It was great, even when it was raining. Surprisingly, the entire play ended with a big rendition of the closing dance from Slumdog Millionaire, which I apparently really need to see now. The play was cool too.

Uhmmm...I'm going to bed. We have tea tomorrow with the Warners, who I should devote an entire post to at some point. I'm going to need to look sharp. Beauty rest!

Work Ethic

Okay, I promise to:
1. Post pictures.
2. Say important things.
3. Actually inform people that I have a blog.

Aside from that....we went on a pretty cool tour today. After a lecture on Pre-Raphaelite Art, which is pretty awesome, we toured a lot of it in Oxford. Rosetti, Morris, Holman Hunt, and Millais are all over this place. My favourite was definitely Hunt's, though, with The Light of the World. So much symbology and expression in that painting, it was awesome. A lot of architecture, both medeival and pre-raphaelite, is around Oxford too. Not to mention classical...but blegh. This city is home to the roots of so many cultural, spiritual and artistic movements.

Heading to the Globe Theatre tomorrow to see Shakespeare's As You Like It, should be pretty fun. Then on Thursday we have a tour of Oxford with a focus on Shakespeare... There's a lot to do, and it will involve a loooot of walking. Looking forward to it!

Alright, so we're closing in on a week of being in England, and I think we've mostly gotten our routine down. We've located a number of local pubs, cheap places to eat, cheap places to stock up on groceries and, of course, McDonalds. Though, over here even the fast food restaurants are more sophisticated. Last night was our first clubbing experience(sort of), and it didn't go quite like we'd expected. Due to the 6 pound cover charge, half of us opted for a nearby (free) bar instead.

Yesterday during the day we saw Hampton Court Palace. I really wish I could post picture from it, but as I forgot my camera, that's quite impossible. I'll have a lot of chances to take pictures in the future, though, so hopefully I'll be able to make up for it.

I still need to finish unpacking...

First Post

Alright, so this is just a post to show that I set up the blog and that I am actually here and alive. I'll start from my first day later, since right now it's almost midnight and I've got to get up early tomorrow. Started lectures today! Barely managed to stay awake, though, so it's time to go to bed...