British Adventure Part 1

My trip to Britain got off to a bumpy start. Due to storms in Madrid and London, my flight came in about two hours late, and I didn't get to Hatfield until about 1:00 AM. I was glad to find Tim at the train station, and the two of us went home and crashed. The next morning, we got up and Tim made me a full English breakfast, which turns out to be almost exactly like breakfast at IHOP. Yum.

After Tim got back from class, we had some tea and crumpets and took a bus over to St. Albans, a nearby town. It's a cute little place, full of half-timbered buildings and a nice clock tower. We visited the St. Albans museum, where I learned about everyday English life from Medieval times up to today. We then headed over to the cathedral, which was really pretty spectacular, even as cathedrals go. I especially liked how it was situated on its own grounds instead of surrounded by other buildings; it made it seem even bigger than it was. Near the cathedral, one finds Verulamium Park, so named for the Roman city that used to be there. You can still see a bit of the walls, but it started raining pretty hard, so we didn't explore too much.

To get out of the rain, we stopped into Ye Olde Fighting Cocks Inn, which holds the Guinness World Record for oldest pub in England. Whether it's the oldest or not, it is a very nice place: low, cozy ceilings, a crackling fire, and lots of comical artwork on the walls. Tim got a Guinness and we sat for quite a while just enjoying the atmosphere and the dryness. When we left the pub, we decided to go home, although I did do a bit of Christmas shopping before we took the bus back.

Something odd about Britain: the sun sets at 3:45! Ugh!! I don't know why anyone decided it was a good place to settle, but I couldn't live with so little sunlight.

The next day, we got up early and headed to the train station, only to find that we would save a ton of money if we waited an hour and a half to go. British train schedules are funny that way. So, while we waited, we wandered around Old Hatfield. We found out that apparently Elizabeth I was living there when she found out she would be queen, and that's kind of neat. We also found a pretty church with an old churchyard. It was a little sad; people used to die really young.

When we got to Oxford, it was just about lunchtime, so we stopped at a park by the river and ate our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies! :-)

Oxford is absolutely gorgeous. I would love to go to school there (provided their sunset was later than 3:45). The town seems to be composed of about 45% colleges and 45% churches, with a few markets and pubs sprinkled in. First we wandered around town, admiring the "dreaming spires" it's famous for, and then we headed over to Christ Church college and cathedral. The cathedral was nice, but I'll admit that my favorite part was, as per usual, the grounds. Lovely grass. Just lovely. Also, we learned that many scenes from Harry Potter were shot in the college (yay Harry Potter!), and that Lewis Carroll worked there (Alice was the Dean's daughter).

After we got tired of looking at colleges, Tim and I grabbed a Cornish pasty (pronounced PAST ee, not PASTE ee, like what I thought). I do not understand why people think British food is bad. It was delicious.

As we were walking down a road, Tim noticed a giant sign that said STEAMPUNK. This was fortuitous. The Oxford science museum was housing the first-ever Steampunk Art exhibit, which was probably the coolest thing I saw in Oxford. For those of you who don't know, Steampunk is a cultural movement that adds a Victorian twist to futuristic technology. In art, this means some very interesting combinations.

The last stop on our agenda was the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford's art museum. They had quite a lot of neat Egyptian art, including all four layers of a mummy/sarcophagus. We walked around until we were too tired to think about any more art, and then headed home on the train. It was an excellent day.