njmontes

I have a feeling that Switzerland is going to be my favorite place we visit the whole trip. After driving all day from Paris we finally arrived in the evening in the tiny village a few miles north of Interlocken called Lauterbrunnen. The village was nested in a mountain valley and at the end of the valley you could see the snow capped mountains that made up the northern edge of the Swiss Alps. In addition there are hundreds of waterfalls coming down from the mountain, the whole thing was so picturesque. The next day was a free day with several optional activities including sky diving and taking a train up one of the mountains called Jungfrau. Since the Swiss Frank (their currency) is so strong, skydiving would have been about $400, so I opted to ... read more

After a long day of driving through the swiss alps and taking a brief short cut through Italy, we finally arrived at the seaside city of Nice in the French Riviera. Apparently its a very popular place for celebrities to vacation or build second houses. After unpacking our things, we had dinner as a group at a French restaurant. Predictably the food was very good. We then headed over to the historic part of the city and went to a place called Wayne's Bar, where they had live music. The cover band was actually really good which made the night that much better. Eventually we were all really hot, even though it was night time, and decided to head over to the beach for a late night dip. Unfortunately, Nice doesn't have a sandy beach, its ... read more

Tuesday morning we departed from London by bus heading towards Dover. We got to see a spectacular view of the White Cliffs of Dover as we took a ferry across the English Channel to Calais, France. Once in France, we spent the rest of the afternoon driving to Paris, arriving around 6 pm. We then went out to dinner where I tried some French cuisine, including escargot (snail). After dinner we took a bus tour around the city and got to see the Eiffel Tower lit up at night, its not wonder why they call Paris the City of Lights. The next day, Wednesday was a free day, meaning we could do whatever we wanted. A group of us got up early and took the metro into the city (our hotel was kind of on the ... read more

For some reason I found the prospect of being in London by myself for two days to be pretty intimidating, even though I had already done it before my trip. So yesterday i decided to go back to Oxford. I just wasn't ready to leave. I visited all my favorite locations and also took a long walk north of town to visit Wolvercote Cemetery, where J.R.R. Tolkien is buried. That took the better part of the day. I caught a bus back to London and pretty much crashed when I got to my hostel. Today I decided to brave London. I walked a lot because I didn't want to pay to use the Underground. Anyway, I spent the entire day looking at the Imperial War Museum, which covered the UK's involvement in wars since 1914 (the ... read more

Alas, despite my best efforts, St Peter's College Summer School came to an end today. It has been bitter sweet. Given that we only had five weeks here, I feel like everything was super accelerated and before we knew it, it was over. I really made some good friends while I was here and saying goodbye was very difficult. Fortunately quite a few of the kids go to Michigan and others have already talked about visiting over fall break. I really do hope we stay in touch. This truly has been a wonderful experience, I've been so blessed to be here and for that I am very grateful. During our final fairway dinner, I was asked to say a few words of thanks to our programme director, and my tutor, Dr Addison on behalf of all ... read more

THis one is a little brief but oh well, I realize its been awhile since I've posted anything. Things have been really great around here, although we've all been busy finishing up our final papers and projects. We did a few fun things the past two weeks including going to the top of Magdalen Tower, having dinner and the Eagle and Child (Tolkien and Lewis's favorite pub) as well as taking a day trip to the Roman city of Bath. While we've been having a good time, I feel everyone has been in denial of how quickly this program is coming to a close. ... read more

As I mentioned in my last entry, last weekend a group of about twenty of us went on an excursion through Wales. Basically we drove all across the country in a charter bus, seeing some truly amazing sights. I'll try to break it down by day, just so it doesn't get too confusing. Day 1- We departed Oxford at 0830 and headed south towards Avebury. Our first stop was less than thrilling, as we looked at some grey rocks that were in the middle of some field. We stepped it up however when we finally arrived in Avebury where we saw the largest stone circle in Britain (think stonehenge), a towering Bronze Age monument called Silbury Hill and we even got to go inside an old Stone Age burial mound. Later that day we went to ... read more

Just wanted to give everyone a heads up. All is well here, I'm still having a great time and was really sad when I realized our program ends in less than 2 weeks. I just got back from a four day trip around Wales which I will describe later this week in great detail. I'm pretty busy at the moment working on a paper, but I just wanted everyone to know I'm still doing well. More to come... read more

This past week was for several reasons. First off, after having tried quite a few different pubs around town, all of which were great, on Wednesday night I went to one that absolutely topped the rest. This place is called the Half Moon and it's on the less crowded east side of the city. This is where most of the college students and locals hang out and while they still get a bit touristy, they aren't as bad as the ones in the city center. Anyway this pub was so cool. Actually, it is probably better described as a inn/tavern than a pub, because it wasn't quite as nice as some of the other pubs we've seen. Apparently its actually an Irish pub, which explains why the bartender had an Irish accent, which after being here ... read more

As I mentioned in my last entry, we saw MacBeth Tuesday night performed by the Royal Shakespeare Club. Even though I had never seen nor read the play and didn't always exactly know what was going on, I still really enjoyed it. I then went home and stayed up until 3 am to finish my first paper, fun stuff. This morning I felt like death when I woke up, I think its mostly form lack of sleep and the weather change so I'm not too worried. Anyway I had an idea earlier that I though might make for an interesting entry. Things You Will Find in England Versus Things You Will Not Find in England... In England you will find... -Bicycles - I was really surprised by how many people bike, even people in their business ... read more