Fun Colored Cows

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Hey Beautiful People!

So it's been about a week that I've been here in good ole Durham, UK. I must say that this is quite a beautiful city. So beautiful that I'm even considering apply to a graduate program at the university that I've been attending for the week. How wild would that be?? Right now I'm taking a break, listening to Tchaikovsky's Opus no. 37, and writing to y'all. So to prevent this from being painfully long and overloading you and myself on information this is going to be divided into two parts, see I'm thinking of you. Oh yea, feel the love 😱

We got here on Sunday afternoon after spending part of the day at the beach, which was soooo lovely. Durham is kind of quite and very hilly. The streets are narrow, some are cobble stoned and totally kill my feet. It can be slightly brutal with sneakers. We each got out packets and room keys to our dorms which are called staircases here. The "straircases" are narrow three story building but similar to a row of apartments and each floor has 4 singles and a bathroom. The rooms are big and painted yellow. It has a sink, which has been nice. The little bed has blue bedding, which made me happy (bet you can guess why 😱). But because the room is a pale yellow it's very cheerful, unlike the drab white walls of my previous dorm rooms. So I haven't felt like a prisoner which is great for my personal morale. Our professor at Oxford, Dr. Dormer took us on a short walking tour of the city and we got our first glimpse at Durham Cathedral. Needless to say, you should believe the hype (more about that later though). It's weird because everything shuts down at 5:30pm. So unless you're going pubbing you should find something else to do with your life.

Monday was awesome. We had our morning lecture with Dr. Lomas, who by the way is the cutest old British guy ever. In life. And he's one of those people that just knows a lot, he's a historian and his humor is dry and slightly sarcastic. I love it. We visited Hadrians wall, which I was so excited for. I was totally not disappointed. It was a tall boundary built by the Emperor Hadrian (cool name right?). So we took pictures by and on top of it, which we were apparently not supposed to do. Whoops. We also saw the Roman Vandala which is like the ruins of a military compound and museum. The Mithrium and Covantina's well (which was no longer there) we really cool. These were outside of the gates of the Vadala and dedicated to the Persian sun god Mithras and Conventina, a water nymph. You should read about it. Great stories.
We had to totally walk through a field of cows to get to the Mithriam so I was face to face with Bessie and her homies praying that I wouldn't get trampled. One of my friends, however, did get headbutted by a cow. Too real for me. Here's a quick story to illustrate the outrageousness of Dr. Lomas: We were in the museum looking at all kinds of stone alters and sculptures to the Roman gods and he points out a phallic stone piece. He says something to the effect of, "Well, isn't that naughty" LMBO, too much for my heart!! I love it. Needless to say, that made my day.

Tuesday we went to Bamburgh and Lindisfarne. Bamburgh castle was the capital of the kingdom of Northumbrian and Lindisfarne was the religious epicenter (also the place where the Lindisfarne Gospels were written). This was all built in a triangle with another island called Innerfarne (original right?). Lindisfarne was where the monastery was and Innerfarne was the spot where St. Cuthbert was trying to do the hermit thing. It's interesting because the two islands are semi inaccessible. During high tide some of the island is submerged under water. Cool right? Right. Stay tuned the second installment of Sharde's Durham Chronicles are on the way.

Peace and Blessings,

~SC

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