Saturday in Oxford and Sunday in London

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Hi Everyone!! Sorry I didn't post yesterday... it was a very long day and we got back late and there's a lot to tell.... so this entry will be a long one!!!
Anyways, yesterday we made a day trip to Oxford. We left bright and early (well, barely bright!!)... we left home at 5:20 and our bus left at 6 am sharp. Had a little trouble finding the station, but we made it just in time to catch the bus! We all slept the whole way there and got to Oxford at about 7:45. Nothing really opens until 8:30/9ish there, so first we got some coffee and then walked around to familiarize ourselves with the area before it got too busy. The Covered Market there opened at about 8:30, so we headed there first. There were some neat shops... cookies, cakes, ice cream, fruits, veggies, jewelry, clothes... all kinds of stuff! Oh, and the nice smell of fish... ick. When we passed that part we all plugged our noses and made some disgusted sounds and the man working there said "it's a lovely smell!!" haha. After the market we went to the St. Mary of the Virgin Church which was absolutely beautiful. After being in the church itself, we went up to the tower of it (which had to be about 1,000 steps) and saw an amazing view that overlooked all of Oxford. It was incredible. You could see all of the buildings and churches and towers along with the green countryside and rolling hills.
We passed a few other well-known sites of Oxford upon leaving the church, including Radcliffe Camera, Sheldonian Theatre, and Boldleian Library.
Our next stop was intended to be the well-known Oxford University. We were hoping to see the campus, a few of the cool buildings, maybe some of the students, and the like. However, it turns out that Oxford University is not just 1 school like a university is in the US-- it actually consists of several colleges which are throughout Oxford!! So that was an interesting tidbit to learn! We went and passed a few of the colleges and then we went into Christ Church and College. It was absolutely beautiful!!! The entrance had lots of flowers and gardens-- a part of it reminded me of the door in the "Secret Garden". The church and college were in these enormous, historic buildings that made a square around a quadrangle. We went into White Hall, which for all you Harry Potter fans was where part of that movie was filmed, and then went into the Dining Hall, of which some of the characters from "Alice in Wonderland" could be seen in the stained glass (the author of the book, Lewis Carroll, was actually a teacher of Mathematics at Christ College and wrote some of the book there). The Cathedral there was beautiful as well-- all of it is just so ancient but so well kept-- and the stained glass there was soo cool!!!
Once we we were done with that we ate our lunches that we made while we walked over to the Museum of Oxford, which was basically a lot of history about the town itself that I found to be very interesting. Then we walked down to Oxford Castle which, even before entering was a lot of fun!! There was plenty of entertainment outside of it-- we got to play with some real swords and a man taught us how to swing them-- it was pretty fun!!! Then we tried on some very heavy knight helmets (you could even see my eyes through it-ha!) and went on to do a few more fun things along the road. Going into the Castle was awesome, too. We managed to get another great view of Oxford at the top and after some of the rooms in the castle we were able to see a room that had a lot of interactive things-- we took "mug shots", sat on a prison bed, etc. etc.! After the castle we went to get some dinner. That was quite interesting too. It was a pizza/salad place and I was hungry for a salad because if you know me, you know I like salads. It was under the entree category and I even asked the waitress if it was a good size. She said yes. I believed her. She lied. It was more like a chopped up tomato and red pepper with a little feta cheese. At least I got some garlic bread with it. Anyways, didn't really fill me up, and for 7.50 GBP (that's $15.00), I came to the decision of never ordering a salad in the UK again! My friend ordered one too, and let me tell you, we were more ready than ever for dessert--we saw that as more of our main course!! We went to this place with homemade cookies-- they were sooo delicious!! They were warm and big and not like any I had had before. And since we got there right before close, the man gave us each 2 for the price of 1! So I guess dinner sort of ended on a good note!!
After a full day, we did a little shopping and since our bus wasn't leaving until 8 pm and everything closes at about 6 pm (I don't know what we were thinking planning such a long day!!), we found a place to sit and people watch and actually had a ton of fun!!! We were a little bit loopy from being up for so long and on our feet all day, so we were very giggly and laughed at about everything. We also saw 2 guys playing soccer who were REALLY good-- they were doing all of these awesome tricks and hitting the ball around-- Meg and Mitch you would've loved it!!! Then, we saw a group of young boys who had gotten a balloon stuck up in a tree. They were trying to hoist each other up to get it and it was very amusing to us!! When they realized we were taking pictures they said in their cute little accents, "look, they are taking pictures of us!!" and I think that we embarassed them a little bit!! We couldn't help it--they were so cute and it was sooo funny... we HAD to take a picture!!! My friend also was determined to kick a pigeon-- don't ask me why. But she did manage to do so and I think we even got a few looks. Yeah, it was a long day. haha.
Finally we got on a bus home and got back around 10 pm and we all pretty much passed out as soon as we got back. It was a very fun and packed day!!
Today I kept busy as well. Got up early and went to the Imperial War Museum. It was quite an experience. There were many exhibitions about the 1st and 2nd World Wars along with a special exhibit for D-Day and a whole floor devoted to the Holocaust. There were also tanks, submarines, and other weapons. There was also an exhibit about conflicts since 1945. It was a very somber thing to see. I know that the US was deeply affected by the World Wars, but there was so much more of a direct affect here in Britain and many of the pictures were more graphic than I had seen before. However, I thought it was a really good thing to see and I felt as though I learned a lot from it.
Once I left the museum, I went to Leicester Square and met up with my roommate/good friend from Iowa, Kara, and we went to the West End Concerts Live-- which was basically a bunch of broadway shows performing different numbers from their shows. When we got there some weird Chinese Show was doing an act, that a lady behind us got a big kick out of, but that we didn't particularly enjoy. However, we were lucky enough to be close up and see the lead actress from Wicked perform one of my favorite songs, "The Wizard and I". She sounded just as amazing as she did when I saw her last week!! The crowd was going crazy. As soon as she was done people seemed to clear out pretty fast. When we left, we even got a sweet goody bag that had food, air freshener/fan, cat food (not sure what I'm going to do with that), and coupons. Then Kara and I went and shopped around and went to the famous Hamley's Toy Store. It reminded me a lot of F.A.O. Schwartz-- it was 5 stories tall and absolutely crazy but so much fun!!! It even had a Build-a-Bear Workshop and Candy Store within it and stairs themed with "Chronicles of Narnia" (thought of you, Brit!!). We then went to dinner at an Italian place. It was very good, although when I ordered Spaghetti Marinara, I was not expecting noodles in oil. I asked where the sauce was and the man looked at me like I was crazy!! He didn't speak very good English and I figured they'd charge me for it so I just dealt with it, but it tasted fine anyways! I really do need to brush up on my ordering skills over here!!! haha. Anyways, that was a lot of fun. It was nice seeing Kara--I haven't seen her in a long time and it gave us some time to catch up and be with someone from home for a bit!
Now I'm just relaxing-- doing some laundry, watching a movie, writing this, and then I need to do some journaling about my internship for the class that I am taking here. Then back to work tomorrow. It should be a good week and we have another big event coming up which I will get to be at all day on Wednesday and Thursday and then I'm headed to Dublin, Ireland for the weekend with some friends from my program, so that should be fun as well! Hope everyone had a great weekend and talk again soon!!

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