when in rome

---

Or, more appropriately for this update's purposes, when in England...

Some of you might of heard, or not, through my parents that I had a little accident here in Cambridge Monday night that resulted in the loss of some teeth (or bits of them, but anyway). In attempt to glorify the story and cause it to appear much more legendary than it actually was (or even is, currently), and also just for the sake of laugh, I will tell the story in two varying ways, from which you can take the liberty to pick and choose which version you like the best. Or you could just use your brain. Or ask my parents.

For all intensive purposes, however, whichever version you pick, you are welcome to think of as the "truth."

But you should probably pick the more interesting one.

Just saying.

Here goes:

1) Everyone knows that, as a whole (and I'm not speaking in any sort of particulars here, just in a general "overall" stereotypical sort of way that is completely horrible to do), British people have bad teeth. All of us here also probably know that this is my first time traveling to England, or anywhere outside of the United States aside from Tijuana, for that matter. This being the case, I certainly wanted to immerse myself into British culture as much as physically possible. After visiting Buckingham Palace and sticking my tongue out at the guards, who ignored me, spending a day figuring out the Underground and traveling all over London, taking a variety of captivating classes taught by world renowned Cambridge professors, wandering the rain slicked cobblestone streets and gawking at the architecture, eating traditional English dinners every night at the dining hall and even partaking in the traditional British teatime and 4:00 in the afternoon, I was running low on ideas of what to do next. The true British cultural experience, if you will. For a number of days I was at a painful loss of inspiration, but then it finally hit me, as swiftly and suddenly as a face flying into the pavement. The one thing I'd yet to experience during my stay in England, of course, would have to be - the British dental system! The first thing I obviously had to do was devise a reason to need to actually visit the dentist here. However luckily enough for me, an opportunity presented itself in a matter of hours. I was walking home from the campus library after getting some late study hours in Monday night, when I saw a small girl standing all alone out in the middle of Trumpington St. (the road that runs along in front of St. Cat's and the Fitzwilliam Museum). I thought this was odd, but wasn't completely alarmed until I saw an approaching cyclist speeding full throttle towards the girls slight frame. It was dark, and I supposed the cyclist didn't see the girl standing there. Fully alarmed, I raced out into the night street, snatched the girl out from the middle of the road, and carried her safely down to the footpath on the other side. The girl, startled, began to cry, and as I bent down to comfort her I noticed a dark shadow falling over me. I looked up and quickly realized it was the girl's father, who apparently had just come out of the pub, The Anchor right there along the road, just in time to miss the girl in the street and the cyclist, but just in time to see my snatch her up, run a few yards with her, and her begin to cry. Anyway, he wasn't too pleased with this, and, clearly drunk, began to argue with me. Well, to make a long story short, the fight came to blows, I was hit in the face, stumbled backward over the railing along the Cam, and fell down about three stories into the timid waters below. No one was around to see the whole thing but the cyclist, who didn't get a good look at the guys face, and by the time I swam to the shore of the river and climbed back to the road above, the man and his daughter were gone. I filed a police report but no charges have been pressed yet as no one in the bar seems to remember the man and there currently is no suspect. The combination of the punch and the fall affected me with such force as to nearly completely knock out my two front teeth as well as harshly bruise my elbow. I'm feeling much better now, I just hope that little girl with the alcoholic father is okay, and that eventually he is caught and we all are brought to justice.

I'm not even going to bother reading back through all that and seeing if it makes sense.

Okay, now, 2) I was walking back home to St. Cat's after getting a beer at a pub with some friends Monday night. Close to the college I tried to step down from the sidewalk into the road to cross to the other side, my foot caught an out jet of stone near the curb, and I tripped. My face hit the pavement; my teeth fell out; I woke up in the morning and called my parents.

The choice is your's, oh-wise-readers, to distinguish the truths from the untruths and whether or not you care! Just know that the Cam is nowhere near Trumpington St., cyclists really are cruel and vengeful over here, and I was completely joking about the British dental system. The dentist I visited was entirely nice and professional. They fixed my teeth up the best they could with temporary caps that look about normal, feel awful, and should (hopefully) continue to last me the next week until I can get home and attend a real dental appointment my mom set up for me the Monday after I get back to Orlando. The dentist really did do a great job though for just a temporary fix, and the only current downfall (besides missing half of my two front teeth) is not really being able to eat anything. I already felt like I was on a diet over here (a good thing, to be sure) with all the walking and healthy, proportionate meals, but now I can barely even eat those. All the food I eat must first be cut up into tiny pieces and then placed into the back of my mouth to chew with my molars and swallow.

Though, as my boyfriend Brian reminded me, it could be worse. When I complained to him of not being able to taste the food here because I'm chewing in the back of my mouth, he said, "Well, at least you're in England, and not Italy or France or somewhere you actually would WANT to taste the food." I suppose he has a point, though I have to admit the more time passes and the hungrier I get, the more and more tastier our evening meals have begun to taste, even if they are cut up and shoved to my molars to chew. Two of the guys also brought me really pretty flowers and a card, which I have pictures up but not on a CD yet so that will have to wait.

Speaking of pictures, Wednesday was a pleasant change to the dentist office atmosphere of Tuesday. I went on a tour to Stonehenge and Bath with some friends from the program. Stonehenge was absolutely amazing, as you can see in the paltry two pictures I have posted here already (more to come later, unfortunately a good amount of my pictures might have to be put up when I get back to the States, but I'll do as well as I can to get more up this weekend and in this next week). Bath was amazing as well. We got to walk through the Roman bath houses where everything is remarkably preserved and where you can actually touch the stone and the water and see everything basically as it was thousands of years ago. Pretty amazing. The city itself was beautiful and we were lucky enough to get there on a gorgeous hot and sunny summer day that made the whole scene fell a lot more like Italy then England, so in that respect we got a nice little three hour vacation from our vacation while visiting Bath, and that is always fun. I got to ride the train to and from London for the first time also, which was exciting, and there was an insanely crazy man sitting behind us all on the tour bus who's open and relentless talk kept us entertained and laughing for hours.

Yesterday we went and visited the Fitzwilliam Museum I mentioned before, which is a free art museum down the street. It's gorgeous and I was sad I wasn't allowed to take any pictures, but I understand. My favorite part was the French Impressionists gallery, where they had a bunch of Monet, some Seurat, some Degas, and one Van Gogh. Last night there was a jazz picnic type thing on the Selwyn College lawn (which is back on the other side of the Sedgewick sight university campus, where we all attend classes here). The gardens there (and the entire college itself, but you know) are absolutely beautiful, with flowers and willow trees and ponds and passageways everywhere you look, and then the jazz band playing with the Billy Holiday-esque singer crooning along and the whole scene backdropped by the rising Cathedral-like spires of Selwyn. We sat in the grass and talked and listened for awhile while taking pictures and then I came back to my room to work some more on my first paper. As of today I'm almost done with my first term paper for the trip. I have about 300 words to go and I'm hoping to get it done before dinner in a couple hours. Then Sunday and Monday I'll just have to worry about my second one, and the rest of next week I'll (hopefully) be able to relax. The weather today is horrible. I knew we were getting lucky these past two weeks with all the warmth and sunshine nonsense. It's about high 50s and it was raining all morning and afternoon. Thankfully it stopped by the time we had to walk home from our last classes, but since it was still freezing and we were already cold and wet from the rain walking TO class, it didn't really bring that much relief. Tomorrow I'm going back to London for the day with a couple other girls. They want to shop, and I want to go to the Tate modern; we all want to visit Picadilly Circus, and I also want to look around the city some for my favorite outside graffiti artist. I'm really crossing my fingers crossed that it's not going to rain.

That's all for now! I love you all and hope you're having fun in the states! Only one more week till I'm home, I can't believe it!

PS: On a side note, I think I just heard what was my first police siren in Cambridge for the entire two weeks. Pretty amazing. The only sounds you can normally distinguish here are church bells and tourists!

---