Oxford Couch Crashers

In the last few weeks of term, my friends and I had a number of visitors including the charming Jack Kent Poole, but we'll get to that. I'll start with Mike's Australian couch surfer who insisted I take several of these pictures:

Aussie on the right, Peter on the left who he insisted is the spitting image of Jake Gyllenhaal. What do you think?


Anyway, Grace, Mike and I went with our guest to Rocky Horror Picture Show at Magdalen where I knew the most callouts. Boy, is that telling. Luckily I was a little tipsy so the movie didn't feel as long as it normally does.

From there we hit up some pubs ending up at the Kings Arms, of course where we met up with Peter, Matt, Sensible Dave, and possible others. (Notice, still rockin the Oxford comma)



Mike intentionally ruining this picture. What a charmer.

Mitch came down from London for the Weekend! Lexi and Mitch out back at the Turf Tavern.


Jack came too! Jack and I met up with Lexi and Mitch at Magdalen College (pronounced Maudlin) to check out the college and its deer park. What? Not all colleges have one, just Magdalen. In the rivalry between Catz and Magdalen the saying goes: Magdalen got a deer park, Catz got a car park. What's more useful? And to be honest, because Oxford has so little parking, the car park is kind of a big deal.




Jack was disappointed that the deer were clumped together instead of artfully placed sporadically around the park. Nature: doin it wrong. The grounds were still beautiful sprouting with crocuses and other signs of early spring.


Duck facing the world?

After the park we went to an overpriced cafe on High Street which had palm trees in it and mirror walls.

At the King's Arms I got Jack a winter Pimms. Quite a treat, even if it is a girly drink.


I leave you with this Benjamin Franklin quote: "The busy man has few idle visitors, to the boiling pot, the flies come out." WHAT?

London Weekend!

Right after getting back from Edinburgh I wrote a paper Tuesday-Wednesday and had my tutorial on Thursday and left Friday afternoon for London Weekend hosted by IFSA-Butler Study Abroad crew. Our hostel called The Clink like the prison that used to be there (classy, I know) was right near Kings Cross Station:


Here I am at Platform 9 3/4. Alexis took it and she is opposed to vertical pictures for reasons unknown to me and there was a line and my camera was failing. All these things combined resulted in this pretty crap picture, but you get the idea. I was there. That happened. I had a magical time and all that.


The Clink. Our room was bright orange and we felt like little kids on these bunk beds with wacky ladders.

Dinner at Mestizo, probably the only authentic Mexican place in all of England. I have never been so excited about black beans in my life because I was deprived for so long!!


I took the opportunity to get this huge margarita which was delicious but sooo alcoholic and it was frozen so I was drinking it too slowly and my friends helped me out a little. :)


Lexi and I went on to meet up with her friend Mitch from Tufts who is studying abroad at King's College. Left to right: Mitch, Lexi, Mitch's friend Anna (who goes to the U of M) and Me!


This was deemed necessary for some reason I can no longer fathom.


London Underground backup! Some lines weren't running and they had to have crowd control because the station was so mobbed. It was a little frightening. Blurry me can be seen swiping through in the middle.


London Bridge. Gray sky, gray concrete buildings, gray river. Welcome to London!


The side of The Globe Theater. The original burned down but this copy is as exact as they could make it down to the thatched roof.

There was a troupe rehearsing so we weren't supposed to take pictures inside hence the slanty-ness of this off-limits photo. The circle on the stage and the netting at the back etc were added for the upcoming production of Macbeth they were rehearsing.


After the Globe, Lexi, Alexis and I wandered through this cool garden full of statues while looking for the Ben Franklin Museum.


Still lookin for Franklin! This is the London architecture school, I think.


AT LAAAAAST! Look how thrilled we are.


Thoughts on the Ben Franklin Museum: It's kinda cool because he actually lived in it and the floors and stairs and fireplaces are all intact. There was also a display about the scientist who lived there at the same time who stole bones from graveyards for anatomy instruction or something. Creepy! However, the display needs work. Mostly you go from room to room on a semi-virtual tour led by someone in period dress. The storyline also presents some kind of awkward sexual tension between her and Franklin. This is definitely off the beaten trak of London attractions.

Waiting for our boat cruise on the Thames. That bright purplish thing is the London Eye:


Alexis, Grace, Mike and Lexi waiting to get on the boat.


Some pictures form the boat cruise:


The theme was Favorite TV Show: Fry from Futurama and Lindsey from Freaks and Geeks.

Karaoke on the cruise. Yeaaaah.

The next day there was a free brunch and then Lexi and I tracked down books we needed for our tutes that week by Piccadilly Circus. It was annoying lugging our bags with us on the tube but we managed to get what we needed and postpone going back to work for a little longer!

Edinburgh Excitement Continued!

This is a souvenir shop on the Royal Mile. I couldn't help thinking of Thistle when I saw this.


Exhausted from visiting the castle, we settled in for tea at the nearby Elephant House, famous for being the birthplace of Harry Potter. Rowling wrote the first pages on a napkin in this very tea house.



I thought the Elephant House would be really touristy but it was actually full of locals and served delicious tea, baked potatoes, quiche and desserts. Definitely worth a visit for its charm alone.


This picture was dutifully taken for Kaija Bergen. It's the Balmoral Hotel where Rowling finished writing Harry Potter....Not nearly as quaint...


While Lydia was doing work, Lexi and I also checked out the Writer's Museum which was down a long narrow passageway called the James Court Close.


Me and tiny Robert Louis Stevenson in the Writer's Museum which was a little underwhelming but free and it was snowing. I'm sure it would be way cooler if I had tons of Scottish literary pride?


Lexi and I had to make a trip off the beaten track of Edinburgh city central to retrieve the sleeping bag Lexi borrowed and then left on the bus Friday night. The good news is we found these awesome giraffes! I tried to climb one...


A Scotsman in traditional garb waiting for the bus:


Here's me and Lexi on top of the Scottish National Museum or maybe it was the Royal museum. Anyway, we were kind of tired and didn't have enough time to see much of it but we did go on the roof and see the great view of Edinburgh and have our picture taken by some other nice American tourists.


Oh yeah and we played with all the stuff in the kids section, teehee.

After the national museum we met up with Lydia to go in St Giles Cathedral which was incredibly beautiful. Gorgeous stained glass windows and woodwork I couldn't hope to capture properly on camera.

Groovin on the Royal Mile. Thanks to Lexi for this picture and the one of stained glass above. She paid the two quid to take pictures inside the cathedral, but I didn't because I was really poor because I still had no debit card :( Anyway, this souvenir shop was playing some funky Scottish music so we felt the need to dance to it!


In Lydia's favorite pub with a fake fire.


Awwww, and that's the end of Scotland pictures, folks. Soon to come: London Weekend and a visit from Jack Poole!

Saint Andrews: Visiting the closest thing I have to sisters

On Sunday, Lexi and I made a trip from Edinburgh to Saint Andrews. Once we figured out what train to take it was actually really easy to get there and it was beautiful. There was snow on the ground and it was quite cold but sunny. We were extremely lucky with the Scotland weather, in general.

Hannah Korn and me by the ugly library!


Adjusted for height. So necessary, haha.



Sarah and me on the steps of the ugly library. She took some time off writing her dissertation (wowzers!) to get lunch with us.


Hannah and Lexi, look out! Don't step on it! Some famous Scottish dude died here!


Old church graveyard. It was late afternoon so the sun was going down and the shadows were beautiful.


Lexi looking wistful in the graveyard.


After walking through the graveyard we went along the sea wall, where you could see these castle ruins without having to pay to walk up close to them. What you see is what you get with rocks, anyway. ;)

Hannah and Lexi on Saint A's famous golf course. This green is like world renown among golfers for reasons non-golfers like me wouldn't understand.


Here we are all out at dinner in a cute little French café. It was so nice to catch up!

After dinner, Lexi and I had to take a taxi back to the train station to catch our train because the buses weren't running as often anymore. Scotland shuts down on Sunday nights. We made it back to Edinburgh and back to Lydia's flat fine though and spent the evening trying to get reading done and mostly failing. Instead, Lydia and I skyped Neil and watched How I Met Your Mother, which was way better than homework anyway.