Bury St. Edmunds
Our first little trip outside of the Air Force base! Very adorable town with little shops, parks, and abbeys.
After walking around the main cathedral, park and shops we found a cute pub called The Tollgate (our first english pub!) We all loved hearing the guy describe all of the food and kept asking him questions to hear his accent ("the sea bass is really gorgeous"). We all ordered a drink (I ordered an Aspall suffolk cyder, a local cider) and meal and toasted to a fantastic semester and trip. I feel like we all really started bonding while we chatted and laughed with our supervisor about different stories and experiences. We came back to our dorms full, happy, and excited for the future.
Oxford, Friday September 6th
Our supervisor Dr. Davis drove us into Oxford which was a cute, busy town. Lots of shops, parks and of course the beautiful colleges that make up Oxford. We visited the Pitt-Rivers museum which contained numerous exhibits about archeology and human life from all countries and time periods. We then visited the Bodleian library which had the Magical Books exhibit. The exhibit showed first drafts, drawings, and other things from C.S. Lewis, J. R. Tolkien and other authors.
We ate at a yummy pub and shopped a bit (I bought a cute green Oxford sweatshirt). Some things closed the later it got so we missed the Oxford castle but we are going back again so that will be for next time. We also saw some funny street performers and were beginning to really see the wild fashion on England.
London, Saturday September 7th
Yay!!! So excited for London. We drove into Epping and then took to the tube into Holborn (a district of London). We went to the British Museum first which was amazing..I wish we had more time to spend there as its a huge museum with so much to see. I was just content with seeing the Greek and Roman life and sculptures along with some of European and Egyptian sections. We had to leave early since we had to make it to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard at 11:30. It was soooo crowded! What we could see was pretty cool..it was just hard to not feel claustrophobic with all the other tourists smushed together to try and see the guards and band marching. After that we walked passed St. James park to the area where West Minster Abbey, Parliament and Big Ben were. Each were gorgeous in their own way. I really enjoyed looking at Parliament and Big Ben especially- so much more detail than I ever realized. I would have liked to go into West Minster but it was 18 pounds (28 dollars) and I was wanting to spend my money other places instead. We at lunch over looking the river and the Eye (some sandwiches, string cheese, and beef jerkey-meal of champions-to save money). We then walked to the London Tower which I had heard nothing but rave reviews about. It was worth every pence I spent to go in. We took a fabulous tour with a man dressed as an original Beefeater (guard of the tower) where he told us history, joked with us, and used some of my friends as characters to tell his stories. We took a tour of the Crown Jewels, the armory, and several other parts. Along the wall we had a great view of the Tower of London along with other beautiful parts of the city. After the Tower of London, we took the tube to Piccadilly, a district of London, to eat dinner at Bella Italia (a pretty good italian chain) and then took the tube back to Epping where we made our way home. Long day but very fun day at that. London is very busy and full of life-unique style and way of living.
Cambridge & Ely (pronounced eel-y), Sunday Sept. 8
Cambridge is only 30 min. away from our base so it was a short drive to this lovely town. We ate brunch at an adorable tea house called..you guessed it..The Tea House. It was just down the street from a market which we scoured and tried all kinds of bread and olive oil, cheese, jellies and a belgian waffle. And let me tell you, that little bit of waffle was so incredible that we talked about it allllll day. We then went on a punting tour, which was my favorite thing of the day. Punting, for your information, is similar to a gondala where the boatsman rides on the back of the small, flat boat, and pushes the boat on the river with a pole. We took a tour that shows 8 of the 31 colleges in Cambridge and our tour guide was FANTASTIC. He was hilarious, had great stories, and was very personable and friendly to Americans. After the tour we spent some time shopping around and walking into some of the colleges. But..we then made our way back to the market for a Belgian waffle (mine had Belgian chocolate on it) which was divine. The man and I spoke a little french to each other before we left which I thought was very nice and fun of him (I remember almost zero french from my elementary school days). After Cambridge we drove to Ely and attended the cathedral service (as if you attend the service you can tour it for free. The service was very Church of England but the choir was incredible!! It was all men and young boys who had the voices of angels and I loved that. We have since been back at Dr. Davis's room using wifi and drinking wine to relax before the first day of school. We have been made aware that our wifi might now work for another week as wifi is a luxury (as I disagree being a student with things due..but whatever).
Tomorrow is the first day of school and I am very excited!! Nervous..but very excited!! Tomorrow I will post pictures that will match all of the entries from this post..we are about to make our way back to our dorm. Very exciting and exhausting weekend...which only makes me more excited for the rest of the semester :)
So long friends.
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