The 11-Year-Old in Me is SO Happy

Went to London with Alex this weekend. Had so much fun! Don't have time to give many details at the moment (coursework, flat dinner, putzing around, etc.), but here's my favorite picture from the day.

Weekend in Bath

Lena and I went to Bath this past weekend! Really good times all around. We left Norwich at 2:30, so we got to London around 4:45. We then had some time till our connecting train to Bath so we visited St. Paul's Cathedral. We arrived just moments before Evensong started so we listened to the choir boys sing for a few minutes, which was very nice. Then we blagged our way back onto the subway ("You mean we were only supposed to use these tickets to get from Liverpool Street to Paddington Stations? OOPS!"), grabbed some delicious bagels for dinner, and then caught the train for Bath. When we got there we found our way to our hostel, St. Christopher's Inn, which was right about a bar called Belushi's. They checked us in, the Australian guy behind the bar gave us each a free coke, and then we hung out in the Chill Out Room upstairs with two New Zealanders, an Australian and a Canadian for a while. It was cool to hear about their travels -- what they'd done, where they'd been, how long they'd been away from home. One of our roommates, also from Australia, had been in Bath for two months, working two jobs to save up enough money to start traveling again.

Next day we saw lots of cool Bath stuff, starting with the Roman Baths. It's really pretty there, and they've set up an excellent museum in the old buildings so you walk around and learn about the history of the place before going out and seeing the big bath. They tell you not to touch the water because it's untreated, but of course we did; it was slimy and smelly (and green) but nice and warm. The weird thing is that at the end of the tour they let you take a sip of the spring water as it comes out of a pretty fish fountain, so I don't know why we can drink it but not touch it. Maybe the fountain water is treated? Couldn't tell you. Anyway, Lena took some pictures of us in front of the bath so I'll share those when I get them, but for now here's one of the smelly green water and some people.

The big bath.

"The King's Spring," from whence we drank.

After the baths we looked around at some of the pretty buildings of Bath, including the Royal Crescent, Bath's prime real estate; and the Royal Circus, where, our guide was pleased to inform us, Nicolas Cage just bought an apartment for £4 million. Bully for him, I say. Later that night we went on a ghost tour around the city, which was really fun and creepy. All the ghosts the guy talked about were from Victorian times and stuff, and they had died in duels and hunting accidents and the like, so you know it's legit.

We also visited the Jane Austen Centre, where we had tea in Jane Austen's Tea Room. I don't even particularly like tea or Jane Austen, but even I had to admit that it was very classy and fun. We also met up for a while with Jenny and Carol, who both go to UCSD (and UEA, for the semester) and who were just passing through Bath on their way back from London.

Carol, me, a Victorian man, and Jenny outside the Jane Austen Centre.

My conclusion: Bath is a lovely city, and Lena is a lovely friend and travel companion. So that made for a lovely weekend.

Dad's Visit!

Dad was here last week! Woo! We had fun and got a little lost, but mostly had a lot of fun. Here's photo documentation of the fun stuff we did. (Minus go to the pub, that is. We never took pictures there, and we were in a few good ones! Especially the Dirty Duck.)

Failed attempts at MySpace-style photos.

Luckily we ran into Alison, who took our picture for us!

Driving on the left!

This route was the source of some agony on the trip back to Norwich.

I hear they really know how to have a good time there.

At William Shakespeare's childhood home.

Acting Shakespearean, I guess.

Hey, that's me, walking awkwardly out of a red phone booth!

At the BBC Radio office in Norwich.

Norwich City Hall and market stalls in the foreground, seen from the top of Norwich Castle.

And that was his visit! Yay, good times. : )

Happy Punters

Yesterday we took a bus 90 minutes southwest to Cambridge, and we had such a fun day! First of all, for lunch I had a beef and potato pasty, which is so English and, surprisingly, so good. Probably less surprising is that our main destination while we were in town was the university. We visited quite a few of its separate colleges, including likely the most famous, Trinity College:

I think it's really nice the way the university buildings are spread out all across Cambridge. Enormous old residence halls and cathedrals and libraries are interspersed among the shops and restaurants and museums, which makes for a really busy and beautiful downtown area. Plus there's nature everywhere: loads of green fields and willow trees, and the River Cam, a branch of the Great Ouse (pronounced ooze!), runs throughout the city.

Speaking of the River Cam, one of my flatmates told me that a trip to Cambridge isn't complete if you don't take a ride on the river, so naturally we did it. We rented a punt (basically a gondola with square ends) and pushed around on the water for an hour. It was absolutely hilarious. For comparison:

Here are some legitimate punters...

...and here's us.

Boat skillz.

Yay! Anyway, it was an awesome trip; can't wait for the next one. And as usual I've put some more pictures here.

Fish and Chips on the Pier

Yesterday a bunch of my friends and I spent the day in Cromer, a little city in northern Norfolk, on the coast of the North Sea. It was a really easy trip, just a 15-minute bus to the Norwich train station and 40 minutes by train to the Cromer city center.


View Larger Map

Obviously it was freezing -- it's an English beach town in October -- but we had a great time regardless. We saw surfers (!), played frisbee on the beach, walked around the city center with ice cream cones (dumb idea but delicious), and, to top it all off, ate fish and chips on the pier. It was a really fun day.


I also put some more pictures from the trip here, plus some miscellaneous ones from recent fun nights here at UEA.