Hello all-
Well, as I seem to start most of the blog posts with an apology for the inconsistency of my blog posts, why stop now? Sorry I haven't posted in forever. At least that's consistent, yes? It's now been three months, and of course much has happened, but I'll try to keep it short and sweet and sort this one out by months. However, since my formatting skills are in no way formidable or even slightly developed, as always you'll have to wait until the end to see the photos. (Insert smiley face here. If I could just figure out how to do it...)
December: December was an amazing month. My sister Betsy came to visit, and though I had to send her off on her own to get lost in London (without a phone!) a couple days while I was in class, we had a great time. When it came time for her to fly home, however, snow hit London and Heathrow shut down. Betsy's flight was canceled, and it looked like there was a strong possibility she would have to spend Christmas here. That was not a part of either of our plans. She wanted to be home after ten days here, and I didn't want her here when Chad arrived on Christmas Eve. I love my sister, make no mistake, but three's a crowd when it comes to a studio flat and a wife who hasn't seen her husband in three months. We called Mom via Skype, and she called Delta and spent an hour both on her cell phone and on Skype and got Betsy on a flight from Birmingham (a two hour train ride from London) to Amsterdam to Portland, and was home by Christmas Eve! Chad arrived in London on Christmas Eve, and we had a fantastic two weeks together. We spent three days in Glasgow, then almost immediately afterward flew down to Madrid to spend a fantastic New Year's Eve with Jamie.
January: Honestly, not a good month overall. I turned in my two essays, which constituted the entire grade for two of the classes I had been taking (one essay for each class) and then had to wait for four weeks to hear how I did. An excruciating wait. With no frame of reference for the work, the first Master's level work I had done, and being the only grade I would get for the classes, I spent a lot of time fretting. And of course my liberal arts, Lutheran education kicked in and I really began questioning if academia is my true calling, if this is what I'm meant to do, if the sacrifice Chad and I are making is truly worth it in the end. I also encountered a few frustrating scenarios of academic life at its most pretentious; not something a first generation, did-it-on-her-own-financially student, former admission counselor, advocate of transformative higher-educational experience, appreciates. This was all compounded by an intense homesickness, and (if it's not already obvious) strong self-pitying.
However, I had a lovely birthday on the 20th and celebrated at a nearby pub, and was so grateful for the number of friends who came to celebrate with me. I've met some incredible people since being here, and my birthday night was definitely an illustration of that. One of my former PLU professors also showed! Bob Ericksen, of the PLU History Department, had brought a J-term class to London (to study England during World War II), and gave a talk at UCL one night. I attended, and got to see him and meet his J-term students (so exciting to have PLU peeps in London). Bob wrote a number of recommendation letters for me as I applied for graduate programs, has been a great support in my pursuit of a Master's in History, and it was very special to have him show for my birthday. I was supposed to talk to his class one day before they left, but unbelievably slept through the time! Oops.
Other highlights included another trip to Oxford with Corey, one of my classmates. Visited the Ashmolean Museum, had lunch at the Eagle & Child (favorite pub and meeting place of the 'Inklings,' Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, etc.), ate icecream using a tongue depressor as a spoon, and managed to get lost amongst some impressive science buildings. We also did a day in Greenwich, in Southeast London, across the Thames. It was
gorgeous, if a bit cold.
February: I passed my essays! I'm not going to try to go into details about the English grading system, but a 'with distinction' is a very good thing. I received a 'with distinction' grade on one essay, and was only two points away from the same on the second essay. Happy and so relieved. I might make a decent historian and mayhaps an academic after all. At the very least, I stopped fretting. This month included a visit to Cambridge, and a short jaunt just north of Cambridge to Ely to see the Cathedral. Ely Cathedral has been in two recent movies- 'Elizabeth: The Golden Age' and played Westminster Abby in 'The King's Speech'. Cambridge was great...but I do think I like Oxford just a bit better.
March: Cousin date! One of my cousins, Sammi, has recently moved to the London area. We haven't seen each other in years, and now we're both in jolly England! Crazy. We got together for tea recently, and a long walk through London to Sunday UpMarket. Good to have family here.
Just this past weekend, I visited Jamie again and we went to Barcelona. That, however, may need to be its own post. That means I might actually post again relatively soon!
Molly comes to visit next week, and Chad will be here the 3rd of April. I'm so excited for both visits. In the meantime, I'll be finishing my spring term classes next week, and the taught portion of my degree will be completely finished. It's a bit surreal. I've only got two exams, three essays, and a dissertation before I get to come home!
Now to the pictures part:
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| Betsy's 1st night in London. We walked around and looked at Christmas lights. |
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| Day Two: Chocolate Festival and Christmas Market on the Southbank! |
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| Chocolate Shoe. Eat, don't wear. |
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| On the historic bus #15, going to the Tower. |
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| At the Tower of London, freezing our tails off. |
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| Yeoman Warder tour guide. So worth the wait. |
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| Tower of London. |
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| In the White Tower, one of Henry VIII's suits of armor. He got a little pudgy as he got a older. |
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| Crossing the Tower Bridge. We thought we were cold before...brr! |
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| Changing of the Guard. |
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| Celebrating our climb and descent of the Monument. (A Christopher Wren design, a memorial to the Great Fire of 1666). |
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| 311 steps, a frigid view of London, and a certificate to prove we completed it! |
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Betsy's Mexican food experience in London.
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| Chad's in London! |
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| Glasgow Cathedral- very dark stone, incredible Gothic architecture. |
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| After the Cathedral, we carefully climbed up the Necropolis (a bit icy), a Victorian Cemetery on a hill, with an excellent view of the city. |
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| Dinner at an Indian Restaurant after visiting an art museum in Glasgow....best Indian food I've had in the UK so far. |
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| At Dunbarton Castle, about an hour train ride west of Glasgow, and near the mouth of the Clyde River. It was more of a fortress, and has housed some fairly famous Scots at one point or another, for one reason or another- Robert the Bruce, William Wallace, and Mary, Queen of Scots. |
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| Fortunately, the snow was no longer in Scotland, but the sun didn't bother to show up either...we were the only people at the castle that day. The grey didn't really bother me. There was a quiet beauty to the whole experience. |
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Oh, Chad. He just had to get a picture of this while on a Glaswegian bus.
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