Mind The Gap

AKA: I'm Sorry I Have Not Been Posting Things

I could say that it was the end of the semester scramble that left me with no time to spend on extraneous things like writing blog posts, but, honestly, that would be a lie. The end of this semester was almost too chill for me. Unlike at Wellesley, or even in high school, my final exams and papers are all after winter break, so this semester wound down very quietly, fading into break without much ado.

The real reason I haven't written any posts since Thanksgiving? Well, I've just been so, so lazy. Honestly, I've been doing a bit of reading here and there, watching a lot of Netflix, and sleeping so much that I lost all of my momentum to do essentially anything that involved effort of any sort.

But! I am on break now! And I have to avoid studying for my exams and working on my paper (ahahahahahaha....) both of which are due the first day back from break! So! I will be catching up on my blog posts in the interim!

Some of them will be horrendously late, but, nevertheless, they will be there. A quick rundown of the major plot points in my life that are going to be delved into: the Christmas Ball, my trip to London, spending Christmas (and other major holidays) away from my family/home, and my winter break European adventures.

And yes, I still haven't posted my photos from Rome to the Gallery page, let alone any of the photos I've taken since then. Some of these photos are up on my Facebook page and several are posted to my Instagram (both of which can be accessed via the right-hand side bar). It's all going to be up and available soon (or at least before I return to the US), I promise!

So, remember, if alighting from my blog at this station, please be aware that more posts should be up shortly.

Thursday 26th November 2015

AKA Thanksgiving

Though you would never guess that since today was just another day of class for me. Today I'm experiencing one of those rare moments where I really feel my American-ness while abroad. It's more than just feeling like a foreigner or out of place because Thanksgiving is such a uniquely American holiday.

Right now, I would normally be watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV, followed by the dog show (one of my favorite holiday programs), but instead I'm writing this post while I wait for my seminar to start. It's just an all-around strange feeling, like it's something that doesn't exist it's such a non-event. I mean, objectively I knew this was how it would be, but it's just a little surreal to be like "Guys! It's Thanksgiving! Really? No one?" in my head all day, while everyone around me is just going around living their lives. It's weird to be going around, sitting in class, discussing readings and historical events when the whole time I really just want to be lying on my couch watching A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

I've been feeling a little blue about the whole thing for the past week, so yesterday I decided to go out and treat myself to a little shopping as a way to cheer myself up. I figured, if I'm not going home, if I don't even get the day off, then I can at least wear a new dress! That feels like a totally valid thing to do, right? Although the dress did keep me feeling a little more upbeat today, I'm still a little down an out today, it just can't be helped I suppose.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm kind of bummed out about the food (it's always the food with me though). I feel a little like Peppermint Patty felt when seeing that Charlie Brown had cooked up some toast, popcorn, pretzels, and jellybeans for dinner to be honest, except I'm the one who has to procure the food. Normally we have a true feast, with deep fried turkey, and green bean casserole with the crispy onions on top, and two kinds of stuffing, and candied sweet potatoes, and those weird jellied cranberry pucks (you know the ones I'm talking about American friends, that stuff that comes out of the tin can and stays that shape), and an assortment of delicious pies. Here, I have a choice between another bowl of reheated pasta, the same one that I've been eating for the past several days and that I will continue to eat for the next week or so, or mediocre take out from some place on the walk back to my dorm, which includes knock-off McDonald's and a sub-par Chinese take out place that seems to be run by a whole bunch of non-Chinese people.

I mean, I know this is a one time thing for now, that I'll be back celebrating Thanksgiving next year, I think I just hadn't fully prepared myself for how very, very strange it would be to have to be outside the US on Thanksgiving. Guess it's just making me a little homesick for turkey and sweet potatoes and all things sweet and pumpkin flavored. Ah well, I'll make a go of knock-off McDonald's!

My Roman Holiday II

Part 2: When In Rome

Ok, ok, I know. It's been like a month since I was actually in Rome and I'm just finishing up the Rome posts now. Sorry, I was busy, I do have actual school work to do sometimes guys, and I just finished up paper season (phew).

In fair Rome is where we had set our scene. It was sunny and warm and I'd just had a wonderful little morning with my mom and aunt at an outdoor market. The rest of the day was decidedly less eventful. Mostly we just wandered around, we did some shopping, mom got her pair of custom made sandals (which she sort of needs since she has, essentially, child-sized feet), and we looked at some landmarks. I made it my personal mission that day to pick up every ironic postcard of the pope that I laid my eyes on, and boy was it a fruitful day. Everyone seemed to make some fun purchases, and we ate some yummy pizza and saw the sights.

The Trevi fountain was nice, though it was a little disappointing since there was a fence up around it and the fountain was devoid of water (wah wah), but it was cool nonetheless to see if "close up" (we couldn't get that close--see: fence). Then we walked all the way over to the Spanish Steps. It was getting kind of dark by then, and the plaza at the bottom of the steps was very, very crowded. I didn't even realize we were looking at the Spanish Steps until someone told me because, honestly, it was just a large outdoor staircase, and there wasn't much that made it stand out (yes I know, a heretical thing of me to say. I promise, I am an appreciator of art and architecture, but really, after several days of being on my feet all day with no alone time, can you blame me for being rather unenthused about a staircase, famous or not?). It, too, was fenced off, so, yeah that gives you a sense of the sightseeing portion of our Sunday.

At the end of the day, one of my aunts (cousins? again with the family tree and title thing) wanted to visit the Gucci store. Of course, me being me, I followed her and her husband in like a duckling following its mother because I was intensely curious to see the inside of a real designer boutique. I mean, the fanciest store I've ever been inside in my life is probably Lord and Taylor. I felt a bit like an imposter, like if I didn't walk right on my relatives' heels, someone would sniff me out and a salesperson would gracefully push me out the front door with their carefully gloved hands. I know, it sounds ridiculous, but it was all just so dreadfully chic and glamorous.

I found it fascinating to watch as someone bought an actual designer handbag from a designer boutique. It was probably the largest purchase I've ever witnessed someone make, aside from when my parents bought their car (though the car dealership wasn't nearly as aesthetically pleasing or amenable, I mean, they brought out free water in little glass bottles, with crystal tumblers to serve in all on a dark lacquered tray. I mean...).

After that, and a lot more walking, and quite a bit of time being lost, we made it back to the hotel and went out to dinner, sort of as a way to celebrate my last night there. Dinner was nice, I was exhausted, and we had to take a ton (and I mean, a ton) of group photos. I had a fairly tearful goodbye the next morning with my family, as they all piled into a van to go on their food tasting tour of the city, and I waited in the hotel lobby for my cab to the airport to arrive. I hadn't really realized until that moment how much I missed the sense of familiarity that comes from home, even just from being around other Americans (I haven't met more than one or two in Leeds). It was a strange, makeshift, portable version of home, but nonetheless, it was decidedly less foreign and I felt that.

I didn't have to miss it for too long though. Hahahaha. Haha. Ha. Ha...

I got all the way to the airport, stood in line, and when I got up to the check in counter, found out that my flight was extremely delayed due to some monster fog that had eaten the Netherlands. Consequently I was going to miss my connection back to Leeds. Yes. I stood there in the airport, breathing very deeply, insisting that the counter employee check every single flight back to Leeds that day. She kept clicking her mouse, mumbling to herself in Italian, and shaking her head, while I stood there focusing all of my energy on not crying in public. I tried not to think about the fact that I had three classes the next day, or the strict attendance policy Leeds seems to promote, or any of that. Nonetheless, I was stressed. I mean, I was Princess-Mia-driving-the-Mustang stressed. I was breathing very heavily, which made the airline person glance up in concern at me a few times. Finally, she said something to the effect of well, I see no solution for you today, but I can book you on a flight tomorrow! TOMORROW. Apparently, this fog was so crazy that a whole bunch of flights were disrupted, and so many passengers were displaced that every flight to Leeds, on every airline flying out of Rome to every possible connecting city was absolutely full.

Just my luck.

I was sort of in a daze as I accepted my new boarding pass, asking where I could find a cab. I didn't really see any other option except to just go back to the hotel. By this point I was totally out of cash, so I had to wait a while until a cab with a credit card reader could pick me up. I continued to do my paper-bag breathing (sans paper bag) all the way back to the hotel, where I walked up through the front doors to the astonishment of the concierge at the desk who had seen me off in the morning. I sort of just shrugged my shoulders and said, well, I'm back. He was very kind, asking me if everything was alright, and if my family knew what had happened. They didn't (since my phone didn't work unless I had wifi). Well, he said, this will be a nice surprise for the Aquinos (which he, and everyone else, insisted on pronouncing "Ah-KWEE-no", saying that it was an Italian name, even when we said it was pronounced differently in Southeast Asia. That's a different story, though).

I was so distraught and caught up in the stress (as I am wont to do) that I completely forgot for a while that if I was going to be stranded somewhere, at least I was stranded in ROME. Eventually I calmed down and managed to let my family know what had happened, then settled in to catch up on some homework before they came back. I sat at the desk with the window open and a cup of coffee and I felt a little better. My family was very sympathetic, and I treated myself to another plate of tiramisu at dinner that night (I deserved it).

Then I had to do the tearful goodbye again. My family was scheduled to leave early early the next day to catch a train to Venice, but my flight wasn't until the afternoon. I woke up briefly to say goodbye to my mom and aunt, but I was only half awake really. When I woke up again a few hours later, I was alone in the room, which made me feel a little blue and achy, but was what I had expected really.

This time, I actually made it back to Leeds. Of course, the universe wasn't going to make it easy though. The wrong terminal was printed on my boarding pass, so I ended up having to walk 2 terminals over, which was fine. But then, I had to take a tram all the way to the international terminal, and then I got on a bus to go out to the tarmac to actually get on the plane (which I really hate doing, it's just so much shuffling). After a few hours we landed in London Heathrow, which is just a hot mess, let me tell you.

I had to first figure out which terminal I was transferring too, since this would be a domestic and not an international flight, and it turns out that I would have to take a 20 minute long bus ride to my connecting terminal. There, I had to check in and pick up my boarding pass. All I had was the flight and ticket number that the woman from the day before (when I didn't cry in public) had written on the back of my first boarding pass. The man at the counter seemed a little confused, but eventually he sorted it out. Then I had to stand in line for another 45 minutes to get through passport control. They only had 1 person stamping passports that weren't UK/EU. Oh joy. Then it was another 30 minutes through security, and by then I only had 15 minutes to pick up a sandwich before I was scheduled to board. But of course, after running through the terminal to make it, I get there and find out that my connection has been delayed a half hour. Wonderful. I love traveling. So much fun. Adventure.

I made landed in Leeds only to be welcomed by insanely thick fog. Gotta love that fog. It was 8:30 PM before I actually made it back to my room where I promptly fell onto the bed in exhaustion.

After Italy, going back to school, going back to cold, damp, dark England felt like being pushed into the deep end of the pool: you sink all the way to the bottom and have to fight for some momentum in order to get yourself back up to the air, struggling to breath the whole way. I felt like Dorothy at the end of the story, when she leaves the Technicolor dream world of Oz and heads back to literally gray Kansas. While there isn't nearly as much corn and dust as Kansas, Northern England can certainly rival Kansas in dull grayness. I guess that every time it's cold and windy and rainy here (i.e. every single day), I'll just have to remember that I'll always have Rome.

My Roman Holiday I

Part 1: This Is What Dreams Are Made Of

The place: Rome (duh). The holiday: Halloween (I know, it’s a weird one, but that’s just how the scheduling worked out, ok?)

Panorama of the Forum from atop the Palatine Hill

This week it was time to take my weekend trips up a notch, so instead of touring the UK, I ventured all the way to Italy. While I didn’t bust out of a palace, get a sassy new haircut, and hang out with Gregory Peck, or get mistaken for an Italian pop star and sing at an international music festival, for one glorious long weekend, I still got to run around Roma! 

I left after several weeks of straight mist, clouds, damp, and no spotting of the elusive sun. My flight was at the ridiculous hour of 6 AM, but I flew KLM, so it was not so bad (as you know from previous posts, I am now a big fan of KLM). The flight from Leeds to Amsterdam Schipol was very short and quite pleasant, I mostly napped and they gave us delicious little sandwiches to eat en route. My connection at Amsterdam was fairly harried, however. When I booked the flights, I thought for sure that a little more than an hour would be plenty of time for my transfer after I’d made one already getting to Leeds in September. It seemed like it would be no big deal at all. 

Well I was certainly wrong. I didn’t realize that when entering the EU common travel area, I would have to pass through passport control! Yeah immigration! I had dutifully followed the signs trying to get to my terminal, when I rounded a corner and saw a mass of people just standing still. My stomach dropped. I looked at my phone, I had 45 minutes. I looked at the crowd, and it seemed like more than 45 minutes worth of people. I did my best to bob and weave and rather ungracefully shove my way as close to the front of the line as possible. Even still, by the time I made it past the immigration officer (who seemed suspicious of me…?) with my stamped passport, I had to sprint to my gate to make my connection on time. That certainly must have been a site: a wild-eyed girl with an overstuffed blue backpack running and panting through the airport. I know how to travel in style, at least. 

The second flight was not so eventful. I napped, I watched as we flew over the Alps. It was fun to see the tiny little towns tucked away in the valleys up there, the lines of the hills punctuated with shiny blue lakes was amazing. Finally I landed at Rome Fiumicino airport. The pilot gave the typical landing city information, and I swear to god, I actually cried a little bit when he said that it was 22 Centigrade, and I looked at the cloudless sky from the tiny plane window. This is not a hyperbole, this is not a figure of speech that I am using, there were real tears welling up at the corner of my eyes because of the weather. I stripped my coat and sweater in favor of my tank top, hopped in a cab, rolled down the windows, and made my way to Rome! 

The Hotel Capo D’africa was so lovely. That’s really the best word for it: lovely. It was tucked away on a little side street just around the corner from the Colosseum. I found my family supremely jet-lagged and making themselves right at home on the lobby furniture. Par for the course, though. 

Admiring the sun and the view from the hotel window

A little word about my family: it was mom’s side (the white side) that went on this trip as a way to rediscover their ancestry or some such thing. The “lively” group included: my mom, my aunt Linda, my uncle Michael, my aunt Lu, my aunt (cousin?) Amelia , my aunt/cousin/something Noreen, and her husband Paul (not even gonna try with that relationship title). They told me to be gentle, but honestly it really wasn’t the Swiss Family Nightmare it could easily have become. It was sort of fun and enlightening, actually, to watch my family members try out being new people, or wake up parts of themselves that had long or always been dormant, like this was a vacation from their normal selves as well as their normal lives. 

Regardless, I promised not to be too critical or depreciating, and I assured them that I would never do that on the internet. 

Anyways! We got settled in our rooms and then I was ready to go out and explore, whether my poor jet-lagged family wanted to nap or not! Off we went exploring—my mom, aunt Linda and I got some snacks at a little street cafe before heading down the block (down the block!) to the Colosseum. It was wonderful and crazy and sort of surreal, honestly. We crossed a street and suddenly there it was. The Colosseum was right there, just a few feet away. I kept looking up at it as we walking the path around the perimeter. My mom and aunt were quite amused because I just kept saying “There it is. That’s the Colosseum. The Colosseum. Right there. I mean, I’ve seen it in pictures and textbooks. But now here it is. Right there. I mean, I could touch it! Wait, can I go touch it?” It was the pinnacle of the “old things” I had seen so far this semester, a feat of ancient Roman engineering right there for me to marvel at. 

There it is! Right there!

We made dinner reservations that night for 8 pm, but my family started the cocktail hour at like 4:30 (which they continued to do every night to my great amusement. They even became buddies with the bar tender. I found it a bit strange, but I’ve always found bar culture to be kind of weird). We had dinner that first night at a sweet little restaurant called Papagio, and it was delicious and painful. My family went a little crazy ordering the appetizers, we had a meat plate, these big, beautiful grilled mushrooms, some sort of cheese goop made with truffles over a bed of arugula (I forget what it was called, so we are going with “goop”), and something else I can’t remember anymore. I had my fill of those and would have left fully satisfied after that. But then came the entrees. I had gnocchi bolognese and it was amazing, but I could barely finish I was so uncomfortably stuffed. But I had to finish, so that I could justify getting desert. They had tiramisu on the menu, and I was not leaving without it, even if they had to roll me out Violet Beauregarde style. And boy, was the pain and suffering worth it, because that tiramisu was so good, I swear it was made by the hand of actual angels. Actual. Angels. Sure I had trouble sitting down the rest of the night, but aside from the several more hours my family sat at the bar after dinner, I really just went to sleep to rest for the big day of touristing ahead. 

Made by literal angels. 

The next day was true tourist day: 2 guided tours scheduled to the max. In the morning we had a private guided tour of ancient Roman historical sites. Our tour guide was a sweet man named Giuseppe, how rubbed his chin whenever he answered a question and was very excited about Roman history. He told us about the famous sites he helped excavate as a student studying archaeology, and I felt I had a kindred spirit in him. I spent most of the 3 hour long tour walking next to him, chatting about Roman history and asking lots of questions as my family trailed behind, taking pictures while I hogged all the learning for myself. 

Inside the Colosseum!

Palatine Terrace

We went to the Colosseum (inside this time!), the Forum, the terrace atop the Palatine palace, to several triumphal arches, and to the Pantheon. The Forum was particularly fun for me because, as we walked through, it made me think of a passage from the Aeneid (yes I know, I am total nerd, let’s move on), where Aeneas is walking around the Palatine hill before he has even settled and founded the city that would become Rome, and he is seeing what will someday be there, the grandeur and splendor of the city he is about to establish. I just found it super neat to walk around the same place Aeneas was supposed to have walked, while seeing what once was, seeing the past instead of the future. That’s just me, though. Giuseppe was quite impressed by my extensive knowledge of ancient Roman history, and was calling me “his assistant” by the end of the tour, asking me to help him fill in gaps. It was quite fun, actually! He even said that I had what it takes to be a tour guide like him in Rome (which is actually a pretty good gig in Europe, and is something I will definitely add to the list of future ). Needless to say, we are now best friends. 

The Oculus in the Pantheon!

After a quick trip to Piazza Navona, we had a speedy lunch, and then it was off to the Vatican Museum for our second guided tour of the day. Now, the Vatican Museum was beautiful and bursting with incredible works of art, but it just wasn’t what I was expecting. Everything went through a travel agent my family dealt with, and I sort of just showed up and hung around a bit, so I didn’t know many of the details of the trip. So when I heard “Vatican” and “tour”, I assumed we would be getting a tour of the Papal collections and residences, not just the Vatican’s collection of art, so in that sense it was a little disappointing. On top of that, I was pretty beat from the tour in the morning and a very small, rushed lunch (I was still fairly hungry actually). Also, it was so crowded, that we couldn’t spend much time looking at any one piece. 

I got a quick look at a famous statue of Laocoön and his sons (another Aeneid geek moment for me), and we didn’t even get to see the hallway full of statues where the crazy pope hacked all the genitals off the male figures. It was really cool to see things like The School of Athens, which I had studied in class before, but by the time we got to the Sistine Chapel, I was so exhausted and ready to go, and the whole time the guards just kept shushing the crowd. It was like a can of sardines in there, we had 20 minutes, and so I didn’t feel I got to fully appreciate the splendor of the Chapel, didn’t get to see everything the way I wished I could have. By the time we finally escaped into open air, I was stir crazy, exhausted, and sad that it was already dark out (I wanted to spend as much time in the sun as I could manage knowing I was going back to the dark place in a few days). We went into the Basilica, which was rather breathtaking in its scale. I saw the Pieta, which was masterful, and wandered around trying to grasp the size of the place. Nevertheless, after 10-15 minutes I’d had my fill and was itching to go do anything else. I was pacing pretty impatiently waiting for my relatives to finish at the gift shop and somehow it got communicated that I was on the verge of “a meltdown”. Really, I just wanted to go do something fun after feeling like I’d wasted 4-5 precious hours in Rome. 

The word “meltdown” seemed to stir up quite a fuss around me, as the relatives hustled to get me out. Then there was a quite a bit of hoopla around trying to get a cab to take us to a covered market I’d seen and expressed interest in earlier, but no one could remember exactly where it had been, and we couldn’t hail two cabs, and then one of my aunts flagged down a hoard of police officers to ask them about it, and the whole while, I was staving off some more tangible panic. If there is one thing I do not like, it is people stressing over me. When I am fussed over, I tend to freak out and curl into a ball. So I spent quite a bit of time hanging out with Paul, who imparted some touching words of wisdom: he said, really, you just have to learn not to care. Sure you’ll be disappointed sometimes, but you have to just not care. That’s the secret. When I expressed my guilt over having caused such hoopla, Paul said, oh there’s nothing to feel bad about. With this group, if it wasn’t you, it was going to be something else. In fact, with this group, chaos would’ve happened no matter what, like spontaneous combustion. Just a quick shout out, thanks Paul, that was literally the exact thing I needed to hear at that moment. 

The next day was much better. While the most of the family chose to sleep in a little bit, mom, aunt Linda, and I got up a little earlier and went off on an adventure to a famous outdoor market called Porta Portese, named for the ancient city gate that marks the start of the market stalls. We beat the crowds by 2 hours, and took our time wandering from stall to stall (and man did it take time: the market was massive, it must’ve gone on for more than a mile!). I got some lovely Italian leather handbags, and a silver necklace for dirt cheap, mom broke out her haggling skills (it didn’t go exactly as planned), and got herself a beautiful green leather jacket, and aunt Linda got a bag and some scarves and officially became “Euro-Linda”. It was so fun, and so peaceful, and just nice to be out and about early in the morning with the sun shining. 

If you’ve read up to this point, you can probably understand why I’m stopping here (this post is very long), but stay tuned for Part II. Rome was so amazing, and I didn’t want it to end. I wanted to wander down those cobblestone paths, and drink good coffee and wine, and feel the sun forever. I think Lizzie McGuire got it right, this is what dreams are made of. Hey now, hey now!

Micro Post No.5

Hey guys, more proof that I'm feeding myself! I'm actually pretty proud of this one, I'm not gonna lie. It's baked salmon with dill and lemon, and roasted potatoes and onions! I know! Fancy!

Anyways, I know I haven't posted in a while, but it's been a crazy few weeks for me. I went to Rome (pictures and posts to come!) and for the past two weeks it has been paper-writing season for me! Needless to say, with me holed up in the library writing papers, I haven't had much time or inclination to write blog posts that will do my adventures any justice. But just know that they are coming and you should be excited!

Stratford, Stratford, Wherefore Art Thou Stratford?

Surprise, surprise, I went on another day trip this weekend! Bet you all didn’t see that one coming from a mile away. The never-ending day trips is all a part of my carpe diem strategy while I’m abroad—who knows when I’ll be able to make it back to this side of the ocean, so I should probably make the most of my time while I’m here.

Shakespeare's home and garden

This week my friends and I visited Stratford-Upon-Avon, hometown of Shakespeare. The drive was long and the stubborn English weather mocked us with rain all day long (until it was time to get on the bus home, that is), but it was still a really fun day! 

Stratford sits on the river Avon (obviously) and is a quaintly preserved Medieval town. The Medieval buildings were interspersed with newer construction, and many of the antique structures were filled with modern high street stores, though there were still several quirky, unique little boutiques all over the place. There were a lot of candy and fudge shops, and along the main “Shakespeare oriented” road, there was a teashop in about every second or third storefront. We ended up getting lunch at a funny little pub called The Pen and Parchment. We ended up ordering traditional English breakfast all around (what can I say, I’m a breakfast sort of a girl) while praying for the rain to let up. It was a really neat little place—behind our booth there was a chalkboard with a record of the landlords going back to the mid 18th century. It was not only incredible to see the unbroken chain of owners, but also just really amazing to know that such a quaint and unassuming little establishment had such a long history. Then again, I tend to be overly fascinated by all things old, especially the exceptionally old things in Europe. 

For the most part we just wandered around. We visited the house where Shakespeare was born and raised. Apparently his family was quite well off due to his father’s booming glove making business. Interesting. We spent quite a bit of time in the numerous gift shops as well. Stratford is quite the tourist hub (and apparently has been for like 400 years…), so there were a lot of cheesy souvenir shops and the like. I didn’t mind it though—I sort of love touristy things and being a tourist: it’s fun to encounter places for the first time and look at them with a sense of astonishment, and I feel like you don’t always get that if you’re trying to blend in with locals or if you get used to a place, you stop exploring and appreciating. 

Medieval houses are small...

Real sugar cubes!!!

We also visited the house of John Harvard, founder of the American university of the same name. Apparently he and Shakespeare were nearly contemporaries! Who knew they hailed from the very same little town in England? After that we went to the home of Shakespeare’s eldest daughter and her husband, who was a doctor. By then it had started to pour torrents on us, so after walking around the house we decided to have some tea in the attached cafe. It was lovely and warm and by the time we had finished our snacks the rain had let up! 

Then we were able to go to the local church and see where Shakespeare and his family are buried. It’s amazing to me that he was baptized, married, and buried in the very same church in the same little town! I suppose the world was just a smaller place 500 years ago. After that, we mostly wandered around. We were told that the layout of the town was preserved from Shakespeare’s time, so we were walking the same paths he would recognized, which I found to be very cool and strange at the same time. Overall, it was a nice day even though we got drenched! 

Stratford church where Shakespeare is buried

As for the rest of the week, I’ve been busy working on school work and my project for Special Collections. I think I’ve narrowed down the scope of my Special Collections project a bit more—it’s so exciting to think that I’ll have something concrete at the end of the semester to show for all my work! 

School work is starting to pick up. I’ve got two papers due in the next 2-3 weeks that I really need to start looking at. I’m a little worried since the way in which papers are written here is a little different than what I’m used to. There’s a different reference system that doesn’t seem very efficient to me, and for my literature paper I’m expected to do a lot of external research, which is new for me. I’m used to just digging into the text and laying out my own thoughts and arguments. Still, that should be easier than the philosophy paper (*yikes*). I’ve never written a philosophy paper and the material still feels a little out of the grasp of my full understanding, so we will just have to cross our fingers and see what happens. 

Cambridge to Cambridge Connection

This week in “Austen Does Day Trips” I ventured down to Cambridge with some of my friends. After leaving at the ridiculously early hour of 7:30 (uhg it was still dark out...or was it just really cloudy?), we arrived in the picturesque land of Cambridge. 

Me, Sara, and Petra in front of King's College (pc: Sara)

While I have been to Cambridge, Massachusetts numerous times, have walked along cobblestone streets there, and have even drunken tea, Cambridge, UK was starkly different. The town and campus looked like they had been plucked out of a story book or movie set! We wandered around amongst hoards of Asian tourists, peering into the windows of posh tailor shops advertising £600 suit jackets, strolling through an open air market, and generally enjoying the prettiness of the setting. 

We ate lunch at a delicious Italian restaurant, which made me all the more excited about my upcoming trip to Rome (!). After the one of the best eggplant parmesans I’ve ever had, we ventured to Great St. Mary’s Church, at the center of Cambridge. The church itself was quite pretty, though I always feel strange walking on stores paved with people’s gravestones—it feels disrespectful, but seems quite common in Europe. We decided to go up into the tower of the church, which advertised the best views of Cambridge on a sign in the church gift shop (a strange thing in and of itself, but no one else seemed to think it bordering on the realm of Indulgences, so I let it be…). 

So narrow...so steep... (pc: Sara)

We had to climb up the narrowest and steepest set of stairs I’ve ever climbed in my life. I’ve never thought of myself as a claustrophobic person, but I was holding on for dear life as well climbed up to the top. The views were absolutely worth it, though. The buildings at Cambridge (like in many European cities, I’ve found) were all rather low to the ground, so we could see a lot. The campus is beautiful, and we had an amazing view of the iconic King’s College. The lawn had such precise stripes (that you were constantly reminded not to walk on), that the whole place seemed like something out of “Alice in Wonderland”. I read the little information pamphlet about the church and was once again amazed at the immense age of some things in Europe. The church had been “well established” already when the university started building up around it in the 12th century CE. My constant shock amuses my friends, but I can’t help but feel a sense of reverence walking around a fully functional structure that is exponentially older than my country (in terms of it’s “establishment”, trying to be PC here folks). 

Top of the tower! (pc: Petra)

After our long descent in the spiral stairs from hell, we decided to stroll through the local art museum. It was quite nice with a pretty solid collection! I even got to see a real portrait of Henry VIII that wasn’t in a history textbook—it was quite novel. We spent a few hours tottering around the museum and then we went and met up with a friend of mine, Mark, who I’d met in American Cambridge last year while he was studying abroad at MIT. It was loads of fun to see him again, though it was sort of like seeing two worlds collide: my Boston life and my Leeds life bumped into each other in Cambridge! Mark took us punting, a uniquely British activity. Punts are little river boats that you move with a long pole, like gondolas (but the driver doesn’t sing to you!). 

Mark making punting look easy (pc: Sara)

Mark punted us around for the majority of the trip making it look quite easy (little did I know that he has done this numerous times before and was also a crew person…), so when he offered me a go, I thought it might be fun. Haha. Ha. I tried so hard to make the boat move, but mostly I swung the pole around in the water, trying to make the boat point straight (but mostly just making it spin around and drift sideways). I think I moved us a few inches forward, but really this was just a rude awakening to the complete lack of core strength I have as I desperately threw my entire weight into trying to move the boat and essentially failing to do so. 

Me failing to move the punt (pc: Sara)

Mark had pity on me and resumed punting, giving us his best tour guide impression as we went. My friends and I learned all about the womping willow (both of them) that grew near the river, the stake where freshers who are witches are burned, and that Queen’s College is so named because that is where the Queen herself throws all her ragers. It was truly informative. Mark also rejoiced in his quest to his every duck, goose, or swan we encountered with true vigor. Overall, our trip was really nice! It’s always good to get out of the residences, off campus, and away from Leeds for a day. 

The always lovely Petra and Sara :) 

It was nice catching up with an old friend, though it did make me think of Wellesley, which made me a little homesick (as did talking about how much I missed Taco Bell…I know, I’m an addict…). My bout of homesickness lasted a few days, and I ended up drowning it in a small shopping trip, 2 packages of Oreos (which are blasphemously sold in the biscuit aisle of the grocery store!), Willow’s sad and soft playlist, and a TV binge. 

For the most part I’m just trying to keep myself busy to ward off any feelings of homesickness, and it’s proving not too difficult to do so here! I’ve started working at Special Collections regularly now! I’m helping to catalog a rather extensive archive of material from the famous British poet Tony Harrison. I’m mainly working on his photo albums (of which there are many), and throughout the semester I’m working to put out a digital resource of images from the albums and texts that focus on one of Harrison’s projects. It’s all quite exciting and everyone at Special Collections is quite lovely (though I do miss the people at Wellesley’s Special Collections quite dearly!). 

Outside of academics, I’ve had a few more moments of culture self-awareness. I’ve recently discovered that some truly wonderful food items are not universal! Several of my European friends have asked me about hash browns when I was describing what I eat for breakfast (a list that amused them in and of itself, but that’s a different story). I was truly astonished and mildly horrified that the wonderful item that are hash browns are not enjoyed globally! A true travesty if there ever was one. I’ve also discovered that my friends from continental Europe have never had Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Lattes before! I’m not really much of a Starbucks supporter in general, their coffee is honestly nothing special, but their Pumpkin Spice Lattes are the gateway into Fall for me! So we are all trying (or have tried) them at my insistence (I tried to describe it as drinkable pumpkin pie, but that reference didn’t land because apparently that’s an American thing too). Lastly, root beer floats! My favorite dessert! I’ve described to numerous people before about how wonderful root beer floats are because it’s not too much ice-cream and you can quench your thirst at the same time and it gets so frothy and wonderful, but my friends all looked quite disgusted and confused when I described the concept. 

Speaking of unique food experiences, this past Monday I went to my program director’s home for dinner! It was one of the most English experiences I’ve had so far! He and his family live in York (about 30 minutes away by train) in a sweet little row house. He had invited me and two of his post-grad (or grad students in US English) that night to eat with him, his wife, his daughter (about my age), and his son (elementary school age). They were all so lovely and welcoming and I had a really lovely time! My favorite part of their house was probably the kitchen because it was so cozy! It even had one of those old fashioned oven/stove tops! We had a very very British meal, as well. We had roast beef (and everyone was amused and slightly horrified when I said I’d only ever had it in lunch meat form in plastic from the store), which was served with horseradish and “hot” English mustard (both were quite mild by my standards, though). We also had some yummy baked or steamed veggies and Yorkshire pudding (which is not like the chocolate pudding you can get in the US, but like a dough puff that you bake). For dessert (which is also called pudding, confusingly enough) we had a yummy apple tart or cake of sorts, and a chocolate cheese cake! The conversation was interesting (I learned a lot about the NHS and its politics) and everyone was so sweet! Plus it was just so nice to have a real, home cooked meal after a month and a half of reheated pasta everyday!