Blogging Location: In the flat, excited for the rest of the year, hopeful, and supposed to be doing an essay. I'm obviously not, seeing as I have a guitar in my lap.
Before I get into my travels and experiences, I have an announcement: Easter break is all booked and ready for initiation! I spent a grand total of 17 hours with my friend Tatiana booking trains, planes, automobiles and hostels for the spring holiday! We got it all done in 1 weekend and I can happily say it was decently cheap because of how early in advanced we booked things. Yay for budget airlines and accommodations. Future destinations:
.:Oxford:.
So many moons ago, three friends and I ventured southward to Oxford, the university town. It's very tiny: you can walk from one end to the other in 25 minutes. It's also gorgeous. Luckily, one of my best friends, Katie, studied there for a semester last year and was able to give me a complete to-do list! Fab! Thanks Katie! <3
FUN FACT: Buildings in Oxford demonstrate an example of every British architectural period since the arrival of the Saxons, including the iconic, mid-18th century Radcliffe Camera.
So starting at about middle school, I became a Lord of the Rings and JRR Tolkien fanatic. I'm not sure I even dare to explain how geeky I was about Tolkien's work... Okay, I'll humor you: I own the trilogy in several formats: books, regular edition DVDs, extended editions and boxed sets (with collectibles!); I have two life size cardboard standees of Aragorn and Legolas in my bedroom; my shower door has the door of the Mines of Moria engraved on it; in middle school and high school I could speak and teach elvish, both Sindarin and Quenya. I need to stop there and quit embarrassing myself. Anyways, what this has to do with Oxford is that JRR Tolkien was a professor there! The famous Eagle and Child pub (or the Bird and Baby) where Tolkien and CS Lewis hung out is also located in Oxford. Basically going to Oxford excited the little fangirl in me, almost as if I had a ticket to the Shire. Here's the famous pub:
Another thing we got to see in Oxford... where they filmed part of Harry Potter!
.:The Saints Come Marching In:.
Did I mention that I had a nasty cold while in Oxford? Well, that properly tuckered me out so apart from going to Betty's (a famous and bougie Yorkshire teahouse) I slept pretty the rest of the day. Here's a couple pics from Betty's:
In the evening, I originally planned to make like a fetus and head out (rimshot!) to a sports bar to watch the Superbowl, but nautrally it was raining cats and dogs. I'd been talking about staying up and watching it for a couple weeks, but my illness and the weather got the better of me. Quite disappointed, I trudged around in the kitchen and made myself a midnight snack instead (kick off was at around 11:30pm my time). My flat mate James lugged his TV out into the living room and plugged it in (fun fact: you need a TV license in England :P). Half hopeful and half assuming there was some rugby cup match type thing going on, I asked what was going on. Matter-of-factly, stated: "The Superbowl." Yeah, imagine how stoked I was. Didn't even have to leave the flat! Score!
And Reggie Bush was in the game this year, San Diegan & USC alum, what what?! A bunch of us stayed up PRETTY late, but it was a great time in the flat and totally worth it.
Slight disappointment: BBC didn't air the commercials. Which are half of the Superbowl's enjoyment. Fail.
Just to share, I don't know if this was actually aired during the Superbowl, but this is one of my favourite recent commercials:
Forgive my favor towards non-sequitur humour.
.:Valentin-- Chinese New Year:.
For Spring Festival, or Chinese New Years Eve, my friend Grace from China, invited me to celebrate with her and her friends; we made pork dumplings from scratch!
I blatantly didn't celebrate Valentine's Day because the foodstuffs that are associated with that holiday are no where near up to par with that of Chinese New Year and they fell on the same day this year. As a very last minute party, I threw together some red and gold paper lanterns and one of those silly Happy New Year banners to put above the stove to chase that backseat-driver-of-a-kitchen-god away. Just kidding. Foods included fried rice, noodles, prawn toasties, lychee, and kau yuk.
A good time was had by all! I definitely ate too much though.
.:Vikings!:.
The Viking Festival in York!
Seeing as there are only a few months left for me in Europe, I've been trying to pack something in at least every weekend. One weekend trip consisted of a day trip to York for the Jorvik Viking Festival!
To be honest, we spent most of our time eating at the food fair which consisted mostly of international foods, not really anything Scandinavian, but it was delicious anyways. We also got to pop a few cool pics of the beard competition which I was pretty stoked about:
That's one of my favourite pictures. :)
Now, apart from the Viking museum and festival, York is a very historic city, one of the most visited in all of England. Here's a photo of the Yorkminster.
There's also ancient Roman wall from which apparently you can still shoot a Scotsman with a crossbow (random fact supplied by flat mate, please check accuracy and your own sanity before acting upon your newfound trivia). In addition, there are incredibly narrow streets also called The Shambles. Here's a pic!
Andddd... Guy Fawkes was born in York. :D
As always, see the Facebook albums for more photos! :)
That's about all I've got time for now. I promise I'll get to more food blog entries as well as some more culture shock. I'm now going to tease you with a photo from London Fashion Weekend, which I went to... There will be a blog for this coming soon!
Now I'm off to do what I supposedly came to Leeds for... studying!
Cheers for reading!
-Your local village idiot
P.S. Praise the Lord for the recent streak of gorgeous weather! :) Keep it comin'!
