Away to Florida

We are saying good-bye to Marc's family, having just said it to my family.
The car is TOTALLY packed with almost no spare room.
So it is on the road for us. We are taking I-96 to 23 to 475 south to 75 all the way down.
I will make dispatches on our progress through out.
Love to all the Friends and Family who have given us your unending support.

So week 2 on Wednesday at 8am we went to Oxford, it rained all day. We were soaked, but we had a lovely tour guide and the town is quite beautiful.















Pretty ribs from a vaulted ceiling.













A shot from inside "New College," yeah, even this one was founded before the US was even discovered. The history of Oxford and the colleges is really interesting, but convoluted, so I shall leave the interested to look it up. I might put up links for it later.









More from the inside of the New College, this is the side of the Great Hall.

















This is a section of the old city fortification wall that is still standing. It is now part of the gardens at New college.
I could have wandered for days painting and photographing this beautiful town, but the show must go on and we shortly loaded the bus for Stratford, our next stop.

Saint Peter's Cathedral at night, after we left the Globe












So I went back to the British Museum (actually several times) and I was there for some of the "Hands On" sessions. Here I am holding a medieval belt purse frame. I have better pictures of it but they are HUGE.









This is nifty. Some of the churches we have been to have these gorgeous tiles. They are terra-cotta colored with cream patterns. What they did was stamp the pattern into the base and then pour a very thin layer of cream colored slip into the depression, creating a long-lasting tile with fairly intricate patterning.
This cross section of a broken tile shows how this works.





Vincent visits Trafalgar Square.

Slowly and Surely I am getting these up...dial-up is bad for pictures.

Ok, so I had to put up a picture of the Crystal Skull that featured in the latest Indiana Jones flick. It was on display in the "Living and Dying" exhibit in the British Museum. Sadly for us Indy fans the skull was determined to be an 18th century creation.









Saint Paul's from the Millennium Bridge.


















Sebastian and Sam waiting for me at the Millennium Bridge.













The dedication plaque.













The GLOBE!!!! It is AMAZING. We saw Merry Wives of Windsor there our first week. The experience is truly something special.

Day 2:
This is my friend Sam and Vincent eatting Strawberries. They were little organic strawberries that were AMAZING.

















Two angels on the side of the Saint George Church just a few blocks from where we are staying. While I was taking this a gentleman in a business suit walked past, stopped and asked me what I was looking at, when I pointed out the sculptures he said "funny, I have walked past every day for 10 years and have never looked up." I have discovered that it always pays to look up, there is some amazing stuff up there.












Part of our group posing infront of the giant astroturf furniture at the National Theatre, where we are waiting for our tour to start.












This is Venus. I fianally saw her in person at the British museum. She is really amazing in person, and you can walk right up withing inches and see how the shaddows fall. I was in awe. Behind her and to the right (almost behind the collumn) is the Rosetta stone, which was awe inspiring but pictures are useless--if you can get past the mob around it the pictures do not do it justice and there are plenty of pictures of it on the web.











A gladiator from the Nereid Monument friezes. I just loved the composition of this beautiful carving.

Battle of the Internets

Alright, I have fought the hordes, I now bring you an update.
So I have been here three weeks now, and boy did we hit the ground running. We are in classmost mornings at 10am-noon-ish, then lunch. After lunch we generally go to a museum or to a theatre for a tour, then dinner, and then to a show until 10 or 11 at night. That has been the general shape of my days, on the weekends I do my homework and sightsee.
Here are highlights from the photos of the first two weeks with a running commentary:

Take-offs and Landings: So here we have me with Vincent, my loyal and trustworthy travel Gargoyle, thank my mother for the picture, we are packed and ready to move.
















Here is Vincent on the ride into London on the airplane, we didn't have a window seat so no pretty ariel views of the city.











Day one in London:
So after unpacking and a NAP (necessary after that long on a plane) I went with two of my class mates and Karren on a Big Red Bus tour of London.
So it was way too much fun, we rode on the open top of a red double decker bus around london listening to the music and commentary.
To the left is one of the guardian dragon statues of the City of London itself, which stood inside the old city walls, before the sprawling of the industrial revolution.


Here is the London Bridge from a distance.













There was something surreal about it, the day was beatiful, the sun shining and I listened to the 1812 overture while riding around the tower of London and the London Bridge.
Here is my first view of the Tower of London.










Another view of the Tower.












According to the flag Parliment was in Session.



















I love Gothic-revival architecture. This is West Minster.












Here I am with Big ben and Parliment in the distant background. It is slightly windy up on a moving bus, my hair was loving it.















Alright, it has taken me an hour and 1/2 to upload these pictures so I need to go get dinner. Talk to you all soon.


Ok so now I have some explaining as to why the updates have taken so long...
So the first week I am too tired to even think straight...jet lag and this schedule really caught up with me. Then I try to hook my computer up to the net...the wireless is way sketchy and no one can really connect. Then about 1/2 hour later the fuse on my voltage converter bites the dust...and the computer dies.

It took me over a week to find a new adaptor that will work with the grounded 3-pin plug of my laptop...you would think that a package that touts that the adaptor is ready for hairdryers, laptops, etc. would be grounded...at least I thought that made scense...guess not. SO finally find one that works and my computer's own cord is dual voltage (110/240) so no converter needed, so 2 weeks in I have my laptop agian. But still no internet...
Yes there are computers in our common room, but I am sharing them with about 30 other people and there are only 2 computers...competition is a bit stiff. Internet cafes charge extortionary rates too. No free wi-fi here...

So this is our long weekend, most of my commrads are in other countries, and I have the computer time to load pictures and such. The internet in the hostel is dial up so the pictures are taking forever...so this is the best I can do for now. Thanks for understanding.

Love you all.

Arrived in London

I have arrived in London, after several hours in Heathrow, after a short flight with strong tailwinds. I have checked into Pickwick and had a fine English meal of Beef and Ale pie with chips. Not much to report yet. The weather is lovely, mild and partly sunny. I will update soon.