(To the right: Me in a red phone box)I meant to write on Monday... keep this thing updated weekly, but I got distracted. It's pretty easy to get distracted here! Last week was dull over all anyway. I had a couple classes and a couple lectures. Things are going better. It's independent learning, but it's good. I think if I had any more lectures, I'd go crazy. My professors talk fast so add that to the accent and it's challenging. Last Tuesday, we got inducted into a library. Not even kidding. It's called the Boldleian Library and it is huge! It has three main buildings and numerous other buildings around Oxford, but that only includes 10% of the actual library. Most of the library is underground and they system to retrieve those books is pretty interesting. There are five stories below the ground in Oxford, but many books are stored in a salt mine in Chesire in Northern England! The books in storage can be ordered by a library member via the Bodlian internet catalogue. The books are picked up by workers, placed in bins, and sent to Oxford. The process can take 2 hours to many days, depending on where the book is. I have been lucky so far and the books I need are on the shelves in the main buildings. The library gets about 5000 books per week and has a deal with copywriters which gives them one copy of everything printed in England. Of course, this system is expensive and well monitored. It is a non-borrowing library, and they check bags going in and out. We had to take an oath to not destroy or set fire to the library and to follow all the rules. It was scary at first, but now I love it. I have access to almost any book in the entire world!
Since classes hadn't really begun, a small group of friends and I decided to go to London on Saturday. We had a lot of fun. We watched the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. We then walked about five blocks to Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey. We decided to tour the Abbey, which was extremely interesting. My friend is a history major, and so he explained the significance of the people whose graves we saw. After that, we walked a long, long way to the Tate Modern. Art is not that exciting for me, but it was alright. Then we walked over to the Shakespeare Globe Theatre, but didn't take a tour. (Above: Changing of the guard; Below: Me and Big Ben)
(Above: Westminster Abbey; Below: St. Paul's Cathedral from across the Thames)
(To the left: Buckingham Palace)Night fell and we walked to St Paul's Cathedral, which is somewhat like Westminster Abbey, but there are less graves in there. Then we walked back; unfortunately, downtown was crazy and we ended up not knowing where we were. But it ended up really, really good. We were in Trafalgar Square, home of the famous Nelson Column. We got directions back and walked through some cool arches. The road led back to Buckingham Palace and so we got to see it all light up at night (and there was no more crowd!). It was pretty amazing. We reached our bus stop, which ended being the wrong stop, but the driver took us anyway because he was nice. We probably had to walk six miles to see everything, but it was worth it. And I have more pictures, don't worry. If you want to see them, here are the links to my albums on facebook:
http://stcloudstate.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2112816&l=49269&id=56013847
http://stcloudstate.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2112821&l=4ab4f&id=56013847
The second week of classes is going alright. I still think it is awkward to talk to my professors and it still makes me feel stupid, but everyone here says they feel stupid, so I'm not alone. My free time is spent in the library or running around town looking for vendors in their vans. They have good, cheap food and the food we get at school consists of small portions of low-quality carbs. It's actually not so bad, though many people complain.
Here are two more links to different albums I have made since coming here:
http://stcloudstate.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2112090&l=07ddf&id=56013847
http://stcloudstate.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2112095&l=68a19&id=56013847
Things I've learned (or that just refreshed my memory):
Look RIGHT-left-right... which is hard because I don't know my rights and lefts.
Shhh... People talk very quiet.
Everyone loves a Minnesoooooooooooootan accent!
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