Purgatory

Please excuse the less-than-joyful tone of this post. I know these things are supposed to be about how amazing and fulfilling this *experience* is, but you are all probably jaded and tired of that by now anyway. Right? RIGHT?

The point of this is that I have not had the greatest few days. Remember that solo trip out to Charleston I was going to take? Well, that turned into a profound disaster. All told, I must have made about a dozen public transportation mistakes which ended up costing me more than I care to think about, and in a twelve hour day, I spent only about two hours at my destination, and the rest in transit. And Charleston is only about an hour away from London, technically. The place itself was really cool; it's the old home of Vanessa Bell (Virginia Woolf's painter sister) and Duncan Grant, two of the most important figures in the Bloomsbury bohemian-type movement in Britain. It was great to have learned so much about it in school at TU and then to actually see it in person. I wish I could just have stayed there, and in fact, I probably should have, since it turned out that the bus I hurried to catch never came, and I ended up waiting for it for an hour and a half outside in the cold and drizzle, before having to walk another couple of miles in the shrubs along the highway to get to the nearest train station. People kept honking at me as they drove by too, and I have no idea why. It was really disheartening.

So that was lame. The next day, a trip for internationals to the Cotswolds and Oxford, was not as lame. I was worried because I didn't know anyone on the trip, but I ended up making friends with a girl called Nadua from Bosnia. Problem is I don't know her last name and am having a hard time finding her on facebook. Frustrating. F-game.

The Cotswolds were almost too cute to be real; think England from a BBC original miniseries of a Jane Austen novel. Or even a Shakespeare play. In the Costwolds you have something called cream tea, which is basically just tea and scones, but the scones... They're more like what we call biscuits, only they have fruit and rasins in them and stuff, and for cream tea, you put clotted cream and jam on them. Clotted cream is somewhere between heavy cream and butter, and is my new favorite thing in the world.

Oxford is a strange place. This whole trip was one of those where they really don't give you enough time to do everything you want to do, and I feel like I missed out not getting to just roam around for hours. Also I was feeling a little bitter about not having gotten to go to school there; there was some kind of graduation ceremony going on and all these people were wandering around in their little Oxford robes and grad caps.

What I really wanted to do but couldn't was go to the pub where C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien used to hang out. Our guide pointed it out as we drove by, but of course there was no time to visit. I might try to get up there again. It seems like a great town.

Mostly the problem with little trips like this is that I just want to be a local everywhere I go, instead of an observer. Like, a huge reason I wished I could've studied at Oxford was to eat in the Christ Church dining hall. Hogwarts, anyone?

Oh well. I bought a few school supplies today, and I'm hoping that classes starting tomorrow will improve my mood. I try out for volleyball on Thursday, so I guess I also need to go buy some court shoes and knee pads. I am just writing this week off as a total fail financially.

Aaaaanyway. I'm off to write an opinion piece for the Collegian (Vote NO on SQ744!!!!!!), for which I will hopefully get paid, even though I'm abroad. Dear TU payroll, please understand that I am poor and need your money!

Peace.

C