The Many Cities of England

Well, a lot has happened these last two weeks. I wish I had time to write about all of it in excruciatingly great detail, but I figure the more details I leave out the more I’ll have to talk about when I return. I will briefly go over my weekend trips and some cool things that have been happening during the week days.

On Saturday the 16^th I went on a class trip into Manchester to view the play Roots at the Royal Exchange theatre. The city of Manchester itself reminded me a lot of New York City, more specifically, like Canal Street. There was one decent town square that I took a few pictures of. The play itself was pretty good. I can’t complain much; keep in mind I had to read the play in class before hand, so it was nice to put some good acting in front of the relatively boring dialogues. The interesting thing is that the performance took place on a theatre-in-the-round, meaning there was an audience 360 degrees around the stage. So it was a new experience for me to say the least, plus the main character got completely naked to take a bath. I heard of plays where there was nudity I was just not expecting to sit through one on that day.

The next day we took a quick day trip to Kenilworth Castle. This was the castle of Robert Dudley, Queen Elizabeth’s one true love. It was a really fun place. The ruins were completely open to explore and I was one of the few to take that as an ‘ok’ to climb around on stuff. British History turned into a fantastic jungle gym. I enjoyed it to say the least.

The following weekend I went to Brighton Rock, the San Francisco of England (large gay community and coastal city). It was exciting to see the Royal Pavilion, built by King George the IV. He had a thing for the Chinese culture, so this place was teeming with it. One of the most impressive views was the dining hall which had a massive chandelier held up by an ornate and equally massive dragon. I liked it a lot; they didn’t allow me to take pictures though. The pier and beach were nice to walk around on. The beach was made of small smooth stones that gave me a foot massage as I walked across them. The Pier reminded me of the Jersey Shore and being me I picked up a bowl of shellfish at a shellfish bar (it was like 5 pounds of seafood). Carrie and I spent most of the day together; we even went into an aquarium after lunch. The most exciting things about that was the glass tunnel we walked through to get up close looks at sharks and other fish and a huge 50 year old sea turtle named Lulu. She was beautiful.

Saturday the 23^rd I went to the city of Bath. The bus came around a bend; we were driving high alongside the side of a valley. As we drove further along the valley, Bath came into view from behind a few hills. The white city was painted across the whole slope of the valley. It was quite the eye-opener (I couldn’t act in time to get a picture sorry). The Roman Baths are arguably the coolest Roman Ruins in the world, yet they sit in England. The museum was built right over the temple ruins and we got to see some of the original architecture and renovated areas of the hot springs and baths. This was so far my favorite city. Even the street performers kicked ass. Have you ever seen two acrobatics do handstands on narrow poles, in man-thongs, while sparklers were whizzing between their butt cheeks? I think not. The city kept its charm and culture. Even commercial buildings and food chains like McDonalds kept quiet as they tried to blend in with the rest of the city.

During the school weeks I think two pretty profound things happened. One, I explored a tiny passageway that led under the Abbey. It was a secret passage of sorts. This other student Mike and I crawled in through a hole in a wall of the courtyard. We even found a bat inside. The Second thing is the Medieval Banquet. I didn’t get dressed up because it was expensive to rent a costume, but there were live musicians playing tunes from the medieval times. Even the dean Dr. Baldwin got really involved in the festivities, grunting and eating as sloppily as possible. We ate with our hands, yelled cheers, sang songs and drank honey mead. It was pretty fun. I also think I will be backpacking through Ireland with Paul Russel. Some of you know him, as that kid that was in my freshman suite who smelt so bad Matt (his previous roommate) moved out of his room in to mine. Well I am confident enough to say that his hygiene has improved.

Happy Birthday Toots!