Baby, It's Cold Outside

At least, that's what I've heard about the weather back in MN. Someone here told me that it was -45 degrees with wind chill at SJU. Holy crap!! It was like +45 and sunny today but a little windy here in the UK. Some people walking around had like parkas on and stuff. I thought it was kind of funny. I thought of that title because I was thinking of everyone back home but also because I am listening to Rat Pack Christmas as I'm writing this. Haha, what can I say? I like the cd.

The frequent reader of this blog will notice something different about this post from the last few. Could it be the imporved humor? Maybe I changed the format? No and No. I included pictures again!!! YAHOOOOO!!!! Vanessa downloaded her pictures to a computer so I am able to include pictures for this post. I am also going to retroactively add pictures to previous posts so it would be really worth your time to check those out, if only to see my beautiful face in front of stonehenge. All it takes is a little scroll down on this page. Picture 1 of this post is the inside of Our Lady of Victories, the church that Rachelle and I go to every Sunday. I just thought I'd throw it in there for everyone to see. No kids were there when we took the picture so it had a, um, slightly different atmosphere.

I had Senior Sem again today. We spent the whole class reading through the play, "Murder in the Cathedral" by T.S. Eliot. We were continuing it from Monday. I guess I liked the play. I realize that we kind of sprinted through it but it went by really fast. I don't have much to say about the play. Poetry was used in it at times. There were a lot of allusions and stuff that Phil explained. Again, the reason we read this is because we are going to Canterbury Cathedral on Saturday which is where Sir Thomas à Becket was killed. We are also going to Dover (castle and white cliffs included). At Dover, we are getting a tour of the Wartime Tunnels where people hid during war and stuff apparently. We are leaving at 7:30 am which means some people will be late, as usual.

After class, I looked online researching places to go feb 7-10 because it is our first open weekend. I just looked at Ryanair flights that work for when I want to leave and return and are cheap (£10 or less one way). Then I looked up info for those destinations. After doing that for a while and feeling guilty about sitting inside when the sun is shining outside, I got Vanessa and we went for another walk. This time we went to Regent's Canal (picture 1). It's a canal built in 1820 to connect another canal with a port on the other side of London. John Nash (who designed the canal and Regent's Park) wanted it to go through the park but was persuaded not to. Good thing because there have been numerous instances where barges have blown up on the canal (carrying gunpowder). Vanessa and I took the Tube over there and the first half of the walk was just along the canal on the tow-way. This is just a path where a steam engine or donkey or whatever would pull the boats along when the canal was operational. Now its a nice path for a nice day. The canal is now used by little barge type house things. Apparently people live in those things sometimes. There are kitchens and stuff inside them. In the spring, they are covered by potted plants. You can take a canal bus ride for £6 on Sundays.

So we walked along the canal for a while. We walked by a cafe that has a great view down the canal (picture 2). We are going to go back there when they open up the doors over the canal and its warmer. There are 4 or 5 big mansions (picture 3) along the canal on the way to Regent's Park. They are spectacular. We then walked off the canal to Primrose Hill. The Hill was steeper than I thought but it offered amazing views of London. We could see the London Eye and Canary Wharf among others. Picture 4 has the view with Vanessa in the foreground. I loved the clouds and the blue sky in picture 5. On a side note, I don't notice a ton of smog here, a greener city I guess. Then we walked through some side streets. One house we passed by was formerly occupied by W.B. Yeats, the famous Irish poet. We eventually got to Camden Market. Its an enormous outdoor/indoor market with little alleys (picture 6) and people selling mostly clothes but sometimes jewelry or hats or whatever. There were some Chinese stands that were trying to get us to buy some food. One lady called us over and sort of whispered, "It say £3 for meal but I sell to you for £2.50" and winked. Haha. Good times. We, of course, politely declined. I liked the market a lot and Vanessa and I agreed that we would come back some other time (i.e. more money) and buy some souvenirs or whatever. We took the Tube back to our flat.

I read from "Atilla" and had some more pasta for dinner (sausage tortellini with tomato sauce, £1.75, oh yes). That's about it for my day. I was going to go hike along the English Channel coast tomorrow but there's supposed to be 35+ mph winds and rain so I think that that is out (it will happen eventually, don't worry) which sucks. I really wanted to do that. Oh well. I will think of something else to do.

Take Care!