"I wasted time, now time doth waste me"

The title of this blog comes from Shakespeare's Richard II, which I just read for class. I am determined NOT to end up like good ol' Rich and waste any time while I am here (or be imprisoned and murdered by an overzealous knight in a jail cell come to think of it) which leads me to the rest of my post since I have a bunch to talk about as I have been very busy.

On Saturday (the 22nd, yes I'm behind) Kelly and I went to Chapel Hill market and did some shopping. We found some great fruit stalls that were pretty cheap. There was also a butchers and a fish stall (the latter of which I avoided since fish with the eyes still on them freak me out, I'd rather see my fish fried and with chips). I braved the meat stall and got steak super cheap, which I was a little nervous about but it was good and I have not got mad cow disease yet so I will go back for sure. We then went to the Wellcome Museum for free which had a display all about the history of hallucinogenic drugs. That had a "drug free" hallucination machine that was spinning lights in a dark room. Basically you close your eyes for a minute then open them and stare at the spinning orange lights and they appear to go faster and faster. The museum also had a display all about medcine and medical stuff (some nasty looking amputations saws) all of which reaffirmed that I belong in the English department and not in medical school. Saw Florence Nightingale's moccasins. After that we got Indian food and found a random street with a whole bunch of Indian restaurants so it was a great find!

On Wednesday I saw a FANTASTIC production of Hamlet at the National Theatre for my Modern Theatre class. They set it in modernish times with everyone in suits and bodyguards with guns. It was four hours and I was enthralled the whole time, which gives you an idea of production quality. Plus, they implied that Ophelia was murdered rather than killing herself, an interpretation that I always liked when reading the play.

Thursday I got to go see the musical Legally Blonde for free!!! Laura got free tickets through work and gave them to my friend Christine who took me along and we had a great time. I had just gotten off of work at my internship and the theatre was about 2 minutes away so it was perfect. Totally different from Hamlet of course but it was fun and energetic and made me laugh and two plays in two nights both for free, can't beat that!

I don't remember if I already mentioned this but I joined a travel club that I thought was through Birkbeck but turns out it wasn't so I'm not really sure how I found it but I'm glad I did since they get you all sorts of discounts for student travel. I went on Saturday to Wales and Wye valley which was awesome. Small world, I met Kelly's orientation roommate who was from Mexico on the trip and said I was from Stonehill and she said "Oh! I know someone from Stonehill" a voila, we both knew Kelly. Back to Wales trip: First stop was Gloucester, which was still in England where we went to the Gloucester Cathedral. The guide said they added this to the tour because parts of Harry Potter were filmed there, cool right?

Here is a very pretty stain glass window I found in a random chapel in the Cathedral and I'm posting it because I think it is nice and its my blog and I can post whatever I like :)

View from the back of the Cathedral

Next we crossed the river and were in Wales. We stopped at Tinturn Abbey (see pic below) which is all in ruins but was still awesome and beautiful! I can see how the area inspired Wordsworth. When Henry the 8th took over and got rid of the Catholic church they stripped the abbey of a lot of the stone and it fell into disrepair

Inside the Abbey

After that we went to Chepstow, another town in Wales, where we saw a castle and wandered around. I saw the alley that allegedly inspired J.K. Rowling's Diagon Alley, though the guide admitted that was just a rumor and he was unable to confirm. The guide was an interesting man, middle aged Irish fellow. When I was walking next to him close to the road he all of a sudden grabbed my arm and gently pulled me to the other side of him, informing me that ladies were supposed to walk on that side. I was surprised and he explained that this was from the days when the roads were not paved and full of sewage and the passing horses used to kick up muck as they passed so the girls walked on the other side of the men so they would not get their fancy clothes dirty. I refrained from mentioning that I was in jeans, not petticoats and the road was paved and there were no horses... but I guess it was nice in a sort of outdated way :)

Alrighty on to Sunday! I wasn't going to let complete exhaustion from my Wales trip keep me down this weekend so I was up bright and early to go on a day trip to Stonehenge and Bath with Hannah, Nina, Christine and Sam.

First off we stopped at Stonehenge which was pretty cool, though you only really need an hour or so there because when you come right down to it is is just a pile of large rocks, albeit cool mysterious-how-the-hell-did-they-get-there-rocks. It was sunny and clear and beautiful. Even though it is January the plains we drove through were all green so I got my classic English countryside fix. So nice to get out of the city for a bit.

My favorite part of the day was Bath, which is so beautiful. The whole city is made out of the same apricot colored stone and it is actually a law that you have to build any new buildings out of the same stuff, though its expensive so they get around it by building out of concrete and adding the stone after. We went to the Roman Baths first. You can't touch the water since they used lead pipes and it is untreated, though that didn't stop the 4 people I saw stick there hands in... Pics below:

View of some of Bath

Me in front of the big Roman Bath

View from bridge in Bath

The first sunset I have seen in a month

All in all it was a great weekend! Since the theme of my blog this week is not wasting time this ending is appropriate because I have to leave in 5 minutes for a 15 hour bus ride to Galway! I can write all about that adventure in a few days!