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I have been in Canada for about a week now. Just one final post to summarize the last England activities. On the final day we left Charlbury pretty early in taxi van for London. When we arrived in London Beth and I split from Shawna, who was going back to Canada, and Maria, Mark, Jenina, and Mareika. We took our big suitcases to the International Student Hostel and paid to have them kept there until we got back from Paris. We had some time before our train to Paris so we went to Kensington Gardens to see the Peter Pan statue. It was one of Beth's must see things. It was hidden away in the corner of the park, but eventually we found it. The signs seemed to be leading us in different directions than where the statue actually was. After Kensington Gardens we went to see Buckingham Palace. It was pretty nice and we saw a guard all dressed up and marching back in forth in front of it. There were lots of nice flowers around.

Eventually we made it onto our Eurostar train and went through the chunnel. In Paris we didn't do much the first night because it was kind of late when we got there and was dark. The next day we went to see the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. After that we walked down the champ elysees and stopped in at a huge MacDonald's for supper. After that we saw the grand palais and the petit palais, went and saw the obelisk before finding a metro.

The next day we went to the louvre and saw all of the cool things there. We spent quite a while in there but eventually Beth got really tired of being there and I had seen everything that I wanted to see (Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, Hammurabi's Code). After the Louvre we walked along the seine and went to Notre Dame Cathedral. It was really neat because they just started some sort of service just as we arrived. I think I liked St. Stephen's Basilica in Budapest more, but I liked Notre Dame in a different way. It has a different style. After Notre Dame, we just walked around exploring, hit the metro, and went to sleep.

The next day we left Paris and headed back to London. We almost missed our train even after arriving with plenty of time because we were waiting at the wrong place. The signs were not the greatest and after some running through the train station and mad scrambling with our papers and the immigration cards we caught the train. Our tickets were not exchangeable or refundable either so we would have been in big trouble if we had missed it. It was SO close.

In London we headed to the ISH and claimed the rest of our luggage. We spent the rest of the night at the hostel rearranging the stuff in our suitcases while watching star trek and eating the excessive amounts of food that we bought with the rest of our British money. The actual travel day wasn't that bad once we left England. It sucked at first because we had to lug around our bags and Beth wasn't actually able to lift her big suitcase very easily. We were fortunate and many people stopped to help her carry it up the stairs when I wasn't able to do it easily. Another complication was the Piccadilly line was partly closed to Heathrow so we had to rearrange. At first we didn't see any other way, but I noticed another express line leaving from Paddington. It cost us 21 pounds each instead of the 4 or 5 pounds that the tube cost us, but we were still on schedule after all of that. The flight was fine. The volume on my tv screen didn't work and I couldn't hear voices so I used Beth's headphone splitter to share her screen and sound with her. Most of the time I played Professor Layton on my DS so it wasn't a big deal that my tv didn't work. It was nice to finally be in Canada again and as soon as we had been through security in Ottawa we were at a Tim Horton's. Shortly after we saw hockey highlights on the airport tv's so we knew for sure we were in Canada. It was nice to be home, but it is way colder and there is no green grass or flowers. Overall the trip was amazing and I hope to visit again sometime.

Completely done

It is Saturday night/ Sunday morning and I can now safely say that the semester is finished. We had our play on Friday night. It had a very good first half and we were feeling good after the interval, but in the second half we made a few more mistakes. The crowd was really into it though ooo-ing and laughing. I managed to get a recording of the second half which I haven't seen all of but I am sure it will be very funny. After the performance we had a celebration party and almost died laughing at some of the footage from the second half.

Today we went to the church in the morning to get it all cleaned up. We had finished by about lunch time and Beth and I went into Oxford to try to print her pictures. We failed yet again and will try to do it in London. On the bright side the weather has been absolutely perfect, 20 degree weather with lots of sun and not a cloud in the sky. It feels like summer. In Oxford we stumbled upon the Oxford Literary Festival. There was a really big white tent which was pretty much a book store which had some book signings and drinks and stuff. It wasn't that great so we just went and walked around down a nice path and down to a river. We walked up the river and found our way through town on a different route than we had ever taken, towards Primark so Beth could get sunglasses.

After Oxford we went walking down a footpath along the Charlbury countryside. It ended up being quite a long and adventurous walk. We almost had to turn back but figured out that we actually were allowed to walk through the fields with the sheep in them. We then came upon a sheep that was trapped on the wrong side of the fence. After much stress and effort we got the gate opened and the lamb through it and reunited with the mother. After that we walked through another field with cows and horses in it. Walked around ponds, saw hills, almost walked through a rich person's backyard (they had an outdoor grass badminton court), walked across a pond on a small plank, climbed a lookout tower thing and did lots of walking. It was an amazing walking adventure and I am very glad to have experienced the English countryside.

Tomorrow will be church and making sure everything is packed and then Monday we leave bright and early for London and then Paris.

Finally done, mostly

It has been a while since I have done anything on here because I have been busy writing papers and studying for exams and going on day trips. We went to Rousham Gardens which were very nice and very green and we got to walk on the inside of a giant hedge at one point. Also there was a statue of a lion eating a horse. I actually had to do a write-up of it for an assignment so I don't really need to talk about it as much.

On another day trip we went to Bath. It started off with driving in the playbus and then we went to see a nice looking house that would have been like the one that Sir Walter Elliot moved to in Persuasion. After that we went to the Jane Austen center and looked through the museum there. Bath was a pretty neat place with lots of nice houses and some decent scenery. I tasted a little of the waters at bath but it just tastes like gross, hot, stale water. They are supposed to have mysterious healing qualities. We went to a place that had a dance hall similar to the ones that would have been used in Jane Austen's time. After that we went to a fashion museum. There were some really old gloves there which were pretty cool, but we weren't allowed to take pictures of them.

Those were pretty much the highlights of the Bath trip that I can remember now. At one point we went into a department store restaurant because Doug received a tip from a guy at the Jane Austen center that there was a good view of some building from up there. It wasn't anything too impressive to me and everyone just felt awkward for standing around in a restaurant staring out a window and then leaving. Also there was a neat bridge and water-step thing. The bridge had shops all long the sides and when you were on it you couldn't even tell that it was a bridge.

Exams and papers are all done now and today we are all going to go into Oxford just to wander around. We never really did much touring around outside of at the very beginning when we were given a brief tour by Louise. We were always going to class or to the library so there wasn't much time for fun. The other day though Beth and I went to the Oxford University Press which was pretty neat to see.

On this coming Friday, the 8th of April, we have to perform our play. I don't think anyone has memorized their lines yet, but we have all week to do nothing but that. Then on the 11th we leave Charlbury. Beth and I will be headed to Paris til the 14th, coming back and staying in London for a night and then catching a plane back to Canada on the 15th. It's crazy how time flies.