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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.

Leaving Budapest

Today we left Budapest. It was slightly sad to leave, but at the same time it was nice to be in an English speaking country. We left the hostel at 1PM, or 12 England time and arrived in Charlbury up at our houses at 9:30-ish. There were no issues with flights or travels, we just had to do it. It was surprising to see that Mark was here before us. I guess he came back the day before Mareika and Jenina. There really wasn't much interesting that happened and I am tired so I will end it here. Budapest was great. I recommend it to anyone who has more than a couple of days because there is a lot to see.

Budapest: Day 6

This was our last full day in lovely Budapest. It began with breakfast and hopping onto a metro train to go to Parliament to try to get some tickets for a tour. We were able to buy tickets for the 12:00PM tour, but it was only a little after 10AM. We had a bunch of time to kill and to make it worse it was raining and pretty cold. We killed time by exploring some weird buildings and going into a little cafe to eat some vanilla croissants.

We headed back to Parliament for the tour and had to head through a airport style security thing before we could enter. Parliament was large with lots of red carpet and gold everywhere. They told us something about the gold leaves that we so thin that 10,000 of them put together were only 1mm thick. They applied them by rubbing the brushes against their faces and then using the static to pick up the leaves. Apparently the technique is still used today. We were able to see the coronation jewels in one of rooms. There was a neat cigar holder outside of the speaker room and you could tell how well the speaker was by the lengths of the ashes on the cigars in the cigar holder. A very good speaker could be "worth a whole Havana". A pretty much took video for the whole tour so I don't need to say anything more about that besides that it said it was the 3rd largest European Parliament and that some of the pillars in the main staircase were made in Sweden and the other pillars were used in the British Parliament. The British Parliament tour was much more impressive, but it was still really neat to see this one.

After Parliament we headed toward Andrassy utca to see the Opera House. When we got there I was curious to see if anything was playing. We ended up buying tickets to see a ballet at 7PM. After that we continued down Andrassy to the House of Terror. It is a building where they used to hold and torture prisoners, do interrogations, that sort of thing. It was interesting and the basement has been recreated to look like what it would have looked like when it was used as a prison. They were pretty intense with their prisons here. One of the most memorable parts came when I had to use the bathroom and when I got back Beth was sitting on the stairs, asleep.

After the House of Terror we went down Andrassy until we came to Heroes Square. It was a about what I expected. Nothing too spectacular and probably holds more meaning in what it represents or something. The statues were pretty large and you can tell in one of the pictures I have with Beth standing beside it. At this point my hands were starting to freeze and we could see our breath (different than the 10-20 degree weather we had been getting) so we had to get moving. We went back down Andrassy utca and stopped at MacDonalds. It is weird because at fast food places over here you have to buy your ketchup and they come in little containers like you would get barbecue or sweet and sour sauce in. At least at MacDonalds you don't have to pay to use the bathroom.

After MacDonalds we headed back to the Hungarian State Opera House and watched a ballet called The Karamazovs or something else that I cannot remember in Hungarian (just looked it up, "Karamazov testverek", you can understand why I didn't remember). It was a good experience to see it, but I think I had more of an idea of what was going on before I started watching it. The music was really good though and I actually recognized some of it because I think I have it on my computer. After the ballet we hopped onto the metro and headed back to the hostel. Tomorrow our shuttle is set to pick us up at 1PM and then our flight is at 4. We are supposed to check out by 11 though. The people said it wouldn't be a problem if we wanted to leave our stuff there until we left. Hopefully everything goes according to plan and we should be getting into Charlbury by 9-ish because Beth wants to see the Peter Pan statue.

Budapest: Day 5

Thursday was rainy. It has been raining all day and made it a bit miserable to do much of anything. We began by going to the market again. We ended up getting langos because I wanted to try it quite badly. It reminded us of a pizza-donut-pretzel type of dough. It was deep fried and salty dough and you can add whatever you want to the top of it. I had cheese and sour cream. It is best not to think about the unhealthiness while you are eating it. It was pretty good and very filling because I had a hard time eating all of it.

After the food we took the metro to Kossuth Ter, which is the station right by Parliament. Beth spoke to one of the guards in french because he was more comfortable with french than english and he told us that the tickets were all gone for the day (again) and that it is best to get there around 8 when the ticket office opens because the tourists buy them all very quickly.

After this we walked in the rain across the chain bridge and went to the inside of St. Matthias church. It cost to enter which is different than the other churches that we have been to. It was very nice but not nearly as nice as St. Steven's and that one was free. We walked back to the market in the rain and bought sausages. I bought a bun downstairs for 45 forint but the sausage itself was 1350 forint. It was a pretty decent sausage but nothing that blew my mind, although I am not the biggest sausage fan anyways. We watched Up in the common room because we were both thoroughly soaked and did not desire to do any more walking in the rain. We have just been killing time with cards, games and reading ever since. I am just waiting for a sink to be free so I can brush my teeth, so I am sitting at the computer with a toothbrush in my mouth.

Tomorrow we will be trying to get a tour of parliament again as well as going to heroes square, and maybe also the house of terror and seeing the state opera house briefly. We also have to remember to call the shuttle people so that a shuttle will be able to pick us up around 1:30 on saturday. I think saturday morning we will try to go to the Bible museum that is not too far away from where we are staying.

Budapest: Day 4

This morning, Wednesday, began with Cave Church. It was really cool because it was cheap, only 400 HUF and it came with an audio tour. You wouldn't think it but the cave is apparently 20 degrees all year round because of underground thermal springs keeping it warm. Like many things here in Budapest, Cave Church was destroyed during Communist rule when churches were not allowed. It is hard to describe because it is just a cave with stained glass, statues, and altars in it. One of the rooms is decorated with extremely detailed wooden carvings. I will try to remember to put some pictures of it on here. There was a video at the end of the tour and at one point they played the main bit from Snow Patrol's Chasing Cars. It seemed strange and out of place, but it was pretty amusing (which I guess isn't a good thing for them because it wasn't meant to be amusing).

After Cave Church we went back to the market to explore for a little while. It was a good trip because we were able to get our lunch at a fraction of the cost of a restaurant. I think we know where we can go for lunch from now on. We are planning on going back to try Langos at some point and I would like to buy a Hungarian sausage. Today I managed to buy a couple of large buns, kind of like kaiser buns for 100 HUF, enough salami for two sandwiches for 190 HUF, a litre of Fanta for 240 (instead of the 320 per glass at the restaurants). We bought slices of cake for dessert at 220 a piece (instead of the 380-450 they charge per slice for the same stuff down the street). Altogether our meals worked out to just over 1000HUF (about $5) for the two of us. Way better than the 3700-4000HUF ($18-20) total that we would have paid at a restaurant for the same amount of food. We ate at the hostel because it was just down the street and there was nowhere to eat it easily without utensils.

After eating we walked down a touristy walking area, mostly Vaci Utca, toward Parliament. There were no more tickets for the tour that day so we had to settle for something else. We walked through a square and found ourselves looking at St. Steven's Basilica. After failing to locate Duna Castle, we headed to St. Steven's. It was really really big and we paid 400HUF to get to the top of it to get a panoramic view of the city. There were quite a few stairs and then an elevator to the top. With all of the walking and stair climbing we should have decent leg muscles. The view of the city was amazing, but it was nothing compared to the inside. I took quite a few videos of the inside of it to try to capture it, but I am sure that it doesn't even come close. There was gold and paintings and arches everywhere. We stuck our fingers into the holy water containers just for kicks. We "saw" the mummified right hand of St. Steven. "saw" because it was in a case and it was kind of dark and you couldn't really see much of anything, but I saw it enough to say that I have seen it - whatever that's worth.

After St. Steven's we started walking back to the hostel. We stopped at two or three churches along the way because they were there and open and free. All of the churches are gorgeous and put any church that I would attend to shame. I am sure that you could spend a whole day just going around to all of the different churches. For supper I ate the other sandwich that I had leftover from lunch and Beth bought a bag of salad so we could have caesar salad. I bought of bottle of juice because it said it has mangosteen in it and I really want to try a mangosteen, but there are too many other fruits in it to distinguish anything. Just recently we have finished playing a couple games of backgammon. The chess/checkers/backgammon game and the set of cards that Beth bought at the market have been put to good use. Now I am going to go to sleep knowing that I am caught up on my blogging, but not certain of what I will be doing tomorrow.