Salisbury and Halloween

The week started off and usual. I had class on Monday and Tuesday and then I went into the lab on Wednesday before going to choir rehearsal. We were learning about teeth this week in human anatomy. And teeth are gross. Human teeth aren't as bad as animal teeth, but they still aren't nice. We have a test coming up next week in human, so I'm going to be spending every waking moment in lab this week. Sadly... In animal lab we are plugging along with identifying different species of animals, tooth wear, fusion of bones, taphonomy, etc. I feel like I'm learning a lot more useful info in that class than in the human one. Yeah, maybe I can name all the bones in the skull and some of their defining characteristics, but its not anything that I couldn't look up if I really needed it. Oh well.

Thursday was the exciting day of the week. Danielle and I got up early Thursday morning and caught the bus into Bournemouth. From there we had to catch another bus for a 1.5 hour ride to Salisbury. We were going to see the Cathedral there. (A bit of history about the origins of this trip. My second week in England my course leader took all of us to Stonehenge and some sites around there. Then we went to the Salisbury Museum where a lot of Stonehenge artifacts are kept. To get to the museum we had to walk by the Cathedral, which was beautiful. Someone in the group told me that you could climb the tower of the cathedral and that it housed the oldest clock in England and one of 4 surviving copies of the Magna Carta. So I had to go back and do those things since we didn't have time that day. So I roped Danielle, who is a Museum Studies major, into going with me.) We caught the bus from Poole at 9 so that we could get the student discount. They don't let you get the discount until after 9 for some reason. So we got all day bus passes for only 4.50 pounds. Usually it would have been 7.50. We got to Salisbury at about 11am after seeing signs for some awesome places along the way. Including a waterpark that I suspect may just be a small lake...

As soon as we got off of the bus we found an awesome stationary store. So we spent a bunch of time in there and found some pretty sweet Christmas cards. Almost all of which say "Merry Christmas". It apparently isn't the political craziness here that it is in the States. We then walked the couple of blocks to the Cathedral. It was still amazing. We took a ton of pics of the outside of it and then headed inside to look around. We got a tour from one of the volunteer guides that works there. She was great. We got so much more out of it than we would have if we had just walked around on our own. She told us all about the clock and how it used to ring the bells in the tower, but when they made the tower higher, the ringing of so many bells would have knocked it down from the vibrations. So they built a special bell tower near the Cathedral. Later, the Cathedral was in a state of disrepair, so they brought in an architect called Wyatt and he knocked down the bell tower. He also white washed over the murals on the ceilings and brought tombs in from outside. Then he leveled the rest of the graveyard. He is a very hated man. This was in the 1500's I think, but don't quote me on that for sure. I bought a book about the Cathedral, but I can't be asked to look everything up right now. If you have questions either google it, or ask me via email and I'll look things up in my book for you.

Anyway, after the tour we were starving so we went to a Chinese place that we'd seen on our walk in. They had a set lunch of soup, main and dessert, so we order that. It was really good. I had Sechwan chicken. Mmmm....then ice cream for dessert. Yummy. Then we went back to the stationary store to buy Xmas card since we had time to kill before our tower tour.

The tower tour was really cool. We got to see all of the supports holding the whole Cathedral up and how they built it and the graffiti that the stone masons left hundreds of years ago. Its really weird to think that the Cathedral is older than the entire history of America. Well, white america, anyway... You know what I mean. The main part of the Cathedral was built in the 1200's. The spire was added in the 1300's. There are 333 steps to the top of the towers at the base of the spire. We walked up in stages, but it was still a lot of steps. At each new level the guide explained some the construction techniques or some unique aspects of the level. Finally when we got to the very top we got to go out on the ledge and look around. We got to go out all 4 sides of the tower and look around. It was amazing. We could also see the carving on the outside of the cathedral and the renovated parts that had been replaced in the last few years. It was very cool. Then we even got a pin to prove that we'd made it to the top :) Going down was a bit more rough. We pretty much just went down without a lot of stops, so I got pretty dizzy and had a headache for the rest of the day. But all we had left of the day was a bus ride home. So we got a little lost, but we found the bus station in time for the 4:30 bus back to Bournemouth. (Just to clarify, I live in Poole, which is the town next to Bournemouth. My university is called Bournemouth University, but its actually just over the border of the two towns in Poole. But the university is still a 20 minute bus ride from where I live.) On the way back it was already dark :( Then we saw a big accident on the road going the other direction. A car had flipped and there were a bunch of emergency vehicles all over and traffice was backed up for a really long way. Then when we got nearer Bournemouth our driver got on the intercom and said that there were more accidents so he had to go a different way to go around them. We got to the stop we needed though. Then we had to wait a few minutes for our next bus, but it came pretty quickly and we had about 25-30 minutes on that bus to get home. Overall it was a really great day and I'm glad I go to do it. Danielle and I are talking about trying to do a trip to Wales next month, so we'll see if we can get that planned.

Friday I had to do some studying, so I went to the cafe in The Lighthouse, which is the theater just down the street from where I live. It has live events and movies. The cafe was pretty nice, but didn't have a plug for my computer. So I did get a bunch of studying done there, but I definitely could have done more if my computer hadn't died. Oh well, I did get some stuff done. Then Friday night Stine (from Norway) was having a dinner party. She made risotto and it was delicious! That wasn't a very late night because we all knew that Saturday was going to be long :)

Saturday morning after I got back from the gym I went out and bought my makeup since I had neglected to do it before then. I got some good stuff though. Then I came home and made my belt buckle. I did a pretty excellent job, I think. Then I showered and put my hair up in that silly ponytail to dry in the right position. Then of course I had to paint my nails and make my arm warmers. I started my makeup around 6 and it actually didn't take as long as I thought that it would so I had plenty of time to sit around before putting on the rest of my costume. If you want to get to guess what I was look at the pics now, because I'm going to spill the beans pretty soon. Around 7:30 I finished off my lips and then started getting into the dress. Then I got the belt and suspenders on and fastened the glorious belt buckle on with scotch tape. So that part was a little bit tacky, but what can you do? Then I got the shoes and socks on and I was ready to go! RAINBOW BRITE! It was awesome and everybody knew what I was. Well, everybody who had ever heard of Rainbow Brite anyway, which was a lot of people. So then I headed off to a couple of Halloween parties that were going on on my floor. There were some really great costumes. I took a ton of pics, but I think the costume of the night was Melissa as the Mad Hatter from the new Alice In Wonderland. She was so creepy and hardly even looked like herself. It was really good, but I couldn't really look at her most of the night ;) So that's about it. We went out in Poole for awhile, and then came home. Today I must study and then I'm going with some other people from my class this evening for a group study session at a coffee shop/pub in town. So hopefully that's useful because I'm kind of starting to freak out about this test even though we're only expected to get about 60%. I think that's what bothers me. Even though I know what the expectations are I still feel like I should be striving for 100%. Its weird.

British consideration of the week: Double Decker Buses. They are really only cool if you sit in the front row of the top so that you can see everything as you're going. That's were Danielle and I sat for our ride to Salisbury and it was great. But for everyday going to school I usually just sit on the bottom so that I don't have to go up and down the steps. I guess they get more seats on the bus with two levels, but they lose so many on the bottom level having to put in the steps to the top that I'm not sure how it works out. So that's where I leave you this week. Hope you have enjoyed my rambling and I hope to hear something from you soon. Have a good one!