I must confess I'm very much looking forward to celebrating tomorrow in jolly old England. As Hamlet would say, "Tis a consummation / devoutly to be wished." As Ke$ha would say, "Tonight we're going hard hard h-h-h-hard / just like the world is our our uh-uh-uh-ours / we're tearing it apart part p-p-p-part / you know we're superstars, we r who we r." Anyway...
Quite a bit has happened since I last wrote. You may have noticed I turned 19 a few days ago. If you were wondering whether I had an insanely boss birthday out on the town, the short answer is no. The long answer is my birthday is June 30th, coincidentally the same day Mumford & Sons and Arcade Fire were giving a concert in Hyde Park, which would have made it quite possibly the best day ever. It was also coincidentally the day we left London early in the morning and drove 6 hours north to possibly the smallest town I have ever seen, much less stayed in, called Helmsley. So yes, I spent most of my birthday on a bus. As the French would say, c'est la vie. Or as Ke$ha would say, "I'm all strung out, my heart is fried / I just can't get you off my mind." The "you" being Mumford and Arcade Fire of course... work with me here.
If that sounded like the saddest story ever, which it basically is, I should also make sure to mention that the night of the 29th, our last in London, some of my excellent new friends did throw me an awesome, partially surprise birthday party, taking me out to an Italian restaurant in Gloucester where we ate pizza and pasta in a cave (ok not really but it was an itty bitty room that you kind of crawled into and the waitress called it a cave), then crashing Paige's and my hotel room at midnight with a Cadbury chocolate cake and an enormous bottle of ginger beer, after which we may or may not have had an impromptu dance party that Dr. Jacobs (in the room below us) compared the next morning to a herd of wildabeest. Whew that was one intense compound sentence. Note that because I am an English major with mad grammar skillz, it is NOT a run-on.
I mentioned earlier that after leaving London we drove 6 hours north to a small town called Helmsley. Helmsley has a population of 1,570, although to be fair there are probably ten times that many sheep, cows, and horses. Our group of 36 students had the local youth hostel to ourselves, literally filling every bed (plus one!). We only stayed two nights, which was probably a good thing because in those 36 hours we saw just about everything there was to see. But in all seriousness, it was the perfect way to wind down from 12 days in the hustle and bustle of London. Thursday night some folks and I went exploring in town -- our main discovery was that prices outside of London, at least when it comes to food, are about a tenth of what they are in the city. On Friday we walked several miles through the moors to see the ruins of Reivaulx Abbey. As you can see in the pictures, the moors offer some of the most incredible pastoral views one could ask for. You will also see that I wasn't kidding about the sheep. That night, for me and seven others, was dedicated to that ancient and most noble of pastimes -- Euchre. Be jealous.
And now, after another few hours on the road and a quick stop at the Holy Isle of Lindisfarne, we've arrived at our next major destination, the small city of Durham in the far northeast of England. We'll be here for a week, taking classes again for the first time since we left Wheaton. From what I saw of it yesterday, it's a lovely town, with too many nice restaurants and shops at which to waste money with abandon. Our lodgings are once again excellent. We're staying at St. Chad's College, and I have an enormous single room with my own sink and not one but two closets. I repeat, be jealous.
Thanks for reading, hope all of your summers are going as splendidly as mine, and I hope to write again before we leave for the Lake District! God bless,
Linnea
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