Vatican City

The entrance to the basilica.

It's gorgeous inside.

Can't decide if I want to read Vanity Fair or Agnes Grey on the plane back. Packing sucks.

Preview to ROMA

Look familiar?

Also, Andrew and I were SO EXCITED to discover the cover of the math 53 textbook in the Musei Vatican. I had to photoshop it to make it blue, though.

Also, never posted about Lyon, so here's my favorite photo of the place:

GAH!

My license for Adobe Photoshop CS4 just ran out, so I'm in the middle of dling the trial version of CS5. No photo uploads for a while, then, especially since I'm leaving to Rome...tomorrow. Holy cow.

And Lyon was amazing. One of the most beautiful cities I've ever been to, and the food was obviously amazing. I could live happily anywhere that took their food as seriously as Lyon. More about it later. Presentation/last tutorial in 5 hours!

The Horror of Harrods

Harrods is one of the largest, if not the largest, department stores in London. It carries everything, and it has a really famous food hall as well. Anyways, I went on Saturday when James was visiting in London, and all I wanted was just some candies or presents for my friends at home (England has nothing special...I find it ironic I'm buying more food/tea for friends than actual souvenirs). I get there, and there is literally a sea of people. I have to push and shove my way through, and when I got to the confectionary hall, I couldn't actually see what they were selling well because people were blocking my view everywhere. Now, I'm not a lover of shopping, but this made me want to just finish my job and get the hell out of there. Also, the interior of the mall was decorated in an Egyptian style, and on top of that, they had Christmas decorations. It was extremely overwhelming.

Packed. 

From the outside looking in, it doesn't feel like there are many people, but when you're part of the swarm, you feel like you're going to suffocate. Also, it was getting ridiculously warm inside.

One of the many ridiculously extravagant display windows.

I will say, though, that having passed through the women's formal wear section, it made me want to become very, very rich in the future. Sighhhh.

Epiphany

Today was really relaxing--since all my work is due on Wednesday, and I don't get my next assignments until Thursday night, Thursdays and Fridays generally are very free days for me. I started re-reading Picture of Dorian Gray for my Victorian lit class, and basically re-discovered my love for Oscar Wilde. I think I could read that novel every day for the rest of my life, and I would still be unsatisfied with my understanding of the text. It's one of the few books where every quotation can be seriously considered before moving on with the rest of the story. Anyways, I hopped around different cafes reading, and I tried a mocha again. This time, I wasn't as jittery, but I've found that it's because I ordered a small. Last time I got a medium, which has two espresso shots. No wonder I went crazy previously.

Last night, I finally had the chance to go to formal hall at Magdalen. It was a lot briefer than expected. Before you eat, the professors/tutors at high table stand up and mutter something in Latin, which my religious studies friends told me was something involving the father, son, and the holy ghost. Andrew and I were convinced that we participated in some cult ritual and that there would be some sacrifice later on. Still waiting to hear back to see if we got into Corpus formal hall, which, because it only happens once a week, is a lot more highly attended, so I think it should be more fun.

No tutorial paper due this week, so you can expect a lot more posts about older trips, such as Bath and Cambridge. I'm working on a presentation that counts for a double paper--it's 40-45 minutes long, and I'll be researching the relationship between obesity and inflammation, which sounds pretty cool. "I'm not fat, I'm just inflamed!" Ha....ha?

I'll leave with a quotation from Oscar Wilde (love this man): "Men marry because they are tired; women marry because they are curious. Both are disappointed."

Delivery from anonymous sender!

Pilgrimage to Canterbury and Dover

St. Pancras station in London

This past weekend, Alex, her friend Jimmye, and I went on an honest-to-God pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral, and by that I mean it took just as long and was just as difficult journey as it used to be. We were supposed to take a train to London and transfer to Canterbury, but as it turns out, from Oxford to London Paddington we had to transfer at Reading. There, the train was 15 minutes late, and as we attempted to get to St. Pancras to board our second train, we found that all the tube lines leading directly there were down. Way to go, London. We ended up having to take a round-a-bout way that involved the Bakerloo and Piccadilly lines, and we finally got there to MISS our train by one minute. Sighhh. We took the next train immediately available, and had to transfer at Ashford International before finally arriving at Canterbury West at 12. That's right. Sunday morning, from 8 to 12 AM, we were on a total of 5 trains (not including the tube) just to get to Canterbury, where we spent only three hours to see the cathedral. We were a mess. Still, the trip was worth it: Canterbury Cathedral is absolutely beautiful. At certain parts, I can really see why they originally wanted to film Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets here, but the cathedral refused, because they thought it was inappropriate for it to feature in a movie about wizards.

In any case, we decided to have tea as we waited for our next train. Tea time at England is amazing. When I get back to Stanford, my future roommate and I are going to have a house-warming tea party. We're going to try making scones, especially since I got the recipe for the best scones in Oxford. After looking it over, though, I'm really scared of eating them. The recipe calls for 250 g of butter. Imagine that on a balance in lab. Oh my god that amount could probably kill someone.

BUT THEY ARE SO DELICIOUS! To be clear, this is at Canterbury. These scones still can't hold a candle to the ones at The Rose at Oxford. 

We arrived at Dover later on that night, and we spent it dawdling in our room, watching TV, and having dinner, after which we bought candy for dessert. I think it's the quality of the chocolate here, but Twix is so much better. Also, I discovered a candy known as Bounty, which is essentially coconut covered in dark chocolate. Why hasn't anyone introduced this to me before?!

Anyways, the next morning, we got up early to go to the white cliffs of Dover. Those stretch all along the southern coast, so we only got to see a small segment. We were especially lucky to have good weather; we couldn't walk as far as we wanted because of the massive puddles covering the paths. It's such a beautiful place that all my pictures came out amazing. Still, we could see the coast of France all the way on the other side.

What?! We're in France?! Haha, my cell phone was clearly confused.

Dover Castle from the distance. If you walk along the edge of the cliffs, you see windows in some areas. That's where they dug tunnels to hide in during WWII.

Port of Dover.

Beautiful. It was sad to leave, but we arrived back in London later in the day to meet up with friends at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Natural History Museum. It was okay--the latter was pretty tame, especially since they didn't even have any live animals. I'm thinking about going back to the V&A, though, since I didn't have enough time to look at everything. Also, they're right next to Harrod's, and I'm definitely checking that out before I leave.

Can I just say that I have left work for the last minute so much now that I can write two 4-6 page papers in fewer than 2 days and get 7-8 hours of sleep in-between? Quality varies, though, haha.

And, in other news: Lyon, France for Thanksgiving weekend. I didn't know it when I made arrangements, but its the gastronomic center of France AAAAAAAAH!

Visiting the Inside of a 9-year-old Boy's Head

Today, Alex, Aisha, and I had more quality time with one another! Woohoo! (We've started having girls night/afternoons out and leaving the boys behind, but today they left voluntarily. Yesterday we had sushi and then crashed the guys' room. Anyways...) We had lunch at Magadalen college first, and then left to go to the Pitt Rivers/Natural History Museum at Oxford. After making a huge circle before discovering that everything was right next to the Radcliffe Science Library, which is, surprise surprise, where I've been studying, we enter the building to find this: 

Isn't the inside cool? It's like a combination of the Industrial Age and Gothic architecture. Statues of famous scientists like Darwin line the corridors, and for once the exhibits were arranged in phylogenetic order, not chronological. Pretty cool. AND YOU COULD TOUCH EVERYTHING...you know what that means if you watched the latest episode of "How I Met Your Mother." LEGENDARY.

From the other side.

Anyways, the Pitt Rivers museum lay just beyond the Natural History Museum. The Pitt Rivers museum is essentially a cabinet of curiosities. It contains artifacts from ancient civilizations all over the world, and they cover everything from weaponry to boats to clothes to the archaic, such as shrunken heads and skulls and other symbolic...things? Very cool. Also, every item had very small tags attached that had handwritten descriptions about the object and its origins. Handwritten. How do people have such good handwriting?!

Pitt Rivers. Three Floors. Hella stuff!!!

My personal favorite was this puffer fish lamp in the Asian lamp section. So cute. There were also eskimo clothes made out of seal intestines...you get a sense of the things that were here.

I also realize that I never posted about Edinborough. Honestly, I'm still working through pictures, but I have to say that I wasn't *that* impressed with the city. Yes, it was beautiful, and it reminded me of Lord of the Rings in that the city is layered: they started building at the bottom, ran out of space, and built on top over the old town. You can walk over bridges in the city, and when you look down, instead of seeing a river or something natural, you see another street below you.

Edinborough Waverley Station. Love the colors of the trees.

Edinborough had a lot of typical, spooky graveyards. This was the one we visited on Calton Hill, and we nearly couldn't find the exit out. Apparently, one of the ones closer to town is the one where J. K. Rowling got all her names in Harry Potter, like Tom Riddle. So Voldemort's grave is really in Scotland.

It was also probably the fact that it was damn cold and wet. We were lucky in that it only poured all the time. Usually, there's a gale that blasts through the city at the same time that renders umbrellas utterly useless. It got dark at 4 PM, and there wasn't much to see aside from Edinborough Castle...which after you've seen German castles, really isn't that impressive.

The Highlands were all right, but I really think the highlight of the tour was the Scottish accent of the driver. Having been to China, the mountains weren't quite high enough for my appreciation. Blue skies would've been nice too.

Glencoe. Apparently, there isn't supposed to be snow up there yet...so yet get a sense of how cold it was.

HIGHLAND COOS!!! They can withstand any weather, and they're so cute! The most famous one is named Hamisch (not this one), and I couldn't get a good photo of him because he didn't want to leave the barn. Understandable. He's 17 years old, which makes him 100 years old in human terms, and he's pampered like no other. They give him shampoo baths every so often. 

And of course at Loch Ness, they have a bunch of exhibits on the Loch Ness monster. The lake would've looked a lot better on a good day, because the waters are navy blue because of the high peat content.

Ughhh, I wanted to upload videos of the guide talking for you guys so you could hear the awesome, awesome accent, but Blogger isn't letting me =/

CANTERBURY AND DOVER ON SUNDAY YEAAAAH!