Avoiding a tragedy after a comedy of errors

Hey, strangers. It's been a while, hasn't it? Well, I'm back in Milwaukee now, and I must come clean: this blog was essentially a non-selfish way of satisfying selfish aims. Like a travel journal, I was going to keep this (that is, print it out) as a way of remembering my experience; it was for me. Nonetheless, I considered it a rather convenient bonus that I could post things publicly, and my close family and friends could see pictures and read stories as they unfolded. The nice messages that all of you sent kept me fairly diligent in writing for the first half of the whole trip.

The time I spent posting pictures and entries, however, grew thinner and more insufficient as the weeks rolled by. Also, Blogger (the hosting website) decided to misbehave, and while I was ready to click "Publish!" on my Ireland post, the internet in my dorm crashed and a Blogger error meant that only the first two sentences had been saved. It was an epic post, too. What a pity.

I was discouraged, and so I waited until about two weeks ago to re-write that entry from scratch along with about four others. I wrote two big ones while sitting at the British Library--complete with about 20 photos each--in Microsoft Word, saved them, and was going to put on the finishing touches the next morning in my room. That same night, though, Anthony, Natalie and I (three of the six Marquette kids at City U) went out to our favorite pub for dinner on our way home from the library. We ended up staying for two hours and had a great time chatting. When we stood up to leave, I noticed my bag and beloved laptop were gone from their place at my feet. My bag, in which my computer and schoolwork had been stored, was snatched away and gone for good without me even noticing a thing. It was one of four bags stolen from that single pub in a three-hour span that night.

The most tragic part: all of my pictures, documents (including two fresh posts for this blog) and music were on that computer. I had deleted everything off my camera as soon as I had downloaded them onto my laptop. Needless to say, I could not and did not write or upload pictures. Plus, a month had passed since the last entry, and the best way for me to remember everything I did was to look at the pictures I had taken. When they were gone, so too was the probability that my posts would have much meat to them. If you're like me, you get more out of the pictures and captions than the posts themselves.

How I felt after losing my laptop.
(from Flickr CreativeCommons, all rights apply)

It would have been a shame to have spent a whole semester in London and not adopt even a drop of what they call the "Dunkirk spirit." Just because I got shafted by a few petty thieves doesn't mean I have to put a lid on everything. Thankfully, for nearly everything I visited and did during the last two months, I was accompanied by Anthony, Jim or my parents and their own cameras. As I get copies of pictures from them, I'll post them up. I feel like I'm cheating; writing about the trip after getting home is kind of sad. But better late than never, right?

Ireland...soon...

I spent all of last week in Ireland--Dublin, Galway and the Dingle Peninsula, to be exact. My brother, Jim, and sister-in-law, Ginny, had been in London for a few days, and the three of us packed up and went to Ireland. Neither Jim nor I had been but have wanted to visit for quite some time, so Ireland it was!

Long story short, I fell madly in love with Ireland. Unfortunately, while I did bring my camera, I left it in the house on a few choice occasions. That, plus the fact that Jim's took way better pictures which will be in my hands tomorrow in the form of a picture CD, has given me reason to procrastinate and not put up the true Ireland entry until sometime this weekend. So, stay tuned. Here's a sneak peek...

We stayed in that house. And yes, I do think it was the mysterious chorus of angelic voices that woke me up every morning.

The US Election Abroad

Last night (and up until 5:30am, London time) I had the unique circumstance of watching the most important U.S. presidential election in recent history far away from American shores. None of us exchange students have a TV here, so we caught wind of an "American Expatriates in London Election Party" being hosted at a concert hall up the road and decided to go.

As an Obama supporter, it was a fun evening. The crowd was about 50% British and 50% American. The British 50% were Obama fans by default; I think opinion polls in the UK had something like 91% of all Britons preferring Barack. Because the event was organized online, the American crowd was young and skewed way to the left. Natalie, Abby, Kate and I ended up staying all night with about 800 others, counting down each set of poll closings while watching British coverage of the event.

The surprise of the night, though, was that I got interviewed by BBC Radio! Natalie, a couple other people and I were all asked a handful of questions. Our answers are apparently floating around in cyberspace and along the British radio airwaves somewhere. If I miraculously happen to find it, I'll post it. I also was snatched aside while walking back from the restroom by another set of journalists early in the evening, this time from (I think) University College London for their student newspaper and TV station. Truthfully, the British were just as excited about the election as any American, and it was cool to be singled out on such a huge night.

Interestingly, about 95% of the coverage that wasn't spent covering the results was dedicated to the sole issue of Obama's race. I won't ramble on about politics and such, but I hope that those of you reading this agree with me when I say that, while race is of course an issue, the U.S. must be given a little more credit for progress in this department. I was a bit irked when a few reports here suggested that the main impetus for a white person voting for a black candidate was to "repay an ancient debt and that blacks are grateful for them doing so;" I quote that directly from thelondonpaper, too. In the end, regardless of how you all voted, I do sincerely hope you did not vote simply on the basis of race. I optimistically give America (the majority, at least) a bit more credit than that.

Nonetheless, it was an exciting night and London was abuzz the next morning with excitement that their own preferred choice had won. I don't even think their own elections make nearly as much noise or get them nearly as riled up. The one thing I'll take away from the whole experience is that if you're American, you should feel honored that you get to vote in a U.S. election...there are millions of other people that wish they had the chance, too.

Here are two London newspaper covers from today...

Left: The Times, London's top paper. Right: thelondonpaper, one of London's free papers.

By the way, I went to Switzerland and Germany two weeks ago

I figured I'd redeem myself from the not-so-thoroughly captivating last post about exchange rates by actually writing about my recent trip to Switzerland and Germany. Hopefully this one won't be dripping in geek. Also, if you're like me, you often like pictures more than words, so I'm putting in photos more than usual.

Day 1/Zürich: Utopia isn't cheap-
Stephanie, Anthony and I left London via easyJet at some disgustingly early hour and ended up in Zürich, Switzerland. By the way, please keep in mind for the duration of this entry that the three of us have a combined German vocabulary of about nine words--three of them vulgarities, of course. Thankfully, our hotel was located across the river from the central train station, and we avoided any need to grunt, point or say "scheisse!" upon arrival. After a nap, we walked the nearby streets in search of a café, had some lunch, and upon receiving our bill, learned how expensive Switzerland is (actually, right there I was guilty of saying "scheisse!"). I'll sidestep the currency lecture and just tell you that even though the Swiss franc is worth less than our dollar, the Swiss somehow manage to get away with charging the equivalent of $18 for a fried egg, butter roll and orange juice. In a moment of weakness, we later ate at what turned out to be the planet's nicest McDonalds and had to pay something like $9 for what would've been about $3.50 in Milwaukee.

We decided to accept the fact that we had left one of the world's most expensive cities (London) to hang out in an even more expensive one (Zürich), though. Perhaps we should've known it would be so pricey, considering we had read that Zürich had been rated the top city in the entire world in terms of quality of life for the past three years. Incidentally, Geneva, also a Swiss city, was #2. Sheesh...nice job, Switzerland. But seriously, the place was like a little utopia. Everything was mindboggingly well-kept: the air was crisp with mountains rising all around; nice shiny cars drove along pristine Lake Zürich with bleach-white sailboats dotting the clear blue water; well-dressed citizens peeked out of the windows of electric mass-transit trains that hummed quietly along the streets. Now, if only the freeze-dried and cellophane-wrapped deli sandwich I bought for lunch the next day hadn't cost $11.50. That afternoon and evening, we walked along the river and explored the city, stopping in churches, chocolate shops, hidden plazas and a really nice lakeside park. Here's a summary of Zürich in six photos...

Left: Modest national pride? Check. Right: Beautiful buildings? Pollution-free river? Check. Check.

Left: Calming outdoor recreation? Check. Right: Romance? Check.

Left: Great mass transit? Check. Right: Politically well-versed graffiti? Check.

Day 2/Mount Schilthorn: The view from 10,000 feet-
We wanted to get from Zürich to Mount Schilthorn, in the Interlaken district of south-central Switzerland. The whole journey would involve three different trains, a bus, some walking, and multiple gondolas to get to the 10,000 foot summit of Schilthorn, one of the country's most famous peaks.

After buying a phrasebook that covers most Western European languages, I was a lot more confident we could communicate if we ran into problems while traveling. We wouldn't need it, though, because the whole place ran like clockwork (plus, it seemed as though everybody spoke at least three languages). Despite all the different modes of transportation, the stops, the handful of tickets we needed and our complete unfamiliarity with the place, the whole 250km trip was less painful and more smoothly executed than a typical London Tube ride. Every single time we left one train, the next one was waiting at the adjacent platform. We’d hop on, and it would leave within five minutes. Same thing with the bus. Same thing with the gondolas. One British person told me that the Swiss are so orderly and such perfectionists that “they must all be born wearing a wristwatch and holding a ruler.” Others would say “anal-retentive,” but really, everything was as smooth as butter.

The long train ride from Zürich to a stop in Bern was nothing too special, but the train ride from Bern to Interlaken was spectacular, only to be beaten by the subsequent trip from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen and then topped again by each successive gondola ride. Oddly enough, the thing that struck me the most was the impressive state of Interlaken’s rivers and lakes. Never in my life have I seen such crystal-clear water; honestly, I could’ve dipped a straw in the river and literally slurped up Evian. The forests were ablaze in fall colors, the snow-capped mountains enveloped picturesque Swiss villages and—California Dairy Board, eat your heart out—the happiest-looking cows were grazing on sloping pastures. Once we had taken all the trains and a bus, we got to the gondolas, which lifted us up in zigzagging routes. The trip looked something like this…

(A) Zürich to (B) Bern to (C) Interlaken to (D) Lauterbrunnen to (E) Stechelberg, where the gondolas began

Whatever fear of heights I had before taking this trip quickly vanished. The views from the gondolas and from the summit of Schilthorn were far too breathtaking for me to care about acrophobia. From the top, we could see some of Switzerland’s most famous peaks: Jungfrau, Mönch, Eiger, Großehorn. We ate at the revolving restaurant perched atop the peak, walked for a while along the ridge that extended from the summit, and I even got to paste Anthony with a massive snowball. Score! The whole trip is pretty difficult to put into words that do justice to the experience, but the Interlaken District/Bernese Oberland is definitely in my Top 5 for most beautiful places I have ever seen. As always, Wikipedia comes through and has a decent page on Schilthorn. Also, Google Image Search has some good photos. Here are a few of mine...

Left: The cable car/gondola we took. Right: That cord snaps and we're falling for over a mile.


Left: Anthony and I inching along the side of the summit. Right: We ended up standing out along the summit ridge. Pretty cool experience.

I'd have looked even more nervous if there hadn't been a nice, steel guardrail behind me.

We took the same route back to Zürich, a bit reluctant to leave Interlaken. Zürich, if I haven't made this clear already, would make for a very nice place to live. That being said, it was still a good idea that we'd be leaving the next day for Munich, because there weren't too many sights left to be seen.

Day 3/Zürich to Munich: Kirche then Kraut(!)-

Early Sunday morning, the three of us decided to go to mass at the big Liebfrauenkirche ("Church of the Virgin Mary"). It was interesting, especially because it was in German and lasted about an hour and a half. After church, we hopped on the train to Munich.

Upon arriving in Munich, we checked into our hostel, which ended up being nice (by hostel standards). If you're ever in the area and need a decent hostel, check out 4 U München.

It was already late in the afternoon, so we walked to Munich's main square, Marienplatz, and I immediately began to fall in love with the city. And yes, I am officially coming out of the closet and admitting that I am in fact part-German. Bavarian, to boot. We skipped past the overly-touristy Hofbräuhaus (only to visit it later on a tour) and instead ate at a smaller, “genuine” German restaurant and beer hall. Every meal we had thenceforth in Munich was authentic German…and it was all delicious. After the wurst, weisse, kraut and apfelstrudel, we walked back along the main square and city center—which is almost entirely off-limits to cars—and were entertained by some particularly talented street musicians…

Left: Okay, you can have some of my change. Right: Jazz riff on the Barber of Seville.

Day 4/Munich: I want a BMW-

Since the three of us are fairly big car fans, we decided to visit BMW's campus, which contains the headquarters of BMW, as well as a museum (BMW Welt, or "World") and factory. The buildings were impressive and so was the tour of the factory, where we saw some slick Beemers being assembled. After being escorted around the plant by easily the most intelligent tour guide I have ever met, I began to appreciate the hefty price tag of a typical BMW. It was cleaner than a hospital in the factory, and we all really enjoyed seeing roomfuls of robots gyrating about. It was well worth the €2 ticket. BMW Welt is right next to the Olympiapark, where the infamous 1972 Munich Olympic Games were held, so we took a walk through the grounds after our tour...

Left: Inside BMW Welt. Right: Outside BMW Welt.

The iconic Olympiapark

We then unsuccessfully tried to reserve a spot on a hot air balloon ride (they were booked) just outside of Munich and so had to settle for a generic bus tour of the city instead. It was a bit of a disappointment, considering Munich is sopping wet with history, but the guide hardly went into detail. I did learn a few cool tidbits, though: Freddie Mercury (hahaha, but not this guy...I had to share this) apparently lived in Munich for a stint and Oktoberfest was established to commemorate the 1810 wedding of Prince Ludwig and not—contrary to popular thought—to celebrate the fall harvest. After the tour, we climbed to the top of the steeple of Der Alter Peter ("Church of St. Peter") adjacent to Marienplatz. Since I’m all about the view, I really enjoyed this stop…

My (lame) attempt at a panorama from Der Alter Peter. You get the idea.

Great place to watch the sunset, too.

We ended the day with a phenomenal dinner of sauerbraten and potato dumplings. Even Stephanie, who previously thought she hated German food, was happily converted and is now a huge sauerbraten fan…

*Drool*

Day 5/Munich’s Darkest and Brightest Days-

A lot of people I know aren’t too proud of their German heritage. Being from Munich is especially difficult for some people, because it is, if you weren’t already aware, the birthplace of Nazi Germany. The local government is “aware of its obligation to keep alive the memory of Nazi Germany and its crimes and to inform citizens and visitors about it,” according to a statement by the mayor. As many of you know, my own hometown has a significant population of both Germans and Jews, so the history of Nazism and the Holocaust are taught rather in-depth throughout high school. Therefore, because we wouldn’t be making it to the Dachau concentration camp museum, I suggested taking a tour that discussed Hitler’s rise to power in Munich.

All in all, the “History of the Third Reich in Munich Tour” was very interesting, pointing out the buildings that the crazed Führer commissioned for what he called the “Cradle of the Third Reich” and “The Arts Capital of Nazi Germany.” The tour guide, half-American and half-German himself, did an excellent job of explaining how Germans, especially Munich’s citizens, deal with their dark past. He also spent a lot of time detailing how over 85% of Munich had been completely wiped out in bombing raids by the Allies, but the combined American and German post-war governments built the city back up to almost exactly how it appeared pre-WWII. Thankfully they did it; the Nazis were a cancer to the area, but the city itself was and still is quite beautiful.

Our last stop was a visit to the Frauenkirche (“Cathedral of Our Blessed Lady”), where Pope Benedict XVI sat as Archbishop of Munich and Freising for five years, from 1977 to 1982. The building is considered the foremost architectural symbol of the city of Munich, and, as Catholics, it was an especially neat place to visit for the three of us. It, too, was damaged in WWII bombings, much of the inside to this day remains sparse after so many relics, statues, paintings and features were destroyed. Nevertheless, it managed to just barely survive, and many view its rebirth as an icon of hope for a city with a troubling and dark past…

Left: One of many things in the church noting Benedict's ties. Right: The reconstructed nave.

Frauenkirche rising over the city.

Needing to get to the airport in a bit of a rush that night, we decided to take a cab. Bad idea. Taxis in Munich are Mercedes-Benzes, and Fast Car + Cabbie + Autobahn = Reckless Endangerment. Allow me to be brief: German engineering makes for surprisingly comfortable lane changes at 215 km/hour. Needless to say, we didn't miss our flight!

"The Sterling is Getting Pounded"

This post is dedicated to my finance major friends.

Perhaps I should be writing about my last trip, but I had to show you all something fairly remarkable. I was online last last night, and I checked the exchange rate. I noticed the Pound was falling a bit, and so I kept refreshing the webpage only to see it falling about 3 cents in 45 minutes (that's huge, by the way). I went to bed and figured it would have leveled out by morning.

It didn't. It went free-falling from $1.62 last night to about $1.54 as I'm writing...

It's kind of like Christmas: you go to bed and then wake up with a pretty awesome surprise.

Normally, I am hardly interested in international currency markets--in fact, the only class I have ever dropped in college was one by that very name (sorry, Dr. Kohl's)--but needing to watch finances closely here, I have had no choice but to keep watch over the exchange rate. For the past four years, the Great British Pound Sterling's (GBP) value has hovered around $1.80 to $2.00. Ironically, the week I decided to study in London, the GBP hit a high for 2008 of almost $2.02. London is already depressingly expensive, but the dollar's weakness was going to make it even worse.

Then the whole financial crisis hit, and it has been much harder on the UK and Europe than on the US. London has been beaten up especially bad. In the past month, London home prices have plummeted almost 25% on average. Layoff sprees are more and more common, banks are going under, and the fact that the wealthy nations of the EU have to bail out the poorer Eastern European nations, too, has meant that both the GBP and the Euro are skydiving. This is horrible for Great Britain and Europe, but for the first time in at least five years, American tourists and students like me can smile. Yes, Gordon Brown, this is schadenfreude...

The GBP to the USD over the past three months.

In case you're interested in seeing some graphs--the Euro's fall is equally striking--then check out http://finance.yahoo.com/currency.

Next update coming soon

I got home late last night after spending five days in both Switzerland and Munich. It was great, and I even learned some German along the way! There are a lot of photos and such that I need to sort through and a lot of sauerbraten and wurst that I still need to digest, but I promise a long new post will be up soon. In keeping with the whole German theme, this little number appropriately expresses my gratitude for your patience (starting around 0:55)...

Around London #1

I've been in London for just under a month, yet I am guilty of writing about nearly everything but the city itself so far...not fair, considering the name of this thing is Brian's London Blog. So, here's a little bit about the London I've come to know.

Islington/Finsbury/Angel/Barbican-
The above words have become as familiar in terms of explaining my home surroundings as the phrases "Downtown Milwaukee," "Wisconsin Avenue," and "kind-of-near-the-Milwaukee-Public-Library." I'll explain...

Greater London is divided up in so many different ways that I probably shouldn't even begin to detail them all. But humor me, and let me try to explain a few. At the highest administrative level, the city is split into Inner London and Outer London. I'm in Inner London. Then, like New York City, London is divided up into boroughs. The only difference is that while New York City has five boroughs, London has thirty-two plus "the City," which is the financial center of London. The City actually rests upon the site of Londinium, where the Romans settled 2,000 years ago, and it has been the urban center ever since. It has special status as its own sort of autonomous borough and is ruled by The Corporation of London, a governing body older than Parliament.

From these 32 boroughs and the City, each is broken up into postal districts, but those follow fairly arbitrary borders. Therefore, the best way of describing where I am in London is to tell you my borough, my neighborhood, and the nearest Tube stops.

My borough is Islington. If you're from Milwaukee, the closest comparison to Islington is probably Riverwest or the East Side. If you're a Chicagoan, think the trendy neighborhoods surrounding the Loop. Islington boasts a lot of nice places to live, cool boutique shops, a semi-Bohemian populace and a lot of diversity. I'm actually at the very southern edge of Islington. My neighborhood, also called a "district," is Finsbury. Incidentally, my dorm is "Finsbury Hall." Here's a map from Wikipedia with which I took a few artistic liberties:

Islington borough is in red. I'm on the south side of that, in the Finsbury district.

My nearest Tube stops are Angel and Barbican. In fact, I'm almost equidistant between the two: south of Angel and north of Barbican. Old Street and Farringdon stops are also close. I'll spare you the seizure-inducing yet quite artistic map of the London Underground on this page, but if you absolutely need to see it, here you go.

City University-
As I've mentioned, I'm spending the semester as an international student at City University, London. Roughly 20,000 undergraduate students attend City U, but Marquette, with only about 8,000 undergrads, feels much larger. The campus of City U is much more disjointed than Marquette, too, but universities in London are especially lacking in real estate. That may explain why I haven't seen grass in weeks, excluding my ventures off campus. City U specializes in business, computer science and nursing, but lacks just about every liberal arts course you could imagine. This is because most students know exactly what their majors are when coming to a British university, and they stick to their core curricula. Major-switching, a uniquely American pastime that I myself enjoy, is almost nonexistent here. City U is especially known for their ever-improving graduate programs (which doesn't help me), but administrators like to brag about the school's rising stature and also enjoy flaunting the new university logo:

I must admit that I'm a fan. It beats the Jesuit bossing around a Native American in a canoe going backwards with a stupid motto.

As much as I miss Marquette, I have to hand it to City U for being so diverse. About 170 countries are represented by the student body. That's twice as much as Marquette's figure. In fact, in one of my classes, we were split into groups and mine consists of a Czech, a Pakistani, a Swede, a French-Canadian and me. I'm definitely in the ethnic minority here, and it's wonderful walking down the hallways; I see tons of Africans, Arabs, Asians, Slavs, Israelis and the occasional white kid that looks like me. Hijabs and yarmulkes are more common that baseball caps, and I hardly ever hear English outside of class.

Here are a few photos of day-to-day things...

Left: I take the Tube, on average, about twice a day. Right: The 56, my most frequently-used bus.

Left: An oft-frequented coffee shop two blocks away from my dorm. Right: St. Paul's Cathedral, rising above the Millenium Bridge


Left: Hyde Park, London's answer to Central Park. Right: Marks & Spencer, my favorite grocery store.

The Green Park. My reading spot of choice.

Happy Birthday, Paddington Bear!

That's right, it's the birthday of London's most famous children's storybook character, Paddington Bear. You're probably all familiar with the book(s) about furry little Paddington, but in case you're not (how shocking!) it's about a loveable, Marmalade-eating and cocoa-sipping bear who emigrates from "Darkest Peru" to London. He is, of course, named for the well-known Paddington Station** in west-central London. Kudos to both Becky and Google for pointing it out.

Even Google is celebrating.

**see the last picture!

Stonehenge, Bath, Cardiff and (surprise!) Oxford

I apologize for the delay on posting. Before I start going into all of the actual stuff we did during the past weekend, I thought that it would help to start with a map of our 400-mile trip as a good reference point...

A. City University; B. Stonehenge; C. Bath; D. Cardiff; E. Oxford; F. London Heathrow

Day 1/Druids and Romans-
Stephanie, Abby, Anthony and I woke up (too) early on Friday morning, and took the Tube all the way to Heathrow Airport, where we picked up our rental car. Europcar thankfully allows 21-year olds to rent and drive, so 22-year old Anthony had the pleasure of taming some English motorways and wild country roads in a diesel, manual, hatchback Vauxhall. When we picked it out we figured the car was about as European as they come...

Kind of looks like a minivan, doesn't it? Pretty trusty steed, though.

We headed for Stonehenge, still getting used to the left side of the street and roundabouts every half-mile. After more than an hour of driving, we crested a little hill on the A303 highway, and there was Stonehenge up ahead, in all of its ancient, rocky, Druid glory. It was actually an amazing sight, even from almost a mile away, just plopped there on an empty farming plain. We parked and walked up to the monument. After hearing about Stonehenge in school and on TV for years, I thought I would be disappointed by a bunch of rocks. I wasn't. We only got within about ten yards at the closest point, but it was easy to appreciate the timeless fascination with Stonehenge. It's pretty crazy to think that primitive peoples lugged 80 stones weighing up to six tons each from Wales--almost 200 miles away--and stood them up in a complex pattern for spiritual rituals. What's amazed me just as much was the fact that the whole thing is still standing and in good condition 4,600 years later. Here are a few pictures...

Left: at the furthest point away on the walkway. Right: Close up

Left: The best part actually might have been the very intense neo-pagans camping out in the adjacent farm field in their RVs. Right: Abby, me, Anthony (rocking the hood, Druid-style) and Stephanie.

All in all, Stonehenge was a successful first stop. Getting to Bath was an adventure, as Stonehenge is far enough of off the direct route that we had to take smaller roads. We made it, though, and were treated to a great view of the town when we reached our hostel atop a hill...

Left: Bath YHA Hostel. It would've been great if the heat had worked! Right: The city of Bath seen from a spot near our hostel.

A Not-So-Quick History Lesson (feel free to skim this):
The Romans came over to present-day England (Britannia, as they called it) around 40 AD, and made it to Bath shortly afterward. They heard of a "magic" hot spring that an ancient tribe of Celts had been venerating in the name of a goddess they called Sulis, and being the culture-mixers/-hijackers they had always been, the Romans were more than eager to conveniently wrap up three of their favorite passions--capturing slaves from the native population, building public baths and mythology--into one, big, flashy new town. They called it Aquae Sulis, or "Waters of Sulis," and the focal point for the town was an enormous public bath center dedicated to a new goddess, Sulis Minerva; Sulis was the Celtic goddess, and Minerva was a Roman one that had a lot of similarities, so they just morphed the two into one. Needless to say, the commonalities helped win over the native Celtic Britons as they adapted to Roman ways.

The baths at Aquae Sulis were enormous, and they were literally centuries ahead of their time in terms of technology. Frankly, they were sweet. People used them every day, and often merchants, politicians and anybody else who could afford to spend time off the farm would spend hours in the baths. I was surprised to find that patrons couldn't enter the main bath until they were clean. So, the whole building was actually a series of rooms...

Room 1: "Locker room." Undress, rinse off.
Room 2: Massage Room. Lay down on a table, get massaged with olive oil which lifts dirt off skin.
Room 3: Hot room. The floor was built upon a hollow chamber, supported by small columns of clay tile. Water from the spring was partially diverted to the hollow chamber underneath the floor. A fire was lit in one corner of the room, and the hot air warmed the water to near-boiling, making the room blazing hot. The bathers would sweat, and use brushes to lift the oil and dirt from off their skin...

Left: Fire-heated water being circulated to the hollow chamber underneath the floor, warming the whole room. Right: the columns upon which rested the floor. Hot water flowed in between the columns.

Room 4: Cold bath. After sweating profusely and brushing off the vast majority of the impurities in the hot room, bathers would jump into a refreshingly cold pool, rinse off, and then jump out.
Room 5: The Main Bath. By now, the bathers were completely clean, and they could spend their day in the hot spring-fed pool. How great does this sound: the water was a constant 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and the spring was so efficient and "bountiful" that the entire pool was continuously being filled and drained so that the bath had essentially fresh water every few minutes. At the poolside were places to sit, eat, converse and relax.

After about 400 years of bathing in their own awesomeness, the Romans sadly had to return to Italy to defend their falling empire. What's worse, the Romans never bothered to show the native Britons how to construct in the Roman way. In the Romans' absence, the Britons had no idea how to take care of the baths, use clay or do any of the other necessary things to keep the most advanced architecture they had ever seen from crumbling to the ground. And that's exactly what happened. The baths collapsed in upon themselves (they were completely roofed, by the way), the Britons came and went, and years of flooding and mudslides buried the Roman structures. It wasn't until the 1880s that a Bath citizen's house started to mysteriously flood. A prominent British civil engineer was brought in, and he and his team began digging. They eventually hit what once had been the floor of the main pool, and the engineer knew they had stumbled upon something special. He convinced the city to buy up all the houses in the vicinity in order to continue excavating, and within a decade, they had unearthed the most complete Roman bathhouse in the world. They built a Georgian-style museum atop the ruins, and the rest is history.

History lesson over. We, of course, went to visit the Roman Baths Museum. The bath, as it stands today, is only original up to about six feet from the ground, but that's okay, because the whole system (draining, filling, everything) still works as perfectly as it did almost 2,000 years ago! I always knew the Roman civilization was impressive, but until I saw Bath, I had never fully appreciated their collective brilliance and influence on technological progress...

Left: the opening of the natural hot spring, looking and working exactly as it did for the Romans 2,000 years ago. Right: how the Roman bath complex of Aquae Sulis probably looked around 200 AD

Left: Sentinels and Caesars keeping watch. Right: on the upper level, with the Gothic Anglican Bath Abbey, another famous sight, in the background.

Not too shabby.

Day 2/Darjeeling with Dickens. And then Cardiff.
After waking up, getting a decent breakfast, and checking out Bath Abbey (the main Anglican church in Bath), we decided to check out a local favorite: Sally Lunn's. In business since 1680, Sally Lunn's is been widely known across Britain as one of the nation's best teahouses, so I wasn't about to leave Bath without going. They are famous for their tea, enormous "Sally Lunn Buns" and, of course, for the historical atmosphere. It wasn't by any means a snooty place, but the waitresses dressed in early-20th century outfits and plaques on the wall noted famous patrons of the teahouse, including Charles Dickens. Apparently, he stopped there quite often and is thought to have even authored some of his stories while sipping tea and eating buns. We all got a cinnamon and butter bun, and I ordered what turned out to be a pretty phenomenal pot of tea. Moral of the story: if you ever get to Bath, order a Darjeeling at Sally Lunn's; you won't be disappointed...

Left: a fantastic cup of tea. Right: warm, fluffy, sugary, buttery. Happiness on a plate, basically.

We left Bath and drove in a fairly miserable rainstorm all the way to Cardiff, the capital of Wales. I really wish I could say nice things about Cardiff, but I can't. Honestly, it was the biggest disappointment any of us have had since arriving in September except for the fact that nobody has said "Pip pip!" yet. Anthony said that it was like visiting Rockford, Illinois, where he's from. I've been to Rockford before; Cardiff is a close second place. Our hostel wasn't special, the city was pretty boring, and to top it all off, we got a parking ticket. The highlight of our time spent there was either my Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki sandwich from Subway or seeing The Duchess, Keira Knightley's new movie. There wasn't even anything interesting enough to get me to take a picture.

Day 3/"Hey, how about going to Oxford?"-
Since we didn't want to go home completely disappointed after what had begun as a nice weekend, we decided to take a slight detour to visit Oxford. Incidentally, my sister-in-law, also a Marquette alum, studied abroad in Oxford when she was at school. In fact, she might have been responsible for planting the seed in my head to go study abroad when I was old enough. I was only about 7 years old at the time, but it was cool to visit a place that I have heard about from her.

We only spent about an hour in the town, but walking outside of the forty colleges that comprise the world-famous University of Oxford was interesting. The colleges are almost like fraternities that students join when applying to Oxford. They all have their own residences, students stay within their college for four years, each college has some degree of autonomy, but they aren't subject-specific, and they are all under the jurisdiction of the University. The closest comparison an American could draw to Oxford's structure is probably that of Rice University in Houston or Yale, in that people become very attached to their dorm's unique culture...

Left: a really famous arch thing, but I can't remember what it was called. Right: Radcliffe Camera, built in 1737, and houses humanities texts.

I had to sneak into Hertford College to snap this photo of its grounds.