Oxford, Canterbury, Bath, Bath

BEING LOVELY

Before jumping into the events of the past couple weeks I'd like to start out with a quick musing regarding the use of the word 'lovely'. It's used all the time out here for random things such as, "You must try their cheesecake, it’s lovely.” Random things like that can be lovely. It can replace all kinds of words like delicious, quaint, nice, gentle, pleasant and many others.

I was out seeing a comedian who pointed out something hilarious - if a British person is telling you about a friend of their's and their friend is fat they will ALWAYS say that they are lovely. For example if you hear a woman say, “you have to meet my friend Jane, she’s lovely.” this means that Jane is fat.

I can't really do it justice here but it was great. It might have been the fact that I finally laughed at the appropriate time at a joke in a comedy club in London. Telling jokes on the other hand, well I have one message for Americans - don't tell your jokes to British people. They're not funny for some reason, please trust me. I've had two really rough occasions with this and I've given up. You can kind of save yourself at the end if you just say "Heyyyyy, I'm walkin hea!" in a really NY cab driver accent (thanks Tia for putting me on to that one!), but this should be saved for dire emergencies and if at all possible just completely avoided.

So, anyways, where was I... ah yes, so I've been getting around the UK a little bit over the past 2 weeks.

OXFORD

I took a train out to Oxford 2 weekends ago to have a look and see for myself what was going on. Pretty interesting town. It was founded as a place of study in 1100, or something like that after the English were kicked out of the schools in Paris. They have buildings on the campus from every century. It's just generally a really smart looking place. The library at Oxford has over 9 millions volumes including 4 original Magna Cartas...now, I distinctly remember seeing porn in the magazine rack in the library at Cornell. I am not making that up. What would anyone do with a Magna Carta anyway?

Meals are eaten here, and yes it is Harry Potter style for all you wizard fans and fairies

area with grass, but there's no walking allowed on the grass at Oxford

I took a walking tour of the campus, this old church might have been the first building at Oxford, it might not, I forgot

Bill Clinton was a Rhodes scholar which means he earned a degree at Oxford. And then he was bestowed an honorary degree after becoming Prez so you know - I'm sure he was kicking himself when that happened for wasting all that tuition getting the real one.

These guys were pretty interesting:

Legend has it that they come down at night and go across the street to drink here:

The White Horse! We sometimes hang out at a place called White Horse in NYC. Our guide told us the great thing about pubs in Oxford is you may be drinking an ale in the same place that some of history's smartest people could have drank. You could be sitting on a stool where Einstein discovered the theory of relativity! I thought I’d check it out, and you know what...it WAS lovely!!

CANTERBURY

Last weekend I hitched a train out to Canterbury in Kent, against my instinct telling me to go sit and relax all day in Hyde Park. This was the first time I actually thought 'thank goodness its raining!' I also felt compelled to pay homage to a little place back in Huntington, Long Island that we all know and love:

After going to Israel last year I considered this to be the next important pilgrimage that I had to make.

Canterbury was a cool little place but my enthusiasm for walking tour participation was somewhat diminished. I knew I had about 2 hours before my self inflicted window of opportunity would be closed - so this meant I had to be more efficient. Instead of wasting time finding a map store or information centre I began my own walking tour right when I stepped off the train. As I walked the streets I made up little stories in my head about the town which were quite interesting and very entertaining.

Pee Wee Herman Creek (made up name)

Canterbury Cathedral (real name)

An herb garden outside the Cathedral (where I ate my packed lunch sandwich)

and...

2 hours was up.

BATH

I was out in Bristol yesterday touring some of our new school building sites. I am working on our bid team for the Southampton Schools project down on the southern coast and it was great getting on site to see the kinds of designs and projects we are capable of delivering. Not to mention, it felt good to get back into some work boots.

I took the opportunity to book myself a cheap place to say out in Bath for 2 nights since it is out in the western part of England right near Bristol. I can be very romantic with myself sometimes.

Bath has a relaxed atmosphere which you notice right away. It's also a huge rugby town. I spent Wednesday night watching rugby at a pub with a few locals. They taught me some rules, but I pretty much have it figured out - its basically just constantly running the option play from American Football. It might seem like I spend more than an average amount of time in pubs, but I assure you, my time spent in them is well below the national average.

After Bristol all day, by Thursday night my walking tour enthusiasm was down to 5 minutes:

Behind this wall are the Roman Baths. I peered over from the steps but had no time to go in. I was in a hurry and had to be somewhere...

The circus was in town!!! The 'No Fit State' circus to be exact, and they were here performing their current tour, 'Tabu'.

I saw this while on a run the night before. I stopped to listen from the outside and find out what was going on when a heavy set person wandered over to me. As I saw this human coming to me I thought excitedly to myself, "this could be a bearded lady!". It wasn't, it was just a bearded man. He was the circus' mechanic, responsible for making sure all transport vehicles were in tip-top shape at all times, an extremely important responsibility; If a truck couldn't make it to the next tour stop, it could be a show-stopper. I didn't catch the gentleman's name but when I asked how he enjoyed life on the road he told me he was 4th generation circus-folk. His great-grandfather started the tradition by building carnivals and so, life on the road was in his blood. It sounded pretty neat. My new mechanic friend went on to explain the show to me - it was singing, dancing but most importantly an acrobatic aerial show. It also had the audience standing and moving around the tent as the act was performed all around and above them. And all the music was played by live musicians in the house band. After a sales pitch like that I couldn't miss it. And it lived up to everything I could think of. Check out their video here:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5kmsl_tabu_creation

It was incredible. I dropped off my resume on the way out.

I really enjoyed Bath, however it wasn't my first bath experience while in London

So, it was definitely a good couple weeks. Despite neglecting my current favorite past-time of sitting in Hyde Park doing nothing I was pretty glad looking back to get out and about. Now I'm sure most of you heard of this little soccer tournament that started today,The World Cup. It gets a little attention over here, to say the least. Tomorrow is England's first game. And as we all are aware, it has them pitted against the USA!! Which reminds me, I did have time to do a little shopping while in Bath...

See you at the pub