The World in Britain

One of the biggest pluses about living in England has to be that it is a small country. This is an especially great thing when one considers the traveling that can be done in such a small country. I have managed to take full advantage of travel in England over the past three days. With The World in Britain Seminar starting yesterday and the intensive courses (in my case, Music and Ideas) last week, a lot of us figured that this was the best time to do day trips to various locales around Reading. In the past three days, I have managed to visit three separate spots in England.

My first day trip out of Reading was on Sunday. Gill, the Residence Manger for the Reading program, had to go to Henley for the day and she made the extra spots in her car available to anyone who wanted to visit Henley. Rhiannon, Annie, Anna, and I (all of 141) decided to go with Gill to Henley. It was a short drive of about 15 minutes, and well worth it. Henley is a town on the River Thames so there were plenty of wonderful views of the river with many other things to explore within the city. One highlight from Sunday’s adventure was making it inside “The Tudor House”, a building originally built in the 1580s that is now an antique shop – definitely the oldest building I’ve ever been in! After spending the afternoon in Henley, we meet Gill at a cute little teashop on the banks of the Thames before heading back to Reading.

  The Thames in Henley

 The day after Henley, I took the train into London. Brandon, Caleb, Annie, Rhiannon, and I left after Seminar on Monday and made it into London around 3 PM. We arrived at Paddington Station and emerged into a great throng of people. We eventually found a place for lunch (Shakespeares Head, a place I highly recommend) but not before witnessing a line of Hare Krishna make their way through London’s incredibly crowded streets. After lunch, Annie and I split off to find the Tate Modern. After managing to not get lost on the Underground (a feat, considering neither of us had used it before), Annie and I emerged onto the banks of the Thames, surprised by the views of the Palace of Westminster and the London Eye we had. Then the search for the Tate Modern began. We spent nearly an hour looking for the Tate Modern only to find it at 6:10 PM, 10 minutes after closing time. We then decided to have a look at St. Paul’s Cathedral, which is immediately across from the Tate Modern on the opposite bank of the Thames. Following much picture taking of St. Paul’s, Annie and I decided to take the Underground to Tower Hill and took in the sights there, including the Tower of London, the Tower Bridge, and part of the original Roman wall that surrounded Roman London. Hungry from such a full day, Annie and I found a delightful Indian place (next door to the curiously named “Hanged, Drawn and Quartered”) near the Tower. Then we made our way back to Paddington for the 9:30 train back to Reading.

St. Paul’s Cathedral in London

Today, after such a busy day in London, Rhiannon and I decided to take a day trip to much lower-key Winchester. A great cathedral city, Winchester was the capital of the kingdom before the Norman Conquest of 1066. With the cathedral as our main reason for visiting, we quickly made our way to it after disembarking the train. After many wrong turns, we eventually found our destination. After a quick side trip to the gift store, we entered the cathedral. It is a very grand piece of Norman architecture with tons of stained glass in the windows. We took the (free!) tour of the cathedral and even managed to make it into the crypt of the cathedral! After the Cathedral, we stopped for tea in a wonderful little tea place off one of the many side streets in Winchester. We quickly realized it was closing in on 5 o’clock, when most things in Winchester were closing. We scraped plans to see the City Museum and the Great Hall and decided to just take a walk along the River Itchen. We found a wonderful park that cut through much of Winchester and provided a nice little “green” break. After this walk, we found “The Royal Oak”, a partially underground pub that claims to be the oldest pub in England, and had dinner and drinks. We then made our way back to the train station and caught the train back to Reading.

Winchester Cathedral in Winchester

Hi! My name is Nick Marshall and I am a junior and a history major at Randolph College. I will be a resident of 141 Whiteknights (the college’s main house in Reading) all year. I am really excited about my year abroad and, even though I’ve only been here 5 days, I already know it’s going to be an amazing experience. I hope the chronicling of my adventures on here will give you a taste of how my year is going and what it could be like for you, if you are interested in applying for the program!

We made it! I finally had a second to chill and take the time to blog a little bit about my adventures over the past four days! Everyone (well all but 3?) are taking a class right now; further making me feel like a dropout. My first class is tomorrow, a music class which I am very excited about. I can’t believe so much has happened already! After a 4ish hour hour delay, our flight took off from Dulles Friday. Flying terrifies me, but everyone else seemed to agree that it was a good and very fast flight (thanks hurricane). Special thanks to a the very patient Alex for listening to my panicked rant about Marie Antoinette which got faster, filled with increased amounts of terror, and higher pitched as the plane took off. We landed in Heathrow where we all managed to enter the country successfully (well, Trey almost didn’t make it). Then we met Dr. Lars Franke, who is extremely “nice” meaning kind, helpful, and a good guy overall (we’ve been having some minor translation issues). After a little bus ride we showed up in front of our houses –––141 and 153 Whiteknights––– and set up house. We met Gill, who is absolutely fantastic! I’m living in 153 with Alex, Leanne, and Trey. Such a cute little place! Three bedrooms upstairs, a computer room; downstairs is the living room, conservatory, and kitchen. We have an large garden dotted with apple trees and very fat birds (from time to time). That noise, that I thought was Trey drying his hair several times a day, actually turned out to be a vacuum at the BP station next-door. Apparently, the car blokes (guys with souped up cars with big exhausts) hang out there late at night…and vacuum their cars.Enough about the house, Trey and I decided to slog through the jet lag and hop on the bus to central Reading to search for a cell phone and other adventures. Central Reading and The Oracle (the big downtown mall thing) are full of well known shops and stores (oh no) so we basically have everything we need (or don’t need) relatively close by. We decided to walk around and explore a little bit more, so we walked around the shops passing by many of our very interestingly dressed peers who were taking breaks from the Reading Festival. A three day music festival with headliners such as Radiohead, Vampire Weekend, Kaiser Chiefs, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Kings of Leon, Brand New, Fall Out Boy, New Found Glory, to name a few. Too bad the tickets were sold out, too expensive, and I had no idea that was happening the day we got here. However, being able to see everyone in their concert get up was worth it to me. Girls wearing face paint, headbands galore, floral dresses, tights, and guys wearing bathrobes with fedoras; well worth it. Trey and I got back on the bus that we believed would take us home, and ended up driving all over Reading. Not regrettable because we were put on the right bus and our tickets were reimbursed for being dumb and lost Americans, but we also were able to explore more of our new home and rest our tired feet.Once we reached home we were treated to a barbeque where we met many of the people who will be assisting us with our living arrangements throughout the year. We sort of roasted marshmallows (which taste a little fruity here) over the grill on forks and played with Gill’s sweet little dog Bella (when she wasn’t wrestling sausages). Then, after being up nearly 24 plus hours (correct me if I’m wrong…although, it’s too painful to think about) we all went home for long anticipated meetings with our new beds. Sunday morning Liz, Trey, and I took the bus into central Reading for supplies. We hit the Marks and Spencer,  then we headed to Boots for toiletries. We then headed back for a very yummy English roast were we consumed Yorkshire pudding, two kinds of gravy, beef roast, chicken, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, rolls, and I am possibly forgetting something…oh yes…stuffing balls! Stuffing balls are kind of the best invention ever. It’s basically stuffing, rolled up into little balls. Okay, that sounds really stupid but, trust me, they aren’t. After supper, Gill brought out this delicious chocolate cake with berries and to add to the decadence we poured cream on top. After all that, we took a walk exploring a little bit of the area around which we live as well as a tour of the Reading Whiteknights campus. It was rather chilly that day, and as I am coming down with some kind of weird illness, I think was a bit of a whiny baby about being cold. But, I am serious, this is not normal cold, my bones are literally cold. Lots of layers. After our much needed walk we settled in for some supper after which the 141 kids picked us up and we headed to the Three Tuns our nearby (across the street) pub. Good fun was had by all, but I think we sat on the Indian curry buffet side instead of the actual pub side (next time).   After watching Labyrinth and the always fabulous Bowie steal a baby for about and hour the doorbell rang. Trey answered to find that two English blokes had come knocking to see if we wanted to go out. Apparently, they knew “the Americans” the two previous years, so Trey and I voyaged out with them and what a night! We saw what the young crowd does in Reading (I guess a smaller group because the students aren’t back yet) and goodness can they party. At an unmentionable hour we returned and I fell straight asleep. Waking up with no voice and exhausted was well worth the adventure. Leanne finally showed up after having her visa sorted out, it’s very nice to have her as it felt absurd only having three people in this big house. Our little family is complete! We all met up at 141 to sort out class stuff and we went for bike rides around campus for a while. After my meeting with Dr. Franke, my intrepid friends Trey and Liz invited me to go to London, a suggestion I greeted with surprise but off we went!We left for London around 5 and returned at 9something! We walked around Hyde Park a bit, down Oxford Street (I didn’t go in one shop… impossible? Believe it!), then we took the tube to Covent Garden to search for Liz’s dance studio. After a pleasant meander around the maze-like streets, we found it: closed. Oh well, just around the corner was our tube stop and we tubed it back to Paddington and caught a very nice train to Reading (suspiciously nice for our cheap tickets). After some scrambling and bus chasing we arrived, half-starved and blistered at 141 for some pasta. Back at 153, Alex and I finished Labyrinth and ate yummy Polish cookies she shared with me (yum). I hopped into bed, woke up, and that is the play-by-play of the last couple days. I will try to keep this more regular or at least not be so detailed next time (sorry). You’re brave to have read all that. Today, I think Oxford is on the menu for the afternoon. Can’t wait to go back! Aching for more adventures! Having a blast! Cheers!