Let's try this again

Okay, so *twice* yesterday I spent a chunk of time writing out my blog only to have it give me an error when I hit "post and publish". Not again. I *will* copy this to notepad when I'm done.

So I had an awesome and wonderful weekend. Saturday morning I woke up kind of early and studied, so I felt productive. Smeg picked me up around 11 and we drove up to Birmingham to drop a rotten-feeling Sandra off at her flat. We then headed to Kenilworth castle, which was more than the awesomest thing I have ever seen. Be jealous, americans, because I got to run around and play in a castle. British people, stop being so jaded. Blah blah, I know you see them every day, but they are still the coolest. We climbed around the ruins and took pictures and I had a huge grin on my face the whole time. It was awesome. Have I mentioned it was awesome?

After spending about an hour and a half there, we headed off to Warwick Castle. It was remarkably well-preserved and very, very crowded as well as expensive (12.50 for a ticket? bah!). Paul described it as a "tarted-up" attraction, which was very true. It was nice though, and we climbed the towers and walked the battlements and avoided the screaming children and sat by the pond and watched the ducks. There was a wedding party there, and lots of people dressed in period garb manning carnival stalls. There was also an archer shooting at a witch/scarecrow. He was an ok shot.

After warwick we drove back to Oxford and ate at Mongolian Wok, which was really good, and I was stuffed afterwards. We narrowly missed the karoake, which was an added benefit of the day. Driving back we noticed a fireworks show in the park by Paul's house, so we walked down but couldn't find a gate that wasn't locked, so we waited for the police to leave, then squeezed through a space in the fence where a slat was missing. Or, rather, I squeezed through, but Paul didn't fit :). His large man-chest just wouldn't go through. I had to do it one boob at a time without my coat on.... It was funny. So we walked back and watched a best of "Trigger Happy TV" and at junk food. Mmmm. Cherry bakewell tarts....

Sunday was welcomed in by gale-force winds. 6 people died in britain, and I think 26 overall, from trees falling onto them, their cars, or their houses. A 23yo was killed in Oxford city centre when an oak branch crushed her car. So, needless to say, I stayed in most of the day. That evening, me and smeg went to eat at the Maybush and I had some steak and ale pie which ended up having kidney in it. I avoided the kidney, so the pie was good, but I felt really nauseous afterwards. I spent the rest of my evening studying and preparing for my paper, and got up kind of early and have been working on it since about 9:45. I'm proud of (and kind of freaked out by) my productivity!

Update: After lunch, I worked on my paper all afternoon but didn't seem to get much done. I went to dinner, which was a freaky beef dish and mystery soup (my vote was broccoli and fennel, and it was disgusting), but the dessert was good--warm chocolate custard with cake. Afterwards I went with some of my friends to a student union forum/discussion: "Does atheism have a future?" The panelists were very well-informed and I thoroughly enjoyed their presentations. Once the questions started it rapidly degenerated into "how valid is Christianity?" but it was still very interesting and intellectually stimulating. I feel ready to spend the rest of my night writing my paper. Considering I haven't formally written a word yet, it should be interesting. If you pray, pray for me... :)

posted @ 10/28/2002 05:30:00 PM 0 comments