Expatriate Adventures: Thanksgiving Edition

Dearest Readers,

I hope that your Thanksgiving festivities have been full of wonderful family, friends, food, and fun (I just had to keep the alliteration going).  Thanksgiving is such a great holiday because it really prompts you to stop and appreciate the important things in life; surrounded by those closest to you, as well as reminders of your (probably, hopefully) fortunate situation in life, you acknowledge these blessings and enjoy them, instead of taking them for granted, as many of us, unfortunately, do far too often.  It is one of my favorite holidays because of this.  Strangely, I never thought of it as a particularly American holiday (it lost much of its historical significance for me after I stopped making hand-turkeys and learning about the Pilgrims in elementary school), and because it is so antithetical to much of what the American spirit is known for (consumerism, success-at-all-costs, a sense of superiority....sorry, I think that living outside of the country, where so many people possess such attitudes, is starting to get to me), I often forget that Americans actually came up with such a celebration.  However, after celebrating my first Thanksgiving away from home, in a country that is still trying to figure out why we left it in the first place, I am coming to appreciate it more than ever.  Please allow me to tell you the story of how I passed my Thanksgiving this year...

Let's start with Thursday morning.  After having gotten three or four hours of sleep (thanks to a paper that I was trying to work on and coughing for half of the night), I woke up, plopped myself on the couch with a pot of tea next to me (and one piece of toast that served as breakfast and lunch-- did I mention that I also had some sort of stomach bug?), and continued frantically trying to finish my paper before my 4 pm class.  Once I realized that I was going to finish with plenty of time to spare, I slowed down, and, realizing that it was nearing 8 am in New York, I began searching the internet for a live feed of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade-- one of my favorite nostalgic features of the holiday.  Of course, none were to be found, and no British telly channels were showing it either (which came as little surprise).  Oh well. 

Since dinner was to be happening downtown, nearer to Nelson than my house, I figured that I should just stay down there between my class and dinner-- there was only an hour between.  So I got all dressed up, and just as I was about to email my paper to myself so that I could print it at Nelson, I got an email stating that the paper deadline had been extended until Friday at 5 (seriously?!), and then our internet died.  Great.  Well, at least I had another day to send it in.  So I went to class, concentrated on staying awake (I was really tired, really sick, and really bored-- bad combination), then headed to Flat 4 afterward to hang out until we left for dinner. 

Here is where things, thankfully, started getting considerably better (don't worry, I wasn't going to give you an entirely sad story, that would have been terribly mean of me).  We embarked in search of Bath College, where our dinner was being held (we had never been there, and the map was not exactly helpful).  First though, we had to get through the epic insanity that was the center of town-- the Bath Christmas Markets, one of the city's greatest points of pride, opened that morning, and people were just packed into the streets.  We made it, albeit a bit slowly, and got to see all of the fun things waiting for us when we eventually go-- Santa (with a real reindeer to pet!), a giant carousel, hundreds of stalls with handmade goods and delicious food... I'm pretty excited about this.  Anyway, we eventually found the place, and once we got inside, found a banquet hall filled with tables that had been decorated with leaves, hand turkeys (from the education students' classes)... the whole nine yards.  Everyone was milling around, laughing and talking-- everyone from our programme as well as the staff.  It really was a beautiful sight.

We sat down to eat, and Jonathan, our director, opened with a blessing by Robert Louis Stevenson (appropriate), before the chefs brought out possibly the biggest turkey that I have ever seen.  One turkey.  For fifty people.  And there were leftovers.  It was that big. 

We got up in shifts to get turkey.  While waiting for our turn, my table, made up of all friends, went around and said what we were thankful for (as was the tradition in nearly all of our families).  Amazingly (or perhaps not), we all mentioned how lucky we felt to have the chance to study abroad, and especially for the friends that we made, who on that night, became family... which was really sweet.  Notably, we all also mentioned our families at home, and how much we missed them.

After we got our turkey (one slice! crazy Brits...), waiters came around with sides-- mashed potatoes, baked sweet potatoes, corn, carrots, stuffing, green beans, cranberry sauce, and these very amusing cornbread things that were essentially mini scones.  Everything was delicious... but it was all very small.  I usually associate Thanksgiving with epic portions of food that are piled into a small mountain on your plate, which you finish, and then help yourself to a second mountain.  Our plates resembled English geography instead-- lots of little hills undulating across what was essentially a flat surface.  When we finished our food unusually quickly, and looked about expectantly for more, the waitstaff finally caught on to the fact that Americans are, in fact, as big on food as stereotypes suggest, and came around with seconds.  It was actually pretty comical. 

While waiting for our pie (one slice each--I was so disappointed!) to come out of the kitchen, we opened our Christmas crackers that were sitting at each of our places (again, I was really amused... clearly, the Brits, who were already in full-on Christmas mode, assumed that Thanksgiving must function as the beginning of the Christmas count-down).  We pulled on our tissue-paper crowns (which I decided were Native American feather headdresses), and played with our strange surprises-- a mini badminton set, mini screwdrivers, mini yo-yos... (not sure I understand the appeal of Christmas crackers) until dessert arrived.  I had apple pie, which was fine, but the pumpkin was better (I stole a bite of Ali's), and both were very flat... like tarts, really, instead of pie.  But they were tasty nonetheless.

After coffee, we all milled about again, laughing and talking with each other, noting with surprise how much fun this Thanksgiving dinner was.  The staff came around to talk to us too, with fervent hopes that we enjoyed ourselves, and that we felt satisfied that the dinner had fulfilled our expectations for the holiday; it was very sweet of them, and we thanked them profusely for their thoughtfulness and efforts in making us feel a bit closer to home.

We headed home at that point; most of us hoping to skype with our families at their dinner tables, including myself.  But of course, my internet still didn't work.  So our whole house went across the street to the other programme house, to borrow theirs.  I managed to talk to my sister and cousins for about two minutes before the other house's internet failed too.  By the time it came back, I couldn't get a hold of them.  So I was sad.  On the bright side, I managed to send in my paper (huzzah).  On another bright side, the Thanksgiving food had somehow cured my stomach bug-- I finally felt well again!  Yay!  It's powerful stuff, traditional food (the Jews have known this for centuries).

And as for part two of the traditional Thanksgiving observance-- Black Friday-- I'm heading to the Christmas market to celebrate in the true American fashion of exhaustive shopping.  You can take the American out of America, but you can't take America out of the American. 

As for the rest of the weekend-- another paper, some research for the end of my dissertation, reading an epically long book, trying to shake off the head cold that has decided to reappear following the departure of the stomach bug, and hoping for the tentatively-expected rarity of English snow! 

This Thanksgiving, I realized how very grateful I am for the incredible opportunities that I enjoy, and the countless blessings in my life-- studying at Williams, living in a foreign country for four months, having friends all over the world, (most importantly) having a family that loves and supports me in everything that I do, and even, despite all of my grousing about it, being an American, and having all of the opportunities that come along with it.  Sometimes a little absence really does makes the heart grow that much fonder. 

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving, my friends-- enjoy your leftovers and the memories of this holiday's warmth in peace, happiness, and love.  And please, eat an extra helping of sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top for me-- the Brits just don't understand what a tasty and fundamental aspect of the holiday they are.  :)

Huge Tracts of Land

Thursday+Friday = epic days of epic epicness.  I'm not sure that there is any other way to describe it... except by giving you long, detailed play-by-plays.  Though I'm fairly certain that you've come to expect this by now.

Thursday, we got up early (again) for our last trip of R&R week, as well as our final all-programme trip-- Glastonbury and Wells.  As soon as we got on the bus, Lindsay started playing "Hot Fuzz"-- a movie that I've come to love; a spoof on ridiculous cop movies which stars Simon Pegg, and was filmed in.... Wells!

Once we arrived in town, I immediately recognized quite a few sites from the film:

The fountain where the "hoodlums" are hanging out at the beginning.

The hotel where Sargent Angel lives.

 The Cathedral (where the fundraising carnival was held).

Apparently, the film was set in Wells because the writer grew up there, and so it became his model for the town which won the "Village of the Year Award" for like 12 straight years or whatever it was in the film.  Anyway, this makes the fifth town/city that I've been to in England where a film I've seen was filmed.  Pretty cool.

Andrew Butterworth gave us a lovely tour of the town and cathedral (yay Andrew Butterworth!  I've gotten to see so much of him this past week... it's wonderful).  We started off with a quick look around the Bishop's Palace (yes, the man got a palace.  And apparently, he only stayed there maybe once a year.  The current bishop spends a considerable amount of time there though-- and I don't blame him.  If someone gave me a palace to live in, I'd be all over it!):

 The Bishop's Palace.  And oh yeah, it has a moat.  A MOAT!  With swans in it.  And a little bell on the side of the palace for them to ring when they want to be fed.  I kid you not.

Then we took a look down the oldest street in Wells-- a medieval street with two rows of medieval townhouses, all attached to a dining hall and connected to the cathedral by an above-ground corridor, in which the choristers and priests and such used to live.  

The precursor to modern suburban townhouse developments, where everything looks exactly the same.

 If you look to the left above everyone's heads, you can see the bridge that connected the cathedral to the medieval street residences.

 And then, on to the cathedral!  It was built only a half-century before Salisbury Cathedral (remember all the way back to Salisbury?  Fittingly, it was our first all-programme trip, and this was our last...); however, it did take a bit longer to build (60 years instead of 45).  It's a very impressive building, but has a dramatically different feeling from Salisbury-- it is very horizontal, as opposed to vertical, very light, uncluttered (no plaques and memorials covering all of the walls and floor), and almost contemporary-- it has wonderful scissor-arches in the space covering where the nave and transept meet, with big circles... sorry, it's very difficult to describe, but it looks decidedly ahead of its time (it was built in the 13th century, I believe).  I can't show you any pictures of the interior (they charge 3 pounds for photography, and I'm sorry, but that's what I pay for lunch, which is considerably more important), but you might be able to look it up online.  

Highlights of the interior: a church cat (an orange tabby that was curled up under a chair), the chapter house with a fan-vaulted ceiling that looks like an enormous tree (where we sat in the seats of the bishop's councilmen), elaborate stone carvings, and the most famous of all, the clock.

This clock, my friends, was incredibly cool.  It is the original clock from when the cathedral was built (so we're talking something like 800 years ago), made by the most renowned clockmakers of the day.  the outside circle counts the hours (all 24 of them, not just 12), the middle counts the minutes, and the inside keeps track of the lunar calendar days (which helped me in my countdown to Chanukah).  When the clock chimes on the quarter-hour, above the clock, two circles of knights on horseback begin to spin contrariwise to each other (they are jousting), and every three seconds or so, one knight gets flattened by the jousting stick of the other as he spins by.  On the hour, the knights continue jousting, but there is also a watchman-figure seated a little ways away, who hits a bell with a hammer at each chime whilst turning his head and kicking his feet.  It's still impressive today-- I can't imagine how people must have reacted when it was first made!

This is the outside of the clock.  Somewhat less impressive from out here, but still very pretty.

Some of the impressive stone carvings on the exterior columns.

 Ta-da! Big Cathedral.

Also, in the town, we saw a marker for the record-breaking olympic women's long-jump made by a Wells-born athelete-- 22 feet!!!

Andrew Butterworth then attempted to recreate this long-jump... he did achieve it; however, it took him about five or six jumps to do it.

So then we had an hour to walk around the town.  Rachel, Sasha, Erin, Kathryn and I decided to have tea-- in a considerably less-rushed manner than we did in Winchester.  It was lovely, and we had some of the best croissants that I've ever eaten.  Mmm.

We got back on the bus and headed to Glastonbury.  As we were driving along, looking at the pretty scenery, Jonathan pointed to an exceptionally large hill with a tower on top.  "That's where we're headed!" he commented gleefully.  This is when our suspicions were first aroused.

When the bus stopped on a flat street, in view of a hill, we got a bit more nervous.  When we were told to hop off the bus and bring whatever waterproof items we had, we got considerably more nervous.  When we walked over to the bottom of an absolutely enormous hill with a steep, winding path of stairs, we were officially freaking out.

"You want us to walk to the top of that?!"

"Yes, that is precisely what we are doing.  Come along, then."
"Oh, you have got to be joking."

Well, we started climbing up the hill of doom.  This hill of doom was about the same steepness of the hill of doom on which my house is situated, but goes on for about twenty minutes of speedy walking.  I normally only have to deal with a one-minute hill.  So that was really fun.  My quads were just so happy with me, they probably would have gotten me flowers if they could have.  Yeah.

But despite all of my complaining, it was 100% worth it. 

This is the view from halfway up the hill.

Trekking up the hill.

Success at last!!

 Huzzah!!!

 The views were unbelievable.

 Yeah.  'Nuff said.

Oh, and I didn't find this out until we were about to leave, but this hill (called "Glastonbury Tor") is actually the legendary Isle of Avalon.  All of the surrounding lands used to be underwater, and they are still rather marshy.   King Arthur supposedly sailed here after being wounded at his last battle, and today it is considered a holy hill.  We saw a whole bunch of hippie-types hanging around, and the town below is full of magical amulets and crystals and such...very new-age, very strange.

How priceless is this picture?  The "Man" is a random old guy, the "Myth" is Jonathan (our programme director), and the "Magik" is Andrew Butterworth.  Love it.

Our wanderings around the actual town of Glastonbury began with a late lunch at a nationally-acclaimed fish and chips place.  It may have looked simple, but it was the best fish and chips I have ever eaten.  

And it came with the world's most adorable ketchup packet!

After lunch, we made our way to Glastonbury Abbey... or what used to be the Abbey, anyway.  It is now in ruins (but it is oh so picturesque), and it is the site where King Arthur and Guenevere's grave was reportedly found.

 There it is.  Very matter-of-fact.

Let me backtrack for a second.  Right outside of the Abbey, when Andrew Butterworth was giving us an introduction to the place, he explained that the monks who built the Abbey inherited these "huge tracts of land," and had to figure out what to do with it, because it was all swampland.  This set Sasha and Rachel and I into hysterics, because we had just seen Spamalot the night before, and we are big fans, so of course we know all the lines.  The phrase "Huge tracts of land" is featured, verbatim, in the musical as well as the movie that it was based on ("Monty Python and the Holy Grail").  Poor Andrew had not seen the show with us, so he was very confused as to why what he had just said was so hilarious.  (If you aren't sure what I'm talking about, watch the first minute of this video clip.)

Anyway, back to the Abbey.  We wandered through the ruins, went on a quest for Arthur's grave, and did a teensy bit of illegal ruin-climbing.  It was lovely.

This was pretty cool-- not only did this part of the Abbey not have a ceiling, it didn't have a floor either.  So we could see and walk around in) the crypt!

After traipsing around the Abbey, we headed out into the town for a little while, where we poked around the weird magic-y stores, had some coffee, and explored an old records store, and then we headed back to Bath.  I got off with the downtown people, because I was having a sleepover in Flat 4 again (but this time, I was prepared)! 

As soon as we dropped our stuff off in the flat, we ran back outside and up to Milsom Street (the major shopping street in the center of town), where the festival for the Bath Christmas Light Switch-On was occurring.  The street was absolutely jam-packed, but we somehow got relatively close to the stage/giant screen, enough so that we could actually see what was going on.  For half an hour, we watched various singing groups doing Christmas carols, none of which were particularly fantastic; however, the Bath Rugby team actually got up to "sing with" one of the women's groups at one point, which was pretty hysterical.

Bath Rugby player awkwardly trying to sing "The Twelve Days of Christmas"... so adorable.

 So many people.... ahhhh.

But then, the moment we had all been waiting for.... the celebrity switcher-oner.  Last year, they had "Hollywood royalty" (their phrase, not mine), Nicholas Cage, and this year, they had "real royalty"... Princess Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall (wife of Prince Charles).

This is her on the big screen-- she's much smaller in real life. (I could actually see her, but couldn't get a proper picture.)

Turns out, Camilla gives horrific speeches.  But she was capable of pushing a button, so in the end, it all worked out.  The Christmas lights which overhang all of the major streets, as well as the lights on the tree outside of the Abbey, were all turned on.  It may not compare to New York, but for a city of this size, it's quite wonderful.  And just like that, Bath is now in full-blown Christmas mode.

The rest of the night was pretty low-key, just hanging around, having some dinner, chatting... 'twas lovely.  We went to sleep early, because we were getting up very early the next morning for....

THE HARRY POTTER 7 PREMIERE!

They apparently don't believe in midnight showings in Bath, so we booked tickets for the earliest show that we could-- 9:30 am.  We were actually standing around waiting for them to open the gates to the theatre, we showed up so early.  I didn't dress up (I didn't have anything with me that would be suitable), but neither did anyone else there, so it was fine.  Sasha did lend me her "casual wand" though, which was pretty hilarious.  

Disclaimer: I have not read books six or seven (I know, I know-- please don't throw things at me), but I certainly intend to after having watched this movie.  It was FANTASTIC.  Gahh.  

Post-premiere, we had a spot of lunch, then headed to Nelson to work.  I did mostly all of my research for my Jane Austen paper, but that's as far as I've gotten (and it's due Monday.... heh).  By the time I was finished working, it was dinnertime, and Flat 4 invited me back for dinner.  And if you invite a Vanessa to dinner, she is sure to want to stay the night too... so that's what I did.  :)

I already had all of my stuff there, so I simply stayed another night-- no point in dragging myself back home.  We watched two more movies--"Clueless" and "The Remains of the Day"--both of which people had to watch for class, so I wrote it off as working.  I don't think we could have had a more divergent movie selection for the day if we had tried.

This morning, I woke up with a terrible sore throat, and so did Sasha and Rachel, whose room I was staying in.  We attributed it to the drafty room and messed-up radiator, and went on our respective ways, convinced that we would make a full recovery within a few hours.  Sadly, after getting home, I realized that I was not only not recovering, but I had gotten considerably worse.  I slept for four hours, and woke up feeling worse still.... so I'm gonna venture a guess that I am much more sick than I thought I was.  Ew.  And the best part?  That paper due Monday-- I don't know how on earth I'm going to write it.  But I'll deal with that tomorrow, I suppose.  For now-- more sleep, epic quantities of tea, and lots of medication.

Two weeks of papers and class coming up, so my posts may become less frequent again, since I'm sure you won't want to hear me whining about how much work I have to do.  But I'll update every so often, so keep up your excellent blog-checking!  (I'm up to 750 page views, which is really wonderful, and also a bit intimidating...)  Until next time, fair readers, I leave you with this:

Damnit Jim; I'm a saint, not a pigeon-holder!

Heep Country

(Background to explanation of title: when I was little, I couldn't pronounce the "sh" sound in "sheep", so I called them "heep".  I promise, this is relevant.)

Hey folks!  So here's the long-awaited post of our Cotswolds trip-- sorry to be getting so behind on these.

This is R&R week here at ASE, which consists of lots of trips, and lots of expectation of getting work done (the first has happened, the second.... yeah, no.  I'm not being productive at all). 

We got up nice and early and hopped on the bus, and drove almost two hours to... Broadway!  Bet you didn't guess I'd be so close to Broadway, huh?  Well, of course, Broadway is a tiny little village in the middle of the Cotswolds, which, according to Andrew Butterworth, is sheep country.  The Cotswolds were very rich villages many moons ago, because they were the center of the textile industry ('cuz that's where all the sheep were), and nowadays, they are a 'tourist honeypot' (thanks again to Andrew Butterworth for his adorable phrases)-- quaint country villages with pretty, green, rolling hills (covered in fluffy white sheep).

Sorry.  I got distracted by sheep.  Anyway, we went to Broadway, by way of Broadway Tower.

Give my regards to.... Broadway Tower?

Broadway Tower is what those up on their 18th century architecture call a "folly"-- basically, a totally pointless structure built by rich people to show off how much money they have to just throw around.  This particular folly was built by the man who owned an estate about 12 miles away as a birthday gift to his wife-- the whole point was that it had to be big enough for her to be able to see it from her bedroom window.  Yeah.  

The Tower has been somewhat useful over the years-- it was useful militarily for a little while, and at one point it housed several Pre-Raphaelite painters, and someone used it as a normal house a few decades ago... and now it's just a place to see some spectacular views of four different counties:

Uh... this isn't scenery, but it's our whole programme!  Yay!

Then we embarked on a trek down to the actual village of Broadway-- it involved a two mile walk down through pastures, over gates (yes, we climbed over gates), down some big ol' hills, and through some sheep.  

 Oh, it's just so picturesque!

Frolicking down the hill.  No, really-- we actually frolicked; skipping, twirling, running... it was so marvelous.  I felt five years old again.  And really, you can't not frolick through fields like these.

HEEPS!!!  We actually just walked right through a pasture full of sheep.  It was great.

Then we actually made it to the village itself, which was cute, and had lots of antique shops and such.  But we just walked through-- we were all very hungry by this point, and lunch was at the next stop.

Aww.  It's cute.  Ok, I'm hungry-- let's go.

Stop #2: Bourton on the Water.  We took a quick bus ride a few villages over to this equally cute village, where we all split up for lunch.  My friends and I went to a pub-- pretty standard, but nice-- I'm really starting to get attached to pubs... I'm going to miss them.  

"Yo Duck.  I saw your mutha last night.  She looked good, if you know what I mean."  Oh man, Oxford punting.... good times.

Ok, I'll stop being sentimental and stuff.  We took another bus ride to Chavenage House-- a great estate in a town between two royal residences (OH, AND HAVE YOU HEARD THE NEWS?  PRINCE WILLIAM IS ENGAGED!  So much sadness for every single woman in England... *sigh*).

Right-- Chavenage.  Our tour of this house was one of the most unorthodox I have ever been on-- it was lead by one of the members of the family that still lives in the house; it's still in the hands of the second family that came into possession of the house... in 1560-something.  Yep.  Their dogs were running through the house with us (and I think most people were too busy petting the dogs to pay attention to the tour at times), we got to sit on the chairs, and hear stories about how Uncle Rupert would oogle the actresses that came to the house when various period dramas were filmed there.  It was hysterical, but also really interesting to hear about one of these houses from the perspective of people who actually live there, who deal with the lack of electricity in parts of the house as well as how ridiculously cold it gets during the winter.  

Here's a little bit of the front entrance.  Constructed from stone and glass from a nearby cathedral that Henry VIII had demolished.  Cool stuff.

Oh, and one of my favorite things to hear (NOT) on a tour-- the house is haunted.  Like, creepily haunted, by the ghost of MP Stephens, one of the early members of the family.  He was one of the leaders of the opposition to Oliver Cromwell's plan of disposing of the king during the Civil War, but then changed his mind at the last minute.  His daughter put a curse on him, and sure enough, a few weeks later, he fell horribly ill and died, shortly after Charles I (the disposed-of King) was killed.  Those present in the room at his death felt his spirit depart, and just then, they heard a carriage outside.  It was pulled by six black horses, and magically passed through the gates.  Stephens' spirit stepped into the carriage, and as it pulled away, servants saw that it was driven by a headless King Charles I.  The room in which Stephens died (now called the Cromwell room) has been used, unsuccessfully, as a guest room-- no one has ever managed to stay the whole night in that room.  

Gahhhhh.  Creepy.

Uncle Rupert apparently told this story to Princes William and Charles when they came to visit one day (they literally lived like two miles away, and would practice horseback riding in the backyard of Chavenage), and young Charles noted at the end, "I believe he was a relation of mine...".  Guess you have to be careful who you tell these stories to.

Anyway, the Cromwell room itself is super cool-- it still has its original tapestry-covered walls (which is so rare nowadays, there are maybe two other such rooms in existence), and they aren't behind glass or anything... the glories of private ownership!

After the tour, we had a rather lovely afternoon tea, prepared by our guide's sister.  There were sandwiches, and mini scones, and cakes.... oh, it was so lovely.  We ate everything.  And there was quite a lot to eat.

The bus ride home was quiet-- we were all in the midst of food comas.  The evening was also passed quietly-- we watched Toy Story 3, which was wonderful.... and that's about it.

Tuesday, I planned to be productive.  That failed.  I got nothing done.  However, Clay and Tom and I spent the evening reading poetry to each other, and then having a spontaneous dance party/ lesson in the living room.  That was interesting.  

Today was even less productive, but really, really fun-- I went over to Flat 4 for a spontaneous "Measurements and Milkshakes" Party.  Sasha and I took measurements for our Jane Austen dresses, and then we all went out to redeem our pub quiz prize of free milkshakes.  'Twas marvelous.  

Afterwards, we went over to Linley House for an enormous potluck-- 25 people were there (plus ANDREW BUTTERWORTH), and everyone made absolutely delicious food, and we were so full by the end that we practically had to roll out of the building.  Andrew Butterworth was the guest of honor, and he must have eaten three times more food than any of us, because everyone wanted him to try what they made (he loved my beer bread, by the way, which was actually an all-around hit).  It was super fun-- and we're trying to organize a Chanukah party in a similar style!

Post-potluck, we all headed to the Theatre Royal to see the touring production of "Spamalot", one of my favorite musicals.  I had seen it in LA (where it had a bigger cast and considerably larger budget), but this version was quite different-- they changed lots of lines, as well as a whole song (which made me incredibly sad, because it's my favorite-- "You Can't Succeed on Broadway if You Don't Have Any Jews" was sadly changed to eliminate the Broadway and the Jews... turned into Show Biz and Stars... so much less cool.  *sigh*).  Otherwise, it was hilarious, and wonderful, as usual.  Much fun was had by all.

And now I'm off to bed-- have to get up early tomorrow for Glastonbury and Wells!  Tell you all about it soon.  Goodnight!

An Austenite in Austenland

This past week has been something of a trip back in time... to the 19th Century, as a matter of fact.

Wednesday, I went to Jane Austen Dancers, where we learned all of the principle dances in the two "Pride and Prejudice" movies, which nearly made me swoon with excitement.  Unfortunately my partners were not exactly Mr. Darcys, but it was very fun to pretend for just a little that I was at a ball at Netherfield.

At the end of the evening, we discovered the purpose for this P&P-themed session-- there is a ball to be held at "Longbourne" on Dec. 11th... when we will still be in the country, at which the Jane Austen Dancers will be demonstrating the famous dances from the movies!!!  We were so excited, and resolved to get there by any means possible.  The price proved to be a bit of an issue--with the ball costing 50 pounds (reduced particularly for us), plus transportation, plus the price of dresses... but it's worth every penny.  I'm going to have a dress made (sooooo excited), and while I've decided on the dress (look at the Marianne dress), I haven't chosen a color yet.  I'm thinking either lemon (which the dress is pictured in), white, or pale blue... and I have NO IDEA which one to pick.  Your mission, dear readers, should you choose to accept it, is to help me choose a dress color-- weigh in with your opinions! (Yes, that's another invitation to comment-- only Dad and one anonymous commenter passed the test last time-- the rest of you have to make it up to me this time.)

Friday, I went on a trip with my Jane Austen class to Chawton and Winchester-- where Austen was born, lived most of her life, wrote, and died.  The trip mostly involved an awful lot of time on the bus, driving from place to place, and it was cold and rainy, but it was a lot of fun-- Andrew Butterworth came with us, and he and our tutor tag-teamed with the tour-guiding duties, and a lot of my friends were on the trip as well.  Ali and I spent the whole bus ride to Chawton laughing hysterically-- I think it was the earliness of the hour, but we thought that everything was a riot; and we acted similarly on most of the bus rides from place to place (for which I suppose we had no excuse-- but life's more fun when you find things to laugh about).

We started off at Chawton Manor, what Jane Austen called "The Great House".  This is one of the estates that her eldest brother, who was adopted by a rich family (the Knights) when he was 16 because they had no heir, inherited when he was 20 or 30 or something like that.  He did not live there year round, but instead of offering the Manor house to his impoverished mother and two sisters when he inherited it, he gave them a small cottage a short ways down the road, and frequent visiting rights at the Great House.  (He was much more of a jerk than history usually makes him out to be.)

Us: "That's a nice house-- is that where Jane Austen lived?"

Dr. Kelly: "No.  That's the stable for the Great House.  It's bigger than Jane's house."

Us: "Ah.  We get it now."

 This is the Manor House, where the people, not the horses, lived. 

We took a tour of the Great House, which was actually very lovely, despite Edward Austen-Knight's stinginess, and contained lots of elegant furnishings in beautiful rooms, as I have come to expect from pretty much every country estate.  However, it was really interesting to see the things that inspired Austen's portraits of the upper class-- this was her only first-hand knowledge of how the people about whom she wrote actually lived-- she herself was definitely middle class, and on the poorer end of it by the end of her life.  Certain portraits in the Long Gallery are echoed in the great galleries of Pemberly and Kellynch, and the names of their subjects become occupants of Highbury and Uppercross. 

The Great House also contains the Chawton Library of Women's Literature from 1600-1830. It is a beautiful library of rare books-- often in first editions--and we got to see a few books that were mentioned in Austen's works, or were particularly influential for her, which was quite cool.

Then we took a short walk down the road to Chawton Cottage, where Austen herself lived.

And oh, by the way-- Edward gave this cottage to his sisters after the estate's steward--the previous inhabitant--passed away. Yep, he was stingy.

This is what the other side of that nice brick facade looks like.

The Cottage is cozy (read: small), but was actually pretty nice-- it fit four (the usual number of occupants) nicely; however, there were often lots of guests, such as Austen's two brothers who were in the Navy.  It was in this house that Austen wrote most of her novels.

Supposedly, she wrote all of her novels at this little table.  I somehow don't quite believe it (it would have been rather noisy in the sitting room), but it's a nice thought.

This desk would be really nice to work at though...

Right, so-- lots of cool Austen-y stuff in Chawton.  After that, we got back on the bus and headed for Steventon-- the village where she grew up, and where her father was the rector for bajillions of years.  It was rainy and cold, so we mostly just checked out the church that her father worked in:

We finished the trip with a visit to Winchester Cathedral, where Austen is buried.  We read the memorial that her family had made for her, which may not talk about her writing, but does slip in a rather unorthodox line about "the extraordinary endowments of her mind".  Furthermore, the fact that she has such an expensive monument at all was very unusual for a spinster, and shows some foresight on her family's part, that they believed that her grave may one day be a place that people would like to visit.  

The Cathedral itself is pretty cool as well.

Also, there are like six Saxon kings buried here... and by buried, I mean they are hanging out in boxes up by the ceiling:

We had about half an hour after visiting the church to hang around in Winchester, so a few of us decided to get tea.  We wound up having to drink two cups of very hot tea each whilst scarfing down scones in the space of about ten minutes in order to make it to the bus on time, but we were determined to get our money's worth.  We dubbed the experience, "The Most American English Afternoon Tea Ever".

After arriving back in Bath, I went to my favorite fancy pub for dinner with Ali and Sarah (fish and chips with expensive wine.... love it), and headed home to kind of hang around and be unproductive.

Saturday was equally Austen-filled, but much more static.  I spent the morning reading Persuasion, then spent six hours watching the BBC Pride and Prejudice on tv (during which time I finished knitting my pair of gloves that I've been working on).  The highlight of the film was, of course, the Lake Scene; but the highlight of the movie-watching experience was having the tv announcer voice introduce that hour of the marathon by saying, "Coming up in the next installment of 'Pride and Prejudice'-- Colin Firth strips off in the most memorable scene in television history.  Stay tuned."  

How could you possibly not stay tuned?

Sunday, I attempted to do research for my second paper for my Jane Austen class, but wound up just reading chapters and not taking any notes... I wasn't in much of a working mood.  Oh well.  Clay and Ali and I did wind up making an epic family dinner though-- Hungarian goulash (beef stew) with gnocchi and beer bread!  

This week is R&R week here at ASE-- not "Rest and Relaxation", oh no-- "Reading and Recreation".  Today we went to the Cotswolds (post coming soon, I promise!), Wednesday we're going to see "Spamalot" at the Theatre Royal, and Thursday, we're headed to Wells and Glastonbury.  Oh, and we're supposed to get work done at the same time.  Oy.

So stay tuned for lots of exciting posts!  I leave you with this further incentive to leave me comments:

If you can tell me what the spine of this book in the middle says, you win epic brownie points (and maybe even actual brownies).  I'll give you a hint-- the language is Hebrew.  And... go!