3/23/2008

Stratford and Oxford!

Sorry bout the lack of posts. The uni decided to do the most irritating thing for easter; they had everyone completely move out of residence for the month*. So the past week has been a bit hectic. My friend Dan's family offered to take all my things for the month, and since they would be schleping Dan anyway it's not much of a hastle. Plus, Dan is ... well he's my boyfriend here, so that just works out too.

Dan lives in Evesham, about an hour south of Birmingham, and very close to Stratford-Upon-Avon. We drove there one afternoon and walked around. It's a very pretty town, lots of colour. Especially the flowers!


This clock tower is in a central sort of square in Stratford, above the river.



I believe this is the house Shakespeare was born in. We didn't actually go inside, though it is a museum now. There were lots of school groups wandering around being generally annoying, so we decided that avoiding them would be more fun.


What we really wanted to do was walk down the river, but it was closed off for some sort of construction, with fences all around one bit of it. We did see a swan chase a Canadian Goose though, which was really amusing.


There were lots of houseboats along the river, most of them selling food. I think one was a proper restaurant.


In between Evesham and Stratford, there is a gypsy camp on the side of the road. Dan went around the roundabout twice so that I could get a picture of the pikey pony. Gypsy's are a bit of a sore spot around here, since they kind of get in the way a lot.


On Thursday Dan drove me to Oxford so that I could spend Easter with the Bennett's. We left a little earlier so that we could wander about a bit, as Dan had never been before. We decided to go to the Ashmolean, the museum I talked about the last time I went to Oxford. There wasn't much on display since it is under construction, but there was a large Egyptian exhibit, as well as some random collections of things.


We saw a really cool ring display, this one was our favorite, partly just because it was a bit unexpected.


This neclace was also pretty cool, with all the little acorns.


The temperature has taken a bit of a dip for the worse, and it has been snowing on and off for the past two days. It's also really windy, which is never fun. Hopefully today will be a bit better, for Easter.

* Yes a month! We get a full month off for Easter break, which is kind of awesome.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Congrats on the boyfriend, and a whole month for Easter sounds amazing! I love seeing all the places you are visiting, so keep posting while you gad about Europe!