Dublin, Day 1

Christchurch Cathedral
Very nice cathedral (one of 2 in Dublin, the other is St. Patrick's, which is considered the National Cathedral, while Christchurch is the Cathedral of Dublin). This is also where they filmed a large part of HBO's The Tudors. In 1742 the combined choirs of Christchurch and St. Patrick's premiered Handel's Messiah.
Guinness Storehouse
Saved having my first Guinness for here. The tour is self guided, and fills 5 floors, but most of it is the first 2 floors.

Terry's Visit, Days 2 & 3

Changing of the Guard
Got there about 20 minutes before it began and still didn't get the greatest spot. Rained a bit, so we left early.
You can tell which regiment the guards are from the color of the plume on the bearskin cap. The band was from the Irish Guards (blue, right side):And the new Guards were the Grenadier Guards (white, left side):Victoria & Albert
Returned to the V&A to see the Performing Arts Galleries as well as the glass collection, both of which were quite impressive.
Supermarket Shakespeare
We went to a Sainsbury's to see a performance of Supermarket Shakespeare, which is partly based on some of the sonnets. At the beginning you pick a character to follow around the store, and watch them interact with each other. The performance is repeated 3 times so you can follow a different character and get a new perspective or story.

Terry's Visit, Day 1

Terry came to London for the weekend and the plan for Friday was to go to a museum or two before going to see Billy Elliot that night. The first museum we went to was the Charles Dickens Museum, which usually isn't one of the sites many people visit (doesn't even appear in my Rick Steve's guide) and is located in the house he lived in. It was very nice and enjoyable for anyone who has read a Dickens novel.

Our next stop was the Museum of London, which we only got to see part of because half the museum (post 1666) was closed for renovations and we had to leave so we wouldn't be late for the theatre. We saw the pre-Roman galleries and half the Roman galleries. It is one of the best museums I've been to so far and I haven't seen that much of it. I look forward to going back to see more of it before I return home.

Then it was time to grab dinner before heading off to the show. Billy Elliot is set in a fictional town in (the real) County Durham during the 1984-85 Miner's Strike. Billy is a kid who take sup ballet, against his father's wishes and eventually tries out for the Royal Ballet School. The show was extremely good, probably the best I've seen over here so far (at the time of seeing the show). The beginning was a little slow, but once the show got going with the dancing, it was fantastic.

Catching up.

So it's been a while since I've posted here, and I have lots to talk about, so expect frequent posts over the course of this week.

On April 24th, I decided to take a break from studying and writing to go see a rugby match. It was the St. George's Day game between the London Wasps and Bath Rugby.
The game was a good experience, even if it was a somewhat lopsided game. London didn't score its first "try", the rugby equivalent to a touchdown and worth 5 points, until 2 minutes to go, when Bath was ahead by more than 20 points. Bath won the match 35-19. The following week after my exam, I decided to head over to the National Portrait Gallery since it was open late on Thursdays. Since photography isn't allowed, I have no pictures. The audio guide was very good, but the collection lacked a lot of recent portraits.

Oxford

Remember a while back when Queen Mary organized a night cruise on the Thames and I forgot to check that the memory card was in my camera? Well, same thing happened when I went to Oxford last week to see the town and visit Terry. I will try to include pictures from other sources to illustrate what I saw.

The first stop for us upon my arrival was the Eagle & Child pub for lunch. Why this pub, you might ask? Well, it was here that the Inklings meet every week for beer and a discussion. Who are the Inklings? None other than J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, among others.After lunch, we headed over to Blackwell's bookstore, which has the Norrington Room, which is the largest single room selling books with over 10,000 sq. ft., over 3 miles of shelves, and over 160,000 books.

After that we headed over to the Bodleian Library, the main library at Oxford. The tour doesn't go into very much of the library, and to actually be able to use the library is difficult. But the tour did start in this room:Yes, that's the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts. But in reality it's the Divinity School at Oxford. The ceiling is a beautiful example of fan vaulting.An interesting fact about this room: the University makes more money from filming in the room than for any other purpose.

Then they take you upstairs to the main part of the library, which also was used in the Harry Potter films, and this time as part of the Hogwarts Library.

While Terry was having her Latin tutorial, I sat in Blackwell's reading, and when she was done, it was time for dinner and catching our trains back to London and Bath.