When have you ever seen the captain do any rowing?

Today was absolutely beautiful - perfect for wandering around Colchester. Which is what manbeast, his 16 year old brother boybeast, Laura, Mike, and I did today, so that's good.

We left University around one despite the best efforts of Mike and I to get people moving. We ate a late lunch in Colchester. It's lucky I know my way around that town already because no one else did - and manbeast and Laura have been here since September.

We ate at the Wimpy Burger, despite Mike's lobbying for something a bit classier. Cheaper won out. I'm not too impressed with the Wimpy Burger, but hey, food is food.

After lunch we went to Castle Park. Just about everything is blooming now! It's so pretty and colorful. Mike gardens so he was able to tell us what flowers were what.





These are the BIGGEST tulips I have ever seen. They are mutants. Most of the tulips are normal sized, but these are overachievers.



Castle Park has lots of pretty flower patterns. And palm trees for some reason. Wishful thinking, Britain.



This is the Roman wall behind Colchester Castle. I believe it used to be the city wall... but I'm not certain. But man when those Romans built things, they were serious about it.



Ok, here's the group! From left to right is Laura, Mike, boybeast, and manbeast. Further profiles to follow. But first!



Oh look, ducks in a pond.



Oh look, boats in a pond! We rented paddle boats : ) That's manbeast and Mike in a boat. boybeast had his own, and Laura and I shared. Quickly becoming adept at the paddle system, we then declared outselves admiral of the fleet. No one argued. Possibly because they were on the other side of the pond at the time...



We chased off the enemy fleet! ... er... that is, flock.



The admiral of the ducky pirates hides his head in shame.



Unfortunately, heavy casualties were taken in our battle with those fowl pirates (!), and Captain Mike and manbeast's boat sprang a leak! We headed for shore and leapt to safety before the two could get completely soaked.



Look, a castle. and... er, three random people.



Colchester castle actually used to have another floor on top. It got lopped off and they added a dome. Improvement? I don't think so.



Here's the old temple foundations.



There is a tree growing on the roof. I do not know why.



Ok, so here is boybeast. And, me for some reason.... they said get in the picture so I did. But really, boybeast and I did not get along. His real name is Steven. He's 16 years old. He tags along with manbeast because manbeast buys him alcohol. The only reason he was with us today was because he thought he might get a drink out of it. He smokes pretty much constantly and also actually bought some drugs off of someone at some point. He spent the whole day complaining about how he wanted to sit down and have a beer. He was actually whining about it, like a small child. "I don't waaaanna go in a castle, i want a drink!" Ugh. I won't go into detail, but by the end of the day we were all pretty much disgusted with him.



This is Admiral Laura! She's a creative writing major specializing in fantasy ^.^ We got along swimmingly. She's also the only one who managed to wear this helmet and still be able to see. Woo. Oh by the way, it's a Norman helmet, and the chain isn't part of the original design. It's just to keep people from stealing it (the other end is attached to a wall). Did I mention we're inside the castle in the museum? Because we are.



Here's manbeast. You already know all about him : P

Mike did not put on the helmet. Or rather he did, but I was not quick enough with the camera. He is far too sophisticated to be caught doing something like that on film anyway : P The story with Mike is, he and manbeast have been best friends since high school. I suspect Mike is from that upper class I keep hearing about. He is very well spoken and polite. He was somewhat appalled at the University. Turns out Essex is well known for being a party school, but he couldn't believe the things that go on around here (like... a 16 year old being able to purchase drugs, for example). I was able to wholly sympathize with him and we got on quite well. He goes to Canterbury University and invited me to come visit in June, which sounds like lots of fun. Canterbury, for the record, is not a party school >.<

We stayed in the museum until it closed around 5 and then hung around the park a bit more.



That's St. James, I believe. I could be wrong. But coming from this angle, with the gates and the old church, Colchester just looked like a really old town. We wandered about a bit more before going back to university and trying to find a place to eat. The only places open were SX Express and the SU bar. We didn't want to eat at the Express because most of us had had burgers for lunch, and we were avoiding the SU bar because we knew if we went in there boybeast would start drinking and then we'd have to deal with him. So we went back to manbeast's room and ordered Chinese, and watched this old British comedy called Fawlty Towers which, despite being a bit dated, is really funny.

The Chinese food was pretty good, but took about an hour to get there, so not something I'd be doing again. I had chicken chow mein, which I've never had before, and was pleased : P We continued watching funny British people until about midnight, and dispersed.

And now it's two AM! Gosh!