the road goes ever on and on...

So today I woke up and caught the bus into Colchester. Thought I'd go looking for the sweet shop Laura mentioned to me on Saturday. I also wanted to pick up a book for the plane ride home. It was a perfect day - 60s with big fluffy clouds in the sky.

I found the sweet shop fast. Apparantly it's the only one in Colchester. It was neat inside - very old time-y. But, I wasn't in the mood for sweets, so I wandered on off and explored the shopping district. There are a lot of little quirky shops tucked away behind High Street, including one which specializes in doll house fixings. I happened across Waterstone's quite by accident, and ended up buying books one and two of Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun quartet for just over five pounds, which I call a good deal. I have heard great things about this series from just about everyone, so I think it's a good buy.

After that I wandered over to the ice cream place and got some really excellent mandarin orange ice cream. I wandered around Castle Park as I ate. Really, it's astonishing. This was the fourth time I've been there and I still find new things to look at. So today I travelled a path I had not travelled before.

Also...

I went

a little crazy

with the pictures:



Rooftops. Hills in the distance.



Pretty sun-speckled path. That's the old town wall on the right, and a modern chain-link fence on the left : P



The wall. 'S big.



The path curves away from the wall. The wall traipses off into a park. There's a whole neighborhood surrounding this park. Must be a nice place to live.



It's so GREEN



Going back up the path the otherway. That's a big ol wall on the left and a modern chainlink fence on the right : P



Door in the wall. There are houses on the other side! Imagine living right up against a Roman wall.



River shrouded in willows



Naked river



The sun drowned



Ok, this is a cool picture, but I didn't mean it to be. Also I think it might be upside down. But, see the little black specks? They're some sort of weird dragonfly/butterfly hybrid. Long bodies like dragonflies, with the four wings near the front. All black but for a bit of blue on the wings. But they move like butterflies - slower, not darting. You can see the wings beat. This is a terrible picture, but it'll help me remember.



Bridges are nice.



Lots of willows. They like water.



Bend in the river. Almost as exciting as a bend in the path.



The sun road.



Very confusing overhanging branches and their reflections



A treetrunk for some perspective.



It's just pretty.



There was a perfect spiderweb here, but my camera isn't quite that good : P



River



The yellow flowers remind me of someone leaning backwards and letting just their hair down into the water.



I like the shape of these leaves.



Pretty sparkling water.



FREAKY DUCK! WOAH! WHAT IS THAT THING?

No seriously, I have NO IDEA. At first I thought it wasn't real, but oh, it is. Just chillin with all the rest of the ducks with its freaky painted-looking feathers and those weird frills on its wings. WHAT IS IT?!!?!?!



There it is sitting amongst all the regular lady ducks... I just don't know!



White water



Water that looks like cloth until it tumbles over the edge.



BABY DUCKS! fuzzyfuzzyfuzzyfuzzy ^.^



A willow I would love to climb



And this is why I would love to climb it. No, this pic is not sideways, it's right side up. There is a perfectlly flat spot at the apex of this willow, and I want to sit in it!



Can you tell I like willows? They are secretive. How many trees can you say that about?



Oh, this is a very common bird hereabouts. I think it might be a magpie, since I saw the same sorts of birds in Romania. Of course, I don't know that those were magpies either, it's just a very vampire-associated bird : P



Big roses in Castle Park



Big roses from tiny buds.

And that was my adventure! It was lovely. And that is all for tonight.

Good night!

EDIT: The freaky duck is a Mandarin Duck (thanks Jake). That one would appear to be a male, so it's anyone's guess what he's doing with all those lady ducks... I wonder if they can interbreed. Anyway, here's what Honolulu Zoo has to say about them:

The Mandarin Duck originated in China but can be found almost anywhere there is a suitable habitat. They are believed to be semi-migratory and semi-colonial. They are scattered throughout Southeast Russia, Northeast China, Japan, Southern England and Siberia. Mandarins were introduced to the west for breeding purposes by aviculturalists and can be found in zoos around the world. The fall migration ranges from China, Japan, Manchuria, North Korea, to the central and southern islands east of the Sea of Japan. Mandarins prefer to live in woodlands next to water that has many trees with holes for nesting. They favor mountain areas with streams, marshland and forests.

Yeah. Not sure what he's doing here, but he freaked me out! Freaky duck.

pictures!

Got to this sooner than I expected. Ok, here are carnival pictures!



Took this with the camera timer, so it's not such a great pic. But there's the dress. It's a big shapeless, yeah... and do you like my striped socks? I wore them all night : )



'Splosion!!!



Vicki and I tried to hold the camera out and take the classic pic, but... we're slightly off center : P



Carousel! I'm riding sidesaddle. Elegantly.



This is Haley, my horse



Here is Laura!



That is the tilt a whirl of DOOM



Me after! Looking dazed as I always am after such activities. But my eyes were really, really green for some reason. They like the night...

That is all!

Something happened that I can blog about!

Ok! Fun weekend. Started on Friday, ended on Sunday, as most weekends do. Here goes!

Friday night was Steph's high school graduation, but since I'm an ocean and half a continent away and the Internet was down (again), it was Disney trvial pursuit night. Oh, also The End.

I will explain. The End is a traditional enormous party always held the night of the last day of exams. Basically everyone gets as drunk as they can, as fast as they can, and crowds into the squares and has a huge party with loud music and, why not, more drinking. Vicki invited me down to Laura's flat to play Disney trivial pursuit with her, Lucy, and Laura, and so I did. They all started drinking of course because it's still The End even in the kitchen of flat four. That was fine, because we got Chinese and, as the night went on, I seemed to get smarter and smarter... Why yes, yes I did win. Twice.

We did pop down to the squares for a bit just to check it out. It was sooooo crowded. Vicki, Laura, and Lucy are fine drunks though. Lucy holds her drink very well, Vicki falls quite gracefully, and Laura had the good sense to go to bed before she was embarassingly ill. Experienced drinkers, these... Anyhow, we made an early night of it and went to bed to be well rested for the carnival the next day.

The carnival is another Essex tradition, known formally as Summer Ball. You're required to wear formal dress, and you go out to a big carnival around 9:30 and party until 6:30 the next morning. The weather yesterday was so miserable that they relaxed the dress code to "smart casual", but no one listened. The fools.

It rained all day. Thankfully it let up in the evening, but the fairground was one marshy, muddy, disgusting mess. Didn't stop girls from wearing floor length dresses and stilettos, of course. I saw girls walking around stained with mud up to the ankles. I dressed sensibly: I wore boots and my trenchcoat over my dress, even though Laura and Vicki were of the opinion I looked like a mobster : P The boots were waterproof and easy to clean afterward, as well as high enough to keep the hem of my dress out of the mud, with a thick enough heel that I didn't sink. The trenchcoat was because it was FREAKING COLD. Also so I wouldn't have to carry a purse.

The carnival was great. When Vicki, Laura, Laura's boyfriend Harry, and I got there we explored first. There were several tents, all with plywood floors, which was rather nice. There was a casino tent, a very large dancing tent, a smaller dancing tent specializing in alternative music, another small tent with international music, and a karaoke tent. There were food stands all over the place, a ferris wheel, bumper cars, a demonic tilt-a-whirl, and a carousel.

First we did the big dancing tent - a lot of popular British songs, but easy to dance to anyway. Then we lined up for the tilt-a-whirl. The queue was way long and took forever to get through, but it was fun anyway. We got some fresh donuts while we waited - they were really amazing. Laura and I had Vash moments. As far as the ride goes, it was worth the wait. The ride went on for rather a while, and the guys working it had a lot of fun spinning the cars faster than they ought to go. Harry and I thought it was amazing, but Vicki and Laura needed to go sit down afterward, so we went to the casino tent and hung out for a bit. Vicki ended up going back to the tower because she felt so sick. Laura, Harry, and I decided to stay a while longer.

We rode the carousel next - riding a carousel horse side-saddle makes you feel really elegant! Of course there was no other way to do it, not in a long narrow skirt. Luckily there's a big pole to hang on to. After that we decided we wanted food. I got chips and more donuts. The chips were so-so, but they were hot, which was all anyone wanted. Then we got hot chocolates and went back to the casino tent because we were so cold. After warming up for a bit we headed over to the karaoke tent because Harry said he'd do it. He totally backed out at the last minute, but I did get to see Ben, Tom, and a couple other guys do a horrible rendition of "Roxanne". It was very amusing.

After that it was close to three, so we decided to call it a night. I got back to my room, cleaned my shoes, and collapsed. Stayed up an hour longer just because, but then remembered Mass in the morning. Went to bed.

I slept really hard. I was sore when I woke up, a combination of the tilt a whirl of doom and not moving while I slept. Mass had just as many people as usual. I guess I didn't realize how much of the standard congregation are adults. I was expecting everyone to be sleeping off the previous night. Anyway, that was my last Mass at the multifaith chaplaincy centre. The next one will be in... Liverpool? Ireland? I don't know : P

Tomorrow I plan to go down to Tesco and buy a case of water and haul it back up the hill. Argh. I hope they sell little cases... six packs? That would be good... Then Tuesday if the weather's nice I'll head into town and look for a book to read on the plane.

Only 4 and a half more days! I need to pack... yee...

Oh yeah, I bet you're wondering about pictures... It'll be a separate post, for the simple reason that I am on my bed under a computer and my camera is all the way across the room on a desk. Yeah.

boring day so far...

Got bored.

Realized I had a wardrobe.

Decided to leave a helpful sign for whoever inhabits this room next.






Yeah that's on the inside of the door.

Back to being bored : P

full movie day!

Woke up for church early, feeling nasty. Went anyway. Afterwards I cuddled up in bed with the ninja and Terry Pratchett and proceeded to feel better by sitting like a lump and watching The Light Fantastic and all of The Hogfather. Actually, it really did help. By the time The Light Fantastic was over I felt game enough to walk to the store, buy a bag of cheese puffs, and eat the entire thing while watching The Hogfather... ok, it wasn't that big a bag... but still. I crave the strangest things, because I definitely thought mixing the cheese puffs with some chocolate candy sounded like a great idea. However, my brain overpowered my ovaries, so I am not face first in a pillow right now cursing my past self. Good for me.

After the movies I was pretty much at a loss for things to do. Did some reading. Resorted to facebook. Found out that manbeast totally bailed on me for Canterbury on Tuesday, so that trip's off. I'm gonna see if Vickie wants to go at some point. Let's see, what else... I colored a picture.... oh, and I took pictures of the dress, at steph's prompting. Here they are:








I was skeptical when I saw it on the hanger, but I really like the way it looks on me. Vickie says it makes my shoulders look really narrow. Actually, she said I have really narrow shoulders, but the first time she saw said shoulders was when they were sticking out of that dress, and since I know I do not have particularly narrow shoulders, it must be the dress that makes them appear thus. That's Logic!

All right that's it for today. Tomorrow... I have no idea what I'm gonna do with myself. I am taking suggestions.

The end.

half a movie day...

And by that I mean that instead of watching movies all day, I ended up watching only half of one. Not that I spent half a day watching movies. But that's all right, because it means I'll still have something to do tomorrow.

I finished Orson Scott Card's How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy last night. It was excellent, and I will most assuredly be buying it when I get back to the states. Further, I strongly reccomend any aspiring author pick it up. It's the most useful "how to write" book I've ever read.

Today I did the laundry dance, up down up down... can't wait to only have to navigate some stairs to do laundry. Well well, only twice more. I then returned How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy to the library, and ventured into the stacks to locate The Golden Bough, only to discover that the full version is twelve hefty volumes. I picked up the abridged (still a pretty lethal book), which was written by Frazer himself for a more general public, like myself, who don't want to tax their poor arms with hauling 12 volumes off a shelf, nor their brains with ingesting 12 volumes... I feel the abridged brick will be quite sufficient for my needs.

When I came back I settled in to watch part one of The Colour of Magic. Parts one and two (The Light Fantastic) could be considered two movies I suppose, so maybe I did watch a whole movie today. Anyway, it was quite good, though of course not as good as the book : P But an excellent adaptation. I look forward to watching part two tomorrow.

After the movie I settled in for a nap. It was a most unsatisfying nap. Just after I closed my eyes, my Internet noisily decided that it needed a nap as well. I laid on my bed squinting at the screen, trying to decide whether or not I wanted to get up to attempt to repair it. I decided against it, figuring I wouldn't be responding to any messages while sleeping anyway, and rolled over to try again. Then my cell rang. I crawled to the end of my bed and grabbed it off the nightstand, squinted at the numbers and answered it anyway because I was too sleepy to figure out if I recognized the number or not. I was treated to a lovely recording and hung up immediately in disgust, and crawled back to the head of my bed to bury my face in a pillow. Then the guy upstairs plugged in his guitar and pretended he was a musician for a while. And the sun came out, turning my room into a greenhouse.

I gave it up. Got up. Ate a light dinner. Sat down to read a bit and chat a bit. Tomorrow is church - the second to last Mass here at university. Tomorrow I also need to return Lucy's DS charger.

That's all I've got for today. Goodnight world.

Braintree!

awesome name : P

Today Vickie and I set out to do some shopping in a town not far from Colchester called Braintree. They have a big outlet mall there, much like Lighthouse Mall, and a cheap cinema (cheap here meaning 5 pounds instead of 8). First we shopped. I found a dress to wear to Summer ball for only 9 pounds ^.^ It is long and black - quite simple. The collar goes up quite high and looks rather Egyptian, lined with silver disks. Pictures will be forthcoming at a later time.

Vickie found a ceramic chicken.

We ate a late lunch at a place called the Chicago Rock Cafe : P I got a kick out of that. It was pretty similar to the Hard Rock Cafe; lots of movie and music paraphenalia, etc etc. I got some lasagna which was awesome and came with a great salad made of baby spinach, peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes with some manner of vinegarette dressing. Lasagna over here has a certain quality that I have not tasted before. Both times I've had it, there's been a sort of sauce in it, very light, cheesy, very delicious. Maybe they do this in America too and I just haven't noticed? Or maybe my love affair with British cheese is just getting a bit out of hand.

Next we headed over to the cinema. It was very nice, and quite large. It was certainly of Showplace quality, if not better. They had a snack bar where you could scoop your own assortments of candy and buy it by weight, just like in a candy store. I found banana circus peanuts and they were delicious : )

The seats in the theater had higher backs and were wider than your typical Showplace seats. They are also reclined more. They were quite comfortable and I didn't feel I needed to shift constantly throughout the movie. The movie itself was really really good. I quite enjoyed it. The only bit that bugged me was Pepper Potts. As soon as she let her hair down all her competence floated out the window with her brains. Oi. As for the post-credits bit, Vickie didn't want to stay and said we'd find it later on YouTube. Yeah... not so much. Ah well, I'll live.

Oh, and British adverts before the show? Pretty nifty : P I still have not got over the novelty of everyone in commercials having an accent. They're witty too, involving whole skits centered around the theme of turning your cell phone off : P

After the movie we went back to University. Driving anywhere in Britain is nice. The express ways aren't walled in, and the scenery is always doing something interesting. There are no bill boards either. When we got back to the tower, I borrowed Lucy's DS charger which works perfectly (YES!) and arranged a ride back from Canterbury next Tuesday.

Tomorrow I shall perform the landry ritual, and then sit around watching movies all day ^.^ It will be good.