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!

Super Awesome Special Three-Day Update Blog, GO!

Ok so, I meant to update on Saturday, but the Internet went out and didn't come back until Monday afternoon. So then I meant to update Monday evening, but I got distracted... So here's a three-day update! I don't expect anything entertaining to happen tonight, so maybe it can count as a four-day update including Tuesday as well.

SATURDAY

Saturday (I just typed that Satyrday... interesting...) Lisa came to visit! Very exciting : ) I met her at the train station and we bought day bus passes and proceeded to explore Colchester. By the way, the one-day passes are completely worth it if you're going too and from University. The passes cost 2.80, and to get from University to town and back again costs 3.60. Lisa brought me tasty American junk food : )

We took the bus to high street and wandered aroung, thinking about lunch. We went to the tourist information building and asked if they could reccomend any restaurants. They reccomended The Lemon Tree. We thought about it, wandered back up High Street, and completely ignored their reccomendation, choosing to eat at a nice little cafe called Roxi. The food there was excellent and pretty reasonably priced too (in pounds anyway... I'm trying not to think of the dollars : P). The waitresses were all super friendly as well. We got some bread and calimari as appetizers, and then both got cottage pie as a meal.

Cottage pie is a sort of casserole dish... kind of... Well, basically it's beef, peas, carrots, and onions all cooked together, then topped with mashed potatoes and covered in cheese and baked. And the portions were huge.

So after lunch we walked around some more. We went to Red Lion Books... actually, it was Red Lion Ooks... and I finally bought a copy of Peter Pan! The books there were slightly cheaper than in London. Also, Red Lion Ooks is right across the street from the Red Lion Hotel! I took some pictures.



That's the hotel. It's got shops underneath it - a chocolate shop and something else. The dark archway people are standing in has the entrance to these shops, and the entrance to the hotel further back.



This is what you see when you walk in. A staircase right away - hope you're packing light.



This is looking up from on the stairs. The ceiling is a big skylight so the stairwell is pretty bright. didn't go into the reception area and didn't see any rooms. The construction looks pretty rustic, but also in good shape from what I saw. The carpeting on the stairs may be an unfortunate color choice, but at least it's not too ragged : P I didn't see a carpark anywhere nearby, but it is possible I missed it.

Next Lisa and I explored Castle Park. We sat on Roman foundations under a bridge and watched kids try to climb the castle walls. There was some kind of small agricultural fair going on. There was a horse. We xplored pretty much the whole park - it's huge. It has a lovely lake and a river. We got ice cream even though it was a bit chilly, and wandered all over the place.



Pretty flowers



I think this is technically no longer Castle Park, but it was still very pretty.

After that we caught a bus back to the University and I showed her around the campus. Then it started raining so we hid out in my room and ate Doritos and talked. Lisa colored a picture and shared stories. It was good times : )

I took the bus with her back to the North Station and we parted ways. When I got back to the room I sat down to blog, only to find the internet missing. Sigh. So, I finished doing my research for the Metamorphosis paper and then proceeded to attempt to beat my high score in pinball. It didn't work. In fact it was sort of pathetic.

SUNDAY

Happy belated birthday Grandma! It would have been on time had I had Internet : P

Sunday I got up and went to Mass. Had lunch (I'm slowly but surely eliminating the perishables). The Internet still wasn't back, so I wrote the Metamorphosis paper, so that's done! No more papers! Some revising yet, but the hard part is finished. Then I beat my second highest score on pinball... but my high is 7 million... probably won't be beating that any time soon.

Archery Sunday evening was the first annual super awesome Easter extravaganza : P We pinned balloons to the targets - three types, confetti-filled, pearly normal ones, and animal shaped - and shot at them. There was a pinata pinned to one of the targets, but as it turns out, arrows are not the best way to break a pinata. There were also enormous chocolate eggs at the center of each target. I took it upon myself to only shoot at animal shaped targets, and I popped a lot of them. I was having a really good night for shooting : P I also shot one of the center eggs. Thing completely shattered. It was awesome. At the end of the night we simply tore the pinata open and went on to top bar to hand out prizes : P I won the prize for most animals slain, as well as the nickname The Huntress, which is the best nickname I've ever had : ) Prizes were five-inch plastic trophies. I plan to keep toothpicks in mine.

Here are some pics of the enormous egg I shattered:




Watch shown for size comparison : P It was delicious.

After top bar I found an open computer lab and posted the blog about the Internet being down. Before archery I had stopped by the library to pick up a movie to keep me occupied that night - Troy. I forgive its tragic inaccuracy for its violence and attractive cast : ) I watched it with my tub of ice cream, and it was good.

MONDAY

The Internet was back Monday! I signed on and went to class. After Versions of Modernity lecture, I stopped by the Information Desk to ask where the best place to catch the bus to Stansted is. Then I went by the Lit Office to see if any more of my essays had been graded - and got my Early Modern Culture essay back! I got a 70!! That's a "first"! That's freaking awesome. Of course now he's going to expect my next paper to be just as good... and I'm not sure that it is. I certainly had trouble finding sources for it. Well, we shall see. I'm just glad it's done, honestly...

Got back to the tower and had lunch. By the time I was done with lunch, the Internet was crippled and barely running. Then it went away again, so I took a nap. When I woke up, it was back on and running smoothly! Hurray! Hopefully it is for good this time.

Around 4, Vicki came to get me to make a trip to Tesco. We went with her friends Nora and Lucy, who are fun people. Turns out, Vicki has a car! So we didn't walk : P That was awesome. I bought some milk for hot chocolate and bread. I mean I also bought bread. Not that I bought milk for bread. Because really, bread does not require milk.

Sadly I didn't need anything heavy while I had the advantage of a car. Vicki invited me to a party on flat 4 on Thursday. It's partly a general party, partly a birthday party for Vicki since her birthday is in April and no one will be around. I plan to go - it's at 8, so the archery meeting will be over - but only for a short while since I'll need some sleep, and I anticipate much smoking and drinking anyway.

So I chilled in the room doing random stuff for a while until i got hungry around 8 or 9 for dinner. While I was cooking some pasta, Vicki came in for dinner too, so we ate together and ended up talking until like, 11. Manbeast came in around then completely trashed, followed shortly by Mark or Mike... he lives on my flat and i can't remember his name... The last time I saw someone moving like manbeast was moving, he was promptly sick all over the place, so Vicki and I told manbeast to get to bed. He mumbled something incoherent and Mike, or possibly Mark, led him off in a daze. It was pretty disgusting. I don't get this whole getting drunk thing...

Well anyway, then Vicki and I were like "time to get out of the kitchen". After all, it was St. Patrick's day. So we went back to our rooms. I started talking to Kai and next thing I knew it was 3 AM. But before three AM happened... return of the mysterious thumps! Only this time they were annoying thumps around 2 AM. I'm glad I wasn't sleeping because really they were more like crashes. I think it was the guy below me opening his window, shouting out into the night, then slamming it closed. Repeatedly. Whatever.

So I went to bed around 3, a little after since I stayed up reading Dorian Gray for a bit.

TUESDAY

I woke up around ten this morning of my own accord. It was odd - normally I sleep til about 11:30 on Tuesdays. But it smelled like Summer in my room - like how the house smells when it's finally warm enough to open the windows and you leave the lights off because the sunlight is enough. Like how it smells in the upstairs when it gets warm, before dad puts the window unit in. So I got up. And it was cold. What the heck. I was very disappointed.

I did my morning stuff, read some webcomics... and discovered I had nothing left to do. So I took a walk. It was cold outside, too. When I came back I finally blogged!

Further plans for the evening include: Shower, revising a paper. Possibly a nap.

The end.

I thought adventuring was supposed to be done in parties...

Today I woke up with every intention of going and exploring Colchester. Then I looked out my window and saw the darkness and the rain and went back to bed.

Two hours later I woke up to sunlight and DID go exploring Colchester.

As I made my way to the appropriate bus station on the other side of campus, it began to mist. Still not a big deal, I didn't need the umbrella. I boarded the bus, which had rather comfortable seats, and rode into the Colchester Bus Station.

When I got off the bus it was well and truly raining. I took out the umbrella and began to wander.

Colchester is not really a tourist town like Cambridge seems to be. The shops they have are shops like The Gap and Wet Seal. It was sort of like being in an outdoor mall. I wandered toward the town center and ducked into a comic book shop along the way, just for the feeling of familiarity. Didn't buy anything because I'm so behind on Buffy now that what would be the point... but I did look longingly at the DnD stuff before ducking back out.

In my wanderings I happened across a free Museum of Natural History. So I went in there. It was a very small museum detailing the wildlife in the Colchester area (ie, it was a museum of ducks).

Further wandering brought me to a large public park (called Castle Park) that I'm sure will be gorgeous on some sunny day in spring. I went in and found another free museum called the Hollytree Museum. It was this really old house turned into a museum, which was neat enough for being free. It had a lot of information about Castle Park: the whole park had once been the grounds of this rich family and is now public space with lots of gardens and water features and things. I think there might be a zoo somewhere in there too, but I'm not sure.



This is a really big doll house in the Hollytree Museum



This is another one.

After that, I went to explore the grounds a bit.



mini palm bush



Oh, so THAT'S an arbor... maybe?



I thought this was pretty neat. I walked on, inhaled deeply.... and coughed out the cigarette smoke. I mean really...



Oh hey look... a castle.



A bridge leading into the castle! Let's go!



This is the castle well. It is very deep. A penny... or a 1 pence piece... thrown into this well takes about two minutes to hit the water. There is a sign encouraging viewers to see if a 1 pound piece takes as long... hey, I paid attention in physics. Thank you, no.



Ye Olde Wyndowe

I didn't take many pictures in this museum because museums actually sort of freak me out, especially when I'm alone. I did learn some interesting things though. Actually, I think I was reminded of some interesting things... I knew some of them before. Anyway, the site the castle was built on used to be a Roman temple, specifically to Claudius. It was also the site of Boadicea's rebellion, though they didn't go into TONS of detail on that because the details are a bit gory. Right, so blah blah Romans, blah blah Normans, poof it's a museum. And for some reason there's also an exhibit about a sanitarium, even though the castle never was one... yeah, I didn't really follow that either.

I left the museum and wandered a bit more. I came across



A great big church. This is St. James the Great, Church of England. There is also a St. James the Less somewhere in town, which is a Catholic church...

I was about to take a picture of the back end of the church when I got distracted. I went in, but did not find anything I was willing to purchase. It was nice to be surrounded by books though. Everyonce and a while I just step into the library or bookshop on campus to recharge... like a save circle in Kingdom Hearts.

Oh yeah, and there's the back of the church.

..... I had to. No one was looking. I did the touristy thing and took a picture of the big red phone booth. I'm so ashamed. At least I didn't try to fit twenty people inside...

Next I came across a visitor info center and picked up a map of Colchester and information on places to eat and shop, having in mind my parents' visit. Then I wandered about looking for somewhere to have lunch.

I went into a pub, turned around and went back out. Not somewhere I wanted to eat alone, though I'm sure it's great for people with large groups. I kept wandering. As you approach the Town Hall, the number of cafes increases exponentially. I finally picked one whose windows I could see into. It was called, rather improbably, The Lettuce and Slug.

It was actually a pretty nice place. I had a chicken wrap, which included both meat and vegetables and was actually rather tasty. The desserts looked good to, but by then I was sick of watching people eat with their friends and loved ones, so I left.

A little ways down the street from this cafe is a Pizza Hut. I make note of this because Stephanie is coming... (there is also a KFC, McDonalds, and Burger King)

A bit more fruitless wandering and I decided to call it a day. I made my way back to the bus station and waited for the 62 back to University. It came with minimal delay and I boarded and asked the driver how much to go to University. The driver, a small elderly Chinese man with a heavy accent (Chinese, not English), responded that he was going to the train station. Having memorized the route, I said yes, but after that, you'll be going to University.

Yes, but first he was going to the train station...

Ok, so how much to University?

Well, it's 1.10 to the train station.

And to University?

How bout you buy that one when we get to the train station?

I gave up. I bought the ticket to the train station. It took forever to get there. Traffic in Colchester is not pretty. It is because of all the roundabouts!! Nowhere is there to be found a normal intersection. EVERYTHING is a roundabout! I was talking to Sophie upon my return and I mentioned the hideous traffic, and she said "Yeah, it's because of all the roundabouts!" so it's not just me... she's from London and says that it's really just this town, not all of England.

Anyway.

We finally got to the train station and I went up to buy the ticket to University. The driver said

"Oh, I don't know if I am going to Wivenhoe" (which is where the University is). He made like he was going on break.

"Ah, I see, I should catch another bus." Suddenly it seemed to make some sort of sense... but...

"No. Wait." He pulled out a cell phone, made a call, said nothing, hung up the cell phone, sat back down in the drivers' seat, and opened the doors for the waiting people.

"1.80 to University."

Sure. Why not. Buses are ridiculously expensive out here. I mean, compared to the free ones at Purdue. The trip to University took about five times longer than the initial trip to Colchester. Cursed roundabouts. However, I did learn where to go if I do not want to walk back up the hill from Tesco. I can just catch this bus and it will cart me up the hill to University. I still have to walk up the hill to the tower. It is a steeper, but much shorter, walk.

The rest of my day was spent half reading for myth class, half dozing.

Tomorrow: Laundry!