Archive for August, 2006
back online in england
Today has been one of those wandering around shopping days, and my back is killing me from walking the last few days. I thought I’d take a break for some more way overpriced internet.
I want to record some notes from my trip, mostly just for me, but feel free to read along:
-Bath — the roman baths were completely covered over and during the georgian times they weren’t a part of the scene until people were complaining about hot water in their basements — then they were rediscovered. — Jane Austen lived here and hated it, but during those years her sister, mother and herself had very little money after her father’s death.
Avesbury is another similar Stonehenge site, though much more warn away. The Church made the people there bury all of the stones at one point because they were ‘pagan’. the people were tied to the stones and knew they were from their ancestry, and thought they were alive and so didn’t want to bury them. Later a rich man lived in the village and he decided he wanted them to be put back in place. There was one stone that, when they lifted it up, they found the remains of a man who they assume the stone fell onto when they were burying it. He had a satchel with him and was assumed to have been a medicine man at the time — his bones were sent off to a college, that was then bombed in the war (talk about bad luck) and thought to have been lost forever. He was found again in the british museum archives with a note from the college that they were sending him there for safekeeping!
Here I also learned of laylines and how the Avesbury site, Stonehenge, and other sites of importance are along this one — and along laylines in general. Did our ancestors have a sense of magnetism?
Georgian times — you were taken around in a chair and the people who carried you would take you directly up to your bedroom at the end of the night where you would get out on the ‘landing’ cool huh? Also, when you were saying good bye at the end of the night and calling for a chair you would be saying both ‘chair’ to the people you wanted to come and ‘ho’ to your friends — hence, cheerio (chair-ho).
People threw curses carved into metal into the bath that was a shrine at the roman baths. They recovered some of the curses here.
I visited Lacock — a medieval village and sat at a fireplace that had been around since the 1300s — the establishment had been there since 1361 and had sold beer since then. I sat by the fireplace and had lunch…picturing people hovering in cloaks and wondering how many people had stumbled out of there drunk — how many conversations had taken place? secrets? lives? It also looked oddly familiar and i then learned that it was used in Harry Potter.
Charles Dickens travelled qutie a bit — I saw plaques to him in Cantebury and he also visted Bath.
A townhouse is for sale in the royal mile — for £4 million or so.
I like the look of the circus better than that of the royal mile.
The houses in Bath are all facades — a lot of them anyway symmetrical and perfect at the front and chaos and old at the back — all different.
The Thermal Spa just opened — cost millions of pounds over budget. They were to open last year and someone put the wrong paint on the pools. The three tenors were supposed to be here to open it, and they came, but then someone noticed all of the paint coming off. They closed it and it just reopened in August 2006.
I saw a wedding this morning, leaving the pump house — by horse and buggy.
I can’t get over the fact that so many have visited here. It truly is worth the visit.
Avesbury is also known for fertility. Druids and others, and women come to one stone in particular to seek fertility help.
I watched Coronation Street by accident — now I don’t have to watch at home for 8 months. The plot line hasn’t moved along too far anyway, but there are some interesting tidbits and I saw a quasi shocking episode. Sadly, one of the characters I thought would be written out by now hasn’t been.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )i’m in the uk and i don’t want to leave
I don’t have much time to write and no real access to capitals because the keyboard is so small that i keep hitting shift and slash at the same time.
i’ve done so much and have learned so much since getting here on saturday the 26th — my flight was early by an hour and air transat is, contrary to public belief, a fantastic carrier! the flight literally flew by. i checked in early and took off to brighton, just to stay awake, wandered for a bit, found a gluten, sugar, dairy free restaurant right off the bat and got lost in the lanes. i was staying right by gatwick airport and the next day, after 10 hours or so of sleep, i went to Cantebury — wow! the Cathedral there was amazing, and though i didn’t pay attention to the fact that it was a sunday, i was able to be in the crypt, walking around when i hit upon a very strange sense of presence in one of the corners. i could picture treachery and treason and cloaked figures running around. probably from the da vinci code, but the feeling of presense couldn’t be shaken. i stood, and to exemplify this moment the choir and organ started above and the sound was so powerful, echoing through the empty crypt. i then went upstairs and found a guide book and learned that Thomas Becket was murdered just above where i was standing and his body had been kept in the place i was standing for hundreds of years. people had come to the chruch on pilgrimages ever since he was slain in 1170 because to be at the site was supposed to cure disease. well, if that’s true, and if it can kill candida, i’m all for standing there for a very long time.
i really wished brian could have been there with me to see the church — i was even partically inspired, out of curiousity to think about a church experiment — to go, at least to learn more about religion and history and custom, to church for 1 year and to document it. we’ll see if i do it, but finding out that this was the mother church of the anglican churches (which i technically belong to) was kind of cool and listening to the intenese history of building, destruction, building, destruction, murder, building, destruction, building again just fascinates me — the fact that so many people were willing to die and to sacrifice so much for this faith and for their beliefs.
i also want to start a collection of quotes or tidbits of places that people were drawn to for healing purposes. bath being another one. people came here for thousands of years to be cured by bathing and drinking in the water and after being in the remains of the baths yesterday i could sample the water. my tour guide from the first day (i have more to share the next time i find internet) said that it takes between 10,000 and 20,000 years for the water to get to the pump house here — and i had a glass of the piping hot water yesterday and my tongue tingled a bit and i swear to god that it’s perfect today. i don’t care if science claims that it isn’t supposed to work — science hasn’t helped me much so far and i’m sure as hell going back today to get another glass, just in case!
more next time i find cheapter internet! (so much more to tell you and i’ve learned so much!)
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )leaving today
I’m leaving for England today — I’ll try to post every so often to let you know where I am, and I’ll be back in 2 weeks!
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )100-mile diet
I just learned about this 100-Mile Diet in a conference today. It looks like a very practical and neat idea. Though, I’m not sure if there are any rice fields in Central Ontario that I could survive on. Likely not for candida diet people.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )oh my god, oh my god, oh my god
They finally posted my mark for my final exam in my stats course and I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.
I got an 82%!
And it was worth 50% of my mark!! So I ended up with a 75% — completely respectable and a good 15% higher than I was expecting at the outset.
I’m rather proud of myself. And excited.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )you’ll see why i haven’t been able to post
This past weekend kicked off on Friday with the 4 o’clock wedding. Brian’s friend from high school was getting married. It’s crazy to think she’s a year younger than me (24) and now has a husband, a nearly 2 year old daughter and a 10 year old step-daughter. She’s a step-mother for goodness sake! It was a beautiful ceremony — the best one I’ve seen in terms of what the couple is actually saying to one another, the actual committments seemed real and realistic. We met some people from Queen’s who we didn’t know there and saw old acquaintances. Brian really wanted to do the Oil Thigh, so I promised we could do it if we have a wedding.
I also got to meet the first love of Brian’s life. Now, I’m not usually jealous, and I wasn’t jealous — more shocked that when I looked at her I could see me. It was a bit discombobulating.
Saturday morning was brunch with the bride’s friends and family and then we went to see a new house with Brian’s parents — then to a BBQ at my friend’s place. We played Apples to Apples. It was fantastic! Such a funny game that I totally recommend playing. My cheecks were hurting from smiling and laughing so much.
Then onto Sunday — we went to see an opera — Don Giovani — my first full opera. The female voices were great — and I usually don’t like female operatic voices all that much. From there to dinner and then to a super nice hotel downtown Toronto.
Then to sales conference all day Monday, then a meeting after work. Then home for 15 minutes to eat and head back out to my brother’s soccer game! Yikes!
It was a great time though and the first good amount of time Brian and I have had to spend together since he’s been back. It was nice to have, especially with my leaving on Friday to go to the UK for two weeks.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )10,000!
10,000 hits! Now, if only I could have charged a dollar per each, I’d be well on my way to moving out 🙂
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )who gets married?
Who gets married on a Friday at 4? I could understand if it was a civil ceremony or a low-key affair, but a full-blown bells and whistles kind of wedding?
Brian and I will be at one tomorrow, so I’ll let you know how it goes — luckily we only work until 12:15 on Fridays or I would have had to get the day off, as I’m sure others will.
Anyway, it’s going to be a fun weekend and there’s only a week until I go to the UK! I’m not super excited yet, but I will be once I’m on the plane — any tips for sleeping on board? I’ve NEVER been able to sleep on planes.
Does anyone know if Air Transat has gluten free meals?
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )birthday
One month until my birthday — yay! I think this is the first year that I’m going to forego the tryingtogeteveryonetogether part of the occasion. It never seems to work out. One year, no one could get into the bar because it was busy and I didn’t know because my cell phone didn’t work. Last year was fun, but a lot of people cancelled the night I tried to get everyone together because I didn’t know there was a surprise party the next night. And, besides, it’s right at the beginning of school etc., and most people are super busy around then. It’s still my favourite day of the year though!
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )« Previous Entries
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