i think i'm beginning to realize why people come to england...

today is saturday, and another fun-filled week has ended. the past few days have been very exciting! yesterday after class and lunch in charlbury, we had our second play auditions for our final drama production. after that slightly frightening episode, some of the girls and i decided to have a dinner party at jodi and sharon's place. tim joined us later for some girl talk and an attempt at some games, but for the most part we just enjoyed eachother's company at the end of a long week.

afterwards i went home, crawled into bed and watched brokedown palace before i went to sleep. for a movie about travelling that goes terribly wrong, i am still undaunted at the prospect of travelling in reading break. originally i had intended on going to morocco with heather, but plans have changed for the better! (no offence to heather) heather decided to go to prague to see a friend, and ree and i decided we are spending the week in italy, and are booking our flights tonight! i am so excited. we are hoping to go to rome first, then venice, and if we have some time, florence. i can hardly wait. we're hoping to find cheap hostels and save money by buying cheap food and then spend our money on seeing the best of what these cities have to offer. it seems funny being excited about another country when i'm in ENGLAND, but this opportunity is too good to pass up. i don't know if italy can compete with the wonderful green of this country though.

today was another good day. we had a day trip with the whole group, and it turned out to be beautiful weather and a great day overall. we first went to warwick castle (pronounced war-ick, which i was told only after i made a fool of myself), a medieval castle that has housed dukes and other royalty until the end of the 1900s, or so i was told. it was so amazing to be up on the ramparts and look out onto the town of warwick. it's crazy to think that people actually lived their lives where i was running around like a kid in a candy store today.
anyways after warwick castle we went to coventry cathedral, which is one of the most interesting things we've seen yet. the original cathedral was bombed during the second world war, and in the 1950's they rebuilt one right next to it. the ruins were beautiful, and i found the cathedral next to it slightly obnoxious compared to the destruction besides... that and there was an ad for speed dating in the cathedral for christians on valentines day.
after all of this we went back to mad's where we had pound cake and tea and warmed up for a while. it was quite comforting after being in the cold the whole day. after that i went back and chatted with lee and her friend richard for a while, and now i'm at heather's having a picture-sharing and wireless internet stealing party. this is quite the life...