names & faces and the fourth of july

i haven't been too motivated to write anything down about this trip. it's absolutely gorgeous here and so many amazing things have happened, but i haven't wanted to sit and write it all down. anyway, here we go. i'll attempt to write more often now.

this past weekend i went to london with izzy. but that's not where the story begins.

the story begins on friday afternoon, the fourth of july. izzy and i, being scholarly and classy, decided to explore even more of oxford. we went to the ashmolean museum and wandered around quite a bit. on the way home from the ashmolean, i suggested that we stop at a bar for a drink before we grabbed dinner. as you may guess, dinner never occurred that night, and one drink turned into a few more. i was told not to make a big deal out of being an american by my friend who was originally from bristol. i understand why people here might dislike loud, crass, unrefined americans, but that didn't stop izzy and i from yelling every few minutes about our status as AMERICANS. we told everyone in the bar that it was the fourth of july, and luckily (possibly since we're girls) we didn't get beaten up. everyone seemed pretty amused and a few people even bought us drinks. the night culminated in us walking home arm in arm singing elton john's 'your song' at the top of our lungs. needless to say, we were starving because we hadn't eaten dinner. izzy-- and god knows how she pulled this off-- managed to order us a pizza at about 1 am. there was a minimum for delivery, so she just kept adding more and more food to the order until we reached about 15 pounds (30 american dollars). we just finished the leftovers yesterday. oh, and something really creepy happened. izzy had to give her cell phone number to the pizza place so that they could call us when they got here with the food (we live in a gated college so they can't just walk up to the door). when the food gets here, the creepy delivery guy immediately gives us his number (which is hanging on my bulletin board as a testament to our drunken endeavors). thinking nothing of it, we ate our pizza and decided to head to london the next day. at about 5 pm on saturday, as we were walking around london, izzy received a text message from a random number-- it turns out that this creepy pizza guy took her phone number off the receipt and tried to call us. the text message basically asked what we were up to and if we wanted to go out (gross!). we didn't answer, obviously, but we remain determined to get a free pizza for our pain and suffering from this place.

on another note, london was amazing. i don't feel like i saw very much, but we definitely walked around a lot. the bus ride was about 2 hours (half of that was pretty much city driving, trying to get to the bus station etc). luckily saturday was beautiful. we accidentally wandered through soho and saw the biggest gay pride parade ever. there were so many half naked latino men running around all greased up. it was absolutely fabulous. on every level. stay tuned for photos/videos that i took. we ate pizza for lunch-- again, clearly that's all we eat-- and wandered around the city until about 8 pm. we saw parliament and big ben, the london eye, and all those fabulous things. next time i go back i will see buckingham palace, the british museum, and some bars...

sunday night we were exhausted from our trip to london and i passed out at around 10 pm and didn't wake up until 830 am the next morning. i've become thoroughly obsessed with downloading episodes of digging for the truth (a history channel show). izzy and i have tried to watch various episodes on various occasions, but we always fall asleep. i'm pretty sure my roommate might have some pictures of us passed out in front of my computer...

monday night izzy and i decided to plan an excursion for this coming weekend. we agreed on dublin and spent wayyyy too much money on plane tickets because they were so last minute. so, to drown our sorrows, we went out and spent MORE money on drinks. since it was a monday night, all the bars were closing around 11. we ended up at THE SHADIEST nightclub EVER. first of all, i really hate night clubs, but we went anyway. there was a cell phone floating in one of the toilets and the entire place smelled like puke-- that pretty much sums it up. so izzy and i stood at the bar and took shot after shot after shot (the bartenders thought we were superhuman) and then walked home, somehow. then she ate 2 croissants in my room and we passed out. as you can tell, we're clearly classy.

last night we had our second high table dinner, so again i had to get all dressed up. afterward, the summer group met in the beer cellar (the on-campus bar) to talk with some professors. then we went out to a bar called the kings arms, which was enjoyable. while i was ordering drinks for izzy and myself (as you can tell, this is becoming a trend), a random english guy walked up to me to inform me that he and his friends were taking bets on where i was from. one guessed new york, one guessed new hampshire. both were wrong (but close), so they gave me 2 pounds, with which i bought a drink. haha, suckers.

so-- dublin this weekend! our flight leaves early friday morning and we come back on sunday evening. it'll be an expensive but worthwhile trip. i'll write again tomorrow, and pictures will be posted somewhere soon!