July 18th, 2006
Bet you thought I forgot about this…
So, the morning after the family picnic, English, PW, and I got up incredibly early — like so early people in the States probably hadn’t gone to bed yet. Our plan was to catch an extremely early train out of Woking to London Victoria Station where were would meet up with our tour for the day: Bards & Battles!
As you can see, at 6:00am on a Sunday morning, Woking’s train station is pretty dead.
However, somewhere between Woking and Victoria Station, we were joined by a very rowdy crew of World Cup revellers who’d been up early preparing for that day’s England game which was still some 8 hours away and they were already 3 sheets to the wind. Still they were quite spirited in their singing and I still can here them echoing in my mind…
There Were Ten German Bombers In The Air,
There Were Ten German Bombers In The Air,
There Were Ten German Bombers, Ten German Bombers,
Ten German Bombers In The Air.
And The RAF From England Shot One Down.
And The RAF From England Shot One Down.
And The RAF From England,
The RAF From England,
The RAF From England Shot One Down.
There Were Nine German Bombers In The Air…
They never did get down past four. They just kept restarting. The other song just involved repeating “En-ga-land!” over and over again.
Oh, and this one below is for Mom and SQ. 
Ironically, the whole time I was in the UK, they were the only ones who wore anything indicating “US” or US-related places. I had purposely designed my wardrobe that way after reading an article about how you should try not to draw attention to your nationality as an American while in other countries. Everywhere we went, however, they both seemed to wear US-tainted clothes.
OK, so back to the tour. 
While I will recommend Astral Tours (we did another of their tours too) to anyone looking for a good tour company in the UK, I cannot recommend whoever that tour guide was who drove the bus on our tour. Unfortunately, I don’t recall his name. Just beware of the tall skinny guy who appears to not want to be there.
Anyway, here are a few interesting facts I learned while in Oxford:
- Christopher Wren, Tolkein, and C. S. Lewis all went to Oxford University.
- The owl who plays Hedwig has his own limo.
- It used to be that you applied to three colleges in Oxford and if one of them picked you, you got in to Oxford, but now, you have one chance and one chance only. You apply to one college.
- Colleges are not specific to specialties. For example in each college, there might be 10 English majors, 5 engineers, 12 math majors, 6 political majors, etc. Whereas over here in the states, our colleges within our universities are specialty-specific.
- Did I mention that the owl in Harry Potter has his own limo?
- Their semmesters are extremely short compared to ours, which leaves a lot of time open for filming of movies, which apparently happens quite often.
- Apparently, also you can rent rooms in the colleges during non-semmester months for vacation.
Anyway, I’m trying out Andy’s Slideshow plugin for my Oxford pictures and it took me so long to figure out that I’m too tired to write up the rest of the day. ;) So, you’ll have to wait to find out about the Cotswolds and Shakespeare’s birthplace and how many steps there are in Warwick Castle…
Enjoy the slideshow…
Tags: UK, Woking, London, Victoria Station, World Cup, astral tours, Oxford, Harry Potter, Christopher Wren
June 19th, 2006
I had a horrible night last night. Not only was my insomnia acting up really awful but my mind was racing all night about some sort of check boxes, turning them on and off in some sort of program and this had to do with the pain in my body but I couldn’t get it right and the whole night my body was in excruciating pain — I now imagine this is what the Cruciatus Curse in Harry Potter must feel like. All I kept thinking as the night went on is that there had to be a correct combination of checked boxes to make the pain stop.
Anyway, against my doctor’s advice this morning but under J’s, I took 2 Alleve with the 2 Tylenol my doctor told me to take. So far I don’t feel any better. When I woke up, my feet felt as if I’d been working behind the counter of a customer service desk for 10 hours and so did the back of my thighs and that kind of pain never went away quickly for me.
To be honest, I don’t feel rested at all and I feel like that Ambien was a complete waste. I need to find a way to rest at night. I think that would help a great deal.
Tags: fibromyalgia, insomnia, Cruciatus Curse, Harry Potter
July 13th, 2005
- O.K. So I took the last Zyrtec I’m allowed to take before next Thursday. I have an appointment with an allergist next Thursday morning and the instructions say no antihistimines for the 7 days prior. I just started feeling like I wasn’t drowning in snot and now I’ve got to suffer for a week with no hope of relief. *sigh*
- The parking lot people are coming again tomorrow. Apparently rain kept them from sealing the lot and painting the lines last week. My neighbor claims they did seal the lot, but the letter from the apartment complex conflicts with his testimony. So, I dont’ know. I’m hoping whatever they do tomorrow while I’m at work will not make my allergic condition worse.
- Last night I realized that the Yarmouth Clam Festival is this weekend. I am now worried that Amazon.com won’t be able to deliver my Harry Potter book on Saturday since the festival is half a mile from my apartment. On top of that, I can’t go to the festival until the book is delivered because Amazon.com has some silly rule about being present and signing for it.
- If I do go to the festival, I won’t be able to stay long anyway since it’s outside and outside has not been kind to me this year. On a related note, my doctor’s nurse tried to explain to me why I wasn’t affected last year after I moved here but am suffering from some allergy this year. Apparently you have to be exposed more than once to initially trigger an allergy. Or something like that.
- The Dyson Animal I ordered two weekends ago still hasn’t shipped. I need to vacuum badly. Really, it’s not pretty and my great-gramma’s vacuum is too broken to do any real work.
- My co-worker, who’s help I need with a project, went out for an hour and a half lunch and has been shooting the breeze in his cubicle with another co-worker for an hour. It’s like two old guys sitting on some small town general store porch chit-chatting like there’s nothing going else on in the world and the other co-worker has started using a cane that he keeps tapping on the floor every 20 or 30 seconds. It’s distracting and annoying and pissing me off. Plus, I know they’ve had this same exact conversation before because I’ve heard it before, but if I go ask for his help while he’s talking to someone, it’ll result in the moody drama queen; I’d rather wait and see if I can get the helpful personality.
- Why was Needy peeing on my dirty laundry this morning?
Tags: discombobulated, Yarmouth Clam Festival, Harry Potter
