back on the American side of the pond...

Despite all best resolutions, it has been seven months since I last posted. But seven months absolutely *packed*, I assure you.
Let's see, when I last left you, I was shivering in three sweaters, four pairs of wool socks, a hat and piles of blankets. The heating in my building continued to be non-existant for another three or four weeks, and the hot water cut out completely at times. However, once the office people returned, they gave us space heaters, so I warmed up. I also survived my exams. Actually, since I got my results a few weeks ago, I now know that I not only survived, I came through with flying colours. I got firsts (A's) for all of my classes! The hard work really paid off (and I did work really hard).
Of course, as soon as exams were over, new classes started, and it was back to work. I also choreographed the fights for a truly excellent production of Romeo and Juliet with the King's Players. I had a great experience renting rapiers from a very nice company called Hands On. They're based in Glasgow, but if you're looking for props or stunt gear, esp in England, rent from them. They put up with my uncertainty as to whether we would have money for rapiers, and supplied them last minute when, two weeks before we needed them, I found out for certain that we could afford the swords. And then Hands On threw in hangers for free.
That free advertising aside, somehow even without a job (all my applications were in vain), the Spring term managed to be busier than the Fall! Orchestra continued. Socially, I felt very uncomfortable--the music students were very clicky--but musically it was wonderful.
For my birthday, my Halls friends and I went to the pub, and I had a big dinner party for my St. Martin's friends. Which pretty accurately depicts the difference in importance of the two groups for me. :) The dinner was wonderful. Cathy hosted, as ten people would have been hard put to squeeze into my room. I cooked though, starting with bread and my favorite 'stichelton' cheese, a stilton type. Then there was a rich, creamy chestnut soup, followed by coq-a-vin. Dessert was cranberry sorbet (also homemade--sorbets are ridiculously easy and yet impressive), with shortbread. The food was a huge hit, and I loved making all of it and watching my friends eat with gusto. The company was unparalleled. We had witty, interesting conversation throughout the whole evening, no one felt left out or awkward. Altogether a wonderful evening. I love entertaining!
Jacky came to visit me, which was really fun. We went out the first night, but mostly I had to be anti-social and make her explore on her own, or with the other friends she had in London. Busy, as I said.
During reading week, I fled the city, desparate for some country air. I took the train to Exmouth in Devon, and hiked about ten miles along the World Heritage site coastline. It was a beautiful walk, and I had it mostly to myself. I stopped for the Wessel Walker-traditional ice cream in Budleigh Salterton, and then turned inland to catch the bus back to Exmouth. By this time I was ravenous, my picnic lunch being long gone, and some people I asked for directions suggested I try the Mill restaurant in Otterton (where the bus stopped). Otterton turned out to be a tiny, one street town of whitewashed, thatched cottages (aaah the old world!). An elderly gentlemen stopped me to chat in a completely unthreatening fashion, and pointed me to the Mill, the only large building around (except the church). It turned out to have a small art galery (which I sadly didn't have time to explore), and to be big into local/organic food. It felt like it belonged in Ann Arbor, if you know what I mean. Unfortunately, they had a minimum charge of £10 for cards, so I scrabbled around in my purse for cash, and was able to afford toasted tea cake with butter (delish!). However, witnessing my predicament, the waiter brought me tea anyways, which was really kind. At this point, I realized that I also would need cash for the bus... and Otterton had no bank or cash machine. Panic! At this point, though, the whole cafe was in on the problem, since I'd asked about a cash machine, and one couple offered to drive me to Exmouth, and a family offered to pay my fare on the bus. I decided to go with that offer, not that I mistrusted the couple who would have driven me, but the bus seemed like less of an imposition. The family was really nice, and just told me to pay it forward. They said they had been in similar situations before, and had been helped out similarly. My overall feeling at the end of this day trip was of the incredible kindness the human race is capable of when it wants to be. Pictures of the red cliffs of Devon are here.
Later in the Spring, Mary came to visit me, and her other British friends. She spent some time being more or less ignored by me in London, as R and J went up at the same time, and then we went to the farm she worked on in Wales. Gorgeous! I love Wales: the hills, gently rolling into craggy tops, the farms scratched on the surface (making life difficult but picturesque), and the common above Tireithen (the farm), with it's semi-wild white ponies, and standing stones. Pictures of that trip are here.
Mary's visit overlapped by a day or so with my parents, who came shortly before Easter. We went to St. Martin's for Palm Sunday, of course, and got to process around Trafalgar Square with a real live donkey! Mama loved that creature. :) The tourists goggled at the sight of a long train of well dressed people of all ages meandering around this busy center, singing along to the Salvation Army band. What fun! This was perhaps the closest I have gotten to feeling like the first Palm Sunday...
We also went to Oxford with John, to see my mum's old college, St. Anne's. We poked around the campus, and then went to the Bird and Baby (Eagle and Child), famous for being the meeting place of the Inklings (JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, Charles Williams, etc). There's even a handwritten note from the Inklings, declaring that the host of the pub was a 'jolly good fellow', and signed by the members. The signeture in careful uncial script was not, surprisingly, JRR Tolkien's, but that of his son Christopher. In retrospect, perhaps that's not so surprising (for the uninitiated, Christopher was the one who has tirelessly organized his father's notes into publishable form, in The Silmarillion, The Unfinished Tales, and the multiple other volumes of Middle Earth's history now available).
During Holy Week, the APs and I hiked a portion of the Pilgrim Trail. We spent a few days in Salisbury, and then walked, over the course of three days, to Winchester. It was a beautiful hike, and we stayed in lovely, luxurious bed and breakfasts each night. That's my kind of hiking! A strenuous day, but ending in a shower, hot meal, pint of ale, and a soft bed. The last day was a bit wet, but other than that the weather treated us very well. In fact, while this past winter was one of the coldest London has seen in a while (the three inches of snow that shut the metropolis down was the most they'd had in *18 years*), this Spring was one of the warmest and sunniest. Pics to come.
We were back in London for Easter. Louise was baptised at the 5am vigil, and as I was sponsering her, duly to St Martin's I went at 5am... a trolling taxi driver seeing me change from my walking shoes into my heels assumed I was tottering home from a night on the town, not tottering out to church after an early night in. :) It was a nice service, begun in the total dark. The readers (of whom I was one) had flashlights, but everyone else sat in darkness. Then we went out to the porch to light the Easter flame. I think this would have been cooler if it hadn't been cloudy, as St Martin's (like all other English churches) faces East, and the rising sun would have shone gloriously into the sanctuary through the big window. However, festivities didn't end with the service: we all trailed down to the parish hall for breakfast, and after that was tidied up, the survivors went for a walk around St James' Park. Then we toddled up to the rector's flat (the top floor in the building just next to St M's, the lucky beasts), for more yummies. Rev. Nick had access to the roof, so those so inclined could go up and get a Mary Poppins view of the city, complete with chimney pots and whispy fog. We were just below Nelson himself! Then the bells rang, right next to us, and it was back to church for the more riotous (and crowded) 10am service. And after that my family went to a pub with John, Natasha and Sasha for a Sunday roast/Easter dinner.
On Monday, before they left, I roasted a chicken for the whole family again, with some veggies on the side, and delicate mousse filled chocolate cups-fussy, but worth it. The meal was a success, but Alexander's reaction to my dorm was similar to mine, and less contained. (ie. he screamed much of the time he was there).
Once my parents had left, I had to buckle down, as exams were looming ominously near. I had two weeks to get it all done, so I continued my Lenten discipline of going to Morning Prayer, and would go straight from there to the library, there to remain until the need for dinner would drive me home. However unpleasant it was to squander the beautiful weather in a dusty nook of the library, this paid off, and once again, I did very well on my exams. and then I was free, with over a month left in London!
For Natasha's birthday, we all went on a hike, somewhere near Aylesbury, and that was great fun, just a group of girls striding through the hills. we played a game where Natasha taped names to our backs and we had to ask questions of the others to figure out who we were. we watched clouds, lying on our backs on a hillside, and Natasha sang us a song that she had written about all of us (someday, when she is deservedly famous, I'll get to say 'I knew her when' and have proof...), and I taught Anne a little hand-to-hand fighting. That last was by a monument on a hill with rather a few startled/concerned onlookers. We might have gotten into trouble for fighting, if we hadn't been laughing our heads off the whole time. The day ended with delicious chocolates in a cafe. Pictures of all this to come!
I went back to Salzburg again, this time for a little longer. Gertraud took me up a mountain with the Seilbahn (cable car), and we wandered around the top for a few hours. Her young nephews, who had come with us, leapt about like mountain goats, while I eased myself anxiously over rocks and down the hills. We even had a snowball fight in a patch of lingering snow! The now very pregnant Maria and I went for a quiet walk in the woods by her house one day. I spent part of the weekend with her parents, and got to go for a ride in the car that her father built. It's a little open, low riding thing they call the buggy, and can only go 100km/h, but since it has no roof, this feels really fast. Georg (Maria's brother) drove me all the way to Salzburg (about half an hour's drive from their village), and on the way back it started to pour, and then hail, so we took shelter in a gas station. That was pretty funny, although perhaps less actual fun. :) Maria's parents took me and Katherina riding, when they realized that I love it so much. The instructer's thick Vienese accent gave me trouble, and she thought I was stupid until I started riding... I showed her, as they say. Although I did have trouble when it came to cantering-used to tough, stubborn cobs, I gave my poor horse a great whack with my heels, and kept the pressure on, only to haul back on the reigns when he flew around the arena at a full gallop, much faster than I wanted him to. Eventually, we figured out the problem, and slowed down to a more reasonable pace. After riding, we went to a Tierparadise, a place where rescued animals go to spend the rest of their days in bliss and laziness. Once back with Maria, she and Ursula and I went to the lake for wading in the sun. Pictures!
I went to Athens for the first time this Spring. I met up with Corrin, who graduated early from the UofC so that she could do a semester at a university in Germany for no credit, before going on to do a PhD at Columbia... she's crazy, but I like her anyways. :) The first day, after meeting at the the airport, we just went to the Temple of Zeus and spent the afternoon catching up. For dinner, the UofC students who were doing a quarter abroad there showed us a lovely little restaurant so quintessentially greek. It was run by one man, who did the waiting and most of the cooking (I believe his wife was in the kitchen as well). There was no menu, he just told us what he had on that evening. The food was amazing! and cheap. he gave us dessert for free as well. Corrin and I ate gyros for lunch most days, which were well worth the calories. On the second day we went up to the Parthenon with our hostess (a friend of Corrin's) and her sister. It was pretty awe inspiring. We looked around at other ruins as well, but at a certain point, one Greco-Roman ruin looks the same as any other, and the heat, even in May, was blistering. So Corrin and I spent a day on the beach at Aegina, one of the islands around Athens. I had squid so fresh, it had probably be swimming that morning, and Corrin ate a similarly fresh fish. it was delish! the sea was warm, and impossibly blue, mirroring the bright bowl of the sky, but the breeze off the water was cool, so it didn't get too hot. 50spf sunblock liberally applied kept me more or less tanned rather than burned. The broad hat and comfortable sandles I bought for the trip also turned out to be the best sartorial purchases I have ever made. Altogether, it was a delightful trip, but I think Athens is the sort of place that is exciting to live, but I wouldn't want to live there.
London, on the other hand... I loved living there. It was with great difficulty that I tore myself away from weekly trips to Borough Market for my groceries, rides on Wimbledon Common (to which I returned as soon as the doctor's commanded two months was up), my friends at St Martin's-not to mention the church itself- and King's, from walks along the Thames, and the ease of transportation with TFL... the list could go on. But tear myself away I did, and now I am back here, where there are many things to delight as well. More on that later, as I think this post is too long already (I'm certainly tired of it, and am sure you must be as well).