Of big rocks and the big screen

Hello again from London!

I’ve had a really great week thus far. I think I’m starting to get a hold of this London thing. Even the weather isn’t getting to me as much, which most of you know can be a large determinant of my mood. I think an e-mail from my brother earlier this week helped put things in perspective. From the words of Thom:
“I must say that weather wise, you are not missing much. The past ever since you left the weather has repeated this cycle every three of four days: Day 1: "Arctic" cold front moves through starting mid-day to early afternoon. Lots of freezing rain, sleet, snow (shitty kind, not enough to do anything on). Day 2: Starts out with a wind chill of -12 to -8 with wind blowing from the North and a temp of 4. High might get to 12 or 13 with a wind chill of 2. Day 3: same as Day 2. Day 4: is a nice toasty day with a high around 25...maybe 30, and no wind.”
Suddenly, rain and 50 degrees doesn’t seem so bad. Thanks, Thom!

Wednesday was the eventful day to Bath and Stonehenge. Stonehenge is as it was last time, a formation of rocks. To go in and expect anything extravagant will leave you disappointed. But when you consider the sheer magnitude of the rocks and the mysterious purpose behind them is when it becomes interesting. There are 52 “blue stones” in the formation, which are huge stones only to be found in the Preseli Mountains in Wales. These ancient people would have had to transport them over sea and land over hundreds of miles to get them where they are today. Dad sent me an interesting link before I went to show the ingenuity of humans. Check is out: http://j-walkblog.com/index.php?/weblog/posts/moving_big_rocks. This is not at all how Stonehenge was created, but it was still pretty cool to watch.

You might be wondering what Stonehenge’s purpose was. Honestly, most don’t know exactly. Probably some sort of spiritual altar as well as a calendar to predict the next eclipse. The stones are also arranged so that at the entrance to the configuration was perfectly aligned with the summer solstice sunrise. Summer solstice is the only day where visitors can actually go up and walk within the stones. You just have to deal with all the druids and hippies that are there as well.

I didn’t know that there are so many other henges and ancient burials in the area, but there are literally thousands. You drive through the countryside of Britain and you see these round bumps in the middle of farmer’s fields that are ancient burial plots. It’s absolutely incredible how much history from thousands of years ago lies just a couple of feet beneath the ground.

Bath was an incredible city. I unfortunately passed out on the bus between Stonehenge and Bath so I didn’t hear all that the guide had to say about the city, so I didn’t hear all it’s historical significance. It was built on England’s only natural hot springs, nestled in the middle of some nice green hills. The Romans erected an elaborate bathhouse over the spring thousands of years ago. Since then, it has been an incredible archaeological find in the middle of this cute city. We were able to go into the Roman bath house and walk around, looking at ruins of the house and temple and taking pictures right next to the ancient, steaming bath. It was extremely fun. I even got to drink the Bath water, which was warm and very weird tasting. I don’t recommend it. But you’re only in Bath once I guess. See pictures.

The city itself was actually extremely cute. It is mixture of Victorian and gorgeous Georgian architecture. My favorite part was The Circus. A huge roundabout where three sets of Georgian apartments, all identical in appearance lined the streets. A nice little park was in the middle of it. It was quintessential Europe. So much so that I made Pam take a picture of it (my camera’s batteries died after Stonehenge, of course). Speaking of pictures, Pam has a TON of them from Wednesday, so please check out this link to her Facebook picture site (yes, even non-Facebook users can do this), so see her pictures. Go to http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2230971&l=66618&id=15919578.

Pam and I ate at a cute Mediterranean café and enjoyed some oh-so-terrible-but-so-delicious-you’d-be-an-idiot-not-to-buy-and-eat-it local fudge. We also stumbled across a Jane Austen museum, which was very, very exciting, especially after just watching Pride & Prejudice. We couldn’t go into the museum, but I enjoyed the gift shop. Jane Austen grew up in Bath, although she hated it because during her time, all the cities were black and dusty from coal. It’s no wonder all of her novels take place in more rural settings.

Work Thursday was good. I found out that Lillian will be out for the rest of the week, but I still kept busy with other projects. I also feel so much more comfortable with all my co-workers and it seems like the trust the interns with accomplishing work and projects. The people at Emap are incredibly fun to work with. I lucked out so much.

The best part of my day was being selected to see the screening of Cloverfield with my flatmate and fellow intern, Alex. Her boss is the film director, and gets access to all new movie screenings. Cloverfield is already out back in the States, but it comes out in a couple weeks over here. I was the lucky one to tag along and enjoy a fabulous appetizer and wine hour before the screening. I’d been pumped about the movie for a while now, and it met my expectations. As a 1 ½ hour film, it felt like 20 minutes. That’s how into it you managed to get. It was an absolutely jarring experience, told from the viewpoint of home camera recorder. But it was an incredible take on it. I definitely recommend the movie for those wanting a thriller, but don’t expect a happy ending. Pete ended up seeing it today too, so we have a lot to discuss. He already picked up on a few things that I missed entirely, so I’m excited for our talk.

Speaking of Pete, allow me to brag for a couple of minutes. He applied for a summer internship at ESPN. In his application, he was honest and told them that he’d be in Spain until the end of June, knowing this would probably affect their decision since they generally want a 12-week intern. He got a good letter back from one of the big honchos saying that if it hadn’t been for Spain, he would have had the internship without a doubt. Everyone who read his clips was greatly impressed and selected him as their top choice. They advised him to apply for an internship for fall or spring, which I know he’ll choose to do. I’m so proud and absolutely ecstatic for him. He’s a great sports journalist and it was nice having people from ESPN, the epitome of sports journalism, to commend him on his work. Sure, the internship may pull us apart for a couple of months again, but it’s entirely worth it. We can do the long-distance thing, especially at this stage in our lives.

I need to run to work, and don’t have enough time to upload pictures. I’ll get them up as soon as possible. In the meantime, take a look at Pam’s fantastic album documenting our Bath and Stonehenge adventures.

Cheers!