the world is my mollusk.: Salutations from Southampton!

And what a week it has been. Starting from last Thursday: Maren and I met up with Barrett at the train station, said goodbye to Sheffield, went to London, had lunch outside Westminster Abbey, and gave a presentation on dissertation placement and findings. We stayed at a coursemate's that night, ventured halfway across the city the next day, stashed our luggage at a very overpriced bag storage centre, and met up with an old friend, Josh, to 'do' London. Considering we started at 11am and went nearly everywhere on foot, I'm pretty happy about our checklist of tourist hotspots for the day: Borough markets, London Bridge, Millennium Bridge, Covent Gardens, Apple markets, Buckingham Palace, St. Paul's Cathedral, The George (oldest pub in London, frequented by Dickens back in the day), Monument, Tower of London, Trafalgar Square, the National Galleries, Leicester Square, and the Globe Theatre. For anyone else going to London soon, you can get £5 tickets to see a Shakespeare show from the standing section at the Globe. We discovered this in hour 10 of being on our feet so it was not terribly appealing, but looked like quite the experience. We somehow found our way to another old friend, Patrice's, that night. She was a 20-minute walk from the tube station, and lives in a third story apartment without a lift, which only increased my fast-growing affection for my ridiculously heavy bags. I cannot aptly describe how absolutely glorious it was to fall into bed that night.

Saturday we ventured back to the tube and made our way to the Victoria coach station, where we waited for our Greyhound bus to Southampton, which was an hour late due to traffic from a football match. (You know you're in England when...) We eventually made it to the lovely Stan and Bernadette's that evening and have been spoiled the past 4 days with lovely meals, clean laundry, and excellent day trips. These have included Portchester Castle, Jane Austen's house, Winchester Cathedral, and the building/room in which Eisenhower and his crew planned D-day. Pictures below.

Minor side note: while leaving my little house in Sheffield for the final time last Thursday, I realized I didn't have my passport. After going through my bags at the train station, I realized I had accidentally shipped it home in a box of clothes and books. Awesome. The box arrived in Bellingham Friday, Dad mailed the passport Saturday, and it is currently somewhere between Cincinnati and the UK. If it arrives at the Southampton DHL tomorrow before 9am, Stan will race us to Newhaven (2 hours away) to catch our ferry to France. If it's after 9am, we'll have to go with plan B. Which we're still coming up with.

If any of this sounds familiar, it's because this was exactly what I was doing last year at this time -- waiting for my passport to show up in the mail so I could get on a plane to the UK. Oh the irony. For you praying people, prayers for a swift reunion with the passport would be very, very much appreciated.

Love to you all!