Ciao from Rome! I have been without internet for nearly two weeks, and not because of viruses as father supposes, but because I am staying in cheap hotels with no available internet! Here in Rome is the first time we have had internet IN our hotel (and it costs 2.50 per hour to use!). And as far as my spelling, I did figure that I would fix it up when time allowed, as at Oxford there was usually a line of people waiting behind me to use the comptuer so I had to type Speedy Gonzalez style. In addition, the keyboards here are WEIRD to my American fingers and the words do not come out quite the way I expect (for instance, I cannot find the apostrophe, so I am typing much more formally now than I typically would--no contractions!)

We are into the last week of our trip; just a few short (long?) days left. I'll (found the apostrophe key!) go back, though, and tell you a bit about Salisbury, Wincester and London, first, though my most eager audience is on an adventure of their own currently!

In Salisbury, V and I stayed in a most delightful bed and breakfast. It was disgustingly cute, with roses everywhere and cute tea cups in our rooms. In Salisbury, we took a tower tour of their cathedral. It was slendid! The cathedral was massively huge, bigger than most buildings found in American, and had been built entirely without our modern machinery. One neat thing that we got to see was how the people reuse their supplies. There was a fire that destroyed part of the building, but as much of the wood as possible was salvaged and reused, leaving the burnt parts visible. When the arches began to bend inward, the people took an old ship's mast, cut it in half, and used it to support the roof.

In Wincester, V and I saw Jane Austen's house. It was nice...but I was preoccupied with my dreadful shoes. Blisters and cramps, oh my! And we had to hurry half an hour there, rush through the house, then hurry back a half hour walk to make our bus...with our 20 pound packs on our back!! CRAZY!!

We finally made it to London that evening, where we stayed with some of V's quasi-relatives, Ann, Mae and Robert (and baby Francine Batina). They're all Filipino, trying to gain UK citizenship. They took good care of us, feeding us way TOO much (so much for this trip being a time for me to start eating healthy!) and driving us to and from the station. V's 2nd cousin Jun Jun was staying with them, too. We had many fun conversations with them in the evenings about the differences between America, the UK and the Phillipines.

London, London, London. It's a big city, probably the biggest city I had ever navigated on my own. V and I took the metro everywhere. The Tube runs fast, efficiently and reliably, but is often so crowded that we'd spend our whole ride standing rather than trying to scavenge a seat when people stood to leave. We saw so much in London, that it would be impossible for me to recount it all here, in the time I have, so a few highlights...

We saw Westminster Abbey, which was a beautiful, ornate cathedral, but one that rather depressed me with it's focus on the state and not on God. We did see the tombs of many kings and queens, including Henry V (gotta love that Kenneth Branagh ;) ). Geoffrey Chaucer's grave was there, as was a memorial to many other poets and writers.

We spent a good amount of time wandering through parks. It's amazing that a city has such massive parks built right in (of course, most of them were originally intended as royal grounds of some sort!). And the PIGEONS! (Feed the birds, tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag...).

Perhaps my favorite event was seeing the Globe theater and watching a Shakespeare play. V and I were groundlings, so we had to stand for the entirety of the three plus hour _Antony and Cleopatra_. Neither of us had read the play, so we little knew what to expect. I've also never seen Shakespeare performed live professionally. I was BLOWN AWAY! Antony and Cleopatra, as people, were a bit annoying--so caught up in their love affairs that the neglated their countries. And Cleopatra was a big-time whiner! The story was far more crude than I think I would have understood if I'd read it, and far more emotional. We watched the first half standing with our backs against the seating area behind us and the second have pressed against the stage, resting our chins and elbows on the stage, just inches from where the players would walk. The play with its silly too-passionate characters had me in tears many times! It was easy for me to imagine how often I would be drawn to the theater if I were a true English peasant in Shakespeare's day. During the three hours of the play, I nearly forgot everything else, including the fact that the people next to me were quite stinky! (I did say nearly...I sprayed my orange body spray on my arm to cover up the smell of sweet sweat! I felt at one with the original groundlings, who would buy oranges to smell instead of their neighbors.)

As a side note, I think I asked directions from Prince William in disguise as a policeman, watched guards on horses, saw some of Jane Austen's original manuscripts and the earliest complete edition of the New Testament and saw more naked people than I've ever wished to see (don't worry, they were all paintings or sculptures!).

From there, we took a train to Paris. On the train, while I was sleeping, the lady next to me swatted me awake with her magazine. Hmm. She only spoke French and was trying not to laugh with her husband across the way. I'm thinking maybe I was snoring?

My time is nearly up here...I'll see if I can get in a quick post about Paris, though!