Two days, three cities, countless memories

Another fun IES field trip this weekend! We left early Saturday morning for Stonehenge, Salisbury, and Bath.

First stop: Stonehenge. We arrived and rode the bus up to the rocks. A lot of people had told me they were disappointed by Stonehenge, so maybe I wasn't expecting much, but I thought it was amazing. The rocks were plenty big and there were plenty of them and it was certainly cool to think about the other rocks that were there before...keeping in mind this is just what remains. We took lots of fun photos and I sat on a bench and ate my lunch looking at Stonehenge. Not everyday you can do that. After lunch, I chose to ride the bus back since I had a long run the next day and a one-mile walk didn't seem like a good idea. Checked out the little mock village, the museum, and the gift shop. Really glad I got to see these sweet rocks and think it is a must do if you're in the area.

Next, we drove a bit to Salisbury. We had a guided tour of the city and ended up at Salisbury Cathedral. Beautiful! It was certainly larger than I expected and quite nice inside. We also checked out St. Thomas Church which had an amazing painting displayed on the wall. After the tour, we had about an hour or so to check out the city. One of the students joined me and we went to the market and then had tea outside. It was just beautiful outside! The tea was a bore. Scone was mediocre and it was just a Twinings Earl Grey tea bag. Blah.

This river had lots of trash in it. Including a grocery cart.

Medieval Doom painting in St. Thomas Church

Medieval gate to the city

This baptismal font was neat, but I couldn't get the right picture.

Then, it was off to Bath. We arrived in time to check in to our hostel. Then, we all met to go to dinner at an Italian restaurant. It was fun to have a group meal, but the service was slow, so dinner took about 2.5 hours. We had all ordered a 3 course meal in advance and the food was decent. After dinner, I took a stroll around Bath and took a few pics of the city lit up at night and made it back to the hostel in time to watch the Aggie game. I watched the first half and went to sleep. Glad they won even if I couldn't stay awake long enough to see it.

View from my hostel room window

Saturday I got up at 5:30 and did my last long run before my big race next weekend. It was quiet and dark when I first set out, but it made it easy to run. No people or cars in my way. Although at times it was a bit creepy. I ran along the river for a while. Then, a highway because I lost the river, then back to the river and some dirt paths. Then, the path became rocky/grassy so I turned around and followed the path back into the city. It was a nice 11 miler and I made it back to the hostel in time for breakfast. Then, it was off to see the city. We did a tour of the city and saw all the beautiful buildings. I just love the architecture here! We ended up at the Roman Baths and I sprinted through there because I was on a mission to go spend our 2 hours of free time at the Spa that uses the fancy heated/healing waters of the town. But, by the time I made it over there they had a crazy line and I didn't want to waste 30 minutes of my time in line and then be in a  crowded pool. BUT, I'm going back. Seriously. It looks amazing.

This street makes me happy. Apparently it's the same width across as the buildings are tall. So much symmetry. This photo doesn't do it justice. I ran up and down the street a couple of times just to enjoy the perfectness of it.

So, instead I went to this adorable little tea shop and had proper cream tea. They brought my tea out in a pot and this device that I figured out how to use! The loose leaf tea was just loose in the pot. So, when you pour your tea you pour it over this little strainer thing. Genius! So, that was fun. And they brought out a timer too so the tea brewed for the correct amount of time. This place was legit. And adorable. We had passed it on the tour and the guide had joked with me about the excess of doillies in that window, but I was secretly thinking it was perfect! Bea's Vintage Tea Room. Go if you're in Bath. After tea, I walked down to these lovely gardens on the water and just laid in the grass for a bit. You had to pay like 1.30 to get inside, but it was so peaceful and a nice way to spend the afternoon soaking up the sun.

Park on the river

Then we were on our way back to London. Got home in time to watch the Sunday night at the Palladium show we went to last week and this week's edition of Downton Abbey complete w/ the Downton Abbey wine I purchased a few weeks ago. :)

Views on the way home

Week 5: Busy nights

Time is flying by! I can't believe another week has already passed. Here are the highlights of the work week:

Cryptology class: We talked a bit about World War I this week and did a cipher that combined two other ciphers we had done before. Then, the students did great work learning matrix arithmetic and performing all sorts of operations mod 26. They used this to do some basic Hill cipher questions. They continue to impress me w/ their willingness to try new things.

Stats class: Fun week w/ an Oprah book club episode to discuss the history of statistics book they read. Also, the first ever found statistics show and tell happened. I thought it turned out pretty well. Some items were better than others, but overall they did well. We finished up chi-squared discussions and next week we'll talk about assumptions.

Monday: Work day. But, I did do my long run around the river. It was funny though because as I was going out I was telling Ed I didn't want to run around the river again and was looking for another route but didn't want to deal w/ the crowded public transport at that time of day. He made fun of me for complaining about running around the Thames...like that was such a bad thing! I laughed because I'm pretty sure the Thames is better than the concrete suburbia I run in every week in Cedar Park.

Tuesday: Again, I think I just went to work and came home.

Wednesday: Worked in the morning. Went for a run along the Regents Canal towpath in the afternoon. Started at Victoria Park and ran down to Limestone Basin. It was cool to see all the little house boats and such. And, I ran across a Dixie Chicken on my way back to the tube. I took a pic for my Aggie friends who understand what that means. :)

That evening, I went to Giraffe restaurant w/ Ed and his guests for dinner. Thye had a great happy hour! They have many locations, but this one is right on Southbank overlooking the river. I had a strawberry Moscow mule and an apple/elderflower chiller. They were like 3 pounds each! Delicious! I'll need to go here more often. And the food wasn't bad either. Then, it was off to the Science Museum. Once a month they open late for adults only and have some sort of themed events. This month was magic and illusions. I went to a talk on math and card tricks, made my own print, and watched people dance at a silent disco. Silent disco is a big thing here. People put on headphones and everyone is listening to the same thing, but there's no music playing out loud. On my way out YMCA was playing and it was hilarious to watch these people dance and out of the blue scream out the YMCA parts. I need to go w/ friends next time. I think it'd be more fun.

Thursday: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the musical tonight! It wasn't as good as I had hoped, but still fun to see. The set/costumes were amazing. Giant dancing squirrels, light up Oompa Loompas, glass elevator. And, just FYI: they only sing one song (the Imagine one) from the movie version. So, don't get your hopes up for your favorite Oompa Loompa song or any others.

Friday: More excitement here as I went to the ballet at the Royal Opera house. BalletBoyz were doing a show and the ads looked amazing, so I checked it out. It was interesting. Very modern. Three pieces total. The first one had this great part were 3 men would dance at a time and two would be in sync and the third doing something different and then all of a sudden seamlessly, the other two would be in sync and the third would be doing the different thing. Super cool. The last one was really nice with more fancy ballet moves. Definitely an interesting evening. Oh and on my way to the show, I saw all these bikers on Southbank under the bridge. Not sure what it was.

Week 4: Back to work and our first IES field trip

I can't believe it's already week 4! Quick class updates:

Crypto: We learned about transposition ciphers (permutation, columnar, and others) and then talked a bit about the Shakespeare vs. Bacon conspiracy theory. Good stuff! We also talked about Playfair ciphers and I had them go to the British Library to check out a first printing of Shakespeare's First Folio to see if they could find any secret messages in there. Fun!

Stats: I tried to spice things up a bit in here by adding some new assignments. One idea: Found Statistics. Each week they have to bring a photo or piece of paper of some statistics they've found in London. They can't use the internet. I'll play along too. It's like show and tell! Hopefully that will make things a bit more interesting.

Thursday we went to see The Land of Our Fathers at Trafalgar Studios. Another play w/ the students. This one was in a tiny theater. Ed and I were practically on the stage. It was a play about some trapped miners. Six or so male characters. Again. I'm hoping one of these plays has some strong female characters in it. We'll see. This one also had lots of profanity/offensive language. Not my favorite. Spoiler alert: the miners die at the end. Or so that's what others told me. I didn't exactly understand that in the moment. Others were crying. I was just enjoying the water pouring onto the stage and the song. Oh well. Maybe next time I'll understand.

Friday I went out to do this Colorscape thing in Clapham Common. It was a bust. I had done a similar thing in Austin (think giant inflatable maze building with different colored rooms) and this one looked smaller and there were way too many kids there, so I decided to pass and just do my run instead. It was nice to run in a new park, but this park was no royal park!

Saturday was our first official IES field trip. We went to Cambridge and despite the rainy, gloomy day it was AMAZING! I need to go back. We toured the colleges and got to see the amazing Kings College Chapel. Gorgeous! The fan vaulting was unbelievable. I could sit in there for forever. Beautiful. And the stained glass! Mom would love it. We also went into The Eagle pub where Watson and Crick announced their DNA discovery and I'm SURE they did some scratch work on a piece of paper or a napkin or something at some point. I need to go back and get inspired to do some math or something. There was also a cool ceiling that US air force pilots had signed their names on during the war. Pretty cool.

One of the colleges at Cambridge.

This crazy clock is amazing. The photo doesn't do it justice.

The Mathematical Bridge. Had to have my photo w/ this one.

Then, we did some punting on the river. It was okay. But, our punter was a small lady and she had some troubles navigating our big boat. I'm glad we did it, but I was hungry and over the rain. Some students claimed I looked miserable. Whatever. It was a cool experience.

Mathematical Bridge from the water

Kings College in the background

Then, a few students and I headed to get some lunch. We found a non-crowded pizza place indoors and warmed up and had a delicious lunch. Then, we strolled around the market square and spent some time in the Fitzwilliam museum before we had to leave. I could have stayed a few more hours for sure! Loved it!

A Rodin at the Fitzwilliam

Sunday was another busy day! It was Open House London where all these buildings/homes across London are open to the public for free! I made a huge list and over the course of the day made it to only 4 on my list, but it was still fun. I spent a very long 2 hours at Sands Film Studios. It was cool to see their costume shop and see their famous costume maker doing stuff for Benedict Cumberbatch, but 2 hours was way too long! Then, I had lunch at The Mayflower pub where the Mayflower docked before it came to the US. Then, I checked out the shaft they used to build the very first tunnel under the river. The first tunnel under any river apparently. My engineering friends would have loved it! We had to climb all hunched over to get in there. Pretty impressive. Apparently they built it above ground and it sank into the ground under the weight of the bricks. Some sort of fancy method. After those two places, I checked out the London Mathematical Society which is right by work. The building wasn't that impressive, but it was cool to see what they do there and know it's so close. Maybe I'll stop by there on another day. Finally, I checked out a private residence that was SUPER modern. I loved it and would live there tomorrow....if I had millions of pounds. :)

This is a photo library. Those binders have hundreds of photos in them organized by subject. Animals, costumes, architecture, war, professions. Fascinating.

Costume studio.

Henry VII costume worn by Damian Lewis (Homeland guy!)

Sweet potato and goat's cheese pie w/ cider.

View from top of shaft

View inside. That curvy line is where the steps down used to be.

 

 

Fun basement area with dance floor and spa room.

Master bedroom overlooking giant waterfall into a Koi pond

Just part of the garden

Front door to what looks to be a tiny house. 4 stories!

Downstairs looking up into the garden area

After that, I met Ed on Oxford Street to do an ITV taping of Sunday Night at the Palladium. Think updated variety show. Comedian host (Jack Whitehall?). Live music (Lionel Richie and The Script). Winners of a street dance show here in the UK. Some magician types. A number from a West End musical on women's equal pay movement. It was fun. But, this meant we missed the premiere episode of Downton Abbey. I'll have to find it online!

Busy week! Sorry for the long post! Too much excitement.