First Week Complete

I made it through my first week of Latin! It's going so quickly! By the end of the week I felt like my brain wasn't actually absorbing anything and I was just staring blankly at the professor. We have already gone through all six verb tenses in all four verb types. We have dealt with both male, female and neuter nouns and the active and passive voice. We barely did that much in my whole year of Norwegian and here we are doing all of that in Latin in one week! I have no idea what the next two weeks will entail, but it will be a journey!

I got an email this week about volunteering at the Oxford Museums, so next Thursday, Oct. 2nd, I'm going for an introduction meeting to learn about volunteering! I'm very excited! I don't know exactly what I want to do at the Museums or which one I want to volunteer in. It would be cool to volunteer at the Museum of the History of Science because a lot of my research will revolve around the objects there. Although, the Ashmolean Museum is looking for people right now to handle coins once a month for the public. That could be interesting and it's different from all the other museum stuff I have done. Before I make a decision I'm going to go to the introduction. I wonder if I could do more then one thing mostly if some of them are only once every 4 to 6 weeks.

On Friday after my afternoon Latin class I went to the Lamb and Flag pub with some of my fellow classmates. I sat and talked to four other people for about 2 hours, so I'm slowly making friends. Everyone seemed to be really interested in how the university system worked in Canada. They also were really interested in what I was studying because none of them thought that the History of Science, Technology and Medicine would be a thing and they thought it was really interesting and specific.

Saturday I went and bought a calendar with images of Oxford for 2015, so it's just hanging up in my room right now. I also went to a demonstration at the Museum of the History of Science on the Slide Ruler. It was interesting to learn how it worked and where it originated because my Dad used to have one and I never understood how to use it or what it was used for. I think tomorrow I might go to a concert and go for a picnic, but I'll see what actually happens.

I haven't taken any pictures this week, so here is a picture from last week of a sign on a pole. I liked this sign because it says you're not allowed to walk more then four dogs at a time. I'll try to get more photos up of stuff and me doing activities, but me studying Latin for 8 hours a day doesn't make for very interesting photos! On the right side of the blog I put a thing in for people to sign up to get emails when I post a new entry so it's easier for everyone. Hopefully it works!

First day of Latin

Today was the first day of my pre-term Latin class. The class is every weekday for two hours for the next three weeks. There are 26 people in my class and the room we're in isn't big enough so some people have to sit around the edge and don't get to use the table to write on. We jumped right into learning and today we tackled both verbs and nouns. Now, we didn't do all of both. We only did three verb tenses out of six and learned about one type of noun out of four. It still seemed like a lot of information. After my second hour of class in the afternoon I headed back to my room and spend an hour in my room translating ten Latin sentences into English. It made my brain hurt! I'm trying to get some strategies down on how to memorize words, rules and endings. Hopefully it all goes well!

Since I didn't so much today other then go to my class here are some pictures from around Oxford from the past couple of days!

 

Oh! I did buy a tea kettle today!

Oxford before class: Day Two, Three and Four

The next three days are going to be jammed into this one post because not much happened. We mostly got me stuff for my room and got me ready for my Latin class.

On Friday I moved into my room at Harris Manchester! It's much bigger then what I expected! I have a desk, two chairs, a bed, my own sink and a closet! I share a bathroom with one other person along with a kitchen.

 

 

We have gotten me two mugs, a bowl, a plate, tea, sugar, milk, pens, sticky notes, towels, coasters, dish soap, laundry detergent, utensils and a toothbrush holder. We also bought me my gowns so that I'm all prepared for matriculation in October. 

During those three days we also visited the Covered Market which I found really cool for some unknown reason. We also climbed the Saxon Tower and took the bus tour again, but this time with a live guide.

Bell in the tower

View from the tower

The Tower

I'll try to put up more pictures of Oxford later. I just wanted to catch-up on days before I started my class tomorrow. Sorry this wasn't the best post of all times. Hopefully so of the previous will hold you over until I can make a better now.

Oxford has a Castle/Prison!

Our first full day in Oxford was filled with seeing all sorts of things! To start off the day we went to Oxford Castle Unlocked which I highly recommend to anyone who can do stairs and has time in their day while they are in Oxford. It was a 12th Century castle which in the 13th Century became a prison for rowdy students. Over time the prison expanded and the decreased in size though out its history. At one point the prison was so terrible that crime actually went down because people didn't want to go there. The prison was finally closed in 1996. Yes, 1996, I did type that right and you read it right. When you go to the castle/prison you are given a tour by a guide who is in character as a real person who used to be a prisoner at the prison. I don't remember of our tour guide's person, but he was a highway robber from the 17th Century. He did escape from the prison along with two other people. How they escaped was that one of them sawed though the locks in the sickbay. The female of them then pretended to be sick and broke the other two men out by picking the locks. They then made a whole in the wall and climbed to freedom using their bedsheets which were tied together. Once they were out the woman was promptly captured. The two men were also eventually captured and returned to the prison. Our tour guide kept saying that he was the only person to successfully escape from the prison. Later on we crossed paths with another tour. That tour guide said something about how horrible the prison had been and our guide responded with "Yes, but I escaped! The only one to do so!" The other man replied, "I also escaped!" To which our tour guide responded to without hesitating, "We were the only ones to escape!" They were from different time periods, so they hadn't escaped together and the exchange was quite funny! After going around the castle-prison we climbed up the motte, a man made hill outside were a tour would have once stood at the top.

 A fair amount of the old prison has been turned into an area with a bunch of restaurants. I liked how this one was called Malmaison! Although, I think it would feel a little odd to eat supper in a place where prisoners used to be mistreated and tortured, but maybe that's just me!

  The view from the top of the square tower which is the oldest tower at the prison.

A prisoners cell

At the top of the motte there was a set of stairs leading down

At the bottom of the stairs there was a well

Me sneezing!

Following that we went on a hop-on hop-off bus tour. It was very nice just to see the city and not have to worry about exactly where you were.  Oxford is so lovely! We sat on the top of the double-deckered bus and it gave me a new view of the buildings. There is much more to see higher up on the buildings, like statues and carvings which are hard to see from the ground.

After that there was still time left so we went to the Ashmolean Museum. It's pretty big! We weren't able to go though the whole thing because there is so much stuff. I plan on going back later to get a closer look. We went through the Greek part, the Egyptian galleries, the British gallery, the special exhibit on embroidery and some of the Japanese galleries. We also went for tea time at the restaurant at the museum which was loads of fun! We had a pot of tea each and mini scones, cake and sandwiches!

Sorry it was such a big blog post! I'm going to try to make collages to be able to put more pictures up better!

Off to Oxford!

If anyone noticed, in my last blog I learned to insert links and put photos side-by-side! I'm hoping that my blog abilities will continue to grow! Who knows what will be next. Maybe I'll put text next to pictures!

After spending a wonderful four whole days in Wales it was sadly time to leave that magical land that I found and now want to live in forever! We hauled our luggage down to Cardiff Central Station and got on a train there for the final time. We transferred at Didcot Parkway and got on a train headed for... you guessed it, Oxford! In Oxford we are staying at the Bath Place Hotel. The hotel is in a 17th Century cloister of buildings. It's quite cool! There's no elevator and our hotel room slopes on two planes, but I wouldn't change it for the world! Right outside our window there is the Turf Tavern which is a 13th Century Ale House. Some nights it can be a bit loud, but it always quiets down exactly at 10:30 which is nice and a little odd.

I know the photo is a little lop sided and ignore my feet, but look at the angle of the desk compared to the ceiling. It's quite different! Also, see that when you look at the corner of the wall by the window it bends out a bit about 1/3 of the way down. Yep, that's there and it's amazing!

P.S. I don't actually know how I got the text to go beside the photo. Hopefully I can do it again!






After we dropped our stuff off we went and stood outside my college, my new home for the next yearish, Harris Manchester College! One of those colleges that is never in any movie or TV show and is really small and no one goes and sees, but it's mine! It's right near the Bodleian Library and the Museum of the History of Science where I expect I'll be spending a fair amount of my time. In relation to that, after we stood outside Harris Manchester we wandered over to the Museum of the History of Science and explored its exhibits. Seeing all the astrolabes was really neat. I've learned about them and have only seen one. I think I might be writing my paper on them, but on what aspect I'm not sure. There was a lot of interesting information and objects even though there were only three small floors. Other than the astrolabes I liked the different globes, the microscopes and the telescopes. I was very proud of myself for recognizing half the names and already knowing some information that was presented. Even though this is my chosen field of study I have only ever taken two classes on the History of Science. One was a general course that also focused on Medicine and Technology and the other focused specifically on the History of Astronomy and Cosmology. I think my time at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum last summer helped my knowledge.

Harris Manchester College

Museum of the History of Science

Astrolabes

After spending some nice quality time getting to know the Museum we went for supper and then explored Oxford for a bit before heading off to sleep! To learn more about Harris Manchester College go here: http://www.hmc.ox.ac.uk/pages/default.asp?id=5. If people want me to tell more about its history just tell me. I'll post pictures of my room and inside the College later!

Last day in Wales/Cardiff Area

It being the last day we decided to end with a bang and that meant two castles and an aqueduct! Again the train was our friend and we rode off into the distance towards Merthyr Tydfil. We made the trek to Cyfarthfa Castle which is also a museum and art gallery. This castle is not a real castle in the sense that is was built in the 19th century by a rich man, William Crawshay, who made his money from the iron industry. Half of the building was set up as the museum while the other half is the art gallery. We only went through the museum part, but it was very interesting! I think I liked this museum more because it wasn't mostly art and it told more of the story of the area through time starting with the Romans who had a fort there. The town really began to boom during the Industrial Revolution and the mining of iron. It was stated in the museum that at one point Merthyr Tydfil was called the iron capital of the world! It then talked about the coal industry and the strikes of the early 20th Century. For information on this castle and the town go here: http://www.visitmerthyr.co.uk/attractions/cyfarthfa-park-museum/cyfarthfa-castle-museum.aspx.

We learned that there was an aqueduct which is now part of the Taff Trail and can be walked on or leaned over as I'm doing! It was one of those cases where we could see it from where we were, but we couldn't just walk to it. We wanted to end up in front of it, but after wandering around we some how ended up on top instead. We couldn't find a way to get down in front, so the top had to do! It was an amazing view out towards the city! I don't know how old it is or exactly who built it. If anyone knows please tell me! I would love to learn!

 

We thought about going to Morlais Castle after because the fact that only the cellar/crypt remained was very different from what we had seen before. However, the walk was long and we were lazy so as we headed back to Cardiff we got off the train at Taffs Well and walked to Castell Coch.

We had been a little apprehensive about going to Castell Coch because many people had described it as a fairytale castle. Me, not being a Disney princess kind of girl, didn't think that sounded like the kind of place I would want to go, but was I wrong! It was lovely and historical! William Burges was hired by the 3rd Marquess of Bute to take the old 13th Century ruins of Castell Coch and to rebuild them using the ruins foundation and layout. It is said that the outside of the building is a pretty good representation of a 13th Century castle. At the time there was some dispute over whether the top of the castle would have been capped off like that or not. The inside of the castle is not authentic at all! It is definitely Victorian decor! Everything is colourful and painted. There are birds painted on ceilings and geometric shapes everywhere! It was very impressive. The Butes family only lived in it a couple of days at a time which I found a little depressing since so much work and money had gone into redoing the building. To learn more go here http://cadw.wales.gov.uk/daysout/castell-coch/?lang=en or here http://www.castlewales.com/coch.html.

P.S. This castle was also at the top of a giant hill and it dashed all my hopes that I was getting more fit because as soon as I was half way up the hill I'm pretty sure I was almost wheezing my lungs out!

 Just imagine it as one continuos photo!

It's a Sad Day When You See Only One Castle

After the hike of the day before we didn't really want to walk as much and decided to take a much needed day off. That meant more walking, just with less purpose! We boarded the train again and rode off to Abergavenny. Abergavenny Castle was about a ten minute walk from the station, but we accidentally took a very lovely detour through the Castle Meadows. The Meadows were lovely! There was green grass, flowers, benches, people walking their dogs and cow manure. The cows were off in the distance, but we could tell they had been there recently. The Castle was easy to find once we were in the Meadows. Of course it was on top of a hill because that is a strategic point, but it wasn't a very hard hill to climb, or maybe I'm just getting more fit! That would be nice!

This castle is also mostly Norman ruins except the keep on top of the motte was built in 1818 as a hunting lodge.  This site had a different fell from the others we had gone to. It is emphasized as a museum that is surrounded by a castle and not the other way around. That is just fine since I love both museums and castles. However, in this case I personally found that the museum took away from the castle and lessened my experience. I would have liked to have had more information about the castle, but I did appreciate what the museum was doing which was promoting local history and art. One thing I liked about the museum is that is talked about why the Castle was saved and how this group was/is trying to promote Welsh in the area. Local history can be very interesting! There was information about the Castle posted around outside on boards and I bought a pamphlet about the Castle, so that satisfied me in the end. There was a massacre that happened at Abergavenny Castle at Christmas, 1175.

Some links for you if you want: http://www.abergavennymuseum.co.uk, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abergavenny_Castle

Sorry, I don't have a picture of the keep because it was surrounded by scaffolding for repairs. It looked like a mini castle to me!

We then headed back to the train station.  By the time we got there is was lunch time. There was a little cafe in the station called The Whistle Stop. I think he was the owner of the shop, but there was a very nice man there who when he brought us our sandwiches asked us where we were from and what we had seen so far in Wales. When he learned we hadn't yet gone to St. Fagans National History Museum or the National Roman Legion Museum he said we should have come to see him sooner and he went and got us pamphlets for a bunch of places. We only had one more day left, so we didn't get the chance to go to any of them, but thank you mister for being so nice and making so many suggestions. If we had time I would have loved to go to the National Roman Legion Museum!

Once we arrived back in Cardiff we headed back down to Cardiff Bay again and decided to walk around it. We saw the Cardiff Bay Wetlands Reserve which was pretty inspiring. I learned that in Cardiff they have birds that migrate in during the summer and the winter! Winter birds! Who knew those existed! We then had supper at the bay again and headed back to the hotel.