Sunday

Probably the worst 24 hour period I've had since being here. Starts with last night at the production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The play was fantastic, but because it was outside, once it started raining the director came on and stopped the show. It figures only the play that I was actually enjoying would be the one rained out. At least I got some cool pictures of London at night on the way back.

Today I woke up and got on a bus to Oxford, the city with the really old university. It was about an hour on the bus out into the countryside, about half way between London and Stratford. We got there around 2, so I was quite hungry. To make me even more hungry, we got off at the wrong stop, had to wait for another bus to come only to have them tell us we couldn't get back on, had to switch to a different bus to get into town. Once we did, out friend wanted to go to a specific pub that JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis used to meet at called the Eagle and Child, which happened to be across town. When we got there, the service took forever to bring out the food, and then when they did, they brought out only 4 of the 5 we had ordered. Three guesses as to whose didn't come out. I told them I was missing my steak and ale pie, at which point they went back and looked for it, decided I had never paid for a steak and ale pie (I had) and told me as much. After checking their bills again, they told me I had to pay for another pie ($11) or else not eat. I told them where I wanted them to put their pie and waited until my friends were done to go get a sandwich at the supermarket.

For a $25 bus ride to Oxford and back, $15 for a pie and pint of beer (at least I got the beer before they called me a swindler), $10 for entrance into Christ Church, and $5 for a latte at Starbucks, I spent way too much money to see one thing in the city, spent way too long on a bus that made me car sick, and now I'm hungry but the pot I need to make the dinner I had planned is filled with some sort of cream soup that my roommate left over. I'm going to McDonald's. And getting a receipt.