Castle, Cathedrals, and Culinary Explorations

No trip to the UK would be complete without a look at an old castle.  During fresher's week, all the foreign students were piled into a few coaches and traveled on over to Leeds Castle.  The castle was absolutely a castle. It had a  moat. It had a visitors center. It had fish and chips. It had everything you'd ever want!

It began sprinkling that morning while we waited for the coaches... It. Never. Stopped.  Constant rain falling on you made the day cold and wet, and by the end of the trip I was soaked through.  It was rough.

Gorgeous. Uh huh.

Me trying to stay dry.

More importantly. The castle and the grounds were absolutely gorgeous.

 I walked with SJ, Anna, and some of our other American and not so American friends. We had a great time touring the castle's innards and learning about the residents that inhabited the castle. An informative and fun trip.

The Cathedral in Canterbury.

 Next up on the list was our trip to the Cathedral.  It was so much fun! Gabriel, Jamie, and myself (flatmates) traversed the foot paths towards Canterbury. It threatened to rain all day but never did, which was nice.

 On Sundays, entry into the Cathedral is free. They also offer plenty of services throughout the day for those wishing to connect with the big G. O. D. in a breathtaking environment. The choir was practicing and singing for most of the trip which was a blast. Also, the architecture of the building was exquisite, its arching halls and angular pillars supporting the ancient building and the stained glass windows.

The sculpture erected for Thomas Becket had so much power behind it.  It looked like three cast iron metal swords, angular and menacing, pointing down, their tips tinted red. 

Picture simply do no justice for these places I've visited. You may laugh about those things you've seen on the discovery channel. You may think you know about so much and seen so much just because you've seen a Television show or a movie featuring the above mentioned places, but you can't possibly use pictures and accounts as substitutes for living these experiences yourself.  Life is far to short to live it through the Television set.

Lastly, Harry, Libby, and myself, after discussing what we were all going to eat for dinner, realized that we were making the same thing. So we combined forces and created a meaty pasta sauce with some rotini pasta and ate like Kings.

Its funny. My freshers, those many years ago, was spent eating junk food and food at the dinning hall on campus.  Almost everyone in my flat makes every meal.  They cook constantly and I've only had one flatmate decide to order a pizza.

They spend so much time reading recipes and learning to cook and its wonderful.  I have so much fun cooking, I have even more fun cooking for people.  I'm glad I have fat mates who enjoy the process as well.

(On a small side note, I got food poisoning from eating that Pizza. A combination between gross pizza and being lactose intolerant. Yes I took my pills with it but they obviously didn't work. I rarely eat at a chain restaurant when it comes to pizza in the states and now I know I won't be eating chain restaurant pizza anywhere in the world.)

Well, thats a big post because it was long overdue.  I'll try and update this a lot more but life's hard to document when you're to busy making sure you ahve things to document.

Kevin