Plans

I don't remember if I actually posted this, but Catie and I've got plans for week 7. We don't have class, because most lecturers give you a break that week to "catch up" with reading/essays/homework/whatever. Not all of them do, though. Elizabeth's science classes are still meeting. Anyway, we're going up north for that week. Here's the plan: I leave Thurs. night for Edinburgh, Scotland, to meet Allie on Friday morning. Catie comes up Friday night. Weekend in Edinburgh. Allie goes home on Sunday, Catie and I take off for Glasgow on Monday. Tuesday morning, we leave for Dumfries, in order to see the cross at Ruthwell Church. This is the Dream of the Rood cross, people. I'm so excited to see this I can barely contain myself. Tuesday night we spend in Carlisle, back in England. Wednesday, we take a bus tour of Hadrian's Wall, bringing us to Newcastle. Thursday morning, we leave for Durham. Catie tells me there is some Anglo-Saxon stuff there, but I don't remember what it was and I haven't read much about Durham in my history class yet. Lots about Whitby and Lindisfarne, which we will not be getting to, but nothing about Durham. Anyway, Thursday night we spend in York, staying there until coming home on Sunday. So that's the week long Anglo-Saxon history tour of Northern England/Southern Scotland, folks.

We started planning our Christmas holiday today. Mom will be happy to find out that Catie liked the plan I had devised over the summer--that is, touring France, Spain, and Italy during Dec./Jan. when it's hopefully warmer there than it would be here--and wanted to come with me. The plan so far is to start out in Madrid, tour a little bit of Southern Spain before getting to Barcelona (Dali!), spend some time there before going through Southern France, end up in Marseille for Christmas Day, then head out to Italy, reaching Florence by New Year's Eve. Then I guess some of Catie's family members will be joining us (her dad, her sister, and her sister's fiancee, I think) and we'll be doing central Italy (hopefully places like Rome and Ravenna--Byzantine mosaics, people, and Dante's tomb! What more could you want?--and I'd also like to get to Bologna, but I maybe watched too much Passport to Europe over the summer), and then eventually heading back up toward England through Switzerland and France. We haven't planned beyond New Year's yet, though, because we ran out of time, and since we haven't booked anything yet, it's still all just dreams and snatches of clouds. But I'm excited anyway. Christmas in Marseille!

Sorry that was so long and rather torturous. I'm not proofreading because I can't bring myself to read through that again. So good luck, intrepid readers! Or should I say, congratulations, since this is the end of the post?

Anyway, I'll excuse myself to curl up in bed and watch a movie. I've caught a cold from one of my flatmates.