I've made it to Leicester — Monday 16 January

I'm out of Sunderland! In spite of several factors, I might add.
1. Adam, who I was hoping would drive me, texted me (after a text, a call, and a pounding on his door from me) that he was sorry, but could I get a cab, and that he hoped I had a safe trip. I'd kind of been expecting this, to be honest. I was just bummed that I didn't actually see him during the week and didn't really get to say goodbye.
2. I accidentally neglected to inform national express that I was packing four bags (limit: 1 to stow in the luggage area and one to carry on, oops). I didn't really even notice the thing on the site saying "luggage allowance" until the drivers looked behind me to my mountain of luggage. In my defence, the carry on bags are far skinnier than when I came over, but there is an extra check bag.
In any case, I made it out of Sunderland. I felt embarrassed by having the drivers lecture me about how if everyone did that, they would run out of room, although they'd let me skip the fee this time (£10 per bag! Ouch.); I was called "Flower" and "Love" multiple times. I kind of wish more people called people "Flower", but I'd prefer to think of myself as a flower that fights back. Roses are pretty brutal, for instance.
The ride was okay; the drivers were both pretty bad about stopping. Neither of them liked to stay still, and would come to at least four complete stops at each light or stop sign. I got seasick at stop signs.
It was cool driving through Nottingham; I saw but was too sick to take a picture of the sign for Sherwood Forest and the Robin Hood thing. I also saw a "Sheriff's Pub" (ahaha, sheriff of nottingham, yes). I was hoping to see signs for the university (birthplace/home of periodic table of videos), but I may have been shoving my head against the seat in front of me to alleviate my carsickness. I'm a little mad at Jessi for using half my carsickness-preventing medicine, all of which I paid for, then getting her own when I ran out and not offering to share any of it. I didn't ask, so I'm not letting myself get too upset, but still. I offered her mine after sitting next to her on the bus to York, where she was pretty much nauseated the whole trip.
ANYWAY. I was pretty happy when I got in to Leicester, and the drive was really pretty. I was just about to Leicester when the sun set after a lengthy, hazy sunset around the whole horizon. There was some really pretty purple to the south.
Oh, it is interesting to note that part of my inner compass failure can probably be attributed to the fact that the sun never reaches high noon. There are always long shadows, as I saw driving through the countryside between 11 and 13. Some of the fields still had the thick frost in the shadows to the north (which I cleverly identified by the fact that all the signs that I could see pointing the way we were going said "The SOUTH"). I was pleased by the sunset, although it never went above the haze around the horizon, versus the massive, sky-on-fire sunsets at home.
The taxi drive in Leicester was not fun. My driver, pretty clearly not a native speaker, had no idea where Josie's house was (yes, I gave him the street address), and kept turning before I actually pointed out that he should turn. He was pretty fair about getting lost, though, and let me off £1.70 of the fee.
It was really good to see Josie. While the distressing case of no one really liking Jessi has made me a little wary of people actually liking me (although I like to think they do; and I'm not too paranoid about it), Josie seemed as happy to see me as I was to see her.
I'm really going to miss having her and James in the same country.
Her house is really cool. It's this huge thing — fits 11 pretty comfortably, I believe, as well as a cat — and is just a cool old house. Her housemates seem pretty cool, too. There might be pictures, although I think it would be awkward to walk around photographing someone else's house. I'm pretty sure I'll get a shot of the toilet room, though.
That's another thing. Toilet and shower go in different rooms here. The only times I object is when the sink is in the shower room, and someone else is using the shower.
Now, Josie and James have gone to Bedford, as Josie has an early morning interview there, and I'm sitting in the huge TV room downstairs watching QI, which may be my favourite non-dramatic show. It's people with british accents talking about arcane topics. Arcane is right up my alley. I've learned a lot about cake and biscuit (not actually cookie, I don't think; cookies are still the round, thin, soft things with chocolate chips in them while biscuits are crispy little affairs): the difference is apparently that, when stale, cake goes hard and biscuit goes soft.
Every now and then, I'm right about some random bit of arcane knowledge, like how baby boys wore pink until fairly recently because pink was considered the close relative of red, which was considered a very strong, masculine colour.
Good to see my random collection of facts comes to good use.
It's a lot like jeopardy, only without the timer. It's less competitive, although they do have some kind of scoring system; they mostly discuss the topics and crack weird british jokes and puns about their crazy rabbit trails. For instance, the american on this episode just said that the term for a group of baboons is "the pentagon", and the host, Stephen Fry (Mycroft Holmes from Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows; he is considered by the british to be just about as british as one can get and has a great accent), just insulted the irish (specifically, the irish guy on this episode, although the whole country was implicated) with this little zinger: "Do you know why the grass in greener in Ireland? No, not the limestone; it's because you're all over here walking on ours."
And I was right about Anders Celsius inventing the Celsius scale of temperature. I can never remember if it's Anders Fahrenheit or Anders Celsius. Wikipedia says that Fahrenheit's given name was Daniel Gabriel.
Back to the house. It's got ivy growing in through the toilet room window, and antique locks on all the inside doors. I think I'd like to live in this house; they've got a lot of plants scattered about, including a christmas cactus. I was pretty excited about that.
The cat, Oscar, is adorable. He's a long-haired grey tortoiseshell tabby-type, and he's very friendly. He's not allowed in Josie's room, as he's after Bob Diddyfish, who has a ceramic turtle friend now and seems to be enjoying his new house. He's doing less almost-dying than in Sunderland, in any case.

Two items of note: the key, which is one of those cool old ones that you see in antique shops and on jewellery* these days, and the doorknob, which is kind of odd. 

Bob! What a rap star.

So cool! Can't wait to move into my house in Spokane and then promptly start house hunting, hopefully!

So far, I do miss Freya, Conor, and Flo, but I don't really miss Sunderland. I might eventually, but my brain is currently convinced that I'm just on vacation, and is way more interested in my new surroundings than in the fact that I've brushed my teeth, made a cup of tea, slept, etc., for the last time in Sunderland. I didn't even take any "parting shot" pictures. In other words, "So long, suckers!"

*I've changed my browser spell check to british; jewellery just looked wrong and I kept trying to spell it "jewelry", so I looked it up. Wikipedia says it can also be spelled jewelry. Those crazy brits.

Liverpool — Saturday 7 January to Sunday 8 January

Got up at ungodly-o-clock, before metro runs. Feh.
While I got up ridiculously early, I had banked on the metro running before 06:00.
It doesn't. I weighed my chances of walking to the bus station in time to catch my bus, and decided that they were extremely bad. So I called a taxi and paced in front of the Aldi, checking my phone nervously every couple of minutes seconds. However, the taxi came, and every light we hit was green. It was a miracle. It might have been because it was so stinkin' early, but I saw lots of cars stopped at the lights that we made. Lots here meaning three or four.
I actually would probably have made the bus if I'd waited around for the metro, since it was about ten minutes late, but if I'd tried it, the bus would have left on time exactly, about ten minutes before the metro rolled in.
I slept nearly all the way to Manchester. It was great. I think I was tired enough and it was dark enough for me to ignore the jostling of my head against the window, because I certainly couldn't take it on the way back. But that's for later.
After nearly failing to disembark at Manchester's Sudehill Interchange because I couldn't be asked to wake all the way up, I looked around the bus stop for national express. I ended up looking at my tickets and realising that my (very cheaply booked) coaches were centred at different bus stations. Armed with the sole employee's directions of "towards Arndales, then left at Debenhams, and it'll be just past there, or you can take the tram, but it's just a five minute walk", I set out sleepily.
I didn't actually take any pictures of Manchester. As I was hopelessly lost in my attempts to get from one bus station to another in just twenty minutes, I didn't really feel like I had the time to take pictures.
But not to worry, I found the bus station after going into an information centre and discreetly inquiring the location of Chorlton Street of the bored-looking attendants/salespeople. As it turns out, it's just past the tram stop just past debenhams, and the tram doesn't actually stop at chorlton street at all.
In any case, I made it to my bus on time, and stared out the window eagerly all the way to Liverpool.

If you embiggen this picture, you can see "Biosciences Building" written under "University of Liverpool" on the brownish part of the building. However, it's the windows to which I wish to draw your attention.
They are packed full of enough clutter to give my room at home a run for its money. That is the mark of a quality scientific establishment, let me tell you.

This is George's Hall, I think. I'm really not sure about that. All the writing on the walls was in latin.

There were lots of statues about.

I sat here for a good twenty minutes. My old friend that I was supposed to meet was busy figuring out where her temporary roommate (also from the tri cities, as it turned out; what are the odds?) had got to, and it was admittedly quite early to be up on break.

I found myself thinking "Hey, Sunderland's got an Empire Theatre, too!"
I guess I like this rather boring and dingy city more than I'd like to admit.

Victoria, as I determined from the "Regina" on the base. 

This one had Albert's name on the base; no guesswork needed.

A cool old church, St. Luke's, I believe. If you can tilt your screen, you probably should play with that, just to see if you can see the church tower any better with a different angle. It was dark outside; it's not my fault.

Liverpool strikes me as a place that did its best to fall apart, but was foiled by various attempts a few decades ago to put it back together. Since then, it seems like the whole place kind of dislikes the newer areas, and cool old buildings mix resentfully with shabby old 70s buildings (think the federal building in Richland, just more brick-y and shabby), while vacant, bulldozed lots sport huge piles of brick-infused soil and signs that say things like "rebuilding neighbourhoods!" The outer areas of the city seemed dingy, although that might have been the weather.
I rather liked the city centre, and would have liked to visit the museum and some of the old churches, but,
Unfortunately for my little weekend holiday, I got quite sick. Rather than spending the night hanging out with an old friend, talking about old friends who've grown up away from us, and reliving a bit of middle school (it wasn't all bad), I spent half the night resting my chin on a toilet seat and heaving violently while she googled what to do with a violently ill friend.
I have no idea how much sleep I got; it wasn't enough. I remember spending way too much time shivering violently because her window was open, but I was too sick to get up and close it. I feel like I spent a lot of time in between sleep and awake, which resulted in me being exhausted. Lucky for me, I was alert enough to notice the light coming in the window and dig my phone out of my neatly-folded coat and see that I needed to get up and pack if I wanted to catch my bus.
I have no idea why I thought that leaving at 10 am was a good idea.
I prepared for my walk by drinking a few sips of water (but not too many, lest I invite nausea again) and letting my friend know that I was leaving and that she was a goddess for taking care of me. After that, I set out about forty minutes before my bus was scheduled to leave, just in case.
And it was raining.
However, it was a pretty light rain, so I tucked my scarf more firmly around my neck, tried to ignore the sour smell of my hair, and trudged down the street.
Still, I managed to take a few more pictures of Liverpool. I wasn't leaving that city without something besides a headache and a bad taste in my mouth.

The Cathedral of Christ the King, also known as the star wars church and the space church. No, I don't know why it was built like that, but it's a fun talking point...

Liverpool has a remarkable amount of street signs, and they're all really cool. And such cool names.

This is a youth hostel. By youth, I mean approximately 18 to 30 years of age. Younger would make me question the parents' sanity in letting their offspring travel alone (or in a group of similarly aged youth), but older just seems kind of creepy. We've discussed this sort of thing in the flat. For comparison, think of a 35-year-old living in a dorm.

We are demanding the sun.
Graffiti I can live with.

I was shocked to see a Kimos, even if it is a cafe and grill, not a sports bar and grill.

I made it to the bus station, feeling slightly weak, but still on time. I dozed all the way to Manchester, where I decided to try food.

A pretty fountain next to the tram stop that isn't Chorlton Street.

Whoever Peel was, he's got a striking, imposing statue with a pigeon on his serious-looking head.
To be fair, the pigeon looked pretty serious, too. 

I had an hour to kill in Manchester, and as I always feel awkward sitting in cafes without ordering, I had nowhere to kill it in. I'd also finished my book in Liverpool. I ended up buying the cheapest bread I could find in a little supermarket and eating a few bites in the bus stop.
I've decided that I prefer National Express to Megabus. For one, their site is much less annoying to use. They also load your luggage for you. And, to top it all off, they are infinitely more organised than Megabus. Their coaches all say the major stops they'll be making, and they pull into stations a good interval apart and have well-informed attendants to direct people who can't read the front of the bus to the proper coach. Sure, it tends to run late, and sometimes their timetables are confused, and their coaches are less than top-of-the-line, but it's a generally pleasant experience, as far as boarding and riding a coach goes.
Megabus, on the other hand, has surly attendants who yell at everyone. Two buses pull into the station at the same time, so the frightening old man yells for everyone who's going to Leeds and Newcastle to go to one bus, but say nothing about Sunderland, York, Middlesborough, London, Birmingham, or Oxford, all of which are intended destinations for the rest of the crowd. In my case, Newcastle is right next to Sunderland, although I've never had a coach go through it. No way a megabus is just going to two destinations, so I decided to queue up and see if it was going to Sunderland, just in case. The angry old man who turned out to be a driver said no, so I ambled over to the "other" bus. It said that it was going to Leeds, via a number of interesting places, like Oxford, Birmingham, Leicester, London, and Coventry, among others. I was informed by the silent attendant that it was going to Sunderland.
Right. After waiting for the Leeds and Newcastle bus to leave, I finally stowed my luggage and claimed a seat at the front of the bus.
Unfortunately, I was unable to really sleep or even doze off all the way. The coach kept lurching and smacking my head against the window, the seat in front was too far away to lean my head against, and the armrest was too skinny to actually rest my arm on. This is not a commentary on the circumference of my arm; my elbow, arguably the boniest part of my body with the least superfluous flesh, kept sliding off the darn thing.
So, I stared at the reflections of the windscreen in the window (which weren't helping my headache) and picked at my petit pain (I have no idea what the translation is there, but it's like a mini-baguette, and it's pretty ubiquitous in England. I've never seen a bakery without them here.) and drank water like I'd found an oasis in the desert for three hours.
When I got home, I didn't feel like the odds of the green-vested men in the metro ticket area not being ticket inspectors were that good, so I walked home. It was almost nice, and I felt much better for having consumed an entire bread thing and bag of cheese-flavoured "potato crisp snacks", so I walked back to clanny without too much ado. After that, it's pretty much a blur; nothing exciting must have happened (surprise!). I did go to sleep at 20:00 (8pm), so it's not really surprising that I don't remember much between about 17:00 (5pm) and then. I probably had some food, and cheese and onion pasty is ringing some bells.

In other news, I've started thinking about light.
It's everywhere. Oh, GOD. 
Hello, irrational claustrophobia. I blame the reflections from the bus windows. Light is insane. Little tiny bits of energy (and also matter? what?) that can't be held or felt by conventional means, but that have a profound effect on everything. They can't actually be stopped, although they can be blocked. However, they still bounce around enough that deep shadows are very, very hard to find during daylight, even if you can't see the sun.
All this means that these little bits of stuff are zooming around this room, bouncing off the walls, my duvet, my computer, my dresser, my roommate, my window, me...
Breathe.

Anyway, only two weeks until I'm back in the states. I'm not sure if I'm excited, nervous, or bummed about this.
I'm excited to get my own room.
I'm not excited to have to pay rent.
I'm excited to be back at whitworth with sane professors and my whitworth friends.
I'm not excited to not be around my friends from here (although, I wouldn't be around them if I stayed. Conor and Adam will be in America and Josie will be in Leicester.)
I'm excited to see my parents.
I'm not excited to pack, in England or America.
I'm excited to fly back home.
I'm not excited to fly away from England.

I'll be in Liverpool until Sunday 8 January

FYI.
So yeah, if I'm ignoring your emails/texts/whathaveyou, it's because my computer is a good five-hour bus ride away.
The good news is that there might be pictures on monday!

Oxford — Thursday 29 December

I went to Oxford! Home of one of the oldest universities, around which the town was built (hence the massive number of pubs in the town), a bunch of museums, and the original Inklings club.

The first thing in the morning was me planning out my trip, which I had supposed would be solo, since Josie (former flatmate) and James (her boyfriend) would be busy seeing James' aunt and cousins, and possibly an uncle. However, James' dad got sick and called off lunch, so I had the privilege of overhearing a conversation I would never hear in America: 

"James, would you like to go to Oxford today?"

"Sure, why not?"

I'd looked up bus fares (there's one from bedford every half hour; it's £11.40 for a return and £10 for a single), so James' dad was nice and drove us to the bus station. It was pretty crowded, but I had a bit of a "we're going to oxford, we're going to oxford, we're going to OXFORD!" mantra running through my head.

First thing off the bus. You know the old school that is constantly referred to in popular culture?

I found it.

We drifted around the corner, and I was instantly drawn in to a fleamarket thing, which had at least three booths with cheap books. One had paperbacks for £1, but they were lame. Another had paperbacks for £2 or 3 for £5. 

I got four of those. £7 is kind of cheap for books at the bookstores; I got four for the price of one! And what books... 

Seeing as I was looking for The Eagle and Child pub, home of the first Inklings, the very place where Tolkien submitted portions of The Lord of the Rings to his companions, including CS Lewis (author of one of my favourite book series to this day), I was hoping to find a cheap standalone Lewis. I found Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Horse and His Boy, which are both great, and Voyage of the Dawn Treader is possibly my favourite of the Narnia series, but I already have that one. Unfortunately, no other Lewis books could be found, and the only Tolkiens were individual LOTR books, which I also already have. I thought about taking a Thomas Hardy (author of Tess of the D'Urbervilles, which is an extremely well-written book that I hate and haven't finished; he also frequented The Eagle and Child, although I don't think he was with Inklings), but since I don't like the one book of his that I have read part of, I decided against it. 

In the end, I had picked up Wide Sargasso Sea, a sort of prequel to Emily Brontë's Jane Eyre, which is one of my favourite books; I also love Wide Sargasso Sea in its own right, and a Sherlock Holmes compilation with a story I've not seen (A Study in Scarlet with The Sign of the Four, the latter of which I already have, but this was £2! And I haven't seen A Study in Scarlet anywhere else. Don't judge me for my Sherlock Holmes obsession; besides, I only have one more of the full-length stories to find.). Having two books, I wanted a third (only £1! I've missed second hand books... Oh, how I've missed them) and was contemplating some other fancy, dead authors' works when I rounded the corner of the stall and found Terry Pratchett books. 

You know, the ones with the weird covers? The british editions of the celebrated (knighted for services to literature, actually) british author? Yeah... I was helpless against their siren song of awesomeness. I would have got all of them if I had unlimited money and a greater weight limit on the plane back; as it was, I went with The Colour of Magic (the very first discworld novel, which I already have, but not with the u!) and Wyrd Sisters (which I hadn't read). I did turn down Guards! Guards!, Reaper Man (quite possibly my favourite; it came to Sunderland with me and has been read twice), and a whole slew of early ones, all of which I have. Wyrd Sisters it was. So far, it's pretty good, and I would have finished it on the bus if I hadn't gotten quite carsick and had to shove my head between the seat in front of me and the window.

Anyway, the rest of Oxford, in pictures!

There was some lovely architecture.

Big old buildings with plants and latin everywhere.

And spires. If you could put a point on it, people did.

I believe that this is a monument for some anti-Catholic martyrs from the Reformation. The inscription on the ground wasn't helpful, and the writing on the monument was hard to read and had too many roman numerals (what's D, anyway? I was good up until the D. M, CCC, X, L, and I were fine, but D? Bah.) for me to tell when this all went down, but a bunch of people, probably at least three, were burned on that spot (holy cow, that very spot, shivers) a long time ago because of the corruption of Rome and something about the holy, true, and possibly great and good Church of England.

 Then, I saw it. It was across several lanes of traffic, but we made it without dying.
The Eagle and Child. My personal mecca. And it wasn't just for me; I have about a million ties to Inklings. My group of friends in high school, with whom I am still close (actually, my closest friends and one of my favourite and most influential teachers), had an Inklings club that sort of emulated C.S. Lewis and JRR Tolkien in that we met in coffee houses, annoyed the staff, and talked books, others or our own. We also named ourselves after them. Then I have two fairly good friends at Whitworth who named their theme house Inklings after Lewis and Tolkien's club. I had to go. I would never have forgiven myself if I hadn't.

GAH! So much excitement!

This picture actually took quite a while to take; these two guys kept standing right in front of me, and walked around me when I turned around to have the picture taken from the other side.

THERE IT IS I'M RIGHT THERE GRIAUDNGEUDWGLFL

Pretty sure this is an actual page of notes or manuscript; it wasn't labeled and the pub was super busy, so I was trying to get my pictures and get out of the way. Also, was standing WHERE THEY STOOD right then...

There you go. 

WHERE. THEY. STOOD.

We were planning on eating there, but it was so busy and Josie was so hungry (I was, too, but I was so excited that I kind of forgot that I was hungry, and I suspect that James was pretty hungry as well, but Josie was the most vocal and had been hungry since half an hour into the two-hour bus ride) that we started hunting for food. We ended up at a little cafe that showed promise, although we were sorely disappointed. 

ANYWAY, I'm working on not dwelling on negatives in life, and it didn't really ruin the day, so we'll talk about something else.

Like this sign that I saw on the way to the Museum of the History of Science.

So, Oxford has these beautiful grounds, and I figured out how. Who wants to be a student at a uni where you're not allowed to flop about on the lawn?

I believe that some of Harry Potter was filmed at Oxford, and I believe it. It would give a proper sense of age, grandeur, and scholasticism to a place like Hogwarts.

James and Josie and a really, really old vine that covered at least twenty feet of building horizontally.

Gorgeous grounds; do not touch.

Museum of the History of Science. The fencepost columns all had rather startled-looking busts, presumably of scientists. I forgot that I had taken some pictures in Sunderland, so I couldn't take pictures of these guys. Sorry.

I wish I read Latin. I can pick out a few words, and the Vs tend to stand in for Us, but I really have no idea what they're going on about.

Disclaimer: most of the museum was actually quadrants and astrolabes. I wasn't too enraptured. However, I'm a scientist, or close to it, so I dragged my lovely friends through it. Lucky for them, I'm not that big on museums, and this was the only one I wanted to see.

Einstein Blackboard!

Explains the blackboard, or at least the point of the equations. Basically, Einstein derived, I think in that basement or at least in the building, or at least in the city, the equations that show the universe's expansion.

I love old periodic table things.

The basement of the museum had the chemistry and physics stuff; the two were quite closely related for a long time. When you get down to atoms, they're still related.

Latin, again. I'm guessing that the sign is almost as old as the room.

After this, we ambled around, contemplated walking tours, all of which were full or expensive, and tasted some fudge (all the fudge here is toffee and/or vanilla. I've only seen chocolate fudge of any kind in the fancy store we found the samples at, and they didn't have chocolate out for sampling. Jerks.).
We went through a covered market; the first stall had, quite literally, pounds and pounds of Stilton. I don't mind the smell so much as I used to, but it was really, really strong here. We also found the restaurant that Josie had really wanted to visit, but she was somehow completely full. Which is too bad; I was looking forward to it. Ah, well.

We got back without incident, other than me getting carsick on the way, but I kind of brought that upon myself by reading without having first medicated myself. Then we spent the evening rather nicely, just chilling with the cats and tea and Man v. Food, which was a vegetarian's nightmare.
Oh, and the Sparks (James' last name is Sparks, by the way) have TWO cats that like having attention paid to them! They don't like being picked up or cuddled, but they're so cute... Tinky (full name Tinky Winky, named by the then-5-year-old neighbour kid whose cat gave birth to the litter of five; Dipsy and Lala were renamed by their respective families) is black and Socks (the kid ran out of Teletubbies) is a grey tabby with white front toes, back feet, and chest.
Not gonna lie, I was really excited when I saw a grey tabby. He's stripier than Pete, with fewer spots; he's also much less chill and doesn't like having his tummy rubbed. Also, he's much skinnier and has a much longer tail with no kinks in it.
Still.

Conor's coming down from his family's in Oxford tomorrow afternoon (we didn't see him today because they live a ways out of the city centre and we're seeing him tomorrow and over new years), but I probably won't post until I'm back in Sunderland, so probably after 2 January. 

Happy New Year, everyone! This is the year the world ends, so live it up!

Durham — Saturday 15 October

Today, Jessi and I went with the Students' Union "Connect" group to Durham, which has a castle and a cathedral. I got a window seat, but the bus pictures are quite blurry.

The latter half-ish of a cool looking house.

The blurry countryside is less interesting than the seat cushion pattern reflected in the window. All coaches here are like this.

Tower!

To get to the cathedral, we walked along a river that had some cool terracing.

It looks so... epic. Also, that's a CASTLE to the left. A CASTLE. For reals.

Duck!

The river also had mallards. The water was gross, but they are cute.

More towers.

Towers...

A cool little lodge place that rented canoes, I think.

That was literally right on the water.

The weird tall thing. I never found any inscriptions or anything on it to tell me what it was.

A different tower!

Cathedral. It's a monster.

I think that tower had bells.

Spires...

This is right across from the Cathedral. People live right next to it.
I was impressed.

Imposing camera angle!

I think that Jesus is in that garden, but it could be a saint. It's the brown thing. The face starts at the curved parts at the top of the fence.

It's so... spiky.

Castle.

It just kept going. The place is huge, as I hope my pictures convey.

I'm not sure about the light in the middle there.

It looked cooler in real life. The cross was the point of the picture.

Tower. It was legit.

Accidental silhouette. 

The gravestones were all in latin.

Some of them were statues lying down.

A new angle on the tower.

It looks a lot like somewhere to live.

Monster tower, up close this time.

I think it's a war memorial.

Detailing on the cross.

Since 1093.
My basic reaction was shock and awe.
1093!

This was a sanctuary knocker, explained in the next picture.

Below that, it said that the knocker was actually a replica.

Cool old courtyard.

This was blocking me from the courtyard.

It had a cool wall!

Looking out over Durham.

And there was a train,

 After the cathedral, Jessi and I (mostly I, actually) wanted to see the castle. It was sort of closed- I think there is a school in it. Durham University, maybe.
I was jealous.

At the castle. My camera was threatening to die at this point, so I was sparing with pictures.

Seriously tall wall.

After the castle, we went to the green part of the map to look for the botanical gardens. On the way there, we walked past at least four colleges. Or universities. I'm still not sure if there's a difference.
Then the botanical  garden was £4, so we decided not to go. It probably wasn't that cool anyway.
I did see this:

It reminded me of southwest Oregon.

 We managed not to get lost — I'm better at directions than I ever thought I could be — and ambled around the city centre for about four hours because the bus didn't come back until 5 pm.
I had an interesting experience, though.
Up until my conversion to vegetarianism at the beginning of my freshman year of college, I would classify myself as an adventurous eater. There are not a lot of foods that taste like nothing I've ever eaten before. Sure, I discovered cheese and onion pasties (which are delicious), but I've had cheese, onions, and puff pastry before, so the combination was hardly unheard of. Blackcurrant lozenges and pastilles taste like fruit in general. I think all cough drops taste about the same, just with varying degrees of medicine and menthol.
Blackcurrant juice tastes like nothing I've ever tasted before. I literally cannot describe it in terms of food I've come into contact with in the past. There is a hint of orange-ish flavour, but I think that's because Ribena, the particular brand of juice that I bought, puts vitamin c and citric acid in the juice.
It's so delicious. And it's easily found, if a bit expensive, in Greggs, Wilkinson, and Peter's Bakeries (which have oddly spicy cheese and onion pasties). I also found a weird concentrated form (not ribena) at Aldi. It's like concentrated juice in the US, but it's room temperature and in a bottle that (I think) you dilute bit by bit. In any case, I'll miss it when I go back to the US.

A saint, possibly Bede, at another church in Durham.

Statue in the city centre.

Another tower.

Imposing wall. That may have been a castle, but I'm not sure.

Not the Durham Cathedral. 

Classic red telephone boxes.

I couldn't resist. It smelled bad in there, but I needed the picture.

So, that's Durham.