tales from dover, canterbury, and leeds castle

i didn't realize how color deprived i was until my little day trip to the White Cliff of Dover, Canterbury Cathedral, and Leeds Castle yesterday. who knew seeing color could have such a powerful effect on your mood! this weekend was exactly the kind of weekend i dreamt of having before i arrived in the UK, when i was daydreaming about what it would be like when i got here. and this is what i want my weekends to continue to look like:

friday night--going out dancing with the girls, just because we can :)

saturday--relaxing day trip, away from the city, with a small group of friends. in this case, it was just me and Beth (the sweetest girl i met here. i know you're reading this, you creeper :P i love you.)

the first stop was to Dover, where the famous White Cliffs are. i didn't know about Kipling's reference to the White Cliffs in his nostalgic poem The Broken Men until i went on this tour. to answer you, Mr. Kipling, Dover's cliffs aren't very white at all. they're rather tan-ish.

the only thing i remember from reading the Canterbury Tales in high school was the man who needed to divide his fart into 6 even parts (or was it 12...i don't really remember).  his clever solution was to fart into a fan with six panels while it was spinning. thus, 6 even increments of gas would come out the other end of the fan. but my visit to Canterbury was less about natural gas and more about political strife between the church and the state. Canterbury Cathedral has a rich history of Christianity in England but i won't bore you to death with all historical facts. speaking of death, this is where Thomas Beckett was murdered. unfortunately, Beckett's tomb was destroyed by Henry VIII when he was having a tantrum about not being able to divorce Catherine of Aragon.

While Henry VIII was trying to divorce her, Catherine of Aragon was probably chilling out (or freaking out...) at home in Leeds Castle.  this castle is absolutely beautiful on the outside, though the interior is rather disappointing because it's pretty modern--it didn't really seem like a medieval castle when i went in. probably because the castle went through so many different owners...but the castle grounds were breathtaking! and we saw peacocks, which is always a plus!

 and we're back in london...

after our trip, Beth and i had dinner with our friends at Brick Lane for some yummy indian food. and then we went to a bagel place, where they spell bagels like so: beigal. half a dozen bagel for 1.50 = a poor college student's dream.

toon in next time for some existential reflections on modern art...