lovely day

So much has been happening since the last time I wrote, but I'll try not to make this post ridiculously long. First of all, like I promised, I'll mention BOP. Bop is the once a week dance party on campus that you need to buy tickets for--I think I heard someone say that they sell about 800, and they completely sold out this week. Lots of students dress up in either nice clothes or in crazy costumes, and a lot of sports teams or groups of friends dress alike--we saw some groups of people dressed like firemen, nerds, the cast of Peter Pan, etc. Bop, like I said, is held right on campus. Just this past summer they remodeled the main student building, called the Student Union, which is the main hang out on campus, with the cafeteria (they call it the canteen), a grill & bar, a tv lounge, pool tables, a 24 hour computer lab and coffee and tea bar. Pretty amazing. So, the point of this story is that Bop was pretty sweet in this brand new huge student center. Fun fun. Sorry, I don't have any pictures though.

So that was Wednesday night. Yesterday was my first Film History class, which I am going to love. We had to go to a film viewing yesterday and watch an hour's worth of 1 minute short silent films from the 1890s. Some of the most bizarre things I've every seen, but it was a good time. Since not many of us have class today, Friday, I told my friends I wanted to hike outside of Winchester to this hill we can see in the distance from our dorm rooms. So I found a map and we set off after lunch today. It was absolutely amazing. This city is straight out of a story book. About a 15 minute walk through town took us through some narrow, quaint housing districts, past the Winchester Cathedral, past the ruins of a small castle, past a huge walled college (more like our high school) with students in uniforms, past Jane Austen's house, and out to a muddy path along a lovely river, complete with ducks, swans, and a boys' school's rowing team. We followed this path for another mile or so to get to St. Catherine's hill.

The view from this hill was incredible. We could see the entire city of Winchester along with all of the surrounding countryside--green rolling meadows, hedges, and some sheep for as far as we could see. On the very top of the hill, we found two rope swings. We explored, took some classic jumping photos (see picture), had a snack, chased some sheep, and strolled back to the university. What a lovely day. I just love it here.

My internet is acting really weird and not letting me post pictures, so I'll try again later. So long!