It's like a heat wave

~Linda Ronstadt

I have a new appreciation for air conditioning. Really. When it's 80 degrees with over 30% humidity and there's no a/c, it's rather miserable. But since I'm from the south and supposed to be used to this kind of weather, or worse, I try really hard not to complain around those that aren't used to the weather...ie. the English. But man, they do love to complain about the weather here!

It's been a great couple of weeks, despite the weather. The boy took me to his hometown to visit the zoo and castle (which is a part of the zoo grounds). It was a lot of fun, even if we spent more time looking at empty cages. We did manage to find very playful meerkats, sea lions, and the giraffes.

This past week was extremely productive for my thesis. I finally got a chapter written and feel pretty good about my time management so far. I do have to check my schedule and make sure I can finish a couple more chapters before I head to Spain in a couple of weeks. Must stay on top of things.

Saturday, we took the train to Stratford-upon-Avon. It's Shakespeare's birth place. That was a lot of fun and I loved the scenery. I like the tudor style house anyway, so being in a town with all of that was wonderful. It ended up being a beautiful weekend for weather too.

From here on I'll probably be posting less and less, except pictures. Mostly because everything in my head is centered around the thesis and more time must be spent typing that than updating the blog. But fear not, I'll share photos as much as possible.

Aliens and Rainbows

~Ferras

It's been a great couple of weeks around here. Great in the sense that I don't have any more classes or homework or exams...beautiful weather on the weekends...and lots of productivity on the thesis. However, working on my thesis means weekdays where I don't leave my room...which is starting to get to me.

This weekend was a blast. I headed out for dinner on Friday with the twins and one of the other Americans from class. The twins left Saturday for 2 weeks to work on their projects back in Sweden. It feels strange not having them around to waste time with. But they'll be back soon. It was so nice, we really should have eaten out in the Beer Garden at the pub, but because nice weather doesn't happen around here very often, it was too crowded.

Saturday I got to spend walking around town with rem. We looked at the random merchants in the market, took a walk through the park, and then tried to make a decision about watching a movie. We ended up not watching a movie and I headed home to relax.

Sunday he decided to take me for a drive around the area. We had the intention of finding a random village pub to go sit outside and enjoy the weather...but an hour and a half later we still hadn't found a place. It was fun just getting out of town though and seeing the villages in the area. Eventually we found a little pub that he passes on his way home. It was fun minus all the green flies. After beating flies off us for about 45 minutes, we decided mother nature had won and we headed back to town. Then we hit up one of the local pubs and enjoyed the fly free sunny weather of their beer garden. Great fun!

Today was very very productive and I now have a much better feeling about my thesis. I just hope the rest of the week is just as productive. The highlight though was the awesome thunderstorm tonight. I haven't seen lightning at all since I moved to this country. I was very excited by it and stood at the door watching the lightning and downpour. When I got back to my room I saw the most amazing rainbow over the countryside and along with my neighbor, went to capture the beauty of it. I really miss home, but I'm glad I get little reminders every now and then.

Before colors broke into shades

~Josh Groban

Days are long here, nights are way too short. It's strange how different things are when you don't realize just how much farther north you are from what you're always used it. It's been quite a week for weather. I really think I'm just getting spoiled. It's been sunny and in the 70's. Beautiful weather for having the windows open and having the shades open. But it doesn't make it very difficult to focus on the task at hand. Somehow I am managing though.

Strangest thing by far has been the sun not setting until about 9:45 PM. (Note that it's 9:36 PM right now and the sun is still setting). And the sun rises around 4:00 AM. This fact was discovered this weekend when I had to get up to investigate a strange noise in the night. Granted, seeing the sun rise that early was really rather cool. I hope there are more days like these this summer.