"Tourists don't know where they've been, travelers don't know where they're going."

~Paul Theroux

Rodemell, East Sussex, England

On the trail we blaze.

On Saturday, I participated in a field trip for my Virginia Woolf class. We met my teacher, Patricia, at the London Victoria station a headed out to parts unknown to visit "Monk's House" where Virginia Woolf lived with her husband, Leonard. We got of at the Rodmell Train Station, which was little more than a concrete platform with creaky wooden stairs surrounded by grassy fields and rolling foothills. When begin to walk, and the little map Patricia had soon became confusing. She was fairly certain we were headed in the wrong direction so we turned around and headed back up the hill. For nearly an hour. Without seeing hide nor hair of the town of Rodmell. So Patricia forced Joel to run up to a farm house and ask for directions. The very aged old man proceeded to tell Joel Rodmell was the other direction. . . in short, we had originally been headed the right direction. I quite enjoyed the walk though, as it was a beautiful day - and the countryside was gorgeous! Couldn't think of a better way to spend such a sunny day then communing with nature.

Bus stop, bus goes, she stays, love grows, under my umbrella. :)

We finally arrived in Rodmell absolutely starving, to find that the pub was closed because Rodmell as to small to support it. So no lunch. Instead we crashed the flower show where the locals of Rodmell were also hosting a bake sale, and bought many cakes and a lot of tea. I think they were a little surprised when 15 young Americans showed up out of the blue for their flower show, they didn't know it was such an international event!!

When a flower grows wild, it can always survive. Wildflowers don't care where they grow.

Yes its true, straight from the start, I believed in the church of your heart.

After tea and cake, we headed to Monk's house. The walk there was quite short, but during the two minutes I discovered that I will one day live in Rodmell, because it was the most amazing place on the Planet Earth. I loved it, so charming. We arrived at Virginia's abode, took a quick twirl around the inside, and then headed out to enjoy the beautiful spring sunshine in her gardens. The gardens were outstanding, and we were all content to meander through them for quite so time. The highlight of my day was when Emily and I laid in the grass and played the laughing game, i.e. the best game ever! The laughing game consists of this, one person laughs in an obnoxious manner, and the other person responds in kind. You continue until you are both laughing hysterically, it is a wonderful game, and the hilarity of it is amplified while laying on your backs.

You treat me like you think I'm made of stone, like when I'm cut I don't bleed.

I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses.

I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden!

Takes a lot of time to make walls tumble,
Stone by stone I'd make them crumble for you.

We're living in a two story house, and the windows only look out...

After visiting her house, we trotted down a lovely country path to the rather dreary River Ouse. It was rather fitting that it was so depressing, as the River Ouse is where Virginia Woolf committed suicide in March of 1941. It was a rather odd place to visit. She put on her overcoat and filled its pockets with stones, then walked into the River Ouse and drowned herself. It was a rather odd place to take us for a field trip, really really the weirdest field trip I have ever been on actually. Besides the river though, it was also the best field trip I have ever been on.

Ya, that's all between the river and me.


Bah ram ewe, bah ram ewe. To your clan, sheep be true!

After that uplifting trip to the riverside, we hopped back aboard the train, and traveled to the next town over, the metropolitan city of Lewes, which was still tiny but had a great enough population to support a pub. Lewis was also incidentally once the home of Anne of Cleaves, my favorite of all Henry VIII's wife because A) her portrait was very beautiful, but when Henry first met her he was apparently was underwhelmed by her beauty for her merely said, "I like her not!" and asked for a divorce. And B) because in the face of this rejection she saw an opportunity, and quite gracefully accepted the divorce, Henry was so happy that instead of chopping off her head as was his habit, her gave her a ton of money, a huge country manor, and appointed her as The King's Beloved Sister. The German princess was apparently the happiest and most long lived of all his wives. We went to the first pub we found, but it never served food. So we turned tail and went to the next one, which had JUST stopped serving food, which was weird, because it was only like 6 o'clock, and it seemed a little early for the drunkards to be coming out, but apparently I was wrong. We dragged our tired hungry bodies to one last pub, which was very crowded but still serving food. They said they didn't have a place to seat us all and I quickly insisted we didn't need to sit together, Emily went as far as to tell the waitress she was fine sitting with strangers as long as it meant she could it. They found seats for us all, and Patricia bought us all food. Emily and I ripped into our burgers and chips like starved lions pounce on a wounded zebra. I think it tasted good, although I ate so fast I honestly couldn't tell you. After eating, Emily and I began to get very tired, and decided we should get to the train station before the next train left, in fifteen minutes. It had been a very long walk, so we sprinted there. We got there and discovered the train left in twenty-five minutes, not fifteen. We sprinted on a very full stomach for nothing. . . our classmates definitely thought we were idiots. But that's okay. We got on the train, and I passed out, and slept all the way to London, until Joel shined the flash from his camera in my eyes and woke me up. Jerk.

I'm 'Enry VIII I am, 'Enry VIII I am I am.

All in all, it was an incredible day, filled with adventure and fun. It was also Joel's birthday. To bad for him when we got back a little after 8, no one wanted to anything with him anymore. :) It was definitely a well deserved bedtime.

In the Pine-Sol scented air, somewhere that's green!

P.S. The photo captions are all song lyrics. It started with "On the trail we blaze" from the Road to El Dorado and spun wildly out of control from there!