Three days until we leave.
Three days until I see Ireland.
Five days until I leave Europe for who knows how long.
Five days until I get to eat Giordano's.
Five days until I see my brothers, parents, cousins and aunt!
Ten days until I see even more family, and they get to meet the love of my life!
Thirteen days since I dropped off film to be put on a photo CD.
Twenty days since I got engaged.
Thirty-four days since I've seen my family.
Fourty-five days since I've seen my sister.

That's enough math for today.

Italian City, English Language, African Cast

We took a trip yesterday to Stratford-upon-Avon. Fun fact of the day is that 'Avon' means river, so when you say 'River Avon,' you're saying 'river river.' It didn't rain, which was a plus, and we had some interesting encounters with swans!

We got to see a performance of Julius Ceasar, set in Africa, with all the original lanugage at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. It was SO good! I had never seen Shakespeare acted before, so it was a great experience to be introduced to it the way it was meant to be seen.

We also found the Peter Rabbit shop! I got these adorable little cards with beautiful Beatrix Potter prints on them, and they also had beautiful postcards of the original Alice in Wonderland illustrations. I will not be sending them to anyone, though. Just enjoying them for myself :)

It is hard to believe that we have only a week and a half left! Especially with all the school work! Speaking of which, what am I doing on the computer!

I was struck by this at first, but I wanted to share: there are so many birds of different types here. It is so great. There are many ducks, which is great. We see swans somewhat regularly, and there are these kind of geese (i think) which are much more beautiful than your average Canadian Goose. Perhaps they're called English Geese? We see magpies sometimes, and of course a ridiculous amount of pigeons. We take this footpath beside the river to get into town, and part of it goes under these train tracks. There is always an obnoxious amount of pigeons underneath there coo-ing, and it kind of echoes. It's quite spooky. But I enjoy the fowl in general.

Well, I'm quite sorry to say that this news has been on facebook, but I will reiterate it here for those of you lucky souls who do not have facebook:

Ian and I are engaged! Enjoy this photo which Kaia put together of photos I took. We had a picnic out at Godstow Abbey (mentioned before) and then he proposed, right in the middle of these beautiful monastic ruins and trees and wildflowers around!