This Stuff Happened Awhile Ago

So this post is outdated by a decent amount of time, but I want to catch everything back up, so here it is. Here's a rundown of my last few days before leaving London:

Day 1: Severely, severly hungover (the day before, I drank a beer in St. Paul's Cathedral--how sweet is that?). Had a final and an utterly unwritten six-page essay due the next day. Watched The 40 Year Old Virgin and the entirety of Arrested Development season 3, wrote a paragraph of my essay, and went to bed.

Day 2: Got up, wrote 5 3/4 pages, didn't proofread it, decided not to study, passed test. Ate. Probably drank. Who knows?

Day 3: Went to Stonehenge and Bath. Stonehenge, I felt, was very impressive. I think aliens did it. There's no reason why people that long ago would've hauled heavy ass rocks (the audio guide said one of the biggest weighed as much as seven elephants) from Wales to Stonehenge. I have no reason why aliens would do it either, but that's the thing-- they're aliens. How the hell am I supposed to know what they think? I still can't figure out how Dane Cook got so popular. Plus, there's a military base in the area. Clearly this is enough evidence.

Bath is a very beautiful city. It's a "World Heritage Site," and for some reason this means that every building in the city must be constructed from the same material, namely bathstone (a kind of limestone). It's kind of a cream color, and at first its disconcerting to see an entire town consist of one color, but once you get used to it it's very pretty. Our tour guide, Tim (oddly enough, the same tour guide I had for Paris), told us that Johnny Depp has a house there and throws a party every year. Tim had a friend who attended one of these parties, and apparently, "he's very quiet."

Really, the only problem I had with Bath was that it's inhabitants insist on calling it "Baath," with the long "a" sound. This strikes me as very pretentious. Why is Bath a tourist attraction? Because Romans bathed there! Get over it, Bathians. Bathites?

Day 3: Got on the bus and went to Wales. Our completely outstanding bus driver told us we had "more shit than I've ever seen a group of people have." Good for us. Hooray for America. All in all, it was a pleasant ride (I drank a bottle of wine!) until Unbelievably Atrocious American Stereotype Laura got up and decided to karaoke at the front of the bus. She sounded garish, like a van crashing into a building full of people scratching forks across plates and shoving painful objects into cats' rectums. I apologized to the driver on behalf of America. Actually, I had to apologize for her the next night as well-- she's of Korean descent, so I keep trying to blame her on Asia, but it's not going very well.

As for my first impressions of Wales, well, it's gorgeous. I really like it. The people have all been very nice (although, to be fair, they're freshmen and I'm a pretty hairy 48-year-old, so they're probably either scared or taking pity), the bars are cheap and plentiful, it's fairly easy to get around, etc. Although I must say, I don't understand the Welsh language at all. It looks like someone headbutted a keyboard and said "there! That means... um, tree." Here's how "University of Wales Swansea" looks in Welsh-- "Prifysgol Cymru Abertawe." What's this "Prifysgol Cymru" crap, Wale-ians? Vowels are aeiou and sometimes y. Sometimes y, dammit.

Random story: My first night out here everybody thought I was Irish, due to my beard, which is red, like the mighty oak. Unfortunately, I can't do an Irish accent. So I met a guy named Scott and had him be my envoy-- we went up to groups of people and I had him say, "this is Dallas. He's Irish, mute, and tortured." Then I'd frown and look full of inner turmoil. It was meant to garner sympathy, but much like my attempt to blame Laura on Asia, it didn't work very well.