St. Albans and Sick

Pictures: 1) St. Alban's Cathedral and park, 2) the old Roman amphitheater (looking toward the stage), 3) the old Roman tile floor, 4) the old Roman wall



On Saturday night I started to develop a cough, but I thought it was nothing. By Sunday morning it was definitely a cold, and since the girl I was going to stay with through couch surfing was getting over pink eye, we called off the trip to the Isle of Wight. Instead, I went to St. Albans (about a 20 min train ride outside London). I figured this wouldn't be too taxing on me. I was wrong.

I arrived in St. Albans at 12:30 and walked to the city centre and got a map from the information center which laid out a trail that one could follow all around the major sites. First I went to the Cathedral, which was very beautiful and very old, also containing one of the oldest clocks in Europe (1336)-(probably second only to the one in the Salisbury Cathedral). It is called the Wallingford Clock.

From the Cathedral I walked through a very old section of town with little houses that had doorways I'd have to duck to get through. Finally I made it to the old Roman Amphitheater, which was built in 140 AD by the Romans when they occupied the city (which was called Verulamium under them). Here they held gladiator fights, bear baiting, and theatre performances. Given how old it is, it's amazing that you can still see the foundations and one of the columns - it is easy to picture what it once would have looked like. That was pretty cool.

From there I went to this place in the middle of Verulamium park where an old Roman stately home used to be - here they uncovered a beautiful and largely in-tact tile floor that would have the audience chamber of a high aristocrat. They have dated the room to 180 AD. It was so amazing! Over 220,000 pieces of hand-laid little tiles.

From there I walked through the park, looking at bits of the left over Roman wall that use to surround the town, and then I sat down on a hill and ate my packed lunch; however, by this point I was really flagging and blowing my nose every minute and wasn't sure how I was going to walk all the way back to the train station. I did make it on the 3:45 train, but I felt like I'd been walking for hours and I laid down across three seats for the 20 minutes back into London, willing myself to regain enough strength to make it from the train station into the underground and from the underground back to my flat. I have been laid up ever since, and still feel incredibly bad - which is so strange because my colds are never this bad for this long and last night I took sudafed before bed so I wouldn't have to keep blowing my nose every 5 minutes, and then I couldn't fall asleep until 3 am - I realized today this was because sudafed has caffeine and I am very susceptible to caffeine. Basically I feel like death and I didn't have the energy after class today to go get any Nyquil.

After getting out of WWII class early, we all went with Professor Mann to a pub (I stopped by a pizza place first to get a pizza to go). I probably should have gone home to bed, but he is so funny and I didn't want to miss out on the group event (as I so often do) so I went. On the bright side, he agreed that I can write a short story (somehow having to do with WWII) for my final paper, which is awesome because I don't like research papers at all and this makes it a bit more literature based (since I am getting English credit for the course).

Now I'm going to go to bed and after my art exam tomorrow, probably go back to bed. I really hope I get better soon, because Mom and Dad arrive Friday morning, and I really don't want to be exceedingly sick and not able to tour around while they're here.