Well it sure has been a while since I have updated the journals. I just realized that I have started Wednesdays in word, but it still is not done yet. Wow. It is 6:30PM on Saturday and boy do I have lots to write about. I just got a text and am going to meet the people that I hung out with last Saturday at the same club so I have a lot of work to do between now and then J Today was a very exciting day. First off, I woke up at 6:45am and that was really early for a Saturday. I left my room at 7:27 and walked to the train station, I made it there in record time ? 15 minutes. I bought my ticket and had about 20 minutes to spare until my train got there. At this point you are probably curious as to where I am going. The train made stops in Metheringham, and Ruskington before arriving at my destination. Well sort of. I got off the train in Sleaford and had to wait for another train at the station in Sleaford. It was so cold outside. I don?t know what I was thinking when I left the house only wearing a sweatshirt. I got on the second train and this one made a stop in Heckington before arriving at my final destination. BOSTON!!! That?s right. Boston, England. When we had dinner with Nigel and Tom on Monday night ? Nigel had said if you are ever in town for the weekend and just want to take a day trip, go to Boston. I arrived in Boston a few minutes after 9am. I was starving at this point. I hadn?t eaten breakfast because of lack of time and two I was out of cereal and milk. I went to the first place I saw. It was called the church restaurant or something to that effect. It was a cute little place. I had the English breakfast and tea. The breakfast was not the best because it was a little greasy. I will have to remember this in the future, because I did not feel good at all about an hour later. Two things to not eat here: kabobs and English breakfast. I got done eating around 10 and was like now what. I had pretty much decided the night before this and had come to Boston ? it was an adventure ? that?s for sure. The whole train thing is kind of confusing and it had taken me a while the night before to figure it out because of the connecting train thing. I had looked on the Internet for about 10 minutes so I knew a couple of things. I started wandering and stumbled upon this market place. I wasn?t planning on buying anything because then I would have to carry it the rest of the day, but it was lots of fun to look. I walked for an hour and was beginning to get bored. I thought the cathedral here in Lincoln dominated the city, well it is nothing compared to the church in this town. For one the town is pretty flat and two this church has a 270-foot tower. You can see this from anywhere in the town and this town is smaller than Lincoln so it is even more dominating. I thought well I might as well tour the church because I knew where that was. The tower is massive and the rest of the church is just as pretty. I climbed it ? well as far as I could go that is ? there aren?t steps all the way to the top. The view was amazing! There was so much to see. I stood up there for about 20 minutes just in awe. I also had this map where I could see things, but I couldn?t find half the stuff. Some of the things were 5, 10, 20 miles away. It even said that on a good clear day one could see the Cathedral in Lincoln, which is 28 miles away. I was not that lucky. L It would have been cool though. At this point my hands were numb so I made the trek back down. The steps are so steep and scary and it took me lots longer to climb down the 200+ steps. After that I walked around the church and looked at all the beautiful stain glass windows and such. What I pretty church. I fell in love with it ? I may even like it more than the cathedral. Now what? I walked back to the market to browse some more, but tired of that quickly. I knew that there was a windmill in town (I had seen this on in the internet also) and had a rough idea of where it was after being up in the tower. I was walking for about 15 minutes and was going to give up and ask for directions when I saw it. So I took a left and was walking along the river and thought I had longer to go and then I walked around a building and it was right it front of me! Crazy I tell you. I took lots of pictures on the outside. And then I got to go inside the windmill. It was cool because they use the wind power to make flour. There are 5 or 6 floors, and I climbed to the top and made my way down because that is how it works. The grain starts at the top and then at the bottom is flour. You?ll see. I took pictures. There was a miller there who explained to me how everything worked and was a really nice guy. He even looked the part wearing these overalls. I forgot what floor it was on that I talked to him a lot because that was the first floor that I saw him on, so he talked about the floors there were above and below. This was the best floor because it had a door leading outside. So we stepped outside onto the deck, porch, whatever one would call it, but it wraps all the way around. I got to walk around the whole thing. It was really cool being right next to the sails (think that is what they are called). Then I went and checked out the rest of the floors, but there wasn?t really that much happening. It was windy today but not really windy enough for there to be a lot of action. They had only gotten about half a bag of flour so far when I was there. I think it would be fun to see the sails move fast. I think he said the wind was only around 5MPH and it can get up to 60 or 70MPH and then have two grinders going and such. But at least it was working when I was there. In the morning, it wasn?t even windy enough for the sails to spin. I had tea in their tearoom and tried a scone, which was made with their flour. I think it was whole grain or wheat or something. It was a little different from what I am used to, but I am glad that I tried it. So now it was three o clock and I wasn?t sure what else there was to do. I asked the guy at the gift shop of the mill on my way out if there were any must sees left in the town and he didn?t really think so. I ended up just wandering the opposite direction that I had come and thought I could just curve around and get to the main kind of street. Just kidding. I walked into a dead end and had to walk back out and then further down to get on a street that curved back towards the church. I was using the church as my guide; otherwise I would have been really lost. This turned into a much longer walk than I had originally planned. I did end up stumbling upon the Marina, which turned out to be scenic and pretty. At this point I didn?t have a whole lot of time left when I finally got back to the church area. I was planning on catching the 4:46 train back so I just wandered in a few shops near the church for a while before I had to head to the train station. As I was heading back to the station I found a tourist information place. Good time to find that, when I am leaving. And the funny thing is that it was on the same street just a few doors down from where I had eaten breakfast. It was weird that I hadn?t seen it earlier. It may have changed the way my day went and I am not sure I would have wanted that. I like how my day went and thought it was fun finding the windmill on my own and even getting lost wasn?t that bad. Whew! What a day! I was ready to get on the train and head back to Lincoln. For the most part it was a pretty decent day. For a while this morning I had been really cold and that was tough. But the afternoon was nice. It was a little chilly, but it could have been much worse, heck it could have been raining. I had a great day; it was a fun little adventure. I wasn?t quite sure what to expect because I had kind of just done it on a whim, but turned out to be so worth it. So I got on the train and arrived back in Lincoln and since then, have just downloaded my pictures and have been working on the journals. I did see the flat mates and chatted with them. Viv just got back from seeing her boyfriend and then I showed her the pictures from Thursday night because I had just finished downloading them. I had 300 pictures to download. Yikes, it took a while. That?s the most that I have ever had on my memory card at once. Definitely a day for firsts, my first train ride, my first time outside of Lincoln, my first windmill, my first?. I don't know anymore. It was an amazing day and as soon as I go through all my pictures and choose my favorites, I?ll post them. Sending you all my love ? over and out Kari J I got ready to go out around 9 and was going to meet Stacey in the queue (line) for the delph at 10. When I was locking my door to leave, Steph and Viv were in Steph?s room right next to mine and yelled good-bye even though her door was shut. I went and said goodbye to them and headed over to the delph. It?s on campus and is only a two-minute walk so that?s nice. I saw this girl on my way over and asked where she was going and it was where I was going so we walked together. Her name was Liya and we stood in the queue together. Stacey and Hannah showed up about 10 minutes later. Stacey was really drunk and annoying the hell out of my especially because we were in the queue till 11:30 and we so cold. It didn?t help that I was really tired. It was a crazy night because first we lost Stacey and then I lost Hannah and found Stacey and at the end of the night I was dancing with Hannah. I ran into a bunch of people that I knew. James my flat mate for one, I had never seen him out and then I saw this other James and the guy who had stood by me in the queue last week and Dave too. It was crazy. After the delph I was going home. This guy was talking to me and knew that I had an accent and didn?t know where I was from; his friend came around the corner and was like DUH she?s from America. They invited me in for pizza so I thought what the heck. They were really nice and I enjoyed talking to them and eating pizza but all of a sudden something hit and I was so tired so I had to go. I think I changed and went straight to bed. WOW, that was a long day!!! http://mnstate.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2007400&l=97f25&id=163900186 http://mnstate.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2007401&l=5b511&id=163900186 there are two photo albums