Today my flatmate Amanda and I decided to take a trip to the Jane Austen museum, which is the house that she lived in during the last part of her life. It is also where she wrote Mansfield Park, Emma, and edited Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen's family was in an upper middle class position in life, however her Aunt and Uncle were very wealthy and owned three estates. Upon aging without an heir, they appointed Jane's brother to inherit their estates, and he gave Jane and her mother and sisters the cottage at one of the estates, which is now known as the Jane Austen house.
It takes about an hour on a train through the country to get to the house and it was really nice to get away from the concrete cars and buildings for a day. Here are some pictures from the museum. This is a picture of the countryside from the train on the way to Alton. Of course it was raining.
This is a view of the gardens from the
back of the house. It was apparent from seeing the museum where Austen got a lot of her inspiration in her stories. She often described elaborate gardens in Mansfield Park, which could be seen at her house, but on an even larger scale in the paintings at the house of gardens at her brother's other, more extravagant estates.
This is the table and chair that is was said that Jane Austen wrote at everyday. It was really interesting to read about her writing. Apparently she had a regiment: she wrote every morning before breakfast, and every evening after dinner before tea. If she got inspiration at any other time in the day, she would run into her table and write it on paper so that she wouldn't forget when she started writing again.
It was really awesome to be in the home of one of the most important novelists in history. It was a little bit surreal also, and it got me excited to read another one of her books.
After the museum, we headed across the street to a small pub for lunch before heading back to London. The reason I took a picture is because we probably had the most traditional (and best tasting!) English food that we had since we arrived over two weeks ago. I think it's because we were in the country, where you find more traditional food than the city. This was a caramelized onion and goat cheese tart with a salad and boiled potatoes.
I also went to Harrod's yesterday. It was a pretty overwhelming place. It was crowded and also very extravagant. The cheapest things were Ralph Lauren Polos (which cost almost three hundred US dollars). It was cool to see the place because it was so iconic. It is divided into giant categorized rooms (i.e. men's shoes, women's accessories, men's eyewear) along with a couple of cafes, two "luxury rooms" with even more, if possible, luxurious items, and a gift shop. Every designer you can think of has a section at the store, and there are giant columns, crystal chandeliers, and marble floors. It wasn't really for me, mostly because I couldn't afford anything, and I only spend about an hour there before I left.
Tonight we are going out to dinner, then relaxing in our flat. Tomorrow night we are going into central London for one of my flatmates birthdays. The weather is fluctuating a lot. Most days have periods of sun and heat, then rain and storms. The rain is actually really nice because it cools things off, except that certain tube stations are constantly flooding from it, which can be inconvenient.
Besides that everything is going greatly. The classes are extremely easy and the professors a lot almost half of our classroom time to free time because they know that we are eager to explore London. The only thing we haven't enjoyed is the hospitality. It was completely different today in the country because the people were so friendly, but quite often people in the city are short and sometimes rude, typically when they hear our accents.
I'm going to Bath and Stonehenge on Tuesday, so I'm sure I'll be adding more then. I hope everyone is doing well as the summer speeds by.
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