Gabi Goes: Adventures of a JMU Student Abroad, Vol. 5

Day the Fifth: I See the Assassins Have Failed/Word of the Day is Rohan

Today is our first day out of London to the county of Sussex, and it was, in some ways, a relief to get a break from the city. As much as I adore the city, the bustle outside of quiet Bloomsbury gets to be a little much and it was nice to retreat to the country-side. I suspect the Bloomsbury Group thought as much. As arduous as the bus ride there was, the scenery, with its sweeping green hills, chalk quarries, lambs, cows, and horses, and bright fields of golden flowers was spectacular. We ate lunch at a pub (where I was struck by the engaging friendliness of the people there are opposed to most of the larger pubs here in London) and then went to Monk’s House where Virginia and Leonard Woolf spent much of their time. What was far more interesting was the river in which Virginia Woolf ended her life. The walk there was on a winding dirt road through the countryside and it was literally like being sucked into a time warp or Lord of the Rings near Rohan. Horses grazed idyllically near huge rolling green fields and white cliffs that stretched into the horizon, without a soul in sight. It was a desolate, beautiful, and lonely place, completely alien as compared to the great city. The river was up a slight hill and Ben and I climbed down to the riverbank to gaze for a bit into the water and to watch the two, rather dingy white swans swim sedately about for a bit. Like Virginia, we gathered stones for each of us, but unlike her, we returned and went to Charleston house to see their living situation, Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell’s artwork, even to their studio and their wide garden. Our tour guide was an extremely kindly elderly lady named Patsy who seemed excited that we were students of the Bloomsbury Group and wanted desperately to know if any of us knew what was occurring on Desperate Housewives, discussing the episodes in hushed tones.

For some reason, I was exhausted today and my feet are covered in blisters from treading on countryside stones and leaping about to avoid puddles. Hopefully tomorrow will be more dynamic, but today was a nice instant, a calm in the storm as the pace of this trip quickens.

London Tower and Imperial War Museum tomorrow!