June 7, Day 16

We had to get up pretty early to ensure we got to our train in plenty of time to get to Lacock. I got tea and an apple turnover at a café by the subway station to tide myself over since we didn’t have time to have breakfast at the hotel. Subway to the train, train to Lacock. Not only were we going to get to tour the Lacock Abbey, the home of William Henry Fox Talbot, the inventor of the photographic negative, but we were also going to do a workshop with the curator for the museum and make salt prints!! As for museum visits as a whole, this one is my favorite thus far, and I think it’s because I was allowed to be hands on. I learn best that way really. I’m a visual hands on person, so today was perfect for me. After getting an explanation of how to make salt prints and a tour of the darkroom (my home away from home), they sent us off to grab a quick lunch before we really dove in. I had tea and little sandwiches as a tea shop just across the tea. It was awesome. Just a quiet little tea and sandwich shop on the corner of town. And town, mind you, that being Lacock, is literally only one square block. Very small, but very nice and quaint. After having lunch, I WENT TO HOGWARTS!!!! Don’t worry, I had others take photos of me in the hallways of Hogwarts, and I’d post them on here, but they have to get their photos uploaded and everything first, and that will take awhile seeing as we all have very VERY limited internet. Anyways, that in itself was quite an experience… walking in the same steps as the Harry, Ron and Hermione. I touched the walls of Hogwarts. BAHH!! So after walking around we eventually ventured into the house, erm, mansion. We were allowed to walk all over the house and in all of the rooms. I stood in front of Talbot’s infamous ‘Latticed Window’, or the window that is subject of the first ever negative. That was quite fun. Once we were done touring we headed back to the darkroom to make our own salt prints! Now, salt printing is specific to Talbot- it’s the method he found in ‘light writing’ or photography that worked best for him and he really perfected it. What you do is prepare a piece of paper with sodium chloride (HENCE the name SALT print). You just wet the surface with it, and then dry it. After the paper is dry you then add a layer of silver nitrate which when combined with the sodium chloride becomes light sensitive. So really you can to the sodium chloride layer in normal lighting situations, but you need a darkroom for the silver nitrate part. After drying the paper one last time, you can place it in a negative carrier with various plants and vegetation arranged however you want on top. Then all you do is lay it outside to expose. Easy as pie. I made 3 prints, it was a fun experience for sure. After we were done work shopping in such we just looked around the town a bit then took a double decker bus back to the train station. I rode on the top level at the very front on the left side of the bus, and let me tell you, it was sooo weird. I did have a few freak out moments where I thought the driver was turning left to go into the right lane on another street and it turned out he was like turning right in the complete opposite direction on the left side of the street. The UK is weird. After getting back to our area of town, a few of us ate dinner before going back to the hotel. I had an absolutely scrumptious meal at an Italian restaurant called zizzi’s. Though we had to wait awhile to be seated, our food came out surprisingly fast and was divine. After getting back to the hotel we just hung out, and I guess everyone and their mom wanted to watch 28 Weeks Later, a movie I had brought. There were six or so of us all squeezed into the hotel room... not really the ideal situation I want to be in to watch a movie, but I had to stay because it was my movie and I felt obligated to be there. It’s a good movie, not as good as the first, and was nice to see it again, but I was just kind of bothered throughout the entire film. When I get crowded, I get antsy, and I also feel like my hearing is amplified to where I can hear every movement, every crunch of someone eating food, every time someone swallows, even heavy breathing. It drove me insane and took away from my movie enjoyment. Not to mention the talking and asking questions happening throughout it which is a huge pet peeve of mine anyways. I guess I sound quite irritable, but I feel like some may be able to understand how I felt. Maybe. I just can’t stand when my space is invaded. Honestly at this point I was already tired of Jen’s and my room having been dubbed ‘the community room’ pretty much. My roommate in Paris, Dani, was never there, and that was perfect for me, because I always had a place to escape to. My room. This whole experience with my room being the community room is bringing back memories from my sophomore year of college when our dorm room was pretty much the community room and my space was constantly invaded. Oh well. It will be over soon

On the brighter side, I had 7 cups of tea. That’s a record, and I definitely couldn’t even go the whole night without waking up having to go to the bathroom. Haha.