on weekends

the lack of blogging over the weekend can be blamed on our newfound conviction that one should, indeed, celebrate the weekend with its traditional rituals: reading, walking, watching movies, shopping, hanging out with friends, eating meals at restaurants, and exploring the countryside.

the shocking thing is, that's precisely what we did on Saturday and Sunday. that's right—two full days of weekend.

for those who don't know us well, this is revolutionary because it perhaps marks one of the first times we've done such a thing, other than in conjunction with plane travel, since I can remember. seriously. I'm trying to think about graduate school and whether I ever took a weekend off but I can't think of anything.

at St. Mary's and Redlands we had to plan ahead (sometimes weeks) to take a full, single day off—to just be with each other, watch the latest Joss Whedon show (did ya see Serenity yet?), eat at our comfort-food Mexican or Salvadoran restaurant, walk the dog, drink coffee, whatever. and of course that sacrosanct day was preceded and followed by panicked 18-hour days, in which e-mails were checked up until the midnight deadline, student papers frantically graded, and endless meetings stretched before us.

so it has been a strange thing to take two days off, in a row. we went to Cardiff on Saturday, explored the town, wandered through its huge park, ate some of the local food (sandwiches—they are obsessed with them here), wandered through the used bookstore underneath the victorian arcade. we returned to Swansea for a dinner out with many people from the university, which began at 8 pm (horrors! people eat this late?) and continued until midnight, at which point we walked (no one drove, very refreshing) to Sam's colleague's house where we drank peach schnapps and beer (not both, some of us drank the schnapps, some the beer) and talked until 2 am. I haven't been out that late since college, sad to say.

we got up late on Sunday (of course) and finished our books (harry potter for Sam and American Gods for me—thoughts on that to come), ate some food, watched Motorcycle Diaries and some british TV. drank tea. very relaxing.

keep posted. we may try this weekend thing again.