Katie's Visit: St. Albans, Hatfield, and Oxford

Katie flew in on Wednesday night, arriving in Hatfield at about 1am thanks to weather delays at Barajas. We went to St. Albans on Thursday, to look at the Cathedral and the Roman wall in Verulamium Park. It started to rain, so we passed some time in Ye Olde Fighting Cocks, which claims to be the oldest pub in England.

The next day we got up early to catch a train to Oxford, only to realize that we could save 20£ apiece by waiting until 9:30. We killed an hour and a half walking around old Hatfield, which was kind of cool. There isn't nearly as much to do as Oxford, though. We saw the magnificent Christ Church Cathedral and the surrounding park. We visited Blackwell's, which is far and away the largest book store I have ever seen. Apparently the basement alone has about 3mi. worth of shelves. We saw some cool old Egyptian and Chinese artifacts in the Ashmolean Museum, and a pub called the Eagle and Child, where Tolkien used to hang out. But the highlight of the day was definitely the Steampunk exhibit at the History of Science Museum.