To Southampton and Back

The last few days have been the definition of beautiful. The sun is out, the sky is bright blue, the clouds are white cotton candy, and the air is fresh. Today was no different, and what better way to spend a lovely Saturday than to go exploring? So I went with six other students to Southampton - a place for museums and good shopping - for the day.

We met at 9 this morning and walked down to the train station. Once there, we purchased our roundtrip tickets to Southampton... only 3 pounds a ticket. What a bargain! And the world knows a Hinchley never passes up a bargain! By 9:52, we were boarding the train and soon speeding out of the station. My first trip on an English train had begun!

The travel time to Southampton via train is only about 15 minutes, so my first trip was a quick one. After we exited the train, we couldn't figure out how to get out of the station. We went out one exit only to find out that exit went to the other side of the city, not what we wanted. Oh, silly Americans! So we had to explain to a station worker that we went out the wrong exit, and they had to let us back into the station to go out another exit. Luckily they didn't charge us to do that! Eventually we managed to exit the right part of the station, and we hopped on the city bus to take us to our first stop. We wandered around the city for awhile before deciding where to go. The first place we went to was the Southampton City Art Gallery, where we enjoyed a nice stop in the coffee shop for some caffeine before we circled the gallery. There was some beautiful artwork there, such as a painting of Romeo and Juliet 1884 and lands. Optical illusions came in the form of a painting of Napoleon, in which it looked like his foot was turning as you walked by him. Crazy! Although I did not have a particular favorite, I really enjoyed some of the photography art, such as the study of unemployment in poor areas and what that leads to. Such amazing glimpses in peoples' lives, if only for a moment.

After touring the Southampton City Art Gallery, we went to the Millais Gallery, which is part of the Southampton Solent University. The exhibition, called Tha Click can be summed up by two key elements: experimental and techno music! The music was fun for the first 20 or so minutes, but then became irritating, and the "art"... well, that left a bad taste. Luckily that taste was washed away when, aftering once again wandering around the city for 30 minutes, we found a place to eat. I can't remember the name of the pub, but the food was scrumptious. I had the Bangers and Mash (which is mashed potatoes and some sort of sausage served with peas and gravey). It was a monthly special for the low cost of 1.99 pounds! Good thing, too, since I'm planning a weekend in Paris next week and need to save, save, save!

Food polished off our plates, we left the restaurant in surch of the Maritime Museum, where there was a special Titanic exhibition, called Titanic: Southampton Remembers. For those of you who don't know much about the Titanic, the Titanic left from the Southampton port. Many people in Southampton lost relatives or friends to the Titanic Tragedy. I thoroughly enjoyed the exhibit and the information I learned from it, but am also saddened by it. Only 30% of third class children were saved. 30 percent! Mind blowing.

That was the last museum we visited for the day. We then did the "Walk the Southampton Walls" walk, which takes people along nearly half the Wall that was once a mile-long around the medieval town of Hampton. It was - wow! Really fabulous. Hopefully I can post pictures soon.
We ended the day with some shopping. Happily for me, I found 2 beautiful scarves, one solid dark purple and the other cream with light purple and silver throughout it. Yay! Success for the day was declared as we took the city bus back to the train station and went back to Winchester.

Ahh, what a wonderful day to go to Southampton and back! But I am glad to be back, because as neat as Southampton was and as wonderful as the stores it has to offer are, there is something so charming and beautiful about Winchester...