In which Katelyn visits Bath, eats some unusual ice cream, goes antiquing, and plays Mad Libs

The Great Bath, the centrepiece of the Roman Baths

On Saturday we visited Bath, one of the oldest cities in the UK. When the Romans invaded what is now modern-day Britain, they built elaborate spas and temples here. Bath is built over the only hot spring system in Britain, which supplies the spas with naturally warm water. The city's original name was Aquae Sulis because the Romans found that the native people livng around Bath worshipped a goddess of the hot springs named Sulis. They combined Sulis with their own goddess Minerva and built a temple and statue to her. The statue's head can be seen when you go through the Roman Baths exhibit.

Even with an £11 entrance fee, the Roman Baths exhibit is well worth the money. The exhibits are very well-done, with limited text, an engaging audio guide, numerous artifacts, screened projections of actors dressed as Romans, and living history actors who were approachable and informative. I was a little skeptical of the screened projections at first when I saw a poster for them, but I thought they were a nice touch. It's easy to forget that the Romans were flesh and blood people who had jobs, families, and friends and who loved dressing in bright colours and painting their temples even more brightly, since all we have left of them are bleached temple ruins and statues. The projections helped me visualize the people who would have walked through the spas and imagine what their lives were like, which is really the ultimate goal of any good museum.

Visit the Roman Baths yourself here: http://www.romanbaths.co.uk/

Look at how big the Royal Crescent is!

After we left the Roman Baths, we made our way over to the Royal Crescent, an eighteenth century example of fine Georgian architecture. It was a fashionable address to have in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries and was a popular place for distinguished retirees to spend their golden years. People still live in some of the houses today, but many of them have converted into offices. There is also a hotel and museum located in the Crescent.

Pulteney Bridge, with weir

We moved on to see Pulteney Bridge, one of only two bridges in Europe to contain a shopping arcade. It is another beautiful example of Georgian architecture. Standing on the bridge, you can look down into the River Avon and its weir. We were sure to take plenty of pictures before grabbing some ice cream at a small shop in the shopping arcade. Three of us split three scoops of ice cream between us and we each chose an unusual flavour which was either rare or nonexistent at our homes in the US and Hong Kong. So, we ended up with a delicious combination of blackcurrant, honeycomb, and rum raisin, a perfect finish to a great day in one of England's most beautiful cities.

Ice cream!

Sunday was a bit of a miserable day due to the weather, but we enjoyed our Sunday roast at the Ship Inn, a sixteenth century pub that Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake enjoyed for its drinks and tavern wenches. After that we went antique shopping and I picked up a small piece of Exeter china from the turn of the nineteenth century, right around the start of WWI. I also picked up four antique postcards. After having wrote a number of postcards myself, I couldn't help but wonder if they will end up in an antique shop one hundred years from now and some tourist like myself will pick it up and wonder about the person who wrote it and the person they were writing to.

We ended the day with dinner at Holland Hall and a rather bawdy game of Mad Libs. Many of my international friends had never heard of Mad Libs before, but they were soon as addicted as I was when we started playing it (if you're unfamiliar with Mad Libs - look it up and start playing)! Some of them made us laugh so hard we started practically crying. It was a great end to the day.

I'll be heading off to St. Ives on Wednesday. Thanks for reading!

The Eden Project, Falmouth Revisited, and a Night of Song and Dance

WARNING: If anything seems a little strange or off in this post, it's because I'm incredibly sleep deprived.

Stage and biomes at the Eden Project

The Eden Project is probably one of the coolest places I've visited during the International Summer School's social programme. For me, it honestly seemed like the Disney World of plants, a sort of botanical theme park, if such a thing can exist. Divided up into three main biomes, the Eden Project has beautiful outdoor gardens, an indoor Mediterranean habitat, and a gigantic indoor rainforest, complete with butterflies, frogs, lizards, and birds!

Inside the Mediterranean biome

In addition to the three main biomes, Eden also has a visitor center, a stage, and a building called, 'The Core,' which is an educational center. The Core had a giant wall of refrigerators inside with enough magnetized letters to write a small novel. Naturally, we had to take advantage of this:

As a charity and social enterprise, the Eden Project educates visitors about plants, biomes, and sustainable living, though it also serves as a concert and arts venue. It was a fun and educational day that can really only be adequately summed up through pictures.

Indoor waterfall at the Rainforest biome

Learn more about Eden here: http://www.edenproject.com/

After our visit to the Eden Project was over, three of the summer school pathways headed to the University of Exeter's Tremough campus in Truro, Cornwall. That evening, many of us went into Falmouth, which you may remember way back from my earlier post, 'Environment.' I got to see slightly more of Falmouth this time, including a lovely little bar and cafe right on the beach and a pub/bookstore called Beerwolf that was further into town.

The beach at Falmouth. Yes, that is a castle!

DrKristopher Allerfeldt's lecture the following morning on crime and population movements was very interesting, since it argued that globalization led to the rise of organized crime. We discussed the roles and perceptions of immigrants involved in crime and whether there should be restrictions on immigration.

Then it was back to Exeter for a fun-filled karaoke night.

To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to karaoke night all that much originally
, but I really enjoyed myself, despite not really going up for any songs (I did do my fair share of dancing, however). I also had the opportunity to chat with and say goodbye to Professor Clive Sabel, whom you may remember from my earlier posts about the Fulbright week and Sidmouth excursion. Clive - if you're reading this (and I know that you probably are) - thanks for everything. It was fun exploring and learning with you, even if I did think that I was going to die in Dartmoor on several occasions ;) But in all seriousness, the trips through Dartmoor, Cornwall, and Sidmouth were great experiences that I will never forget and I thank you very much for that.

Today was a free day, which I spent canoing and eating REALLY good pizza with friends at the On the Waterfront restaurant (seriously though - their pizza is REALLY good). It was wonderfully relaxing and I had a wonderful chance to sit back and appreciate the food, atmosphere, and people around me and to reflect on how lucky I am to be here at all.

Tomorrow, we head off to the Roman city of Bath. Stay tuned for future updates!

The Ghosts of History

The interior of the cathedral, just after Mass

On Sunday, we had a free day and I attended Mass at the cathedral with a group of friends. I was not raised Catholic, nor am I particularly religious now, but I found the sermon quite welcoming and it was an incredibly inspiring experience to listen to such beautiful music in an 800 year old cathedral, where Masses such as the one I attended have been going on for centuries.

Afterwards, I went shopping down Gandy Street and in the Guildhall with a friend before meeting up with the rest of the group for an Indian buffet for lunch at the New Taj Mahal Restaurant. The selection was more limited than we thought it was going to be, but what it lacked in quantity it more than made up for in quality. Everything was very tasty and I enjoyed the music and atmosphere as well (I've always loved Indian music, particularly the sitars).

I finished the day off with a relaxing stroll through the Royal Albert Memorial Museum. You may remember that I visited this place before, but since I had not seen all of the exhibits, I thought it would be nice to go back. I wasn't disappointed! There were two beautiful art galleries that I had missed, which featured paintings of Dartmoor and the Devon area. There was also an exhibit that featured various artifacts and geological specimens from Devon, dating from millions of years ago all the way up until recent times. I'm actually planning to go back there again some time after class next week!

Random anecdote: On the way back to campus from the museum, I was caught in a horrendous rainstorm, which is perhaps more in keeping with English weather than the past few weeks have been. Even with my raincoat and 'brolly' (umbrella) I was still soaking wet by the time I got back to campus.

The next day, Monday, I had class, which was taught by the eminent historian, Professor Jeremy Black. We discussed military history and how it is perceived by different nations. This lecture made me completely rethink my views on military history and on militaries in general. Living in the US, the country with the largest military in the world, and which also has a strong history of foreign military involvement, has always led me to see militaries as powers dedicated to fighting foreign threats. However, in many countries, the military is used primarily to quell domestic disputes and to even conduct more mundane affairs such as quarantining diseased cattle! Even though I knew militaries were used to control civil unrest on other nations, I never thought of that as being the primary function of the vast majority of the world's militaries, but that completely makes sense in hindsight and I'm glad that Professor Black was able to elucidate that for me. The whole class was extremely impressed with Professor Black's extensive knowledge on the subject and the global approach he brought to the discussion. This lecture was definitely one of my favorites thus far!

How the tea was originally set up

The 'proper' way to have a cream tea - the jam goes on top

After class, we went to the cathedral for a traditional Devon or Devonshire cream tea. A cream tea is not, as I first thought it was, simply tea with cream in it. Instead it is tea served with scones and clotted cream and jam. In Devon, the proper way of eating a scone is to spread the clotted cream on first before adding the jam. In Cornwall, people do the opposite. Apparently, there is a bit of a rivalry between the two counties over which way of eating the scones is the proper way. I tried both and I have to say that I prefer the Devon way and not just because I'm in Devon! It is more convenient to spread the cream on first and it tastes too!

We had a nice discussion about Game of Thrones over the cream tea and we all left feeling quite full. In fact, I was hardly hungry at all for my dinner that night!

Tuesday's lecture was given by Dr David Thackeray on the global slave trade and abolitionism. The seminar portion of class included a trip to the Bill Douglas Centre for the History of Cinema and Popular Culture. the centre is a small cinema museum that is located right on the university's campus. There are two galleries filled with artifacts dating back to the 17th century all the way up to the present. The older artifacts are precursors to film entertainment. More recent items on display include Star Wars and Disney memorabilia.

Whilst at the centre, we examined some materials from their archives, which I found to be an interesting and hands on approach to our seminar. Our task was to look at depictions of slavery and its aftermath in popular culture. My favorite items were a souvenir program from one of the original screenings of The Birth of a Nation and a film magazine with an article about Django Unchained, which I had seen in theatres last December. The Birth of a Nation was the first feature-length film every produced. It was released in 1915 and set the precedent for how films are made, even today. It was a technical achievement on almost every level. The film's director, D.W. Griffith, invented the close-up, which was initially derided by critics who complained that the actors seemed to "float" onscreen. For those reasons, The Birth of a Nation is regarded as an important part of cinematic history. However, this film is horribly tainted by the blatant racism that runs rampant, especially through its second half, which comes from its source material, a book called The Clansmen. Essentially, the Ku Klux Klan are portrayed as valiant heroes, riding to the rescue of Southern whites victimized by devious Northern carpetbaggers and recently freed black slaves, with the latter being portrayed as savage beasts. It was interesting for me to read the program and find that there were some contemporary critics were alarmed at the racism in the film - I had always thought that no (white) critics had particularly cared or noticed at the time. After reading about The Birth of a Nation, it was interesting to look at an article about Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, which was structured in part as the inverse of The Birth of a Nation (Tarantino had certain scenes in mind from the 1915 film which he deliberately subverted). However, the film still came under fire for what was seen as an excessive use of racial slurs and was accused simultaneously as being racist toward both blacks and whites, a reminder that issues of race are yet to be resolved in America and elsewhere in the world.

Discover the Bill Douglas Centre for the History of Cinema and Popular Culture at: http://www.exeter.ac.uk/bdc/

The remains of the almshouse destroyed by the blitz

On Tuesday night, some friends and I went out for one of Exeter's Red Coat Guided Tours. The tours are free to the public and leave everyday from the Cathedral Yard. The Red Coats give a variety of guided tours, which have different themes depending on what time you go. We attended the 'Ghosts & Legends' tour, which included stops along the cathedral and High Street, as well as a trip down a pub cellar to see the skeletons of John and Martha, a monk and a nun who supposedly committed suicide together rather than face the consequences of their love affair's exposure. We heard tales about ghost carriages, pub curses, and the Devil wandering Dartmoor. But perhaps the eeriest part of the tour did not include an actual 'ghost' story at all! We went into the ruins of an almshouse that had been destroyed during the blitz, where our guide simply told us the story of what happened without adding any ghostly elements. I had passed by the ruins before on trips into town, but I had never realized what they were. You can still see the foundations of each room the poor men would have stayed in. Having lived in America all my life, a country that has never been bombed, with the exception of Pearl Harbor, it was strange and horrifying to see the remnants of such destruction.

Our tour guide

The ghost tour never got particularly scary, especially since none of it was conducted after dark, but I still enjoyed myself. At the end of the tour, we received certificates of survival, which was perhaps owed to the protection stickers our guide gave us at the beginning to ward off evil spirits ;)

Exeter's Red Coat Guided Tours offer other free themed trips around Exeter. Unfortunately, most of these other tours leave in the middle of the day when I have class or when I am involved with another social programme, but if I get a chance, I'd like to do another one. Learn more about Exeter's Red Coat Guided Tours here at: http://www.exeter.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=668

Mmm!

A friend and I finished the night off with some Banoffee Pie ice cream at the Ruby Diner in town before heading back to campus to get ready for next day's trip to the Eden Project.

The Eden Project will have its own post, which will hopefully be up soon. Thank you for reading!

Just an Update...

I've fallen a wee bit behind on updates recently, partly because I didn't have internet access last night, partly because of a minor hand injury which has made typing quite difficult, and partly because I simply haven't had enough time to write.

So this is just a short post to say: I will be updating tomorrow night and I'm hoping to have two posts ready for you to read, which will feature more tidbits about Exeter as well as pictures and anecdotes about the spectacular Eden Project. And if you enjoyed my posts about the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and the city of Falmouth, I will be writing about those locations again since I had another opportunity to visit them!

Thank you for your patience and as always, stay tuned for next time!

Stonehenge and Salisbury

A classic view of Stonehenge

As you may have gathered from my rather imaginative post title, I visited Stonehenge and Salisbury today as part of the International Summer School's social programme.

Despite forecasts that had predicted afternoon showers, we were able to escape most of the rain for the whole programme until it was time to get back on the coaches for the return trip to Exeter.

I was very excited to see Stonehenge. I didn't know all that much about this prehistoric monument prior to coming here, but after hearing so about it and seeing photographs all my life, it was quite an amazing experience to actually see it in person. A tour of Stonehenge includes an audio guide that explains various aspects of the monument at designated points. It was easy to use, though I had difficulty balancing the audio guide next to my ear whilst taking photographs of almost every conceivable angle of the stones. A circular path surrounds Stonehenge and there is a rope that prevents you from walking right up to the stones. I already knew that it would be like this before I even left the US, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that a section of the path actually gets quite close to the stones, closer than I thought it would.

I learned today that the bluestones used for Stonehenge were transported all the way from Wales! These smaller stones weigh up to 4 tons. The sarsens, or large stones, which often have lintels placed across the top, most likely came from around 20 miles away.

Stonehenge: World's largest bird perc

Experts are not exactly sure how the builders placed the heaviest (up to 50 ton) stones or sarsens, upright or placed the lintels up top, but they suspect that they used a complex system of ramps and levers. Excavations and studies have found that one-third of each sarsen is sunk into the ground and that the lintels are notched and fitted into place on top of the stones beneath in a manner than resembles a jigsaw puzzle. Pretty great feats of engineering for a group of people who quite literally had not invented the wheel yet!

The many angles of Stonehenge

Stonehenge's purpose is not completely known, but there are definite connections between the placement of the stones and the movement of the sun during the solstices. Barrows (burial pits) containing cremated and physical human remains have been found near the site, suggesting a religious significance. It's also quite possible that the bluestones also served as a sort of 'status symbol,' since their place of origin in the Preseli Hills in Wales was a notable landmark on the prehistoric trade route. The people who brought them back to present-day Wiltshire, England would have been making quite a statement about their trading and transportation abilities with these stones.

I'm having a bad hair day in this one

Stonehenge today, is of course, incomplete, but that much of it is still standing is a testament to the engineering ingenuity of the builders. As nice and impressive as many of our modern buildings are, I don't think most of them will still be standing after 3,000 years!

Learn more about Stonehenge here: http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/stonehenge/

After Stonehenge, we traveled a short distance to Salisbury, a small town that is renowned for its massive cathedral.

Before we walked to the famous cathedral, we stopped at a smaller medieval church to hear the end of a local concert that was played by a pianist, clarinetist, and violinist. It was pretty magical to hear such beautiful music played in an equally beautiful setting and it helped set the tone for the rest of the trip.
When we reached Salisbury Cathedral, built in the 13th century, we were impressed by the sheer size and beauty of this large church. In another amazing feat of primitive engineering, a spire that towers 404 feet above the ground was constructed in the 14th century by medieval builders, a height that is still fairly impressive today.

Outside of Salisbury Cathedral

The cloisters. Seem familiar?

Many people (and I was one of them, until I did a bit of research) think that Salisbury Cathedral was a filming location for some of the Harry Potter films. Unfortunately, it was not. Having said that, there are many parts of the interior and exterior that look very much like parts of Hogwarts Castle in the films. The early movies were actually filmed in part at a cathedral in Gloucester and also in Oxford. Given the relative proximity and stylistic time frame within which these cathedrals and buildings were constructed, it is probable that there are many aesthetic similarities that overlap (having never visited these other places, I cannot say for sure). So while Harry Potter may not have been filmed in Salisbury, you can still have a stroll through the cloisters and feel like you're on set.

Looking up at the spire

Salisbury Cathedral, aside from its sheer aesthetic beauty, is also famous as the home of the best surviving copy of the Magna Carta, one of only four in the world. The Magna Carta drew up over sixty clauses to help solve a medieval political crisis that occurred between King John and his barons. Only three of those clauses are in effect today, but that even three of them are still relevant is quite astounding. The most famous of these clauses has often been cited as the earliest inspiration for later movements toward human rights, though of course the barons could never have foreseen that at the time. It states:

No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled . nor will we proceed with force against him . except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land. To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.

The Magna Carta essentially limited royal authority, quite an astounding feat since no one could limit royal authority at this time, except for the king himself (as you can imagine, the barons were quite persuasive in making this happen). Even if the people who drew up this document had no intention of extending universal rights to everyone, the Magna Carta inspired later generations to aspire to do just that.Seeing this document in person was amazing. Since there was no printing press at this time (early 13th century), everything had to be copied by hand, yet the letters are so perfectly blocked out and written, it almost looks as if it was done by a printing press!

The Magna Carta is written in a shorthand form of Latin, so it is extremely difficult for non-experts to read. However, Salisbury Cathedral provides an English translation of the document for those who are interested.

Learn more about Salisbury Cathedral and the Magna Carta here:
http://www.salisburycathedral.org.uk/index.php

I had a great time seeing such beautiful historic landmarks and artifacts today and I hope you enjoyed reading about them.

In which Katelyn drinks Pimm's, goes to the beach, attends class, and competes in a pub quiz

Is it half empty or half full?

After we returned from London, we had a welcome barbecue at Reed Hall, where we had a chance to mingle with other International Summer School students and the buddies (student ambassadors). For most of us foreigners, the barbecue was also an introduction to a popular British drink called 'Pimm's.' If you have never traveled or lived in the UK, like me up until this point, you may be wondering right now, 'What is Pimm's?' Apparently most British people don't exactly know either. After talking to several native Brits, I discovered that it's a brand of alcohol which is often mixed with English-style (carbonated) lemonade and served with fruit and mint leaves, but no one seemed to know what kind of alcohol it was. After doing some scholarly research via Wikipedia, I realized why that was so - Pimm's makes several drinks based on different kinds of alcohol; some are gin-based, some are whiskey-based, vodka-based, rum-based, etc. The most popular type of Pimm's is gin-based and has a citrus flavor. Pimm's is known as a 'fruit cup,' which is an English specialty drink that is often consumed during the summer. Most fruit cups are mixed with some type of soft drink and are garnished with - surprise - fruit. Pimm's is quite good and most of us enjoyed the mild, fruity flavor. If you live in the UK and have found any of this information incorrect, blame Wikipedia.

The following day was orientation, where we listened to a lively presentation on education in the UK from a professor named David before taking a tour of the campus and the city. I ended up skipping most of the campus tour in order to catch up on some sleep, but I re-joined my group for a tour of the city, which I am still having trouble navigating because I am directionally challenged.

The sign says it all

We went down to the quayside, where I was able to get some absolutely gorgeous photographs of the docks, swans, and canoes, as well as a funny little ferry called, "Butt's Ferry," which as the sign in the picture will tell you, will take you across the quay for 30p (that's 30 pence, roughly equivalent to 30 cents for you Americans out there). The ferry goes straight across the quay and is operated by a man who pulls the boat along by hand across a cable. As some of my new friends joked, he has to be in great shape by the end of the summer!

Speaking of friends, I've made a lot! I can't emphasize how friendly, nice, and generous everyone I've met at the International Summer School has been. I've met people from every continent now (except for Antarctica) and none of them have ever been anything but pleasant.

The coast of Sidmouth, enshrouded in fog

As many wonderful new friends as I've met, I haven't forgotten about my fellow Fulbright students. We took an evening trip after dinner to a lovely seaside town called Sidmouth with one of our Fulbright week professors, Professor Clive Sabel, whom you may remember from our Dartmoor and Cornwall excursions. It was quite foggy when we reached the town and that made for some lovely and mysterious scenery - I had a lot of fun with my camera. Some of us had planned to go swimming in the ocean, but it ended up being much too cold for that, so we contented ourselves with walking along the pebbled beaches, watching the boats out at sea, and observing a cricket practice. Professor Sabel was explaining the rules of cricket to us as we watched the practice, but since I can barely understand the rules of my native sports as is, I didn't do too well with understanding a foreign one. We ended the evening with a supermarket raid to get some peanut butter, where we learned, much to our amusement, that the British don't say 'jar,' they say 'pot.'

Visit Sidmouth yourself at: http://www.visitsidmouth.co.uk/

The village of Sidmouth

The next day was our first day of classes. Our classes are divided into two parts: lecture and seminar, which are two hours each, with an hour break for lunch in between. Each class is taught by a different professor. The first day's lecture was an introduction to Global and Imperial History (my pathway). We discussed different ways of defining globalisation (British spelling) and of avoiding Euro-centrism.

After the lecture, we had a buffet-style dinner and pub quiz at the Ram, the student pub on campus. According to our programme coordinator, Lyndon, Britain has an average of 20,000 pub quizzes each week. People pitch in a few quid and then divide into teams and are awarded prizes for the most correct answers and for the best team name. For our quiz, the prize was a pitcher of beer or ale (I can't remember which) and some Cornish biscuits. This went to the team with the most correct answers (we did not have a separate prize for best name, though incidentally, the team who won also had the best name). Most of the people I had met before the quiz were already on teams, so the quiz gave me a great opportunity to meet new people and we all had a wonderful time answering the questions together. We had difficulty coming up with a team name, so I suggested that we pick three random words and put them together. In this way, Team Rainbow Galaxy Victory was born. We came in 6th place, which was somewhere in the middle of the overall ranking.

Today, we had our second lecture, which was on the imperial system and the making of the modern world. And now I will treat you with a five paragraph explanation of Spanish and Portuguese expansion into the Americas. 

Just kidding.

Since I realize that many people don't find global history as scintillating as I do, I've decided that for the remainder of my time here, my posts will focus on the social programmes and day trips that we'll be taking as part of the summer school. I will also occasionally post entries about interesting aspects of British culture or the University of Exeter that I've noticed during my time here.

Tomorrow, I'm off to Stonehenge and Salisbury! Stay tuned everyone!

My London Adventure (Obligatory Royal Baby Info Included)

Warning! The following blog post was written on very little sleep and contains bad writing, mediocre photography, a reflection on smells and how they relate to the human experience, as well as information about the royal baby, corgi disguises, Sherlock Holmes, and Japanese air conditioning, among other things. If you find any of this disturbing or upsetting, please stop reading NOW and consult your local physician.

In all seriousness though, this post will probably get a nice, shiny update and refurbishment some time in the future, because I was way too tired to do a good job on it the first time around, so you have been warned...

Anyway, it's been a little while since I've last updated and I've just returned from London, so there is much to write about!

Let me just clear up a few questions which will probably be popping into your mind right about now:

A picture I took of the palace, one day before the royal birth

Was I in London during the royal baby's birth? Yes.

Was I standing in that mob scene outside of Buckingham Palace? No.

Was London absolutely going crazy with joy? Not where I was, though granted, I was in a hotel room. In actuality, none of the native Brits I've met have shown any real interest in the royal baby - it has been the foreigners who have been the most excited. Having said that, I suspect that most British people around Covent Garden (where the hotel was located) with an interest in the royal family were packed in the pubs drinking to the future king and collecting some of their royal baby bets, since there was virtually no noise on the streets. I did hear what sounded like a small fleet of helicopters go by, but very few screaming people and trust me - you could hear drunken screaming people from the second floor of the hotel - we heard some only two nights before.

Interesting note on how I found out about the birth to begin with: Before we went sightseeing in London on Monday, my friends and I had seen on the "telly" that the Duchess of Cambridge had gone into labour, but I didn't find out that she had given birth until I returned to the hotel that evening and my mom texted me the news from America. After that, I switched on the BBC and watched it for about five minutes before going down into the hotel lobby because I realized they forgotten to give me towels.

To be honest, I had about zero interest in the royal baby before coming to the UK. When I realized aforementioned royal baby was possibly going to arrive whilst I was in the UK, that zero interest kicked up a notch to about a rating of "mild interest." I bought two newspapers for about a pound each the following morning and received a third one for free, but that was about the extent of my excitement for the event (and part of my rationale was that they might be worth something in 50 years).

So that was my royal baby experience. A bunch of helicopters and a text from my mom in New Jersey that told me the baby had been born in the first place. I will say this though - the baby is a really awesome marker for when I had my Fulbright Experience. If I'm ever wondering in the future, "How long has it been since I went to the UK on the Fulbright Summer Institute?" I can just look at the age of Kate and William's child and know the answer.

Anyway, enough of that.

We took the train on Saturday from Exeter to London to begin the International Summer School programme and then took the "Tube" from Paddington Station to Holborn Station near Covent Garden, the location of our hotel. For those of you who may not know, the "Tube" is a popular name for the London Underground. I found the Tube to be fairly similar to New York City's subways, so it wasn't a shocking experience for me.

After checking into the hotel, we took the Tube to South Kensington where we saw the outside of Kensington Palace and its accompanying gardens and parks. When we went back to the hotel for dinner, we began to meet some of the over 150 international students who had just arrived in London for the start of the programme. Throughout my three days in London, I met students from Egypt, Hong Kong, mainland China, Austria, Russia, Turkey, Switzerland, Canada, India, France, and of course, from the US! Everyone has been extremely friendly, kind, generous, curious, and open-minded and we've had great fun exchanging information about our various cultures.

Cheers!

Perhaps my favorite part of the whole trip came after dinner, when a small group of us that either weren't jet lagged or were toughing it out, went on an impromptu tour led by Lyndon of some of London's more interesting pubs, which included an old city sewer system that had been converted into a wine cellar and the Sherlock Holmes-themed pub at 221B Baker Street. We ended the night at an old school pub with cheap drinks (great for us poor college students) and I got to try a bitter ale, which was actually quite good after I acquired a taste for it.

On Sunday, we went on a walking tour of Trafalgar Square, Horse Guards Parade, and Buckingham Palace, led by an eccentric Scottish tour guide who told a lot of funny jokes about being Scottish and disguising himself as a corgi to meet the queen. I had seen these places in pictures and on TV, but it was quite a different experience to see them in person. I think a vital part of this experience was, as it was for all of London, the smells. This sounds funny at first, but when you think about it - you can see a place on TV and even hear some of the sounds, but you can't smell it. Smells have also been proven to be deeply connected to memory, so I think that is a big part of what truly makes for an authentic experience. So what does London smell like? Like food and pollution mostly, like any other city. But that, combined with physically walking the streets and seeing the architecture and buildings anywhere you choose to look and not where the TV camera is looking, makes for a real experience.

We had a free afternoon after the walking tour concluded and two of my friends and I spent it walking along the Thames and seeing an open air market and a line of street performers in Westminster. Some people may say that our time might have been better spent seeing a museum or a gallery, but I enjoyed the experience we had. I had the sense that we had stumbled upon a fun community gathering that brought both tourists and residents together to enjoy homespun food and entertainment and that felt really good.

Inside the Globe

In the evening, we saw a performance of Macbeth at the recreated Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. We were in the "groundlings" or standing section. After walking the whole day, many of us were frustrated at all the standing and some people even fainted! (They've since recovered.) During the first half of the play, I stood at the back righthand side of the stage, which wasn't the best vantage point. I was continually distracted from the performance by how much legs and feet hurt. But then, during intermission, one of my new friends from America suggested that we try to get a standing position near the front center of the stage so I followed her in doing exactly that! And wow, did that make a difference! We managed to get only one row back from the front center of the stage. The actors were within a metre of us at times! I was so engaged by the performance that I forgot how much my legs hurt and I don't think I've ever been as enraptured by Shakespeare as I was then. It was almost magical.

Visit the Globe at: http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/

One of the Tower ravens

Monday (royal baby day) was the last full day we had in London. In the morning, we visited the Tower of London, which unbenownst to me prior to visiting, is actually several towers. There are a number of different objects on display there, including the crown jewels, coins from the mint that used to operate at the Tower, torture devices, and armor. Fun fact: the armory exhibit is the longest running visitor attraction in the world at 350 years old! I also had the opportunity to see the famous Tower ravens. Legend has it that if the ravens leave the Tower, both the kingdom and the Tower will fall. Thankfully, there appeared to be enough ravens there to keep everything intact!

Learn more about the Tower of London here at: http://www.hrp.org.uk/TowerOfLondon/

A picture of me next to a trash can! And the Tower Bridge.

We took a river cruise up the Thames from the Tower to Westminster and I was able to get some lovely photos.

Unfortunately, when we arrived at Westminster, the abbey had a horrendously long line (and equally steep entrance fee), so we just had enough time to grab a bite to eat and head off to the British Museum, our last stop of the day before dinner. I was so tired at this point that I barely got through the Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Japanese exhibits. When I found out the Japanese exhibit was air conditioned and had benches, I decided that it was probably the best place to collapse (it also helped that I'm hoping to perhaps specialize in Japanese history in the future).

Two and a half days was of course way too short a timespan to see London properly, but I did get a nice taste of it - enough of a taste that I definitely want to come back some day - especially to see Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral. Hopefully, it won't be too long before I'm able to come back =)