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!