Flowers! Flowers Everywhere!

I wish more U.S. buildings looked liked this!

No blog about England would be complete without at least a mention of its gardens.. Everywhere I went there were flowers - professionally crafted beds, small pots clustered in front of townhouses, or growing wild along the highways. Obviously, the most flowers I saw in one place was at the fabulous Eden Project which I posted about earlier, but there were also fabulous gardens in the parks at London and Bath. Of course the flowers weren't just limited to the parks - there was even a pub in London whose storefront was completely covered in flowers! Embercombe's gardens were filled with flowers along with vegetables and herbs and many small towns and cities like Sidmouth and Falmouth splashed colour around their narrow streets with hanging baskets and planters. Some of these coastal villages also had quite a few palm trees, which are not something you usually associate with England.

Part of the botanical gardens near Reed Hall

Some of the most fabulous flowers and trees that I saw however, were right on the University of Exeter's campus. I was never more than a few yards from a tree, it seemed. I may have mentioned this statistic earlier, but Exeter has the highest tree to student ratio in the UK, which was a fun fact the student ambassadors were often fond of sharing. Exeter's campus is also widely considered to be the most beautiful campus in the UK, above even Oxford and Cambridge, and it is very easy to see why. I spent an entire afternoon wandering its botanical gardens by myself, utterly entranced by the trees, fountains, and flowers that I saw. The architecture in this part of the campus is especially beautiful as well. At least half a dozen ornate staircases wind around the gardens by Reed Hall, itself a gorgeous structure. There are plenty of benches to sit upon along the way, so you can take in the beauty around you whilst studying or simply resting.

Here unicorn, unicorn...

One of my favorite spots was a small clearing surrounded by tall, beautiful trees. In the center of this miniature glade was a single tiny tree. The way the shadows fell at the particular moment I came upon this spot made the little tree look as though it was bathed in a singular solar spotlight. It was very special - almost magical. In all honesty, I would have only been mildly surprised if a unicorn had walked out of the trees at that moment.

There are two large fountains behind Reed Hall and the first one I stumbled across was where I beheld another special moment. I saw a perfect little rainbow reflected in the soft spray of water. I stood there for a full two or three minutes, just absolutely mesmerized by it.

There were other wonders to discover around the university as well. The trees on campus, especially in the school's botanical gardens, are often massive things, with wild tangled branches and sometimes multiple trunks. One tree I saw had no less than a dozen trunks sprouting from the same base. I had never seen anything like that the U.S., not even in the Smoky Mountains which boasts an incredibly diverse biosphere of plantlife.


In the main section of campus, where the Forum (student center) and many of the academic buildings were located, there were still many flowers, trees, shrubs, fountains, and ponds to gaze at. I found myself constantly clutching my camera, even on mundane trips to class in the morning, because I was never sure if I'd see a new flower or grove of trees that I had missed before.

The funny thing is, I don't even particularly like flowers. I don't know anything about them at all, except that they're actually giant plant sex organs (thanks fifth grade science class!) and they produce pollen which I'm allergic to. Also bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds like them for their nectar (speaking of bees, the UK's bumblebees are better than U.S. bumblebees - they're larger, fuzzier, and yellow-er). Aside from that, I'm pretty clueless when it comes to flowers and I'm absolute rubbish at identifying them (I am a bit better with trees, thanks to my dad). I don't grow them because I know I'll probably kill them and I've never found them particularly inspiring or romantic (except for the time my boyfriend gave me roses, but that was less the actual roses and more the gesture and the fact that he drove an hour and a half to surprise me for Valentine's Day. Thank you Isaac!)

So, having said that, my time in the UK has definitely boosted my appreciation for flowers and their beauty. We have beautiful gardens in the U.S. and our fair share of flower enthusiasts (the annual Philadelphia Flower Show is a great showcase of this, and interestingly enough their theme for 2013 was British) but somehow the feelings I experienced when looking at flowers in England were simply different - and better. Perhaps this was because there were more flowers in the UK and a much greater variety - I saw the craziest colours and petal shapes there - or perhaps it was because the gardens seemed to be laid out and cultivated with more care than in the U.S. I don't know what it was exactly, but aside from perhaps the Philadelphia Flower Shower, I had never marveled or appreciated gardens more than I did when I was in England.

Tune in next time for a post about food in the UK! There will be tasty pictures =)

In the meantime, please enjoy more not-so-tasty, but lovely pictures of flowers and trees! You can click on all the photos in this blog to enlarge them (something I just discovered literally an hour ago). Also if anyone would like to help me identify the plants in these pictures, don't hesitate to leave a comment!

More gorgeous shots of Exeter's gardens

I adored the shape of this tree

One of the ponds at Exeter. You can see a fountain in the distance.

More Exeter!

Reed Hall at Exeter

This was taken at the Eden Project. No idea what kind of flower it is.

This flower reminds me of a sunset. Also taken at Eden Project.

More Eden Project goodness!

Gardens outside of Mediterranean Biome at Eden Project

Pretty...

This tropical-looking flower was taken in the Rainforest biome in Eden.

Bizarre, but cool-looking just the same. Taken at Eden.

These look kind of like lillies, but I have no idea. Taken outside of the Rainforest Biome at Eden.

Sign Language

Needless to say, things have been very hectic since I've been back home. Rest assured that I haven't forgotten about my blog though!

This entry is one that I've been wanting to write for a long time. As the title suggests, it's about signs!

There are probably two things on your mind right now:

What kind of signs is she talking about? Street signs, but also random notices that I've seen posted around the UK.

This sounds boring. A whole post about signs?

Perhaps this will be slightly more boring to my friends in the UK (and possibly in the rest of Europe; I'm not sure how they structure their signs) than in the U.S., since they see such signs on a daily basis, but I'm hoping everyone will find my comparison of U.S. to UK signs at least slightly amusing.

We're a bit blunt in the U.S., especially in the Northeast region, where I hail from. We don't mince words. We get straight to the point. We also assume certain things and don't bother to spell them out.

Oh no, not the Low Trees! Anything but the Low Trees!

So you'd never see a sign like the one on the right:

My first thought when I saw this sign in London was, "What? Low trees? Why is that on a sign?"

As a double decker whirled past, the meaning became slightly clearer, but as the top of the bus barely brushed the lowest branches of the line of trees, it still seemed rather ridiculous to me. What really amused me though was the sign colouration and the exclamation point. Low Trees! Oh no!

I don't know about you, but it looked fine to me.

Speaking of trees, there was another amusing sign that we came across in Sidmouth that had us roaring with laughter. It's a little hard to read but it says, "This ailing tree will be replaced in the autumn." Well thank goodness! In case you were worried about this little tree that actually doesn't seem like it's doing all that badly, we have you covered. Rest assured, it will be removed. In my hometown, the trees the borough plants along the street turn completely brown half the time and are left there for months. No signs are ever placed on them. We just sort of jog by and go, "Ooh, that tree doesn't look too good," and keep going, only complaining if said tree is directly outside our home.

In case you were wondering why...

Another plant-related sign I noticed was right on the University of Exeter's campus, pictured here. In the U.S., our signs simply say, "Keep off grass." No explanation, no frills. Just do it. In case you were wondering why exactly you should keep off the grass, well you're out of luck in the U.S. England will provide you with an answer.

I'm not trying to make fun of either the UK or the U.S. for their signs. Oh who am I kidding, I suppose I am a little bit, but it's not meant in a mean-spirited way. It's one of those little cultural differences that's amusing, but also perhaps illuminating. The Northeast is sometimes criticized by other regions of the U.S. (particularly our Southern brethren) for being too fast-paced and curt. One of my European friends that I made in Exeter who had visited the Northeast U.S. said much the same thing. Perhaps this is reflected in our signs (or rather lack thereof). Keep off the grass. Low trees? That's your problem. Pole got flattened by a car? Unless it's going to electrocute someone, we're not going to put anything up (London will treat you to a paragraph-long explanation, complete with a number to call in case you're still concerned). England is different. It seemed more laid-back and slower-paced than what I was used to. Even London seemed more relaxed when compared to the cities I'm most familiar with, Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, D.C. And perhaps this is reflected in their signs. Time is taken to explain the situation, care is taken to put up a sign to begin with.

I'm not going to say which is a better method. I think there's room for both, don't you agree?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to be searching for a place to hide from the fearsome Low Trees.

Thanks for your patience in waiting for this post. Next up: Gardens in the UK!

St. Ives, Shooting Stars, Bertrand Russell, and Fond Farewells

Before I go any further, I should take this opportunity to say that I am home safe and sound, typing this post from my room in New Jersey. It has been a fantastic experience and I am both bewildered and sad that it has ended so quickly. This will be my last 'chronological' post in the sense that this will be the last post that outlines where I went, what I saw, and what I did in the order that I went, saw, and did it. However, in the coming days/weeks, there will be several more anecdotal posts that will focus on random things I found interesting about England, i.e. the gardens, street signs, pubs, etc. The last post will be a reflection piece. So, not surprisingly, when you see a post titled, 'Reflections,' that means that'll be the last you'll be hearing from me...at least until I go someplace awesome again, which I really hope will be sooner rather than later. Now, without further ado, I shall regale you with tales of what happened last week when I was still in England.

Sign for the Old Fire House

I was a social butterfly and went to the Old Firehouse on both Monday and Tuesday with some friends. On both nights I had the wonderful opportunity to try toffee cider, which is absolutely delicious and very much what I had always imagined butterbeer to taste like in Harry Potter. (Incidentally, I have tasted the 'butterbeer' they serve in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Orlando's Universal Studios and I don't think it tasted at all like what I imagined.) I also discovered that the Firehouse serves some of the best pizza known to man (their Hawaiian is particularly tasty). Like On the Waterfront, their pizza comes out in a wicker basket. Unlike On the Waterfront, their pizza is square. Squares are a nice, novel shape for a pizza, I think. I'm still a bit jet lagged, in case you couldn't tell.

There was a mini-meteor shower on Monday night that we witnessed on our way back from the pub and I saw somewhere between 8-10 shooting stars, which is about 8-10 more shooting stars than I had ever seen before in my life, making this quite an exciting event for me. On a clear night, you can see more stars in Exeter than you can see in most parts of New Jersey, so even when there was a lull in the shooting star show, it was still mesmerizing to look up at the sky. We stayed out so late stargazing that Exeter's campus police showed up to make sure everything was okay!

The village of St. Ives

On Wednesday, we took our last day trip to the Cornish village of St. Ives. This was perhaps my favourite day trip of all. St. Ives is located right on the coast and its shimmering clear waters are at once turquoise, sapphire, and aquamarine. The town is known for its art galleries and workshops and we made sure to nip into a few of those!

I had my last Cornish pasty in St. Ives at the Yellow Canary Cafe before heading off to the pier with my friends to take a boat trip to Seal Island.

Seal Island is a small rocky outcrop a few miles out to sea, well within the view of the jagged Cornish coastline. It is named for the small population of Grey Atlantic Seals that live there. They often sun themselves on the rocks, but when we saw them they were mostly swimming around in the water.

A seal!

As nice as the seal viewing was at Seal Island, we actually got our best view of a seal when we returned the pier. This particular seal was extraordinarily friendly. He or she would swim up to passing boats, passing kayaks, passing swimmers...basically anything remotely interesting-looking that passed by. Even though this was awesome for tourists like ourselves, I am a bit worried about this seal's future and I hope that most people are smart enough to simply take photos and otherwise leave the seal alone.

There was an extra note of melancholy in our departure that had not been present during the other trips. We all knew this was the last one. Still, we gathered up our strength and trudged up the insanely steep hill to the coaches and started back to Exeter.

Discover St. Ives' glorious art galleries and beaches here: http://www.stives-cornwall.co.uk/

Those of us who had presentations the next day spent a feverish night putting the finishing touches on them. My group presented on Bertrand Russell. Our task was to show how he illustrated some of the global themes we had discussed in our previous classes. We talked about his anti-imperialist, anti-war, and anti-nuclear proliferation protests and general activism and we made sure to throw in a few jokes in there as well. All in all the presentation went swimmingly on Friday, as did all of the rest of the presentations in the Global and Imperial History pathway.

I spent my last afternoon in Exeter eating lunch with friends at Herbie's Vegetarian Restaurant before meeting with Valerie to discuss my Fulbright experience. As you may have guessed from reading this blog, there were many positive things to report. Valerie explained that upon returning home, many people who study abroad for any length of time experience anti-homesickness and reverse culture shock. It has been about one week since I had that conversation with her and I think I'm still suffering a bit from those things to be honest. Writing about them certainly helps though.

We attended the gala dinner that night. We were all dressed in our smartest clothes for the occasion and the dining hall was decked out splendidly. There was champagne and wine. There were speeches and toasts. There was a performance by the Shakespeare pathway which summarized our time in Exeter. Highlights of this performance included people panting their way up steep inclines and screaming at the infernal seagulls that lived alongside us in Holland Hall (these seagulls were twice as big as Jersey seagulls and sounded like children being murdered). There was photography galore. There was music and dancing. There was laughter and tears. It all went too fast. Suddenly I was in a cab, then on a bus, then on a plane. Suddenly it was all over.

I'm still sad about it. Still frustrated that it all went by so quickly. I miss England. I miss the architecture, the landscape, the atmosphere, the accents, and yes, even the food.

But most of all I miss the people. I miss the friends that I made during my time there. Many of them are half a world away now. I don't when or even whether I'll see any of them again. I sincerely hope so. That really is the hardest part of all this.

As sad as I am, I'm also tremendously grateful and happy - to be home safe with my family and friends and to have had such an incredible experience to look back upon. To be that sad about something means the converse is also true - that it gave you extreme joy. I never could have imagined how wonderful this experience was and part of me is still incredulous of it all.

I will write more about my reflections in a later entry. In the meantime, keep checking in for short, fun posts about English culture. See you soon!

My Adventure Ends Tomorrow...but the Blog Does Not

Hi everyone! Due to the whirlwind of academic work, day trips, and packing, I will not have a chance to write and upload my St. Ives blog until I return home to the good ol' US of A. But even though my adventure ends tomorrow, I will still be updating my blog for the next few weeks to share more pictures and random anecdotes about the UK that should be very interesting (and fun)!

So keep checking in for more UK-themed goodies!

Cheers,

Kate

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!