I'm playing around with different backgrounds of this blog as I try to decide what I like (it may change again ;) I also warn you that there are a lot of pictures that go with the links (around 250 from all three days. You were warned)
So this weekend involved a lot of walking. On Friday we left at 7:30am for Tintagel, arriving there a little after 1pm. Tintagel is the legendary birthplace of King Arthur. According to legend (and recorded in some medieval romances, including ones I read last semester), King Uther fancied the wife of a Duke, Ygerna. King Uther disguised himself as the Duke, snuck into the castle, and conceived Arthur with Ygerna. The Duke subsequently died in a battle that evening and King Uther made Ygerna his queen. Now saying we went to Tintagel Castle is a little misleading. There is no castle actually there, but simply ruins. And it is quite a ways down and then up some steep steps to get to the actual “castle”. They started this part with the warning “Do not stray from the path because the grass overhang is just grass and there is nothing underneath. A student died a couple years ago from straying off the path.” Needless to say we didn’t really stray off the path (but we went on some rocks a couple times (far from the edge but not on the designated path).
Now they said that the major hike was going to be on Saturday, but many of us felt that these stairs warranted a warning of their own. Not really enough time to walk along this area, have lunch, and shop so we found ourselves quickly hurrying along to get back on the bus to head to the Roskilly’s Farm. This was a farm, but very few animals were there, just some cows. They described it on a handout to us as “whilst here for our BBQ, you can explore the farm, meet the cows and donkeys, amble along paths through charming valley of ponds, meadows, and woods, feed the ducks, or follow the path to ‘Joe Stones’, a great look out place from which you can see over the sea to St Mawes and the Cornish mountains.” Now we went exploring and all we found was a little pond, some cows in a pasture, and a major road. We had barbeque for dinner and ice cream for desert, which they are famous for. I had coconut bounty and green mint chocolate (interesting to note that Mint Chocolate Chips is called green mint chocolate in the UK).
We then got on the bus again and drove to the hostel we would be staying at. The bus parked and they pointed way across town and upwards to where we were staying. We lugged our bags up many more hills until we arrived at the hostel. Now the hostel was much nicer than I ever expected a hostel to be. Many of the rooms were quite spacious (not ours) and they served hot breakfast in the mornings. After settling in, we ventured down to the coast for some pictures before heading back up and calling it a day.
Day 2 of the weekend had us, of course, riding on the bus to the Lizard. Breakfast was at 8am leaving the hostel at 8:40 to make the trek to the bus pick up point to depart. The Lizard is the most southerly part of England and the National Trust owns much of it so it protects it from development. This is the hike they had been warning us about and made sure we wore proper shoes. Now this was a hike, but it was much more level than Tintagel or even the city of Bath with a few inclines and such, but not too bad at all really. Laura and I are also convinced that it was not close to 4 miles but more like 2. Before beginning on the hike our guide showed us the most southerly football field and proceeded to make comments about the game that night. We walked along the path, stopping at the most southerly loo in England and the most southerly café (where I fell, but who can say the fell at the most southerly part of England? Only me from our crew). We walked along the lizard and around the Southern part of England for quite some time, taking many photographs along the way. We eventually got back on the bus and headed for St. Ives. St. Ives is a little town at the bottom of a hill (noticing that a hill is included in everything). We had very little time for this part of our exploration, but we decided we wanted to accomplish it all. We got lunch at a little sandwich place, went to the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden, visited the Tate and went to the ocean. I was the only one in our close crew who ventured into the ocean, but some of the other sin the large group choose to sunbath and be on the beach the whole time. It was quite cold as was expected since it is the Atlantic, but I couldn’t not go in the water! MJ and I even stopped for a picture by (well with the) lighthouse from Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse in the Background for Professor Flynn (our English professor at Gettysburg College who loves Virginia Woolf and To the Lighthouse.)
We departed St. Ives at 5pm and passed a military barracks and the Goonhilly Satellite Communications Earth Station where the first trans-Atlantic telephone call to the U.S. was transmitted. It was then up the hill to drop stuff off at the hostel and back down the hill to the Paris pub. Here we had a pasty supper (not my favorite) and watched the much anticipated US vs England football game in the world cup (The two have not met in a World Cup since 1950 when the US beat England 1-0. They were interested in some long awaited payback). The England supporters sang their national anthem so naturally the Americans got up to sign our national anthem (I should say tried as it was a bit more difficult to coordinate and sing in tune than the English one). Within the first five minutes the English supporters were up with cheers singing “Engaland Engaland!” with their first goal. Thankfully the US scored a goal not too much late, but to say they scored gives them some sort of credit rather than acknowledging that it was simply a goalie error. Laura and I felt bad for the goalie after that. There was much yelling and differencing perspectives throughout the game, but as climatic as it was it ended in a tie, which didn’t seem that satisfactory. It meant there could be no boasted from either side, but it seemed unfinished. It was quite fun to be in that atmosphere for the game and it was completed by drinking their special cider, which was quite good.
Happy 18th Birthday Steven! Sorry I wasn’t there to celebrate. Hope you enjoyed your week at the beach!
Today we woke up for breakfast at 8am again and departed for Knightshayes at 9am. We arrived at Knighshayes a little after noon and had until 3pm to explore, which proved to be more than enough time. Knightshayles is a house built by a millionaire in 1867. It remains the only example built of “a medium-sized Burges country house, to the ‘standard’ Victorian arrangement.” Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pictures of the interior of the house but we made up for it with the large number of the exterior and in the garden. I also played a short song on the piano thus starting a trend of other's playing on the piano. But I figured I had to do it because when else would I have the opportunity to play the piano in a mansion? The trek back to the Bath seemed to drag on for quite some time, but we eventually were back in our house around 5:30pm. A letter was waiting for me from Jenny :) Thanks Jenny! We had a group dinner made by Chelsea, had a conversation about movies including Harry Potter, and then split up to do homework and sort through photos.
After the weekend is said and done I came out with pink cheeks (big shocker there since no matter how much I apply sunscreen I always have pink cheeks), a red right arm that will make a nice farmers tan and red behind the knees, but compared to many others I did well. Not a lot of homework for me tonight, but there are quite a lot of pictures to sort through and later this week will not be so fortunate for homework with a presentation on Tuesday and two papers due Thursday. But Thursday is the end of the week and Friday has us going to Stonehenge and Salisbury and then probably off to London on Saturday. Hope you all had a nice weekend and hopefully my dad, brother and Mary are enjoying Steven’s birthday dinner out!
Photos from Day 2 & 3 (too many to all the days to fit in one album ;))
the entire group minus our academic advisor Jonathan just so you have a gauge of how many people are in the program (the teachers are in the photo too)
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