So I’m sitting in the Barcelona Airport trying to figure out how to sum up the last five days of my life in one short blog post. I’m not sure I can do it, and this might get unbearably long, but I have so much to tell and so many emotions to express, I’ve just got to make it a long one. We arrived in Barcelona around 10:30 pm, Spain Time, which it turns out is an hour ahead of London, which we didn’t know until we got here. The plane ride was okay, except for these rather obnoxious English dudes who sat a few rows in front of us and refused to shut up for more than ten seconds. Oh, and the ads running every half hour or so—apparently that’s how RyanAir can be so cheap… they run advertisements the entire flight. But we got to Barcelona and I immediately started sweating because I was wearing half of my clothes. I’d had the brilliant idea of bringing my laptop along, so my backpack was severely limited on space. Therefore, I

First official pic in Barcelona!

reasoned, wearing the clothes there was the most obvious solution. It worked, the only problem being that I just about died of heatstroke on the way to our apartment, and this was at night. We took the train from the airport to Clot, the metro station that would become most familiar to us, and walked to our apartment, which was thankfully very close. The reason we had an apartment instead of staying in a hostel was because we had found one that we could rent for 5 days that was relatively close to the city center and was actually less per person per night than a hostel would be, and it was nicer because we didn’t have to live with 12 strangers.

The day after we arrived, we went straight to the Sagrada Familia. This is the basilica designed by Antoni Gaudi that is literally the most interesting building I’ve ever seen. It’s been under construction since before Gaudi’s death in 1926, and it was weird to see so many cranes and scaffolds around the building. We didn’t go in that first day, although we did later. We walked from there to the beach, which we discovered wasn’t the smartest thing we’d ever done. It was quite a long way. But the beach was gorgeous and I may have freaked out a little when I saw the Mediterranean in real life. I mean, come on, this is the sea that Greece was built off of, where Odysseus and Aneas sailed, what Marc Antony and Septimius crossed to get to Africa. That water was literally the stuff of legend, and I got to swim in it!! We had decided relaxing after our hectic travel day was in order, so we lazed around on the beach and in our apartment that day.

one of the many stalls in the side market

The second day we bought a three day train pass, which was probably the smartest thing we’ve ever done. Maybe not ever, but pretty close. It gave us unlimited rides on both buses and trains for three whole days, and we definitely used it. We first went to La Ramblas, the gorgeous street market in old Barcelona. The street began with the Plaza de la Catalunya, which boasted a few fountains and statues and monuments and such (all absolutely stunning, of course). The street itself wasn’t quite as impressive, because I kept comparing it to the market I saw in Chichicastenengo, Guatemala, until we went into a side market that was bursting with so many fruits and candies and various goodies as well as interested people. That part was pretty cool. There was also a side plaza further down Las Ramblas that had yet another fountain and lots of innovative handmade things. There were coin purses made from old cassette tapes and handbags made with vinyl records, burlap sacks literally made into dresses and bags, old silver spoons and keys made into gorgeous jewelry, things like that. Las Ramblas itself ends with a huge monument to Christopher Colombus, pointing (presumably) in the direction of the Americas. The base of the monument included statues of Ferdinand and Isabel, the Spanish monarchy’s supercouple who united Castile and Aragon as well as sponsored Columbus’s original journey to the Americas. The monument itself was surrounded by lions, and we snatched the opportunity to take pictures on the back of a lion because when can you ever do that again? There were also these really cool living statues at the end of Las Ramblas, of people like Picasso and Columbus, as well as these weird/scary dragons and golden angels. I got a picture with the John Lennon one (just for you, Bob!) that someone has on their camera somewhere. These were cool, but a little bit creepy because they were so. good. at. being. statues. Really, you didn’t realize they were real people until you noticed them just barely moving.

After eating some ridiculously overpriced food for lunch, we made our way toward the Museum of Contemporary Art. There was so much to see here, I honestly can’t retell it all. There were so many interesting interpretations of art and what art is, and how expression can be limited in ways but expanded in others. Some art I enjoyed more than others, such as the piece with books hanging from the ceiling and the words ‘TO READ’ emblazoned on the wall next to them, or the piece that included a rusty bedframe bolted to the wall, grafitti on the building outside, and a large painting inside. One of the final paintings that stuck in my mind was a large grayscale painting that seemed to represent a river, with animals drinking at the banks, during a rainstorm. For some reason, the composition of the painting and the technique used really worked for me. Another really cool one was called “An Exercise in Illusion” and featured three statues of Chinese men (with no feet? Still don’t know what that was about) in front of a long curtain. Turns out the curtain was painted on a cloth that was then hung on the wall, but it was painted so realistically that I didn’t notice it until I saw the title of the piece and endeavored to take a closer look.

The next day began with the Arc de Triomf. I hadn’t realized, until coming to Barcelona, that many European cities have an Arch of Triumph, not just Paris. This one was very interesting, made out of red brick and intricate statue work on the top. What we didn’t realize, walking up, was that there was a huge yoga demonstration going on right in front of the Arc. This was actually kind of cool to

The Cascades

watch, if you ignore the fact that I speak literally zero Spanish and therefore couldn’t understand a word the instructor was saying, and I probably would have joined in if I hadn’t been wearing a dress. We wandered down the park into what we now know were the grounds for the World’s Fair when it was held in Barcelona. Simply by luck, we happened upon the Ciutadella Cascades, which were stunning. The fountain even started up while we were standing there, so we had to re-take the pictures with the water running. I wish I knew what the fountain was built for, but there weren’t many explanatory  plaques around and I wouldn’t have understood them, anyway. I guess it’s enough that it was beautiful, and unexpected, and amazing to see. We unfortunately had to leave the grounds before exploring much more–we had church in the Catedral to get to.

Church was an interesting experience. At first, a few of us couldn’t even get into the building because we weren’t wearing appropriate clothing. Sleeves were necessary, as were shorts or skirts that were closer to the knee than most. To get in, a few of us had to buy cheap scarves from the vendors in the plaza and use them as shawls. Once inside, we had to convince the Spanish guard that we, a group of American college kids, really were here for mass and should be let into the front of the Catedral. Furthermore, it was a Catholic mass, which I’m not really too familiar with as a Presbyterian, and it was entirely in Spanish. I spent a lot of the time trying to guess the pitches in the sung responses and admiring the architecture of the Catedral itself, alternately watching the priest at the front of the church giving a sermon that I only caught a few words of (corazon and monde, if you’re interested). It was really interesting to be a part of, though, and I’m really glad I had the experience. The coolest part may have been when we walked outside, and there was a band playing on the plaza steps while multiple groups of older Spanish men and women doing traditional dances. It was really awesome to see such spontaneous enjoyment by people so different from us, but so similar in all the ways that count.

Lunch was stellar–I had a waffle with caramel sauce and I just about died and went to heaven. Not only have I been waffle-deprived for close to a month, this particular waffle was made spectacularly. That was my sustenance for our hike to Parc Guell. This involved a walking up a rather steep hill and walking through a bunch of trails made of dirt and horribly placed rocks, but the view was definitely worth it. Not only for the great view of Barcelona itself, but for the amazing Gaudi architecture. The colorful tiles and organic shapes make his designs incredibly unique and unbelievably interesting to look at from various angles. Literally any angle, actually, is new and exciting to look at. It was beautiful to see, especially because the weather was just as gorgeous as the architecture and the sun made the colors shine all the more brightly. I wish that we had had a bit more time to explore the area better, but it was sunny and hot and everyone was a bit crabby and tired. So after gazing at the buildings that looked a bit like something out of Dr. Seuss in awe for possibly longer than was entirely necessary, we headed back to the apartment for some well-deserved rest.

The view from Tibidabo

The next day we headed up the mountain to Tibidabo. We weren’t sure what to expect, exactly, but it was basically a huge church, a lookout point, and an amusement park for small children. We, being the incredibly mature college students that we are, probably had the most fun on the teeter totter and the slide maze. I think Cat even got part of it on film. It was a gorgeous day, and playing around like a kid was so much fun. The views were amazing, too. I learned how to take a panoramic shot on my camera on this day, so I got a few good photos from the lookout point and of the church. I’m not really sure why there was a church overlooking an amusement park on top of a mountain, but it seemed to work for the Barcelonians (is that even a word?). After Tibidabo we made our way to Parc Montjuic. Walking up to the parc involved many, many stairs, a few pillars that held up nothing, and the Magic Fountain, which unfortunately doesn’t run on Mondays. The Art Museum, at the top of all the stairs, was gorgeous to look at, even if we couldn’t get in (it’s closed on Mondays?). The sun was setting around the time we were exploring the parc, so we got to observe how the building changed in different lights. We also discovered, completely by accident, the Olympic Stadium from the 1992 Summer Olympics. It was a really impressive set up, and I wish, again, that we could have explored it a bit more, but it was getting dark and late and we were all rather tired, so we headed back to the apartment after taking a rather large amount of pictures.

The last day we had together in Barcelona we used to see the inside of the Sagrada Familia.

Sagrada Familia

The line was incredibly long the first day we saw the outside, and thankfully when we went on Tuesday it wasn’t quite as ridiculous. Seeing the inside was definitely worth the 11 euros, though, because I’ve literally never seen anything like that before in my life. It was absolutely stunning. The ceilings were incredibly high, and the pillars were huge but didn’t really seem like it because the space itself dwarfed everything inside it. The stained glass windows were partially finished, and the colors streaming through them played on the white walls like music. I don’t even know how to describe the feeling you get when you walk inside–just that everything is bigger and better and more beautiful than anything else you will ever see. Despite the fact that Gaudi, the architect, died in 1926, construction is still going on. They only recently finished the inside and Pope Benedict dedicated the basilica just last year. Underneath the main part of the basilica is a small museum dedicated to documenting the construction of the Sagrada Familia, from the original conceptual drawings to the current plaster molds being thought up and worked off of in the present day. One of the most interesting things I saw was a demonstration of how Gaudi created his arches. He would hang string between two weights to create the ‘perfect arch,’ as he saw it, doing this multiple times in the same piece to form the basic structure of the building he was to create. He would then observe the hanging strings through a mirror to see what the arches would look like right-side up. Another example given was how he created the splaying disks on the ceiling. This was again done with string and plaster, although I didn’t fully understand how it worked. Needless to say, Gaudi was an incredible genius and looking at his work left me a bit speechless. Okay, a lot speechless. It got to the point where I just had to sit down inside the basilica and stare at everything because I couldn’t take it all in anymore. It was amazing.

After the Sagrada Familia, we headed back to the beach for one last relaxing day before leaving. The others left for Ibiza on Wednesday morning, and I stayed behind because my flight back to Cambridge wasn’t until later that night. I cleaned up the apartment a bit, looked through my photos, did some laundry, and generally tried to reflect on my time in Spain. It was truly incredible, and I’m so happy I went. We had gorgeous weather and the monuments were stunning and the Mediterranean was fun to swim in and I even got a bit less pale. But I was ready to come back home to Cambridge, I think. As much as I loved being in Spain, I missed England quite a bit. I ended up sitting next to a lovely British couple from Norwich on my flight back, and we had a great talk about a ton of things, which made the flight go by much faster. They were really so sweet, they even bought me a soda during the flight. On the train back from Stansted Airport, I met a woman and her daughter coming back from seeing a show in London. It made me realize that travelling on my own would be quite fun, because I’m much more open to talk to the people around me when I don’t actually know any of them. That, however, could also have been that I was just really excited people were speaking English again.

Barcelona was amazing. England is amazing. I’m so happy to be here, to be supported by all of you reading this, and to have this opportunity. I appreciate every single second of it, from the cold and rainy bits to the unbearably hot and sunny bits, from the tiring bits to the infrequent boring bits. I love the learning, the growing, and the travelling, which is it’s own form of learning. I love it all, and I can’t wait to see more.

With happiness, excitement, and gratitude,

Bryn

It’s probably ironic that the weekend I’m not going anywhere is the weekend that ends up being the busiest.

My Anglia ID

Somehow, that’s exactly what happened to me. This past weekend was supposed to be nice, relaxing, a time to meet the students at Anglia Ruskin and get everything straightened out over there before we leave for Spain. So we went to the International Students welcome session, which somehow lasted two hours. We literally sat through a lecture about living in Cambridge (which we’d been doing for a month already, incidentally) for two hours. On the bright side, we got our student ids at this particular meeting. The ARU ids are rather similar to Valpo’s OneCards, in that they are basically necessary to get anywhere on campus, so it was kinda nice to get them finally. We had a rather interesting experience at the iCentre, which is basically a giant helpdesk outside of the library. See, only half of us had gotten our ids at the meeting, so the other half had to go to the iCentre to get theirs. There was a huge queue (line, there was a very long line…) so it took a bit to even get up to the desk. Then, not everybody at the helpdesk knew how to help, exactly, and we were told a bunch of conflicting things ranging from ‘you need your visa to get an id’ to ‘no you can’t take a picture here, we need you to email one’ as another student was getting their picture taken for the id. We did, eventually, get everything straightened out.

The next day, the Students’ Union was throwing a party for us at the Revolution, one of the more popular clubs in town. This was something we expected to be really fun, despite the fact that we had to walk all the way across town to get to ARU, and then walk back about a third of the way to get to Revolution. However, we got to Revolution around 9:15, so the club was obviously not hoppin’ quite yet. Also, the bartender wasn’t exactly on top of things, like getting drinks for people at the bar. As a person who has worked in a restaurant, I can appreciate the difficulties of serving that many people at once, but I also think that an effort should be, you know, MADE to get to everybody. Let’s just say they were a bit too laid back about it. But around 10:30, we decided to go upstairs and we found the ‘Revolucion del Cuba’ room, where ethnic music and various dance lessons were being given. This turned out to be the best room for at least an hour, despite the… uh…. less courteous guys we ran into. Once the music picked up, it was really fun to dance in this room with a bunch of the international students. I ended up in a circle with Manuela (from Italy), Yassine (from France), Sunita (from Sri Lanka), Kristina (from Denmark), and a few other girls whose names I don’t remember from Germany and Belgium. It got a bit hot in the club, we went out onto the terrace to cool down and talk. That was really fun, and I got a few of the girls’ numbers to see if we could meet up later in the semester.

The next day was a bit of a recovery day for me. I’m not really one to stay out late too often, so when I do I tend to sleep a lot the next day. But Sunday, my roommate and I went to church together. This was interesting because the church we chose turned out to be doing three baptisms that day. Not to be too judgmental, or anything, but these kids were nightmares. And the mother and godparents didn’t exactly try to stop them from basically running wild, banging on the piano, blowing on the mic, etc. Coming back to the house

Hanging out at Jesus Green with Anni (pictured) and Tess (taking the picture)

was a bit of a relief, to be honest. Later that day, I decided to go to the carnival being held at ARU. This was a really good idea, as it turns out, because they had free food (including ice cream, popcorn, and cotton candy!!) and fair games to play. I also ran into Freya, Anna, and Kristina, three Danish girls I had met on Friday. I also met Tessa and Anni, who as it turns out are friends with Yassine as well, and we talked basically the whole time. It was really fun to hear about their school in Berlin, and about what they’re going to be studying here. We eventually decided to leave the carnival and hang out on Jesus Green, a huge park right next to the downtown area. It also happened to be a gorgeous day, and we were laughing about how everyone back at our respective homes expected England to be gray and rainy all the time and our first weekend was so beautiful. It was really great to sit and talk for a while, especially in such an incredible space.

Then yesterday, which is the day I had been planning on writing this blog, our entire house got food poisoning. Well, not everybody–Cat, Jin, and I were unscathed. Lisa had a minor bit, but Grant, Ryan, Rachel, and Kristine were down hard. So I instead was running around trying to make sure that everyone in the house was still breathing, and that the windows were open to get some air flowing through the house. It was a bit of a hectic experience, but thankfully everyone’s mostly recovered now. Tomorrow we leave for Barcelona. Wish us luck!

With new friends, a positive attitude, and much love,

Bryn

This weekend was the first weekend we attempted travel without our trusty guide to all things British (that would be Matt, and he’d hasten to tell you all that he is by no means an expert at it). It was… an interesting experience, to say the least. We had planned to go to London on Friday and then explore Cambridge a bit more on Saturday because we wanted to get a good feel for our ‘hometown’ over here before we went gallivanting off to Europe. So we got up early enough to walk across town and catch the 9:20am train to London on Friday morning, got ready, and made the two-mile walk. I, personally, don’t really mind walking long distances, especially if it saves me money in any way (ie no bus, no taxi), so this wasn’t really a huge deal. I’ve come to realize, however, that walking around all day, constantly, is not for everyone. And understandably so–not everybody wants to feel like their legs are going to fall off by the end of the day. I get that. The problem with this particular Friday morning was that we walked all the way to the train station…. and discovered that we needed our passports to use our BritRail passes. Which we didn’t actually have with us at the train station. So it was 9:30am and we were on the opposite side of town without anything to do.

The rock garden

Naturally, we looked at the map outside the train station and found a couple of places that we wanted to go. The closest one was the Cambridge University Botanical Gardens–so we walked there. Unfortunately, it was 4GBP to get in, which we recently discovered is about $8 (because the exchange rate has gone up dramatically since we’ve been here… ouch). But the gardens were still beautiful. Our favorite part may have been the ‘rock garden.’ It was situated right next to this small pond with a million lilypads in it, and there were small streams and waterfalls throughout the garden itself. Rachel read some of the informational signs and told us that many of the plants needed extremely specific environments to grow, and that the garden was planned out to accommodate those needs. That’s pretty amazing, especially considering how rainy it’s been here, and how cloudy. We got some lunch (it was really more of a snack) in the cafe, then walked through the rest of the gardens to the gift shop. On our way there, I discovered a small trail that led me to a pond, and some willows. I’ve always thought

my secret willow-place

willows were beautiful, but for some reason these particular willows, with the pond and the general foliage, took my breath away. Despite the general rainy-ness of the day, this moment was beautiful. And most importantly, it was mine. It was a place that not all tourists who come to Cambridge see; it was a moment that made my experience here particularly unique. It was such a little thing, but it was perfect. I’d like to go back there and just sit for a while–it seems like a good place to contemplate life.

When we left the Botanical Gardens, we headed down Queen’s Road toward the Backs. Now, the Backs are a rather famous walk around here–supposedly it’s this incredibly gorgeous walk along the River Cam where you can see the backs of all the colleges (hence the name). The backs of the colleges are much more impressive than the front gates, generally, because the front gates are just big walls that you can’t see over and smallish wooden doors. When you see the back, though, you’re supposed to see huge green fields and impressive buildings and chapels and such. Walking the Backs was strange, I felt like I was doing it wrong. I couldn’t see very much because most of the colleges extend their property beyond the river and make you pay to get in through the back gates. So the walk was pretty, with trees and big green spaces and whatnot, but there wasn’t much of the ‘gorgeous colleges.’

The Library had an exhibit on display... Can you tell what it is?

When we got back to the house, we were understandably exhausted. We watched a movie together, made some dinner, and had a decently relaxing night. We had decided that we would go to London on Saturday instead, so we woke up and caught the 9:45am train bound for London. We got to Kings Cross by 11 and walked over to the British Library. This was absolutely amazing. First off, they have historical exhibits in the Library. The Library. I really wanted to go see this one, Propaganda: Power and Persuasion, but of course it costed a few extra pounds. That wasn’t the coolest part, though. The coolest part was their Gallery of Treasures, which contained original manuscripts of Shakespeare’s plays, Jane Austen’s notebook, letters from Queen Elizabeth I and various other monarchs, illuminated manuscripts from multiple different cultures and religious traditions, and the Magna Carta. They even had a special case for original copies of Beatles lyrics. And all this we could see just by walking in. That’s probably my favorite thing about Britain so far…. Most museums, art galleries, and exhibits are free to get into. It’s only the ‘special’ exhibits that cost money. It was so cool, and I really wanted to take some pictures because I knew a few people who would freak out with me over these historical documents, but unfortunately no photographs were allowed.

After we had wonderful pizza across the street from the Library, we tried to find Bloomsbury because our history professor had been telling us about the Bloomsbury Group that lived in London in Edwardian times. We kinda wandered around a bit before giving up and going to find the British Museum instead. This, again, was free (YESS!) and we saw a ton of Egyptian sculptures and writings, even the

The front of the British Museum... very Greco-Roman, don't you think?

real-life, honest-to-god Rosetta Stone (the language nerd in me was freaking out, majorly). I was on the lookout for the mummies, because rumor has it that the British Museum has the largest mummy collection in the world. We didn’t find them right away in the Egypt section, so we quickly ran through the Enlightenment section to North American History. This was actually pretty funny, to see the Native Americans’ history laid out in front of us like some foreign country’s indigenous people… which, for the British, they are. We, of course, knew most of the history already (even though our history professor is under the impression that American schoolchildren never learn history… I don’t know what he’s talking about) and giggled our way through the beginnings of America from the British perspective. It was then that we discovered  the mummy collection. It wasn’t with the Egyptian sculptures, but upstairs in the museum’s section on death and dying. That was actually really cool, because they had x-rays of the mummies in their wrappings on display along with the sarcophaguses and the mummies themselves. We were pressed for time, however, because we wanted to get to the Tate Museum of Modern Art before catching our 5:30 train back to Cambridge.

The Tate was… interesting. It wasn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination, it was just very very alternative and different to anything we’d seen so far. Actually, my favorite room was the section on Energy and Process. There were a few pieces that dealt with mirrors

Tate was transformed into a modern art gallery after being abandoned as an industrial factory

and windows in very interesting ways. For example, one piece was a fully painted canvas that was covered up by a mirror, so instead of seeing the painting, you just saw yourself. Another was 11 panes of glass leaning against the wall at different angles, so that when you walked past it your outline was blurred and shifted in ways you didn’t expect. Those, according to the plaques on the walls, were meant to illustrate the subjectivity of the art in question, because so much depends on the viewer. I thought that, while cool and really interesting, was slightly hypocritical because we were learning the supposedly ‘subjective’ meaning of the piece by reading what the museum was telling us it meant. It’s alright though, in the long run, because there were plenty of pieces I wouldn’t have understood at all without the help of the wall.

Sunday was another lazy-ish day for me. It was rainy and cold, so when I woke up in the morning, I went on a bit of a crazy cleaning mission throughout the house because living with 7 other college kids generally means that the house is never clean. Like, ever. So (and I’m positive my mother will be laughing at me at this point and thinking something along the lines of ‘I told you so! It’s so annoying when people don’t listen to you when you tell them to pick up their stuff, right?’ Yes, mom, you were right) I picked up the living room and the dining room and washed the tables and the dishes and felt really accomplished until I realized that I hadn’t actually done any of the homework I was supposed to be getting done. So. My weekend consisted of discoveries on how to travel by train, lots and lots of rain, and a ridiculous amount of history that I am only now getting around to processing. Just another couple days over here in England.

With pride, experience, and much love,

Bryn

It could be said that Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, is one of my favorite books. It could also be said that the movie (the newer one, with Keira Knightley and Matthew MacFayden) is one of my favorite movies. Both of those things being true, you can imagine my reaction when I discovered the house we were going to see on the way to the Lake District was actually Pemberley.

I saw this. In real life. It's Pemberley.

Okay, it’s not really Pemberley. It’s called Chatsworth, and its the home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. I just thought it was Pemberley because it’s the house they used as Pemberley for the movie. The inside was incredible. I didn’t take the actual tour of the house, because it cost a few extra pounds that I figured I could go without spending, and we could ramble about the house without the tour guide anyway. But going through the house on my own was not a sacrifice by any stretch of the imagination. There were laminated pages in each room we were allowed to go into, detailing the use of the room and the reasons behind its decoration. I say ‘rooms we were allowed into’ because Chatsworth is still used as a full-time residence by the Duke and Duchess, and therefore the private rooms should be kept as they are–private for those who live there. Gosh, though, can you even imagine living there? Growing up in a place like that, with 150 acres of garden and extra woodland and sheep-grazing land? It was gorgeous. The inside was ornate without being too stuffy, although there was a rather large amount of statues and collections of rocks that, while beautiful, confused me a little. Sometimes they just didn’t go with the room they were placed in, at least to my eye, or seemed haphazardly set down and forgotten about. In all honestly, while the inside was gorgeous, it was the gardens and estate lands that really impressed me. The landscape was just beautiful, and even though it was pouring, it was fun to explore. Cat and I even solved the maze in the garden, which took quite a while and ended up with both of us soaking wet from the rain.

Our secret garden. Although, people probably know about it--but it felt secret to us.

We also found this hidden garden area, designed with rock formations and ponds and bridges and waterfalls that literally took my breath away (of course, it was also really cold, so it could have been that, too). It felt like we were explorers, on some crazy adventure… which I suppose we were. It was raining so much, I can’t believe we actually went out and explored the grounds like we did. I’m really happy we did, though, because even though it felt rainy and cold and miserable, the pictures look pretty good and I’ll have them forever. The memory of the cold and the wet will fade with time, but now I never have to forget the natural beauty of the grounds surrounding Chatsworth. It really was unbelievable, to be able to stand in the midst of things I’d only seen on tv or read about in books. That’s a sentiment I seem to be repeating, but I can’t really help it–it’s still true!

After Chatsworth, we continued to YHA Windemere, the hostel we stayed at for the weekend. This hostel was absolutely fabulous. I’m not sure if it was because we were so cold and so hungry, but the fish and chips we had for dinner that night were the best I’ve ever tasted, and crawling into bed that night felt like heaven. I slept like a rock, and getting up the next morning was tough. It was worth it, though, because that morning we went on a hike around the town of Coniston, to Tarn Hows, one of the most photographed parts of the Lake District. Now, it was definitely still raining, but the hike was incredible anyway. It was a bit difficult to follow the directions, because a lot of the hike involved walking across sheep pastures and down roads with no sidewalks and figuring out which gate we were supposed to go through. But the views were worth it… Here are a few:

View #1

View #2

I couldn’t help quoting Jane Austen in my head… “What are men compared to rocks and mountains?” and trying to believe that what I was seeing was real, and in front of me. I felt like I was following Lizzie Bennet, honestly, through the Lake District. As she journeyed through the mountains to Pemberley, I travelled through the mountains away from it. Although, I have to be honest, I’m very glad I didn’t have to arrive in a horse-drawn carriage, because the carsickness from a bus was bad enough.

The hike was something like 5 miles to the top, and I must pause here to thank my family many, many times for getting me to hike over the years, because it helped me appreciate the beauty I was seeing instead of focusing on how I didn’t like exercising and walking up these ridiculous hills that might  have been mountains. I was able to see the mountains as a chance to see the land around me better, instead of merely an obstacle to overcome. And man, the views were beautiful. There were the ones I’ve already shown you, but there isn’t enough room in this post to show you all the gorgeous ones (hint, every picture I took was a winner, without me even trying). Suffice it to say that beautiful doesn’t even begin to describe it. Climbing down was the hardest part, not only because it was steeper (it was also faster) but because this is when the downpour started in earnest. It had been raining/drizzling/icky all morning, but it REALLY started raining during the last mile or so into town. Eating in a dry pub afterward, and hot chocolate for me, was a reward well deserved by all of us.

Next we went on a boat cruise on Windemere, the largest freshwater lake in England. Not quite as impressive when we live right in the middle of a bunch of the biggest freshwater lakes in the world, but fun to see nevertheless. To be honest, it was the mountains rising up from the lake that were more impressive than the lake itself. The really fun part of the boat trip was when a couple of the other people on the boat, who were from Taiwan, decided to take pictures with me. I wasn’t exactly asked about this so much as just sat down next to and hugged while a camera snapped. Jin told me it was because I looked like a doll, with my red curly hair. I thought it might have been because I looked a tad like Beatrix Potter, author of the Peter Rabbit books, who was from the Lake District. I only guessed that part, actually, because it sounded like they were calling me ‘Mrs. Potter.’  They were all extremely friendly about it though, and we talked a bit about their trip afterward. Making new friends is definitely something I want to do more of on this trip.

The next morning, we packed up our stuff at the hostel and checked out, ready to go see Fountains Abbey. The only thing I knew about this place was that it mostly survived the break from the Catholic Church King Henry VIII imposed on England, while most monasteries did not. I was not prepared for how gorgeous the ruins were. And gorgeous they were. We didn’t get there in time for the tour, so we didn’t get as much history as I would have liked, but we did get to explore much more than I was expecting. For the most part, we were allowed to climb up and over parts of the ruins, through windows and doors and over walls, up stairs and around pillars. I took a ridiculous amount of pictures because the architecture was just stunning. The lines created by the stone and the arches and the sky were so beautiful, and it helped that today was the first sunny day we’d had on the trip–I was feeling particularly happy about that, so the world in general just looked brighter. The picture makes the Abbey look pretty, I guess, but this place was absolutely massive. That arch was so big, I couldn’t even judge an accurate distance from the ground because I was so busy being in awe of the physics behind building something like that before the 16th century. Like seriously, how did that happen? It was so, so beautiful. It was quite a trek around the Abbey, however, and another long walk to and through the Water Gardens around the bend. It was worth the walk, of course, but it was definitely tiring. After seeing that, we went for ice cream (and lunch) at the restaurant by the entrance to the Abbey grounds. I had a really great toffee ice cream that tasted kinda like caramel and butterscotch and chocolate all at the same time–needless to say, I liked it. After lunch, we all got on the bus and began the long journey home.

British roads are confusing. Many of the roads in the Lake District reminded me of roads from Up North, less well-kept and small. Even weirder, the hedges and rock walls come right up to the edge of the road, so it’s almost impossible to turn around at any point. Furthermore, they are very narrow, so sometimes only one car can get through at a time. This makes maneuvering rather difficult, not to mention that because the area was rather mountainous, the roads were very very windy and twisty and turny. It actually reminded me of riding around on a bus in Guatemala, which is a comparison I never expected to make. Again, it made me very glad that I wasn’t following EXACTLY in Lizzie Bennet’s footsteps, because I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t have handled a horse-drawn carriage very well.

With happiness, awe, and love,

Bryn

I’d like to preface this particular blog post by saying that some of the things I’m about to say come from personal experience while other things have been told to our class by our History professor. All of these things, however, were rather shocking to me. I suppose I thought that because the U.S. and England shared both a history and a language that many of the customs and day-to-day life things would be the same. I was definitely wrong in that regard. It’s just familiar enough to lull you into a sense of security, and then BAM! something weird happens and you’re so wrong-footed you don’t know how to handle it. I say ‘weird,’ of course, meaning ‘not what I’m used to.’ So, here we go.

10. Cars. Cars in general. I mean, I knew that here they drive on the left side of the road, which was strange enough to conceive of, let alone deal with. But I was kind of expecting that weirdness. What I wasn’t expecting is the fact that pedestrians do NOT have the right of way here. If you accidentally step onto the street and a car happens to be coming at you, they probably aren’t going to stop. You can’t cheat a little bit at the crosswalks and leisurely make your way across to the other sidewalk–if you think you’re not gonna make it while the little green man is telling you it’s safe to go, you gotta RUN before the cars start moving. So not only to I have to re-train myself to look for cars before crossing the street, I’ve also got to learn to not trust the drivers to stop for me if I screw it up.

9. Anti-wastefulness. There are more recycle bins in the house than there are trash bins, and double the amount of recycling bins to take to the curb on Friday mornings than there are trash bins. Apparently, all plastic, glass, paper, and cardboard is to be recycled. Which is cool, actually, but it takes some getting used to. In this same vein, the grocery stores charge you extra if you want to use their paper or plastic bags. Most people have those cloth bags that are reusable, and that is encouraged by the extra bag fee. Finally, the toilets are different in a couple different ways. I first noticed it in the house… the water level in the toilet, the part to stop the bathroom from smelling really bad, is much lower here than it is back home. Sensible, I thought, cutting down on water costs because apparently water is way more expensive here (as a side note, hour-long showers are unheard of. Our professor says most people are in and out in less than 15 minutes). But public toilets are even more anti-wastefulness. Sometimes you have to pay to go to the bathroom, like in the musical Urinetown. Even if you do get into the restroom, they tend to have pre-portioned out toilet paper, like it’s coming out of a Kleenex box. Presumably, this is to cut down on paper usage.

–small side note on this: there are very few trashcans in public places, especially in London. This has nothing to do with wastefulness, according to our professor. Trashcans were being used as bomb drops, so they stopped having so many in the city.

8. Racism. It’s not racism like we think of it, necessarily, although I suppose it could go that way. It’s not exactly negative, more of an acknowledgement of otherness. Maybe it’s because I’m specifically from America, but pretty much everyone I know is a mix of something–Irish, English, French, Norwegian, Swiss, Italian, Greek, African, Indian, Filipino, whatever. Not many Americans are pure anything. But here, people are English, or Irish, or Scottish, or French, or Black. To be frank, I’ve heard more about ‘Muslims’ and ‘how they behave’ here than I ever did back in America. I’m sure I was also fairly sheltered at home and I’m pretty good at not paying attention to things that make me angry, like racism and homophobia. I guess I just wasn’t expecting heritage to be as big of a deal to every other person here. I know culture and heritage are important to each individual person, of course, but there seems to be a different tone here.

This mall in London is the only exception I've found for the 'displaying the Union Jack' thing

7. Not patriotic. This was a big shocker for me. We’re all so gung-ho about America, even if we’re not thrilled about what America does. Most of us have an American Flag somewhere in our houses, and we dress up in red, white, and blue on Fourth of July, and we generally support our troops even if we don’t approve of what our troops are doing in a larger sense. There is a sense of camaraderie in being American that British people apparently don’t feel quite as strongly. Our professor says that British people were much more patriotic during the Victorian Era, the Age of Industrialization and Empire; that people flew the Union Jack in pride and reveled in being British. But apparently people ‘got over’ that when Great Britain was booted from it’s number one spot on the world stage. I’m sitting over here thinking that sounds a little bit like being a sore loser, but maybe that’s just cuz I still feel proud of being an American.

6. Not particularly religious. This one is similar to the patriotism thing.  The British nation as a whole was extremely religious during the Victorian Era, but ‘got over’ that as well. Some credit this with the emergence of Darwinism and evolution as an alternative to the creation story, some think it’s because people just began to lose faith as Britain’s hold on their empire dwindled. Whatever the reason, not very many people here go to church on Sunday, I guess (keep in mind this is hearsay, I haven’t actually witnessed it). I suppose I was surprised by this because I naturally assumed that countries kept their level of religious-ness over time. I figured, since America was practically founded because of strong religious sentiment on both sides of the issue, that England must be really religious, or at least as religious as America is. I guess that, like many assumptions, is very incorrect.

5. Not family centered. This I actually find kind of hard to believe, what with the whole ‘nuclear family’ thing that is so prevalent in American society, even if we claim it’s not. We love our families, generally, and defend them and protect them and brag about them and tease them. We encourage each other and help each other and cheer each other up. According to our professor, British families aren’t quite like that. Instead of the typical ‘encouraging’ parent at a soccer game, for instance, saying “You did great!” and “Nice job!” a typical British parent would say something more like “You missed that open goal, what was up with that?” and “Were you daydreaming that whole time?” Now, I personally have not seen anything that extreme, but I have noticed parents treating kids more like nuisances than like children. This isn’t to say that the British don’t love their children–they absolutely do. They just don’t go for the whole ‘family values’ thing that we love. It’s no wonder they seem to grow up to be disillusioned adults, though, if this is true.

4. Don’t like ‘hard work.‘ And really, who does? Hard work is hard. But Americans seem to have the common belief that hard work will lead to a better future, a better job, a better life. Working hard now means that later you can chill out. Working hard at your job is a way to show dedication and possibly get a promotion or a raise. Working hard, for us, is a way of moving up in the world. British people seem to have given up on the idea that a hard working individual can ‘make it’ in this world. The only first -had experience I’ve had with this is the lack of customer service in stores. If the manager is doing something, or a cash register is acting up, or you need help, you can be sure that they will take their time getting to you. Customers aren’t a priority like they are back home. You just gotta wait for them to be done with whatever they were doing before you walked up. Our professor claims this is because the working classes were so oppressed by harsh capitalism in the Industrial Revolution that they gave up on the idea of working for a better life–life never got better for them.

3. Don’t like Americans. This isn’t actually quite as prevalent as I was expecting, but is real in a different way than I anticipated. It’s not really that they don’t like our politics, although that’s true. It’s not that they resent us for stealing the role as ‘number one’ in the world, although I kinda think that might be part of it. They mostly think we’re crazy. Crazy for believing in things like hard work and family and God; crazy for being so happy and optimistic all the time; crazy for rushing around everywhere in such a big hurry. The only first-had experience we’ve had is when we were at the hostel in London-a group of us met some English guys in the lobby and got to talking about the differences between Americans and Brits and how they can always tell when someone’s from America. They claim it’s because we’re always smiling and laughing. whereas Brits are more bitter about life.  Not gonna lie, I think I like being American much more in this respect (in most of these, actually).

2. “Just coffee” doesn’t exist. If you walk into a coffee shop and order coffee, you’ll probably get a latte or espresso. And a weird look. Occasionally they have what they call ‘filtered coffee,’ but mostly to make coffee like we’re used to, we have to do it at home. I haven’t actually been to a Starbucks here yet, so I’m not sure if that holds true there as well, but I’m guessing it will. The girls here who wanted coffee actually had to go to a couple different stores to find filters for the ground coffee we found.

1. No frozen waffles. Okay, this is more of a personal issue than an issue with British culture in general. I just miss Eggo waffles, okay? They expect me to make full-on Belgian waffles in a waffle maker instead of just toasting some frozen ones. I really just want to pop some in the toaster and have strawberries and cream on top but I don’t think our house even has a waffle-maker, and I’d have to find a good waffle recipe somewhere. I may have found a suitable substitute today, but the jury is still out as I haven’t actually tried them yet. The crepes, however, kinda make up for it 🙂

yumm, nutella crepe

So. This is what I’ve learned about British culture that I was 100% not expecting. I’m sure I’ll learn a lot more in the months to come, but I wanted to give everybody an update on how I’m coping with the ‘familiar-yet-different’ environment of England.

With amusement, mild frustration, and much love,

Bryn