Warwick Castle and a Very Cornish Weekend

Sept 16-Wed
Wednesday we woke up semi-early to meet Sandy and walk to the FCH campus.We had biscuits and coffee at the chapel and had a talk from the chaplin, Tamsin. She told us all about the Christian Union and it was very informative. After that we got a tour of the FCH campus, which was helpful because all of my classes are on that campus.

After the tour we got on a bus and drove to Warwick for the afternoon. We had about 5hours to tour the castle and see the town. Kelsey, Dani and I decided to to tour the castle first before going into town. Warwick Castle was so pretty, and such a strong fortress back in the day. It was first built in 1066 and has been remodeled and restored several times since then. We went into all the rooms and took pictures. The scariest things though were the wax people the put in the rooms to show how the real family lived. But they looked so life-like that I expected them to jump out and yell “boo!” Even more confusing was when there were real people and wax people in the rooms. The workers dressed up and stood by the wax people and it was really scary when they moved and talked. We sat down after climbing up a huge hill, at some benches in the shade among the peacocks and ducks. One duck came over to us to be friendly, or look for food, and we named him Winston. We also made a peacock friend named Merlin. Though looking back now, Winston was most likely a girl,haha.

Another adventure came when we tried to leave a tower room, but realized that we couldn’t get out unless we went up more stairs, and so on. Eventually, we had climbed a billion stairs, and we were winded and in pain. Then we thought we finally found the exit, Kelsey found a small, skinny passageway through two walls, so we all went through it, difficultly, I might add. Then we realized that there was another way out. Of course,haha. After we were done nearly dying from the castle, we went into town with the 30 mins we had left. There was a cool antique jewelry shop we saw and we wanted to go in, but we had to ring the bell on the door for service. After we rang the bell, a lady came from the back room to let us in and we told her we just wanted to look around. She stood in the room staring us down the whole time. Awkward! We left as fast as possible. Then Wednesday night, Cambria made pasta for Kristen, Dani, Khouri and I and we ate, then decided to go out with Katie, a British flat mate of theirs. She took us to a bar called Slack, which was laid back and not very crowded. I had a WKD blue, and it was very yummy because it tasted like candy. The night was fun and very chill.
End of Day 6

Sept 17-Thurs
Thursday we got to sleep in and we had the day to go to the “freshers fare” where there is info about joining clubs and sports. I made plans with Cam, Kristen, Khouri, and Katelyn Golda, to meet at 11 to go change over our American dollars, then buy necessities. My $18 turned into £10 something. Not cool. After going to Wilkinsons and getting a laundry hamper, we went back to the dorms and made PB&J sandwiches for lunch. After I watched GLEE with Dani and then us and Kelsey walked to Park campus to go to the fair. We got loads of free stuff, free pizza, and discounts to local restaurants and shops. I signed up for the Christian Union and I am excited for Tuesday when they meet.

After freshers fair we went shopping at Primark for cute “going out outfits” since we brought none and going out is a huge part of British culture. I bought 2 dresses and a bath matt for £20! Score! Then we went back to the dorms (Regency) and got ready together to go to a club called Blush because it was Propaganda night with DJs and and rooms full of dancing and music. Each room played different kinds of music so you could wander or stay in one rooms. Kelsey, Dani, and had fun dancing to music we’d never heard. Some of our flat-mates were there so we danced with them too. It was very fun, but sooo crowded. We went back around 12:30 because I had a Skype date with my family. Yay! After finally getting to talk to my family, I finished packing for our weekend trip to Cormwall (Newquay) then went to sleep.
End of Day 7

Sept 18-Fri
Woke up and had to be ready to get on the bus at 8:20 am. Ewww. At least we were on the bus for a while and I was able to fall asleep. I had a late night/early morning, so I was beat. We drove for at least and hour and a half then stopped for breakfast because the rule for bus drivers is to stop every hour and a half for a break. After breakfast we drove more and I slept more, then we got to an old Victorian house from the 1800s called the Lanhydrock House, which is more like a mansion. We had a couple of hours to wander around and take pictures of the outside, not the inside. It wasn’t filled with creepy wax people at least, but it was ginormous. I got some really good pictures of the outside, so that was good. We went to the graveyard of the house and it was weird because they didn’t bury people deep into the ground, so there were just these bumps in the ground with no order to them at all. I expected hands to come out of the ground or people to come out. Creepy!

After Lanhydrock we got lunch from a cute country club restaurant and I had my first English tea, and it wasn’t too bad. We then left and drove to Newquay (in Cornwall, pronounced “new key”), to check into our surf lodge. Our room, Dani, Tia, and I, is really small and the shower turns off every 30 seconds. Plus the bathroom mirror is too tall and I can only see the top of my head. Lame. Anyways, we went (Dani, Kelsey,and I) to dinner at a seaside restaurant called Kahuna. The view was amazing but it was a little expensive. Then we came back to the lodge, and watched tv (something we can’t do at the dorms) before we got invited to hang out with Tia, Ross, Nick and Michael. They were in a bar, but then went down to the beach instead. Dani, Kelsey and I split a Smirnoff ice, and the only legal place we could drink it was on the beach, but the others said there were some annoying teens getting drunk and shooting off fireworks (illegal in the UK). We decided to only go half way down to share our drink quickly but the teens ended up talking to us anyways. We met tons of 15-18 y/os who were illegally drinking but were very fun and excited to meet Americans and talk about the culture and its differences from the UK. We were told we had to try a Cornish Pasty (pastry with meat and potatoes) and Cornish cream ice cream. We decided to leave after we realized that we could be liable for the underage drinkers. We then went to bed.
End of Day 8

P.S. Toby, a 15 year old, gave us very specific, and inebriated instructions on how to eat a pasty. (Open mouth, put it in, take a bite, but not all of it at once, you’ll choke, then chew, but not too much, maybe 7 or 8 times).
P.S.S. Kelsey dared me to roll down a huge hill at the Lanhydrock house, so I did. See my facebook for the video.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BIG SISTER NICOLE! 25! Yay!

Sept 19-Sat
The meeting time was 12 noon so thankfully we got to sleep in. Kelsey,Dani, Tia and I went to breakfast at Somer’s Café and it was really good and cheap. Yay! Then we wnet back to the lodge to meet Sandy and Denise to get on the bus to drive to Lands End (the southernmost tip of England). The drive was pretty uneventful (except when I almost got a picture of the cute sheep, but failed. I’m determined to get one.). Lands End was beautiful and sunny, overlooking the ocean. There were a lot of cliffs and a lot of signs saying to beware of them, ha! We spent 25 minutes there to get pictures and look at the view before we got back on the bus to go to St. Ives, a cute seaside town with lots of old shops and very gorgeous beaches. We got to spend a few hours and explore St. Ives, so that was nice. Kelsey, Dani, and I stopped at a local bakery to get a traditional Cornish Pasty, and it was surprisingly good, despite how it sounded. It was basically like a pot-pie.

We met up with Tia, Ross, Nick, Michael, and Matina and we all went to get ice cream because Dani had been craving it since we were told it was amazing. It actually was quite good. And I satisfied my chocolate craving. We all then decided to go down to the beach and hang out. Kelsey took a picture of me touching the Atlantic Ocean for the first time with my hands before the waves came in and soaked my shoes. I had wet shoes for the rest of the day, haha, typical. We wandered around some more, took more pictures, then headed back to the bus stop to meet everyone else. We, Dani, Kelsey and I killed some time sitting on a bench outside some shops then we saw a car accident. It wasn’t bad, just some scratched cars. The roads are wayyy too narrow for a two way street. We got back on the bus after that and came back to Newquay and chilled for like a half-hour. We wanted to hang out with people from the group at Wetherspoons but they wouldn’t let Dani in without a license or a passport (not even a copy). Well, she didn’t have either because she doesn’t drive, so we went back to Kahuna with Amy and Rachel and had a good time getting to know them. Amy helped me separate my American coins from the British ones so its not so confusing. That helped a lot when I had to pay. Then we came back, I took a shower, packed and went to bed. Exhausted!
End of Day 9

Funny things I keep doing: Trying to pay with American coins on accident, don’t convert °C to °F, 100°F is very different from 100°C (death), and getting used to how they say time over here (meet at quarter five….quarter to five? Quarter after five? I don’t know!!)

Sept 20-Sun
We had to checked out of the surf lodge by 9:15 so Tia and I packed up and grabbed breakfast. Then it was off to the Eden Project, which basically what used to be a mine and is now dedicated to environmental preservation and education. They had a lot of huge bubble-looking structures that are called biomes and they had plants and environments in them from around the world. We had about 2 hours to explore (more than enough time) so our group (Tia, Nick, Ross, Dani, Kelsey, and I) wandered around trying to find out how to get into the biomes. There were all kinds of weird art and sculptures everywhere but no entrance to the biomes. Finally we found it and went into the Rainforest one first. Big mistake. It was so humid and hot. We looked around for like 10 minutes then left so we could breathe. The Mediterranean one was much more tolerable so we saw the whole thing. After that we bought lunch and saw “the biggest nutcracker in the world”. That was thrilling, haha. Basically after that we got bored of seeing plants and sat around. I’m not an aspiring botanist or environmentalist so it wasn’t that interesting for me.

After that it was the bus ride and I slept mostly. When we got back to Regency(dorms), Dani, Kelsey, and I walked to the Pittville campus, because they both had classes there the next day. We found it fine and decided to the Park campus because Kelsey’s friend Doug said there was a game night going on. So went but never met up with Doug. We ended up sitting at the only available couch and made friends with the guys sitting at the other one. We tried to help them with the game but we sucked. One of the guys, Jay, told us that we were very pretty and he didn’t know why we didn’t have boyfriends. None of us are used to the British forwardness, or this attention so we didn’t know what to say. Then he told me that I was pretty and asked what I would do if he tried to kiss me. I said that I would say no and he said that was an insult. I said that I didn’t mean to insult, but I just met him and I’m not used to the bluntness of the UK guys. We made plans to meet him in town with his friends and go to a club, and then he said he wants to take me out for Chinese food on Thursday. I agreed, but am planning on doing a DTR (define the relationship) with him and let him know that I’d feel more comfortable in a group setting, also I don’t want to pursue anything other than friendship. After that awkward encounter we walked with them back into town and went to get some sleep. Classes start tomorrow. Ahhh!
End of Day 10