Culture Shock, Summer Term, and Exciting News!

I'm so, so sorry I haven't updated this blog in quite a while! Since my last posts, I've been to Liverpool again, spent a week in France visiting a Wooster friend, and I've spent the past few days catching up with my Le Page friends and attempting to get some work done before the term officially starts on Monday! And it's going to be quite the term, full of projects, exams, and travelling. So I will post something about my travels around the UK and France soon (a relative term, coming from me), but this is just a general update post.

First, exciting news! I got a first in my archaeology module from last term :-D I feel quite accomplished, getting a top mark from a great university for archaeology, given that I haven't had an archaeology class in two years. So that was a nice surprise coming back from the holiday!

Coming back from a five week holiday is quite strange, I must say. I've been around York on and off throughout the break, so I've been in Le Page at random times when it was empty, which was a bit eerie. It was nice that people came back in waves, so I got to spend some quality time with different groups as they returned (I got back from France on Tuesday night, and since then, there's been a steady trickle of returning students). It was like we'd never left, we just fell back into the ease of life in York, which I had really missed it while everyone was gone. In general, I just love the banter and shenanigans that happen in Le Page, which is something I'll miss a lot back in America.

I have less than two months left, so being myself, I'm already getting emotional about leaving. It started in France, really. It was really comforting to talk to someone else who has completely adjusted to living in another country (one of my close friends has been in Paris since August), and we had some candid conversations about culture shock, our experiences abroad, and how reverse culture shock is going to be the absolute worst experience of all time. We've both developed rhythms of life in our new countries, and both have no desire to return to America (no offense). I've never been particularly fond of American culture (not that I don't appreciate living in a country where I do have a lot of rights and access to privileges, don't get me wrong).

I slipped into English culture without much hiccup, though my week in France was full of a few bumps and struggle that I assume are more typical of adjusting to a new culture, which I will talk about in my post about that trip. I think I lucked out in York, not to mention I've been an anglophile since forever, so I think that preparation was helpful to some extent. I feel so much more at home in England, and I constantly refer to Le Page and York as home, which I'm sure was confusing to my parents when we finished our UK tour and I said I couldn't wait to get home! I'm not sure if it's just my nature to be able to adapt to new environments well (Wooster, Interlochen, and Siena have all been pretty smooth adjustments, culturally), but I feel especially at home in York. So the thought of having to leave on the 10th of June is petrifying and something I don't want to deal with.

Joan feels similarly, and reverse culture shock is something we're dreading. Reverse culture shock is something I hadn't really considered before the Wooster pre-departure meetings where they blathered on about it, but I think I had experienced it before and hadn't realized it. Generally, it's a difficulty re-acclimating to your own country's culture when you return from travelling or living elsewhere, and you experience culture shock at home. And I definitely foresee it being far more problematic than culture shock on arrival. Dread is the first word than comes to mind, when I think of returning to the US.

And I realize I'm still here for nearly eight weeks, so it's completely pointless to get all worked up about this now, but the flight back to England from France was unexpectedly emotional for me. I think being in another culture for awhile jarred me into reality, that I WILL actually be leaving my home in England in a few short months, and I will have to get on a plane in Manchester with all my belongings shoved into one bag by some miracle, and say goodbye. Which is the opposite of what I want!!! And I think leaving with first years is making leaving seem like an even more foreign idea, as they're always talking about their next two years at York, their classes, their housing, etc., and then I have to remind myself that I'm not going to be here for it, no matter how much I wish I was.

So I'm going head first into my Summer Term, and I'm just going to yolo it up- it is my postcode, after all, YO10 haha. The nice thing about study abroad at Wooster is that your study abroad classes are pass-fail on your transcript, so while I'm definitely still doing work (obviously, I managed a first!), I don't need to concern myself primarily with academics (some people who know me are probably aghast at the thought of me not letting academics drive my existence haha). I can have adventures and spend time with people, rather than hole up in the library for six months straight stressing about work.

And I have some adventures planned! Starting this Tuesday. A friend of a friend in London had a spare ticket to see The Tempest at Shakespeare's Globe in London, so I took up the offer. And on top of the exciting proposition to see a play performed in the Globe (which has been on my bucket list for a while), Colin Morgan is in the cast! For those who don't know, he's the actor who plays Merlin on the BBC series, and I might be a bit of a huge fan of him. So I'll get to see him perform live this week!

I'm also finally doing my HOST UK visit, where I stay with a British family for a weekend. I'm going to Todmorden, which is a quaint little town from the looks of it! And then my best friend from home is coming to London for a summer study abroad trip, so she'll be visiting me, and I'll be visiting her (and hopefully seeing Les Mis in the process), and Joan, my friend from France, will be visiting me as well! Not to mention a surprise necessity to go to the US Embassy, so I'll be spending a bit of time in London in the next month. And who knows what other opportunities will arise? I'm very excited about my final term in York, and I'm definitely going to make the most of it :-)

London with the Parentals

Bright and early the morning after I got back to York from Ireland, I jumped on a train to meet my parents at King's Cross in London! It was quite nice to see them in person after two and a half months! We spent four days in London, and then joined up on a six day tour of the UK (which is ironic, due to my dislike of tourist groups of this very nature, but it was the only way to get to all the places we wanted to go in the time allowed).

Westminster Abbey

Day One: Our first stop was Westminster Abbey. We got three-day London passes, which ended up saving us some money in the long run! It was amazing to finally get to see the interior of the Abbey, where so many famous historical figures are buried, and the various different types of art and architecture. And not to mention it's where the Royal Wedding happened :-) You get a digital guide which has audio and video to tell you about different parts of the Abbey as you walk around. After we finished there, my dad and I went to the Churchill War Rooms. I'd been before, the first time I went to London, but after writing three extensive papers on the Blitz and the Battle of Britain, I definitely appreciated it more this time around :-)

Myself in front of the Houses of Parliament 

Outside of the Churchill War Rooms

Day Two: Harry Potter Studio Tour, which deserves a post of its own.

The White Tower in the Tower of London

Day Three: Another early start to go to the Tower of London before there were massive crowds of tourists about- although the weather was so nasty, I'm not sure how many people actually made it out and about. My favourite part of snowy weather in England: people use umbrellas in the snow! Why isn't this socially acceptable in America? It's so effective. We saw the crown jewels first, then went into the exhibit in the White Tower, which wasn't as exciting as I remember it being six years ago haha. Our next stop was across the Thames, the Britain at War Experience, all about WWII, but it was closed! Like no longer in the building closed. So we went to Southwark Cathedral, which was a lovely cathedral. It has a window panel dedicated to Shakespeare with scenes from his plays, and John Quincy Adams and John Harvard were baptised there! We had lunch in the refectory, and then walked along the Thames towards Millenium Bridge, passing Shakespeare's Globe and the Golden Hilde, and stopped at the Tate Modern, which was a bit disappointing since all their Dalis weren't on display. But the cubist room was great :-)

The smallest and largest suits of armour!

Home of the Crown Jewels

Where Anne Boleyn was executed, there's now a fancy memorial to the executioners block.

Southwark Cathedral

The Golden Hilde

Walking across Millenium Bridge to St Paul's! You can get a sense of the disgusting weather.

After the Tate, we went inside St Paul's Cathedral, which was AMAZING. I have some odd fixation on the cathedral, culminating in writing a paper on it during the London Blitz, and finally being able to go inside and see it for myself was wonderful! They even had some special segments of the audio tour about St Pauls' during the Blitz, so that was pretty cool. Our final visit for the day was the last tour of Shakespeare's Globe for the day, which was fantastic! Our guide was Welsh and we're pretty sure he's one of the actors from the Globe, but we learned a lot more than what your normal tour would tell you about the theatre, he focused more on the history of theatre and the societal context Shakespeare was working in (I've toured the Globe before and there was another tour going through that we could hear, so I know he was far more interesting than usual :-p). So it was overall an amazing day of seeing a lot of my favourite things in London!

St Paul's aka my fave thing ever

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

Inside the Globe during our tour! The stage was set for a student production of Romeo and Juliet set in the modern East End, it was pretty interesting

Inside the Cathedral

Day Four: We headed to Ely to go to the Palm Sunday service in their cathedral. It was gross and snowing so they didn't do a procession with a real donkey outside, but they brought the donkey inside instead! The cathedral was really, really cool as an art historian, because it was this crazy conglomeration of architectural and decorative styles over time. I hadn't been to an Anglican service yet, so that was a bit of an adjustment, lots of standing haha. After church we had lunch in the Almonry restaurant, which is part of the Cathedral and was very lovely and atmospheric in a medieval basement!

Super cool dome!

A wintry Palm Sunday

Our next stop was Cambridge, which is on the same train route as Ely from London. We saw King's College and went directly to the Chapel since it was so cold and snowy out. It was especially lovely inside because an orchestra was rehearsing. We also went by St John's College because my mum's friend went there and it has a cool gate thing. We stopped in some shops along the way as well, and one of them was perfectly lovely and served tea and cupcakes to everyone because it was seriously disgusting outside- you have no idea how much difference a cup of tea can have when you're freezing to your bones! And I got a Keep Calm and Study On shirt to motivate me through I.S. next year :-p

Inside King's College Chapel, with bonus orchestra

Entrance to King's College 

Entrance to St John's College

Overall I really enjoyed my whirlwind few days in London and the surrounding area, although I was already exhausted from my trip to Ireland and there was another week of adventures to be had! Look forward to more posts soon about the Harry Potter Studio Tour and my UK Extravaganza Tour with the parentals.

Final Days in Ireland

Our fourth day in Ireland was devoted to exploring Cork. Our first stop was the Gallery, which was free to the public. There was a kind of strange exhibit on called "The United States of Europe," about the interconnectedness of European countries and identities and cultures, and a really lovely sculpture room. My favourite rooms were the gallery of Irish countryside landscapes over time, and the gallery devoted to Harry Clarke, an artist from the arts and crafts movement, which I've always loved. He's mostly known for his stained glass windows, but I am seriously enamoured with his drawings and watercolours. He illustrated quite a few fairy tale collections, such as this one, and some of those were included in an exhibit in Dublin I saw the next day!

Inside the sculpture gallery with lots of sunlight!

After that we walked 2 km to the Cork Gaol (we didn't realise it was quite so far away :-p). It was pretty cool, literally! It was freezing in the old stone building and all the workers were wearing coats and gloves inside. There were mannequins in different rooms that matched up with scenes described on a guide, so it was a bit of a different museum experience than others we'd had. The Gaol is supposed to be haunted and there are night ghost tours, and while we were looking around, there was a ghost hunter doing something with audio samples on his laptop! So that was exciting as an avid Ghost Hunters fan.

Entrance to the Gaol

Inside the Gaol museum, definitely looks like something from Ghost Hunters :-p

And here's our own ghost hunter, hard at work.

The walk back to town was all downhill through a residential area so we got some nice panorama views towards the city. We then went to the English Market, the oldest covered market in Ireland, to find some lunch. I bought some "Irish parmesan" from a local farm's stand (it wasn't really parmesan because that comes from Parma, Italy, but it was similar!) and some freshly baked bread for lunch, it was lovely. The day had become rather grey and dreary, but we still trekked on to see St Fin Barr's Cathedral on the other side of town. It was a really lovely cathedral, and the old man working there was very accommodating and told us about the history of the building. They had just installed a new organ and the organist was pracitsing, so it was very atmospheric, especially because we were the only ones visiting for a while!

St Fin Barr's from the back

St Fin Barr's front facade

Inside the apse of the cathedral, it was gorgeous!

View of St Fin Barr's on the walk back to town

We went to dinner at Uncle Pete's again (for the third time haha) and this time I took a photo of my very delicious basil pesto pasta, which I got twice, it was so good! And then we went back to Dan Lowrey's (we have no originality) for our final night in Cork. I tried a red beer brewed in Blarney, but I wasn't too fond of it haha. But I figured I should try something new and support the local breweries! It was nice to sit and absorb the atmosphere of the pub, which really was very cosy and homey and welcoming. After struggling to get everything to fit back into my dufflebag, we had an early night before our long day of traveling!

My delicious pesto pasta from Uncle Pete's :-D

Red beer is quite strange, I must say.

The next day we took a morning train back to Dublin, although it was late arriving. I tried to take some pictures of the Irish countryside, but it's quite difficult to get a clear photo from a moving train. And the tinted windows made it look like I was using a weird filter, I promise it wasn't that blue! Once we arrived in Dublin, we took the bus back into town and went back to Trinity College Dublin so I could see the Book of Kells exhibit. It's one of my favourite things I've learned about in my art history classes so I was very excited to finally see it in person!!! It seriously is so amazingly intricate and exquisitely decorated. There was an exhibit about how manuscripts were produced and decorated, which had some cool videos, and then there were four manuscripts on display: two from the Book of Kells, and two other manuscripts from other parts of Ireland. I couldn't take pictures, but you can see a gallery of close ups of the Book of Kells here! The exhibit also includes entry into the Old Library, which is an amazing space that feels like the library from Hogwarts or Beauty and the Beast or something. There were some Harry Clarke pieces in the exhibit on Irish illustrators in the library, so I was happily surprised to see more of his work!

My attempt at photographing the countryside through a tinted window haha

The Old Library!

We all met up (I was the only one who went into the exhibit because it was a bit pricy) and caught the 16 bus back to the airport, which took an hour again. Security was even more minimalistic in the Irish airport- I didn't have to show my passport at all, nor did they have a customs check in the Manchester airport, so that was really strange to me haha. Then the train back to York, which was FREEZING cold (the beginning of this really nasty weather front that's still sticking around), and Le Page, which was eerily quiet without everyone around! I really enjoyed my trip to Ireland and I'd love to go back (although not during their biggest holiday!), especially to the countryside and the coast. And it was lovely to get to know my Erasmus friends a bit better! :-)