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My grumpiness of having to wake up early this morning (weekly briefing) is offset by the afternoon tea at the Exeter Cathedral Cafe :)


Scones are definitely better overloaded with clotted cream and strawberry jam. Delicious.

We also got a complimentary entrance to the Cathedral with our tea, so in we go:



Vaulted ceilings are awesome. It almost looks alive after staring at them for so long.

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And alas, more views from my room, yesterday's rainstorm followed by today's sunset:

plaice

Was going to Bristol today, but high chance of thunderstorm stopped that from happening. Instead just went to town for some shopping & food.

Highlight of the day is introducing my friends to Lush (and spending 1.5 hours in the store...) and lunch at Bill's.

The atmosphere is adorable, it's like eating in a bazaar. The shelves of product lining the walls are all available for purchase, we sampled some jams and took home a gooseberry+gin. Coming to UK has made me realized that I've been missing out on so many varieties of berries! Gooseberry is deliciouuusss.

Main course is char-grilled tuna with orange and fennel salad. The tuna is medium done and quite flavourful on it's own. It's much better with the accompanying salad though, especially the capers. The cherry tomatoes were so juicy and sweet *u*

So many restaurants in Exeter to try yet so little time @_@

barrows

Day trip to the Stonehenge and Salisbury today!

They're quite far away from Exeter actually, coach ride took bit more than 2 hours. Good time to catch up on some sleep :) Glad I perfected the skill of sleeping on moving vehicles through gritaly.


Quite magnificent ;D
Though it's smaller than I thought, guess I just had high expectations. The audio guide was very helpful, explained many aspects of the structure. Interesting topics were:

• Type of stone: bluestone is actually blue! with white specks too, but only if you split it open
• Construction methods: 1/3 of the stone is actually buried underground, and woodworking joints were used to secure the rocks together)
• Mythology: many involve Merlin, one involves aliens, but all relate to the stones being flown here from Ireland...

Also saw the wool blanket that my mom bought for me when she was here haha. They have different patterns now. Were also really temped by posters of the stonehenge with various astronomical events (eg. comets),  but was deterred by the steep pricing and risk of it being bent in my suitcase.

Afternoon was spent in Salisbury.
Originally wanted to have lunch at Market Inn, but they were full with a private function. Was suggested by the manager to head a few doors down instead. Forgot the name of the pub, but they had a great soup:


The wooden board in which the food was presented on is gorgeous. Gotta get myself on of those later on in life.
Other culinary delights purchased included clotted cream and blackcurrant ice cream (yummm) and a variety of fudge to bring back as souvenirs.

The main attraction of the city was the Cathedral though. Also the best preserved original copy of the Magna Carta is here too.


Religious structures are always the prettiest (y). Though now that I've seen the Vatican, no other church can really impress me.

But sunsets amaze me no matter how many times I see them. Luckily the sun shines right into my window everyday, to me awe and then annoyance.

devon

More vicocam'd snaps from around campus, slight addiction has been rewoken. Today is the first day of lecture, and expectedly, I am so darn tired. Luckily most of the material I've learned in CME, thank you Peterson.

Roof of La Touche Cafe in Building One, where everyone's lectures are. Reminds me of mermaid scales, or at least how I imagine them to look. The lunch here is rather delicious, beats dinner any day.

Antler chandelier, fancy. This is from The Ram, the student guild run pub.

I thought these looked a bit like blueberries, they grow right in front of my dorm.

Spent the night planning day trips around Exeter, since there's so much free time haha. Decided on Torquay & Dartmouth for one, and Bristol for the other. Here's the spreadsheet if anyone's interested, will finalize sooner to trip days.
So cheesed about Bristol though. The program includes a day trip to Bath, which is like within an hour of Bristol. But there's not enough time in the same day to visit both cities, and staying a night outside is just unnecessary logistics and cost. Durrr.

EX!

So far in love with the University of Exeter campus.


Specifically,  in love with the view from my residence. Today I just saw horses grazing on the fields to the right.

This, of course, comes with a price. The amazing view is a gift from the topology, which unfortunately means that the rest of campus (and everything else) is at the foot of the hill. So to get to pretty much anywhere else, it's a long walk down, followed by a very miserable descent up. During the campus tour, the guide informed us that Exeter students have good grades and good calves.
To think of this positively, I'm pretty much forced to exercise. And climbing the idyllic hill is so much better than squats.


This is my favourite place on campus, Reed Hall. It's gorgeous I know, might as well be a castle from a fairytale (though I haven't been to a proper German castle, so this will change). Apparently couples who met on campus often come back here for their wedding.
Beats my love for Hart House by a tad due to the garden surrounding it:

The tour also said this is the largest collection of botanical species (I am perhaps not technically correct here) outside of the Kews Garden in London.

Following are photos that were phone edited (via viscocam, which I forgot how much I liked) when I had too much time:

The Forum, a very costly, newly built student center. The ceiling is rather awesome.

Fresh (or so I think) berries from M&S foods (I totally did not know that they sell food). Had some of the non-abominably sized strawberries, delicious.

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Something I've been trying for this trip is to take less photos and spend more time actually looking at whatever I would be taking a photo of. Being more present I guess? So far it's worked well for London, 200 snaps for 3 days. My Gritaly count is waaay above that.

London-ing

A quick catch up of the time I spent in London.

Overview of famous landmarks:

Clockwise from top left:

• Westminister Abbey and Big Ben: (well actually the clock tower of Westminister, the nickname just refers to the bell inside, which has its distinctive sound because of a crack). Did not have enough time to visit these two, the photo was taken from the Thames River cruise.
• Traflager Square: quite a nice place to relax, and right next to the National Gallery.
• London Eye and House of Parliament: much grander looking than Canada's haha. The house was originally wood, and was plotted to be burnt down in the gunpowder plot. That didn't succeed, but 2 drunken lords manage to start a fire that burned down 75% of the building.
• Tower of London: guess this is suppose to the Vatican equivalent (not fair comparison either). Went to see everything inside of the crowned jewels, there's some interesting rooms haha. There existed a Lion Tower that kept exotic animals, including a polar bear that was tied to a rope so it could fish in the Thames.

Yours truly being a tourist at Traflager Square:

The lion is symbolic of Britain (like the eagle is to USA). It's also a favourite of the Assyrian kings as I later learned at the British Museum. Saw very little of the museum, was dying of fatigue and heat instead.

Change of guards at the Buckingham Palace:

The guards were followed by a mob of eager tourists, which was quite futile since there's been people queuing at the gates since morning to get a good view.

A bridge who's name I forgot but still has to mention as a civil engineer:

The bridge was opened by the Queen, but soon experience major swaying problems and had to be closed down by the police a few hours afterwards. The architect denied that the bridge had any faults and instead blamed the way that Londoners walked (which would be a lot more believable if everyone marched like soldiers but no). Eventually, after a great sum of money has been spent, the bridge was fixed. Tsk tsk.

More buskers at Covent Garden:

Tightrope walking Frenchmen, and violin players (y) They entertained me while I waited for check-in time to arrive. Covent Garden was originally the vegetable and herb garden for local nuns.

Also had lunch at the Coven Garden Market, Jamie Oliver had a joint there:

Woodmen's Pizza at Jamie's Union Jack. A tad salty and not the most British thing to order. In fact most of the meals I ate in London were Italian, like the Tagliatelle di Campagna I had at Bella Italia (it's like Swiss Chalet, but better).

Overall I wasn't as impressed by it as I was by Rome, but Rome had a longer history so it's also not quite a far comparison. Was still great though, wish there was an extra day of free time, so many things were left unvisited!

LHR

No G2, but flying to England in a few hours. Wheee