Devon cream tea, a terrible ghost tour, and the Eden Project

Another super eventful two days! That probably explains why I'm too exhausted to do anything but write a blog post and look over my reading for tomorrow. And let's be honest - I procrastinated writing this post in favor of Tumblr. I'm not even going to lie.

Yesterday's classes were Early Modern Print Culture with Dr Sara Barker and another play-specific session of A Midsummer Night's Dream with Dr Sparey again (I can't call her Vicky, I really can't). Both of them were interesting, but I definitely enjoyed our morning session more. Dr Barker is very engaging, I loved the subject matter - how the first printed books were created - and the class incorporated a Stephen Fry documentary and a hands-on activity. That's a definite plus in my book.

Mini-'folios', or early books, that we folded in class

In the afternoon, we decided on what we're going to tackle for our group projects. Our group (Anu, Veronica, Stine, Sherrie, and me) has set our general theme as love and autonomy in A Midsummer Night's Dream - how we're going to narrow that down remains to be seen, but no worries about that until Friday!

Directly after class we headed to Exeter Cathedral for traditional Devon cream tea. The cathedral operates a café as well, which is where we were situated. Tea was absolutely delicious - if I could find a way to take the scones and tea back with me (or find the space in my suitcase), I would in a heartbeat.

Feeling fancy. Or British.

At tea we heard about a ghost tour leaving from the Cathedral later on in the evening, so we headed back after dinner. Unfortunately, the spooky ghost tour that we had hoped for turned out to be more funny than terrifying. Our tour guide was sweet, but she kept getting facts mixed up and didn't take us to any truly haunted places. Points added for creative stories about the different places in Exeter, minus points for this well being the creepiest thing we saw.

No one died in it or anything. It's just there.

Ah, well. We managed to make it fun.

We're so terrified that we burst out laughing after this was taken.

Today served as a nice break from classes - we headed to the Eden Project! What it really reminded me of was a much bigger version of the Missouri Botanical Garden back home, only situated in Cornwall and with an impressive rainforest biome. We spent about four and a half hours exploring everything the Eden Project had to offer. I really loved the opportunity to go - it was great to be surrounded by so much diverse plant life and learn about different climates around the world. Plus, the Eden Project is also a charity, so I knew that the money I paid for lunch went to education and conservation efforts. (A good amount of the food offered is grown on site. How cool is that?)

Of course, being tourists and college kids who love social media, we took pictures of almost everything we saw.

Great view of the biomes!

My favorite biome and where we spent the most time.

View of the rainforest biome from 165 feet up!

On top of the rainforest

Group picture! Ranuk, Jennifer, Veronica, Anukripa, me, and Lindy

Somewhere along the line, I decided that I fancied myself a nature photographer. Armed with only an iPhone. 

This one is by far my favorite.

Not bad, iPhone 5, not bad.

I am thoroughly enjoying my time here in England and I can't believe it's halfway done already. I've learned so much: not only in the classroom, but from my peers as well. The longer I spend with people from outside the United States, the more I realize the little cultural details that both make us the same and set us apart. I now know that people from the USA, Canada, India, Russia, France, Belgium, and Holland can all unite in England over a game of Mafia, and that Americans toss around 'I love you' much more casually than other countries. I know I've said repeatedly that I've learned a lot and that I've loved every single day, but honestly, I really am on top of the world.

Or maybe that's the Imagine Dragons on my Spotify.