Poop!

The S.S. Keanemutiny is now docked in Plymouth, the very port from which the Mayflower left all those years ago. To my surprise the locals do not wear buckles on their hats, nor have they offered to have a turkey dinner with me, a native American.

So here is a break down of the Penn group here in Plymouth: Taryn, the TA, and Christine, Kate, Tiffani, Yaritza, Helen, Libbie, Crystal, Nate, and me, the students.

After a ferry ride, a one and a half mile walk to a dock, and another ferry ride, we arrived at Mount Edgcumbe, our worksite for the summer. We took a very bumpy ride in a range rover driven by Ian, director of Mount Edgcumbe, around the estate. This property is a bohemoth on the cliffs along the sea...acres and acres of gardens, ruins, seats, and country houses. At one point, we exited the range rover in order to get a closer look at a stone ruin on the property. The field onto which we exited was occupied by approximately 8000 sheep and 12 times that number of turds. We all cleared the mounds on the way out to the ruin, but as I re-entered the car, Yaritza asked me what was on my shoe. I looked down and yelled "POOP!" Yaritza then looked at her own feet and yelled "shit! oh shit!" when she noticed her new kicks were atop a pile of brown. We quickly cleared the feces from our shoes via the grass and continued on our tour of the estate. The views are breathtaking and the property seems to go on forever. To end the day, we toured the main house (Mansion) of the estate. Sadly, only a shell of the early 18th century structure remains today because the building was bombed by the Germans during WWII. The interior is a sad 1960s attempt at reconstruction and decoration of an 18th century interior. It's as if the chief decorator on the project watched an "oldy time" movie and said, yup, that's how the house should look. Oh well, our group will be ensuring that the English and French garden houses are appropriately restored to their glory days of the 18th and 19th centuries.