Something New....

Sooo, seeing as I've abandoned ship for the past 4 months, I need to come up with something new to post. England is obviously done, so about what can I blog now? I could post pictures of my crafts, particularly my Stampin' Up! cards, but that's kind of copying off of Monica Makes (read her blog....http://monicamakes.blogspot.com/). I'll have more time to devote to blogging once school is done (graduation in May!), but about what can I write in the meantime? On a side note, I've discovered it's much easier to upload pictures with high-quality wireless internet, unlike the slooooooowww internet I had in Plymouth. The little guy in this picture is Clark W. Griswold enjoying his dinner. I saw the original Clark W. Griswold while I was in L.A. for a conference. As I was eating matza ball soup, Chevy Chase came into Greenblatt's Deli...HA! That was definitely my top celebrity siting to date. That's all for now...blog topic suggestions welcome!

Reinstalling the Chair Rail

For your viewing enjoyment, here is a little video giving you a taste of our genius here in England.

Locals and Crazy Seagulls

Internet aboard the Keanemutiny has been a bit shotty the past few days, so my apologies for the lack of reporting. The past few days have consisted of work, more work, and little bit of fun. Drawings on the English Garden House are progressing and we got to do some investigational demo work I'm happy.

Our group has befriended the local ferryman on the Mount Batten Ferry. We've gotten a decent taste of Plymouth local life as a result.

In other news, lunch yesterday was quite eventful. We regularly eat lunch at the Orangery on the Mount Edgcumbe estate. We were eating outside, enjoying the gorgeous day when an injured seagul crash landed on Helen's apple pie. Yes, you read that correctly. Helen lost out on an awesome piece of apple pie because a seagul dive bombed our table and smashed into her plate of apple pie. Helen seems to think the bird was aiming to swipe the pie, then push off the table with his foot for a quick exit. Unfortunately for the seagul, he had some fishing line stuck on his foot and he didn't quite get the glorious exit for which he had hoped. He ended up on the sprawled out on the ground next to our table with apple smeared on his beak.

Another theory is that he knew he was crashing and thought "oh no, I'm going down, better take this pie with me." Either way, it made for an exciting lunch.

Day 12 Aboard the S.S. Keanemutiny

Nothing too exciting aboard the Keanemutiny the past few days. On Saturday, we took a group trip to Cotehele, the original Tudor estate of the Edgcumbe family. Our car left the Mount Batten Centre parking lot on the way to Cotehele and after travelling a few blocks noticed a repugnant smell. Those of us in the back seat looked to our right and saw a smoke cloud wafting into the back window. I asked if it came from the motorcycle that had just passed, but Tiffani exclaimed, "it's coming from our car!" We quickly noticed that we had been driving with the parking brake on. The problem was remedied and we continued on our way.

Cotehele was a beautiful estate (my favorite to date) and was magnificently preserved. There must have been some stipulation in the family wills stating that the house had to remain in the Tudor period, because it somehow avoided modernization for nearly 600 years. Most fascinating was our tour guide in the kitchen who pointed out the pocket in the wall that at one time would have held a log for a primitive form of scaffolding when plastering and decorating the room. The guide also showed us a sealed-off service staircase that once lead to the servants' chamber. In Victorian times, it was deemed inappropriate for men and women servants to sleep in the same room, so a service dormitory was added to the house and the original winding staircase was plastered. He then lead us into the dormitory addition, a portion of the house reserved for those who bought a raffle ticket, but he let us in for free. In addition, the garden outside of the house was very colorful and great for picture-taking.

Today (Monday) we began work at Mount Edgcumbe. The English Garden House team (Helen, Nate, and I) took measurements of the rooms and will draw them in AutoCAD tonight.

British Dogs

This morning on our run Crystal, Helen, and I ran into Amber, a Shar Pei and her owner. A bit later, we saw Amber walking with Henry, a boxer. Henry's owner told us Amber was Henry's girlfriend. They make a cute couple.

For our class field trip, we drove out to Dartmoor, a national park in the middle of Devon. We rented cars to get out there and I attempted to master driving on the left side of the road. The result was fairly successful. Daniel, our professor, brought his two dogs out for the adventure. We stopped to hike out to an Iron Age stone formation. Needless to say, this field, like every other field in Britain, was covered in poop because of the sheep and wild pony population in the region. Despite the poop, the view was worth the hike. The foggy, misty weather was perfect for the setting and we took in some amazing vistas, particularly from the rock slab atop a hill.

Poop! part deux

So this England voyage is turning out to be pretty crappy....literally....explanation to come...

Today we went to visit Saltram, the mansion and grounds at which Sense and Sensibility was filmed. Really awesome house. In the afternoon we went to the University of Plymouth for a conference. While waiting for the ferry ride home, I feel something hit my hand. I looked down and asked, "IS THIS POOP?!?" Of course it was, not to mention there are speckles of poop on my shirt and bag as well. Everyone had a good chuckle until Nate and Taryn realized that they too had been shat upon. Nate said being pooped on by a bird is good luck, but Tiffani claimed there is no way that is ever lucky. Interestingly enough, the rest of the group walked away and left those pooped upon in quarantine by the benches.

After our fantastic dinner of chicken wrapped in bacon, Crystal, Kate, Nate, Christine and I went for a walk along my running route, the Southwest Coast Path. It was about a 3.5 mile hike out and back. We were able to take some fantastic pictures at sundown.

On a blog maintenance note, the English crew (aka the internet here) is not so great at uploading photos...hopefully this will be worked out soon.

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.