My room and other mysterious places

Hey everyone

So I haven't posted in a while and its because I haven't been doing enough exciting things to blog about. I think I've stock-piled a sufficient number of pictures and travel stories.

Of course I've been going to school the same as usual. I do have a lot more time on my hands from usual, seeing as I only have 7 or 8hrs of class a week. Also, the only assignments that I have are due at the end of march, and I don't really have any midterms. In addition, I'm only being marked pass/fail, which takes the pressure off considerably.

This is the first time I've ever taken classes that are actually about ancient history. I thought I would love it, since I've always had an interest in it (I mean I wrote my honors paper on sewage and farming practices in Ancient Egypt-- which consumed my entire life force, but was still fascinating). However, I feel now that I'm taking specific courses-- Egyptology and 'The Brave New World of Augustus'-- I find it doesn't really ignite my academic curiosity. Perhaps because a lot of the focus is on the material evidence itself (ex: what can this statuette tell us about religion in ancient Egypt?). I guess its kind of struck me how little relevance these topics have to my life. All in all, I find myself much more engaged with the material in my globalisation module, although thats mostly because its irritatingly uncritical.

This is the Carrie's-twitter inspired song you should listen to while reading this.

I've been doing a bit more site-seeing around Exeter which is pretty fun. Its also good because I don't feel as though I need to go with other people, which typically requires a certain amount of coordination. Instead I can just spontaneously visit any of the cool random places around town. That is mostly what is in this blog.

I would like to apply this spontaneity to out of town trips, and just go off by myself to somewhere around Devon. Unfortunately since it is off-season many of the interesting houses, castles and museums are closed. Also, I have to figure out how to get there, which requires a certain amount of organization and confidence. I think that as March arrives I might become a bit more independently adventurous.

To begin, I took a few pictures of where I am living. Surprisingly enough, my room is a little messy.

I think they are a bit optimistic about how much room I'm going to need for books. 

The kitchen. Pretty similar to cluster living.

 My building, which is called "Widecombe"
- like something from a Jane Austen novel

The view from the kitchen.
I'm on the third story and the University is on top of a hill. 

An awesome hollow tree,
I'd like to pass secret messages to a stranger.

(I just googled "messages in hollow trees"
and all I got was that some dead bodies were
found in a hollow tree in Ohio. World,
I have lost faith in you) 

Random pond right outside my door. 

A few weeks ago some of my friends and I decided to go on this "underground passages" tour of Exeter. I was most impressed by the experience of walking around in very old dark, damp passages rather than the history that surrounds tunnels, which is that they were built to service water pipes. I mean they are 800yrs old, which is very cool, but the "a few times a year some workers might come down here and fix a pipe" story isn't exactly riveting. The best part was at the end. There was an optional part where you could crouch down and squirm your way through the smallest portion of the tunnel which gradually became smaller and smaller. It kind of created this growing sense of claustrophobia, which was really thrilling (it sounds strange to explain, but thats what it was like).

We had to wear hardhats because it is next
to impossible not to hit your head

The smallest portion of the tunnel, although its difficult to get a
 perspective of how tiny it is

Super creepy mannequin with a video of someone's face projected
 onto it. 

We had to wait a couple of hours to take this tour so we did some other site-seeing in the mean time. On the places of interest maps that they have all over the downtown, they had directions to this place called "The house that moved" which sounded very interesting. So we decided to go see it.

 It was just an old house that had a bridal shop in it, and a sign which read "the house that moved"

No other explanation. I looked up what it was when I got home, but it was pretty funny at the time because it sounded so alluring on the map, and turned out to be just a house with an enigmatic sign. They do have a video of them moving it, which went off smoothly in a couple of days during the 60s. Not the worlds most exciting tourist attraction, especially without any context.

Right next to it there's the oldest street in Exeter.

Unsurprisingly, a very steep hill

We also discovered this really cool 'by donation only' bookstore. I love second hand book stores, and it was in this very old building which made it even better.

Check out the wooden beams. So awesome.

'The Atlas of Mysterious Places' was a great name for this day of weird
 out of context site-seeing

So that was one particular day of random fun exploring.

Another was after my friend Angela and I went to go see the movie 'Never Let Me Go'. I don't know if you've heard of it/seen it, but it was an absolutely sad and beautiful movie. I gave me goosebumps it was so good. Afterward I went shopping, then got a coffee and a bite to eat. I was going to just walk home, but instead ended up taking a detour and having a park bench picnic at this 'promenade'.

This is the old roman wall with a 'folly tower'

The weather was a little grey, but the view is gorgeous!
(And the vista isn't too bad either)

So I have more stuff to share, like my trip to Torquay, and some other cool places in Exeter I visited, but this seems like a natural point to stop so you can at least read this!