An Adventure in Awe

by: Joy Grace Chen

My stay here in England could, I think, be summed up in one word: awe. The past three and a half months have been a dream that’s almost too good to be true, and every now and then I still pinch myself to make sure it’s real.

Am I really studying abroad in Europe, living in a 19^th century English country mansion? Heck, yeah.

Harlaxton itself has held me in a perpetual state of awe. From the moment I first glimpsed it through jetlagged eyes on the way in from Heathrow, from the day I was out for a run and saw its turrets rising from the morning mist like some fairy tale castle. I fell head over heels in love the first time I explored the rooms, painted ceilings, and labyrinths of staircases. Halfway through the semester, when we had to study the manor for our second British Studies exam, I fell in love all over again.

 

 

Pan out to England. It’s pretty unbelievably amazing. One of my classes was taught by a professor determined to immerse us in the heart of England’s nature. On our first field trip for that class, we trekked a total of seven miles over the wild, breathtaking moors that inspired the setting for Wuthering Heights. On our second field trip, our walk from Bakewell to Chatsworth brought us up close and personal with an emerald green field populated by baby lambs. Yeah, my feet hated me after both trips, but I wouldn’t trade either experience of quintessential English countryside for anything in the world.

 

 

 

The awe continues for Europe as a whole. I’ve watched the sunrise from Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh. I’ve taken a cruise on Loch Ness and petted a stag and a highland cow. I’ve wandered the sunlit canals of Amsterdam. I’ve seen Paris in springtime spread out like a tapestry. I’ve visited a Roman fort that has existed for 2,000 years and the Eiffel Tower—an iron lattice relic from the late 19^th century.

 

 

What is this? Am I dreaming? Why is Europe so beautiful, so awe-inspiring, so perfectly picturesque? I’ve been asking myself these questions since the beginning of the semester, and, while I don’t have the answers yet, I will be eternally thankful for the opportunity I’ve been given just to ask them.

 

 

And … in the eloquent words of a guy I've never heard of before: It’s time to say goodbye, but I think goodbyes are sad and I’d much rather say hello. Hello to a new adventure.

~Joy Grace

 

Long Weekend, Language Barrier, etc.

Of course, we had to start our first long weekend trip with a travel all-nighter. Our brains were already bleeding out our ears from that British Studies exam, and we figured we didn’t have that much more to lose. One weather-delayed train ride, one London night bus, and a whole lot of airport security hassle later, my friends and I were sprawled out on the cold Stansted airport floor, attempting to sleep in shifts before our plane took off at 8. We arrived in Aachen, Germany around 11 the next morning.

 

Understandably, our first day in Germany is a bit fuzzy in my memory. The one thing I do remember quite clearly, however, was the language barrier. Whether butchering an order of Apfeltasche in a bakery or half-heartedly flipping through paperbacks in a bookstore or even trying to read the plaques in an otherwise-awesome cathedral, we were continually and blatantly reminded that we were tourists who didn’t speak a lick of German.

The German couple we stayed with was kind enough to translate pretty much everything for us; however, their two boys didn’t speak English. Playing games with them got pretty awkwardly creative when communication was reduced to sign language, guesswork, and our mutual appreciation of the Pixar movie Cars.

We spent our final day in Amsterdam. Having left our helpful host family in Germany, we congratulated ourselves on successfully surviving the train ride to Amsterdam, only to run into a reality check when we found that all the signs in the station were in Dutch. Okay, now, breathe. We were college students; we were smart, resourceful, and mature; but—argh—let’s face it, we were hungry and starting to panic a little bit.

Actually, after the initial shock and bewilderment, we came to our senses, got some food, and found Amsterdam beautifully easy to navigate. We experimented with the transportation system, visited the Van Gogh museum, developed a love affair with the classic fries with mayonnaise, and one of my friends ended up falling head over heels for the Dutch language. So, it worked out.

And we learned some great lessons that weekend. The thrill of leaving the U.K. for the first time. The value and personal quality of staying with a local family. The perspective and cultural appreciation one gains from not being able to speak a language. Oh, and the importance of stringently sticking to airline liquid and baggage restrictions! (Trust me on this.)

Auf Wiedersehen!

~Joy Grace

Cardiff: All the Way There and Back Again

BY: JOY GRACE CHEN

Our excursion to Cardiff began before the crack of dawn at 5:45 on a Saturday morning. Actually, for one of my friends and I, it began with a brisk morning sprint as we dashed from Pegasus Courtyard to the Carriage House for some things we had forgotten. We made it back just in time to be picked up by a nice, snarky cab driver who thought we were crazy for wanting to visit Wales, the “sheep-shagging country.”

Little did we know when we got in that cab that it was only the start to a traveling experience that would render us experts in almost every mode of ground transportation possible.

My friends and I embarked on our first Harlaxton rail experience—the 6:18 train to London. After a short caffeine break in King’s Cross station and a photo stop at the legendary Harry Potter Platform 9 ¾, we made our way to the London Tube, which we took down to Victoria. From there it was a short walk to the Victoria Coach Station, where we boarded a coach and settled down for a three hour ride to Cardiff, Wales.

Except three hours turned more into four when our coach was forced to bypass a traffic accident and then come into Cardiff from a long, roundabout outside road. The reason for the blocked main roads soon became apparent as my friends and I hopped off our coach—straight into a veritable ocean of people.

Of course . . . we had picked the day that Cardiff was hosting not one, but two sports matches—rugby and football. We still had a twenty minute walk to get to our final destination, and a good bit of this walk was spent fighting our way through masses of eager, painted fans like fish swimming upstream. Fortunately, by the time we got to Cardiff Bay, the crowds had thinned out, and instead of death by trampling, we now simply faced the threat of being knocked off our feet by the gargantuan gusts of wind blowing in from the bay.

And so we reached our coveted destination tired, cold, and windswept—peering up through our tangled hair at the beautiful blue sign that read: The Doctor Who Experience. Yup, we were three faithful fangirls, willing to brave everything and anything to spend less than two hours in a museum dedicated to what we believed to be BBC’s greatest television series.

Which is exactly what we did. Two hours of flying the T.A.R.D.I.S., escaping Daleks, avoiding Weeping Angels, squealing over David Tennant’s Converses, and posing for pictures next to every possible rendition of that iconic blue telephone box. We stopped in the gift shop on the way out, and then it was time to retrace our long, arduous way from coach to train to Tube to taxi until we returned to Harlaxton at 11:30 that night.

All in all, I think we spent over twelve hours traveling and only a fraction of that time at the actual Doctor Who Experience. But it was all part of the adventure. For me, it was my first and probably last trip to Wales. And for three hardcore Whovians, every microsecond of the trip was worth it.

Until next time . . . Allons-y!

~Joy Grace