Recession!

While many Americans still argue over whether the economic crisis in the U.S. has indeed reached the level of a recession, Brits seems to be in near universal agreement their their country is experiencing one. In Exeter, the visual evidence is overwhelming. Numerous empty retail spaces clutter the High Street and Sidwell Street, and they have become increasingly prevalent over the past few months. Since our arrival in Exeter in late September, Will and I have seen several shops which we used to pass daily permanently close their doors. Among them are two clothing stores, Miss Selfridge and Wallis, a wine shop called Odd Bins, a hobby shop known as Model Centre, and, of course, the legendary retail chain Woolworths. Around town, many other shops have gone out of business, and many workers have lost their jobs. While none of this means that the crisis is technically a recession, around here no one seems to question it. 

Tiverton Exe Valley Rotary Club

Tonight, Sangmi, Yulia, and I went back over to Tiverton to visit the Exe Valley Rotary Club, a well-established club that has been going strong for over a quarter of a century. The club is all male, and meets at a hotel on the outskirts of Tiverton.

The ride to Tiverton was awful; I seriously felt like I was going to throw up by the time we got there. The roads are terribly curvy and hilly, and although I typically don't get motion sickness, they are more than I can comfortably handle. Yulia was in similar shape. Sangmi (who has decided now to go by the nickname "Mi," pronounced "Me") didn't comment, so she may have been fine, or may not have. Once I got out of the car, it improved a bit. I wrote it off as having been motion sickness, although the nausea returned later in the evening, so I'm not so sure.

Once we got inside the hotel, we began to mingle with the Rotarians, and then we set about setting up our projector system so we could do our presentations later in the evening. Yulia brought her presentation on CD (saying that she didn't have a jump drive larger than 2 MB, which I couldn't help but laugh at and tell her to go to Poundland and pick up a 1 GB one), and Sangmi and I both brought ours on identical black 2 GB S3 MicroCruzers.

The meeting began with dinner, which consisted of potato soup, followed by mixed vegetables with pork roast and gravy. Coffee was served after dinner, and our presentations began shortly thereafter. Yulia went first, because it was just easier for her and her CD to go first. Sangmi followed her, once we got some problems with the computer we were using's touchpad sorted out (it was jammed so that the mouse wouldn't move). I was on last.

I broke in a new presentation tonight. Rather than doing an expanded presentation about me, as Yulia and Sangmi did, I did a presentation about where I am from. My presentation was very well received, although I got some skeptical questions about the portions of it concerned with hunting. During the questions at the end, I was asked why I was doing naval history, which I think I managed to explain to the satisfaction of the person who asked the question.

Afterward, I got several compliments on my presentation, including Yulia and Sangmi telling me that they think I will make a good history professor one day, which was nice to hear! All told, I think this was my favorite of the Rotary clubs that I have visited thus far. They are also the only one that has given me a club flag!

How To Be a History Professor

I have come to the conclusion that you have to be able to do five things to be a history professor. They are:

1. Research
   
2. Write
   
3. Read critically
   
4. Think critically
   
5. Teach
   

If you know how to do those five things competently, you can be in the top half of the profession. You can get by as a history professor by only doing four, or if you're really good at one, by only doing three.

So far, I've got a general grasp of numbers 2, 3, and 4. I'm working on number 1, and working to sharpen the other three. Now, if I can just learn to do number 5, I should be in good shape!

International Open House Valentine’s Day

Tonight at International Open House, we discussed Valentine's Day, beginning with the question, "Ok, so who was this Valentine character, anyway?" We were provided with several different answers, none of which are particularly rooted in verifiable fact (that's the historian in me talking), but all of which make nice stories (although a bit gruesome). The only points upon which all of the stories agreed was that he was Roman, did something that made the Emperor mad, and lost his head as a result. From there, we moved onto the happier aspects of St. Valentine's Day.

We began by discussing Valentine's Day in Britain, and then discussed what it is like in the other countries represented (the US, South Korea, and China). In the Asian countries, Valentine's Day is a day when girls give guys cards, and there is a day in March (called White Day) when guys return the favor. In Britain and the US, things are much the same. When discussing Valentine's Day in the US, I broke out some conversation hearts, which were a big hit. In fact, they were duly eaten up!

Near the end, I was asked to talk through the wedding album that Amanda had left at the Watson's house at Global Gathering this morning. I was happy to do so, and discussed all the points in the book, including explaining who the "Maid of Horror" was. The "Maid of Horror" bit came from Mrs. Watson attempting to comment upon the "Maid of Honor" but mis-speaking, so that I had to explain the concept and clarify that the word in question was "Honor," not "Horror," for the benefits of our Asian colleagues.

In a few weeks at International Open House, it's my turn to talk about the US. Tune in in two weeks time to see how that goes!

Valentine's Day

This morning when we woke up, Will gave me a few Valentine's Day treats: some candy bars, a coffee cup with some hot chocolate mix, and a small, stuffed kangaroo. (He thought the kangaroo was a bunny, despite its pouch and long tail.) My Valentine's Day present to him was some iTunes credit so that he could pick out some new songs of his choice. He asked his parents for iTunes cards for Christmas and didn't get any, so I knew he would be pleased with that gift. After we had exchanged presents, I left for a full day of work at Sports World. 

           

When I got off of work, Will was waiting outside for me, holding my coat. He had strategically placed a card  and another candy bar in one of the pockets. The card instructed me to look in the hall closet.

Following the instructions on the card, I walked home with him and then took a look in the hall closet. In the closet, there was some toilet paper with a bunny on it, and a note directing me to the living room. 

So, I then went to the living room, where I found another card, hanging up with all the other cards. It, too, contained a message leading my onwards to my own closet. 

When I looked in my closet, I found a bunny-sized dress and bouquet of roses for my Build-A-Bunny, Devon Kaye. 

Having completed my mini treasure hunt, I gave Will a hug, and then we went to the grocery store to buy the ingredients for our Valentine's Day dinner. On the way home, we stopped by McDonald's to get milkshakes and sundaes and then took a detour through the Cathedral close so that we could see one of the prettier parts of Exeter under the moonlight. At home, we cooked and ate together and then watched a movie.

All in all, it was my best Valentine's Day ever- and I think Will enjoyed it just as much. 

Playing in the Snow

Today, Amanda dragged me outside to make snow angels. It was painful.

First thing out of the gate, I slipped and fell while trying to get into position to make a snow angel. Not wanting to have to get back down in the snow, I worked from where I was-which left me no room to move my legs. In the end, my snow angel had giant wings, but essentially no legs. I think it looks like it is still on "training wings."

Next, Amanda built a Snowmanda. It was about 14 inches tall, and reasonably cute. I could tell it was hers by the double chin. 

I followed up by building a snow duck, and carving it a nice little beak. It looked much better in person, trust me.

As we went back inside, Amanda complained that she couldn't get me to have a snowball fight with her, so I picked up a chunk of snow (that, in retrospect, was way too dirty for the purpose) and chunked it at her. She didn't think it was very funny, but we did manage to get the dirt off of her coat, which is more than we can say for the seat of my pants, which are covered in mud.

Skittles Blizzard

Tonight I went out to Torquay (torr-KEY) for the local Rotary club's Skittles night. Skittles is a game similar to bowling, except that it is played with nine pins arranged in a diamond pattern (i.e., a square with a corner pointing down the lane) and has no gutters. Thus, while it is impossible to get a gutterball, it is possible to throw the ball out of the lane entirely, or to pass between rows of pins without hitting anything. My team won (by virtue of the other team conceding their one-point lead after it was pointed out to them that they had had nine extra balls because they had 15 players to our 14). At the end of the game, Yulia and I piled back into Brian's car to head back to Exeter.

We made it to Telegraph Hill, which is part of the way back to Exeter from Torquay, where traffic was stalled by the snow. We were stuck on Telegraph Hill from about 9:30 pm until 11:15 pm or so, at which time the police started turning people around to go back down the hill on the wrong side of the road (there was a median with a guardrail between us and the other direction's lanes). At the bottom of the hill, we were forced to exit into Newton Abbot, a town between Exeter and Torquay. At that point, we were just happy to be off the hill, as we had been afraid that we were going to have to spend the night there. From Newton Abbot, we navigated down to Teignmouth, a small town on the coast at the mouth of the River Teign (hence the name), and from there on to Dawlish, following back roads to avoid a pair of broken-down lorries (18-wheelers).

The snow and ice and sleet (varied with the location) made the going very slow, and we finally made it back into Exeter after 12:40 am. We then proceeded to campus to deposit Yulia at her flat, but we were unable to work our way up the hill on Prince of Wales Road. I was amazed that we were able to make it up Streatham Drive, which is a steeper hill, but it had been cleared by other vehicles to a large degree. Ultimately, Yulia had to walk about ten to fifteen minutes back in the snow, but at least it hadn't had the chance to freeze to ice underneath yet.

After dropping Yulia off, Brian ferried me back down through New North Road over to Sidwell Street, and dropped me off outside Sydenham House on Blackboy Road. There must have been about four inches of snowfall here so far tonight (the forecast was for NONE by this time of morning). I finally made it inside around 1:25 am.

On the funny side, we passed a bus stop that was covered in snow at about 1:00 am on Topsham Road. Stagecoach Devon had suspended operations about 10:00 pm; however, some enterprising artist(s) had gone out and built two snowmen at the bus stop, one with his tree-limb arm sticking out to hail the (suspended) bus.

Snow Angels

At Mom's request, I ventured out into the snow today and make a snow angel on the lawn of Sydenham House. I just didn't feel up to it until this afternoon. It was fun, though cold, and Will got a good laugh while taking pictures of me

.

Bristol and Snow Storm

Our stay in Bristol was mostly pleasant. Christof, the German Rotary Scholar we stayed with, made us breakfast consisting of fried eggs, bread, and yogurt. It was a very yummy and pleasant surprise. During breakfast, he explained to us how to get back to the train station, which he said was about a 30 minute walk from his flat. 

We set out around 8:00 AM, giving ourselves a little over an hour to make the trek. Though it was quite a long way (Christof's estimate proved to be quite ambitious), it was a lovely walk which allowed us to see Bristol's harbour and the S.S. GReat Britain. Since we had never been to Bristol before, we stopped briefly to admire them and take pictures.  

We probably would not have stopped if we had realized how far we still were from the train station. We ended up getting there around 9:03, about 10 minutes before our train was scheduled to leave. As it turns out though, we were nowhere close to missing our train. The snow storm that had begun while we were in London worsened overnight, causing massive public transit delays. We sat in the train station shivering and being pelted with snow flurries as the video screens keep changing to show the increasing delay of our train. Finally, at around 10:00, our train appeared, and we were able to make our way to Exeter. 

The delay, however, was quite problematic, because Will was supposed to meet a Rotarian from Tiverton at 11:15 at a location several miles from the train station in order to ride with him to give a presentation at the club's lunchtime meeting. Fortunately, Will was able to get in touch with the Rotarian and ask him to instead meet him at the train station. Our train continued to get further delayed on its way to Exeter due to have to stop at a lot of red lights. We finally arrived around 11:30.

Since Will had to go straight to the Rotary meeting, I got the job of carrying all of our luggage- about 120 pounds of it! - home. I carried about 30 pounds of it on my back and dragged the other 90 in two wheeled bags. It took me around an hour to make the one-a-half-mile trek from the train station to our flat, since I had to stop occasionally and rest my arms. By the time I got home, I was totally exhausted. 

As a result, I didn't notice that it had started to snow until Will came home and informed me. Though Exeter very rarely gets any snow at all, we got a good deal of it today, as more is falling even as I write.

Back to Exeter

Though it was really, really nice to be home with family for the past two weeks, the time came yesterday for us to return to England. Mom and Dad once again took us to the airport, and their dog Bama rode along in the back of the Explorer. Since our flight was a late night one leaving at 10:45 PM, were we able to visit Uncle Taylor and Rob before going to the airport. They cooked some delicious food- competition-style chili and a Mexican casserole, and we spent a few hours catching up before driving back into Atlanta for the flight. 

Everything went smoothly at the airport. We checked in, and Will got the necessary documentation to file for a bereavement fare discount for our flight which he passed along to Mom so that she could take the next steps. I went to the customs office and got the form that I will need to bring my computer back into the country without having to pay duty. Our flight took off and arrived at Heathrow on time, and I slept through most of it. From Heathrow, we made our way to Paddington Station, where I studied while waiting for our 10:30 PM train to Bristol. Will spent a few hours at the Imperial War Museum and then returned to Paddington Station. At the station, we amused ourselves with books, the internet, supper, and taking pictures of and with the station's statue of the children's story character Paddington Bear. 

Also at the station, we were pleasantly surprised to get to see a little snow. It began falling during the afternoon, and a nice little bit had accumulated on the ground by the time we left. It essentially never snows in Exeter, so this is probably the last time this winter that we'll see any.