Dover Castle & the last couple of days.. :)

All right, where did I leave off??
Wednesday was full of classes and then back home for dinner. British Lit: We discussed sonnets by Thomas Wyatt (Anne Boleyn’s lover), Shakespeare, etc. They were interesting. We had to pick them apart; tell who is being talked about, who is writing the poem, from 1st or 3rd person. What the setting is, how the style represents the era it was being written in. What are the underlining meanings of the poems and thing likes that.
Then we broke up into groups for our presentations that we have to do in class in a couple of weeks. I’m with Erin and Megan. Thought it would be easy since there are 2 of us that live by each other and then Erin could spend the night if she needed to do so.
Then lunch at school. Had a yummy sandwich of chicken and mayonnaise with lettuce & cucumbers. It kind of reminded me of a tuna salad sandwich! Yumm I miss those too! Lol ;)
Next was Modern Britain where we learned about the Monarchy and why it is still important in England. The Queen definitely does not just stand around all day and wave to people and gets paid to do nothing. She’s the person who holds the UK together and without her position, the United Kingdom would fall apart. She also meets with the Prime Minister weekly to discuss matters of England and other foreign affairs. She has the power to override his decisions in matters of emergencies that deal with the people. But a lot of the monarchies power has been given to the Prime Minister to deal with. In discussion we talked about why the monarchy is still being used in England and we said that it’s tradition (Tradition…tradition! Fiddler :D ) and that if it is working for England there really isn’t any need to change it. It was an interesting lesson.
Thurs. was all right. The morning started with American Cinema. We discussed the movie ET and how the different camera angles and the way Spielberg shot the movie made certain effects. It was fun to learn about, Ben would like it, even though he’s taken the class already lol. 5 hours later was Ethics. We talked about morality and religion, how religion was used to explain morals in everyone’s lives. If people didn’t have a religion, where did their morals come from? Are there certain moral codes that everyone follows? Do not kill people, do not steal ect. We basically answer questions like that and then support them through our readings that we have to have done before class starts. They aren’t too bad really. I actually feel like I am talking too much in that class, so maybe I will tone it down a bit.
Right after class, Erin and I got a quick bite at the school cafeteria and then made our way to the Student Union for open mike night, where Megan was performing!
She did a great job and it was fun to hear her sing. It is kind of a acoustic version of Michelle Branch I think, with more of an edge to it. She sold some of her cds as well and made some friends with the other performers too.
Friday was the trip to Dover Castle and the Secret Underground Tunnels in the Dover Cliffs. It was a lot of fun and so beautiful to see the English Channel again! The castle itself was very tall, involving lots of stairs. It was one of the castles that King Henry VIII stayed at when he was trying to find wife number three. After he whacked off Anne Boleyn! The view from the top of the castle is amazing! Soo pretty, and you can view the boats taking people over to Calais, France! We did that 2 summers ago!
The tunnels were very cool too! It was a quick kind of walk through though. It starts off with a short film on when the tunnels were being made in the Napoleonic era and then made into a head quarters for England during WWII. Complete with a hospital, work offices containing important spy info, beds for soldiers, kitchen and dining area, and a huge computer room for phone service and incoming and outgoing messages. All the computer room technology can now fit into our modern day cell phone!
After the tour, I bought some books to remind me about the tunnels because we weren’t allowed to take any pictures while we were down there.
Went to the restaurant that was on the site of the castle and all of the hot food was shut down. We were left with cakes, crisps (potato chips) and drinks. I got a roasted chicken flavored crips (actually quite good) and a slice of chocolate cake :D Yumm!
Once it was time to go, we all headed back on the bus. Back in Canterbury, Erin, Megan and I were starving and ended up eating at a great pizza place called Jaspers Pizza.
Later that night a lot of us met up at the Student Union for drinks and ended up spending the night at my friend Jenn’s (from ISU) dorm. It was fun but we were all pretty tired and called it an early night at one in the morning lol :)
I made my way back home in the morning, got changed into some sweats and headed back out to join up with some of our British (guy) friends to play football, and watch rugby.
We had to climb a fence to get into the park, not too sure why lol! Played football, my team lost since no one wanted to be a goalie, and the other team had a good goalie :) After football, the guys decided to play rugby, teaching the American boys how to play. It looked to me like a lot of running around, swinging the ball to pass it to the next team mate, and tackling one another to the ground! It was very fast paced kind of stuff, not at all like American football, where everyone has to set up plays and all of that. They did play American football and some of the guys were actually very good. But we were leaving by then because we were soo coold when the sun went down. We actually ended up back at Jasper’s Pizza again for food and then headed home to rest.
Woke up today, Sunday, and went shopping with Erin for some clothes for going out to the club on Wednesday night for two of the girl’s birthdays. Both are in our group, and both are turning 20. We found some cute skinny jeans, because that is all the rage here in England. Skinny jeans and boots in the winter here! Found a couple of cute tops, Erin found a cute silver dress from H&M.
Went to an internet café where Erin could call her family using Skype.com and then we both went home to eat a quick bite. There were a handful of us who wanted to hang out at Witherspoons again, to talk and have something to do on a Sunday night. It was actually quite busy for a Sunday pub. I guess everyone likes to have one last night before the week starts back up again. A lot of family’s and business people, and friends were all there.
Well I’m tired and have some homework to catch up on tomorrow at school. Essays to type, books to finish, articles to read…blah blah blah.. :) Wed.s should be fun though and am looking forward to it. Then Erin and I may go into London of Friday to catch a show and explore more of the city.
Night night!
<3 Shannon