I awoke the next morning to the sound of a woman laughing outside my window. This would not ordinarily be an issue, but it was actually 2 o’clock in the morning, so the odds were reasonably low that it was anything innocent. Silently, I listened, and it happened again and I realised it was actually some sort of bird call. “Welcome to England” said my brain, “where the wildlife will traumatise you at night”, and seriously, you only need to see the seagulls on the foreshore that are the size of a hum-vee to understand.
Jet lag, of course,had me wide awake at said time, so I started on my first blog post, while planning what I was going to have to do with my day. There was a couple of things I needed to do
- Contact my family and tell them what was going on
- Get my phone hooked up to a local provider so i could make calls here and to home
- Find Exeter University and pay the balance for my dig, the reason I came here in the first place.
The wi-fi was first on the agenda. I had a brief text conversation with my wife to tell her I was ok, but I could not yet do any video as I did not want to wake any of the other guests in the house. The walls are thin, so I can hear people walking around, but otherwise this room is quite comfortable. I have a queen size bed with more pillows than a Sultan’s harem, a small ensuite and cupboard space. The room is perfectly adequate for my needs.
Since the sun rises around 4am at this time of year, it was high time I went for a walk. This is not something I would normally do, but it’s a holiday and we should always try new experiences. Paignton (along with Torquay) is known as the “English Riveria” and it’s apparent as soon as you set foot outside the door. Firstly, every building is either a Bed and Breakfast, or a hotel. There are no large resort style buildings, and like everywhere in this country, everything is tall and narrow.
I took a walk to the beach, which is approximately 150 metres away. The English still insist on keeping Imperial road distances, so this should probably be in yards, but the Google converter means I have to open a new browser tab and I don’t believe I could cope with that at this time of the morning. I had with me my trusty video camera (didn’t take the normal camera this morning), so I got some video of the place. At the time of writing this, there are now pics on my camera which will be uploaded as soon as I can rummage through my luggage for the correct cable.
The next thing to do was breakfast,which happens around 8:30am – it was an easy wait, as I had plenty to do in morning. So I sorted out my crap, put things on charge that still needed charging, and awaited an English Breakfast, actually done by an Englishman in England. Quite why I thought this would be different, I don’t know. So I had myself some toast, scrambled eggs, bacon, fried bread and cereal – a great way to start for a young man whom less than week ago was in hospital getting his ticker monitored. I’m calling it payback.
Take that, you bastard arteries!
Into the car and off to Exeter, about a 40 minute drive North of where I am staying. I know that Exeter is a large enough city that I could get something done about my phone there, and I had to go there anyway. So off I drive. The way out of Paignton is convoluted, to say the least. Just about every street is one way, or should be one way. You could not tour this country without a Satellite Navigation System – and fortunately I have one. I had mentioned that my GPS went on the fritz in the previous blog post and it did, but I neglected to mentioned that it had died because it had lost all its charge, despite being off in my suitcase for around 48 hours. I did have a car charger, that I discovered did not work very early on. But then, about three quarters of my journey in, I suddenly remember the power pack. This was a large lithium ion battery whose sole purpose is to provide charge to USB devices where you don’t otherwise have power. My wife had purchased it and we had packed it in my carry on luggage for use on the plane, and I had forgotten about it. After plugging it in, it all started working again – I would not have made it to my lodgings without it.
The same said GPS got me out of Paignton and on my way to Exeter. It does have some troubles, since there is a LOT of roadworks happening in this part of the country. They are building a south west express way and it is causing queues, delays and havoc, because the already slow roads are now even slower and will be for some months. But you do get there eventually.
On my way into Exeter, I saw a sign called “Park and Ride” – future travel would show me a lot of these – and it turns out to be a large car park on the outskirts of the city, where you park your car and take a bus ride into the city proper. Good thing, too, since it would be impossible to park there otherwise. I managed to get myself into city centre using this very efficient service, and soon I was wandering the streets, actually looking properly at an English city for the first time.
It wasn’t hard to find a phone store, but surprisingly difficult to find one that catered to the international visitor. They probably rightly enough assume that people are smart enough to sort this shit out before they come here. Well, screw you England, I am capable of enough belligerent ignorance to pass for an American, thank you very much. It was not long before I had myself set up with a SIM that would do local and international calls for a month. They even had an official tool resembling a paperclip (happy now, Kerryn?) to get the SIM out of the phone and place it. Soon, I was walking back down the street, one less heart-attack inducing stress off my shoulders.
A working phone increases your attractiveness to the opposite sex.
Now, to find the University. What’s the best approach here? Ask a complete stranger! More precisely, ask an old lady who couldn’t find her own arse with both hands.
Me: “Can you tell me the way to the University?”
Pleasant but insane old lady:”Yes, it’s this way, about a 20 minute walk.”
It was not that way. Fortunately, I discovered this 10 minutes into my walk, when I asked another stranger.
Me: “Is this the way to the University?”
Bearded Hippy: “No, its back that way… I think” – he indicated the direction I had come from. A small inner sigh. Assertion demon slunk off somewhere to have a quiet smoke and a little cry.
Back to the town centre, and then, it started to piss down.We’re talking monsoon here people. I bought a 2 pound umbrella at a store which helped me stay dry to an extent,but soon the lower half of my pants were drenched, as was my sleeves. What a wonderful start to the day. I wandered into a newsagent, and asked the same question. This time, they were helpful.
Friendly and competent newsagent lady: “Yes, jump on the ‘D’ bus, it’s about a 10 minute ride”
The ‘D’ bus was a start. It turns out that all the buses pass through the town center, and are labelled for the route they take, as well as having the correct bus shelter to stand at to catch that bus. Within ten minutes, and a few questions to a really hot university student, I found myself at the university. There was building called the Great Hall (it does not look like Hogwarts, disappointingly), and next to it was administration. I’ll start there.
Me: “Can you direct me to the archaeology department?”
Possibly the same insane old lady: “Yes *shuffle papers* here’s a map, and the archaeology department *shuffle papers, actually looks up where it is* is here.”
Me: “And where are we?”
Old lady: “We’re here. *indicates on map* go through these double doors and head to that building”
A university bureaucracy is like any other – information is on a need to know basis, and works like this:
If something does not directly involve me or my job, I don’t need to know.
So I go to the indicated building, getting wetter all the time. It’s not well signposted, but I march into the building nontheless.
Me: “Can you tell me where the archaeology department is?”
Young fella who looks like a mormon: “You’re in the wrong building. I’m not sure where it is. *shuffle papers, consult map, check uni guide* – Ah, it’s here. Go out that door, the left one, and up the stairs to that building.”
I go out the door (the left one), up the stairs and to… what building? There’s a frickin’ park here. Hmmm… there’s a path here, I might try that. Following the path, through what is very beautiful and soaking wet woods, I arrive at a road. There is a building opposite, so I’ll try that one. Into the empty foyer… there is a solitary door marked “Archaeology”, but it’s too soon for celebrations. This door leads to stairs which lead up to classrooms, all of which are empty. Wandering around does not prove illuminating, however I did get to see a nice display of medieval swords.
At this point, I was getting grumpy. Eventually, I found a lab with two guys in it who graciously told me where the department offices were. It was then easy to find on the third floor. I wandered in and spoke to the nice lady there, and told here I was here to pay the 112 pounds remaining on my dig. After enquiring on my name, she smiled and said they were waiting on me. She pulled out the relevant documentation, and while this was being duly processed, whom should wander in but Danielle Wootton, who is going have a lot to do with this dig as site director. She, of course, doesn’t know me from a bar of soap and looking at me, probably decided I needed a bar of soap. There was a brief conversation with the lady processing my payment, and she was gone again. Oh well, I’ll have the pleasure of seeing the slight discomfit of her seeing me on Monday and trying to work out where she’s seen me before.
Eventually, I made it back to the center of Exeter. After a quick KFC lunch (where the chips can best be described as toothpicks soaked in water and then deep-fried), I went to see one of the truly spectacular sights where I would take my first photograph – Exeter Cathedral.
Exeter Catherdral – seriously impressive
Now, I am definitely not a man known for his piousness. I tried to read the bible once, and it burst into flame when I touched it. So don’t take what I say to be any sort of religious experience or revelation, it’s not. But you cannot help but be awed by the scale and grandness of this place, and the sheer work that went into building it hundreds of years ago. Some of the artworks, masonry and architecture are beautiful.
East facing towards the entrance.
As you enter, you find yourself walking across flagstones with inscriptions (some in Latin), and it hits you that you are walking across the tombs of soldiers, priests and ordinary (though rich) people. All of them buried within the church confines in the hope of salvation and at least a business class seat in the afterlife.
A tomb in the floor of the cathedral – you can just make out the Latin inscriptions around the edges, worn by many feet.
One end of the building is dominated by the gargantuan pipe organ, which sadly I did not get to hear play.
Second biggest organ I’ve ever seen.
I’ve collected a lot more photos than those shown here, but I have to find the willpower to properly catalogue and contextualise them.
An hour later, I left, impressed beyond measure (and slightly lighter in the wallet thanks to the gift shop). There’s something about the place where the history just penetrates you (it celebrates its 1,000th anniversary in 2018) and every step you take tells a story. So many amazing things in there it’s hard to describe.
One of the very many impressive tombs found within the cathedral
St. George slaying the dragon, or possibly his mother-in-law
Eventually, I found my way out of Exeter and back to my car. Subsisting as I was on a few hours sleep, I decided to head back to my lodgings and take it easy for a while. I got back around 4:30pm, lay down for a quick kip and didn’t wake up til three the next morning.
Tomorrow was going to be a long day.