First day of class

Today we had our first class meeting. I am excited to start because this seems to be a very interesting class, and I think we will have some excellent finished products.

We told everyone about our ghost story, and two members of our group said that the cab driver talked about a little girl who haunts rooms 509, 511 and 513. We are in room 513! What a coincidence!

Our group also went into town today. Grantham is so cute and different in various ways. Grantham has an outdoor shopping center, and the workers are allowed to sit down, a benefit Americans are unable to acquire. Apparently "calling" means the same thing as "coming," because one of the signs at the exit of the strip of stores read "Thank you for calling, please call again." Also, there is a coffee shop, similar to Starbucks, called Costa. I absolutely love it, and I think it is so much better than Starbucks.

I took a lot of pictures, and we ate some delicious ice cream at a shop called Thorton’s. After we were finished shopping, we hopped onto the shuttle and headed back to the manor.

We had a scheduled tour of the mansion at 7 p.m. Our tour guide was cute, funny and British, but she didn’t offer much advice when we questioned her about ghosts. We found out a few things about the mansion, as well as customs of the people who used to live here. For example, tucked away on the sides of some of the fire places are metal doors that swing out and allow a person to light a fire. Also, we found out that some rooms were used strictly for dining, some were used by ladies to "exercise," basically just strolling back and forth across a long room, and one room was a family morning room for breakfast. Learning about the customs of the times was interesting because society today has been completely transformed.

The Bistro, a pub in the basement of the mansion, opened tonight. I had a lot of fun there. We played flip cup and poker, and I tried some new beers (because the legal drinking age is 18 here =] ). So far, my favorite is Strongbow, which is actually a cider, but it is similar to beer. Tomorrow we are visiting Stratford-Upon-Avon to see one of Shakespeare’s plays, A Winter’s Tale!


P.S.-I think we will still have the lights on tonight..