Some Lancaster Walks

Teaching at a big university sure is different from Allegheny College.  I've been on campus for two weeks and in the classroom since January 16 - two lectures and three discussions per week.  I now have an office.  I've just accessed the university computer system so I could learn how many students I am supposed to have in class.  I still don't have photocopy and print privileges.

I received a light caution when one student contacted department officials when she thought there would be more than one assignment during the term.  There will be just one.  A final exam (the other 50% of the grade) needs to be written this month so it can be approved by external evaluators.  Students will sit for the exam in June, a couple of months after the class ends.  All of my notes need to be posted on line.  Today, students starting asking for me to video record my lectures, also to be posted on line.

It really isn't clear to me why anyone would even go to class.

The center of campus before students wake up.

Sue and I have used our weekends to walk from home.  We began close by with some of the sights in town.

The 900-year-old-castle on top of the hill.

The view from the castle.

Over the weekend of 14 January we went on a 10 mile trek from the canal to sheep pastures to the Lune River to the Irish Sea.

The canal near our house.

The sheep near the canal.

The following weekend, walking north from our house, the canal crosses the river on an aqueduct.  The aqueduct was constructed in 1792 to move coal inland to power cotton mills.  The cotton came from the New World along with enslaved Africans.  Limestone moved toward the sea.

Aqueduct

Lancaster Canal crossing the Lune Aqueduct.

Looking down onto the River Lune from the aqueduct.

And pub food at the end of our walk to the sea.

Cheers.

Home in Lancaster

The day after arriving in England I headed from the west coast to the east to the city of Newcastle for a week of Fulbright meetings and a bit of touring while Sue went right to work.  She now has the shortest commute on the planet, roughly 18 inches from the end of the bed to her desk, where, remarkably, all of her technology has connected successfully and she is already online and on the phone with her colleagues.

That is kombucha fermenting on her desk.

Newcastle was fascinating, if a tad mind-numbing, sitting in lectures (definitely not worth photographing) from 8:30 AM until late into the evening.  Among the highlights were:

Baltic Art Museum

Bridges on the River Tyne

Some penguins at Alnwick Gardens

One afternoon they bused us to Alnwick Gardens, where almost nothing was growing because it is the dead of winter (it will be spectacular when it blooms and even seeing the bones of the place was fascinating.) The neighboring castle was closed to the public because the Duchess of Northumberland was home, probably in her PJs.  The young graduate students on Fulbright Scholarships went on and on about how the castle was a great location for playing quidditch, studying magic potions, and battling dementors.  

I rolled my eyes at how young people see the world through what they know from TV and movies until I was corrected.  It is the castle where they filmed Harry Potter.  I bet my gaffe did not help my application to be the next Duchess.

As for our real home in Lancaster we live on a block one over from this one where the sun was shining one day when I was thinking to take a picture.

At the end of our block there is the longest canal (41 miles) without locks in the country.

Note the houseboat on the left bank.

Here is the view from the kitchen table into the back alleyway and the Fish and Chips shop 40 yards from home where I plan to move if I don't get my job as Duchess.

Our wonderful hosts include Nicki and John.

The serious ones, Dexter and Bruno (in the highchair)

Our bedroom is on the second floor (Dexter and Bruno have their own rooms on the third), John and Nicki are down the hall from us.  Our bedroom has its own bathroom and I don't think those are Sue's hairy knees.

Leaving on a jet plane, a car, another jet, another jet, a bus, a train, and a long walk pulling two large bags.

Anyone who knows the two of us can figure out which one of us packs like this.

And which other one packs like this.

Not to give away to whom the pile above belongs, but I also packed these items.

which successfully got past TSA containing my whole wheat sourdough starter, my white flour starter, and my kombucha SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast.)

We departed 7 AM Saturday morning, New Year's Eve, and after driving to the Pittsburgh Airport, flew to Newark (sat for 7 hours), flew to Dublin, flew to Manchester, took a bus and then a train from Manchester to Lancaster and then schlepped our bags along flagstone sidewalks (after walking the opposite direction in the waning sunlight of New Year's Day) to our new home on 41 Regents Street, Lancaster.  A day later we were sharing a pint (OK, a half pint) at the Merchants.  And that's right, if you look closely the picture is accurate.  I did feel like I had a pole through the back of my skull.