The tales of England I grew up on had to start with King Arthur, duly proceeding with Robin Hood. As I grew I learned of the Elizabethan and Victorian eras. My general ideas of England were then rounded out with information on Vikings, Saxons, Normans, and general knowledge of the Regency era.

The impression when I first left the airport though was not even remotely related to any of those fabled days of yore. But instead I peered into a typical industrial section that looked and felt as tired as I was. It wasn't until I had collapsed into the coach and stared blankly out the window for awhile that I gradually began to notice things.

There were differences out that window. First of all, every single one of the cars was driving on the wrong side of the road, since we were too I wasn't really worried about it. I saw various herdbeasts along the way that were more fearless than the Cornell squirrels. I can support this reasoning with the fact that as brave as those squirrels are, they always keep at least three body-lengths away from humans. These herdbeasts, cows in this case, had to be less than two bodylengths away from the interstated we were traveling on. Or whatever the English equivalent to an interstate is.

It was about this time that I learned that I was responsible for the first day's web-posted journal entry. God and I will have to have a talk later about why this happened. Why would he pick me, one who couldn't sleep on the plane, and hence hasn't slept in the last twenty-eight hours? And yes it is entirely his fault because I was the absolute last person to draw, meaning that I was the only person with no choice in my result.

Getting over it and moving on now. We have arrived in Dover, and with time to spare. All students were placed in downtown (is that an accurate word here?) Dover to buy ourselves lunch and do any such shopping that strikes our fancy. I am easily the slowest in my group, either that or the most out-of-shape, or the most unashamed to show it. We spent much time walking around debating where to eat. We ended up settling on what looked like a privately owned fish and chips shop. Where everyone except me stepped right up to order cod and chips. Apalled at such a display of inherent uniformity in such seeming individuals I felt compelled to order something else. I tried a fish called Plaice instead of Cod. It was a very succulent white-fish that seemed to melt in your mouth. Of course by the time that we had finished eating we barely had time to meet the bus again.

Before I go ahead to describe Dover Castle I wish to supply some helpful factoids about Dover itself, supplied by our estimable coach driver Graeme. The first was a brief explanation about why the 'white cliffs of Dover' were really gray. These cliffs are entirely composed of chalk, which though white when first exposed, grays with age. So the original explorers (also default name-givers) actually saw white cliffs. The town of Dover itself sits down inside the cliffs, and so also conforms its town plan to those cliffs. The next thing that the driver talked about was the great england vs. france fued. Since the Graeme is British (or more precisely Scottish) I think it would be fair to say that we got a rather slanted version of things. Though I don't think that he was being serious in the first place, so it really doesn't matter. One of the things that he mentioned was that for some reason the French insist of call the English Channel 'la Mouche,' when its name is obviously the English Channel. Anyway from Dover its twenty-two miles across the channel to the French coast. People used to cross mostly by ferries. However now there is an underwater train somewhere that is much more practical.

The whole group moves on now to Dover Castle. This place actually started in Roman times when they built a watch-tower there. Its uses have evolved and changed ever since, and this really shows. Sadly I did not appreciate the place as much as I should have. I was absolutely exhausted from jet-lag, and it certainly didn't help that it was drizzling steadily the entire time that we were there. That really wasn't a huge problem except for the note-taking though, due to the awesome raincoat that my mom made me. Thanks mom.

I really only explored two parts of Dover Castle with any real depth. They were the church of St. Mary-in-the-castle with the Roman lighthouse/watch-tower attached, and the secret wartime tunnels. The technical name for the Roman light-house is the Roman Pharos. It was originally built sometime in the 1rst century AD. There is evidence that the top of the Pharos was rebuilt sometime between 1415 AD and 1437 AD.

The best guess on when the church was first built is sometime in the year 1000 AD. Or at least that is what the plaque outside the church said. The brochure that you could pick up inside the church dates it to the 7th century AD. It was originally constructed as a monastic establishment. Its function turned to that of a church in the 12th century AD. The interior was altered to accomodate this by inserting pointed arches in the walls of the north and south transepts, and the removal of any internal walls. We know that the church was specifically dedicated for military use by the year 1223 AD, because we have an order to the constable dated then telling him to renovate specifically for that purpose.

The church has been kept to that purpose to the present day. There was one exception in the year 1690 AD. There was little to no military left in the area, and certainly not enough to support a military church. So the place was shut down temporarily and subsequently neglected for about 200 years. The church is said to have been used as a coal dump at this time.

The restoration started in 1860 under the supervision of a certain Sir Gilbert Scott. He replaced the roof which had fallen in, redug the floor, and replaced doors and windows. The congregation afterwards ended up donating a large part of the church in the decorations. I would here like to note that most of the above information came from the handy-dandy brochure about the church that I picked up inside it. I myself would not have remembered all those names and dates.

My own personal impression of the church was that of a soldier's memorial. The one chapel in there is reserved for soldiers to pray in. There are numerous plaques along the wall dedicated to fallen soldiers in the world wars. There are even crusader's marks on one wall. I was abruptly brought out of such respectful musings when I realized that I had ten minutes to get to the tour of the secret wartime tunnels with no real idea of where I was going. Luckily after a short amount of wandering I spotted other students and just tracked them.

The tunnels were a lot further off that I thought they would be. To get there you had to walk down a long ramp inside a tunnel and then enter them on a side of a cliff face. Supposedly this is a great view of the English channel, but the weather was so horrid out that all you could see was a dense white mist. Here is where our group met our tour guide James. Sadly I had not yet procured a notepad, nor did I see a brochure for this section, so my recounting here is entirely from memory.

The main use of the tunnels was during the second world war. They were used briefly in the first though, and I think they predated even that, and were first created as an extended barracks. They got their first real expansion when Admiral (insert correct first name here) was assigned there to try and pull out troops from Dunkirk. He only expected to be able to pull out about 50,000 mrn, but instead managed to pull out some 330,000. Hence it was dubbed a miracle. Now I don't remember exactly what it was called, but it was a miracle none-the-less.

There were three main levels of the tunnels. I don't really remember a lot about them, but here comes an attempt to describe them anyway. The topmost level's name started with A, was built 2nd, and was used as a field hospital. The second level's name started with C, was built first, and was used as a command center, among other things. The third level was called Dumpy, was built last, and I have completely forgotten what it was used for.

We managed to have a complete tour of the top level which was set up to all the sights, sounds, and smells would be accurate. So I tried not to breathe while still paying attention. So many of the conditions were apalling and we followed a badly injured pilot through his treatment. I frankly found it all rather disturbing. We didn't really het to tour the second level because we ran out of time. We barely had time to hit up the gift shop before we got kicked out.

It was drizzling, gloomy, and wet as we walked back out of Dover Castle, and I, beyond tired, was lagging behind. Behind enough that I got to see the really big gun that Katy spotted. I stared at that, it was big, I was tired. It was a long wet walk back to the bus, one that I grudgingly walked by barely catching myself as I fell forward. That was unfortunate when I had to go up a wet grassy hill, I think I fell at least twice. Finally I made it up to the bus just to collapse in my seat, after awhile of blankly staring out my window we finally arrived at our hotel in Canterbury.

We both cleaned up, with many trips to and from the bathroom for things that we forgot, mostly becuase we couldn't remember anything at that point. Oddly enough we did remember to go to dinner. The chicken was nice, and finally my first sleep for a whole two days.