Victory and defeat
Not much of an update right now, since we've spent the last two days on the road and the high seas. Saturday morning we traveled from Cambridge to northern Wales, stopping first in Chester for lunch and a walk around the city, and later at Conwy Castle. Which brings us to the explanation for today's theme.
VICTORY! On the bus between Cambridge and Chester, UMass' Susan Krauss Whitbourne led us through a 30-question trivia contest, all based on information we had received in the previous 5 days -- quotes from speakers, years of founding, etc. As it turned out, Sara Vaux (Northwestern) and I were the winning team with 22 correct answers. To give credit where credit is due, we both knew about half of the answers, I was the sole respondent on about 2 answers (studying abroad in Zimbabwe while in college taught me Cecil Rhodes' middle initial...) and Sara got the other 10 or so. But we won nifty light-up lapel bins with the English flag on them, which we got just in time for....
DEFEAT! At Conwy, much of the group elected to hurriedly walk around the castle, then head to a local pub to watch England take on Portugal in a quarter-final World Cup match. Except for me, as I skipped the castle completely in order to watch the entire game. For those of you who don't know -- being American and all -- England lost in heartbreaking fashion on penalty kicks after a 0-0 tie after extra time. The rest of the bus journey was filled with lively debate over whether or not Goony Rooney should have been red carded, Beckham's mystery injury, and the general incompetence of the British penalty kickers. One week in Europe and we've got a bunch of World Cup experts here.
Today took us from Wales to our current residence in Dublin. We stopped mid-way this morning at another spectacular Welch castle, Caernarfon, for two hours (which sated my castle needs after skipping yesterday's). Then it was on to a wonderfully nice ferry that felt more yacht-like than ferry-like, followed by an hour-long bus ride to our hotel in downtown Dublin.
This evening I had the wonderful pleasure of having dinner with Grinnell's sole Mitchell Scholar to date, Geoff Swenson, who came down to Dublin from Belfast to talk with our group tomorrow. We were joined by Paula Warrick (American) and Jody Spooner (Florida State), which was especially nice since Paula had helped Geoff prepare for one of his previous scholarship interviews while he was living in DC.
Tomorrow we're back at work, meeting with Irish universities throughout the day. Pictures to come shortly, I hope.
VICTORY! On the bus between Cambridge and Chester, UMass' Susan Krauss Whitbourne led us through a 30-question trivia contest, all based on information we had received in the previous 5 days -- quotes from speakers, years of founding, etc. As it turned out, Sara Vaux (Northwestern) and I were the winning team with 22 correct answers. To give credit where credit is due, we both knew about half of the answers, I was the sole respondent on about 2 answers (studying abroad in Zimbabwe while in college taught me Cecil Rhodes' middle initial...) and Sara got the other 10 or so. But we won nifty light-up lapel bins with the English flag on them, which we got just in time for....
DEFEAT! At Conwy, much of the group elected to hurriedly walk around the castle, then head to a local pub to watch England take on Portugal in a quarter-final World Cup match. Except for me, as I skipped the castle completely in order to watch the entire game. For those of you who don't know -- being American and all -- England lost in heartbreaking fashion on penalty kicks after a 0-0 tie after extra time. The rest of the bus journey was filled with lively debate over whether or not Goony Rooney should have been red carded, Beckham's mystery injury, and the general incompetence of the British penalty kickers. One week in Europe and we've got a bunch of World Cup experts here.
Today took us from Wales to our current residence in Dublin. We stopped mid-way this morning at another spectacular Welch castle, Caernarfon, for two hours (which sated my castle needs after skipping yesterday's). Then it was on to a wonderfully nice ferry that felt more yacht-like than ferry-like, followed by an hour-long bus ride to our hotel in downtown Dublin.
This evening I had the wonderful pleasure of having dinner with Grinnell's sole Mitchell Scholar to date, Geoff Swenson, who came down to Dublin from Belfast to talk with our group tomorrow. We were joined by Paula Warrick (American) and Jody Spooner (Florida State), which was especially nice since Paula had helped Geoff prepare for one of his previous scholarship interviews while he was living in DC.
Tomorrow we're back at work, meeting with Irish universities throughout the day. Pictures to come shortly, I hope.
posted by Doug Cutchins | 8:13 PM
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