More Time Underground

Sunday was a rather lazy day for me; while the rest of the group took a day trip to Liverpool, I preferred to take the day to recharge.  I found my way to St. Barnabas Cathedral for Mass, where it was nice hearing the familiar prayers and experiencing the rhythms of church (although it was strange to hear the readings in an Irish lilt!).  Upon my return to the flat, I spent the afternoon on a cleaning spree - vacuuming, doing laundry, wiping down every surface in my room, etc. - before settling in to read and watch Merlin blooper reels on YouTube.  I also looked up some bookshops in Nottingham with the intention of exploring, but sadly they were all closed on Sundays.

Fireplace in restroom - thanks, conservation.

Monday morning we met our new professors, Bhav and Adam, for our course of the week: "Architecture & History."  As they explained it, the goal of this class is simply to get us to notice things about buildings that people walking past wouldn't typically see, such as how the tiles on one side of a gable are smaller than all the tiles on the other side.  We'll also be using an app called Storehouse to create a thematic "story" of the architectural things we see throughout the week and sharing these stories on Friday.  (Yes, I will publish a link to mine when it's complete.)

Adam gave us a quick tour of the Arkwright building to highlight the ways conservation efforts can result in an inability to put a space to good use.  Then Bhav led us toward the Lace Market part of town.  There, we took a tour of even more caves - from the same tour guide we'd had in the Galleries of Justice!  However, these caves contained a tannery and an air raid shelter, so we gained some new information about different uses of Nottingham's caves besides what we'd learned on our previous trips underground.

England's only tannery in a cave

After the tour we had lunch at a delicious Italian restaurant...which stretched into two hours.  Like Neville, Steve, and Charlie last week, though, Bhav and Adam proved fairly flexible on the itinerary.  Instead of going to Nottingham Contemporary as planned, Adam offered to try to get us into Bromley House, a members-only library near Market Square.  We weren't allowed to browse the library, but we booked a tour for Friday morning and took a few pictures before reluctantly leaving.  (Side note: I loved being with a group of peers who were just as excited about the library as I was.)

We wandered the Park, an affluent gated area of town, just noting the architectural styles.  It started drizzling on us (which only made me feel more at home) before we returned to campus.  The continued rain prevented our evening activity, which was meant to be a walk around town with another professor, but we rescheduled for next Monday.  Now we might go out to dinner and "acoustic night" at a pub, but our class activities are finished for the day.

This will be a busy week, with an overnight trip to Oxford tomorrow, a play Wednesday night, a tour of the Lace Market Thursday, and our weekend in London fast approaching.  But it was encouraging to have Bhav and Adam emphasizing that this is "our" week.  I've loved the importance placed on the experience aspect of this trip so far; where I expected traditional academic pressures, I've found that the professors and organizers leading us care more about our experience and how we interact with our surroundings.  Of course, we're still learning plenty!

Posts may be sporadic this week since we'll be doing a lot of overnight and evening stuff, but I'll do my best to keep everyone updated.