Today began early with a two hour bus ride to the Lake District. I was well prepared since I made sure to get up early so I would be ready in time, and was successful. We went to Grasmere first, and visited Dove Cottage, where the poet William Wordsworth lived for a few years. The tour was short, since the house was small, and we saw lots of the original furniture, including the couch that is thought to be mentioned in the poem 'I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud'. The best part was the garden, which was on a hillside and designed to offer a great view of the lake. The guide told us about how they would frequently have way more guests than the house could hold, with people staying in every room except the cold one where they kept the meat and butter. It didn't look exactly comfortable, and combined with the rats that infested the houses at that time, I'm glad I wasn't sleeping on the kitchen floor in the Wordsworth house!

We got back on the bus and went to Windermere, where we were allowed to run around by ourselves for a few hours. It was absolutely beautiful, the sun was shining and there were loads of people out enjoying the weather. We got some lunch first, some traditional English fish and chips served with peas. It was delicious, of course. Ashley, Jocelyn, Steven and I then spent our time walking around, going into the little shops and walking along the lake. We were going to rent a boat, but long lines and our doubts of Steve's superlative boating skills kept us from doing that.

The best discovery of the day was an ice cream shop that had 36 flavors. There was no peppermint, which made me sad initially, but then I realized they had mango ice cream. Of course I got a cone, and now I'm in love. Where else I'm going to be able to get it, I have no idea, but I'll keep up my search at every ice cream place I see from now on.

After we got our ice cream, we went and sat in the park. There were tons of people out enjoying the day, and we watched some lads playing cricket and football for a while, as well as took a few pictures. There was a band from Germany playing music in a gazebo right near us. At least we assumed they were German, since they were wearing lederhosen.

*          *          *

During some discussion with the British residents in our hall, we asked them what they thought British-ness was. We got a few different answers, including football culture, fish and chips and "A fat, bald man with a pint and a flag shirt." It just goes to show that like any other culture in the world, British-ness is going to be defined differently by different people. Life experiences and the way a person is brought up affects how they see their culture, and can be totally different than how another person sees it. Even though Britain is nowhere near as large as the United States, there is just as much diversity of culture, as Lucy pointed out. Also, the way a young person versus an old person would describe British culture would be very different, as I've seen that the older generation tends to be much more traditional and set in their ways, whereas the younger people are much more open to new ideas and different ways of doing things.

We continue to get closer to our friends in Lady Openshaw, all of us hanging out and having movie nights or just laying around outside. A few of the girls invited us on a walk the other day and took us to an adorable little wooded area with some nice pathways right near campus. I'm glad they did, since I would have never found it on my own.

We've been told by our English friends that we're their favorite group of Americans so far, since we are actually interested in hanging out with them and having fun with them. I guess previous groups had kept to themselves more and weren't as interested in getting to know the locals. It was kind of funny, but they've told us we look the most English so far out of all the groups, since we defy the typical "fat, lazy American" sterotype and have started to adopt some of the elements of their style of dress, especially the girls.