This article, which originally appeared in the Daily Eastern News online, is reproduced with kind permission of the author Doug Graham who is currently a student at Harlaxton College.

By Doug T Graham

Like all good things, my time at the Burnett household had to come to an end. We departed for Harlaxton College on Aug. 28.

As I looked at the house I called home for my first week in England on that sunny day, I had the presence of mind to snap a photo, one of the only ones I have of it and the little village of Carlby.

After waving goodbye to Mrs. Burnett, it was time to get going. We were already running behind schedule and had little more than an hour to check in at the Manor.

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This article, which originally appeared in the Daily Eastern News online, is reproduced with kind permission of the author Doug Graham who is currently a student at Harlaxton College.

By Doug T Graham

“You showed up at an exciting time for English Cricket,” Matt’s father told us Americans last Thursday while watching the highlights of the day’s play between the England and Australian national Cricket teams.

We had arrived during the biennial showdown called “the Ashes,” a bitter symbol of the rivalry between the two nations.

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By Rachel Neer - Spring 2008 Roving Reporter

From the moment I set foot onto the campus at Harlaxton College, I knew that it was going to be a very different semester from any other semester that I had ever had. On the second day here, we were told something that no college student is ever told. In his welcome speech, Dr. Kingsley told us that “this was our home” and that we needed to learn to lean on and listen to each other, because from this point until 16 April, “each other is all we’ve got.” (You see, I listened to lectures at the beginning of school.)

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I have words for this weekend:
Stunning. Breath-taking. Beautiful. Lovely. Amazing.
I have more words for this weekend:
Cold. Wet. Windy. Rainy. Dreary. Cloudy. Foggy.
And one more list of words:
Restful. Relaxing. Sleep. Good company. Laughter. Leisure. Rugby.

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How I have neglected to mention the recent earthquake until just now is of complete shock to me…but I have. Allow me to elaborate.

I have learned since the earthquake early last Wednesday morning, 27 February, that contrary to popular belief (or maybe it’s not popular belief at all), earthquakes are not common in the United Kingdom. It’s not that they’re not common, even…earthquakes in the United Kingdom are, as a general rule, quite rare. Early last Wednesday morning, however, at or around 12:50 in the morning, we were a part of what has been said to be the most powerful earthquake in the United Kingdom in the past 25 years. It registered anywhere from a 4.8 to a 5.3 on the Richter scale, depending on which news source you look at. My roommates each thought that it was another roommate until they all realized that no one was doing anything at all. It was then that it was realized that there was an earthquake…one that lasted 10 seconds. I was slightly fearful of going to sleep that night, but I’ve since recovered.

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My “job,” if you will, is to be what the people in Student Affairs call a Roving Reporter. According to dictionary.com, to rove is to wander about without definite destination; move hither and thither at random, especially over a wide area. A reporter is one who creates an account or statement describing in detail an event, situation, or the like, usually as the result of observation, inquiry, etc. My job for this semester is to report back to you what it is like to travel on the weekends while I am at Harlaxton Manor.

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I always come back from traveling on the weekends with a slight cold. I think it’s a combination of fresh, dirty, cold, wet city air, a lack of sleep, and crossing time zones to get there and back that doesn’t really help the situation much at all. It can be guaranteed, though, that I will be back at Harlaxton on Monday morning, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, in plenty of time for lecture. My voice may be slightly altered, if it is there at all, and I may have the sniffles, but there I’ll be. This weekend wasn’t any different, but then again…why should it have been?
It was Amsterdam, and everything about this place was different.

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It’s something that almost every student at Harlaxton College will plan and execute while they are abroad: independent travel. Matt and Bronwyn, our “travel agents” for the semester, told us at the very beginning how we should go about travel. They told us how to plan, the things to look at, what to watch out for.  Apparently, Caitlyn and I drifted off early on in the seminar, because we didn’t start this trip at all in the way that they would recommend that we start the trip.

Before I tell you about this past weekend in Budapest, I have to tell you how it is that we decided to go to Budapest three weeks ago. The original destination for this weekend was Ireland, I do believe, but it changed several times. After discussing our options, we both decided that we could go to Ireland on a different weekend, one when it was warmer and when time could be better spent. Instead, to decide where it was that we wanted to go this weekend, we pulled out a map. We looked at the map and decided where we would like to go, and then looked at where Ryanair flies. We wrote down the names of the places that we wanted to go, nine places in all, on a piece of paper. Those pieces of paper went into a hat, and we drew five. From those five we drew three, and from those three we chose the one that would be the most feasible to do on this weekend. (We’ll go to Sweden over a long weekend.)

Yes, it was unconventional…but I’m glad that it happened that way, because Budapest has been my favorite place to go to thus far. It may cause Matt and Bronwyn to shudder a little bit on the inside and wonder just what we took away from that seminar. I think it was one of the best decisions that we made, though. I think that may be how I make major life decisions from now on…by putting all my options in a hat and then drawing out the one that I should choose. It could work for some things, you know.

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I have always loved big cities. I remember playing outside in the sun in my backyard in the country when I was younger, but then I remember falling in love with the city. My first real experience in a large city that wasn’t Nashville or Vegas (don’t ask) was my 6th grade year when we went to Washington, D.C. I remember that there was something to do around every corner, and no one looked at you strangely…that was the way of the city. It grew on me, and to this day I will tell anyone who asks that I would much rather live in the city than the country.

This weekend was spent in what quickly became #2 on my list of favorite cities that I have visited (Seville, Spain is #1 by a long shot). Prague was where we visited, in the Czech Republic.

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I wonder sometimes just where it is that I am going. Here I sit at the airport in Dublin. I’m not even staying here in Dublin – I’m just waiting on my next flight. People all around me, both those I know and those I don’t, are passing the time in a variety of ways. Tonya, Caitlyn, and Jeni went to sleep a few hours ago so they could let the rest of our group sleep later. Alicia and Audrey sit to my back, talking about who knows what while doing their reading for class.

A girl at the table across from me is reading from a book about Ireland and writing on the back of a piece of cardboard. I could offer her a sheet of paper from my notebook, but I think that would lessen the meaning of whatever she is writing. An older man and a girl my age, maybe a little older, are chatting away to my right. On occasion I catch a piece of their conversation. It is currently 2:00 A.M. They met at midnight.

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