Wow. Just wow. The final two weeks of UWC have been absolutely incredible. As I write this, I'm sitting on the plane heading east once more. I can hardly wait to get home--4 months away has been really tough.
Last week was pretty rough academically--I had 4 exams and an Individual Oral Presentation to do in English. Between the two, I had an assessment on every day that week. It was challenging and I was pretty stressed for a good portion of the week, but ultimately, the week came off pretty well. There's a lot to cover, so in this post, I'll just be talking about Monday.
Monday was a really special day--during assembly, Linda and Lisa, the Dean of Students and the President of UWC-USA, respectively, told us that all students could go into the turret that morning. If you don't know, I've put a picture of the turret above so that you can get an idea of what exactly the turret is. We were allowed to go into the top of the turret, just below the roof. To get there, we had to take the main staircase all the way to the 4th floor.
We had to go through a very small door at the top to get there--it was quite exciting! After entering through the 4th floor door, you emerge into a minimally finished area. The 4th floor of the castle was never fully finished, although there are plans in the future to finish it. The basic safety systems, such as fire suppression systems, were installed, but other than that...it's pretty basic. See below for a few pictures.
As you can see, it's pretty basic. Most of the time, bats are the only residents up there but for a few minutes, we also occupied it. Upon entering the fourth floor, one enters a sort of communal area with hallways leading off in nearly every direction. One of the doors leading off this common area had a metal-barred door in front of it. It was this door that we were interested in. The director of maintenance, Fernando, unlocked the door (and the wooden door behind it) to reveal a staircase heading up again.
As you can see from the photo above, not every trace of the vandals that damaged the castle in the 70s has been removed. On this floor and in the staircase, you can really get a good idea of just quite how old the castle really is. It's pretty well hidden on the lower floors, due to the extensive renovations, but up on the fourth floor, it's quite noticeable. We headed up quite a narrow, steep staircase to finally emerge at the top.
We emerged into the turret itself. The view was absolutely incredible! The castle itself sits on the sit of a mountain, and the turret just gives you an even better view...so beautiful. It was an amazing opportunity to be able to go up and see the turret. Just to give you an idea, I've posted some of my pictures from the top.
All in all, it was a pretty cool experience to be able to go up and see the turret. It was a very nice break from my initial stress in preparing for my IOP. The Individual Oral Presentation is a requirement in every A1 (native) language in the IB. Hannah, my English teacher, has us do the presentations in the final two weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. My presentation was the second presentation to go in our class. I was pretty nervous, because this presentation goes into our final IB grade. Fortunately, it went really, really well--I was really happy!
The week carried on pretty intensely...more to come on that. For right now, however, my plane is preparing to land in Raleigh (HOME!!) and I can't wait to see my family. Posting from 35,000 feet--Harry.
