Dream Trip to Cornwall

This post is long overdue. Last last weekend I went for a short trip to St Ives in Cornwall. Visiting Cornwall has been my dream for many years and I wasn't disappointed a single bit! The place was absolutely dreamy and I'm really glad I took the time for myself to explore and relax little bit. Of course, it took me few days to come back to reality (wish I didn't have to!) and catch up with my research. And like all PhD students I've reached the point of frustration while trying to solve something that seems apparently unsolvable (why do we do this to ourselves really?!). So, I decided to take a little break and write this post instead.

St Ives is a cute little town, one that has been a popular tourist destination and inspiration to artists for ages. Usually most places in Cornwall require driving like most beach towns, but they built a tiny train station from St Erth (four stops, takes 12mins) that drops you right in front of the Porthminster beach (how convenient)! The train journey from from St Erth is very scenic as well. My AirBnb host suggested me to sit on the right side, front-faced for the best view and he was absolutely right!

So, this is the first picture I took of the Porthminster beach after getting off from the train. It was cloudy and windy on Friday afternoon, so I wasn't expecting much, but that view took my breath away! This one is the calm beach, more suitable for families with little kids. The turquoise blue is stunning and as the sun peeps in and out, the ocean changes its colour in various shades of blue too. I felt I could just sit there and watch it all day!

Porthminster Beach

The Porthmeor beach is about 15mins walk from there. There's also Harbour beach in between. I was lucky that my AirBnb was conveniently located right in between the beaches and everything was in walking distance. The place itself was very nicely decorated too and the couple was very kind and friendly. Soon after I realized you start seeing the same people again and again as you wander around because it's so small! However, I didn't get bored at all. There are also plenty of art galleries and museums to explore. Later in the afternoon I made a quick trip to Porthmeor beach. This part is more of surfer's zone with gorgeous waves. The Tate Museum is right next to this beach too. There's a cliff named Man's Head that offers breathtaking views of the beach. I decided I'd spend more time on that beach next day.

Porthmeor Beach

On Saturday morning I pushed myself to get out of bed before sunrise so that I could watch sunrise on the beach. I'm not a morning person and it was little chilly in morning, but that romanticism (!) was totally worth it! It was cloudy at first but then I got a beautiful view as I was about to leave for Porthmeor. Also, pro-tip - I learned the evening before that Porthminster is perfect to watch sunrise and Porthmeor for sunset. I didn't realize it and missed the lovely sunset on Friday as I was waiting for it by Porthminster :-/ Anyway, here's a picture of the sunrise :)

After that I headed to Porthmeor beach and walked on the quiet beach by myself. It felt like a dream and I couldn't help humming "Don't Break the Spell"! The surfers started to gather too. It was lots of fun to walk on the beautiful, clear water even though it was quite freezing. I collected lots of pretty shells and started to head back for breakfast and little shopping as they neared the opening hour. Most shops open there around 10am, which makes sense for tourist towns but also I started to get hungry. 

I had tasty Cornish pasty, hot chocolate and brownie and went home for little rest. Later that day I went up to Man's Head. We were blessed with gorgeous sunshine that day and I took plenty of pretty pictures. I mean it looked so beautiful already that I didn't have to make much effort!

I loved that they placed benches beautifully on that cliff. What a simple nice idea to let people watch those blue waves! I walked to the top, took more photos, had fish & chips for dinner and came home with a happy heart.

On Sunday it was time to head back. It felt too soon! I really wished I could be there longer. I left AirBnb with all my luggage and it was drizzling, so thought I'd just walk around little bit. I went to the gift shops and had more Cornish pasty, but after a while I couldn't resist climbing Man's Head again. I spent some more time there watching beautiful waves, the wind made them extra gorgeous! After that I headed back to Porthminster beach and hopped on my train back.

I'm really glad I made this trip and can't wait to go back in June. Already started to think where else to visit in Cornwall! :p Till then I've got plenty of photos and videos to cherish those beautiful memories. 

Now back to my research (-_-).

On Dixit and Tech Talks

After long Easter break people are slowly getting back to work here, though most schools are still on vacation. Just learned yesterday Easter break is 3 weeks long here! What the hell! Summer, Christmas, Easter - students in this country get so much time off! It may also be I feel weird getting used to full-time student again. Everyday I think I need to push myself more to do my research. Technically no public holidays apply on me. I can't tell I'm doing well with time management yet but hopefully will get there slowly. 

Anyway, this post is a short and quick update. I met a fun group of people yesterday. We played Dixit and had dinner together. It was the first time to meet them and also first time to play the game, but I almost won! I started slow, was the very last one but it started to become more fun as we played couple of rounds. The purple bunny below is mine :D (half-way through the game). The black one eventually won.

If you never played Dixit before, it's a storytelling card game where everyone has a set of cards. The storyteller picks one card and says a word or phrase or sentence that may describe the picture on that card. Then the rest of the players pick one card from their sets that may tell that story. When everyone is done selecting their cards, all players (except the storyteller) try to guess which one was the storyteller's card. If someone gets the right answer then both the storyteller and the person who could guess get points. It's actually quite fun game as it makes you analyze participants' psychology - whether they think in literal way or in creative way. 

Dinner was good. Joey made vegetarian pizza and Marcus made Scottish Haggis, which is usually non-veg but the veggie version was yummy as well. We had good conversation too.  

Today I went to tech talk series and it was actually quite interesting. It was nice to hear about practitioners working on real projects. I found the talk by a Data Scientist from Sparx particularly interesting. They are a educational research group creating personalized math lessons in collaboration with schools. Also, got to connect with the Digital Exeter Meetup organizer. I think there'll be potential opportunities to collaborate in future. 

Even though I'm not a social person in general or go to such events solely for networking, it's been a good experience. Looking forward to attending more events like this and hopefully will come across more nice people too!