It's a city that appeals to everyone; it's hard not to appreciate the buildings which haven't changed for hundreds of years and the meadows with their grazing cows and the cobbled streets with the weight of history pressing down upon them.
Although it's not all picture book perfection - being from Bristol I miss the bright lights and sirens and general noise of a big city, and I could do with a few weeks off a year from the hoards of tourists and open top bus tours outside my window - it comes pretty close.
My college is called Exeter, and is central, small, and, in my opinion at least, perfectly formed. A college is a community, a kind of very large, slight wacky extended family, and the perfect place to escape from the craziness of my days here.
I study French and Spanish, and I still haven't worked out why I decided to do two at once. My typical day involves a crazy rush to arrive (the inevitable 10 minutes late) to morning lectures, helping out with the marketing for some project or another, catching up with everyone I love, training down at the Boathouse, losing something, finding something, writing an essay, and, if I'm lucky, making time for a coffee and a book at the Turl Street Kitchen, my top hideaway. It's impossible to work, party and sleep properly, so the latter is usually sacrificed, but if I'm not stressing over library fines or playing articulate then I sometimes stop and think about just how surprised I am that I'm actually here. And I'm surviving.
