The Isle of Man, Day 2

Today was our first full day on the Isle. We started off with the (now) usual full breakfast, although a Manx one, not English. The only difference is that the bacon here is really salty and fatty; it's really good with toast, eggs and tomato!

Today was also our first official day of "class." We had our first speaker this morning; Jennifer Kewley Draskau is one of the few experts in Manx language on the planet. She has written a book on Manx grammar and pronunciation that is now being used across the Isle. It was written especially for the one school on the Isle that has a Manx immersion program. The language has been virtually lost since the 19th century and has not been taught at school or spoken by natives here for generations, but there has recently been a revivial.

After our meeting, the group walked down to the Manx Museum for a crash course in the history of the island, from the prehistoric to the present. It was a lovely little spot, high up on a hill that overlooked the water, from where one could see the city and the hills beyond. At the museum, we were each assigned a different Manx stone to research by Charlie, one of our two professors. I was given a rather famous stone from Braddan to research. We scurried around the museum and library on our little scavenger hunt and then had a lovely tea in the dining room.

The afternoon consisted of our first shopping trip to the local supermarket and a cat nap before dinner. One of the ladies on the trip was celebrating her birthday today, so we got dressed up and took her out for Indian food. We went to a nice spot on the promenade, overlooking the sea, then ended up at a pub near our hotel for a few drinks.

I am still having trouble uploading pictures to the blog here, so you might just have to check the link to my Facebook page from the previous post for new ones, for now!