I actually tried to go to the University of Exeter to get my PhD this year - I applied and was given a partial scholarship, but it wasn't enough for me to make it as I would have had to take out a LOT of money in student loans.
Living in another country is great fun, providing that you are prepared to adopt the colloquialisms, quirks and cultures of that country. I had a gap year between leaving school and starting college. Most of it was spent grape picking in France. It's possible to follow the harvest as the grapes ripen in the south first. It's really well organised and when you are 17 going on 18, it's one big adventure.
This reminds me of my first trip to Chicago after my wife and I married 37 years ago (so I could meet her relatives). The airport doors opened, and the humidity was so oppressive that initially it seemed I could actually feel some resistance as I attempted to walk through it. Between that and the temperature, it was difficult for me to breathe. Fortunately, every day we were there after that it rained 10-15 minutes in the morning and again in the evening, and it brought the humidity down to a far more tolerable level.
Nope, not any more. When we first started experiencing higher humidity levels here (10-20 years ago as best I can remember) during the summer months one of the local weather monkeys said, "We really don't know why southern California has been so dry for the last few decades. Based on what we know, it should have been as humid here as the rest of the U.S.. But our dry summers are coming to an end, so you'd better get used to it." Then four or five years ago that same weather monkey said our more recent humidity is caused by Arizona's "monsoon season" moving a little farther west every year.
