By Sam Hill

Grace College couldn’t be more of a change from Purdue. Whereas Purdue is a public university with 54,000 students, Grace is a private, Christian university with less than 2,000. The students attend chapel three times a week. It is a small, intimate campus; pretty, and the students smile at you as you walk by.

The students here are beyond friendly. Every need, every request is met with a smile and a ‘no problem at all’ or a ‘sure!’ Campus is easy to navigate, but of course I still got lost. Two very kind students escorted me to my class, which happened to be a Spanish class. I was particularly excited for this class as Elena, the teacher, had asked me during my meeting, ‘Do you like pastries?’ Is the Pope a Catholic? I had expected one pastry, but Elena had brought in an entire platter of Mexican pastries from a local baker. Gracias Dios.

Grace is situated near Winona Lake. Of course, when I say lake, I mean an American lake, which to an English person looks more like a small sea. Around the lake are trails through the woods that wind, like a rattlesnake, around the campus. Lucy and I headed out for a run and dodged, ducked, dipped, dived and dodged (guess the film?) through the Indiana countryside.

We have had the great privilege of being given access to the canteen here. Which means we get free, healthy food, I cannot emphasise how much of a blessing this is for us. The food is good quality, with plenty of vegetables on offer, which, in America, can be hard to come by. We get asked a lot about British cuisine and its terrible international reputation. I don’t want to seem defensive and trust me I LOVE U.S food, especially Culvers and the warm cookies they have at the canteen here. But British food has come a long way in the last 20 years or so. London has a wide array of different cuisines from all around the world. And look, I just feel the need to point out that a few U.S foods are just plain weird. If you’ll humour me….

Example A: Biscuits and gravy. These are a sort of a savoury scone with a meat sauce. I do not know what ‘meat’ goes into the ‘meat sauce’ but the fact that it is hard to tell, tells any reader what to expect.

Example B: Pickled sausage, I made the mistake of getting a pickled sausage from a store. What can I say, I love Jerky and Biltong, I thought this would be in the same ball-park, but it is not. All I can say is “no, no, no, never again”.

Example C: Pickles. Some pickles here are excellent. The pickled cucumbers you get with your burger. SUBLIME! But some of the pickles you get have a very strange mix of flavours. They taste sort of cinnamon-like, giving the gherkins a bizarre Christmas flavour. That’s the only way I can describe it. Christmas in a jar. But not a good Christmas, the kind of Christmas where everyone argues… and drinks too much… and someone burns the turkey.

Anyway, diatribe over…

It’s a big weekend this weekend as it is the Super Bowl. The biggest game in American sports. The 49ers and the Chiefs take on each other. The American way seems to be to throw a Super Bowl party so we threw our very own party in the hotel. We decked the lobby out with a case of beers, chips-n- dip, and wings. Did you know an expected 1.4 billion wings get eaten during the Super Bowl? Most of our snacks were very kindly brought by our new friend Niki, who worked at the hotel. We were also joined by our wonderful Techie Chris, who had done all our lighting, as well as being a general legend. We were all surprised by how much we enjoyed the game itself. The game stops an awful lot, but the entertainment doesn’t-with A-List celebrities appearing in the adverts, Usher doing the half time show and everyone chatting as the game unfolds. Although sadly the Chiefs won (I wanted the 49ers to win), we were very happy to have had experienced our own slice of American culture.

By Sam Hill

We arrived at Purdue University, a prestigious public university in West Lafayette, Indiana. We were immediately impressed by… the hotel!! The on-campus hotel is a fantastic 4-star establishment staffed predominantly by students and alumni. We excitedly ran into our rooms like kids on their first holiday. I even had a little jump on the bed- I’m 29 years old… We were even more delighted to discover that there was a bar in the hotel serving an excellent cocktail list and an impressive collection of Japanese whisky and scotch. I could feel my wallet getting lighter already, not that it was particularly heavy in the first place…

The campus here is massive and the rapidly growing student body numbers around 54,000 students. Purdue is a university primarily focused on engineering and is proud to have produced more astronauts than any other university in the U.S (possibly the world??) including Neil Armstrong. You may well ask, “what can a group of actors, teaching classes on Shakespeare, do for students who are looking to start careers in Engineering?”. Well, quite a lot. Most jobs involve presenting in some capacity: pitching your ideas to other people, selling your product, making a power point presentation and more. We teach students to present their ideas confidently, articulately and with ease. Shakespeare’s language is specific and conveys exactly what the author wants to say, by studying Shakespeare, students learn the importance of being specific and accurate in their communication with others. I would argue that if you master these skills before you enter the professional world, little will stand in your way.

Purdue has been a week of great questions. My favourites are the questions about England. These include, “have you ever ridden a double decker bus?” (yes). “Have you ever had Vimto?” (Yes). Do you prefer dogs or frogs? (sorry what?!). But my personal favourite goes to Cooper, in the Q and A after our performance for school children, Cooper asked, ‘why is Bottom so funny?’ Cooper, I would say you made my day, but I think its more accurate to say you made my whole year, thank you!

Our final performance finished, we went to the Boiler Maker Bar and relaxed with a cocktail. However, we were all exhausted after a great week of teaching and performing so retired to bed (relatively early). After a lie-in, we were fresh and wondered into down-town West Lafayette. Two audience members, Linda and Cliff, had invited us to see Artist’s Own: an independent art gallery. Linda was one of a group of local artists who ran the gallery. What an experience that turned out to be. We saw pottery, lovingly made by local artists, a mind-blowing exhibition of pieces by local high schoolers, as well as paintings and jewelry.

Cliff, Linda’s husband, had literally retired two days before. He was (and clearly at heart still is!) a scientist specialising in insects. Cliff told me about the Cicada Broods about to emerge in the U.S this year. In brief, Cicada’s are a grasshopper-like insect that spend years hibernating underground. A ‘brood’ of Cicadas will hibernate for a set number of years. One brood might hibernate for 13 years, another brood might hibernate for 17 years. Here comes the interesting part: this year Brood XIII and Brood XIX will emerge at the same time. They will dig tunnels to the surface and swarm the local area, but there is a crossover zone in parts of Indiana and Illinois, where both broods will converge and emerge at the same time. The last time a double Cicada brood emerged in the US, the year was 1803, Thomas Jefferson was president and George III sat on the throne of England.

Anyway, that is plenty from me! Cliff and Linda, thank you for your kindness, we hope to see you in London! Now on to Grace College, our final stop in Indiana.