Members of the Cornell track and field teams are currently in the United Kingdom, part of the quadrennial two-week tour of Great Britain that culminates with the decades-old rivalry with Oxford and Cambridge. Throughout the trip, women's distance coach Artie Smith will send updates from selected student-athletes as they chronicle their experiences for CornellBigRed.com.

Here is the latest journal entry from Mecha Santos '11, who chronicles the team's time in Birmingham:

Mecha Santos '11
As we headed out to go to Birmingham from Bangor on Sunday, we needed to have one last hurrah in Wales. Little did we know that the Welsh police were going to do it for us, having a security check point on our coach/bus. They pulled us over on the side of the highway to inspect the safety and security of our pole vault poles. Eventually, we made it to Birmingham, where we met our hosts. They provided some refreshments for us and we did a light workout. Then I went with my host to her house, and she made pizza, chips, and salad for Melissa Hewitt '12, Natalie Gengel '10 and me. After the meal, we met the rest of our team along with their hosts at the bowling alley for a quick social event and meet and greet.

Monday, we had a quick pre-meet practice session to prepare for our match the next day. After that, we made our way to Cadbury World, where we were enticed with chocolate and other tasty Cadbury treats. We had a small tour of the chocolate factory, which included a brief history of how the factory was created, how the chocolate is made and packaged, and even a little fun area where you could make a statue of yourself out of chocolate (we couldn't buy it though). But mostly everybody bought candy and chocolate from the store; I know I did! I did this before I had a cup of chocolate topped by marshmallows. I couldn't even finish it, the chocolate was so rich. I managed to get myself together, as we all did, before our welcome banquet that was held on campus. Everybody was dressed to impress, and camera flashes were everywhere. We met Mike Hayes (now coaching at Limerick in Ireland), who told us stories of the Cornell and Penn teams competing against Birmingham in the 1970s when he worked there. After the banquet, everyone headed over to the local student pub, Gunnies, to grab some extra food to go along with the World Cup match on TV.

Tuesday we thought would be a great opportunity to check out the shopping in Birmingham. We went to the Bullring, taking the train from the university straight to the mall. There were three levels of shopping, so I was a very happy camper! I managed to make a few purchases myself. Then we left and got ourselves ready for the match against Birmingham. We walked into the track, and there were tents (with food and drink) set up alongside the finish line. This was one of the first times where mingling didn't immediately happen when we, the Americans, saw the British, our hosts. Overall, the meet went well.  Towards the end we started to cheer for each other, and it was a great atmosphere to compete in. That night after the meet, all the teams got together for another fun night together.

Wednesday, we managed to wake up early to head to Warwick Castle. This castle had live entertainment with a bird show, catapult display and a walking tour of the castle's dungeon. A few of us managed to get one of the workers that were dressed in 17th-century costume to give us a tour of the rooms of the castle. In order to get him to agree, however, we had to dance with him as they did back in those days.  Sometimes you just have to negotiate! After the castle, we tried to go to a pub so we could see the US World Cup game, but that wasn't going to happen because England was playing at the same time. All I know is that the US won and England looked good on TV. Later that night, the Birmingham team took us to a buffet-style restaurant called Around the World in 80 Dishes. It was a great way to end the night, and our stay in Birmingham since we left for Cambridge early Thursday morning.