London: Round 2 January 28, 2007

Saturday, we took on London again. I had a new group of soldiers, and this time, we won. No missed busses. No nights in the cold. And a museum!

Erin (PSU) and Mathilde, my French roommate, caught the bus at 7:40 AM from downtown, and met up with another Erin and Angee from Purdue, who were already in the city. We meandered through the city, past Buckingham Palace and through the incredibly creatively names Green Park, the through the Soho neighborhood (Little Italy, Chinatown, some Greek and some Southeast Asia places) up to the British Museum. London, being the hub of civilization that it is, offers free admission to most museums in the city.

We started in Egyptian art, saw the Rosetta Stone (which, of course, after last semester I quickly re-deciphered…) and various other wonderful statue pieces and stele. We moved into Greco-Roman, did about a quarter of it and decided it was lunch time.

We went to the cafe, but Mathilde and I had somehow had the presence of mind at 6 AM to make sandwiches. They turned out to be quite strange, but good! We had your typical peanut butter and jelly (although to Mathilde, this was a very strange idea), some Nutella sandwiches, some with Nutella and peanut butter, some with ham and enormous hunks of cheese – and some of these had crisps on them (potato chips), which I learned is an amazingly good way to eat a sandwich. My favorite, however, was a peanut butter and chocolate sandwich – and by chocolate, I mean chunks of a chocolate bar. It was impossible to finish, and actually very hard to eat. But damn good!

We did some more Egyptian and finally found the Parthenon frieze marbles. The British government took the marbles from Athens between 1801-1805 under the direction of Sir Thomas Elgin. At the time, the ruling Ottomans gave permission; with the independence of Greece, there has been an ongoing battle to have the marbles restored to the Acropolis Museum in Athens. I mean, seriously Britain – what the heck do you think you’re doing? Granted the display was quite nice, but the fact that I had to go to England to see the quintessential Greek art after a whole summer there somehow doesn’t sit right. Way to steal some heritage, guys.

We moved through part of the Indian and African display, then into Europe. The one notable part of the European display was an artist’s reconstruction of 6th century AD Canterbury — we could see the city walls, still standing today, and also the West Gate (or what we figured was probably the West Gate) beside a huge Colloseum-like structure. We’re still not exactly sure what that was supposed to be.

By this point were all dragging pretty severely. We left the museum and walked down some of the ritzy, crowded shopping street of London to Trafalgar Square, took photos by the lion statues that sadly did not come out very well (it was night by this point), then walked past 10 Downing Street (the British equivalent of the White House) and to Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster Abby. They were all lit up quite nicely.

Angee and Erin left to go get dinner while Mathilde and PSU Erin and I started the trip back to the bus station – an hour and a half early, just in case. We walked through St James Park, where we found a playground with swings and a slide – really a highlight of the day.

We arrived at the bus station 45 minutes before the bus, which was fine by me. We ate the last two sandwiches, and all fell asleep quite easily on the way home. Mathilde made rice with peas, corn, and chicken for dinner for the two of us, and we watched Finding Neverland with French subtitles. I think I paid more attention to them than to the movie. Even with the few French exchanges we have, I feel like I’m getting more and more comfortable with the language just by hearing it so incredibly often.

Today I feel pretty drained. Long days in the city will do that! It was bright and sunny both yesterday and today, which has been a welcomed change from the stormy, cloudy apocalyptic wind weather previous to this.

Pictures are up on Yahoo from London. Enjoy =)

Some Lessons Learned January 26, 2007

1. Do not cook pasta in front of an Italian. You will not do anything right. This includes boiling the water.
2. Do not assume that your toilet will be able to flush anything inside of it. This includes the second and third time you press and hold the lever. Toilet paper is oftentimes too much for the pipes to handle. Debating going back to throwing it away in the trash Greek-style, but… maybe not.
3. When a bus says it leaves at 11:30, that means it will close its door on you as you run up waving your arms at it at 11:30:00. It will be gone from the station by 11:30:02. Do not under any circumstances attempt too take the last train out of London for the night.
4. Lighting the stove can be a 15 minute affair. If you turn on the gas, the button will probably not make the spark you need until after you are dying from the fumes and turn it off again. This makes cooking ever more exciting.
5. Taps that say “Hot Water” are not kidding. It will melt your skin right off. “Cold Water” implies “recently melted ice.” And no, they will not allow you to mix and match.
6. Chicken is more expensive than turkey, Ben and Jerrys is here, but you have to be fabulously wealthy to buy it, and staples such as popcorn, pretzels, and regular Cheerios are unheard of.
7. Nothing is online. You will have to hunt down people to fill out forms rather than emailing it to them. Email responses usually take a day or two. Switching classes is almost more trouble than its worth.
8. While the library does not have a guidebook to common birds, they do have 5 editions of a 1970s guide to rare Malaysian bird species. I’m not making this up.
9. Every night, there is one place that is inexpensive and booming, and 40,279 places that are overpriced and vacant. Good luck finding the one. No, there are not ads anywhere.
10. Windows do not really keep the cold air from coming in. it’s best just to push your bed as far from it as possible and layer up.
11. aferry.to.uk should be a great website for traveling across the Channel, however it doesn’t actually contain any information, just pretty pictures and complex drop down menus.
12. Just because you have cranked your radiator all the way up does not mean you will get heat.
13. The wind is in fact stronger than you are. When in doubt, duck and cover.
14. Seagulls will ignore you. Pigeons will attack you.
15. The architecture here was done by a 5 year old. The buildings make no sense, and you will not be able to find your way through it in less than an hour. Don’t try. There are no maps.
16. Yes. Everything is overpriced.
17. You have the best view of the Cathedral from campus – on the one day of the year that it isn’t foggy.
18. Blue sky is a reason to celebrate. Don’t let it pass you by!
19. French fries are ‘chips’, potato chips are ‘crisps,’ and sprite is ‘lemonade.’ Your underwear are ‘pants’ and your pants are ‘trousers.’ Got it? Good.
20. They have 3 years of university schooling, before which they usually take a ‘gap year’ where they take time off, travel, teach in exotic places, and otherwise take a break from acedemia . That Americans don’t do this, and then have 4 years of university level schooling (or more!), during which time they have to take gen ed credits (no such thing here) is completly unfathomable.
21. No one will understand why you giggle at words like ‘knickers’ and ’snogging’
22. Everyone wears a scarf. I think it keeps people’s heads attached here.
23. Paris is a 20 pound ferry ride away and almost no one has gone. I give a look similar to the one I receive when I say I have never been to Florida.
24. People don’t get how BIG the US is. For comparison’s sake, it takes about 7 hours to get from London to Scotland by car. That’s the same distance from my home to New York City, and I will tell people I am ‘close’ to New York (since no one has any real idea of where PA is).
25. You will hear 5 languages a day if not more
26. You will learn a new word, meet a new person, or experience a new event every day

Hope this helps you all appreciate the magic of Merry Olde England =) Still having a wonderful time – love!

Photo correction January 22, 2007

I realized that my Dover photos were accidently set as a private album on Yahoo photos, but they are public now, so please do enjoy. Sorry for the mix-up! =)

While I’m at it, the weather is dismal here. It finally decided to get cold, and so now it’s sleeting and putting a fine sheen of ice on everything. I had thought I would venture into town again today, but just making it to the library was a chore. Tomorrow is going to be just as bad, so says the BBC, but lack of food will probably get me to the grocery store nonetheless. I may splurge on the 2 pound bus ride into town, however.

I also realized that my last two entries have been named after old song titles. Interesting. I wonder what subconcious oddity brought that one on?

Love and cheers!

These feet were made for walking January 21, 2007

And that’s just what they’ve been doing for the last 2 days. I have officially dubbed this weekend “The Weekend of Walk.”

Yesterday (Saturday), me and 5 of the girls went to Dover. We caught the bus in town at 10:30, and were in the heart of Dover by 11, seeing some lovely countryside and even British lambs and goats along the way! We started the day with a hike from the bus station to the castle – and I do mean hike. It was quite a ways up, lots of stairs, and lots of mud. I was reminded of the first-day-in-Athens trudge up to St. George, only this wasn’t nearly so hot.

The castle admission also got us a guided tour of the secret WWII underground tunnels, which were interesting, but done up for tourism. Also, they usually show two levels on the tours – the administration annex and the hospital – but the hospital was closed for mildew removal, more or less, so our tour was shorter than usual. Half a tour, half price? Not so much. I was a little peeved by this, but didn’t let it ruin the rest of a wonderful day.

Bought batteries for my camera, since it goes through them like water (and there is no way to turn off the LCD screen, since there is no eye piece to look through ‘the old-fashioned way’), and then made our round-about way to the main keep. We passed a huge mess hall for WWII officers, also under renovation, walked along the battlements and posed for such reverent photographs as ‘Lindsey being shot with a canon’ and ‘Marian and Lauren firing the machine guns.’ Such respect for historical artifacts we have….

We also noticed the amazing lack of people on the grounds. This puzzled me for a while, until Rachel pointed out that we had the distinct advantage of not being normal. Really, who tours a castle in the middle of January, anyway?

The wind was astonishing, although not nearly as much as its been on campus. For any of you that didn’t see it in the news, there have been massive wind storms all across Europe, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the 90s. There were 10 dead in the UK alone and more across Europe (here is a BBC News link to one of the cover stories for anyone interested). It was cold, but not badly so until the sun went down, long after we were done with the castle.

Inside the castle, there were some reconstructed rooms again with a lot of touristy do-ups, but the walls and rooms were all generally open and in great condition. We spent a good hour inside the walls of the keep, and another 20 minutes or so playing the gift shop – I think we ate the whole tray of free sample chocolates, and Lauren and I reinacted a sparring match. See the pictures on Yahoo… A man walked by and laughed. “Good to be grown up, isn’t it?” he joked. Oh, it is.
After the castle, we made our way back down into Dover and found an “Authentic British Cuisine” restuarant that fit our (very small) price range. I had a burger, salad, and ‘chips’ (french fries) with vinegar, which is the popular condiment around here, for about 5 pounds. Yum.

At this point it was about 3 o’clock, so the sun was looking like it was getting ready to go down (sunset is around 4:20 now). We headed for the waterfront, played on the beach, took pictures, etc. Lindsey was brave enough to put her bare feet in the freezing water; Rachel and I opted for our hands, but of course tried on a particularly powerful wave and ended up with wet shoes anyway. Lovely.

We walked along the shore until we reached a path up into the famous white cliffs. Again, it was quite a slog upwards. The cliffs were increadable – you would rub your hand on it and get chalk dust everywhere. It’s amazing they haven’t completly worn away. From the top, you could see out into the ocean almost to France (we were only about 20 miles away – Rachel’s T-Mobile phone sent her a “Welcome to France! Here are your international roming charges” text message). We found the huge port also, which is probably where we will sail from to go to Paris in a few weeks (YAY!!!!)

We went back down as it was getting dark and arrived at the bus station about an hour early – way better than 30 seconds late, a la London. We amused ourselved in Wolworths, reading books like “The 2007 Urban Dictionary” and plopping down in the middle of the aisle because our feet were so tierd. The bus came at 5:40, and the UniBus was waiting for us when we arrived in town to take us back to campus.

I arrived back to find a package and some very eager roommates waiting for me. It took me an embarrasingly long time to get the tape off, and found a towel, purse, tape, chocolate, pictures, and other such wonderful goodies from home. Now I have pictures hanging in my room rather than sprawled on my desk, and it feels so much more cozy to not have blank white walls. Giovanni, however, was disapointed with the package’s contents: “No diamonds,” he said sadly when it had been emptied. “The US post always send diamonds.” Not this time, sadly.

Fell asleep pretty early after cocoa, some episodes of the Office from peekvid.com (my new favorite website EVER), and a much-needed shower. I woke up this morning after 11 hours of sleep refreshed and apperently ready for another adventure; after breakfast, I struck off solo down into town.

Now, there is a long way to town along the main roads that goes in an obtuce L-shape, and takes about 40 minutes. There is a short cut that I just recenty learned out of campus beside Elliot college (aptly named the Elliot footpath) that cuts through a lovely open field (with great climbing trees) and some more wooded meadows, an area that I have dubbed “The Shire.” Why, you ask? The first time Rachel took me this way into town, there were some cross-country joggers making their way through the meadows, running in such a way that it didn’t seem as though they had anywhere they had to be – they were talking, joking and so on, but running nonetheless. For some reason, they reminded me of hobbits. Hense, it will forever be called The Shire.

I took a muddy side path through the Shire instead of the main paved one and explored other footpaths along the way. The area is riddled with them – any residential area in Canterbuy has a footpath ready to take you to the city center or up the Uni. Very nice. I found a park, a football pitch, lots of dogs, and even heard some bagpipes in the distance. Randomly lovely.

I got into town and started veering around on sidestreets, all cobblestone with stone storefronts and hanging signs. I kept my sense of direction thanks to the Cathedral. I don’t think I’ve expressed how handy it is for directionally challenged people (such as myself) to live somewhere with a landmark that you cannot lose, no matter how hard you try. If you get lost, look over all the little stores and find the enormous stone towers, and you’ll find your way back to High Street (the main street in town, where the Cathedral is). Very handy.

I found some pubs and restaurants to try, as well as some shops I would like to paruse when I have some money to spend (I spent more in Dover than I would have liked, so I’m on a tight budget for the rest of the week). I found a park by the river (which looks more like a canal) and sat there for quite a while. It was right next to a Dominican Friar something or other that was quite attractive, and you could see a good bit of the Cathedral against a blue sky backdrop – something very novel, indeed. I saw some fish in the water and two old men fishing, and again, lots of dogs – almost none of them on leashes, either. Like most British humans, British dogs seem to pay very little attention to anyone except those they are walking with, so I guess the leashes would be superfluous.
After the park, I found a shortcut onto High Street, saw one of the smaller universities in the town, walked around (although did not pay to go in) to St. Augustine’s Abby and the old Medival city walls, then ate 2 apple pies at McDonalds and went back to explore the river. I found a path that followed the water through some lovely gardens and into a park, then back again, and headed back up to campus. It was nearly a 4 hour walking tour all together- not bad! Again, my feet and legs are worn out, but I’m very pleased with the day. And I have thawed hamburger meat waiting for my in the fridge for dinner – yay!

So that sums up the Weekend of Walking. I’ve got a new album on my Yahoo photos for Dover pictures, and some from today in the Canterbury album – I hope you enjoy.

The earlier part of this week was rather uneventful. Classes are still going, although I’m trying to switch out of my Philosophy of Language class and into an ethnobotany class instead. I’m just not in to the philosophy, and it ignored all scientiful approches to language, which is a challenge I don’t feel up to meeting this semester. Its not that I don’t want to work acedemically, but its that I don’t want to have to pour that much additional energy into it. Also, most of the people in the class are 2nd and 3rd year philosophy students, so its a bit over my head to begin with, being that I’ve only had one philosophy class to date.

My anthropology class is wonderful, and I think I like my history class – I hesitate only because I’ve only been to one half of a lecture so far. I switched into the class, and it never got onto my timetable (long story, not worth telling), so I went by the time on the printout outside the History department (as I think I’ve expressed before, things are not online as much as they are at home. To register for classes, you have to go and fill out real paperwork. To get times, you have to look at a printout outside the department (college) that the module (class) is offered in. Ugg. So much legwork…  Anyway, the printout stated the class started at 10 AM Thursday. I went to the right room (Darwin Tower room, and they are NOT kidding when they say Tower), but it sounded as though a lecture was already in full swing. After some thought and hesitation, I entered anyway – everyone looked at me oddly, and it turns out the class had been going since 9. The professor was very nice about it and said he would go and get the printout fixed – not that that helps me at this point, but the gesture was kind nonetheless.

I am thinking about braving another day trip to London this weekend for the sole purpose of seeing the British museum. In two weeks, I think it’s going to be Paris! =D Have to start looking for the best way to get there. I think it will be via ferry — hopefully not a repeat of the first Greek ferry ride attempt.

Hope all is well back home. Please leave comments and love — I do miss you all!

London Calling January 16, 2007

Saturday, we went to London.

Sounds innocent enough, right?

Ok. Here’s the story.

To mazimize the time we could spend in the city without the hassle and monetary output of spending the night, we booked the first bus out of Canterbury and the last bus home. This gave us a solid 13 hours in the city – a long day, but perfect for our energetic selves. I woke up 6 in the morning, got myself fed and dressed, and stepped out into the dark morning. Apperently, although it gets dark at 4:30 PM here, it doesn’t get light until 8 or so. Wonderful.

The morning was actually quite lovely. Although pitch black, the birds were up and singing, and I felt like the only one moving on campus. The minute or so that I stood on the footpath towards campus waiting for the others were beautifully slow and soft.

There were 5 of us going that day: Julie and I from Penn State, Jenn from Georgetown, Andrew from Vermont, and Brittney from South Carolina. Since we were running before the busses into town were, we had to walk. Usually, it takes about 20 minutes to half hour to get into downtown Canterbury, but we were moving slower than usual and ended up sprinting the last half a block. Good thing we did, too – the bus pulled in just as we got there, and pulled out the second everyone climbed on board: 7:30 on the dot. Not a second late.

We all promptly passed out on the way into the city, waking in the Victoria coach station. We walked out and found the first breakfast place we could find – a Starbucks. Of course. I focused harder than usual on memorizing how to get to the coach station from the main road. The last thing I wanted was to end our time in the city by being lost.

The day before, I had gone through online must-see lists and suggested walking paths and circled my top picks on the pop-up map I got from Mom and Dad for Christmas – something used so much that one of the seems is ripping already. Everyone liked my ideas, and so we headed off into London.

Buckingham palace (although we didn’t get to the see the changing of the guards) was our first stop, followed by an impromptu stroll through nearby St. James park. I have never seen so many birds in one place before – all kinds of ducks, geese, pidgeons (that seemed to love attacking my head, by the way. I was dive-bombed numerous times, and have 4 other witnesses to attest. I felt like Natalie). There was a sign that read, “Please do not feed pelicans,” which was particularly funny because we did not see any pelicans until the very end of the park. So, feeding the other birds would have been fine, I guess?

Rounded a corner and there, right in front of us, was Big Ben. It was the same sensation of shock, of “Oh! Well, there that is, then!” that I felt when Jenny and I spotted the Eiffel tower inobtrusively looking over the streets of Paris back during freshman year. We walked up to it, then down towards Trafalgor Square, stopping at the Royal Cavalry Gate and saw the changing of the horse guards – which, I admit, was a little anti-climatic. Although the horses were beautiful =)

Trafalgor Square was nothing much to scream about, although the National Gallery was impressive even from the outside. Museums were the one thing we missed out on this time around, but I’m not concerned. I would rather go back and spend all day at the British museum than rush through just to see the Rosetta stone and sprint back out.

We crossed the Thames on a footbridge, saw a Hummer stretch limo drive by a parked SmartCar, something I laughed about for probably a little too long, walked past the London Eye, a sort of ferris wheel that allows you to see the city from up high. It wasn’t running, unfortunatly. We ate lunch at McDonalds – a very, very bad decision. My stomach was quite angry with me all the way until dinner.

We crossed back over the Thames at Westminster Bridge, wandered around Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster Abby (although we couldn’t go inside – drat), then found a tube line to the Tower of London. Tickets were 16 pounds (about $30), but I’m glad we spent it. The Tower is actually a huge castle complex, not only a prison and execution block. They had reconstructed large parts of the medieval interior, and although I found the museum part a little lacking (“armor, perhaps French or Flemish, 14th or 15the century”), it was very interesting to be able to walk through most of the towers. I particularly liked the wall grafiti in old prison wards. Chilling.

After the Tower, where we spent about 2 1/2 hours, we got on the tube again to THE Kings Cross station. Now, everyone who knows me or popular literature should be getting pretty excited at this point. We made our way from the underground to the train station, counting down the platform numbers, and found that the transport system had labled Platform 9 3/4 for us – and even put a trolly half way into the wall. We weren’t the only one posing as though we were running to the wall on the way to Hogwarts, but we took the photos and left as quickly as possible to avoid too much touristy embarrasment. Really, this may have been the best part of the day.

Got on the tube again and went to Westminster Uni, where we ate – rather, stuffed ourselves – at a Portugeuse chicken place called Nandos, recommended to us by my PSU friend Mark, currently studying at the Uni there. Sitting down and eating felt better than I could have imagined. We sat for about an hour and half before calling Mark, who met up with us and took us to a local bar, where we hung out and talked until about 10:15.

Our bus left Victoria at 11:45, so we decided it would be best to leave absurdly early, just in case. We bought chocolate bars on a whim, said goodbye to Mark, and headed off.

All day, we had been riding the yellow Circle line around to everywhere we needed to go – it was quite convienent. So we hopped on it again and settled in.

“This is great,” Andrew says happily. “All day in London, and we haven’t gottan lost or anything!”

“I know,” I agreed happily. “We’ve done really well!”

2 stops later, I realized we are on the wrong subway train. We had somehow gottan on the Pink line, which parallels the Yellow for quite a while, and must share a track. The trains are not marked except at the front, so by following the signs for Yello we assumed it was, well, the Yellow. We had only sidetracked by one stop, so it wasn’t that big of a deal – we got off, reversed, and switched platforms to the Yellow.

And waited. And waited. And waited.

Apperently, Saturday nights are prime time for underground construction. It took a solid 15 minutes for our train to arrive, and when it did, it crawled. And I mean crawled. Anxiously, we are all watching the time – we have about 20 minutes. How do you leave an hour early for a 20 minute tube ride and wind up pushing the clock so much? You use under construction public transportation, that’s how.

10 minutes. We’re two stops away. 5 minutes. Victoria.

We literally sprint off of the train. There are two ways out; we burst up the first, but it’s wrong. We blast back down, I almost run over a small child, and finally get on a familiar street. I am thanking every god that I focused so hard on knowing the way. Andrew, Julie, and Jenn vanish – but Brittney, who has had to pee for about an hour now, can’t manage to sprint. I can’t being myself to leave her, so we jog along and pray that the others get to the station in time.

We round the bend by the Starbucks to see Julie standing, confused. With a sinking stomach, I realize they didn’t know the way back.

“Down that street!” I screamed, and she bolts. My phone rings; it’s Jenn, desperatly asking where we are.

This is absurd, I think as I give her directions. This is absolutly out of control.

Finally, I round the last bend to the station, Brittney and Jenn behind me – and see a coach pulled away with “Dover, Canterbury” on the front. My watch says 11:45 on the dot.
“That’s… that’s our bus. Oh God. Yup, yeah, that was ours.”

We storm into the station anyway and beg the attendent to ask the bus to wait. It was all of a block away, but she said she wasn’t allowed. She told us it had one more stop in the city, but when we asked for directions she said that if we didn’t know, we would never find it.

Deflated, we plop down in the metal seats of the station. The next bus isn’t until 7 in the morning. Brittney starts cursing the system, but really, it was an extraordinary bout of bad luck. We can’t be mad at the bus for leaving on time – we knew it did from the morning.  We can be upset that the tube was under construction, but there were signs all over about that. We left early enough – or we assumed an hour was early enough.

Lesson learned? Don’t ever – EVER  – book the last bus out of London. Or anywhere, for that matter.

So I start mentally preparing myself for a night in the bus station, when a burly security guard comes up to us.

“Station’s closing. You’ll have to leave,” he grunts. We stare open-mouthed.

“Annnd the bottom drops out,” Andrew sighs.

Now, me in a bad situation typically means uncontrolled laughter. This was no different. Brittney is insisting on calling her mother, but really, what could that possibly help? We’re in the city until morning, and don’t have a place to stay, but worse come to worse we splurge on a taxi back to Westminster and hang out in Mark’s dorm all night.

It didn’t come to that. We walked around the general area, looking for a bar or pub or anything open at night – let me tell you, the area around Victoria station closes down at midnight. They won’t let you in the train or bus station unless you have a ticket for something in the next half hour, and the underground shuts down at 12. There are no 24-hour Wal-Marts here, folks.

We buy tea and spend the night in the drop off point out front of the train station. In all honesty, it wasn’t that bad — a little cold, but we were surrounded by other travelers, security guards, taxi drivers, etc, plus we had eachother and a vendor selling pastries, coffee, and tea all night. The sidewalk was cold, but it was never cold to the point of feeling as though staying outside would be a dangerous thing. Uncomfortable, nothing more.

Around 5 AM, the coach station opened up again. We had to pay another 11 pounds ($22) for a new bus ticket, which left on the dot at 7 AM, getting us home by 8:30. I slept from 9 until 2:30 – and of course, Sunday was the first really sunny day I have seen here. Of course.

All in all, the day was a winner. The night wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t that bad. When you’re traveling cheaply, things are bound to go wrong. You roll with it, stay safe and fed, and you’ll come out no worse for wear and with a really great story and a very long blog entry. Sense of humor is key, I have learned. And warm apple toffee pastries don’t hurt, either.

Class and Community January 9, 2007

Term has officially started here, but I have yet to actually have a class. My first one starts in about half an hour – Philosophy of Language. I have nothing tomorrow, then my Anthropologyof Religion class, and finally somewhere in there I should have a History of Medicine. I just filled out the paperwork to drop Britian and the American Revolution, because it met at the exact same time as my Anthro class, and grab the Medicine one instead. Its not nearly as simple as it is at PSU to drop and add classes; for one thing, nothing is online. You actually have to walk to the department and find the printouts with the dates, times, and locations for all of your classes, then fill out actually paperwork and submit it to about 4 different offices…. anyway, long story short, I only have half of the credits I should have right now, something that will hopefully be remedied soon, and I can start functioning on some kind of schedule.

Otherwise, things are good. My apartment window apperently had been cracked, which explains the very cold nighttimes, so that was fixed this morning. Maybe I can start sleeping better now. I made my first English friend, Victoria, the other night. She and 4 other American girls and I made pasta and talked for about 2 hours. She found the sence of belonging that is so fostered in the US to be very alien; for example, saying the Pledge every morning throughout all your years of schooling, or the idea of school mascots and colors (they don’t exist here, by the way). I told her that some people get jobs because (or at least aided by the fact that) they are PSU alums and so are their bosses – she was astounded. I guess the idea of communities is one much more prevalent in the US – something I never thought about before.

I’m putting together my list of cool British terms to post soon. For now, I’ve got to brave the maze of Darwin college to find my lecture hall – let me tell you, the 4 major buildings/colleges here are the most convoluted I’ve ever seen. Atherton and Simmons hall look like straight lines compared to these places. Yesterday, I was lost for almost anhour trying to find my advisor’s office.

Cheers!

A global apartment January 7, 2007

I have finally discovered who I am living with! And let me say, for all my talk of “I wish I was in international housing,” my wishes have basically come true:

First, there is a British boy named Ashley (the apartments here are co-ed), then a French girl named Mathilde who is moving in as I type. She seems very nice. She told me about the others here, an Italian boy named Giovanni who apperently likes punk rock a lot, and a Spanish girl named Gara. In my room before was an American from North Carolina named Brad. Yay for global apartments!

So today has been a good day, then. Good roomates, successful cell phone adventure, good bus ride into town…. yay and cheers!

Contact Information January 7, 2007

I have a cell phone! It’s free for me to receive calls, so anyone is welcome to make that international call – try a calling card! The number is: 001 44 793 0973184 (This is the full number, country code and all)

So here is my for-sure right mailing address, for anyone interested in sending me fun surprises (wink wink)

Marian Hamilton
6B Farthings Court
Parkwood
University of Kent
Canterbury
Kent CT2 7UZ

Cheers!

Photos! January 6, 2007

I’ve put up a few pictures of my room, the town, and the campus. I’ll try and include in entries when I update pictures. You can find the link in one of the green boxes to the right of the blog (do I sound like a tutorial or what?)

Enjoy

Reliability? January 6, 2007

I have learned that there are a few thing one comes to rely on working correctly when traveling; you never expect ALL of them to go right in tandem, but usually you get at least one, and you are thankful. Working internet, luggage arriving promptly (at the same time as you, for example), a functional phone card, helpful orientations, and ready lodging.

Wouldn’t you know that none of these things have gone right so far?

Thankfully, I’m still laughing.

My luggage arrived from Chicago yesterday – 2 days after I did. The internet would not work no matter how many times I cursed at the computer and ‘helpful’ instruction booklet (the only help that the Kent Computer center would give me) (yes, it is finally working now. Please don’t ask me how). My phone card doesn’t want to make calls to the US…. but anywhere else would be fine. The orientation has included  such useful tidbits a a 3 hour tour of the library’s webpage, but no information on who to go to or who to contact in the event of an emergency. Oh, and when I arrived, I had to wait half a day for my apartment room to be ready, even though I arrived later than I stated I would.

Yay England!

It’s all in good humor though. One by one everything is working out, and as I told Mom, I think the freezing shower in Greece was a far worse problem than anything I encountered here (I mean no clean underwear is no fun, but washing pairs in the sink wasn’t too unpleasant).

Everyone I’ve met is very nice – the English all seem very helpful and lively. The weather is gray, but no substantial rain yet (I think we’re going to get some today). The girls in my orientation group – 3 other PSU girls, 2 from USC, Pudue, Georgetown… – are all wonderfully fun. Two days ago we all shared a taxi van to Asda…. a supercenter *sigh* run by the Wal-Mart corporation. I walked in the door and saw the little smiling Roll Back face and almost died on the spot.

Jet lag is getting better, although I think I still feel it around 5 in the afternoon. I’ve had trouble falling asleep at night also, but I think that might be the wonderful array of genuinely creepy noises outside my window. Oh! That was the other fun part! They don’t provide international students with anything but a sheet and shady looking pillow (because of course we all had room in our suitcases for blankets), so last night I slept in 30 layers with my coat spread over me as a blanket. Quite a far cry from melting-into-your-sheets Athens.

Last night, the girls and I took a bus down into town (it’s very close, maybe a 5 minute ride, and an easy walk in nice weather) and found a little pub to eat in. They were out of the first two items I tried to order, so I ended up with a baked potato with ham, cheese, and mustard. Not bad.

We’ve all been crashing early in our apartments. Once we split up for the night, there is really no hope of finding each other again – no cell phones, no land lines, and no concept of where one another’s housing is.  My apartment is nice enough, with an upstairs bathroom and downstairs half bath, 3 bedrooms upstairs and 2 down, and a rather large kitchen downstairs. No common room, but I guess that’s what the kitchen is for. The shower is, while a far cry from the strangest I’ve ever seen, is not so steller…. you can stand ‘under’ the water and avoid the spray entirely. You’ve got to kind of dodge around to get wet.My roommates aren’t here yet, but based on decor they are all good friends and like to smoke….. should be interesting…..

Today we have a tour of the Cathedral (an amazing structure) and hopefully a chance to find pay-as-you-go cell phones so we can be a little more connected. I don’t really mind not having one at the moment, but I know it will get annoying fast.

Love to all, and hope you’re doing well. Cheers, bye bye!