LAST ENTRY!!!! [10 Jul 2006|03:15am] Sooo…how’s everybody been. Haven’t blogged in quite some time now, but its better late than never right? Although this entry might be a little light on the details, it is chock full of action and I have a lot to go over for my final “piece”. Let’s seeee…what’ve we got…Anglesey, a party, York, Glasgow Scotland, Dublin Ireland, a really long plane ride and holy crap we’re readjusting to life in America. We’ll just hit the highlights because that’s about all I can remember and probably about all you can stand anyways. Its been a long joyful ride, thanks for sticking with me. April 8th Today Megan and I met up with Welsh Ross and the Finns for our trip with the International Society to North Wales and the Isle of Anglesey. You might be surprised that there even is a North Wales because its so small, but sure enough if you keep going there is one, and the people there hate the people below them almost as much as they hate the Northerners. I never expected to find so much hate in a country so small, but yeah they have a not so friendly rivalry with each other. Anglesey is the big island right off the tip of N. Wales, and it is known as Mona or the “Mother of Wales”. Anglesey is known mainly for its coal, copper, unemployment, sheep farmers, but what it lacks in interesting things to be known for it makes up in beautiful scenery: steep rocky crags over looking the jagged coastline, wildflowers, a stupendous view of Mount Snowdonia on the mainland, and Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwlllantysilio. That monstrosity is the longest village name in the world, and was our first stop of the day. It roughly translates into “The Church of Mary in the rough hollow of the white hazel by the fierce whirlpool near the church of Tysilio.” Known locally as Llanfair PG, the small village is basically a tourist trap for folks like me: those who have an equal and pressing need to take a pee and a goofy picture next to a sign in desperate need of a vowel. In fact that’s why the village was named the way its named, because a local business man was tired of travelers just riding through his town and stopping at the next one “Those dastardly north northerners! Stealing my tourists! I’ll fix them!” he cried. And so he did, giving the town a ridiculous name and now tourists around the world have a pee and a picture in lovely Llanfair PG. Our next stop took us to the South Stack lighthouse further up the coast. South Stack is a very picturesque rocky cliff area that you’d expect to find on a calendar somewhere. It probably is actually. South Stack also happens to be a puffin sanctuary, but the birds apparently had better things to do than pose for our pictures as they were no where to be found. (If they were smart they probably went down to Llanfair PG, I mean that’s where all the action is these days. Check out those letters!) Anyways, I spent my time hanging off over the cliff on a ridiculously windy day trying to get some really good pictures. Yes, I knew that was kinda semi dangerous, getting swept away and then splat impaled on some jagged rocks below with endangered puffins eating my eyeballs out, but I thought “pssshhhh, yeah right. Like that ever actually happens to anyone!” Oh how wrong I was. I was quickly whisked away by the tour guide where he sadly told me they’ve “already lost two folks this year.” WHAT!? A little warning about these “incidents” would’ve been a nice, friendly tip! Anyways, no one on our trip began puffin fodder, and I got some really nice pics too. Our next stop around the island was the Parys Mountain Copper mine. Now I know Parys Mountain Copper mine doesn’t exactly sound like a rip-roaring time, and it wasn’t really, but it was very pretty. All the sulfur in the earth had turned the ground different shades of yellow, red, orange, and even purple. The massive man made pit, clawed out of the earth with powerful combination of machine and explosives literally shined because of the just fallen rain shimmering in the now bright sunshine. It got a little tedious, as our tour guide was really a full time geologist, so he spent about 30 minutes telling us about all the fascination welsh rocks, but it was a very pretty spot. We looped around the other half of the island for a quick pub stop at a sleepy lakeside town called Beaumaris, and then made a stop at the Menai Suspension Bridge. The Menai Bridge is a spectacular architectural feat joining Anglesey to the Welsh mainland, unless of course you could give two puffin’s poots about architecture. But even then it is worth a stop, because it really is beautiful when you combine it with Mount Snowdonia high in the purple clouds behind it, the shimmering water underneath it, and the yellow spread all around in front of the bridge. Goss is a thorny pain in ass bush to walk through, but when its yellow flowers bloom it is very beautiful to look at, just don’t touch it, or rip your pants all to shreds in it try to take a nice picture of a bridge like yours truly did. Later that night we went to our favorite restaurant in the Curry Mile for a meal. I tried the spiciest of the spicy curries, vindaloo. Vindaloo is delicious; just be sure to have an entire pitcher of water to wash it down with during your meal. April 9th, Today we went to York, which is about two hours north west of Manchester. Megan and I woke up so sleepy from our trip yesterday that we had to sprint about four or five blocks just to catch the bus at the International Society. As if we weren’t tired enough already! Our general vibe for the day is to relax, and we don’t really even feel like traveling anywhere, but we really want to take advantage of the opportunity while we have it so…its off to York! The day didn’t get any better as we stepped of the bus into an unusually cold and yet day; even by English standards this was pretty miserable weather. We parked in the middle of the suburbs for some reason and then had to troll about to find the city center where all the interesting historical bits of historical York are located. I’d like to have seen the folks who woke up on a lazy Sunday morning to see about 20 Chinese kids taking pictures of their house. Megan and I strolled around the cobblestone streets, huddled together for warmth, and perused a market (lord, I just said “perused”!) with no real intention of buying anything until we came the York Dungeon. York is very famous in British history for 1. Vikings 2. Executing people 3. Churches. We figured the “York Dungeon” was a real dungeon, remodeled obviously and done up with lights and what not, but a dungeon nonetheless. But no, it was a cheesy little quasi museum displaying little bits of torture and other grisly aspects of life like the bubonic plague. Makeup clad folks pop out of the dark and scare the bejeezus out of you and then proceed to educate you about what kind of horrible punishments awaited you back when York wasn’t so historic, but just plain ol’ torturing and killing York. We learned how a nice chap called Guy Fox tried to blow up Parliament, and how he was tortured for ten days but refused to give up any of his conspirators’ names. We also discovered how the Vikings used to skin their victims alive and decapitate them with an axe and how the legendary highway man, Dick Turbin, was hung for stealing horses, a very serious crime for the blood hungry Yorkies. In our little tour group we had a bunch of French folks, who couldn’t play along with the cheesy tour guides gimmicks even if the wanted too, because they DIDN’T SPEAK ENGLISH! Commands of “RUN, RUN FROM THE HANGMEN! Were met with puzzled looks and a “Nous parlons Anglais monsieur?”. I’m still not quite sure why they went in the museum if they couldn’t understand English but whatever. Next we went to the glorious York Minster. It really was a beautiful building with a far less grisly history, but an even steeper price tag. We had to pay to get inside the Minster (which is rather large church that happens to be a kind of center for other churches), then pay to go down to the crypts, and then pay again to go up to the lookout. Gah! And then when I’m in the gift shop some lady tells me to take my cap off with a slightly horrified look on her face. Take my cap off! Take the friggin’ over priced, capitalistic, rip off of a gift shop out of the HOUSE OF GOD! Maybe its just me, but I don’t think Jesus minds me trying to cover up my messy oily hat hair as much as he would you guys ripping off people who want to learn something about him and how Christians worship. Good lord! Other than that, it was a spectacular church, despite the ongoing renovations, and it was really beautifully put together. After that there really wasn’t too much to do. So we grabbed some digestives and a cup or two of tea and waited until the bus came back. We were so happy to be somewhere warm when we finally got back on the bus! It might be a little early to say this, but I’m already feeling a little tired of traveling. I need a vacation from my vacation! April 10th Whoops! Today we were supposed to go to the Peak District in Castleton. Turns out we actually bought tickets to Castleton Station which is still in Manchester instead of Castleton the town. Oh well. I would’ve paid the 5 pounds to someone just to let me sleep in today, so I was grateful for the break. I think it’s just what we needed. Peak April12th Today Megan and I hopped on a bus at about 9am and spent roughly five hours on it heading north to Glasgow in Scotland. Our friend Scottish Ross had graciously agreed to put us up for 2 days and show us around Scotland. We arrived to “typical Scottish weather” which is even rainier, cloudier, and colder than England’s dreary mess. Ross showed us around several universities and the Glasgow cathedral. Most of the buildings are done in a Gothic style and it really reminded me of what you’d find on the Duke University campus. However, a lot of the buildings in Glasgow have kind of a black/dirt covering due to the many years exposed to the elements and pollution. Glasgow expanded greatly during WWII as a major shipbuilding site for the British navy, so it is another industrial sort of town. After the gothic cathedral, we went out behind it where an enormous necropolis (cemetery) overlooks the entire city. The overcast sky and annoying drizzle made for perfect graveyard exploring conditions, and we had a pretty decent view of the city. We also found some “neds”, the Scottish version of the English “scally” or “chavs”. They found some heavy rocks and chucked them over the bridge onto parked carks below, smashing their windshield all to bits. Right in front of us! Not to say anything against Glasgow (this type of thing happens everywhere I guess), but it just shocked me. We walked around Glasgow for the rest of the afternoon, taking in the scenes and the pubs. Megan, silly silly Megan, packed an entire suitcase full of CRAP for only three days, and we were forced to lug that around what seemed like the entire city. And because most of the pedestrian areas are cobblestone, her rolling wheels were of no use to us and we had to carry the heavy ass thing everywhere we went in the pouring rain. Ugghhhh. Backpacks people! They are so much easier to lug around. I cannot emphasize the importance of backpacks enough! Scottish Ross must’ve thought we were some stupid Americans (or at least Megan, I on the other hand brought a backpack with just the bare necessities), but he was nice enough to help us carry her load. Once the sun finally came out we discovered what a beautiful city dreary Glasgow actually was, but by then it was time to get on the train and head to Kilmaurs, the tiny village just south of Glasgow where Ross actually lives. Glasgow is a beautiful city, lots of universities so there are lots of things for young people to do, and it has awesome Gothic architecture. I wish we had more time to spend there. After meeting his family and having his dinner Ross’s father sat us down for an old Scottish tradition; drinking whisky. I personally didn’t care for the whisky (spelled without the “e” in Scotland), but it was very generous of him, and it was a very Scottish thing for us to do. We’ve been really fortunate to meet such generous people everywhere we go. April 13th Today Ross took us out to see some of his treasured Scottish countryside. Our first stop was Loch Lomond (yes it’s a real place, not just a song), which was only about a half-hour’s drive north from Kilmaurs. Loch Lomond is the largest lake in all of Britain and its surrounded by mountains and valleys. Can you imagine having a national landmark practically in your own backyard? The sun actually came out for us today and Loch Lomond was spectacular. Ross explained it perfectly to us: Peak district is great, but it’s a crappy version of the Lake District. And the Lake District is beautiful, but its just a crappy version of Scotland. Overlooking Loch Lomond is Ben Lomond Scotland’s largest mountain (I think). Even if its not the biggest, it is impressive nonetheless. I spent most of my time slipping on algae covered rocks and almost ending up taking a bath in the lake. I’m surprised I haven’t killed myself on this trip yet…oh well, there’s still time. After Loch Lomond we headed further north up higher into the mountains on a narrow, winding road, looking right over the lake. No barriers or anything to prevent us from plummeting down to our deaths. I thought Ross was taking the scenic route just for us, but he explained “Aye, no lad. This here is the only road”! Apparently the Scottish would rather enjoy the beauty of their country than get somewhere faster, which is fine by me. We ended up in an area called Glencoe, which is a huge mountain and valley area. But by then we really had no idea where we were because the clouds and fog had come in so thick we really couldn’t see much of anything. Looking down the curved road, I noticed the area we were headed was completely black, it was like driving in a thundercloud. Once it finally lifted we got a fantastic view of Scotland’s version of the “Smokey Mountains”. Off in the distance we saw some Scottish cows, which look more like furry water buffalo than your average cow. They’re apparently pretty famous in the bovine world. We went up through the Trossachs, a town called Crianlarich for lunch, and finished at a coastal town called Oban where we watched the Irish ferry come to port. There is actually a hiking trail that covers most of what we did today in the car from Glasgow all the way up to Fort William, complete with bed and breakfasts along the way if you don’t feel like sleeping out in the elements. You can finish the trip in about a week, and right now it sounds like something I’d like to come back for one summer. 2008 reunion anybody? Later that night, back in Kilmaurs, Ross took us out to his local pub, The Smuggler’s Inn, to sample some of Scotland’s beers and ale’s. My personal favorite is Belhaven’s Best, which he described as a “heavy”. I’m not exactly sure what a heavy is, but it reminds me of Brain’s, and its delicious. He even taught us American losers how to play darts. Sadly enough, the more pints I put down, the better my score. Later we went out for some cheese and chips and rested up after a long day of traveling around half of Scotland. April 14 Today we left Ross and Scotland behind. I can’t thank him enough for being such a great host and showing us such a good time. After another five hours on the bus and some Jal frezi take away we spent the rest of the night packing for Ireland tomorrow!!! I’m so excited! April 13 Today Megan and I woke up early to give us plenty of time to catch our 11am flight from Manchester to Ireland. Turns out we needed every minute of it. First we had to catch a bus to the train station. If you’ve never caught a bus out in the rain, during the morning rush hour, with heavy bags, and then walked a couple of blocks, uphill, through throngs of British folks, with a couple of pressing deadlines to make then, well, you’ve never lived sucker. Needless to say it wasn’t a very fun ride, but we made it to the train with about a minute to spare. Whew. The airport was slightly less stressful because we could ditch our bags and had a bit more time. For some reason our flight was delayed, which just made us even more nervous. “Our we at the right gate? Our we on time? Is this the wrong flight to Ireland? Did we forget something? Where’s my passport?” But in the end it was just a bunch of needless worrying, we made it on the plane (had to walk up those stairs you see presidents and celebrities walking out of, no gates for us), they tossed us some pretzels, and voila, we were in Dublin. I think the flight was like 20 minutes max. I think we spent more time on the train to go a couple of miles than we did on the plane going to an entirely different country! Once on the ground we had to get our passports stamped, and then find some way to get to our hotel. Luckily in Dublin they have a bus system that runs only from the airport to hotels in the city. They dropped us off, and we used what little map we had to find our the Mount Herbet hotel. It was kind of scary walking around a country where we’ve never been before, and didn’t know anyone, and had no idea where we were. It was a relief to have Megan, so at least if I was lost, I wouldn’t be lost alone. Fortunately we found a cop, because cops know where everything is and he told us where to go. If we hadn’t found him we were going to hail a taxi, and just pay him to take us wherever the hell we were headed. The hotel we had was really nice, and it really is only about a 15-minute walk from the center of town. You never really know if these places you see online are a true depiction, but our hotel was pretty accurate. It apparently used to be a whiskey distillery back in the day, and it just sort of retained that classic “old-timey” feeling. We even had (gasp) a TV, with (eeegads!) cable! So our first official activity in Ireland was to lie down, relax, watch a little of The Simpsons, and take a well deserved nap. Later we ventured out for our first real impressions of Ireland where we wouldn’t have to worry about finding a hotel or being on time to anything. The first thing I noticed was the weather; it seemed out right tropical when compared to Britain’s. I hotel even had friggin’ palm trees! I could walk around in just a t-shirt, and even shorts if I had them. Dublin also seemed so much cleaner than Manchester. There wasn’t a lot of trash just strewn about, the air didn’t seem so smoggy, and even without the sunshine everything just seemed so much brighter. And maybe its just because I was relaxed on a “vacation”, but it felt a lot safer too. No roving gangs of scallies and chavs, no homeless guys approaching for money, no stumbling drunks; it just seemed so much more secure, but it could’ve just been me letting my guard down a little. So what did we do our first day… First we strolled through St. Stephen’s Green, which is Dublin’s answer to Central Park. Very pretty, lotsa ducks, but a park is a park is a park. From there we just wandered around Grafton Street which is a pedestrian’s only area filled with restaurants, shops, and various street performers. They were the real attraction: a dancing James Joyce statue, a guy spinning plates, juggling footballs, a country western band, flamenco dancers, bagpipers, you could not believe the amount of performers per square foot here. After that we made our way over the River Liffey to O’Connel Street, which is the main thoroughfare that cuts through the center of town. We saw the massive General Post Office building and several statues that were still riddled with bullet holes from the famous 1916 Easter Rising against the British. We decided we were hungry and walked over to the Temple Bar area, taking in some sights along the way. We tried to find a place that was kinda cheap, but quickly came to the conclusion that NOTHING is cheap in Dublin. We ate at a pizza place called the Bad Ass café, deciding to save our traditional Irish meal for a day when we actually knew what a traditional Irish meal was. After dinner we walked around the temple bar area (lots of pubs and restaurants) looking for the actual Temple Bar. The place was packed with mostly tourists, but enough Irish folks to make you feel like you’re in a traditional pub. After a couple of pints of Guinness and some Irish cider for Megan we headed back to the hotel for a well deserved sleep. April 15th Happy Easter everybody. Remember that Easter Rising against the British government I told you about? Well today is the 90th anniversary and Ireland is having a big giant military parade, and the Irish prime minister, British ambassador, and leader of Sein Fein (political wing of the IRA) are all going to be here! Holy holy crap! Megan and I just found out this morning reading the paper over breakfast. Hot diggity damn! Well seeing as we only found at breakfast, and the rest of the country found out well before hand, we got to the place kind of late and had to squeeze in for a spot. People had already resorted to climbing on top of telephone booths and statues to get a view. All the dignitaries spoke, the Irish rebellion notice was read, and then the thousands of people lining O’Connel Street sang the national anthem. It was a pretty moving scene. I don’t know if we’d get that many Americans out on the streets to celebrate the fourth of July, and I know that not all of them know the words to the national anthem! After that we moved up a couple of blocks to get a better view for the parade. First soldiers marched through looking very serious with their submachine guns and camouflage. Then we had Special Forces come through with gasmasks and even bigger guns. Then tanks, armored personnel carriers, jeeps, they even towed boats from the navy and search and rescue! Every now and then a fighter jet or helicopter would come in low, whistling right over the tops of the buildings! After this we headed over to tour the Guinness Storehouse Museum. It was pretty easy to find; you could actually smell the hops as you got closer to the building. I was really impressed with the museum; they traced Guinness from its earliest beginnings in the 1700’s, went through the brewing process, had a collection of all the old Guinness ads and memorabilia, and all the free samples you can put down. And, the amazing thing is, there are about 5 different kinds of Guinness! Holy crap! After the end of the tour you can enjoy a complimentary pint atop the storehouse in the highest bar in all of Dublin. The bar’s glass walls form a circle so that you can look out over the entire city. Although it’s a beautiful place, Dublin doesn’t really have much of a skyline; except for a few factory pipes the city is basically flat. Back downstairs though seemed to be the real draw of the tourist attraction: the gift shop. I shelled out quite a few Euros buying several of countless odds and ends stamped with the Guinness logo they offer. Later that night Megan and I sat down for our traditional Irish meal at the Boxty house. A boxty is basically a potato pancake filled with your food of choice. I had mine with a kind of beef stew type deal and it was delicious. Not anything to knock your socks off, but a pretty good meal nonetheless. April 16th Today was our last day in Ireland. Since we had some time to kill before our flight out, we took one of those little bus tours around the city. We learned the legend of Molly Malone who went around handing out oysters and food during the great famine, and how the cities Georgian doors became painted a rainbow of colors. Some say that when the Queen of England died, England ordered all the doors be painted black in mourning, but the Irish being Irish rebelled (they didn’t care too much for the queen) and painted them colorfully in celebration. Others say that the different colors help drunken husbands figure out which home is theirs when returning from late nights at the pub. After the tour we waited to catch our bus back to the airport. And we waited…and waited…and waited. Normally this is not such a big deal, but when you’re in a foreign country, with a flight to catch, and non-refundable tickets, I kinda start to freak out. And so did all the other tourists in our little group (it seems like half the people in Dublin are tourists, or at the very least not Irish.) Then we realized that absolutely no traffic was coming through thanks to….THE FRIGGIN’ IRA!!! Yeah, in the words of a local cop the IRA and Sein Fein (still not sure if I spelled that right) were having a “small unplanned protest”. I’m not sure if he said it like it happened all the time just to impress me or if because it really does happen all the time! GAH! Well, eventually the protest was cleared up and our bus finally made it through, and Megan and I made it through the airport craziness safely back to Manchester. Dublin is a beautiful place and I’m glad I got to catch just a glimpse of it over the past three days. Hopefully, one day I can come back and see everything a bit more closely. April 18th-Present: I’ll skip over the small details of saying goodbye to my friends and flying back to America although I could probably fill a couple of pages with that stuff. I guess the big story here is how did I readjust to my home country. Well initially it was real easy: everybody wants to know how it is, what did you do, etc, etc, and of course I have loads to share, so that is all well and good. But then after the first three days or so you kinda run out of things to say about your trip and I’m sure everyone else is tired of “Oh, in England they do it this way” and “In England they say egg mayonnaise instead of egg salad”. There comes a point where one stops being clever and starts being pompous and I think I managed to minimize my pompousness. Then after about a week, I got back into the “family loop”, and had other things to talk about like my new job or other stuff that everyone else could actually relate to. And then after that, it was pretty easy adjust back to America, it wasn’t so tough after all. Here’s a list of random things that I experience now because of my trip abroad: Whenever a character with an English, Scottish, or Irish accent pops up on TV, I find myself paying a lot more attention for some reason. I usually find myself smiling. I had a dream about kebabs. I nearly shat myself senseless when I saw pints of Tetley’s and Boddington’s in Harris Teeter. Shawn of The Dead has leapt from mildly amusing to hilarious. The World Cup is actually interesting this year, and now my family considers me a soccer expert. I wish I could order some fried chicken and greasy chips to my home, instead of actually going OUT to buy them. I miss Indian people. And their food. I WANT TO WALK PLACES!!! Unfortunately there really isn’t too much worth walking too. Now when I park at a shopping center though I actually walk around from store to store instead of driving right up to them. My family thinks this is insane. I still haven’t found a proper answer to “So, what’s England like?” “Err…it’s a lot of things…” just doesn’t quite cut it. People laugh at me when I say porridge, but I still say it dammit! I have a newfound appreciation for the sunshine, but now I manage to enjoy the rain as well. For some reason fries are still fries, except when I’m getting fish, then its fish and chips. This confuses the hell out of the poor folks at Captain D’s. Euro-Techno songs at the gym really pump me up. I’ve switched from Conan O’Brien to Craig Ferguson. I can’t tell if it’s just the accent, or if he actually is funnier. That Geico Gecko going on about pie and chips?! Oh man, don’t even get me started. And a whole host of other things. It just goes to show you that even the smallest details stick with you. Its been an amazing, life changing experience,and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. A big thank you to the folks at the Gilman foundation for the grant that made all this possible. 17 comments|post comment

Week 13- March 30th through April 6th [07 Apr 2006|03:53pm] [ mood | excited ] Week 13! Wow, with only 13 days left, I’ve gotta admit I’m pretty anxious to go home. But, going home and leaving Manchester aren’t one and the same. I miss my family, and from my daily e-mail updates (thanks mom), it seems like I’m missing out on a lot: sister’s prom and art exhibition, sick relatives, even getting the old car fixed in our garage seems like events I should be home for. However, once I get home I know I’ll miss Britain and all my friends here. Looks like I’ll just have to live it up with what time I have left. Remember to check out he Gilman website if you are interested in a grant to help you study abroad. March 30th Woooooooo!!! Turned my essay in today! And, I think its actually pretty good too. Putting the final touches on and waiting in line to hand it in took up pretty much the entirety of my day, so nothing really happened. Sorry. Friday 31st Had my last actual class today. Hooray! No more drama. Although I can’t say I enjoyed the seminars too much, at least the class was interesting. I learned a lot about the tension between Ireland and Britain, and I got a pretty good perspective on post war England from this one class. I’ve also had a pretty good introduction to the theater; and I’d like to keep attending plays and even reading some drama. So although the seminar dragged on endlessly (like this blog sometimes), I can’t say I didn’t benefit from it. Spring is here in Manchester! Freshly liberated from class I strolled through the city (not many people stroll in this bustling place, but I managed) and took in the beautiful sunshine. You can tell the first day of really warm weather because all the coats you’ve seen for about 5 long, gray months mysteriously disappear, and are replaced by bright t-shirts and flowing skirts. Can’t wait to go home and put some shorts and flip flops on; even cutting the grass in the blazing hot sun seems like a good time right about now. Went on a 3 hour shopping extravaganza looking for a proper British present for my sister. This is one of those things you see everyone and their mother carrying (no its not an umbrella), but can never actually find one to buy for yourself. I know I must’ve looked like a shop lifter because I wore my big coat (who knew it would be so springy?), I still had on my book bag, and a big, hairy, guy doesn’t exactly belong in the ladies wear of Marks and Spencer’s. So despite marching around all-day and braving the suspicious looks I received in every ladies department I dared enter, I came home exhausted, frustrated, and empty handed. I literally shopped till I dropped, coming home and taking a 3-hour nap. April 1st Decided to do some more shopping today, as we also need gifts for the Finns, and this time I wizened up and took a professional shopper, Megan, with me. Of course we found what I was looking for yesterday straight away, but in a friggin’ men’s store. Grrr… The center of Arndale Market (the shopping center) had been turned into some kind of Arabic market for the day complete with rugs, carpets, tents, leather bags, furniture, artists, even musicians and a belly dancer. Megan was none to pleased with the dancer’s rhythmic gyrations, but she managed to captivate quite a good portion of men in the area. Later that night, we went to Ross’s with a few other folks and just hung out there way too late. It was a really good, laid back kind of night. Ross and his flat mate, the Welshman and an Englishman respectively, emphatically state that England and Wales ARE indeed countries, so I have them on my side. Megan has all the book learning, but these guys are locals so I sticking with them. Their argument: England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland all have separate football teams, so obviously they are separate countries. In this place, football rules all. When you come home and can’t even get a kebab because the all night take-aways are shut, you know you’ve been out a long time. Had to squeeze in a very brief sleep before our early morning ride to Chester tomorrow. April 2nd After a surprisingly refreshing 3 hours of sleep, we were on our way to Chester. Chester is about an hour's drive southwest of Manchester (lots of “---chesters” here in England). The international society arranged for us to have a walking tour throughout most of the city, and then we’d have the afternoon to ourselves to do as we pleased. The Romans founded Chester as a fort, so there are still lots of ruins, gardens, and artifacts that the city is quite proud of. They even have the largest Roman amphitheater (where they used to have gladiator fights and what not) in all of Britain, but its not completely excavated yet. There are Roman walls that circle around the 2.2 miles of the city center and you can walk completely around them for a pretty good view of the city and surrounding areas. I think you can even see some mountains all the way in Wales over the eastern part. The walls also house the second most photographed clock in Britain; the East Gate Clock was built in honor of the queen’s jubilee and is apparently a big deal here. Chester is very proud of its history and it takes a great effort to preserve as much of the past as it can. Bridges, Roman arches, churches, cobblestone streets, and Victorian architecture; it’s all there just as it was centuries ago. During the summer, they even have an official town crier come out once a day and give the news. Megan and I took a tour of Chester cathedral. I’m not sure when it was built, but trust me its old. It was originally a monastery for monks until King Henry the VIIIth (at least I think that’s who it was) closed it down. However, the church managed to find some loophole, and it didn’t close down completely and its still holds mass to this day. The building was built in honor of St. Wurburgh, and until recently, it used to house her bones. The stained glass windows were the size of entire walls from the churches I’m used to back home, and they were absolutely brilliant. The tour was pretty cheap, and you get this special headphone set that gives you a tour and points out all the history and hidden secrets of the cathedral. This way you walk around at your leisure, and the headset picks up a radio signal when you are near a point of interest, and it starts to tell you the information. The church was massive, and you really got a good feel for what it must have been like hundreds for years ago for the monks that called this place home. After the Chester Cathedral, we circled the city over the windy walls, and then walked along the banks of the River Dee in search of some place with hot tea. Unfortunately, Chester is kind of like other smaller English towns in that they close down around 4 on Sundays. Well we waited about 15 minutes in the cold and rain for our bus to come back, and finally we were on our way back home for some much needed dinner and sleep. April 3rd Oh man. I slept for like 14 hours. It was fantastic. I feel so good now. Kept up with the relaxing theme of the day and read a really good book pretty much all day, while sitting in front of my sunny window. Everyone has gone home now, so the usually loud and crazy dorm has fallen eerily silent. It’s starting to creep me out. Now it’s just me, Megan, and two other kids in a space that used to hold about 50. It’s like a tomb, but hey, at least no one is around to steal my food anymore. Tuesday 4th Today was Megan’s birthday!!! We had planned a trip down to Birmingham and the wonderfully Willy Wonka-esque tour of Cadbury World, but alas, Cadbury World managed to sell out. No golden tickets for us, but we went ahead with our trip and explored what the city had to offer. So what did Birmingham have to offer? Well not too much according to what we found in my handy dandy travel guide and Megan’s research on the web. It’s the second largest city in England (London ranking in at #1, and Manchester around 3 or 4), but there aren’t many historical sites or special attractions. Just so you know, it’s about 2 and a half hours drive south of Manchester, right in the center of the country between Nottingham and us. One of the highlights of Birmingham is shopping, so we did some of that. They have a massive shopping center called “The Bull Ring”, that is absolutely massive and has a really cool modern kind of design. The entire outside of the place is covered in shiny, mirror like structures; the light dances and shimmers off of the building, the same way it does off of a scaly fish. Right next door to the mall area are two giant city blocks dedicated solely to markets and stalls. Second hand goods, flea markets, auctions, discount prices on brand new things, fish and chips, fruit, DVDs, kebabs you name it, they’ll sell it. And they won’t hesitate to tell you how high quality their product is, and what a good deal you’re getting. Megan and I couldn’t resist picking up a few gifts and things, and then we grabbed some fish and chips for lunch. Oh man, I almost forgot. We found…you’ll never believe this…I don’t even believe this…a…KRISPY KREME!!!! AHHHH!!!! The bright red “Fresh Hot Donuts” sign called out to us from across the mall, and like moths attracted to your porch light, we stumbled over. I could not believe it. I was literally stunned. I couldn’t even order properly. I just stood there, watching the beautiful, glistening, poofy dough run through the magical donut-making machine. We must have looked absolutely stupefied because the woman behind the counter, an angel of happiness, asked us “Have you two ever been to a Krispy Kreme before?” Ever been to a Krispy Kreme!? Lady, I’m from the home of Krispy Kreme. North Carolina: Tobacco, ACC basketball, pulled pork barbecue, Pepsi cola, and Krispy Kreme donuts; this is my home! By this point we must have had drool running down our faces, and she says, “Here love, try these while you decide.” And this beautiful woman hands me two hot and fresh originals. Just gives ‘em away! For free! Like its nothing! AHHH! I almost shat myself with surprise. I almost tried to give them back; this poor, confused creature was just handing out free Krispy Kremes. Well as you can see, this just made my day. After this we walked along the city’s scenic canals down to the Eye of Birmingham, and we got a bird’s eye view of the city. Then we moved on to the Birmingham sea life center, which was pretty cool. The aquarium has all kinds of fish and other sea life, so it was pretty interesting to see. They even have a clear, glass tunnel that runs right through the aquarium so you can walk through and see sharks and sea turtles swim right overhead. Luckily for Megan, we got there just in time for the otter feedings, so she was just thrilled. The otters don’t look so cute and cuddly when they are decapitating dead baby chicks, devouring the body in like two bites, and then playing with the amputated head for about 20 minutes. Vicious bastards. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the city. Found another shopping area called “The Mailbox”, as the giant red building is shaped and painted like an actual mailbox. Filled with posh shops like Armani and Hugo Boss, and with trendy cafes and bistros along the canal we felt the place was slightly out of our price range, but it was interesting to see. We managed to get to our bus without any problems this time, and we had a long drive home. Cooked up some lemon peppered chicken and had a little birthday cake before going to bed after another long day. Wednesday 5th Whoops! I had a lab practical due today! Wish I had remembered this the Monday I spent doing nothing. Oh well, I did manage to get it done and turned in on time. Spent some time studying for my physiology final tomorrow. The Brits have a month long spring break for all of April, and then they come back and take their exams. I think this is a pretty crappy system. I’ve only been out of school like four days, and I’m studying for my exam at about 11 at night before the morning of my exam, and they expect these kids to go home and study and remember their classes over a month at home? Not a chance. Thursday 6th Finished my exam today, which I’m pretty sure went ok. I could’ve studied more, but I only need a 50%, so I’m not bothered. A monkey guessing at random will get 25%, so I think I can manage to scrounge up the other half. Megan and I had planned to go to the only Mexican restaurant we’ve seen in all of Britain, El Macho, for a celebratory lunch. El Macho turned into El No-o when we saw the prices. 14 pounds enchiladas? 15 pounds for burritos? That’s like paying 20 something dollars just for one dish, not including drinks and a tip. No way. We went to Subway instead, which made me really happy as I’ve been craving it for about 3 weeks now. Megan and I are planning a little dinner party for tomorrow, so we had to make a special shopping trip. We’re doing some shrimp pesto, with mushrooms, tomatoes, tomatoes, and lots of olive oil. We’re also making some garlic bread as well, and a friend of ours is bringing desert. Got some red wine to stick with the Italianess of the meal, but picked up some beer for the British. Should be lots of fun, if not a bit stressful. Never really cooked for this many people before, plus they all think that since we’re Americans with our precious McDonald’s and dining halls at university, we don’t know how to cook for ourselves. Hopefully, we’ll prove them wrong, while having a good time. In case you haven’t read some of the blog’s comments, my sister dreamed that I died the other day! Ah! How scary is that?! That means it’s about time to come home. 1 comment|post comment

two for one special: Weeks 11 and 12 [31 Mar 2006|12:14pm] [ mood | mellow ] Weeks 11 and 12. Whew…sorry this is so late guys, but it’s been very, very busy. Are you receiving a Pell Grant as part of your financial aid? If so, Google the Benjamin A. Gilman foundation to see about earning some more $$$ for study abroad. March 16th Not much going on today. Instead of writing my essay I’ve spent my computer time apartment and pet hunting. Mom has planned my entire summer before I even get home with a job (hopefully), a patio to paint, and all kinds of other things to do. She’s nuts. I should probably re-focus my attention back here in England because soon all of this will be gone, but I will have many days to plan an apartment and what not. Tried something new tonight and cooked up some trout for dinner. I don’t know how we’ve managed to avoid fish on the cooking list so far, but tonight we got it. Drenched the fish in olive oil and then sprinkled it with freshly ground black pepper, 8 minutes on the George Foreman, and there you go. My throat hurts all the time now. Just what I need, get sick right before St. Patrick’s Day, and exams. Oy. March 17th Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone!!! Well as soon as I got out of class Megan and I sprinted over to the MMU Student Union bar to try and get our four pints of Guinness down to get one of these giant, pint shaped Guinness hats. Fittingly though, before I’m even halfway through my pint though the place runs out of hats. They tried to console me with a lousy button. Bah! At 2 in the afternoon mind you! I thought we were getting a good early start, but no, I’ve underestimated these hard drinking Brits yet again. Oh well, my dreams of stumbling around Manchester in a ridiculous hat dashed away, we went to ASDA and did the weekly shopping. Starting to experiment with our pesto now. Tonight we added some freshly diced tomatoes, crumbly feta cheese, and some grilled onions and mushrooms. I was feeling quite proud of myself until this one guy came in and made an enormous pot of curry straight from scratch. The bastard. We had planned on getting everyone together tonight for a big St. Patrick’s Day celebration, and somehow or another the planning and organizing part fell into my hands. With two people out of town, one too sick, one too hung-over, one too embarrassed to face us after her drunken antics last time, and various other people bailing out, it was shaping up to be a pretty lame St. Patrick’s day. Luckily, I managed to scrounge up Ross, his flat mates, and Ramsay, and Megan got the Finns and another girl down the hall and we all headed over to Ross’s. Its always kind of weird when you first bring your two different groups of friends to mingle with each other, and I always feel this pressure to try to include everyone in everything, but this really isn’t possible. All I can do is try to split my time evenly between groups and hope everyone gets along, which, for the most part, actually worked. Its also tricky because the girls always want to go OUT, they’ve spent many an hour planning what to wear, what makeup to use, how to smell, and then how to pull it all together into the master piece that is the Friday night, going out outfit. Since they’ve spent so much effort in putting all this together, they usually would like to go out somewhere public to show it off; preferably swaying under the shining lights of a dance floor. On the other hand, the guys just want to drink and take the piss out of each other. This is best achieved at home where drinks are cheaper, and one doesn’t even have to dress nice, if at all, to get in. Even the problem of food is easily solved as you can just order greasy takeaways delivered to one’s house. Guys for the most part, never really want to dance because A) We cannot dance, B) Even girls who cannot dance will look good on the dance floor, guys just look spastic and sweaty so we’re not too bothered about showing ourselves off. And most importantly C) Dancing interferes with drinking, making fun of each other, and eating greasy food, our main objectives here. If the two sexes can then overcome these discrepancies, the guy who put them all together (ME) then has to worry about his guy friends coming on to the ladies, and/or offending them in some other manner, while also making sure that none of the girls smash one of their cute little martini glasses over his mates’ heads. Its quite the stressful job. These inherent genetic differences pitted us against each other for about 2 hours, until we decided on a nearby place called Dry Bar. Despite the name, there are hundreds of drinks available, and supposedly it is the longest bar in all of Manchester. Even though we drank countless pints of Guinness, there were no more hats to be found, although we seriously considered nicking one off the head of an extremely inebriated gentleman lurching over in the bus shelter. Then it was off for the takeaways (sometimes the best part of the night) where I gluttonously (someone’s been using his thesaurus) downed an entire nine inch salami and pepperoni pizza, AND chips! I know I’m a pig, but they come free with the pizza!! What do you expect me to do…NOT eat them??? We took the bus towards Oxford Road to make sure Ramsay got home ok, but we would’ve probably been safer walking. In front of us, some piss-head was puking his lungs out, behind us an Englishman was picking a fight with a Scotsman, and down stairs two African women were casting voodoo curses on each other. Beware; public transport at 3am is kind of crazy. I’ve never really admired bus drivers until this moment in time: quelling (or at least ignoring) two fights, dodging pissed idiots who dart out in the street, and weaving a 30 foot bus in and out of traffic like he’s Mario Andretti in his Ferrari just really impressed me. It turned out to be a really good St. Patty’s Day after all. March 18th Well…. a pint of Guinness a day may keep the doctor away, but even six won’t keep you from feeling like crap in the morning. To be fair though, I don’t think my misery is to be blamed on my drinking, but rather the terrible cold I have. My nose feels like its been filled with freshly mixed cement. Where are those precious anti-oxidants when I need them? Found out another good friend from ECU, Scottish Ross, is going to come down next Wednesday and stay until Friday morning. And more good news, we can go to Wales next weekend with Welsh Ross from Friday to Sunday. I’m really excited, but this takes a large chunk of time out of the two weeks I needed to write this essay, as well as prepare for my plants and medicine exam. The schoolwork will be sorted eventually, no worries. March 19th Lovely, lazy Sundays. I still felt sick so I slept really late today, and I think that helped out a lot. I’m starting to feel better. Got some work done today. I think this trip is really going to mess me up for my last two years in nursing school. “What?! We have a test every 2 weeks? I have to get more than a 50%? You must be joking!” Called home last night and its really nice to hear from everyone. Got my updates on the March Madness that I miss so much. Dad seemed really impressed with all the Beatle’s stuff we saw in Liverpool, and Grandma is excited about my cooking “skills”. I didn’t get to talk to Mom and Laura because they were out celebrating Mom’s birthday. Geez. Happy Birthday Mom! Today marks exactly one month before we board our plane back to the good ol’ US of A. The time has really flown by, but it hasn’t really snuck up on me. I guess that’s because everyone keeps reminding me how much its supposed to, and I’ve been trying really hard to use my time wisely. I know I’ll miss Manchester, but I know it’ll be even harder leaving my friends behind, which I guess is no great surprise. Although its been trimmed, stripped, and slimmed there are still plenty of things to do on the famous “To Do List”, and hopefully I’ll get most of that stuff marked off in the next few weeks. March 20th My Art, Propaganda, and Ideology class mercifully came to an end today. Thank you Jesus! After all the work we’ve done the professors let us know that we may not be receiving grades at the end of the term because the teachers union is on strike. I don’t think this affects me too much, but imagine if you were supposed to graduate. You can’t exactly graduate without grades, can you? The teachers want more money and power, but I’m not feeling too sympathetic after listening to my lecturer drone on about his house in Sicily that he is building up along the coast. These guys need more money like I need another hole in the head. March 21st Thanks to my thrifty training Megan managed to find a free movie deal. If we bought to issues of the local paper, we would get free tickets to a sneak preview of Inside Man, the new Spike Lee movie. I say knew, but it probably came out in the states ages ago; we’re on some kind of media time delay here. Anyways, the movie was really good and its essentially the same kind of deal that it is at home. Sticky floors, over priced snacks, lots of previews, you get the idea. It seemed like the entire place was filled with students, all of us too poor or too cheap to treat ourselves to a movie. Had my first Jaffa Cake today. A Jaffa Cake is a British biscuit, with some orange jelly like stuff in the middle, covered in chocolate. I probably wouldn’t have gotten them accept that we learned the Manchester United Football team eats these at halftime to replenish their glucose stores as fast as possible. That made it like 2 times as British for me and I decided to go for it. Spent a good portion of my day cleaning up for Scottish Ross who’s coming down tomorrow. I’m excited he’s coming down, but I have like no idea what to do with him so I’m kind of nervous. Hopefully, he’ll have a good time. March 22nd Scottish Ross arrived safe and sound after a 4-hour train ride from Glasgow. We went to the Piccadilly Train Station to pick him up, and that was pretty exciting for me as I’ve never been to a train station before. The place was extremely shiny and clean, with the kind of modern look that adorns much of Manchester’s newest buildings. The station also had lots of restaurants, gift shops, clothing stores, and even a grocery store or two. I was impressed. It was great to see S. Ross (in case you’re confused there’s a Welsh Ross and a Scottish Ross) who has hasn’t changed at all since last year. We managed to get most everyone from the old ECU gang to go out with us to The Great Wall in Chinatown. We had a lot of fun reminiscing about old stories that never seem to get too old, and discovering what is new in everyone’s lives. It feels really strange whenever I think of these guys graduating and actually starting to work at a real job, a job they could have the rest of their lives. After Chinatown we went for a pint of Guinness at O’shea’s Irish Pub. Although the place was kind of dead, it looked like it had the potential for a good night out so I’ll have to try and remember that. Its your typical, classic pub, and tonight must’ve been open mike night because we were tortured with one horrible musician after another. I wouldn’t sit through these guys again for all the Guinness in all of Ireland. March 23rd. Got the guys together for lunch at the student union. In addition to the full bar we actually serve food too. And not like at ECU, they don’t just toss some fried chicken at you, they actually serve you and bring it to your table! Forgetting where I was, I ordered the chicken tandoori wrap to quiet my stomach. But alas, I am here in England, and we have smaller portions than America. My wrap would probably have been found in a kid’s meal back home. Tasty sure, but there just wasn’t enough. Lauren was a lot easier to entertain because she’s never experience Britain, but S. Ross is actually from around here. I can’t entertain him with red post boxes and double-decker buses. Still not exactly sure what to do with Ross, and with little help from the guys (thanks), we just decided we’d find his station for tomorrow, and then we’d walk around the city taking it all in. This wasn’t as boring as it sounds, I promise. We talked the whole time and saw the majority of the nicer city parts while marching around. Later on, Marcus volunteered to take us up to Hartshead Pike for a nice view of Manchester and the surrounding areas. Despite the 5 o’clock traffic and the smog obscuring our view, it was still pretty scenic and it was a good time. It was so cold and windy up there that we managed to have a little snowball fight going down the side of the hill! On our way back into the city, Marcus took us to one of his local pubs in Greater Manchester. This place was called the Witchwood, and to put it plainly it was kind of scary. This isn’t exactly the kind of place you’d find advertised in the tourist papers. The pool table has seen better days (as have most of the people inside), and even the Witchwood sign was hanging crookedly from one nail outside. Well we had our pints and managed to escape without getting stabbed, although Marcus did manage to drive us up the wrong end of one-way street. Cooked up our vegetarian burritos tonight and Scotty seemed to enjoy them. He’s a pretty easy to please guest. I only mention this because we added a chili pepper into the mix and I am proud of us for using chilies. We got everyone together again, which is just incredible because getting the whole crowd out TWO nights in a row is next to impossible. We also brought the Finns, so it was a pretty big group. After gathering at Ramsay’s we went to a club called 5th Avenue. They played Brit pop like Oasis, The Arctic Monkeys, and the Kaiser Chiefs, and some cheesy dance music. Its so nice to have some clubs that don’t just play hip hop and R&B. Greenville has about 8 clubs and they all play the same 100 songs, so I’m enjoying the variety while I can. 5th Ave, as its collectively know by students too busy to say complete words, was a pretty good club; it was cheap to get in and certain drinks inside were only 80 pence! Next year the smoking ban hits England, so going out will be a lot more enjoyable for us non-smokers. The Finns really hit it off with the old ECU crew so a good night was had by all. Finished the night off with some cheesy chips at our favorite take away, and everyone bid their goodbyes to S. Ross before we sped off in a cab to rest our sleepy heads at home. I wonder if we’ll ever be able to get everyone together like that again. March 24th Today we dropped saw Ross off at Victoria train station. Poor guy has a long ride home after a late night out. Can’t wait to see him in Scotland, and I think he’s pretty excited too. A few hours later we were boarding a train of our own with Welsh Ross to Cardiff, the capital of Wales. The return trip was 53 pounds, but as we waited too long to buy our bus tickets, this was a better deal. It took about 4 hours, which isn’t so bad when you have some traveling partners and a nice Subway sandwich to keep you company. Four hours of traveling at home won’t even get me to the beach, and here it takes me through almost half of the UK! W. Ross’s Dad picked us up at the Cardiff Rail Station, and drove us 100mph back to their tiny wee village outside of Cardiff. I don’t remember the name of the village, but as it’s a proper Welsh name it probably looks something like “Ahgflgtychbah”. Welsh is a Gaelic language that is in desperate need of a vowel, and sounds like a cat coughing up a nice sized hairball. Most people speak English, or at least English as a second language, but as there is a major Welsh pride movement going on there is a resurgence in the language in order to bring about some national pride. I can’t really describe the Welsh accent accept that its closer to Scottish or Irish than English. I hear the tiny, isolated villages in the north are more likely to speak only Welsh. In case you didn’t know, Wales is like the lamb and sheep capital of Britain. They raise sheep, they eat sheep, they wear sheep, and some lonely farmers even shag sheep. Welshy’s family even owns and lives on a “small” sheep farm; they say small but I don’t think 50+ sheep and a couple handfuls of horses isn’t exactly small. As we got closer to his house, the 100mph drive got a little scarier as we wound through bumpy country roads built for half a car, with the odd sheep or bunny jumping out in front of us. At the end of his mile long drive way (yeah, he definitely wins longest driveway contest), sits Llandbah Fagh, or “Little Farm”, the name of his house. These people are the king of understatements: if your house is big enough to have its own name, perhaps its not so little after all. His Mum and Dad took us out to dinner at this really nice Chinese place. I tried duck for the first time, and Megan and I were really excited because it was chopped up just like Eastern Carolina BBQ! Tried a Chinese beer called Tsing Tao, which was surprisingly nice. Sorry, after being spoiled with British and Irish beers I just don’t have much faith in the Asian ones. Everything was fantastic, and his family was so nice and generous, it was really great to meet them. Afterwards we went back home and watched about 2 seconds of British TV before falling fast asleep. Its been a long couple of days for all of us. March 25th Today we woke up to sweet smell of an English breakfast wafting up the stairs. Mmmm… With it being light outside now we could actually look out over the allegedly “little farm”; the place is MASSIVE. Hills and valleys dotted with barns, sheep, horses, and tractors. It was amazing. Even on an overcast day you can look out your window over the entire village! And these folk get to wake up to this everyday! We decided to spend the day in the city of Cardiff. Situated close to a seaside bay, we stopped at an area called Mermaid Quay, which normally would have been really beautiful, but not on this rainy day. With its seaside cafes, bars, pubs, and out door restaurants it would be a great afternoon in the sunshine, but our weather was just miserable. Rainy is an understatement. It poured; it just absolutely pissed down on us from the time we got out of the car until we got home, which was about five hours. I’ve never been so wet in my life, and this is with an umbrella and a waterproof jacket! I think I manage to stay drier in the shower than I did on this trip. Situated by Mermaid Quay is a giant brown slug of an opera house. The builders wanted to build completely out of Welsh materials, which consists of copper and slate, so while the architecture is pretty interesting, its not the most brilliantly colored building in the world. We moved on closer to the center of Cardiff, and saw Millennium Stadium, which may be the largest stadium in all of Britain. Over New Year’s Eve, they have a bar that runs the entire pitch and they throw a gigantic party inside. Situated along a river, it’s normally a pretty scenic area for photos and stuff, but today everything was just gray and nasty. All of poor Ross’s plans were going straight down the crapper. This was supposed to be his big victory over the hated English: take the Yanks down to sunny Wales and convert them, but everything seemed to be going wrong. Despite what Ross thinks, we actually had a really good time. We trudged through some flooding parks on the way to Cardiff castle, which freakishly juts out of the modern skyline. The castle was pretty cool; although it’s not hard to see how the English sacked the city, a crappy little moat was their whole defense. Considering how England/Britain went on to conquer a good sized portion of the globe, poor little Wales with its massive border right next to England didn’t really stand much of a chance. We climbed to the top of the castle, slipping along some stones and me banging my head on the ceiling a couple of times (Welsh must not have been very tall back then), and got a decent view of the city. We warmed up in a little pub afterwards, and just as we dried off it was time to head back outside in the downpour. Cardiff, and maybe I’m wrong, but I think all of Wales as well, is extremely patriotic. They love their country. I thought Americans were the only ones who made hats, towels, shirts, and boxers out of their flag, but it seems the Welsh have caught on to the idea as well. They simply love being Welsh. And they love hating the English. Well some more than others of course, but there always seems to be some underlying resentment. Cardiff by the way, has the more green space and parks than any other city in Britain, so even though you’re in a big city (about half a million, slightly bigger than Manchester) there is still plenty of nature. I felt much safer walking around Cardiff than Manchester, but that may just be a false sense of security. I didn’t see any homeless people in my entire trip there, as compared to the five I saw in about 10 minutes on the way home from the train station back in Manchester. I also didn’t have the feeling that I was sucking down smoggy pollutants with every breath, I think being closer to the sea helps with that. Later, back on the farm, we decided to take a late night 4x4 ride to the local farmers pub known as “The Bog”, because that’s where it’s situated. More than one horse has been stuck in the mud on the way to the pub. Ross started up the little quad and we all crammed on (its meant for one), and he whisked us over bumpy rocks, dodging confused sheep, up over grassy hills, and through flooded valleys with water up past our knees. We had to spit bugs and mud out of our teeth the whole ride. How he knew the route I’ll never know; everything was pitch black except for the short area in front of the old ride’s headlight. We parked the 4x4 up at the top of a muddy hill so no one would steal it, and then we slipped, tripped, and skidded the entire 100 yards down. We walked in absolutely caked in mud and got more than a few strange looks from the regulars. The pub is a classic meeting spot for farmers and hunters and the walls are covered in antlers, foxtails, rifles, steins, signaling horns, paintings of hounds and pictures of the yearly fox hunts. The place is a proper Welsh setting. Ross and I worked through every variation of Brains they had, Brains being the famous Welsh ale brewed locally in Cardiff. Ohhhh, that stuff is beautiful. Homer Simpson is to Duff Beer, as Greg Maruzzella is to Brains. Smooth, creamy, and dark; its perfect. Even Megan likes it and she hates beer. They had Brains Dark, which is like Guinness only not as bitter, Brains Smooth (the standard stuff), and Brains SA, which is like the smooth only colder. I’m going to have to have this stuff specially imported when I get home. After a couple of hairpin turns on the 4x4, floating through some small ponds, and navigating our way through thick fog we arrived back on the farm safe and sound, without running any over sheep. This weekend marks his mum and dad’s birthdays so we had a little gift exchange and a toast of champagne before heading to bed. Ross has nothing to worry about; I do love Wales. March 26th Oooh! Had cereal for breakfast! Shouldn’t be as exciting as it is, but we’ve stopped buying big things of milk because they just get stolen and we can’t ever have cereal back at the dorm. I will enjoy some Cheerios when I get home. Today Ross decided to take us out in the woods for some target shooting. Kind of ironic as this will be the first time I’ve ever shot something, and I’m from America which all the Brits love to remind me is supposedly the gun capital of the world (I’m thinking its Iraq, but whatever). Ross’s Dad has a massive sniper rifle they shoot right out the window whenever they see a fox in their sheep pasture, but as it’s a little too powerful we couldn’t take it out. Damn. So we took a 12 gauge shot gun, a small 22 rifle, and a giant pub umbrella in a feeble attempt to keep ourselves dry, and hiked to Ross’s shooting spot. And hike we did: through a sheep pasture, slipping down muddy hills, over and under barbed wire fences, through a creek in our giant waders, and through a thorny patch and we finally made it. That shotgun gets pretty heavy when you’re marching through the woods in the pissing down rain. We set up some juice boxes and bottles about 40 – 50 yards away in the side of a cliff (so we wouldn’t hit anything behind the targets). Then I proceeded to slide all the way back down the cliff on my hands and knees, much to everyone else’s amusement. Ross showed us how everything works and how to shoot, aim, etc. He’s been doing this a long time and really knows his stuff. Its not like we just grabbed some guns and started blasting away. Just as I was getting the hang of the 22, it jammed and we switched over to the shotgun. And what a switch too! The 22 is like shooting a BB gun, while you’ve really got work to keep the shotgun under control and from kicking into your shoulder. And we were just absolutely covered in rain, leaves, and mud. This trip has made my waterproof jacket worth every penny. I used to think Megan just got lucky with the bow and arrow in Sherwood Forest, but I’m beginning to realize that maybe she’s actually good at it. She blasted those boxes right off the cliff! I’m pretty sure she’s better than me at least, but that may not be saying very much. I really enjoyed the shooting, and I’d like to try again and get better at it. Maybe they have shooting as a PE at ECU. Ross’s Dad cooked us the Welsh version of Sunday dinner, which consisted of boiled potatoes, peas, and ham all covered in parsley sauce. For dinner we had some apricot jelly (British version of Jell-O), which his parents have been pushing on all of us since we arrived. They apparently need to get rid of some apricots. Almost missed our train because some cows jumped in front of us on Ross’s driveway and of course would not get out of the way. Stupid cows. But fortunately, thanks to some more high speed driving, we made the train on time. It was a really great trip, and I can’t thank Ross and his family enough; they were most gracious and kind. Now I keep finding myself day dreaming about farm life… March 27th After staying up until 3am studying last night I felt surprisingly refreshed this morning. My plants and medicine exam was exactly what I expected and I feel pretty confident about getting a good grade. I mean all I have to do is get 50% right. A blindfolded monkey is bound to get around 25%, so I should have a decent shot. The essay prompt was on how plant substances, called phytochemicals, are beneficial to human health so I got to write for ages on blueberries, green tea, and red wine, some of my favorite things! The unit coordinator even pulled me aside and told me what a refreshing pleasure I was to have in the class because my writing style and presentations were so much more in depth and advanced than the other students! Whoa, I wasn’t expecting that one! I had to wait in line for about a half hour my Art, Ideology, and Propaganda essay grade. As my entire grade for the class rests on these thirteen pages I was more than a little nervous. I didn’t imagine just failure alone, but also being “court-martialed” for my improper citations and charged with plagiarism. It was a long and stressful wait to say the least. However, it was all for naught. I got a 62, which is a B here and my lecturer said that was a pretty high mark for the way he grades. I was quite pleased. Two classes successfully completed and done with! Cooked up some smoked cod on the griller tonight and it was all right although a tad bony. We’re trying to have more fish as its pretty good for you. After setting the clocks back Sunday, it was still light around 8 when we were eating dinner so my system is kind of screwy right now. Ok, now a long night of essay typing. I figure if I can type around 1,000 words a day I can get this paper started and finished by Thursday at 3. Not the best of plans, sure, but it’ll get the job done. I feel a lot less pressure after learning that I did well in the Art class. After Thursday I can finish my last physiology practical and study for that final for next week. Hooray for procrastination. March 28th After settling down for a long night of studying last night, Maija, one of the Finns came by and we exchanged all of our pictures. With hundreds of pictures between us this took about 2 hours. I still managed to type about 600 words before falling asleep. Worked, worked, and worked all day on this paper and I’ve made pretty good progress. About 1900 words so far, so it seems to be coming together nicely. I feel a little bit of pressure off my back with each word on I type on the page. Another ASDA trip this week. Picked up some salmon steaks that I’m determined to make Megan enjoy. Also picked up something called Toad In The Hole, which I know sounds pretty odd, but its basically the British version of Pigs In A Blanket (which now that I think about it sounds pretty weird itself.) Instead of a little hot dog you have a sausage (the toad I guess), and its baked into nice, fluffy, Yorkshire pudding dough instead of a crescent roll. Now every time I go I see another British food I want to try, another wine to drink, another dish to cook, and I just feel this enormous rush to get things done, but I know I can’t do everything. At least I can still cook at home, and I can drink in about 6 months so it won’t be too difficult to get used to . . .at least that’s what I hope. Got an Easter package from the family today! This time all the family signed the card, which is a nice bonus. The package was filled with delicious Easter candy inside an Easter basket, some tea, my sister’s very pretty senior pictures, some local comic strips, and all the Duke ACC and NCAA tournament clippings they could find. It was so nice! I kinda have a beef with the massive box of lucky charms and the ranch dressing Mom stuffed in there because we still have about 2 pounds of Lucky Charms and 2 massive bottles of ranch dressing from when Lauren came. And we didn’t even want those, they were for the Brits. I was kinda hoping for some more homemade treats, but I guess Mom got her wires crossed somewhere and thought we had massive cravings for ranch dressing and some magically delicious cereal. But that’s ok, its still a really great package (THANKS GUYS!) and it really brightened my boring, essay filled day. Then as if this weren’t enough treats for the day, the Finns totally surprised Megan and I with presents! They’re leaving on trips pretty soon, so our last day in the big group is tomorrow. They did a little British collage for me with stuff like Guinness, Man. City, pubs, and things like that, and I also got a specially made “I “Heart” Britain” shirt, some Finnish chocolate, and those special cinnamon rolls the Finns make. What did we get them? Well…nothing…nothing yet anyways. We’ve been planning to get them some stuff, but its been pretty busy recently so we just haven’t yet. Its always so awkward when you get a present and have nothing for that person, its hard to balance delight with the present and shame on yourself. Anyways, being the sweet chicks that they are, the Finns didn’t seem to care about their lack of presents and we went out to dinner at The Dutch Pancake House! It was fantastic. I got a massive seafood pancake, which was basically a giant crepe filled with prawns, tuna, mussels, green peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, and onions. I had a craving for the traditional bacon and syrupy pancakes, but I decided to try something new as I can get those all the time at home. Afterwards we went to The Pub and had a celebratory pint. Although they haven’t exactly left yet, I already miss the Finns, and I hope that we can keep in touch and remain good friends. March 29th Wait…so Wale is not a country? So I’m going around all happy about going to Wales, now I’ve been to two countries, blah, blah, blah, and Megan, Ms. I’m a Super Duper Politics Major, tells me last night Wales isn’t a country. England’s not even a country. And not Scotland, and certainly not Northern Ireland. Nope, not a one. Apparently the country is Great Britain, and these are mere nations. I know that they all work together as Great Britain for defense, economics, law, etc, but I was still pretty sure they were there own separate countries. I mean Wales has its own language, laws, flag, capital, and what not so I thought it was its own country, but like Megan said, the American states have all those things, but they’re not separate countries, just states. Well I thought that was pretty lame, and it makes me sad, because I thought I was going to different countries. Bollocks, way to kill a dream Megan! I’ll have to get some locals to weigh in on this debate. I bet she wouldn’t tell those Welsh farmers in the hunting pub Wales isn’t a country! March 30th Turned in my essay today!!! Here you have to return things in to the receipting office, and they get it in to the professors. Its kind of a stupid system because it results in a lot of unnecessary paperwork and really long lines. Good thing I turned my paper in early; only a couple of hours later the other 1855 students (true, it was posted) turned their papers in at the same time, and the line went down the stairs and out the building. But, at least you don’t have professors losing your papers and then blaming you for not turning it in and getting a zero. Perhaps if they could combine the two systems… 2 comments|post comment

Week 10, kinda sorta [16 Mar 2006|03:41pm] [ mood | hopeful ] Okay, so here’s a little short entry to get us back to our weekly Thursday update routine. This makes 10 weeks here in Manchester, with only 35 days left. I can’t believe it! Google the Gilman Scholarship if you’re interested in financial aid for studying abroad, its worth the 20 seconds of your life it takes to do it. March 14th Well I don’t think we’ll be going to the Wales-France Rugby game this weekend like we had planned. Instead of abandoning their miserably failing team like we had planned, the Welsh have decided to rally around their rugby squad for the last game. I was certain we were going after I read the Welsh booed their own team off the field with last weekends draw to Italy. Well since we’re not going to Wales, maybe we can get everyone together for a St. Patrick’s Day party. I want one of those Guinness Party Hats! Hopefully we can get down to Cardiff with Ross at another time. It was a bit warmer today and it seems to be staying lighter longer now, so I walked to and from uni. I’m just fed up with buses passing me by that are so crowded they can’t even stop to let us on. It stresses me out, wastes my time, and its just not worth the hassle. About 4 buses passed me today that could’ve dropped me off. I walked home in the amount of time I would’ve spent sitting at the bus stop in the rain, so the mile and half was worth it. At least I got some exercise. I wanted to treat myself to a Cadbury Cream Egg McFlurry at McDonald’s today. Not the most nutritious snack I know, but now whenever I want something that’s not good for me (like the Cadbury McFlurry), or do something when I should be doing something else, (like, oh…schoolwork), I just tell myself that its part of the “British experience” and that’s what I’m here for and so I go for it. This may not be the best system, but it sure is a lot of fun. So, anyways, I waited about 15 damn minutes to get one of these Cream Egg McFlurries, and once you wait that long you pretty much know that they are never ever going to have what you want once you get up there. They of course did not have Cadbury Crème Egg McFlurries (which I had prepared myself for), so I got a Crunch Bar McFlurry instead because that was just as British and just as good. March 15th Not much going on today except I learned that Guinness is good for you. No joke. Ramsay told me this, but I refused to believe him as he is constantly pulling stuff like this, but I looked into it and it really is true. Apparently Guinness is filled with anti-oxidants that normal lagers lack; antioxidants are the things in green tea, blueberries, and red wine that you commonly here people raving about. It is also filled with so much iron that it is still common practice in Ireland for patients in post-operative recovery to be served a pint of Guinness. They also used to advise pregnant women to drink a pint a day if they became anemic, but this practice was soon stopped once people caught on to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Don’t be afraid to drink up this St. Patrick’s Day; a pint a day keeps the doctor away. post comment

week 9 and some extra [14 Mar 2006|05:14pm] [ mood | happy ] Apologies for not getting week 9 up here on time, its been a very busy week over here. Only a little over a month left here, so the rush to do and see as much as possible is on now. Remember to check out the Gilman Foundation for study abroad financial aid. March 2nd Went to the hospital with my lecturer today to set up my observations and that was really great. Its nice to do something that is directly applicable to my major and future. Manchester Royal Infirmary, MRI, is a 1000 bed hospital, which in the UK makes it quite a large medical center, but that would be almost miniscule in the states. Today was just my intro day, so I didn’t actually do anything but set up what I could see in the future. Hopefully, I’ll be following a patient all the way from open-heart surgery (yeah, right there in the operating room!), through intensive care, to recovery, and so on. I might even get to go to stroke recovery and see work with nurses and physical therapists. I will probably get to see some acute emergency action as well. Here most of the emergencies are alcohol related, particularly on Friday and Saturday nights, I guess that might be the same in the states as well. They see about 4 or 5 gunshot wounds a week, which I think is quite a lot for a country where firearms are illegal. The British SAS (Special Air Service) even come to MRI to get emergency combat training. These guys are like our Navy SEAL’s, they could probably kill me 57 ways with their pinky finger, and they come here, (To MANCHESTER!), to get in on gunshot wounds, stabbings, etc. They aren’t even officially known as SAS, just every month or so a group of about 8 very large, very muscular, mustachioed, mysterious “clinical observers” drop by to see whats going on. I don’t know if that says a lot about the violence in Manchester, or just how good the hospital is, but either way, I’m impressed. Learned a lot about the National Health Service here as well. The main difference between the states and British NHS is that we pay for our medical (through insurance or whatever), and the Brits get it free. Well the government claims its free, but my lecturer pays about 1,000 pounds a month (A MONTH!) for this “free” benefit. And because its paid for by the government and what not, it takes an extremely long time to be seen by a physician and treated for any long term problem. You can go to your general family practitioner without any problems, but if you need a tumor looked at by a specialist you may be waiting about 3-6 months for a simple scan. For instance, my lecturer’s father was having problems with his prostate. His prostate gland swelled up, and this cuts off the flow of urine from the bladder to the urethra and prevents you from having a pee. After a day of this, you can imagine how painful it gets. So the father goes to a hospital, after a day of not peeing and in pain, and has to wait six hours to get a catheter put in. Sure, you’d find this in the states, but only in really bad hospitals. Then, they sent him home, with the catheter, but without any instructions as how to care for it. He waits 7 weeks, 7 WEEKS, to be seen by a physician about the actual problem with his prostate! So, for seven weeks, this guy’s prostate is swelling with what could be cancer (which needs to be caught EARLY), and with a catheter, which is just perfect for infection and a whole list of other problems, before his doctor is actually trying to solve the problem. It seems like NHS is just shooting itself in the foot; their patients could get sicker, or even die from waiting so long for treatment. In the states I think this guy would have had surgery or treatment within the week if not a matter of days. Its just absurd to me. Lesson: Don’t get sick in Britain. We cooked our haggis tonight, and it was awesome! Sure, it may be boiled sheep brains, intestines, and other miscellaneous parts, but it was delicious. It was like a very tender sausage that would fall apart whenever you touched it. Had it with some mushy peas (peas that are mashed up like baby food, pretty self explanatory and a very British item), and a baked potato. If you ever find yourself around a haggis, you should definitely take the rare opportunity to try some, you won’t regret it. March 3rd Today Megan’s friend, Lauren, arrived to come visit us for her spring break. Why she left the beautiful spring weather of NC for here and not Cancun or Florida or something I don’t quite understand, but we’re glad to have her. She caught the train from the airport to Oxford Road, and I was kind of nervous she’d end up in Liverpool or something, but she’s a smart chick and figured it out all on her own. We got her sorted with a bus pass, and a hot cup of tea after her long plane ride. Went to the Man. City stadium to get match tickets for the game Sunday vs. Sunderland. Sunderland is at the bottom of the league, so even thought it’s a guaranteed City win, I hope its kind of exciting. Marcus and the Fins are coming with us, and I’m really excited to experience my first British football match. Hopefully the crowd will be singing and chanting and the atmosphere will be nuts. Lauren brought in four pounds of Lucky Charms cereal in with her to share with the Brits. Apparently they all fell in love with it, and now it is discontinued here, so they are all going through a little withdrawal. She also brought in some Hershey’s chocolate, and ranch dressing. We must’ve had about 7 people singing God Bless America after we made the rounds with our treats. Walking back from ASDA today it started to snow. Like really, really snow. I was soaked, and everything outside was coated in a fine powdery white. It was so beautiful to see the undisturbed park completely covered in bleach white snow. The English houses look especially scenic in under a dusting. Its still on the ground now, at least an inch of it if not more. Who’s ready for school? Laura is! Who’s going to the extremely hard to get into NC State School of Art and Design? LAURA IS!!!! YEAH!!! Congrats to her, my sister is awesome. Well, gotta get some rest for our trip to Blackpool tomorrow. Not exactly sure what we’re doing there, but we should have a pretty large group going so it should be fun. Groooooooooodnite! March 4th Last night turned out to be pretty interesting. I had a drunken Liverpudlian, Andy, wander randomly into my room around 1am. He was just “looking for some love”, as he put it. Every drunken person gets pretty annoying after a while, but it takes Andy it little longer than most so I let him hang around for a bit. So for about 15 minutes he told me how much he loved me, and I’m such a nice guy, and God Bless America and all that jazz. Then he hugged me for a bit, which was pretty weird because I’m in my towel ready to shower. Then he got Megan and we had a group hug, which was slightly less weird, but we managed to turn him loose on someone else and went to bed. Woke up and everything was absolutely covered in pure white snow. It was really pretty, although we worried about our beach trip to Blackpool. Instead of the green pastures of previous trips, everything was covered in beautiful untouched snow. Blackpool is a seaside town on the west coast of England, about an hour north of Manchester. Its kind of like Myrtle Beach for England; a very touristy, almost tacky, but really fun kind of place. There is a really lovely stretch of beach, and the town has a great Promenade walk along side it. Along the Promenade there are three piers jutting out into the ocean, and on the city side there is nothing but hotels, chippies, fish places, and “amusements”. Amusements are places with cheap little games like skee ball, snooker, pool, and other carnival type games; they’re like small Celebration Stations or Chucky Cheeses. Blackpool is also like the capital of “Stag and Hen” parties, what we call bachelorette and bachelor parties back in the states, so you may come across the odd strip club, lollipops resembling certain parts of the human anatomy, and drunken revelers dressed in ridiculous costumes. In some way or another, everyone in Blackpool is looking to have a good time. The first thing we did in Blackpool was have a snowball fight right along side the shore. I had never been on a beach all bundled up in a coat, gloves, and scarf, much less with snow all around, so this was quite an experience. My eyes didn’t quite believe what I was experiencing; I see the sunshine and ocean so I think of warm summer vacations, but I also see snow and have a bone chilling wind creeping up my spine, so the brain just kind of short circuits for a while until it all registers. By this time the sun had come out and with a crystal clear blue sky everything was so bright. I could hardly see anything with the sun reflecting off both the snow and the ocean. It was really a once in a lifetime kind of thing. We walked about a mile along the Promenade after that into town. Stopped at a couple of amusements and showed the Finns how to play air hockey, and Ramsay showed us some typical British games. Megan even won a stuffed unicorn. We stopped for some fresh out of the sea fish and chips, a Blackpool specialty, which were fantastic. Lauren and the Finns didn’t quite like it, but at least they tried some classic British cuisine. We also got an ice cream cone with a Cadbury Flake bar stuck in the side, our were called “Mr. Whippies” and this is another very British thing so we had to try it. So its freezing cold, there is snow everywhere, and we’re walking along the beach eating ice cream, it was just crazy. We bought an all day pass (we got some special cheap deal), and spent the rest of the day at Blackpool’s amusement park, Pleasure Beach. The place is enormous and we managed to hit most of the good rides out of the 145 choices available. We pummeled each other in the dodger (bumper) cars, got dizzy on the flying rockets, road “horses” down the Steeple Chase, got a little spooked in the Haunted House, spun round the carousel, screamed like lunatics on The Bobsled, and laughed all the way down the unoriginally named Roller Coaster. I only wish I had gone on the aptly named Big One with Ramsay, Lea, and the Finns. This roller coaster is huge, and takes you on an almost completely vertical drop before zooming around another mile at 87mph. Us Yanks did not make a good impression as all of us wussed out of the opportunity. I had actually hyped myself up to go on it, but we ran out of time before we could all go again. Oh well, if I ever find myself back in Blackpool…. Finished up the day warming up with some chips and pies (steak and kidney is well nice!) and hot tea. I took a solo walk back to the bus by way of the beach just to see the sun set behind a soft pink sky over the deep blue ocean. Now that we’re a little more than halfway through with our trip, leaving each place becomes a bit harder as I realize that I may never be back again. How sad. Whilst we had everyone together (which is pretty hard to manage these days), we decided to head to the curry mile for dinner. I couldn’t tell you the name of the place if my like depended on it, but I guarantee you the phrase “Ali” is in there somewhere. We ordered popomos, which are traditional Indian appetizers. Popomos ( I think that’s what you call ‘em) are about as big as a tortilla, but flat and crispy like a cracker. You break them up and top them with tomatoes, onions, yogurt sauce, and mango chutney for a delicious starter. I ordered prawn Al-Jalfrezzi, which is a spicy type of curry made with chili peppers; it was served with basmati rice and Nan bread, which is like a giant fluffy pita. They weren’t joking when they put the spicy warning on the menu, this is powerful stuff! Even though my lips were on fire everything was delicious, and it was a great night out. Indian restaurant: popomos, Nan bread, al jefrezzi, korma, delicious I’m going to bed as I’ve been having a very active day for about 16 hours now and am rather exhausted. March 5th Today was the highly anticipated Man. City match we’d been hoping to go to. Well highly anticipated for us anyways, Man. City played Sunderland and as they are worst in the division I didn’t think much of the fan base would really care. Man was I wrong. The Man. City supporters came out in droves. I haven’t seen this much Carolina blue (City’s color) since the Dean Dome. They even had extra buses running just for the match. By the way, Man. City are supported mainly by blue collar Mancunians, while their hated cross town rival Man. United are cheered on by upper class folks and foreigners across the world. Personally, I think Man. City is the true blue team of Manchester, whilst United has more of the fair weather fans and less “Manchesterness”. Our friend Marcus told us to find a pub “where nobody is fighting”, and that he’d come meet us inside. With images of soccer hooligans pummeling us in our heads, nobody really wanted to go inside a pub until he got there, but everything turned out fine. Went into a pub called Mary D’s Beamish Bar it was absolutely packed. I don’t think there was a person in there that didn’t have a City jersey on. Did you watch the World Series a couple of years ago, and they showed the local bars in Boston and the places are absolutely filled to the brim with fans, and beer, and love of the team? Well this place was exactly like that, only this wasn’t the World Series it was just a regular match. After quickly downing a few pints (so very British), we headed over to the stadium. I was just floored with the amount of people coming out to the game. Droves of people walking out of the surrounding blue collar neighborhoods, cars lined up around the block, and dozens of buses with fans just streaming out of them. Everyone always talks about how the English are passionate about their football, but it’s so different to actually see it in person. I felt like a part of something much larger than myself, this seemed to even eclipse football; it seemed almost like a mass movement of the people. The game was awesome, even for us lot who know next to nothing about City or even football. The atmosphere was amazing. I got pretty into the “GO ON CITY!” chant, although I couldn’t quite make out the rest. The sound of 42,000 plus singing and chanting will get you excited about almost anything. GO ON CITY! I was really hyped for the crowd to sing Blue Moon, although they never busted it out. It got kind of hairy at the end, but City pulled out a 2-1 victory. Yeah, quick, back to the pub! This time we ended up in another pub called The Manchester, and although it wasn’t exactly a nice place, it was well suited to the working class atmosphere we were in. Drink of the day was Boddington’s, the proper Mancunian’s beer. After that we went right next door to the City Chippy where I discovered another joy of England, chips and gravy. It was really great day, and I’m so glad Marcus came out to show us around or we would’ve missed out on a lot. GO ON CITY! March 6th To be perfectly honest, absolutely nothing worth writing about happened today. Sorry. March 7th Tonight Megan, Lauren, and I went to a play at the Manchester Royal Exchange Theater. From the abundance of Roman columns, marble floors, crystal chandeliers, and pricey artwork you’d never know that the building was once used for cotton trading and dealing. I believe it was bombed out once (the IRA I think), and then they renovated it into the theater it is today. The stage is a 7 sided, circular (even though circles don’t have sides) kind of structure. A play like this is apparently called “in the round”, by in the know theater folks. All though you lose a lot of the setting and props, the audience has unobstructed 360 degree views of the stage. The audience is also much closer, I felt like I was practically sitting on stage with the actors! The play was called A Whistle in the Dark, and playwright Tom Murphy wrote it in the 1950’s. Its about an alcohol fueled, raging violent Irish family that has immigrated to England. This was a great play to see “in the round” because it the violence and action is so much more grisly when its right there on top of you. When one the character shatters a whisky bottle over the head of another some glass shards landed in my lap! I thought the play was fantastic, and after watching all these fighting Irish folks I left with a craving for Guinness. I’d put off writing up a lab I’ve had for about 6 weeks so I stayed up until about 4am that night starting and finishing the entire job. Lovely Megan even helped me out with the standard deviations, and we ordered some greasy take-away to power us through the night and early morning. Although its taken some getting used to, now I think I’m getting the hang of this “slacker” or “bad” student deal. It’s a lot easier aiming for C’s instead of A’s. Hopefully I can get out of this system by the time fall semester rolls around and my grades actually matter again. March 8th Saw a Ford Mustang over here, and I just about shat myself. In America this is now big deal, but they don’t even know what they are, much less produce and sell them. It was really strange to see a car with the driver on the left hand side over here. Had a packet of beef and onion crisps and a Ribena juice box for lunch. Ribena makes black currant juice, which is immensely popular over here. The Brits have black currant juice, squash, jam, cookies, candies, sodas, biscuits, tea, EVERYTHING! They must grow these berries with a special cocaine additive, because these guys are hooked. Interesting fact: 95% of all black currants in the UK become Ribena black currant juice, and “that’s just too many berries to shake a stick at”. Sorry, I read that off the juice box and its just stuck with me some how. Wish I could remember something useful instead. We took Lauren out to The Pub for a classic British setting to have few pints in. I don’t think she was much impressed, but that’s ok, I got my Guinness fix in. I’m really going to miss the pub scene back in America; even here, bars just aren’t the same. March 9th Today we went to Liverpool, the first big trip we’ve planned on our own. Liverpool is only about an hour west of Manchester, so its not a far trip at all. Supposedly Scousers (Liverpudlians) and Mancs really hate each other, so we took care not to wear any of our Man. City gear out today. The three of us were dropped off at the bus station and were immediately filled with an enormous sense of “Where the hell are we?” The Liverpool Football Club anthem is “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, but we sure as hell were and it was kind of scary for a while. Although we got lost for a bit, we didn’t panic, and used our handy little map and some trustworthy looking locals for directions. Personally I like asking old people because they I am pretty sure the old guy with a cane isn’t going to mug me once he realizes I’m a gullible tourist, likely with a passport and lots of money to steal. With a little help, we quickly found our way to the main (and nicer) part of town. Liverpool is a city with a lot of pride and a lot of culture; even I noticed this after about an hour’s time there. For this reason they are being made into something along the lines of a “European Capital of Culture” in 2008. I’m not sure exactly what that entails, but I do know that it means there is loads of stuff to do there. There are loads of museums and theater, city tours, ferry rides along the River Mersey, and all kind of pubs and clubs along a riverside area called Albert Dock. There is always fun to be had in Liverpool. Liverpool is also the home of The Beatles, and the Magical Mystery Tour was our main event of the day. A psychedelic bus takes you all around Liverpool showing you Beatles attractions like Strawberry Fields, the church where Paul wasn’t allowed in the choir, Penny Lane, and all the Beatles’ former homes. You get to walk around for a lot of it as well and of course take lots of cheesy, touristy pictures. They tell you interesting stories and anecdotes along the way as well. The tour stops at the famed Cavern Club, where the Beatles were discovered and put on the road to stardom. We went inside and had a pint or two, and saw the very stage where they first played their songs. We went into a pub for a quick cheap dinner and I ordered the steak and ale pie (these Brits and their pies!) with peas, and chips, all of course covered in gravy. It was really nice, but kind of odd. We made our way to the bus station with plenty of time. However, the only bus in the station was headed toward Leeds. Well we just figured the Manchester bus was late, and we waited, and waited…and waited. Finally I asked the guy where the heck our bus was and he said “That’s it right there, pulling away.” Well it was the Leeds bus pulling away, but as it was headed down the road I didn’t really have time to argue with him. I managed to flag him down and he kindly let us on which he wasn’t technically allowed to do. Apparently, the Manchester station is a stop along the way to Leeds; no one decided to inform us of this! No boarding announcement, no sign, no nothing! Imagine if I hadn’t asked that guy! The ticket counter was shut down, and we’d have been stuck in Liverpool the entire night, and with Lauren flying out first thing in the morning!! Man, that was a little too close for my liking. March 10th Lauren left us today so I hope she enjoyed her time here. With a trip to Blackpool, a proper football match, a few pub drinking sessions, a classic Irish drama, a shopping spree, and a trip to Liverpool, she can at least say it was eventful. The director of A Whistle in the Dark came to our drama class today to share some insights and thoughts with the group, which was really cool. I’m really glad we did go see the play because he said that it is only performed about once every ten years, and people may never again see it in a setting like The Royal Exchange. Hooray culture! Had some chips smothered in mushy peas from Potato Man today. I will never be able to have normal peas again, no, now I’ve gotta squish them up into a baby food like consistency. Everyone’s just going to think I’m a freak now. I took a four-hour nap immediately upon getting back from uni. After a hectic week like we just had, I felt it was pretty well deserved. Nothing like a good long sleep to rejuvenate the system and get you ready for more tomorrow. SLEEEP! March 11th Today I woke up at 7am (on a SATURDAY!) for another international trip to the Lake District. Megan fortunately did manage to get a seat on the bus despite not buying here ticket on time. Unfortunately, we sat next to the group of Italians. Nothing personal against the Italians but (as I should’ve guessed from my own family experiences) these guys are LOUD! They shouted, screamed, shrieked, and sang the entire 3-hour drive!!! Thankfully, we arrived just as the group finished up the third rendition of Bon Jovi in broken English (Uuhhhh Ohhhh, Liiiiiiiiiivvvvvvvvvviinnggg On Praaaaaaaaaaaayeeer! ) Our first stop of the day was at a place called Aira Force. Here there is a 5-mile circular trail that winds its way through the mountainous countryside, and up and over the waterfalls that give the area its name (force being the ancient Norse word for waterfall). About a mile in was Aira Force, the main attraction because it is the easiest walk, and the most impressive with the water pouring down a 70-foot drop. I took some really beautiful pictures (whenever my fellow tourists weren’t walking into the shots!), and then we kept moving to stay ahead of the minstrel Italians, who by now had moved on to destroying some classic Aretha Franklin. Here’s a thought guys: If you can’t properly spell “Respect”, perhaps you shouldn’t sing the song! About another mile of steep climbing over slippery moss covered rocks we reached the second “attraction” called High Force, which was another waterfall. This time we were higher up and could look down on the green English countryside shrouded in gray clouds and fog. We hustled back down the mountain to the bus, and then we drove another hour to a Lake District village called Ambleside. This time the singers stuck to their own music, which was nice because at least I couldn’t tell they were butchering the song. At Ambleside Megan and I headed straight for a lakeside café and ordered a massive, English breakfast and a pot of tea. I know the town lives off of tourism, but they must really start to hate it when you get people like me in there asking “Hey, are y’all still serving your all day breakfast?” That’s like going in the dollar store and asking how much everything is! Anyways, with 2 fried eggs, local Cumberland sausage, bacon, and beans on toast all covered in brown sauce, I could almost feel my arteries start to clot, but it was delicious and the warm meal was just what I needed on this cold, drizzly day. I think the English toss in a tomato just to make them feel a bit healthier. Well we quickly discovered there really isn’t much to do in Ambleside. We walked around through winding roads, and then over some muddy paths looking for the famed Roman ruins of Ambleside, but all we found was a massive ditch in the ground. Oh, wait; that piece of crap, hole in the ground IS the famed Roman ruins of Ambleside! Apparently it was a massive fort that held about 500 soldiers in it's heyday, but now all we get is a damned hole. I wasn’t expecting the coliseum or anything but a wall would’ve been nice. Maybe a stone or two. But a hole? I can dig a damned hole! The worst part was we couldn’t even hike back and warm up with another pot of tea because the entire town shuts down a 4. So we hung around on the pier, with the ducks, and we all froze our butts off together until the bus was ready to leave. We all slept on the way back home as well, even our singing troupe. Later that night I met up with the rest of the old ECU crew and some new friends over at Ross’s. Megan was invited, but she refuses to come out for the rest of the term as she has about 12,000 words to write in 3 weeks for her classes. We went to this place called Satan’s Hollow, is someplace I never thought I’d find myself going. Well, I expected loads of Goth type people, and lots of piercings through lots of body parts, and probably someone biting the head off a bat or a human sacrifice or something but it was a really cool place. It was cheap to get in, and the drinks were even cheaper inside. They played all kinds of cool British music like The Arctic Monkeys, Oasis, Franz Ferdinand, and the Kaiser Chiefs; not exactly the heavy death metal I expected. And then, somehow, we found ourselves in a mosh pit. And, lo and behold, it was AWESOME!!! I never really saw the point of jumping in there and shoving everyone around, but it was really fun. And if you fall down, they pick you right back up, so there was lots of love as well. We managed to pick one of our mates up for some crowd surfing, but as soon as the DJ cut off the music the crowd instantly forgot about him and he plummeted to the dance floor. (Woooo, YEEEEAHHHH…. Plop!) At the 3am, after a heavy night of dancing, or drinking, or whatever, there is nothing like a fresh, hot kebab. Oh, I need to learn how to make those before I leave here. I even hailed my own cab like a professional and was home safe and sound, so no worries. I think I may have been the latest person back that night, which is really impressive considering the party people in this dorm. March 12th Today I dragged my aching bones out of bed for the Irish Festival. I could’ve slept all day, but this is supposed to be one of the premier Irish celebrations in Britain, so I had to check it out. And what horrible weather too. Megan, a Finn, and me trudged through snow and sleet all the way down to Albert’s square for the festivities. At first I didn’t think anything was worth being stung in the face by pellets of sleet, but I toughed it out and I’m really glad I did. There were tents filled with Irish trinkets, candy, shamrocks, books, music, anything under the sun that was Irish or that could at least have with a leprechaun or shamrock painted on it. There was a stage with Irish folk singers and dancers, and on the steps of the Catholic Church there was an Irish children’s choir performing. And Guinness, Guinness, Guinness everywhere. Drinking Guinness, Guinness hats, even people dressed as pints of Guinness. It was crazy. I’ve heard that if you drink 5 pints of Guinness on St. Patrick’s day you get one of these giant Guinness hats, so I’ll have to try and remember that later this week. I warmed myself with an Irish roast beef sandwich, and we moved over to watch the parade. I’m not normally one for parades, but this was pretty cool for some reason. There had to be over 40 hand made floats, bag pipers, footballers, cricket players (cricketers?), and even Shetland ponies and donkeys. Basically, if you could wave the red, white, and green, you could get in this parade. The best part of the day was this Irish cover band we discovered inside the O’shea's Pub tent. They weren’t exactly traditional Irish folk music, but they put a nice Irish spin on lots of familiar tunes. The fiddler was absolutely amazing; I don’t think he stopped dancing about the entire performance! They captivated the entire tent of about 300 people, and the entire place was clapping and singing along to all the songs they knew. Megan and I got a pretty big kick out of Sweet Home Alabama, which became close enough to home for us. They played so well that I managed to forget about the sleet pelting me in face for most of the way home. Later that night Megan and I made pasta with Mediterranean pesto and some freshly chopped tomatoes and grated cheese. We have a basic line up of about 10 meals, so it was good to discover something new and spice up the system a little. After dinner I fell fast asleep from about 8 to 1am, which is not such a good thing because I have this deal to type up here, and a presentation to rehearse for tomorrow morning. I am so tired. I need a couple of days with absolutely nothing going on so I can catch up on some much needed rest. Remember how I thought I was really cool for being the last one in the dorm last night? Well I’m not, and I wasn’t. My friend down the hall was in Liverpool, him and his mates got really wasted and then hitched a ride on a passing train, stowed away under a box all the way back to Manchester for some more partying. That’s just flat out impressive. March 13th Wow, my last week of lectures in my plants and medicine class! This “semester” is really winding up fast. I have one final essay due, and my two final exams in a matter of weeks. At least I can be happy about the schoolwork going by fast. My friend down the hall, Andy, has managed to stay drunk for about 3 days now. Detrimental to his liver it may be, but its helped me out quite a bit. He just keeps coming by and giving me stuff! Pizza, curry, cd’s, but I’ve gotta admit the hugs are getting kind of weird. He dropped off his entire cd collection just now so I’ve spent the past two hours copying stuff like The Kinks, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash,David Bowie, The Yardbirds, and all kinds of cool stuff. Wonder what I’ll get tomorrow…if he doesn’t die that is. post comment

week eight [02 Mar 2006|10:40am] [ mood | rejuvenated ] Week 8 is here and gone. February 23rd - March 1st. Ask your financial aid advisor about the Gilman Scholarship for study abroad today! February 23rd Hey, hey. Now when I run, the cold air doesn’t set my lungs on fire. Making progress… Megan and I did spend a good hour or two planning trips today. I will fill you in on them once they become official, but right now the plans look like: Bath, Salisbury, mainly as a staging point for Stonehenge, Birmingham, and Castleton in Peak District for some hiking. Then up to Kilmars, Glasgow, and maybe even Inverness and Loch ness in Scotland. And possibly fly over to Ireland for two days. These and all the other trips with the international people makes for quite a lot of traveling in the final 2 weeks. AND, we seem to have left out London, but I’m beginning to think London may just require a trip of its own one day. Maybe around the 2012 Olympics… My Mom called me today, but not to say how much she missed me, rather to inform me that Pizza Hut charged me for $469!!! Now, I like pizza as much as the next guy, but this is a little extreme. I’m only including this because if you are thinking about studying abroad, one of the most helpful things for me is to have my parents in on my account so that they could clear up any little mishaps, and let me know what my balance is and all that while I’m away. A joint account with someone you trust saves you all the hassle of trying to work with the bank over the phone (with very expensive rates), or through e-mail, which isn’t always the quickest way to get things done. And your money is your lifeline over here, without it you are really screwed. I suggest taking two debit cards with you. Keep the extra incase you lose the first one. Your bank is not here, so you can’t just stroll into one and ask for some cash out of your account. Booked a tour of the Manchester United stadium and museum today for Saturday. Should be exciting. I got some of my grades from my plants and medicine course today and I got a 72, and 83, and 90 on my test, essay, and presentation. This is really exciting since an 80% is an A, and personally I only need 50% to get credit at ECU. Not trying to brag (too much anyways), but I was also the highest grade in each category! Go me, representing America. Hopefully this will carry over to my other classes. Megan and I went into China Town for a nice dinner out. This place called The Great Wall was really nice; I’d never been in such an elegant Chinese restaurant. They have a little ice bucket for your wine, they pull out the chair for you, and even fold the napkin right around your lap! Quite a change from the takeaway place at home, where the sweaty guys in the back are shouting at each other and tossing your food about. Everything was quite delicious until Megan discovered that she had squid in her seafood noodles. And not just squid bits; no, more like giant purple tentacles wiggling out of the noodles at you like some creature from the black lagoon. I expected Megan to scream and throw up on the spot, but no, she surprised me and just set them aside for me to eat, and they were actually quite delicious. After she saw how much I enjoyed them, she even tried a few as well. Gotta try new things while you have the chance! February 24 Today we did a bit of exploring and went to Manchester’s Trafford Center, which is an enormous shopping center/mall. Some say it’s the biggest in Europe. Its located over in a part of the city called The Quays, which is right on the wharf, so in some of its nicer parts The Quays are actually quite scenic. Most people didn’t think we’d be impressed because America is the king of malls, but this place just floored me. Its like our malls on steroids. We walked around for 2 hours and I still don’t think we saw everything. And its nice too! Roman columns line most of the walls, the ceiling is entirely glass to let the precious sunshine in, and there is a fountain of dolphins (statues, not real Flipper dolphins) that shoots water up 2 stories to the top of the glass dome in the center of the building. The food court puts any other food court I’ve seen to shame. If you walk in one way its decorated like china, with Asian style buildings, statues of monks, and bamboo trees. Walk in the other end, and its Bourbon Street in New Orleans with outdoor café’s, jazz bands, and American flags. Pizza Hut is situated in an area designed like Ancient Egypt, whilst McDonald’s, ironically enough, is in a Middle Eastern section. You can bring your food to a giant area that decorated like the deck of a luxury cruise liner, complete with pool, lifeboats, and a mast with an enormous big screen TV in it. Fast food joints were mixed in with fancy restaurants and posh wine bars. I’d never seen anything like it. My favorite store had to be Selfridges’s, not that we could buy anything there. It’s a department store, but with very high-end stuff, like Luis Vuitton luggage, Armani jeans, and Burberry bags. This store also had a food section, which just completely messed with my mind because I’d never seen food for sale in a department store. They had sections from Britain, India, a sushi bar, liquor you could put in your own custom bottle straight from the cask, and lots of stuff from the rest of Europe. Our personal favorite of course was the American section, where you could get rare delicacies for an outrageous price. Lucky Charms are what $2.50 in the states? At Selfridges they are 7 pounds!!! Sweet potatoes are 2 pounds, Oreos are 5, marshmallow crème is 3, and individual Reese’s Pieces are about 1.50, and Kraft macaroni and cheese for about 6!!! Good Lord!!! And, then add in the exchange rate and you realize that a box of Lucky Charms is about $13!!! Ahhhh! People that shop here are absolutely insane. They sell one bottle of beer for about 1.50, that I bought a four pack for in ASDA for 2.50. It was just mind-blowing. Since I’ve become a fancy pants official 2-3 pound wine connoisseur, I bought one of those fancy pants lever operated corkscrews. It’s friggin’ awesome! I just roam the streets now looking for bottles to open. I love it. Cooked up some English sausage, fried some onions, and served them on a wheat roll drowned in English mustard for dinner, along with the last of the macaroni and cheese my mom shipped in. The mustard here is really packs a punch and the sausage is just so nice and browned, and plump and juicy. Mmmmmmmm. I’m really going to miss the food here. February 25th Today we took a tour of the Old Trafford football grounds that the famed Manchester United calls home. If you don’t know Man. United, you probably have heard of David Beckham, and this is the team he used to play for. I was amazed with the sheer size of the stadium. After their renovations this spring, the place will hold over 70,000 people, making it the second largest stadium in Britain just behind the new Wembley stadium and right in front of Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium in Wales. The place must be absolutely insane during a big game. Budweiser sponsors Man. United, so you can’t even get a proper British beer in Old Trafford. However, they do make about 2,000 lbs. of pies a day, their most popular concession. I guess their experience with crazed football fanatics has pushed them to have better security that we lack in America. You can’t drink beer out in the stands, only in the concessions area, there are security cameras covering all the fans, which helps if an incident was to occur (anyone remember the Pistons-Pacers brawl a year ago?), and if you appear intoxicated they will throw you out of the place. Wow, and this in England, one of the alcohol capitals of the world. The field has hot water pipes pumping thousands of gallons an hour underneath it to keep the field and players warm, although you’ll freeze to death in the red plastic seats watching them. Unless of course, you are a cooperate sponsor, then you can use your box seats. Oh, you don’t have box seats? Just write a check for 16,000 pounds (for the cheap one!), and join the ten-year waiting list. And there are about 300 seats right by the field just for disabled folks. Even blind people come, get a free radio tapped directly into the commentary booth, and enjoy the game from the best seat in the house. All this is free, paid for by Man. United for the disabled population. Wonder if that plate in my wrist qualifies… You can have all your major life events in the football stadium: be born in the mini-hospital, get married by the fully licensed staff and celebrate on the grounds, get drunk and thrown in the Man. United jail, and when you die, even your ashes can be spread out onto the field. Talk about a football culture! We also got a behind the scenes look at the locker rooms, players lounge, where and how they eat and train, how the wives are treated, how they keep rival teams separated during press conferences, and we even got to walk out of the player’s tunnel and on to the field just like the team does during a match. Well, minus the 70,000 raging fans. Then we went to the Man. United team museum, which traces their history from the late 1800’s until now. I had a really good time, and I can’t even name a single guy on the team, so imagine how cool this is for a true fan. All for only 6 pounds! Later, Megan and I ended up in Piccadilly and we checked out the Manchester Farmer’s Market. I found some authentic, home made Cornish pasties that I can easily heat up at home, and even some haggis, which I am really anxious to try. Haggis is a Scottish dish involving almost every part of a sheep; those Scots are so resourceful. The brain and other parts are mashed together with oats, offal, and spices and then placed inside the sheep’s stomach. Boil this for about 30 minutes, the cut open the stomach and bon apetit! Don’t eat the actual stomach, just the goods on the inside. The stuff we got I think is just the brain and meats already boiled; we just have to grill it for about 4 minutes on each side. I hear its nice with parsnips and potatoes. If I like this I’ll have to look for some proper haggis and get in on some of that stomach boiling action. February 26th A lazy, relaxing Sunday. Cooked my Cornish pasty for brunch, and it was great. Flaky, crusty croissant type bread filled with mash, beef stock, and some veggies. Will have to find a way to make these in the states. Finally finished that essay for art. Now I can go through the whole process again for my drama class. Yippee! For some reason this dorm doesn’t have recycling, so I saved all that reusable good stuff and took it down to the recycling depot at ASDA. Hooray for saving the earth. February 27th Four people, FOUR, turned up for our plants and medicine lecture on diabetes. It may go down to three as I can hardly see the point of attending a lecture on diabetes when the lecturer can’t even pronounce it correctly. However, I am learning about this mysterious new disease called “dashteeb”. Had a dive-bomber pigeon take a little poop on my book bag today. I will most likely catch bird flu and die. Perhaps I will just start cooing randomly, but at least I will get lots of space on the bus. Dorm life here is definitely crazier than at ECU. My friends down the hall made a tennis ball cannon out of old Pringles cans, duct tape (what else!), and hairspray for projectile fuel. Word is they manage to get a 3-foot flame shoot out the back end, so they will probably blow themselves to bits. Can you kill someone with a tennis ball? I am spending more time trying to correctly cite this stupid essay for my art class than I am actually trying to write it. I’ve never had to do footnotes before, and I’ve never even heard of the MHRA format, so I will probably screw up the whole thing. I’m afraid I’ll be charged with plagiarism and get a zero for all my hard work just because I made an honest mistake. Oh well, we’ll see how this goes. February 28th Happy Pancake Day!!! The Brits have Pancake Day instead of Fat Tuesday, so be sure to party down English style and toss around some flapjacks. It was beautiful, sunny day, so I tried to do my run like one of the locals today, in just a T-shirt and shorts as opposed to being completely bundled up like that Ralphie kid from A Christmas Story. Well no shocker here, but it a hell of a lot colder than it looks. Especially when its windy, which is…hmmm…ALL THE TIME. And especially when you run through shady, tree lined parks, which is exactly what I decided to do. After about five minutes of running things start to get a bit better, but not because you’ve warmed up, no, rather because your extremities have been officially frozen and you can’t feel them anymore. On the bright side of things, I got a really nice workout because A) you can’t stop jogging to walk and take a break, because you will probably freeze in place, and B) you run much faster because you are trying to hurry up and get the hell inside! I may be on to something here. We were planning to go to The Pancake House for Pancake Day, but as you can imagine, it was kind of mobbed. Went to Abdul’s instead, for a donner kebab. Still don’t know what donner meat is. Reindeer maybe? Get it, Donner, Blitzen, Rudolph?! That’s a funny joke, c’mon. Anyways, Abdul’s is to Arabic food, as McDonald’s is to American grub; a quick, delicious, and cheap bite to eat. Spent about two or three hours trying to plan trips today. Megan tried to sign up for the international office’s trip to the Lake District, but they were out of spots. I told her to sign up like a week ago, when I did, but she was in no mood to hear it so I tried not to gloat too much. Hopefully someone won’t show up and we can still go together. If not I will end up going alone, but that will make for some peaceful hiking and some solitary time in nature, and that’s not so bad. I think we could probably use a little more time apart anyways. We booked the bus ride to Birmingham and the Cadbury world tour, so that should be exciting. Found out it would be about 72 pounds on train fare and a hostel just to spend one night in Bath, so we probably will be skipping that. Looked at flights to Ireland and although that is a bit more expensive than Bath, we will be spending more time there and it is so much farther away, that it seems to be worth the extra cash. Also found out that ferries run to Dublin as well, so I’d like to do that as it is cheaper, but longer, by about 8 hours. So far, we’ve only found ferries that take people in cars, not foot travelers, so this has also been a problem. People said to me before leaving on my trip, “Oh, your in Europe! It’ll be so easy to travel around. Just hop on a plane and go to Rome for a weekend, teehee!” Well folks, it ain’t so easy. Flights don’t run at all the times you need to be traveling. Sure I can catch a flight to Scotland, but I’ll get there at 2am, with buses probably not running, and me not knowing where the hell I am. Some hostels, the cheap one’s we’re hoping for, seem to be getting more booked up by the day. It also doesn’t help when your girlfriend refuses to stay in the cheaper, 10-20 person shared dorm hostels. “Ewww, Greg! They could be sooooo GROSS!” Well for 20-40 extra pounds in my pocket, I can handle gross. My roommate was gross and I dealt with him for four months! And then, once you think you’ve found a cheap flight, then they toss in taxes and fees, and it has quadrupled the price. Or when you think you’ve found a really sweet bus deal for like 5 pounds from here to Bath, and then you book the return and it is 50 pounds. FOR THE SAME ROUTE!!!! Ahhhh, it is enough to make you scream sometimes. I know there are a lot worse problems than trying to plan how to gallivant around Great Britain over the spring, but I am still pretty stressed. March 1st Finally turned in that stupid essay today. What a load of my back that is. I’m so relieved about that I almost forget that I have other classes to worry about. Discovered HP Brown Sauce today. Not sure what is in it, but its kind of a mystery sauce the Brits put on everything, kind of like Heinz 57. Its well nice on a sausage barm. Guess whose going to Ireland!!!!! MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! I’m so excited! We went to this travel agency and they booked the entire thing for us. We got a flight cheaper than a lot of the ones we had seen online, and we even got a hotel instead of hostel for about the same price. It was a little more expensive than I had planned, but as most of the hostels were booked, and since this is a hotel so I can leave my stuff there safely, and not have to worry about a crappy roommates, I think its worth it. There is even a Jacuzzi bath in the room, how swanky is that! Supposedly its three stars, but we’ll have to see. Its also in a posh part of town, about ten minutes walk from the heart of Dublin. 3 days, 2 nights in April after uni is over with. We decided to cancel one of our trips with the international society to make room for this trip, and we may have to eat a few more rice and bean dinners to save some cash, but I think this is totally worth it. With plans to go home with our Welsh and Scottish friends for a while, this means we’ll hit every country in Britain; we’re not too picky about the Northern Ireland/Republic of Ireland dispute. To us, Ireland is Ireland, and that’s that. Got yet another package from Mom today, and that was just the icing on the cake. Had the new Avett Brothers CD in it, and I’ve been listening to that all day long. Everyone should go get it. Also got a box of Girl Scout cookies, which I’ve discovered make awesome tea biscuits. Watched the England vs. Uruguay World Cup friendly (exhibition) match today with some guys in the dorm. The English are nuts, these perfect normally mates just went bonkers for about 90 minutes while the game was on. They were completely different people; I guess its kind of like March Madness back in the states. Even I was getting excited and I know next to nothing about football. My friend Tom is going to take a bunch of us to the Man. City match Sunday, so I’m really hyped for my chance to be a part of the action. Hmmm…. well that seems to be it for Week 8. Megan’s friend is coming to stay with us next week for her spring break, and we have lots of activities planned then. Hopefully everything will go smoothly, and you guys will have lots of interesting reading. post comment

Week 7!! [23 Feb 2006|06:50pm] [ mood | good ] Week 7: February 16-February 23. Wow, we’ve already reached the halfway point in our trip here. Its bittersweet really, on one hand I’ve experienced and accomplished so much, but on the other hand I feel like I’m about to leave when I’m just getting started. Remember, if you’re receiving a Pell Grant, and would like to study abroad for a semester or even a year, the Benjamin A. Gilman Foundation can help you finance your trip. February 16th Slept a little later today, went for a quick jog, came back and had a leisurely breakfast. I try to relax as much as possible on my days off. Fried an egg, and chopped up some potatoes for some homemade hash brown and the Brits just about flipped their lid. They apparently don’t do potatoes at breakfast, but they all thought it was a “well nice” idea. There is this sign right at the entrance to my park about a monthly 5k that takes place there. So I copied down the website, thinking I could join the little club, get some motivation to run, test myself, and meet new people and all that. But I kept seeing the abbreviation “GLBT” plastered all over the website. And I really couldn’t figure it out until I got to the bottom where it said in big bold RAINBOW letters “Manchester Frontrunners: The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transvestite Running club of Manchester.” Well…. isn’t that…interesting. Wow, good thing I found that out before hand eh? I don’t know, maybe I could still do the 5k, they said the welcome everyone. I don’t know about the G’s, L’s and B’s but I bet I could run faster than a transvestite. Honestly, he’s gotta dress like a woman right? If he’s really into it and puts on lots of lady gear, like fake boobs and heels maybe, that could slow him down quite a bit. Hmmm…this requires some extra thought. It’d be a good story anyways. Played five a side football tonight down in Fallowfield with Marcus, Ramsay, and Ross. Half the regular team couldn’t make it so they called me in desperation. The team has yet to actually win a game, so I didn’t think it was completely my fault when the final score read 22-2. We went to a pub afterwards, The Orange Grove, and drowned our sorrows away with lots of Oasis music and a couple of pints. Tried my first India Pale Ale, which the English made when they controlled India and needed to ship beer to their thirst troops and guards. Apparently the darker beers would spoil during the long shipment to India, so they had to add extra alcohol to it to preserve it longer. This makes it a bit stronger and paler (obviously). It was really quite nice. Well its back to the books for me. Goodnight. February 18th This is the third week in a row we’ve covered a play that I just despise in my drama class. And, the worst part is I don’t even need to be in class because my only grade is an essay, and I know my essay isn’t on this play! But I still want to be there because the teachers are nice and they’re helping me out, and I want to make a good impression and be the nice, participating student I’m supposed to be. Luckily all the theater heads in this class love to share their opinions, so the class kind of takes charge and makes things interesting. Another ASDA trip, you guys know how that goes. Since we had an entire lecture on the benefits of red wine in Plants and Medicine, I decided to get some and up the healthiness of our grocery carriage. A lot of people think red wine is the reason the French and Italians can be so healthy despite eating so much cheese, butter, and fat. For your personal info, red grape juice is just as effective as red wine, as are resveratrol capsules in the GNC store. Went out with the Finns tonight. First we went to the Russia themed, vodka powered bar, Revolution. The Revolution we go to on Oxford Road was the very first to open in Manchester 10 years ago. Then we went up the road to The Footage for some more drinks and dancing even. Despite all the dance and electronic music here, the English are just as bad of dancers as we are at home. Saw my first person thrown out of a club, literally, like thrown down a flight of stairs and on his ass out of the club by a bouncer who wouldn’t seem out of place on the Steelers' offensive line. This isn’t like Greenville where fights seem to break out nightly, and there might even be a knife or gun in the club. No, they mean business here. After all this we introduced the Finns to Pizza Company. Pizza Co. is to Manchester, what Alfredo’s is to Greenville; situated right in the middle of clubs and bars this is the place everyone goes after their long night out to eat some greasy food and clear their heads a bit. I was craving a taste of home and got the spicy chicken wings and chips, which really hit the spot. All right, now I’ve gotta spend most of this beautiful, springtime, Saturday afternoon inside writing an essay on a Communist propaganda film. A silent film at that! Later. February 18th Spent the day working on that cursed paper, and had a nice long, mind clearing job through the neighborhood, which is actually quite nice despite its reputation. Went to a place called The Pub, which just leads to terrible confusion when you come back and try to explain where you’ve been. “Oh, you went to the pub. Which one?” “The Pub”. Repeat this until one of you beats the other to death with a tea kettle. The place is your stereotypical pub, with pub food, beer, drinks, a jukebox, football on tv, pool, and darts. It’s a nice mix of people, and quite a lot of students instead of smokey, old, pub hounds. I’ve officially been corrupted by the British society and have stolen my first pint glasses. All the students do it, and the staff honestly doesn’t care, so I’m really not concerned. I need two pints and two half pints to have a complete set, then I’ll give up this hard, criminal lifestyle and go straight. The plan is to actually give them to people when I get through, so I am more of a Robin Hood figure than your average thief. February 19th I had to wake up at 6:30 this morning to get ready for our day trip to Lake Windermere with the international society. It was so strange to walk through the normally chaotic streets of downtown Manchester, with no one out yet. The place was dead, like a ghost town. I felt like that guy from 28 days later, when he wakes up out of his coma and all of England has been eaten by zombies or whatever happens in that movie. The only people out were those who were still out from their hard-partying night before, and the homeless, because they’re homeless and that’s what they do. Lake Windermere is the largest lake in all of Britain at 10.5 miles long. It is northwest of us, about 2 hours away. The drive is fantastic, I've never been so happy to be crammed on a bus: peaks and valleys, frozen creeks, gurgling rivers, sheep laden country side, and green pastures which are cris crossed by old stone walls carpeted in moss. And this is just the bus ride. Then we get to the lake district and descend down incredibly steep hills at breakneck speed through two villages: Windermere at the top and Bowness at the bottom by the lake. The villages are just chockfull of bread and breakfasts, hostels, pubs, beer gardens, outdoor café’s and eateries, and plenty of touristy shops. The lake is so big that I forgot we weren't actually on the oceanfront. It must get so crazy there in the summer, or as crazy as a quaint little lakeside village can be. We got dropped off lakeside by the piers, seagulls, swans, hotdog, and ice-cream guys, and scruffy fisherman. There are mountains all around us, and we were at the very bottom, sea level I guess. So the first thing we did was walk all the way back up, where the bus had taken us, through the villages and up a small mountain (I'd call it a mountain anyways) called Orrest Head. Now the trip through the villages alone was pretty tough, its paved, but STEEP! That alone took 30 minutes and we needed a break at the top. THEN we had the actual mountain to hike up, that took another 30 minutes. Its not a very difficult hike, we weren’t hanging off of cliffs or anything, but its all rather taxing after going up hill for an hour. Well the view at the top of Orrest Head was incredible. Like postcard. And we had such a crystal, clear blue-sky kind of day too. Because of the lack of experience needed to hike this trail, and its only moderate difficulty, Orrest Head is your best use of time and energy to get a postcard perfect view. We could see for miles! Snowcapped mountains (real ones!) off in the distance, Kelly green pastures dotted with sheep and lined with stone fences, almost all of the lake, both of the villages we passed through, and cottages off in the distance. We were 784 feet above sea level, and I don’t do any hiking or climbing but that sounds like a lot to me. It was worth every inch! Then we hiked back down through the village, and we poked in a bunch of little beach shops, bought some candy, postcards, very nice, very quaint, stone walls, moss, everyone seems to own a black lab, it was just great. We ended up back where we started, lakeside by the piers and boats, and ate some fresh fish and chips. So then, we bought a boat pass and we took a 45 minute boat ride around the lake. The fog and the clouds started to roll in and it just made for great scenery, although it was bit freezing on top of that boat. It was like two different days between the sunshine of before and the gray/blueness that set in. We warmed up in a lakeside pub and finished up the day with more shopping. And waffle cones. There was an incredible purple and gold sunset over the green hills, but I had run out of memory on my card. Later on the ride home the sky turned completely pink against the dark green hills and valleys. Basically, I want to quit school, move to Windermere, farm sheep, maybe sail a boat or two and I’d die happy. That’s my plan for life. We left Windermere behind at about 5:30, but that will not be my last time in the lake district, so I am not too sad. I was absolutely knackered, but could not go to sleep as I have an essay test worth 20% of my grade at 9am on Monday. Studied until 2:45am and then will have to get up at 7:30 to catch the 8:15 bus. Welcome back to the real world. February 20th Spent the first half of my day having an essay test worth 20% of my grade, then two presentations. I was a little stressed, and considering I only slept for 4 hours I am a little concerned how they went. I hate school. After looking at my pictures from Windermere I can’t fully grasp that I was there and had such a wonderful experience. I didn’t think places like that actually existed. Had a tuna and sweet corn baked potato for lunch which was just awesome. Sweet corn is just what we call corn in America, its not like a new genetic breed or anything. I will probably go back to the states and never be able to eat like a “normal” person again. “Why does Greg eat every meal on a potato?” With so much due before noon, and still only having like four hours of sleep for the past two nights I decided to skip my art class (which to be perfectly honest, is quite useless to me now), and go home and get some rest and some work done. Sometimes, sacrifices must be made. The Americans in our dorm from last semester left a giant box of Bisquick behind, so Megan and I made some fried chicken tonight. Well…attempted to make some. As most of the coating fell off, it wasn’t quite fried chicken, but we had some delicious little crunchy bits with our dish. After making a curry and a stir-fry, I guess we got a little cocky. My note here says to write about the “fried chicken experience”, and I just thought that would be a good name for a band, so if anyone wants to use it, feel free. February 21st Today I had to get up (yet again) at 6:30am. I almost convinced myself just to ignore the alarm and go back to bed, but I figure this Fleetwood beach clean might actually turn out all right. I got to the student union and was outfitted with a neon yellow safety vest, huge red rubber gloves, and a grabber claw for getting all that litter. As you can imagine, I looked a tad ridiculous. We were also given free crisps (chicken flavored, oh yeah!), moon pies, and even juice boxes. Things were looking good already! Fleetwood Beach is on the west coast of Manchester right next to Blackpool. Most of the trip was exactly the same route that we used for Windermere. Normally I would sleep on such a long bus ride, but I feel like I’d be missing something from England so I try to stay awake and experience as much as I can through the tinted windows. It was so nice to get out of the bus and actually on the beach where we could do some work. We were put into groups of four, and we cleaned a massive stretch of beach. There were about 100 something volunteers, so I’m sure we got lots of harmful rubbish out of the environment. You could see our bright yellow vests dotting the shore for several miles. The beach was absolutely beautiful and I’d love to come back some time when I won’t be freezing my bollocks off. The sky was crystal clear and reflected perfectly off of the water. You could even see blue shaded mountains out over the far ends of the shore. Sand dunes completely cover the upper part of the beach line, then there are loads of smooth gray rocks where the seagulls all hang out, and finally white powdery sand before the water. We even made it to a bay with lots of dunes, beach grass, and thorny shrubbery. However, the shrubbery didn’t look so nice once I was climbing in it, getting thorns in my arse, pulling out snail filled cans of Foster’s. My group was probably worried about me as I spent a lot of time experiencing nature and taking pictures. For the 3 hours we were there though, I worked extra hard and mopped up two an a half giant bags of mostly recyclable goods, so in a way its like doubling the positive effect. There must be a lot of alcohol in Stella Artois, because the drinkers of that beer never seemed to find their way to the rubbish tin (sounds much nicer than garbage can doesn’t it?) Someone even found a pair of dentures! Gross. We finished up the day with a quick drive to Blackpool and a free lunch of chili, potatoes (of course), coleslaw, and baked beans. It almost seemed like an American meal! All of my hard work was definitely worth it to me. I got some sand between my toes, some salty air in my lungs, some sunshine on the skin, and a potato in the stomach. Plus, I did some good things too. What a great day this turned out to be. February 22nd Hmmm… not much going on today except class, class, class. I thought I had done my fair share of traveling these past couple of days, but then my friend Ben tells me all about his hitchhiking adventure through Scotland! I don’t think I’ll be hitching down the road anytime soon, but this did inspire me to plan some more trips, plus I learned how to cook and eat haggis! Looked at bus tickets to Birmingham to go see the chocolate Mecca that is Cadbury World. They apparently give you a "Willy Wonkaesque" tour of the Cadbury Factory; you get to ride around in a cream egg cart, and try all the free samples you want. Needless to say, I’m extremely excited. Birmingham is like the capital of Balti, a special type of Kashmiri/Pakistani curry type dish, so we’ll have to try some of that as well. Besides that, I don’t believe there is much more to the place than shopping, which we don’t really have the cash for anyways. Also looking at hostels in Bath to see the Roman baths and hot springs there. Ooh, I wonder if you can actually get in them? I’d also like to take a short trip from there to Stonehenge and then back to Manchester, but I don’t know if that’s possible. We’d also like to do a short day trip to get some hiking in around the Peak District, which is south of Manchester but only an hour away by bus. Oh, and we have to fit Scotland and even Ireland somewhere in there as well. I think we’ll have to set aside a day just for organizing/booking these trips, and its something Megan and I will definitely have to plan together. Had two Cornish Pasties for lunch: one baked steak pasty, and one sausage and bean. These things are fantastic, like giant, flaky, gourmet hot pockets. I’ve tapped into my “Italianess” and discovered the joys of red wine. This two-pound bottle tastes just as nice as the fancy wine we had in the Italian restaurant. Will have to buy my own official corkscrew as well soon. Well that’s kind of a lame ending for the week, but that’s all I got. Sorry kids. 2 comments|post comment

Week 6: February 9-16th. [16 Feb 2006|01:55pm] [ mood | grateful ] Week 6 everybody! I know this blog is preposterously long, so thanks for sticking with me and reading as much as you do; its ok to skip around to the interesting bits. I know I say this every week, but Gilman, Gilman, Gilman! Check out the Benjamin A. Gilman Society for money to study abroad, and even if they can’t help you, you should still go abroad anyways. Its an experience of a lifetime and all that jazz. February 9th Today was beautifully sunny, but still bitterly cold day. It still trips me out with how nice it can look outside, yet still be so freezing. Very deceiving Megan and I scratched yet another thing off of our to do list, by riding the giant “Wheel of Manchester.” The wheel of Manchester is an enormously high Ferris wheel right smack dab in the middle of city center. And what a good day for it too; the sun was reflecting off the tops of all the buildings and we could see all the way into the foothills of the countryside. It was just spectacular, even if the wind threw you around a little bit up top. Poor Megan, who is petrified of just about anything involving the words “ride, heights, and enormous”, actually calmed down enough to enjoy the beauty of what we were witnessing. Spent the rest of the day doing lots o’ studyin’ and workin’. As you can see, I also discovered my love of apostrophes. We decided to treat ourselves to a little taste of home for dinner, and went out to Pizza Hut! After passing by it in city center, and having that delicious smell waft by I was dying for some greasy, cheesy pepperoni pizza, which is really weird because I typically think Pizza Hut is pretty crap back in the states. I’ve never seen such a large pizza disappear so quickly. However, this Pizza Hut was different. Back home, my Pizza Hut experience usually involves terrible music blasting one’s eardrums away, screeching banshee kids, and some baby with a poopy diaper that has yet to be noticed by ever attendant Mummy and Daddy. Well here in Manchester, the place was actually nice. There was art on the wall. One side of the building was all glass so you could people watch over city center. Gentlemen in suits came by for a slice or two. They even serve you tea in a little pot, with dainty little cups and saucers. But…but… the weirdest thing of all was how they eat it. In the states, well my family and friends at least, we eat pizza in the typical fashion: Ferociously grab the first slice, fold up the sides so not to lose any of those artery clogging saturates, and then wolf it down only to discover that, shockingly enough, this bubbling lava cheese is burning my esophagus to bits. This triggers man’s innate reverse air blow reflex, long developed through evolutionary processes, in which one sucks air down the mouth in order to cool the 2nd degree burns one has just induced on himself. All this has to be done ASAP in order to fight off a sibling or two for the next piece in order that one does not get stuck with that crappy little unborn Siamese twin of a piece that is always stuck next to his healthy brothers. Perhaps you give the dog some “pizza bones”, or crusts to all those that are not insane, and are not my family. Well here, they don’t do that. No, no. The Brits use a fork and knife to eat their pizza! WHAT! Some of the really posh ones tuck a little napkin (but they’d probably call it a serviette) into their collars. Pick yourself up off the floor, it gets better. I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t see it, but I actually saw someone offer his friend the very, very last big piece. HOLY CRAP! What kind of a parallel universe, twilight zone, cruel twisted hell of a world have I landed in? February 10th FRIDAY!!!! Spent two hours of my life watching the terrible movie version, of a terrible play that I didn’t like in the first place when I read it. Oh well, at least I didn’t have a seminar afterwards. Went to my meeting about the volunteer beach clean trip. Instead of Morecambe Bay, it’s been moved to Fleetwood Beach, which is about an hour closer by. My Swiss friend Lea, who I met at ECU, is going to come too. We leave at 9, get there at 11, clean the beach for about 3 hours, have some tea and biscuits, head to Blackpool for lunch and pub stop (these Brits can’t have a field trip without a pub stop), and then back to MMU. Most importantly, I get to mark off another place on the map. Oh yeah. Had a cheese and onion pie for lunch today. These people don’t seem to put nice sweet fruity things in their pies. No, its more like meat and potatoes, steak and kidney, lamb mince, or even chicken curry in pie form. Well despite it’s strangeness, they’re actually rather nice. We made such a nice dinner tonight. Cooked up some beans, a yellow pepper and an onion, chopped up fresh lettuce and tomato, boiled some brown rice and then stirred in some enchilada sauce. Then we took all that and put it in tortillas (yeah, we actually found tortillas here), and we had some veggie burritos. I think just about every meal could use some more tomato and bell peppers. After reading my friend’s blog I am so motivated to go run tomorrow. Korie is from ECU as well, and studying abroad in Finland. Apparently he has to run in sub zero temperatures, and it gets so cold that the sweat freezes to his body whilst his eyelids stick together! Well if he can handle that, I figure I can handle a “balmy,” 35-degree jog around the park. Alexandra park, right across the street, even has a 5K run the first Sunday of every month, so perhaps training for one of those will motivate me. Word of a free t-shirt will get me to do just about anything. February 10th I ran today!!!! Hooray! I think this 5K business really will motivate me. Ran for like 15 minutes, realized “man this is pretty hard” so I walked for 5, then I ran another 5 minutes home. Although my eyelids weren’t frozen together, the little duck pond was and in the peaceful early morning you could hear the ice crackling away as the geese and swans passed through. Then, it started to snow!!! What a day to start my running! It was a pretty nice jog, even if I’m terribly out of shape. Once you get going, it doesn’t seem so cold anymore. Safety tip: Carry some ID on you, especially if you might be in a foreign country, and perhaps no one knows that you went out on a jog. This will be helpful in identifying your unconscious body if someone finds you on the ground for whatever reason. A cell phone isn’t a bad idea either. This all seems like common sense, and it is, but it becomes even more important when you are abroad and away from your doctor, bank, parents, or others who would normally help you if you’re mugged, attacked, or ill or something. Even the British dogs here are polite and reserved. I have yet to see any dog on a leash; they all just kind of chill next to their owner. No dogs chased me, barked at me, or even so much as looked at me awkwardly. Seems really odd, since I’m used to my dog flying off the leash and chasing everything in sight. Marcus took us out to the Man. City stadium, but they stopped selling tickets about 15 minutes before we got there. Bollocks! Oh well, we took some good pictures and Megan bought a jersey. I think there are even some better games coming up in the future, so this may actually turn out to be a good thing after all. Went to ASDA again, came back with zero, count ‘em, zero canned foods. Oh yeah, look whose cooking now. “Finns to the left, Finns to the right”, the Finnish girls threw a party tonight and that was a lot of fun. They spent all day cooking traditional snacks, and even had loads of local candy and bread shipped in. They spent such a long time getting everything together I really hoped they’d get a nice turnout. Most of the hall spent the night stuffing themselves full of Finnish treats, and it was pretty good time. February 12th Despite my aching bones and muscles I dragged myself out of bed for another run today; gotta remember to stretch next time. Was greeted by the melancholy English rain for all my efforts. Bunch of guys were having a rugby match so I got to see some parts of that sadistically painful sport. All I know about it now is that it looks a lot like American football, except the players are tougher and hit even harder even without the protection of pads and helmets. Made some breakfast burritos with our left over tortillas from the other night. Megan calls it papas con huevos, which, if I spelled it right, is Spanish for potatoes with eggs. A few scrambled eggs, some fried potatoes, stuff it in a tortilla; it was beautiful. Wish I had an extra pepper and some Texas Pete lying around. Spent the rest of my lazy Sunday working on standard deviations and making a PowerPoint. Not everyday abroad is completely full of excitement. February 13th Woke up at 7 am for the most boring lecture of my life. The poor guy giving it was a still a student going for his PhD, so he was kind of new at this teaching stuff. He also seemed kind of new at the English language, which does not make for an interesting lecture to attend. He couldn’t even pronounce diabetes, and that’s what the friggin’ lecture was on! If I here the word “dishtahbes” one more time, I’m going to shoot my own face off! Then everyone in the class buggered off for the next lecture, presumably because we have a presentation the period right after that, and they needed to start and or finish theirs. So with a whopping total attendance of 3, no I didn’t leave a number out, just 3, we sat and watched a video on homeopathy, which I learned is a load of bollocks. You can always tell when your lecturers are tired/lazy/have something better to do because they will just throw a video in and do whatever they want. So instead of taking about 30 seconds and explaining what homeopathy is and that it’s a load of bollocks, I had to waste an hour of my life sitting in those God-forsaken uncomfortable torture devices the English call chairs learning all about something that is completely untrue. Then after this class we had our much-anticipated PowerPoint presentations. Back at ECU, I was told that presentations were a really big deal overseas, and that I should be extremely professional when presenting, but apparently none of the Brits got that info. First up was Mumbles McNoSpeak, who is always fun to try and listen to because he likes to mutter to those imaginary dwarves that are sitting on top of his shoes, but never makes any contact with the people in the audience. Then you have your classic Ms. Obviously Copy and Pasted, who put entire pages of information just thrown right into their “brief synopsis” of a PowerPoint. My personal favorite is Mr. What We Needed To Put This In PowerPoint? Yes, actually we do have to put this on PowerPoint; perhaps the name of the assignment, “POWERPOINT PRESENTATION”, would have tipped you off to this well concealed factoid. The worst part of it all was that not only was our lecturer filling out our grade sheets the entire time, but also then she read them aloud to you whilst you were still up on stage for everyone to hear. These people were just demolished; it was like watching a car wreck. Well after a crowd like this I wouldn’t have much to worry about, except for impressing the incredibly tough professor. 17 slides later… “Well…Greg…that was… Perfect, exactly what I’m looking for.” WOW, I almost peed myself senseless I was so happy. That wasn’t what I was expecting at all. The usually apathetic class even paid attention and clapped for me at the end. Take THAT, supposedly “harder” British education system! Then I had my Art, Ideology, and Propaganda class. This class is a special form of torture because not only do I know nothing of art, ideology, or propaganda, we often read books about issues that happened in America and then I’m expected to know everything about it. I usually leave the lecturer rather unimpressed. “Greg, what was the Great Depression like in the states?” “Huh? Oh depression right. Uhhhhh well considering I wasn’t alive 70 odd years ago, I don’t really know, but I gather it was rather…depressing.” Today I actually had a decent answer, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t believe me because of my excellent track record. “Greg, describe US imperialism with the Philippines in 1899.” “Welllllllllll…. we conquered them in 1899…” “Yes, I’ve gathered that much. Wasn’t it with the Spanish American War?” “Err… not quite, that would involve something Spanish, like Cuba. We took over the Philippines because Senator Dole wanted to farm pineapples and sugar over there. So we thought it would be a good idea to steal some tropical land, because we’re American, and we need our sugar, dammit” “Uh, huh. Right, sure he did. But wasn’t it the Spanish American War?” “No sir. Cuba is Spanish, the Philippines are Fillipino, not Spanish.” This repartee went on for a while; I still don’t think he got it. Cooked an awesome stir-fry for dinner. Fresh carrots, broccoli, red and yellow peppers, parsnips, onion, bamboo sprouts, and chicken served over brown rice with a lovely coconut cream, spring onion, and lime sauce. I really am enjoying this cooking and I don’t think I can go back to ECU dorm life. After living much more independently this term I think it may be time to move on to an apartment. Oooh, maybe I’ll get a dog. Ok, have to waste time thinking about this for a while, goodnight. February 14th Happy Valentine’s Day Everybody!!! Yes, we have it here in England too. I think spring is on it’s way. Today was the first day I could leave my wooly coat home when I went to uni. Maybe I’m just getting accustomed to the climate here, but I don’t find myself shivering in the shower, and I’ve stopped sleeping in a sweater and sweatpants. Hooray sun! I was the good boyfriend I was supposed to be and was already prepared for V-day with a nice little MMU teddy bear (an overpriced teddy bear at that!), but I still felt like I needed something else. Megan loves flowers, but I, and I think most guys are with me on this, hate buying flowers. Guys like to spend money on things with a purpose: a nice dinner and chocolates fulfills the eating need, clothes are something you can wear, and a DVD is entertaining; but flowers?! What the hell do flowers do? Sure they look nice, but after about a week they die. You wouldn’t spend money on a CD that started skipping after only seven days! But here’s the rub; this is exactly why girls like flowers, because they know their man loves them a lot when he can bring himself to just throw money away that could be spent on something nicer, something with a purpose. And I’m not a totally unromantic grouch, I’ve bought many a bouquet of flowers, but I just felt that was bit unoriginal and pointless today. However, I still had no other ideas; until I received an e-mail from the heavens. The Avett Brothers have added a surprise extra date to their tour in Raleigh NC about ten days after we get back to the states. Hallelujah! What a great idea, and a great way to reinitiated to the country. So I bought two tickets online, printed them out, and stuck them in Megan’s lovely card. I had also arranged to have dinner at this cute little Italian place, Bella Roma, near Piccadilly. You know, dinner by candle light, some Italian love songs, a little red-wine; nicey nice right? Well no, not exactly. So we get there, and the place is perfect; nice cozy little setting, Italian decorations, those little wine bottles with the melted candle stuck on top, Italian staff, and they even had those dudes that come by and say “Ayyyy, buya rosa for the lady. No?”. So the place was perfect and the food was delicious, wine was great (not that I know much about wine anyways), real home made southern Italian stuff. So I finished first, and then, the poor waitress, who was obviously on her first shift ever, made the fatal error of cleaning up my dishes and silverware, before Megan had been finished. This sent the manager, Giovanni Assholeini, into a tirade. He stomps over, and berates this poor girl for being so “unprofessional and rude”. The veins on his thick Italian neck are just about to burst with rage. And you must remember, Megan and I hardly know which fork to use with the salad, much less that the removing of someone’s empty dishes was an unprofessional action. So we make those faces at each other people make when their in public, but can’t speak aloud, you know, eyes bulging, eyebrows arched, what the hell is going on here kind of look. Apparently Assholeini has eyes in the back of the head and sees Megan making her “What the hell is going on look”: “Heeyyaa, whatsa matter you? You gotta probalem, you talka to me. You don’t gotta makea no facea. Eeef your girlfriend or whatever she eess gotta problem, you just letta me know, likea man, eh? No makea da face.” (Not being disrespectful to my Italian brethren, but this is how the guy talked) I also need to point out that the guy only addressed me, he never spoke to Megan. Maybe its some chauvinistic Italian custom not to talk to another man’s lady friend, I don’t know. (Rather shocked) “Err.. no sir. There’s no problem. Everything’s delicious, thank you.” “That’sa right. Of course eet ees.” And then not so quietly, spat underneath his breath, “Bafongoul!” Now, you see, I have Italian ancestry, and I come from a long line of muttering Bafongoulers. My dear, sweet Grandmother is probably the best among them. I know what bafongoul means, and it ain’t exactly nice either. So now I’m kind of pissed because our Valentine’s dinner has been rather spoiled, by this thick bull of a man, and Megan is pissed because she was just confused, and Assholeini is pissed because he’s got a “stupid” waitress, and an ungrateful customer. Maybe this is why he comes back for more. “You steeel upset, eh? (Practically shouting, veins popping out everywhere. He looks like an bull just waiting to gore someone to death.) Why you so upset, I try to helpa you. She takea the spoon, how you supposed to eat dessert? (I guess the fact that she could simply bring the spoon back was lost on him, or even to curse her out in the office, not in front of the dining public in a rather intimate joint) “Thank you for the spoon, sir. Now if you could PLEASE just let us enjoy our meal, thank you. He leaves, then he comes back, then he leaves. We go through this at least three more times. I’m getting kind of angry, which is a lot for me, because I’m usually your mild mannered daily reporter type. He’s still asking about our “probalem”, but not to be the helpful manager, rather just to bully us around. Mind you there are other customers around whose meals are also being disturbed by this raving maniac. The last time he comes he leaves on this note: “Anda, I needa dees table for 7, so hurry up, eh?” So we’re paying for the meal, which wasn’t cheap either, and he comes back yet again, not really asking us if we have a problem and how he could fix it, but rather berating us for being unhappy with is aggressive anger. Then I slam the money on the table, shove back my chair, and stand up to leave. Suddenly, the big, angry, hard charging, don’t take no shit from anybody Italian Stallion, Assholeini realizes that he’s pissed someone off, and this someone is actually quite a bit larger than him as well. I’ve never thought of myself as physically intimidating before, but he certainly changed his tune when I stood up and glared down at him from about two feet over his head. This guy was tiny! All of a sudden he was Mr. Nice Guy: “So, you really hada no probalem with da meal.” “No sir (I still don’t know why I am trying to be polite to the server, instead of him being polite to me, but I was) The only problem with the meal was YOU! Come on Megan, we’re leaving.” (I thought that was nice alpha male touch there.) And with that left Assholeini behind, quivering something about “coma backa and see us again” and with his hands out, waiting to be shaken in friendship. They never were. Megan slammed the door so hard she nearly cracked the stained glass inside it. What the hell was that about? I thought the customer was always right, and that we were supposed to be treated with respect, even if the customer is rude and obnoxious, which I assure you, we weren’t . Well Megan and I vented our anger on the bus ride home, and we left all those feelings behind. Megan loved her presents, and we had a lovely rest of the night. It may not have been a perfect Valentine’s Day, but it was certainly exciting and eventful. I’m really proud of the way we (particularly me) stood up to this bully of a host, and I feel like I’ve accomplished something with my personal character. February 15th Well with all the excitement of yesterday, I forgot to tell you what Megan got me for the big day. I got a really cool Man. City baseball cap, and a not so cool book. Its called “A Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit-down: The Complete History of British Tea and Biscuits.” No joke. I got a book on tea and biscuits. Not a short picture book to flip through, not an interactive book to mark of which ones I’ve tried; no, a 200 page chronicle of tea and biscuits. Tea and biscuits…right. I know I told her I wanted something British to remind me of my time here, but a 200-page saga of tea and biscuits? Honestly!? So how did I react to this “lovely” surprise? “Oh, it’s a book…cool. The Complete History of British Tea and Biscuits? Hmm…. 200 pages you say? That’s quite a history…. Who knew there was so much info on biscuits? …. wow…. Say, did I mention how awesome this hat is?!?! Quick lets try it on” Luckily, she still hadn’t opened her presents yet, so I could distract her with those before my obvious disappointment set in. Between that and my overzealous hat celebration, I don’t think she noticed. I will have to find a way to return this. And see, I can’t even be upset with her because she really thought it out too. I DO like tea, I DO like biscuits, and I DO like to read. So, logically, at least to Megan anyways, this was the perfect gift. Its just that I like to EAT the tea and biscuits, not read about them. Oh man… what am I gonna do here? Well I had a pretty crappy day of work, and study, and long bus rides, so I was kind of depressed by the time I got home. But what do I find at my arrival at the dorm, but a package! A PACKAGE! From home!!! Hooray! Oh, you have no idea how happy this package made me. I got a card from all of my family, a nice little letter from my sister and some art, Reese’s Valentine’s Hearts, a box of valentines day chocolate, strawberry Peeps, those tiny little Brach’s candy hearts, 2 giant boxes of homemade cookies and brownies, some clothes (although this is probably the last thing I needed it still made me happy), some vitamins to stave off malnutrition (I requested this back when the cooking wasn’t so up to par), local comic strips, and a couple of other things too. My mom even put in some nice warm pajamas and an “American” Coca-cola t-shirt for Megan. How nice. Between the excitement of the package, and the party the other kids in the building through (today starts their “reading week”, i.e. no classes), I didn’t really accomplish much that night, but it was definitely worth it. 2 comments|post comment

Week 5 [09 Feb 2006|02:19pm] [ mood | pleased ] Hey!!! Here's week 5: February 2nd - 8th. Time is just flying by here. Be sure to check with your financial aid advisor about using the Gilman Foundation for a study abroad grant. February 2nd I was so right about me and Potato Man. I wore my Man. City Football scarf again, and he was well excited to see me. I ordered a cottage cheese and butter potato (AMAZING), and he spent like ten minutes just talking to me about Man. City. He even sang the “Blue Moon” anthem. According to him, the new stadium is nice, but lost all of the charisma and spirit the smaller joint had. He’s a really nice guy, and just between you and me, I’m pretty sure I got a whole extra helping of cottage cheese on that potato. We’re practically best mates now. In my haste to get on a bus today, I wasn’t very observant about which bus to get on, and 15 minutes later I found myself in the Chorlton side of Manchester. Well I just kept my nerves under control and asked the bus driver where to catch another bus headed towards Piccadilly, figuring if I could get there, I could definitely find home alright. As luck has it, I found not just a bus, but THE bus I needed, so everything turned out ok. I even got home in time for dinner. I know there are worse things in the world to be on the wrong bus, but it can be pretty scary when you look out the window and don’t recognize a single thing. Just don’t panic, like Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that is the number one rule. This is also where a universal bus pass comes in handy; imagine if I got off the bus in Chorlton without any money left for a ride home! Getting a bit more elaborate with our cooking. Cooked up a red bell pepper, an onion, and a tomato to through in our weekly staple, rice and beans. Step by step we’re getting a bit more professional. Found out about the international society here. Their little pamphlet describes loads of little day and weekend trips for a much cheaper price I think. I’m really excited about it, I hope its not too late to sign up. I’m particularly interested in the weekend trips to Edinburgh and Bath with a visit there to Stonehenge. Its too bad the international office here didn’t really provide any information on this stuff (like ECU would’ve), and we had to hear about it from word of mouth and find out everything on our own. February 3rd Today Megan, me, and a Finnish friend of ours made it to the International Office and joined the International Society for only 10 pounds. That’s the good news, bad news is most of the overnight trips we wanted are already filled to capacity. Grrr… However, we are like first alternates on the Bath/Stonehenge trip and we’ll find out about that Monday. Lesson here, don’t waste time! Once you here about something, get to where you need to be and do it! (Especially when you’re only in the country for 4 months. Here are our travel plans as they stand right now: day trip to Lake Windermere (supposedly the biggest lake in Europe) where we can climb up a mountain overlooking all of the natural beauty of the Lake District, overnight to Bath/Stonehenge (keep your fingers crossed), day visit to seaside Blackpool which is filled with thrill rides and games, day trip to North Wales and the Island Anglesey which has been designated a “national beauty”, day visit to Castle Howard and Knaresborough which is an “old school” English village. We’re also planning a day trip of our own to Liverpool on our own since we missed the “official” one. I don’t know if we’ll have enough free time (or money) after the term ends here to travel around Europe, but we hope to get across Britain reasonably well while we’re over here. If you are one of these people that has more time and money than we do, then you should definitely plan on going to Europe while you’re already over here. Since you’re already so close, you can get flights extremely cheap. I saw a ticket to Rome for only 32 pounds, and a round trip to France for 25 quid! Some people can waste that much a night out in the bars, so really think about what you want to do with your money. Had a packet of Mango Chutney and Cheese Crisps for lunch today. They’re actually very tasty. One of my goals here is to try all the crazy chip flavors that we don’t have in America, not a very impressive goal I know, but its just one amongst many. Megan and I made BLT’s for dinner with English bacon (obviously). The only reason I mention this is because the bacon here is different. Its much meatier, and there is a lot less fat. It’s more like country ham than the bacon we’re used to in the states. I think I actually like this one a bit more, because its not like 85% fat I’m shoving into my face. English Bacon February 4 I’m finding it hard to sit down and concentrate on my studying knowing that there is a whole city out there for me to explore, but just because its difficult to do does not mean I am not doing it. I have my first test Monday, and am trying really hard to prepare for that as I here that the bar is set a little higher here for good grades. However, because my actual grades don’t actually transfer in, I only have to get a C to qualify for a pass. A grade of C here in England is only 40%, but remember its supposed to be a harder 40% to earn. I’ve made a “To Do” list of things I want to do whilst in the country. Its purpose is not to necessarily accomplish everything on the list, but rather just as much as possible. Its really helpful, because I don’t find myself sitting here wishing I had something to do, I just check the list for something I haven’t accomplished yet, and go out and do it. This is really helpful, with such a relatively short time in the country. Went to the British Art Show back at the Urbis museum. This art event happens only happens every five years, and about ten museums or galleries take place showing different works across the city. Fittingly they displayed modern art in the ultramodern Urbis museum. Was tempted to do my best Godzilla impersonation and run rampant through the modern architecture models they had sprawled across the floors, but decided that being pummeled by the army of art guys with thick Rivers Cuomo glasses and soul patch goatees probably wasn’t worth it. Although I probably didn’t get the deeper meaning of all this modern stuff, it all looked very nice and was interesting to observe. Went out for fish and chips today; proper fish and chips this time, not that frozen crap they dish out at The Footage. We figured since the place was actually called “Fish and Chips”, we couldn’t go wrong. Oh, they were delicious. Hot, fresh, covered in salt and vinegar, and wrapped up in newspaper. It was fantastic; the batter had to be at least half an inch thick as well. It was so good I didn’t even mind the grease dripping down my chin. Can’t actually eat in the Fish and Chips place so we went to the neon garden that is China Town, and ate under a traditional styled Chinese gazebo. Walking into China Town is like entering another world. The hustle and noise of the city and traffic subsides into the background as you walk under a heavily decorated Chinese temple/alter thing. The trees are covered in Christmas lights, and every building is outlined in bright neon lights advertising casinos, all you can eat buffets, massages, and discount goods. We’ll definitely have to make another trip to explore all that China Town has to offer. We managed to get most of the gang gathered at Ross’s tonight to hang out. Tried some of Ramsay’s absinthe, and I actually quite like it (maybe a little too much actually). It tastes like liquorice candy, which makes it way too easy to drink more than you should with an alcohol percentage of 57%. The girls wanted a night out of dancing, and they led the way to a club called Baa Bars, unbeknownst to us located in the gay village. The bright rainbow painted walls tipped us off. In “the village” as its known there are varying levels of clubs. Some are just for men, and some just for women these are obviously gay bars, and the bouncers won’t let you in if you don’t fit the criteria. However, there are some places that although still technically “gay bars”, just because of their location in the village, let anyone who wants to have a good time in whether you’re gay, straight, lesbian, celibate, or whatever. This bar, fortunately, was one of the latter. The place was actually pretty cool: free entry, 1 pound flavored shots, loads of girls, and good music. It wasn’t like the stereotypical scene of all dudes and transvestites (although I did spot a couple). Because I’ve kept an open mind I had a good time and can now I’ve been to a gay bar and survived. We left there after a while and went to a part of town called Deansgate Locks. “The Locks” has about 6 bars and clubs in a little row situated over a canal. We ended up at another Baa Bar, but this one was more orientated for straight people, so we (the guys) were a bit more comfortable. Saw a girl take a nasty spill down the stairs, a result of too much to drink and high heel shoes. She was ok at the time, but we spotted her being carried out by bouncers about an hour later. Finished up the night with sharing pizza and cheesy chips. I also got lots of practice hailing a taxi, as we tried for about 15 minutes to flag one down. Although Oxford Road is the busiest bus route in Europe, not one of those hundreds of buses runs to my dorm after midnight! I feel so bad for the cabbies; they’re usually foreign dudes just trying to get by in the country, have a thankless but desperately needed job, work terrible hours in nasty parts of town, and have to worry about drunken students jumping out in front of their cab. Next time you get a cab spread a little love and leave a small tip, it’s a small gesture that means a lot. February 6th Mmmmmmmmmmmmonday. Excited? You know it. Well I had my first test today. It wasn’t very different at all from what we got at ECU. It was even multiple choice, which I was told is a pretty rare find everywhere but America. I guess at ECU you’d call this a mildly difficult test, whilst here its probably just standard. To get the C I need, I have to earn only a 60%, which shouldn’t be very hard to do at all. At ECU, you just get up and leave whenever you finish you’re test, but no, not here. When the lecturer says you have 45 minutes to take the test, you better use those 45 minutest to take the damn test. Even if you finish 20 minutes early, you sit there, and act like you’re still taking the test, until he takes it up. Leave it to me not to know this routine and walk around like a dumb ass looking for somewhere to turn my test in. Oy. Had a coleslaw baked potato for lunch today, which was good although not as nice as the cottage cheese one. Also had a Crunchy, which is a honeycomb chocolate covered candy bar. These people at Cadbury are my heroes; I’m not even really into candy and I can’t get enough of this stuff. And you’d think the Brits would appreciate their local stuff, but no! They want me to score them a giant stash of Hershey bars, ranch dressing, Lucky Charms, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. And that’s just the list right now. I did see a small box of Lucky Charms in Sainsbury’s but it was 6 pounds!!! And who would’ve thought something as simple as ranch dressing would be such a hot commodity? Perhaps I’ll start my own black market here in the dorm: “Pssst….yo…..word on the street is you need a ranch fix”. My art lecture was actually pretty interesting today. We talk about literature of the Industrial Revolution like Charles Dickens’ Hard Times, and George Orwell’s Road to Wigan Pier, which actually takes place in the 1930’s but cover the same subjects. Both authors were trying to bring attention to the plight of the poor worker, abandoned without any social assistance. No welfare, no health care, no social security, no NOTHING. If you didn’t work, you didn’t eat, and that was it. Manchester was the heart of the England’s industrial revolution, the world’s first, so I got to learn a lot about my city. Karl Marx and his German pal whose name I can’t ever remember, were inspired to write The Communist Manifesto after observing the deplorable working and living conditions here in the city. Elizabeth Gaskell lived about 10 minutes up the road from uni, and set her famous novel North and South, here in Manchester. It deals with the same issues, but also focuses on the rivalry between North (industrial laborers, miners, and dirt poor) and South (business men, educated men, general white collar “posh” folks) that existed at the time. You still see some evidence of that divide today. Any of those books would be useful to learn a little about Northwest England and even Manchester during the industrial revolution, but remember, its all much nicer now. Signed up for my lake Windermere trip today, but unfortunately no spots were left on the Bath/Stonehenge trip. Oh well. I was pretty disappointed at first, but I try to remember that just leaves me more time and money to check out other spots. February 7th Ahhhh….. today the new Avett Brothers CD comes out, and the chance of me actually finding one here is slim to none. The Avett Brothers are quite possibly the best band ever, and listening to their NC bluegrass (some say New-grass, some say Piedmont stomp and roll) always reminds me of home in this cold, windy city. These Mancunians probably think bluegrass is just something you roll up and smoke. Anyways, you guys go out and buy the new album, Four Thieves Gone, in my place. Speaking of home, the big Duke v. Carolina game is tonight. I hope my Blue devils are stomping a giant mud hole in UNC right about now. Aww, now I feel homesick. Watching Duke games with the TV turned up too loud, and my dad turned up even louder is kind of a tradition. And according to Dad there is always some kind of mass conspiracy against Duke: the ref is a Carolina alumni so he didn’t call that foul, ESPN doesn’t show any replays of Duke, al-Quaida has been secretly drugging JJ Reddick’s Gatorade, whatever; its always something. Well that used to bother me back home, but no I kind of miss it. (Wonder if he misses me telling him to be quiet so we can actually watch the friggin’ game!) Go Duke! Signed up for the trip to Blackpool today. Blackpool is a seaside city that is just chock full of theme parks, thrill rides, boardwalks by the beach, fresh (right out of the ocean kind of fresh) fish and chips, and all kinds of fun things to do, so that should be a really good time. Had some steak flavored crisps today. These things taste just like steak too, its insane! This is must be where all of Britain’s top scientists are going. “So Nigel, you’ve gotten you PhD in biology, what are you going to do, cure cancer, put an end to AIDS, clone human embryos?’’ “Err… no actually, its always been my dream to take flavors that nature absolutely did not intend to be in fried potato form and well… put them there.” Well to all you “Nigels” out there, on behalf of mankind, I congratulate you. You picked the right job. Went to ASDA today, and we moved around like pros despite the five o’ clock rush. I may have said this before, but I really do like grocery shopping. It is one of the few activities where I can be cheap, organized, and healthy all at the same time. Found the buy one get one free section on meats; my father, the king of buy one get one free, would be so proud. “Oooh, buy one get one free! Lets get six!” is his personal creed. Despite all the new groceries, our cupboard still looked bare and I finally figured out why: less canned food! We’re getting so much better at this cooking business, even moved on to cooking fresh veggies. We actually eat pretty healthy here in the dorm; fruits, veggies, wheat bread, tuna, whole grain rice and pasta, lots of beans, porridge oats, yogurt, and tea are all extremely good for you, and make up our weekly staples. We actually have cook real meals as opposed to the frozen pizzas and noodles most everyone else subsists on. February 8th Ugh. Very tired after a long day of class. Lots to do: new practical to write up, a PowerPoint to make and present, two 3,000 word essays I really need to start planning before they sneak up on me, a video I need to watch for one of the essays, poetry to read, pushups to do and a blog to blog. Not to mention exploring the country and having fun. My practical lab went much better today. The cranky teacher and his little henchwoman were there again, but now that I know what to expect from the lab and from them, I can handle everything a bit better. Basically this lecturer just wants to finish up and get the hell out, he doesn’t seem to care about your feelings either. He’ll answer your questions, but he’ll roll his eyes, act like you should already know the answer, and then be pissy about it. The best part is when he gets short with people for answering the questions wrong, and then gets mad because there is no class participation. Last week he had me kind of depressed, but now that I know he’s an ass to everyone, and not just me, I don’t really care. Since I’m going into nursing, and I’ll be dealing with lots of snooty doctors (certainly not implying that all dr.’s are jerks), and snippy patients I need to get used to these ass-holey kinds of folks sooner than later. Had some prawn salad flavored crisps today. Probably the best so far. Don't actually know how prawn salad is supposed to taste though... So that was my day, exciting I know. Staying up till 3am studying now. See yas. 4 comments|post comment

Week Four [02 Feb 2006|02:31pm] [ mood | relaxed ] Here is week four January 25th – February 1st. Wow, a whole month in already! Check out the Gilman Foundation’s website http://www.iie.org//programs/gilman/index.html to see if you’re eligible for financial aid to study abroad. $$$$$ = Good. Gilman = $$$$. Therefore, Gilman = Good too! January 25th Now that I have a lab, my Wednesdays last from 9am to 7:30 at night. That’s not counting waking up, eating, and bus time. I miss not having class and just wandering aimlessly throughout the city. Sprung for chips with mozzarella chips melted over them. Oh, the things these people do with fries! And people actually make fun of English food! Almost decided against going to the chippy, (a place that sells fries/chips), but I’m pretty sure this homeless guy was following me. He slowed down, sped up, and crossed the street with me, so it was kinda scary. If I’m going to get mugged, first I’m going to eat my chips, dammit! My lab was…aggravating. I couldn’t sign on to the computer for some reason, so I ask for help. Big mistake. “Have you put your password in there?” (Uhhh, yeah. I do this like 10 times a day. Thank you very much) “Yes” “And it’s the right one?” (NOPE, you got me! I thought it was wrong password day! The one and only day of the year where you just put whatever you want in there and it works out hunky dory!) “Yes” “Well try again.” These are the people teaching me?! Something isn’t working and I should just keep beating my head against the wall doing the same thing?! Especially when I HAVE been trying for like ten minutes now! Why did I bother in the first place? I just move to another computer, and it works out fine. Stupid British technology So then, I notice my wallets missing. Why, because Einstein over there wanted me to really REALLY inspect my password so I took it out for a look. Fun stuff. So, I’m patting myself down like cops on a drug search, and basically tearing my little section apart. My money, debit card, student ID, and bus pass are all in there; my life basically. If that goes, I’m rather screwed. Meanwhile, another lecturer comes in and is getting the class started and explaining everything. Good, good, way to start off right here Greg. The computer guy thinks I’m an idiot, the class thinks I really enjoy patting my ass, and the professor thinks I’m un-prepared. Excellent. Well right now I’m a little too distracted to care what they think, or what he has to say. I find it under a keyboard, thank God. So now that I’m completely lost, I ask for help again. I get the professor and his little teaching assistant. I should’ve learned the first time. “Sorry about missing that, but can you just tell me where to click to get started?” “What!?” (What am I doing? Speaking Chinese here?) “How do I get started? I can figure the rest out myself.” Remember those professors I said were so nice and helpful? He isn’t one of them. With this question, the professor rolls his eyes and walks away. This is the guy I asked for help about my presentation before, and he wasn’t so great then either. I notice the Timberland boots he’s wearing never have any mud on them, and he’s probably just trying to seem taller. Perhaps the stick up his ass is meant to add a few inches too. So his little TA chick gets me started and I’m well on my way. It’s a rather elementary program about neurons actually, something like you’d find in high school. Especially a high school that doesn’t have the money to do real tests on real nerves, so you settle for this virtual simulation piece of crap. Ms. TA lapdog comes by to check up on us. TA: So are you managing all right? BRAIN: Doing a bit more than just managing thank you very much. MOUTH: Just redoing this part ‘cuz I’m pretty sure I did it wrong the first time” TA: Well, why’d you do it wrong? BRAIN: I dunno, maybe if I knew it was wrong, I wouldn’t have done it this way in the first place, you stupid bitch! MOUTH: I dunno… TA: Well everyone else has 45 for their values and YOU only have 2! MOUTH: Like I said, I did it wrong. (That’s a bit better mouth, good job) TA: Well you shouldn’t have done it wrong! BRAIN: Do you hate everyone, or is it just me? America maybe? You’ll make a great teacher some day, with your students knowing how wrong they are all the time. MOUTH: “I know, that’s why I’m DOING…IT… AGAIN.” (All right, good compromise brain and mouth) I think she can see that I’m getting a bit pissed off, and that she is being a bit of an asshole, but of course she can’t admit that to a student, so she just walks away. Good, I know what I’m doing now and don’t need her anyway. She’ll probably have a stimulating evening of watching Big Brother, and telling her cat that she is purring wrong. Lesson here: I will not let myself be belittled and spoken to that way again. Even by Dr. Short stuff and his sidekick Captain Constructive Criticism. They can piss off. January 26th Woke up very sick and very filled with snot today. This whole week has been kind of crappy. Maybe this is my “week of depression” they said everyone experiences at orientation. This is the week where everything goes wrong, and you want to go home. Well it hasn’t been THAT bad, but it hasn’t exactly been great either. Went to city center to look for a present for my sister, but had no such luck. She’d go nuts here with all the shopping she could do. Went to a German grocery store near the Curry Mile (how diverse!) called LIDL. Its too far away to do regular shopping, but the place has really good deals. Too bad I don’t know what most of the stuff is; maybe I should learn some German. Megan bought me a foot long hotdog at the potato stand today, which was really nice of her. She’s been looking after me since I’ve been sick, and it’s been a big help. Hotdogs here are more like a brat-worst than the hot dogs we’re used to at home. Still delicious though. Went home and she went to rest for a bit. Aha! My chance has arrived. Megan is kind of bossy in the kitchen, and gets to do all the fun stuff. I usually end up with the jobs like opening cans, or putting the plates out. Sometimes, if I’m really nice, I get to help drain something. I like to cook, and it’s really frustrating because I never get to do anything. (Personally, I think I could do a better job than her, but that’s another conversation). So, I’m doing great. My pastas boiling, the sauce is heating up, the veggies are chopped. Fantastic. Then, she wakes up, and proceeds to take over. All hell breaks loose. She dumps all the rest of the pasta in, yeah, all of it, enough for four people. The pots not that big either, so we have pasta spilling out everywhere, we aren’t going eat all this, and I hate wasting things so I’m ready to just jump out the window here. Now, I can’t even mix the sauce in, because A) there is too much pasta in the way, and B) Megan will probably do it! I was doing sooooooo good. And she ruined it! Ahhhhhhhhhh! Not only was my job taken away from me; she stole it AND did a bad job cooking it. It gets better. Then, she drinks all the milk. And there was loads left too. She just drank it! Didn’t ask if I wanted some, didn’t save any, didn’t care, she just drank it. Grrrrrrr! So now I have to make it through breakfast, tea, lunch, and some more tea without milk. This normally is not a big deal. But I guess this is the depressing week from hell, and everything is just piled on top of everything else, and…it just plain sucks. January 27th Oh man. I’m so tired. Waited in line for ten minutes with the cold wind and rain for the cash machine, only to find out they had no money left. This is still better than getting up there and finding out I have no money left, so I’m taking this as a bonus. Went to drama today and realized I didn’t read a play I should have for class today. Whoops. Well it wasn’t even on the reading list, so I don’t know how everyone else knew what to do. Good news though, my lecturer lost her voice so I only had one out of three hours of class today!!! That also means I didn’t have to discuss the play I didn’t read. Excellent. Things are looking up for Greg. Will have to be more on the ball next week. Met up at Ramsay’s flat around three for the drive to Nottingham. His Dad, Mohammed, is originally from Iraq, and has been a doctor here for quite a while. Short and stocky like Ramsay, he is darker and bigger. Some might say he is the human Iraqi version of Fred Flintstone. We drove on the M6 from Manchester through Birmingham all the way to Nottingham. It was about a 2-hour drive, but that’s with a Friday afternoon traffic. These roundabouts have discouraged me from attempting any kind of driving in the country. (Americans with a normal driver’s license can actually drive here for up to a year before getting a British license.) Passed lots of green fields, and sheep, which always reminds me that I’m England. Not that I forget, but sometimes you just get these moments like “Whoa! Dude, I’m in England. Holy Crap!” Ramsay lives in a little village just outside of Nottingham called Radcliff on Trent. Met his mother, Rona, who looks just like Ramsay’s sister Najwa. If you squint I guess you can see some Ramsay in there too. His little brother, Liam, is like a little personal pan version of Ramsay. Half the size, but twice the energy. This kid also knows everything there is to know about the Simpson’s. His mum cooked a wonderful dinner with chicken and veggies in a tomato sauce, served with rice, as well as pita bread, hummus, and cucumber sauce. And an actual salad, not just lettuce and tomatoes like in the dorm, but like with real leafy greens and what not. We had an awesome chocolate cake, with cream poured all over it, for desert. Everything was delicious, and it was so nice to sit in a real dining room and have a family sit-down dinner. Even if they’re not my family, or even American, it still reminds me of home. Mohammed seems to get Ramsay and Liam confused quite a bit, his Mum is trying to get Liam to stop talking and eat his food, and Ramsay is obviously happy to be back home and get some great food and his washing done. A homecoming is pretty much the same everywhere I guess. Watching The Simpsons was a nice touch of home too. January 28th I woke up today with the sun shining over another one of those green pastures out my window. His family probably thought it was a bit weird to be taking pictures of the empty field in their backyard, but its very scenic. Ramsay’s mum and dad made us one of those traditional English breakfasts I’d been hankering for. I was not to be disappointed. Fried eggs (some covered in cheese, what a good idea!), sausage, bacon, black pudding, baked beans, and diced tomatoes. Mmmmmmmmm. Breakfast won’t ever be the same again. The bacon here is not nearly as fatty, so you actually get some meat to eat instead of just gristle. I think the idea here is to put a fried egg on toast, then put a little but of everything else on it too and have like an open-faced breakfast sandwich. It’s well nice. Beans and tomatoes are a nice (and healthy) addition to any meal. The term pudding is used a little loosely in this country. I have yet to see any Bill Cosby, “there’s always room for J-E-LL-O” kind of pudding, but there are random things that seem to constitute pudding here in the UK. Black pudding is oats, some wheat; pig parts (which ones? Who knows, who cares?), and the black part? That’s pig’s blood. I didn’t know that when I ate it, but it won’t deter me now. The stuff is actually quite nice. It supposedly tastes like haggis, but I compare it to a sausage without any of the spices. We rode through the village on the way to Nottingham castle, which is exactly what you’d imagine when you think “typical English village”. Passed over the River Trent for an excellent view of the countryside, and then boom, we’re standing on Maid Marian Way in front of a giant castle. Learned a lot about England and Robin Hood. Ok, so I learned A LOT about Robin Hood. My God. There sure is a lot of stuff for a dude they’re not even sure is real or not! The tour of the castle was excellent. The view at the top overlooking all of Nottingham is just amazing. There is the little village to your right, and the more developed city parts to your left; there are mountains off in the distance. Everything is covered by a thin fog, and when its reflected off the sunlight, everything is tinged in light blue. Then we went to Tales of Robin Hood. Its kind of an interactive museum all about Nottingham’s favorite son. We squeezed into this ancient cart thing and they rode us around the place, while wooden characters popped out and lectured you on Robin and his merry men. Although the place is mostly for the younger set, it was cool and we had some laughs. Then we walked around the city center and warmed up with a coffee and a pasty from Gregg’s; a little deli type place. Our pasty was delicious; imagine a flaky, handheld chicken potpie. It really warmed us up after spending all day outside in the frigid English wind. Our last landmark was Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem. This is the oldest pub in the world. Built in 1189, King Richard stopped here to recruit men to fight in the crusades. This was probably the last taste of home many crusaders had before they were slaughtered in the desert. Outside it looks like a quaint English house, but on the inside you see how the pub has been carved into the living rock that Nottingham Castle rests on. Its still rather nice, despite the fact you’re drinking in a cave. I drank the beer they actually make, also called Ye Olde Trip, and it was really good. Bitter but not overpowering. We watched some locals try to swing a ring onto a bull’s horn, an ancient pub game. Then we went bowling with the family and all their friends. Bowling is completely different when you do it with a bunch of drunken Englishmen. Thankfully, they used the gutter guards and I got my score out of the 80’s. We had dinner at a really nice restaurant in downtown Nottingham called Punchinello’s. This was a swanky kind of place, but with a friendly and casual atmosphere. Lots of good food, good drink, and good friends. By the way, our wonderful hosts paid for everything. These folks have really rolled out the red carpet for us, and I am thankful beyond words. We took the bus home from the restaurant, and it stopped right in front of Ramsay’s house. Where I’m from in America, you only find buses running through the business district or poorer parts of town where people can’t afford cars. I’ve never seen a bus in such a nice neighborhood, and with such a class of people on it. In Manchester I ride the bus with homeless people and folks that always look angry for some reason, but here I’m riding with jewelry clad women and dignified looking men carrying bottles of champagne. Well after all that, I’m absolutely knackered. Goodnite! January 29th Today we awoke to discover the grease and fat of the delicious English breakfast had been replaced with the fruit, cheese, and baguettes of a French styled one. All the food in this house is delicious. Our cooking is good too, but I don’t want to leave this wonderful hearth of palatability!!! (Thank you thesaurus for that one) Liam must think I’m really athletic or something because he gathered up all his tennis balls, his baseball bat and glove, and his American football for our trip to Sherwood Forest today. Hope I didn’t disappoint him too much. Only a half hours drive through the rolling hills of England, Sherwood Forest was the alleged home of Robin Hood and his men in tights. The even have a massive 1,000-year-old oak tree that is believed to have held his tree fort hide away. Although 80% of the place has been lost to industrialization, the forest is still massive. We even got to practice some archery, and that was pretty cool. A very Nottingham kind of thing to do I guess. I am pretty crap at archery, I hate to admit. My ancestors must’ve been farmers, because we all would have starved to death with my aiming skills. I just managed to hit the still target; imagine what hunting moving game would’ve been like! That night we had an awesome roast Sunday dinner, which is another kind of tradition. We were treated to yet another “false pudding”. Yorkshire pudding is really just a crunchy bread bowl, stuffed with whatever you want at the moment from your current meal. Very tasty, but still not pudding. After another sleepy 2-hour drive, we arrived at our dorm. Megan and I must’ve been nice guests because in the trunk we found a surprise box packed with leftovers, 8 pints of Guinness, 3 bottles of wine, and Ramsay’s own special addition a bottle of absinthe from Portugal. This absinthe is 57% alcohol, or 114 proof, and like all absinthes, is illegal in the states. I am going to have to find lots of folks to share this stuff with. Well I can’t say enough good things about Ramsay and his family. They are some of the kindest, most generous people I’ve ever met, and despite being 3,000 miles from my family I truly felt at home. They are excellent ambassadors to their country, and I hope someday to return the favor. January 30th Well its back to the daily grind for me. Realized in Art today that I should’ve read a novel for today’s lecture, but no I did not. Not that I forgot, but everything else in this class we’ve gone over were handouts delivered in class, and I thought today was going to be the same. No, it was not. I was close to skipping the seminar because I thought all we would be doing was talking about the book, I’d be totally lost, and the lecturer would be mad at me. I decided to go anyway, thinking if he wanted to be mad at me fine, at least I would show up and make an effort. Good thing I did too; we hardly talked specifically about the book, and only 4 people out of 20ish people had copies. Even the people with copies had only just started the book, and the professor was totally cool with that. Sweet! He was actually really happy to see me, because the book was set in America and he had lots of questions to ask us Yanks. In fact, the three American exchange students were the only ones participating. The class would be a lot more interesting if people would actually discuss what is going on. Had an egg barm for lunch from the potato stand. I didn’t know what a barm was, but the egg part sounded nice, and it was the cheapest thing on the menu. Its basically a fried egg sandwich, in a giant, fluffy, buttered roll. These things are great; cheap and nutritious. Now I won’t have to stress about buying lunch. January 31st I’ve spent today catching up on the study portion of this study abroad trip. I’ve read a play, completed the work for it, took some notes, fixed yesterday’s sloppy notes, read another play we’re discussing Friday, took the notes on it, studied for a plants and medicine test next week, drawn two graphs, and started two novels that we’re discussing next week in Art. Soon I’ll have to find a copy of the book I was supposed to read last week. My brain hurts. With class just being just once a week and no quizzes or tests to study for, I tend to neglect my assignments and studying more than with it being spread out 2-3 times a week. Not that I don’t get them done; just now they’re all clumped together on my free days instead of nicely spread throughout the week. You know it’s a boring day when grocery shopping is the most exciting thing. With Megan in class I went by myself and actually enjoyed the solo trip. I got to walk instead of taking the bus, found everything about 30 minutes faster, saved some money, and didn’t have to hear about how heavy all the groceries were (trust me I know how heavy they are). Megan also has this thing about not leaving the cart alone (AH! No one is going to steal your groceries, we’re in a friggin’ grocery store, they can just go down the aisle!), and some crazy rule about whoever drives the cart can’t look at the list at the same time. WHAT!? Is this too complex or something? Is she just walking down the store, face buried in her list, mumbling, “Porridge, porridge, gotta get the porridge” over and over? You can keep something in your head, whilst looking about for it right? Everyone has their own system that they don’t want messed with I guess. Got e-mail about a beach cleaning volunteer trip. It’s a pretty sweet deal: free transportation, free lunch and drinks, meet new people, do something good for the Earth, and see some of the country. I’m thinking about heading out on that, and hopefully I’ll get more info soon. Tried some of that wine we got from Ramsay’s fam. Its really nice, but kind of strong. I feel like a little siesta, except that its only 7:30pm! However, in my tipsy state I did win 6 games of solitaire in a row. Will have to try this little experiment again. Making plans with Marcus to go see a Man. City match next Sunday. My first soccer game, exciting. February 1st I really enjoy my physiology lectures, probably because I feel more at home there. These health science majors are my people. We study too much, watch the Discovery Channel, and find interest in the structure and function of hemoglobin. Nerds, my brethren. Whereas in the drama and art classes everyone is very artsy, creative, and basically everything I’m not. Sitting between Angsty, Too Many Piercings, Emo Guy and Ms. Hiking Boots with Orange Fishnets Combo, I definitely feel a little out of place. Also, the whole group has been taking classes since they were in uni while I’m just the guy with a funny accent who doesn’t know anything about the “dramatic effects of romanticism on an audience”. They are very nice people, and its good to diversify your life and learn from others, but I still feel like the odd man out. Anyway, my poor physiology lecturer was just begging for some student participation today, and if I probably would have felt bad for her if I wasn’t so sleepy. I think she is a new teacher and is very concerned with lecturing so we understand; she does things professors are supposed to do like slow down for questions, get students to participate, and relates complex ideas to real life. I give her about a month before she becomes jaded with the apathetic students and just quickly breezes through her notes like most everyone else. Thought it smelled like snow today so I took a big whiff and discovered it was just diesel bus fumes and cigarette smoke. Whoops. The potato man shouted at me today. I was a little scared because the potato man is this big, burly, Englishman who looks like he could just knock your head off just by looking at you. Imagine Tony Soprano, only English, working a potato stand. You’d be kinda scared of him too. Anyways, it was a friendly shout, because he smiled and gave a little wink after whatever he bellowed. Between his accent and my shock that the fearsome Mr. Potato was hollering at me I have no idea what he said. Maybe its because I was staring at the menu dumbfounded, “Cottage cheese on a potato??? These Brits have thought of everything, what a good idea!” and he thought I was retarded. Maybe its because I was wearing my Man. City scarf; the “team of the people” as they’re known. Perhaps he now thinks me a fellow “man of the people”, and we’re brothers of the proletariat class. Perhaps I’ll get free potatoes now in our struggle together against “The Man”. Perhaps I’ve just been doing too much Marxism in my classes, and am rather hungry. I love this place. 2 comments|post comment

week three [25 Jan 2006|11:49am] [ mood | sick ] Yo! Here is week three: January 18th through January 24th. The Gilman Foundation rocks, they gave me lots of money to be here and blog to you, be sure to check them out for study abroad info and financial aid possibilities. January 18th Ok guys, I’ve finally gotten my email validated, so now I can respond to comments and hopefully get some pictures up soon. Tried to take a different walk to class today and nearly ended up on the wrong end of the freeway! Not such a good idea. Back to regular old lecture today. Uni is still uni no matter where you go I guess. My lecturers seem pretty hopped up on “gapped notes” recently; basically they put their lecture notes up and we fill in the blanks as they talk. Maybe its just me, but I’ve been doing this since high-school. Err…what’s the big discovery here people? I’ve actually been reading my calendar wrong for physiology, I thought it contained every meeting I needed, but only today realized it was only for lecture meetings. I hope I didn’t miss any tutorials or practical. Oh well, with a little luck that should be straightened out soon. A hot potato/soup/sandwich stand has opened up next to the fruit stand on Oxford road. Of course its right between the two buildings I constantly go between. This will make it hard to save money and skip lunch. I wonder if those stand guys ever get pissed at each other… “Oy! Spud lover! Get your mingy chip fryin’ arse off my turf!” Tonight Megan and I used the George Forman Griller (yeah, they have those here!) and made cheeseburgers. Oh, they were beautiful. We really knocked the fat out, or whatever he says. Should’ve seen the grease in that tub! My arteries have been spared another day. Hopefully my morning porridge is helping too. I also tried one of those giant pint sized bottles of something called Banana Bread Beer. I know, gross right, but it sounded like a good idea in the store. Well it was rank, but being my stingy self I couldn’t bear to waste any. It’s also a pretty cool bottle. And besides, have YOU ever had banana bread beer? No, didn’t think so. I’ve been doing my pushups, crunches, and what not faithfully in my room, but I really need to start running. Perhaps tomorrow I can force myself out of my cozy bed into the harsh English elements to be healthy. We’ll just have to see. January 19th Right, so about that running business… I decided sleeping until 12 was much better for me. Lets not discuss running. Went to the post office where the people behind me got really angry when I moved up to the counter a half second too late for their liking. These city people, always in a hurry. Our halls have been redecorated so to speak. This guy a few doors down went a little overboard with his drink and decided it would be a good idea to paint giant red hearts up and down the entire hall. Its kinda nice actually, the place probably hasn’t seen a can of paint since it was built. Poor guy was out there all day trying to wipe it clean with nail polish remover, lol. Went out tonight with the Finns to the Footage. One of them is most likely an alcoholic and has to be baby sat every time, which is a right pain in the ass. I’m glad someone has the patience for it, because I sure don’t. Why should someone else waste his or her night keeping you out of trouble? Well, her “caretakers” are very nice, compassionate people and Drinky McFinn is lucky to have them around. Ramsay came down with us and we met his mate “Smokey Joe” who went to UNCG last year. Long story there. We met his American girlfriend at orientation, and it was good to talk to her a bit more. She’s from Concord and likes the Avett Brothers so she is obviously a good soul. It’s nice to hear another American accent besides Megan’s, just reminds you of home. The special of the night was vodka with redbull so I had a couple of those for only a pound. Now I’ll probably be up all night on a caffeine high, hopefully I’ll get something constructive done. January 20th Today was a fantastic day. Just amazing. Drama class wasn’t too bad. I was kind of worried because the lecturer kept referencing plays that were from last year, but I found some others who had never taken a drama course either and didn’t feel totally clueless. We got into groups for seminar and answered a sheet of questions. At least one of my guys was flamingly gay and he knew just about everything there is to know about drama. Not to say that all guys in drama are gay, or that all gay guys like drama, but this just happened to be true and I found it interesting because I don’t take all these artsy courses at ECU at don’t meet as wide a variety of people. Anyways, he was extremely helpful and I think I can figure this course out. He spotted me as an American because I have one of those invincible nalgene water bottles, and he seems to be right. I don’t see any water bottles here, or even any drinking fountains. Makes it kind of hard to stay hydrated. Went on another exploration this afternoon. Stayed straight on Oxford Road and found the massive central library and some Korean War memorials. Even just the regular buildings seemed interesting to me because the architecture is so different. Took lots of good pictures. Found a canal. Woo. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and had worked up quite the appetite. So after a half hour of furious debate I had convinced my cheap ass to spring for something on the pound savers menu at McDonald’s. The McD’s here are well nice, very clean, even a different “modernish” design it seems. So after waiting five minutes in line, smelling the heavenly greasy smell of fries and cheap burgers, I was starving. I get up there, and they don’t take debit cards! SHIT! I settled for a bag of crisps and a Coke at the student union. Not quite what I had hoped for. They have some weird crisp flavors here man: bacon, steak, and even cheese with mango chutney! The Coke definitely is sweeter here. Marcus came buy and brought us his old mini fridge and a Budweiser “remind me of America”. Now we can keep our alcohol cold, and no one will nick our cheese. We’ve already lost a plate. Who steals a bloody plate, just use it and put it back! I don’t even care if you clean it! Thieving bastards. Made a decent dinner of grilled turkey sandwiches and beef curry soup. Our cupboard only has beans and a banana in it, looks like its time for another ASDA trip. We picked up a sleepy Ramsay and headed outside of Manchester to Ashton up to “The Pike”. It’s on the top of a giant hill and over looks all of Manchester. After a speedy drive through windy English country roads and a slippery muddy trek up the hill we were treated to a stunning view of all of nighttime Manchester. It’s really amazing; the entire city has a beautiful orange glow. I can’t even put it into words, the place just looks likes its on fire. And its windy up there too, stronger than the beach! I felt like we were almost blown over the cliff. We went to a pub at the base of the hill called the Hartshead Inn. This was real nice place. Classy oak tables, uniform staff, real upscale kind of joint. I bought this round, and tried a bitter with lemonade. Oh, and lemonade here is really Sprite, so yeah. Its actually quite nice, cuts the bitter edge off the beer. Although Marcus is a great driver I was kind of freaked out going up and down those twisty curves. These are the proper, windy kind of country roads you think only exist in car commercials, and I kept flashing back to the states and thinking we were on the wrong side of the road. It was a trip. Lots of fun, although I would’ve preferred a guardrail instead of measly shrubbery to protect us from driving off the edge. Our friend from ECU invited us to a party at one of MMU’s dorms. People, you think ECU is a party school? Think again. These people are nuts, just flippin’ nuts. Well I’m sure I could’ve found something like this back in the states if I was in the right circles, but I’m not, so this was new to me. It was at least 40 people crammed in a hallway/kitchen/bedroom. Anyone who’s ever been in a college dorm knows it’s quite the feat to get this many people into a room the size of closet. If that wasn’t hectic enough, they added a fog machine, a strobe light, and some sort of bass machine that’s probably used to communicate with blue whales. It was just crazy! It was great to see our friend, but this was just too crazy for us tonight. I think me and Megan are going to splurge on a pizza and head to bed. A perfect way to end the day. January 21st So that perfect end to the perfect day? Bollocks. That pizza was terrible. I don’t know if it’s the restaurant’s fault or just because I’m in England, but it was just rubbish. It was like a saltine cracker with cheddar cheese melted on it. It wasn’t even hot. Ughh, we should’ve just gotten a kebab. I like to spend my weekends catching up on all the sleep I miss during the week. Its not unusual for me to sleep until 12 or even 1 on Saturday. Except of course on this Saturday when my family decided to call me up, yeah. No really, right now they’re about the only people who could’ve done this and I’d been ok with it, and it was almost 12 anyways. It was especially nice to hear from my sister, even if she gave me a lecture on drinking too much. I guess my sleepy reply of “I not drinky” didn’t really help prove my sobriety, but whatever. She was off to her mock art presentation at NC State, so best of luck to her. Megan and I went to the Manchester Museum down on Oxford Road. I’m not sure, but I think it’s a part of the Manchester University Campus. This was more of the traditional museum you’re probably used too, except this one is filled with stuff Britain stole from other cultures throughout the years. I really like the ancient Egypt exhibit, loads of mummies and what not, like real official ones too, not the models of real mummies that they have in other museums. Its easy to forget that those shriveled pile of bones was once a real breathing talking person with emotions and ideas like us. The second floor had hundreds of stuffed animals, with those creepy fake eyes that are usually pointing in opposite directions. Loads of little kids were everywhere, screaming, banging on the glass, and generally doing everything you’re not supposed to be doing in a museum. One was shouting at the mummy, apparently trying to get him to do a trick or something, “Oy! I remember you! You were on Scooby Dooby DOOO”. I was kinda disappointed though as the only thing I learned specifically about Manchester was that the1st computer software was run there in 1948. Next we ran to ASDA for our weekly stock up. I found some Italian beer, and hopefully that will be nice. I bought lots of yogurt to keep worry free in my mini-fridge. Even found some cheap beef and turkey steaks. Yeah! Meat and dairy are usually the most expensive things. We’re still buying a lot of canned goods, but I think it’s a much better balance now between canned and fresh. They are definitely cheaper and easier, and I think my blood pressure can withstand the sodium hike for just 3 months. We cooked a very easy and very British meal for dinner: beans on toast with a cheesy and equally beany potato. Just take a can of baked beans and pour them over some toast. Oh, its wonderful! I’ve never really understood the British fascination with beans, but they are delicious, healthy (protein and fiber), and a solid addition to the meal. Not to mention cheap. They’ll put beans on anything! I once saw a beautiful breakfast of fried eggs, bacon, and sausage literally drowned in baked beans! Their baked beans seem more “tomato-y”, while ours in the states have a thicker, sweeter sauce, but you can probably dilute it and get the same effect. This is one meal I’ll definitely have to integrate back into America. January 22nd Today we went with Ross and Ramsay to a pub I pass on the way to uni everyday called “The Salutation”. This place is really nice; its exactly what one would picture as the classic English pub, complete with old, smokey, English folks. Everyone seemed kind of hesitant to enter, thinking time would stand still while “the regulars” stared down a bunch of students who dare come into “their” pub, but it was actually really nice and the people were friendly too. We came for the Sunday Lunch Special, which is meant to be a British tradition. I don’t know if it’s the same everywhere but here’s how mine went: minted lamb chops (although beef and chicken were available), with sides like boiled and fried potatoes, cabbage, green beans, and carrots. The whole thing is served on top of crusty bread, and then covered in gravy. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm, delicious. Despite what my father had warned me about, the lamb was terrific. I could probably put that mint sauce on anything it was so good. And the bread is perfect for sopping up all the gravy and left over food bits. I ordered a pint of Brains, yeah like what’s in your head, Brains. Its a beer brewed in Cardiff Wales and is apparently really popular with the Welsh. It is probably my favorite so far. Usually, when I eat out in America, they give you these enormous meals and you eat so much you have to be rolled out to your car. Well, not here. Everything is in proper proportion, no steaks the size of your plate or burgers you have to dislocate your jaw to eat. No buckets of free bread, no never ending free refills, no super-sizing. The sodas are smaller, and the beers are bigger. True, I haven’t been here very long, or eaten at too many places, but this is my experience thus far, and I think the pattern is going to stick around. We weren’t going hungry or anything, but it was just a different experience from being so stuffed. This is probably one of the reasons why I don’t see so many fat people here. They do exist, but they are few and far between compared to NC. Especially those morbidly obese people that have to have their pants made out of old army parachutes. I’ve only seen one of those guys here in two and half weeks, but I could probably find four in just one trip to Wal-mart. Double that in the mall. Speaking of food that’s bad for you, lets talk British chocolate. As much as I hate to admit it, these guys have it all over Hershey and co. Cadbury’s is a British company, so I can have Cadbury eggs all year long here! They do loads of other things too, and every last one of them is delicious. Its much creamier than even the milkiest milk chocolate I’ve had in the states. I had this thing today called an Aero Bar. Its like a giant Andes bar; only perfect. Well this one is thick so it has loads more of the green stuff and its filled with little air bubbles, so it melts in your mouth. Amazing. Perhaps I can bring the lovely ladies of the “somethin’ hot” live journal a stash of chocolate home. Then they could be “somethin’ hot…chocolate!” Oh man, I’m just too funny. Ramsay is planning a trip to Nottingham for next weekend. His parents are really hyped up on meeting us, and I think they are going to throw some sort of party and introduce us to all their friends. I’m pretty nervous about meeting his “Mum” and Dad. They’re a nurse and doctor respectively and will probably ask me all about the American method of treating chronic renal cystitis or something I’ll be totally clueless on. I’ll try not to go out next week and save up for Nottingham! January 23rd Okay, today is the very first I’ve heard of this big whale up the Thames crisis. My family expects me to be on the up and up because I’m up here, but without any TV and only free papers to grab, I’m a little lost on world events lately. This paper I’ve been getting dedicates a whole page to the vastly important developments of Big Brother, but hardly any real news (if whales up rivers are considered real news). Why are whales like the only creature on the planet that does things clearly not meant for its species? You never see any antelopes plummeting back to earth because they thought they should give flying a try; do you? No wonder whales are endangered; it’s their own damn fault. Went to my plants and medicine lecture and learned that all the foods I should be eating (super-nutrients she called them) are not necessarily the really expensive ones. I’ve been able to buy oats, oranges, beans, tea, yogurt, and turkey so I’m not doing too badly. I think ASDA even has their own red wine, so maybe I’ll try that sometime. Aubergines are meant to be really good too, but I have no idea what that is. Right now I think its Brit speak for eggplant, but I’m not sure. Oh, and apples are good too. An apple a day keeps the black lizard tongue of death away. Apparently that stuff on my tongue is an overgrowth of normal oral bacteria, so I’m not going to die. Its caused from poor oral hygiene, which is NOT possible because I brush, floss, and rinse 3 times a day, EVERYDAY, and also from lack of roughage in the diet. This is the most likely culprit, I’ve been a little low with the five a day fruits/veg I should be eating. Apparently roughage, like apples, will just scrape that nasty stuff of the tongue. And the growth is really white, and just takes whatever color of the last thing in your mouth. Speaking of poor hygiene, the homeless folks here are pretty nuts. There’s Drunky McStink, who hangs around Oxford Road drinking his can of Carlsberg and asks for money. If you don’t give him any he’ll curse you, unless of course you two are buds, then he’ll chuck his beer can at you. Then he’ll curse you anyway. This one guy and Drunky must be BFF’s because he gets the can tossed at him nearly everyday. Down in Piccadilly there is Mr. Bang ‘n’ Holler who likes to play these home-made bongos and shriek what he thinks are African chants but everyone else thinks are the zany dude blues. He gets an A for effort, but a C for just plain Crazy. My favorite so far is Stegosaurus Joe. “Steggy”, to his pals, likes to pee himself silly to create a nice “eau de homeless” around him. Then he likes to get on the 105 and ride around all day long, whilst rocking out on his headphones, which by the way, AREN’T CONNECTED TO ANYTHING!!! Oh, and the Stegosaurus part? That’s because under his gutter washed clump of Chewbacca hair, he has about 6 giant warts that stick about 3 inches out of his head! Yeah, like the dinosaur. Maybe they protect him from the mighty T-rex of Manchester. Steggy might seem like your average bum, but no, he is most clever. He saves up for, a day-rider bus pass, and then he just rides around nice and warm until it stops that night. And because of that smell and those stylish head bumps, no one is going to dare sit next to him, so he gets a nice comfy two seat ride. Really though, I do feel bad for these guys, but I just needed to vent. Also had the worst bus ride of my life today. It was at the end of the day, and I’m pretty tired after waking up at 8 and having class all day, so I was kind of anxious to get home and have my pre-dinner nap and then some soup and a sandwich. But no. The bus came about 20 minutes late, and about 3 or 4 buses were supposed to come to this stop during that time. Not today, when its like 30 degrees. Of course, about a dozen buses are going the opposite direction, but I think some drivers just see how aggravated I am and like to drive around the block to piss of the Yank. Well, probably not, but that’s how it felt. So finally, a bus comes. I don’t even care if its my bus, it’s a bus dammit, and I’m getting on it. Take me anywhere; I’ll even sit with Stegosaurus Joe. But no. You ever see the National Geographic footage of trains in Bangladesh, which have like a million Bangladeshis crammed inside, and then say, oh… a couple hundred crazy ones hanging of the top? Well apparently my bus took made an unexpected detour into Bangladesh, and picked up half the population. I was the last one to get on before he started kicking people off, and we actually drove right past a bunch of people without even stopping to get them. Oh it was nuts. I know I’m complaining, and I should be grateful that I got on in the first place, but I just need to. My final vent of the day, I promise, is about the classrooms here. I’d say ours in the states are like movie theater seats, while I’d compare these to rejected church pews. The aisles are just wide enough to shimmy in sideways while knocking everyone’s stuff over. There are no armrests, and the chairs only reach one’s mid back, so the rest of your upper half wants to flop over the back of the chair. Unfortunately those pesky vertebrae get in the way, and you can’t ever get comfortable. The seats have about a quarter inch of padding left over from shot down WWII German bombers. Then, the Brits have managed to fulfill perhaps the most complex maneuver in discomfort ever completed. The desk part of this contraption is just far enough away that one has to stay hunch-backed for the entire lecture jotting down notes, but the seat in front of you is close enough to jam your legs up to your eyeballs. At least you can’t fall asleep in class this way. All right, I feel better now. Thanks for listening. January 24th Woke up with a sore throat today. It was only a matter of time before I caught Megan’s cold. It never really went away either, and kind of put a damper on the rest of my day. Today I learned about the tutorials and practicals for my physiology class. Luckily I haven’t missed anything. There are 4 practicals starting tomorrow, and they include things like measuring blood pressure, taking an ECG, and measuring Basal Metabolic Rate. The tutorials are just two worksheets basically, and if I show an honest attempt at completing them, then I get full credit. And the real final exam is in May, so he is making a personal one for me in April. Sweet. My unit coordinator is a really nice guy too. I don’t know where these people got the stuffy, very formal image from. Everyone here is friendly and helpful. We made some talk about America and England, blah, blah, small talk you know. Then all of a sudden he offers to put me in touch with one of his good friends from the hospital so I can see what nursing is like here in the UK. Someone I can shadow and learn from, how cool is that! In the states, the professors really spell things out for you, and you know exactly what you’re supposed to be doing, where you’re doing it, how to do it, when to do it, and why you’re doing it. Here, not so much. Maybe its just because I’m an exchange student and am lost a lot, but it seems like the individual student has to find these things out on their own. They check their schedule on a bulletin board, find out what groups they’re in, where and when to turn in papers, and get general (sometimes too general) guidelines and so on. For example the directions for my presentation due Monday are: “Presentation on phyto-med due Monday. Bring handouts.” See what I mean. But, if you are confused (as I usually am) the professors here are very helpful, if you can find them. Remember those buses that keep passing me in the opposite direction while I freeze my bollocks off waiting at the stop? Well I decided to catch one of those today, thinking it would eventually swing around to where I need to be. WRONG. We pull up behind another bus and I read the reflection, we’re headed toward somewhere called Flixin!?! Damn. Well I eventually walked my way back to where I needed to be, and at least I was wasting time in a nice warm spot instead of out in the cold. Lesson here: The bus you get on is not always the bus you stay on. Hooray, spent no $$$$ today. Excellent. Plans are set for Nottingham this weekend! Ramsay’s parents have scheduled a dinner with their friends at a restaurant that is like the oldest in all of Nottingham. Sounds fancy. And, his Dad is going to pick us up, so that’ll save us about 50 pounds on train tickets. Hopefully I’ll be feeling better buy then. 3 comments|post comment

January 10th-17th Week 2 [18 Jan 2006|11:50am] [ mood | hungry ] $$$$$$$$$$ Ok guys, here’s week two. Remember to google “Gilman Scholarship” and you should get the website you need for some possible financial aid. $$$$$$$$$$$ January 10th I should’ve known by the howling winds last night, but today the dreaded English rain came to town. At least I got to test out my $100 rain jacket. Between that, my coat, sweater, undershirt, scarf, and gloves I managed to stay warm on a frigid day. Thank God is hasn’t been this bad all the time, or I may have just hopped right back on the plane. You’ve gotta give these English credit, this is tough weather to live through. I was supposed to meet my tutor at the student union at 9am. I waited about 10 minutes past that and went looking for him elsewhere. He wasn’t in his office either, so I returned to the union and he was there waiting for me. Oy, there goes my punctual first impression. We made some small talk and he mentioned how he admires the states for setting the drinking age at 21. He says here a bunch of kids are in debt going to school anyway, and when there is alcohol in the pubs, the clubs, the stores, the dorms, and even on campus they tend to rack up quite a bill, and get behind in their schoolwork. Here the drinking age is 18, and many of these students don’t leave home until then, and are not used to being responsible and organized. Alcohol just seems to complicate the mix of university, jobs, and independence. I’ve always thought 18 was kinda nice, not just because I can drink, but because in a society where alcohol isn’t so regulated and taboo and becomes a regular part of social life where it can be used maturely. I’ve spent more money today than I ever have in my life. I paid off all my accommodation fees and bought a bus pass for the rest of the term. This will really help save money in the end, but my wallet’s hurting right now. I decided to skip lunch, like the $2.50 really matters, but still I just couldn’t bear to spend anymore. Before long I was registered for classes and well on my way to becoming an official MMU student. I’m taking Physiological Systems, which should transfer back to ECU as Anatomy and Physiology. The course actually started last term, but I can jump in because I covered most of that at ECU. Some practical work and a 50 question multiple choice test make up my entire grade. I’m also taking a year 2 Art, Ideology, and Propaganda, as well as, a year 3 Twentieth Century British Drama. These should become an Art and Theater elective respectively. Both of these courses are just starting now, and my only grade in each is a 3,000-word essay. I’m already feeling the stress. The Brits operate mostly on a 3-year system, so a year one is like a freshman 1000 course, while a 3-year course is probably closer to a senior’s 4000-5000 level. All three classes have an hour-long lecture, followed later in the day by seminars that may be up to 2 hours long, but in smaller groups. A lecture and a seminar together are both equal parts to the same class. Here at MMU the classes are worth 20 credits, so I believe they should transfer back with 6 credits each to ECU. They will also come in with Honors credit. I know the content here is supposed to be harder, but I still think 3 classes for 18 honors hours is pretty freakin’ sweet. Megan and I actually got to cook our first meal tonight: pintos and rice. Even though my beans were nuked into stones, I was proud of us and ate loads. Everything seems to taste better when you’re the one actually working on it. We’ve decided to split the grocery bills 50/50, and to both contribute to the cooking and cleaning. This helps out immensely. The kitchen is also a mini-commune. Although everybody locks up his or her food (and for good reason too!), pots, plates and silverware are free game. This is great when you forget things, you never think about like a bread knife or a cheese slicer. I have yet to see pre-sliced cheese, and sometimes there is no sliced bread. Honestly people, this country has produced great minds like Darwin and Shakespeare, I think we can manage to get some conveniently sliced goods! Ramsay and Ross took us out to another pub called The Phoenix. We chose this place because Tuesday night is one pound drink night. I have yet to buy an actual drink in a pub, my mates (in America they’re my friends, but here we’re mates) just keep telling me they owe me and buy the next round. Can’t say I’m complaining, but I feel like I need to start contributing soon. This pub was basically the same only smaller; football on TV, pool tables, darts, drunken Englishman, you get the picture. I was kind of surprised they closed at 11:30, but it’s a good thing they kicked us out, we almost missed our bus and would’ve had to walk home! It was good reminiscing about old times, but we’ll see what tomorrow has in store. January 11th “Sun! Sun! Mr. Golden Sun, please shine down on me.” After a freezing deluge yesterday, the beautiful sun was out today. Oh, it was glorious. I haven’t sky since the plane ride. This happy event almost made me forget my holiday was over, and it was back to classes. I went to the John Dalton building, which I think holds mostly science course and labs, for my Physiological Systems lecture. This building is built in a modern style like most of MMU’s other lecture halls. Lots and lots of glass windows, so you can see out of virtually every wall. All the doors seem to be automatic, and open with a nice “whoosh” sound. And everything inside is a spotless white, I felt like I was in the Death star. I arrived about ten minutes early recalling, that all of my orientations stressed punctuality. Strolling in and out of class in Europe was a major offense to the lecturer. With about three minutes to go I start stressing out, thinking I’m in the wrong spot. Of course no one has any idea where this class is being held. Then, back at my original post, everyone just starts pouring in ten minutes late. Even the lecturer! I was too relieved to be pissed off, I was really freaking out about coming in late, having my professor make fun of me in front of everyone, and on top of that not know what to do anyway because I’m in a different FREAKING COUNTRY! I don’t know if this is commonplace in Europe, or even MMU, but for physiological systems we have one chief doctor in charge of the whole course, and then other lecturers who will come in to teach a specific unit. For these first five weeks Dr. Azzawi, a short but nonetheless intimidating woman with a traditional religious scarf worn over her head, will be teaching us human immunology. This is a good system because you have people teaching you their specialty, thus get more expert knowledge, but you lose the report you gain with one constant lecturer. The class was very similar to my anatomy and physiology back home, professor puts a PowerPoint on the overhead and talks about it, and we take notes. There is even a website where I can download the notes and print them off, just like Blackboard. There were somewhere between 70-50 kids in the room, not the staggering 400-800ish I had been told in my pre-departure orientation. Maybe it was because of the sunshine, or maybe because my first lecture went well, but at lunch I decided to do a little exploring and took some pictures. I don’t know when I can get them up on the web since I don’t have any Internet, but once I do I will put a link here on the blog. At two, I had my physiology seminar, which true to form was much smaller for more of a question/answer experience. Although at the international orientation the MMU folks stressed participation, the regular students didn’t quite seem to get that info. The professor would ask a question, and then after what seemed like hours of awkward pause, some timid answers would float out of the back. People didn’t participate to learn it seems, but rather to just get it over with, to move on. Reminded me of certain ECU classes. Oh, I also did the whole stress out, I’m in the wrong place routine again before this class, so either I need a new watch, or these people are just late and I’ve been lied to. Later I even ventured into the park to take some more pictures. I was a little, well extremely paranoid, of just about everyone I saw their though. See, I’ve learned we live right in the middle of Manchester’s ghetto. Megan read before we left not to venture into the dodgy Moss Side district; well can you guess what district Montgomery Hall is smack dab in the middle of? I asked some other kids in the house about any going out to any good pubs in the area and was answered with a resounding and simultaneous “NO!” They informed me the neighborhood is a bit sketchy at night. Some people have been mugged and some girls raped in the little path we use to walk to and from the dorm. To be fair though, I’ve always felt perfectly safe before and the crime doesn’t sound far off from ECU’s Greenville area. I also heard these same people that were mugged were stumbling in at 3am drunk out of their gourds. I’m certainly not implying anyone got what he or she asked for, but being pissed (British speak for shit-faced) in a dark alley at 3am definitely puts you in a dangerous position you could easily avoid. Oxford Road and City Center are supposed to be much safer by the way. Whenever I think about something like that happening to Megan or me it makes me really sad and afraid. We both had signed up to stay in halls closer to town, safer parts, but MMU gave us only 2 options because of the length of time we were staying. The other dorm was much closer to the city, but I simply couldn’t afford an extra $60 a week. Although its just as likely nothing could happen to us, the threat is real and it puts a real damper on going out for the evenings. I’m beginning to see why my tutor was so against the lower drinking age here. I know it’s only the first week, but I haven’t heard or much less seen anyone studying or doing work. I saw one guy last night already drunk at about 8pm! Not his birthday, not a football game, not even a depressing love story; sadly I think he was just bored. Just pissed in the kitchen, that’s all. I like everyone I’ve met so far, but they are definitely some party people There are drunkards stomping around in the middle of the night, the bass is always crunk (yeah that’s right, I said crunk) and alcohol is seemingly everywhere you look. We have a guy down in reception that can take care of any problems, but without any RA’s bringing on the law, like at ECU, people usually just do whatever they want. Neither system is really perfect, but I prefer this one. We’re mature people and can figure out our own problems. The first couple of nights I couldn’t really sleep, but now I’m totally used to it. Speaking of sleep, that’s where I’m headed soon. Goodnight! January 12th Today I ran into my first little snag with MMU. Although at ECU I’m supposed to get six credits for a twenty-credit class I get here, the MMU international office only allows one of their twenty credit classes to transfer back as four US credits. I’m not sure why, and I’m still waiting on some emails to figure this out, but in short in means I have to take another class to be a fulltime student in the US. I’ve decided on plants and medicine; it deals with medicine developed from plants (duh!), but also holistic and natural therapies, as well as recreational plant drugs, like marijuana. That reminds me, there sure seems to be a lot of it in this place. Maybe it’s just that no one really bothers hiding it. Apparently the punishment is pretty slack, the cops most likely will just throw it away and give you a warning. They may also write you a ticket. Quite a change from the states! I picked up most of my class books today in the library. Here in the UK, the books you use for your course are actually available in the library, that is, if you get there in time. Even the books you have to pay for don’t have a 300% mark up, like they do in the states (thank you very much Dowdy Student Store!) My two English classes have about 10 each, so this is really handy. I wish I could check out even more, I have loads. I bought seven fruits for a quid at a street side fruit stand today. This is a really good price. I know that’s nothing exciting to you, but it just made me feel very … I dunno, metropolitan I guess. Went to the student store to get some basic supplies. You could fit about four of these in the one we have at ECU. But see here, they actually sell mostly school supplies, not 100 different ECU, ECU mugs, ECU rugs, ECU flags, ECU shot glasses, ECU knickers, ECU pooper scoopers, you get the idea. It’s actually kind of nice. They also don’t have a mascot like the ECU Pirates (arrrr!), or school colors. Its not like we’re the “MMU Fighting Tea Bags” (although that’d be pretty awesome); just plain old MMU. It’s also considered pretty dorky to wear what little MMU gear they do have. I haven’t seen anyone doing it. So no, there are no “Purple Pride Fridays”. I don’t think they even have like competitive sports, intramural yes, but not any teams that compete against other schools. Megan and I ended the day by cooking a delicious spaghetti dinner. It’s only been a week, but we’ve come along way from turkey sandwiches. We actually make decent and filling meals now. The spaghetti was awesome, I’d like to say from my Italian cooking genes, but unfortunately no, Megan did most of it. She’s kinda bossy in the kitchen; I only got to heat up some corn . Although I wouldn’t go so far as to say that we’re poor, but we’re definitely living on a budget. I’m really starting to like it. Sure it’s not as easy as rolling out of bed and heading to the dining hall, but you do actually get what you want. The freedom is nice to, I can have a meal whenever I want, and I can make whatever I want. The plan right now is to plan out what meals we want for the week, and from there we can make the item list and head to ASDA. It’s a lot more organized than running through the store and grabbing whatever looks good, and its actually working too. January 13th Today being Friday the 13th I was prepared for everything to step outside and be hit by a bus, but everything has been well so far. I went to my first British Drama lecture and it was surprisingly nice. Two teachers, although one seems to have more authority than the other, both seem very nice. Me and the other 60 odd kids in the class watched a BBC production of George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession. It wasn’t terribly bad, although I did catch myself almost dozing off, like most of the class. The third sunny day in a row (this has to be a sign of the apocalypse) I ventured out into the park to take pictures, feeling slightly less paranoid about the people around me. I was fairly certain that the mom pushing three kids in a stroller wasn’t out to mug me. I found a paper today too and almost shat myself! A gift from the heavens! Without a TV and no radio I’ve felt so out of touch with the world. We could’ve found the WMD’s and I wouldn’t have known. I’ve got to remember to check online at the library, oh, and they have papers too, so I should be set if I can remember. Tonight we got a large portion of the old gang together for a proper night out. We started at a bar called The Revolution. Decorated in a modern Soviet theme, the place had loads of special drinks and shots with names like “Russian Bride” and “Fall Out Shelter”. They even had a birthday cake flavored shot! I had a pint of Boddingtons, which is made in the heart of Manchester and is meant to be the proper Mancunian drink. I learned the difference between bars and pubs: bars are strictly drinks, whereas you can get a meal and drinks at a pub. With 6 of us out, we decided to do rounds. Tonight this meant 6 rounds in 6 different places. Next down the road was the Thirsty Scholar, which was a small place with good music like Credence Clearwater Revival, and spike covered skinheads. We ran into these folks a lot, but despite the stereotype they were about as troublesome as us. Everyone just wants a fun night out. After the scholar we stumbled to The Salisbury, which was a bit nicer. Here we discovered cider, which is golden and bubbly like beer, but much sweeter. Its pretty damn good, and I’d never really seen any in the states. If you’re not much of a beer drinker, this might be the thing for you. Then we went somewhere, but I just don’t know the name. It was around this time I had some trouble feeling my face, so I took that as a cue to slow down with the drinks. Our last pub was The Footage, which was packed for techno/dance night. I bought my first round for everybody here, which made me feel good. We finished up the night with some chips at Babylon’s. Despite the fact Ross poured hot sauce all over them (he claims he thought it was ketchup) they were delicious and a good buy for just a quid. I guess it’s an international thing: drunken people everywhere just crave greasy food. The night was so much fun I didn’t mind paying the 7 pounds for a taxi home. Its not too far of a walk, I just don’t want to be in the side of town late at night. It was pretty cool to be in one of those “fancy” English taxis though. January 14th Oh sleep, glorious beautiful sleep. I slept till 1:30, and no hangover either. Fantastic. Midway through my post-sleep pre-awake trance I noticed a really horrible taste in my mouth and went to brush my teeth. I opened my mouth and expected almost passed out; my tongue was black! Black, like scary death black. I thought it was some sort of lizard creature crawling out of my throat. I’d heard loads of post drinking stories and never heard of the black tongue. This is weird mate; all kinds of messed up. Luckily, it went away with a little scrubbing, and hasn’t come back . . .yet. Megan and I went down to Piccadilly again to check out the Urbis Museum. I think city center looks different every time we go. Today they had the fountains running with little kids streaking through, squealing their little English heads off. These kids have it all over our American ones as far as cuteness. There was even a little outdoor market with fresh cheese, breads, fruits, and this being Britain and all, alcohol. You can’t miss the Urbis museum in Piccadilly. Just past the giant Ferris wheel, a massive glass structure protrudes sleekly out of the landscape. A triangle with rounded corners the building is all glass and steel; on sunny days like today it reflects the lights and background perfectly. Don’t be afraid to go in, it’s absolutely free. Inside the museum is dedicated to urban living in Manchester and around the world. It is mostly just artily displayed facts, and raises important questions about population, pollution, crime, and so forth. I learned that the Moss Side of Manchester is very religious and gospel centered, and that there are over 408,000 people living in the city. 80,000 of which are university students! Apparently Manchester was set up as a Roman fort way back in the day. In the 1800’s the city multiplied itself many times over, becoming the industrial capital of the world for a while. Because of the horrible working conditions it was briefly known as “hell on earth” or “the devil’s darkness” (its much nicer now, I promise!) My Italian peoples migrated here in the mid 1800’s bringing ice cream, and us Yanks were stationed here during WWII bringing various influences. We made some chicken for dinner, our first cooked meat, and jacket potatoes. Potatoes rock. I may have to dedicate a whole entry just for potatoes. That night we stayed in and played cards with an English guy and the Finns. The English call it “Shit-head”, and it’s really close to Uno. One girl got pretty wasted, and went missing for a while, but she turned up all right. It was the nice relaxing day I needed after last night. January 15th I know I should be out doing things, but this seems to be THE place to be for sleeping action, well if you can call it action. It’s cold so you want to stay in bed. It’s usually dark, so you don’t have that pesky sun burning your eyes out. And there is usually a nice relaxing drizzle lulling you back to bed. Well I did eventually get out of bed, and went to play a game of footie with Ross, Ramsay, and their mates. I got the bus I’ve always gotten, but for some reason it went a completely different way. Luckily I found few familiar landmarks and hopped off in a close enough place, ½ mile away. I jogged down and found the place without any problems. You know those basketball courts, surrounded by a chain-liked fence, usually found in pretty rough neighborhoods? Well that’s where we had our football game. Nothing like the plush, grassy field I was expecting. Damn. I’ve got to get back into shape if I’m supposed to keep up with this. That cold English air just burns my lungs. I played in like four layers while everyone else was in a mere t-shirt and shorts. Although it was obvious I’d hardly ever touched a soccer-ball in my life, I think I managed to hold my own. I had a few nice defensive stops and even a shot on the goal, which promptly sailed straight over the net, lol. Most importantly I didn’t piss anyone off; these Brits take their sport pretty seriously. Afterward we went for a pint at The Footage. No healthy sports drinks for us, just some beer thanks. I could’ve gone without, but hell, the theme here is British Like Me, and there are few things more British than a game of footie and a pint, dammit! Oh, but the Britishness gets better. I rode in the top half of the bus on the ride home. The bottom half is small, but this is just ridiculous. I was practically on my knees trying to crawl into my seat. Megan and I splurged and went out to eat for some classic fish and chips. Well I got the fish and chips, she got a bloody cheeseburger. A semester in England, from the US, cheeseburger capital of the world, and she orders a damn cheeseburger. Well my meal was delicious, but apparently I need to get it served soaked in vinegar and wrapped in newspaper. That’s the “real” way to have it. Later, I just tried to focus on getting my laundry done, and not the 1.20 pounds I had to pay for a mere 30 minutes of washing. Trying to save money like usual, I let things air dry in my room over the heater. It seems pretty crazy to save just fifty pence, but that’ll save me close to $30 on drying over the course of the whole trip. January 16th “Awake before sunrise / wipe the sleep from my eyes / coffee my best friend”. Wise words by the Avett Bros have summed up my mornings here, although I try to be British and do the tea thing instead. The sun doesn’t come up until 8:30ish, and even then it’s usually covered up by a gray blanket of clouds. Today I had to meet my advisor to introduce me to a lecturer to get me into a class at 8:45, which means on the bus around 8:15, and awake at, gasp, 7:30. An observation on the way to class: despite the 30-40 degree weather, the girls here have no problems wearing short skirts all day long. You’ve got to give them credit for looking so nice in such cold weather. I just want to wrap myself in the blanket and not come out, and here they go, very stylish in their knee high boots and skirts. Very impressive. Well I met with my lecturer for my new class, Plants and Medicine, and was just blown away. This has to be one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. She knew my name already, and what really got me was she had me sit down and made me a cup of tea. Where as my English lecturers didn’t really seem to care who I was or what situation I was in, this woman to an active interest in me. I’ve never been so flattered. She explained everything in the course handbook, and was just so nice and polite. She asked if I had any accommodations set up, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d have invited me to stay in her house. She seemed as eager to learn about ECU’s system as I was about MMU’s. She seemed kind of shocked that we meet 3-4 times a week, and that there could be 200+ students in one class. She was even more surprised that one person is in charge of the whole unit and teaches it all the way through, instead of having individual experts come in and lay down some knowledge. Oh and its official: Everything I’d been told at orientation is absolute bollocks. The professors are very laid back, and most actually prefer to be called by their first name. I shouldn’t feel funny about addressing them or asking any questions. And for presentations, I can come in whatever I would normally wear, not the coat and tie they suggested at the pre-departure meeting. I’ll have to find a reason to wear that before I leave. And for a school that stressed participation and how their professors just love it, the class is pretty damn quiet. My art class went smoothly, but was incredibly dull. We covered Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave for an hour in lecture (which I’d already done in about 4 other classes back home.) Then we broke into smaller seminars, where the other co-lecturer spent 2 hours saying the EXACT same things as the other guy. And the Irish girl with bad case of BO next to me didn’t exactly help either. Megan and I made an absolutely delicious curry chicken and rice dinner, and then went out for a relaxing pint at the Mancunion bar. I still can’t believe the student union has a full bar. Can you imagine how many more meal plans and pirate-bucks would be sold if we had one of those!? January 17th No class today so I spent sometime today getting classes sorted and even studying. With class only once a week, very few assignments, and zero quizzes its pretty easy to forget about uni. We say school in the states, but apparently “school” here is just like elementary school. “College” is really high school, and “uni” is university or college. I’ve finally gotten my classes sorted. In short I’ll be coming home with 14 US credits, all honors mind you. Not to shabby. Splurged on a scarf with MMU’s school colors. It makes me feel scholarly, but Megan said its gay. Right, we’ll see who looks gay when its zero degrees out and your neck is cold, fool! Oh, and speaking of gay, I found Canal Street today. Canal Street is like the main little strip of the Gay Village. I needed to go to Piccadilly, but decided to do some on foot exploration. I pretty much have the bus thing down pat, so I decided to try this and maybe I’d discover something new. Low and behold I did. Just as I was beginning to feel lost, I saw the distinct rainbow flags of Canal Street and knew where I was. Not like emotionally found a home amongst my people and all, you know, physically, like on a map. I’ve never been so happy to be surrounded by homosexuals. It’s a tiny cobblestone street parallel with a murky canal, hence the name Canal Street. It seems quite like the rest of town, except for the giant rainbow flags and the billboard of two naked dudes snogging away. Snogging is Brit speak for making out. I’m glad I actually found something new, and I’ll have to walk around more often, and try to discover some “not so gay” parts. 4 comments|post comment

Scholarship Reminder [16 Jan 2006|09:53am] [ mood | geeky ] Hey! Remember to check this website and with your financial aid advisor to see if you qualify for financial aid. I don't think I'd be here if it weren't for their grant. http://www.iie.org//programs/gilman/index.html post comment

6 days in... [11 Jan 2006|12:31pm] [ mood | accomplished ] Well everyone, I don’t have the internet in my room; so the best I can do for now is write on word in my “flat”, then just copy and paste when I can find the web later. I’ll probably update about a weeks worth of entries to the live journal about once a week, but we’ll see how this works out. January 5th-6th With that said…it’s been a hectic two days. Thursday I bid my family, friends, and all of America farewell and boarded the plane bound for Manchester. My flight from Raleigh to Philadelphia left at 6:00 so we needed to be there at least 2 hours ahead of time. No problems in security: put your stuff in the bucket, take the lappy out of the bag, off with your shoes, and through the gate. Remember to dress so you can take things off easily and quickly. I was allowed one carry on bag plus a “personal” bag on the plane like a laptop bag or purse I guess. I checked my bags in Raleigh, and didn’t have to deal with them again until Manchester. That is, if they made it that far. The flight to Philly wasn’t so bad. They crammed us sardine style back in coach, threw about four pretzels at us, and then we were back on the ground. I was more nervous than anticipated, but it still wasn’t a terrible flight. I had never flown at night before and the glowing lights over Philadelphia, or hell even Raleigh, were an amazing sight to see. I even convinced Megan to take a peek. Once we landed we had to hike through half of the airport to get to our next gate. Philly’s airport is MASSIVE and quite a trek. Here is where we started finding the Brits, all looking very relaxed and tanned from their American vacations. Maybe its just my mind playing tricks on me, but even without them speaking I was picking up a very “British” vibe off these people. Can’t say why, they just remind me of the BBC shows on PBS. One Disney clad woman started fussing at her son, “Petaahh don’t start a bleedin’ argument for Christ’s sake. Sit here on ya bum!” It all seemed very “Nanny 911” to me. After take off, I wasn’t nervous anymore. I was starving by the time they brought out the meal, so I didn’t even mind the hospital smell. I passed the time by people watching the Brits, reconnaissance I guess. They must’ve thought they were still on vacation because they drank like fish, and bought all kinds of duty free goods from the flight attendants. They must’ve made a killing here in the states with their exchange rate; I’ve never seen so many shopping bags! And I don’t know if my old roommate (he’s English) just spoke really well or if I’m out of practice, but I couldn’t understand half the words these people said. I’m screwed basically. The flight took about seven hours. I didn’t sleep on the plane and I saw a beautiful orange sunrise, only to see it disappear above the cold, rainy clouds of England. The landscape was green, green, GREEN. Amazing, just like you see in the movies, we even flew over a pasture of grazing sheep! After fighting my way through sleepy eyed, sunburned, and intoxicated Brits we made it to the immigration station. Hot shit, I’m an immigrant! Anyways…be sure to get into the “Other passports” line, as in, if you’re not from the UK (and maybe continental Europe, but I’m not sure), stand here. Also have confirmation of your study abroad agreement ready, and be prepared to answer questions as to what your studying, how long are you here, where are you staying, and how you plan to pay for all this. Next was baggage claim, where my packs were waiting safe and sound. Megan and me both loaded up our carts, and made our currency exchanges. I changed $37 into only 19 pounds (ouch!!!), and the bank only charged me one pound for the service. MMU managed to set up a free taxi ride to our dorms, and there was a nice English guy waiting for me with my name on one of those little plaques you see in the airports! I was excited, everything was going great so far, no problems at all. Another American girl rode with us and our cabbie was great. He told us a lot about the city and how much he like Americans because we outspoken and we’re bold with our music and dancing. “You lot here a song, jump up and scream “Yo, dis here by my joint!” and you just go nuts. Don’t find that too often with the reserved English”, he says. Funny how the reason he likes us yanks is the same reason a lot of people probably don’t. He also asked about Bush, and even about Hillary Clinton being our next president. We were told the foreigners, well I guess I’m actually the foreigner now, are very interested in US politics. We arrived to Montgomery Hall of Residence in about 15 minutes. A short and shriveled hobbit/man greeted us from the reception desk. Thank God they knew we were coming and had rooms for us, I think my greatest worry was arriving in Manchester and being stranded on the streets. Bilbo Baggins gave Megan and I rooms right next to each other on the “third” floor. The British start the ground floor as zero, so what we in the US call the fourth floor, they call the third. This doesn’t make it any easier to carry 80 pounds of luggage up the stairs. No lifts in this joint. My room is…. cozy I guess. Some would find it small; it’s about half the size for my old dorm room, but for only half the people (just MEEEEE!!!!). There is a desk in the corner next to a window overlooking Greater Manchester, a heater, three shelves, a roomy closet, billboard, trashcan, and even two chairs. Here’s the kicker: I get my own sink and mirror, things I’ve constantly lacked at ECU, not to mention privacy and peace of mind. There is a kitchen to the right of me where each of us on the hall gets a fair sized cupboard, and several mini-fridges and freezers to share. There are also about three toasters, ovens, stoves, microwaves, teapots, and yes, even a George Foreman Grill!!! There is a backyard (garden here) with a grill, and a common room with a TV (4 stations), soda and snack machines, and a pool and ping-pong table. The place was built as a memorial to those who served in WWII in the late ‘50’s and it shows every bit of it. It’s a lovely place and suits me just fine, but don’t expect it to win 5 star reviews anytime soon. Bilbo at the desk gave us some maps and directed us to an ASDA (pronounced azzdaa) about 15 minutes down Princess Park, our main road, where we could pick up some essentials. Right across from the Royal Foster’s Brewery the ASDA is Manchester’s super Wal-Mart. The giant building is mostly a grocery store, but it also has some essentials like cookware, eating utensils, hygiene, even clothes and bedding. It was also a madhouse. We didn’t know where to look for things and there were people everywhere. EVERYWHERE! This was like Black Friday after Thanksgiving kind of shopping going on here; it was insane. The prices were pretty low, and we got some bread, turkey, juice, and sheets. Carrying all that back home was a nice workout though, especially up the 4 flights of stairs. Hopefully all this walking (and being too poor to afford proper meals) will knock of some pounds. Our meal of turkey sandwiches and crisps (potato chips) was well earned and delicious. Jet lag and lack of sleep finally took its toll and I slept like a rock from 7 to 11 the next day. January 7th I’m not in England, but rather a fairyland of hobbits, dwarves, and elves. Everyone talks funny, and I’m the tallest person I’ve seen so far. I’m 6’ 3’’ which although tall, is not abnormally so. My feet hang off the bed, the shower comes up only to my chest, and even the minivans only come up to the elbow-shoulder range. I thought I’d find refuge on the enormous double-decker buses, but no, my knees bang on the seat and come up to my ears. I’d say that the food was too small also, but everyone knows us Americans have giant portion sizes. No thick-burgers here. I even sat on a wooden toilet today, and no, that really doesn’t have anything to do with hobbits and dwarves but it is just plain weird. Megan and I met a really nice bunch of Finish exchange students today. They live down the hall and are all teaching majors. Most speak very good English, and although they’ve only been here since Wednesday they seem to act as professional as locals to us newbies. We all took a bus ride to the city center. A day pass seemed to be the best deal because you can ride almost any bus, any number of times you want throughout the day. It was only 2.80 pounds. The ride was a bit bumpy, the English and even the Fins rode held on smoothly with only one hand while Megan and I sloshed around like water in a bucket. When I finally got a seat, well, we’ve been over that. Everything still looks the same to me so I don’t know how these folks know where to get off, but I’m sure I’ll learn. Even someone who had never been there before like myself could tell when we’d reached the center. I’d never been in a city larger than Raleigh or Charlotte so to me this place looked like Time Square. Loads and loads of people everywhere you looked; buses almost running them over, they were even on the rails for the bloody metro-link! Lord, I just used bloody didn’t I?! Old women with loads of shopping bags, teenagers goofing around and loitering, a blind guy playing the guitar, booths for hot sausage, tea, jacket potatoes (I think that’s just baked potatoes), candy floss (cotton candy), or roses, and even a troupe of Africans playing drums and dancing along. There were even carnival like games like whack-a-mole! This was ASDA times a thousand. The only thing I can compare it to is post Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve shopping because it’s just THAT MANY PEOPLE. Only difference is they’re not nearly as stressed because this is everyday life for them, not a special sale ending soon. The first store we went into was a TK Maxx, which I guess is their version of TJ Maxx. This place still has the cheap price, but really nice stuff like Nike, Columbia jackets, and the like. We also went in a 4 story Urban Outfitters; my sister would be so jealous, haha! There was an FCUK across the street, but we skipped it because it’s so expensive. All these buildings had multiple stories and seemed a bit huge to me, but I think maybe they just go up where as American buildings just spread horizontally and have less floors. And I know they have a lot more people to serve, but the 2 level Starbuck’s still seems a bit ridiculous. I had my first run in with the “Scallies” I’d heard so much about from my British friends. Scallies, or maybe they’re called Slags, are basically what we in the states would call skanks or ho’s (Its not spelled hoe is it? That’s more like a garden tool right?). Not like professional prostitute ho’s, but just slutty looking girls. Here the Scallies are all kind of sickly looking, really pale and thin, with skin tight jeans, too much make up, lots o’ dark eye shadow, some sort of bleaching hair alteration, and a constant pissed off look probably from their heels or knee high boots. They seem to roam in packs of at least 6, and range in ages from 12-23. I’m not really sure what they do or what’s so bad about them, but they’re definitely easy to spot. We found an indoor food-court over looking the city with mostly foods from the states like KFC, McDonald’s, Subway, and even Pizza Hut. Conversation with the Fins was interesting although full of awkward pauses from like language differences and whatnot. What’s really awkward though is crossing the street with these people. Even with absolutely zero traffic in sight, they refuse to cross the road!!! It’s really odd. Megan and me would get about halfway in the street, think something was wrong and turn back. For a while we thought jaywalking was a major crime in Europe, but we later learned that the Scandinavians just will not cross until they get the green light. Interesting fact about the streets: the lights go from green, yellow, red when stopping like in the US, but instead of red to green, they go back to yellow to prep the drivers and pedestrians. So, yeah… you can use that sometime I guess. We made another stop at ASDA and purchased our first legal alcohol, a giant bottle of New Castle Brown Ale. Dark and bitter, it still had the sweet, sweet taste of freedom and maturity. We had another dinner of “Sannies and crisps” or sandwiches and chips. We’ve got to get some cookware soon! We also had some fruit juice labeled “squash”. That’s not the flavor just the type of drink; these squash drinks had a whole aisle in the ASDA (which actually is owned by Wal-Mart). Well it was horrible. Just so sweet and thick and sugary, like it would be good if it weren’t so…so… concentrated. And then it dawned on me; squash was the British label for concentrated juices!!! GROSS. It came in a regular juice bottle like we have at home, not in a frozen in a can, so you can’t really blame us. What we drank could’ve lasted us weeks, because I kept telling Megan it was just a different country, and things would taste different and it would just take time to get used to. Oh well, one of our many mistakes we’re sure to make. January 8th Eventually there will be a day when I don’t go to ASDA. Today is not that day. After trekking home with all those canned goods, we realized we lacked the most important thing of all, a can OPENER!!! Turkey sandwiches again. Sometimes we get fancy and toast the bread, watch out Emeril. On the bright side, we’re navigating our way around the store much better, and walking it quicker without as much trouble. Did I mention we have to bag our own groceries? Its not shoddy service or anything, just the way they've always done it. Today I brought my book bag to make the load lighter and save paper. We also got 4 cans of Foster’s. The cans here are much bigger than in the US, they hold 440ml, which I think is a whole pint. I got a much-anticipated call today from my friend Ross. He, Ramsay, and Marcus were all back in town and wanted to show me around that night. These guys are all students at MMU, and I met them when they went to ECU for their study abroad. They came over to my flat in Marcus’ tiny hatch back, which he’s a tad bit sensitive about. “This car won us WWII you know!” “Really? How’s that?” “Oh, we started giving ‘em to the bloody Germans” They took us to a pub called “The Footage”, which is mostly a student hangout. About 10 giant TV’s hang on the walls, every single one of them tuned to a football (soccer) game. There were pool and foosball tables scattered about the spacious floor, tables, stools, and plush red leather sofas for relaxing in. The place was dimly lit, and smelled of beer and cigarettes, although it was clean and not too smoky at all. I diverse mix of students (hippies, scenesters, hipsters, angst filled teens, artsy kids, preppy kids, footballers, EVERYBODY) all listened to a constant mix of British bands like The Kaiser Chiefs, Oasis, Franz Ferdinand, and even The Beatles. Ross and Ramsay bought rounds of Carlsberg, a lighter, colder, fizzier, beer like what we see in the American beers a lot, and another Irish bitter. Pints of “bitta” are darker, usually chilled, but not ice cold, and flat instead of fizzy. These drinks are heavier and actually kind of fill you up. Guinness is a typical bitter. Megan claims the more she drinks, the better she understands the English accent, haha. We actually got to drink out of actually glasses; a classy step up from those crappy red and blue plastic cups at ECU parties. Marcus went home for dinner, while the rest of us went down to the “Curry Mile” for some food. The Curry Mile is a section of Manchester, literally about a mile, which is nothing but Indian and Asian shops, restaurants, and eateries. We all got kebabs, which is some kind of meat, a salad type mix, cucumber sauce, chili sauce, onions, and hot peppers on a pita/flatbread type thing. It is HUGE, a great buy for only 2 quid. (Oh, a pound is a quid, is also a squid. All the same thing really, kind of like how we’d say 2 bucks.) Don’t think of this as a shish kebab on the grill; more like the steroid enhanced lovechild of souvlaki, monster burritos, and pitas. I got something called a “donner” kebab. Donner is the type of meet in the kebab, like the chicken or beef they offer, only problem is, no one knows exactly what the hell donner meat is!!! Popular theory is lamb, although it could be stray dogs for all I know. I’d rather not know, its cheap, plentiful, and delicious. Ramsay helped us catch the right bus home, putting an end to an awesome night. I’m really luck to have such cool friends, and I hope to see a lot of Britain with them on my stay here. Even the ride home was cool. We’re really starting to get the hang of this public transport thing. Our bus driver was a kind of a nutter (oh, I’m doing so good with my Brit slang, hooray!!!) observe: “Hey! You not from here. You from Poland right, right?? Poland is too cold” “Err… not quite mate. America actually.” “Oh, America! Wow! I LOVE America.” “Yeah, umm, its pretty cool I guess.” “George Bush, George Bush!!!” “Yeah, that’s the guy, you’ve got it.” “I’m from South Africa. Johannesburg. Nelson Mandela, Nelson Mandela!!” “Right. Ok. I’m sure he’s better than our guy at the moment. Cheers, have a good night.” “YEAAHHH AMERICA!!!” So at least the bus drivers and cabbies like us. January 9th Today we were scheduled for our big orientation with the other international students, so of course Megan felt the need to do her hair about 10 minutes longer than usual. That doesn’t sound bad, but when you have a bus to catch that is also 10 minutes late because of early morning Mancunian traffic it starts to add up. One also has to factor in other stops, even a driver change mid-route, and (for us especially) time to get lost. We were stressed, but did well, and we actually got there before anything began. Our meeting was in the Geoffrey Matsom building off of Oxford Street, very close to where Ramsay lives. Like a lot of buildings in Manchester it is a prime example of modern architecture, with lots of sharp angles, a spiral staircase, colorful designs, and revolving doors. These students don’t mess around with their revolving doors either, if you’re in them you better push or you’ll just be run over. Our meeting was for all the “non-European” internationals, which explains why everyone else we’ve met is already attending class. We had about 6 from ECU, and even 3-4 more from NC, some Aussies, at least one Canadian, and a few Asians and Africans. If you think this is a diverse crowd, remember it’s only the non-European ones. I can’t even tell you how many different languages I’ve heard walking down the street. I expected to be in a diverse area, but it’s really different actually living in it. Men with turbans shopping in ASDA, Muslim women wrapped in, well I don’t know what they’re wrapped in, but only their black eyes peek out on the bus, Africans arguing on the street, Germans and Swedes drinking in the pub, Asians bicycling out into traffic; this place has more nationalities than the Olympic village. Its all kind of shocking at first, but can be enlightening. In the states at least, there is definitely a kind of bias against Arabs/Middle Eastern people since 9/11. Its rarely talked about, but if one were to see a heavily bearded Arab, it would not be strange to see that person go out of his way to avoid the other. Perhaps the Arab would do the same to the American. It can be kind of comforting to see all these people in the store, to realize most everyone has the same kind of needs, joys, and problems. We met with our tutors or academic advisors to see what classes would work. Here in MMU I’m on the books as an English major, but really I’m a nursing major looking to complete my fine arts requirements. The last thing I need is another English credit, but hopefully it will work out OK. I also met with the biology tutor to see about an anatomy and physiology course. Both of my advisors agreed to meet up again tomorrow to examine what would be best in more detail. We were then led on a walk to the city center. It all sort of felt like a field trip, I’m surprised we didn’t have nametags or hold hands crossing the street. It’s not a very far walk from the campus either. The term campus is interesting too, because the academic buildings are sort of scattered together throughout the city. My classes are on the All Saints Campus, while there are other campuses of MMU that are located elsewhere in Manchester like Didsbury or Aytoun. Now, if that’s not confusing enough, even the buildings in the All Saints campus are scattered about the neighborhood. Luckily they center on Oxford Street, and are pretty easy to find once you get used to it. Different areas of Manchester also have different names, but are still parts of Manchester. For instance we live on the Moss side (which is kind of the ghetto), while the city center is in a part called Piccadilly, The Gay Village and Chinatown are well… a rather self explanatory names for their respective parts. So once in Piccadilly, armed with only a pocket map, we were free to roam around on our own. We were almost hit by a tram, which I personally think likes to sneak up on people and then blow its horn. We saw police on gigantic horses, trailed by similarly gigantic piles of horse-shit. We also found a Ferris wheel that had to be at least 10 stories high, and it seems to overlook the entire city. We also ate in the nicest McDonald’s I’ve ever seen. About 5 computers are there for Internet access (not free of course), and there was the traditional ball pit downstairs. They even advertised healthy foods, and freely gave out nutritional info. It was also 1000 times faster than any McD’s I’d been to in the US. I think the British Coke also tastes different, a lot sweeter; but that double cheeseburger still had the same classic taste (its even on the pound menu!) I’m really starting to figure out the bus transport as well. Don’t look at anyone, don’t talk to anyone, don’t smile at anyone, and God help you if you’re smiling to yourself. At most, say cheers to the driver as you get off, and that’s only on a good day. Sit down in a hurry, because these drivers wait for no man. I think if you bow your legs a little and kind of sway with the bus, you’re less likely to fall flat on your face. Also be sure to have your ticket or the correct fare, if you’re caught riding without either they’ll fine you 20 pounds on the spot! Walking around Alexandra Park, across the street from my dorm, I noticed something strange: mothers with babies in their strollers but covered in plastic paper, almost like plastic wrap over leftovers. This is a great idea, because it blocks out rain and wind for the baby. The plastic sheet is open on the bottom so there is no lack of oxygen, but it just seems strange to me because all plastic bags were immediately confiscated from my sister and me in childhood because of suffocation. Also in the US, if the weather is that rainy and cold, I don’t think people would just not be outside in the first place. That evening we had a dinner at the MMU Student Union. A FREE dinner. It was delicious and probably my first complete meal since I’ve been here. They served jacket potatoes, lasagna (although made with potatoes not pasta), curry chicken and rice, and a great fibrous salad full of leafy greens. The international office hired my friend from ECU, Ben, and he was there to talk to us and answer our questions. Ben has been here since last semester, and is basically a full on Mancunian in my opinion. He even bought me a pint of Guinness Black. That’s Guinness with black current juice poured in, it sounds terrible but is actually delicious. It tastes kind of like cough syrup only it actually tastes good. The MMU student union is similar to ECU’s with a deli, school supplies, MMU shirts and hats, and special functions. It’s basically Mendenhall, but with alcohol. I even got to give directions and explain things to the newcomers; it’s a nice feeling to be explaining rather than explained to for a change. 6 comments|post comment

First Entry: Application Process [03 Jan 2006|01:49am] [ mood | optimistic ] Okay, so about the journal name... no I'm not actually British. Very good you've caught me. Its kind of a spoof off of a book I read once where this white guy disguises himself as a black guy and travels around the deep south somewhere between 1950-1970. Its called "Black Like Me" (anyone remember the Boy Meets World episode where Cory's friend Sean dresses up like a girl for his report "Chick Like Me"? Well its the same idea.) and its a true story. I know I won't actually be trying to disguise myself amongst the British, but I thought this was a better title than something corny like "my trip abroad", "greg goes to england", or something like that. I was going to explain the whole application process, but that is a long story and can wait for another day. Preparing for the trip has absorbed all the time of my last three weeks so this will make up my first blog entry. Leaving around Christmas time is a bonus bc people usually give you money or things you need for your trip. Things like a new suitcase, vaccum condensing packs for creating more space inside a suitcase (very handy, but very expensive!), plug converters and voltage adapters (one to change the plug shape AND the other to change voltage difference to 1. plug your stuff in and 2. make sure it doesn't explode in your face), a rain/wind proof jacket, an organizer for plane tickets, boarding passes, a visa, passport, and all kinds of other things, a travelling guide book of Britain, a map, sunny pictures to remind me of home, a soft furry pillow, sweaters, not white socks (I was told that only Americans wear white socks, and although it sounds off I want to blend as much as possible), nice shoes (as a country we are kind of slack in our fashion, especially the guys), a football (to teach those Brits a proper sport), warm sweaters, scarves, and a fleece jacket (the average Manchester temp. is around 35F between January and April, brrrr.), and plastic bags. What, you wouldn't be excited about plastic bags for Christmas? They'll save your life when your shampoo explodes, fool! I've tired to spend as much time with my family and friends as possible because I'll definitely miss them more than anything else while I'm gone. I've opened an account with Bank of America bc they have a partnership with a British bank Barclay's. This way I won't be charged for using another bank's ATM, although I'll still be charged an overseas fee. I packed tonite, here's my list in case your looking for a guide line: 5 tshirts, 7 underpants (ha), about 10 pairs of socks, 2 jeans, 1 cargo pants, 1 cords, laptop, digital camera, i pod, 2 pairs of shoes, 4 dress shirts, 5 polo like tees, basic hygene stuff, a blanket, 2 pillowcases, and everything in that Christmas list above. Lets hope I actually use all that stuff. Packing Tips: BEST RULE: Put everything you plan on taking in a pile and the CUT IT IN HALF. Better safe than sorry, sure, but you really don't need all those things. Find those vaccum sheets, they're awesome, they shrink your clothes FLAT! And be sure to put your future address in your luggage in case it is lost, so it can be shipped to you. I'm flying US AIR and my checked bags need to be under 50 lbs each. Weigh them and then leave yourself some room for error incase your're off. I put all my important things like my laptop, camera, and important documents in my carry on bag so as not to lose them to some careless skycap. Well I'm off tomorrow. Wish me luck! 8 comments|post comment

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