I’m writing this blog entry in advance (in a word document), because I don’t have internet access yet but I still want to put everything down before so many other things happen. Right now it’s my third night here and tomorrow we’re leaving for the Lake District, then we move in to our permanent residence at Tennis Courts.
I am a little scared that my computer is going to blow up because my adapter is making an unsettling humming noise that gets louder and louder the longer I sit here. Every time I plug anything into the outlets over here I act like I’m about to be electrocuted because the outlets/plug-ins are freakishly huge and scare me.
It’s so weird walking around every day and thinking that everything I see is English. It doesn’t seem real. Before I left I wanted to spend as little time inside the dorms as possible because I felt like the “real” England was outside of them, and I still do feel that way but I was surprised how happy I was to just relax in my room. It seems like everything I see is surrounded in a glowing aura of Englishness that makes even windowpanes fascinating.
The campus here is amazing and beautiful, and doesn’t really seem like a University campus at all, although we have arrived here a few weeks before the British students and have the place to ourselves. But the campus feels more like you’re in the country than in a city of 2 million + people. There are trees and flowers and hedges that stretch on for miles. Classes are held in brick mansion-looking buildings and are all spread out and separated by trees, flowers, green lawns, and winding roads.
The walk to get from where we’re living is a serious bitch! It’s a 20 minute trek through (more than likely) rain along this narrow winding road that is so covered in hedges and trees on the sides you have to stoop down so that you don’t run into them. It feels like you’re walking through a forest, if it weren’t for the cars that zoom by.
And they are amazing drivers here. They manage to fit cars across the width of a road like clowns in a circus tent. The roads are narrow, cars will be parked half on the sidewalk half in the road on both sides and it looks like there’s only room left for one car to go down the centre of the road but they’ll fit two – even huge “lorries” and busses and very brave bicyclists that ride right on the street with the cars.
The teachers who are leading the program give us a ton of freedom and really treat us like adults instead of students. I thought they were going to hold our hand and walk us through everything, but instead they just passed out maps and had us figure out how to get from point A to point B. It really makes me feel like an adult for probably the first time ever, instead of a teenager.
On the second day after we arrived they basically told us to figure out the bus system ourselves and that it was our responsibility to figure out how to get to where they wanted us to be, when they wanted us to be there. But it really hasn’t been too bad. I feel even more comfortable riding the busses here than I did in Minneapolis. A lot of it is because they aren’t filled with scary gangster-looking people like back at the U (You know what I mean!), but I just feel really confident about getting around here, like I could hop on any bus and figure out where I am and where I need to be, and if I get completely lost, who cares. It seems to be pretty easy to find your way back if you just wander around long enough. And the streets here don’t seem to be set up in a nice orderly grid system like they are back in my dear city of Minneapolis; they can be winding and crazy, and I still forget which way I’m supposed to look when I cross the road.
We have to walk so far because since school hasn’t started yet, the city busses that serve the university housing area aren’t running regularly yet - and it’s usually freezing cold outside and boiling hot inside. After the second day I already had shin-splints, if I can lay off the alcohol calories I could become seriously fit this way.
By the second night I had abused my drinking privileges so much that I really don’t feel like drinking again for a long time. It started out with a pint of Abbot Ale at this pub in the city centre where we had dinner. The barman there called me “love” and said “I don’t see too many girls order that! – Not to be sexist or anything” - or something to that effect. And it was really strong, but fantastic – one pint of that is all I need to get a really good buzz going.
Then we walked around the city and stopped into a Tesco’s to buy these “family-sized” bottles of Smirnoff Ice and something British that was vodka and blue raspberry flavoring. We polished them off, waited ages for the a bus that in the end refused to stop for us, even though we flagged it down, and then walked all the way back to the Chelwood House which is seriously a shit load of a long way!
By that time it was like 10:30pm and we walked even farther down Edgbaston Park Road to The Gun Barrel, or “Gunny’s” as the Brits affectionately refer to it. It’s this pub that’s really close to campus and is where all the students hang out. It was packed with some Americans from our trip and a bunch of British students. I never got carded, which was weird and cool and the drinks we really expensive – this guy bought the two of us a pitcher of Guinness and it cost $22! Three shots of Sambucca was $10 (and I did not have all 3 shots myself!)
The place is seriously crowed and has loud music, an outdoor smoking lounge and a pool and snooker table. This English guy spent forever explaining the rules of snooker to me, but I still don’t understand it!
All the British people I talked to there were super friendly once you struck up a conversation. Most of them knew people from past UMD study abroad years and were really excited to see us; all of them thought it was cool that we were American and had a bunch of questions to ask us – which is the opposite of how I thought they were going to react to us. I spent a lot of time talking to these three guys: Craig, Adam and Dan, and contrary to everything I’ve heard about the Brummie accent, I love it! Really thick and sexy. It is the exact opposite of the “posh” London way of speaking that I think so many Americans believe all Brits speak in.
I stayed at the pub talking to anyone and everyone until they seriously kicked us out and the only people left were a couple UMD students and the three Brits we were talking to. We stood out in the middle of the “car park” until around 1:30 in the morning talking to them – they wanted to teach us everything they could about England and Englishness and we all had a bunch of weird questions to ask them - things like what the stripes on the road mean and what is a “Chav”?
I peed in a parking lot for the first time in my life, not very glamorous but everything was closed down so there was nothing I could do! I’m becoming more English every day.
((And on a very important note, I swear to God Adam looks exactly like motherfucking Daniel Radcliff! (except maybe a bit taller) But honestly, he does. If he didn’t speak with a thick Brummie accent I would have believed it secretly was Daniel, incognito. It was the weirdest thing; all I could do to keep from outright starting at him. Gorgeous.))
Anyway, I exchanged numbers with Dan who wants us to meet up on Monday at this pub in the city centre for pub quiz night. They all said it was really fun and that they ask general questions that Americans should know the answer to; I don’t know but we shall see! You win prizes like 10 free beers according to how you score on the quiz, and it costs 1 pound to play.
I was really glad that I got a Brit’s number already on the second night in the UK (& technically the first night shouldn’t count because I stayed in the flat and slept). I was worried that it would be really hard to meet English people here, especially because everyone from UMD travels around in huge groups, but it seems like it won’t be had at all to meet British people if you just go down a pub. Any pub anywhere, any time, is packed with English people and they all seem really approachable and friendly. So I am still holding out a glimmer of hope that I’ll find English boyfriend number 2 over here ;)
Dan said to call him whenever if I’m ever lost or want to know how to get somewhere, or want to go out to a pub with someone. He gave his number out to all the other Americans that were talking with him, if they had their own “mobile” here yet.
Other random things are that my “mobile” tells time the military way, using a 24-hour clock and I have to stare at it and do math for like 5 minutes before I can figure out what time it is.
And my room in the Chelwood House – university housing – is the absolute best place to live in the world. SO much better than shitty dorms. My room here (which I’m leaving permanently tomorrow) came with a fridge, desk lamp, shelves, huge bulletin board, a hot water maker –(Merrick and Curt, you guys need to buy one of these!) and stash of tea/coffee/sugar, towels, shampoo and conditioner and soap – even a shoe shine kit. There are already hangers in the closet AND there is a private bathroom in it, just like in a hotel room, it has a toilet, sink, and shower AND the best bit of all is that ever morning a maid comes in and makes your bed, empties your trash, cleans your sink, toilet and shower, gives you new towels – and this place is sort of the equivalent of living in a small dorm with common kitchens. Or Yudolf with kitchens that the floor shares, except all the flats are singles (and very small!). Very different from moving into an empty room. England knows how to do it up proper. The view from outside my window here is a big sloping lawn that stretches out to meet a lake where ducks and swans swim out to meet you when you walk down to the water’s edge.
I have a really bad sore throat, I am still jet-lagged and I’ve spent over $100 in the first three days!! I need to budget my money maybe.
But I love it here. I am finally in the place that I’ve felt for so long I belong in, and it’s almost surreal that I actually made such a huge goal of mine work out, even if it is for only nine months.
I decided to fuck being lazy and I am once and for all going to get an off campus job and take an Italian course through the main university with English students and teachers. Even though I feel like slacking off with those things right now, I know I’ll be happy in the end if I do a little more work. This means I will be taking six classes this semester, but it’s so cheap to take classes on the main campus here, they practically pay you to do it.
We’ll see how goes! I bet their accent butchers the Italian language. In high school one of our Spanish teachers was English, and it was weird because she would teach us to speak it with an English accent since that’s how everything would sound when she spoke it and how are we to know any better.
But now I need to pack, yet again!, and get ready for the 4 hour bus ride to the Lake District tomorrow – where they expect us to swim in the lakes btw, even though it’s September and 12◦C all week long! This girl is lending me one of her “swimming costumes” since I never got a chance to buy one for myself back in the US. Should be a good time though!
Oh, and on an interesting note, the “Police Constables” that came to talk to us about safety yesterday said that it’s legal to carry small amounts of marijuana here! That’s something that I never knew before. Some people were asking the Brits down at Gunny’s for numbers of dealers, which were happily supplied I might add.
Apparently Britain recently downgraded pot from a Class B drug to a Class C, which means you can’t sell it – that’s still illegal, but if you have a small amount on you that doesn’t look like you’re going to sell, or if you’re smoking only a small amount, nobody gives a shit. How weird!
