Dublin Anyone? December 4, 2009

Once again, a little late, and I apologize, but as far as I know, everyone wants to know what happened in Dublin, so here goes:

We saw the sights, we froze in the rain, we ate some Irish food in an Irish pub, we ate some American food in a Johnny Rocket’s, we went out, we had a bed in our hostel stolen by a random creeper, we saw a leprechaun, we added to his pot of gold, and by we I mean me, the person that got suckered into a photo, we went to the Guinness Factory, we saw St. Patrick’s cathedral, we took a lot of pictures, and we had a lot of fun.  Now that I have said all of that, let me explain that by we I mean my friends Matt (from UCSB) and Amanda (from UCLA) both of which I just met when I got into England.

We bought a round trip flight to Dublin for 30 pounds, which is like 49 dollars or something like that, I’m still not perfect with the conversions, but I know its cheap, and then we booked two nights in what was supposed to be a 16 person co-ed room in a hostel somewhat near the city centre. (That’s not a type-o, that’s how they spell centre here).  Ya, so with everything booked we basically hopped on the plane and away we went.  We got to the hostel Thursday night, hung out for a bit, figured out that there was a free walking tour available the next day and then went to sleep.  With our backpacks on our bunk beds next to us, and 5 random people (we got upgraded to an 8 person room) sharing the room, we went to sleep.

The next morning we woke up early and went on a walking tour, ya it was freezing, but it was really cool to see all the major points of Dublin, although it didn’t really look anything like the Ireland we see in the movies.  Not nearly as green…or lucky, from what I could see.  We saw a lot of old architecture and important buildings while learning about some of the Irish history and the Viking take over and such.  I was mostly interested in the aesthetics of it all, thinking I could make another color book like the one I did for Venice Boulevard, except for Dublin, obviously.  Here are a few of my favorites: (Don’t ask me what they are of, because I probably don’t actually know)

And there are a ton more, but that is enough for now, because there are still the photos from the rest of the trip.  Basically, before we went all anyone said was that we had to go to the Guinness Factory since that was the pride and joy of Ireland.  I wasn’t too excited for it, not being a big fan of Guinness myself, but once we got there I was convinced to go in and do the self-guided tour and I am actually really glad I did.  The whole factory had been turned into this sort of museum/gallery of Guinness’ history…like did you ever realize that the Guinness Book of World Records and Guinness beer were the same company? Ya, neither did I.  Needless to say, there are a lot more photos from this tour, so I will only put a couple, including some from the top floor (seventh I think, which actually means 8th since they have a ground floor and a first floor).  There was a great view of the entire city from there, so that was awesome to see at the end our tour.

The interior of the factory had all the pipes and brick and everything exposed, which I found really interesting.

Also, did you know everyone is Irish on March 17th? haha.

So we walked around learning about the history of Guinness and Ireland, whilst taking a ton of photos and generally just enjoying getting off campus and seeing a little more of Europe.

It was my first time in a hostel since I am not planning on traveling until term is over, and it was a surprisingly nice experience with the exception of the fact that someone was in Matt’s bed when we got home on the second night.  Sort of annoying, but mostly funny, and it worked out fine because the hostel staff quickly took care of the random guy for us.

Other than that, we sort of just hung out, did a little shopping and explored the city.  I had a lot of fun and really enjoyed going there, even though it wasn’t quite what I expected.  It was good to get back to Flat 52 in Tocil though, I definitely missed all my flat mates and everyone even for the 3 days I was gone…I don’t know how I am going to handle it when I have to go back to America.  Everyone here will definitely be downloading skype before I leave.  Ok, thanks.

A few more pictures, now, just to finish off the blog:

A castle? Me in the garden.

Temple Bar Area. Basically, the cool place to be.

Fancy building

A really cool farmer's market that we stumbled upon.

Lost, even though we were in Matt's home country.

A nice park.

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Alright, that’s about it for now.  Coming soon, a blog about Thanksgiving in England.  Oh, and in case you’re wondering, when I say Dublin wasn’t what I expected, I don’t mean it’s not like Harry Potter.  I didn’t expect it to be like Harry Potter, I mean, that would just be silly.  Everyone knows HP isn’t set in Ireland.  haha.

Time for Halloween… December 2, 2009

So I know its a little late, but I think this is in order…a post about a Halloween in England.

First of all, I thought it was gonna be a way bigger deal (because it seems like a big deal in Harry Potter, and let’s be real, I base my overall expectation for England on what I see in Harry Potter) but it didn’t seem like it was as big here as it is at home.  No trick or treating, no planning of costumes really, no pumpkin carving, and no decorations.  Until I showed them what’s up.  No actually, there was a huge zombie theme party in the student union that everyone was up for and they all went all out on zombie costumes and blood and dirt and everything, and everyone was really up for carving pumpkins too, even though some people never had.

Basically our night consisted of pumpkin carving and then going to the zombie party so I am just going to post some pictures of that and that will be all.  Oh, and on a related note, if you are under 18 you are not allowed to buy flour or eggs from the grocery store on Halloween weekend.  Why? Because they actually do the trick part of “trick or treat”.  

So these are the pumpkins, guess which one is mine? the other two are by Adam and Ben, both guys that live in my flat and their first time carving pumpkins.  Plus we had no patterns and we definitely used regular spoons and knives to complete them.  The other photo is a bunch of people dressed in zombie gear.  Some of them live in my flat, some in the flat next door and some are just friends I have made.  It was a really fun night.

So some people from Flat 51 (next door) are clearly upset because I have left out there pumpkins, which where pretty legend, not gonna lie, so here is the photo of pacman pumpkin, creepy guy pumpkin and Flat 51 pumpkin.  Thanks to Lewis’s facebook.

Top 10: Weirdest Little Differences November 8, 2009

A quick list of the 10 little things that are just so different, it’s unbelievable.

10. Purple Skittles:
That’s right, purple skittles are actually different here.  You think it’s an international candy, universally the same, but no.  Here, purple candy is black currant flavor, unlike at home where everything purple is grape flavored.  And here’s the craziest thing– black currant skittles are actually good.  Imagine that, someone wants to eat a purple skittle.

9. Football:
Football is actually football.  As in a game where you are constantly kicking the ball with your foot.  Ok so I knew they weren’t going to have American Football and I knew there was Futbol (soccer) in Spanish countries, but I didn’t know that in England their soccer is called football.  Basically, I can’t get over how weird it is that we couldn’t come up with a different name for American Football.  I mean you barely even kick, let’s be real.

8. Fat People:
There are barely any.  Really, I have only seen a few.  But then again I haven’t seen any Jack-in-the-Box, Taco Bell, In-n-Out, Freebirds, Chipotle, or Habit and there are very few McDonald’s, Starbucks, Burger King, or Dominos (at least compared to at home, where they are literally on every corner).

7. Fillet vs. Filet:
So you know that cut of meat we have at home? Ya, a filet (fil-eh) as in filet o’ fish or filet mignon.  Well here they pronounce it fill-it, with a hard T.  I was in disbelief, thinking how is it possible to be so close to France and actually pronounce this French word incorrectly?  Turns out that in English English (as opposed to American English) they actually have their own adaptation of the word filet, now spelled fillet and correctly pronounced fill-it.  Check out http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fillet if you don’t believe me.

6. Tk Maxx:
Yes, it is like Tj Maxx.  In fact, it is exactly like that.  Same font, same colors, same logo, same store, same concept.  it’s just Tk Maxx.  Couldn’t tell you why, though.

5. Reading Week:
Humanities majors actually get a week off in the middle of the term just to read…or travel and catch up on sleep and totally neglect all work that we should be doing. haha.

4. Chips:
You may be thinking there is no way for chips to be that different from one country to another, I mean, everyone enjoys a good potato chip right? Ya, that’s right, but if you’re looking for a potato chip in the Uk you better call it a crisp.  If you want some french fries, go ahead and ask for chips but watch out because they like them with salt, malt vinegar, and mayo.  Ya, a lot of mayo.

3. Lemonade:
If you want a glass of lemonade either ask for lemon juice or still lemonade.  If you want a glass of sprite go ahead and ask for a lemonade.  if you want sparkling lemonade ask for cloudy lemonade.  And while we’re on the subject if you want a soda, ask for a fizzy drink, but if you want pure soda water you can ask for a soda.  And if you want water, say still water or you’ll get sparkling.  And if you want tea, don’t ask for Earl Grey cuz that sounds posh, just say tea.  But if you drink it without cream and sugar then you’re weird.  If you want some juice then you can ask for juice (finally one thing is the same) but if you want to make juice from concentrate, you can’t.  You can make juice with cordial though but don’t say its a syrup.  And if you don’t want to call it cordial you can also call it squash.  And don’t worry, no one will think you a referring to the vegetable, no one knows the word squash with that meaning.  And when you try and explain the word squash as in vegetable, don’t say zucchini because they don’t know that word either.  If you want ginger ale, it’s ginger beer, but don’t worry there’s no beer in it actually.  Ya, welcome to my life of complete beverage confusion.

2. Z:
There is no letter Z.  I mean there is but they rarely ever use it.  Not in organise or realise or anything.  Even as I am typing these words my spell-check is saying they are incorrectly spelled, but not in England.  And here’s the other thing, that letter they don’t have, the Z…we call it zee, they call it zed.  Ya, like when you’re reciting your ABC’s the song actually ends with X, Y, Zed.  And I’m not even sure they have the alphabet song here. Wow.

1. English Muffins:
THEY DON’T HAVE THEM. Enough said, right?  Not only do English people not have English muffins, they don’t even know what they are.  And for that matter, I haven’t seen any English Bull Dogs and I have yet to hear anyone say “old chap” or ” ‘ello”.  It’s pretty crazy but the fact is, almost every English stereotype I may have had before coming here, doesn’t really hold true.  Well, no that’s not true.  They do all sound a bit proper and they do all have brroms in their closets for when they play quidditch on the weekends.

 

Just kidding….but I wish. haha.

Hair Today, Goose Tomorrow? October 22, 2009

So I am running out of ways to categorize my life in order to put them into neat, little, subject-based blogs for you to read.  Therefore, this is a far more random accumulation of brief stories of things that I have been doing and have happened to me in the past couple of weeks, purely for your amusement.

First of all, I am sure everyone (all four of you who read this) would like to know a little about the classes (modules) that I am taking for my major (course).  I am studying English and Comparative Literature here, which entails four English classes: Literature in the Modern World, The European Novel, European Theater, and Shakespeare and His Later Collaborators.  Basically this means I have a different book to read for each class, each week and if you can’t do that math, I will just go ahead and tell you that there are 23 books on my shelf right now, six of which I have read already.  It’s pretty interesting so far except for the fact that it is SO much reading, but they are all classics so I will come home with a better education and far more learned. haha.  In fact, I should probably be reading now, but oh well, I am going to do this instead.

I am sure you are wondering abut my very creative and ingenious title of this post: Hair Today, Goose Tomorrow.  Basically this just emphasizes the randomness of this post.  I got my haircut, and it was quite an experience and then I discovered a lake full of geese in Tocil Wood, also an experience that I felt needed to be shared.

As far as my hair goes, it is now 6-7 inches shorter, which is intense but I will get used to it.  The thing that was crazy was how rough this stylist was.  Literally, my head was still hurting four hours later. First she started by telling me that she couldn’t be held responsible if she ripped out my earrings when they got caught on the comb or brush…I mean, what??! Can’t you just be careful, like a normal person? Honestly. Then I got my hair washed — very unenjoyable.  We’re talking soap in my mouth and eyes, getting whipped in the face with my own wet hair and cold water.  The cut was fine except that I wanted to cry as she just kept cutting and cutting and cutting.  Finally when it was over, I went to pay and the woman says to me, “I don’t know how they do it in America, but here we tip.” Woah.  so that’s where we are with that and clearly you can see the picture over here and my look of concern. haha, i crack myself up.  Not but really, did you guys know how hilarious I am?  I’m sure you all miss the laughter inspired by me.

And then there are the geese.  Which are terrifying.  Actually terrifying. Like, I hate them.  But they are kind of cool I guess, minus the fact that they were chasing me.  Here’s the epic tale of my goose encounter: I decided to go adventure around and came upon a sort of forest thing and a large lake surrounded by ducks and geese. I thought it was pretty cool so I kept walking and met this little English girl who was basically the most adorable thing ever.  Like Christine, but red headed, with an English accent.  Anyways, she was feeding the ducks and I was watching her and then she gave me some bread so I could feed them too.  I started to feed the ducks and I was doing fine, until a herd or a flock or whatever you call it of geese rapidly approached me and had no respect for my personal space. Honestly, I almost cried. Ok, that is a bit of an exaggeration, but I did give the little girl her bread back and told her I didn’t want to do it anymore. And she definitely laughed at me.

So ya, those are the geese in all their horrifying-ness. Whatever, don’t make  fun of me, I was scared.  But it really is cool to be right in the country the way  we are. Some people here say this isn’t the country, but that is only because  they are from the REAL country, as in farms and cows and sheep and the like.  But compared to Santa Barbara, we are definitely in the country, especially  when you can hear the geese crying and see the leaves turning colors and  everything.

It has been raining a little bit pretty much every day but I don’t really mind.  Everything I need is so close to my house, especially when you consider that is  is a 25 minute walk from the dorms to the Desma building at home. Here, I  can get to humanities in about 2 minutes, the grocery store in 5, the gym in 90  seconds, etc.  It’s pretty convenient and I am really glad to be where I am.

Let’s see. Other than class and reading and generally just hanging out, I haven’t been doing much.  I have a trip to Dublin planned in the near future so that will be exciting.  Round trip plane tickets and two nights of accommodation all for the low, low price of 52 pounds, which is about $80, so I am pretty happy with that purchase.  Alright, that’s all for now, but here are some more pictures.

Oh, P.S., I had to go to the doctor to get some medicine because I am just not getting well.

Here it is.  Ok, not really.  There is actually a real doctor and health center on campus but I guess I can’t go there because I’m not covered or something, I don’t know so I  went here for my medicine.  The  pharmacist (or chemist as they would say  here) had to consult with me before I could buy any Sudafed and then when I finally got some it  was in syrup form (no pills available) and honestly looks like it is from the 18th century, as  seen in the picture below.  I just thought the whole glass bottle and actual spoon was really  funny for some reason.  But I am feeling much better now so that is a huge relief.  Can’t  remember the last time I actually had to swallow cough syrup and, man, is it disgusting, but  worth it o be well, I suppose.

Ok that’s about all that is happening here.  Pretty interesting stuff, I suppose. Here are a few more pictures to just enjoy.  Oh, and just another way for me to procrastinate a little more.  I may be in England but my study habits are pretty much the same here as they are at home.  Add in the fact that there is no TV here and you get me, sitting in front of a computer, for a long time.

The first is just a cool tree that I really liked the colors of, the second is a gate in the woods that sort of reminded me of something along the lines of The Secret Garden, and the last is just some grass in a large field that I laid in until I got too cold and went home.

Coventry and Campus October 10, 2009

my flat, the second window up is my kitchen

So I have officially completed my first week of modules (classes) in my course (major) which is English here. I have been living in my flat, Tocil 52 M with 11 other first year students, most of whom are English as well.  I can already tell I am picking up an accent.  The flat has been fun. There are 12 of us total, 6 toilets and 3 showers, and one small kitchen.  The kitchen has pretty much been a disaster, even though there is a cleaning lady every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday but I am sure we will get the hang of it soon enough.  Everyone is a fresher (freshman) in my flat so not all of them are skilled chefs, myself included, but at least I don’t use the microwave of most of my cooking. A bunch of people in my flat are sick already, including one case of diagnosed swine flu, quarantined to her room, but still I am trying to stay out as much as possible.

The weather was pretty nice today, cleared up for a bit, and not too cold.  Everything just screams Autumn (Fall) which is fun since we have basically no seasons at home.  I woke up fairly early this morning, at least for a Saturday and walked around, looking at the whole campus while it wasn’t raining for once and then took a short bus ride into the city of Coventry.  It’s a really old city, I guess, and one of the things I love about it is this old cathedral.  It was damaged in World War II, I think, but they have left the ruins and still have church services in there sometimes.

some of the cathedral ruins

Personally, the runs are my favorite.  The ceiling is gone so it’s just sort of this open air garden almost, and they have added some statues and a lot of benches so there are people reading, eating lunch, drawing. It just has the feeling of a really peaceful place and I sat there for almost an hour and half this morning, actually enjoying some of the reading I have to do for class.

In addition to this cathedral, there are 2 others (that are still standing), both of which have these incredibly tall and sharp spires, as does the cathedral ruins.  This makes coventry the city of three spires, which I guess has become their slogan or something along those lines. It’s hard to get a picture of all three together so I don’t have one, but I do have separate shots of some of them.  It was really a nice walk around the city and I enjoyed everything that had to do with fall and the leaves changing color.

Basically it seems like everywhere I go is surrounded by history even though my school itself is not that old, 1957 or something like that I’m not sure.  And here’s an interesting fact: almost no one knows what UCLA is but everyone knows The O.C. (the show) and The Hills (and they love The Hills, its hilarious).  So this pretty much sums up my day today and gives you an idea of the things I see on a day to day basis. I will post a few more fun Fall pictures just for fun, and then more updates on experiences.

Hello London! September 28, 2009

So my journey begins in London for a 3 day tour and EAP orientation, meaning it is only with other UC students.  There are tons from UCSB and a couple from UCLA, plus some others mixed in there.  We begin the touring only an hour after I arrive in the country so of course I am exhausted, but still enjoy the boat tour on the River Thames.  Pretty much all the sites everyone told me to see are right along the river, including Big Ben (which is actually the name of the bell inside the clock tower).

Big Ben and Parliament overlooking the River Thames

Seeing Big Ben was really breath taking, all of the buildings look so old and extravagant, it makes me feel like I am on a movie set or something.  Even the houses, which should be plain and boring, look like they are straight out of Mary Poppins, which I guess they sort of are.  Seeing the clock tower reminds me of in Peter Pan when they are first leaving for Neverland and they stop off at the clock.  Everything is so beautiful it should be in a Disney movie.  After the boat tour, which mainly focused on all the bridges and sights along the river (and surprisingly the London Bridge is the ugliest of all).  After the river tour we had to go back to the Study Center, which is basically the home base for exchange students in London and have a meeting.  They decided they were going to get us an authentic Californian meal for dinner so we wouldn’t feel homesick, so we had burritos.  It was a nice gesture but they really weren’t very good.  Nothing like Freebirds or Chipotle.  After that I, obviously, went straight to sleep in my hotel, especially considering I did not sleep at all on the plan due to this weird foreign guy who kept putting his bare feet on my legs and extreme turbulence.

The next day we went on a tour of the Tate Modern Art Museum, which is also right next to the river, then on to a walking tour and lunch on our own at any of the local cafes.

The Tate Modern seen from the Millennium Bridge (featured in HP6)

The museum was fun, especially with me being a design major, but surprisingly disappointing collection compared to those of the modern art museum in LA.  Lunch was good, I ordered a sandwich and lemonade and here’s a surprise: all their lemonade is sparkling.  It can be anything from regular sparkling lemonade to Sprite, but they don’t really have still lemonade (and if they do its called lemon juice) and everyone in my flat later on was astounded to know I had actually had a lemonade stand when I was little, they thought that was just in the movies.

After the museum and lunch we went on a guided walking tour of London, away from the river a bit and into the rest of the city.  We saw the West Minster Abbey, which was also so stunning.  All the stone work and detail really is mind-blowing.  I really couldn’t believe how ornate everything is,  especially when you  consider how old all the  architecture is, and that is  has lasted this long.  After  the abbey we continued on  our walk and were shown  a bunch of key buildings  in London, most of which  all had very similar  design: ornate detail,  columns, figureheads  everywhere, we even saw  some gargoyles (haha).  We saw Buckingham  Palace, which was also very impressive, but we didn’t get to see the changing of the guards, or even hassle the guards as they have been relocated to stand behind fences, free from tourists.  The Palace was really pretty though. I have never seen the White House in real life, but I imagine this would out do our leader’s home.

Buckingham Palace and its front garden

We were lucky that our tour took place on a rather surprisingly warm day in London, everyone was telling us it was unusually warm, but I still had to wear a sweatshirt and jeans.  Little did I know it was only going to get much much colder once I got to school.  After Buckingham Palace we got on a double-decker bus and rode to our next destination, a restaurant in a hotel where EAP treated us to dinner. It was pretty good, but it was food we have at home too, except for the Aubergine. It looked like eggplant to me so I asked one of the waiters if it was eggplant to which he responded no.  I was still pretty sure it was eggplant so I asked another waiter to which he, again, responded no.  Only after I had tried it, confirming that it was eggplant did I realize that they just don’t use the word eggplant here, it’s called aubergine.  It was good though.

After dinner, we went to a show playing at a nearby theater called We Will Rock You. It was a musical composed entirely of music by Queen and written around the concepts of the songs.  It was very bizarre and surprisingly weird, but also intensely entertaining and I suppose a good taste of British humor.

Double decker bus with the London Eye Ferris Wheel in the background

I really enjoyed it and I think everyone else did too, even though we were all really tired by this point.  I don’t have any pictures for this part of the night but I have one last picture of London that I really like and will put in here (even though it doesn’t fit witht he topic, haha).

After the musical we all pretty much went home and started packing up because we were leaving for our Universities, or Uni’s as they call them here, early the next morning.

I am now in my room on campus, moved in and done with the first week of classes, or modules as they’re called, and I will post pictures of the campus, living situation, and nearby city as soon as the rain stops and I can take my camera outside.

Hope you enjoyed my first post. More to come soon.