The World in Britain

I’m kicking off my very tardy first-ever Reading Blog entry with a general list of completely unrelated observations I’ve gleaned during my time here.  They may not be particularly useful or insightful, but I endeavor to amuse.

1.  English weather can change at the drop of a hat, but if you do not have an umbrella, it will rain all day.

Not that an umbrella will be at all useful to you in the case of a rainstorm. You’re best option is a very warm raincoat and- most importantly- some kind of boot. The umbrella is more of a talisman. If you have it, you won’t need it, if you need it, you won’t have it.

And let me take a moment here to say something about English rain, because it is different in some hard-to-define ways. First of all, it doesn’t pour down like a proper thunderstorm. It’s more like a heavy, persistent drizzle, like it’s too polite to go all-out and pour buckets, but it’s also not going to let you get away dry. It is also very cold. Not an icy or bitter cold, but a very permanent one.  The kind of cold that settles into your bones and makes you think you will never be warm again. Ever.

2.  Bridges makes me miss the Randolph College dining hall.

And it’s not because of the food. Believe or not, the food’s not that bad. It’s hardly fine cuisine, but it’s very edible and sometimes it’s even good. It’s a little bland, sure, and it certainly not good for my waistline and self-esteem, but I also don’t have to cook it myself. No, it’s not the food… it’s the lines.

Do you remember in high school/middle school how you had to stand in line with a tray and shuffle along, receiving spoonfuls of unidentifiable mush in various shades of brown? In my high school, the line used to wrap all the way around the dining hall. The first day we stepped into Bridges, it gave me rather unpleasant flashbacks to my sophomore year.  Now I don’t know if it’s just bad design or some  bizarre shrine to the grand institution that is standing in line, but Bridges seems to be designed to make the whole food-acquisition process as obnoxious as possible.

3.  The Brits will almost always be willing to offer you directions.

This is because there are no signposts. I am not lying. If you’re very lucky there might be a little plaque nailed on a brick wall somewhere identifying the street you’re on. Odds are it will be about six inches off the ground, where even someone as short as I am won’t notice it. Maybe I just have terrible luck, or maybe Americans feel a compulsive need to label everything and I’m just spoiled. Also, cities here seem to have been designed not on a grid pattern but more of an ugly spiderweb or broken glass pattern.

The good news is that, as the title says, the Brits are very understanding and willing to offer directions and advice. A woman in Portsmouth offered Nick and I directions before we’d even asked for them. In London, our bus driver had to pull over and ask for directions to the Globe. Just today, in fact, a very kindly professor helped me find a bafflingly distant part of the HumSS building known as “the Tower.”

And finally…

4.  A hot cup of tea is the most wonderful beverage in the world. Nothing will ever convince me otherwise.

Brandon has done it again! He is 2 for 2 when it comes to planning socials and events for us to hang out as a group. The first one was a BYOI (Bring Your Own iPod) party. We danced to our own music and, as odd as that might seem, it was a ton of fun. To watch someone dancing to music you can’t hear–or rather, the music you’re listening to–is an amusing experience.

 So when he mentioned the opportunity for a murder mystery dinner, we were gung-ho about it. Why not? It sounds like fun; we get dinner and a mystery. I think a few of us were a little wary about the murder to be had, but then, who wouldn’t be? A few days prior we got an email assigning us names and quick summaries of our characters. Some of the names ranged from the hilarious to the wacky: Rich Foreshore, Tara Tiara, Iona Gunn, to Marie Badley, Rhona Sadit, and Lee Lostit.

What made it better was the way people fell into their roles. At first there was a little apprehension, but then we settled down and began to get to the crux of the matter. Who murdered Top Chef Mickey Sadit? There were three chefs all told: Ollie Olliver, Sefton Badley, and the mysteriously missing Mickey Sadit. Sitting at the table, we had specific pieces of information to give out and/or pass around, which would lead us to who had murdered poor Mickey.

The dinner, meanwhile, was going on throughout all this. Brandon, Caleb, and Katie were constantly jumping around, bringing out food, taking empty plates, and filling water jugs during the three-course meal they had prepared. Last but not least, the end came with its “just desserts”–literally. Just as we got our dessert, we learned who the murderer was. The delivered speech along with its motive was beyond impressive and I have to say that it rivalled the professional murder mystery dinner I had been too.

We had a blast and we were exhausted by the end of the dinner. Some of us helped to clean up afterwards, getting an assembly line formed to soap, rinse, and dry dishes. Many hands make light work, but with the fabulous meal we had, it was so worth it. And Brandon and the rest of the wonderful people who helped cook the meal (Katie and Rhiannon and Caleb–I forget who else might have helped) did a spectacular job.

So, in the tradition of passing “Compliments to the Chefs”, it was a fantastic night. 

(And, oh look, pictures at last!)

So today is Saturday, October 17, 2009, and I’ve been here for a month and a half now. As from the other posts, we’ve been to Portsmouth where we got to clamber over the HMS Victory and HMS Warrior. It was neat to explore the old ships, despite the fact that many of us had to be careful not to bang our heads on the low beams.

And we’ve also been to The Globe, where we saw an amazing production of “As You Like It”. I never was much of a fan of Shakespeare, but after watching that, I was in awe. Especially after the scene when Orlando tackles his brother towards the beginning and later when Orlando wrestles the wrestling champion.

Recently, I believe it was last Saturday, we went to the Isle of Wight to check out the Osbourne House. It was beautiful. The hour-long ferry ride didn’t feel very long with the excitement of traveling and soon we were on the Isle. A few of us had the opportunity to take the horse-drawn carriage (thank you Dr. Franke and Gill!) to the Osbourne House which was easily within walking distance. It was a unique experience.

 The Osbourne House was huge. We only went through part of it that was open to the public, including the servants’ stairwell, as well as the nursery, the private room of Queen Victoria, the billiards room, and countless others. Throughout the building there were displays of cups and platters, all brilliantly decorated, as well as busts and statues. And the floor design was spectacular, providing it wasn’t covered up with rugs.

Exploring more of the Osbourne House took us outside to check out the walled garden, the ice-house, and the little cabin/house that had been built to give the children a slightly more “normal” feel to life. My favorite part was the fort the kids had built, making their own bricks by hand. Complete with the fort were trenches and two or three play-cannons. I don’t know about Victoria’s children, but I would have spent hours playing in the trenches.

 After Osbourne House we took a quick detour to the Garlic Farm. Having been to the Gilroy garlic festival in California, I thought I knew what to expect, but what I found was better. They had dozens of garlic-flavored items from sauces to dips. They even had garlic fudge and icecream. I’m not much of a garlic fan, but I tried the Chocolate Garlic & Chilli icecream. Surprisingly it wasn’t bad. It was a weird combination, since the icecream was cold, the garlic didn’t really have much flavor, and the chilli gave off a burning sensation. (Nick didn’t have the same impression, but he was eating this after he had tried the Dragon’s Breath hot sauce. You’ll have to talk to him, but apparently it was HOT.) Anyway, the icecream wasn’t bad; the garlic fudge was better.

All-in-all, the Isle of Wight was a lot of fun. And considering all that we crammed into one day, we did a lot and had a blast. (I’ll stop here for now, but there’s more still to come!)

So here’s a little back-dating account of my adventures thus far, starting with Week 1 of my arrival:

 So it’s almost been a week since I’ve moved into 153 Whiteknights. The house is nice; the bedroom is large, and with my bed pulled up against the bay window, I get sunlight streaming into my eyes each morning. That is, before the clouds move in. Surprisingly enough, the first week was rather warm and not all that rainy. There were times when it came down–but it resembled snow in the way that it fell. On a side note, I finally invested in an umbrella.

Monday morning I flew in to Heathrow. Caught a shuttle to Paddington station, then caught a train to Reading station, where I then got a taxi. Planes, trains, and automobiles–check. Tuesday we had class: War and Strategy in the Contemporary World. I was alive, after having gotten 4 hours or so of sleep on a 6 hour flight (which they had to delay otherwise we would have arrived too early–Heathrow has a curfew of no planes landing before 5 am).

Wednesday we got real fish and chips from a place just down the street–it was delicious. Thursday was fun-filled with exploring the bus system. I got a phone at The Oracle and had a generally nice day looking around and enjoying the sites down at the mall.

Friday we caught the train to London. Well, Anna and Alex and I went to London to see the Henry VIII exhibit. It was really good–lots of Latin, to my surprise and delight. We came out of the underground and nearly ran into Big Ben. I hadn’t realized it was so massive, or that we could get so close. Westminster Abbey was there too, and we observed Evensong at 5pm, which was really nice. Buckingham palace was really neat, and we got to see a few of the guards with the tall fuzzy hats and red uniforms. I spotted some mounted police too.

The London parks were really nice, filled with a few pelicans, geese and lots of pigeons. London was a blast, and the underground was pretty easy to use. I’m getting used to pounds, but I still keep thinking in terms of dollars. And the accents are nice. Unless they’re shouting or screaming or something. The BP down the street has a nice loud speaker system that invades the house every so often.

Classes don’t officially start until the end of September, beginning of October. Language classes, like Italian, don’t start until a few weeks after the regular classes start. I want to be fluent in Italian…but at this rate, I’m going to have to put in some overtime.

The only thing I’m missing (asides from my camera charger) is someone with a sense of humor. Come ON people, would it kill you to crack a smile at one of my lame puns??? So I’m going through humor withdrawals and trying to catch up to the people who beat me here by two days.

I should probably introduce myself before I launch off into a huge long paragraph about England, my experiences, and the traveling we’ve done thus far.

 So, hello. My name is Leanne and I am a Junior at Randolph College, studying abroad (obviously) in Reading, England. In Reading, we’re known as 3rd Years, which to them is the final year of university.  I’m majoring in Biology and minoring in Latin for my degree in persuing Veterinary Medicine.

So why did I come to England? After perusing through the course selections, I discovered they offered a class about Cancer and I knew I absolutely had to take it. I also wanted to experience a new and different culture  and had heard nothing but good things about England. So, I thought, why not go there? And voila! Here I am.

 I’ll keep this short since it’s only an introduction, but I plan on writing more, and often. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep it semi-entertaining. One interesting thing thus far: Americans have the stereotype for being sarcastic–and I’m no exception.

This year, the Fall 2009 Readingites are lucky enough to be going on four group trips around England this term. Our first one was three weeks ago when we traveled to Portsmouth, a city on England’s south coast. Our main destination in Portsmouth was the Historic Dockyard, which houses (among other things) the HMS Victory, Lord Nelson’s ship at the Battle of Trafalgar, and the Mary Rose, a Tudor warship that sank in 1545 and that has only recently been raised to the surface. The Mary Rose went off display for further preservation the day after we visited, so we were very lucky indeed to have seen her when we did! After a tour of the Historic Dockyard, we had some free time to explore Portsmouth on our own. Fellow Readingite Annie and I managed, after a few wrong turns, to find Portsmouth’s Anglican Cathedral. A moderate-sized building, the most impressive part of it (besides the amazing white stonework inside), was the fact that half of it was less than 20 years old while the other half was hundreds of years old, yet the two sides had been fitted together almost seamlessly!

The group’s second trip was last Friday, when we headed into London to visit Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre for a production of the Bard’s As You Like It. The week preceding the visit, we had studied the text of As You Like It in our World in Britain seminar so the group was well versed in what to expect on stage, or so we thought. The show, at least for me, exceeded every expectation I had after reading the play and broke many stereotypes that I had about Shakespeare’s work. The show was truly comedic and, in many ways, unexpectedly modern. The Readingites experienced the show the “true” Elizabethan way, standing in front of the stage as groundlings, with many of us directly in front of the stage!

Classes at the University started for most of the group today and, with still two more trips in front us, plus undoubtedly more papers to write, the rest of the term is no doubt bound to get busier and more exciting very soon!