you don’t move to england with an aversion to rain

29.april.05: people apologize on behalf of the country for england’s un-californian-like weather. no one really believes that california, too, has months worth of grey skies and clouds, rains and storms. apparently, it never rains in california on the telly, so my friends say.

and then my father sends me pictures of a storm in visalia, with dark scary skies and funnel clouds.



i show them to my friends to prove that yes, it definitely rains there, and probably everywhere else in the world that you don’t think about. deserts, volcanoes, and even hell probably have their share of precipitation.
i tell them, please stop apologising for england’s overcast habits. it actually adds to the atmosphere when i look out a train window and see sloped blackened rooftops reflecting water from the skies. and besides, i tell them, you don’t move to england if you have an aversion to rain.

no voltage in this culture shock

29.april.05: i am surprised by the lack of adjusting it takes to live around these parts. i’ve been finding an occasional word i’m unaccustomed to, but it’s not been bad, really. i guess growing up on monty python, are you being served, and absolutely fabulous have helped the adjustments. it’s almost like second nature for me to use the brit slang.

i almost feel ... too comfortable.

the only thing that’s majorly shocking to my system is the fact that these huge, gorgeous old buildings are now hard rock cafes and starbucks locations. at home, we’d want to respect and cherish any old building that we have, turn it into museums, charge admission... over here, they’ve got nothing but old buildings. what are you going to do with it? initially, i was practically offended by this. but it’s just an adjustment to deal with, and by now i’ve become quite accustomed to it. in fact, it’s kind of interesting to be shopping in a place where you know a lot of history has gone on.

werds n stuf

26.april.05: the words garbage, cell phone, atm machine and “waiting in line” are queuing up the exit door of my vocabulary. in the other end pops their lovely neighbours rubbish, mobile, cash point, and, well, queue. i know i look and sound silly, they know i’m american and they know i’m “trying too hard,” but honestly, i can’t NOT say these things. it’s a struggle to make my tongue flat and horizontal to sound like i do at home. perhaps my speech will henceforth be choppy and my mouth will permanently stretch more vertical, or rather VER-ee-coull.

the time is half nine. the time is 20 til. myolmayt meht me mum abowghta fourtniyt agow.

ipod, you pod

26.april.05: right now my most functional and accurate timepiece i have is my ipod, which calculated what my time was as soon as i told it my new timezone. this is sad, as it requires me to pull it out of my purse and show the world that i have fancy gadgets to rob.

everyone has the little white earbuds, yet i rarely am able to see if it’s actually attached to an ipod. however, i did see a violation of hidden apple code (of ethics): one guy was listening to a cheap little sony mp3 player with the ipod earbuds. way to ruin my “i’m in the elite crowd” trip.

i suppose it’s kind of snobbish of me, but when i see those signature earbuds on another person, a rush of elation washes over me that they, too, are a member of the happy fun joy club i am. i love my ipod, and if they’re walking around with theirs, i’m sure they are too.

looking at everyone on the tube, plane, train, or bus stop, i’d guess that 45%-65% of people have headphones on. but what they’ve got it attached to, i don’t know. these people are experts at hiding whatever music equipment they really have.
in fact, the bag that i’m using as a purse, which my sister allison gave to me, has a little slot in it to poke your headphones through. so does my big backpacker’s bag. super inconvenient, especially for me because i like to hit random and rate the songs from one to five stars as i’m listening. i have a playlist set up so that it will add any 4 or 5 star song to a gargantuan playlist. so i need to have it out in my hot little hands to fiddle with it.

mmmmm, an ipod fiddle. what a brilliant idea.

timepeace

22.april.05: my favoritest watch in the entire universe got its little knob torn off of it as i was setting some luggage down. that means that my watch will forever be stuck on california time.

i think it’s a sign.

the limitations of my passport

22.april.05: i told a few of you that a temp agency contacted me about a great, very well-paying job in cambridge that i wanted very very badly. the contract was for 12 months, and i was more than willing to stay the whole year for it, if i got help with extending my visa. well, the temp agency contacted me back and said they’re very reluctant to bend over backwards for me. apparently they’ve tried extending an american work visit before, and it just didn’t work. they said that they would seek out their other applicants before they considered hiring me, and that’s ok. i’m still going to keep in touch, because they’ve said before that it’s a highly specialised job and that it was difficult to fill. they even had to eliminate some requirements just to see if anyone had the “mad skillz.” i have the skills, oh yes i do, but if i am completely ruled out, i really won’t mourn – it was a desk job, and i wanted to utilise my time in britain really interacting with people. something that a minimum-wage barista is required to do.

...but still.

a blank slate sky

22.april.05: my plane finally landed, and i see someone next to me with a british newspaper and a weather map on the back. i giggle to myself as i see every major city on the island(s) marked with a cloud or rain icon. when our plane descended to land, we couldn’t see the city that lay below us until a few minutes before touchdown, because it was coated in thick layers of gray clouds.

perfect, i thought to myself. we finally punctured through the blank slate. we can finally begin to write this story.

the programmed programme

22.april.05: there’s a lot of paperwork i’m going to be looking forward to. did i say looking forward? i meant dreading. but in english propriety speak, they mean the same thing.

i’m so glad i’m not shooting in the dark, though, and actually going through an organization like BUNAC. i would never be able to do it alone. but now that i’ll have that experience under my belt, if i decide to overextend my 6-month blue card, i’ll at least know what kind of processes are involved.

i know that i can’t quite “extend” my blue card with BUNAC, but there are people who move there from america all the time. right?

official update #1

22.april.05: i officially got the job as a barista in nottingham. i’m very excited about it, i know it will be good for me. even if i start working there and find a higher paying job, i know that this is where i’m supposed to go in the beginning. but i’m also open to staying for a good while. it seems really friendly and “hip,” since nottingham is a college town (known for its fashion design program, apparently). might be the shift i need. but i’ve also heard from other people that nottingham was “interesting” and “just okay.” we’ll see. the nice thing about nottingham is that, like visalia, it is centrally located. unlike visalia, tori amos is going to be playing there in july. so there.

but before i move there, i’m going to be using my britrail pass all next week, after i’m done with the weekend and the orientation in london. i’ll be visiting all sorts of different UK cities, from cambridge, bristol, bath, nottingham, york, glasgow and edinburgh. i wanted to visit first so i can scope out possible job/living sites. but i also might save a few days on the flexipass so i can just do daytrips or weekend holidays to some of these places, instead of in one blow.

this experience is a series of firsts. never been to britain, unless you count some transfers in heathrow airport. never lived on my own outside visalia, let alone the country. never flown on my own. never worked in the food industry (or any job that required interacting with everyday people, for that matter).

i’ve also never been away from my dogs for this long. i wonder how i’m going to handle it, and what i’m going to explain to my british friends why i keep randomly saying that roxie has no brains.

when am i going to finally move from the “i’m going to get there” to “i’m already here” already? the map on my airplane mini-screen says we have 5 hours and 44 minutes left to go. hurry up already.

builds character, kid. keep at it.

22.april.05: the true test of a person’s character is how patient they are with the whole process of the airport. it takes a great person to put up with packing, unpacking, stripping, pulling everything out, and repacking all their carryon luggage just for the safety and security of the fellow passengers. most people wouldn’t put up with it, no matter how “noble” the cause.

so? how was the in-flight movie?

22.april.05: i knew you were just dying to know.

god, Spanglish. i just want to reach out and hug that wonderful vibrant movie. what deep, real, eyepopping characters... mesmerizing. one thing about having these individual tv sets is that you can choose what you like, instead of being stuck watching, oh say, A Perfect Storm, one of the worst movies of all time when you’re trapped in a cabin and forced to watch it. International flights actually have really great movies available amongst the typical junk. I could have seen the Oscar-nominated The Sea Inside, or i could have seen drivel like Ladder 49. it’s my choice, and i love it.

tons of metal in the air

22.april.05: well, ok. i lied. i actually really like planes, despite the claustrophobia, shoddy lavatories, and jet lag.

for starters, i wouldn’t want to drive across an atlantic ocean. and i like the roller coaster feeling of takeoffs, the ear pops of altitude changes, the glance of the ant-like colonies down below as we scour and soar the continent, the screens installed in the back of the chair in front of you, the maps of the plane’s course, the interesting radio stations they have programmed in the armchair of your seat.

this trip, there’s some they might be giants (seriously!! i was shocked too), joni mitchell, lifehouse, and a station i’m listening to now called globalbeats. it’s got some of Everything But The Girl’s earlier wonderful electronica stuff.

ok then. perhaps it’s not airplanes i don’t like, it’s the airports. i will give anyone a fiver if they could name someone who genuinely loves airports.

i’ve visited my share of airports, but i never had to take off my shoes before for "security purposes." that was interesting.

ok, it’s movie time, so i’m gonna go.

open your mouth, make a friend

22.april.05: in airports, legendary characters are a only a hello away. many sit next to me but i would have no idea. a boy with tattoos is showing me the scars of his handcuffs, telling me how he got deported for staying in america too long. he was born in england, lived there until he was 12, then at age 23 they finally caught him and shipped him back home. i would have never guessed, because he had a (can i say) THICK californian accent.

i asked him if he acquired it over the years, and he switched on his british accent to show me. all of a sudden, his voice matched his face, and the world made sense.
if it weren’t for epic chit chat, planes would have no redeeming value.

omanumurkin!

hey, all. this is my temporary holding space for my updates as an umurkin living in britain. i plan to truly update and redesign soon, but for now, as i'm doing this from a cyber cafe in london, it's not going to happen within the 30 minutes i paid for.

so this post will be pretty cut and dry for now. i'll save all the poetic flowery prose for later.

i arrived safe and sound at the international students house on saturday, a hostel that is cheap as far as london goes. £18.50 a night translates to about $35-$38. in other parts of the UK, hostels go for about $15 american.

yes, london is expensive. at the airport, the exchange rate was practically 2 dollars for every 1 pound. yikes. it usually goes for about 1.8 dollars to a pound.

i take my BUNAC program orientation in about 40 minutes. for those who don't know, this is the program that i'm getting my temporary visa through. we'll see how much paperwork is involved in actually doing this. (eyes glaze over.)

i'm surprised as to how little culture shock i'm going through. london is practically underwhelming for me. i'm not a big-city girl, and i don't care much for touristy traps. but i did get to visit a church in greenwich, and i absolutely adore greenwich.

anyway, the plan right now is to stay in london until tuesday, then take the train out to bristol to stay with a friend who lives in the vicinity for a week or so. my barista job in nottingham starts may 4. i plan to do some travelling about within this week before i arrive.

my suitcase is way too big for all this shuffling about. i may have to send some of this junk home.

anyways, i gotta get going. i promise, other posts will be far more interesting. i'm just kinda rushing through this thing.

later, everyone.