umurkin!

Fairground

2005-10-06T22:38:00.000+01:00

Fairground
Originally uploaded by Psycho Crow.

The Nottingham Goose Fair is going on this weekend -- a huge deal for the area, since the festival has been going on for 711 years in Notts.

Hardrock Cafe

2005-09-30T15:48:00.000+01:00

Hardrock Cafe
Originally uploaded by Life Through A Lens.

Skyline ;)

2005-09-30T15:46:00.000+01:00

Skyline ;)
Originally uploaded by Mahks.

beautiful shot of st marys... and in between the trees you can see the lovely broadmarsh shopping centre carpark. :-)

Mixed feelings

2005-09-30T15:43:00.000+01:00

Mixed feelings
Originally uploaded by Mahks.

the most gorgeous shot of nottingham city centre i've found on flickr. props to mahks!

Try Your Luck

2005-09-30T15:32:00.000+01:00

Try Your Luck
Originally uploaded by Psycho Crow.

and when you looked away from the river during the festival, you'd see acres and acres of this kind of thing. fun fun fun.

Foot Bridge

2005-09-30T15:31:00.000+01:00

Foot Bridge
Originally uploaded by Psycho Crow.

this was taken during the riverside festival, which was happening right after nottingham forest won their first game of the 05-06 season. chris and i perused the festival after the match and it was a delight...

The Bean

2005-09-30T15:27:00.000+01:00

The Bean
Originally uploaded by Psycho Crow.

out front of the coffee shop that brought me to nottingham.

Summer Morning Nottingham Canal

2005-09-30T15:26:00.000+01:00

Summer Morning Nottingham Canal
Originally uploaded by Tancread.

the canal that links beeston to nottingham.

Robin Statue

2005-09-30T15:22:00.000+01:00

Robin Statue
Originally uploaded by Psycho Crow.

a great portrait of the statue outside the nottingham castle. thanks to psycho crow...

Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem

2005-09-30T15:20:00.000+01:00

Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem
Originally uploaded by w00kie.

This pub has been in operation since the year 1189. It is the oldest continuously-running pub in Europe.

nottingham train station

2005-09-30T15:16:00.000+01:00

nottingham train station
Originally uploaded by ekapand.

we use this train station nearly everyday to get to town from beeston. it looks great from the front but dodgy from the inside...

View of Nottingham from the Castle

2005-09-30T15:15:00.000+01:00

View of Nottingham from the Castle
Originally uploaded by alistairmcmillan.

Archer cut from hedge just inside Nottingham Castle Gate House

2005-09-30T15:14:00.000+01:00

Archer cut from hedge just inside Nottingham Castle Gate House
Originally uploaded by alistairmcmillan.

photos are coming!

2005-09-30T15:10:00.000+01:00

i have developed a few rolls of film documenting this place we call beeston. i've also been exploring a site called flickr.com which has so many member's excellent pictures of nottingham and its surrounding areas. for the next few posts i'm going to try an experiment and post other people's pictures of nottingham, while i wait for my rolls of film to be transfered to CD. if this isn't the right blog to post these to, i can set up a separate picture blog.

ok? ok. here we go. let me know if this is overload.

are you ready for some (english) FOOTBALL?!

2005-08-09T05:06:00.000+01:00

chris is a huge, huge, can't understate the word HUGE football fan (umurkins: read "soccer"). his favourite team is Nottingham Forest, and he saved up the equivalent of $100 to take me to the first game of the season.

never liked watching sports before. never cared for it. it seems in the states that there's only three main arena sports with the die-hard fans: baseball, basketball, and american football. now baseball is occasionally fun to watch, if it doesn't get boring due to lack of home runs. basketball has too many scores, so the anticipation isn't exactly great. and american football stops and starts so many times with so many complicated rules that it really ends up boring me to tears.

but there is nothing like going to a live english football match. especially for me. because there's one thing i love about sports, if it's not the actual game: it's the opportunity to scream with thousands of crazy people. crowds that spontaneously combust in revalry will get me going to certain sports matches even if i don't care what's happening in the game.

but here's the catch: english football i can actually UNDERSTAND! it's non-stop action the whole time. the ball is easy to see. the rules are easy to get. the players do the fanciest footwork. and it's called football for a reason -- you kick the ball around with your foot! that's not the case with stupid american football.

the fans are more nutty and diehard, and they all showcase their fantastic accents. plus, you'll never hear "awwww RUBBISH, you bloody wanker!" at any american sports game.

always a plus.

i am ok, i am safe.

2005-07-08T00:00:00.000+01:00

to the people back home who have heard about the london terrorist attacks where 38 were killed and hundreds wounded: i am ok, i am safe. i was at work hundreds of miles away in nottingham when it happened, so no, i didn't take a weekend to visit london or anything. many people talked about the incident this far north, but most people just went about their daily lives.

however, watching footage of kings cross station swarmed with emergency personnel isn't a comforting feeling. i used kings cross station several times to get to where i was going. i recognised the scene in the background.

chilling.

a mass against poverty

2005-06-30T00:10:00.000+01:00

i got the last minute opportunity to go to edinburgh this weekend for only 25 pounds! and this weekend is the huge Make Poverty History rally. i'm incredibly excited to be a part of it.

it's strange, but many christian churches in the UK are very activist against poverty and injustice in general. most churches i've come across around this area are also part of the Make Poverty History movement. why is it that the christian churches in the states, if they decide to take up a cause like poverty or social injustice, are automatically labeled left-wing and radical?

i got to listen in to an amazing service at york minster a few weeks ago, and i overheard the leader (pastor? priest? bishop?) pray for the people of zimbabwe and those who died in the genocide in sudan. why is this so strange for me to hear?

because it never happens in the states -- at least, not in the bible-thumping parts of the states.

i don't understand -- compare the number of bible verses that talk about abortion and homosexuality to the number of verses that talk about the poor, hungry, and needy. why is helping the poor, feeding the sick, and serving those in prison automatically assigned a political position?

frustrating...

cut and paste update

2005-06-16T00:36:00.000+01:00

right! it's been a while since i had a good update, and i know this is out of the blog's proper order, but i wanted to give a summary of what's going on right now.

today it was actually raining quite hard before the skies let up and gave us a great blue sky and a cool breeze. the only way i can tell it's june is because a) too many people around are complaining of hay fever, and b) the sun rises at 4:30 am and sets around 10 pm. nary a clue lies elsewhere in this country.

yes, rumours are true: i found a male specimen who likes me. his name is chris, and he's brilliantly silly. say hi, chris! (hello, suzanne.)

the thing is, though, we both know the british government is kicking me out in october and there isn't much i can do about it without an employer willing to sponsor me. so we just hang out a lot and enjoy each other's company (and silliness) while we can... which is probably why you haven't heard from me for about three or four weeks.

yes, i'm still at the coffee shop, which is where i met chris (who is a regular there). finally learning how to make the freakin' coffee, since i've been doing bussing, cleaning and food preparation pretty much this whole time. but i'm quite slow at everything i do.

a few nights ago we went out to a pub, just chris, me, a coworker from new zealand and his girlfriend. played british pool, which is similar to american pool except the balls are solid reds and yellows, plus some other odd rule changes here and there. then went to my coworkers house and got barbecue chicken pizza. some people say brits can't do pizza right, and for the most part they're correct, but when you find the proper pizza place, it's fabulous.

i miss proper mexican food a LOT, but i found enough stuff at the supermarket to survive. the tortillas don't come very big, the refried beans smoke even under the slightest heat, and the cheddar is more white and aged than the orange stuff in america. but it works, especially since they have good salsa dip.

other than that, i've been learning to eat lots of toast, take advantage of my employee discounts, expand my culninary skills and learn new indian foods (those places are EVERYWHERE here!). my housemates are from india, france and china, which makes our kitchen an interesting place to rummage through.

lessee... what else... oh! words i've had to trash are "trash," "dumpster," "saran wrap" and "rags." in its place are "rubbish," "skip," "cling film" and "cloths."

one customer came in a few weeks ago and asked if we sold anything savory. after what seemed like 10 hours of awkward looks and confusion, he had to point out that savoury means food that isn't sweet. like sandwiches, instead of cakes.

duh.

anyways, i'll give you more details later, as it is 12:42 am right now and i have to get up for work, which i'm finding harder and harder to do as the days go on.

cheers!

my horrible attempt at a british accent

2005-05-28T23:22:00.000+01:00

28.may.05: once upon a time, i thought i could fake a pretty good british accent. that was in the days when i didn't live in a country full of professionals.

i'd like to think that i haven't tried to make myself sound foolish, but a definite brit lilt has creeped in and replaced parts of my umurkin slang. a girl from pennsylvania didn't recognise that i was also from the states until i later asked her about it.

today, walking down with a fantastic bloke named chris (and i mean bloke in the absolute purest sense of the word), he challenged me to speak in the brit tongue, and i obliged after much hesitation. i said OAR-unge, he said "halfway there." i said "chris is a fantastic person and i don't know what i'd do without him," and he said, "that was scary."

i don't know whether he was scared that i'd say such things (it was his script anyway), or that my horrible attempt at a british accent wasn't as horrible as it sounded in my head.

he'll have to let me know tomorrow.

(more entries later, i promise. it's late now and i have to work in the morning. but i'll tell you all about my city, my coffee shop job, and of course, the delightfully insane regulars, such as the delightfully insane AND aforementioned chris.)

the names of these places, man...

2005-05-22T19:12:00.001+01:00

26.april.05: speaking of spelling, there's a county called gloucechester, a town called leicester, and a school called magdalene here in england. all three are pronounced funny. i can understand GLASS-teh-shur a little, but pronouncing leicester LEST-er and pronouncing magdalene MAUD-lin? what? and you make fun of us for the one-syllabic ornj?

another thing while i'm on the subject, it's great to see the original portland, the old jersey and the old york (as opposed to new jersey and new york), but i literally screamed when i saw a bus marked bakersfield here in nottingham.

BAKERSfield?? where did THAT come from?

now, i've been told that the cities around nottingham are very literally named. beeston, for example, was once famous for its bee farming, therefore it's the "bees town." chilwell literally means "cold water well." perhaps bakersfield was literally a field for bakers?

by the way, nottingham, i'm told, was named after a tribe called the Snots (the S was dropped not because it sounded too silly, but because apparently the normans who conquered the area couldn't pronounce the 'sn' sound).

true story.

hooky and the color ornj

2005-05-22T19:12:00.000+01:00

26.april.05: in my conversations with kev, two words escaped my mouth as categorically american: i once described a classmate who one day decided to play hooky. he busted out laughing and said "i haven't heard the word hooky since i read tom sawyer!" he then donned his best suthun cowboy accent and proceeded to mock me. in the non-insulting kind of mockery, of course – the british never mean to intentionally hurt with their mockery, just jab a little.

i laughed about it and played along, as only i can do in situations like that.

later on, i started talking about the valley's agriculture, how we had a lot of cows and dairy and grew a lot of oranges –

"it's funny the way you pronounce OAR-unge," kev said.

"you mean ornj? i'm sorry, i'll say OAR-unge – "

"no no, i like it, it sounds nice, don't change it."

other than creeping me out a little, kev was nice. he knew i can't make a permanent switch from one syllable to two. what, do i have all day? we americans like to cut it short. we probably inherited that from the british.

i mean, i know how orange spelled, but come on! there's so many words that the british pronounce completely differently from its spelling. that can't be the only excuse...

but the library rocks my socks

2005-05-22T18:45:00.000+01:00

26.april.05: there were several storeys in the city centre library (pun completely intended). each floor was categorised by types of books and multimedia they had available.

and there were three things about this place won me over.

1. the ground floor was chock full of cds and dvds. i mean real albums. new movies. rock/pop new releases. oscar winners and little-known foreign flicks. that you can rent. for a week. for 1 pound. drool.

2. they had a floor dedicated to SHEET MUSIC. i kid you not. there was EVERYTHING. classical solo flute pieces, full SSAATTBB choral arrangements, ancient gregorian notations and madonna's new album in piano and vocals. if they didn't have it, you can order it. which brings me to number 3:

3. if they didn't have ANYTHING, book or cd, sheet music or video, you can order it. it would be delivered to your nearest branch within a day.

i THINK i have those facts right – kev told me about them so quickly, i was still enamoured by the selection of everything, i wasn't paying much attention to details.

oh, and visitors get an hour internet free. i guess i could make that number 4.

i left my house in a hostel office

2005-05-22T18:44:00.000+01:00

26.april.05: i checked into the hostel, a kind of run down little place not too far from the city centre, but in what people would politely call a "dodgy area." there's a great british word that i chose to use instead: grotty.

the people's friendliness, however, more than made up for the quality of the place, and they let me keep my enormous amounts of luggage locked up in the hostel's office for a whole week, even when i wasn't going to stay there. for no extra charge.

one guy in the front room introduced himself to me as kev and helped me out with my colossal baggage problem.

"you brought your whole house with you, didn't you?" he said with his deep birmingham accent.

we would further reference the boulder of a suitcase as simply, "the house."

kev was a permanent resident of the hostel, because of what he calls "a great place to meet new people." he worked at capital one in nottingham for 9 years and had a room tucked up near the attic, beyond the maze of hallways, doors and staircases that some architect in the victorian era thought was a good idea.

he had time that evening, and wanted to show me around the town, so we went to a few shopping centres, a great little indian restaurant, and the library.

oh, the library.

nottingham! ...nottingham?

2005-05-22T18:37:00.000+01:00

26.april.05: i've heard different things from different people about nottingham. everything from "it's a lot of fun" to "it's alright" to "fantastic nightlife and culture scene" to "crime capital of the uk." so when i first arrived, i took a look around the main central plaza.

"weird," my mind said.

and it was stuck in that loop. no matter how much i tried to bring to a "good" or "bad" conclusion, the brain was still turning on its little hamster wheel, trying to figure the place out. i mean, there's so many gorgeous old historic buildings that were converted into modern stores and fast food joints and... i mean, the place is JARRING. one building, a sleek curvy glass structure with neon, sat right next to a 17th century 3-storey pub. it was too much. and if this was america, i would protest. but here the rules are different.

i walked around a little more and tried to do some random shopping. most stores were more high end than my cheap tastes – i mean, "affordable" tastes – so i wasn't really kept busy with the shops.

however, like i do wherever i travel, i'm drawn to the restaurants. i experience different cities and cultures through food. and nottingham has a bazillion places to eat out, from restaurants to cafes and pubs.

there was one in particular that i adored: it was called broadway. it's primarily an art house movie theatre, but it has a great little cafe attached right to it. they were playing "a very long engagement" when i was there (i didn't see it, though). they had scheduled films like chicago, napoleon dynamite and eternal sunshine of the spotless mind – all movies bigger in america than they were in britain.

the verdict was still out about this place called nottingham. but i knew that if 8,000 students can conquer this city, certainly i could too. i was willing to give it a try.

too many cheers, not enough cheer

2005-05-22T18:07:00.000+01:00

26.april.05: the word "cheers" is used more often here than i have previously imagined. it's used as a substitute or complimentary description for a slew of things, like "thank you," "everything's ok," "goodbye," "tickets please," "excuse me," "thanks for paying our cafe $10 for a substandard sandwich," and more, i'm sure. but it usually doesn't mean the tv show about a bar in boston.

at least i hope not. otherwise i'm in a mess of confusion.

but speaking of tv, several fellow hostelmates here in london were watching this reality show about people contending to host the perfect party (or something similar, because i was only half watching). a substantial amount of money was at stake to see who would be rated the best by these panel of judges. this one particular man's turn was up, and the entire episode was devoted to his prep time, his execution, and the follow-up interviews with the judges. and some of the things they were saying behind the poor guy's back were just scathing and venomous. he was mocked and put down in a very mean-spirited way.

for a country so full of "cheers," why all the negativity? does everyone just need a group hug?

and can you tell that last sentence was sarcastic?

choo! choo!

2005-05-09T00:02:00.000+01:00

06.may.2005: as much as i dislike the 24-hour system the trains run on, i love the trains themselves. they’re the ONLY way to travel across britain. you get to look out the window and see the countryside, you can get a huge table to put your stuff on, and some trains come with an electrical outlet for your laptop or mobile. an 8-hour train ride doesn’t seem like 8 hours at all. and the virgin trains even have their own programmed radio station consoles.

i bought a $300 britrail flexipass back at home that allows me to travel for 8 days within a 2-month span. so far, it has taken me everywhere i needed to be and more. it’s quite a pricey ticket, but it was definitely worth every penny. i’ve journeyed to london, nottingham, glasgow, edinburgh and bristol all on that ticket, and that’s only 2 weeks into it. and the coolest thing (and i don’t know if i should say this publically, lest the nice folks at national rail find my blog and hunt me down), but there’s absolutely no way the ticket takers know when my 8th day is. i’ve used the ticket for at least 6 days, and they only marked me down for 2. i don’t know if it’s common practice, but they never write down the date on my ticket like they’re supposed to.

or maybe they’re not supposed to, and i think i’m getting away with something perfectly legal. there might be a clause in there somewhere that states that the 8 days are really 48-hour periods or something weird like that.

who knows? all i know is that i’m very very very lucky to have that train access.

a song called "no phone"

2005-05-09T00:00:00.000+01:00

29.april.05: it’s weird the songs that pop into your head as you’re walking about. i think an obvious one is whenever a double-decker bus, um, “crashes into us, to die by your side is such a heavenly way to die.” i can’t think of the term without The Smiths song going off in my brain.

there’s also a lot of stickers that are plastered on doors that say “fire door – keep shut.” as it happens, there’s a song by ani difranco called “fire door” that has only 2 bars of a guitar loop (a quite catchy one at that) behind all the interesting lyrics. those two bars can burrow themselves so deep into my skull that it will take neurosurgeons years to clean it out.

what’s worse is, because i have been without a regular contact phone for some time, there’s a song by Cake called “no phone,” and its chorus goes something like this: “no phone, no phone,” something something something something, “no phone, no phone,” i can’t remember the rest.

but i remember the words “no phone” plenty well.well enough to be driven insane by them.

odd hours, strange times

2005-05-08T23:58:00.000+01:00

06.may.2005: i hate the 24-hour military time they use. all the train and bus schedules are printed that way. many of the clocks and watches are only in military time (but not all – big ben is probably the most prime example).

when people speak, it can be referred to in both 12- and 24-hour ways. i’ve since gotten used to it, but i’ve always had to make the conversion in my head. for example, if i see that it’s 19 o clock, i know it’s 7 pm if i just take away 2 from that second number (you know, the 9) and drop the 1. granted, it’s easier to figure out than celcius to fahrenheit, or even what time it is in california. and i understand that it can be less confusing when time is of the essence to drop the antiquated a.m. and p.m.

but how many britons make the calculations in their head as well, if they reference it in both 12- and 24- hour systems? or perhaps i’m complaining too much because i suck at math and everyone in england is brilliant at it?

don’t forget to look up

2005-05-08T23:53:00.000+01:00

02.may.2005: the service was over, and i found myself walking to the train station with a very friendly woman, originally from new zealand, who had to take the same train i was taking. she asked me various sundry questions about my stay, how i liked greenwich, how i liked london. i told her that london wasn’t too interesting to me for some reason. perhaps i wasn’t a big-city person, perhaps i’m turned off by all the tourist traps, but it just didn’t click in my brain.

“yeah,” she said. “sometimes the smell of pee can turn anyone off.”

well, true. but i don’t really recall the smell of pee in my experience. as it just so happened, the train pulled up and offered us the aroma of which we just spoke of.

“i’ve gotten used to it,” she said. “it’s just the smell of human nature. everybody has to pee.”

i laugh, then she dishes out more sage advice:

“in london, you will never appreciate the city unless you look up. at eye level, it’s like every other city. but you never realize how much history is in london until you look up to see the architecture.”

and it's true. in my experience, it’s like that in every european city i’ve been to, including in italy and austria. at eye level, it’s a city. above it, a legend. sometimes it’s sad how little the human neck strains upward and onward. we all get so busy in the muck and mire of the day-to-day stuff we wade through, don’t we? i remember days at school where i would literally forget that there was still a sun that existed beyond the fluorescent tubes lining the ceiling.

but skies are full of blank mystery too infinite to contemplate. ah, there, next to the ground, something we can stand on. something we can see. something we can grasp. yes, let’s stick with that.

next thing you know, you have tunnel vision. and you will have tunnel vision. and you’ll miss all the best parts of life, the nooks and crannies and histories and myths and stories and mysteries of infinite proportions.

she interrupts my thoughts. “just remember to look up once in a while, and you’ll be ok,” she said with a laugh.

so i look up, and i see a few lights, the roof of the train, and a tiny piece of everything.

the sunset in an overhead

2005-05-08T23:50:00.000+01:00

02.may.2005: going to the church a bit unnerved and shy, i introduced myself to one person. after nicking a jellied donut and a styrofoam cup of tea, i backed off quietly in the corner. now, it wasn’t a “church” church, per se. it was a very small room tucked in the corner of a very small business school, after winding hallways and littered fliers that reminded everyone when final exams are scheduled. ah, the smells of education that wax the floors...

the structure of the service was quite similar to New Hope’s back home: half the service consisted of music with a live band, and the other half consisted of a preacher and a message. on the edge of a yellowed overhead, the lyrics of the songs were placed, and we stood to sing as we felt for the unknown notes together. the guitarist, the bassist, the drummer (who later turned out to be the preacher) jammed and segued between the different overhead plastic sheets while the congregation’s tongues tripped up shyly behind the song’s unchartered territories.

the space between the music and the preaching was stretched more than i was accustomed to, and had to load up my small talk artillery for defence. so i turned to my neighbour and let my accent do the introducing.

“hi, i’m suzanne. i’m from visalia, the place where scott took off to.”

“oh! oh right! you’re the congregation across the sea that stole our pastor!”

british wit is harsh sometimes. one guy told me that, well, technically scott was fired and he’s glad some unfortunate congregation has to deal with him now. the worst part is, i believed him.

sarcasm is hard to decipher in a different accent. i wouldn’t have known if there weren’t a few giggles and “come on, now”s coming from other people in the conversation.

i feel stupid over here sometimes.

the 20-minute long chat session ended when the drummer, an ultra-hip youngun, got up to give the message to the 40 people who showed up that sunday.

“do ya do theology? do ya? huh huh?” read the overhead as he got up to spoke. and in case you were wondering, you probably do do theology. atheists and agnostics do theology. if you think about god existing or not existing, you do theology.

he talked about this point for some time, and my mind wandered into the golden bulb of the overhead projector, wondering just how miraculous it was that they positioned the curve of the glass to make the light look like a sunset.

McEngland (or: you don’t want-a american fanta)

2005-05-08T23:47:00.000+01:00

29.april.05: i told myself a long time ago that i wouldn’t go into a european mcdonalds, ever. why travel half-way across the world to have the same food you would have back at home?

well, i broke that rule the first time i visited europe in 1998. and because i did, i found out that austrian mickey-dees serve beer and sell toys related to local royalty. that was an important cultural realisation, and i have fast food to thank for it.

so this time, the mcdonald’s i stumbled across was near the rail station in greenwich. i saw the sign outside that said “curry chicken sandwich.”

curry! mcdonald’s does curry! this i have to see!

well, i didn’t see it really, but i did buy a fanta instead. i remember my trip to italy in 2001 and our orchestra’s fanatic fascination with the stuff. since then, fanta had been introduced to the united states. well, ok, a cheap corn syrup imitation sold in fanta bottles was introduced to the united states, along with the most annoying commercials the american world has ever seen. girls in colourful revealing clothing doing some cha-cha thing and asking their viewers if they want a fanta, WAHNT-uh FAWN-tuh, FAWN-tuh! DONTCHA WANTA FANTA??

so good news for us on this side of the pond: no american in their right mind will sap our plentiful fanta resources. we will get this sparkling fresh goodness all to ourselves, because americans rightfully believe that fanta is disgusting. they don't know how light and crisp and refreshing this sweet elixir truly is.

but little do americans know that drinks, much like television shows, just can’t be exported without losing flavour.

greenwich not-mean time

2005-05-08T23:45:00.000+01:00

29.april.05: it was sunday in london, and i was planning on visiting a Vineyard church while i was in the area. the brand new pastor for our church in visalia helped start a particular congregation in greenwich, so i decided to drop by.

i look on the internet to see the best route to get to greenwich via tube, and it would only take me so far before i had to get off the underground and hop on the railway (which is practically connected at the stations anyway).

so i wrote down all the different stops and transfers that i had to memorise, calculated how long it would take, and then decided i had enough time to get my fill of the touristy things to do in london.

and as i do this, i come across a big sign that said “thames river tours.” underneath it, it offered one-way tickets to greenwich. aha! direct transportation! and if that wasn’t luck enough, i also discover that it drops off right at the tube station i was aiming for anyway.

i had no idea greenwich was within such close proximities (it’s hard to tell these things on a tube map), so immediately i bought a ticket on the tour shuttle. i figured, why not travel in style? and that’s what i did, and got some historical points along the way, too.

greenwich is positively lovely. it had great pedestrian shopping areas, interesting things to do and see and visit and walk and... it was love at first sight, really.

i decided to climb down a set of stairs because a rush of people who looked somewhat touristy were doing it. that’s probably a stupid reason to do anything, but i did it anyway. and 7 flights of stairs later, i find myself walking in a strange, long, damp tunnel with white tiles lining the walls every step of the way. by the watermarks on the ceiling, i immediately knew i was walking underneath the river thames.

‘twas true, i later find out that the footpath to the opposite bank was about 50 feet underwater. strange, strange, strange.

greenwich is absolutely grand. i’m going to go back there someday to really spend time there.

the derelict dialects

2005-05-08T23:40:00.000+01:00

29.april.05: not too many people in the states can recognise the different english dialects in the country. we know there’s tons of different american accents, and we can even tell the english from the scottish from the irish, but it takes more discernment to tell between the different english accents within itself. the only way i can make heads or tails of it is if there’s someone famous from that region. for example, ozzy osbourne is from birmingham, the beatles were from liverpool, and tony blair is from the southern counties (probably, from what we can tell). there’s refined english and cockney (a la My Fair Lady), and there’s some others that i haven’t quite encountered quite yet.

my favorite so far is definitely scottish, but from within england, i’m quite partial to the more refined-sounding-yet-not-snooty type. i believe that comes from london or southern england. the smooth choppiness is quite pretty to my ears.

if smooth choppiness is at all possible.

the tube + luggage = ouch

2005-05-08T23:37:00.000+01:00

29.april.05: public transportation is wonderful when you don’t have a half-packed house to lug around with you. the london underground is fabulous, and coincidentally my friend james is a software engineer for “the tube” as they call it. (subways, in context, means a footpath that goes underground, from my understanding.)

the tube is great because it goes everywhere you want to be. there’s easy-to-follow maps, guides that tell you which station goes to which landmark, and if a particular line is down or under repair, there’s always a different route that will take you there anyway.

however, since some of the stations are a little older, not all of them are equipped with handicap access. which makes things a little hard when you have 90 pounds of luggage on your back, in your hand, and strapped to the front of you.

let’s just say that i better be BUILT like schwarzenegger when i’m done with this horrible, horrible baggage.

so terribly sorry to bother you, but ENGLAND!

2005-05-08T23:36:00.000+01:00

29.april.05: i am convinced that the word “sorry” is the national slogan. in fact, it would do well in a tourist commercial. “Come to England! Sorry for the exclamation point, didn’t mean to bother you.”

i’ve found that i have to struggle to return to my flat american way of saying SAR-ee. instead i’ve adapted the john cleese/sir lancelot way of apologising.

“but you’ve killed 40 persons!”

“ah yes! terribly sorry. sorry!”

SORE-ee.

it didn’t occur to me that monty python was playing a bit of british social commentary in that scene of the holy grail. it’s still funny in america, but once you hear how many times a day a british person says the word, it dawns on you how lost in translation some of those very subtle jokes can be.

granted, most of those times are used in the “sorry-i-didn’t-hear-you-can-you-repeat-that” kind of way. they just sum it up into one precious little practical word.

sore-ee.

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

2005-04-30T11:42:00.001+01:00

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

2005-04-30T11:42:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-30T11:41:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-30T11:40:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-30T11:39:00.001+01:00

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

2005-04-30T11:39:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-30T11:38:00.001+01:00

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

2005-04-30T11:38:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-30T11:36:00.000+01:00

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.

2005-04-30T11:33:00.000+01:00

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?

2005-04-30T11:32:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-30T11:30:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-30T11:28:00.000+01:00

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!

2005-04-25T09:35:00.000+01:00

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.