Alright, it's been quite a while since I last wrote anything, mostly because there hasn't been too much of interest going on. However, these past two weekends I did go see some interesting things. Two weeks ago I went to see some of the old churches in the Bristol area, which are beautiful, and I will definitely put up some pictures of them a little later. Right now I want to focus on what I did this past weekend, which was visit Stonehenge and the city of Bath.

This is me at Stonehenge:

If I look disheveled and somewhat unhappy, it's because I am. It was raining buckets the whole morning, and of course I left behind my umbrella, so I had a hard time trying to enjoy the landmark. Plus it's much smaller than I thought it would be. Though I don't regret going to see it, I wasn't too impressed overall. It took about an hour for my hair to dry out, which is about how long it takes to get from Stonehenge to Bath, so I guess that worked out.

On the way to Bath we witnessed a really bad accident. A van slid of the slippery road and tipped onto its' side. There was a mother, father, and little girl inside, but they all made it out unharmed. Since a lot of the roads here are so narrow and twisty, I can see how there might be a lot of accidents during bad weather, but I have no idea if there really are or not. I'm just glad that no one got hurt.

The rain had stopped by the time we got to Bath, and the rest of the day was really beautiful. The first thing we did was take a tour of the Roman Bath Museum, which helped to give the town its' name.

The rest of the time we just wandered around the town, taking pictures of all the scenery. Bath really is a pretty place, with a decent amount of parks and things to look at. One place we looked at was the Royal Crescent, which is a bunch of old houses connected in the shape of a crescent (really). It was gorgeous.

Perhaps even prettier was the park around it. Now, I have no idea what the monument in the first picture is for, I only know that it's called an obelisk, thanks to a girl I met on this trip named Marika (she's from Oregon but lives in Canada).

Now these are just some pictures of things we saw while looking around, including the Abbey lit up at night, which was the last thing we saw before we were picked up to go back to Bristol.

I really enjoyed this trip, even if it started out as rainy and cold. This was probably one of the prettiest places I've seen, and I really loved seeing all the big trees. England, or at least what I've seen of it so far, doesn't have much open land like the U.S. does (especially in Ohio and the Midwest), and what they do have is usually just hills of grass being occupied by sheep. They really have a lot of sheep here. I didn't think to take a picture of it at the time, but you should have seen what was across the street from Stonehenge: a rolling plain with sheep as far as the eye could see. In any case, I had really come to miss trees, which was something that I didn't even realize until I got to Bath and saw them again. Maybe it seems a little odd, but like I said before, it's always the mundane things that have the biggest impact on you, and make you feel the differences between where you are and home.

This is going to be fairly random, because it's just some things that I've learned/discovered about living in Bristol over the past couple weeks. There's no transition. Just think of it as a series of little informational blurbs.

So I managed to find regular lemonade. They call it "still lemonade" here, and I found it at the local health food store. It's pretty good.
Mary also managed to find Skippy brand peanut butter at one of the grocery stores, since she's been upset about the different taste, too. We looked at the ingredients, and the only difference between Skippy and the British brand was palm oil. Maybe that's it?

The bad things about grocery shopping around here is that everything is sold in much smaller quantities than I'm used to, and it's rare for anyone to shop for more than a couple days' worth of food at a time. It's nothing like home, where you only go twice a month, and stock up for two weeks in one go. Also, it's pretty much expected that you'll bring your own bag. This doesn't just apply to grocery stores. I was at an office supple store to pick up a planner, and they charged me 1 pence for a bag! (about 1.6 cents) Not every place charges for bags, but they do expect you to bag everything yourself, and that was definitely weird the first time I went grocery shopping. I had no idea I was supposed to be bagging my food as she rung it up, and ended up holding up the whole line. Oops.
It took me forever to find that planner, too, since I wanted a day-to-day planner, and all they had was week-by-week ones. Turns out that they call daily planners "diaries" instead for some reason.

Another odd thing I had to pay for was using a public bathroom. This was in London, and it was 50 pence (60-70 cents, I think). There was a turnstile at the front door of the restroom with a coin slot, which unlocked to let you in once you paid, and there was also an attendant nearby in case you tried to sneak in or something.

Magazines are much different here, in terms of what they're allowed to show. One of the girls on my floor bought Okay magazine (I don't know if we have that in the US or not, it's like People or something), and they had a side story about breast cancer and it's effects on the lives of specific women. All well and good. However, each of these women was shown completely topless, with nothing covering them up at all. Me and Darcy were a little shocked, but apparently lots of other countries don't have censorship laws as strict as ours.

I'm definitely learning more about the English language, living here. Australians, I have come to believe, make much better use of it than we do. Several of the people in my dorm are Australian, and all of them commonly use words like "offensive," "foul," "feral," and "brilliant." Only that last one is in any way positive, but it's still interesting to hear people using them.
Also, British people days "cheers" way more than I thought they would. Like, one of my professors gave me a handout for class, I said "thank you", and he said "cheers." I held open a door for someone, and they said "cheers." I bumped into someone on the street and apologized, and they said "cheers." When you end a conversation and start to leave, a lot of times they will say "cheers." Honestly, I have no idea what the words even means since they use it so much, and in so many different contexts. It throws me off every time.

In the Union building, which is right outside my window, there is some sort of dance group that meets several times a week, and they always practice with the windows wide open so I can see them. It's very distracting. Earlier this week they were learning the dance from "Thriller" and I laughed every time I looked up.

There's a fine film society on campus, which I am now a member of, that shows movies from all over the world once or twice a week. This past Tuesday they showed "Momento", which was really fun to see again. It's also fun to watch with someone for whom English is a second language, as if that film wasn't confusing enough on it's own without a language barrier.
However, I'm not sure how fine the films this society shows really are, since the other American movies they plan to show this term are "Rear Window" and "Fast Times and Ridgemont High." Maybe "Rear Window", but really? How can I accept that the French film they're showing is high quality when I know they've picked stuff like "Fast Times" from America?

London

It was about a 2-3 hour bus ride to London, and once there we were given a tour (the guide came onto our bus and showed us around that way). After the tour we had a few hours to do what we wanted. Since London is so huge, we only saw a few things, but it was a really fun trip, and I hope I can go back at some point and see more.

The first things we saw was Buckingham Palace. We didn't stop there because it was ridiculously crowded, but it was interesting to see.

Keep in mind that these were taken on a bus, so they may not be of the best quality. Also, I found out on this trip that, in some countries at least, "bus" refers to a larger car and what we call a bus is called a coach. When I hear coach I think of a horse and carriage, but it just means "bus" here.

This is the London Eye, the biggest "observation wheel" in the Western hemisphere. To give you an idea of how big it is, since this picture does it no justice, each one of those little oval-shaped cars holds 26 people.

This is St. Paul's Cathedral. It's a very big church (this is only one side of it), but you have to pay to get in unless there's a service, and there wasn't, so we were out of luck. You can go into the crypt, where they have gift shops and serve food, but you aren't allowed to take pictures. I think it's weird to eat or shop in a crypt, but whatever.

London Tower, where you again have to pay to enter. This is also a bus-tour photo, so pardon how awful it happens to look.

And these are pictures from around Trafalgar Square, where we went after our tour was over:

We went out to eat at a place in Chinatown, and it was really good. After that we decided to go see Big Ben, Westminster Abby, and the Parliament Building. Here are some buildings that we passed while walking there, but I don't know what they are. They're very nice, though.

This is Big Ben. It's actually not all that big, but it's still cool. It's connected to the Parliament Building, which is really impressive.

See?

This is part of Westminster Abby, which I think I took the most pictures of. However, in order to prevent this thing from going on forever, I'll just put up a couple.

It's ME!

After we saw these things, Arthur wanted to see the Globe Theater (Shakespeare's theater), so we started out on the long walk over to it. We went along the river, and the whole way we saw fun stuff like street performers, artists, and even a skate park:

However, after we located the Globe, we found out that it was closed, so we just had to walk all the way back. By that time it was late, and we had to meet up with the bus to get back home. I was exhausted from all the walking, and slept for a lot of the drive. Even so, it was a really fun and interesting trip.

Suspension Bridge

Alright, so I said that I would put up some pictures several days ago, and that obviously never happened. Sorry. But I'm doing it now, and I have some pictures from my trip to London as well, so hopefully that makes up for it.

First off, pictures from the suspension bridge and observatory:

This is someone using a phone booth. Also, it's a cute little red phone booth like I always see in movies, so I wanted to capture it.

This is the bridge itself. It's very cool-looking, and also apparently very well-used, since I'm pretty sure we aggravated several people with our picture taking who were just trying to get into town. By the way, I have no idea what's on the other side of this bridge. We only noticed the observatory once we were on the bridge, so we went back to look at it instead of seeing where the bridge actually went. Oh well.

Both of these are the view off the side of the bridge. Yes, there actually is water in that river, just very little of it. We would have gotten pictures from the other side of the bridge as well, but there was some construction going on and we were only allowed on one side. It was basically the exact same as what you're currently looking at, just with less buildings.

What you have here is, first off, the observatory as seen from the suspension bridge. We just noticed a castle-looking thing in the distance and decided to see what it was, it wasn't until we got there that we found out it was an observatory. The whole area around it is like a park, as well. The second picture is the suspension bridge as viewed from the observatory.

This is just a closer view of the castle. I have no idea what it's for or why it's there, and all the doors are locked and/or blocked off, but at least it looks nice.

The hill the castle thing was on had one side made up of really smooth rocks, so kids were using it as a slide. I wanted to do it, too, but the people I was with said it would seem weird for a grown person to join in with a bunch of kids.

Lastly, it's me! You remember me, right? Sorry I'm a bit small and awkward looking. It was super cold out on this day, and all of us had the sniffles by the time we got back. At least I got to see more of the area, though.

Next up is going to be my day trip to London that I went on this past Saturday. A whole group of people went, but I spent most of my time with Mary, Bethany, Arthur (Russia), and Jan (whose name, I just found out, is actually spelled "Jorn" with two dots over the "o", but I think it'll be easier here if I just right it out how it sounds). It was good times, and also really tiring since we walked for several hours. However, Mary and Bethany spent about a month backpacking around Europe before school, so they were totally leaving me and the guys in their dust, but it was still fun to run around with everyone.

Starting Class

Alright, I'm going to try and recap what I've been doing since the last post, but it might be a little mixed up since I haven't been keeping track of what happened when. Wednesday I signed up for my classes, and I'm pretty sure that's all I did, because it took an extremely long time. You wait in line, and then once you get to the front it's first come first served as far as classes go, and of course most people attending the school have already signed up, so it was difficult to find things that I wanted. It's all sorted out now, though. Unfortunately for some people, they didn't come early enough, and the line was so long that they told some people to just come back the next day. So I guess I owe a thanks to Mom for teaching me to always show up early.

Thursday was when I went to the Fresher's Fair I mentioned before. It was a pandemonium unlike anything I've ever experienced. There were literally hundreds of groups crammed into the building, all trying to get your attention and hand out something, while all the other people visiting were pushing and shoving in order to get around. It took a couple of hours to get through the whole thing, and I know from talking to other people that there's still stuff that I missed. I joined a writing group, so hopefully I can improve and gain experience while I'm here.

Friday I went shopping with some friends in the downtown area called Broadsmead and saw a few of the European clothing stores. The clothes themselves weren't that strange to me (though not really to my liking more often than not), but the stores themselves have a different feeling to them. Most of the stores in America are very well lit and mostly white, almost like a hospital. Here most of the stores are more dimly lit and use darker colors. Also, they call sweaters "jumpers" here, which is hard to get used to, since to me a jumper is an overall-style dress that Mom used to make me wear to kindergarten every day.
After shopping we went out to eat at a place called Yo-Yo Burger, which was really good. They have things like a Bison Burger and Ostrich Burger, though we don't really know if they actually use bison and ostrich. How would we know the difference? Whatever we had was really good, though.

Saturday me and a few other people went out to see the suspension bridge, which I guess is a big deal around here. In any case, it was pretty. I'll put up some pictures either tonight or tomorrow. After the bridge we walked around the park area and a nearby observatory.
This was also the day that I started looking for Q-Tips, and couldn't find them anywhere. I checked the three main stores in the area. Nothing. I never really thought that this would be an issue, but apparently they just aren't as popular here as back home.

Sunday was a really lazy day for the most part, until later in the evening when some people from the lower floors came up to hang out. I actually spent most of the time talking about privatization and the government with two guys named Anthony (from Australia) and Felix (from Germany, I think). It was really interesting.

Monday was my first day of class, and I found out that I missed one of them due to a scheduling mishap. I got it all worked out, though, and I'm going to meet up with my professor tomorrow to try and make up what I missed. Class pretty much runs all day for me on Mondays since I have a 10-12 class, a seminar (supplement to lecture, you have less people and more discussion) from 12-1, and another class from 4-5 with another seminar from 5-6. Tuesday and Wednesday are easy, though, with only one class from 11-12 on Tuesday and one from 12-1 on Wednesday.
After class (which went pretty well, I think) I came back and almost started dinner when Alice, Chika, and another girl who lives downstairs named Shun said that Jan and I could both share the group dinner they were making if we pitched in a little money. We did, and we all ate chilli con carne. I also got to explain that "chilli" doesn't have to mean chili peppers, it's also a soup dish with beans and meat (I don't really know how to explain chilli).

Tuesday I went to class, then purchased a ticket for a day trip to London the school is planning for international students. After buying the ticket, I thought I'd renew the search for Q-Tips and tried to walk to Broadsmead (which is around 20 minutes on foot). I got a little lost for a while, but I eventually got there. Even better, once I did, Wilkinsons (kind of like a Wal-Mart but much smaller) had them, so I was pretty excited. On the way back I found an art store and gallery that was really cool called Nails.
When I got back (it was a little late since I got lost) Michael said that he was making us all pasta, so that worked out well. Mary, Michael, myself, Alica, Chika, Shun, a girl named Rosa (I think she's from Italy, I don't know), guy named Enrico (same for him), and Bernardo, who is the name of the guy living next to me whose light bulb I stole. After eating we all just talked until pretty late, which actually really threw me off for today.

Today I had class and then went shopping, since I can't depend on the others to feed me forever. The lines were all super long at the store, and of course it was raining once I got out, so it ended up taking much longer than I thought it would. Oh well, at least I got a cheesecake (it was only 2 pounds!).

When I was getting ready to come here, my study abroad adviser said that, since this culture is so much like my own, the things that are different will effect you more than if the whole culture was totally different. That's starting to make more sense to me now that I'm here. It little things, like never knowing which way to look before crossing the street, or ordering lemonade and getting Sprite (I have no idea why this happened, but to most people I've spoken to, "lemonade" as we know it is weird). Peanut butter and chocolate also taste different here, and they would never combine those two in the same candy. Mary and I tried to convince some of the others at the dorm, but they weren't on board. What was the funniest, I think, is that peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are considered weird or gross to pretty much everyone I've talked to. They have no idea why you would ever want to do that.

It's also been fun to live with people from so many different cultures. All of them speak English, but sometimes they need help translating themselves and picking out the right words. It makes you think about your own language more.

Lastly, I just wanted to mention that, thanks to Charlotte, I've now had Vegemite, a stereotypical Australian spread which you may or may not have heard in the song "Down Under" by Men At Work. It's yeast extract, and it's very, very salty. Not bad in small doses, though.

As Promised, Part 2

Now, here are a few more picture, this time from around my dorm. I didn't take a picture of the dorm itself, though I don't really know why. In any case, here's a photo from the school's website:

It looks a little plain in comparison to the other buildings of the campus, but it's not bad. The inside is alright, too, although the rooms are really plain. Even more so than regular dorm rooms somehow.

This church is across the street from my dorm, which would be behind you if you were standing the way the picture above was taken. I've never been in it, but it seems fairly college friendly, as they allowed the school to host a BBQ on their front yard the other day.

This is the view from outside my bedroom window, and this building is located to your left if you're using that first picture again. It's the student union building, and a lot of planned activities go on in there, such as the Fresher's Fair, which was just held this past Thursday and Friday. It's a fair where all the school's clubs come to promote themselves, and it takes up four of the building five floors. There's also a bar, which is what those umbrella tables are for. Sometimes it gets pretty noisy over there at night, and I've more than once put up with drunken singing as people left at closing time.

This apartment building is a little ways down the street, and it just makes me laugh because it's called Buckingham Place, as opposed to Buckingham Palace. It's hard to tell from this picture, but it's not in the best shape.

That's all picture-wise for now, but I will probably give an update on what I've actually been up to either tonight or tomorrow. It's been stormy all day today, so I don't have much else to do.

As Promised, Part 1

Here are some picture from around my campus:

This is a view of the street my dorm in on. As you can see, everything slopes downward, rather drastically. Everything of interest, including food, entertainment, and shopping, is located at the bottom of this hill. It's a pain, but hopefully I'll get into shape with all this walking uphill every day. The school is also at the bottom of this hill, and up another one. It takes about ten to fifteen minutes to walk from my dorm to the street where all my classes are located.

This is main building on campus, but only people who study law really have any business going in it. There's a big fountain in front of it, but I took the picture from a distance so that I could get in the statue of the gunman on the far right. He's standing at attention with his rifle pointing straight out at incoming traffic. I have no idea why. There's also a statue in the fountain in front of the law building, but I don't know who that is, either. Skater kids use the stairs of that building and the area around the fountain to do tricks on most afternoons.

This is the building that houses the English department, and where I'm going to have one of my classes. The whole street is lined with houses like this, and all of them house classrooms and offices. The insides all look like normal school buildings, but I really like that the outsides are so pretty. Also, all of the building on this street are connected with glass-enclosed walkways. Most of them are hidden around the backs of the building by landscaping, but some of them are visible from the street.

The ones you can see from the street are really decorative and pretty.

These are just some more buildings on the street that house different departments. They're all obviously quite old, and I think that most of them were townhouses at one point judging from the sizes of some of the rooms. The rooms they use for classes have all been revamped and look just like normal classrooms, but the offices still look like old sitting rooms and things like that.

This isn't a part of the university at all, it's a grammar school that's on a nearby street. I just think that it looks amazing. The kids who go there all wear uniforms, and we usually see a lot of them walking home around 3 or 4. I hope they realize how lucky they are to have such a nice looking school building.

These are just more building that are a part of the university. I don't really know what they are or what goes on in them, I just pass them while I'm walking.