London Version 2.0, Volume I

On Saturday morning I woke up the earliest I’ve had to since my last opening shift at Starbucks. Padma, Lauren and I caught the 5:10 Megabus to London, which actually turned out to be the 5:25 bus. Typical. The ride seemed extremely long, but unlike last time, there was little traffic on the road and we made it to Victoria Coach Station at around 7:30. Our plan was to split up for the first part of the day: Padma went to catch the underground to BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, London, which holds the Guinness record for being the largest Hindu temple outside India, and Lauren and I were to locate the TKTS booth in Leicester Square to get tickets for a matinee of some kind. Because it was early and the booth wasn’t going to open until at least 9, we stopped for coffee at the best Starbucks I’ve been to here in the UK. The foam on my latte was perfection.

On our way to Leicester Square, we stepped into St. James’s Park for a few minutes to have a look at a bridge we could see from the Mall. There were dozens of birds in an around the water including some very overfed looking pigeons and some creatures that appeared to be a blend of pigeon and duck which had green feet and red eyes.


I took pictures from the bridge of some black swans gliding along...


...and from the other side of the park I tried to zoom in on some really large birds that looked like a cross between a pelican and a really fluffy egret.


We continued our walk up the Mall and through Trafalgar Square, and in front of the National Gallery we passed an ice sculpture of a polar bear.


I turned us down a side street that I remembered from the map and was just about to second guess myself when we entered Leicester Square and found the TKTS booth. It was about 9:15 by this time, and we soon discovered that the booth wasn’t going to open until 10, so we took this opportunity to get in line and pick a show. Wicked was not available, so we went with a showing of Avenue Q which was even better since it started at 5 instead of 2:30. Planning our Saturday had been a bit of trouble because the museums don’t open until 9 or 10, and they generally close between 4 and 6.

10 o’clock finally arrived and Lauren and I got three really good tickets at half price. Take note, bargain shoppers! That squared away, we headed for the National Portrait Gallery, a half a block walk from our location. We took a huge escalator to the third floor and began with the Tudor gallery, over which I geeked thoroughly out. You know that picture of Henry VII that you always see? Well he was there. And right next to him was Elizabeth of York. And there was also Thomas Cranmer, whose chair has this really cool pattern in it, and whose tablecloth is clearly awesome. They had Hans Holbein the Younger’s gigantic cartoon for the Whitehall Mural hanging, and if you go right up to it you can see all of the knotwork on his trim drawn out. It’s pretty awesome. Nearby was the portrait of Mary I than I’m sure you’ve seen before, and if you look closely, you see that her underdress/chemise-y thing is almost identical to the one that Catherine Parr is wearing in her portrait on the other side of the room. The two were painted about a year apart, and that is not the only similarity between them. I was way more excited about this than a normal person would have been, and Lauren was amused.

The next room had Elizabeth’s coronation portrait, among others. I had a look at the map in the Ditchley portrait and found that her hem comes down just north of Bristol. Sir Francis Drake was there, and there was a really cool painting of Sir Henry Unton’s life story. In this painting of Mary, Queen of Scots, I had a look at the lace on her right cuff. One of the points has been painted over as part of her hand. How cool is that? Also in this room was a portrait of John Donne, who wrote poems about getting dumped. The caption for his portrait most amusingly noted that his collar had been left undone to convey poetic melancholy.

In the many galleries we wandered through, portraits of note included Flora MacDonald in the Jacobean Room and George Washington in Room 14 not far from a huge portrait of King George III, at which I shook my fist, just because it felt appropriate. I enjoyed reading the captions of the portraits in this room, which were mainly of people involved in “the conflict in the American colonies,” which is known to some of us as the American Revolution. Reading one’s own history from someone else’s perspective really gives a fuller understanding of how it fits in the world.

Padma called us about halfway through our tour of the NPG and requested our location. We told him we were in room 17 and sat down on a bench to wait. He called us not long after and wanted to know if we were sure we were in room 17, as room 17 was blocked off and couldn’t be entered. Turns out, he was in the National Gallery, which is next door to the National Portrait Gallery, and after straightening this out he found us, no problem.

The rooms in the National Portrait Gallery are arranged chronologically, and I found it interesting to watch as the subjects of the portraits changed. At first, only pictures of royalty and important court figures were available. Soon, other political figures were painted, and then military heroes and advisors, and then there was this movement that included actresses, courtesans, musicians and poets. Among these people were George Eliot and Kitty Fisher, whose name is worked into her picture. The Regency galleries included portraits of the mistresses of the crown, and in one portrait, the child of that indiscretion. Keats, Coleridge and Wordsworth were all there, and so was the little drawing of Jane Austen done by her sister Cassandra. One of the 19th century rooms included albumen prints of actresses, ballerinas and Oscar Wilde.

Twentieth century portraits included, as one might expect, rather a lot of people involved in the World Wars. Also included was Emmeline Pankhurst, a suffragette who just looks like someone I would want to know. Through this gallery, the art became less and less structured and it was interesting to see that happen only through portraits. Amy Johnson, a lady aviator, was pictured, and so were Beatrix Potter, Aldous Huxley and T.S. Eliot. My favourite portrait in this gallery was of Sir Alexander Fleming, the fellow who discovered penicillin, who is painted working with an agar plate at a cluttered bench.

Padma went for a spin through the galleries upstairs that he hadn’t seen, and Lauren went to investigate the museum shop. I took a tour through the Twiggy display, which included many of the shots that America’s Next Top Model featured when she was guest judging on the show. The NPG is currently featuring a “Beatles to Bowie” rock portraits and memorabilia exhibit that I intend to hit up next time I visit, which will hopefully be with Tamsin. By the time I made it through all of the contemporary displays Lauren had finished in the shop and Padma was just coming down the stairs. We turned to the door just in time to see a cloudburst ending, and this perfect timing could not be wasted. The three of us set out for the British Museum and maybe something to eat.

Friday the Thirteenth, a tale of why I am forced to believe.

As I write this, the bus that I’m supposed to be on is en route to Prague. It will arrive there in two hours. Rather than on that coach, I am propped up in bed, writing a blog. Here’s how that happened.

Friday dawned grey but bright, or I assume that it did as I failed to properly set my alarm and woke up at 9:30. I had intended to be up early, to better pack my things and tidy my desk, but I didn’t mind oversleeping so much. Padma, Lauren and I had breakfast together, as we were expecting Friday morning to be our last time together for several days. This went fine, and so did printing my coach tickets and a map of Prague from the library. I packed and tidied and was ready to go in plenty of time to pick up some snacks from the school shop before catching a bus that was theoretically supposed to drop me at Broadmead in reasonable advance of my 1:45 departure. This is not what happened.

What happened is that traffic on Gloucester Road was ridiculous for no apparent reason. Several cars did stupid things in front of my bus driver, who took it upon himself to attempt to correct their behaviour. He would stop, open his door and holler at the drivers, engaging them in unpleasant, expletive-strewn conversation. As a result, we sat through at least three unnecessary traffic lights on top of the queues of vehicles moving approximately 7 miles per hour.

I ran through Broadmead and across St. James Park only to find that I had missed my coach by four minutes. I called Lauren to check for a train that would arrive in time to make my coach to the continent at 5, and I leapt into the queue for coach tickets for some information on available journeys. After standing in the queue for fifteen minutes, I was told that the next coach would leave at 2:15, arriving a scant ten minutes before my coach to Prague was supposed to leave. Should I chance it? I deliberated a few seconds and stepped out of the queue to call Lauren for train information.

According to her research, there was one leaving at 2:30 set to arrive at 4:46, but I remembered from our trip to London that the Victoria Train Station is four blocks from Victoria Coach Station. Also, in order to catch the train I’d have to run several blocks to Bristol Temple Meads and purchase a ticket. Given these options, I decided that it would be better at least to arrive in the coach station, even with the shorter turnaround. This decision had taken perhaps 3 minutes, max, but by the time I returned to the ticket queue, it was back to length it had been when I first stepped into it.

I waited anxiously as several people who had absolutely no idea what they wanted to do talked to the two ticket agents working the desk. I watched the 2:15 coach to London pull up and begin boarding, and I was finally forced to ask someone ahead of me to let me jump the queue in order to make it. She graciously allowed this once she understood my situation, and I got a ticket as quickly as I could. I was the last person onto the coach, but I made it. I sat down, and began to pray. (And to knit. The herringbone scarf is going very well.)

We were flying along for the first hour, but our speed soon began to drop, regardless of the fact that traffic was still moderate to light. As we got father toward London, traffic became denser, and by the time we got the Cheswick, it had reached the point of stop-and-go. There were loads of pedestrians all mashing the crosswalk buttons, and stacks and stacks of taxis clogging up the bus lanes. I watched the clock over the driver’s head as it counted 16:57... 16:58... 16:59...
We pulled into Victoria Station as the clock turned 17:00. I shot off of the bus, through the arrivals terminal and across the street (narrowly avoiding a taxi) into the departures terminal. The first fellow I saw told me that Service 192 was leaving from Platform 18, and I sprinted the length of the terminal to Platform 18...

No bus. The helpful people at the Eurolines desk informed me that I’d missed it by two minutes. Because my ticket from Bristol and my ticket to Prague were separate and therefore not planned by the company to connect, policy dictated that they couldn’t refund anything, and additionally, my ticket to the continent was a funfare (non-refundable, cheaper) ticket with nho connection. Because the journey involved no tconnection, there was therefore no w ay to send me to Prague. Tthey directed me to the ticket desk on the other side of the terminal for further information.

At the ticket desk,a I was informed that the next coach to Prague is Sunday night and that there’s nothing I can do before then. I called Lauren to ask if perhaps there were trains I could catch from Victoria, and she and Padma very kindly headed to the library to perform some research. I was upset about all of this for maybe ten minutes while I sat there, but then I decided that really it would be easier and more pleasant to just laugh at the ridiculousness of my entire day. I pulled out my knitting again. Lauren called me back to say that the farthest she could get me was Brussels, so I hopped back into the ticket queue for a coach home. The very sympathetic woman to whom I next spoke informed me that the next coach to Bristol left at 6, which was seven minutes from the time that I stepped up. After that, Megabus was departing at 9. Could I make the 8? I wanted to know. “If you run,” said the ticket lady.

I decided that I had had enough of arriving at platforms to see NO BUS, so I chose the 9 o’clock. It turned out, of course, that the 6 o’clock was late departing, so I could have made it, but no matter. I got some yogurt and a bottle of water, and I sat down to knit some more. In the time that I sat there, I got four rows done, I watched The Nightmare Before Christmas on my iPod, I texted back and forth to Tamsin, I spoke to Liz and I made plans with Lauren and Padma to proceed with a movie night upon my unexpected return. In the time that I wasn’t doing any of those other things, I observed the station population.

The station was full, for some reason, of little children all in varying states of distress. One in particular was very frightened of pigeons, and would cry whenever one took flight. I feel I should mention that the white pigeon we’d seen in the terminal three weeks ago was there. At least, I assume it was our white pigeon. I haven’t seen many around. The number of people standing around rose and fell very rhythmically, peaking at the top of every hour. The buses seemed to be running fairly on schedule until about 8, at which time things fell pretty much to pieces. Platforms kept getting switched around, nobody knew where they were supposed to be...

As I had prepared myself to expect, 9 o’clock came and went, and all they announced was that the Megabus service was “delayed,” reason unknown, no expected arrival given. Two Megabuses pulled up at 9:35, but only the one to Birmingham took any passengers, which was confusing to everyone who had queued up. A bus to Cardiff also departed around that time, and since the service I was taking would also be stopping at Cardiff, several people went over thinking it was ours and had to be sent back. We finally boarded at 5 minutes to 10, an hour late. We didn’t start moving until 10 after 10, at which point the driver explained that he had been delayed because the wind had been blowing heavily since mid-afternoon, and that buses were only permitted to go 45 miles per hour under those conditions. This boded well, I thought.

I got a seat to myself for this journey, though I kept my bag in my lap so I’d have something over which to slump. From that position I eavesdropped on the conversation of the people in front of me, which was in French. There were four of them, students from France, and they’d never been through London before, nor had they ever heard of the Victoria & Albert Museum, which was lit up when we passed it. We also passed a skating rink, lit purple, and the Natural History Museum, lit in green. Many of the shops had gone all out with their window displays for Christmas, particularly Harrod’s which was just ridiculous.

It started to rain again outside of London, but the wind dropped some and we went what seemed to me to be a reasonable speed. We pulled into UWE at a quarter after midnight. (One of the major advantages of taking Megabus over National Express is that Megabus stops at UWE, requiring no additional bus or cab to get home.) I called Lauren as she’d requested to let her know I was home, and after stopping at my room to pick up a DVD and to run a comb through my hoodie hair, I walked over to Mendip Court and knocked on Lauren’s door.

I discovered upon entering Lauren’s kitchen that the entire time I was sitting in London, Lauren and Padma had been preparing a party. It had occurred to them that if I’d managed to catch the proper coach, by 1 in the morning I’d have been somewhere in the middle of Europe - Paris, maybe, and since I couldn’t be in Paris, they brought Paris to me. They spent the evening making French-themed food, served with French wine and accompanied by all the French music that Lauren had on her computer. There were balloons and fancy dishware and a gold tablecloth sprinkled with star confetti. It was awesome. And the food was delicious! I am so lucky to have these thoughtful, talented friends.

It turns out that I wasn’t the only one with rotten fortune on Friday. Lauren, thinking that her lab was at 2:30 got ready for class at 2:15. She stopped to check what classroom she’d be in only to discover that class had started at 1:30. Oops. We toasted to a better Saturday the Fourteenth, which, as I pointed out, it clearly already was. Padma has an excursion to Oxford today, after which he and Lauren are performing a concert with Showstoppers. Due to the fact that I am not in Prague, I will get to see it. That was the only part of this weekend I was sad to be missing, so it works out in the end.

By the time we finished our crepes and Nutella, we were all far too tired to consider watching a three-hour Bollywood movie, so we’re saving that for tonight. In the meantime, I’m going to get a jump on the coursework that I would otherwise not be doing. Better luck next time...

The Walking Tour of Everywhere

London is a pretty nifty town. Two Saturdays ago, Padma, Lauren and I took the 7:10 Megabus, and excepting some alarm clock problems, it went smoothly. It was raining, of course, because why would the weather be good on our first daytrip across the country? But as Lauren said, we might as well have an authentic English experience. This seemed to include the bus inexplicably breaking down outside of Chiswick, fifteen minutes from our destination. About forty minutes later, another coach arrived and the passengers all climbed off of the bus, through a hedge and onto the replacement. We whizzed on through London proper, passing parks, posh hotels, Harrod’s and several Starbucks’ before arriving at Victoria Coach Station.

Victoria Coach Station is conveniently located on Buckingham Palace Road which we followed to... Buckingham Palace! There were tons of people milling around snapping pictures and conversing in more languages than ever heard at the Tower of Babel. Before long, some guys with tasselled hats and red cloaks on really pretty black horses went riding by the Victoria Memorial and down the mall, and not long after that the actual changing of the guard took place, complete with a marching band. I tried to take pictures, but I mostly just got close-up shots of the backs of people’s heads.

From Buckingham Palace we wandered northeast down the Mall, through the Admiralty Arch, and to the edge of Trafalgar Square where we stopped for photos of the monuments and of the National Gallery. We turned right down Whitehall and took pictures of the war memorials, including one to the Women of WWII, which was really interesting, and the Monument to the Glorious Dead. We arrived at Big Ben just in time to hear it strike noon and went from there across the Westminster Bridge and along the Thames which was quite as dirty as you have heard. We took pictures of the London Eye and of each other being silly, and in a little market off the walk we found a painting of Shah Rukh Khan (our favourite Bollywood hero) on the front of a shop.

I’m using google maps to help clarify the streets we used, but some of them don’t appear to be included. There are many landmarks identified, however, and it’s interesting to me how close we were to so many things that I’ve seen/read/heard about but didn’t run into. The Rose and Crown, for instance is only a few blocks from The Mad Hatter, which I took a picture of. We made it down to the Globe Theatre Centre, and then past what is supposed to be a replica of the Golden Hind, the Southwark Cathedral, and Borough Market.

By this time it was half past one, Lauren was headed for a hunger coma and Padma and I had both developed headaches, so we stopped at a small bistro type place for emergency good-mood-restoring paninis. We then headed for the Tate Modern for some surrealism. Some bits were better than others, but my favourites were a giant mahogany electric plug suspended from the ceiling and the works by Georges Braque in the Poetry and Dreams exhibit. By the time we got out of the Tate the weather had cleared. It was breezy and gorgeous and we took lots of pictures from the Millenium Bridge, which is the one that Dementors destroyed at the beginning of the sixth Harry Potter movie. It’s seemed intact, however.

The Millenium Bridge leads straight to the side of St. Paul’s Cathedral, which was sunlit and beautiful. We used a handy dandy map that Padma procured to discover that we weren’t far from Fleet Street and we headed that way. Along that road we passed a creepy-looking church set back from the street that turned out to be St. Bride’s, the place where Virginia Dare’s parents were married. If you don’t recall, Virginia Dare was the first colonist born on American soil. Our country is such a baby!

From Fleet Street we turned onto Aldwych and then onto Drury Lane. We didn’t see the muffin man, but we did pass the theatre currently showing a production of Dirty Dancing. From there we headed for The Royal Opera House and Covent Garden. Almost every flower box along the street contained ivy and gardenias in full bloom.

As it got darker, we turned in to Soho and meandered through the streets as they filled up with people. Most of the avenues were closed off to vehicles or were open only to cabs and police cars. A few brave bicycle cabs were pedalling around, but almost everyone was on foot. Imagine a cross between Shockoe Bottom and Times Square and you’ll have an idea what this was like – small shops, restaurants and clubs lining narrow cobblestone streets, with giant lighted billboards and theatre fronts breaking it up. Navigating was difficult because the map that we acquired was very tiny, and some of the streets weren’t at all marked, but we got it figured out eventually and even found a Thai place for dinner.

It wasn’t far from the restaurant to Trafalgar Square, and from there we retraced our steps back up the Mall and past Buckingham Palace. The first Victoria station that we found was for trains, but we stopped to use the facilities, which one often pays to do here. We made it to the coach station a few blocks away just in time to hear that our bus was delayed half an hour. While we waited, we watched some fearless pigeons search the station for food. One of them, a grubby-looking white bird, fluttered up onto the bench opposite ours and looked at us for a while before taking off again. Our bus finally arrived and on we got. Padma slept all the way home, but Lauren and I got in some girl talk. Once home, I stayed up just long enough to discover that our trek through the city had covered more than ten miles. No wonder my feet hurt!

Apple Mess

I created something delicious last night and wanted to share. I call it “Apple Mess.” It’s not exact, but it’s delicious!

First, I preheated the oven to approximately 350°F (177-ish C).

Second, I adapted my chocolate chip cookie recipe for kind of a sugar cookie effect.

With a wooden spoon, cream together 1 stick of butter, 1/3 cup of white sugar and 1/3 cup of brown sugar (packed if it’s American, loose if it’s European). Beat in 1 egg, 1 teaspoon of vanilla, 1/8 teaspoon of salt and 3/8 teaspoon of baking powder.

For chocolate chip cookies, I would here add 1 cup of semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips BUT I was not making chocolate chip cookies, so instead I shook in some of a spice blend that contains cinnamon, clove, ginger and allspice. I didn’t measure, just went with it until it tasted right. Then, to the butter mixture, I added 1 1/3 cups of flour. This made it slightly thicker than my usual cookie dough (which is 1 1/4 cups of flour) which is totally what I was going for.

Next I greased a small ceramic casserole dish with butter. Its dimensions were approximately 9 x 5 x 1.5, but I expect that the recipe could be adapted for something bigger. I pressed between 1/2 and 2/3 of the dough into the bottom of the dish and baked it for 10 to 15 minutes, until the edges were golden but the middle was still mushy.

While this was baking, I shook some more spice blend and some straight up cinnamon into about 1 cup of chucky applesauce. It could have used more, but I only had the one jar. I spread this over the bottom later of dough, and then I dotted the applesauce with butter. I pinched the remaining cookie dough, small portions at time, into flat pieces which I set on top of the applesauce. When more or less all of the applesauce was covered, I popped the casserole dish back into the over for another 10 to fifteen minutes, until the edges of the top layer of dough were golden and the middle looked more dry than mushy. I cooled it for about five minutes before serving.

I called it Apple Mess because it isn’t really pie, and because it doesn’t hold together at all when it’s being served, which has to be done with a spoon. It would be really good with vanilla ice cream, I imagine. It’s super easy. If you try it, let me know how it goes.

Mmm

The best part about all of the obnoxious flyers people have been shoving into our mailboxes and under our doors are the takeaway menus. Dominoes campaigned really hard during freshers week, but even with their ridiculous amount of coupons, the pizza at Piccante is much better priced. And tastier, from what I know of Dominoes back home... So now I have a place from which to order pizza. And kebabs, if the mood strikes, although there is a kebab stand that sets up in a car park on campus on party nights. Clever business strategy, really, with so many kids running around drunk off their behinds. I believe I mentioned that their kebabs are really good with ketchup. One of the menus also offers alcohol, tobacco products, and ice cream, I suppose so that you can get everything you need for a good night all in one go.

The best takeaway experience so far was when Padma and I ordered Indian from a place called Simply Spiced. Delivery is free, we get 10% off cos we’re students, and the food is really good! The menu offers just about everything you could think of, and there’s a note saying that if they don’t have it on the menu, you should ask for it anyway and they’ll try to come up with it. In addition to starters, rice and salads, breads, tandoori dishes, sabjees, specials , omelettes and biriyani, they have fifteen different curries offered five ways each, including vegetarian.

We tried the saag paneer, a creamy spinach and cheese dish and an order of the garlic nan, which was spread with roasted garlic. From the curry menu we ordered vegetarian Kashmir, which featured a mild fruity sauce of coconut, pineapple and banana. We also tried the vegetarian Pathia curry, which was the favourite. Spicy, but not overpowering, and just a little bit sweet. They sent along a dish of Bombay aloo, spiced potatoes which were very pleasant and definitely something I could do myself with little trouble.

In my own kitchen, I’ve made panang, chili, roasted potatoes, Glamaorgan sausages, lots of rice and a really bad batch of mac and cheese. Glamorgan sausages are apparently a Welsh thing, using cheese instead of meat as the base. They worked out pretty well, although I couldn’t find any unseasoned breadcrumbs at the store, so I used crumbled up toast. The mac and cheese incident remains a mystery to me. It was going along just fine, though the cheese was taking a long time to melt into the sauce.... and when I added the pasta, the sauce all separated so I had seasoned milk coating the pasta, and melted cheese lining the bowl. Fail.

I had groceries delivered from Asda the other day, which included material for making Punkin’s meatloaf. It fell apart but tasted really good, and that’s what matters. I made chocolate chip cookies from scratch two nights ago, and aside from uneven temperature problems, they worked just fine. I’ve found that the vanilla extract I found here has a warmer flavour than what I use at home so the batter is softer-tasting. Also, there don’t appear to be such things as semisweet chocolate chips available at the grocery, but as even the most inexpensive chocolate here is quality stuff, what I found was fine.

I should also mention my favourite dining out experience of the last three weeks. We Americans went to Cabot Circus to top off our phones, because the Vodafone website seems to dislike American credit cards. After our errand, Lauren was ridiculously hungry, so we stopped at a tapas restaurant called La Tasca. They were conveniently offering a lunch special of five tapas for £10 – good for a student budget!

From the vegetarian selections we first chose a vegetarian paella, which wasn’t very paella-y but tasted fine. We then picked an aubergine dish with tomato, cheese, onion, and garlic that was absolutely fantastic, my personal favourite. The mushrooms that we next selected had been sautéed in garlic and olive oil – delicious, as you might imagine. From the meat dishes we chose to try the albóndigas, simple meatballs in a thick tomato sauce - straightforward and tasty - and their chorizo, sautéed in wine. The chorizo were very smoky but not overpoweringly or artificially so, and though they were less spicy than I expected, they were very good. Lauren ordered a simple prawn dish that was very well done. The shrimp were cooked just perfectly and the broth in which they’d been steamed complimented and enhanced their shrimp-ness rather than trying to hide it.

For dessert we tried their fresh strawberries in cream, which were underwhelming, and their chocolate mousse, which featured both milk and white chocolate layers. It was okay, but there were some texture issues. I ordered a little glass of Crema Catalana, a dessert liqueur, to go with that, and found it pretty good. I’d go back to La Tasca, just because the rest of the menu looked interesting. Their dishes were either really special (the aubergine, the prawns) or really not (the paella, dessert), so it’s a matter of winkling out the best choices. I did see on the dinner menu that Catalan spinach is offered, with pine nuts, raisins, and pear. I’ll have to see if it measures up.

Lastly, for sheer entertainment, Padma and I have turned Bollywood movies into a drinking game. First person who has to pee loses. Rules include a drink for every character called Raj, a drink for every flashback, two drinks for dramatic scenes in which the characters lie awake, and you finish your drink should any character have to obey another’s dying wish. So far we’ve seen Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi and Om Shanti Om , courtesy of Tesco’s rental service. Don’t fear for my liver, though, because we play with bargain juice boxes. Classy.

School Daze

The last ten days have been exciting and fun-filled, which is why I haven’t posted. Sorry about that. Monday the 21st was supposed to be timetable day, but that was a lie. I didn’t get my schedule until Wednesday, but the wait was worth it as I’m very satisfied with my modules. For anyone who doesn’t already know, a student at UWE is enrolled in a “course,” the program of study, and then takes “modules,” what we call classes, that are in the course. Degree programs here are generally three levels, equal to six terms of study. Many modules run for both terms rather than being done in one go.

When I arrived, I’d automatically been enrolled in modules at the first level of study. This was worrisome as I’ve had most of that material already through VCU. By Wednesday, however, it had all been sorted out and I’m now taking modules across all three levels of study. This means that my schedule is completely irregular, but I get every Friday off, and if I have any lectures at all on a Tuesday or a Wednesday, there’s only one.

Genetics and Evolution is still a mystery class as I’ve heard nothing from the instructors and it isn’t up on Blackboard yet. (Yes, they use that over here; yes, it’s still annoying.) Research Design and Analysis II has a lot to do with statistics, but this level is focused less on quantitative data and more on squeezing numbers out of qualitative research.

In my first Science in Court lecture this morning I learned that the UK Supreme Court became the final court of appeals for the country today. It was the House of Lords until this morning, and you can read about that here. If you don't really care who was sworn in, you might instead want to know that the carpet used in the new courthouse was designed by the same fellow who did the cover art for Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band. I’m really looking forward to the rest of this module, as the British legal system is very different from the American, so there are loads of new things to learn.

I’m also going to be taking Biological Psychology and Individual Differences, a series of lectures on how the brain and the body interact. New to UWE this year is my final module, Forensic Psychology, which also includes information on criminology. I am particularly excited to be taking this class, as it is essentially the reason that I’ve over here at all.

I have applied and been accepted to work as a notetaker for Disabled Services here at the university. I’m also qualified, apparently, to provide “general support” for students, so if they need me, I’ll get a call. I showed up to take notes for a student on Tuesday, but he didn’t need me so I scooted off. I get paid for showing up, though, which is nice. Not taking notes allowed me to go to a little mini-concert at the university’s Health and Wellness centre. A brass quintet played a variety of pieces including a lovely arrangement of “A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square.”

Speaking of concerts, I have joined both the University Singers and the school’s Chamber Choir. University Singers is a large group made up of students, faculty, and community members. We’ll be learning and performing Beethoven’s "Mass in C," and I am absolutely delighted to again be singing classical music in a large group. Chamber Choir is a much smaller group of music faculty and interested students singing a cappella pieces. Our first rehearsal was this afternoon, and the music is going to be a great deal of fun. We’re beginning the Christmas music now because both of our concerts this term are scheduled for December, but it’s not your typical old carols. Well, old perhaps, but not typical.

One of our pieces is a 15th century carol called “Welcome, Yule” written by Sir C Hubert H Parry We’ve also started a Czech selection from the "Koleda" collection, written by Antonín Tučapský, and an absolutely bizarre, sixteen-minute piece called “Rejoice in the Lamb,” which was arranged by Benjamin Britten. The text is the work of Christopher Smart, who seems to have had a huge thing for animals. Between the lyrics and the really freaky time signatures, the song is going to be a LOT of fun.

What else can I relate? The weather is getting a little cooler, but it remains mostly sunny. Sunsets here turn everything a very rosy pink, which is pretty if you happen to be looking down over town from Filton Avenue. Lauren and I walked on Saturday from campus to Colston Girl’s School on Gloucester Road, thinking it was only a couple of miles or so. Wrong, it was 4.3 miles, and the bus back was so ridiculously late that we opted to walk all the way back, mostly uphill. Oops.

In my free time I have managed to knit a little more than 18 inches of the cabled scarf. I’d have gotten farther, but I keep discovering missed stitches and ripping out several rows to go back and fix it. It will be worth it in the end, though, to have a perfect pattern from end to end. I’ve discovered Heroes, a television series that is scientifically implausible but fictionally awesome. American free TV sites don’t work here, though, so instead of something nice and legal like Hulu, I am forced to find the episodes hosted on Chinese and Spanish sites instead. Oh well.

I’ve joined a local DVD rental service to provide movies for nice nights in. I intend to expand my cinematic horizons to include more Hindi films. Tonight I expect to be watching Om Shanti Om. My flatmates are all doing well, and last night several of us played card games in the kitchen. It’s confusing to play cards here because while some games have the same names/rules, many others go by the same names but are played by different rules. Others have familiar rules with different names. We get it straight in the end, though, and I’m told that neither the rules nor the names matter much once you’re drunk enough.

First weekend

I’m happy to say that I’ve made it through my first full week at UWE unscathed. Saturday morning Lauren and I met up and headed into the City Centre for some shopping which went fairly well. The fellow in the phone shop was one I hadn’t seen before, and he got a little rude once he found we were American. He is unusual in my experience, as most people have been very positive and kind about it. In fact, while we were out, Lauren and I were stopped three times by people wanting to know if we were American and where in the States we were from. So funny!

While at Cabot Circus, we also had out first experience dining out at a French cafe. Dora was absolutely right when she told me that they won’t bring a check unless you ask for it. Once our meal was finished, someone came to clear our plates and invited us to sit and finish our drinks (a bottle of still water, with fresh lemon. Classy.). We sat there for another good hour or so before we could catch someone to bring us the ticket, but it made for good conversation time. We then had a confusing bit of time trying to catch a bus, because apparently return service on the U-line doesn’t run regularly on the weekend. We managed to find the U3, though, which took a ridiculously long way back to campus, and got home around 5:30.

Our arrival was just in time to meet up with everyone who had started “pre-drinking” (the exact equivalent of pre-gaming) for the freshers welcome party, which was Saturday night. Most everyone arrived Saturday afternoon and evening, and people were in very high spirits. Everyone really seems to be making an effort to get to know one another, and there’s a very open attitude that gets more and more open as the night wears on. Not surprisingly, as alcohol is free flowing, and free of charge if you find the right party.

Lauren and I met up with Padma and his flat mates including a really nice girl called Harriet who loves all things American. This massive group of people ended up going from door to door introducing ourselves and making our own mini-party. By this time, a few people were already wasted enough to have lost any semblance of volume control, so it got loud and hot pretty quickly. Padma, Harriet and I stayed sober for various reasons, but we did enjoy watching others playing games and having a progressively difficult time standing up.

After a while, Harriet and we three Americans made it out across campus to the student union bars where the party was happening. In the hallway of E-zone next to the bars we observed a young man peeing, completely at ease, into a potted plant. Escape, the pub-like establishment on the first floor, was brimming with noisy, intoxicated youth, many of whom were crowded around a raging barbecue that was threatening to catch a nearby table canopy on fire. Someone arrived with a fire extinguisher and put it out to great cheers as our little foursome stood around trading slang and mimicking each other’s accents.

The Red bar on the second floor, more like a night club, had quite a long queue going up the stairs to get in as security checked ids and so on. We decided to skip it and go back home, but we did stop at the kebab stand for snacks. I had my first doner which with a little bit of ketchup and some onion was not bad for cheap food from a stand. We spent the rest of the night sitting around in my flat talking, and turned in around 2 am. This was fairly early, considering that two of my flatmates didn’t get in until 4, and one didn’t turn up until half past 11!

I didn’t get up until quite late today, and by the time that I had managed to get cleaned up and have some breakfast, it was too late to go out and do anything before the scheduled building safety meeting. It was a very dull meeting, and they repeated a lot of the information that international students got earlier in the week. They did show us a new video advising that we refrain from injuring/killing each other whilst at UWE. Very sound advice, I’d say.

Instead of going with my building, I went with Lauren and Padma to an earlier session. My shopping from Asda was delivered while I was out (several hours early!), so I spent the rest of the afternoon putting things away and making chili and chocolate cookies. It was nice to make the kitchen smell like something other than fish fingers! Lauren and Padma came over during that time and we watched Across the Universe... It was both trippy and intense and at times unintentionally amusing, but altogether it’s worth seeing again. The way the music worked with the themes of the film has made me re-examine the message of some of the songs.

Many students spent today decorating their flat windows with signs, particularly in the common room windows which are quite large. The most popular things to do include lining up empty beer cans on the windowsills, and writing messages in post-it notes for others to enjoy. You can really, really tell it’s college.

Tonight was more of a chill-out night for most of my friends. Some of them are still out partying, but the rest of us have turned in early. Several people came over to the flat for drinks, but I ducked out after a little and went over to Harriet’s where Padma and some other friends of theirs were watching British television. It is almost exactly the same as American television, but with more football. Speaking of which... I saw a highlights show of the ManU versus ManCity game from today and HOLIEMOLIE was it exciting.

I’m winding down to go to bed now. Registration and the equivalent of convocation are tomorrow afternoon. I discovered today that there’s a paved pathway that leads from Bristol to Bath, and I have plans this week to explore the route that will get me to that path. Other than that... We’ll see! Time tables won’t be up until tomorrow, so I’ve no idea when any of my classes will be meeting this week, or where. I guess I’ll find out!

Wandering: Castle Park to Redcliffe

Orientation activities continued to day with lectures on staying safe, on health care options, and on becoming involved in the student union. During the lunch hour, the campus Well-being Centre gave a presentation on services available, including prayer space and classes on meditation. Though we’d planned to go into the centre of town, Lauren wasn’t feeling well and went back to her flat. Padma and I opted to go into Bristol City Centre anyway with the intent of exploring Castle Park.

Castle Park, just across the street from Broadmead, contains the ruins of St Peter and St Mary le Port which were churches before they were destroyed in the blitz. Also destroyed at that time were a few remaining mediaeval buildings, and parts of Bristol castle. There was graffiti and litter all over, which was sad to me considering the history of the place. St Peter is kept up as a memorial to Bristolian citizens killed in the bombing, but St Mary’s tower seems fairly neglected. The graffiti was worst in that corner of the park, and it looked a little sketchy to me.

Padma and I walked through the park and out onto High Street which we crossed to go into St Nicholas Market. It was fairly busy so I didn’t take many pictures, but the buildings are quite old and the architecture is interesting to take in. The Market itself is a collection of small shops, stalls, and tiny restaurants. Padma and I perused a used bookstore where I found a book on legends from around the United Kingdom. Apparently Berkeley Castle is supposed to be haunted by Richard II, and Minchinhampton is home to a number of prehistoric monoliths.

Bristol didn’t have any particularly special stories, except that at one time a whole group of people swear they saw an anchor on a rope drop down from the sky and catch around a tombstone in a church graveyard. The account states that the people all saw the rope being tugged, and then they saw a ghostly man climb down the rope out of the clouds. One of the people tried to grab him, and the ghost man allegedly appeared to drown in the air and disappear. The rope was then cut and the anchor abandoned. The record of the story apparently didn’t give a name for the church, nor does the anchor tip that the people supposedly managed to tack to the church door seem to be hanging around anywhere. Alas.

From St Nicholas, Padma and I walked along Welsh Back and the Floating Harbour, where a number of restaurants and riverboat bars are located. Among them was The Apple, which was recommended as a place for tasty, cheap, strong cider. From there we wandered to Queen Square,which was full of kids just out of school. At the centre of the park was a statue of a guy on a horse. Now where might I have seen those before? Instead of a Confederate soldier, however, this was William III, the guy who chartered the College of William and Mary.

Leaving Queen Square we wandered past a pub or two and over the Redcliffe Bridge, and around the corner was Quakers Burial Ground. We weren’t entirely sure whether anyone had been buried there, but it was a pretty place and surprisingly quiet for its location at a busy intersection. Next to a bench in the park there was a placard explaining that a cherry tree there had been planted in memory of a fellow called John who died saving the lives of others by directing his runaway car off the road.

After this, Padma and I crossed Redcliff Hill to reach our actual destination, which was St Mary Redcliffe.The walk around back was paved with bits of grave markers, I believe, some of them well over two hundred years old. I don’t think there was anyone underneath them, as a few had been cut in half or catty-cornered to make way for paths. One marker, Thomas Chatterton’s, was set in a little garden next to a rosebush. We did not enter the church, but I intend to go to evensong one night while I’m here.

Though we’d planned to stop and Sainsbury’s on our way back through town, Padma and I found ourselves much more tired than expected after walking back up Victoria Street and back around to Castle Park. We caught the U3 directly back to campus and have gone our separate ways for the night. I am getting ready to put some pasta on the stove, and another suitemate, Phillip, has just arrived. I’ve no idea what I’m going to do tomorrow, but I’m sure I’ll think of something.

Stop and Smell the Roses

Padma arrived on Monday afternoon, and on Tuesday he and I had breakfast before popping down to the City Centre for some shopping. While there, we stopped at my favourite of shops, Starbucks Coffee Co. Turns out they’ll take American partner numbers, but only with an actual card – do you feel like sending mine, mum? We wandered around Cabot Circus and over into the Broadmead area where we saw someone playing on one of the live art pianos, which are currently featured in Bristol.

Once we were through shopping, Padma and I caught the U1 going out to the Ashton Bower campus of UWE where fine arts studies take place. This is where I’d seen the grounds of Ashton Court Estate, and that is where we headed. It’s only a very short walk from the AB Campus car park, though the walk is entirely uphill. Ashton Court Estate is comprised of a huge mansion and its grounds, bought from private owners by the Bristol City Council in the 1970s. Coming in we saw what we learned later were red deer standing around in a field on a hill. The hill was rippled over with trenches that are what remains of the Saxons who lived there and ploughed the land back in the day.

I got more excited than I should have about the view from the car park at the visitor’s centre, especially considering what we went on to see. The visitor’s centre itself had only opened the week before we arrived there, and the facilities there (cafe, etc) are in the process of getting started. They have the first floor renovated and open for conferences and weddings, but the rest of the house is closed until they can get enough money to furnish it for public viewing. The house has quite a history and ownership of the land is mentioned in the Doomsday Survey, which I thought was pretty cool. The grounds are home to a deer park including red and spotted deer, as we’d seen from the road.

When we’d had our fill of history, Padma and I took off down a path and through a garden, but where we were wasn’t on the map, so we ended up kind of backwards. We were trying to get to something labelled as the “Domesday Oak,” which sounded kind of awesome. A friendly jogger with a stroller gave us some idea of where we were, but it turned out that once she looked at the map, she didn’t know where we were, either! Anywho, we got straightened out and headed bravely off in the right direction... which seemed to lead up a tiny, rocky, extra steep path for mountain bikes. We climbed it anyway, and I got photos of Bristol from several different elevations, and snapped a few photos of plant life for later identification.

At the top of this path, we did indeed find an oak tree, but it had no sign or indication that it was the Domesday Oak. A biker passing by circled back to see if we needed help, and said that it looked to him like we were in the right place. I have since learned from the estate’s website the Domesday Oak is one we passed a few metres down the road, one that I fortunately decided to photograph. We climbed up just a little ways further and sat on a bench looking out at the city – definitely my favourite view so far. We then, thankfully, started our journey downhill. The way back down included the statue of a guy’s head which I assume represented the head of a Mr. Smythe.

A little ways on from that we found a really pretty little clearing and a darker bike trail into the woods which we decided to follow. This led us back around to almost exactly where we’d started up the hill, and afforded some really beautiful shots of the mansion house. The grounds there are absolutely gorgeous, covered in trees and huge meadows of this really soft, springy grass. It’s long enough and shiny enough that when the wind blows you can watch the waves blow across. Even though I have so much more to explore, I really can’t wait to get back to this park!

Back towards the mansion house we followed a path down through a pretty landscaped garden and between these two huge redwood trees which you can see in a few of my pictures. We spent quite a lot of time in the estate’s rose garden, most of which was in full bloom. Each bush smelled slightly different, and we had a great time comparing them, especially the ones that smelled like peaches. A few varieties have sort of a lemony scent to them, which I particularly enjoyed.

There are several festivals held at Ashton Court Estate throughout the year, including a hot air balloon festival and the kite and flyer festival which was held just last weekend. On our way back toward the park entrance, I snapped a photo of what must be Charlie Brown’s Kite-Eating Tree.

There were lots of people with their dogs all over the park the whole day, both on and off their leads. One woman had a really pretty little whippet, and a basset hound tried really hard to get me to play with her. We met a four-month-old Alsatian puppy called Skye just before we left, and she was just desperate to meet us. Also on the grounds we saw a huge German Shepherd with his people, and loads of terriers. One woman was doing retrieval games with her border collie, which appeared to be having a great time.

In the history of the estate we’d read that Esme Smythe, a former lady of the house, liked to keep Pomeranian dogs. She had usually kept several at a time and had had them buried on the grounds. We passed their little graveyard patch on our way up to the road and paused a few moments to read their headstones. One of them, I was amused to find, had been called Tam.

At the very last second I spotted a strange box set a few yards away from the car park, carved all over with Saxon-esque relief. It turned out to be a map explaining the view of Bristol from that point, including an explanation of the Saxon ploughing strips. We made it back down the bus just as it arrived for its six-minute sit at the campus, and then we were on our way back to Frenchay. It’s really exhilarating to be able to just see something and decide to go check it out. I never treated anything in Richmond that way because it always seemed so familiar. Here, though, everything is new and every excursion an adventure. I am having so much fun!

I finally had an extended conversation with my suitemate, Erik, who is the only other fellow in my flat just now. He is a German citizen who has been living in Norway the last six years, and he’s starting his first year at university studying Pharmaceutical Science. He, Padma and I met Lauren, a fellow VCU student, for Orientation activities this morning. Our activities were not particularly exciting, but I collected a few useful websites for later perusal. Lauren and I marched down to Sainsbury’s for her first shopping experience, and we’ll all be meeting again tomorrow morning for day two of the fun. I hope tomorrow won’t be too long, as I’m really hoping to get to explore North Park down in the Centre this week. If not tomorrow, though, there’ll be Friday... and the day after that... and the day after that...

Adventures in Public Transportation

I feel so accomplished! I’ve been to the bank and I’ve been to the City Centre and back. Actually I’ve been beyond the City Centre, but I’ll get to that.

So. NatWest bank has a branch on campus, not just a cash machine, as I was delighted to discover. I have put in for a letter confirming my UK address, which I will be able to pick up Wednesday and submit with my passport to open an account. With that squared away, I headed for the campus bus stops which are conveniently located just outside the student hub (imagine the VCU student commons with all of the administrative offices under one roof).

The university has a deal with the transportation system to supply U-line buses that run to and from UWE. They are hard to miss as they are bright red, and it is very, very comforting to know that wherever I am, all I have to do is find a stop labelled with the U-line and I will be able to get home. The university supplied me with a pre-paid card good through the end of July next year, which means FREE BUS RIDES for me!

Though I had some general idea of where I was headed, I was really grateful that there was another girl on the bus who hit the “stop” button at the stop I needed. The buses here don’t tell you inside where the next stops are, so it helps to know a couple of ones before yours so that you can indicate in time that you need to get off. (Here is the map.) I rode the U1 today (the red line) to Cabot Circus where first thing I procured a lovely purple mobile phone. It should be working, but I am still figuring out how to use it. If you’d like the number, please message me via facebook or by email.

Cabot Circus has three floors and looks quite similar to the new open-air malls in Richmond. The building is sheltered by a huge glass dome kind of thing, and while I was there, several men where clambering around on top of it washing the panes. I wandered around for a bit and had a coffee at Costa, which is a lot like Starbucks. Next time I will go to an actual Starbucks, as there’s one of those hidden away on the third level. After further wandering, including inspection of a toy shop, I stopped at a restaurant called Hey Potato!, a potato bar that offers various styles of potato with various toppings. I chose Italian chicken, which tastes less Italian and more American tex-mex.

Take-away in hand, I wandered around until I discovered the place that I’d come in, and I retraced my steps down Bond Street (I think?) back to the bus stop where I’d arrived. The wait was about ten minutes for the next bus, and in the meantime I people-watched. Folks don’t seem to mind being watched, and if they catch you looking, don’t seem to expect you to immediately avert your eyes, which I find kind of nice. People aren’t generally inclined to strike up unnecessary conversation, but if they do speak, it is direct and friendly. Unless it’s a bus driver swearing at an idiotic pedestrian/bike/car. This happened a couple of times.

Speaking of pedestrians/bikes/cars – while it is almost completely silent on campus, especially after sundown, and now because there are no students, the Centre is a proper city. There are clearly marked bike lanes on the most major roads, but on others they ride as close to the side as they can. It seems that you have to absolutely fearless in order to do this, because cars and buses are inclined to hit their brakes at absolutely the last second, and they’ll give you three inches of clearance if you’re lucky. Where it’s permitted, cars park mostly on the sidewalk. Where it isn’t permitted there are more often double yellow lines or zigzag white ones rather than signs. The roundabouts appear very easy to navigate, so long as you have some idea where you’re going.
If it’s any more complicated than two lanes, they’re marked with directions and arrows to keep you on track, and the signage is very clear.

The bus I chose was again the U1, and the end of the route ran down to Temple Meade station which is gorgeous, past St. Nicholas’ Market which is kind of an alley bazaar, and all the way out to Ashton Court and the fine arts campus of UWE. Ashton Court is unbelievably beautiful, and mum especially would love it because all of the houses resemble the little stone one right next to the Bon Air library. I intend to go back out there for a walk just as soon as I can manage (tomorrow!), and I promise that I will take pictures. Today I was just too busy looking around to manage anything else.

Because I got back on the away-going bus, we turned around at Ashton Court and went back through the city the way we’d come. It would have been more direct, apparently, to get on the same line across the street from where I decided to go, but I’m glad that I didn’t because I got to see loads more. There are shops for just about everything you can imagine (including a bead shop, mum!) and another yarn store that I’ll have to check out. There are lots of Indian and Chinese takeaway shops, and at least one Grecian kebab place on the U1 line. Across the river I saw an amusing sign for a location under construction – it’s to be called “Wapping Wharf,” which made me laugh.

Down towards Old Market I saw a number of little pubs, including one called Kingshead which looks the way you’d expect a pub to look. The building is squashed and narrow, and the door is low and the sign is dark green with thin gold lettering and painted at the very top of the building is a little sign that says c.1660. How cool is that? There are other, newer pubs that all advertise “home-cooked food” which must be a local selling-point. On Gloucester Street one can find Robin Hood’s Retreat, The Golden Lion, and The Hobgoblin.

There’s loads more I know I wanted to mention but I can’t think of it all right now. It will come to me, I’m sure. Right now I’m going to learn a little more about my phone and hopefully give uni-box a try – no response yet to my enquiry form, so perhaps a call will speed things along.

First Time Shopping

After writing yesterday, I did in fact make the trek to the grocery. Sainsbury’s (http://www.sainsburys.co.uk, if you’d like to see) is the only grocery within walking distance from campus, though the return trip is more uphill than expected. It was fairly busy, which I’m told is not unusual for a Saturday, and there are signs everywhere for recycling and reusable bags and so on. The store is not laid out at all like I’d expect, but I imagine I’ll get used to it soon. It does begin with the produce, though, so that’s where I began.

Sainsbury’s offers lots of different fruit and veg, some refrigerated and some in boxes tiered on display shelves. You can get it pre-bagged or you can bag it yourself, just like here, and there are usually one or two organic options for each item. Sainsbury’s offers a generic store-brand of just about everything, so for instance you can get gala, pink lady, or Sainsbury’s Basic apples. They were offering a £1 special on Sainsbury’s Basic blueberries, so I got some of those, and also some SB grapes, which were cheap. All of the fruit was labelled with its country of origin: my grapes are Greek, by blueberries Polish.

Meat is available mostly pre-packaged, and the small meat counter was quite crowded with people so I skipped it. There was a whole refrigerator aisle devoted to pies, so I skipped that as well and will go back another time to investigate. Sliced sandwich meat is very thoroughly labelled, including not only that whatever inside is processed, but exactly how and with what. The chicken I got, for instance, is held together with potato starch. Good to know.

Milk is available both refrigerated and not, and most of the refrigerated is organic. I chose refrigerated this time, but intend to experiment with the shelf-stable kind another time. Juice is available in almost every combination you can think of. No POG, but I did find juices that contained Passionfruit... instead I chose Orange, Mango, Guava, which is close. I hit the cereal aisle next which was between canned veg and baby items. There is so much shredded wheat available, and also lots of Special K. I found the Sainsbury’s Basic version of multigrain Cheerios (called Hooplas here) and picked up a box.

The bread was all the way at the back, but fortunately, wholemeal baps (Brit for whole grain rolls) were available for cheap. Instead of a condiment aisle, things are scattered around. Mustard was on an aisle labelled “Spreads” which included things like prawn spread, which didn’t particularly appeal. Then there were generic meat spreads, which I did not investigate, because I finally spotted the yellow mustard. Coleman’s Original English was much, much less expensive than French’s, so I chose it. I half regret this now because I just made a sandwich with it. Think the smooth version of straight up mustard seed, which is rather a lot like straight horseradish. Absolutely not what I was expecting and next time I will be using far less of it. On the bright side, my sinuses are clear.

Sainsbury’s, like Wal-Mart, has a home furnishing section and a small clothing section in with the other home product sorts of things. They were crowded, so I skipped browsing and headed for checkout. There were signs for the store reusable bags, available for 9p with a free trade-in policy. The ones I got have a squirrel that reads, “I’m nuts about recycling!” which as an advertisement I decided was preferable to the elephant, which read, “I’m sturdy”. You bag your own groceries while the clerk rings up your order and tells you what you owe. My stuff altogether was £10 and change.

Walking home I noticed the pedestrian signal signs, which will actually stop traffic for you to cross. Being from Richmond, I am used to waiting for traffic to clear and heading out into the road. I’ll have to observe a bit before deciding whether or not this approach is acceptable.

I checked in with reception last night to find out if my bedding or kitchen things had arrived as they were supposed to. I found that the very basic packs had arrived, but as my order was not among them, the fellow at the desk placed a call. Apparently, uni-box, the company from which I ordered my stuff, did these things separately from the ones the school got in. If I decide to settle for the one the school has, I either trade them what i get if/when my order comes in, or I purchase it from the school. I opted for writing a forceful enquiry to the company, wanting to know what was going in with the order that I placed several week s ago for delivery on Friday. Hopefully they’ll do something about that on Monday, and until then I’m sleeping in my quilt and having my cereal and milk separately.

Over the course of the morning I started and re-started my new knitting project half a dozen times. I’ve made it to row twelve of the sixteen-row pattern, but those twelve rows took an hour and forty-five minutes. Ridiculous. I didn’t end up exploring at all today, but I will definitely be going out tomorrow. The temperature is dropping into the 50s and I’m going to nip outside for a few minutes before bed.

The Voyage

After approximately twenty solid hours of travel, I have made it to UWE. We left the house yesterday remarkably close to on time, and arrived at Dulles around three. After goodbyes, tearful (Nana, Tamsin) and not so much (Mum, Dad, me), I passed through security which was much simpler than I expected. I was through that and sitting at my gate by 4:30.

Our plane was an airbus, the “Queen of the Skies,” christened by the Queen in 2004. We started rolling about quarter to seven, so a few minutes late, but not bad, and then we were off! The sky, which had been cloudy, cleared up a little, and then we lifted through the remaining cloud layer and watched the sun set. When we reached cloudless skies, night had fallen and we were over Canada, which was quite pretty in the dark. I’ve always enjoyed the pictures of what the world looks like at night, and there’s nothing quite like seeing it yourself.

My seatmate was a very nice Nigerian woman who was visiting family in the states, on her way to London to see her son. I helped her operate her in-flight entertainment system, and she put up with my wiggling around and needing to get up every now and then. I tried very hard to sleep, but I only got about twenty minutes of semi-conscious dozing before a seatbelt light dinged and knocked me out of it. We experienced a lot of turbulence, pretty much every fifteen minutes or so the whole night.

Flying into dawn was really beautiful – I kept looking to see if we’d made it yet, and finally the sky was tinted orange at the horizon, and the sky turned that weird navy-green colour for a few minutes. Land crept into sight, so I took pictures of it, and as we flew in over England it was possible to see actual countryside. With hedgerows! It seems that anytime you need a bit of land divided, the thing to do is to plant some trees. The whole landscape is a lot like the patchwork of the American Midwest, but with these treelines down the middle keeping everything apart. Coming in over London I got some really nifty shots of the ground as we banked and circled in to the runway.

Once at Heathrow, everyone disembarked and marched through the unimpressive-looking terminal – it’s all currently under construction, so there’s not much to see. I followed some confusing signage to the immigration department, and there I stood for about forty-five minutes. Fortunately, there were friendly Americans in front of me – mountain bikers from Colorado on their way to Edinburgh for some trails – and we passed the time with conversation and with suggestions about what would make the wait better. Drinks, for example, or poker. The actual immigration bit was very simple. I handed over my passport, answered some pop quiz-like questions about my stay, and was waved on. Not worth the forty-five minute wait.

Baggage claim was very easy by the time I made it down to the retrieval station – everything was already off the conveyor belt and sitting. It didn’t look like my bags were even opened, as my zip ties were still intact. I stopped at the information desk for directions to bus station, and that was quite a hike with both suitcases. I had to go down a series of ramps and through some tunnels and around a couple of corners and then up a very crowded lift. Thank goodness for signage.

Automated ticket machines are my new favourite thing, as they made buying a ticket very easy. I waited an hour for a direct bus to Bristol, but there were entertaining babies to watch, and a pigeon. I saw that there were pigeon spikes on top of everything in the terminal there, including the large clock they had mounted on the wall.

The bus was a nice quiet break after Heathrow. Most of the dozen or so passengers were asleep in the first fifteen minutes, but I was busy trying to look at everything. The terrain was very flat around the city, but it got hillier as we headed west. The land along the M4 looks a lot like the drive out 64 west does, only flat, and with more animals visible from the road. In addition to the usual sheep, cows, and horses, I saw what appeared to be an alpaca farm.

I found it entertaining that every so often I’d be looking at a field, and right in the middle of it, there would be a person just sitting there. And once along the way a car had stopped on the opposite side of the road and its passengers were sitting on the embankment having a picnic. Not something you see back home!

The architecture here is notably different. I passed a neighbourhood that I swear looked exactly like Little Whinging. There’d be farm houses and manor-looking houses backed right up to brand new subdivisions, everything all jumbled together. The landscape closer to Bristol included a bright yellow castle-type building that I didn’t manage to take a picture of. The city itself looks like it will be fun to explore. The streets are narrow and the traffic is crazy, but there lots and lots of shops and some pretty parks, and an absolutely gorgeous bunch of churches.

At the bus station in Bristol, several taxis were queued up so I approached the nearest one and Sam the Taxi Driver helpfully jumped out to help me load my bags. He has been a taxi driver for ten years, I found out, and he used to live in Toronto doing electronics repairs for Sears, so that’s good to know. We pulled up to UWE and were given very concise directions by enthusiastic orientation leaders. A couple of fellows carried my bags up to my flat for me while I checked in, and then I was given a tour.

My room is on the third floor, which after living on the sixth is going to be a breeze. I have a lovely view of some trees and distant rolling farmland, as well as the courtyard here and the next building over. My bedding and kitchen materials are supposed to arrive later today, and in the meantime I am doing my best to get situated. I went down to the school store for a bit of lunch, and found that they offer jammy dodgers (which I will have to try) and also Jack Daniel’s. Also Jagermeister and several kinds of vodka. And that’s only the labels I bothered to read. Though I considered having groceries delivered (which I can do here!!), I think I’ll go out after I have a shower. Leaping in with both feet and whatnot.

I’ll post again soon! Pictures are being uploaded to facebook.