Onto St Andrews….the most Posh uni in Britain (or so I’ve been told…)

We took a 2 hour (48 mile) bus ride to St Andrews—probably the smallest  town I have ever seen a university in!  It was literally 4 streets long, butted on one end by this picturesque, rugged, rough Scottish coast, complete with, wait for it, cliffs and a medieval castle!  The university buildings were so old they had that tarnished look to them, dark and forbidding.  And then the quad was straight out of harry Potter…The town itself was pretty cute. Small, mostly dead, quiet, peaceful, friendly. I liked it—but I could never live in a place that tiny!  I don't really like people that much, and I dislike leaving my comfort zone (even though I do, all the time) but I still crave big cities, places with randomness, and long dark streets, able to walk for an hour and a half and still not reach the other side of town.  I like the feeling knowing that no matter how long I live there, I may never know all there is to know, may never see all the sights.  I love that. And that’s not something St Andrews could ever give me.

But that doesn’t matter.  It only matters what Tori likes, and she loved it!  I am not 99% sure will go there, which is cool yet frustrating (I never gave myself the option to leave the States, and I wish now that I did!)

It was dark when we got there, and we had no map, so we were a bit cluesless as to where to go.  But we just ended up asking for directions and found our hotel a few minutes later. After refreshing as best we could (because the French Airline forgot the champagne back in DC, they had to delay the flight and Tori only had 10 minutes to make her connection.  She did, but her luggage didn’t, so all her stuff was lost in France and it took until the next afternoon to arrive) we headed out to find dinner.  We choose a place that was a restaurant/bar, but it was late (ish—about 8) and I keep forgetting that stuff closes realllly early here, so it was already drinking time, and Tori freaked out about the whole bar setup.  So we ended up wandering around until we found a place called Tailend where they sold you two fish and chips dinners for 6 pounds—a pretty kick-ass deal if I do say so myself!  We carted it off back to the hotel and ate the entire thing with our fingers straight out of the greasy box, and we loved every minute of it!  Afterwards, we went to the Vic (short for Victoria—Tori’s favourite) and I bought Tori her first beer, which she hated.  But hey, its an acquired taste, right?  So then I got her a rum and coke (mostly coke) which she managed to drink without grimacing.   Although, she has not gotten the concept that alcohol, unless consumed for a drinking game, a dare/bet, or hurriedly because the cops are coming, is not something you gulp down in two seconds.  You are supposed to drink it slowly, you know, savor it. I think she just wanted to get it all over with, like taking Nyquil or something!

The next morning, we went out exploring. (At least, after we overslept.  At least Tori had the jet-lag excuse—I was just tired). We had the hotel breakfast scraps, and then headed out into the freezing cold Scottish weather.  The town was still pretty cute in the daylight, and now we could see the medieval-ness of it.  Tori wanted to go shopping, but I said no, we had to see the town. So we went to the St Andrews museum , which was pretty nice. It was dead quiet in there, and for such a little place, pretty interesting.  My favourites were a casting of a giant water scorpion that was found just off the coast, and an oddities exhibit that used to be owned by the university.  (These used to be super popular in the 1800s when travelers would bring back stuff that was beyond imagination to the local British people).  After that, we headed out to a lunch date with a current student, but Tori felt unwell and practically ran off back to the hotel to lay down.  Instead, Chelsea and I chatted about living abroad and sipped tea and ate Panini’s.  It was delightful. 

After a nap and some ibuprofen, she felt better, and we met up with another student, Meg, at a local coffee shop, where she and her Swiss friend answered all of my sister’s questions, and I focused on eating a delicious almond tart.  Meg then gave us an extensive tour of the area, including making us aware of the strange (but interesting) superstitions on campus (which was to avoid walking on a certain block on the ground…) She then pointed us to a little Thai place, which was featured on a Gordon Ramsey show—and he even liked it!  It was pretty damn good—though I’ll admit, I got the most unoriginal thing on the menu, Pad Thai as it’s one of my all-time favourites.  But it was sooo worth it! 

The next morning, I had to leave.  My day of traveling started at 5:20 AM (splendid…) and lasted right up until 30 minutes before my class started at 4.  Looong day!  It took 4 trains, a bus, and a nice little walk with my obscenely loud rolling suitcase, but I made it back in time for class.  (yipppeee) Anyway, the best part about the whole day was probably the group of 5 drunk men sipping beers out of pitchers that crowded the little hallway by the bathroom who I left convince me that the button-activated bathroom door was broken.  The station man then came over, did the complicated measure of pressing the button labeled “open” and then looked at me as of to say, “jeez, look how dumb these foreigners are…”  

Edinburgh, Scotland

One thing about Britain is that it does NOT know how to make food. Excepting the wonderful meal, fish and chips, pretty much all traditional British meals vary from weird to unsavory to plain disgusting—and the Scots do it the best.  First off, the Brits do not understand the concept of pudding.  Pudding is supposed to be light and fluffy and chocolaty, but the Brits just add the name “pudding” to any less-delicious dish to make it sound more than merely edible. They seem to think that adding a desert type to a meal makes it yummy! Yorkshire Pudding is a splendid example; since when has pudding involved meat anyway? Pie, too, goes the same way, like Shepherd’s Pie or Steak and Ale Pie.  But the grossest of all is Black Pudding (otherwise known as Blood Pudding). Ingredients: congealed sheep’s blood that ends up looking like dead worms.  Yuuuum.  Haggis to is disgusting.  Its pretty much the Scottish version of the hotdog: sheep liver, lungs, and heart all mixed together (with oatmeal and veggies) to make a dark-colored mush that they expect you to eat.  Good thing I’m on a tight budget and cant afford to eat out!

But anyway, Scotland itself!  It only took a 6.5 hour train ride (which was, in fact, 3 train rides.  Trains are usually awesome because you don't have to drive, you can just sit back and sleep or read and not worry about TSA agents, but here, it was pretty hectic.  They don't tell you which train is yours, they don't number them, and they only put the end station on the departures board. Basically you’re screwed unless you can get some help!) But then there I was, in Edinburgh!  I was only there 2 hours, but it was enough to see that it was a truly beautiful city—it was so blatantly old, but it was all meshed up with the new too, and it worked really well.  And it was so blatantly Scottish—they definitely played on stereotypes, bagpipes, kilts, tartan, and of course, the accents!  The streets were lined with cafes, shops, and people.  Lunch too was well worth the wait, a delicious mixed vegetable Panini (including avocados, something very difficult to find here!) and a gooey, yummy brownie.  And as pain-in-the-butt my little sister can be sometimes, it was sooo great to see her so unexpectedly!  It true that we get along better from a distance, but its also true that getting to spend time with your sister for a few days in Scotland when you weren’t expecting to see her until June at the earliest was awesome! 

The Cotswolds!

I’m still not entirely sure I understand what the Cotswolds are exactly.  Basically, from what I can tell, it’s a region starting in Bath and extending north. It’s a bunch of little hills dotted with medieval-esque little towns hugging the hilltops, connected to one another with a chain of green pastures filled with the sheep that have made the region prosperous for centuries.  In short, it’s a nice place to visit. 

The morning stared off chaotic, with a hugely hungover Ben stumbling down the stairs 10 minutes before we were leaving, looking like he had just been hit over the head with a baseball bat. We managed to somehow get him decent and dragged him all the way to the bus station, literally propping him against the wall while we waited for the bus.  All went well though, and before long, we arrived at the Broadway Tower, a big castle-looking thing on a hill.   It was four rooms stacked on top of one another, flanked by two turrets encasing spiral staircases.  I tried to read the information, but I didn’t get very far because everyone else just ran up to the top for the “view” which, because of an intense bout of fog, didn’t really exist. I did manage to learn that the man had the tower built as a gift for his wife so she could look out her window and see a castle.  I also learned that a man who was set to live there and set up a printing workshop was unhappily surprised to find a stubborn family of squatters living on the property who refused to vacate for months. 

We then walked about a mile and a half down the Cotswolds footpaths through sheep fields and mud puddles, climbing over stiles because gates don’t exist—and felt like straight out of Pride and Prejudice with our “hems 6 inches deep in mud!”  At first, I was kind of grumpy because my hands were really cold and I didn’t know that we were walking so far. But then we started running down a really steep hill and I slipped down it, covering my pants with mud, and decided it wasn’t so bad—despite having to be rushed off to a bathroom with warm water 10 minutes later after my fingers turned a magnificent shade of blue.

Lunch was great! We ate a place called The Mad Hatter (our primary reason for choosing the place…) which was decorated with fantastic Alice in Wonderland murals.  We ate traditional English food (fish and chips….yummm) and I even ate the peas they gave me, despite the deep loathing I have for them.  We wanted to get dessert (we want to try bannoffee pie because of Love Actually!)  but there just wasn’t enough time before the bus was leaving. 

Our last stop was at the Painswick Gardens, a cool little collection of “trails” interspersed with benches, tiny castles and huts, fake sheep (which we wasted no time climbing on!) ponds, fountains, and covered with their infamous little white snowdrops.  Plus, there was a maze shaped like “250” (for the 250^th anniversary) which we had fun running like crazy little children, screaming at the top of our lungs whenever we found one of the goals in the middle of each of the numbers. 

Lastly, we had our tea and cake, which of course was delightful.  One of the other girls opted out of getting the tea and instead got this drink called elderflower cordial, a warm, nearly-clear, sweet drink, which was really, really good—so good that I got a glass of it, and still good enough that we both bought a bottle of it.  Even better, the woman said that because its so strong, you only need to add a little bit to a warm glass of water, so the bottle we got went from 3 or 4 glasses of the drink, to 26 glasses!  Yes!  J

Cutest little kid story ever: 

I went to this program the Museum put on for kids in year 3 in a local primary school for kids in a poorer neighborhood.  They were to make landscapes out of clay, broccoli, aluminum, and oatmeal (porridge!) into a 3D garden.  When I got there, they were mostly done, so a teacher grabbed a little girl called Faith and told here to show me the gardens, which we she proceeded to do.  Then, after she did that, she turned to me and said,

“Where are you from?”

So I told her I was from America.

She thought about that for a minute, and then asked, “Do they have zoos in America?’

I thought this was an odd first question to ask, but hey, she’s a little kid. “Umm, well yeah, they do.  We have one near where I live.”

She thought about that for another moment, then said, “Do you work at the zoo in America?”

I really just didn’t know what to say to that!  It was soo cute—I had to hold in a laugh.  I was about to say no, when I realized my brother did, so I told her that.  The poor little thing probably now thinks that almost everyone in America works in a zoo now--or knows someone who does!  

This trip happened awhile ago, I am just very behind!  So much work to do these days...

Stonehenge: Welll, the Brits weren’t kidding when they said that it was a pile of rocks in the middle of a field—because that’s exactly what it was!  It was a short trip (about an hour) and I was just sitting there reading when all of a sudden, Jonathon was like, “Annnd there it is, just out the window.” And there it was. The fields were so green (all that rain!) and the stone were so…not that big.  I’m not gonna lie, they were a lot smaller and less impressive than all the storybooks made them out to be.  And then we stepped out the door and wham!  It was freezing!  Seriously, the wind was strong enough to suck up a small child!  Andrew Butterworth (an eccentric but awesome history buff who is also the internship coordinator…score!) gave us a quick history of the place but owing to the cold, the really loud winds, and just distraction in general, this is what I remember:

-the smaller stones were from Wales, 250 miles away, the bigger stones added hundreds of years later from 20 miles away

-Julius Caesar thought it was built by druids

-scientists recently found a wooden henge buried a few miles away

-over the years, stones have gone missing because people stole them to use in various buildings

-the first Stonehenge tourist came from Switzerland 300+ years ago

Salisbury: a heck of a lot prettier than the American version!  The city was quite nice, and pretty and everything.  We were quite fascinated with the canal—it was filled with swans (actually native to here!) and so everyone whipped out their cameras.  My friends and I were also somewhat fascinated with a submerged shopping cart that was in the middle of the canal with a bird perched on the handle.  The Cathedral was gorgeous—of course!  It would have been nice enough, but Andrew Butterworth’s talk again made it wayyy better!  We even saw the Magna Carta and I impressed everyone with my knowledge of the history on the English language!

Lacock=an adorable English village in which Harry Potter, Jane Austen, and several other famous and not so famous movies have been filmed.  The reason for this is because not much has changed since medieval times.  The paved the roads, they added cars, they put up some aluminum signs (enough to count on two hands…), and they people there learned the concept of personal hygiene (they got over their intense fear of bathing at some point) and threw away unnecessary article of clothing like corsets and veils and such.  In literally 10 minutes, you could turn this place into a Medieval village! 

Features of Lacock:

-A small brig for putting excessively drunk people into until they sober up

-Authentic, thatched roofs

-a ford (road that goes through a river) about 30 meters long that cars drive through

-Adorable, medieval cottages

-Authentic medieval smells, and authentic horse poop on the streets

…and lots more .

We ate in a pub that was the oldest working pub in the UK, and it was delish!  They had the food all ready for us (I of course had the veggie meal) and despite it being wayyy to early to eat (we’d only had luch like 2 or 3 hours before) we ate every bite.  Plus dessert! Then we did a pub quiz )in teams) and we got 11/12.  They only question we got wrong was about math—we mis-converted  feet into meters. Oops.  

La Gente de Mi Casa

 

And as for the people here—well, there’s 7 of us.  We all get along well enough, though I rather think I’m on the outs with some (mostly because I tend to dislike going out and getting drunk on a Tuesday night).  We tried to set up house rules on the first day—dishes, sharing food, overnight guests, parties, etc.  Basically, this is what we came up with:

-Do your dishes immediately after you use them (I don't think this has ever been followed)

-We’ll share some food, but other than that, we each get our own shelves (only the things nobody likes get shared, and literally every bit of food here has somebody’s name in permanent marker on it)

-Family dinner on Sunday nights (which turned into everybody but me and my roommate)

-Overnight guests are okay, even though its strictly against ASE policy. Oh well. 

I mean, they’re mostly okay.  A few of the girls can get a little snooty, and can be knd of selfish, even to each other.  (like a watered down Mean Girls before the practical jokes started) So far, it’s all working out though.  Ben (the only boy) is a real trooper and has embraced his inner…I don't know. Self. (Horror story: his original roommate died a few months ago because he was uber depressed and killed himself!  Gahh!  And I think I’m still FB friends with him…) And my roommate Sophia is pretty cool.  I mean, she’s got nothing on Mara, best roommate ever, but she’s still nice.  Very studious, very quiet, and very bookish.   We get along very well, and we’re both similar in that we don't get out much.  And we’re both a little nerdy, but that’s always okay! I watch more TV than her, I eat more than her, but then again, that’s true at home too.  I also wake up earlier than her (big surprise there!).

 So far though, Bath has been pretty great.  Everyone else is sitting around deciding where they’ll run off to—Italy, Prague, Paris, Spain, Germany.  But I’ve been to all those places.  I’ve been there as the tourist.  And its okay.  But I’m slowly discovering that traveling as a tourist isn’t nearly as great as really getting onto it, traveling as a local. All I want to do is go down to the nitty gritty, and experience things as the locals do. I want to make British friends, keep and visit the ones I already have, and see the UK.  I’m here for 4 months, and I actually want to be able to say that I saw it before I left, instead of saying that I filled my passport with places I “visited” for a day.  I’ve done that before, and you just never get that local flavor.  Living in Costa Rica, living in Barcelona, that was the way to go. I left feeling connected to the place, and I truly hope that happens with the UK. But to do that, I need to actually stay here and SEE it!

Ahh Britain.  The UK.  Its weird!  I’m going on week two now, and I guess I’m slowly getting used to its oddities…but not really. I still roll over laughing every so often when a British person says something weird.  I still forget to look the wrong way and almost get run over.  I still forget to walk of the other side of the sidewalk and almost plough into people.  And British accents still make me smile. 

So it’s cold and its damp here.  I don't think the streets ever dry properly.  And even if you look outside and hey!  It’s a wonderful sunny day, you still pack the umbrella.  But I like it.  The first week was so-so.  I’m not going to lie there!  It was orientation so yeah, there wasn’t a whole lot going on.  Plus, I got sick towards the end, so I had to miss the last day (like I shed many tears over that!) They threw a lot of info at us, some of it good, some of it useless.  I still don't know some of the people who I talk to everyday’s names. 

Right, so the places.  Bath itself is pretttty much what everyone told me before I arrived.  Old, pretty, nice.  I’ve learned that when it comes to getting descriptions of something, don't ask the Brits.  They aren’t so great at that.  But it IS old and pretty and nice!  The streets are cobblestone, and the buildings are limestone.  It’s small, and definitely geared to tourists and shopping. The center of town in the Abbey, a beautiful old church that once witnessed the crowning of one king, and the royal marriage of another.  Down the road, in an ordinary, slightly worn-for-the-wear brownstone, affectionately called “number four” is Jane Austen’s old house, the place where she lived as a child.  As with any European city, it’s old and tied to history.  I don't know a lot of Bath’s history, but I’ve got 4 months.  I’ll get there! 

I live in Prior Park, in a section called Widcombe.  It’s a decent sized townhouse with 4 bedrooms, a roomy kitchen and a nice parlor.  No piano though, that was a disappointment, thought it almost makes up for it with its extensive VHS collection.  My roommate Sophia and I made a pact to watch ALL the movies (except the really weird ones) before we leave!   My room is nice enough—its big, warm, the windows open, and the beds are even covered with bright, flowery hippie-esque coverlets.  My favourite (see what I did there??) part of the room though, has to be the shower.  I guess they were worried that we might not all be able to shower in the other two showers, so they put one in our room.  But the kicker is that its just a shower! I mean, it has a semi-opaque glass door on the front, but that’s it.  It’s so odd!  We mostly just use it as an oversized sink and a great place for line-drying our clothes.  BUT we did make another pact (lots of secret pacts here!) to each shower in it once this semester.  Not sure how that’s gonna go down, but whatever. 

Our center of everything is about a ten-minute walk away, in Nelson house. Basically, it’s a 6-floor townhouse with creaky floorboards, drafty windows, and a stone cellar filled with wicker furniture where we eat our takeaway lunches (its a lot cheaper than eating in!).  It’s stuffed with offices, kitchens, a library, seminar room, and a computer room, plus the cellar.

The End of Spain

So clubbing.  Last weekend, since it was my last in Spain, my friend Jade and I decided to spend it in Barcenoleta (the old part of Barcelona).  Unfortuentely, Friday night was an epic FAIL. It was raining, which was just gross, and then I couldn’t figure out how to take the metro near my house (the ticket machines were screwed up) so I had to walk to the far away station.  And then, sometime between standing on the platform, and arriving outside of Jade’s house, someone pickpocketed my phone!!  I was so, so mad.  And pissed. And disappointed at myself.  And then it started thundering which made Jade’s dad tell us to stay in, so long story short, we ended up watching the Hangover and going to bed early.

The next morning though, her dad convinced us to get these delicious little cakes from the market down the road.  The rest of the day was pretty slow—mostly packing and laundry.  But that evening, I came back to Barcenoleta and ate a delicious stir-fry dinner with them—one meal that I sorely missed.  Then, around 11:45 or so me and Jade headed out to the clubs, super grateful that it wasn’t raining!  We had to wait until about 1 or 1:30 before people really started to show up, so we just took pictures and chatted with some of the other earlybirds (that is, until they wanted to buy us drinks and then we had to make our escape).  But finally, we started dancing, and just had a good time. We had to avoid and refuse way too many weird guys but whatever.

 I’d say the highlight was after the professional dancers went up on the podium and started their little routine or whatever, so random drunk guy came over to me and shouted at me, “Be careful!  See all those dancers up there, in the leotards and the dresses? They’re all men!” And when I looked blankly at him (it was an odd thing to say) he assumed I didn’t know English and shouted “Hombres, hombres! “ I turned to Jade to point out this guy, but when I turned back, he was already gone.  It was hilarious though!  

We didn’t get to sleep until close to 5 AM—its crazy! In the “morning” after downing some fruit, Jade and I pitched in to help her dad make an omelet/Spanish tortilla for I guess lunch.  Eggs, milk, tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers, spices…mmmm. It was so good! I kind of want some now actually….afterwards, I spent about an hour just sitting with Jade and her father sipping coffees and watching the ocean.  It was so nice and relaxing, and a good way to leave Barcelona J

WOW I am so behind!  Okay so, I have a lot of catching up to do.  Firstly, I graduated!  That’s always a great feeling, to know you’ve graduated.  I am now officially certified to teach English to non-native speakers abroad! 

After the “ceremony” (most informal thing ever!) we all went to a Nepalese restaurant…interesting choice, but hey, it was so good!  I had the “menu of the day’ which was vegetables, rice, and a kazillion kinds of sauces, and it was actually pretty spicy, I had to get a second thing of water.  As soon as I walked in, I saw a picture of the Annapurnura range (famous range in the Himalayas) and I said to the whole group, “Yeah, that’s where I want to go,” and they just looked at me strange.  During the meal we had strange discussions with topics ranging anywhere from geography quizzes (you would not believe how few people know that there are 50 US states!),  really bad mistakes that English learners have made over the years (usually accidently saying a swear word i.e. “fuck” instead of “fork” etc, or accidental sexual allusions), plus a lively debate on the random drawings of who the people painted on the front window were, and where they came from.

Afterwards, I walked downtown for one of the last times.  It was drizzling—kind of like “Hey, you’re going to England you better get used to the rain!” I went to the Museu Xocolata, which was actually really interesting. I learned a lot about where chocolate came from and its use through time. The ancient Aztecs and Mayans used to drink it on special occasions but it was cold and really bitter.  Then after Cortes came along, he decided that it was pretty great and took it back to Europe where all the nobles added sugar and drank it as a luxury. Later on, the French made it available to the masses in the form of bonbons.  And then, everybody started eating it.  Yay!!! But basically, the whole thing was just an excuse to showcase all these awesome chocolate sculptures all over the place—and some of them were really detailed too! 

On the way back, this woman stopped me on the street and asked me in Spanish where the Picasso Museum was.  This happened to me before, and I freezed up and ran off, but this time, I stopped and was actually able to help her by giving directions in Spanish. At first, she looked really apprehensive, but as soon as I told the street name, she smiled as she realized that I was right, and she was only about 4 blocks away. I felt like a true native!