The Motorway

As I'm sure you are all aware, in lieu of 'interstate freeways', there are motorways in this country. Perhaps the most well-known is the M25, which acts as a ring road around greater London and is seriously just a circle that is apparently always slowed to a crawl. It is also one of the 3 motorways that I have been on, the other two being the M3, which goes north out of Southampton and eventually gets you to the M25, and the M27, which is an east-west road that would eventually take you to Brighton and such. And it is the M27 that can be seen here on the right.

While the premise is the same as I-5, there are many things that, as a transportation professional/student, I find rather bizarre. Getting over the fact that you are driving on the left, there is the fact that all of the freeway signs are blue (and not green). I don't know how much detail can be gotten out of the smaller version of this photo, but it contains all sorts of interesting things. The big black bit below the big blue sign is a VMS sign, conveniently not on at the time. The big blue sign is really two big blue signs, simply indicating that there is a split in the road ahead (additional note, there are also A roads, which are more like highways or state routes). Other things of interest that may be difficult to see are the signs on the off-ramp on the left there, one of which indicates that the ramp ends in a giant roundabout (it may not be a normal roundabout, but sort of like a one-way road that is in a big circle, which sounds odd, but go with it). And there are signal ahead signs, so it's apparently signalized. Past the gore on the left, underneath the big overhead signs, is what I suppose is called a lane use sign, which all involve unnaturally long, skinny arrows, and in this case just shows that an additional lane will be added on the left with the upcoming on-ramp. You also often find signs (but not in this photo) regarding the 'hard shoulder'.

And my personal favorite just says 'queues likely'.

Boxing Day Sales!

Apparently the desire of stores to ditch all existing merchandise as soon as Christmas is over is universal. Only they lounge around for an extra day here. So I went shopping yesterday. It was a long day of shopping and I only bought one thing. But it was half price! Woo-hoo! Plus it is mildly exciting to feel like there is some return to civilization after an eerily quiet weekend with nobody out and about. But on the sad side, the mulled wine/German sausage kiosk in the middle of the street is gone. And I never went. Sad.

In addtional news, Home Alone was on tv last night. If you knew the amount of effort that went into trying to find home alone on dvd in this town, you would know that this was a monumental feat. I don't think any holiday season can truly call itself complete without at least one viewing of home alone.

I'm trying to get myself back into study mode. I made some progress today, but it wasn't particularyl impressive. Maybe tomorrow. But I do need to go on at least one more day trip this break...

Boxing Day!

Happy Boxing Day, everyone!

Quite frankly, still no clue what this actually means. I could just go and look on wikipedia, but that would be cheating. I do, however, have some idea of what it actually entails. It seems to be like some sort of combination of American Christmas Eve and the day after Thanksgiving, meaning that while it may be pointless on its own, its sort of an excuse not to go to work and maybe hang out with the people that you didn't see on the actual holiday. While all the big movies come out on Christmas day in the US, here they come out on Boxing Day. Instead of all the sales starting the day after Christmas, they start the day after Boxing Day (and are called the January sales and are an especially big deal in a country where there are rules about what you can put on sale).

Like I'm sure it is for some in the US, the big Christmas meal is our big Thanksgiving meal (aka, turkey and the fixin's). So Boxing Day is also the day for eating leftovers. As is the rest of the week, I'm sure. Although they don't have any college bowl games, so I don't really know what else they do. Someone said something about a silly boat race, but that seems like it would be chilly.

One other thing that I found a bit odd, but maybe it's just because I'm a bit of a nerd, is that people tend to go out for the night on Christmas Eve. Mind you, people seem to go out every evening if given the chance, but this time it seemed like something you plan on doing in advance.

Anyways, I have one more day to kill before the buses start running again. If I'm feeling ambitious I might walk over to the other side of the common and try to find the Shirley High Street, but this would require about two hours of walking so it's entirely possibly I'll chicken out.

Chichester

I went to Chichester today.

I can honestly say that Chichester is not a place I would have ever gone if had not been specifically suggested to me, and a ride and tour provided. To be honest, it's a very cute little town, no wait, city. It has a cathedral (Southampton is a town, no cathedral). The two main shopping streets are on a cross around this cute structure sort of bit, with the cathedral on one of the corners. It's a smaller cathedral than the others I've been to, but it dates back to like, 1087 or something ridiculous, so those things are always interesting in some way or another. Plus the cathedral is free, always a bonus.

Aside from the cute cathedral and cute surrounding cloisters (today's random head shot is from a little alley in what I suppose is the cathedral close), the shopping streets are also very cute and 'authentic' in a way we can't pull off stateside. While mainly chain shops you find everywhere, they were located in obviously old structures built for entirely different purposes. It gives the place something we like to call 'character', but in an almost stereotypically English way. Maybe it's just a bit hard to describe. It was quite crowded today, with the news promising it to be the busiest shopping day of all time or something silly, but it still wasn't as bad as the main shopping bits in Southampton as of late.

Overall, I would say Chichester is a pleasant place. But I don't know if I would recommend it as a destination on a short trip. Unless you were driving along the south coast and wanted to hit all the sights. Oh, and they had some really cute looking pubs. Like, really, really cute.

Portsmouth Returns

I went back over to Portsmouth today on a secret mission. It didn't go particularly well, but it was very foggy and so I at least took a couple of cool foggy pictures. Oooh, look at the fog. You couldn't even see Spinnaker Tower, and it was right there. The fact that it was inhumanly cold kept me from staying too long, however, so it was a quick jaunt.

This part of town (aka, campus and north of campus) have seemingly cleared out by now. It's back to how it kind of was during the international induction week, with me and a bunch of students from Asia, only the Europeans that were here during the induction have pretty much all returned home for Christmas. One of the girls that lives in my 'flat' is from Malaysia and she is still around, otherwise it might be a little too quiet.

Tomorrow I have to stock up on supplies because all of the stores will be closed Christmas and Boxing Day, plus the buses and trains will not be running those days either. I will discuss Boxing Day at a later time...

Oxford

So I went to Oxford today. Lucky for me I chose the coldest day ever to walk around outside all day. Go me. Needless to say, my first stop was a coffee place to regain feeling in my hands.

Most of the colleges were closed, and there weren't many tourists around, so things were remarkably quiet while walking through the non-shopping streets checking things out. I don't really know what was what, but I did see quite a good number of colleges. This included a trip to the top of a church tower by the little round building by the library, of which I took numerous photos that are on picasa. Now, for 2 pounds (student rate, I'm afraid), you can climb up the scariest stairs ever, but you get a fantastic view of the city. Of course, it's also the narrowest walkway ever and near impossible to get by anyone, but still worth it. Once again, you should check out the photos.

Having run out of colleges to see by 1, I was forced to walk around the shopping bits of town. The stores were the same as in Southampton, so it was not particularly exciting, except for this little covered market bit. It had quite an interesting assortment of local businesses, a good portion of which seemed to sell meat. This included a butcher shop with what was probably hundreds of fake dead chickens hanging outside of it (sorry, no photo). After running out of shopping, I went to the Ashmolean Museum to kill some more time (plus it was free). Unless desparate to pass some time, I don't really recommend the place, as it's just sort of a lesser version of stuff they have at the London museums, only with a bunch of rather talkative French middle school students following you around.

Upon departure it was still only 2:30, so I wandered around a bit more. Found a few more interesting bits, and then finally headed back the train station. On the way I came across the special Oxford canal, which is by one of the rivers, and took some pretty photos, including the one above.

I got to the train station around 3:30. The trains that go to Southampton leave at a quarter past every hour, so I bought a magazine and was prepared to wait 45 minutes for the next one. Lucky (or so I thought) for me, the 3:15 didn't show up until 3:50, so I managed to get on that one. Unlucky for me, its string of bad luck continued and we were at a standstill for 45 minutes between Oxford and Reading behind a broken down freight train. Lucky for me, handguns are illegal in this country, because otherwise I would have been extremely weary of the guy across the aisle shaking his head continuously and muttering obscenities under his breath. Basically it took over two hours for an hour and 15 minute train. But they had a really long list of excuses, and that's the most important thing.

Borders

As part of my 'avoid Above Bar Street at all costs' moves, I went to Borders today, which is conveniently down behind West Quay and can be gotten to from the bus stop without being crammed onto overcrowded sidewalks (ahem, "paths", as some locals would call them).

Aside from the general appearance being the same as its American counterparts, there were quite a few interesting differences to be noted. First of all, there was a giant Starbucks (not Seattle's Best). And then of actual interest to at least me:

- It is cheaper to buy imported American Vogue (3.25) than British Vogue (3.60)
- Most of the biographies are either about a) footballers or b) random female celebrities no American has ever heard of
- The crime section was nearly as large as fiction
- They have like, every Wilkie Collins book, not just The Moonstone and Woman in White. SCORE.
- There were ten million books either about celebrity chefs or cooking

I spent a little too much time looking through 'A Xenophobes guide to Americans'. I learned quite a bit about the American people. Apparently winning is paramount, but on the inside we are all insecure pessimists (who one day want to start our own businesses). Plus we are a little too into the Superbowl, we don't understand that other cultures might be different than ours, and having God on your side is the same as having America on your side. There was 'A Xenophobe's guide to the English' as well, but I had been standing in the same spot for quite some time and felt like I needed to keep moving. Now I just have a reason to go back (well, that and Wilkie Collins novels).

London shoes!

I got my first pair of English shoes yesterday! In London! For 27 pounds! I have them on right now!

So, I got in my let's-see-London-done-up-for-Christmas trip yesterday with a couple classmates. After dropping one off for their interview at Notting Hill Gate, wandered down this adorable little street, Kensington Church Street, to get to the Kensington High Street. It was on this street that I realized normal human beings do not live in that neighborhood (the streets were literally lined with Jaguars, BMWs, Mercedes, and Porches), but I also found my shoe store where things were quality made and half-price. After some more shopping in Kensington, it was time to head over to Covent Garden to soak up the festive atmosphere. It was quite festive. Oxford Street was quite crowded as well. There were shoe sales everywhere, but I managed to resist.

My big thing I wanted to see was the Christmas tree (a gift from the people of Oslo, apparently) in Trafalgar Square. While it is indeed a big tree, you'd think it would have been a little more impressive. But the photo is above (and additional photos are on Picasa), so you can judge for yourself. As it was right there, the Christmas tree visit lead to another detour through the National Gallery, which I kind of rushed through before. Then it was over to Leicester Square to see what they had come up with, which was a Christmas carnival, then around Piccadilly (some lights), and eventually back over to the South Bank (I don't know if colored plastic bottles count as Christmas decor...).

While there was not oodles of Christmas-ness all around, the people were especially festive in their behavior. Being the last real Friday before Christmas weekend, a lot of people at both restaurants were having their Christmas meals (the restaurant gives them crackers, so they wear those little hats like in About a Boy). Overall, I would say that its all just sort of done in their own way. It's probably for the best, as I have managed to not hear nearly as much Christmas music. Although there was a little Last Christmas going on at the lunch place.

And for some reason my hair is getting noticeably lighter. It's really strange.

Break!

Today was the last day before Christmas break. After weeks of freaking us out about how long this afternoon's lecture would be (they told us it would last until 6), imagine how relieved we were when it not only got out at 4:45, but that the head of the department would be buying everyone drinks down at the Stile. So everyone scuttled down the road and we got to chat with a few of the professors outside of the classroom. I'm not sure if they are that impressed with us as a group. It's a bit sad.

So now I have three weeks and four days before I have another lecture. This should seem like a long time. I suppose it is, but at the same time I've been a bit jumbled as of late and it hasn't really sunk in quite yet. Aside from spending Saturday and Sunday getting caught up on all the things I've fallen behind on (grocery shopping, laundry, organizing the growing stacks of paperwork), I'm fully intending to do at least a few day trips over break. Tomorrow is London. It should be quite nice because it will be my first trip up there without 'engineering works', so it will only take an hour and twenty minutes instead of two. It'll be like an express train. I'm not quite sure where else I should be going before classes start again. The fact that it gets dark so early and often rains makes a lot of destinations a little less desirable. Perhaps Bath? Exeter? Warwick? Oxford? I feel like I will get no sympathy if these are the things I am left to ponder over... Either way, a few random head shots are surely on the way.

Of course, I have three pieces of coursework I need to do over break, and two of them are on noise and vibration, which I assure you, is not as interesting as it sounds. I also need to start worrying about exams, which are two weeks after the semester starts back up in January.

The English say Greek letter funny. Like, oh-meeee-ga. They're silly.

Missing out

Last essay is due this morning!! Yay!! It's pretty much done, I just have to read it through, print it out, and turn it in by noon. The four topics I chose were: the rudder, the wind tunnel, the chronometer, and the internal combustion engine. And then I had to go over their development and background in terms of transportation, and discuss later developments and how they have been used in other forms of transportation than those for which they were originally intended. Interesting, I know. A master's level essay question, I think not. I'm pretty sure every single essay turned in will have used wikipedia as a primary source.

Once the essay is all turned in, it's time to kick back, relax, and watch movies all afternoon in preparation for nine hours of class tomorrow (which will be the longest day of the term, also the last before break, seems a little cruel).

I learned something quite sad yesterday that I have every intention of correcting. The English don't have deviled eggs. They have not even heard of them. This is a unacceptable. A life without deviled eggs is no life at all. I have officially added deviled eggs to my list of things I must make for the English, along with at least slightly authentic Mexican (there's only so much to work with over here) and daiquiris, because I'm sick of people asking me what they are every time I bring them up (me: they are good, that's all you need to know).

We got wished a 'happy Christmas' by one of the lecturers yesterday. I'm not sure if that is more or less demanding than a merry one.

Nationality Soup

I've decided to make a list of the countries from which I have now met people while in Southampton.

1. England - there are lots of these
2. Wales - because it is separate 'country'
3. Ireland - you recall the Dublin tale
4. France - tend to be undergraduates here for a semester
5. Italy - same as France
6. Greece - oodles of Greeks, not really sure why
7. Cyprus - not sure if Greek part of Cyprus or non-Greek part
8. Iran - thinks the Americans should invade
9. China - once again, oodles
10. Japan - only person I've come across who likes baseball
11. Taiwan
12. New Zealand - but living in the UK for work
13. Malaysia
14. India
15. Mauritius - yes, an actual country, off the coast of Madagascar (I had to ask)
16. Barbados - the cricket world cup will be there next year
17. Trinidad and Tobago - 'West Indies'
18. United States - I'm up to one and a half

I know I am forgetting some. There are a couple people from Africa in my class but I don't recall which countries, exactly. But no Canadians, no Scots. For some reason I can never think of interesting things to say to people from these countries. Luckily most people in turn do have something to ask about America, or at least have an opinion on the matter. I wonder if I can make it up to 30 before the year is out...

The end is nigh

After weeks of constant work, I can feel the end of the pre-Christmas coursework crunch heading my way. Tomorrow the engineering is due and I've finally handed off my portion and can now only cross my fingers that it gets turned in before the noon cut-off. Of course, the final piece is my history of transport essay due on Wednesday that I need to write tomorrow. So I have literally spent all weekend in the library. It's sad, I know.

Moving on.

Restaurants are rather big on what they call Christmas meals. They had posters up for these at some places since I arrived in September. It took me quite a while to realize that they don't mean meal on Christmas day, they have just given a formal name to those get-togethers people tend to have running up to Christmas. It's basically just like making a reservation, but it is theoretically different than just another meal at said restaurant, and can apparently include having to pay a deposit. This doesn't all make too much sense to me as an outsider, but I suppose it seems like a good idea.

Sorry for the short, lackluster entry once again. Hopefully I will become witty again once Wednesday rolls around.

Trains!

Last week cargo, this week trains. What an exciting time!

I've learned quite a bit about trains in my time here. Aside from learning how to get around in them, I have learned how they are run and quite a bit about their history, and yesterday I got to learn about their maintenance at Southampton's Siemens rail depot.

Here is a quick rundown on how the train industry is run in this country:

- The Department for Transport and a couple of other government bodies think about the train network and how it could be better.

- The Office of the Rail Regulator (Mount up) oversees the rail network and makes sure all is operating as it should

- Network Rail is a publically owned company that is in charge of maintaining and developing the rail infrastructure (which is basically the tracks and some other little things).

- There are three rolling stock companies (RSCs) that own all of the train cars and engines and such that use the rail network

- Privately owned train operators bit for the rights to run services along certain routes from the government, and lease the rolling stock from the RSCs

- maintenance of the leased rolling stock is contracted out to companies such as Siemens, who conveniently also built the equipment and sold it a RSC that leases it to the operator

Whew!! Isn't it sad that I know all that? At the other end of things you just walk into a train station and buy a ticket and just take whatever shows up first. Oh, the train system sort of ended up like this when the industry was privatised in the mid-1990s, but things got really bad and there was a chain of bad accidents around 2000 and things have been simplified a little since then.

So my class hopped in the mini-bus and went to Siemens, who has a maintenance contract with Southwest Trains. Southwest Trains is either the largest or one of the largest train operators in the country, and their stock consists of two different kinds of trains, 450s and 444s, one of which is blue and the other white (the picture obiviously shows the blue but I don't recally which is which). Waterloo station is the real center of Southwest Trains services in London. On a daily basis, 1700 trains go in and out of Waterloo, carrying a total of 750,000 passengers. If you come visit and take the train from London, you will be one of them. Next Friday I will be one of them.

So, the folks at Siemens are required by their contract to make sure that 145 trains are available every day, and can get in major trouble for things like non-operating toilets and scratched windows. The trains are serviced every 10,000 miles, and each train covers about 500,000 miles a year.

Fascinating, I know. There is more, but there's only so much you can handle at one time, I think.

Rail depot

Today I have another field trip. In an hour I will be getting on yet another mini-bus (I fear the mini-bus) and heading down to the local train depot. Please not that it is not a dee-po, it is a deh-po. Quite frankly, I've sort of stopped noticing or thinking about all the words that are simply pronounced differently. As a stick it sort of gets old.

The English winter has still yet to kick in. For some reason, despite that having mild and at least somewhat sunny yet unnaturally windy days, there are often rather stormy bits at night. I am often woken up several times by the sounds of heavy winds and pouring down rain, and then I wake up in the morning and look outside and it's all still and quiet.

I have had a few run-ins with what they like to call American football the last few days. On Tuesday night I saw a guy walking down to campus carrying shoulder pads and a helmet, and yesterday in the computer lab I saw some random middle eastern guys looking at NFL clips on the internet, and another guy came in wearing a jacket that said 'American football' on the back. I took this to mean that he played on the school's 'American football' team more so than showing support for the sport in general. Sometimes I feel like I should make comments to these people, but then I realize I don't have anything to say.

Speaking of sporting events, the Ashes are going on right now. And apparently they are a really big deal. Basically, the English are playing Australia in cricket and the games are in Australia so they are in the middle of the night here. Things are heated. But I don't understand cricket so it's all the same to me. Oh, but the games last five days. And the Ashes will go on until February. And they occur every other year. Don't ask me why it's such a big deal.

"German" markets

A couple of weeks ago, the main shopping street in Southampton ('Above bar street', don't ask me what they mean by above, it's not above anything), which is 'pedestrianized', become suddenly unnaturally over-run by a bunch of little stalls. The English like to think of them as mini-German Christmas markets. There are a few that sell random wares, one that sells dried meats, one with Belgian waffles and mini-pancakes, some with candy, and the largest and busiest one sells hot mulled wine and German sausages. This is all well and good, I suppose, except for the fact that it turns an overcrowded walkway into a complete mess. And unfortunately for me, to get to Boots you have to pretty much walk all the way down the street past the mulled wine. The last two weeks this has been proven to be very difficult and time consuming. It's probably only going to get worse in the next few weeks...

One thing that has also for some reason suprised me is the presence of Christmas trees on campus. They have suddenly sprung up in quite a few places. Yesterday I left the library around 2 and went back in around 4 and a Christmas tree had popped up in the lobby bit. I suppose there is no reason for there not to be trees around. Of course, my confusion is helped along by the fact that it's not particularly cold, there was no Thanksgiving, and it in no way feels like Christmas.

It's been a long while since I have listed some American/British translation, so here goes:

'Doing the dishes' = 'Doing the washing up'
'Dish soap' = 'Washing up liquid'
'Laundry soap' = 'Washing powder'
'Coupe' = 'Coup-eh' (it has an accent on the E)

Oh, and the two washing machines that I have seen have been in kitchens. Like where a dishwasher would be, under the counter. And neither place had dryers, but students live there. They are apparently more common in parental residences.

Europeans

The English like to keep a bit of a distance from mainlane Europe, both geographically and culturally. While to you and I the English tend to be quite European, they seem to still be having regular debates about this issue. In fact, I get the feeling that they sort of see themselves as being the America of Europe; an English speaking nation that doesn't quite go along with what everyone else wants to be doing (e.g., they're not willing to transition to the euro).

There is also the debate on whether they feel like they're European. Apparently there is the general feeling that those on the continent are willing to call themselves first and foremost European, and then their own nation as secondary, while here they are English first, British second, and then European. It's all very odd. Of course there are all those little habits and styles of doing things that I see as being rather European but I don't think they are aware of, but again I suppose these are somewhat watered down when compared to the French or the Italians, etc. I suppose there is clearly no answer about what they really are, and I suppose that is part of their national identity. A country that's just a bit quirky.

The Port of Southampton

So yesterday was the long awaited field trip to the port. Quite frankly, more time was needed. Our statistics lecture had to be cut an hour short to allow us to go, and we only just made it back in time for the policy lecture.

The trip was broken up into two parts. The first was basically just driving around the east and west parts of the port with a tour guide lady. Southampton has three big Cs: cars, containers, and cruises. That means that there are huge portions of land taken up at the docks by brand new cars waiting to either be shipped away, or being brought into the country. There weren't any cruise ships in, but there were some container ships in. Oh, and they also bring in bulk goods, like barley and wheat, that are stored in a giant granary, plus there is a tomato importing facility, and then a Bacardi importing facility. The Bacardi one is quite interesting because they have some pipes set up to transfer the liquids from the ship to their bottling facility that is conveniently located within the port.

The second part of the trip was a presentation at the container facility and then a little drive around that portion of the port. It doesn't necessarily seem like it would be interesting, but the pure logisitics involved in shipping containers is really something. Plus they have two really cool machines just for moving containers. One looks kind of like a forklift, but instead of moving pallets of mayo at costco, they move empty containers that are stacked up like, six high. And then there are these things called stradle carriers that move the loaded containers around, putting them on the backs of trucks and things. There were containers EVERYWHERE at this place. It's amazing that they can keep track of them all. It's sort of strange to think that most all of your posessions were in one of those things at one point in time, that all these man hours have been dedicated to getting your dvd player from point A to point B in an organized and time efficient manner.

Woo. I've totally gone nerd. Sorry.

Cars!

I've talked about roads but I don't seem to recall actually discussing much about what the English use to get around. Of course there is the fact that so many of the cars are French, but I was quite expecting that. Your Renaults, Citreons. Maybe the Vauxhall's. I don't know what their deal is, really. And you have your Ford cars, your Rovers (not Land Rovers, but Rovers), a very occasional Honda, and a very occasional Toyota, plus your Volkswagons and BMWs. What surprises me the most is that so many of the cars are hatchbacks. Like, a freakishly high percentage. I think you can kind of see this in the photo on the right, which is the road I walk down to get to campus, nicely lined with hatchbacks. I don't think the English have anything against the sedan, well, aside from the fact they dont' call it a sedan, but that's not the point. Oh, and the hatchbacks are both two and four doors (three and five doors, if you prefer). Yet for some reason I have only seen one Subaru Outback, which is the most frequently seen car with a hatchback in the Pacific Northwest.

There also aren't many trucks. Sometimes I would try to explain the idea of the unnaturally large pick-up truck to the English and I don't think they really understood. Luckily as we were driving through Wroughton on the way to that science museum, we passed what I'm sure must be the only F-350 extended cab on this side of the Atlantic. And I sat up, gasped, and yelled 'F-350 extended cab!!', at which point I'm pretty sure everyone just thought I was crazy. You do see some SUVs around, but pick-ups are not frequent sights (I see maybe one a week or so). Maybe it's just that they can't say the word truck for fear of sounding too American. Entirely understandable. Apparently we talk funny.

Tomorrow is class with stat rab, port field trip, another class with stat rab. I know, I know. It's almost too exciting.

Thunder!

There were two giant thunderstorms accompanied by torrential downpours this weekend. Who would have thought? But both Saturday and Sunday morning, whoosh. It was like Florida in the middle of the afternoon. Only instead of clearing up right aftwerwards it was cloudy and kind of rainy all day long. Being the easily amused person that I am, I found it quite entertaining.

And now for something totally random. Sometimes in my learning/essay writing I can't help but think of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, more specifically the portion in which he discusses the fact that he has a test that day on European facism. I want to say 'I'm not English, I don't plan on becoming English, so who's cares if their bus system is deregulated?' That's sad on many levels, I realize. And for all of you considering making such a move, it's best to keep those buses regulated. Or you will end up with a stinky man from the Isle of Wight telling you over the course of about 6 hours what a bad idea it was from the get go. That guy earned the nick-name BO Dereg. For obvious reasons.

Everyone's favorite prof is Dr. Cherrett. He makes freight and home delivery interesting. And that's not easy. We call him chesty because he tends to rub his hand on his chest when he's lecturing. We've also got the Stat Rab, who teaches statistics and has a crazy beard reminiscent of a rabbi. Then there's one we call proto-chesty, who is a younger guy who seems to try and be like chesty but is more along the lines of a simpler, unperfected version. We're still working on coming up for a name for this other guy who always has an unnatural amount of stuff in his pant's pockets. This is sad, I realize, but it gives us something to do in the ten minute breaks we sometimes get in the middle of two hour lectures. And they make good group names for pub quizes. We've had the most luck with chesty.

LeisureWorld

I went to Leisure World!! No, really, I did. It just so happens that the cheesy restaurantss and nightclubs are face-to-face with a movie theater. Luckily, there was an unnaturally long line for tickets to said theater, which allowed plenty of time to check out the people going to the cheesy restaurants and nightclubs. Leisure World as a whole could be described as 'quite chavy', which means people watching is good fun. My personal favorite was the girl who looked about 18, was about 7 months pregnant, and was standing outside one of the clubs smoking. The other highlight was seeing a middle aged man in line wearing a Columbia Sportswear fleece. Apparently you can get Columbia over here, it's just rather expensive and a little hard to come by, but considering the brand's relative obscurity in Seattle compared to Portland, this is still quite impressive.

Being Saturday, today I'll be making yet again another trek down to the city center. Ever since it's become what they consider Christmas season, it's a very scary place. Like you can't even move it's so crowded. You're somewhat wary of getting trampled. The things I'm willing to put up with to buy a toothbrush...

Thanksgiving?

And so has passed a major holiday that nobody seemed to notice. Not only did I not have any turkey, but I actually had to learn...both a Thanksgiving first. But on the other hand, you don't really notice that you're missing a holiday when it's just a completely normal day. Every once in a while you just sort of recall that it is a holiday, but with the time difference there's not much of a 'what would I be doing now?' bit, because for most of the day the answer is just 'sleeping'. Mind you, I did make the English go around the table and say what they were thankful for, but I don't know if that's saying much.

Besides learning, yesterday was another pub quiz night. After placing in the top three the last three weeks, we figured we were due for a bad night. The quiz was quite a bit harder this week for some reason, but we did all right, we just didn't know the final answer in the killer round and therefore did not get the high score we needed. Too bad, too, the winners got 77 pounds this week.

If yesterday was just a normal day, then so is today. In lieu of shopping I'm going to go work on some essays in the library. When it comes right down to it, they're pretty much the same, right?

Transit

I know I keep saying it, but yet another thing that throws me off is that a bus here is not considered transit, it's public transport. They only really use the word transit to describe those little white windowless vans.

On the right here is a photo of part of the intersection of Burgess Road and Glen Eyre Road. Anyone who comes to visit will pass through this intersection at least ten times. It is indeed a signalized intersection, they just put the signals on short little poles, generally on the near side of the intersection. You can see one that is on the far side in the picture, and it is for the right turn lane, which has to yield to oncoming traffic, and then gets a designated green arrow at the end of the cycle if cars are still waiting, so there are people in the middle of the intersection, which is why they get a far side signal. You don't see any pavement markings on the closest leg (Glen Eyre Rd) because they are set back a little. There happens to be a bike ('cycle') lane along the road there, and the bikes get to pile up in front of the first cars to wait for the green. You can also see an unsignalized pedestrian crossing, with a small refuge in the middle of the road. On the other side there is a fully signalized pedestrian crossing, which I take every day to get over to campus, and you know, civilization.

No, I'm not that obsessed with an intersection. We just happen to be redesigning this intersection for my engineering class at the moment, so it's always on the mind. Plus, those little signal heads freak me out. I'm pretty sure I just wouldn't notice them if I was driving along. Oh, and those little squiggly lines you see on the road mean no parking or waiting.

Bond

I went and saw the new James Bond this weekend. Not so much because I really wanted to see it, but because the English seemed so unnaturally excited about it, I just wanted to see what went on.

But first let me back track. Southampton has, I believe, 3 movie theaters, 2 of which are right next to each other. The process for going to one of these movies is basically the same as an American theater, only instead of giving your ticket to an usher as soon as you walk inside, you don't do so until you actually get to the theater door. Interesting concept. Keeps you from sneaking in to extra movies, but may require considerable extra man power. The concept of the pre-movie commercials and previews is apparently nowadays universal, and there's not much that can vary with the actual showing of a movie.

The real point of interest is indeed the role of James Bond in British society. Much as I am the token American of the transport planning and engineering course, James Bond is the token Brit of the serial movie hero circuit. And from that point of view, their quasi-obsession seems somewhat understandable. I just found it shocking that Bond didn't care if his martini was shaken or stirred. What is happening to society??

Please enjoy above photo of the Hartley Library. It is the most classically collegiate looking building on campus.

Mexican and Chavs

Please enjoy this photo of the Stile. There's not much I can say about it.

I had my first experience with the English take on the Mexican restaurant yesterday. It was, um, interesting. First of all, nobody working there was Mexican. Secondly, the menu was only about 1/5 Mexican. There were nachos, burritos, chimichangas, and fajitas, and then there was a long section consisting of wraps, some burgers, and some various meaty entrees. In my attempt to keep it authentic, I got a chicken burrito, which came with 'rice and salad' and guacamole. It was indeed a chicken burrito, in the sense that it was chicken in a burrito, but there was nothing besides chicken in the burrito. I was pleasantly surprised that there was a small container of refried beans included on the plate despite not being listed on the menu, and they actually tasted like decent refried beans. My final take: close, but not quite there.

And now we can move back to the real English culture: the Chav. This is a word that I have been familiar with for an entire week now and feel like I am now able to discuss it. A chav is a slang term that has entered into popular culture to describe what is essentially the urban white trash teenage sect. They are quite noticeable in parts of Southampton and apparently in the nation as a whole. These would be your groups of teenagers dressed in a slightly hip-hop fashion who seem to feel disconnected to society and tend to annoy people. Wikipedia has a nice entry on the term for additional information, but I think I can suffice it to say that these are the sorts of people that most citizens seem to fear and seem to keep the cops busy, not because they are breaking the law, but because they tend to be pushing it a bit. They are generally associated with council estates and low levels of education. But I'm sure deep down inside they're all lovely people.

Victory!

Those last three weeks of hard work have finally paid off. Last night we officially, and legitimately, won the pub quiz at the stile. By six points. I quote the quizmaster: 'It was a high scoring week'. This week's killer round topic was geography, and we luckily have two geography majors in our group, so we totally kicked butt. The final question was: 'In what country is Timbuktu?' The only down side was that there weren't quite as many groups this week as last week, so we only won 48 pounds. But I'm not complaining, by any means. I must also add that the starter round was a logic puzzle this week, where the first team to turn it in correctly got ten points, and then each team after that got one point less than the team before, and we totally got that one right as well. We'll have to wait and see if the feat can be repeated again next week.

Might I also add that in the grocery store the cheese is divided into two sections: 'cheddar' and 'continental'. And the cheddar is excellent by the way, and white. I haven't bothered to go continental quite yet.

Off to the library. Again. We got another essay assigned yesterday that is due in the pre-Christmas break madness stretch. Woo-hoo...

More things I find odd...

Before I get to today's captivating topic, I must finish up the accent discussion.

The person who is alledgedly constant labelled an American is from Dublin. I'm not sure if I buy it, but the store goes that the people who settled Boston were mainly from this particular part of Dublin and so the accents are supposed to sound similar. Mind you, I didn't hear it, but I will say it was not your traditionally thick Irish accent and I could see how some people might be confused by it, but no American could.

Now some more things that amuse me... I did have tea the other day. I was handed a glass and said ooh, it has milk in it and the person who handed it to me was like, did you want it really milky?, as if more milk was the only alternative. It pretty much just tasted like tea to me. Another thing that threw me off were the waffles I saw in the frozen foods section at the grocery store yesterday. While having that siganture Belgian waffle look, they were potato waffles, and are apparently eaten with ketchup instead of syrup. I was, however, pleased to find some peanut butter at the store. It was a strictly bottom shelf situation, because apparently no one here eats it. They're too busy with their pate and chicken paste to put peanut butter on their sandwiches. I think it broils down to this English obsession with savories where the Americans are obsessed with sweets. Two words: sausage roll.

I made my first trip to Tesco this weekend. It's theoretically just a grocery store chain, but they have sort of evolved into the English equivalent of Wal-mart (not to be confused with Asda, which is Wal-mart). There are three lines of Tescos: Tesco Express, which is like a convenience store, regular Tesco, and then uber-giant mega Tesco, which sells not only groceries but everything else you can imagine, like TVs and savings accounts. I wouldn't want to do my banking at the same place I buy yogurt. But that's just me.

Pressure

I must admit the pressure to give into English dialect is mounting. I know I have discussed this before, but it's a somewhat a concern to me. The truth is, the more English people that are around, and if you blatantly refuse to use some of their lingo (at least to the level where they know what you are talking about), you will come across as a bit of an elitist. Finding the right balance between so-called 'keeping it real' and sounding pretentious is at times a bit tricky. There is also the key factor that I don't want it to be obvious when I do give in and use the English term. And then I'm also trying to be careful when conversing with Americans not to use any of those terms. If conversing in front of both an American and an English person, I would stick with American English, but quite frankly, there are times when I start to forget which is which. And I haven't even been here two months. It's going to be a long haul.

Last week I had my first beans experience since I've arrived via an all-day breakfast. I still don't understand the English fascination with them. They are just canned baked beans. It's like what they consume in mass quantities while in school in lieu of peanut butter.

Just another American...

So, it was bound to happen sooner or later, and it finally has: I've had a conversation with another American. This particular specimen was a PhD student from Boston studying Oceanography. We chatted for a while. Quite frankly, it was a little anticlimactic. Perhaps more intriguing was this other person I met that was complaining that three people that week had mistaken him for American, thinking he had a Boston accent. I, of course, knew he was not American. In lieu of just telling people where this guy is from, I'm going to make you guess the city (not the country). My only hints are that English is his native language, and he is not English or American or Canadian. This does limit the number of countries, which is why I require the city, and when someone names it, I will give his explanation for the common confusion.

I was also down in the city center yesterday, which is never really a good idea on a Saturday because of the pure numbers of people trying to walk around. You're lucky if you can even get into your desired store. One thing I noticed yesterday is that there are Christmas decorations up in the main part of the mall. Nothing too over the top like a tree, but there were large decorative items scattered about. And I luckily have not yet heard a Christmas carol, not that I don't like Christmas carols, but because there are still way too many leaves on trees for that sort of thing.

Step by step

Yesterday was Thursday, and for the third week in a row, this meant quiz night at The Stile. The battle was quite heated going into the killer round, as it seemed like everyone had higher scores than the week before, and we didn't think we were doing as well. The theme of this week's killer round was music (last week: sports), which we are normally quite good at. This week's final question (on which all killer round points depend) was: what was the only Spice Girls single that didn't become a UK number one? So obviously I was of no use on this one, and after some debate we put down 'slow'. Well, the answer was 'stop', which we had considered putting down but didn't. For some reason, the quizmaster seemed to have thought we put down 'stop' because he gave us all 20 points for the killer round which put us in a tie for first place. We lost the tiebreaker and got second place, but we were pleased as punch because we really didn't even deserve that. The prize for second was 29 pounds (first would have been 60 pounds), and 29 pounds of found money is 29 pounds of found money.

Along additionally pleasing lines, I turned in my essay on compact cities and sustainable transport today, despite the fact that it's not due until Monday. Next up: UK Transport Policy, plus some engineering coursework. Jealous, anyone?

I have also realized that I have failed to comment on Guy Fawkes day, which was technically last Sunday. There were fireworks every day for about a week, but I saw no one burned in effigy. Aerial fireworks are apparently perfectly legal for everyone and yet I'm not aware of any houses burning down (at least in this neighborhood). Next up is 'Remembrance Day', which is just Veteran's Day. People are wearing these little red poppies that you buy from veteran's on street corners.

Speaking of November holidays, there is some sort of apparent effort being made by my fellow Americans to put together some sort of Thanksgiving dinner. The email was sent out only to the American students, so I was finally able to get a head count: 17. Including myself.

The Election

Since my brother asked about it, and I have once again forgotten my intended topic, I'm going to stick with the election.

I did spend all day in the library yesterday which limited my contact somewhat with the outside world, but I have been keeping tabs on the election here for a couple weeks. While the tvs on in the studens union tend to be turned to mid-day talk shows, those in the faculty/post-graduate cafe tend to be turned to the news (plus they have couches!). The American election has been mentioned and discussed continuously for some time, and The Indepenent (the newspaper that ends up lying around the faculty/post-grad cafe, instead of The Star that you find in the other cafe) had several pages of dedicated coverage on Tuesday about possible outcomes and the different state battles. I ended up having to discuss some of the battles, which to me sounded boring, but the English seemed somewhat interested.

Yesterday in the library, I did spot some people reading the news on their laptops, and most seemed to be looking at stuff about the election. I also shared my excitement with a few people, and most seem to either be pleased or just think I'm nuts. Most likely a little bit of both. I will see a lot more people in class today, and I'll be sure to report back if I get any feedback from them.

Speaking of students union, English the Price is Right was on yesterday. It sort of freaked me out. The stage was like, modern and blue, the host was young, and instead of just the female Barker's Beauties, they had a mixture of men and women caressing the merchandise and smiling blankly. It just didn't seem right. On the other hand, the unnatural levels of excitement of the crowd were just the same as here.

Hartley

Once again, despite having nothing whatsoever to say, I will try and create a witty blog entry. I am currently in the library, so as this is what I see, this is what I shall discuss.

The Hartley Library, as it is called, is one of the few brick buildings on campus, and by brick, I mean the front part of the building is brick, there is a new part annexed onto the back that is not brick. It claims to be the largest library in the south of England. My transport and environment professor who is bitter about no longer teacher at Oxford, on the other hand, cannot believe how much smaller it is than the libraries at Oxford but isn't willing to change his lists of references. He is also the professor who is managing to only give two lectures the entire semester, and has pawned the rest of it off. We don't like him much. His nickname is Oxford Brookes.

One other thing that I find a bit odd about the library here is the level of security. To get past the front desk you have to go through a turnstile after presenting your student card. I imagine they will let you in if you are not a student, but the people at the front desk are rather remarkable at managing to ignore the people right in front of them trying to get their attention.

Still working on learning all of the rules to cricket and football. Apparently I have to know them all before going to an actual game. Despite all of my world cup watching, I still can't really figure out what off-sides is. They had to go and change the rules or something (no really, they did). I'm wary of trying to learn rugby, but I saw a poster advertising Southampton's American football team yesterday, so I know it exists.

Should probably get cracking on finishing up my first essay. Sorry for the lack of exciting commentary!

The loo

As in that thing that you skip to.

Considering they are basically the same, I find the bathrooms here remarkably odd. First there is the term you use for when you are going to visit the restroom. I have always been one to say 'I'm going to go to the bathroom', but when you say bathroom here, you risk getting strange looks. They just call it the toilet. As in, 'I'm going to the toilet'. This sounds not that great to me, so I cannot bring myself to say it and keep referring to it as the bathroom. You can indeed call it the loo, but that's apparently for people who don't like to say toilet (which I suppose would be me...).

Now, when you walk into the 'toilet' there is your normal row of stalls (I'm sorry, but I can only describe the ladies' rooms), but the toilets look a little funny and there are no toilet seat covers (I have been to all sorts of locales, and not a single place has had them). The other thing that gets me is the complete absence of paper towels for drying your hands. Some may see this is an effort towards environmental sustainability, I just see it as annoying, because the air dryers never works and you have to dry your hands on your pants. Excuse me, trousers, because they look at you funny when you say pants as well. If I do come across an English bathroom that features either a toilet seat cover or paper towels, I will be sure to make a note of it here.

The only thing I've learned about the men's room is that urinal is pronounced 'yer-I-nul' instead of 'yer-uh-nul'.

I have officially made the switch over to blogger beta. I don't know what impact this will have, but hopefully things should work a little better.

Wroughton

This was my entry from Saturday, that blogger decided to conveniently erase, but luckily I saw it coming:

So yesterday was another all-day educational field trip. This one was to Wroughton, which is near Swindon, which is somewhere between London and Bath. Somewhere on the outskirts of Wroughton there is an old World War II landing strip/series of airplane hangars that has been converted into the sort of 'stuff to big to put in the regular museum' branch of the National Museum of Science and Industry. Needless to say, I think we were the only people there. Getting to said destination required leaving campus at 8 am in a mini-bus driven by the lecturer. Not ideal.

On the way there we went by a bypass, where the lecturer was telling us about how inconvenient it was that in order to build it they had to remove the environmentalists from the trees because you can't just cut them down when they're up there and there are tv cameras present. At said museum we visited only one hangar, which had stuff related to transportation, so bicycles, motorcycles, cars, and planes. We had a guided tour by a man who quickly picked out that I was American and then continued to tell anti-American stories at every single item he showed us. And he showed us items for over two hours. Now, if I had been able to walk around on my own and look at the stuff I would have thought it all very interesting, but we all have our limits. Especially when it's about 35 degrees outside, the hangar is uninsulated and unheated, and you've lost contact with your lower extremities. But the old bikes were really neat.

After the museum, the lecturer decided we would be eating lunch in Avebury (or is it Avesbury), which some will recall to be a place with a bunch of stones older than Stonehenge that we went to on our Mad Max tour. It is much, much cuter when it's sunny and not-windy. Then we went around to some other town, and then we went to look at a canal, and then to get a better look at the canal, and then to another town (only getting out of the mini-bus once), before finally getting back to Southampton a little after 4 pm. After departing the mini-bus, it was realized that nobody really knew why we had gone.

I must also mention this week's quiz. As you all recall, I did not know the big final question to last week's quiz. But this week I was able to redeem myself, mainly thanks to it being mentioned on an episode of the Newlyweds with Nick and Jessica. And we got third place.

The question: In what city in Kentucky does the Kentucky Derby take place?
The answer: Louisville.

Lush

I'm not sure if they can hear me or not, but sometimes Blogger kind of makes me mad. They have a consider number of breakdowns.

Anyways, I had a bit of a catch-up on errands day yesterday down in the city center. This included a trip to Lush by the Bargate. I can't help but find it odd that one of the very few handful of stores that exists in both Seattle and Southampton is this one, which in my mind is in many ways the anti-chain store, with it's hand-made ways. Keep in mind the only other stores they have here are Starbucks, the Gap, the Body Shop, KFC, McDonalds, and Burger King. And Lush. I don't know, but I got some soap.

Speaking of Starbucks, I was also very pleased that they are now celebrating Christmas and I was able to purchase an eggnog latte. It was the first time I'd actually ordered a drink from Starbucks in England. For some reason they had six people working in the drink making area and as far as I could tell, only one lady was actually making all of the drinks. And Starbucks being Starbucks, their two locations in Southampton of which I am aware are only about 500 feet apart from one another.

I have finally gotten my photo-uploading ways together and put three new albums up on Picasa, covering the Isle of Wight, my last trip to London, and Portsmouth, doing my best to include witty captions along the way. I wish I could take more photos around town here without people looking at me funny.

By the way, it hasn't rained in a while but it's cold as the Dickens. The low for today is -1 C. I still am not good with converting celsius, but even I know that's 30 degrees. Good thing they the one place they overheat is the library, and that's where I'll be spending a good chunk of my day.

Accents

It just occurred to me that I have not properly discussed the accent situation, or at leat if I have, I don't remember it off-hand.

First of, let me say that I have not acquired an accent. On second thought, I do have an accent. And sometimes it is almost disturbingly strong. Occasionally, in particular when I have been wandering around the city center for a considerable amount of time without saying anything, I will finally open my mouth to talk to the cashier and I'm slightly taken aback by how I talk. Like, the sheer non-Britishness of the American accent is rather abundant at such times. Might I also add that I was surprised to find out that some of the non-native-English-speaking students in my class could not tell I was American until I explicitly mentioned it, so perhaps it's not as great of a difference as we may think.

Aside from myself, there are the accents of the locals. Most of the people I have come across have what are termed Southern accents, and they apparently vary somewhat in range of how 'posh' they are, with the most posh sounding like BBC News presenters, and the least posh sounding Cockney (not that I can really tell the difference). Sometimes to me it sounds like lecturers have different accents, but when I ask, it turns out they don't, and then one of the professors to me sounds pretty much the same, but apparently is 'obviously' from Manchester. Despite this relatively constant accent, I still cannot understand everything people say to me. This is not so much the case in class as at various retail establishments.

I still have not been able to decipher exactly what the English think of American accents, despite making a few attempts, but I have been asked how much truth there is in the plot-line from Love Actually where the English guy goes to Wisconsin.

Hallow-England

So, I have passed what I consider to be my first holiday in England. And let me just say, I am not too impressed.

First off, let me say that my afternoon included a 2-hour visit to a bus depot that didn't end until after 6. Bus depots aren't fun.

After the field trip I went to a nearby pub which was 'celebrating'. The staff were all dressed up, with one guy dressed as a vampire and another guy for some reason covered in plastic bags. There was a themed quiz (we got 7th out of 12, it wasn't ideal. This one was a bit tricky, but free), were people got an extra point if everyone in the group was in 'fancy dress'. And by themed, I mean there were five questions on the quiz devoted to scary movies. Not saying much, I know.

So, why does England not care about Halloween? I came across two obvious reasons. A: Guy Fawkes day is less than a week away. Who can handle two holidays within a week of each other? B: They have costume parties all year round, so there is little novelty in dressing in costume. Additionally, trick-or-treating hasn't really caught on, so there's no real fun for the kids, and instead there are just a few trouble-makers that go along causing, well, trouble. They also seem to have little enthusiasm for a decent excuse to buy mass quantities of mini Snickers bars (but mind you, there were some free chippy buttys at the pub quiz, but they ran out before I could get one). Quite frankly, they just don't understand what they're missing.

P.S. Finally gave my presentation on compact cities and sustainable transport today. Professor: 'you're American, you must know blah blah blah' (no clue what he was talking about). Next thing you know someone will ask me, 'you're American, I met an American once, do you know them?' But who are we kidding, we pull that stuff with other countries all the time.

I might also add that one of the quiz questions was 'who won the world series last week?' and I totally got that one right.

Portsmouth

So I went to Portsmouth yesterday. Portsmouth is sort of at the bottom of the inslet that Southampton is at the top of, the home of the Royal Navy, historically a bit sketch, and currently undergoing major efforts to make itself yuppy. It has two main attraction, conveniently located near each other in the yuppy part of town. They are the historical dockyards and the Spinnaker Tower.

So first I went to the dockyards. You can either pay 11 pounds to see one attraction of your choice or 13 pounds to see all of them (which is about 10). There are three big old ships involved, and then some museums and navy recruitment centers disguised as 'action stations'. The first of the ships is the HMS Warrior. I don't know why this ship is important, but it's from the 1800s. The second ship I saw was the Mary Rose. Now, I had never heard of the Mary Rose, so it was really a pleasant surprise. This is a 495 year-old ship used by Henry VIII that sank off of Portsmouth Harbour 460 years ago. They discovered the ship in the early 1980s and as half of had been buried all that time, it was in remarkably good condition, so they managed to raise this massive half-rotten ship to the surface and turn it upright. Going to see the ship is really intense. Because it is so old, it is being constantly sprayed with the this wax preservative that is supposed to strengthen the wood. The spraying has been going on for over ten years, and is scheduled to be completed in 2009 (at which point they will spend two years drying it out and you can see it somewhat normally in 2011). As it is being sprayed, you just walk along a viewing gallery lined with windows, and the room with the ship is rather dark and very foggy because of all the wax. And it's a 495 year old ship. Basically, hard to describe, but if you are in Portsmouth, you really should go see it.

The final ship is the HMS Victory. Which is the ship on which Admiral Lord Nelson died in the Battle of Trafalgar. This is a big deal, but nobody I've spoken to really knows why. So you can walk around the ship (and by walk, if you are over about five feet tall, I mean you will sort of be bent over in half for a good number of the lower decks) and see where he died. Also of note, they sell the largest pens I have ever seen in the HMS Victory gift shop. Like, a good inch and a half diameter, over a foot long.

Aside from boats, Portsmouth is home to a new 'tall-structure', Spinnaker Tower. When I first heard of the tower, I assumed it was actually called Spinnaca Tower because it sounds to me like everyone adds Rs to the ends of words that end with As, but in this case it actually ends with an R. Tricky, I know. So, the tower is on the water in the new University Village-esque mall they have here (Gunwharf Quays). For some reason it closes at 5 pm, but luckily with the clock change yesterday that was when a lovely sunset was occurring (see above picture). The views are surprisingly nice from the top and you can see all kinds of exciting things. Like the Isle of Wight and a tiny glint of Southampton. Once again, if you are in Portsmouth, I give the Spinnaker Tower my endorsement.

I might also add that despite being able to see Southampton from Portsmouth, due to 'engineering works', it took an hour to get there each way on the train.

Guns and Football

And I'm not even talking about Texas.

Good news. I remembered what I was meaning to write about yesterday. And I even think it's somewhat interesting.

First of all, I was quite surprised to learn that handguns are illegal in Britain. Like, nobody has them, and nobody is allowed to have them. They don't have them at Wal-mart. Rifles and other larger hunting-related guns are legal, but in order to get one you have to apply and tell the authorities why you need said gun, and you have to take classes or something to be able to use it. Apparently they make for this by an increased number in stabbings.

The Southampon "football" club, aka, the Saints, used to be in the premiere league but are now in the championship league, which is the next one down. Apparently, at any given time there are only 20 clubs in the premiere league, but those 20 change every year. The bottom 3 get demoted, and then the top two teams from the championship league get to move up automatically, and then the third through sixth place teams play a little tournament for the final spot. And then the bottom three teams in the championship league get demoted, and the same goes on for the league before that. So theoretically, you could start a tiny little team and eventually make it to the premiere league. This seems like a good idea to me. Maybe baseball should look into it.

I have also started to learn about cricket. There are 11 fielders out at any given time, and two batters, but only one of them has the little bat, and they each stand at a 'wicket'. The 'bowler' throws the ball to the guy with the little bat, and he hits it, and then him and the other guy on his team run back and forth between the wickets to score runs. That's as far as I got.

Chippy Butty

I swear I had a really clever topic for today's blog but I seem to have totally forgotten what it is, so it looks like I'll be winging it.

My favorite new rando-food discovery of yesterday is the Chippy Butty. Apparently it is 1) bread, 2) butter, 3) french fries, 4) bread, aka, a french fry sandwich. I'm not sure if it comes with additional french fries as a standard side order, but if the all-day breakfast does, I'm not sure why it wouldn't. I also learned the dark truth behind black pudding and promise to never, ever try it, but I did force myself to try a prawn cocktail potato chip. It wasn't good, wasn't bad, and I could find no correlation between the taste and seafood.

Now for some more Portland shout-outs. In passenger transport on Tuesday, the lecturer (who likes to write random things on the chalkboard and then circle them vigorously) was talking about light rail systems in the US, and then turned and looked straight at me and asked me some random question about the system in Pittsburgh or somewhere. I don't even know how he knew I was American. And so I was like, I only know Portland (which was on the list), and then he started asking questions about how many miles of track there were and how many trains they had and the subsidy. It was kind of strange. And then yesterday afternoon in transport policy the lecturer had a quote from the head of 1000 Friends of Oregon at the beginning of his presentation.

Yesterday was quiz night and the big final question was about the movie the Blue Brothers. And I didn't know the answer. Sad.

The Welsh

As I have learned, the Welsh are to the British as the Southerner is to Americans. The English regard these slightly exotic people as the type that go off into the dark valleys of Wales with people they are probably somehow related to (and apparently they are all named Jones, so it's a little tough to tell). When speaking in England with a Welsh accent, you will not be taken that seriously and you will probably be mocked. It seems like it would be tough to be Welsh.

And because they are omnipresent in my current life, I am going to talk more about sandwiches. My default campus lunch these days is indeed a baguette sandwich. The default is white bread, but one campus option also has 'brown' bread, which is just your standard wheat. When I asked about this there was some speal about all these other kinds of bread, but I don't recall what exactly they are at this moment. I was pleased the other day to get a turkey cranberry one, but I had to wade through cheese & pickle, tuna (too-ner) & coleslaw, and roast pork & applesauce to get to it. Today I had a turkey & cheese one, which would be easier to tackle if the cheese wasn't grated, so it basically just goes everywhere. One of my classmates brought a pate sandwich on Tuesday. I saw a hummus & salad (aka, lettuce, tomato, cucumber) one last week as well. And the concept of peanut butter & jelly is a bit lost on them all, I'm afraid. It's a bit of an adventure walking into the cafeteria everyday; not knowing what kind of crafty sandwhich contraption I'll be able to get ahold of. One day I had a 'jacket potato', which is a baked potato, and I got it with mozarella and sun-dried tomato, and it somehow ended up looking like tuna (another topping option that day: pepperoni in salsa sauce). I haven't had any more jacket potatoes since then.

One more confession to make. For my group presentation next Tuesday, which was being compiled on my nice American computer today, I am being forced to use British English. So I'm talking about city centres, neighbourhoods, travel behvaiour, and public transport (aka, transit). It's not ideal.

The job market

I was a little thrown off today when my classmates started talking about applying for jobs. Like, now. For October 2007. Apparently it's the high season for sending in your 'CV' to the different companies, who will collect a few resumes, and then start narrowing down and will perhaps decide by Easter who they want to hire. The CVs themselves are two-pages, not one, and include a summary of extra-curricular activities. Supposing you get an offer, you will, I kid you not, most likely receive 'a golden hello', which is just a signing bonus but has a most amusing name, which vary in amount but a good one for my fellow graduates would be about 4000 pounds. We were told during our program induction that the graduates are in demand and everyone who wants one should be able to get a job rather easily. We'll see how it goes. I might also add that they will expect to receive approximately 5 to 6 weeks of paid vacation every year, in addition to 8 bank holidays.

Now, something that I find strange. Southampton is considered within commuting range of London. It is an 80-minute train-ride, plus however long it takes you to get from Waterloo to your place of work. That seems like a bit much, but apparently the combination of higher wages in London and lower cost of living down here makes it at least somewhat worthwhile. I might add that Bournemouth is considered too far for said daily commute, but all the major cities (aka, the cities that have relatively direction routes to London) along the south coast that are east of here are all commuting cities. And much like many people in the US, many people here seem to dig the idea of working in London 'just for a year or two', of course most Americans would probably at least live within Greater London. All in all, it's just kind of something I have a tough time getting a firm understanding of. I might also add that if you work for Transport for London one of the perks is free travel on all London transit, which could add up.

London IV

So I returned yet again to London yesterday. I took a little stroll from the train station through Southbank to Tate Modern, where I looked at and enjoyed modern art, including these massive slides that are apparently all the rage. I then walked across the Millenium Bridge and sat on the steps of St Pauls to eat a sandwich and immerse myself in the satisfaction of knowing that I will now be in dozens of strangers random vacation pictures. When I got up to leave a wedding was just getting out and the sidewalk was flooded with middle aged English women in suits and giant matching hats. It was almost too much. I fully intended to go see a play after that, but all the good ones were taken and I didn't want to spend £27 to see Footloose, so I went to the National Portrait Gallery. I liked the National Portrait Gallery. It's like this combo of history and art where you walk around looking at paintings of people and learn about why they deserve to have their painting hanging there.

I also feel obliged to mention that I have somehow enabled the knack, that no matter where I am going in London, the sun is always directly in front of me, and the wind is blowing from behind me, so a good portion of the time I am squinting while trying to get my hair from turning into a total 'fro.

Now for a juicy additional Guy Fawkes day preview... There is a building here on campus that is covered with scaffolding. Then I learn that the reason it's covered with said scaffolding is because last year on Guy Fawkes day some 'arsonists' stuffed the window with lit fireworks and the building was gutted by fire. And it's only two weeks from today...

Library times. I've got to learn about how compact cities and sustainable urban transport.

Seattle and the English

In part two of my Pacific Northwest-England discussion, I shall now discuss what the people over here have to say about Seattle (with their mouths, not their clothing). While people indeed show support for Oregon, I have heard many a positive thing about the city of Seattle. I have spoken to exactly one person that has actually been there, and they then claimed that Seattle and San Diego were their two favorite American cities. And amongst others, there was one person who has considered moving to Seattle, and two other people who have separatly mentioned it to be the city at the top of their 'where to go next in America' list. And one of them said that without even knowing I was from there, so you know they weren't lying. My general response: but have you been to Vegas?

Today down at the city center I saw a truly English sight: a sale at Topshop; at which point I forgot what I had gone down there for and made a beeline. This was my third or fourth trip to Topshop, but I had so far refrained from buying anything, or even trying anything on. It took quite a bit of time and energy, but I emerged with a shirt and a dress a mere 25 pounds later. Mind you, I have no clue what I will do with said dress, but it was only 10 pounds. You would have done the same thing if you were me.

Speaking of Topshop, it is technically Topshop/Topman, and from what I have heard, the Topman crowd is the type that stands around the men's room wearing pink discussing their new hair straighteners (no, really, I'm not lying).

Tomorrow is indeed Saturday, and I have a train ticket to London. At this point I am not intending to go see Ashlee Simpson in Chicago, but you never really know where the day may lead (aside from Tate Modern; it's going to be my first stop).

The lingo

I have a confesssion to make: sometimes I think I might be giving in and using British sayings. Not in a 'blimey' kind of way, but I've noticed a few small things sneaking in. Like today I said maybe they are 'keen' on that. As soon as I said it I knew I had just sold myself out, just a little bit. Luckily it was subtle enough so that I don't think anyone noticed. And to counter things out, I think I am going to single-handedly get the English to start using the word sketchy.

Aside from that, I would say I have also officially become a student. I've got a group presentation the week after next on compact cities and sustainable transport. This has already required spending time in the actual library. And yesterday I used my calculator to do an actual assignment. My resistence so far has been in vain and I know that it's going to be all downhill from here on out. On the bright side, we have a field trip in two weeks to the Wroughton Science museum. Even the people from England have no idea where that is. On the way there we're going to stop and look at a bypass.

Today was also my first actual quasi-meeting with my so-called tutor. Everyone here is assigned one, and they function as your academic advisor plus a little bit more. Unfortunately for me, I have the scary beady-eyed, bearded una-bomber looking guy who gets excited about statistics. Luckily we don't need to ever talk to our tutors unless we want to.

Today's picture is of a variable message sign. It is the thing behind the road sign in the picture from a week or two ago. But they came up in class today and so I thought I would include it.

Guy Fawkes, the preview

I've just found out that my first purely British holiday is only two weeks away! Guy Fawkes day is November 5 (which is a Sunday). And in celebration, apparently everyone walks around with torches and light things on fire and there are fireworks and apparently soup. Needless to say, I'm very excited. And so I'm sure November 5th I will have a very exciting entry that relates all there is to tell.

Speaking of strange ways of the British. I saw something this evening that threw me off. Upon leaving the student union, which is conveniently right across from the campus bar, I discovered a large crowd of men (about 30) all wearing utterly ridiculous clothes. Most everything was skin tight, and a good portion of it was indeed intended for women, and it was all in bright colors. Apparently it was something called a Rubic's cube night, where everyone wears the colors of the cube and goes out on the town and then by the end of the evening they have to have worn, at some point in time, outfits in each of the 6 colors of the cube. I'm sure chaos ensues throughout. Quite frankly, it looked like it was already ensuing.

Another things I learned that I'm sure you will all find somewhat interesting, is that the English seem to find it strange that Americans claim to be made up of different nationalities instead of just calling themselves American. Apparently if all of your grandparents were born in the US, you shouldn't be claiming to be anything else. I might also add that quite a few of the English are not entirely English themselves. It seems the whole thing is just sort of treated a little differently over here.

Oregon and England

There is something strange going on in the country. In three days I have seen three non-Americans wearing Oregon memorabilia. The first time was on an older English gentleman at Osbourne House wearing a duck jacket. And then today I saw a younger Asian man wearing a duck sweatshirt, and about ten minutes after that I saw another English gentleman wearing a sweatshirt that says Oregon, but was not related to the ducks or Nike.

What is going on here? Why this fascination with Oregon? My personal belief is that it's a funny word, because you know, it is. I might also add that in this same time period, aside from perhaps an odd Yankees hat or a New York t-shirt, I have seen no references to any American state on any piece of clothing and no other American university items. When I went to open my bank account, the lady was looking at my passport and goes just goes "Oregon" (which is listed as my place of birth) like it said Myanmar or something and I needed to be treated with special care having come from such a place. The people I have spoken to about states seem to know of Oregon and it's existence, so they obviously have some idea what they're getting into. Aside from the general world-wide prevelance of Nike, I have no idea what could possibly be going on here. I have not had the nerve to walk up to any of these people and ask them about it, but perhaps if I see any more I might be obliged to say something.

Anyways, that's all.

Sizing

Some people think it is difficult to figure out all the different types of clothing sizes in the US. Whatever. We've got nothing on England.

I embarked on a little "research" at H&M. At this particular store, the tags inside the clothes conveniently list the 'US' size and the 'Europe' size, while the sales tag lists the Europe size and the 'UK' size, as well as the UK price and the Ireland price (which is in Euros). I have no idea what the conversion for European sizes is, but theoretically UK sizes are two sizes off from the US, so a 2 becomes a 6, etc, so one must be good and sure if they are looking at the US size or the UK size (that one letter makes all the difference). H&M also has quite a few hangers that theoretically list what size the attached article of clothing is, but I quickly realized it's best to ignore the hanger. And then there are shoes, which are also listed in your Europe and UK sizes, but nowhere lists the US sizes, so this you actually have to remember.

Please enjoy my above picture of a discarded cigarette box. They cut right to the chase with the warning labels here. And because I realize it's funny looking, the box is floating in a little pond with nature around it.

The biggest news of the day is something that truly excited me. Today at a more-fully-stocked Waitrose, they had Crunchy Nut bars. They are the regular flavor and not the chocolate, but I am still eagerly awaiting having one. It is indeed a big day.

Isle of Wight

Random head shot... I think we all know what that means... I went somewhere with my camera today...

In lieu of making a third straight Saturday London run, I opted today to go to the Isle of Wight to go to Osbourne House, as it is only open through October (and then reopens in April, but that's not soon). Plus I wanted to see this elusive waterway that Southampton has been claiming to have but they manage to keep rather well hidden. So now I can confirm that there is indeed water out there. I believe part of it was called the Solent.

Getting to said isle entails an hour long ferry ride (or if you pay a lot more, a 20 minute ferry ride), and then the house is a little over a mile from the little city where that particular ferry lands. Now, it was kind of cold today and perhaps not ideal strolling weather, but there was like no one around in said town (East Cowes), and I didn't see anyone else walking on the street outside of the ferry terminal. It was kind of creepy. Luckily I found the house, where as usual, I was surrounded by really old people who, I'm sorry, walk unnaturally slowly and won't let you get around them in the hallways.

Oh, before I get too far ahead of myself, Osbourne House was Queen Victoria's family house. She lived there a good chunk of the time starting in the 1840s and died there in 1901. So if you are into Queen Victoria and her flock (like many of the old Brits seemed to be), it's probably much more interesting. But from my American viewpoint, it was simply a nice house with nice grounds and such. Unlike a lot of those big houses and castles around here, there aren't any uber-giant state rooms because it was a family house, so it's got of a more personal flow to it. And when it's not cloudy you can see the water.

So after a little over an hour at the house, I walked back onto the ferry and went to the city center to buy coffee. Which in many ways was just as exciting.

Now to confront another British stereotype: that of the warm beer. You've got your lager and your ales. Your lagers are chilled. From what I have seen, these tend to be relatively light beers, such as Stella Artois (this is the only one I've seen that I have known). The ales, on the other hand, "aren't warm, they're just not chilled". Whatever that means. And they come out of a different sort of tap so they are easily discernable, aka, easily avoided.

Neighbours

Today I got to witness something first hand that I have been hearing about for years: Neighbours, the Australian soap opera. Now, being not in America, there are bars on campus, and so after your last class of the week people go to the bar for a 'pint', which is what happened today. Now, for some reason the show Neighbours came up at lunchtime, and I was surprised to learn that everyone, that is females and males, watch this show, and have for years. The show comes on both mid-afternoon and again at 5:30 pm, so we were in the bar at 5:30, and suddenly they turn off the music and turn to this tv show, which I quickly learn is indeed Neighbours. Yes, it's apparently that important. So everyone just sort of stops what and watches this show for half an hour before continuing on with their day. From the explanations I heard, the show is just like American soap operas. One person had amnesia, there was a plane crash, and someone else was switched at birth. Yet it is some sort of international phenomenan that is a vital part of British culture. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it. Mind you, I didn't really know who the people were so I wasn't that enthralled, but apparently I will learn to love it if I watch it regularly.

Aside from that, today was just a class day. One thing that we have here that never occureed in undergrad, but I suppose could happen elsewhere in grad school, is that we have classes taught by more than one professor. So on Tuesday we had a three hour afternoon class, where one guy lectured the first and third hour, and another guy taught the middle hour. And today the middle hour guy taught are late morning class and our afternoon class (which was a different class than Tuesday afternoon), but he doesn't teach those classes every week. We also get to go on a field trip to Tesco's distribution center in January. Apparently I should be excited about that.

Yogurt = yah-gert
Inventory = invent-ree

They're a funny lot. But they find it funny when I say football and apricot, so what are you going to do.

Canary Wharf

Hello! My little post is a little later in the day that usual. Today we had an all-time field trip for school to this convention on intelligent transport systems in London. It took 3 hours to get there and 3 hours to get back, we were there for a little over 5 hours, and we'd finished going around the booths after an hour. After an additional hour of sitting right outside eating lunch, a few of us decided to go on a little field trip, for some reason that I'm not really sure of, to relatively near-by Canary Wharf to kill some time. This involved using the East Dockland light rail system, which, although I must admit I don't really know, seems just like an extension of the tube built above ground. I must admit I was somewhat impressed, because we had to transfer going either way and each time we were actually just able to walk from one train to the other without waiting a single second. And nobody likes waiting.

As for the convention, I'm sure it would have been really quite interesing if we had had more than a single day of lectures. As it was, we didn't really know what most of the stuff was or how it applies to anything, so everyone was just going around picking up brochures and getting as much free stuff as possible, which is why it didn't really take that much time.

My apologies again for the boring post. One of the things I learned today of potential interest relates to sandwhiches. There was a something or another and 'rocket' sandwich. I was like, what is rocket? Apparently it's just a kind of lettuce. Which I must admit is a tad disappointing.

And because I know you are all curious, Canary Wharf is like the Seattle of London. It's a yuppy office area. And there's a Canada tower. They dig the Canada over here.

As with yesterday, today's photo was not taken today, but I find it to be a lovely illustration of the randomness that goes on with the roads around here.

I was also thinking of doing an entire post on the music scene here (or as much as I've been able to discern), but I don't have that much to say, so I will just add a bit at the end of this one. According to BBC, the number one song in the UK right now is ironically called 'America', by Razorlight. It's rather catchy, and you can find it on American itunes. And whenever I'm on the bus or anywhere, there is always this song called 'Never Be Lonely' by The Feeling, which is rather poppy and not on American itunes. The number 2 song is by the Scissor Sisters, who are of course American but much more popular over here. The Killers are also somewhere in the top 10.

The 2-ring binder

Today was my first full day of lectures. Room temperature control aside, it was not that remarkable and somewhat similar to what you would find in the US. The school supplies, on the other hand, are rather odd. When shopping for some school supplies, I couldn't help but notice the binder situation. Now paper sizes are a little different, and I was prepared for that, but I was not prepared for the number of holes that I would find. There are both 4-ring and 2-ring binders, with the 2-ring being more popular and simply fitting the middle 2 of the 4-rings. It seems like things would get sort of floppy. There are no 3-ring binders. And to think I bothered to bring my mini-3-hole punch.

Oh, and for some reason one of the profs today used the world respiratory. If I hadn't seen it written down I wouldn't have known what he was saying. And methane is mee-thane. And one of the other professors expressed some concern that they have raised the price of pudding in the staff restaurant.

I must also mention that I have just sampled a rhubarb flavored yogurt that came in one of my multi-packs and it was not good. Not good at all. Very bad. Yet for some reason, rhubarb comes in all of their multi-packs and the other 3 flavors fluctuate.

The above picture is the engineers of the Titanic memorial down near the city center. I kind of think by engineer, they mean everybody who wasn't part of the wait or steward staff. It's hard to tell.

Salisbury

I made it in to Salisbury today. Now, for the most part, Salisbury as a city, so not at all cute. Kind of dingy, really. But then there is this uber-giant cathedral. It's kind of a strange contrast.

Not tempted to make any stops, I bee-lined from the train station to said cathedral and hopped on a tour that was just starting. I had taken a tour of the Winchester Cathedral and just wanted things to be even. Both tours involved a retired Englishman telling me and two English people (Winchester it was an older married couple, Salisbury was two older men) much more about the cathedrals than you could possibly ever want to know, while the two English people ask completely random questions I could never have come up with on my own while I smile and nod to show that I am learning. So this cathedral is all open in the middle, which is rare, as most have some sort of screen (the one at Winchester was Victorian and made of carved wood), so you can actually get a full understanding of the size when you walk in. I realize this is not interesting to read, so I'm going to kind of stop and refer you all to the very short album I put up of the place on Picasa that includes some interior photos.

Now for my official cathedral comparison. So, city of Winchester, definitly better than city of Salisbury. Exterior of Salisbury Cathedral definitly better than exterior of Winchester Cathedral, but I have to proclaim the interiors a bit of a toss up, and Winchester has some more interesting stories for the tour. Two other things that I did not mention about Salisbury that earn it additional points: the best preserved original copy of the Magna Carta in existence, and a 700 year old clock, but it doesn't look like a clock because it doesn't have a face.

Before leaving town I walked just a bit down the high street and went to 'Poundland', which is the equivalent of a dollar store. There's some good stuff in there.

Tomorrow is my first day of learning. We'll see how that goes.