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.