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.