My Weekend in Solitude

My induction week begins Monday. We will be in classes from 9-5 every day this coming week. So I have decided to take the weekend to spend some time alone, or at least not really socializing with people I know.

I started out by taking a trip to Wollaton Park. It's only about a 15 minute bus ride from the city centre. I think I first read about it in a google search of things to do in Nottingham. I got directions from my favorite local tourism office and headed over this morning. Mainly I wanted to see the reindeer! Luckily I walked in and the first thing I saw was deer!

 

I really was that close! They just ignore people.

After admiring the deer for a bit I turned around to this...

Guess what this is.... Well it's really Wollaton Hall, but it's the place where some of Batman was filmed! Inside is a natural history museum, which happens to be a fancy term for a bunch of stuffed animals. But there was quite a variety of animals and I walked around for a while looking at them and admiring the house also.

So many people where there with their kids or dogs or just by themselves to enjoy the day. The weather was perfect! It was the best day for a park outing. I should've packed a lunch and a book so I could've stayed longer!

Freshers

Freshers is the welcome week for all the first year students... And for those students that are returning for year two or three, or are postgraduates it is unofficially called Refreshers.

Most of the events are geared towards the first year students. There are coordinated, themed events every day and night that are mostly arranged by their halls. When I say themed I mean like toga parties. Luckily for postgraduates Uni Nottingham has designed postgrad reps to plan events for us also. We had coordinated bar nights every day this week, and one night a student took it upon himself to coordinate a pub crawl ending at the official PG night. It's a good way to meet people, though if you know no one to start it does take some effort and extroversion.

This is the group of girls that did the pub crawl together

This is Brittney, from Missouri, we were so excited to find "rest rooms" instead of toilets!

Our last night we went to Ocean Night Club. We waited in the queue 2 hours to get in, but had a great time. This photo in particular is of the Baywatch song where all the guys (and some of the girls) take off their shirts and swing them in the air. A tradition totally lost on me, but amusing nonetheless.

During the days for postgradutes we had lectures/presentations on university services like IT and library, internships, part time work, etcetera. I did find the IT presentation helpful as I completely do not understand the Uni website! 

There was also the Freshers Fayre, which was mostly directed towards first year students to showcase the organizations and co-curriculars that are available, but we took a look around just to see. It was the largest student involvement fair I have ever seen! And they have the most random organizations... Like pole dancing and Mah Jong, to sports, debate teams, skiing, volunteers, a vegetarian club, and the list goes on. I didn't make any commitments but I did take some information just in case.

All in all Refreshers was fun! Not sure it was was refreshing, as most of us are taking a lazy weekend to recuperate before our programs start on Monday.

"Culture Shock"

What is culture shock? Many of you following this have left the US before... What was most shocking to you? A language barrier, greetings, how you order food/receive the check, means of transportation, or maybe the cost of items. 

Well I've traveled quite a bit in my life so far and I have many international friends. I like to think I'm fairly well cultured for my young age. I also make great efforts to be accepting and understanding of cultural differences, but you can't anticipate every thing.

Here are some of the things I'm experiencing as culture shock this go-'round... there seems to be zero sense of one's surroundings. People walk down the street and just stop or turn around without acknowledging you're walking behind them, or they'll see you coming the opposite direction and will not make an effort to move over so you can also walk on the sidewalk. Now, I reckon this happens regularly in the US also but my senses are heightened here and I am usually pretty perceptive to my surroundings anyway.

Then there is personal space. It's always said that Europeans have smaller personal spaces than Americans. I think there are countries that are more extreme with this than the UK. However, I was standing in line at a cafe today waiting for the sandwich I had ordered and four people legitimately surrounded me looking at their options to the point that when I received my order and tried to move out of the way I ran into almost every one of them. 

Nottingham has two universities in the city, therefore it has a very large student population. The University of Nottingham has a considerable amount of international students, undergraduate and postgraduate, so the majority of the people I've met so far are not UK nationals. This just adds to the confusion, excitement, and learning experience because you never know what to expect!

Today I had a Coffee and Cake event for my division. I walked into the room and clearly looked a bit awkward. Many people were already at tables in small groups talking. The only person who invited me to join his group was a man from Bahrain who is working on his PhD. He was with two other Middle Eastern students, a man from Iraq and a woman from Lebanon. The Lebanese woman is actually in my program! Anyway, they were speaking Arabic but changed to English when I joined them. The man from Iraq had never met an American before so he had lots of questions about where I'm from, what it is like, the difference between the District of Columbia and a state, how I greet people, if we talk about the weather, etcetera. He said I was much more friendly than the British. I told him it's an American stereotype that we will talk to any one whereas the British are much more reserved, or so I've heard. But then things happen in conversation that you can't expect and don't really know how to react to... Such as I was explaining some of us were out at a bar last night, a girl came over to introduce herself because she had heard I am in the MPH program, but the music was so loud I couldn't hear anything. The man from Bahrain stopped me and said, "you couldn't understand anything, not you couldn't hear anything." Well yes, sir, you are correct in catching that grammatical error... Conversational English is obviously different than proper English, and my dialect is going to be different from here, or British English in general, and especially different from people who are not native English speakers. 

The last night I have somewhat struggled with is grocery shopping. It hasn't been a terrible struggle, but they call things different names than we do. So it'll be the same product but named something that confuses me. The main example is I wanted to buy sugar in the grocery store and there were like ten kinds. Obviously I knew I didn't need brown sugar or confectioners sugar, but there were two possibilities for what could be normal sugar... In the paper bag, right next to each other. So I had to ask the man and of course he proceeded to explain to me all the different types. I mean, I know what sugar is I just want you to tell me the correct name for every day, put-in-your-tea sugar. Anyway, now I can't even recall the name of it!

I'm sure there will be more shocking cultural encounters over the next year, but so far those have stood out to me most.

PS. I'm dying for a McDonalds sweet tea. I couldn't even tell you the last time I had one in the States though.... funny how when you're around it you don't give a second thought to it, but once removed you miss it.

Festival of Food and Drink

Britishism of the week: timetable - meaning schedule like for buses or classes, but we are going to focus on buses.

Challenge of the week: learning how to read bus timetables correctly.

The international student welcome week ended on Friday. We don't have much going on at the moment so I decided to go to this Food and Drink Festival at Clumber Park.  There is this really handy tourism office in the market square that I've been in a couple times to ask for information. I was able to get a bus schedule there and a man told me what bus to take and what stop to get off on. 

The market square

I invited the girls but they were moving into their apartments and/or had other activities. I decided to go alone to get out of the house. It was a little over an hour by bus and then the man told me I would have about 3/4 mile walk. The bus ride was pleasant; I got to see a lot of small villages through the countryside. We arrived and I started walking... And kept walking and walking and walking. It literally took an hour to walk to the festival from the bus stop. On my walk this man, who was also going to the festival, started walking with me and talking. He writes a food blog and was going to the festival to meet a well-known butcher and also review the event.

The entrance to Clumber Park, this was approximately the 3/4 mile mark

I meandered through the festival, had a falafel, a crepe, bought some fudge, and finished with a pimms and lemonade, which is a traditionally English cocktail. It was an absolutely beautiful afternoon so I sat and enjoyed some of the live music that was playing also.

The bar where I purchased my pimms and lemonade

I ran into my new acquaintance, Phil the blogger, again. According to my timetable the next bus came at 4:38 pm, so we left in enough time to make the hour trek back to the bus stop. Upon arrival at the bus stop I learned that I had read the bus timetable incorrectly. I had read the timetable that was coming from Nottingham, not going back to it. The next bus actually wasn't scheduled for over another hour. So Phil and I strategized a plan to get on the next bus heading north. There was only one stop left on the route anyway, a town called Worksop, and then it should head back to Nottingham. That bus was 10 minutes late. In that 10 minutes I had every opportunity to become overwhelmed with anxiety... I have no cell phone, I am in the middle of the woods, I can't read the damn bus schedule correctly, I've already walked probably 6 miles to the festival and back, and the nearest town is probably 10 miles away. Well finally that bus heading north showed up. We got on and went to Worksop. The next bus back to Nottingham wasn't for another 45 minutes. We contemplated walking to the train station, but not knowing if that would be fruitful Phil and I opted for a coffee and to wait for the bus. Finally, at 5:40 pm, we were headed back to Nottingham. We arrived home shortly before 7 pm, and parted ways.

I enjoyed my afternoon out, but I sincerely need to learn these bus timetables or I'm going to find myself in several more stressful situations. As happy as I am to use public transportation and not have the chore of owning a car any more, it's quite the transition. I'm so used to driving wherever I want, whenever I want, and leaving whenever I want. As I've run into trouble a couple times this week (though less stressful than the wilderness trip) I am now planning on doing a practice run for my route to school this week before classes start on the 30th.

Travel and Transition

Hey all! I made it! The travel was easy, I made it through Dulles security in 15 minutes. That must be some sort of record. Then the flight only took 6 hours, 20 minutes. All these time savers was made up for by my 1.5 hour wait through immigration. But all my bags made it, customs in the UK is generally a breeze, and the drive to Nottingham was fine.

I have 11 keys to my apartment. Yes, 11. 3 for my balcony doors, 2 for the bathroom, 2 for the bedroom, 1 to the building, 1 to the mail, 1 to the trash area, and 1 to the apartment itself.

I had to ask my realtor for a crash course on how to actually use my apartment. There are so many switches.... Every outlet or item must be turned on being before actually being used. 

I tried to get Internet, a phone, and a tv license.... I can't do any of that until I have a UK bank account, which should hopefully be the beginning of next week.

I bought a tv with a DVD player thinking I can rent videos to watch. I asked the woman at check out where I could do that and she suggested I go to the library. So I did. I registered for a library card, but you can't take DVDs until you receive the physical card which could be 3-4 weeks.

I know it seems this time in solitude would be nice for soul searching, but I'm pretty in touch with my soul. We have regular reunions and life evaluations. Right now, I just want to be distracted. So I asked the guy in Starbucks and he told me about a second hand video store. I bought 5 DVDs for £9 (about $15).

Tuesday started my international student welcome week. I am not staying in the campus accommodation on as I have my apartment. The first day was mostly business items: student IDs, bank accounts, health services. Turns out I have to register with a general practitioner near my apartment which I haven't found yet.

I have made several friends, 3 American and 3 Australian. Next week I'll get to do more specific things with my department and I'll be able to branch out some more. At the moment it is nice to have some girls that are going through the exact same things I am.