So this past weekend, our group did what is called ‘The Castles Trip.’ It’s kind of a strange name, considering there are only two castles we see on the trip ( I say ‘only’ as if that’s a bad thing… I mean, how many castles do you see in America? We’re lucky to be seeing ANY castles!) but the trip was pretty fantastic anyway. It started out, as many of our trips do, very early in the morning. I was pretty dazed, so I don’t remember too much of the bus ride to our first stop, which was Coventry Cathedral. There was some confusion about our tour, which actually gave us time to wander the ruins a bit and even head downtown for some coffee and crepes. The ruins were really cool, still standing from the bombings during WWII. We were lucky it was such a gorgeous day, too. My favorite part of the ruins themselves was the words ‘Father Forgive’ inscribed on the wall behind where the altar used to be. The story goes that the minister or pastor or whatever walked into the ruins after the bombings, found two wooden crossbeams from the roof fallen in the shape of a cross, bound them together, and ordered the words carved into the wall. He didn’t want to say ‘Father forgive them,’ meaning the Germans, because he saw all humanity as fallen, not just the Germans bombing them. It seems pretty incredible to have that kind of compassion for people while standing in the ruins of your cathedral. The new cathedral, built next to the ruins, was absolutely beautiful as well. It was certainly much more modern, and it actually reminded me a lot of the Chapel of the Resurrection back in Valpo.

Next we headed toward Warwick Castle (the second ‘w’ is not pronounced, so it sounds like ‘warrick’). The castle itself was kind of contained, and we weren’t allowed in to all the exhibits with just our regular pass. We did get to go down a small passageway to the ‘gaol’ and through a recreation of one of the Warwick lords trying to become king. I think he managed it, actually. I was mostly disappointed that I didn’t get to go into the BBC Merlin exhibit, because that looked really cool. But that was all okay, because the grounds totally made up for it all. There were these elaborate gardens and a cool river with an old, picturesque boathouse and peacocks wandering around pretty much everywhere. We also got to see a ‘birds of prey’ show, featuring a hawk and a vulture. That was pretty cool, but a bit nerve-wracking when the hawk caught sight of a cat wandering through the show and paused, seemingly contemplating whether going after it was a good idea or not. Thankfully, he left the cat alone and all animals exited the arena safely.

After castle #1, we hopped on the bus and had a short journey to Stratford-upon-Avon, which any self-respecting English major would recognize instantly as the birthplace of William Shakespeare. This was basically the coolest thing ever. I know I say that about pretty much every place we go, but in the moments that I’m in each place, it’s true. This place was cool because we got to tour Shakepeare’s childhood home and walk on stones that he probably walked on 450+ years ago and Kristine, Rachel and I may or may not have been completely freaking out at that point. I mean, we got to see the first folio, and Shakespeare’s signet ring, and the house he lived in. It was pretty freaking amazing. That night, we went to see the Royal Shakespeare Company perform Antony and Cleopatra, and we were completely blown away. This performance was fantastic. The casting was flawless, the acting was superb, the set was stunning and the vocals were unbelievable. I mean, really, this was a truly incredible performance. Not that we should expect anything less of a Shakespeare play in Shakespeare’s hometown, but hey. You gotta appreciate excellence when it’s right in front of you. The walk back to the hostel that night was a bit long and a tad scary, but it was totally worth it because that hostel was the bomb. I definitely slept well that night.

The next morning, we took the bus to Bath. Those of us still on an English kick were instantly reminded of Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, but we did not see any references to her in the actual city, unfortunately. What we did see were the wonderfully excavated and preserved Roman Baths, built there over 1500 years ago using the hot spring water, rich with minerals, that flowed from the land. The process of going to a bathhouse was actually much more complex than I had previously imagined, involving saunas and oil massages and the scraping off of dead skin and dirt, all before even stepping foot in any sort of water. But the baths were amazing, considering how far north they are, and how large the complex is. Many people suspect that there are many more intact Roman ruins underneath the rest of the city of Bath, but understandably, no one wants to go looking for them at the cost of huge swaths of the city. After the baths, we checked out the Abbey, the Circus, and the Royal Crescent, some of the cool architectural aspects of the city. That night, at the YMCA hostel we were staying in, a few of us played charades that got progressively more difficult and ridiculous as the night continued. Oh, and I also got a ‘Mississippi Mud Pie’ McFlurry from the McDonald’s… I thought that was ironic.

The next day we went to Stonehenge. The morning was perfect, a bit damp and misty, which added the perfect eerie ambiance to the ancient stone circle. It was crowded but not overly so. We also got those free audio-guides, so we could be told over and over again all about how no one really knows what Stonehenge was for, or how the built it, or why it faces a certain direction, or what it means. It’s a very mysterious place, and I could certainly feel the power of that mystery while walking around it. I’ve heard that some people are disappointed in it, that it’s smaller than they expected or something. I didn’t feel that at all, just for the record. It may have been a tad smaller than portrayed in pictures, but the sheer force behind something that ancient and rustic was enough to make it huge in my perception. Plus, when you think about it, a third of each stone is actually under the ground, so it’s at least 33% bigger than what we can see. It was pretty amazing, and I loved it. The problem with Stonehenge, for me, was that my camera ran out of battery, so those are the last pictures I have of the trip. Thankfully, we only had one more stop before heading back to Cambridge.

Our last place, and castle #2 of The Castles Trip, was Windsor Castle. It is one of the largest British palaces still used as a residence by the royal family. We were all rather offended by the fact that the queen didn’t greet us herself, but well, she must have been busy ( I don’t know, running a country or something. Whatever.). But the castle was really very cool to walk around in. We couldn’t go inside the castle’s chapel, because it was Sunday, but we did get to tour the State Apartments and Queen Mary’s Dollhouse. Both of these things were extremely lavish and exquisitely decorated, and even if my camera had been full of battery life I would not have been allowed to take pictures. I wish I had the room to explain every room we went through that I can remember, but there were at least 20 rooms and I don’t think anyone wants to read the minute details of each and every one. Personal favorites, however, included St. George’s Hall, which was covered in the personal shields of each Knight in the Order of the Garter, and the octagonal room that houses a much of the gold-plated dinnerware and King Henry VIII’s suit of armor.

Basically, this trip was the most quintessentially English whirlwind I’ve been on to date, and I loved every second of it. I feel like, at this point, I have truly seen what England is proud of. I got churches, castles, Shakespeare, and Stonehenge-what more could a girl ask for?

With happiness, awe, and much love,

Bryn

Okay, wow, I was definitely supposed to write this blog like, a week ago… but honestly? I’ve been enjoying a lazy week. That being said, I’ve gotta get my butt in gear, both on this blog and with my schoolwork in general. So, here we go–the story of my trip to Edinburgh. It began on Thursday, when I went over to Anglia Ruskin to sign in with the exchange program people (we’re supposed to do this every week, so I had to do it before I left for the weekend). So I walked over to Anglia two hours before my train was supposed to leave. That might seem like overkill on the time thing, but I have this chronic need to be early, like, all the time, and this turned out to be a really fantastic idea on my part. You see, I know how to get to the train station from our house, but I wasn’t quite sure how to get there from the university. I remembered Matt telling me that if you walked down Mill Road, you’d hit the train station, so I kinda took a chance and rambled down Mill Road. I was getting worried, because I’d been walking for a while and hadn’t found the station road yet… and then I hit the bridge. Cool bridge, it’s been painted with bright colors. I originally thought this bridge was over the Cam, because that’s what most bridges are for here. This one was over the train tracks, however, and I wasn’t sure where the station was. I took a chance and went left… this was not the right direction. I ended up following the tracks for, I don’t know, twenty minutes or so, in the wrong direction. By the time I decided to turn around, it was 3:20 and my train was supposed to leave at 4. So I had to turn around and retrace my steps, back to the bridge, and follow the tracks in the opposite direction. Luckily, the station was only about five minutes in that direction, so I arrived in time to catch the train from Cambridge to Peterborough. I then caught a train from Peterborough to Edinburgh Waverly–this was a 4 hour ride. Fortunately, I met a really cool lady from York who was going back home after dropping her mother off in Cambridge. About half way to Edinburgh, a university student named Oliver sat by us and we had a wonderful conversation on the way up to Waverly. It certainly made the time pass quickly, and I got to Edinburgh by 9:30pm. I made my way to my hostel fairly easily, although I did notice immediately that the city had many more hills than Cambridge does. I went to sleep, exhausted from travelling (although I wonder why that happens… I literally sat on a train for five hours, how is this exhausting?) and planned to wake up fairly early for my first full day in Scotland.

I woke up around 8:30 (voluntarily. Weird, right?) and looked out the window. The first thing I saw, besides the gray, cloudy sky, was the medieval-looking cityscape that rose up from the cobblestone streets as naturally as trees from grass. Despite the fact that it looked like it was about to downpour any second, I was excited to get out there and experience Scotland. So I got dressed (warmly, including a sweatshirt, scarf, and gloves) and headed out. I first wanted to get a feel for the city, so I walked down the street to Princes Street Park. Not gonna lie, walking through the park was amazing on its own. Something about the air, about the atmosphere, about the way the entire area looked–it was almost mystical. That also could have been the mist and the clouds. Walking through the park led me to the Scottish National Gallery. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t open until 10am, and it wasn’t even 9, so I decided to walk down Princes Street toward Calton Hill.

On my way to Calton Hill, I was sidetracked by a cemetery. Now, I know this is kinda weird, but I seriously love cemeteries, especially old ones. There’s something peaceful and beautiful about them, something old and intangible that we, as living people, can only graze the surface of. There’s an atmosphere, an ambiance, that could be creepy but somehow just manages to stay this side of tranquil. It was also really cool that I stumbled upon David Hume’s tomb in that particular cemetery. As I went across the street to Calton Hill, I figured out why. Calton Hill, as a public park, was a brainchild of Hume, and there is now a path dubbed ‘Hume’s Walk’ within the park. It’s quite a lovely walk, if I do say so myself. While I was walking up the path, it did finally start to rain. It didn’t really matter, because I don’t really mind the rain as long as it’s not too cold, and it was mostly just windy on top of the hill. I also found a really cool monument, set up to look like Greek pillars, to commemorate Scottish soldiers and sailors from the Napoleonic Wars. I found this specific monument so impressive because it could be seen from most places in the city, plus there’s always something awesome about Greek pillars. The hill also had a great view of Arthur’s Seat, which was where I headed next.

I walked down the hill and across the North Bridge, coincidentally not over a river, but over the train tracks. I found the High Street, and walked down it toward Holyrood Palace. On the way, I stopped in quite a few shops that generally specialized in tartan cloth and information on the Scottish clans. There was one shop that I walked into, run by Scottish clan members, that sold real Scottish broadswords and attempted to get me to buy one. I seriously considered getting one for my brother but… well… somehow I think that might end up poorly for most people involved. I was, however, on the lookout for Buchanan tartan cloth. I didn’t find any I liked in that particular store, however, so I continued on to the palace.

The palace was gorgeous from the outside, but I didn’t get in. It cost 11 pounds, and I was trying to see how cheap I could be on a weekend trip (I kept myself to 40 pounds, woohoo!), so I didn’t go inside. I did walk around the outside park and take a few pictures before heading over to Holyrood Park, where Arthur’s Seat was. I then climbed up to a crumbling abbey wall first. It had a great view of both the palace and a small pond. I then started up the steeper part, all the while thanking my family for their hiking tendencies, because that was the only way I made it up that mountain. About halfway up, on a sort of resting point, I stopped to take in the view and it began raining a bit more earnestly, as well as getting windier and windier. I was feeling very dramatic, especially because Merida, the newest Disney princess, is Scottish and redheaded. When I got to the top, I even took a few pictures of myself being ‘Brave-like’ from the movie.

Getting down from Arthur’s Seat was actually much more difficult than getting up. This was mostly my

I was impressed with myself.

own fault, however, because I probably took the absolute worst path back down the mountain possible. After I managed each small, steep, rocky, slippery part, I turned around and took a picture of what I’d just attempted and successfully gotten down, mostly because I was impressed with myself for not dying. I did find, however, many very cool paths that looked incredibly not-well-traveled and secret, thistle patches that wound up and around the dirt paths not quite trodden to the mud due to a lack of foot traffic, and slick rocks worn smooth not by footfalls, but by rainfalls. It was a very long hike, however, and instead of climbing the crags, I chose to walk along the bottom of the crags. I didn’t realize it at the time of this decision, but this might not have been the smartest thing. About halfway down the trail, I noticed all of the signs saying ‘Beware! Falling rocks!’ and it even got to the point where the path was blocked by metal gates around what looked like recent rock slides. I did make it out of my extended hike alive, though, so that’s good.

I was getting pretty exhausted at this point, but I walked back up Cowgate and stumbled upon the Museum. When I walked into the big gallery, footsore and tired, I nearly started crying because the place looked so beautiful. It just so happened that the moment I stepped inside, after climbing a freaking mountain in the rain, that the sun made a glorious appearance. It shone through the ceiling of windows and into the white room like a promise from heaven. There was a lighthouse glass, and a Buddhist shrine, and the largest scrimshaw ever made, and the skull of some large, long-forgotten monster of the sea. It was a gorgeous museum, and I wandered around in a bit of a daze, trying desperately to focus on the myriad of amazing things in front of me instead of the rapidly forming blisters on my toes. I got my chance after I wandered outside the museum and over to the National Scottish Library, to have a quick look and to sit down for lunch. I milked that chance to sit for as long as I could, before crossing the street to Greyfriar’s Kirk. Here, I reaffirmed my love of cemeteries by seeing one in the gorgeous October sunshine, with the changing of the leaves and the swaying of the trees.

Despite my feet, I was immersed in the magic of Old Town, and so decided to head up the hill toward the Castle. I didn’t go inside again, because I didn’t want to spend the money, but  I did get a fabulous view of both old and new areas of Edinburgh and I found a tartan cloth mill museum right next to the Castle itself. It was there where I finally found a type of Buchanan tartan that I liked, and I bought a tammy hat as my souvenir from Scotland. After exploring the mill, I ventured down High Street and made my way to St. Giles Cathedral. This was, predictably, gorgeous and I managed to get a few pictures of the inside. I also took the opportunity to sit for a while and just admire, instead of running around trying to see as much as possible. It was very nice to relax and look around without the pressure of exploring. After I felt suitably rested from the cathedral, I headed back to the hostel to recover from my day, which pretty much had consisted of seven straight hours of walking.

Then next day, my legs and feet were still very unhappy with me. Despite that, I walked to the cafe next door, grabbed a french baguette, and went to eat on the Castle’s terrace overlooking the city. After that, I walked through the park and found a cool fountain, with a gorgeous view of the Castle’s walls. When it had passed 10am, I went through the National Gallery, and I was shocked at how much it reminded me of the Fitzwilliam Museum here in Cambridge. There were big red rooms and huge landscape paintings, sculptures and fancy chairs and Poussin scenes. The entire downstairs section was devoted to Scottish artists, and that was very cool to see. After seeing that, I wandered around the city a bit more, happening upon St. Mary’s Cathedral as well. But after only about 4 hours out, my legs were screaming at me, so I went back to the hostel and hung out in the common room.

This was also a very fun afternoon, despite the fact that it wasn’t all outdoors. I met a bunch of Spanish people, a few Australians, and an Italian who played guitar for us. We watched a Doctor Who marathon for a bit, talked a lot, and laughed a lot. It was a really great afternoon, and even though I didn’t see much of the city that day, I figured I had seen quite a bit the day before. My feet were much happier with me that day than the day previous, and I went to bed happy that night too. I woke up, forgot it was daylight savings over here that Sunday, and got to the train station an hour before my train was supposed to leave. I had a wonderful time in Edinburgh, but I was definitely excited to get home.

So there you have it–my Scottish adventure. It was wonderful, and I can’t wait to get back up there!

With happiness, Scottish-ness, and love,

Bryn

First off, I need to apologize for taking so long on this blog. My excuse is that for the past two weeks, we’ve been slammed with papers and mid-terms galore. Normally, that probably wouldn’t be a problem, but I think we’ve all been spoiled here with the relatively light courseload and experience-centered classes. Real-life ‘studying’ isn’t something we’ve had to do a lot of in the past two months, so it was a pretty big slap in the face when we actually needed to get our butts in gear. We did, of course, and now that all that craziness is over, I find myself wanting to mostly laze about instead of accomplishing the things I let fall by the wayside during our frantic two weeks. But there are at least two things I need to tell you all about.

The first is that we had a visit from a rather interesting guy-from the second group of Valpo students to come to Cambridge back in 1968. He stopped by for our weekly common meal and we had a wonderful time discussing his career in law and all the experiences he had when he had been here in ’68. We loved asking him all sorts of questions. He told us the story of his favorite trip on the Continent, which involved a road trip through East Germany and Turkey, with all of the difficulties moving across the Iron Curtain with an American passport entailed at the time. He also told us about how interesting it was here in Cambridge. There was this one pub that

Our second dinner with Larry

was a hotspot for foreign students, some of whom apparently grew up to be incredibly influential anarchists or revolutionaries in their home countries. He told us about the styles of the time, about how you couldn’t go anywhere in Britain without hearing ‘Hey, Jude,’ and about how the people he was here with have become extraordinary individuals in their own right. We almost felt like we had a lot to live up to, after that–we’ve all got to make something of ourselves, after hearing about what an illustrious history this program has had. Larry came back the next day, planning to go get a pint at the pub down the street with Grant, but we forced him to stay for dinner again and tell us more about his current life. It turns out he works with law and human rights, which was really cool not only because of the subject matter but also because quite a few of us here are looking to pursue careers in a similar field. This discovery led to quite a few in-depth discussions on morality, ethics, and our plans for the future. All in all, it was a really interesting and valuable experience, meeting this man who was here, in our position, forty-odd years ago. I think it also pushed us to go out and experience as much as possible, so that we can someday tell stories about our trips and adventures with the same fondness as he did.

The other cool thing that we did to relieve our mid-term stress was our minor Halloween celebration. Because so many of us left for our second fall break this week, we decided to celebrate Halloween a week early with a Murder Mystery Dinner Party. It involved all of us dressing up as various fairy tale characters and sitting down to common meal with various individual goals in mind. About halfway through the night, after dinner, one of the characters was murdered, and we spent the rest of the evening trying to figure out who had the most motive for killing her. It really was a lot of fun, with each character having an intricate personality and distinctive goals that went beyond the commonly-known fairy tales. The characters involved were Prince Charming, Belle and the Beast, Snow White and a few dwarves, Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella’s stepsister, Little Red Riding Hood (that was me!), Rapunzel, and one of the Three Little Pigs. It was really entertaining, but I was weirdly exhausted after we discovered the culprit, and I went to bed shortly thereafter. Perhaps it was a combination of the incredibly fun night and the stress of all the tests that made me so tired. I’m really thankful we have this break, not for travelling purposes but for recovery purposes. And the weather here in Cambridge has been so fantastic, it really feels like a vacation.

With gratefulness, spooky Halloween spirit, and love,

Bryn

So I’m sitting in the Barcelona Airport trying to figure out how to sum up the last five days of my life in one short blog post. I’m not sure I can do it, and this might get unbearably long, but I have so much to tell and so many emotions to express, I’ve just got to make it a long one. We arrived in Barcelona around 10:30 pm, Spain Time, which it turns out is an hour ahead of London, which we didn’t know until we got here. The plane ride was okay, except for these rather obnoxious English dudes who sat a few rows in front of us and refused to shut up for more than ten seconds. Oh, and the ads running every half hour or so—apparently that’s how RyanAir can be so cheap… they run advertisements the entire flight. But we got to Barcelona and I immediately started sweating because I was wearing half of my clothes. I’d had the brilliant idea of bringing my laptop along, so my backpack was severely limited on space. Therefore, I

First official pic in Barcelona!

reasoned, wearing the clothes there was the most obvious solution. It worked, the only problem being that I just about died of heatstroke on the way to our apartment, and this was at night. We took the train from the airport to Clot, the metro station that would become most familiar to us, and walked to our apartment, which was thankfully very close. The reason we had an apartment instead of staying in a hostel was because we had found one that we could rent for 5 days that was relatively close to the city center and was actually less per person per night than a hostel would be, and it was nicer because we didn’t have to live with 12 strangers.

The day after we arrived, we went straight to the Sagrada Familia. This is the basilica designed by Antoni Gaudi that is literally the most interesting building I’ve ever seen. It’s been under construction since before Gaudi’s death in 1926, and it was weird to see so many cranes and scaffolds around the building. We didn’t go in that first day, although we did later. We walked from there to the beach, which we discovered wasn’t the smartest thing we’d ever done. It was quite a long way. But the beach was gorgeous and I may have freaked out a little when I saw the Mediterranean in real life. I mean, come on, this is the sea that Greece was built off of, where Odysseus and Aneas sailed, what Marc Antony and Septimius crossed to get to Africa. That water was literally the stuff of legend, and I got to swim in it!! We had decided relaxing after our hectic travel day was in order, so we lazed around on the beach and in our apartment that day.

one of the many stalls in the side market

The second day we bought a three day train pass, which was probably the smartest thing we’ve ever done. Maybe not ever, but pretty close. It gave us unlimited rides on both buses and trains for three whole days, and we definitely used it. We first went to La Ramblas, the gorgeous street market in old Barcelona. The street began with the Plaza de la Catalunya, which boasted a few fountains and statues and monuments and such (all absolutely stunning, of course). The street itself wasn’t quite as impressive, because I kept comparing it to the market I saw in Chichicastenengo, Guatemala, until we went into a side market that was bursting with so many fruits and candies and various goodies as well as interested people. That part was pretty cool. There was also a side plaza further down Las Ramblas that had yet another fountain and lots of innovative handmade things. There were coin purses made from old cassette tapes and handbags made with vinyl records, burlap sacks literally made into dresses and bags, old silver spoons and keys made into gorgeous jewelry, things like that. Las Ramblas itself ends with a huge monument to Christopher Colombus, pointing (presumably) in the direction of the Americas. The base of the monument included statues of Ferdinand and Isabel, the Spanish monarchy’s supercouple who united Castile and Aragon as well as sponsored Columbus’s original journey to the Americas. The monument itself was surrounded by lions, and we snatched the opportunity to take pictures on the back of a lion because when can you ever do that again? There were also these really cool living statues at the end of Las Ramblas, of people like Picasso and Columbus, as well as these weird/scary dragons and golden angels. I got a picture with the John Lennon one (just for you, Bob!) that someone has on their camera somewhere. These were cool, but a little bit creepy because they were so. good. at. being. statues. Really, you didn’t realize they were real people until you noticed them just barely moving.

After eating some ridiculously overpriced food for lunch, we made our way toward the Museum of Contemporary Art. There was so much to see here, I honestly can’t retell it all. There were so many interesting interpretations of art and what art is, and how expression can be limited in ways but expanded in others. Some art I enjoyed more than others, such as the piece with books hanging from the ceiling and the words ‘TO READ’ emblazoned on the wall next to them, or the piece that included a rusty bedframe bolted to the wall, grafitti on the building outside, and a large painting inside. One of the final paintings that stuck in my mind was a large grayscale painting that seemed to represent a river, with animals drinking at the banks, during a rainstorm. For some reason, the composition of the painting and the technique used really worked for me. Another really cool one was called “An Exercise in Illusion” and featured three statues of Chinese men (with no feet? Still don’t know what that was about) in front of a long curtain. Turns out the curtain was painted on a cloth that was then hung on the wall, but it was painted so realistically that I didn’t notice it until I saw the title of the piece and endeavored to take a closer look.

The next day began with the Arc de Triomf. I hadn’t realized, until coming to Barcelona, that many European cities have an Arch of Triumph, not just Paris. This one was very interesting, made out of red brick and intricate statue work on the top. What we didn’t realize, walking up, was that there was a huge yoga demonstration going on right in front of the Arc. This was actually kind of cool to

The Cascades

watch, if you ignore the fact that I speak literally zero Spanish and therefore couldn’t understand a word the instructor was saying, and I probably would have joined in if I hadn’t been wearing a dress. We wandered down the park into what we now know were the grounds for the World’s Fair when it was held in Barcelona. Simply by luck, we happened upon the Ciutadella Cascades, which were stunning. The fountain even started up while we were standing there, so we had to re-take the pictures with the water running. I wish I knew what the fountain was built for, but there weren’t many explanatory  plaques around and I wouldn’t have understood them, anyway. I guess it’s enough that it was beautiful, and unexpected, and amazing to see. We unfortunately had to leave the grounds before exploring much more–we had church in the Catedral to get to.

Church was an interesting experience. At first, a few of us couldn’t even get into the building because we weren’t wearing appropriate clothing. Sleeves were necessary, as were shorts or skirts that were closer to the knee than most. To get in, a few of us had to buy cheap scarves from the vendors in the plaza and use them as shawls. Once inside, we had to convince the Spanish guard that we, a group of American college kids, really were here for mass and should be let into the front of the Catedral. Furthermore, it was a Catholic mass, which I’m not really too familiar with as a Presbyterian, and it was entirely in Spanish. I spent a lot of the time trying to guess the pitches in the sung responses and admiring the architecture of the Catedral itself, alternately watching the priest at the front of the church giving a sermon that I only caught a few words of (corazon and monde, if you’re interested). It was really interesting to be a part of, though, and I’m really glad I had the experience. The coolest part may have been when we walked outside, and there was a band playing on the plaza steps while multiple groups of older Spanish men and women doing traditional dances. It was really awesome to see such spontaneous enjoyment by people so different from us, but so similar in all the ways that count.

Lunch was stellar–I had a waffle with caramel sauce and I just about died and went to heaven. Not only have I been waffle-deprived for close to a month, this particular waffle was made spectacularly. That was my sustenance for our hike to Parc Guell. This involved a walking up a rather steep hill and walking through a bunch of trails made of dirt and horribly placed rocks, but the view was definitely worth it. Not only for the great view of Barcelona itself, but for the amazing Gaudi architecture. The colorful tiles and organic shapes make his designs incredibly unique and unbelievably interesting to look at from various angles. Literally any angle, actually, is new and exciting to look at. It was beautiful to see, especially because the weather was just as gorgeous as the architecture and the sun made the colors shine all the more brightly. I wish that we had had a bit more time to explore the area better, but it was sunny and hot and everyone was a bit crabby and tired. So after gazing at the buildings that looked a bit like something out of Dr. Seuss in awe for possibly longer than was entirely necessary, we headed back to the apartment for some well-deserved rest.

The view from Tibidabo

The next day we headed up the mountain to Tibidabo. We weren’t sure what to expect, exactly, but it was basically a huge church, a lookout point, and an amusement park for small children. We, being the incredibly mature college students that we are, probably had the most fun on the teeter totter and the slide maze. I think Cat even got part of it on film. It was a gorgeous day, and playing around like a kid was so much fun. The views were amazing, too. I learned how to take a panoramic shot on my camera on this day, so I got a few good photos from the lookout point and of the church. I’m not really sure why there was a church overlooking an amusement park on top of a mountain, but it seemed to work for the Barcelonians (is that even a word?). After Tibidabo we made our way to Parc Montjuic. Walking up to the parc involved many, many stairs, a few pillars that held up nothing, and the Magic Fountain, which unfortunately doesn’t run on Mondays. The Art Museum, at the top of all the stairs, was gorgeous to look at, even if we couldn’t get in (it’s closed on Mondays?). The sun was setting around the time we were exploring the parc, so we got to observe how the building changed in different lights. We also discovered, completely by accident, the Olympic Stadium from the 1992 Summer Olympics. It was a really impressive set up, and I wish, again, that we could have explored it a bit more, but it was getting dark and late and we were all rather tired, so we headed back to the apartment after taking a rather large amount of pictures.

The last day we had together in Barcelona we used to see the inside of the Sagrada Familia.

Sagrada Familia

The line was incredibly long the first day we saw the outside, and thankfully when we went on Tuesday it wasn’t quite as ridiculous. Seeing the inside was definitely worth the 11 euros, though, because I’ve literally never seen anything like that before in my life. It was absolutely stunning. The ceilings were incredibly high, and the pillars were huge but didn’t really seem like it because the space itself dwarfed everything inside it. The stained glass windows were partially finished, and the colors streaming through them played on the white walls like music. I don’t even know how to describe the feeling you get when you walk inside–just that everything is bigger and better and more beautiful than anything else you will ever see. Despite the fact that Gaudi, the architect, died in 1926, construction is still going on. They only recently finished the inside and Pope Benedict dedicated the basilica just last year. Underneath the main part of the basilica is a small museum dedicated to documenting the construction of the Sagrada Familia, from the original conceptual drawings to the current plaster molds being thought up and worked off of in the present day. One of the most interesting things I saw was a demonstration of how Gaudi created his arches. He would hang string between two weights to create the ‘perfect arch,’ as he saw it, doing this multiple times in the same piece to form the basic structure of the building he was to create. He would then observe the hanging strings through a mirror to see what the arches would look like right-side up. Another example given was how he created the splaying disks on the ceiling. This was again done with string and plaster, although I didn’t fully understand how it worked. Needless to say, Gaudi was an incredible genius and looking at his work left me a bit speechless. Okay, a lot speechless. It got to the point where I just had to sit down inside the basilica and stare at everything because I couldn’t take it all in anymore. It was amazing.

After the Sagrada Familia, we headed back to the beach for one last relaxing day before leaving. The others left for Ibiza on Wednesday morning, and I stayed behind because my flight back to Cambridge wasn’t until later that night. I cleaned up the apartment a bit, looked through my photos, did some laundry, and generally tried to reflect on my time in Spain. It was truly incredible, and I’m so happy I went. We had gorgeous weather and the monuments were stunning and the Mediterranean was fun to swim in and I even got a bit less pale. But I was ready to come back home to Cambridge, I think. As much as I loved being in Spain, I missed England quite a bit. I ended up sitting next to a lovely British couple from Norwich on my flight back, and we had a great talk about a ton of things, which made the flight go by much faster. They were really so sweet, they even bought me a soda during the flight. On the train back from Stansted Airport, I met a woman and her daughter coming back from seeing a show in London. It made me realize that travelling on my own would be quite fun, because I’m much more open to talk to the people around me when I don’t actually know any of them. That, however, could also have been that I was just really excited people were speaking English again.

Barcelona was amazing. England is amazing. I’m so happy to be here, to be supported by all of you reading this, and to have this opportunity. I appreciate every single second of it, from the cold and rainy bits to the unbearably hot and sunny bits, from the tiring bits to the infrequent boring bits. I love the learning, the growing, and the travelling, which is it’s own form of learning. I love it all, and I can’t wait to see more.

With happiness, excitement, and gratitude,

Bryn

It’s probably ironic that the weekend I’m not going anywhere is the weekend that ends up being the busiest.

My Anglia ID

Somehow, that’s exactly what happened to me. This past weekend was supposed to be nice, relaxing, a time to meet the students at Anglia Ruskin and get everything straightened out over there before we leave for Spain. So we went to the International Students welcome session, which somehow lasted two hours. We literally sat through a lecture about living in Cambridge (which we’d been doing for a month already, incidentally) for two hours. On the bright side, we got our student ids at this particular meeting. The ARU ids are rather similar to Valpo’s OneCards, in that they are basically necessary to get anywhere on campus, so it was kinda nice to get them finally. We had a rather interesting experience at the iCentre, which is basically a giant helpdesk outside of the library. See, only half of us had gotten our ids at the meeting, so the other half had to go to the iCentre to get theirs. There was a huge queue (line, there was a very long line…) so it took a bit to even get up to the desk. Then, not everybody at the helpdesk knew how to help, exactly, and we were told a bunch of conflicting things ranging from ‘you need your visa to get an id’ to ‘no you can’t take a picture here, we need you to email one’ as another student was getting their picture taken for the id. We did, eventually, get everything straightened out.

The next day, the Students’ Union was throwing a party for us at the Revolution, one of the more popular clubs in town. This was something we expected to be really fun, despite the fact that we had to walk all the way across town to get to ARU, and then walk back about a third of the way to get to Revolution. However, we got to Revolution around 9:15, so the club was obviously not hoppin’ quite yet. Also, the bartender wasn’t exactly on top of things, like getting drinks for people at the bar. As a person who has worked in a restaurant, I can appreciate the difficulties of serving that many people at once, but I also think that an effort should be, you know, MADE to get to everybody. Let’s just say they were a bit too laid back about it. But around 10:30, we decided to go upstairs and we found the ‘Revolucion del Cuba’ room, where ethnic music and various dance lessons were being given. This turned out to be the best room for at least an hour, despite the… uh…. less courteous guys we ran into. Once the music picked up, it was really fun to dance in this room with a bunch of the international students. I ended up in a circle with Manuela (from Italy), Yassine (from France), Sunita (from Sri Lanka), Kristina (from Denmark), and a few other girls whose names I don’t remember from Germany and Belgium. It got a bit hot in the club, we went out onto the terrace to cool down and talk. That was really fun, and I got a few of the girls’ numbers to see if we could meet up later in the semester.

The next day was a bit of a recovery day for me. I’m not really one to stay out late too often, so when I do I tend to sleep a lot the next day. But Sunday, my roommate and I went to church together. This was interesting because the church we chose turned out to be doing three baptisms that day. Not to be too judgmental, or anything, but these kids were nightmares. And the mother and godparents didn’t exactly try to stop them from basically running wild, banging on the piano, blowing on the mic, etc. Coming back to the house

Hanging out at Jesus Green with Anni (pictured) and Tess (taking the picture)

was a bit of a relief, to be honest. Later that day, I decided to go to the carnival being held at ARU. This was a really good idea, as it turns out, because they had free food (including ice cream, popcorn, and cotton candy!!) and fair games to play. I also ran into Freya, Anna, and Kristina, three Danish girls I had met on Friday. I also met Tessa and Anni, who as it turns out are friends with Yassine as well, and we talked basically the whole time. It was really fun to hear about their school in Berlin, and about what they’re going to be studying here. We eventually decided to leave the carnival and hang out on Jesus Green, a huge park right next to the downtown area. It also happened to be a gorgeous day, and we were laughing about how everyone back at our respective homes expected England to be gray and rainy all the time and our first weekend was so beautiful. It was really great to sit and talk for a while, especially in such an incredible space.

Then yesterday, which is the day I had been planning on writing this blog, our entire house got food poisoning. Well, not everybody–Cat, Jin, and I were unscathed. Lisa had a minor bit, but Grant, Ryan, Rachel, and Kristine were down hard. So I instead was running around trying to make sure that everyone in the house was still breathing, and that the windows were open to get some air flowing through the house. It was a bit of a hectic experience, but thankfully everyone’s mostly recovered now. Tomorrow we leave for Barcelona. Wish us luck!

With new friends, a positive attitude, and much love,

Bryn

This weekend was the first weekend we attempted travel without our trusty guide to all things British (that would be Matt, and he’d hasten to tell you all that he is by no means an expert at it). It was… an interesting experience, to say the least. We had planned to go to London on Friday and then explore Cambridge a bit more on Saturday because we wanted to get a good feel for our ‘hometown’ over here before we went gallivanting off to Europe. So we got up early enough to walk across town and catch the 9:20am train to London on Friday morning, got ready, and made the two-mile walk. I, personally, don’t really mind walking long distances, especially if it saves me money in any way (ie no bus, no taxi), so this wasn’t really a huge deal. I’ve come to realize, however, that walking around all day, constantly, is not for everyone. And understandably so–not everybody wants to feel like their legs are going to fall off by the end of the day. I get that. The problem with this particular Friday morning was that we walked all the way to the train station…. and discovered that we needed our passports to use our BritRail passes. Which we didn’t actually have with us at the train station. So it was 9:30am and we were on the opposite side of town without anything to do.

The rock garden

Naturally, we looked at the map outside the train station and found a couple of places that we wanted to go. The closest one was the Cambridge University Botanical Gardens–so we walked there. Unfortunately, it was 4GBP to get in, which we recently discovered is about $8 (because the exchange rate has gone up dramatically since we’ve been here… ouch). But the gardens were still beautiful. Our favorite part may have been the ‘rock garden.’ It was situated right next to this small pond with a million lilypads in it, and there were small streams and waterfalls throughout the garden itself. Rachel read some of the informational signs and told us that many of the plants needed extremely specific environments to grow, and that the garden was planned out to accommodate those needs. That’s pretty amazing, especially considering how rainy it’s been here, and how cloudy. We got some lunch (it was really more of a snack) in the cafe, then walked through the rest of the gardens to the gift shop. On our way there, I discovered a small trail that led me to a pond, and some willows. I’ve always thought

my secret willow-place

willows were beautiful, but for some reason these particular willows, with the pond and the general foliage, took my breath away. Despite the general rainy-ness of the day, this moment was beautiful. And most importantly, it was mine. It was a place that not all tourists who come to Cambridge see; it was a moment that made my experience here particularly unique. It was such a little thing, but it was perfect. I’d like to go back there and just sit for a while–it seems like a good place to contemplate life.

When we left the Botanical Gardens, we headed down Queen’s Road toward the Backs. Now, the Backs are a rather famous walk around here–supposedly it’s this incredibly gorgeous walk along the River Cam where you can see the backs of all the colleges (hence the name). The backs of the colleges are much more impressive than the front gates, generally, because the front gates are just big walls that you can’t see over and smallish wooden doors. When you see the back, though, you’re supposed to see huge green fields and impressive buildings and chapels and such. Walking the Backs was strange, I felt like I was doing it wrong. I couldn’t see very much because most of the colleges extend their property beyond the river and make you pay to get in through the back gates. So the walk was pretty, with trees and big green spaces and whatnot, but there wasn’t much of the ‘gorgeous colleges.’

The Library had an exhibit on display... Can you tell what it is?

When we got back to the house, we were understandably exhausted. We watched a movie together, made some dinner, and had a decently relaxing night. We had decided that we would go to London on Saturday instead, so we woke up and caught the 9:45am train bound for London. We got to Kings Cross by 11 and walked over to the British Library. This was absolutely amazing. First off, they have historical exhibits in the Library. The Library. I really wanted to go see this one, Propaganda: Power and Persuasion, but of course it costed a few extra pounds. That wasn’t the coolest part, though. The coolest part was their Gallery of Treasures, which contained original manuscripts of Shakespeare’s plays, Jane Austen’s notebook, letters from Queen Elizabeth I and various other monarchs, illuminated manuscripts from multiple different cultures and religious traditions, and the Magna Carta. They even had a special case for original copies of Beatles lyrics. And all this we could see just by walking in. That’s probably my favorite thing about Britain so far…. Most museums, art galleries, and exhibits are free to get into. It’s only the ‘special’ exhibits that cost money. It was so cool, and I really wanted to take some pictures because I knew a few people who would freak out with me over these historical documents, but unfortunately no photographs were allowed.

After we had wonderful pizza across the street from the Library, we tried to find Bloomsbury because our history professor had been telling us about the Bloomsbury Group that lived in London in Edwardian times. We kinda wandered around a bit before giving up and going to find the British Museum instead. This, again, was free (YESS!) and we saw a ton of Egyptian sculptures and writings, even the

The front of the British Museum... very Greco-Roman, don't you think?

real-life, honest-to-god Rosetta Stone (the language nerd in me was freaking out, majorly). I was on the lookout for the mummies, because rumor has it that the British Museum has the largest mummy collection in the world. We didn’t find them right away in the Egypt section, so we quickly ran through the Enlightenment section to North American History. This was actually pretty funny, to see the Native Americans’ history laid out in front of us like some foreign country’s indigenous people… which, for the British, they are. We, of course, knew most of the history already (even though our history professor is under the impression that American schoolchildren never learn history… I don’t know what he’s talking about) and giggled our way through the beginnings of America from the British perspective. It was then that we discovered  the mummy collection. It wasn’t with the Egyptian sculptures, but upstairs in the museum’s section on death and dying. That was actually really cool, because they had x-rays of the mummies in their wrappings on display along with the sarcophaguses and the mummies themselves. We were pressed for time, however, because we wanted to get to the Tate Museum of Modern Art before catching our 5:30 train back to Cambridge.

The Tate was… interesting. It wasn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination, it was just very very alternative and different to anything we’d seen so far. Actually, my favorite room was the section on Energy and Process. There were a few pieces that dealt with mirrors

Tate was transformed into a modern art gallery after being abandoned as an industrial factory

and windows in very interesting ways. For example, one piece was a fully painted canvas that was covered up by a mirror, so instead of seeing the painting, you just saw yourself. Another was 11 panes of glass leaning against the wall at different angles, so that when you walked past it your outline was blurred and shifted in ways you didn’t expect. Those, according to the plaques on the walls, were meant to illustrate the subjectivity of the art in question, because so much depends on the viewer. I thought that, while cool and really interesting, was slightly hypocritical because we were learning the supposedly ‘subjective’ meaning of the piece by reading what the museum was telling us it meant. It’s alright though, in the long run, because there were plenty of pieces I wouldn’t have understood at all without the help of the wall.

Sunday was another lazy-ish day for me. It was rainy and cold, so when I woke up in the morning, I went on a bit of a crazy cleaning mission throughout the house because living with 7 other college kids generally means that the house is never clean. Like, ever. So (and I’m positive my mother will be laughing at me at this point and thinking something along the lines of ‘I told you so! It’s so annoying when people don’t listen to you when you tell them to pick up their stuff, right?’ Yes, mom, you were right) I picked up the living room and the dining room and washed the tables and the dishes and felt really accomplished until I realized that I hadn’t actually done any of the homework I was supposed to be getting done. So. My weekend consisted of discoveries on how to travel by train, lots and lots of rain, and a ridiculous amount of history that I am only now getting around to processing. Just another couple days over here in England.

With pride, experience, and much love,

Bryn

It could be said that Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, is one of my favorite books. It could also be said that the movie (the newer one, with Keira Knightley and Matthew MacFayden) is one of my favorite movies. Both of those things being true, you can imagine my reaction when I discovered the house we were going to see on the way to the Lake District was actually Pemberley.

I saw this. In real life. It's Pemberley.

Okay, it’s not really Pemberley. It’s called Chatsworth, and its the home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. I just thought it was Pemberley because it’s the house they used as Pemberley for the movie. The inside was incredible. I didn’t take the actual tour of the house, because it cost a few extra pounds that I figured I could go without spending, and we could ramble about the house without the tour guide anyway. But going through the house on my own was not a sacrifice by any stretch of the imagination. There were laminated pages in each room we were allowed to go into, detailing the use of the room and the reasons behind its decoration. I say ‘rooms we were allowed into’ because Chatsworth is still used as a full-time residence by the Duke and Duchess, and therefore the private rooms should be kept as they are–private for those who live there. Gosh, though, can you even imagine living there? Growing up in a place like that, with 150 acres of garden and extra woodland and sheep-grazing land? It was gorgeous. The inside was ornate without being too stuffy, although there was a rather large amount of statues and collections of rocks that, while beautiful, confused me a little. Sometimes they just didn’t go with the room they were placed in, at least to my eye, or seemed haphazardly set down and forgotten about. In all honestly, while the inside was gorgeous, it was the gardens and estate lands that really impressed me. The landscape was just beautiful, and even though it was pouring, it was fun to explore. Cat and I even solved the maze in the garden, which took quite a while and ended up with both of us soaking wet from the rain.

Our secret garden. Although, people probably know about it--but it felt secret to us.

We also found this hidden garden area, designed with rock formations and ponds and bridges and waterfalls that literally took my breath away (of course, it was also really cold, so it could have been that, too). It felt like we were explorers, on some crazy adventure… which I suppose we were. It was raining so much, I can’t believe we actually went out and explored the grounds like we did. I’m really happy we did, though, because even though it felt rainy and cold and miserable, the pictures look pretty good and I’ll have them forever. The memory of the cold and the wet will fade with time, but now I never have to forget the natural beauty of the grounds surrounding Chatsworth. It really was unbelievable, to be able to stand in the midst of things I’d only seen on tv or read about in books. That’s a sentiment I seem to be repeating, but I can’t really help it–it’s still true!

After Chatsworth, we continued to YHA Windemere, the hostel we stayed at for the weekend. This hostel was absolutely fabulous. I’m not sure if it was because we were so cold and so hungry, but the fish and chips we had for dinner that night were the best I’ve ever tasted, and crawling into bed that night felt like heaven. I slept like a rock, and getting up the next morning was tough. It was worth it, though, because that morning we went on a hike around the town of Coniston, to Tarn Hows, one of the most photographed parts of the Lake District. Now, it was definitely still raining, but the hike was incredible anyway. It was a bit difficult to follow the directions, because a lot of the hike involved walking across sheep pastures and down roads with no sidewalks and figuring out which gate we were supposed to go through. But the views were worth it… Here are a few:

View #1

View #2

I couldn’t help quoting Jane Austen in my head… “What are men compared to rocks and mountains?” and trying to believe that what I was seeing was real, and in front of me. I felt like I was following Lizzie Bennet, honestly, through the Lake District. As she journeyed through the mountains to Pemberley, I travelled through the mountains away from it. Although, I have to be honest, I’m very glad I didn’t have to arrive in a horse-drawn carriage, because the carsickness from a bus was bad enough.

The hike was something like 5 miles to the top, and I must pause here to thank my family many, many times for getting me to hike over the years, because it helped me appreciate the beauty I was seeing instead of focusing on how I didn’t like exercising and walking up these ridiculous hills that might  have been mountains. I was able to see the mountains as a chance to see the land around me better, instead of merely an obstacle to overcome. And man, the views were beautiful. There were the ones I’ve already shown you, but there isn’t enough room in this post to show you all the gorgeous ones (hint, every picture I took was a winner, without me even trying). Suffice it to say that beautiful doesn’t even begin to describe it. Climbing down was the hardest part, not only because it was steeper (it was also faster) but because this is when the downpour started in earnest. It had been raining/drizzling/icky all morning, but it REALLY started raining during the last mile or so into town. Eating in a dry pub afterward, and hot chocolate for me, was a reward well deserved by all of us.

Next we went on a boat cruise on Windemere, the largest freshwater lake in England. Not quite as impressive when we live right in the middle of a bunch of the biggest freshwater lakes in the world, but fun to see nevertheless. To be honest, it was the mountains rising up from the lake that were more impressive than the lake itself. The really fun part of the boat trip was when a couple of the other people on the boat, who were from Taiwan, decided to take pictures with me. I wasn’t exactly asked about this so much as just sat down next to and hugged while a camera snapped. Jin told me it was because I looked like a doll, with my red curly hair. I thought it might have been because I looked a tad like Beatrix Potter, author of the Peter Rabbit books, who was from the Lake District. I only guessed that part, actually, because it sounded like they were calling me ‘Mrs. Potter.’  They were all extremely friendly about it though, and we talked a bit about their trip afterward. Making new friends is definitely something I want to do more of on this trip.

The next morning, we packed up our stuff at the hostel and checked out, ready to go see Fountains Abbey. The only thing I knew about this place was that it mostly survived the break from the Catholic Church King Henry VIII imposed on England, while most monasteries did not. I was not prepared for how gorgeous the ruins were. And gorgeous they were. We didn’t get there in time for the tour, so we didn’t get as much history as I would have liked, but we did get to explore much more than I was expecting. For the most part, we were allowed to climb up and over parts of the ruins, through windows and doors and over walls, up stairs and around pillars. I took a ridiculous amount of pictures because the architecture was just stunning. The lines created by the stone and the arches and the sky were so beautiful, and it helped that today was the first sunny day we’d had on the trip–I was feeling particularly happy about that, so the world in general just looked brighter. The picture makes the Abbey look pretty, I guess, but this place was absolutely massive. That arch was so big, I couldn’t even judge an accurate distance from the ground because I was so busy being in awe of the physics behind building something like that before the 16th century. Like seriously, how did that happen? It was so, so beautiful. It was quite a trek around the Abbey, however, and another long walk to and through the Water Gardens around the bend. It was worth the walk, of course, but it was definitely tiring. After seeing that, we went for ice cream (and lunch) at the restaurant by the entrance to the Abbey grounds. I had a really great toffee ice cream that tasted kinda like caramel and butterscotch and chocolate all at the same time–needless to say, I liked it. After lunch, we all got on the bus and began the long journey home.

British roads are confusing. Many of the roads in the Lake District reminded me of roads from Up North, less well-kept and small. Even weirder, the hedges and rock walls come right up to the edge of the road, so it’s almost impossible to turn around at any point. Furthermore, they are very narrow, so sometimes only one car can get through at a time. This makes maneuvering rather difficult, not to mention that because the area was rather mountainous, the roads were very very windy and twisty and turny. It actually reminded me of riding around on a bus in Guatemala, which is a comparison I never expected to make. Again, it made me very glad that I wasn’t following EXACTLY in Lizzie Bennet’s footsteps, because I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t have handled a horse-drawn carriage very well.

With happiness, awe, and love,

Bryn

I’d like to preface this particular blog post by saying that some of the things I’m about to say come from personal experience while other things have been told to our class by our History professor. All of these things, however, were rather shocking to me. I suppose I thought that because the U.S. and England shared both a history and a language that many of the customs and day-to-day life things would be the same. I was definitely wrong in that regard. It’s just familiar enough to lull you into a sense of security, and then BAM! something weird happens and you’re so wrong-footed you don’t know how to handle it. I say ‘weird,’ of course, meaning ‘not what I’m used to.’ So, here we go.

10. Cars. Cars in general. I mean, I knew that here they drive on the left side of the road, which was strange enough to conceive of, let alone deal with. But I was kind of expecting that weirdness. What I wasn’t expecting is the fact that pedestrians do NOT have the right of way here. If you accidentally step onto the street and a car happens to be coming at you, they probably aren’t going to stop. You can’t cheat a little bit at the crosswalks and leisurely make your way across to the other sidewalk–if you think you’re not gonna make it while the little green man is telling you it’s safe to go, you gotta RUN before the cars start moving. So not only to I have to re-train myself to look for cars before crossing the street, I’ve also got to learn to not trust the drivers to stop for me if I screw it up.

9. Anti-wastefulness. There are more recycle bins in the house than there are trash bins, and double the amount of recycling bins to take to the curb on Friday mornings than there are trash bins. Apparently, all plastic, glass, paper, and cardboard is to be recycled. Which is cool, actually, but it takes some getting used to. In this same vein, the grocery stores charge you extra if you want to use their paper or plastic bags. Most people have those cloth bags that are reusable, and that is encouraged by the extra bag fee. Finally, the toilets are different in a couple different ways. I first noticed it in the house… the water level in the toilet, the part to stop the bathroom from smelling really bad, is much lower here than it is back home. Sensible, I thought, cutting down on water costs because apparently water is way more expensive here (as a side note, hour-long showers are unheard of. Our professor says most people are in and out in less than 15 minutes). But public toilets are even more anti-wastefulness. Sometimes you have to pay to go to the bathroom, like in the musical Urinetown. Even if you do get into the restroom, they tend to have pre-portioned out toilet paper, like it’s coming out of a Kleenex box. Presumably, this is to cut down on paper usage.

–small side note on this: there are very few trashcans in public places, especially in London. This has nothing to do with wastefulness, according to our professor. Trashcans were being used as bomb drops, so they stopped having so many in the city.

8. Racism. It’s not racism like we think of it, necessarily, although I suppose it could go that way. It’s not exactly negative, more of an acknowledgement of otherness. Maybe it’s because I’m specifically from America, but pretty much everyone I know is a mix of something–Irish, English, French, Norwegian, Swiss, Italian, Greek, African, Indian, Filipino, whatever. Not many Americans are pure anything. But here, people are English, or Irish, or Scottish, or French, or Black. To be frank, I’ve heard more about ‘Muslims’ and ‘how they behave’ here than I ever did back in America. I’m sure I was also fairly sheltered at home and I’m pretty good at not paying attention to things that make me angry, like racism and homophobia. I guess I just wasn’t expecting heritage to be as big of a deal to every other person here. I know culture and heritage are important to each individual person, of course, but there seems to be a different tone here.

This mall in London is the only exception I've found for the 'displaying the Union Jack' thing

7. Not patriotic. This was a big shocker for me. We’re all so gung-ho about America, even if we’re not thrilled about what America does. Most of us have an American Flag somewhere in our houses, and we dress up in red, white, and blue on Fourth of July, and we generally support our troops even if we don’t approve of what our troops are doing in a larger sense. There is a sense of camaraderie in being American that British people apparently don’t feel quite as strongly. Our professor says that British people were much more patriotic during the Victorian Era, the Age of Industrialization and Empire; that people flew the Union Jack in pride and reveled in being British. But apparently people ‘got over’ that when Great Britain was booted from it’s number one spot on the world stage. I’m sitting over here thinking that sounds a little bit like being a sore loser, but maybe that’s just cuz I still feel proud of being an American.

6. Not particularly religious. This one is similar to the patriotism thing.  The British nation as a whole was extremely religious during the Victorian Era, but ‘got over’ that as well. Some credit this with the emergence of Darwinism and evolution as an alternative to the creation story, some think it’s because people just began to lose faith as Britain’s hold on their empire dwindled. Whatever the reason, not very many people here go to church on Sunday, I guess (keep in mind this is hearsay, I haven’t actually witnessed it). I suppose I was surprised by this because I naturally assumed that countries kept their level of religious-ness over time. I figured, since America was practically founded because of strong religious sentiment on both sides of the issue, that England must be really religious, or at least as religious as America is. I guess that, like many assumptions, is very incorrect.

5. Not family centered. This I actually find kind of hard to believe, what with the whole ‘nuclear family’ thing that is so prevalent in American society, even if we claim it’s not. We love our families, generally, and defend them and protect them and brag about them and tease them. We encourage each other and help each other and cheer each other up. According to our professor, British families aren’t quite like that. Instead of the typical ‘encouraging’ parent at a soccer game, for instance, saying “You did great!” and “Nice job!” a typical British parent would say something more like “You missed that open goal, what was up with that?” and “Were you daydreaming that whole time?” Now, I personally have not seen anything that extreme, but I have noticed parents treating kids more like nuisances than like children. This isn’t to say that the British don’t love their children–they absolutely do. They just don’t go for the whole ‘family values’ thing that we love. It’s no wonder they seem to grow up to be disillusioned adults, though, if this is true.

4. Don’t like ‘hard work.‘ And really, who does? Hard work is hard. But Americans seem to have the common belief that hard work will lead to a better future, a better job, a better life. Working hard now means that later you can chill out. Working hard at your job is a way to show dedication and possibly get a promotion or a raise. Working hard, for us, is a way of moving up in the world. British people seem to have given up on the idea that a hard working individual can ‘make it’ in this world. The only first -had experience I’ve had with this is the lack of customer service in stores. If the manager is doing something, or a cash register is acting up, or you need help, you can be sure that they will take their time getting to you. Customers aren’t a priority like they are back home. You just gotta wait for them to be done with whatever they were doing before you walked up. Our professor claims this is because the working classes were so oppressed by harsh capitalism in the Industrial Revolution that they gave up on the idea of working for a better life–life never got better for them.

3. Don’t like Americans. This isn’t actually quite as prevalent as I was expecting, but is real in a different way than I anticipated. It’s not really that they don’t like our politics, although that’s true. It’s not that they resent us for stealing the role as ‘number one’ in the world, although I kinda think that might be part of it. They mostly think we’re crazy. Crazy for believing in things like hard work and family and God; crazy for being so happy and optimistic all the time; crazy for rushing around everywhere in such a big hurry. The only first-had experience we’ve had is when we were at the hostel in London-a group of us met some English guys in the lobby and got to talking about the differences between Americans and Brits and how they can always tell when someone’s from America. They claim it’s because we’re always smiling and laughing. whereas Brits are more bitter about life.  Not gonna lie, I think I like being American much more in this respect (in most of these, actually).

2. “Just coffee” doesn’t exist. If you walk into a coffee shop and order coffee, you’ll probably get a latte or espresso. And a weird look. Occasionally they have what they call ‘filtered coffee,’ but mostly to make coffee like we’re used to, we have to do it at home. I haven’t actually been to a Starbucks here yet, so I’m not sure if that holds true there as well, but I’m guessing it will. The girls here who wanted coffee actually had to go to a couple different stores to find filters for the ground coffee we found.

1. No frozen waffles. Okay, this is more of a personal issue than an issue with British culture in general. I just miss Eggo waffles, okay? They expect me to make full-on Belgian waffles in a waffle maker instead of just toasting some frozen ones. I really just want to pop some in the toaster and have strawberries and cream on top but I don’t think our house even has a waffle-maker, and I’d have to find a good waffle recipe somewhere. I may have found a suitable substitute today, but the jury is still out as I haven’t actually tried them yet. The crepes, however, kinda make up for it 🙂

yumm, nutella crepe

So. This is what I’ve learned about British culture that I was 100% not expecting. I’m sure I’ll learn a lot more in the months to come, but I wanted to give everybody an update on how I’m coping with the ‘familiar-yet-different’ environment of England.

With amusement, mild frustration, and much love,

Bryn