The English's English

Thankfully I didn't have to encounter a significant language barrier studying abroad. But I will say that the language isn't the same and sometimes British accents can be a little heavy. Just last night I hung out with some basketball guys watching the NBA All-Star game and I had to ask guys to repeat themselves due to their accent. I list a few words below with their (American) English translation.

mate - friend

mince - ground beef

zed - the letter "z"

fag - cigarette 

ta - thanks

quid - money like we use "bucks"

bloody - sometimes a cuss word or sometimes not as vulgar like "freaking"

rubbish - trash

lecturer - professor

cheers - used as "have a good day", "thanks", "hello", "bye", and for dozens of other variations

Last Saturday I went to York for the day. Just like my home city of Chester, York is a Roman walled city. The walls and streets are very similar to those I see here so I wasn't in love with the city of York. I think Chester pulls off the walls a little better and the city has a more homey feel. When we arrived in York we went into the Jorvik Centre for an hour which is a small museum and recreation of viking life that inhabited the city over in the 9th century. I was very impressed with the church York Minster. The cathedral, built nearly 1000 years ago, is the largest Gothic style church in Europe North of the Alps. Inside the structure, the walls are filled with over 200 stained glass windows and on the East side of the church lies the world's largest medieval stained glass window. Although York wasn't incredible impressive, York Minster was its redeeming grace. 

York Minster

The naive 

The picture only includes 40% of the cathedral

School is picking up and I have my first essay due March 1. Lectures have been pretty standard. It's nice only going to each class once a week but at the same time I think going to class a couple times a week is better for learning the material. 

As I write this blog, I can hear the Brits loudly walking by my window to "go out" for tonight. 11:30pm and their nights are just getting started. I'll be sure to expand on the "going out" phenomenon in a future post!

 

Kilts and Bagpipes

In England they have what is called "half term" which is halfway through the school year and everyone gets the week off from school. At the university level, they turn this week into a "development week" and have various seminars about different subjects throughout the week. To most, it's a time to go home, to travel, or to work so back in January a group of eight of us booked a trip to Scotland. So we spent the week developing not in the university, but in Edinburgh and in the Highlands!

On Feb. 12th we left Chester and arrived in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. After finding the hostel and checking in, we looked around the city and walked the "Royal Mile". Then for dinner we ate at The White Elephant which is where J.K. Rowling spent many hours writing Harry Potter. When it became dark outside, five of us went and climbed a big hill that looks out over the city before calling it a night and preparing for our five day tour of the Highlands.

Edinburgh Castle

On a hill overlooking Edinburgh

The next 5 days we were on a bus with our tour guide Neil and about 20 others. Neil was a great guide and very funny in the way he could tell stories of Scotland. Although he didn't really have a stopper on his cussing, his knowledge and ability to wear his kilt with class made him a very enjoyable guy. The next paragraphs will be a brief overview of what all I saw in that day and a couple of notes to go with them. 

Day 1: We started by going to the small town of Dunkeld before going to see the ruins of Ruthven barracks. We had a picnic on the beach of Loch Morlich then to the Culloden battlefield where the English defeated the Jacobites. Our last stop for the day was at Balnuaran of Clava to see a cemetery and standing rocks that are believed to have been used as a calendar. We finished the day in Inverness which is one of the biggest cities in the Highlands. We just walked around Inverness until dinner time when we went to a pub for a ceilidh, a social gathering for a dance. I was able to pick up a few Scottish dances and tried haggis for the first time. The dance was a lot of fun and the haggis wasn't too bad. Later in the week I tried canned haggis and haggis in a roll but this haggis from the first night was the best.

Ruthven barracks

The beach of Loch Morlich

The river in Inverness

Day 2: Our first stop on Valentine's Day was at Loch Ness where we did a little Nessie hunting and came up short. A man actually lives by the lake in a trailer and has lived there for 20 years Nessie hunting full-time. We took a short hike through a forrest in Farigaig before going to the Falls of Foyer. For lunch we ate in a small town then stopped in Drummadrochit where I got a picture on top of a Nessie statue. A little while later we saw Eilean Donan Castle where scenes from Highlander and Made of Honor were filmed. Our hostel for  night two and three was in Kyleakin. Fun fact: "Kyle" means a straight of water so Akin is a city on a straight of water. "Loch" means lake so Loch Ness is Lake Ness. There are hundreds of words like that used in front of places.

In the Farigaig forest  

Caledonian Canal

Eilean Donan Castle

Touching a bridge and turning into Harry Potter. You could call it magical. 

Day 3: We started the day by going to Sligachen which is by the Cullin Mountains and I put my face in a stream for seven seconds because it supposedly makes you more beautiful. Hope it worked! After drying off my refreshed face we went to Portree that has a line of colorful houses along the water. Next was probably our longest hike of the trip and we went to see the Old Man of Storr. Shortly after we saw Creag an Fheilidh which is a cliff that looks like a kilt so is nicknamed "Kilt Rock". We then walked around the ruins of Duntulum Castle before going to Uig where we walked around the hills and heard stories of ferries running the place. Brian and I tried to get close to some sheep but were unsuccessful. Then back to Kyleakin for the night!

Becoming beautiful

Colorful Portree

Old Man of Sorr

On top of a hill in Uig

Day 4: The day started with The Five Sisters of Kintail hills then we made a toilet stop in Spean Bridge Mill. At 11am we went to the Ben Nevis Distillery to learn the whiskey making process and sample some that they make. My favorite thing I learned was that the process starts with 42,000 liters of water then after four stages the water will become 4,000 liters of whiskey. We then went to the Glennfinnan Viaduct which would mean nothing to you until I add that it's the bridge that the Hogwarts Express goes over. I took some funny pictures and even transformed into Harry after touching the bridge. Carrying on, we saw the ruins of Inverlochy Castle then stopped to see the scenery of Glencoe. We drove by the castle that is used at the end of Monty Python and the Holy Grail then ended up in Oban for the night. Around 9pm I went to another ceilidh so I've mastered some Scottish dances or at least I like to think so. Watch out America! Scottish dancing is coming back with me!

Wizards doing what wizards do

I touched the bridge and turned into Harry Potter. You could call it magical. 

Oban

 Day 5: The first stop was at Carnasserie Caslte then to Dunado. Most of the day was spent driving back to Edinburgh with a few other stops on the way. In the afternoon we saw Loch Lomond which has a song featuring it. My favorite part of the day was seeing William Wallace country and the monument built in honor of him and his rebellion against the English. This is the man that Mel Gibson portrays in the movie Braveheart. I learned that in reality kilts were only worn in the Highlands and Wallace wasn't from the Highlands so he wouldn't have worn a kilt like the movie portrays. The painting of the faces in the movie was taken from another time period so that's not accurate either. We made it back to Edinburgh and ate dinner at a very authentic Chinese restaurant and called it a night.

Jumping in Dunado 

The Wallace Monument

The next day I visited the National Museum of Scotland which was great then went to the National Gallery and got to see work by Raphael, Titian, and Van Gogh. I hopped on a train around 5pm and got back to Chester around 9. I must conclude the post with saying that Scotland was absolutely amazing and I loved the Highlands. I feel so developed! 

American football to English football

I don't have much for this post mainly because I know I'll have a long post coming about Scotland in the next 48 hours but here are a few things that I experienced before Scotland...

The Student Union bar, a bar literally on campus for the students, played the Super Bowl on a projector for us. It just wasn't the same. For one, most of the people watching didn't know what was going on. Two, part of the Super Bowl tradition is all the food that comes with watching the game and I had nothing to snack on. Dillon needs food to be happy so food happiness was not fulfilled during the game. Yes, I did just refer to myself in third person.  Finally and most importantly... commercials! You don't realize how much time of the Super Bowl is commercials until you have to watch BBC commentators talk at every commercial break. I was able to catch up on the commercials the next day on the internet but this year I don't think I missed much.

I played in a dodgeball tournament for charity about 1.5 weeks ago with the basketball team. We almost completed an undefeated run but were upset in the championship. Really the only reasons I'm posting about the dodgeball tournament are because I found the nature of the tournament very fun and friendly, they gave away alcohol as a prize which would never happen back home to college students on campus, and I needed to fit in a shout-out to Clyde from the basketball team!

Saturday the 11th I went to Liverpool again to go to an Everton football game. Two friends went with me and we explored Liverpool briefly before finding the stadium and watching the game. Everton, which was ranked 11th out of the 20 teams in the Premier League, upset 4th ranked Chelsea 2-0. The stands were full with about 40,000 in attendance and random chants would carry through the crowd. The best of those chants was "Ladyboy! Ladyboy! Ladyboy!" or at least they thought so because they used it a dozen times. To our surprise, Americans Landon Donovan and Tim Howard play for Everton so the USA presence was definitely relevant at the game. We supported Everton from the beginning and even considered painting our faces. The paint idea was thwarted after seeing how cold it was and that no one was painted up. Overall an experience that has me agreeing with the rest of the world... the term "football" should probably be left to the sport that uses their feet.

The view from our seats

John, Marvin, and me before the game

Living it up in Liverpool

So as if getting the fire department to come to our house wasn't enough, I got to take a little visit to the local hospital last week. Luckily it wasn't for me, rather an American friend who hurt his shoulder in our basketball game. After figuring out where the hospital was located, we entered into the "A&E", Accident and Emergency, to get my friend assessed by a doctor. He didn't have any form of ID on him (not that they even asked) yet we still got to see a doctor about 75 minutes later. The diagnosis was that he tore a ligament in his shoulder so the nurses gave him a few pain pills - for free. I've talked earlier about socialized education but I'm glad I got to see how easily accessible medicine has the capability of being. I'm not taking sides on the issue of socializing health care, but in this case, my friend and I were happy to let Britain's taxes pay for the doctor visit, the X-Ray, and the pain medication.

A group of six Americans went to Liverpool last Saturday, February 4. We decided to go early to walk around and not have lots of people around. By early I mean that 9:15am is early to them and as you can see from my first picture below, no one was really out and about. We went to several museums throughout the day. Our morning was spent in the Museum of Liverpool which opened last year then we went to the Merseyside Maritime Museum followed up by the World Museum. We didn't spend very long in the World Museum because it was overrun with energetic children and cranky parents so we spent the rest of our afternoon in the Walker Art Museum. For dinner we went to a local pub then finished off the day going to The Cavern Club. If you've never taken Beatles History 101, The Cavern Club is where The Beatles got their start. With that said, hearing live Beatles music in that historic atmosphere was easily the highlight of the day! Another note about Liverpool is that I will be going back this Saturday to watch the Everton vs. Chelsea football game. Details to come. Pending I make it out alive.

Me planking in the wee hours of the morning.. cough cough 9: 30am

We may have inspired the sculpture behind us

Streets of Liverpool

Walking into the same place that the Beatles were discovered. I'm practically a Beatle now. 

Random notes...

I eat in the cafeteria on campus Monday through Friday for lunch and dinner. Unfortunately the food isn't buffet style but nonetheless its tastiness has impressed me. I'm on a perfect record so far... a happy plate for every meal I've had. 

Being next in the "queue" does not mean your Sleepless in Seattle is next to come in the mail from Netflix. It means to "wait in line". You always mind the queue and don't break it. They seem to really like queuing here and you join the queue everywhere. 

"My love" is a term that I would usually use sparingly but it's been used on me at least five times since I've been in England. All five times have been in a Tesco's grocery store by a lady older than 40. Don't be alarmed, it's nothing creepy. Saying "Hello my love" is just a welcoming term almost like saying "hey man" or "hey pal". Another thing about cashiers is that they have said "thanks very much" nearly ever time they take my money. It's not much of a thing to notice, but watch what cashiers do the next time you go to a store. 

Last, there is almost a paranoia about safety and more specifically, fires. Signs here. Signs there. Signs everywhere. Dr. Seuss could write a children's book about how many signs are posted. Every door has a sign that says "Fire door keep closed" to remind you to shut your door so you slow down the fire from spreading room to room. There's even a sign outside our house that has a picture of two people with four arrows pointing to them and reads "Fire assembly point". A little much? Maybe. I've learned to accept the significant meaning to the simple saying "To each their own".

Don't judge our singing! Money can't buy us love but maybe it could buy us better voices. 

Manly Chester and the Chinese New Year

I would like to start by saying that hopefully I didn't make my blog expectations too high in the first few posts. There is so much to write about but often times when you sit down to write, the thoughts may not come easily or when they do it can be difficult to write them when they consist of random thoughts or happenings. So unless I'm traveling a lot, my posts will probably involve just random thoughts and an update of what I've been up to lately.

On January 25 (or 25/1/12 as they would write it) I had my first basketball game with the University. I was told that we would have "cheerleaders" for our game but I just thought it was the English way of saying "fans". I was mistaken. There were more cheerleaders in the cheerleading club than both basketball rosters combined. As far as the game went, it was just as physical as back in the states and I gracefully fouled out of the game with about about a minute left in regulation. Our team ended up winning by one so I can now say I'm undefeated playing basketball in England. You don't realize how wonderful wood floors are in gyms until you take a few tumbles on the floor we play on over here. By the end of the game I had some nice floor burns and a little blood but that's all a part of the experience!

I'm taking a Cell Biology and Biochemistry class and I had my first lab last week. I found the labs to be nearly identical in setup as back home and luckily there was a girl that was willing to be my lab partner otherwise I would've been a little lost. It's been difficult walking into a year long class halfway through. 

To save money on the weekends, we try to cook when we get the chance. The keyword in that sentence was try. Last Saturday when preparing pancakes and bacon, we set the fire alarm off due to steam. It's not just an alarm you can shut off by a button or by fanning the steam out of the room. You have to wait for the campus security and the fire department to arrive. So my first attempt at cooking a legitimate breakfast in England was accompanied by a conversation with a few fire fighters. On the note of fires, they seem paranoid with fires over here. Every door has a sign that says "Fire door keep shut" and signs in general are never in shortage. 

We ate the plate of pancakes waiting for the fire department to arrive

A deck of playing cards has been a great way to get the international students together on weeknights. I think we've playing at least 10 different card games and the other night we had a brain overload of mind games. Another way I've passed time on weeknights has been to watch "How I Met Your Mother" or recently I watched the TV min-series of "Pride and Prejudice". Don't judge me for the second one. You always need a good fix of chick flicks. 

I went with a group of eight internationals to Manchester last Sunday to see the Chinese New Year festivities. A friend studying in China informed me that the new year actually started a week prior to our festivities so English China does what it wants when it wants. I joked before arriving in Manchester that it is the more manly version of Chester but after seeing Manchester I think that I would gladly live in the less manly Chester any day. Manchester has older buildings and the history but just walking around it resembles America with all of its newer, taller buildings. The Chinese celebration was a very cool touch to the trip and from what I've read, over 70,000 people were in Manchester to see it as well. 

Me in Manchester

Chinese New Year Celebration

I had trouble embedding this video so here is a link of video I took at celebrations in Chester and Manchester..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hal4TixibU0