Nott What You'd Expected...

It takes a village.... to bore a college student

Last night was an eyeopener. Nottingham is way too damned big. I'm all for a goodtime, but to revert back to my Amusement Park analogy, I almost feel like there's too much to do here. there are literally thousands of bars, clubs, pubs, and hangouts. Walking from one side of city centre to another is like crawling over drunks, avoiding people handing out flyers, and avoiding taxis. We found out the hard way that IDs are a necessity, and International ID cards do not count. Passports and Drivers License only please.

Mary and Hil headed home dejected (they bonded, don't worry), and the rest of the overwhelmingly large Luther contingency made our way to Walkabout, a huge Australian-themed pub/club on the Westside. Atmosphere was ok, drinks were cheap, and the crowd was entirely too old. We arrived at the conclusion that we are lame. We have too many people, no native friends, and are not comortable enough with the city to wander around at night. Hopefully that will change.

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Today was an experience.... each one of us (the 9 Notters) were assigned a local village just outside of the Nottingam city limits. Ryan and I were paired up to explore Lowdham, a city to the southeast of city centre. Other cities included Calverton, Cotgrave, Sutton-Bonnington, and Southwell (pronounced Suthall)...

Basically we were told to make our way to the towns, enjoy the town, and make our way back. The objective was to talk to as many people as possible (even with their stuffy attitudes). Unfortunately, Ryan and I are not exactly anxious to talk to strangers, let alone on the other side of the world. Sad, yes, but I think the act of talking to another person should be voluntary, not a graded adventure.......nah, I'm just scared to talk to people....

On the plus side, Brandon and Kate managed to meet more people today than I have in my three weeks here It's a skill. Kate has a knack for talking to random people about ANYTHING. Today, while walking down the street she noticed a man gardening and managed to have a 30 minute conversation by using the pick-up line: "I think we have a bush like that back home in the states"....this girl could write one-liners for a living....

Ryan and I were less than enthusiastic. After the bus drove straight through our town once, we managed to get off as soon as possible and walk across the street to try and catch the next bus back into town. We stood next to a Kelly Osborne look-alike for awhile before the bus actually came, but the awkwardness lasted throughout the day.

Ryan and I first made our way to the Magna Charta (a play on words, a silent H? we still don't know)- one of the 3 famous pubs in Lowdham (and also one of the few businesses actually open). After downing a pint before noon, we headed out to find better food. -- in a side note, it's kind of sad that a chain company has taken over the best pubs in the UK, but H&H is the owner of both Ye Old Trip to Jerusalem and the Magna Charta)....

Our next stop was a bust. Despite the sign outside reading "5 pounds- one pint and one pie- Satudays"- a freshly chalked sign mind you, the young bartendress inside was less than helpful.
"so i see you have a deal today- five pounds for a pint and a meal"
"what? where'd you get an idea like that?"
"outside, the sign that says so"
'no no no, not here we're not serving food all day'

Sweet. so we left, our conversation with her being the one and only one we had maintained during our hour in Lowdham, still leaving a bad taste in my mouth (or was it the H&H Special Lager? )

To draw a longer-than-necessary blog to an end, we finally managed to find a decent pub, the World's End, where i enjoyed the bliss that is Guiness Extra Cold and a Steak Sandwich on a hoagie.


Ryan managed to flirt like crazy with a girl on the bus, but a combination of her caked-on makeup and the bus's vibrating seats gave my already bad headache a stir, and I vouched for listening to my ipod instead of branching out.

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In the end, it was kindof depressing. the towns surrounding Nottingham are falling apart- the elderly enjoy them, but the young people come by the busloads into the city centre on weekends (estimates are as high as 100,000 people every weekend come in just to party). ..

tomorrow looks like a day of shopping, visting Hyson Greene (neighborhood nearby), and watching Jane Eyre on BBC1.

posted by Kevin @ 9:50 PM