I miss Tsing Tsao
Today marked my first and last visit to the Nottingham Goose Fair, along with my first and last attempt at making Chinese food for the group....
Despite our best efforts, Chinese food took about an hour and a half longer to cook than we anticipated, but the Cashew chicken, Fried rice, Sweet and sour fried chicken, and homemade fortune cookies (with real fortunes inside) possibly made up for our tardiness.
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Goose Fair is, as explained in an earlier post, is aa cheesy carnival that began 712 years ago as a festival/market in Nottingham. Now it's as commercialized and gross as any county fair in iowa, only in iowa we don't have confederate flags (yeah, check out the pic)....
---quick sidenote, guns are illegal to carry in the UK, so apparently games like this are kindof a novelty...On the top of this building were four Confederate flags, waving proudly....
Basically, Goose fair was a cultural experience. There were people everywhere, and as many rides as you can possibly fit in a confined park space... Some of the highlights were the very American "New York Cafe", the "Las Vegas Casino", the "Thunderbirds Are Go!" ride, the expanse of Mushy Peas that were offered at every single food stand- with mint sauce or without, The NFL ride (pic below), and the 'kick the ball in the net' variation of the more American 'throw a ball into the strikezone' game....
The ride on the right is one that Anna and I rode (for 3 quid each)-- it was amazing- basically a free fall over and over again for 5 minutes- the best view of Nottingham at night that you'll ever see.....
This is the American Football ride, which had to confuse the hell out of any Englishman.... what does football have to do with carnivals, and what does football have to do with the UK? Note the awesome paintings of the cheerleaders as well as the names of all of the NFL teams.....
The Cock on a Stick is a candy rooster that is enjoyed by many Goose Fair faithful. It's kindof a gag, but it sells very well....
Why the hell are these peas so popular? I didn't have any money, so i couldn't try it out.....
After Goose Fair, we made our way to The Lion, which is not too far from our house. The pub was reccomended by David Juggins, a friend of the Luther program, and it definitley lived up to his hype. IT was more of a coffee shop atmosphere, and the live music was awesome. Quiz nights are mondays, so we've vowed to try our luck....
Walking home from the pub, we saw this advertisment, one of my favorites so far in the UK:
Tomorrow is an early start, we leave for Wales at 9am- we'll be all over the country, and hopefully i'll have plenty of pictures to post when I return....
Beyond Wales, it sounds like we're getting a trip to London together to see Wicked, the Kevin Spacey play, and sightsee a bit before our class trip in February.... even further down the road, it sounds like Hil and Brandon and I have very strongly decided that an early-November John Meyer sighting is in order, and might fly over to Switzerland to check out his digs..... I'm really looking forward to extensive travel here....
Lost without LOST,
kevin
Finally, a pic of a poster made for students about the SUDDEN RISE IN TUITION COSTS!!!! (yeah, an increase to roughly $6,000 US Dollars a year)
And lastly, my FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL PICTURE (included here for tradition, making it my 15th or 16th such pic) Note my awesome European messanger bag... don't leave home without it.
Run Far, Ark Bar, Goose Fa(i)r
Yesterday was tiring. Both mentally and physically. First day of classes, first meet, first social, and first mindnumbingly upsetting experience with the public transit system in Notts.
My day started easily enough... Brandon and I had to run a bit, but we caught the bus and managed to make it to American Lit early (the bus only comes on the half hour, so we have to get up at 7:30....maybe 7:15 next time..... in order to make our 9am class). The class, it turns out, is a bit of a joke. The professor was awesome, but said several times "this is a class for those of you who are not interested in lit, but need it to fulfill your American Studies degree". Brandon was upset, and I was a little nervous, but as a 10 credit class, it's the only one we could fit into our schedules. So bring on the slave narrative and Huckleberry Finn...It also turns out that we will write zero essays, and are required to drop our seminar session (seminar is only for the 20 credit class).
Two hours of sitting around campus later, Islamic Traditions started. In a very strange fashion, the class consists of two different classes. Both credits (10 and 20) of the same class meet for two lectures a week, but the 20 credit kids are required to take an additional weekly seminar and are required to read and write more.... it was odd to be sandwiched between two 20 credit-takers while basking in the laziness of my 10 credit class...
So all in all, University just got a whole lot easier. Which is good, because if all goes to plan, I'll be able to focus more on exploring the city/day tripping across the contintent/doing my Paidiea and IS135 HW instead of worrying about other things, like Islam...... eh, i dunno, i guess i'll havea better idea later....
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The Crosscountry meet (Fresher's Relays) was different. Relays in crosscountry just doesn't quite sit well with me, although it fits well with my like of shorter distances, something about handing off/tagging another runner while no one else is in sight, after having run only 2K is strange. The team met at the Sportscentre and headed to Wollaton Park, an amazing park about 5 miles in circumfrance just north of campus. We warmed up by running the course, and were broken up into teams. Girls ran the A leg, slow guys ran the B leg, and needless to say, horses like myself ran the C leg. I was nervous, as some of the guys who were assigned the C leg were pretty fast...(Tom runs a 3:53 FAT 1500, while Chris ran a 1:53 800 back in secondary school, and tall Ichabod Crane-eque guy on Hilary's team runs the 3k in under 850...) But all went well, as my lead leg and second leg managed to get us into second, and I held on for the win with my blazing 7:10 2k.....whatever, it was hard to run alone.
Again, it was great to meet new people, and I was pumped for the social later at night-- most of the guys were first years, but there were a surprising amount of people who had signed up in years past but never really decided to run... I met a kid from Manchester (Big United fan), a kid from London (told us about cheap train tix and bumping up to first class for under 10 pounds), and some guys from Birmingham and a kid from Ireland....
Afterwards, Hil and I took the bus back to the flat to get ready for the social held about 3 hours later..... Being a girl, Hilary took forever to get ready, and we made it to the bus stop at 7pm, about 15 minutes before we were told to show up 'fashionably late'. So the first bus stop didn't pan out, and a creepy toothless bum chugging STRONGER beer/cider told me about his cousin who lives in Winnepeg.... kinda like "Oh, you're from North America? Do you know Steve?"
So we gave up on the 77 and walked past the flat in the opposite direction only to see the bus we were waiting for fly by....
The 77 finally came at 730, and we waited through stops about every 200 meters until we made it downtown. Then the real challenge. During the day, it is possible to take the 53 right to campus. After 6, you have to take a bus to the city centre before getting another bus over to near the QMC (Queen's Medical Centre). So we began our search for a bus. We walked around for roughly 15 minutes, and finally found a bus which promptly stopped for 10 minutes to change a driver and stopped again at every stop along the way so that the OCD bus driver could change his mirrors.
Long story short (not so much short, i'm just tired of typing) We made it to the on-campus bar at 820, only about an hour later than when we began. Sweet. And the best part? The social was mildly lame. We arrived to a packed Ark Bar, and actually saw Brandon with all of his Crew buddies (and their matching Tshirts) before making it to the back room where our friends were. We walked in to find about 20 people in a room that could fit about 200. Very chill, very relaxed, they were sitting around talking like civilized people, not rowdy drunk University students that you often find in the UK.
It was a great chance to meet new people, and I had a great time explaining the US to two very confused girls and Nick from Manchester. They were saying hilarious things like "I really really want to go to America- it's soo cool there- why would you want to be here?" or "I hear that the streets are really really wide, and the high schools are huge there- like thousands of kids"..... it was awesome. I had a great time explaining the War in Iraq, the general feeling of the public on George Bush, and about how liberal the media in the UK was in comparison to the FOX NEWS's of the US. I also met a guy who was offered a scholarship at Iowa State, and asked me if it was a good school..... of course I gave him the "Have you ever heard of Kiel Uhl" speech followed by ".....and we have season tickets for pretty much every sport.....my twin goes there......." spiel.
We enjoyed boat races, penalties, and random conversation until it was decided that we needed to catch our bus to ISIS, another club downtown. Hil and I weren't really feeling it, so despite all of our friends from the team ditching us in taxis, we attempted to walk to the city center. (Only about a 15 minute walk, claimed James the website designer for the team) 30 minutes later, Hilary holding her shoes in her hands, we arrived in the city center unscathed and managed to catch a tram to make it home before 12....
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The rest of the night was spent watching a creepy movie on TV4 (it had Boone from LOST and Jessica Beil as a crack addict) and Arrested Development Season 1, and catching up on Brandon and Mary and Emily's nights....
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Today I need to write a 4 page paper for the Muggli's, make fortune cookies for our Chinese dinner, and probobly go downtown to check out the Goose Fair? Wales trip starts tomorrow, so pics will be up by monday.....
Kevin
12 HOURS AND COUNTING
12 Hours until my first class at University, and I'm a little overwhelmed. Partially because of our reading list for Islamic Tradition:
partially because of my first crosscountry relay race, partially because I've gotten lazy, and partially because despite not having class i've still found a way to be extremely busy, and i don't want to add to that crazyness.
Today was boring as hell. I wrote four or five journals for the Mugglis, read 60 pages of the driest textbook drivel about the UK, cleaned the house, and still managed to spend money.
After waking up as sore as hell (see yesterday's hellbent 5 mile run), I read until noon, picked out an article for my Paideia assignment, and made delicious omlets. If this is boring to type, it's probobly painful for others to read.
Long story short, it turns out that we have a Lacoste/Speedo/Boxfresh outlet mall about one block from the flat, and I bought a sweetass shirt that has my name on it, and found some shoes that I more than likely will end up another month in debt on.
Here's my awesome shirt- The idea is based on a famous English footballer named Kevin Keegan who had notoriously awesome curly black hair....
After cleaning the house to impress the neighbors, we had an awesome cornbready dinner of Aztec-like stylings, followed by a lecture that lasted well into the night.
The Juggins (neighbors to our directors' home in Nott for the past 20 years) came over to discuss the area and talk about basic Nottingham info. They dispelled crime rumors, told us the best place to go pubbing- basic common sense stuff.
I really need to sleep, so i'll proboby make it to bed before 1am for the first time since i've been abroad...
Tomorrow is a day of firsts- first class, first cross meet (only a 1.2k... so, a sprint really), first day of GooseFair (Nottingham civil celebration that is in its 712th year.... yeah, that's a 7... as in more than 700 years old....), first crosscountry social (Ark bar followed by a trip into the city center to Isis), and first time sleeping through Thursday morning class.....maybe.
night.
kevin
Geography, Crosscountry, and Peppermint Tea
Another day, another confusing trip to campus, another frustrating registration moment....
Thank god it's over.
Sitting here with my cup-o-tea, tired from my first day of Athletics, at least I can look back and say "It's all starting to fit together". Today was supposed to be a relaxed day of visiting the Castle (for Luther class), visiting Hyson Greene (Luther Class), shopping downtown at H&M, and practice at 17:30. Unfortunately, the universe had other plans.
Brandon and I (being signed up for the same classes, we have a lot of free time), headed to Jubilee campus to sign up for our Woodland Ecology class and drop English, Communications and Society. Wouldn't you know, they cancelled Woodland Ecology (the only class that could possibly work for us). We wandered around the ultra-modern campus for an hour, getting lost in the maze that was the Ed building (in a fire, they'd all roast) before deciding on saying 'screw it' to a Continuing Ed class and headed to main campus.
We looked up classes in Classics, English, American Studies, Biology, Education, and Geography/Geology before settling on a (cross fingers) gen-ed killing no lab science class entitled "Physical Geography of Britain"- which, unfortunatley met at 10 today for two hours....
We were able to sign up and actually meet the prof, who had studied in Canada for her undergrad. She was AWESOME. She went over the detailed syllabus, explained a field trip that we'll take later this year, and simplified the readings list for us (it was about 20 books long)- she told us "buy this book, eat it up, digest it, learn it, and you'll be fine without the others.
Awesome. so now we're good to go.
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Cross practice. Athletics in the UK are very different. The high schools are completly unsupportive and if you'd like to participate, you join a club team. The team here at UNott runs in relays, meets, and open invites. Relays (one this weekend that i'll be in Wales for) consists of 6 guys on each team running 2 miles crosscountry style. It's the wierdest thing ever. Today's practice was 5 miles long, but they set out at a gruelling pace. It reminded me of the first run of the Luther season, in Decorah before heading to CO, when all of the new freshman size up the team and try to bust ass to look good. Only everyone here was trying to look good.
It was painfully awkward when we arrived infront of the Sportscentre (Hil and I)... people were standing around in the strangest getups... what looked like swimtrunks, ratty sneakers, mid-calf scrunched socks- some black, some blue.... just very un-runnerlike. Except one kid- Tom. I was embarassed to take of my warmup pants for fear that my short shorts (2.5in inseam) would be a little revealing. We put our bags in a locked room, and seeing Tom (American from Dickinson College in PA) now wearing what i'll consider from hereon out to be 'acceptable running shorts'- I said "Thank god someone else is wearing normal shorts" and thus began a decent conversation that lasted about 5 hell-bent miles through Beeston and Wallaton to the north of campus. Turns out he's a 800/1500 guy, here for a semester, living in dorms... hopefully this is one of many decent people that I'll meet through the club.
My impression of the club is mixed- some people are good-- long runs of 20+ miles, others suck. I'm in between. A chest cold this past week coupled with very weak training left me gasping. I'm surprised at the training in general- tomorrow I will miss out on trackwork because of Paideia, but we have more intervals on thursday. Friday is always off, and Saturday is either a race or workout, followed by long runs on Sundays. Everything is student-run, so i'm interested how anyone used to professional or collegiate coaching (myself included here) will react to fairly amateur involvement.
Wednesday is a very informal race 'fresher's relay' followed by a social at the Ark Bar and then downtown at Isis. Hazing, hopefully. I'm dissapointed that we will miss out on a lot of socials because of traveling, but it's a difficult thing to measure at this point- what's more important? Friends or travel at this point? Time will tell.
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Lots to do tomorrow- read for class, clean the house to impress guests (we have a very Third Reich-esque cleaning program here.... don't really want to get into it), go to Castle and Hyson in order to write essays about each, and then find a newspaper article to write on as well.
The muggli's are killing me.
class on wednesday, followed by relays and social.
things are looking up
kevin
Classes Start Tomorrow..quick post with pics
In honor of Brandon starting a blog and attempting to make it semi-competitive, I've decided to throw a quick post together before the group heads down to Hyson Green (neighborhood to the south, marketplace, etc- we've been assigned certain areas to explore, and we're eager to mark it off of the list...)
Today has been lazy as crap. Sitting around, reading the paper, eating leftovers, reading our books for Luther-taught classes, and dreading tomorrow.
I've been on a bit of a cooking-kick while here, and over the past two weeks i've made apple coffee cake, a double layer apple cake, a few loaves of apple bread, a pastry-kinda looking apple cake, and today, 5 loaves of Grandma's famous oatmeal bread. There's something about being able to cook for tons of people and having all of the utensils and ingrediants at hand that does wonders for the imagination. We have more flour and apples than anyone would know what to do with.
As promised, here are some awesome Cigarette packs that I've seen over the past week, along with some randoms:
I'm too lazy to flip this first one, but i thought that all of the spanish-British really needed to be more informed...
For the science majors.... and the last one, for a reality check...just in case you had forgotten your mortality while smoking a few...
Last one before I go...
Apparently, texting is so popular here in the UK, that it is now possible to text from phone booths.... and, although this booth is a lame gray color, most that we've seen are the stereotypical red booths....
Goose Fair is, as explained in an earlier post, is aa cheesy carnival that began 712 years ago as a festival/market in Nottingham. Now it's as commercialized and gross as any county fair in iowa, only in iowa we don't have confederate flags (yeah, check out the pic)....
---quick sidenote, guns are illegal to carry in the UK, so apparently games like this are kindof a novelty...On the top of this building were four Confederate flags, waving proudly....
This is the American Football ride, which had to confuse the hell out of any Englishman.... what does football have to do with carnivals, and what does football have to do with the UK? Note the awesome paintings of the cheerleaders as well as the names of all of the NFL teams.....
Why the hell are these peas so popular? I didn't have any money, so i couldn't try it out.....
Walking home from the pub, we saw this advertisment, one of my favorites so far in the UK:
And lastly, my FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL PICTURE (included here for tradition, making it my 15th or 16th such pic) Note my awesome European messanger bag... don't leave home without it.
