Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Hello, world. Hello, blog. Hello, all my dear friends that I have not seen for at least a month (if not longer). On Friday, it will be exactly a month since I moved to Boston—the "Covington of the North," as Tom calls it. As you can imagine, the month has been quite interesting, and I have some stories to tell. So, why not start from the beginning? I'll even back up a little from that.I accepted the position of Systems Engineer with FactSet in November after interviewing with them in Norwalk, Connecticut in October. The position was originally there in Norwalk, but I was able to swing getting it in Boston, which I'm way happier about because Norwalk isn't exactly a place to write home about. Or maybe you'd write home about it a lot, since you'd have nothing else to do.
Before heading to Boston though, I had a month of training in Norwalk. I started Dec. 6th, worked two weeks in Norwalk, worked two weeks from home (Covington) over Christmas, then two more weeks in Norwalk before finally heading to Boston, late on MLK Jr day, Jan. 17th.
So there I was sitting on a plane to Boston with only one big suitcase as my luggage, and all the rest of my stuff in a big U-Haul cube (called a "U-Box") back home that will be shipped to me shortly. I didn't really know anyone in Boston. No close friends at least. Did I mention I didn't have a place to live yet? I mean, I could have found some apartment and I guess got the lease over email, but I really wanted to see a place before I signed a lease. So I had decided to just go up there, take the first week or two to check out apartments, and sign on the best I find. In the end, I'm glad I did it (I think), but it was rough.
When the plane landed, it was close to midnight, so I went straight to a hotel and crashed. The next day, which I had requested off, I basically used to take all my stuff over to a hostel I had found online. My mom had suggested the idea of a hostel, and it ended up being a great deal. It was also really clean and had good security, and way cheaper than the cheapest hotel. It snowed most of the day that first day, so I got a really hearty, "welcome to Boston" from mother nature. That night I wanted to explore at least one of the neighborhoods I was interested in, so I decided to walk around The South End. I didn't have any boots, so I just went out in my sketchers, which wasn't the best idea.
You see, the first day or two after a snowstorm up here, a huge pool of slush anywhere from 2-6 inches deeps forms at EVERY FREAKING INTERSECTION. You have two options: walk 30 feet around it (and out in the middle of the road), or walk right through it. Even if you avoid it the best you can, you're still going to get wet, which I did – my shoes were soaked. The other funny thing is there's a wall of snow between the sidewalk and road on both sides of the road because of the snowplows. So, as I'd walk down the street, trying to avoid the slush pools, sometimes a car would come and I would get caught in the middle with no easy entrance back onto the sidewalk. I felt strangely like those squirrels that can't decide which direction to run in order to not become road kill. I remember one time in particular walking back from a music venue, and every intersection became this puzzle of how to get across due to the slush I mentioned above. There's a huge puddle in front of you, but you can't walk right or left easily because of a huge wall of snow. A couple of times I went for it and practically performed parkour to climb over the snow mountains on the corners to get around the slush.
Anyway, back to my first days in Boston. My second day in Boston (Wednesday), I had my first day of work in the Boston office. My job is awesome. It's pretty much always a 40 hour work week. My two teammates are 23, and my boss is 26, and we all get along really well. It's amazing. For real. However, the rest of my team is in Norwalk, which does make it kind of weird I have to admit. The office in Boston has about 130 employees, but I don't directly work with any of them. I don't even have a manager or anything up here haha. I just go and sit on my desk. Strange.
Back to apartment searching. My goal was to find an apartment within two weeks. I basically searched craigslist every night and set up showings as I could fit them in. I also took some afternoon/evenings to simply explore neighborhoods on foot that I was interested in, which really helped. I knew the most important thing was to simply find some place to live quickly, but at the same time, I knew that if I took a few days more than I initially wanted to find a place that I really liked and could see myself staying in for a while, it would be worth it. The Friday of my second week (about a week and a half after I flew to Boston), I ended up getting a pretty sweet deal on a place really near the heart of Boston, only 5-10 minutes away from work by the subway, which has been amazing. Plus there's a Starbucks and a Dunkin' donuts on the same street corner of my apartment building. One time I even got a donut at Dunkin' and a coffee at Starbucks and enjoyed them together. It was special.
During that week and a half, I stayed at the hostel. One night, in my 5-bed dormitory-style room, I finished the Gatorade I was drinking and threw it across the room at the trash and missed miserably. The Japanese guy with a really thick accent over on one of the other beds laughed at me. And thus began my friendship with Satoshi. I found out he's Catholic, and we've gone to church together every week I've been in Boston. I've been going to City Life, which is a PCA Presbyterian that's a part of Tim Keller's Redeemer Pres' church network. The first Sunday that Satoshi and I went, we sat with a guy from the Netherlands named Wouter who is here for 6 months as a marketing student (Satoshi is here for only 6 weeks doing psychology research). The three of us have hung out multiple times since then, and we always have very interesting conversations considering that we're from three very different cultures. This past week Satoshi took me to a Catholic church. Unfortunately, halfway through the service, I realized that it was not Catholic, but Episcopal, which I had to explain to Satoshi. (For the record, it didn't have "Episcopal" anywhere in its name, but the pastor talking about helping Roman Catholics convert to Episcopal was a bit of a giveaway.)
I also had a bit of trouble actually moving into my apartment. Even though I applied for the lease that Friday when I found it, I didn't get to move in until the next Thursday because they needed a certified check, and there are no Wells Fargo around here. I had to open a Bank of America account, write a check to myself, and then wait for it to post. Once I did move it, it was glorious to finally be in a room by myself after being in a hostel for 2 weeks and some change.
When I took my first shower there though, I discovered a major problem. Every 10 or 20 seconds a burst of cold water and/or a burst of scalding hot water came through the shower head. It was completely unpredictable, and random, but it sure happened a lot. And it didn't go away over the first couple of days like I irrationally hoped. Every shower I took, I would stand in anticipation, dodging the water when it suddenly turned extremely hot. It was miserable. I filed a maintenance report on Sunday (after moving in Thursday night) to get it fixed, but I was worried there was nothing they could do since I could tell the bursts of hot water were because other people in the building were flushing toilets, turning on the sink, etc.
That first shower was also when I realized that I didn't have a towel with me, since the hostels provided a towel ("hostels" is plural because the first one I stayed in had a 2-week limit and had to move to a second one for a few days before finally moving into my apartment). So for at least two days of showers, I would get in, get burned by hot water repeatedly, then step out on to a cold stone floor with no bath mat, and dry off with spare t-shirts haha. On Saturday I was like, I gotta get a dang towel. So I went to target and bought a towel, hand towel, and bathmat. I was genuinely looking forward to being able to use a towel the next day. So I got up, took a shower, got out and finally dried off with a towel – a much needed relief after the miserable, alternately freezing then burning shower. But wait. What's this? Why is my arm completely covered in little blue fuzzies? Then I looked into the mirror and saw that my face was completely covered in blue as well. You've got to be joking. So I had to get back in the shower, get burned twice more as I rinsed off, and then dry off with my t-shirts again. Errrrrrr.
That night, I washed the towels and bathmat (I guess you're supposed to do that first...) in order to use them as planned the next morning. After I put them in the dryer (which is shared between everyone on my floor), I realized it would be after midnight before they were done, and I didn't think anyone else would be using the laundry that late on a Sunday night, so I just left it in there and planned to get it in the morning. I knew at worst someone would just put my towels and bathmat on top of the dryer so they could use it. Finally, I thought, I'd be able to use a freakin' towel in the morning. But of course you probably can guess at this point what happened. I woke up, and someone had stolen my two poor towels and bathmat. So once again I took a shower, got burned multiple more times, and dried off with t-shirts. That night I bought another set of towels + bathmat, washed them, and successfully used them the next day, thank goodness.
Luckily, they were able to fix my shower on Wednesday by replacing the mixing valve with one that properly does pressure balancing. I was ecstatic about that. I had already decided that I'd have to move out if they couldn't fix the shower problem. I mean, there's no way I was going to get up and dread taking a shower every single day, month after month, like that. It was seriously painful.
Honestly, now I love my apartment. The people are super nice (both the 24-hour front desk security and the office people), and the location is just incredible. I can get to pretty much anywhere in Boston within 15 minutes or so. I love it.
On a side note, one thing I didn't particularly like when I first came here to Boston had to do with its image as the "world's biggest college-town." I spent 6 years in college, and I was done with it. I wanted to move on and be a young professional and hang out with other young professionals. I didn't want to be surrounded by undergrads all the time and feel like I hadn't moved past that. So one thing that annoyed me just how many college students there are here. I'll admit, it was a lot because the hostel I was staying in was right in the middle of Berkeley College of Music. But it seemed that every time I turned around, someone was mentioning something about how many students there are in Boston and how it's "just" a college town. I don't have anything in particular against college towns except that I wanted to move to one of America's great big cities, not just a college town. It didn't need to be absolutely huge like New York or Chicago, but just a Seattle or Austin, or something like that.
It was actually starting to get to me one point, especially since I just made this huge effort to move here and was also at the same time dealing with living in a hostel and all the other stresses of moving to a new city. So about the 5th time I heard someone mention something about how Boston is just a college town, I just about grabbed them by the collar and yelled, "DID I ACCIDENTALLY MOVE TO ATHENS, GA!?!?!" I didn't though, which is probably good.
Since then, I've seen more of Boston and gotten away from Berkeley, and that's helped me see Boston as more of one of America's great cities again. But it was kind of funny just how much I kept hearing about Boston being a "college-town" that first week or so I got here.
Few closing words for this entry. First on the cold. I can confirm that it is indeed colder here. And I'm not sure it was the smartest thing to move up here during the coldest month of the year either. Actually, I'm pretty sure it wasn't, because the second dang week I was up here, I woke up to -2 degrees outside. Luckily the news that day said it's the coldest it's been here in 6 years, which I was glad of. I was a little bit afraid they were going to say, "Good morning, Bostonians, it's another moderately chilly morning..."
It actually averages only about 10-12 degrees colder here than GA, which honestly isn't that bad. The worst part, I think, is that it's cold enough on a day-to-day basis in Jan/Feb that, unlike GA, you almost have to cover your face, head, and hands. In GA, you can pretty much get away without a hat or scarf all winter. It's a good bit harder to do that here.
The thing that has been particularly unusual for up here this year though is the sheer amount of snow. I think they got their annual average by the beginning of January, and I think we've had like three snow storms since then. On that note, I'll leave you with this lovely picture from my facebook:
Until next time!
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Sorry, but I couldn't help but show that picture first, even though it's not yet relevant. It's almost too perfect, with both our facial expressions and Magdalen tower behind us. Every time I look at it, my mind is blown that such a picture from our trip even exists. It should be on the flyer for the Oxford Program or something.
Moving on, here we are, at the last week of this great adventure. It ended up being quite possibly my favorite week of the trip, simply because everyone spent more time with each other. Final outings were made to our favorite places around Oxford, and budding friendships were solidified. That sounded really touchy-feely. I'm usually more masculine, I swear.
On Monday, I wasn't planning on doing much because we had a group project due the next day at 7pm in my CS class. So I went down to the college bar and hung out with everyone for a little bit but then headed back to my room to start on the project. But then I realized it was due at 7pm Eastern Time (because of the Atlanta-based system we use to submit projects), which is midnight here. So, I headed back down to hang out some more since I didn't feel like working on it anyway. Chris and Patricia were playing pool, so Tim and I sat down near the table, and I told Tim that we were going to be commentators for the game, just like the commentators on the Texas Hold 'Em tournaments you see on TV. What happened next was quite magical, because for the next 20 minutes, as Chris and Patricia played, Tim and I did some of the best improv I've ever been a part of. Patricia took twice as long to make each shot just because she was laughing so hard. And I will say, though it is a struggle for me to, Tim definitely out performed me that night. I had no idea he was good at improv, but he played off of everything I said and started new hilarious material as well. Even though I had my moments, everything I said he took to the next level. I began to wonder if he had ever been on Whose Line or something. At one point, I was making fun of Chris by saying that he had only barely won last weeks tournament against handicapped people. I mentioned in particular his match against "Schizophrenic Bill." Tim, without any hesitation chimed in, "Ah yes, I remember that match well. Right after the match Schizophrenic Bill picked up two of the billiard balls, put them on his eyes like flight goggles, and pretended he was a fighter pilot, flying around the room for the next 20 minutes." How do you come up with stuff like that?? Being a big fan of watching and performing improv, I loved it.
The next day, I was determined to do one of the two things I had wanted to do at Oxford but had yet to do them: visit Magdalen College and Christ Church College. I chose Magdalen college for the day, and headed that way in the morning. After touring the buildings, I then walked all through their grounds by the canals. One of the reasons I wanted to do this (beside its being one of the most beautiful grounds of Oxford) was because almost exactly a year ago Hetty came to Oxford and also walked the grounds at Magdalen. So as I walked around, I tried to picture Hetty's exploring here, and even tried to guess where exactly she dropped her cane into the river (true story). It was really the perfect thing to do for the day, and I even took the time to plop down on a bench on the grounds and write some final thoughts of my study abroad experience in my journal.
That night the Provost of the college (kind of the dean) hosted a reception in his gardens for all the Georgia Tech students and faculty. These gardens are normally private, so none of us had ever been in this part of the college before. It was a lot of fun to get dressed up, mingle with each other (honestly, there hasn't been that much of an opportunity to mingle with all 130 students), and get pictures. Plus, since this was the last week of school, there was a sort of sentimentality in the air.
Right after the reception, we got a group to all go to the Turf Tavern, which I first mentioned in Oxford Week #1. This ended up being one of my absolute favorite nights of the trip, because we had about 20 students at the tavern together, and a lot of us were actually from different groups, which was great. We hung out there from the time the Provost's reception ended until the tavern closed at midnight.
So about that CS assignment that was due at midnight. Well, I had started on it, but then I found out from Stephen that the deadline was extended until the 2:30pm the next day (our time), right before class started at 2:55, which is why I felt the liberty of going to the Turf Tavern with everyone. However, the next morning, Stephen and I knew we had to get cracking. We had something like 5 hours to write a 3-5 page paper with references and prepare some powerpoint slides and a 20 minute presentation. The heat was on. Luckily, we rose to the occasion. Stephen and I met in the Junior Common Room (JCR), which has a lot of computers for student use, and worked straight until class started. I have in my memory this particular scene of Stephen clicking with fury on a powerpoint presentation and my speed-typing a 4 page paper, taking a sip of my can of coke every 20 seconds. My fingers haven't moved that fast since I played Flight of the Bumblebee. Every once in a while we'd stop for a second to try to decide what our presentation was actually about and what our conclusion was. The presentation itself went pretty well, though I didn't have a good outline to talk from and the lack of structure hurt a little I think. Either way, the project was our last assignment for the class, and we didn't have a final, so it was a relief to be done. Plus, that was my last college class session ever, so it was especially nice to walk out of that one.
Though this whole ordeal might not sound like much fun, I had decided that on study abroad I was going to err on the side of making memories with friends than making the highest grades possible. Most of my college career I have gone the other way. So you can imagine my even greater joy when we found out the next day we made a 97 on the project! Ha! Take that, Georgia Tech!
On Thursday, for lunch I went to the Eagle and Child to have a meat pie lunch, since I had yet to have one since coming to Oxford. My friends Patricia, Gretchen, and Chris actually had had the same idea and I ran into them in the E&C and joined them. I had a roast beef one, and it was absolutely delicious.
There is a saying that during the summer there are more Americans at Oxford than there are Oxford students. This definitely seemed true for us, since not one but two Georgian schools were represented at Oxford. Yes, our arch rival, UGA, was staying for a comparable amount of time at another college at Oxford. And, as a result of this, there has a been a thirteen year tradition of a soccer game between the two schools at Oxford. Though Tech is seen as the nerdier school, we have won 12 out of the last 13 games believe it or not, and last year we won 8-0! Our captain this year was Stephen, the guy who I did the CS project with. Unfortunately for me, the game was scheduled for 7pm that night, and my last church small group was scheduled for 5:30pm, and I knew it would run long. I decided that I really wanted to go to my last small group meeting, so I headed towards that with plans to catch the end of the Tech vs UGA game.
The small group was great, and I'm really glad I went. I only went three times total during my time at Oxford, but I became friends with some very cool people there. The meeting did last a long time, and I didn't get to leave until, I think, around 7:45pm. The playing field was not at Worcester College, and it took me a good bit longer to get there than I initially thought. By the time I got there, there was only about 15 minutes or so left in the game. Even worse, Tech was down 2-1! We cheered them on, and when we thought we only had seconds left (the ref was keeping time), one of our guys scored! The next few minutes were kind of crazy, and we couldn't figure out why the ref wasn't calling the game, but both teams ended up scoring again, making it tied at 3-3 when the ref finally called it. This meant the game was going into penalty kicks. The first two kicks both teams made. Then on the third, Stephen blocked their shot, and our player made his. We knew it would be hard for UGA to come back after this. And sure enough, both teams made their 4th and 5th shot, meaning we won by one point! It was so much fun being a part of this event, keeping up the rivalry thousands of miles away. It was a great way to top off our time at Oxford.
The next day, Friday, I was scheduled to take my one and only final at 11:15am in my Medical Law class. I had yet to start studying for it. However, it wasn't really a final that you study for. It's open book, and based around the essays that we discussed in class, so it's more important to have outlines for as many essays as possible and know your way around the book. Reading through those dense essays the night before the exam would do you no good. However, I did want to put in as much studying as I could (while still getting some sleep) since this was my very last final ever, and it would suck to screw up my grade right here at the end, though with the number of credit hours I've accumulated over my 6 years of college, a slightly lower grade than I expected in one class wouldn't do much to my GPA at this point anyway.
So, here I was at about 9:30pm on Thursday night, hyped up from a great victory over UGA, trying to now switch gears and study. I sat in my room and stared at my computer for a little while, then decided that I was hungry and it was probably best to get something to eat before starting my long night of studying. So, I picked up my phone, called Chris's room, and said, "Hey, I'm hungry. You wanna go get some Hot & Tasty?" And he replied, "totally," and we decided to meet at the Porter's in 5 minutes. Hot & Tasty, you see, is a kebab stand that quickly became the favorite of all the Tech students. They had kebabs, burgers, and really good chicken. Chris and I met there, got some diced spicy chicken over fries with ketchup, sat down on the benches nearby, and talked. A few other Tech students showed up and joined us.
After our relaxed meal, I decided I probably should really get studying. So back to my room I went. But, before I start, I wanted to check out some blogs and stuff and browse the internet just to settle in, ya know? So I made two cups of instant coffee to help keep me awake, and then wasted about an hour on the internet in preparation of settling down and studying late into the night. However, after my hour of not studying, I laid down on my bed and fell asleep for the next five hours. I wasn't so stupid not to set an alarm at least, which is good. So I got up around 7am, and for four hours straight made outlines and organized all our reading materials. Ironically, even though I completely failed at studying the night before, by the time the final rolled around, I actually felt decently prepared.
The final was two essay questions, with a goal of making as many references to all our reading material as possible while forming coherent arguments for the ethical issues presented. I did the best I could, and even felt like I was doing better than I did on the midterm, which I got a B on, so I was feeling pretty good. When the final ended, I shook my teacher's hand and told her that she just administered my very last college exam. She then told me that she actually has English royalty in the her bloodline and asked me to kneel down, and she knighted me with her laser pointer. Ok, I made that last part up, but I wanted to make it more epic.
While that last part was a lie, it is true that when I walked out of the class room onto the lawn (on the south side of Worcester, if you remember from my walkthrough video), I did indeed yell, "I'M FREEE!!!" at a volume that would make William Wallace blush. I felt like it was my senior prerogative to do so.
My second of the two things that I really wanted to do at Oxford (the first being visit Magdalen college) was to visit Christ Church, so I headed out to do that soon after my final. The best part was seeing the Great Hall that they used as a model for the hall in Harry Potter, and also the staircase leading up to it, which they actually filmed at. The rest of the college was nice, but I enjoyed the grounds of Magdalen a lot more. After Christ Church I finished up my souvenir shopping so that I wouldn't have to do any of that the next day, which would be the last day at Oxford. Another thing that I had wanted to do one last time was to go read some C.S. Lewis at the Eagle and Child, so I went over there, basking in the blissful knowledge of finishing college, and read some more of Out of the Silent Planet.
I had planned at first to go into London one last time that night (Friday), but my plans ended up falling through. Instead, Chris, Gretchen, Patricia, Alex, Elizabeth, and I went to the Kings & Arms, since Elizabeth wanted to go there. Elizabeth was somewhat of a newcomer to our group (everyone else except for Alex was from Group 3, and Alex had spent a weekend with us in Dublin already), so it was fun to have her in the mix. I decided to recreate my experience in Prague of asking a few group questions that we all went around and answered. My first question was what so far has been one of your favorite experiences of college? For me, it's sitting on the porch every Thursday night with Tom, Davey, and Daniel, which we intermittently kept as a tradition while we lived at Apt 1.
Saturday, our last day at Oxford (we left the next morning by bus at 9:30am), we did one of the most Oxfordian things you could do: go punting (which is what the picture is from at the beginning of this entry). I had wanted to do this all summer, and I was so glad that we ended up doing it. We had eight people go: Chris, Patricia, Gretchen, Tanveer, Joseph, Sabrina, Meagan, and myself. After arriving at the bridge at Magdalen College, the first four took one boat, and the second four took a second boat, and we headed out. We punted on the very canals that I walked around just a few days ago at the college.
Punting was waaay harder than I expected though. Each time you pushed off with the pole, it was near impossible, at least at first, to keep the boat going straight. So for about the first ten minutes I hit the left bank, then the right bank, then the left bank, ad nauseum. I did start to get the hang of it though, and even when I was struggling, it was tons of fun. Meagan took a turn at it and did at least as good as I did, but Joseph was the real star. From the beginning he seemed to be a natural and was definitely the best of us. One of the funniest things was, however, watching our friends in the other boat struggle. There was nothing like seeing them head straight towards the bank at 2 miles per hour, and then during the 10 seconds it took to actually get there, watching the steerer (unsuccessfully) trying to turn while his three passengers winced in expectation of the jerk of hitting the bank. Example:
It was kind of like that scene in the first Austin Powers when he's on the steam roller about to run over that guy. It was great.
After getting back from punting, I went to Green's Cafe to get one last coffee. My study abroad trip had become somewhat of a coffee tour, so it was fitting to get one last cup-o-joe at my favorite cafe in Oxford. Their mochas were like hot chocolate with a caffeine kick, and I mean that in a good way.
That night we wanted to go back to the Turf Tavern one last time to say goodbye to Oxford. It actually ended up not being that great of a night because not that many people showed up, but it didn't matter because we had such a great night at the Turf on Tuesday, which seemed like an end-of-trip outing anyway. Needless to say, I went to bed quite happy with my last week at Oxford, and felt like I got to do everything that I really wanted.
Leaving in the morning was definitely bittersweet. I was excited about getting back home, but that last week was so much fun that it made me wish we could have more of it. I got one last picture of Worcester from the bus right before we pulled out. They had three buses for the three traveling groups, and it was weird to be back on the bus with only group 3 people. It was a reminder of the traveling portion of the trip and how much had changed since then, including which people we spent our time with.
The flight from London to Dallas went well, and I was able to get a decent amount of sleep on it, which I needed. I also watched the fourth Shrek Movie, which was exceedingly mediocre. When we landed in Dallas, one of the first things we saw was a big screen TV of the Dallas Cowboys playing, which seemed to say, "you're back in America, y'all." At the sight of the first Taco Bell we'd seen in months, a few guys from our group flocked there for a quick meal. I went with Gretchen and Chris to get my first Starbucks back in the States (I will admit though that I drank a decent number of Starbucks beverages while overseas).
We arrived back in Atlanta about four hours later, and while I was waiting for my luggage to appear on the carousel, it turned midnight and my mom called and wished me a happy 24th birthday. Not too long later I was hugging all my friends goodbye, and then getting in my mom's car to come home. Literally as soon as I got in the car, the zipper on my backpack broke. And this is the backpack that I have had with me not only all summer but also the past five years of college, trustingly carrying my books to class at both Georgia State and Tech.
In some ways it was weird to be back, especially thinking about how close we had all become and how it's always very up in the air how much you'll continue to spend time with each other once getting back to the real world. This is especially true in my case since I'm now done with college and possibly moving away for a job. In most ways though, it felt very right to be home and that it was time. After six years of college (gosh darn it!), I'm ready for the next step. I'm ready to actually make money rather than be constantly giving it to Georgia Tech, who has never been the best of friends anyway (just ask any Physics II student).
So... closing comments. What can I say? It was an amazing experience. I saw amazing places, made friends with great people, and even (accidentally) convinced some English guys I was Australian. What more could you ask for? One of the things I particularly love is that, from now on, when I hear the names of the countries and cities I visited, they're real places in my mind now, rather than some sort of fantasy. I can say that I've been there.
And then there's of course my friends. I love the people I met on this trip and am glad that we got to have this wonderful shared experience that I'm sure none of us will ever forget. I hope we will continue to keep in touch no matter where we all end up. Less than a year ago I never would've thought that I'd go on the Oxford program. And yet now I can't imagine a better way to finish up my college career. So thank you all, my dear readers, for keeping up with me on this wonderful trip, and I hope you enjoyed the ride!
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Since we got in early Monday from Edinburgh, and we had plane tickets to go to Dublin on Thursday night, that only left three nights at Oxford this week. If last week was the week where I had a lot of time at Oxford but didn't socialize much, this week was the week where I didn't have much time at Oxford, but tried to utilize it the best I could.Monday night, Gretchen, Chris, Eric and I decided to hit up some historic pubs, and our first stop was the Lamb and Flag, which is right across the street from The Eagle and Child. After meeting at the latter for almost thirty years, the Inklings relocated to the Lamb and Flag due to the owner of the The Eagle and Child, during renovation, changing their favorite back room (the "Rabbit Room") into a public room rather than a private one. After an hour or so in there, we decided to move on to Jericho Tavern, which is where Radiohead played their very first gig (they grew up just a few miles away from Oxford), known then as "On A Friday." They have a nice garden in the back (basically, this term generally means just outside seating, perhaps under some trees).
The next night, we continued our self-guided historic pub crawl and went to The Bear, which is arguable the oldest pub in Oxford, dating back to the 13th century. This reminds me of something that I didn't mention way back when in Oxford Week 1. My sister Hetty visited Oxford almost exactly a year ago and met a few different Oxford students in different serendipitous ways. One of them was a guy named Kevin Smith, who happened to be a fan of a relatively obscure Christian band that Hetty also liked (hence how they met). Well, when I came to Oxford, Hetty got me to facebook Kevin and see if he was around. It turns out he's here all summer doing schoolwork in preparation for the fall (he's a law student at Oxford), and we were able to meet up the very first week I was in Oxford. He took me to The Bear, which was the first time I had heard of it. To aid my time in Oxford, he filled me in on all the necessary knowledge, like some other pubs to check out, what churches students tend to go to, and also instructed me to stand on the Oxford side of the boat when punting rather than the Cambridge side (punting is kind of like gondola riding in Venice, except that generally you do your own poling). So anyway, The Bear also had, until relatively recently, a tradition that if you sacrificed part of your tie (should you be wearing one), they would clip it off and exchange a free pint for it. Apparently, that's a pretty good deal in the minds of many young Oxford students, for almost every square inch of The Bear is covered with tie clippings with a name and date attached to recognize the previous owner.
We specifically went to The Bear because I saw on their website that they have a popular weekly "pub quiz" (trivia) every Tuesday. So Joseph, Sabrina, Chris, Patricia, Gretchen, and I entered quiz, pitted against tons of people with English accents (I'm fairly sure we were the only Americans in there). The best part about it was that they didn't even have a PA system. It was just a dude yelling out the questions from room to room. The questions, for all I remember, were not English specific at all, thank goodness. However, we still came in last place, but we'll just gloss over that fact. It was a lot of fun, a lot because it was one of those experiences that gives you a feel for what it's really like to be a local in Oxford, as opposed to just doing really touristy stuff.
It's actually convenient I mentioned my meeting with Kevin in this entry, because that meeting wasn't the last I'd see of him. Last week, while walking around Oxford, I actually ran into him as he was sitting outside of the King's Arms (a really popular student pub), meeting with a professor over a pint. He messaged me later that week and said he wanted to try to meet up again, which I was about to message him the exact same thing, so we ended up setting it up for Wednesday of this week. Miller had told me about two taverns/inns outside the city to go have a meal at: The Perch and The Trout, both with historical significances. The Perch inspired parts of Lewis Carrol's Alice in Wonderland, and the Trout, which is beautifully situated right next to the river Thames, was frequented by C.S. Lewis among many other people. I suggested to Kevin we get lunch at a pub, but before I even specifically mentioned the Trout, he suggested it first! Also, he solved the problem of it being far away for me (it was about an hours walk) by telling me he could check out a bike from his college (Lincoln) and we'd bike there. I had wanted to bike around Oxford some anyway, so this ended up being a beautiful solution. So, Wednesday morning, before my classes (my first class is at 1:15pm and my second at 2:55pm), Kevin and I met up in front of Lincoln College and biked up to the Trout for lunch.
It was a beautiful place, completely worthy of it's reputation. We sat right by the river, and watched the peacock roam around the restaurant's tables. Yes, you read that right. They have a peacock that roams around the tables for no good reason except so that people like me can write on their blog about it to wow their friends back home I guess. Even though the place had a pretty nice feel to it (think ski lodge), the prices were great considering that. I had one of the best pizzas I've had on the entire trip there, for only about 7 pounds if I remember correctly. Kevin and I caught up a little on what we had been doing over the past month, and I got to ask him a lot more about life at Oxford. He's studying law as a second bachelors at Oxford (he went to Princeton for his first one) and so both of us are really old for being undergrads. I asked him if he tended to hang out with the undergrads or the grads at Oxford. He said that, even though he's 3 to 4 years older than most of them, he actually prefers the undergrads because they tend to be a lot more social than the grads. We discovered at this point, much to our amusement, that both of us had acquired the nickname "gramps" among our peers here at Oxford.
That night we had formal hall, which to a real Oxford student means that you dress up in your traditional academic robe for dinner. However, we just dressed up nicely, and our teachers wore the robes for us. They also gave a Latin grace before we ate (my CS teacher read it) and during the meal different members of the faculty (who always sat at the High Table) gave toasts, the first one to the Queen as per tradition. At the end of the meal, a trumpeter led us in Ramblin' Wreck before we recessed out.
Afterwards, as far as I remember, all I did was catch up a little on school (and probably this blog to) since we were leaving for Dublin the next night. And before I knew it another school day has passed, and we were heading out the doors of Worcester College towards Birmingham Airport. Chris, Gretchen, Alex, The Peets, and I all went together that night and flew Ryan Air to Dublin. One thing you must understand is that flying Ryan Air is sort of a staple of studying abroad in the UK. It's like the walmart of Airlines; if you book earlier enough, you can get quite literally 10 pound seats. I saw a news article recently that stated that, I kid you not, Ryanair is actually considering adding standing-room only tickets for even cheaper. A commenter on the article said, in mock quote form, "in case of a water landing, the person in front of you can be used as a flotation device." Oh the internet. You never fail to amuse me. But I digest.
Upon landing, we took a bus into town, walked by the Needle, and found our hostel (The Abraham Hostel), which ended up being fairly nice for a hostel. We had exactly six people in a six-person room, with our own bathroom and shower. It was relatively early in the night, so we decided to walk into Temple Bar to get our first taste of (faux) Irish culture. It did not disappoint. We immediately found many tourists in many crowded bars listening to Irish bands play traditional music (and sometimes not-so-traditional music).
Though I didn't find Dublin quite as exciting as Edinburgh, a few things were quite memorable. We went on a 3 mile hike next to the Irish Sea along some “cliffs” (they weren't quite as cliff like as I was expecting), and it was great to get some hiking in on this trip. But even though it was a lot of fun, and I got some great pictures from it, it wasn't quite as cool as I was expecting. Apparently, the really awesome cliff as the Cliffs of Moher, but upon discovering it was a 3 hour train ride away, we ruled that out as an option.
One other thing we did was the "musical pub crawl," which is something that I had read about on TripAdvisor.com. It was one of the top rated things to do in Dublin, and so we went for it. It really wasn't much of a pub crawl; it was more of a private, 2-hour Irish music session with a change of venues halfway through, but it was the highlight of the trip in my opinion. Two professional Irish musicians played for us (probably between 30 and 40 tourists from mostly the US) and explained different types of instruments and songs and even told us how to tell if an Irish pub was a genuine, traditional one or not ("if it looks like you're in someone's living room, then you're in a good Irish pub. Either that, or you're actually in someone's living room, and you might want to leave"). Before each song they would tell us the history of it and sometimes would even teach us the chorus to sing along. For instance, the song that's in the first video below is about the repercussions of a cider called the Johnny Jump Up that was once accidentally brewed to be two or three times stronger than normal. At one point they told us about this thing called a "noble call," where anyone who has a song from their own land or that is special to them is asked to share it. Apparently this is a traditional and important element of Irish music. So, a few different people stood up and sang songs for the group. We decided that we should share the most important song to all of us, so we stood up and proudly sang The Ramblin' Wreck for everyone.
After the pub crawl was over, one last thing I really wanted to do was go to the oldest pub in Ireland, called the Brazen Head, founded in 1198. We hung out there for the rest of the night, enjoying the end of our last weekend of traveling in Europe. Alex and I had a flight at like 6 in the morning, so we went straight to the airport after the Brazen Head (well, we got some Burger King in between like good Americans) and pseudo-slept for a few hours before our flight. We had no shame in lying flat out on the floor in front of our gate. Once landing in Birmingham, I had a few more hours before my train to Oxford, so I pseudo-slept some more. Needless to say, I was glad to get some for real sleep in my bed at Oxford that Sunday morning when we got in. And when I awoke, our final week at Oxford was before me. But you'll have to wait until next time to hear about that. :: cue talk show exit music ::
Processing into Formal Hall - Ryanair - Temple Bar - Johnny Jump Up
Study Abroad - Week 5 Recap from Robert White on Vimeo.
Bonus Videos!
Explanation and Demonstration of Bodhrán (Irish Drum) from Robert White on Vimeo.
Brennan On The Moor from Robert White on Vimeo.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
If you watched it, the video attached to Oxford Week #3 had a screwed up aspect ratio. It took me to figure out the culprit, but alas, I have prevailed and have replaced the faulty video with a fixed one. Enjoy.Sunday, August 1, 2010
Out of all the weeks at Oxford so far, I probably failed the most during this one when it came to one of my main goals at Oxford: to try to be social every night possible and go to historic pubs and experience the Oxford atmosphere (and perhaps even mingle with some locals). The reason for this were twofold. The first was that, after a failed attempt at a weekend trip the previous weekend, I realized that I probably would enjoy my oxford experience the most if I went ahead and nailed down ASAP what I was doing the last two weekends available for traveling, so that I didn't end up calling people and trying to get in on something at the last second. And planning two three-day takes quite a bit of coordination. The second reason for my not being very social was that necessary evil of study abroad: schoolwork. I had two mini-papers due for my health class at the end of the week and a small project for my computer science class.For the first part of the week, Patricia and I were both really trying to find a way to get to the Love Parade, a techno mega-concert in Germany, for the coming weekend. We had plans pretty much ready and were waiting to hear from a few other people that were interested in going. However, once we were ready to book the flights, the cost had almost doubled within a matter of hours. We looked into a few other ways of getting there, but in the end it didn't seem feasible, so we hopped onto some plans to go to Edinburgh instead. This was a huge blessing, because the Love Parade ended up being an extremely tragic event. Near the end of the show a panic was sparked and 21 people were crushed to death in the crowd, along with hundreds others who were injured.
One memorable thing from during the week was going to my small group with Oxford Community Church. It was only like 6 of us who met together – me and 5 Oxford graduate students – but we thoroughly enjoyed a time of studying the Gospel of John and praying together.
As for the weekend, since I had jumped on to the Edinburgh plans a bit late, I wasn't able to book the bus to get up there that I wanted. Though the rest of the group took an overnight bus (it's a 10 hour drive!) on Thursday night, I had initially wanted to take the one on Friday night, so that I would have Friday during the day to catch up on school and my blog and maybe see a few more sights in Oxford. However, I tried to book it too late and there was no more room, so I had to settle for doing one during the day on Friday. But since I did really want to catch up on my blog (and I had an essay to write before I left), I opted to stay up most of the night on Thursday night and planned to sleep on the bus on the way to Edinburgh.
Though it ended up being a very productive night, I had a hard time sleeping on the bus the next day. Thus the trip up there ended up being fairly miserable. I had gotten very little sleep the night before, I had a horrible cold, and I wasn't traveling with a single person I knew. I was glad to meet up with my five friends in Edinburgh when I got there to say the least.
The first day we were there we toured Edinburgh castle and then hiked Arthur's seat, which is the highest peak of the surrounding hills of Edinburgh. Both were great experiences, and overall I was really enjoying the feel and culture of Edinburgh and Scotland. We also got a chance to sample some haggis, which is something I was committed to doing. I actually really enjoyed it – it tasted like a good sausage, but with a chewier skin (the one kind of gross part). For lunch we went to the Elephant House Cafe, which is one of the cafes J. K. Rowling used to plop down in for hours and write the early Harry Potter books while looking out at Edinburgh Castle through the back windows. To add to the effect even more, in the men's bathroom, scribbled on the stall wall is "Voldemort was here."
That night we went to a comedy club called The Stand and had a wonderful time listening to four stand up comedians: two Scots, an Australian, and the final act, surprisingly enough, an American. The first two were mostly forgettable, but the last two were hilarious. The MC was great as well, and really was just as good of a comedian as the other four guys. He found out very quickly we were the only Americans in the room, and so most of the comedians ended up referencing us a lot and even asking us a few questions. Honestly, it was one of my favorite nights of the trip so far. It's a lot of fun to do something like that because you get much more of a feel for the real, every-day culture there, rather than just the historical, touristy tidbits. I also found out that everyone makes fun of Glasgow. Apparently they're the Alabama of the UK. Good to know.
The next day we opted to take an all day tour through the Highlands. Check out my photo album from that because we saw some amazing scenery. The tour guide gave us endless information throughout the day, including pointing out the castle used in the famous "your father smells of elderberrys!" scene in Monty Python's Holy Grail. When we got up to Loch Ness, we took the option of a quick boat tour on the lake. The weather was exactly what you want for being up there in the Highlands: cool and misty, with a low fog hanging around the tops of the hills. There was a voiceover on the boat giving facts about the lake and sightings of Nessie, and it reminded me of the voiceover in the jeeps in Jurassic Park. I decided not to get worried unless we dragged a lamb behind the boat to attract Nessie.
After we got back from the overnight tour, we had to get to the bus station to catch our Sunday night bus back to Oxford. Luckily, I think we were all able to sleep relatively well this time and the night went by very quickly, and before we knew it we were once again walking on the ancients stepping stones in the cloisters of Worcester College.
P.S. Some of the best moments of this weekend were caught on camera and on video, so be sure to check out both below.
Tour of Edinburgh Castle - climbing down Arthur's Seat - Loch Ness - Inside the hostel
Edinburgh from Robert White on Vimeo.
