Hello friends and family! Greetings from across the pond.... I decided to start up a blog while I'm here so that you all can actually hear from me, because I know I won't remember to email you all as much as I should. I've never kept a blog before, so we'll see how good I am at updating. I'll try to be good for your sake!
Alright since this is my first entry I figured I'd give an overview of what I've been doing so far since I got here.
Campus/Dorm: I'm at Royal Holloway, which is a part of the University of London but actually lies outside of the city in Egham, Surrey. Surrey is a county (basically equivalent to a state in the US) that lies southwest of the city. It's pretty suburban- the town I live in is small and has a cute little downtown with basic necessity shops and a few odd clothing/shoe stores- and a Subway! (as in the fast food chain, not the underground). Subway was my first meal in Egham. It was cheap, delicious, and felt like home. Although the woman working didn't understand me when I said "tomato." I said it louder and more forcefully while pointing to it and that seemed to work. It wasn't until later that I realized I'd said "to-may-to" when she was expecting to hear "tuh-mah-to." Fortunately, that's about as much of a language barrier as I've experienced. So yeah, Surrey. It's cute, and quiet- on the offchance that any of you have seen The Holiday with Jude Law, Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, and Jack Black (if you haven't, don't, unless you really really like looking at Jude Law, in which case it's worth it), here's a reference point for you. In the movie, Surrey is where Kate Winslet lives in a little cottage and where Cameron Diaz goes on retreat to get away from cities, people in general, and men in particular. So that's Surrey.
My dorm is brand-new (a bit different from my dorm at Wellesley) and pretty un-spectacular except that I have my own bathroom and a double bed! Hooray! I like my room. It's a disaster area at the moment, and I think I have about 3 meals worth of dirty dishes sitting on my desk... which I will take care of shortly, I promise. :)
Food: Thank God I'm feeding myself. I do have the option of eating in the dining halls on campus, but it costs me a bit and the food is really nothing exciting at all. One thing I did not know about the British before I came here was that they put corn in EVERYTHING. My friends and I have found corn in soup, tuna salad, "vegetable pancakes" (which were actually egg rolls), pudding, and most frequently, pizza. I have a flier for a pizza place in my room that features a giant photo of just corn- not corn on the cob, just corn out of the can, sitting there, apparently enticing you to order pizza. It's very bizarre.
Other interesting food experiences I've had have included the greasiest fish and chips I've ever had in my life- my friends and I went into town in search of a late, cheap dinner and ended up and a fish and chips place that was indeed cheap (relatively speaking). We noticed that if you walked next door into the chinese take-out place you found the same people serving you- it was two adjacent restaurants with a single kitchen. We all got our fish and chips (but no tartar sauce or ketchup- you had to pay extra for that) and trekked back to campus cause there weren't any dine-in facilities. When we got back we realized why they'd been put in plastic bags- they'd completely soaked through the two layers of paper they'd been wrapped in. That was rather unappetizing. Our other take-out adventure happened the night before classes started. We ended up ordering pizza, from Domino's (again, the cheapest). There were about 8 or 9 of us and we ordered two large pizzas only to find, half an hour later when they arrived, that "large" here means what "medium to small" means back home. That was a bit unsatisfying.
I have been managing to feed myself well enough now, though. I did manage to find decent peanut butter, and every Tuesday there's a local produce market on campus where you can get fresh fruits and vegetables for decent prices. They're very tasty. Also, my friends and I have been planning collaborative dinners once a week. Last week was our first- we had a pasta party, and everyone brought some ingredient, and we made a ridiculous amount of pasta. It was delicious. This week it's a taco party. I'm quite excited....
Classes: Soooo different from Wellesley. At Wellesley my largest class ever has been 40 students, and that was an intro physics course that's very popular for fulfilling a distribution requirement. Here, all of my classes are held in the same large lecture hall and have about 150-180 students (depending on who actually turns up, of course). It's a completely different format than what I'm used to. Most of them are very interesting, though. There's one professor who's a really sweet somewhat old man but he has the tendency to just talk straight through a class, without directing any comments at the class itself during the entire lecture. Another professor of mine, though, refers to the class constantly and asks for answers, opinions, thoughts, etc. She's by far my favorite- our first day of class she instructed us all to question authority and question what she tells us and watch out for the government cause they only care about mental disorders if they make citizens less productive etc. She also asked if there were any Americans in the class (we reluctantly raised our hands) and pointed out that our president could speak to God, and did the class think that that was a symptom of mental illness? (It was a rhetorical question). Fortunately that's the only awkward America-related moment I've had in any of my classes- some of my friends are in smaller classes and have had weird moments such as being called "hey American guy" by the prof or told that American elementary schools use corporal punishment (by a student) or being confronted (again by a student) about supporting Hillary. Mostly people have been nice, though. Apparently they seem to think our accents are cool, which I did not realize. Anyway. So classes=different but fine.
Social Life: Going well! I have a solid group of friends that I've been hanging out with since the first day or so- we bonded really tightly because of the strange environment, but we've managed to keep up the friendships even after we started taking our different classes and such. All of my friends here are from either the States, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand, which is a bit odd. I don't really have any British friends yet, which is also odd- but my classes are really too large to meet people, my entire dorm is international students, and I don't have any outside activities other than my part-time job. I really like the friends I have, though. We've gone into London together a few times, and some of us are taking a trip to Paris during our February break. Exciting! I also have a few good friends from home here, too- Alexandra, who I went to high school with and goes to Wellesley with me now, is at UCL in London, and my friend Kathleen who goes to Syracuse University is living near Hyde Park. They're both in incredible locations and I'm really glad I have them to go visit in the city! I've been in the city pretty frequently- the ride by train is about half an hour to an hour (depending on which train you take) and it's only about 7 pounds to get a day pass which you can use for the train, there and return, as well as for any Tube or bus travel you might do while in the city.
Well I have to stop now and do a grocery run before my second class of the day- please feel free to share this with anyone you like if I've missed people! I'll write again soon--
Helen
