Monday, Jan. 10 ---
I wake up at 5:15, a mere four hours after I entered the land of the lamb counter. I had to use the utilities, a normal enough occurrence, the abnormal part of this routine is that I had to travel down five flights of stairs (and then right back up) to complete it.
After this early morning exercise, I am unable to return to the realm of the rapid eye movement and proceed to waffle over whether or not I should call my girlie or my Pops. Both viable and tempting offers, but I do neither. Instead, I opt to sit in my room listening to sad music and indulging my homesickness.
This voluntary masochism lasts for a couple of hours, and by 8AM I am tired of feeling sorry for myself and go outside for our first meeting of the day, a mandatory orientation at Imperial. We go over the general academic routine for the semester (you know, don't slack on your work, don't think this is a cake walk, don't sit in your room and let the city pass you by, don't do drugs, blah blah blah. You know what? This IS going to be a relative cake walk, I WILL slack in my classes as much as my journeys into the city and my whims dictate, and if I feel like sitting in my room feeling sorry for myself and doing smack, so be it.)
After this period of unparalleled enlightenment we have mini-classes for our other classes. Since I only have one other class, I get off easy, only being forced to sit through a quick half hour journey into the wonders that are the requirements for the international journalism class.
Sounds do-able, and after this is through I go on a walking tour of our campus. There are some really beautiful features of my temporary university. We have a huge tower right in the middle of the quad (called the Queen's Tower, but I'm not quite sure what the significance of the name is...), three pubs, a Waterstone's bookstore, and an unbelievably beautiful snooker room (the tables are absolutely HUGE! I have to learn how to play this game before I leave this place. It looks so different than American pool -- bigger tables, smaller, unnumbered balls, lots of red balls, etc. Should be fun...)
After the walking tour, we head to Finnegan's Wake, a local Irish pub, for lunch. Most of us get baps (Irish sandwiches), mine in particular was a turkey and cheese concoction that was rather good. They really like shredded cheese on their sandwiches, endlessly piling the stuff on, a little too much for my tastes.
Two interesting finds at this meal, one positive, one negative. The positive -- I discover bangers and mash, Irish for sausages and mashed potatoes. They put the bangers on a big pile of the mash, douse it in onion gravy, and give you a hearty pile of vinegary peas and sauteed mushrooms. It is great, and I can tell how much my buddy enjoys my sampling of his platter, but bug off! -- homeboy be hungry.
The negative is that we learned, the hard way, that Irish people's pickles and American people's pickles are two completely different entities. Ours are salty slices of cucumber. Theirs? We're still not quite sure, and funnily enough, neither was the waitress. Our best guess? Some type of pungent slices of beets in a strange brown sauce. They look, disgustingly enough, like big muddy boogers plopped all over your sandwich. Luckily mine didn't have any on it, but others did. (They actually don't taste all that bad, but first you have to get over appearances. I was the only one to give them a try, but I figured, "You already eat your muddy nose nuggets, why not someone else's?")
After our culinary excursion, we head back to Imperial for yet another meeting. This time we are bombarded by speeches from policemen, travel agencies, and program heads for a whopping two and a half hours. By the end I don't know which is number -- my ass, or my brain.
A couple of highlights -- we found out that it is illegal to carry mace, pepper spray, or anything else for personal defense. If you can attack someone with it and that's why you're carrying it, you can get arrested and then proceed to serve ten years in jail (NOT KIDDING!) They say it is just as bad as carrying a handgun (funnily enough, we are the reason this law is in existence. They picture us as gun-toting hillbillies that shoot up the countryside. The vast majority of Britain thinks the vast majority of America owns a handgun. Seriously.) A loophole in this law is the self-defense clause which says that if you were carrying the item for another reason, say pepper spray to spice up your chips (remember -- French fries), and you just happened to get attacked and use it, then you're OK. It has to be your secondary or non-existent reason for carrying it. I call it the "Damn I'm lucky I was carrying this" clause.
Another interesting thing? You're only supposed to take black cabs within the city. All the other cabs (and there are a ton of them) are just random people driving around and gouging people of their hard earned poundage. It's kinda funny if you think about it -- just some random dudes driving around town. "Whatchoo doing today, Paw?" "Well, Maw, I think I'm going to drive around town taking tourists from place to place." Sure, they might overcharge you, but you're still the one spending all day driving other people around town! How sad does your life have to be when THIS is your idea of a good scam? Most crooks tend to opt for the quick score -- a jewelry heist, a pickpocketing, etc. These knuckleheads spend the entire day being someone's frigging chauffeur! Only in Ameri -- I mean, Europe...
After this exhausting exercise in eye contact and feigned interest, we decide to go off to the pub to drown away some of the day's sorrows. The boys all leave the girls to do their shopping or cooking or whatever (sorry- I had to work in an un-PC, archaic slam. I don't have the TV and am going through withdrawal. If I don't keep saying this stuff I'm not going to be able to handle reassimilating into American culture in all its biased, bigoted ways... (Oh come on, you know I love you...))
The Parrot serves us up several helpings of the cure to our ails (ironically enough, this is ale. Get it? The cure to our AILS is ALE? Oh never mind...) After a few pints with this homeys, I slip away to buy some groceries and around 9 o' clock I turn in for a night (hopefully) of deep catch-up sleep.
Tuesday, Jan. 11 ---
I wake up around 9 in the morning, capping off my epic in sleeping at roughly 12 hours. This respite was sorely needed and I get ready for the day feeling refreshed. I go for a walk around town for a couple of hours, taking in the sights of High Street, stopping in a music store and being aghast at their CD prices (the equivalent of roughly 20 bucks, at least) and their prices for gas (roughly FIVE DOLLARS a gallon!), and taking a few snaps of local buildings.
I return to the flat around 11, get ready and meet a few people, then head off to Imperial to sign up for some trips. I sign up for the Amsterdam and Paris trips, one of which I will hopefully get to go on. I also sign up for tickets for the play Inspector Calls.
After this brief exercise in expenditure I walk around campus some more, scrounging up some cheap eats and some school supplies (actually the food was overpriced and the only thing I bought for class was a big ass notebook -- that's as organized as I'm getting for these things. Truth be told, I ended up paying more for the food than for the notebook, so if I can learn to cull enough nutritional value from that, I've just found a way to save valuable sterling. )
I return to the Union for my 2:30 meeting regarding our internships. I get more details on mine (apparently I'm still working at the Daily Express, but that's all anyone can tell me. Why, after three or four weeks, is the best anyone can do is simply retelling me where I work? Do these people not want to divulge any more secrets over the phone, or something? Are they a super secret spy agency and they have to protect the details for the sake of the Queen and national security? Or has no one even bothered to call these people and ask them the brain-busting question of, "What exactly will the intern be doing there?" My bet is on the spy agency thing, but that's just my rational side talking...)
They give us an interview coaching session, going over such wonderfully insightful things as, "Don't ask for money...Don't show up late...Don't interrupt...Make eye contact...Be courteous and patient, etc." After feverishly writing all these sage nuggets of wisdom down, I take a moment to rest my aching wrist and ponder the depth and brilliance of all that I have just heard. Realizing it to be common sensical rubbish, I stop listening and hope for someone to put me out of my misery. Thankfully, my prayers are answered and it all ends quickly.
After the meeting, all future interns are rather famished from the intensive learning seminar we have just completed, and so a few of us bravely band together and head off in search of a feed. The final destination we land at? Tennessee Fried Chicken! (I kid you not. That's the name they chose for American fried chicken, but why? What the hell is so special about the chicken in Tennessee? Is that the spot of the first identified chicken? Was this where the age-old philosophical question of, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" was asked? Or was that the birthplace of Colonel Sanders or something? Who knows. I just know it's strange...)
The food there is great and absolutely cheap -- I got a breast, a leg, chips and a drink all for 3 pounds 20 and the others got six chicken fingers, chips and a drink for 2 measly pounds! That's a whole meal, baby!
Bellies full (at least mine was. I mooched off of everyone else, particularly the girls, who didn't or couldn't finish their meals. In all I probably polished off about a full bird. Ahhh, yeah...) we head off to the Parrot for some dessert.
My dessert came in a pint glass, was rather robust, and had only a slight hoppy aftertaste. It was made by the fine folks at John Smith's brewery, strangely enough these are the same people that make my current favorite beer. Interesting, eh?
Since the first course of dessert was just so delicious, I have another, as do my stolid compatriots. We then realize that we have class in a few moments, so we rush across town to Imperial for our first British life and culture class.
This lecture, from 6 to 9, could have been a killer (and it just might be in future weeks, especially after I've been working all day and am forced to come straight to class, but we'll see.) but tonight's class was great. It was just a rather broadbased introduction to the land of England -- their tendencies, their culture, their history, etc. It was highly interesting.
Some interesting points brought up were that England is still highly stuck in the past (and no, this is not based on the technology found in their computer labs. I don't even know if I'd consider Apple IICs technology, or not.) They try to focus on the past and their Empire because that was when they ruled the land. This love for all things old is seen in their multitudes of museums, their historical plaques posted all over the city (King George once urinated on this square of sidewalk, Prince Philip once looked at this flower, etc.) and even in their conversations. These people love the past and fear the future because it is uncertain and they know they aren't going to rule it.
Another interesting thought was that, to Americans, status is based on what you achieve and how much you get is based on how hard you want to work for it. To British, what you get is based on what is ascribed to you and how much you have is based on how hard your parents and forefathers worked for it. What you do is rather inconsequential. This was a rather sad realization, to me, because of my American background, but it is an interesting thought, nonetheless.
One final thing is the shape of our societies -- theirs is rather triangle-shaped with a small number of people in the monarchy at the top of the totem pole, more people under them in the middle class, and the tons more below them in the working class. Our society, on the other hand, is more diamond-shaped -- we have a few rich people with all the power at the top, tons of people in the middle class (be it upper middle, lower upper middle, etc.) and then a few poor people on the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. Things to think about...
After this surprisingly good class, we head back to the Parrot for some more beers with most of the people in class. It's a rollicking good time, but I tear myself away and head off to make some phone calls. I get finally get a hold of my girlie, the first time since I've been here, and after lovely, lengthy conversations with her, I return to the flat for some sleep, as happy and refreshed as when I woke up (actually, maybe a little more thanks to that conversation...)