Future Plans!

Hello everyone! Sorry for the long absence. For the past two weeks, I have buried my head in a pile of books and pumped out two papers, WHICH I turned in today!!! YAY! It feels amazing. Doubly so, because I have fun plans lined up! Tonight I am seeing American Pulitzer and Nobel prize-winning author Toni Morrison ("Beloved," "The Bluest Eye") speak at UEA's International Literary Festival. Tomorrow should be a fun Halloween since everyone here is keen to celebrate it "American-style," meaning actually celebrate at all. Apparently after the age of 8, Halloween is a thing of the past for most Europeans. A sorry fact they are ready to set aside in homage to this spectacular holiday. Many flats are even decorated with black and orange streamers and pumkins. But like everything, it is also different. For example, people actually dress up as Halloween things for Halloween. My flatmates are being: a ghost, a witch, a black cat, a pumkin... I explained that no one in America dressed as such stereotypically "Halloween" things, and they were all offended. So it looks like were going to celebrate "old school" this year!

The Saturday after I leave for five days of travel. I am so excited about this. It is the image that saw me through many a late night of paper-writing. I am certain that no one else would have fun on this personal tour because it appeals to my nerdy literature side. Thus, I have dubbed it my "literary pilgrimage." I am also excited to travel alone again, make random traveling friends, and walk all day long if I want to. Here is the game plan:

Saturday: Arrive in Bath
Sunday: Day in Bath: Roman baths, Bath at work, Costume Museum
Monday: am: Jane Austen Centre (!!!) pm: afternoon tour of Stonehenge/village of Lacock
Tuesday: Costwold Villages with Mad Max Minibus Tours (highly recommended by my guru Rick Steves) Sleep in the hostel in Stow-on-the-Wold
Wednesday: Stratford-upon-Avon and Shakespeare sights!
Thursday: Warwick Castle. Return to Norwich in time to watch the Sex and the City movie with Laura and Kelly.

I had to do some revisions: cut out Oxford since all their hostels were booked on the one night I could be there, and Jane Austen's house in Acton because of train issues. However, I will try to see these places before I go. I am ecstatic! Oh, I should probably mention that all of this is made possible by "reading week" in which we don't meet for class, but are expected to get ahead on reading...yeah...right.

And about a week after I return is the International Student Society Edinburgh Trip! A lot of my friends are going on that one so it should be fun. The weekend of Thanksgiving, Laura and Kelly and I are going to Amsterdam. But after that I think I should actually do some papers and reading... It is, after all, what I am "officially" here to do.

One more thing before I go: So Monday my friend Johnny from Germany and I decided to finally see the boys choir do Gregorian Chants at the Norwich Cathedral. We have been putting this off, and we finally made it. BUT, instead of the choir, it was a regular prayer service, and we were sitting front-and-center so we had to stay for the whole thing. At the end, Johnny was like "and vhere vas the singing?" I guess there's always next time! But dad will be happy to know that I actually went to church here, even if it was the Anglican church.

To redeem the night, we thought we'd head over to the Norwich Beer Festival, which features local brews and ales, but it was the first (freezing) night and the line went all the way around the Hall. We weren't going to wait. So instead we hit up a local pub and had some generic, not-special pints, that were still quite good. Johnny practiced his English, which got increasingly worse the more he drank! It was fun, and the Joker would have loved it since it... "didn't follow the plaaaan..." (picture Heath Ledger's voice).

I will try to update throughout the week, but I'm not sure where and when I will have internet. It is the travellers most elusive friend! Until later, dear friends!

A Random Update

I should preface this post by saying that I have not been anywhere new, seen anything particularly amazing, nor have I taken any pictures of churches, pubs, or lawns. But the past few days have been pretty great, so I thought I'd share:

1) Tonight as I walked home from a play, I walked past a man who was urinating against the side of the bookstore. He turned halfway around and said, "Sorry about this, love... Sorry!" I opened my umbrella to cover the offending article, said it was fine, and moved on. The Best Part: If he had not turned around, I would not have noticed him at all.

2) The play I saw was called "Fresher's Week" and it chronicled the craaaayzy first week of parties for the Freshman at University, and how the rest of their lives will never be as great as that one week. This is not just my interpretation of the play; a girl came out at the end and gave a lengthy monologue saying just that. How life stretches out after Fresher's week with the pressure of classes, graduation, finding a job, working for fifty years before the sweet release of death can claim you. I found it to be depressing for two reasons: Firstly, the aforementioned "final note" of the play. And secondly, apparently the best week of my life has passed, and I didn't even get to enjoy it. Yes, my friends. As much as it may surprise you, I did not dress up as a Barbi or Fireman with the 18-year-olds, and stay out til 7:00 am before a 9:00 lecture. These weary bones can only do so much.

But in all honestly, what a depressing message to give the freshman! Either "whoops! you didn't go crazy enough during Fresher's Week, so get used to a boring, monotonous life" or "Yay! You went crazy during Fresher's Week! Now get ready for your boring, monotonous life!" What happened to making your experiences what you want them to be!?! That is what I have done (or tried to do) during this whole trip, and it is the only way. Looking back, if I had just sat around and waited for things to happen to me.. Well, it would have been pretty lame. THESIS MOMENT: Catherine from Northanger Abbey does this very thing at a ball, and has a very boring time. I think Austen is commenting upon JUST THAT.

But it was fun cheering on my friend Benjamin (who lives on 26th and Clinton in P-town, and we only met in England!) and meeting up with my buddy Johnny from Germany who enjoyed picking up on the low-brow humor. Tomorrow, we are going to the Norwich Cathedral to hear the boy's choir do Gregorian chants. We have been postponing this event since we planned it, so we'll see if it actually happens.

Things I recently learned how to do: Roll sushi and make a paper crane with the Japanese society!!!! I am very proud of this. It is a skill I wish to take home. My buddy Michael from San Fransisco and I are going to go to the weekly Japanese-language meetings too!

Things I miss from home: Roxie's cheek puffing out when she's sleeping soundly. Seeing the lights of Council Crest accross the city as I fall asleep. Cooking (anything) while sitcoms play in the background.

Things I am excited for: The ROLL I finally got on while writing my paper today! Turning in my papers. My literary pilgrimage to Bath, Cotswolds, Oxford, Stratford-upon-Avon, and Warrick, then Edinburgh for the weekend... after my papers.

Ps.

NOTICE HOW LONG MY HAIR HAS GOTTEN!!!

Four Days in London

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England had a football (soccer) game yesterday against Belarus. Three international friends and I decided to go to a local pub in town to see what it was all about. It was quite the cultural experience. The old pub was called Murderers and had newspaper clippings and information about the world's greatest unsolved murder mysteries such as the Kennedy assassination. Which was kind of a dangerous idea for a roomful of burly men from their 30's to 60's with pints all roaring at a single television. I didn't want them to get any ideas... There was nowhere to sit. There was hardly anywhere to stand. So we huddled in a corner without a view of the game. I don't know what it is about football, or sports in general, that does this to people, but when you can get a roomful of men to simultaneously erupt in various displays of grunting and growling and table-smashing, it is quite a phenomenon. England won that night 3-1, and shortly after the pub cleared out allowing us a chance to sit and hear each other talk. One fellow had a bet that England would win 3-1. After the game ended, I congratulated him on his victory, but he did not seem so pleased. Apparently by "winning the bet" he had to buy the next round!

London was amazing. As one of Europe's leading powerful cities, there were moments when all the layering of history was just overwhelming. An example of this would be the Tower of London. The original "tower" was built shortly after the Norman Invasion for Oliver Cromwell, but even before that there were remnants of the old Roman Wall that they used for one of the walls of the castle. Later it became a prison whose chopping block saw the necks of Anne Boleyn among other unfortunate Henry VIII wives. And Sir Walter Raleigh was imprisoned there after multiple upsets with the crown. When he returned from a voyage to the West Indies without gold, they finally gave him the ax. The crown jewels were just gorgeous too, and I just wanted to reach out and touch them. We spent almost all day there and when we left, I had diamonds in my eyes.

Another biggie was the British Museum that housed many artifacts and artwork from many ancient civilizations including Assyria, Greece, Rome, Egypt, Asia... basically everywhere. In these giant museums, you do get something I like to call "the louvre effect" where there is just SO much to see that you body and mental capacity cannot hold up to see it all. You could seriously spend a week in these places and not see everything. That's just how they are. We did get to see the Rosetta Stone, an Easter island statue, Tutenkamen's mummy, and some "bog people." Which were amazing.

Probably one of my favorite parts of the trip, aside from the glorious food, was seeing Billy Elliot the Musical. It was INCREDIBLE and has to be one of my favorites. It was playing at the Royal Victoria Theatre across from Victoria Station, and just around the corner from our hotel! For those of you who haven't seen the movie, it is about a little boy growing up in England during the 1980's and the miner strikes against the conservative government of PM Margaret Thatcher. In this environment, Billy grows up encouraged to take boxing and with the unspoken certainty that he will join the mining profession as his forefathers. Instead, after a boxing class, he decides to stick around and watch the "bally" or ballet class for girls afterward. He joins that class and becomes amazing... and... well, I won't spoil the rest. It's incredible tho. Go out and see it.

So London was wonderful. So wonderful, in fact, that I am haveng an exceedingly difficult time getting back to schoolwork and thinking about my papers. Well, actually thinking about them is fine... writing them sucks. As far as travel plans go, I am going to buckle down here for the next two weeks and work on my presentations/papers I have due. But after those midterm things are taken care of, I am going to embark on four weekends of travel: my personal English pilgrimage (Bath, Oxford, Cotswolds, Statford-upon-Avon, and Warwick) during our "reading week", Edinburgh with ISS, Wales with Haggis Tour Group, and Amsterdam with some friends. I am so ready to get out there and travel more, but PAPERS FIRST ARRRRGHH!!! Then I will write my final papers, and come home! It's going by so fast, it's scary! Lastly, I want to thank grandma and grandpa for an amazing four days, wonderful food, wonderful company, and the chance to see some family when I am half-way across the world. You guys rock!

Freezing my Bum off in Cambridge!

So I awoke this morning as I do every morning: to the possibility of any kind of weather. The sky had just that sort of gray tinge that could mean a torrential downpour or the parting of clouds and the potential of a beautiful fall day. I have to prepare for either situation. The Key: Dress in layers. I had a light T-shirt, followed by a wool sweater, followed by a poofy down jacket. It could have sizzled or it could have snowed. I was ready.

And it's a good thing too. Because upon arriving at the bus stop, my weather.com-checking friend informed me it was supposed to be 0 degrees in Cambridge. Mind you, that is Celsius but it's still 32-freaking-degrees Fahrenheit, and last time I checked, that was freezing! And freeze we did. We took a two hour walking tour around the town and "The Other University," as Oxford calls them. There is quite a rivalry there that puts Beaver-Duck fans to shame. It was really fascinating learning the history of all the different colleges, their founding, their rivalries with one another, and the different buildings. We went inside the famous King's College Chapel, built by Henry VI before the War of the Roses, and saw the partition King Henry VIII put up between the secular and religious part of the chapel in honor of his love for Ann Boleyn. And when I say "chapel," do not be mistaken. This "chapel" is literally as huge as many a Cathedral, including the Cathedral of Norwich! Maybe Henry VI was compensating for something....HA!

I am definitely going back, though, because my friend Ayesha and I decided we MUST see the King's College boy's choir, that is famous throughout the world. Little known fact: Four boys train for the solo at the beginning of the internationally-broadcast Christmas performance, and the boy who gets the solo is only notified by the conductor the minute he is about to start singing! It's supposed to keep them from getting too nervous, but in my opinion, it would make it worse.

We also got a great sense of the historical greats that have gone to Cambridge. We saw the bar where Francis Crick and James Watson took their celebratory drink after cracking the "secret of life," or how DNA carries genetic information, the great research lab, the Cavendish, where Rutherford discovered the electron, Darwin's school, and a bridge rumored to be designed by Sir Isaac Newton! Although literary greats such as E.M. Forestor,William Wordsworth, Lord Alfred Tennyson, and Salman Rushdie attended Cambridge, we really didn't see anything connected to them. Boo!

I spent the too-short free afternoon warming up in a little coffee shop, and perusing old book stores. Which introduced me to my newest obsession: Old Books! The smell, the paper, the binding, who's read them, what they thought... all reveal me to be a hopeless English major. It also presented a roadblock: Old books are ridiculously expensive. I even found in one store a very old-looking copy entitled "Jane Austen Papers" that I almost justified for the purposes of research, but couldn't pay the 80 pounds in the end. Pity. I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering through the winding streets, the market, and the colleges you didn't have to pay for. Before I knew it, it was time to go. I will definitely be coming back tho.

Flatmates 3.0

In our flat, we are ten: Rubie, Jenny, Ayla, Ellie, Ed, Rob, Ben, Belle, Kate, and me: Amber. Want that again? Rubie, Jenny, Ayla, Ellie, Ed, Rob, Ben, Belle, Kate, and Amber. In our kitchen, we have one table with six chairs, four tea kettles, one refrigerator (I know...), ten cupboards with nine locks, and about a thousand leaflets for take-away food. We also have a window overlooking The Brood, the lake. We are nine of us 18, eight of us social, seven of us girls, six of us from country towns, four of us on the top floor, three of us international, and two of us have been to Venezuela.

Although technically, this is my third-time around, thereby making me a seasoned professional, it always amazes me how living with people bonds you so much more rapidly and openly than common friendships. Differences are thrown aside and faults humorously embraced within days of meeting each other. Case In point: I am three years older than everyone else, and have awkward American habits like eating copious amounts of peanut butter from the jar, and am in my final year of college... none of this seems to matter at all! Strange as it is to say, it feels like we are a little family.

This is not always an easy thing. Everyone knows everyone else's business. In a manner of an hour, the strange noise from Rob's room becomes "Did you see the girl Rob was with last night?"
Rob declares It was the TV! Also, tiffs are inevitable. I came home yesterday to find Ben and Belle in a row over the rice cooker. Apparently, Ben had failed to clean it out and Belle (the house mother) put it in front of his door as a friendly reminder, causing a VERY big accident when Ben stumbed out of his room this morning, half-asleep... This is what was heard as I ascended the stair to my room: "It's just a bloody rice-cooker!" "So clean it!" Ben then accused Belle of being on her period, to which she responded with a violent stream of feminist points, none of which helped her case any.

But then there are more fun aspects too. For instance, when Ayla mentioned she was going to a Viking party for her Deviant Society, Ellie burst into excitement at the prospect of dressing her up as a Viking with the horns and sword and fur hide... We asked where she was going to get all this stuff, to which she responded "In my closet! Right next to my ax, bow & arrow, and rapier." Ellie is a theater major, and while that may explain the closetful of weaponry, it also unqualifies her to be in possession of such tools. I said if we ever had a burgler, I knew which room I was going to.

It's very nice to always have something going on, although this can also be a negative when one has entire novels to be read the next day, and people to come home to. I was home late one evening after my day in London, and my flatmates came to me the instant I walked in the door: "Where have you been? No one has seen you all day!" They are already saying: "It's going to be so weird after Ambah leaves! We're going to be such a close little family, and then Ambah will go and we won't let the next person in, after Ambah!"