London and Other Things

Hello, all.

Class finally started yesterday and it's been promising. I'm taking two university courses: "Modern Irish Literature and Drama" and "American Literature to 1900." The latter proves to be very interesting, even beyond the fact that it's British people teaching me about American things.

The university is big, much bigger than Luther, as expected. It takes a good amount of time to get from place to place, especially from our flat to the university itself. The students here are generally very friendly.

They're friendly in the pubs and clubs, too. About a week ago, some of my friends and I went out to a club that has student-only nights. After a cold, uncomfortable, and very long queue, as well as a victorious bathroom break following it, it was some of the most fun I've had dancing in a long time. This is the club, if you want to see it and all of its amazing rooms. We danced in the New York disco room.

Last weekend was my first trip to London with all the Nottingham/Luther students and faculty. It was a cool place, but I didn't get around to see Big Ben, the Tower, or any of the big, iconic monuments. I'll definitely be visiting again.

I did, however, go out to a London dance club, (which was way too crowded) and the Globe theater.

The Millennium Bridge, on the way to the Globe theater. Harry Potter fans might know it as the one that got ripped apart by death eaters in the sixth film.

At the Globe. We had a great guide, who was a swashbuckling, Shakespearean actor himself, complete with fantastic moustache. He knew and liked who he was.

Henry IV, Part I was the play being performed at the time. For the duration of the three-hour performance, (with one intermission in the middle), I watched as a "groundling," or what was once the peasantry and lower class that stood on the ground for the entirety of the play. It was very worth it.

If you're familiar with the play, there's a character named Falstaff in it, a drunk, fat, morally reprehensible, but lovable old man. The actor who played him was hilarious. Everyone else was great, too.

Good times here, and looking forward to more!

Video: York Minster, Hadrian's Wall, and More

Flatmate and coolguy Aaron Rosell has recently posted a video compilation of some of the sights we saw on our recent trip, unfortunately including an extended look into my social behavior.

But that's at the end. You don't have to watch that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQBV-OORAlk&feature=player_embedded#!

The First Flat Trip

Throughout the year, us 13 students will be traveling to various historical points of interest in Britain. Our first trip was last weekend, and we visited the cities of York, Alnwick, and Durham. It was good times.

I took a good amount of photos, but they're too large to post on Blogspot, so I'm linking my Facebook album, which has the various places we visited and descriptions. I'm fairly certain non-Facebook users can't view the album, but I'll try and deal with technology at another time to post some up on the blog.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=232512&id=506015094

Hadrian's Wall was one of my favorite stops on our trip, which is a 73 mile-long wall that goes through Northern England. It's a Roman wall, mainly built to show territories. The scenery along it is gorgeous, almost comically featuring every idyllic English countryside thing imaginable: hilly plains, Lord of the Rings-esque forest paths, lakes, grazing sheep, and giggling daughters running through fields as their proud fathers look on from the doorway of their stone house, (that last one may or may not have happened).

Durham Cathedral was another great stop. On our walk there, it began to rain, and rather than get praise from my fellow students for planning ahead and donning a rain coat, I got jokes about how I looked like death or a ring wraith. We came upon the cathedral, which is near a small graveyard, and the choice of what to do was obvious:

For the Uninformed

I feel like a short summary is in order:

I am currently living in a shared flat with twelve other students, all from my college. Our course director lives a few blocks away from us and helps to organize us and comes over for dinner nightly. We're not studying at the University of Nottingham yet, as courses do not start until October, apparently. Instead, we are familiarizing ourselves with the area and will be taking several trips across England not only for the experience, but also to satisfy the history class we are taking with our director/professor.

The city of Nottingham has been a great place these first few days. The weather is generally moody, like they said it would be, but for the most part, a good temperature. The buildings are very eclectic, I'll try to post some pictures to do them justice. We've had a great tour guide show us how to best navigate the city and have gone shopping/searching for food several times already.

Best part of the tour: a random, older man walks up to our group when we are all circled around the middle of a building, listening intently to our guide. He stays there for a good twenty seconds until he comes in during a lull in the guide's speech and asks us: "Is this a magic circle?", laughs, then walks away. The man's a hero.

Tomorrow we leave for York and Durham and several other places in between, which I can't be bothered to remember or write down.

It's been great so far, and we're all getting along famously, even with only two shared showers between 12 students.

Photo-Tour of the Flat

Right outside the flat on Homefield Dr.

The mini-library downstairs. Will most likely be a study spot of choice.

The library is next-door to the church, which shares building space with the flat. It's ours to use everyday other than Sunday.

Here's Ben, stirring some Macaroni & Cheese for the flat dinner in our tiny kitchen.

And here's some of the girls in the living room/dining room doing what the majority of us do at most times of the day: reading.

The bedroom hallway. There's five rooms and two bathrooms.

And here's my room. I share it with two Aarons, who both have blogs of their own. The room is very comfortable and is getting new add-ons almost every day.

My bed and workstation. Accomodating.