Museums and cultural oddities...

Today, I had my first field trip. We went to the Bowes Museum in Durham. It looked something like this:
It's a huge French style mansion in the middle of northern England. It's literally in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by giant green fields in every direction for about 4 miles. Inside, apart from all of the cool 18th and 19th century paintings and furniture, there are some crazy little odds and ends...














These are the artsy farts macro shots I took. I know it's dumb to take odd angle pictures of the radiator when surrounded by a mansion full of beautiful art, but where else on the internet can you get a first hand look at the Bowes Museum's heating system and closet doors? Next we have some of the more picture worthy exhibits...














Here we have an automaton goose from around 1774. I guess a giant metal goose that swings it's head around when a coin is inserted couldn't provide enough entertainment for a 21st century audience, so they added the sign to keep people interested. Funnily enough, this is the museum's prize exhibit, but I like these:














On the left we have two naked toddlers lying together in a bed in a very "comfortable" position. Sure, you can defend the innocence of this sculpture by saying that it's depicting a brother and sister lying in a cradle or something. But I see babies in the post-coital position, and there's not much to be said that will make me think otherwise. On the right we have a 19th century depiction of an "African". This is just a face shot, but the body was naked black porcelain complete with loin cloth and spear. Yay, racism!

Also, it was a very pretty day today, but here's what it looked like when I looked out the museum window...
AH! It's The Mist! Run!!!

The group that went was entirely American. One day I'll relate the experience of traveling around Europe while part of a large group of Americans, but not today. Next comes my first of many 5 day weekends. I'll let you know the goings on..:-)

-Matt

When I said that I only have two classes, what I really meant was...

Today I had my first classes at Northumbria. These started at 9 AM, so I woke up at 8 to prepare for the half mile journey to the Lipman building, room 001. After getting a bit lost (the two story building is situated directly behind the 977989878 story Student loungey/restaurant/classrooms thing and across the way from the 56757576 story freshies hall), I found the classroom and sat down, the professor walked in and began talking about the course (Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Medieval Europe). In my experience, there are three prerequisites for being a Medieval historian.

#1: You have to have a deep passion for the goings on in the medieval world.
#2: You have to be unable to convey this passion to an audience without putting a minimum 64% of the listeners to sleep.
#3: You have to have a big fuck off beard.

Whether it be medieval torture devices, the racist/sexist opinions of the populace at the time, or a fascination with how dirty and disgusting human beings were prior to the advent of the shower, all medieval historians just cannot make their passion sound exciting. Oh yeah, and they have to have a big fuck off beard...

After eating a really bad muffin, the next teacher came in to start us off on "The Female Experience in pre-Industrial Europe". The areas focused on are roughly what I learned in Knobler's "Early Modern Europe" class, but the tone set by this particular professor was quite a bit different.

"This class is about women. We may briefly touch upon the history as it involves men, but mostly, we'll be talking about women. Women's roles, ideas, and writings from 1400-1800. Anyone have a problem with that? Are you in the wrong class? Do you know where you are, because this is what you are in for. Good, let's get started..."

When she started on the material, it was basically what I had learned before, but in a more shallow sense. *shrug* It's an easy A...

Speaking of easy, for each of these two classes, I have one 7 page paper and two final essays to be written in class. Reading and attending class are completely optional, and the questions that we can use for both assignments can be found in the syllabus. Also, there is no assigned reading, everything is independent research. I'm going to have a lot of time on my hands...

On the way back to my flat, I stopped at "The New Bridge" pub for some lunch. I had a chicken, bacon, and cheese panini:
It was quite delicious, that place never fails in the food department...

I also took a couple of pictures of the city. It was a really gray day, but the clouds turned out to be really cool...














The picture on the left is a view over a bridge that I crossed to get to all of the shops. The picture on the left is my view of the horizon about 100 feet from my flat...

Tomorrow is my first field trip for "Coloquium on British Culture". It's to the Bowes Museum. Expect lots of pictures in my next entry..:-)

-Matt

A trip to the city for a taste of home...

Classes started for most today, but not I. My schedule is as follows:

Monday: Nothing
Tuesday: Class from 9-1
Wednesday: Class 9-9:30 AM Field Trip at 1 PM
Thursday: Nothing
Friday: Nothing
Saturday: Nothing
Sunday: Nothing

I stayed up really late last night because, when I got back from Flower's room, I somehow had stolen some internet from the Sweeney looking building next door. I talked to HBoO for a bit with a dodgey connection and ended up in bed around 7 AM. I was awoken at 12:30 by the computer guy who fixed my internet..:-D

After a bit of much needed browsing about my favorites list, I talked to HBoO for a bit on Skype then went into town with Eugene. Our mission? An excursion to the local smoke shop to buy a hookah so that everybody would stop smoking hand-rolled cigarettes. My Americanism is infectious...

Afterwards, I took some pictures of the city...















We traveled into a pretty sketchy part of town and decided to stop for lunch at a local barbershop/pie place. Though the pies were delicious, the scary dissonant music and creepy owners singing all over the place weirded me out a bit. Here's a picture of my lunch, prepared by a Mrs. Lovett...
Yum..:-)

So Eugene and I returned, hookah in tow and we all enjoyed smoking something less harmful and infinitely more delicious than hand-rolled cigarettes. Score one for America..:-P

Tomorrow is my first day of actual class, I'll let you guys know how it goes...

-Matt

Technical difficulties...

Still alive, everybody. I arrived in Newcastle to find out that the internet is not wireless after all. After purchasing what I thought was the correct cable for these crazy British plug-ins was actually completely wrong. I walked back to the shop the next day and exchanged it for the right one only to find out that my wall plug-in is broken. Gheeeyyyy...

Moving on...

I love it here. I could fill at least six entries filling in the details of what has happened in the last six days, but, unfortunately, I'll have to stick with one. I was picked up by my cousin's friend this past Monday and he took me to the train station. It was an old and abandoned looking place because there are no train tellers or machines in Britain, all the tickets are done by these ticket guys with little hand-held computers. Pretty cool...

The landscape on the way looked like this:

Very green even though it's the middle of January. Lots of hills and lakes and pretty little villages with old stone churches...

I got to the Newcastle train station and took a taxi to the accommodation office, except he dropped me off in the wrong place and I was stuck in the middle of a completely unknown city with all of my bags. So I asked this kid walking by if he could help me find the Accommodation office, and he took me around campus and got me where I needed to go. Nice guy...

So I drop off my bags in my new room and sit back for a bit. I didn't unpack until the following day, but here's what my room looks like now:
At first glance, it looks like your standard American dorm room. Let's take a closer look...















Two small examples. On the left, we have a specimen of English tap design. Every sink has two faucets, one boiling hot, the other freezing cold. Try washing dishes. The cold water won't clean the nasty and the hot burns through your skin faster than lava. On the right we have a European outlet. In addition to plugging in and turning on your favorite household appliance, you also have to flip an additional switch on the outlet itself. Very subtle differences...

So I met one of my flat mates, A Romanian named Eugene. He introduced me to a bunch of his friends and now I have a group of people to show me where everything is. On Friday, it was a girl's birthday. The party was themed "goth school girls", a reference to some English movie I've never seen. I didn't have the proper attire, but screw local customs, I'm American!











































Top left is Jordan and Stu (front to back), top right is Flower, Layla, Rachel, Raj (front to back), middle left is Flower sleeping on Layla and Eugen sleeping on Flower, and Mark and Joe are middle right. Finally, Jenny, Camilla, Zoe on bottom left and Rachel and Amy on bottom right...

Media is done a bit different here. In newspapers, you can find boobs, they can say "fuck" on TV, and anti-drug stickers look like this:

>_>

So, what do I eat? Food and drink respectively:















Yum...

And, finally, some pictures of the city I live in...































Newcastle is quite pretty..:-)

More adventures to come on a (hopefully) daily basis...

-Matt

Travel log, day 1...

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It is the distant future. Things are quite different. For instance, this is the future. You, my audience, is in the past. Therefore, things are different, because I'm in the present, which you call the future, and you are in the past, which you call the present... ... ... ..I can't think of any more differences...

For those that don't know, I'm in England. For the next few months, I'll be detailing my adventures as I gallivant in foreign lands, inevitably being insulting for my brutish American tendencies. Can't wait..:-)

I arrived at JFK International Airport in New York City at 2 PM. After checking in and eating and saying goodbye to my parents and going through security, it was 4:30 PM. My flight was at 7 PM. What did I do, you ask? I took artsy farts pitchahs of course. For instance:


This tiny piece of cardboard is worth $537. I figured I'd take a picture of it...

Here's a picture of all the people waiting for the 7 PM flight when I got there at 4:30. No, that's not a trick of the camera. That row of seats really does go on forever..:-P

I found this Euro cent on the floor. My first European currency..!

Then, I got on the plane. I was told Air India had amazing food. So, when my meal came to me and it looked like this:

I was exceptionally disappointed. But watch what happens when you open it up...

Didn't see that one coming...

So, then I landed. I got through customs surprisingly fast, picked up my bags, and met my cousin. She drove me to the American army base (she works there) and brought me to the grocery store. Here's a few veggies that took me by surprise in the produce section...
















Lot's of creepy looking vegetables here. So we drove to the pet store to pick up my cousin's dog, and, while waiting for her to come out of the shop, I started reading the advertisements on the door. I wish I had pictorial evidence of this, but one of the services offered by the shop was "scissoring", which I found hilarious (South Park reference++)...

Next, we drove to Jaime's house where, upon seeing how nice my bed was, I promptly passed out for 4 hours. When I awoke from my coma, dinner was almost ready. Jaime kept apologizing for the meal, but it looked like this:
















So I had no idea what she was talking about. It was delicious in every sense of the word...

After dinner, I set up my computer and Skype and talked to HBoO and my family. Good times all around, but now I'm tired and must sleep. I have about 5 hours of train riding tomorrow before I arrive at my actual destination...

One final note, Jaime's dog, Romeo, looks just like HBoO's dog, Hickory.

Good night, everybody...

-Matt

Last night in America...

Over the next two days, let's see:

My house to JFK International Airport- 120 miles
JFK International Airport to Heathrow International Airport- 3471 miles
Heathrow International Airport to My cousin's house- 116 miles
My cousin's house to Northumbria University- 256 miles

That's 3963 miles of travel in two days..:-)

Tonight, my family went to Hard Rock Cafe for my dad's birthday and my send-off dinner. It was bittersweet, especially the part where my dad tossed his barbecue ribs into the center of the table when the waiter checked up on us, proudly exclaiming, "Those were the worst ribs I've ever eaten, I wouldn't even feed those to the dog."

Really, dad? You wouldn't feed those delicious ribs to our now deceased pet dog, just because they may or may not have been a little cold? Really..?

On a better note, HBoO and I hung out for the rest of the night and watched home movies from my high school days. At the end of the night, we had our tearful goodbye..*sniff*

It's just four months. It's not that long. We have Skype and emails and blogs and pictures, we'll be in pretty much constant contact. All will be good. I'm just waiting for that day when I show up on her doorstep, ring the doorbell, and as each second passes between the ring and her answer, I become ever more anxious and excited. Then, she opens the door with a smile and I crash through into her foyer, pick her up, and swing her around and around in the most epic huggle ever witnessed by mankind. Can't wait..:-)

So, tomorrow I leave for England. Don't expect a break in entries, I'll probably have something new and cool every day for the next few months. Lots of pictures will be taken, so expect lots of photoshop threads and pictures of exotic locations and new foods. It'll be the biggest adventure yet, so stay tuned..:-)

-Matt

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-Matt

A day to play in the snow...

HBoO came over today, surprising me with the DVD of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a movie that holds a very special place in my heart. A long time ago (1991), in a galaxy far far away (Blue Anchor, New Jersey), I dreamed of only two professions, a trash man and/or ninja turtle. Ultimately, both of these dreams would be replaced with other, more practical goals (a Pokemon master, a Dragon Ball Z fighter etc.), but I'll always hold a special place in my heart for Halloween 1992 where I dressed up as Leonardo, the blue-bandanna wearing, sword-wielding mutant turtle, destined to lead my team of teenage turtles to thwart the evil Shredder and destroy all traces of evil...

It is only now, in the year 2008, that I realize that my childhood dreams were crushed at 12:50 AM on April 11th 2007 when I turned 20. That short gap of time where I could have become a teenage mutant ninja turtle is over. Now, I can only look toward the future where I may or may not become a twenty-something ninja turtle. Only time will tell...

In other news, it snowed today! HBoO and I ran around outside taking pictures for a while, so here are a couple that I thought were decently photoshopped:















Here is a picture of some mulch that was recently powdered with snowflakes. I darkened it a bit because I accidentally used flash, upped the contrast, and made everything a little more red...















For this picture, I used a new technique that I think worked pretty well. I dampened all of the colors to make the snow in the background more prominent, then saturated the picture with red to focus on HBoO, who can be seen here employing her "I want some delorcious snowflakes for breakfast" face...

Unfortunately, none of the other pictures turned out as well as I'd hoped. For example:


I think this picture speaks for itself, so that'll be all for today..:-)

-Matt