Swansea, Wales

One part of our study abroad program requirements is to spend a weekend with a family in a more rural setting of the United Kingdom. Some people went to Mambles, some went to Petersborough, but I went on the real extravaganza to Swansea, Wales.

When a fellow parliamentary intern told his MP he would be going to Swansea for the weekend, apparently the MP responded, "Why?" As it turns out, Swansea seems to be the Newark, New Jersey of the UK. (I was told expressly several times that 'Newark' had to be included in this analogy by a few New Jersey residents.)

It took seven hours by coach bus to get to Swansea, including the nearly two hours we spent getting through London because our bus driver got lost and had to stop to ask for directions. When we finally got to Swansea, a cab driver took us from the bus stop to our host family's houses.

And I can't complain at all about the host family. They were so nice and welcoming to us three Americans invading their home for a weekend. The parents were probably in their thirties. He was a musician and she was a french teacher. And they had one four-year-old boy and a two-year-old girl who were equally sweet to us.

Except when we got to their house it was nearly 1 a.m. and we basically went straight to sleep. Plus we had to be out pretty early in the morning to catch the bus to a town called Rhossili.

So after another half an hour in the coach bus, we arrived in this coastal town in Wales.

Normally, trekking through mud and sheep excrement on hills that I would totally slip down in the cold and wind without the proper boots would not be my thing. But screw it. I'm only here once. So I did trek all the way out from that town through the grass to explore the cliffs and take some amazing photos with some people despite the crazy wind. So worth it too.

So despite how ridiculous the weather was, I think we could still appreciate how pretty the coastline is. I would love to see it in the summer. Or, you know, just when the sky is blue.

I don't think they have cliffs like that in the states. If they do, someone needs to inform me, because I will move there.

Also, the Welsh language is crazy cool. It really does look like someone slammed their hand on a keyboard and called it a word, doesn't it?

But really they just consider y, w and x as vowels. Weird.



After wandering the coastline for about an hour or two, we still had an hour before we could catch the bus back to Swansea. So we all crashed in a bistro overlooking the Channel for an hour before making our way back to the bus.

When we were back in Swansea, we were basically kicked off the bus and told to explore "downtown" Swansea for two hours before our host families picked us up.



Ok?

Can you say maddeningly unhelpful?




So we all ducked into the closest pub we could find to chill for awhile without being asked to buy anything.

Then we spent some lovely time with our host family for the night. It was amazing to have a home-cooked meal. It was nice to be able to actually watch TV, although we did just watch Friends. And it was nice to sleep in without being woken up by traffic.

We also watched Peter Pan in french, The Land Before Time and played with Legos with their kids.

So overall, it was a productive weekend.

Homesickness Entertainment

There are a few things that make me homesick for the good old USA. Not being able to instantly reach friends and family, having to doubt myself every time I cross the street, and not seeing any big jars of peanut butter in the grocery store.

But after seeing the first breaking news flash about the shooting in Arizona, there was nothing more that I wanted to do than be able to turn on American news or CNN and watch exactly what was happening. After seeing President Obama's speech in Tucson, AZ, all I wanted to do was ask all my political savvy friends and family what they thought and be with people who understood what a huge deal the tragedy was.

(Also, if you haven't watched this speech, watch it. Even my MP's researcher had heard it.)

But I couldn't. Because I'm across the Atlantic Ocean.

So to take my mind off how crazy far away I am from people now, I've been doing a few things in my spare time to keep... "busy."

Watching: Old West Wing clips on YouTube

Turns out the TV doesn't work in my flat, and the TV's that do work in other flats only show three channels. This obviously sucks. Plus I was planning on learning more about British broadcast news. And watching (better) British shows (or programmes).
Instead, I've been operating off YouTube. For some reason, I watched a good hour of West Wing the other day just off YouTube clips. Yeah, I'm a dork.
Also, the new Skins opening. Psych rocks too.

Reading: Atonement

I basically found it in the bookshelf in our flat, picked it up and started reading it.
There's a ton of books people just abandoned here, and while most of them are London tour guide books, some of them are actually quality literature.

So turns out that while my reading list for class isn't long at all, I will not be short on books here.




That's enough of my weird cures for homesickness now. Side note: I'm hoping to do short posts more often now, and long posts only when I actually have stories to share (including my weekend in Wales.)

Work Abroad

Here's the update I've been promising for weeks. I'm so sorry it's coming even later than I expected. New resolution: update more often. Even if you're all just getting a picture a day here, that will be better than me disappearing off the face of the planet for weeks at a time, yes?

So, my first week working and studying in London was hectic, as first weeks tend to be. On Monday, I arrived at Portcullis House, which is where I will actually be working. It's this cute little office space across the street from Parliament.


My MP's office faces Parliament, so if you duck the right way you can catch a closer glimpse of Big Ben. If you look to the right, you'll see Westminster Abbey. Stay tuned for a picture of that view. It amazes me every morning.

Anyway, on Monday, the MP's researcher decided to welcome me to work with a tour of Parliament. The building is absolutely amazing, despite looking smaller in person than it does on television. Unfortunately, there are no pictures to share here, because we weren't allowed to take any on the tour. (If you're really interested though, look here.)

The week has been filled with writing some stories and letters, sending some e-mails, filing e-mails, and other such duties. It's still been a whirlwind week, since waking up and putting on a suit in the morning still feels a bit like playing dress up. And answering the phone to hear people from the BBC and The Times on the other end feels a bit like a complete mistake. Or a joke. But after reflecting on it for the weekend, the second week should be a lot less like complete craziness and more like my actual life. Especially since I've realized all the people I work with are nice and helpful, even to a slightly oblivious American like myself.

The week was also filled with first days of classes, which function a lot like first days of classes in the USA: pointless. Going through the syllabi and weird introductions included. But also without any knowledge of where to buy books or find classes.

At the moment, I'm taking three classes outside of my internship: Political Change in 20th and 21st century Britain, American Foreign Policy, and Diversity in the British Workplace (our required class for all interns). There's also a quasi-class associated with our internship, during which we have to have to meet with an academic adviser three times over the course of the semester and write a 20-page research paper on a subject of our choice.

So those will be interesting. Mostly because all of our coordinators tried to warn/scare us against classes here.

Only the American Foreign Policy class though takes place in an actual British classroom, associated with City University in London. Here it is:


The other classes are associated with the university that actually runs the study abroad program: Arcadia University.

Yeah, it's weird.

Thankfully, I am not spending nearly anything on textbooks so far this semester. I found two of the books I need for one of my classes in the bookcase in my flat. They're completely usable despite some highlighting and annotations in the margins. One of my classes provides the readings in a course pack. And I think I'm going to find the textbooks for my other classes in the various libraries that we're allowed to use with our City University ID.

Anyway, after London's version of Welcome Week, I'm hoping to get more integrated to what I'll actually need to be doing this semester. So I'll give you all more details this week.

Otherwise, if you have questions, please feel free to comment. Or, you know, you could just talk to me.

My next post is going to be on our weekend excursion to Swansea, Wales. So look forward to that.

Toeing the Tourist Traps

While we new Londoners still had week-long Underground passes paid for by our study abroad program, we decided to put them to good use and see some of the sights over the weekend.

Thus, it was off to the British Museum on Saturday! The British Museum is by far the greatest museum I have ever visited. It is well worth even the hour you might be able to spend there if you ever travel to London. Extreme academics anywhere could easily spend a week cooped up in the Museum though.

Since we normal people are not usually too interested in every part of ancient history, here are some Must Sees at the British Museum:

1) The Rosetta Stone:

No. Not from the stupid infomercials. The real Rosetta Stone is the broken slab of stone that basically says the same thing in three different languages: Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, Egyptian demotic script and Ancient Greek. It was discovered by French troops and transferred to the British during the Napoleonic Wars. It's also been the most-visited item at the British Museum since it went on display in 1802.


If you can't find it, it's the thing in the glass box that everyone is crowding around even though they can't get a good picture of it because it's surrounded by glass.


2) Mummies

There are a lot of mummies at the British Museum. And they do a lot of cool stuff like CAT scan sarcophagi (seriously, apparently that's the plural of sarcophagus) to see how the mummy died.

Plus it's just plain cool.



3) Greek Parthenon Statues



The British Museum has a huge section on statues and monuments taken from the Greek Parthenon. I think this part is the most impressive, because it was part of an old tomb in what is now Turkey.




And these three must-sees don't even include the sections on Asia, the Americas, Africa or modern art.

So seriously, if you go to London, take the time to be a little nerdy and go to the British Museum. You'll love it even if you don't know anything about history.

On Sunday, we had to visit all of the Iconic London scenes. When you picture London, you probably either see the London Eye, Big Ben, Parliament & Westminster, or Buckingham Palace.
Conveniently enough, they are all located within a roughly 20 minute walk of each other.


If you've been my Facebook friend for about two years, you've probably already seen these exact pictures. But I love them so much that I can't resist posting them everywhere anyway. Plus they're worth another glance, especially in person.

Still to come from this area: Westminster Abbey, the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace and just generally a ton of photos.

Anything I missed that I should check out?

An American Girl in London

I'm in jolly old England! London to be exact, and the city has been pretty nice to me so far. So, I'm trying to be nice back to the people who have so kindly let me live in their country.

Making life a little easier is the lack of culture shock. Instead, one of our coordinators at the university said we experience, "cultural weirdness." So for a while everything's good. We're traveling, having a good time and enjoying the culture. Then we start to recognize all of things the British do differently, and wonder why they can't do things the good ol' American way.

Such as...
1) The traffic. Cars and buses drive on the other side of the road and with the steering wheel on the other side, meaning we have to look the other way before crossing the street. On my very few first steps off the bus heading to our flat, I looked right (like you normally do in the US) and started crossing the street. Instead, a car was coming from the left and I had to jump backwards quickly to avoid being in some serious accident. The traffic also will not stop for you, so pedestrians have to be extra careful to watch for speeding cars.
Luckily, there are "Look Left" and "Look Right" signs painted on the street to remind you to check for cars. Otherwise, we Americans wouldn't stand a chance in London.

2) The work ethic. Students have to be more self-sufficient in the UK. The coordinators showed an example where a stateside exam question would outline the parts of the theory in question; but a UK question would simply ask you to describe the theory. Professors apparently want students to be able to think critically and independently. Hopefully, Wisconsin has prepared me for this.
On the other hand, businesses and any professionals seem to have a more laid-back approach. The atmosphere is casual at our university, and it's almost as if professors and administrators have a, "It'll get done, when it gets done" feel. I'm sure it's lovely for the true adults, but or students hoping to impress them, we have to think about what we can work on by ourselves.

3) Transportation. In the US, most people feel pretty comfortable to move about at their own pace on public transportation. You can also talk on the train. On the tube, no one talks. Everyone has their own mindset, and simply wants to get from place to place. If we don't know where we're going or we want to meet up with people, we're simply in the way.


Besides these first few differences, life in the UK so far has been a lot like life at college in the US. I have to commute from home to classes. I have to adjust to new people. And I have to recognize new challenges of living on my own in a new place.

Except there's also cool buildings and people with pretty accents.

I'll add more details later. I need to take more pictures (aka, look like a tourist) to do this, but I swear I'll get it done.

I couldn't take my usual photo out the airplane window (sad times I know), so this is the one I took flying over London back in 2008.
It's pretty much the same.