The last travel blog I read was from Kevin, who studied abroad in China last semester. I included the link in case you're interested, but he's home now so I don't suppose he'll be posting there anymore. (But if you read this, Kevin - it ended rather abruptly!) He's the only person I know personally who actually kept up with a blog while they were away. My dad also keeps us up to date when he's in South Korea, but in a different format; he sends one page of a Word document at a time, and includes the title of his next update at the bottom. I'm not quite sure yet how structured this blog will be or how often I will update (once a week at the least, though). I am pretty much incapable of writing completely freeform, and as I said in my last post I have been making outlines since I've been here so I don't forget what I've been doing before I had a chance to write about it.
I will try not to ramble too much, but I can tell you now that you should expect some long posts. Hopefully this doesn't mean I will lose your interest, but that might end up happening. To be honest, just the act of writing this is more important to me than having an audience (though of course, that's always nice). When I am really interested in something, I try to say everything at once, both in speech and in writing. When I speak, this means I have to stop, think about what I'm trying to say, and try again more slowly. When I write, it either means I spend a long time re-arranging paragraphs, or that things don't always seem to be in the right order (or a mix of both, if I start re-arranging and then decide to just leave the rest as it is). Also, I was diagnosed with ADD this summer (I haven't shared that with anyone yet, so feel privileged if you're reading this, haha), which is helpful in that I finally understand the problems I've had with school for most of my life, and hopefully explains any odd transitions I might make (though usually, as I said, I go back and edit everything before I post it). If you haven't noticed yet, I also use a lot of parentheses.
Sometimes I might talk about what I've been doing in emails, facebook posts, or on twitter before I post about it here, but I know that not everyone follows me everywhere (which would be creepy, actually), so I will try to assume that when you're reading this blog, you don't know anything about what I've been doing. However, there might be times that I assume you know about/understand something when you actually don't. If this happens, feel free to ask in the comments. If you'd rather ask/comment on twitter/facebook/email, go ahead. If you know me but don't have my email/twitter username, let me know. I actually have three emails, which I use for different things (family/school/everything else), so which one I give you depends on who you are. Saying it like that makes it sound like one group is better than the others, but it just makes it simpler if I keep things organized! If you happened on this blog by chance, the comments are the only means of communication you have with me, sorry! I don't usually give out my email/twitter/facebook unless I know you.
Alright, that's housekeeping done. I think I'm going to go to Sainsbury's (grocery store) after I finish this post, and go ahead and share the link before I write the next posts. Do remember that new posts show up on the top of the page, and you might have to click "older posts" on the bottom of the page to see the first ones I wrote (which were in 2009).
The post I meant to write last semester was going to be about expectations, so I'll go ahead and talk about that here. First off is this post from a study abroad website, titled, "Is Britain Broad Enough?" It's worth reading the whole thing, but I just want to share a bit of it here:
Britain is not presented or understood as a foreign society; rather, it is a precursor, an extension, a cousin. ... The U.S. is culturally a lot more like Australia (which has nonetheless plenty of cultural surprises) than it is like the U.K. There are obvious historical as well as geographical reasons for this, but in both cases the same problem arises: the presence of English soothes the outsider into believing that differences are not significant. You understand what people say, and you think you understand what they mean. But that’s not necessarily so. ...upon arrival, the thing to do is to become an ethnographer. A lot can be accomplished by noticing things, by writing them down, and by discussing them with people.That's what I hope to do with this blog: notice things, write them down, and discuss them. I hope that I will have an actual discussion here, with other people, but if it ends up just being me talking to myself, that's okay, too. I do plan on reading the blogs of the other people in the group and commenting there. (aside: it's raining, for only the second time since I've been here!)
Just before I left home, I read Travels, by Michael Crichton. This was actually a father's day present for my dad (sorry again for moving it so much!). It's a really good book, and I recommend it; the part I'm quoting here is from the preface.
Often I feel I go to some distant region of the world to be reminded of who I really am. There is no mystery about why this should be so. Stripped of your ordinary surroundings, your friends, your daily routines, your refrigerator full of your food, your closet full of you clothes -- with all of this taken away, you are forced into direct experience. Such direct experience inevitably makes you aware of who it is that is having the experience. That's not always comfortable, but it is always invigorating.That's a little more dramatic than I'm going for, I think, but I'm thinking along the same lines. I'm in a different place, with people I don't really know (though they're from the same college), and most of the familiar brands of food I eat at home aren't sold here (though I brought a big jar of Jif peanut butter with me). Obviously I'm in a city, not out in a rural area like in most of the stories in Travels.
I eventually realized that direct experience is the most valuable experience I can have. Western man is so surrounded by ideas, so bombarded with opinions, concepts, and information structures of all sorts, that it becomes difficult to experience anything without the intervening filter of these structures. And the natural world -- our traditional source of direct insights -- is rapidly disappearing. Modern city-dwellers cannot even see the stars at night. This humbling reminder of man's place in the greater scheme of things, which human beings formerly saw once every twenty-four hours, is denied them. It's no wonder that people lose their bearings, that they lose track of who they really are, and what their lives are really about.
So travel has helped me to have direct experiences. And to know more about myself.
But there's another thing; there are so many parks here! Forgetting the complications about being employed here, at the moment London is topping my list of places I'd most like to live. There's the convenience of being able to walk to just about everything you need or want, with public transportation to take you farther, and though you wouldn't have much of a yard here (if you have one at all) there are green spaces all over the place. There are even deer in some of them (in Richmond Park I know for sure). The street I'm on has parks at both ends of it, though they're very small, and I walk past another of similar size on the way to our classroom. ...I guess that was all the commentary I had on Crichton's quote, other than to say again that you should read the book.
So, I'm here, in a different culture. What better time to discuss culture shock? Well, since I'm only going to be here for a bit over three months, which according to the internet is around when the "honeymoon phase" usually ends, it's hard to tell if I'll experience it. On the other hand, I sort of feel like, when it comes to British culture, I've been in that phase for half of my life. Since the end of last semester, I did make an effort to seek out things like this post on Fandom Secrets: picture , then discussion. Be forewarned that the discussion (not the picture) includes cursing, so if you'd rather not read that, I'll summarize here for you: people in the England (and everywhere else for that matter) are just people. However magical the literary, film, and television output is, you have to remember that that is all just fiction! You can't come here expecting to find Hogwarts or Narnia or the Doctor around the corner. If you do, you'll be disappointed. However cliche the phrase has become, it's also important to "imagine people complexly." (For those who haven't heard that before, it's from John Green's book Paper Towns.) The point is, I feel like I can avoid culture shock, but I did just knock on wood. :P
The best way I can describe London in comparison with places I've already been is as a mix of Chicago and Eureka Springs (Arkansas). It's a big city, and there are lots of tourists here, and when you're in central London, as I am, sort of near the business district, you also see people just going about their jobs. The Eureka Springs bit is for the quirkiness of some of the shops and the general way you just feel "different" than the people who live here. I think the comparison makes more sense in my head. Oh, well.
Along that line: things here are mostly not better or worse than at home, just different. For example, the grocery store. There isn't much of a frozen food section, but there are all kinds of prepared meals, either refrigerated or not. This means, I assume, that everything is more fresh than at home, but you also have to eat it more quickly so it doesn't go bad. The food packaging/labeling is different, as well. It is very common to see something marked "suitable for vegetarians/vegans", and just about everything is recyclable (or clearly states that it is not). The nutrition facts are a bit harder for me to understand, but I think this is mainly because we use different units of measure. They do include interesting information that food at home doesn't have (though I can't think of specific examples at the moment). I have been able to find just about everything I eat at home, though not the same brand, which is fine. There are also things I've never had before, like my Quorn mycoprotein "turkey" slices which I ate on a sandwich today with cheddar cheese (the first tastes good, but doesn't taste like turkey, and the cheese is a kind of cream color instead of the fluorescent orange of American cheddar). Some funny things I've seen are the (amusingly stereotypical) commercials for the "deep south" KFC sandwich, and while we're on the subject of commercials, the Foot Locker one that uses an instrumental Peter Fox song (it's here, if you're interested). I only know who Peter Fox is because my sister (Jillian) listened to his music while she was in Germany during spring break of her senior year; her tour guide really liked him, and Jillian bought the CD when she came back and shared it with me! It's all in German, but very catchy.
Okay, er... This is gone on way longer than I was planning, so I'm going to go ahead and stop here and make this a post in two parts!
Off to Sainsbury's for now!
note: I'm a bit confused about the time zone settings here. I thought I fixed it but now it's changed the time for all my previous posts and still has this one wrong.
edit: I think I figured it out now.
