The Sound of Settling

Unfortunately, I’ve lied to you, my dear readers. There won’t be an update from Oxford, Bath and Stonehenge this weekend because I’ve got a terrible throat infection and I’m keeping mostly to bed. In lieu of some cool and interesting travel stories, I’m going to post a few blogs I’ve been meaning to write for some time.

I’m going to start with Dr. B. Dr. B (name shortened to try to preserve some anonymity) is one of the best instructors I’ve ever had. He’s also one of the funniest men I’ve ever met.

But what else would you expect from a man with these posters in his office?

"The nations and their best writers. America, France, Russia and the UK."

I spend a fair deal of class scribbling down the hilarious things he says. Here are a few of the gems so far this semester. Try to imagine them in the perfect BBC comedy voice.

WARNING: Really bad language, substance references, irreverence and political bitterness to ensue.

History

"See, Chaucer wrote about a pilgrimage because at the time that was on the checklist of salvation.”

"History’s not exactly a sexy subject. I mean, I think so, because I’m a total geek, but…”

“The Tudor dynasty was all about pragmatism of the most extreme kind. You want me to be Anglican, but I can keep my stolen Church land? Ok! You want me to be Calvinist now, but I still get the land? Ok! You want me to let a woman rule? Hmm….but I do still get the land, right? Ok! Catholic? Land? Ok! Oh, we’re Protestant now, are we? But we’re not having Civil War anymore?...And the land? Ok!” 

“So now there are no more private armies, but there are lawyers, which are probably more lethal.”

“And the Puritans said 1+2=7, therefore the king must be Catholic.”

“The Theatre of TYRANNY… oh, that would make a great play…”

“If you’re English, and you want to feel patriotic about anything, it’s beating the French.
Why? Because of the evils of tyranny and Catholicism, and also cheese.” 

“Patriotism’s all well and good, but nationalism is a bitch that cuts people’s heads off.” 

“ Romanticism: Dark side take you it do. Yoda’s spot on on this shit.” 

“Ahh, aristocratic marriage. In the words of Tina Turner, What’s Love Got To Do With It?” 

“I mean, here, it rains. Not only are you poor, you’re also wet. So 17 million people say, Let’s be poor and warm! Let’s go to Melbourne!” 

"There are many good reasons to believe Dickens was paid by the word. I mean, have you ever read Dickens? It's like, The man walked down the alley. The alley was dark that the man walked down, and the cobbles were slippery, which made the man nervous as he walked down the alley. The cobbles were dark and slippery, and the man was nervous, because he did not want to slip in the dark. I mean, good God, get on with it!"

America and the UK

“If I dropped this flag, wouldn’t one of you come up and clock me? Say, Look here you English Bastard, we beat you in 1776 and we can do it again!” 

“And then some bastard in red kept throwing bombs at you…that would be us. Hello!” 

“The system sucked and you couldn’t do anything about it. Well, you did, you shot us. But as a Brit, you could turn only to satire.”

“The American revolution, really, was quite polite in comparison [to the French Revolution]. You said, Well, we’d like to go now. We said no. So you tipped some tea over. So we sent Cornwallis, and you kicked his arse… and he said, Ok, Can I go home now? And you said…Yeah, ok! See you later!” 

 “The difference between America and the UK is that you’ve written everything down. You’re very legalistic. We’re just very violent.” 

 "Ooh, America! Look at us, with our written constitution! Bugger off.” 

In British Studies

“I see. So my lecture was just too much perfection to cope with? Oh, you’ll do fine on the test. It’s not called BS for nothing.”  

“I’m happy to exchange my knowledge for your money. After noon I’m off the clock, though.”

“Nicotine and caffeine! Makes everything better.”

“Yes, I’ve already had my talk with the principal about my swearing. I’ve actually done quite well. Usually it doesn’t happen until about week six—it’s only week four!”

“Why is Spongebob on my board?! I shall now take this sponge, and eliminate Spongebob.”

“I know I said I’d kill you if you got me ill, but now I’m too ill to kill you, so it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s…it’s difficult.”

“Yes, I’m watching you. It’s my job. I’m also judging you.”

“Come on, I’ve just made a Conan reference. We can only go up from there.”

“You never smile. I crack jokes. I make myself look like an arse. Why do you never smile?”

“Satire. Not Satyr. But if you want to pretend John Gay was a hairy-arsed Greek mythological beast, by all means, be creative.” 

“Oh…sorry. I was being a shit there.” 

“The workhouse is seriously depressing. If it rains when we go, that’s just perfect.” 

“I was young, once. For about three months. Then I hit forty and I’ve been here ever since.”

“I was the poor schmuck who had to run around checking the bins for bombs back in the eighties.” 

“Today’s an awful day. I’ve lost me pen, I’ve lost me ciggys…not that I smoke, of course.” 

“If that were a proper working class riot, they would have burned something down. That’s how you know it’s a softie middle-class riot.” 

“I’ve done nine weeks of sticking to that bloody book! Let’s have one fun seminar! Parliamentary Constitutionalism! Go!” 

“Wales can play rugby! Why can we never play rugby? I suppose it’s because they have dragons…”

On the exam

“Do not write down every king. It’s a flight-path to an F. It’s a fuck-all, and fuck-all is what F stands for.”

“Ah! Fuck it! No paragraphs for me! My hand is like a spear! Do not be that person. And do not make me follow arrows to read your essay.”

“The margins are for me. It’s where I go… What? Explain. The hell are you saying, man?! Try to preserve them.”

“I got an essay once on how Elizabeth was defeated by Spain… so that was interesting.”

“Do not put hearts over all of your ‘i’s when you only have two hours to take this exam—and for God’s sake, do not use pink sparkly ink.”

“Thrown: ball. Throne: ass. Do not make this mistake again.”

“ You actually mentioned that coal was important in the Industrial Revolution? You have no idea what a comfort that is to me…” 

Religion

“And then you have politics and religion together, and that leads to a big explosion. Literally. So, in summation, Religion is a Bitch.”

“There’s God, and then there’s politics. The Anglican-Catholic break dealt with one of these.”

“Like most religious questions, it ends in a bloodbath.”

“Okay, so here’s your English God timeline…Catholic, Lollard, Catholic, Anglican, Calvinist, Catholic, Anglican. And each of them was the one true God.”

Frankfurt, Day Three

Day three was primarily a travel day. We got up at eight thirty to begin travelling and weren’t home until eight thirty at night. The bus ride back was really pretty, since we were actually awake for that one. I am happy that I’ll never travel with Ryanair again.

Germany was fantastic, but coming home to the castle, sandwiches and bed was also really, really nice.

Tune in next week for… Oxford, Bath and Stonehenge!

Frankfurt, Day Two

Day 2 of Frankfurt was much more productive. We first headed to the historic square, which was beautiful. Three or four churches were nearby, and the bells echoed off of each other on the quarter hour. There were souveniers and wurst stands and pastry shops and even a few tourists, although Frankfurt is not a huge tourist town.

After that we walked along the river to what is called “Museum Mile.” We spend some time in the Museum of Applied Arts, where I took some illicit photos.

A bridge near the Museum Mile. It's common in Europe for couples to carve their name on a padlock, lock it to a bridge, and throw the key in the river.

View from the same bridge of the southern bank.

After that we headed north beyond the historic square to the shopping district because Sam needed batteries for her camera (batteries are a really hard concept to explain using the point-and-grunt method, so we had to find a Gamestop with English speakers). We found an eight story mall there with a viewing deck of the city.

 

Later we went to Palmengarten (a public garden), which was gorgeous. Autumn is just starting now in the UK, but it’s arrived in earnest in southern Germany. Just a few flowers left, and the leaves were all turning.

The Underground entrance near Palmengarten.

For a while we just explored, before going back to the Historic Square again after dark. It was still pretty. Street artists were busy spray-painting signs and breakdancers were practicing under the lights of the church, but the same crowd of tourists still milled about.

Hauptbahnhof, on the way to the Historic Square.

All in all, we ate a lot of pastries and walked everywhere. We decided Germany is the land of the Jedi, because everything is so efficient and most electronics (such as lights, escalators, and train doors) only work when someone walks near them or touches them. Everything was absolutely beautiful and the people were really friendly, even if we generally couldn’t understand each other.

Frankfurt, Day One

I wish Day 1 of Frankfurt had lasted only one day. Unfortunately when travelling on a college budget this is not usually the case. Thursday night, my friend Sam and I left to go to the train station. We made it in to Stansted (with several other groups of Harlaxton students travelling across Europe) around eleven P.M. Our flight left around eight in the morning. Sleeping on the floor, we quickly realized, was going to be impossible, so I got a lot of reading done.

None of it my assigned reading, of course.

 The next morning we flew to Frankfurt with relative ease, nearly dead on our feet. We arrived only to realize that the cheap flight to Frankfurt actually goes somewhere almost two hours outside of Frankfurt.

 On that long bus ride we were sitting between a crying baby and a man mixing his own music without headphones, yet we still managed to sleep the entire time.

Then, the bus stopped at Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof (or, Central Train Station).

 
Suddenly, we had arrived in a country with only some English-speakers. We arrived without a map or any kind of German-English dictionary. We had a hostel but we didn't know where it was, and for that matter, we didn't know where we were. We were armed only with a weekend’s worth of apples and goldfish crackers.

Finally a hotel concierge took pity on us and directed us to the right hostel.

Upon arriving, we promptly passed out for four hours.

 When we awoke we decided to try to find Main Tower. Main Tower is to Frankfurt what the Arch is to St. Louis, the Eye is to London, or the Space Needle is to Seattle. Basically, you pay for an awesome view. Unfortunately it wasn’t on any of our newly-acquired maps and no one in Frankfurt knew what we were talking about.

We somehow managed to find our way through the public transportation to the right area of town. From there we were walking into random towers asking “Main Tower?” and getting laughed at.

The view we finally got was worth it, though.

Afterwards we walked a few blocks to the river, and then braved the underground again.

We were really not sure how to feel about the poster for "Mein Kampf: The Opera."

After that we went to bed obnoxiously early.

Landing in London

“[W]hen a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.” –Samuel Johnson

 If ever there was a weekend to prove this wrong, it would have been this weekend. My Saturday began with many, many problems. I lost my train ticket. My cab was late. Any tube station within two miles of my hostel was closed. My more informed readers might say: Of course it was closed. A lot of tube stations are closed while they revamp for the 2012 Olympics. My only complaint is that I did check the updates, and supposedly only the District Line was down.

 I’m starting to think the District Line is a lie someone made up. It hasn’t been open since I arrived--but my line was supposed to be open. It stopped running a mere two stops early from where I needed it to go.

I attempted to walk to my hostel, but I got lost pretty quickly, and there were no taxis in sight. Rather than get mugged at midnight when I planned to get back from the theatre, I decided to try to find a new hotel. Sixty pounds later at a booking service in the Tube station, I had one. My directions to get there?

 “Go north at Oxford Circus and turn right at the church.”

Thank god the Church was obvious.

After that things started to go better. Wandered around Piccadilly Circus until it was time to see Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty’s Theatre.

(Piccadilly Circus is considered a little like Times Square, only totally different.)

 
Did I mention Phantom's been playing there for 25 years? They’ve gotten rather good at it.

 I was overwhelmed. I’ve always wanted to see Phantom on stage and it was just so incredibly good. A few scenes were changed or added, but I still loved it all, and it was mostly used to give some of the characters an actual…character. And Christine Daae had a Swedish accent! Which was quite an innovation, from what I can tell—despite the fact that she is supposed to be Swedish.

 After that, I strolled through St. James’ Park, and temporarily got lost until I realized the sun was setting in my eyes, and that meant west.

I ended up at my next theatre an hour and a half early, so I broke down and bought a book at Victoria Station. Then, finally, to the Apollo and Victoria for Wicked.

 It was also amazing, but I haven’t been wanting to see it for six years and I was still so amazed at Phantom that it was harder to take in. I really enjoyed it though.

Hop the tube, turn right at the church, up three very tall, narrow flights of stairs, and I was back at my room.

I finished my book that night.

The next morning I woke up early and walked to Westminster to eat my breakfast on the Thames. I only forgot that it was Sunday and that’s kind of important for churches, so I still haven’t been inside Westminster. Pretty pictures though.

Last I took the tube up to King’s Cross, got a Costa (Costa Mocha Coolers are better than Starbucks Frappuccinos any day) and waited for the British Library to open. That was really cool. No photos to show you, because of course none are allowed.

Except this one.

Among the things I saw are an original Canterbury Tales, an original Marlowe, a bunch of random scraps of paper that Paul McCartney and John Lennon wrote lyrics on (even one from George Harrison), some original Magna Cartas (there were several), and a few tattered pages of a Greek copy of the Gospel of John from the 200s.  

 The English teacher inside of me was skipping.

 Then to King’s Cross again, and home to Grantham. Overall, when combined with finishing the first draft of my term paper, this was a fantastic weekend.

Culture in the Manor (Updated!)

A re-posting of my official blog over at The Lion's Roar. If you haven't heard, it's our official student blog here at Harlaxton, and can be found at http://harlaxtoncollege-students.blogspot.com/

I added more here, though, because I like you guys. :D

One of the biggest points of study abroad is to immerse oneself in local culture. Something I wasn’t expecting was for Harlaxton to make it so easy. I was afraid being in an isolated manor with a bunch of other Americans would create a kind of barrier between us and “Britishness,” but I’ve discovered that only happens if you let it happen.

It seems like at least once a week we have some kind of cultural event. Many are run by locals. So far I’ve learned traditional dances at the Ceilidh, watched a London theatre troupe (including Kevin Spacey) perform Romeo and Juliet in the Great Hall, and participated in a group discussion of politics with Grantham-area MP Nick Boles. Other events have included poetry readings and movie nights, and tonight some clog-dancers are supposed to perform as well.

Supplemental lectures are available some evenings on special British Studies topics. Tours of Grantham and the manor were available in our first weeks. Some weeks highlight the culture of areas we might visit, such as Germany or Spain. During those weeks, the hallways will be decorated with words of the native language, and the refectory will make cultural foods. Sometimes the staff even walks around in frightening costumes.


British Studies takes field trips to several relevant areas of the country throughout the term. These include Lincoln, a town with Roman, Anglosaxon, and Norman heritage, and also St. Paul's Cathedral in London. How much would it have helped to visit the actual sites of places we studied in American history? Well, I can tell you, it's helping a lot with British Studies.

In mentioning culture I can’t forget the Meet-a-Family program. This year it was so popular that we ran out of families to pair people with. This is a fantastic way to connect with real people in Grantham. I’m learning a lot more just by being in their home, eating their food, and talking to them than anything else. They are affectionately teaching me a new language, and giving me edible food.



I've also decided that British culture is superior because there is never, ever a toilet without a spare roll of toilet paper in plain sight. If for no other reason, that would probably cinch it for me.

Basically, Harlaxton throws a lot at you. School. Culture. New people and professors. Living in a castle. Driving on the other side of the road. Questionable meat in the refectory.


If you allow, they will throw even more at you—and every second will be worth it. Principal Kingsley is living up to his claim that this would be the most intense educational experience of our life to date. I’m just trying to absorb every second.

-----------

UPDATE:

I mentioned the clog dancing that was supposed to happen last night? Well, it was awesome. Welsh-style was my favorite. There were Clog dancers and Morris dancers (on a totally unrelated note, Nine Man's Morris is my new favorite British board game). After their performances, they went to the Bistro with us and taught us traditional English pub songs and dances. We were expected to reciprocate, but we didn't know any good songs, so that didn't work so well... but anyways. Photos!

Tour of the Manor Part 3

And now we'll conclude our tour with the library level and the upper levels...

On the library level floor:

 The library:

The stairs to the laundry dungeon:

The hallway:

On the 300/400 Corridor:

The hallway:

The elevator/lift stairs:

And lastly, a few gems I missed on my tour of the grounds:

I think that'll wrap up this weekend's blog post. Thanks for helping me procrastinate on my term paper! This is my last free weekend except one in November, so I should have lots of updates to keep both you and I busy. 

Tour of the Manor Part 2

And so the tour continues. This level, I believe, speaks for itself.

On the States Rooms level:

 

The Conservatory:

The Stairs:

The Main Entrance:

The Long Gallery:

The entire school gathers here twice a week for British Studies lectures...

...and this is what they look at.

The State Dining Room:

One of several secret passages through the Manor. This one was conveniently opened so I could take a photo.

The Gold Room:

The Ante Room:

The Morning Room:

The Drawing Room:

The Great Hall:

Oh man, this part of the Manor is so gorgeous I could have probably added a lot more.... but we'll just be moving on to the library and upper levels now.