Logophiles and British Slang

British terminology is weird. And I mean that in a completely inoffensive but baffled way. Because if you listen to a British person talk, it almost seems like they're saying things as Americans do, then suddenly they've thrown in a word you've never heard before and you have to use context clues to solve this mystery.

People are generally familiar with some of the terms, like how french fries are 'chips' and elevators are 'lifts', but there are some terms that took me by surprise when I crossed the pond. So to prove I am actually learning something over here (and I mean beyond all the astronomy, mythology, Shakespeare, and writing skills) I figured I could finagle a bit of a vocabulary lesson into this blog post. I'll try and keep it simple, using just the words I've heard used.

I'll try this set up, so in the list below the terms and slang are laid out as such: American word = British word. Here we go.

Bus = Coach
Chips = Crisps
Apartment = Flat
Idiot = Knob
Parking Lot = Car Park
Pants = Trousers
Underwear = Pants
Sweater = Jumper
Husband/Wife/Girlfriend/Boyfriend = Partner
Two Weeks = Fortnight
Recycle = Refuse (they are very particular about recycling here)
Trash = Rubbish
Want = Fancy
Dessert = Pudding (this will also depend on your economic/social class, according to one of the professors)
Professor = Don
Bangers and Mash = Sausage and Mashed Potato
Movie Theater = Cinema

The word 'Cheers' is used quite frequently over here, and for a while I was unsure of its true meaning. To be honest, after asking about it, I discovered that it hasn't really got a particular meaning. It's been generalized to basically cover 'hello', 'goodbye', 'thank you', 'you're welcome', 'have a good day', and in the rare occasion, 'sorry I almost hit you with my bike'.

The word 'mate' is not used as often as you'd think, though I have gotten a few odd looks when I've excitedly exclaimed 'dude' in the street. That may have also been because I was excited and shouting though.

Their money is called a couple of things as well. As a whole it's pounds as opposed to dollars, but the paper money is called notes while the coins are pence. There is no note worth one pound though, only a pound coin, and the coins come in every size and amount from two pence to two pounds. I often look like a knob as Tescos or Sainsburys trying to read on the coins how much each is worth. All of their notes are different colors and sizes though, so it's incredibly convenient whenever I need to pay for things in pounds efficiently.

In other news, we've been making plans for going to Paris for about a week next month. We've officially entered sixth week of term, so I only have the next few weeks before I'm officially done with my academic semester. That's a weird feeling, but at the same time I'm feeling a little drained from all the paper writing I've been doing, so I'm excited to be getting out and traveling around next month. Until then I have to buckle down and get my papers done, which is taking more and more motivation as time goes on and I have a higher desire to go to a castle or wander Oxford.

It's been raining more lately, though, so that's kind of forced me to stay in and finish up my papers. I think it's a sign when the weather wants me to be productive.

Regardless, things are going really well over here, and I'm having a lot of fun.

With that, good night Oxford and good morning California,

Sam

Rainy Days and Castle Walls

I had plans to go to the Bodleian library today, but it's been raining since this morning, so I made the executive decision to not walk thirty minutes in the pouring rain and go tomorrow instead. Which just means I'll be finishing up my other papers in an attempt to stay productive.

It's been a mixed week in terms of productivity; I've gotten two papers mostly finished but had a few social outings as well. Saturday was a day trip to Warwick Castle, known as one of the finest medieval castles in all of England, due to its incredible preservation. The castle played a big role during the War of Roses when the Duke of York, King Edward, was held captive there.

The castle itself is beautiful, and we were able to explore all of the grounds, the interior rooms, and climb around the walls. There were these gigantic, beautiful eagles there, and a peacock garden where the namesakes of the place just kind of wandered around avoiding small children. There was also a trebuchet that we got to see launch a ball of fire several hundred feet (which honestly wasn't as cool as I was hoping it would be, but still a nice way to spend Valentine's day).

The interior of the castle wasn't as cool as Hampton Court Palace, but that may have just been because the rooms all had wax figures of maids and butlers in them that looked six kinds of creepy. I was walking through one of the rooms with a lot of figures when one of the workers suddenly walked in and scared me so badly I screamed and hit my roommate beside me. The worker felt bad, but everyone else laughed so I figured nobody minded too much.

I think my favorite part of the castle was getting to walk along the wall and look out over the town and grounds of the castle. I've always thought castles were really cool, but before my trip here I'd never really gotten to see any, so to be here and literally climbing the walls of castles built in the 900's has been incredible.

The town outside the castle walls was actually kind of adorable. It had a very impressive church called the Collegiate Church of St. Mary, which had this beautiful organ and the most colorful stained glass windows I've seen here. I was especially excited to see Green Man carvings there, which was something I'd hoped to run into at some point. For those of you who don't know, the Green Man is a little bit like the Bigfoot of England. Kind of. He's a figure that represents humanity's connection to nature, and is carved to look like a man-shaped figure growing leaves. He's not like a harmonious woodland creature though, he's more of a reminder that nature is more powerful than man and that we are dependent on it for our survival.

We stopped at a little tea shop in town as well, and I tried a pot of peppermint tea. It wasn't bad, which surprised me, and I felt very fancy with my own little teapot and tray.

A couple of days before the Warwick trip, a group of us study abroad students all went out to celebrate one of my roommates' birthdays. We went to an Irish pub and had a wonderful time laughing and eating. I tried bangers and mash and found it to be really good, and then topped off the visit with an enormous ice cream sundae. It was a nice break from writing papers, and it was really good to have a night to eat out instead of butchering my way through making dinner (though I have gotten better at making unimaginative meals like pasta and burritos).

The weather hasn't been too bad lately, but it hasn't snowed since last week. I've been told by multiple people that February is the month of snow, but halfway through has yielded only one snowy night and shown that we probably won't get much snow this year. Today was the first day of rain in a while, and we'd all gotten quite comfortable with the cool but dry weather, so all the study abroad kids are hunched inside writing papers and glaring at the water falling from the sky.

It's been in the 80's back home, so I'm a little envious of the sunshine, but I'm really enjoying my time here, so I figure I can put up with clouds for this.

I'll hurry and post this while the internet is working, so good evening Oxford and good morning California!

Sam

Warwick Castle

Warwick Castle Great Hall

The ceilings here were beautiful and everything was very lavishly decorated

Warwick

Warwick

Warwick

The Peacock Gardens

One of the eagles used in the bird shows at Warwick Castle

Warwick

The Trebuchet

Warwick

Warwick

Warwick

Warwick Wall

Warwick

Warwick Courtyard

The Collegiate Church of St. Mary

St. Mary stained glass--the picture doesn't do it justice

The ceiling of St. Mary

St. Mary

St. Mary

St. Mary

My fancy teapot and peppermint tea

The enormous sundae I ate in one sitting

Warwick Castle

In the Peacock Garden

St. Mary

Angels, Stars, Markets, and Pub Lunches

There are angels on the ceiling of the New College chapel. They rise from the rafters like figureheads on ships, wooden candles clutched tightly in their grasp and wings outstretched in flight.

When the choir sings it sounds like angels too; voices echoing through the cavern-like space as the organ song races the sound around carved wood and curved stone. Candles flicker beside each seat, providing just enough light for us to read our hymnals by, at least until we could walk out into the dark cloisters and shiver through the end of the service. Above our little flickering candles the ever present clouds in the sky cleared and for the first time since arriving in Oxford I caught a glimpse of my beloved stars.

There is a big difference between reading about the stars and actually seeing them. Because of my Astronomical Mythology course I may know the constellation stories of Andromeda and Gemini, but I have missed the familiar sights of Orion and Cassiopia over my head.

The clouds have since returned to the sky, but I appreciated the clarity they gave me during my first church service in England this past Thursday evening.

Before the service, though, I had a rather busy Thursday. It started with a tutorial for Shakespeare in the morning and then moved to a lunch of fish and chips (how very British of me) at The Eagle and Child. That particular pub is famously known as being C. S. Lewis' and J. R. R. Tolkien's meeting place for their writing group every Tuesday, where they and a few other writers shared drinks and critiqued each others' work. It was incredible to sit in the building they had, aspiring writers coming together and reveling in each others' created worlds.

After lunch my roommate and I spent several hours in the Ashmolean Museum, an Oxford museum that rivals the Fitzwilliam in both size and content. We only got through about half of it (maybe three of the five floors?) before heading over to the chapel service. So we'll have to finish up sometime in the next few weeks. After the service New College was offering a free dinner in the dining hall, so it was nice not to have to cook for an evening.

The day before all of that, Wednesday, I went to the covered market down the street from the study abroad office. I wandered for a while, staring at all the bakery delights, scarves, books, and blueberries, before caving and buying a bag of bananas and a container of fresh dumplings. Worth the splurge in my opinion.

Afterwards I'd gone back up to the office and offered people bananas (I had gotten a lot of them rather inexpensively) just to see the surprise on their faces when I pulled them out of my bag. I think the term banana fairy would be appropriate, if maybe a little ridiculous.

The rest of the week was decidedly uneventful, as I needed to finish the papers for my upcoming tutorials. The majority of my day today was spent in the Radcliffe Camera building of the Bodleian doing research on Othello, a Shakespeare play built entirely upon manipulation and misunderstandings. But it was either that or Romeo and Juliet, so I figured I'd pick the play I hadn't already read six times.

When the library closed and they essentially kicked us out (I've never heard someone say so politely with a British accent, "Get out please" before now) we stopped at Sainsburys (another grocery store) on the way back to the flat. During that trip I realized two things. One is to never again go there on a Sunday. I'll spare you all the gory details, but let's just say the queue was almost out the door. The second thing I realized was that grocery shopping has become a large part of my life. There are fewer preservatives in English food, meaning that a lot of it goes bad quicker than the American food I'm used to. Thus I must frequently return to Tescos or Sainsburys for food on regular basis. No Costco bulk items here. Which wouldn't be so bad if the store wasn't a twenty minute walk both ways (carrying my computer bag and several grocery bags for that long is sometimes a painful inconvenience). But I'll survived, and as previously mentioned, this will serve as my work out while I'm here. I'll just have great calves when I go home.

Hauling groceries back to the flat today (over the bridge, down the path, under the railroad tracks) I was met by the image of a beautiful sunset over the Thames, the end result of a day where the sun was shining for much of it.

It was weird to realize I hadn't seen a sunset in so long, and I had to stop and put my groceries down long enough to take a picture.

It was an overall very nice ending to a really good week. So I'll leave you with that.

Good night Oxford and good morning California,

Sam

The Eagle and Child pub

It had all sorts of Tolkein and Lewis memorabilia on the walls and such

Fish and chips!

This was our cozy little booth for lunch

The Ashmolean Museum

The Eagle and Child interior

The Ashmolean greets you with this hallway when you first walk in

We got a special tour of the cast room, where this giant statue of Nike was

More Ashmolean

More Ashmolean

Ashmolean bust--I'd also like to learn to do my hair like that

This is the ceiling in the Upper Reading room of the Radcliffe Camera

Sunset on the Thames

Libraries, Palaces, and Museums; There Are Wonders Like I've Never Seen

As I watch the snow fall past my window, I am almost abruptly reminded of the fact that I am not in California anymore. I am childishly excited by the small build up outside my flat, hoping that come morning there will be enough for me to make a fool of myself playing in. My roommates, who call Virgina their home, are less impressed, but that has not stopped me from pressing my face against the glass and staring at the flakes, wide-eyed and enamored by the first snowfall I have seen in four years.

Okay, maybe it's not really the first, since it did snow while I was in Cambridge on Saturday. Those were giant flakes that slapped you in the face as you walked, and while I hate to admit it the snow is slightly more enjoyable when I'm wrapped up indoors.  And after a small amount of playing in it around midnight here, I can say it's definitely much colder outside than I'm used to.

It's been a week full of walking and seeing incredible things, to the point where curling up in my desk chair and writing my papers sounds less terrible than it did before my legs started hurting. But it's all been completely worth it.

The first outing of this past week took place last Sunday, when my roommate and I took a look at a few of the buildings in Oxford. The first was the Museum of the History of Science, one of the oldest museums in England. It contained several floors of astrolabes and microscopes dating back to the 15th century and beyond. The basement level contained an old chemistry lab, where scientists had worked away on a polio vaccine, though in its current state it looked a lot like a meth lab with all of its tubes and flasks sitting inside glass cages. On one of the walls hung a blackboard Albert Einstein had written formulas on during a lecture he'd given at the university. In another case were some of the photography chemicals that Lewis Carroll, also known as Charles Dodgson, had used. Historical treasures hidden away in a building that creaked with experience and secrets.

When we'd finished wandering the halls and staring at the old clocks and the fanciest microscope I'd ever seen we walked further into the city, through the doors of a beautiful church called the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin. With stars painted on its ceiling and hand painted glass windows it was an incredibly  gorgeous church, and we wandered through it climbing stairs and staring at the enormous organ in the center of the building.

We stayed in the church for a little while before heading over to Nando's and splurging for dinner. Nando's is apparently very big here, and the waiter was absolutely aghast that we'd never been there before, at least until we explained that we were American. It was good food, even if the initial understanding of how the restaurant worked was a little confusing, and my roommate has been insisting that we return soon.

The rest of that week was consumed by tutorials and writing papers in preparation for the upcoming weekend trips, were we'd be gone both Saturday and Sunday on different day trips in England.

As I mentioned before, Saturday was spent in Cambridge. A city very similar to Oxford and complete with a stunning school rivalry that has both schools calling the opposing university the "other place". Cambridge University began in the 1200's, around four hundred years after the town had been formed. And it all began with a murder.

The story goes that some students at Oxford had been out one night when a woman was murdered. One of the students was found guilty and hung, and the others took off for safety. One of the students' homes was in Cambridge, so his friends accompanied him and a university was created there so that they could continue studying.

The city is much more centralized that Oxford, with its various universities and libraries widely sprawled out. Cambridge has them all tucked in between student residencies and shops, but with its own curious quirks. The Cambridge climbing society was mentioned several times during our tour, including  notable stories of how years ago several engineering students had brought up an automobile piece by piece and assembled it on the roof of one of the buildings. It took the city engineers a week to get it down. Another few students stole the golden sword from the statue of Henry VIII and replaced it with a chair leg, which is still there today.

We were taken on a walking tour of the city and King's College, walking past a tiny church and several of the older science buildings. The King's College Church, though, was the best part of the tour and is absolutely phenomenal. It took about five kings' reigns to build, including Henry VIII and Richard III, and once it was completed it looked nothing like what the original plans had been.

The organ was playing as we stepped in from the cold, the sound echoing around the cavern-like room and immediately stealing the attention away from the beautiful stained glass windows. When it quieted down a short time after, though, my attention was turned back to the windows, which told stories from both the old and new testaments. Our tour guide told us that they had been removed during World War II for their protection and it had taken five years to put them back up. Many years before that, during the War of Roses, soldiers took up residency within its walls, painting graffiti that is still visible in some places inside. Those soldiers were usually the ones who went around smashing religious windows and such destructive things, but it was winter and very cold outside, so the windows survived if only to keep the soldiers from freezing.

We also got the chance to see the Raff Bar, also known as The Eagle Pub, where Watson and Crick had lunch every day and made the announcement that they had discovered the secret of life; DNA. On the ceiling of the very same building, soldiers from World War II hoisted themselves on each others' shoulders and traced out their squadron numbers, plane names and numbers, and even the outline of the bar keeper's daughter. But they never wrote their own names.

After that we spent several hours in the Fitzwilliam Museum, an enormous piece of architecture filled with Monet paintings, Greek era statues, porcelain plates from long ago Chinese dynasties, and a whole slew of medieval armor. I was (and am still) quickly falling in love with the beautiful ceilings in the buildings here and have spent a fair amount of time almost falling down stairs because my eyes have been focused skyward.

Our time in Cambridge drew to a close with quite a bit of snow and rain, but plenty of interesting stories. The following day was a trip planned for Hampton Court Palace, a gorgeous building that had been used as a home for several royals, most famously King Henry VIII and his many wives.

Walking through those halls I was awed constantly by the idea that kings and queens had wandered these halls before me. I got to see kitchens used specifically for the manufacturing of chocolate drinks, the secondary bedrooms of royals, where their attendants would dress the kings and queens separately, throne rooms, art galleries, and an incredible garden with trees that looked like giant mushrooms and manicured lawns filled with statues.

I learned more about the life of Henry's first wife, Katherine, who was married to him for twenty years. In the rooms I saw with troves of information displayed across the palace the two seemed to be quite the power couple, complimenting each other and working as equals to both raise their daughter and rule the country. Katherine lost five of her six children either through still births or within weeks of their births, but never once did she waver from her husband's side. Until he decided he needed an heir and went about creating a new religion and marrying five other women. We often hear about Anne Boleyn and how sad it was that she fell from the king's favor in only a year, but after learning about life at the palace I feel more pity for Katherine, who once she was sent away never again saw her daughter, Mary.

A weekend full of history and beautiful sights, leading up to a week where I once again have to return to the present and write my papers. My tutorials are going well and I'm feeling confident in my paper writing ability, so perhaps for just a little bit longer I'll allow myself to step outside and play in the snow.

With a chilly send off, good night Oxford and good morning California,

Sam

The basement of the Museum of the History or Science

An astrolabe clock

The fanciest microscope I've ever seen (science classrooms step it up)

The Einstein Blackboard

Lewis Carroll's photography equipment

University Church of St. Mary the Virgin

The organ at St. Mary's

The stained glass windows are all hand painted, giving them a lot more detail than the normally colored paned ones

St. Mary's

Cambridge; King's College

The ceiling of The Eagle Pub

The Eagle Pub

King's College

King's College Church

The ceiling and organ in King's College Church

Some of the stained glass windows

I walked in and this sight just blew me away, and accompanied by the organ playing it was indescribable

Trinity College in the snow

The Fitzwilliam Museum

Fitzwilliam

One of the Greek rooms in the Fitzwilliam

Greek tomb in the Fitzwilliam

A room filled entirely with ceramics and delicately made glass work. I felt like an elephant walking through here.

The fanciest tea pot I've ever seen

Crossbows from the section of medieval armor

One of the art galleries in the Fitzwilliam

Monet in the Fitzwilliam

Fitzwilliam

Hampton Court Palace

Hampton Court Palace

One of the kitchens

I really liked the depressed looking peasant statues in this courtyard, it added a whole other element to it

The ceiling artwork was just beautiful. I swear I spent more time staring at the roof than anything else

The room was furnished with firearms. The designs on the walls are all made out of guns set side by side

Throne from Hampton Court Palace

A book and some letters dating back to the 1600's

There were just hallways and hallways everywhere, all filled with different artwork

Courtyard

The chocolate kitchen (yes they had a specific kitchen just for chocolate)

Some ridiclously fancy napkin art

My love of ceilings is growing

The Privy Gardens (look at the mushroom tree!)

Hampton Court Palace

Hampton Court Palace

The Privy Gardens were restored two days before I was born

The Privy Garden

The Privy Garden

The Great Vine, otherwise known as the largest vine in the world

One of the dining halls

I alternated singing 'On The Steps of The Palace' and 'Ten Minutes Ago' while I was here