This past week I spent in Norwich--which is where Callum lives. We are officially on Easter break. I had two essays to write the first week of break, so I met up with Callum the next week. I took my very first English train, which was a great experience. I haven't taken trains very much in the U.S. and the English countryside is very pretty, so the two hours of traveling went by quickly.
Norwich is the biggest city in the county of Norfolk. Callum actually lives in a neighboring village called Costessey. So when I arrived at Norwich station, we took a bus to his mom's house. That first day, we stayed around his neighborhood--a friend of his was having a party. So we went and I met his friends from home, which was nice. But there was a lot of people there and I didn't really remember too many names. The next day, we went into the city of Norwich to visit the castle. Norwich was actually bigger and equaled London in importance during the 11th century. The castle was very impressive and gorgeous. It's history was very interesting, including a period when it was converted to a prison.
Throughout the week, we did various things but kind of made it up as we went along, which was really relaxing, especially after a rather stressful end of the school year. We went bowling with his littlest brother and mom one day (I still am not very good, but I did manage to get two strikes in the tenth frame of our first game, which was cool!). We also went back to the city two more times to walk around and enjoy the city. I took lots of pictures. The city is just a very historic place, everything is used and re-used and has a lot of character. We visited Norwich Cathedral around Easter, which was nice, especially since I wasn't home for Easter. It is enormous and has lovely stained glass windows and a beautiful cloister. There is also a place called The Forum, which is a very modern building that houses the BBC news station, a library, and various restaurants. It was a very interesting combination of scenes--this modern glass building next to and ancient cathedral, among landmark statues and street vendors. The city felt small town--very cozy, very friendly, very approachable, yet had many components that equalled to London and all that it had to offer. It wasn't as busy on the streets, which was a refreshing change from the hord of people seemingly to deliberately step in front of you. Yet it still had a nice bustle about it. We had a few meals at his favorite pubs, which was delicious. And between the three days we spent in the city, I really enjoyed it.
We also visited his dad's house, who lives right down the street from his mom's. I had English fish and chips for the first time with him and his dad and brothers. It was greasy and salty but SO delicious. :) Being a house full of boys, we watched a load of football whenever we hung out with them. I also went to a couple "pub quizzes" with Callum and his friends. I got to know his friends a bit better and found that pub quizzes are actually really fun. It is essentially a question and answer game that local pubs have on Sunday nights. You pay a couple quid to play and if your team wins, you get all the money that people contributed--kind of like a lottery. The first pub quiz, I contributed three whole answers, which I thought was pretty good considering I don't know too much about English-y t.v. programs, or historical politics, and the like. But there were some international questions that I could help with. The first night, our team tied for first place with two other teams. Callum went up as the spokesperson to answer the tie-breaker question. Ironically, it was "In what year did Ford Motor Company begin?" I knew it to be 1903 since I live right next to Detroit and my Mom grew up in Dearborn. But Callum had to answer the question and was about 5 years off, so we came in 2nd place.
We also went to the East coast with Callum's mom and mom's boyfriend. The North Sea is about 2 hours away. So we drove to a half-way point, and then caught a steam train to go the rest of the way. And we walked along to coast back to the car. It was lovely. I felt so small next to the sea and the cliffs. The beaches are a bit different. Some have sand, but some are just pebbles and rocks. Both I think are really pretty. We lucked out and had gorgeous weather that whole week, very warm and sunny, so it was perfect day to go. I loved the train ride as well--it was old-fashioned with the sitting compartments. I felt like a passenger in Agatha Christie's Oriental Express, haha.
Because I stayed with Callum at his houses, I got to watch T.V. I haven't been able to at uni because I'd need a T.V. license, which was too expensive/not necessary for me. But as a result, I hadn't really seen any adverts or news. So it was interesting to compare commercials and watch the news (both about Norwich and local issues, but also about big things like the Royal Wedding and international news too. Newspapers are nice, but I always seem to prefer to listen to news than read it...). I also watched some corny t.v. shows like "Bargain Hunt" and game shows and soap operas like "East Enders"--it was funny and entertaining.
Overall, the week was wonderful and relaxing!! I posted pictures already. I also posted some older pictures that I forgot I hadn't put on facebook yet.
In other random news:
My computer got a virus a few weeks ago. I took it to a shop on Tottenham Court Road (the electronics street in London) and got it repaired no problem. But because they had to re-install the main programs on my laptop, they had all the settings set to UK instead of US. So, my spell-checker in word corrected everything to British spellings, my keyboard was set like a UK keyboard so the key strokes were different, the time and date were written in military time and dd/mm/yyyy, all the measurements for page settings were in the metric system, and a bunch of other little things I took for granted to just be US standard. It didn't take too long to figure out how to change them back, but it was rather funny--I just assumed everything would come US standard. :)
A girl from my Critical Perspectives class named Beauty and I have become rather quick and close friends over the last few weeks. During the school year, we both seemed too busy to hangout, but now that classes have ended, we've met up for lunch and found ourselves talking about anything and everything for about three hours! We had lunch in a plaza, and it felts a bit like SAGA at Alma and conversation was so easy, I felt like I was back home. It was lovely! And we've also met up a few times to work on our essays since we share two classes--she's an English major too so we have lots in common. It always surprises me when I meet someone that I just get along with so well right off the bat--as if we've known each other for years. I love it when that happens. :)
I got to skype with my lovely Daffodils two weeks ago! It was great to talk to everyone! :)
The Royal Wedding is this Friday and I'm going to try to finagle my way through the crowds and see what I can see! Americans tend to make a bigger deal over the wedding that they are doing here in England (that whole Disney Princess complex ingrained in us as kids I think...), but there is definitely a buzz around London now, excited with anticipation. It feels very surreal to think that 50 years from now, when I am talking to my grandkids, I'll be able to say "I was in London and got to watch the Royal Wedding when it happened in 2011". How neat is that!? I'm not sure if I'll be able to see much, but I sure am going to try!
