Libya

One reason I wanted to come to the UK for graduate school was to gain a more global perspective of the world around me. The quality of life is similar between the US and the UK but there is a huge difference in censorship, accessibility and importance to knowing what is going on in the world around you.

There are five of us students who started the doctorate business program this February. Me and four Middle Eastern men; three of which are from Libya. One of these men has his wife and three children still in Libya and they had anticipated moving here in a few months.

None of these men were in class last night as violent protest erupted in Libya yesterday.

Egypt, Tunisia, Libya. These wars and protest and politically unstable countries affect immediate people that you know here in the UK. Talking with a flatmate who has family in the US and travels there quiet a bit understands how American's are about international news. It's not that it isn't important to us, but it doesn't have the same immediacy. And as he put it, when refugees move to the US they want to become American but when refugees move to the UK they still want to be Egyptians or Libyans etc.

In the US if you want to know what is going on internationally you have to go out searching for the information. It's not coming to you. And it is so censored. I don't mean politically censored so that it's more American centric and the US is so great. Sure, every country does a bit of that, but what I mean is it is a polished, clean and censored version of war and violence and the ravages on the human body and life. And that makes it easier to think it's not really all that bad. Until you are sitting in a classroom where half your classmates are missing because they have family on the other side of a border that can't be crossed.

Pasties

When I think of food from the UK I think Fish & Chips. (walked past a fish & chip place this morning called The Codfather.) I had never heard of a pasty until a few months ago when my co-workers went to a British shop in Salt Lake for lunch. But pasties are a HUGE deal here.

The first week I moved here I had two of them. (not in one day...) That first week was so cold and wet and my insides were a shaky anxious mess and those pasties set me right.

What is a pasty? It's basically a pot pie shaped like a calzone. Lots of buttery flaky crust surrounding piping hot chicken and vegetables gooieness. They can't be healthy for you, but it feels like eating a pocket of sunshine on a cold drizzly day.

I give you the pasty.

Fortunately, the day that I ate this one, I had just signed up at a small gym near my house. Not realizing that weights were measured in kilograms rather than pounds, I had a very intense work out. Not that a pasty is great recovery food, but I don't think it did much damage either. As long as I don't eat them on a regular basis...

This is my favorite shop for them, and as you can read on the door, they are voted best pasty in Cheltenham. It's no lie. I wanted to get better photo's of the shop, but the girl working the counter flipped out when I started taking pictures. I did ask this fellow if he minded me taking the picture. He didn't. There are a few rows of tables and chairs in front as well, and even on the wettest days people are sitting there drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.

(and don't let the Extra 'gum' on the counter fool you. It is not normal sticks of gum like in the States.)

The Library

Previously I posted a few pictures of both campus that I am working on: Francis Close Hall and The Park. Clearly I currently have a favorite - FCH. The pictures below are all of the library. Nice library huh?

The picture on the right is inside the court yard. I am standing on the ground in the south-east corner. There are several reading benches around so I'm sure once it's warmer (dryer?) I will spend able time out there. I went on a little self guided tour of the building. The upper floor are rows of offices tucked in nooks and crannies and eaves. The picture on the left is taken from the upper level, south-west corner. Anyone have a pet dragon I can borrow for the year?

It is a maze in there and I had no idea how to get out. Once on the ground floor I spotted a man coming out of his office and I had to ask him how to get out. He asked, "Where do you want to go?" I said "Outside of this building." He opened a blue wooden door and I was suddenly outside.


The doors: This picture on the left looks like a front door. You can go in it, but it's not the main door for the library. It only leads you up a staircase to the upper level offices. The door on the right is similar to the blue door I exited. I don't think they are supposed to be used by students...I love the architecture of these doors. However, the main entrance to the library is a modern glass, handicapped accessible, security gate type door you'd find at most libraries. Not very exciting.




















Some favorite angles. When I was fourteen or so, my Young Women leader's husband was building a small castle in the woods of the Ozark Mountains. Sounds really cool but it was probably very close to what living and building a castle back in the olden times was really like. They lived in the basement, which was somewhat moderized, but small and dark, while they slowly built each floor, buttresses and towers. It was built from local rock and sand that they picked up and put in their truck by hand and dumped out by hand. On many occasions I got to help build the castle. I helped load up sand, collect rocks, mix cement, lay the rocks, set flooring, etc. I basically got to build one small tower by myself. By the time I left home the castle was still incomplete. Not sure that it ever was completed, but it was such a cool experience.

I think about that when I walk past the walls of the FCH library. I look at the stones and wonder about the hands that collected the rocks and laid the walls and the oxen that carted the material over the Cotswolds. (We at least did have a truck.) And I try to remind myself that hand building a castle is not in my five year, ten year, or any year plan. Because it would be kind of cool...

A spring day walk in Feb

Today has been a very bright and warm day. I'm not sure why American's think British weather is crap because so far even the worst day has been miles above the Salt Lake inversion and the blizzards of Boston.

My goal today was to walk around Pittville park and check out a second-hand bookstore. The bookstore was the last thing I did, but I have to start with its photo. Moss Books. It was amazing! The sheer madness of the tiny space with an amazingly large and current volume of books just might make its way into my top five favorite bookstores. Don't go there with a particular book in mind and go wearing something you don't mind crawling around on the floor in. It's organized to a degree but it's not neat and pristine like big box bookstore. There are rows within rows within rows of books and a certain amount of bending, kneeling, and shuffling is needed to break the iceberg of books. I did find a Penguin classic of sociology terms which will come in handy for my thesis so I feel justified in wrapping this adventure up in the name of academic pursuits.

A few weeks ago, in the blog about my own personal British Invasion I talked about Emerson Lake and Palmer. One of my favorite's from them was a piece called Mars, the Bringer of War. (most awesome 70's rock cover of a classical piece ever!) A few years later, I discovered the original in The Planets, composed by Gustav Holst. He was born Sept 21, 1874 in Cheltenham. The photo on the left is his birthplace. (the door closest to you, with the little plaque on the wall.) Almost directly across the street is the entrance to Pittville Park (an unfortunate name for a lovely park). The park was created in the early 1820's. I try to imagine what it was like for little Gustav, out walking in the park, creating music in his head.




















I took lots and lots of pictures of the park, but sunny afternoons are not the best for photography and I'd like to get better shots. So stay tuned throughout the year for more Pittsville Park photos. I did however want to include these two. The one on the left, taken on Feb 8, 2011 is a batch of crocus in full bloom. There are quiet a few spring flowers already up around the park. February! I don't know if that is normal for these parts but I sure like it! The second photo is a peacock. I know the fence kind of distracts but I wanted to include it. Inside the park are three large aviary cages. I've seen peacocks in real life before but you forget just how beautiful their plumage is and with the bright sunlight shining on its iridescent blue and green feathers I just had to take a photo if only to remember it in my own mind.


















The photo below is a row of 8 "cookie cutter houses" along the road to Pittville Park. Wonder what the HOA by-laws are with those?

Feed the Birds

I've been here in Cheltenham for two weeks. When I first move to a place where an accent is different than what I am used to, I mentally repeat what people say, in their accent. Not necessarily conversations that I'm engaged in, but random conversations that I overhear. I do this until the accent doesn't seem strange anymore. Like someone suffering from PTSD mentally repeating an incident until the strange seems ordinary. But less traumatic.

I've been here for two weeks and I am repeating internal conversations less and less. And I don't worry about my accent anymore. And I've started feeling confident about taking short cuts, like cutting through the train station on my way to one section of town, saving a good two block walk. I'm not pulling out my well wrinkled town map as much either. I'm starting to feel at home.

It hasn't really taken too much time to feel like I fit in but there have been a few moments that I've felt something inside that isn't necessarily homesickness, but that's the closest word that would apply. It's not for a specific place or person (sorry my dear readers. I acknowledged a long time ago there is a part of my heart that is like the dark, cold side of the moon, where I don't miss people like normal people do.) It's a homesickness for routine, and for things. I miss going to the store and seeing familiar labels. The first week was easy because I was a visitor and on vacation, but now I am settled but don't yet belong.

But I also feel a great sense of relief. The transition to a different city and a different country has been much easier than I had any right to hope for. And has been easier than some of the more recent moves that should have been better. And it's all such a mystery how this year and the next few will play out.

For the photo part of today's introspection I give you The Old Lady and the Pigeons.

Directly off of High Street, one of the busier shopping streets, I spotted this elderly woman and her bicycle, tied down with her grocery shopping. She had some bread that she was tossing out to the birds and as she walked down the ally, the birds followed. Here are two of the photos of their journey. On the right you can barely make out the woman for all the flying pigeons.




















I was on my way to the public library (nothing at all like those in the States!) and thought it would be stalkerish to follow her down the ally, so I continued on the next main street curving off of High Street. A block further, I found another ally and spotted a beautiful church in the a courtyard behind the buildings. I walked down the path and low-and-behold, I found the woman there, bike leaning against the church wall, pigeons flocking all around her. One even sitting on her shoulder. (If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you'll see her at the bottom right.) I tried to be discreet, as if I were taking pictures of the church, but mostly I was just fascinated, and a little sad for, this little old woman. I have a feeling that's going to be me in about sixty years.

As every photo entry seems to have an animal of some sort (and I don't really qualify pigeons as 'animals') I thought I would include this little gem of this dog looking out the window at me. I just think they're funny!