England is so...Englandy.
Jul. 4th, 2011 10:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardI have arrived in Cambridge! England is...there are just bits of history. Lying around. It's all "Oh, here's a Roman-era temple, here's St. Paul's Cathedral, that's where DON'T STEP INTO THE ROAD PEDESTRIANS DON'T HAVE RIGHT OF WAY the Gunpowder Plot was betrayed." gmh and aellairene took me to the British Museum, and it is a special kind of mindbreaking to see objects you have studied in class sitting there. Seianti Hanunia Tlesnasa, hi! Lots of other Etruscan and Roman and Greek stuff, hi! HOLY SHIT THAT'S SERIOUSLY THE ROSETTA STONE? (Seen in passing. ROSETTA STONE GUYS. That was the really brain-breaking part.)
And then I was delivered unto Cambridge bygmh, where I arrived late and threw my stuff into my room and grabbed the first skirt that came to hand in order to make to the drinks reception, which, well, I got outside Newnham House after everyone had left and was left trying to find my way to Corpus Christi College with only a map that didn't show terribly much. I walked in circles for about ten minutes, then finally accidentally turned in the right direction and got there. Good news: "I go to Tulane University in New Orleans" is a great conversation starter, because someone will always ask how New Orleans is recovering from Hurricane Katrina. So far I'm the only classicist I've met, though I've only talked to about half the people in the program. (It's not a terribly large program.) There are a lot of archaeology majors, or some variant thereof. Gee, go figure. It seems like the majority of the staff and graduate students do the Neolithic, with some Bronze Age shown in for variance, but there's also a Roman historian and a medievalist thrown in for flavor. (The Roman guy came to talk to us, and he kept saying, "Oh, I'm sure you're not interested in the Romans, BUT," and I couldn't get a word in to say, "I'm a classics major! ASK ME HOW I LOVE THE ROMANS."
And then we were fed, Bruff is better, which is terrifying, but holy shit the HALL. THE ROOF. Some of us went to go buy things at Sainsbury's (why does everything close early, England? what's wrong with you?), where there WERE MORE BUILDINGS HOLY SHIT HOW DOES THAT EXIST IN REAL LIFE on the way, and then had some culture clash at the store over things like, "Why aren't the eggs in the refrigerated section?" and "What the hell does squash mean when it's on a bottle of what otherwise appears to be juice?"
The rooms in the house are...kind of amazing. I think it's twice the size of my room back at Tulane, and features such lovely things as a nightstand, a wardrobe, cabinets and drawers, a sink (in a cabinet! or with doors, anyway), a window, bookshelves, two lounge chairs (of the cheap college sort) and a coffee table. Along with a desk and a desk chair and lamps and a garbage can. I am pretty sure no American university dorm offers anything remotely close. And it's a single room. *boggles*
Other bits of culture shock:
no pedestrian right of way
people putting on their seatbelts in taxis. willingly.
I'm starting to get used to the accents, though.
What the hell do you have against street signs, England? What did street signs ever do to you?
Brief schedule, to tell you my days off: Sunday the 9th of July (although there's something about Shelford Village Feast in the afternoon on the schedule), Saturday the 16th, Saturday the 23rd, and Saturday the 30th, along with some study days and some days with afternoons off. ALSO LATER WE GET TO GO TO SUTTON HOO. VIKINGSisweedan VIKINGS. And then there's the Wessex trip, where we get to see a hill fort and STONEHENGE OH MY GOD and the Roman Baths in Bath.
Later I shall have to go round and scout out used bookshops and a yarn shop. It seems like -- well, okay, it seems like the consummate college town. But it seems really nice. (It helps that it was a nice day, too.) Other things: figure out what to do to make the phoneclanwilliam gave me functional. Can we drink the tap water in the dorms? In the bathroom it says "do not drink" but does that also hold for the sinks in the rooms? *muses*
gmh and aellairene took me to the British Museum, and it is a special kind of mindbreaking to see objects you have studied in class sitting there. Seianti Hanunia Tlesnasa, hi! Lots of other Etruscan and Roman and Greek stuff, hi! HOLY SHIT THAT'S SERIOUSLY THE ROSETTA STONE? (Seen in passing. ROSETTA STONE GUYS. That was the really brain-breaking part.)And then I was delivered unto Cambridge by
gmh, where I arrived late and threw my stuff into my room and grabbed the first skirt that came to hand in order to make to the drinks reception, which, well, I got outside Newnham House after everyone had left and was left trying to find my way to Corpus Christi College with only a map that didn't show terribly much. I walked in circles for about ten minutes, then finally accidentally turned in the right direction and got there. Good news: "I go to Tulane University in New Orleans" is a great conversation starter, because someone will always ask how New Orleans is recovering from Hurricane Katrina. So far I'm the only classicist I've met, though I've only talked to about half the people in the program. (It's not a terribly large program.) There are a lot of archaeology majors, or some variant thereof. Gee, go figure. It seems like the majority of the staff and graduate students do the Neolithic, with some Bronze Age shown in for variance, but there's also a Roman historian and a medievalist thrown in for flavor. (The Roman guy came to talk to us, and he kept saying, "Oh, I'm sure you're not interested in the Romans, BUT," and I couldn't get a word in to say, "I'm a classics major! ASK ME HOW I LOVE THE ROMANS."And then we were fed, Bruff is better, which is terrifying, but holy shit the HALL. THE ROOF. Some of us went to go buy things at Sainsbury's (why does everything close early, England? what's wrong with you?), where there WERE MORE BUILDINGS HOLY SHIT HOW DOES THAT EXIST IN REAL LIFE on the way, and then had some culture clash at the store over things like, "Why aren't the eggs in the refrigerated section?" and "What the hell does squash mean when it's on a bottle of what otherwise appears to be juice?"
The rooms in the house are...kind of amazing. I think it's twice the size of my room back at Tulane, and features such lovely things as a nightstand, a wardrobe, cabinets and drawers, a sink (in a cabinet! or with doors, anyway), a window, bookshelves, two lounge chairs (of the cheap college sort) and a coffee table. Along with a desk and a desk chair and lamps and a garbage can. I am pretty sure no American university dorm offers anything remotely close. And it's a single room. *boggles*
Other bits of culture shock:
no pedestrian right of way
people putting on their seatbelts in taxis. willingly.
I'm starting to get used to the accents, though.
What the hell do you have against street signs, England? What did street signs ever do to you?
Brief schedule, to tell you my days off: Sunday the 9th of July (although there's something about Shelford Village Feast in the afternoon on the schedule), Saturday the 16th, Saturday the 23rd, and Saturday the 30th, along with some study days and some days with afternoons off. ALSO LATER WE GET TO GO TO SUTTON HOO. VIKINGS
isweedan VIKINGS. And then there's the Wessex trip, where we get to see a hill fort and STONEHENGE OH MY GOD and the Roman Baths in Bath.Later I shall have to go round and scout out used bookshops and a yarn shop. It seems like -- well, okay, it seems like the consummate college town. But it seems really nice. (It helps that it was a nice day, too.) Other things: figure out what to do to make the phone
clanwilliam gave me functional. Can we drink the tap water in the dorms? In the bathroom it says "do not drink" but does that also hold for the sinks in the rooms? *muses*