Norwichristmas!

Today is my last full day in Norwich (HUGE sigh). I'm going downtown in a little bit to finish up my Christmas shopping. My flat is doing a Secret Santa tonight and I still have to get my person a present (no sense in waiting until the last minute, I always say). I'll probably wander a little bit too.

So Norwichristmas is what they call their Christmas festivities (catchy, right?) I have pictures of the lights downtown, but I haven't put them on my computer yet, so I'll just have to add that later. It's pretty crazy though..they start celebrating in early November in earnest. I had my first mince pie yesterday, which was tasty but I think would have been a bit better if I liked raisins. All the buildings on campus have full Christmas trees in them. Even the grocery store! And the library, accomodations, the art building...that one even has fake presents under it. So that is exciting.

I'm heading to London tomorrow morning and spending the night. I'm excited to see the M&M Tour at JFK, but I'm not too excited for the blast of winter that will greet me. See most of you soon!

P.S. Happy St. Lucia Day to all you crazy Scandinavians out there.

Come on City, Come on City

The Canaries won their match, 2-1. Pretty impressive since we're at the bottom of the league and Plymouth was rated 6th. I've never been really into soccer (excuse me: football) but it was actually pretty interesting. The games I watched in high school didn't have as much heading, flipping over people, and sliding. There is a really long Norwich City Football Club song/chant, which people would break out in, but mainly they just yelled, "come on city! come on city!" The kid next to me was probably about 10, and knew all the names of all the players. It was a lot of dad's and their kids. We had good seats in the 4th row (for 5 pounds! Not bad).

English sports fans are nuts in general and take this stuff really seriously. Considering this, they were actually pretty tame, I thought. A lot of insulting the ref took place (are you BLIND, ref?, maybe you should go to spec-savers, ref), but nothing too bad. My flatmates wanted to know if I'd picked up any good Norfolk swearing, but I hadn't. They said the Ipswich/Norwich game would be crazy.

I went for what will probably be my final walk around the UEA broad this morning. Writing about Norwich now makes me sad, because I'm trying to remember everything about it. I'll be pretty busy for the next few days, so I'm not sure how much I'll be posting. I am very excited to see you all, even if I don't want to leave here!

"The Good American"

I was sitting out in the hall with one of my flatmates last week (this is what we do, it's either that or sit in the kitchen) and I forget what we were talking about, but she said, "you are a good kind of American. We could use more Americans like you." Which is pretty nice. My Canadian flatmate and I are both leaving at the end of the semester, and the other flatmates are not happy about this. I was talking to two of them yesterday, and they were trying to figure out how to get us to stay the full year. I said that someone nice would probably take my room, and one of them gave me a dark look. "I doubt it. They'll probably be a confederate or something. And they won't give us popcorn." This last point might be true. When my 'rents and godmothers came to visit, they brought me enough microwave popcorn to last me about a year, so I've been leaving bags in the kitchen for the general flat enjoyment.

So this brings up an interesting idea...what is a "Good American"? Is it because I'm critical of the current administration? And I think gun control is good? I think the general view here is that Americans (read: Southern Americans) all have guns and hate gays and are super-religious and don't care about anything that happens out of the country. And to be fair, there are certainly people like that! But not as many as everyone outside the US seems to think. But anyway, you can rest assured that I'm saving our country's reputation one person at a time. :)

I just had some cornflakes for dinner and now have to bundle up for the Canaries match. The Canaries are the Norwich Football team (their uniforms are bright green with a yellow canary on them). I'm planning on wearing long underwear, I already have on a tank top and sweater, plus a vest, coat, scarf, and this knit hat I got in Scotland that makes me look like I herd yaks. I'll report back on the score.

My Sweet Little City

So in the three days that I've been gone, Norwich has about doubled its amount of Christmas lights and decorations. Edinburgh was amazing, and pretty, and exciting, and tiring, but I'm glad to be back here. I got back to my flat and one of my flatmates had gone and got a bunch of garlands and little Santa's, so our hall and kitchen are decorated. I missed my flatmates. I don't know what I'm going to do in two weeks when I fly out. I'm excited, I can't wait to see my friends and family, and Christmas planning and stuff, but...I'm really not ready to leave. I don't want to do work these next two weeks, I want to visit with people and walk around downtown and get ready to leave. Ahhhh.

Two American friends and I went tonight and saw Fred Claus, which was really goofy but good. I cried quite a few times (DON'T ask me why) and actually one of my friends did too. It was cheering, holiday movies always get to me anyway, especially if they involve little kids who might not be getting presents, things like that. We went to Wagamama after...I don't know if you all have heard of it, but it's a noodle restaurant. I had ramen with this coconut milk/chili/lemongrass soup and chicken, and we all got ginger cheesecake and split a thing of sake. It came to 41 pounds for the three of us! But it was a good "good-bye Norwich" kind of dinner, since I will probably be eating potatoes for the next two weeks, as my budget allows. So I'm glad to be back. And I'm really full and really sleepy, so I'm going to bed.

Scotland = Damp Pants

Hello! I'm in my hostel for the night (there is free internet, sweet). I've had an eventful two days. I got into Edinburgh yesterday at about 8:30, and my friend met my shuttle from the airport. We walked around for awhile, got some falafels (YUM) and then she left to write a paper. I went to the Royal Museum and the National Gallery, and walked up and down the Royal Mile. I went to bed really early last night (I got up at 4, so I was pretty out of it).

I went to St. Andrews today...it's a little over an hour train ride from here. You take a train to the town over, and then take a bus to St. Andrews. It's a beautiful ride; it goes all the way along the coast, so I saw a lot of very blue water and a bunch of sheep. St. Andrews was pretty too, and COLD, but they've got an awesome ruin Cathedral, and a huge cemetary. Even though it was cold, it was really sunny, so that was nice. I walked around the University for awhile too, and saw some people playing golf.

When I got back to Edinburgh, I went to the pub where JK Rowling started writing Harry Potter...it's called The Elephants Head, and it's full of elephant related things. The shortbread I got was shaped like an elephant. I met my friend again and we went and walked around the Christmas market which is by the Ferris wheel/arcade in the center of town. We got crepes and watched people ice skate on the outdoor rink (and when I say "watched", I mean "watched people fall over and mocked them"). It was starting to get really cold, so we went to a pub for awhile, and I just got back here. I think I'm going to knit for awhile and turn in...I think I'm going to the Castle tomorrow, and maybe another museum, but I'm not sure yet.

The only downside...I lost an earring, and (as the post title suggests) my pants have been dragging in puddles since I got here.

I'll let you know when I re-enter Norwich. I hope you all are having a good week!

The Land of Scots

Gin a body meet a body
Comin' thro' the rye
Gin a body kiss a body
Need a body cry?
Ilka lassie has her laddie
Nane, they say, hae I
Yet a' the lads they smile at me
When comin' thro' the rye.

Gin a body meet a body
Comin' frae the town
Gin a body kiss a body
Need a body frown?
Ilka lassie has her laddie
Nane, they say, hae I
Yet a' the lads they smile at me
When comin' thro' the rye.

'Mang the train there is a swain
I dearly lo'e myself
But what his name or whaur his hame
I dinna care to tell
Ilka lassie has her laddie
Nane, they say, hae I
Yet a' the lads they smile at me
When comin' thro' the rye.

I'm off to Edinburgh tomorrow (very early in the morning!) until Saturday. I kind of wish I had planned this for earlier in the term, but I am getting excited. One of my friends is at the University of Edinburgh for the term, so I get to hang out with her which should be fun. I'll try and get online at some point and let you all know what I'm up to.

P.S. I picked this song specifically for it's Catcher in the Rye significance. It turns out all my flatmates love that book too, which makes me really happy with life.

Holkham Hall

Hi all, sorry I've been bad at blogging over the past few days...I had a Country House presentation today (my last one! wheee!), I have an African Art one next week and then 3 papers right at the end, so I'll be pretty busy from here on out.

But talking about Country Houses, my class went to Holkham Hall last week, and it was CRAZY. I've been to biggish houses, like the Vanderbilt Mansion in NY, but this was the biggest "house" I've ever seen. It took 10 minutes of driving through the estate to even get to the house. I think it has something like 25,000 acres, and it used to have it's own railway station, but that has since flooded.

This is the main hall. If you go up the stairs, you can look out the window and see a monument to one of the Earl's that lived there. If you turn around and look out the stateroom window, you can see an obelisk on the exact same axis...they apparently planned this out! The ceiling is pretty dramatic too, we walked in and gaped at it for awhile.

We also got to go in the guest rooms, which the public can't normally see. We couldn't go in the chapel because Keira Knightley was filming a movie there; they use the house a lot for movies (a lot of times they shoot at a bunch of different houses and then stick them all together as one country house). This guest bedroom is the "Red Parrot room" and it has an AMAZING bathroom with probably a six foot long bathtub. One of my friends asked, and it's only 1500 pounds a night (that's 3000ish dollars for you American currency fans), so you can keep that in mind for your next holiday. It's used mostly when they have hunting parties there on the weekends.

The library was also really cool, it reminded me a lot of Beauty and the Beast. It was empty of tables and things because they were filming in there too, so we got to see the secret passage behind one of the bookcases! It was used by servants if they had to get upstairs quickly; you just pull part of the bookcase away from the wall. The house is closed to visitors for the winter, so it was really nice that it was just us so we could see a lot more.

I'm kind of skipping the staterooms and state bedrooms, but this is the main state bedroom...if they had royalty staying, this is where they would stay. That's why there is a crown on top of the bed; the bed is SO tall, too. And lastly, this is the kitchen, I love all the copper pots. The current Earl (he and his family still live in one of the wings) had all the staff members painted and these all hang in the kitchen. So there is a housekeeping painting, and a gardeners painting, etc. I thought that was kind of cool.

We talked about the gardens a bit, but it was too cold to really do much out there. The best part was their man made lake with a lot of ducks, and a herd of deer that hang out on the lawn. We all kind of walked around in shock...looking at these buildings in books is one thing, but they don't seem as massive as they really are. So my new life plan is to marry a lord/earl/duke and manage his art collection. My American friend in the class wants to marry a lord/earl/duke so she can use his stables and horses. It's nice to know we have goals.