First Week in England

Here is the mass email I sent out after my first week in England:

Hey everybody,

So I am in Sheffield, England!  Sorry this first email has been so long in coming.  I had internet access only briefly for the first couple of days and didn’t take advantage of it because there were so many new and exciting things going on.  Then I moved into my residence here in Crewe flats on Saturday and haven’t been able to access it until today because I wasn’t a fully registered student. There were some complications with my schedule because one of the classes I wanted was full.  So I started attending classes yesterday, but I didn’t have all of the required department signatures for my courses.  After a lot of running around today I finally got it sorted out and got my U-card which gives me access to the libraries.  (Security is kind of tight here; you actually have to swipe your student card to get into the campus libraries!)  Anyways, I’m pretty happy with my choices.  I’ve got two biomedical science courses (neuroscience and advanced molecular biology), two psychology courses (neuroscience and memory and learning) and then an animal science course called animal behavior.   So it should be a good semester, school-wise… and in terms of adventure it should be awesome! 

Ya, wow I’m not even sure where to begin.   The time has been flying and my mind has been running in overdrive trying to absorb it all.  The countryside is so beautiful… it is more than I expected or imagined.  The buildings here have so much history and character.    Most of the houses are built from old stone or brick and are charmingly cozy with no space between most and only very narrow alleyways between a few.   Much of the stone is still blackened from the coal burning industrial ages, but somehow it gives them a dignified appearance.  I think it’s because everything else feels clean and well kept and yet here they are, survivors from another era, finally able to breathe fresh air and remind everyone what a blessing it is.  And it is so green here!  Moss covers the dark stone sidewalks and stairs and ivy climbs the buildings and the abundant trees.   Crewe flats, the residence that I am staying at is five minutes from the botanical gardens.  Of course it’s winter here so there aren’t many flowers, but it is lush and green all the same. (I will try to put some pictures on facebook soon.) I can see why Sheffield was voted the “greenest city in the UK” a few years back.   For an industrial city they have done a lot to reclaim its beauty.   There are numerous parks with trees and “shrubbery” and wide open grassy hills.   And there are, of course, a multitude of football fields.  By football I mean soccer, but if you say soccer here they look at you strangely and are somewhat offended.  So football it is. 

The city has two professional football teams, Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday, which play for The Football League (which ranks second in the hierarchy of English football, after the Premier League).   Football is a pretty big deal here and I’m planning on going to a game when I get the chance.  Of course I’d love to see a Premier League game like a Manchester United game, but it’s impossible.  There is a ridiculously long waiting list.  But there are plenty of decent games to see.  The city also has two non-professional football clubs , Sheffield FC and Hallam FC.   Morgan and Kevin, you might be interested to know that Sheffield FC was the first football club ever formed and Hallam FC was the second.  They have been arch-rivals since back in the 1850’s! 

Generally the people from Sheffield University cheer for Sheffield FC, but there is another university in this city called Sheffield Hallam University that cheers for Hallam FC.  Hallam University is mainly an old polytechnic college and you don’t need the grades to get into Hallam that you would need for Sheffield.  As a result the students here look down on them a little bit and use it to fuel a class distinction.   I didn’t realize this, but apparently Sheffield University is one of the top ten post-secondary institutions in the UK which means that a lot of people who were unable to get into Oxford or Cambridge tend to come here.  I’ve been told that the “Oxford rejects” have a bit of a chip on their shoulder and feel like they have something to prove and this creates another sort of class.  And then there are the “Raz,” people who wear really posh designer clothing and flaunt their money.  Strangely enough some of the pubs actually have dress codes designed to keep these people out.  For example, I went to a pub called the York and they had a list of about ten different designer brands that were not allowed.  Anyone wearing them could be asked to leave!   It’s also really interesting talking to English people because there are a lot of prejudices or well-known opinions about people from the different counties and they are quite vocal about them.  They will make fun of each others accents and put down each others counties.  An English person can pick out what county another English person is from based on their accent.  Sheffield is in the county of Yorkshire and anyone from this area is adamant that it is the most beautiful and the best county in England.  (So far I have no reason to disagree with them!)

I was educated about all of these things during my first five days of living with actual English students.  From what I’ve said so far it might sound like they are narrow minded or intolerant, but that is not the case at all.  I don’t necessarily think that the level of distinctions between different people is worse here… I think its more that I’m being introduced to it all at once from an outsiders perspective, instead of being able to let prejudice grow on me slowly from a bubble of comfort.   (Maybe this experience will help me recognize some of the “subtle” bias I adopt without realizing.) 

Really though, it was such a blessing to be welcomed and received by English people when I first arrived.  Anna took me in, showed me around and actually gave up her room for me.  She lives in private housing with five other girls from various parts of England.  The house is really narrow, but it has three levels with a kitchen and living room on the first and bedrooms on the second and third.  All of the girls are a lot of fun and they are best friends with a group of seven guys who live right across the street.  The boys’ house is quite filthy so they tend to come and hang out at the girls house during the day and then parties take place in the squalor of the boys’ place.  It really is good for parties because you can spill drinks, grind cigarettes into the carpet and generally be a slob and no one minds, unless you are in the climbing room or one of the bedrooms.  The boys’ house has sixteen foot ceilings and all of the guys are really into rock climbing and bouldering so they decided to build a climbing wall in the house.  It’s pretty impressive.  There are a lot of climbers in this city because the Peak District boasts some of the best bouldering.  There are also numerous climbing walls in Sheffield and a really good one at the University.  I haven’t been climbing at all yet, but the guys have promised to show me around soon. (Heather you better be jealous!  You would seriously love it here.)    

Of course it wouldn’t be a proper English welcome if I didn’t spend the first two days hanging out in the pub.  When I got here, exams had just ended so the students I met had nothing to do except relax, drink a few pints and talk to me about football and climbing and travelling.  And as the pints went down the conversation became more interesting.  We had some heated discussion about politics and religion, about women’s rights, Muslims, freedom and equality…  And it was interesting because the next day at orientation there was a talk on “Living with the British” and they said that religion is one of those topics that is sort of taboo.   I think that is true during the day, but in the evening, after a few drinks, it changes. 

Speaking of night life… it is crazy here.  Not only are there a lot of pubs, but quite a few bars and clubs as well.  And the night life is majorly endorsed and fueled by the students union.  The Students Union here is not actually funded by the university at all; its main source of income is the profits from its various clubbing events.  The Students Union sells tickets for a different club every night of the week. For example last night (Monday night) was Population which was held in the Foundry. It was really cool, there were four different rooms, each with a different DJ and basically just lots of people dancing and drinking.   DJ’s are really big here and I’ve already met a couple of guys that spin.  (Two of Anna’s friends that live in the party house of course.) Tuesdays are the big night to go out as I quickly discovered.  I think I had been in Sheffield for maybe two hours last week before I was dragged to the club.  Tuesday Club usually has a fairly acclaimed DJ playing and is all about the hip hop, breaks, drum and bass.  Last week was funk and German bass by DJ Goldie.  It was a lot of fun, though I don’t think it helped the jet lag!  I haven’t been out to any of the other nights yet, but I bought a ticket to see the indie pop band Art Brut at Fuzz Club this Thursday.  Sadly Fuzz Club is not very popular with the English people I’ve met so far… and they’ve sort of warned me about the “indie crowd” with their tight pants and pointed shoes, but that’s where my music tastes fit in and I’m not going to deny it. 

At orientation I met quite a few people from around the world, but really connected with Richelle (who is actually from Edmonton) and Mirriam, a girl from Australia.  She is from Cronulla (shout out to Mark!) though she studies in Wollongong.  All of us are taking biomedical science courses so we have a few classes together.  I took a short video of us acting like fools in the Biomedical Science courtyard so I’ll put that on facebook soon.   Oh and there are a lot of Americans here.  Mirriam and Richelle are stuck in Ranmoor with a lot of them and they’re finding it “interesting”.   I’m in self-catered so I’m in a flat with seven other girls.  They are all international students so there is a lot of diversity, which is really fun.  There are two girls from Holland, one girl from Germany, two girls from Italy, a girl from Zimbabwe and a girl from France.  We’re all bonding very well.  I’ll elaborate more in a future email, but right now I need to head to bed.  This email was a work in progress this afternoon and now its evening.  I just got back from a mandatory welcome session which involved a residence quiz, which we lost, and a mind reader who was entertaining, but not very accurate!  Good times though.

Hope you are all keeping well.  And if there is anyone who should be on this email list, but is not, please let me know or forward this to them. That would be ace (as they say here).

Love,

Teryl