First of all, apologies for not getting a post out for a couple of weeks! Would you believe I've actually been super busy, I mean they actually expect us to attend lectures here which really eats into my social time. But I'm trying not to let things get away from me completely, so I'm about to fill you in on a couple of weekends worth of activities.
One of the sights in Nottingham which was top of the list was Wollaton Hall and Park. I admittedly didn't know much about the place, except that it played Wayne Manor in the Dark Knight film, it was free and it was next door to the university, thus requiring minimal effort to visit. So rewind two weeks to the end of my first week in Nottingham. The day before our visit someone innocently mentioned on the International Students page that we were thinking of visiting Wollaton Park if anyone wanted to come along, only to have about 40 people eagerly turn up. It must have been a strange sight indeed to have such a large group of people all traipsing through the entrance to Wollaton Park at once. Luckily the park itself was huge, including its very own golf course and a deer park, and people took their time with photo opportunities, so we managed to disperse a little by the time we got inside the Hall itself.
As I mentioned, I didn't really know much about Wollaton Hall, or what touring the inside would involve. Much of it was more or less what one would expect from an old estate, with some fancy architecture on the inside, some old paintings and a few rooms set up to fit the era of the building. I was more suprised by the rest of the Hall which contained a "Wildlife Museum", mostly containing a huge collection of various taxidermy animals. I was a little icked out by this, but there was information confirming that all of the animals were acquired legally and by natural causes. Plus it also said that the purpose of the museum was to introduce children to real wildlife up close without keeping animals in captivity, which is not a bad point. Unfortunately even more icky was the fact that not everything in the museum was deceased, as I discovered for myself in the insect room when I went to look at some giant cockroaches and they looked back. Once we'd finished exploring the house we took a short wander around the grounds, where we encountered this strange creation.
10 points to anyone who can tell me what it is...because we were stumped.
Visiting an old estate and deer park seems like quite an English thing to do, so it only made sense to follow it up with the world's most multicultural evening out. It was the weekend of Chinese New Year, and to celebrate there was a "festival" and fireworks display down by the lake (yeah that's right, my university has it's own lake!). I say "festival" because when we turned up it was basically just 3 food carts, only one of which actually served anything vaguely Asian. But it was worth braving the cold for the fireworks display, which was very impressive, and especially picturesque above the lake. Following this we headed out to dinner at GBK, a kiwi franchise I've already mentioned in an earlier blog. Needless to say I was very excited to introduce the Internationals to some New Zealand cuisine, namely L&P. Everyone was suitably impressed. This was all in preparation for the biggest day of the year for Americans, Superbowl Sunday. Naturally we chose an Australian bar for our viewing. Unfortunately it turns out American Football is the most tedious sport invented, and since we were in the UK we don't even get the Superbowl commercials which is apparently the best part. Most of those not from the USA barely made it to half-time before heading home (to be fair it was already 1am for us, thanks to the time difference). Still, at least I can say I've had the Superbowl experience, or something.
Since Nottingham apparently has a ready supply of fancy old buildings the next weekend I took a trip to Newstead Abbey with a couple of Australian friends. We took a bus which conveniently dropped us at the gates of Newstead Abbey Park, only to discover that the Abbey itself was a less convenient 20 minutes walk away. This did give us a chance to take a stroll through some English countryside, complete with "woodland path". Sadly there were no squirrels in sight which, let's be real, is the highlight of any woodland wander. We arrived at a very beautiful looking lake, with two big fancy buildings nearby. One of them, which basically looked like a castle, turned out to be the lowly stables. The even fancier of the two was Newstead Abbey, previous home to Lord Byron amongst many other well-to-do gentlemen. We enjoyed a lunch in the view of a multitude of peacocks (a sign of a fancy house if ever there was one). We then took a self-guided tour of the Abbey complete with informative brochure. Anyone who knows me can confirm that the brochure is probably the best part of the tour.
The house itself was amazing, and also very difficult to nagivate. The place was so huge with a variety of passages, so we took a couple of wrong turns, but luckily there were guides to help us out. There was a lot to take in, with many hallways, living rooms, side rooms and bedrooms. They were mostly decorated as they would have been around the time that Lord Byron was staying there. There were also a few rooms with exhibitions about Lord Byron, who came off as a very strange fellow. There was a particular entertaining set of sketches and an accompanying rhyme about Lord Byron and his dog. We also noted that people must be have been much shorter in the past. There was some clothing from the era, including his shoes, which were tiny, and the beds (while unbelievably decadent) did seem much shorter than would be comfortable nowadays. Following the main part of the house was the cloisters, which more clearly befitted the Abbey title. Walking around the cloisters we found an opening down to a very dank and dingy cellar, which apparently used to be a "plunge bath". I wasn't really sold on the whole plunge bath idea though. After exploring the house we took a wander through the grounds. This included a lot of hedges and a large pond, and also offered a great view of the Abbey.
Unfortunately our wander of the grounds was cut short by a very heavy downpour. Although Nottingham was been pretty rainy for a lot of my stay, it usually comes in drizzles and showers. Inconveniently it chose this day to really let it rain. Our 20 minute walk/jog back to the busstop was slightly less enjoyable than our arrival, and the woodland path was certainly more mud than path by that stage.
Having exhausted my adventures in Nottingham for a while, I shall be taking a few day trips out to other towns, which I'm sure I'll write about soon.
Byeeeee!
Whelp. If the past couple of weeks have taught me anything it's that New Zealand universities will have a lot to live up to when I return. Having come from a university which was conveniently located across a very busy road, with halls of residence about as charming as a central city parking lot, you can imagine I was excited to experience a good old-fashioned campus university. Before heading to my eventual destination, the University of Nottingham, I got to visit Cambridge University and the surrounding town. Let's just say the standard was set high.
I was lucky enough to be accompanied by my aunt and uncle, who both work at colleges at Cambridge, so I got to have close-up look at one of the colleges (equivalent to a hall of residence if anyone was unclear), called Selwyn. Anyone who is familiar with the universities in New Zealand will recognise that shares a name with one of the halls of residence at Otago University, and I could definitely see how Otago's residences were an imitation of the UK college system, but without the impressive 700 or so years of history. All of the buildings, at least in the older colleges, were very beautiful, all made of brick with large central courtyards. As well as Selwyn, we had a look at Trinity College, one of the most prestigious and wealthy colleges at Cambridge, which has a number of well known alumni such as Isaac Newton and Francis Bacon (on a side note, whenever someone mentions Francis Bacon I think about this story a lot http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/dxosj/what_word_or_phrase_did_you_totally_misunderstand/c13pbyc). Given the reputation of Cambridge, the more well known colleges require a fee for visitors to walk through their grounds. I feel like this must be so strange for the students who actually live there, that other people are willing to pay to see their homes. Still, the colleges were certainly impressive, and the history behind them even more so, so I suppose it is understandable.
After seeing the university, we wandered through the rest of Cambridge. The town itself was also lovely, located across the river Cam. I was most struck by the number of bicycles in the town and university. In most of New Zealand it would be unthinkable for the majority of people to cycle, but here it was commonplace, and definitely seemed like the best way to get around. We stopped at the Round Church, which had an information centre inside detailing the history of the town and university, in particular in relation to religion. Learning about Cambridge University reminded me very much just how young New Zealand is. Here I was visiting a university that was founded just as the first humans were discovering New Zealand. Most of the buildings I was visiting were older than my country. Now that certainly puts things into perspective. I think that the students who study at Cambridge University are so privileged to get to learn in a place with so much history and prestige. I'm sure if I'd had the opportunity to go to a comparable university I would have tried much harder in school.
Just one week after my exploration of Cambridge I headed off on a bus from Heathrow to the University of Nottingham. Somehow the unseen forces of attraction between those from 'Down Under' were at work, and I found myself at the back of the bus with another New Zealander and three Australians. Typical. The bus I took was an organised coach for international students staying on campus, which was a great idea because everyone on the bus was in the same metaphorical boat and keen to make friends amongst all the unfamiliar faces. I arrived at my own hall of residence with two Americans (apparently the unseen forces weren't THAT strong), and immediately knew I had made a great choice. The campus (called University Park) was beautiful, with green fields, ambling pathways and even a lake.
My hall, Florence Boot (known as FloBo by the residents) is the oldest hall of residence in Nottingham, and as such it is one of the best. The building is red brick, U-shaped, with a grassy courtyard round the back which my room looks out onto. The rooms are pretty big (especially compared with my room in first year) and even include a sink and minifridge. As far as student accommodation goes it's practically luxury. Even the food isn't dire, and there are plenty of vegetarian options. After our first dinner myself and two other international students decided we would explore Nottingham. Not having looked at a map we boldly set off in the general direction of the city centre. Our hall of residence is located at the West entrance, and we managed to walk all the way round the University to the other opposite East entrance, which took about 20 minutes. From there we saw some lights leading to what we could only assume was the city. We found a road with a few takeaway shops and a pub. Needless to say we were a little confused/disappointed before looking at Google maps and realising we were nowhere near the city centre and it would take a good 30 minute walk to get there. We wisely chose to turn back. Still, it was good to get a sense of our location on the first night.
From the next day onwards it was all go-go-go. We got up on Monday morning to collect our Welcome Packs and had an introduction to enrolling in our Modules. Oh that's right, I'm actually expected to study on this trip! (Just kidding parents, of course I'm going to study). In the afternoon we had a two hour meet and greet in the International Cafe in the Portland Building (pretty much the main building, containing the Student Union, Food Court and most importantly Student Bar). The afternoon tea was a great way to meet all of the other exchange students. Everyone was eager to meet as many people as possible, and we quickly made friends. It was definitely a little overwhelming by the end of the two hours though, with so many new faces to keep track of. That evening a couple of us headed out to the clubs with some people from FloBo. Given that it was a Monday night we weren't expecting much, but apparently Nottingham students know how to party every night of the week and the club was packed. It wasn't a great place, and aside from the size (this place was massive), it wasn't that different from NZ, but it was a great opportunity to get to know some of the local students. There are so many events organised for international students, so it's easy to make friends that way, but it's much harder to associate with the students who've already been in Nottingham for a whole semester, and this definitely helped.
The rest of the week went by very quickly, and I was kept very busy. Firstly, I had to start attending classes. This was a good reminder that I was actually attending university, not just taking a holiday. It was also nice to settle in and have something else to do amongst the socialising. On the whole the classes are pretty similar to back home, although they do seem to be a little stricter on attendance to lectures, and only one of my classes has extra tutorials on top of lectures. They also have much less contact time with usually only 2 hours of class a week, and fewer assignments during the semester, if any. This means there's a lot more independent study involved, but it does suit the study abroad lifestyle better as it gives me more freedom to travel during the term time, without worrying about deadlines. We'll see how happy I am about this when I'm about to sit an exam worth 100% of my mark I guess.
During the week we had one more afternoon organised in the International Cafe, and from there we pretty much had enough connections to start our own activities independently. This mostly seemed to involve going to the student bar, called Mooch (or, as we ironically renamed it, Smooch). We also went out clubbing a couple more times, but it really wasn't anything special. All of the English students like to go out during the week, apparently in order to avoid "mingling with the locals" on the weekend, with meant Monday to Thursday was much busier in town that it would ever be in New Zealand. On Wednesday night we found ourselves standing in line for a club for an hour before giving up because it was so cold. And we were in winter coats. Meanwhile the English students were braving the weather in t-shirts and shorts. Fools. We did manage to visit a few different clubs throughout the week though, and got a feel for the nightlife in Nottingham, which was very much geared towards students. On the whole the most popular clubs all seemed pretty similar, to the point where there were two clubs called Ocean and Oceana which resulted in a lot of confusion for everyone involved. I'm not sure I would be racing out to any of these again, as they were all just very busy and cost to get into, but I certainly hope to explore the rest of the city nightlife. There are a few good music venues so I'm sure I'll get to a couple of gigs before too long.
Stay tuned for when I actually explore Nottingham during the daytime! And here's a picture of the Portland Building. Can you believe I actually get to study here?!
Byeeeeee!
When visiting London, it quickly becomes clear just how expansive the city is. Spending a couple of weeks in many other cities would be enough to see most of the significant places and sights, but in London one gets the feeling that they've barely begun to scratch the surface. Even people who have lived there permanently won't have seen everything, or even nearly everything. While I was there I felt like I'd already seen so much, but there was still even more out there, and it was exhausting. But I did still manage to get a lot done in my final week before heading to university, so here it is!
Returning from a visit to Saffron Walden (I'll get to that later, I promise), I headed out to Parliament Square, a.k.a Tourist City apparently. This was definitely the busiest area of London I'd visited, in terms of visitors to the city. I got great views of Big Ben and Houses of Parliament from across the Thames, and then up close, but I also enjoyed watching the other tourists at work. Every red phone box was busy with people taking the photo opportunity, and it was impossible to walk in a hurry because the person in front of you was likely to stop at any second to snap another picture. You could see the locals trying to get to or from work looking about ready to kill a man. As it got later in the afternoon it became less busy, so it turned out to be quite a nice time to visit. I walked around some of Westminster Abbey, which was a very beautiful building. Churches and cathedals always seem to give rise to some of the best architecture, especially inside, but unfortunately Westminster was just as expensive to visit as St Paul's. After this I headed in the direction of Oxford St to do some shopping. I walked via St James Park, which was very nice, especially just as the sun was setting. After a nice relaxing walk I finally got the terrifying chaos which is Oxford St in the evening. In New Zealand the stores a pretty much all closed by 6pm, but in London they're open late which means they're filled with after work shoppers. It was probably busier than Wellington on Boxing Day, and this was a Monday night. I tried my best to breathe deeply and attempt some shopping but alas, given the crowds and the extensive line for the changing rooms, my excursion was in vain.
Tuesday evening I had the great experience of going up the Shard with my brother. For anyone who doesnt know, the Shard is currenty the tallest building in the European Union, having just completed construction a year ago. In that time it has become an integral part of the London skyline, so after many days of staring at it from afar I finally had a chance to go to the top(ish). It was pretty expensive to get a ticket to the observation deck (25-30 pounds), but even though it seems a hefty price I would thoroughly reccommend it to anyone who gets a chance, because you will get some very unique views of London. We went at night, so we got to see London all lit up, but I'm sure you would get an equally great experience during the day. It took two surprisingly quick elevator rides to get to the first observation deck at the 70th floor. It was a little dizzying at first, and there was some ear popping on the way up, but after a few minutes I was used to the height and felt more comfortable.The windows go all the way to floor the whole way round, so you can see out very easily, but luckily the floor is still solid (for anyone who hates the glass floor part of the Sky Tower). If you walk up a couple more flights of stairs you get to the highest observation deck which is described as 'open-air'. This wasn't nearly as terrifying as I thought. The walls are still there, they just cut off around the top quarter to let fresh air in. Basically it was the same as the lower deck but with more wind. I don't know whether this was meant to enhance the experience? In any case, these were certainly some of the best and most unique views of London you could get. You had a full 360 degree view, with London spread out in all directions. It definitely highlighted the expanse of London, as the lights stretched right to the horizon, with no edge in sight. And sights like Big Ben and Tower Bridge just looked like little toy models.
One other very cool sight was of the train station just next to the shard. You could see all the people milling on the platform looking like ants, and then as the trains approached they would all surge towards the doors in little clumps. It definitely offered a new persepctive of London.
The next day I took a trip out to Kensington, the home of a number of museums, and the well known Gardens. I first went to the Natural History Museum for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition. This had some really amazing photography from all over the world, with flora and fauna both featured. I remember going to a previous year's exhibition, and this one was just as good so I would thoroughly reccommend it. It also had a very nice relaxing atmosphere, unlike the rest of the museum. As would make sense, the Natural History Museum is very popular for school field trips, which meant I spent the morning trying avoid gaggles of giggling children. It's a little difficult to enjoy a display when ten children suddenly run in front of you, so I just took a quick glance at a few other exhibitions before leaving. I did manage to see a few dinosaur fossil, a big drawcard for the musuem, and even moa remains. It's always nice to see a little bit of home.
Given how busy the Natural History Museum was, I decided to give the nearby Science Museum a miss and instead headed across the road to the Victoria and Albert Museum. I didn't really have any idea what to expect of this museum, but I ended up really loving it. It's basically an art museum, with collections ranging from sculpture to stained glass to fashion, and anything also you'd care to think of. These were from many different eras and countries around the world. I particularly enjoyed seeing fashion throughout the ages. There was a section containing more recent 'artefacts', and I had a good laugh when I saw a Walkman featured in the display. Even I'm getting old now! The building was also set up with a range of levels, so you could see some displays both at ground level and from above. One room had a lot of large pillars and sculptures, so it was cool to see those close up and then see just how big there were from higher up. The building itself was also beautiful, and had a lovely courtyard area. Having exhausted my museum quota for the day, I took a wander through Kensington Gardens, which contains the well known Peter Pan statue. The gardens themselves were lovely, and it was nice to get some fresh air on a sunny day.
My last two days in London the weather was less then ideal so I stuck to the indoor activites, checking out the other major art displays in London. I went to the Tate Modern on Thursday. I was a little apprenhensive because I'm not typically fond of "modern" art, but I was pleasantly surprised by some of the exhibitions. Modern art is basically anything from the 20th century, and the gallery was arranged so that you began with the earliest artworks and got to the most recent at the top. I enjoyed the surrealist works from the earlier periods (probably partly because I recently watched Midnight in Paris so I had this kind of art in my mind), especially Dali. I find that these are the kinds of paintings you can look at for a long time because there's so much going on, and so much to see. I'm sure that you would get a different impression of the pictures every time you saw them. Personally, I'm less convinced by the more recent art with it's abstract lines and scribbles. I'm just a little skeptical of finding meaning in those kinds of random forms, although if you can find merit in them then that's great. It was interesting to see some of the artwork from the past 20 or so years, and there were some good pieces, but they just weren't my cup of tea.
My last day in London I visited the John Soane Museum in Holborn, followed by the Tate Britain. The John Soane is a very highly regarded but obscure museum which is actually the converted home of John Soane. Soane was a collecter of antiquities, and his house was filled with paintings, sculptures and many artefacts from around the world. He requested that after his death the house be preserved in its current state, and become available for the public to view his collection. The collection was huge, every corner of the house was filled. I made the mistake of being budget and not getting a guide book. There was so much to see, and very little display information, so this definitely would have been helpful in the future. As it was, the various guides posted around the house were happy to be informative. It was also an odd experience because in order to be more authentic there was very little light, so some things were quite difficult to see in detail. Apparently the house was designed to be much better lit on a sunny day, which seems a little impractical given England's climate. I couldn't possibly tell you everything I saw, but certainly the most striking object was an egyptian coffin in the basement, fully engraved. There was also an amazing designed painting room with the walls on hinges which could be opened to reveal even more paintings inside. I can't remember the artists that were on display, but the guide did tell us that John Soane was offered a collection of Turner paintings, but they didn't measure up to his standards. With that in mind I headed to a gallery with a very large collection of Turners, the Tate Britain. The Tate Britain's collection is mainly be British artists. In an aside, when I went I got the impression that it was only British artwork but apparently I just missed a whole section of the gallery. Oops. I went through the various exhibitions leading from the 1500s through to modern day. They then had a full separate exhibition of Turner paintings, the largest collection apparently. There were certainly a lot of paintings, ranging throughout Turner's career. I have definitely been converted and took a great liking to his works. I don't think I've seen a more wonderful depiction of the sky than in his paintings.
Travelling around London has been exhausting, and not just because of the crowds on the Tube. There was so much to see, and not nearly enough time. I am sure that I could live there for the next 10 years and still miss out on some amazing sites. In any case, I have now left London for the slightly more manageable city of Nottingham, which I will fill you in on later (spoiler alert: it get's good). Hopefully I will get to return to London soon to see even more!
(Shout out to my big brother Max for welcoming me to the UK and being a great host)
Byeeeee!
