Picture of the Day

Waiting for the Bus

The British Queue

“An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one.”
From How to be an Alien By George Mikes

The British people are know for their queuing. Getting into orderly lines ranks among their greatest skills. To ensure that the international students just arriving at Warwick learned this skill the school kindly provided us with a day of queuing. While they claimed that the queues had a purpose - getting our school IDs, paying our fees, registering with the health facility, opening a bank account - we all knew that the real skill being cultivated was queuing.

Picture of the Day

University of Warwick Arts Centre

Something New Around Every Corner

“This house was the architectural equivalent of an old gentleman in a worn dressing-gown and torn slippers, who got up and went to bed at odd times of day, and who kept up a continual conversation with friends no one else could see.” 

From Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

During Orientation Week I have been placed in temporary housing because I'm slated to live off-campus. My housing assignment is conveniently located behind the Student Union and the Rootes Building, the two main buildings utilized this week. The building is generally well-cared for and clean. Yet the building's peculiarities immediately caught me off guard.
My initial struggle centered on the act of finding my room at all. According to my key I was assigned to stay in Rootes K17B, so with a little direction from a university staff I made it into the K Block and learned that my room was conveniently located on the first floor (in America we call it the second floor). That, however, was where the simplicity of the situation ended. Traditionally the rooms in multi-resident housing possess one of two number systems; even on one side of the hall, odd on the other or the numbers going down the hall on one side and back on the other. Central to both systems is the concept that it is easier to find a room if a certain numerical sequence is followed. I reached the first floor, followed the arrow indicating K16-21, walked past 21, 20, 19, 18...and found myself in J Block. OK, I must have missed something,  go back. I looked down a small passage and saw K16 on the door. Guess which two concerns rose to my mind at that moment? I'm sure you are wondering the same things I was at that moment - where is 17 and should I worry that I'm in 17B but none of the other rooms have a letter after the number?

Picture of the Day

Finally there: University of Warwick Student Union

Down the Rabbit-Hole

“Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it and, burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge. In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.” 

From Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

One of the most difficult parts of moving to another country is choosing what to pack, what to store, and what must move on (either to the trash or a willing/unwilling recipient). So not surprisingly my journey to the University of Warwick begins with my baggage.

As a general rule I'm a frugal traveler. Really, why pay more when you can work the system and be able to spend that money on something better - like coffee, for example. Because of this stinginess I never check a bag when flying. I am morally against paying $35 so they can, most likely, loose my luggage. However, when deciding what to do about packing for England, I bit the bullet and packed two checked bags. 

Yet even with this concession I still stumbled on a major hurdle, my stuff weighed too much. Insistent that all the items I planned to were a necessity, I shifted and squeezed and in the end got everything in to one of my four bags. A scientific fact must be acknowledged before I continue relating my adventure; an item weighs the same no matter how well a person packs or in what bag the item ends up. Because of this I found myself with two checked bags that stayed under the 50 pound limit and a carry on item that boasted a weight of over 40 pounds. The only hope I had was that the airline would be as oblivious as usual to a bag that held close to 15 pounds more than was technically allowed. 

As any smart reader may have already have guessed, the above scenario created interesting encounters for me every stop in my journey.