Austen Through the Leeds Glass

Though the culture shock has yet to subside, I feel as though I’m getting my sea legs slowly but surely. I’ve met some really great people (I’m not living alone guys, I swear!), and as Ryan said, I’ve formed my “International Squad” since I’ve yet to meet any true English students. The “Freshers” all just moved in today, so I’m sure I’ll be bumping into some local Brits soon enough, plus once everyone is on campus, there will be tens of thousands of local Brits all over the city. 

It’s only been a few days, but I’ve gone shopping without incident, I can get on the bus without causing a news worth pile up, and I finally got a UK phone number (I feel so official). Everyday, things are coming to me a little easier, but, don’t get me wrong, England is still a strange and foreign land. I know, who would have thought that the gray little kingdom across the pond could seem so exotic? To my American eyes, though, everything looks unfamiliar. Even though there is no language barrier, I am as disoriented as though I’d stepped through a mirror into a strange, off-center of my American reality. They sell almost all the same things as in the US, but the brands are different, the measurements are in metric, and the prices in £. And the most off-putting thing of all is the actual spoken language. “Sure” I thought, “I speak English, the UK will be perfect! No language barrier!” But after a day or two here, I quickly realized that while they speak English, it’s not really my English. There such a variance in vernacular and colloquialisms between British English and American English, that I constantly find myself asking clarifying questions, 

“And an aubergine is…?” “And you use washing powder for…your…dishes?” 

Even just the pronunciation of certain words has me asking people to repeat themselves (the Yorkshire accent can be thick and almost as garbled to my untrained ears as a thick Scottish or Irish accent at times!). Here's a video of what English speakers sound like to non-English speakers, and though I don't feel my understanding is quite so garbled, it still takes some adjustment of the ears!

There’s a lot to get used to. Certain items that I’m used to buying in bulk can only be bough in small, exorbitantly priced packages here. Everything is expensive here, really. In my residence, it costs £2.60 for one wash cycle and another £1 to dry! It’s when I start to convert the prices in my head that I start to get heart palpitations. I’m on a budget after all! The outrageous prices have got me learning to cut back in places, though: I’m buying less extraneous food, and I’m walking to and from Uni (yes, I said it, throw the inevitable jokes and comments at me), and even to and from the city center (or centre, now, I suppose), with arms and a backpack laden with groceries! After that, and the fact that I’m on a fourth floor walk up, I won’t even need the free gym membership that comes with my accommodations! My shoulders and calves haven’t stopped being sore since I got here, to be honest. 

While my food and commute situations are passable and fairly healthy, the bathrooms are interesting. The toilets are strange. Let’s leave it at that. The shower is a challenge. I’m on the top floor of an old building, which means that the eaves are an inescapable part of the architecture. In terms of the shower, this means that you kind of have to lean your head to the side while standing in there. It’s absolutely tiny, barely big enough to turn around in, and maybe 5 feet tall at its highest point of the ceiling slope. It’s rough. It makes me miss the hair-clogged drains of Wellesley’s showers. Actually, wait, no, strike that. 

There have been some really nice adjustments and shocks though. I’ve gotten to know several of my flatmates (the people who live on my floor and with whom I share a kitchen for those of you speaking American English) pretty well! The girl across the hall is Australian and she’s really friendly and helpful! There’s another Australian girl who I never see, a Swedish girl who is a health nut, a quiet and sweet Dutch girl who I’m quickly befriending, and two guys from Germany, one of whom is perfectly nice and normal, and the other of whom is a total enigma to me. He’s hard to pin down in words that one…

It’s a stark, but lovely contrast from Wellesley, where everyone kept there doors shut and never interacted with other people on their floor (unless they were already friends). Both of my years living in Tower, I never really knew who was living around me, aside from recognizing their faces in passing now and again. Whereas here, it’s just the opposite! I tend to eat breakfast with at least one or two of my flatmates, and yesterday, the German enigma cooked dinner for four of us! It was really nice to chat and share a home cooked meal! 

Another not unpleasant adjustment is the drinking age in England. While I’m still underage at home, here I can legally drink (though I do have to carry around my passport since my Illinois driver’s license doesn’t cut it abroad!). The second time I went grocery shopping, I did succumb to the temptation to purchase some alcohol, just for the thrill of it! Naturally, I bought the prettiest bottle of wine I could find. It’s a pink, sparkling moscato—sickly sweet and oh so girly. It’s really nice actually, with the types of pasta that I’ve been making (but then again, I’m not really a wine connoisseur…). I also went to my very first bar, or “pub” since I’m in jolly old England. The other night, some flatmates and I went out to a pub night hosted by our residence hall at a nearby pub. It was quite English, with dark maroon carpet, antler chandeliers, rugby and “football” (soccer) matches on, and a name like “Hyde Park Pub”. Though I didn’t have “a pint”, I did have some rather nice cocktails that were on Devonshire’s tab! This also happens to be where I met and bonded with several of my new international friends (who I’m not making up, I swear). 

In fact, we all have met up a few times since to watch movies and such. We all went to dinner with some other people just today at a Mediterranean cafe just down the street. It was delicious! I had Moroccan mint tea and a lamb tagine (like a curry-stew type thing), both of which were delicious. We all decided we’re probably going to a Fresher’s week roller disco tomorrow and we also bought tickets for a trip to Scarborough a week from tomorrow! 

Yummy and aesthetically pleasing mint tea!

Before I left for Leeds, I downloaded an app on my phone call “1 Second Everyday”, which takes 1 second of video for each day and stitches them together. I thought it would be a nice way to document my time abroad. What’s funny, is that I’ve found myself so busy with errands and my new friends that I haven’t taken a single video since I’ve gotten here! I guess that’s a good thing, though it will make for a rather short video at the end of the semester (I’ll feel a little like Ben Wyatt watching his claymation video, “Requiem for a Tuesday”). 

I’m having a good time. I met with my program director recently and he asked me if I regretted coming to Leeds, and I realized that I didn’t really. Even though everything here is really strange (more than I thought it would be), I’m enjoying the unfamiliar.  This blog has helped me with the transition, I think. Things are stressful and foreign and frustrating sometimes, but when I reflect on them and try to treat everything with a healthy sense of humor, it helps me feel like I'm doing ok, it helps me process what I'm experiencing and laugh off things that would normally eat at me. And even though, as the school keeps on reminding us (including via a rather interesting and detailed “dramedy” at the orientation meeting), this is just the “vacation” stage of culture shock, I’m not too terribly worried about the descent into the other, more despairing stages. I’ve got a few friends who I’m hoping will last, and I know it may get hard and it may be scary, but the only way to stop fearing things seems to be to face them head on (at least in my experience, and it’s worked so far!). Plus, I can do almost anything for 6 months, right?

Reverse Culture-Shock, who knew?