Send Pumpkin Pie!!

I went to Edinburgh today for the University of California Thanksgiving event. My friend Chris (who goes to UC Berkeley at home) and I decided to take the 7:30 AM train from Durham, even though it would get us to Edinburgh 3 hours before the event started. With the exchange rate as it stands, anything to save money is nice, and this definitely saved money. However, we had to get up around 6AM. We met to walk down the station around 6:45, as it's quite a walk from College.

Now for those of you in the real world- with jobs, or high school, that may not sound ridiculously early. Well, the sun doesn't even come up here until 7:50AM, so it really felt much earlier. The streets were empty, and it was literally as dark as the middle of the night. And at the risk of huge understatement, it was cold. But it was only going to get colder.

Antarctica? No, just a bad photo from the fast moving train, 20 minutes from Durham

As soon as we left Durham and a few snow flurries in the train station, we were literally immersed into a "winter wonderland". Everything was covered in snow. I'm not sure why Durham missed out on this blanketing, but again, it won't be long.

The whole train ride up, we speculated and salivated about the upcoming Thanksgiving meal. Turkey. Cranberry Sauce. Mashed Potatoes. Stuffing (Chris's daydream, I hate the stuff). Pumpkin Pie! "As long as they have turkey and pumpkin pie, I'll be happy" I declared as we walked through the streets of Edinburgh. Well, I wasn't happy...

Our high expectations were crushed. It was basically just a standard fancy dinner. Small portions, fancy plating, decent food. It wasn't even a buffet, so we couldn't stuff ourselves silly, as of course one must do on Thanksgiving. There was turkey, but that's about all this meal had in common with Thanksgiving.

Compare that, with this:

Last year's thanksgiving plate.

The most crushing disappointment however, came masqueraded as dessert. Chocolate cake with ice cream... Chocolate cake... It was the first time I've nearly been moved to tears by chocolate cake. And we're not talking tears of joy.

Not Pumpkin Pie...

I would have even settled for apple pie! Or pecan! It was decent cake, but it just wasn't pumpkin pie. And that sums up the whole event. I hope this doesn't come off badly, I don't mean to be complaining so much. It was a nice event, and a great gesture for UC's Education Abroad to put on this event to thanksgivingless Californians. The food was good. It really was. At any other time, this would have been a great meal. It was nice to hang out with other Californians, and Edinburgh is a great city to spend an afternoon in (even in 20 degree weather). But it wasn't Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving, to me, is about family, carved turkey, my dad's cranberry sauce, home made pies, stuffing myself far beyond necessity, spending the weekend in Ramona, and so on. This just wasn't the same. The most important part obviously is spending time with family- both immediate and extended. Thanksgiving is a great holiday to bring families together. But I knew I wouldn't be with my family this thanksgiving, I was resigned to that fact. Secondarily though, Thanksgiving is about the food. It's not as important as being with one's family obviously, but still important. And I think if this meal was very thanksgivinglike, it could have helped me cope with being away from my family on thanksgiving. I would have been able to salvage something from the holiday. But of course, it was nothing like thanksgiving. I think this was the first time I've experienced homesickness since I've been here.

We still had a fun afternoon, mostly commiserating about the food.

There were around 100 or so Californians

Other Californians saddened by the food

Scottish Dancing

But it was with heavy hearts and less than satisfied stomachs that we trudged back into the dark and freezing streets, and back towards the train station.


(PS- in respect to the post title, you probably shouldn't actually attempt to send pumpkin pie. I'm not sure it would survive the two weeks things take to send here... Although, it's the thought that counts, so I won't fault you for trying)

Snow!

When I said yesterday "the first snow can't be far off", I wasn't kidding. It happened today. I had just taken a shower, and was on my computer before going off to breakfast. I went over to weather.com to see how cold it was (rather than just looking out my window). It said 34 degrees, "feels like" 27, snowing. Oh, okay, so pretty cold then I thought... Wait, SNOWING?!?

I jumped over to the window, and practically tore open the curtains. Sure enough, it really was snowing. Lots of fluffy white stuff was slowly falling from the sky. This was no freezing rain, hail or slush, this was the real deal. One of the few times I've seen falling snow in my life. It was pretty great. It only continued for about 5 minutes though, and there was no accumulation on the ground at all. I didn't even have time to get dressed (warmly) and go outside and really experience it. I'm sure I'll have plenty more chances though. To catch the 7:30AM train to Edinburgh tomorrow, I have to leave college around 6:45. Weather.com is forecasting 22 degree temperatures at that time...

I'll be back later this weekend to write about the Thanksgiving event, and hopefully post some pictures too. Have a good weekend!

-Gabe

Winter is (un) Officially Here

Although Winter doesn't officially start until December 22nd, it certainly doesn't feel like fall anymore. During the past few weeks I was treated to classic fall scenes like the following:




Not anymore. At the moment, Durham looks nothing like the above pictures. Nearly all the yellow and orange leaves have fallen from the trees, leaving only skeletal remains.

It's not just the leaves, or lack thereof that make it feel like winter. It's also properly cold now. People have stopped chiding me for shivering, and remind me "oh it's going to get much worse, if you're cold now..." far less often. Even the locals are rarely seen in T-Shirts these days. It hasn't snowed yet, but I don't think the first snow is far off. It has certainly been cold enough to snow. The rain has picked up quite a bit, and we had two weeks of Soccer matches canceled in a row, before finally playing a match last Saturday.

I rarely go outside now without long underwear, gloves and a jacket (and obviously an umbrella). Of course as I write about all this doom and gloom, it's sunny and in the high 40's today, so it's not always terrible.

While it seems that we've transitioned into Winter, that doesn't mean Fall's greatest holiday has been forgotten- Thanksgiving! Of course, it's not celebrated or even really known about here. One of my friends admitted she'd only even heard about it from watching Friends. But, this does not mean I will miss Thanksgiving this year. The University of California is putting on a Thanksgiving dinner this Saturday in Edinburgh, for all the California students anywhere in Northern England and Scotland (not just Durham). While I'll miss being home with family for thanksgiving (the first time I've ever been away for the holiday) it'll still be nice to get some turkey and pumpkin pie.

All for now,

Gabe

Sunrise on a Thursday Morning

Although I didn't have any lectures until 10:00AM, I still woke at 7:30AM this morning. While deciding whether to go to breakfast or back to sleep, I decided to have a look out my window. I wanted to see if it was raining, if the sun was up yet, if the ground was blanketed with 4 feet of snow, etc. When I opened my curtains, I was surprised to be treated to this:





Not a bad way to start off the day. The pictures hardly even do it justice; it was one of the most amazing sunrises I've ever seen. I may have to wake up at 7:30 more often.

Fireworks!

This weekend I was treated to one of the highlights of the year so far, the Grey College Annual Fireworks show. Grey is another of Durham's 14 colleges. Every year during Guy Fawkes weekend they put on a really spectacular fireworks show. For a few days before the weekend I could hear various fireworks going off every night. I could even look at my window and see large firworks going off in the distance on Thursday and Friday night. All the second and third year students kept saying that was nothing, and the real deal was Saturday. They said if there was one thing we couldn't miss this year, the Grey fireworks was it. And it was free, so what more could I ask for?

It certainly didn't disappoint. There were about 5000 people- a combination of students and local families- packed into a tiny quad area of the college. Although it was freezing (much colder than 4th of July in South Pasadena), everyone was bundled up and happy. The backdrop was stunning, we were up on a bluff overlooking the whole city, and the giant silhouette of the Cathedral was right in front of us.

(Before the crowd filled in)

(Nearing full capacity, and most of the crowd was behind this photo too)

I couldn't believe how close the fireworks were. That's what made this really different to July 4th celebrations. Sometimes those seem like they're close to you, when they are high above and directly overhead. These fireworks were only a couple hundred feet in the air, and launched literally yards from the front of the crowd. The whole show felt almost dangerous, but in a good way, it added to the excitement. Here are some of favorite pictures from the night (as always, click the photos for a huge full resolution view):

And for your added viewing pleasure, how about a couple of videos? One of the fun things that made it really different from the 4th of July was the music. There obviously weren't any patriotic American songs- instead they played contemporary popular music, which was different, and added some fun to the show.


I think the sound is kind of low, so you may want to turn your volume up for full effect.









That's all for now. As always, thanks for reading. Check back soon- I promise it won't be a week between posts again.

-Gabe

My Room (Video!)

So the promised blog about basketball will be coming soon, but I had to post this today. People have been wanting to see some pictures of my room, but I hadn't gotten around to taking pictures of it. Today was cleaning day though, so I figured it was the perfect chance to capture my room in its "clean state", which is unfortunately a bit of a rarity. And yes, you read that right- cleaning day. Once a week we have housekeepers come in and clean our room. They also come three times a week to empty our trash bins. It's a bit ridiculous actually, I'm used to cleaning up after myself. But I'm not complaining. They even scrub and clean our bathroom. Yes, you read that right too, I have my own bathroom. I am one of the lucky few in the "en suite" building, which comes with it's own toilet and shower. Very nice after shared bathrooms for two years in Santa Cruz.

I was going to take some pictures of my room, but I thought a video made more sense and would be more fun. The quality isn't great, as I did on my regular camera, but it's fine. Check it out:




(UPDATE- video tips: if your internet is as slow as mine, you may have a bit of trouble watching this. If it keeps stopping to buffer, I'd recommend starting it, then stopping it and letting it load for about 5 minutes before watching it. Let me know either in the comments or via email or facebook if you're able to get it working. If not I'll post it on youtube or something, thanks)

So there you have it. I really can't complain- my own room, lake view, en-suite bathroom, a heater. I really was lucky to be put in this building (broken elevator and all). The domestic students had to request it, but for internationals it's kind of random. Some of the other UC students here were put into regular, kinda junky dorms.

As you had to request the en-suite bathroom, and presumably pay a bit more, the composition of my floor is interesting. I'm the only boy on a floor of about 16. I guess girls find the en-suite bathrooms more useful. It's an interesting dynamic- but again, I'm certainly not complaining.

Thanks for reading, and I'll try to keep the steady flow of posts coming. Check back soon.

-Gabe

Sports

One of the things that made Durham really attractive to me was how popular intra-mural sports are. Something like 80% of the students participate in some kind of sport. Because Durham is broken up into colleges, like Oxford and Cambridge, this makes sport even more exciting. Every college has a number of teams in every sport, and they all form giant leagues with other colleges. So instead of just playing with friends, you are really representing something, your college, which is really fun.

The sport I was most excited to play was soccer, or as I am forced to call it here, "football". On a side note, the nomenclature really is a lose-lose for me. If I call it "football" people assume I'm talking about American Football, because I'm American. But if I call it soccer, out of habit and in an attempt to avoid confusion, they scoff and say things like "soccer?" or "you're in england now, you better call it by its real name". I normally just call it literally "football slash soccer".

Anyway, back on topic. My college, Van Mildert, has over 1000 students, and thus has 8 football teams playing in the various university leagues. An A team, B team, C team, D team, E team, a women's team and two practice/indoor teams. You have to try out a first year, and they put you onto one of the teams for the season (the whole school year) based on how good you are. After seeing how many first years ("freshers") turned out to training- around 60- I was pretty overwhelmed and nervous. My goals were to not be the worst player, not to embarrass myself too badly, and to make the E team.

The field complex, where we train, is unfortunately about a 30min walk from my college. So by the time we got there on the day of the trials, I was already a bit tired- not a good start. They had us do some warm ups, but we pretty quickly jumped into a few small sided games with all the captains wandering around and observing. There was a bit of pressure, but I managed not to embarrass myself. After a few more drills, I got subbed out of one of the games early. I thought it was because they could see how tired I was. But the captain said he'd seen enough, and wanted me on the B's. I was pretty surprised, but happy. Not happy that I'd made the B's exactly, but happy that they pulled me out of the game, because I was ready to collapse.

I had a few trainings with the B team, and the level of play was very high. These were obviously kids who'd been playing their whole lives, and really took it seriously. I wasn't neccesarily the worst player, but I was far from the best. I play forward, and that's pretty much the only position I can play, unfortunately there were two strikers above me on the depth chart. So in our first match, I started on the bench, and wasn't subbed in until the 80th minute (out of a 90 min game). At the next training the captain decided that I should move down to the C team, just so I could get more playing time.

Life on the C's has been really good. It's much more fun being one of the better players than one of the worst. Training is more fun, and we joke around, it's not serious and pressure filled. We may be having too much fun though, as we lost our first match 3-0. I'll provide more updates (and maybe picture) on here as the season goes on.

Tomorrow I'll explain about college basketball, the other sport I'm playing, which is, to say the least, very different from college football.