strawberry fields forever

The day i heard my first beatles song was the day liverpool began forming in a haze out of my imagination. The real Liverpool is nothing like the one i envisioned however. This Beatles fan mecca is much larger than the city i anticipated and looking back i really have no idea what i expected. Liverpool is a large industrial city but also contains that northern england small town feeling. Main streets are lined by expensive stores and pubs, looming cemet buildings make me think of gotham city, but the side streets wind down shadowed alleys where you find out of the way shops and clubs with dark steps descending from the cobble stone street. I tried to imagine the city without the Mcdonalds and focused my attention on the prevelance of industrialism; possibly closer to the way it looked when john and paul walked down these same streets. Is it possible they sat at the foot of this same statue?Its difficult to imagine the city before the beatles made its name known around the globe. Sadly we only got to spend a few hours wandering the city, i think i could spend days there. it was however long enough to meander through the beatles museum, have a pint in the cavern club and make fun of sculptures at the tate museum of modern art. I feel there is much more of liverpool that i'll need to explore before leaving england. Liverpool...i'm still kind of amazed i was there.

aleks was amazed this john lennon statue was sporting such a fantastic leather jacket.

ilkley

A solo english mountain day.

I suppose even in central pa they should be considered 'rather impressive hills' and not really mountains, but its all relative. This morning i decided i would have my mountain day and, if only for a few hours, leave the city for more approachable countryside. From the leeds train station it was only a 40 minute trip at the cost of a cheap pint before i stepped off the platform in Ilkley. I gathered directions online which were scratched onto a sheet of paper in my pocket, but still managed to 'explore the village' quite a bit before finding Wells road. Ilkley is even smaller than york, but i feel it still has quite a bit to offer. the main streets are lined by coffee shops and small stores that one could wander in for hours. I think there are darwin gardens? too, but will save those for another day.This afternoon i was much more interested in the surrounding hills and continued my quest for the cow and calf rock formation advertised on the ilkley website. I wandered up the street through a residential area and onto the pedestrian footpath before turning to walk along a worn rock and mud trail leading towards, as it was dubbed in my directions, the white buildings of white wells. they were nice, and offered a scenic view of the village which was mostly obscured by fog. the trail however continued on and so did i. I've discovered this intense desire within myself to continue just over the next ridge, and when i get there, just over the next ridge. on the muddy path i ran into a number of others enjoying the trail. everyone from the dog walker to the afternoon strolling couple to the vest wearing, hiking stick in hand, fanny pack totting...well the more serious hiker. Somewhere along the trail i vowed to name my dog (one day) Maggie. i'll call her in an english accent and claim thats how you pronounce her name.
i stopped for lunch on a pile of rocks that had no resemblence to a calf or a cow or any other barnyard animal, but who am i to judge? sheep grazed on the hillside above me and i took time to admire early 20th century grafitti carved into the stone. descending the hill i took pictures of the ducks in a small pond for jon and for posterity. I stopped for coffee and a quick breeze through the local second hand stores before heading home. a successful mountain day.
This is only my very limited opinion, but i feel like leeds is not so very different from any other city anywhere in the world. I've really enjoyed getting outside the city to small towns with typically english architecture rising above rose gardens and grazing sheep not far from local pubs. If i were just traveling without the wonderful inconvenience of my studies, i think i'd spend the majority of my time in the smaller towns; ilkley, guiesley, warfdale, skippton, york.


i found this in a paper left on the train...
http://www.historymatters.org.uk
the headline read, bloggers' chance to make history.
very boring or entirely interesting? such is life.

next weekend i travel to liverpool. maybe i should listen to only the beatles this week as a sort of reverent dedication.

Double Take

evolution and agriculture

It was a few days ago that i suddenly took notice of Charles Darwin's profile staring back at me from the back of the 10 pound english note. I laughed outloud, and had to look again to be sure it was really him. In the states we struggle over decisions to teach Darwin in biology classrooms and here his face sits behind the queen on the currency. I found it amusing.

Yesterday afternoon marked the very first sighting of a John Deere trucker hat. I get the feeling that in Huntingdon PA if you dont own this same hat yourself someone you know has at least two, but seeing the hat in Leeds it just seemed entirely out of place.

conversation starters

I heart WY
Try to strike up a conversation and feel like an ass. let the good times roll.

the dry walk up, head tilt and awkward pointing gesture:
"I dig the I Heart Wyoming t-shirt, where did you find it?"

the condesending look:
"Its not WY for wyoming."

quite confused, the thought never even entered my mind:
"oh...um."

lay on the sarcasm:
"Do you know what part of the world you are in?"

very very hesitantly, maybe i'm even more confused than i realized:
"um...yes?"

you'll need a knife to cut this:
"The UK...England...and this is Leeds...West Yorkshire."

big gulps huh? welp seeya later:
"hmm...i see"


i had thought the shirt was quite clever too. never mind.

notes from abroad

First off; i'm mooching a wireless connection from a nearby neighbor who has randomly decided to make their formly secure connection unsecure. i'm elated, but the connection is terrible and doesnt' seem to last.

i've survived my first week of classes and while i didn't really know what to expect i think i'll figure it out from here. lots of reading and studying on my own which will be a good change and maybe i'll even learn about discipline. anything could happen.

I have discovered a distinct difference in the manner in which people give directions here. Friday afternoon i began wandering around the school of english in search of my seminar room. House 8, which is connected to 10, but doesn't really have a door and seminar room 6 in 13 something on the 1st floor; labeling of floors is terribly confusing here. In anycase, I started asking for directions from a number of students, who as it turned out were as lost as i. It wasn't long before i found myself utterly alone in some far and forgotten corner of the building. here only the muffled sound of fingers on a keyboard could be heard resounding from behind a half closed door. i knocked and found a white haired older gentlemen sitting at his computer. he proceeded to tell me i was no where near where i needed to be, but he could take me there. so i followed him down the stairs and through a door and across the hallway and through another door and down another hallway before he pointed me towards my destination. This is possibly the third time since my arrival in Leeds that i've been, not just directed as to where to go, but actually physically guided there. People stop what they are doing, turn around and head the other direction to help me out. am i that pathetic looking or are they just friendly and helpful? i'd like to be optimistic in this case.

Early yesterday morning we boarded the train in Leeds and crawled slowly out of the city into english suburbia before catching glimpses of the sheep and green hills of the country side. Shortly thereafter we were in York. The trip was enjoyable. Aleks, Anna, Spyros and I visited the national railway musem, wandered the streets in search of a cafe, attempted to stay out of the many used bookstores, enjoyed the english weather from beneath a tent in the market, spent time in the York Minstrel (my first cathedral, i was impressed), lost a few hours in the eclectic York museum, had lunch in the Old Lion pub where we discussed fantastic greek phrases translated into english, and then walked along the great York wall before heading back to leeds. there were many other thoughts and expanded versions of stories, but they'll be saved for...something. cheers.