Sheffield 101.

This is a building right around the corner from my house. The engraved sign at the bottom reads: Upperthorpe Public Baths. I found this both hilarious and exciting when I first noticed it, walking to town with my flatmate. He said, "What, you don't have swimming pools in the states?" Oh right. Because a public bath is totally the same thing as a pool.

Some funny things I've learned about Sheffield lately:

* It's the 4th largest city in England. 4th! Yet no one (outside Sheffield) seems to have ever heard of Sheffield. And you can't say it's because they don't have a major football team,
because they have TWO. Sheffield United, and Sheffield Wednesday. Yes. Sheffield Wednesday.

* Speaking of football, it seems the closest Sheffield ever came to being famous, or infamous rather, was in 1989, when 96 people were crushed to death and 766 injured at a football game, also known as the Hillsborough Disaster (Hillsborough is the suburb just a mile up the road from me).

* The dog of choice around here seems to be the pitbull, or the ever-so-darling bull terrier, which I'm fairly certain is now a banned breed in the US.

* The mail comes (through the slot in the front door) at 10 o'clock IN THE MORNING.

* The standard greeting is "You alright?" which has thrown me off repeatedly, since the only time we'd ever ask anyone "are you alright?!" in the US is if there were something clearly un-alright with them.

* Pedestrians have the right-of-way at crosswalks... 50% of the time. Also, you walk on the left side of the sidewalk here.... 50% of the time. I need to speak to someone about the official rules on this because clearly, there are none.

* Apparently, you also pay to ride the bus... 50% of the time. Or, you don't pay at all, and the ignorant American student pays the listed standard fare, to the great surprise of the bus driver. Definitely going to try and get away with not paying next time.

* This week is apparently Police & Ambulance Siren Testing week. I actually stopped what I was doing today when I noticed that for a whole 30 seconds, there was no siren going off. Amazing!

* You get called love (or luve, in the thick northern accent), by everyone, all the time, no exceptions. I swear you could rob a bank here and the cashier would say "there ya go, luve!" as she handed you the bag of money. It's particularly interesting to me when people know I'm an ignorant American, and STILL do it. Like last week at the post office, I took almost 5 minutes counting out the correct change, and the lady at the desk just watched me, then eventually said "I'll need 5 o' those and 2 o' those, sweetheart." SWEETHEART! I totally got an upgrade while being a slow and annoying customer!

I have never been to the south of England, but I've heard from plenty of people that Northerners are much nicer than Southerners, and I'd believe it. Simply because I don't think you could get much nicer. Apart from all the loves and sweethearts, people are quite happy to go completely out of their way to give you directions or help you find something, or just acknowledge your presence. For that, I'll happily put up with ambiguous crosswalk etiquette and a few pitbulls.

Hiking the Peak District.

On Saturday, the Geography department took a hike from the city centre out to the Peak District, supposedly 6 miles, realistically more like 8. It's what the South Yorkshire area of England is famous for, and I can understand why now, having seen a slice of it. Endless fields of heather, massive boulders, even larger cows, sheep watching us from the boulders, sun, clouds, rain, sun, mist, clouds, sun, rain, changing every 3.492 minutes. My favourite part was following the 'Public Pathway' signs over stiles and walking the trail through various pastures of skeptical and curious livestock.

Ma Petite Maison.

Here is my house! I should clarify -- the red half on the left is my house. The brick half, from what I can tell, is inhabited by two young parents and their newborn, who I can occasionally hear crying at night, as we are seperated by a very thin wall. Actually my flatmate Michael just informed me there's a cat in the neighborhood that sounds like a baby crying, but it's really a cat. So maybe it's a cat and not a baby. Regardless, the mother sings to it when it cries long enough, which is rather nice. (But which would be kind of strange if it were actually a cat..... anyway.)

My flatmates are Michael, from Northern Ireland, Andrew, from Portsmouth, and Sarah, also English, who arrives next week, but who owns a guitar and a record player, so I already like her. Something rather odd is that I know 2 guys in other countries with the exact same first and last name combinations as both Michael and Andrew.

My room is on the top of the 3 floors -- a large loft.

It was just carpeted today; I talked the landlord into going with a neutral colour vs. purple (his choice) and the ancient rose colour that covers most of the house except for the boys' rooms, which have navy blue carpet, naturally. It is fantastic to have my own, big space.

The best part is that to get to the loft, you must ascend what I've started calling The Stairway of Death. Not only is whatever the stairs are made of (under the rose carpet) starting to erode, one of the railings is loose, and when you open the door at the bottom, there's another LARGE unexpected step, which I'm constantly forgetting exists. I've started limiting my water consumption after 7pm so I don't have to risk my life coming down the stairs to pee in the middle of the night. I voiced some concern to the landlord yesterday about the stability of the stairs, and he proceeded to jump on each one several times to ensure their strength (he's a rather entertaining man).

Here are a few funny things I've learned about the house over the last week:

-- there are no electrical outlets in the bathroom. Zero.

-- the entire back of the house is slanted downwards. I put my cup down on a windowsill in the livingroom, and it slowly slid backwards until it was touching the window. It's like living in a gravity-defying orb, or the Leaning Tower of Pisa. And also makes me wonder how soon the whole house is just going to collapse. Or split in half. Or just tip over sideways.

-- the bathroom is substantially larger than the kitchen.

-- if you turn any of the hot water faucet handles all the way on, you will instantly have a. water so hot you could easily steep tea in it and b. third degree burns on whatever part of your body you had under the faucet.

-- my room has 3 different crawlspaces in it. And another one in the ceiling.

It is old and drafty and creaky and crooked, and I am slowly growing to love it, because, as my landlord likes to point out, 'it has character!'. Especially compared to the university housing high-rises a few blocks away, which are closer to the school but tiny, sterile, and right next to 2 of the busiest [noisiest] roads in the city. Here, I go to sleep to the sounds of cat baby, and wake up to mourning doves cooing. Not unlike being at home, actually.

Church on Sunday.

The Sheffield Cathedral. I won't say I loved the 13 pages of liturgy which made up most of the service, but sitting in a place that's been around since the 12th century easily makes up for it.

The cool part was, about 1/2 a mile from the church I got completely lost, but all I had to do was follow the sound of the bells and I found it. I love it when churches accomodate to directionally-challenged individuals.

I Am in England.

Pinching myself about this because, for a while there (like the whole past 2 weeks), it was looking rather dubious. After housing issues and a fall-through in the programme just a month before departure, I had no idea the biggest hurdle was yet to come: as I fondly refer to it -- The Visa Nightmare:

August 26: Fill out 6,349* required pages of visa application paperwork, but have to wait until..
September 1: ..for my 'biometrics' (aka fingerprinting) appointment in Seattle. Application is sent to the British consulate in New York via overnight delivery.
September 8: Get an e.mail from the consulate saying they've JUST BEGUN processing my visa. (Departure countdown: 5 days.)
September 12: No sign of visa being finished. Call airline about changing ticket. Estimated cost: twice the price of what I paid for original ticket.
September 13: Consulate e.mails: visa is processed. Being shipped next-day delivery... but by 4pm it still has not left New York.
September 14: Bags packed. Ben and I race to Bellingham's UPS hub at 8.45am. Passport and visa are, miraculously, there. Drive to airport. Get in plane. Fly to England. La dee dah.

Actually, fly to Paris, get on very small plane to Manchester, haul 80 lbs of luggage to the train station, take train to Sheffield, haul said luggage to tram station, take tram to Upperthorpe, haul said luggage 1/2 a mile to my house, for the next year. At that point I could've been happy with accomodation resembling a chicken coop, as long as it had a place to sleep and pee.

Ironically there are quite a few ways in which the house could be compared to a chicken coop but.. more on that later. The above photo is the view from my bedroom window, so clearly there are worse chicken coops. It is good to be in England.

*only a slight numerical exaggeration.