Football

So I have done a rather poor job of writing new posts lately. For anyone who may actually follow this, I apologize. Unfortunately up until this point, nothing terribly exciting has really happened in terms of travel, aside from a trip to Stonehenge (which really isn't very exciting, personally) and Portsmouth (much better - museums, history, ships... pretty cool stuff, but no much really to write on). I plan to do some traveling soon, but for now I'll just talk about my experiences in regards to football (soccer).

It wasn't immediately that I was able to play. I was really quite anxious to get to play with some English kids in anticipation that, basically, everyone over here would be a decent player. Unfortunately, this wasn't exactly the case. In terms of knowledge of the game and following the professional level, yes, the people here are much more knowledgeable. I was talking with one of my flatmates one day about how much football was a part of his life. I explained how it was for myself as well, but the difference was primarily this: I love the game and follow it and appreciate it because I'm a player. He loves the game because he's grown up with it. It's been part of his culture for his entire life, and he isn't a player.

I'm fortunate enough and very thankful for the fact that a fellow player from the States is here with me and the BCA group, Corey. He plays for Manchester College (fellow D3 school in Indiana). At first, if I'm being honest, I wasn't sure what to expect from him, but once we finally got around to playing, it turned out he was, in fact, a good player. We've grown really close perhaps partially due to this commonality. That and we live next door to each other and spend most of our time with the same people.

Back to the topic of playing. Corey and I weren't sure how we were going to get involved with any sort of team. Initially we'd hoped to check out the university team (who are reigning national champions from what I understand), but sadly enough the team has been banned due to some inappropriate behavior (contact me if you're really interested). So we sort of resorted to intramurals, at least temporarily. We joined a team called Erasmus FC, which is some sort of European thing (obviously we're not European). It's mostly all international students - students from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Malaysia, Holland, and of course England. You'd think that as Americans we'd have a relatively small impact compared to these countries (apart from perhaps Malaysia :p), but in fact Corey and I probably have the most playing experience from what I gather. It's been good fun, but the level of play wasn't nearly what I was hoping to get while over here.

Fortunately, the coach of the university team was willing to help out our team. Long story short, he liked how I played and invited me to play on a local club team he coaches. I played in my first match for that team this past Saturday. It was night and day from intramurals. The players were bigger, faster, stronger, more technical on my team as well as the opposing side. It was about time! The only downside is that the fields here are simply in horrendous conditions. There's literally more mud than grass. In the end, it's very difficult to play on, but I'm hopeful that it'll just make me a better player. I was fortunate enough to start and play roughly 75 minutes and played fairly well, which helped in terms of being accepted by the other players. We won the match 2-0 to the team leading the league which put us in first place. Jim (coach) said he was interested in having Corey tag along as well, but is in a difficult position so he can't very well bring on more than one player at a time. Hopefully it'll work out. I look forward to continuing to play with this team.

Getting Settled... and Then Some

So I've been meaning to get to this for a little while now, but haven't managed to do so. There's a lot that I want to talk about really, but I'm going to have to spread some stuff out and you probably won't want to be reading about everything right off the bat anyway. I've had a few personal email with a bunch of people, so I may have talked about some of this with you, but I figured this would be the best way to get more people filled in on life in England. Part of the reason I decided to move forward with this whole project is that Troy Sauer (one of the assistant coaches for the team at Messiah) sent me a quick message on facey b one day and how he wanted to hear about things here. So I was instantly reminded of his incredible talent for story telling, and my inability to remember simple things that happen throughout even the past week, so trying to tell people about it once I got home just really wouldn't work out. Another contributing factor was course that my parents got me a journal as a stocking stuffer, but it turned out to be that it was all checked/graph paper haha so that wasn't exactly going to cut it (it's OK, I still love you).

We've been here for about 3 and a half weeks so we're well into the usual routine. We're here for study abroad, but compared to the typical American college (which they only use the term 'university' for - college is more like high school for them), there's not nearly as much studying that goes on. For those of you who know me and have observed my study habits, you'll understand that this sort of suits me (Josh Wood I know you're laughing right now). The 'modules' (classes) each meet once a week for about two hours, depending on what the tutor (professor) has planned. It's not unlikely for a tutor to take a break to smoke a fag (cigarette). You can see how things are quite different already. But aside from those things lectures are just about as boring as they are at home. At first the English accents helped a little, but it didn't last long.

So clearly, there are several differences in linguistics people here use, which until you're used to it, can be a little puzzling. Unfortunately, people actually aren't always spouting off things like ''bloody hell'' and "'ello gov'na," (sorry) but the people where I am, in Cheltenham (there are students from all throughout the country as well) rather think that all Americans think all English people are Cockney (Trev, you told me a bit about that). What's somewhat amusing is that the stereotypical American is a valley girl (Oh, my God! No way!!!). It's sad I know. Anyway, one that a lot of people might know is that french fries are referred to as chips, and thus chips are referred to as crisps. Gas stations are petrol stations. Throwing up is chundering. A diary is a calendar. These are a few of the common ones, but there are many more. Spelling is also different. Often things ending with -er are -re and -0r are -our. I think this is pretty well-known stuff. Pronunciation differences are probably my favorite. For example forTUNE and charades is like chaRODS. MASSage, etc. It's good stuff.

Lastly for this entry (sorry, I know it's a novel). Living abroad in another country, with no roommate, having to buy my own food (though we do get a stipend for food - 70 pounds/week, we don't really need that much, but it's nice) and ACTUALLY cook it myself (not that I do a whole lot of real cooking - the oven has been brilliant) and budget money has been really good for me. It helps in terms of being independent as well as being responsible. You can't just go out and blow all your money in one night (which I have NOT done). We get our allowance once every two weeks. It must be difficult to get it once a month. So that's all for now. Stay tuned.