left than right

I have been her for exactly one week and I feel like I am getting a pretty good feel for the British culture. Many things have been very hard to get used to in this last week and the culture shock was a little more than I expected. People come to London expecting an American like city where people just speak with a funny accent, but I have found out that this place is much more than that.

Today was the first time that I found myself looking right then left before crossing the road, a habit that was very hard to break and very necessary to break if I didn’t want to get hit by a car or bus. To give you an idea of what the streets of London are like, imagine a city where suddenly every old and beat up car disappeared and was replaced with brand new shiny cars, that’s London. I have seen only 1 “junker” while I am here, and even a car made in the early 90’s is hard to spot when walking around, the British love their cars, washing them constantly and making sure they have the newest model, something you have to see to believe.

I have also found that the British are very rule oriented and very controlling. Just yesterday we tried to push a shopping trolley (cart) out of the local Tesco’s shopping market outside of the parking lot boundary. We were laughing and talking about what we would make for dinner when the cart suddenly stopped, as if slamming into an invisible wall – we looked up to a sign that read “Please don’t take shopping trolleys outside of parking lot, wheels are fixed with magnetic device.” I couldn’t believe it, the asphalt was affixed with a magnetic device that makes it impossible to push the trolley past a certain boundary.

Some other interesting cultural differences: American’s are the only people who have crisps (chips) with their lunch. Many international students find it very humorous. They all say that crisps are for eating with a beer or whine after dinner. It is also impossible to find crisps in any familiar flavours, the selection usually consists of: Salt and Vinegar, Cheese & Onion, Bacon and Beef: these are the flavours of regular Lay’s chips.

Water has also been an adventure in the last week. I have yet to find a drinking fountain in all of London. I was walking around the main campus building the other day and I asked the receptionist where a drinking fountain was: after looking at me quite weird she said “Go down the hall and there is one on the left, love.” I arrived at the described spot to find a rusty sink in the corner of the wall. It is also quite easy to spot American students because we are all carrying our Nalgene water bottles around campus. The London tap water is not bad, it just tastes a little more chlorinate than usual.

I shall get back to describing what I did yesterday.

Yesterday induction week began. I woke up early to meet Michaele, a CSU student and Karen, a student from Belgum. We took the 307 bus east towards Oakwood Tube Station, (all of the transport busses in London are red double decker busses, contrary to my previous belief that all red 2-story busses were for tourists in central London, needless to say I get to ride a double decker buss to class each day.) We arrived to a sea of students standing outside the underground station waiting for the bus that takes them to Trent Park Campus, the campus we were trying to get to. As soon as the small bus pulled up, a mob of eager students crammed into the bus and it pulled away, leaving around 50 students and ourselves to figure out a way to get to Trent Park since we had to be there at 9:30 and the shuttle ran every 15 minutes. We began walking down snakes lane, the road to Trent Park.



Trent Park is a huge campus situated in London that contains miles of green grass and thick forest. It was once a hunting ground for the King and the former residence of Vidal Sassoon. Snakes lane is about a mile long road that winds through a thick rainforest like surrounding – a beautiful sight, especially just after getting of a dirty bus. We finally arrived at the Mansion and walked into the old building. There was a grand staircase that we ascended and admired the pictures of professors on the wall: all of them were wearing robes and silly feathered hats – a sight straight out of Harry Potter. After our introduction class, we went to the library for a tour. We ate lunch outside the mansion overlooking the grounds and lower pond where white ducks were swimming. It was so calm and majestic, we felt like we were looking at the setting of a Jane Austin novel. After visiting the small Middlesex University gift shop (which consisted of 2 keychains, a sweatshirt, a t-shirt and a mug, we all caught our bus back to Enfield, and began to make a spaghetti dinner.