The Last Post

First off, thank you for reading.  If you stuck with me from The First Post or if you’ve only just started reading, I appreciate your interest and your readership so, so much, so thank you.  This semester has been an incredible journey for me, one that I am still trying to understand completely.  I feel like my experiences become more valuable with each day I spend away from them, and I’m incredibly grateful to have had the opportunities to learn so much about myself, my culture, and other parts of the world.  My memories in England are overwhelmingly positive -- in fact I struggle to think of more than a couple of bad moments -- and I feel incredibly lucky to be able to say that.  I had more fun than I thought possible, learned more things than I ever imagined, and met fantastic people, some of the coolest I’ve ever known.  Throughout the semester I took TONS of pictures to capture the brilliant times I had there, and I think it’s appropriate to end my blog about my semester abroad with a review of it in photos.  Some are mine, some were taken by others, but all of them are special to me.  So, once again, thank you for your interest, thank you for reading, and please feel free to look over my favourite shots from the past 6 months.  

Me and Alessio in February

Northern Wales.  I never got bored of how beautiful Britain can be.

So many nights out...

...and so many great house parties...

... with delicious food.

I just really like this moment.

And I really like this shot.  This is Dylan in Edinburgh.

I loved how good buskers were in the UK.

Being able to explain my adopted culture to Sara, my friend from Michigan, was such a great feeling.

I have some ridiculously photogenic friends, like Prerna...

...and Maria. (photo by Charlotte)

My favourite photos are the ones that say something about a relationship, like mine with Charlotte. (photo by Christina)

And even though I'm not in this photo, I think it describes my relationship with David.

I will miss the awesome moments, like this one with Rens...

...or this one, with the housemates of House 49.

And more than anything, no matter how much it hurts to have left, I'm really, really happy that I went to England.

What I've Learned (or Getting of Wisdom)

▪ There’s nothing so strong as the desire to come home.  Whenever I was away from Manchester and Salford, I could constantly feel the itch to come back home.  And the second strongest feeling in the world is that of actually going home, finally being where you want to be.

▪ Manners matter.  No matter where you go, everyone appreciates politeness.  Even just nonverbal politeness, language barriers aside.

▪ Wherever you go, it’s always the people that matter most.  Ask anyone that has studied abroad or lived away temporarily, and they will tell you that the thing they miss the most is the people they met.  I’m the same.  I miss so many things about England, but I miss the people the most. 

▪ Going away ages you.  It puts miles on your soul.  At the end of the whole thing, you’re that many steps closer to old age in a young body.  It’s a hard thing to do.

▪ You can’t constantly keep up.  Sooner or later, time starts moving faster than you want it to, and you’ll end up saying “Time flies!”  There’s no stopping it.

▪ You can’t get better at goodbyes.  Each one is different, each person or place or aspect of your life is different, and so is your attachment to it.  Each one hits you like it’s something you’ve never felt before.  Because you haven’t.

▪ Age is just a number.  But it’s everything, too.  Everybody stacks themselves against others based on the accomplishments they’ve made versus the time they’ve been here.  If we never knew each other’s age, we would judge each other on what we’ve done and who we’ve become, rather than what you’re supposed to have done by a certain age.  That might be easier, I’m not sure. 

▪ Where you’re from says a lot about you.  Or at least people think it does, which is probably worse.

▪ Being an American is a unique experience, I think, because America is everywhere.  And everyone thinks they know all about it, from TV and films.  But everyone wants to hear what it’s really like, too.

▪ As I see it, there are two different meanings of the word “home”: one is the place you come from, and the other is the place where you feel you belong.  Sometimes these are the same place, sometimes they’re not.  As far as I know, English is the only language that has a word for home.  This is crazy.  It’s such a versatile word, every language should have an equivalent.

▪ I no longer believe that I can say everything I want to with English alone. Because you can’t just translate one language into another -- so many words have no direct equivalent.  It’s easier to just use the foreign word. 

▪ Besides, home is an idea.  If you build a life for yourself somewhere, that place becomes home, no matter where it is.

▪ Same goes for family.  The people that help you make a place your home become your family, no matter your relation to them.

▪ I’m really fond of English.  The language, I mean.  It’s a goody.  You can say a lot with this language, it’s really flexible. 

▪ There’s nothing like a good cup of tea.  Milk, one sugar.

▪ Everyone really does love a good cookie.  You can draw any group of people together if there’s food involved, especially if that food is sweet and bite-sized.  And it really does taste better if you’re happy when you make it.  

▪ I could use a cookie right now, actually.

▪ It’s funny what you miss and what you don’t miss.  Random stuff, it’s very unpredictable. 

▪ When you can fit your whole life into two suitcases and a backpack, or even just a backpack, you realise how little stuff you actually need.  Everything else is just stuff.

▪ Walking feels really, really good.  Backpacking taught me that.  Until you spend hours upon days walking great distances, you can’t really appreciate the way it feels on your body and the effortless way it lets you take in your surroundings and the self-sufficient feeling it gives you.  It’s glorious.  

▪ You actually can feel full from drinking in new sights.  And then you need to spend some time in one place and get comfortable so you can build up your hunger again.  It can’t be rushed. 

▪ Washing up can be such a relaxing chore.  I owe my mother many apologies for the years when I was difficult and didn’t understand the peaceful rhythm in it.

▪ Sometimes I feel old, but I’m still very, very young.

*If you know which magazine I’m mimicking with this post and 1,000 Words About Their Culture, excellent work!  Keep reading.  If you also know what I'm referencing with the alternative title to this post (‘Getting of Wisdom’), and we aren’t best friends already, we should be.

1,000 Words About Their Culture

Like all countries, England’s culture is hugely affected by its climate.  The weather in Manchester is generally dreary, with it being gray and rainy 70% of the time.  Summers are cool and winters are warm, making this an island that perpetually swings between spring and fall.  There’s very little variation, and English people reflect this.  They seem to expect life to be as miserable and predictable as the weather.  I was warned to ‘keep a constant air of suspicion’ any time it wasn’t raining, and not to trust the very frequent rainbows that grace the British Isles after the rain lets up, mostly because they promise more rain to come.  

British people do, however, appreciate good weather when they have it.  Never before have I seen people take such full advantage of sunshine, even if it is only for a few brief minutes.  They revel in it.  In Britain, no one is allowed to complain about it being ‘too sunny’ or ‘too warm’ -- these things are never taken for granted.  

British people also love their animals.  I mean both pets and the wild ones.  People in Britain seem to place a lot of value on the comforts of their dogs -- to the point of pampering them in some cases.  And the treatment of wild and farm animals is also a matter of great concern.  Every type of meat available comes in the ‘free-range’ variety, and you get dirty looks for buying eggs from caged chickens.  It may come as no surprise, but fur coats aren’t fawned over, either.

English tea service with teacakes

People often stereotype Brits as having incredibly foul language, and I would say I agree with that.  There is nothing you can’t say in this country.  Sure it’s rude, but it doesn’t carry the same weight as, say, blasphemy in southern Italy or racial slurs in America.  British people kind of just roll with anything.  Maybe it comes from the confidence of having colonised lands in all corners of the world,  but British people seem to be pretty invincible when it comes to insults.  And they think everyone else should stop getting in a twist and just roll with it all, too.  

A classic Indian curry

The whole issue of colonies actually plays a pretty big role in English culture.  Many, many parts of daily British life were adopted from the lands they colonised.  Tea is perhaps the best example of this.  What is now seen as the most English of traditions, tea time, is actually an import from the Orient, brought back to England and Anglicanised with cakes and biscuits.  Indian food, too, is an imported habit that has become a ubiquitous part of British fare.  Any pub in England has at least one curry on its menu, and chippys almost always serve chips with curry sauce.  See?  It’s even part of their fast food.  

Supporters at a football match

Sport is another huge issue that’s linked back to England’s colonial history.  Naturally Britain’s most prominent sport is football, but rugby and cricket are very popular, as well.  And the only other countries in the world that play rugby and cricket are ex-colonies like Australia, South Africa, and India.  Nevertheless, sport remains a huge part of British culture, especially in Manchester.  Home to Manchester United, the best football team in the United Kingdom (and one of the best in Europe), Manchester as a whole has incredible spirit for its team.  

There’s a hope in England that their football culture can be exported to America, but this is not going to happen.  Besides, they’ve exported far too much already.  British people like to think that Americans are ‘forcing’ their crap culture onto Britain and that we’re destroying proper, respectable British culture.  This is a bit rich, when in fact, Britain delivered the concepts for American Idol, American’s Next Top Model, America’s Got Talent, and basically every other reality TV show you can think of.  So who is really exporting their culture in this scenario?  Correct, it’s Britain.

Typical British fashionista

FASHION.  British people are all about it.  It was a bit shocking for me at first, but in Britain, nearly everyone’s clothing is screaming for attention, whether it be with loud colors and patterns, retro styles being reinstated, or suggestively revealing choices in attire.  And it doesn’t stop there.  It’s normal for English girls to use far more makeup than girls in other countries, and hairstyles are equally deliberate.  Many of the women I saw everyday had their hair teased and sprayed and combed into a perfectly planned coif.  And because nearly everyone is so wild with their fashion, it’s easy for anyone to be experimental.  

More surprising to me was the way religion is treated in England.  It’s given hardly any attention, despite being such a personal issue.  It seems like people just keep it to themselves more.  This is a place where there are no soapbox preachers on university campuses and no one hands out pocket-sized bibles in the city centre.  There are far fewer hissy fits over the separation of church and state, and it’s not an act of rebellion to label yourself as an atheist.  For heaven’s sake, Darwin’s face is on the back of a ₤10 note!  Pride for the development of the theory of evolution?  The US government could never say such a thing.

If we want to get political about it, Britain is more socialist than any place I’ve known, yet it hates the label ‘socialist’.  Brits hate capitalism even more.  In many ways, England is like the more progressive cousin of the US -- it has national healthcare and labour unions, and until recently had very affordable university tuition.  The US doesn’t provide these services with anywhere near the same efficacy.   

It’s hard make generalisations about all of British culture because there is as much variation within as there is between it and the culture of other places I’ve visited.  Maybe not as much variation as there is in the US, but for a nation that is constantly comparing itself to America, I found more than enough differences.  I was still discovering new things, even on my last day.  And I’m sure I’ll feel the same each time I go back.  

Some Sweet Things About Salford

Manchester isn’t the only city I developed an attachment to.  I’m also incredibly fond of Salford, which is the city I actually lived in.   Just to be clear, it’s not pronounced SAL-ford, it’s SUL-ford.  You don’t have to say it with a mock British accent, but you can easily say the ‘sul’ part right.  There are lots of reasons to like it, but here are a few that I found pretty convincing:

Salford’s municipal color is magenta.  It’s just precious.  All the little city vehicles are painted bright pink, any construction barriers are pink, even the signs for the city are done in bright pink.  Not sure who picked that, but excellent work, sir or madam.

Salford's an exciting place right now.  There’s a lot of development in the city, or redevelopment in some cases.  A good example is the Salford Quays, a dock that is no longer used for shipping and has since been turned into a neighbourhood with waterside housing.  Also in this area is the brand-new MediaCity UK, a new centre of production for the BBC.  The area by the Quays also has some cultural attractions, including the Lowry, which functions primarily as an opera house and a museum for the works of L.S. Lowry, a painter from Salford that drew scenes from Salford and Manchester daily life in the 20^th century.  The Imperial War Museum North is also by the Quays, which is cool if you’re into war history and significantly less so if you’re not (i.e. me).  

The Lowry

The Imperial War Museum North

Salford has some cool sites, like the Salford Lads Club, which was the background for a photo of The Smiths in the 1980s.  The photo was used for the  album for The Queen Is Dead.  And though the football stadium for Manchester United FC is not technically in Salford (it’s in Trafford), it is really close to the Salford Quays and is cool enough that it’s worthy of honorary mention.  I visited and took photos as proof.  

Some parts of Salford are not the nicest looking, but Salford does have some very pretty buildings, such as Salford Cathedral and the old hospital, Salford Royal.  Salford is also home to my uni, naturally, and I have a lot of pride for it.  

A subway tunnel near the Precinct

Salford Cathedral

And while some parts of Salford are not very clean (dropping litter is a fairly big problem in Salford), the city provides many friendly and convenient reminders to…

…and to love your city, too.  I mean, I’m quite fond of it.

I ♥ MCR (part 2)

View from the top of Shudehill car park

Islington Mill

Manchester is not just a town for young artist types.  It actually has a really interesting history.  Its roots are basically in the Industrial Revolution -- it earned official city status in 1853, but was widely recognised across Europe as the first industrial city by the 1830s.  Manchester already had a reputation for its linen, cotton and wool, but with introduction of mechanised labour, it was able to become the number one textiles manufacture city in Europe.  This reputation lasted for many years, and in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, the word ‘manchester’ is still used today for household linens.  Manchester doesn’t do nearly as much manufacturing anymore, but a lot of the warehouses and mills from that time remain.  One of the most famous ones, Islington Mill, has been converted into a live music venue with studios for artists to rent, as well.  

Manchester Cathedral (built in 1421, I think)

Going back before the Industrial Revolution, a city of some sort existed in present-day Manchester as early as the 1^st century, when the Romans built a fort there.  After that, it just existed as a manor and township, and Manchester still has some of the buildings from this Medieval settlement, including Manchester Cathedral, Chetham’s Library (where Karl Marx frequently studied), and Sinclairs Oyster Bar.  Interestingly, the Oyster Bar was located in an area badly damaged by a bombing in Manchester city centre in 1996 and was painstakingly moved to its current location in a different part of the city centre.  It’s a very popular place for drinks, especially on football Saturdays or anytime the weather is nice.  

Chetham's Library and School of Music

Navigating around Manchester city centre can be very tricky.  None of the main roads are straight or remain parallel with each other, and their route is often disrupted by pedestrian-only streets and squares.  The roads are constantly changing names -- the worst one, which is basically the main road in the city centre, has five different names in a three-mile span (that’s a new name every kilometer).  Half the time the streets don’t have signs with their names anyway, so learning to get around in the city was quite a challenge initially.  

Piccadilly Gardens

At the same time, Manchester is quite a pedestrian-friendly city.  A friend and I had a routine of walking through the city every Saturday afternoon, doing shopping or just browsing.  The city centre is always a really busy place, always full of people, even if it’s cold and rainy.  Market Street is the biggest shopping street in the city, and it leads right into Piccadilly Square, the main square in the city centre.  Whenever the sun is out, these places are so packed with people it’s tricky to get around.  There’s also a really big square in front of Manchester City Hall called King’s square that can accommodate a huge crowd of people, and it occasionally hosts festivals that draw such a crowd.  

Printworks is in the back, right in the middle.  The big glass
building on the left is Urbis, a multifuntion venue space in
the city centre, and to the left of it (not in the shot) is the
Oyster Bar.  19th, 21st, and 17th century buildings, all right
next to each other.  

There’s been a significant decrease in industrialisation in England in the past three decades (as is true for most of the westernised world), and Manchester has certainly had to adapt to this change.  Since the 1980s, Manchester has become much more commercial, and especially after the aforementioned bombing, the face of the city has changed dramatically.  It’s now a striking mix of very old, 19^th century buildings and sleek, modern, 21^st century buildings, all placed right next to each other.  I think it’s a really cool way of demonstrating where the city has come from and where it’s going.  The architecture is just another thing that makes Manchester such an intersting city.  It may not fascinate everyone, but I found enough here to keep me engaged for a good while longer.  Which just means I have a lot to see the next time I'm back, and hopefully it's soon. 

I ♥ MCR (part 1)

Many of my friends have scoffed at my zeal on this subject, but I don’t really care;  I love Manchester.  I really do love this city and the feeling I get from being there.  I fit in here, I feel like this city has a place for me.  I find it endlessly interesting, and I’m constantly learning new reasons to love it.  I could spend years here and not know all the things I want to know.  In my few months, however, I have learned about a few pretty cool things, so hopefully by sharing them in this post, you’ll start to see why I love this city so much.   

Okay, where to begin?  The Font, obviously.  The Font is one of my favourite places for food and drinks in Manchester.  It’s on Oxford Road, which is probably my favourite street in the city, and it’s conveniently located right next to the train station.  They serve delicious £2 cocktails, most of which I’ve tasted, the food is cheap and good, and the atmosphere is awesome.  The walls are covered with art from local artists, and much of it changes regularly, ranging from paintings to sculptures to experimental films.  It was first introduced to my by my friend David, who is a Manc and has been going to The Font for years, but I liked it so well I began introducing it to all of my exchange friends at Castle Irwell.  I’ve been more times than I can count.  Because it’s awesome.

Cornerhouse

David also introduced me to an indie cinema (theater) called Cornerhouse.  It is located on a corner, fittingly, and it’s on Oxford Road.  It shows foreign and non-mainstream films, and it’s the kind of place that attracts a lot of pretentious people that laugh too loudly at things in films just to prove to other viewers that they’re clever enough to have gotten the reference.  But that’s part of its charm.  Cornerhouse also sells books and has a cafe, so if you’re the nerdy artist type, you could easily spend a good bit of time there.

Very early on in the semester, my second week actually, another Manc introduced me to Affleck’s Palace, which is a four-story retail warehouse full of edgy and transgressive shops and vendors selling everything an artist-type could possibly want, from jewelry to art to vintage clothing and paraphernalia.  They do piercings and tattoos of any kind and even have a cafe on the top floor.  The place has just about anything you might be looking for, and if you can’t find it in one shop, the staff can probably direct you to which part of the labyrinthine building will have it.  Even if it’s not your style, it’s worth checking out just to see how cool it is.  

Affleck’s Palace is located in a really cool part of the city called Northern Quarter, which is full of art and music, hole-in-the-wall places, and shops dedicated to helping the Northern Quarter type stand out and be different.  As one Northern Qurater frequenter puts it, the crowd there is 'a hodge-podge, a mish mash of all the subcultures you could possibly imagine, from goth to mod to comic book geeks all forced together trying to make a loud enough noise for themselves.'  Compare it to Bricklane in London, but without the pompous attitude and snobbishness.  Northern Quarter has a number of vinyl record stores, namely Piccadilly Records, which has nearly anything you can think of.  It also has a lot of vintage and boutique clothes shops and many little cafes and tearooms, such as Nexus, a really cool one that I visited recently.  Like The Font, Nexus has local art displayed on its walls, but it also has a stage and small-scale theatre productions run a few nights a week.  Plus it’s great because the decor is so colorful and eccentric.   (Click to zoom on any photo)

Canal Street (in Manchester's Gay Village)  The View
(pink sign) is the bar I visited most often.

Manchester is the place to be for going out.  It has tons of clubs and bars, so it’s really easy to find somewhere to have a good time.  The Printworks is a building full of just restaurants, bars, and clubs, so you can go from one place to another without ever stepping outside.  My favourite place, however, is Canal Street, the main street for bars and clubs in Manchester’s gay village.  We tried pub-crawling the first night we went here, but once we found a bar we liked, we stayed there until it closed and just kept coming back to the same place every other time we went.  Canal Street is also great because there are tons of late night chippys open until 5 or 6am, so after a great night of wild dancing, food is only just around the corner.  Perfection.  

Manchester is known for being the best music scene in the whole UK, so of course it has a lot of great music venues, like The Academy (described in the music post), which is on Oxford Road, and The Apollo, which is where I saw Sufjan Stevens* live.  It also has some really cool museums, like the Manchester Art Gallery and the Whitworth Gallery, also on Oxford Road (are you starting to see why I like it so well?).  Manchester Art Gallery has paintings and crafts from a the past few centuries up to current day, and it contains many pieces that are by Mancunian artists and focus and Mancunian subject matter.  The Whitworth Gallery displays a variety of exhibitions, one of which is a display of historical textiles, explaining Manchester’s role in the global textile market.  History and art in one, yes?

Manchester Art Gallery

And there’s more to come on the history of Manchester in the next post.  I’ll try to keep it interesting for all readers, not just the ones that are obsessed with the city (which means really just me).

*Sufjan Stevens is a folk/electronic artist from Michigan.  And yes, he really wore giant angel wings during his concert.