[Editors Note: I am still very far away from the current date... But have a good idea how things went down as every day here is so memorable, I am going to try and catch up and indulge more into British Culture once I am caught up. This post continues from Monday morning but you really need to read the end of the last post, the last few paragraphs for this to make any sense due to it being a "cliff hanger"-Hartman]
Anyhow, since I knew it was the Green Party and recalled it was on 1a Waterloo road they were able to find it but with the severs down the internet was at crawling speeds and it took about 45 minutes for them to get me the directions and find the information and phone number for me. The worst part the directions were different then when I got them on Thursday… Because the last set of directions had me switching tubes at a tube station and this new set of directions didn’t but had me going all the way to Zone 4 (mean its about a eight dollar round trip as opposed to being free).
But they assured me these directions are right. So I sat on the tube for about an hour, just about the time my internship is to start, get off the tube and ask a local for directions to the internship location to be informed I’m about 40 minutes in the wrong direction!!!
I called my internship and informed them what happened, they seemed cool about it, but this was a worry. On top of being in a Sportscoat for about an hour in a crowded subway and needing to get back on I still had to figure out how to get their and it took me about forty more minutes… Luckily I found it (and its in a poorer area which means stuff is cheaper!!! But it sorta looks like California instead of West View, lol).
Anyhow the ride should only take 30 minutes and it took me over an hour and ½ because the directions were horribly given. But I regress, so I get into my internship location and it is well… very… comfortable, lets just say. A bunch of people smashed into a small room, with papers everywhere… The English and Wales Green Party National Headquarters is undermanned, underpowered, under funded and small because all their money goes to getting people elected. Without taking donations/money from corporations theirs nothing much that they can do as money is sparse and they feel getting their message out is more important than having a big office.
Anyhow so I set my stuff down, my liter of water and notebook and what not and meet Pete who will be doing my internship interview and he informed me that it’ll have to wait about an hour because he has another interview to do as well… They seem layed back, suggest I go get lunch and then come back.
So I go and get some fish and chips at a local little mart. Prices were a lot cheaper out here by my internship. The man serving the fish and chips was a 50 something English guy who reminded me of the fat guy from Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead. He was quite nosey about how the food was and was surprised I payed 10 pounds for the same thing other places as it was only 5 pounds (10 dollars) at this little spot.
The issue I had was he kept asking questions about America… Do we all have guns? Is Pittsburgh by LA? And kept asking questions about Pittsburgh… When I mentioned Heinz was from their he dumped it on my plate… The dude was crazy, I should have known when I saw that his shirt said “FUCK” on it.
He asked where I was staying in London and actually suggested I get some prostitutes down that way as they are cheap… The guy was a nut… (Side note: I never considered getting a prostitute) I was like “Isn’t that illegal” and he was like “Nah, it feels good”… To each his own, but no thanks.
The dude was also very judgmental about how I thought the food was and didn’t want me to leave until I finished all my chips, which had vinger on them and were nasty but I told him they were good, so out of a general fear of this dude because he was crazy I ate the entire plate of chips… and felt sick for the rest of the day.
Now I am trying to hurry up and get caught up to where I am in real life with this blog (let alone actually post it) and its now Sept. 22nd and I’m still on the first week… But I will be going into British culture greatly once I catch up and I will talk about the two kinds of British, the ones with the “English” reserve (until they get 2 drinks in them) who will not give you the time of day, say please or thank you or even acknowledge you unless you are in their “personal” space and the outspoken, judgmental and overwhelming crazy British. He was one of the latter… lol
Anyhow so I go back and have my interview, with Pete and this guy Adam joins in the interview occasionally as we talked politics for about an hour or two. Got the job no issue. They did see my facebook and see that I support John McCain and Ron Paul and I was asked if being a Republican was contradictory, to which I replied that I’m a registered independent who would join the Libertarian party with any. I really got along with my bosses and what and before I was getting ready to leave it was mentioned that I would have to start next week because the Green Party Autumn Conference was going on from Thursday to Sunday and they were leaving for Liverpool(its location) on Tuesday.
The political scientist in my asked if I could come along and they told me unfortunately the party didn’t have the spare money for my transportation and room/board but if I would happen to come they would get me in for free (would normally cost about 120 pounds for all four days… 240 dollars).
Anyhow, so I take the tube home… excited and what not. Ride takes about an hour(which is a pretty fucking long time for me to be doing for work everyday but oh well). On the way home I grab some fruit from this little fruit stand where it is extremely fresh and cheap and eat an apple. (Side note: Since I haven’t gotten to eating habits over here I am drinking a lot more water, eating about 20x the amount of fruit and veggies and about ¼ the amount of junk but more beer and walking about 10x as much. So I don’t know how that mixes for healthiness but I think I’ll drop a few pounds while here, though I need to crack down as its already Sept. 22 and I think I may be the same weight so I want to start jogging).
At this point I cannot entirely recall what we did Monday night but if it’s the night that I’m thinking of some of the girls from upstairs came down and tried to convince us to go out and drink and me and all my roommates declined. I think it was Savatits(I’ll talk about her later as well, I’m going to go into most of the people later) but at this point I do not remember entirely. I think it was just a nice dinner in, possibly baked Salmon or chicken w/noddles and garlic bread. My roommates are the best cooks btw, they marinate shit and we always have fresh salad.
Anyhow so I called my father and talked about going to Liverpool for the conference and asked him if he thought it was a good idea because it would be expensive. Because of the late booking its hard to find room stay and transportation. I managed to find a hostel to stay at for 3 of the 4 nights I would be staying and the last day all I could find would be a 2 person hotel room that was pretty far out, but I really did not have a choice in the matter. My Dad said he thought it was a good idea, so I booked the hostel, hotel and bus ride. The bus was cheap (likely cheaper than a 200 mile bus ride in America via greyhound), the hostel was 20 pounds a night and the room would be shared with five other guys I don’t know and the hotel for the last night would be something like 60 pounds… But I booked it all, informed the guys at my internship I was going and went to bed…
Editors Note: OPPS, I recall what I did this night… So we did eat dinner… The thing where we were asked to drink had to of happened another night because me and the two others George and Brandon who have internships had to go to our PELA class, which is a 2 hour class once a week to discuss our internships and British culture. The class was sort of pointless though their will need to be a paper written or two… The professor was dry but somewhat interesting. He did mention that we need to come every other week so he can have a more intimate experience with the students and suggested that at some point we are going to go on walks and things like that.
Morning I woke up, had my first history class. Luckily some of my roommates were in it with me. The walk to class is about 10 minutes, maybe 15. Stopped to get a bottle of water on the way and was behind my roommates… I couldn’t get into the building, the code 1776 didn’t unlock the door… The professor, and older lady who kind of looks like Dr. Sedlar for those of you UPJ students who have had her, had to get me in haha… She told me I just didn’t press the buttons hard enough. So to the third floor of this house turned into university we go for class.
I thought the history professor was very good. Considering it was a three hour class to keep people interested is a pretty good task. She did for the most part though and was even sort of funny. She used mainly the dry erase board but some interesting hand outs, like for example, since its 20th century British History class, a hand out on an average families budget in 1900 for low income families and what they spent on things to make it get by, as well as the average shopping list and meals for families in different income brackets. She also showed a few minutes here and there of tapes she has recorded on British history from the BBC or documentaries. The class will have an oral presentation, a 5 page paper, a midterm and a final. It seems like it will be cake as I did know most of the stuff we were talking about from the History Channel, my own reading and ironically US History classes at UPJ and North Hills. One of the classes will even be in a museum which is something I wish that UPJ had the capacity to do.
Anyhow, me and my roommates and some other people (like some of the girls upstairs) have tickets for Woman in Black a play. So we go to it and plan on going to the Sports Café afterward (and yes we do go to other pubs Sports Café has pound pints on Tuesdays). At the Sports Café I ended up macking on some chicks, the bar tender I was hitting on wasn’t working, and it wasn’t that interesting of a night… Well it was, but at this point, this far removed its hard to really recall exactly what happened their, I know I was triple fisting beers to try and get them in before the pound pints went off and woke up extremely hung over. We also got in for free, no cover, with our student ids (The ISIC card for those of you who are planning on studying abroad, GET IT).
Now, I mentioned we were going to see Woman in Black the reason why I skipped straight to the bar scene was because I wanted to take some time and explain this. Theater in London is amazing. AMAZING. It was a play that had only two male characters) and an occasional appearance by a woman who does not have a spoken part. The actors were amazing, funny, serious… The old guy in the play was phenomenal… It was a play about two people forming a play. Hard to explain but it had so many plot twists, so many good parts and was somewhat spooky, or so I was told because it didn’t really scare me but anytime it was “spooky” girls would scream or whatever so I guess it was. I plan on seeing Phantom of the Oprea while here and maybe Blood Brothers (as I have a thing in my mailbox that I can go on this coming Wed, well, from when this is written for 17 pounds instead of 40).
Anyhow so we go home, go to bed… I wake up, its Wednesday and its time to pack… Find the bus station and enjoy the scenery during the six hour bus ride to Liverpool. And that’s exactly what I did. For this Green Party Autum Conference I’d be staying in Liverpool for five days so it was something that I had to brace for. The first day was not terribly exciting and for all intents and purposes of this blog the trip to Liverpool isn’t going to sound exciting at all. But for the politically astute… The next four days in Liverpool filled with anywhere for eight to twelve hours of political workshops and debate, meeting globally known authors and European MEPs (Member of the European Parliament) as well as the movers and shakers of my internship I was excited about this (and it was even better than I imagined.) (I also need to get back to Liverpool because I did not get to see the night life at all).
But that said this trip was not about boozing… It was about learning and honestly I predict it will be more beneficial as a learning experience for me than my entire internship. I honestly don’t see how it wasn’t… It was amazing. But so I get to Liverpool after what turned into a seven hour bus ride… At points Outside looked like Mercer except with a six lane highway running through it with all the cars driving on the wrong side of the road. You’d see the occasional farms… cows and horses and all.
So I get their and its about 7pm. The entire part of town the National Express Bus Station is in seems shut down. I find a local pub and ask for directions to get four different sets of directions for four drunks that speak such British English I just walk out confused and find an Indian restaurant and get some Chicken Curry and rice and BS to the manager who suggests some great bars to go to by night and things to do such as the International Slavery Museum and the Beatles Museum as they are from Liverpool.
I also got directions to my hostel which was said to be a fifteen minute walk but really was an hour walk… I also found out that the restaurant I was at was pretty close to where the conference was being held so I had a barring on how to get around.
One thing the manager told me was that “People from London are smug” and that they are “Assholes” and I saw a rivalry in the form of Pittsburgh and Philly. With Philly being London and the people in such a big city they don’t often think/care of the so-called rival city… Liverpool was like Pittsburgh, in Pittsburgh you mention Philly and people immediately talk about how Pittsburgh is better… Same thing with Liverpool, and I noticed this, this night as I walked about.
Walking to my hostel, I noticed one thing real quick… Liverpool is beautiful. The sun was setting and these buildings that look like they are from 1600 were the skyline and I snapped a few photos, only to realize that I do not have my memory card in my camera for what would have been the best photos taken all trip thus far (if they were in shot considering that I cannot see what I am taking photos of until I actually put them on my computer.)
Wow I’m on page 17. Anyhow I walked to the hostel and met the roomies for the night as they changed every day. Had a beer while their, and yes by a beer I mean a beer not 5. LOL. Anyhow, it was a local Liverpool brew and was flavored like Raisins, I didn’t really care for it but it was interesting to say the least. I talked politics with someone from the states and an Irish guy outside, who when he heard I was working for the green party was delighted to tell me that he use to be a member of the Irish Green party. After he started quoting Hitler and how genius he was with population control I got really afraid that these would be the kind of people I would find in the party… That I was going into a room full of socialists and facists… It didn’t seem like that at my interview, they seemed moderate with a general care for people and a general care for the environment and democracy… Some of who even supported the war if Afghanistan (though none support the war in Iraq…).
But this former Irish Green Party member was drunk… real drunk… Maybe he didn’t mean the nasty and disgusting things he was saying about population control (in the way Hitler did it) and I intended to indulge more and talk to him but he pulled out a pipe to smoke mary jane in and I wanted to be no where near so I said I was finished with my beer and was going to bed and walked away as quickly as possible as I wanted nothing to do with that, didn’t want to get in trouble by association or being their. I could not believe he would just do that outside. So I set my alarm for the morning, worried that the Green Party of England and Wales were in-fact psychos. I soon learned different… They were a smorgasbord of political beliefs… Capitalists and Socialists merged to create what they felt would be a better society for all.\
Next update, likely tomorrow I am going to do the four days of actual conference, which will include information about most the workshops I went to and all that good stuff. I then am going to try and catch up to the current day and then going to try and do daily or almost every other day updates… I have a lot of the cultural stuff I want to talk about, from how toilets and showers work different, to how shopping works different, to how eating is different… These cultural things I would prefer to do in segments so if this blog seems like I’m having a giant drunken out of control expensive party… But I really am not. I have learned so much, made so many friends and especially at this conference, my internship and my going about London have learned so many political things, so many cultural things and so many good times…
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