London

I finally made it to London, which turns out to be a pretty awesome city. I took the bus from Hatfield, and met up w/ a bunch of other foreign exchange kids in Trafalgar Square. Taylor had his heart set on going to Waxy O'Connor's, so we decided to head there for lunch. It was pretty cool- they had Guinness on tap and something like nine floors to drink it in.

We split up after lunch. Nobody else seemed interested in following my hand-drawn map around the city to look for Banksy graffiti. I only found one, but there were certainly plenty of other things to see and do!

I saw Big Ben and the houses of Parliament, which are really impressive. I went from there St. Peter's (nice work, Sir Chris) and then across the Millennium Bridge to the Globe Theater. I really hope to have a chance to go watch a play there... I also went to the Imperial War Museum, which was really cool.

Navigating my way around London was the most obvious sign I've had so far that I'm not in Kansas anymore. Even the oldest American cities are basically laid out in a grid. London, on the other hand, has been around in one form or another since before the Romans came to Britain, and it shows in the city's street plan. This resembles the root ball of a tree more than the carefully planned LEGO blocks of Boston or Manhattan. Also, the architecture makes it very obvious that this is the city was the center of a vast and powerful empire, which is not something I've ever noticed back home.

Halfway Through Fresher's Fortnight

The English students have started moving in. After being in England for a week, I will finally meet some Britons. (I don't count the two conversations I've had w/ the locals so far, since they both consisted of said locals complaining about what a horrible town Hatfield is.) The international students all seem pretty friendly, though. I guess being more or less on your own in a foreign country will do that to you.

The grand opening of the Forum was last night. This is UH's student union, but that means something very different here than in the states. The place is more night club than anything else, with three bars and a giant dance floor. It was full to capacity last night, ~2,000 people or so. The local students are apparently super-excited about it, which is understandable, as there doesn't seem to be much else to do unless you want to take a train into London.

Speaking of which, that is exactly what I will be doing tomorrow! I think it's going to be Banksy day...

I got in a bit of exploring today, as well. The Uni hired a couple of buses to take international students into nearby St. Albans, which was fun. The town quaint in a Mary Poppins kind of way, full of stereotypical English houses and pubs with colorful names. You can see the remains of a Roman wall built ~250, when the place was called Verlumamium. There is also a cathedral built on the site where Britain's first Christian martyr was killed. This was very impressive; apparently it used to be one of the largest churches in the world.

Zurich to Hatfield

I enjoyed my stay in Switzerland. Jerry showed me around Luzern on Friday morning, but he had a school trip in the afternoon, so his sister Nela took me all over Zug and the surrounding countryside. We saw Jerry's Schule in Menzingen. This was interesting. The building is very modern, but there is a farm next door and the cornfield runs right up against the school. The view was great.

That night we went to the Blues Brothers bar in Zug to meet Nela's friend. Jerry and his girlfriend showed up late, fresh from their trip to the opera. I tried flumli. If you order this at Blues Brothers, you are given an espresso, a small glass of schnapps and a cigarette lighter. You put two sugars in the coffee, and drink it w/out stirring. When you are down to a sugary brown sludge, you add the schnapps. Using your spoon and the lighter (which is more like a mini-acetylene torch), you burn the sugar off and drink the remainder once it cools. It's good, but very strong.

The next morning, Jerry and I took the train into Zurich. After checking in for my flight, we when back downtown to eat lunch and look around. We saw the Landemusuem, the opera, the Zentral Bibliothek, and the University of Zurich. Then it was back to the Flughafen to catch my flight to Heathrow.

There were some delays, but I finally made it to Hatfield at about 10 last night. I've spent most of today wandering around town; it seems nice enough, but I don't know how much there is to do. Fortunately, the Uni has an impressive new student center and a train ticket to London isn't terribly expensive.

It's almost time for dinner, so I will leave you with a joke. Have you heard the one about the guy who gets a call from his wife as he's driving down the freeway? "Honey, be careful. I just heard on the radio that some lunatic is driving the wrong way down the freeway."
"One lunatic? There's hundreds of 'em!"

Gruezi mitenand von Baar

I arrived in Zurich yesterday morning. The flight was fine- long, but uneventful. Herr Arnold (Jerry's dad) picked me up from the airport, and we took the train to Zug. We caught a bus in front of the Bahnhof that took us to Baar, where the Arnolds live. The two towns are right up against one another. I have been back and forth that way several times now, and still could not tell you where one ends and the other begins.

Jerry was still at school, but his mom drove me over to Einsiedeln while Herr Arnold went to work. We saw an old baroque cathedral that was pretty amazing. Inside, there is a small chapel build around a statue of Mary and Jesus. Apparently the church that used to house it burned down, but instead of burning up, the statue just turned black (the parts of it not covered in gold, of course). Now people say that it can work miracles- the back wall of the church is covered with pictures drawn by the grateful recipients of same. There are bundles of crutches hanging from the wall, gifts from those who no longer need them.

From there we went to the old part of Zug. The town grew up around an old castle, and some of the buildings date back to the 1400's! We came home to find Jerry back from school. He took me for a bike ride around Baar/Zug. We bought some schoggi (Swiss chocolate- yum!) from a nearby grocery store. He showed me the Pfaadi Haus, where the scouts keep their gear and hold programs on saturdays.

Switzerland is an interesting country. One of the first things you notice is how tidy everything is. Wherever you go, the grass is mowed and the people are neatly dressed and polite. In two days I have seen maybe a dozen pieces of litter, and not a single car that needed washing. There are little vegetable gardens all over the place, and when you get out into the country you can see neat little cornfields, or cows and goats graying away happily. Jerry says there are no really big farms in the whole country. Speaking of which...

The food here is good. It's different, but Frau Arnold seems to think it must seem more outlandish to me than it actually does. This morning we had a typical Swiss breakfast consisting of bread with cheese, peanut butter, or nutella, with orange juice or milch. For lunch we had pasta and Herdöpfel (potatoes) in something like alfredo sauce. You mix this with apfel sauce. The combination of flavors is unusual, but very tasty.

Auf widerluge for now. I'll post the rest of my adventures and upload pictures when I get to Hatfield.

Almost ready to go!

Hi! If you are reading this, you probably already know that my name is Tim Burr. I am a junior at the University of Oklahoma, where I study computer science and math. I am writing this because I am going to study in England for the semester, and a blog seems like an easy way to keep in touch with people back home.

In a little over 24 hours, I will board a plane for Zurich, Switzerland. I am going to spend the rest of the week mit mein Kolleg Jerry Arnold, before flying on to London on Saturday. From there I will make my way to the University of Hertfordshire, which is in Hatfield- about an hour north of London.

That's it for today (got to finish packing) but I will try to update from Switzerland. See you later,

-tim