This is my final verdict in my series of university rankings, where I make some entirely subjective and unofficial lists out of the universities that I've visited. These rankings are comprised of the following universities:
The University of Washington (Seattle, WA)
Lewis and Clark (Portland)
Reed (Portland, OR)
The University of Southern California (Los Angeles, CA)
Scripps (Claremont, Los Angeles, CA) [women only]
Pepperdine (Malibu, Los Angeles, CA)
The University of Texas at Austin (TX)
Rice (Houston)
Tulane (New Orleans, LA)
Florida State University (Tallahassee, FL)
The University of Florida (Gainesville, FL)
Emory (Atlanta, GA)
Georgia Tech (Atlanta, GA)
The University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill, NC)
American (Washington, DC)
St. John’s (Annapolis, MD)
Hunter (New York, NY)
Barnard (New York, NY) [women only]
Boston University (Boston, MA)
The University of Chicago (Chicago, IL)
Washington University (St Louis, MO)
Kansas University (Larence, KS)
[NB: note that Washington U, Missouri, is not the same as U Washington, Seattle.]
Best Academics:
Winner: Chicago
Runner Up: Georgia Tech
Runner Up: Reed
Most Beautiful Campus:
Winner: Pepperdine
Runner Up: North Carolina
Runner Up: The University of Washington
Best Campus Life:
Winner: North Carolina
Runner Up: Rice
Runner Up: Washington University
Craziest Parties:
Winner: University of Texas
Runner Up: University of Southern California
Runner Up: University of Florida
Runner Up: Boston University
Best College Town:
Winner: University of Washington
Runner Up: Kansas University
Runner Up: Hunter College
Runner Up: Tulane
Coolest Students:
Winner: North Carolina
Runner Up: Lewis and Clark
Most Educated Students:
Winner: St. John’s
Runner Up: Scripps
Quirkiest Students:
Winner: St. John’s
Runner Up: Reed
Kindest Students:
Winner: North Carolina
Runner Up: University of Washington
Best International Program:
Tied Winner: Lewis and Clark
Tied Winner: American
Runner Up: Pepperdine
Runner Up: Florida State University
Best Sports:
Winner: North Carolina
Runner Up: University of Florida
Runner Up: Kansas University
Coolest Scientific Facilities:
Winner: Georgia Tech
Runner Up: Reed
Runner Up: Slorida State University
Best Overall Public University:
Winner: North Carolina
Runner Up: University of Texas
Runner Up: University of Washington
Runner Up: Kansas University
Best Overall Private University:
Tied: Chicago
Tied: Barnard
Tied: Scripps
Tied: Rice
Tied: Washington University
Tied: Emory
NB: Many of these categories were extremely difficult to pick a winner for, and the result was a
little random. Don't take these rankings too seriously.
Friday, 7 August 2009
Saturday, 25 July 2009
End of the road!
After my Appalachian adventures in Kentucky and Tennessee, I recrossed the Mississippi and passed through the gateway into St Louis, Missouri. St. Louis struck me as a really great town, with just the right mix of interesting culture and general pleasantness. In some ways St Louis is to Chicago what Philadelphia is to New York – a very similar city in a similar geographical situation, only a little smaller and toned down. Apparently the Chicago mofiosos of the old days used to use St Louis as a get-away pad when they wanted to escape the pressure of their big-city work, and perhaps recover from the bullet wound in the leg they got at the latest shoot-out.
I spent my time in St Louis meeting some awesome couchsurfers, sampling the local “frozen custard”, checking out the expensive-but-awesome Washington University, and seeing all the cool neighbourhoods. These included the artsy “Loop” (which, incidentally, is also the name for down-town Chicago), the Italian “Hill”, and Forrest Park, which is one of the biggest urban green spaces in the country (several hundred acres larger than Central Park in New York), and which hosted the World Fair around 1906.
One of the enormous palaces that was constructed for this World Fair is now a museum, and it has a whole exhibition about the Fair. I have seldom spent a more fascinating 45 minutes. I’m not sure, but I believe that the World Fair in St Louis was part of the same series as the ones which were the raison d’être of the Crystal Palace in London and the Eiffel Tower in Paris. These things are incredible. A city would spend about a year creating an extraordinary setting, in St Louis’s case about a dozen Buckingham-sized palaces, and invite delegations from pretty much every country in the world, as well as each of the 48 states (as they were then), and then people would come in massive crowds for about eight months straight to sample all the incredible things that were being created and put to use across the globe. Imagine living in a time of such breathtaking innovation! Why don’t we have these things anymore? Has humanity lost its love of progress?
The other interesting thing about St. Louis is that it’s pronounced Loo-iss. In Kentucky I had arrived at Louisville talking about Loo-iss-ville and was sternly corrected by the locals, since apparently it’s Loo-ee-ville. So naturally I assumed Missouri would have a St Loo-ee. Oh the fickleness of Midwestern phonetics! Then again, Kentucky calls its famous horse race a “Dir-bee” (instead of “Dar-bee”, which every English person knows is the right way to say it), yet its whisky is “Ber-bon”, despite being spelt b-o-u-r-b-o-n, which I would assume should be “Bor-bon”. Go figure.
Slicing straight across the middle of Missouri, I entered the glorious state of Kansas, which I was very excited about. I couldn’t wait to see endless fields of mind-numbing crops stretching without a single topographical blemish to every horizon. So you could imagine how upset I was to find not only not a single stalk of wheat or ear of corn, but an extremely detectable up-and-downess in the landscape. The road didn’t even go further than the human eye can penetrate before changing direction.
Fortunately, my bitter disillusion was immediately cast away when I reached the fantastic city of Lawrence, home to Kansas University and…erm…Kansas University students and…well…some other buildings I guess. Now, you may think that being in Kansas, the state which famously banned the mention of Darwin or his theories in classrooms, the students at the state’s premier university would be a bunch of stiff-collared puritanical fun-killers. Actually, KU is just about as bohemian and crazy as anywhere that can’t be seen from the Golden Gate Bridge. Some of the people I met were sincere nutters. One of them was telling me about their next-door neighbour, who was apparently a one-eyed, shirtless man with seven rabid chiuauas who was known to sit on his porch gripping a machete. Is Lawrence the best-kept secret of the Midwest? I certainly had a great time, and the university gets two thumbs up.
Despite lots of grey clouds on my first day in Kansas, and the fact that I spent every second praying fervently for God to send a tornado, no freak winds disturbed my stay in the Dorothy State, another disappointment. Still, when I left at least I could say I wasn’t in Kansas anymore, and I can officially do so for the rest of my life. This is probably the best reason for visiting Kansas.
I spent one night in Kansas City, which, confusingly, is mostly not in Kansas, but across the border in Missouri. I had a great hostess, Babette, who took me to the quintessential KC barbeque experience at Arthur Bryant’s restaurant, which proudly had pictures on its walls of John McCain and Sarah Palin patronising the establishment during the 2008 campaign. You know it’s authentic when politicians who publically wield guns do publicity stunts there.
The other authentic experience I had in KC was a baseball game, my second of the trip. With the home team losing 7-8, this was almost four-times more high-scoring than any game I had seen so far. There was a pretty cool fireworks display afterwards, although this wasn’t impressive as the baseball game which had taken place in St Louis while I was there, which managed to get Big B-dog Obamarama himself to throw the first pitch. I missed out seeing the world’s most powerful man by a mere $600, the average price of admission. The reason for the big occasion was that it was the yearly “All Stars” game, when the best players from all the teams in each league (charmingly named the “American League” and the “National League”, as if there were any other countries that played baseball) form two teams which play against each other. I’m not sure why they do this, because even though they are supposed to be the best in the country (or the world, as they want us to believe), they are still incapable of scoring more than three or four runs per team.
If I had been excited about Kansas, it was nothing compared to the sheer thrill I felt at the prospect of my next stop, Nebraska. Of all the big, utterly pointless states in America, Nebraska has to be the most random. All other ones have at least something going for them: Utah has the Mormons, Iowa decides primary elections, Colorado has a river, Kansas has the Wizard of Oz, the Dakotas have each other, Nevada has no gambling laws, Idaho has a cool shape, Montana has a Canadian border, and even the desolation that is Wyoming – a perfect rectangle several times larger than the UK but home to only a few thousand people – has Yellowstone. But Nebraska? I am convinced that if the state were to disappear off the face of the earth, it would be months before anyone noticed.
Well, at least I can confirm it actually exists as of now. I spent most of an intriguing day exploring the town of Omaha (in the words of the Counting Crows, “somewhere in middle-America”) with Bennet, one of its couchsurfing citizens, who was – I kid you not – a supporter of the Nebraska separation movement. It’s actually not too shabby a city, with a cool restaurant district made from the bricky ruins of old warehouses, a nice-enough river side, and some sweet cafes and vintage stores. Just don’t talk to anyone about Connor Oberst, they all hate his guts.
After Nebraska, I traversed the entirety of Iowa during the night, arriving at daybreak back in Chicago again! What fun! I met up with me ol’ mates that I hadn’t seen in, oh, it must have been several days, and we hit up Pitchfork music festival, where I experienced all the delights of bands such as The Thermals, Japandroids, Walkmen and a curious rapper called Pharaohe something. The highlights were some awesome European electronica from M83, some even awesomer European shoegaze rock from legendary Danish group Mew, and of course the spectacular headliners The Flaming Lips, who were probably more notable for the massive cannon-shots of confetti, the chorus of dancing frogs, and the lip-synched music videos on a huge screen behind the band than the music they actually played. Also present were my friend Steve from DC and his brother Michael who I’d stayed with in Cinncinati, who get special mention for getting me free tickets.
Anyway, after spending the next day recouping with some of the festival goers, I headed north to my Very Final Stop of the Whole Trip, none other than Minneapolis, one of the famous Twin Cities of Minnesota, a state mostly famous for an odd accent which I think is purely fictional because I didn’t hear it at all while I was there. I had some great hosts, and enjoyed the interesting delights of the town, which is a really nice place but hopelessly cold in the winter. Highlights included a local open-mic night where I saw some ridiculously talented performers, and a basement gig at someone’s house which included a touring band from Pennsylvania called Hop-Along, which was really really good and you should all go listen to now: www.myspace.com/hopalongqueenansleis.
Well that about brings up to date. Sorry for such a tediously long final update – at least you won’t have to read anymore. I’m sitting in the waiting lounge of Minneapolis’ Lindbergh Airport just about to board a domestic flight to San Francisco, where I’m going to decompress for a couple of weeks before returning to the lovely Isle of fair Britannica (may her name be eternally glorious), where the sun is always shining and the tea flows plentifully from the electric kettles, and the streets are paved with Daily Mails and the vomit from last night’s binge. Apparently we now enjoy representation from our very own British National Party who were victorious in an election while I was away, I wonder what else has changed.
Hearty thanks go out to my incredibly supportive boss, Harriet Plyler, who has been coordinating things from her HQ in Florida, and to the Good Schools Guide itself for making the trip possible. Thanks also to for the support of my family back in England. Hopefully the articles that I’ve written on the road (which will be receiving some touch-ups in the coming weeks to make them GSGI-worthy) will have been worth it all. Stay tuned for a some more conclusory blog posts, and also for more updates on what’s happening with Uni In The USA in the coming months – we’ve got a few more plans up our sleeves!
Finally, massive thanks to the huge number of other people who all helped me along the road – couchsurfers, relatives, complete strangers and old friends (including those who stayed in touch with me from England along the way!): from the tranquil coast of Alabama to the ghettos of West Philadelphia, from an LA frat-house to the beaches of Lake Michigan, I cannot stress enough how much you have all restored my confidence in human kind, and how heartwarming all your friendship and generosity has been for me. See ya all on the next adventure!
I spent my time in St Louis meeting some awesome couchsurfers, sampling the local “frozen custard”, checking out the expensive-but-awesome Washington University, and seeing all the cool neighbourhoods. These included the artsy “Loop” (which, incidentally, is also the name for down-town Chicago), the Italian “Hill”, and Forrest Park, which is one of the biggest urban green spaces in the country (several hundred acres larger than Central Park in New York), and which hosted the World Fair around 1906.
One of the enormous palaces that was constructed for this World Fair is now a museum, and it has a whole exhibition about the Fair. I have seldom spent a more fascinating 45 minutes. I’m not sure, but I believe that the World Fair in St Louis was part of the same series as the ones which were the raison d’être of the Crystal Palace in London and the Eiffel Tower in Paris. These things are incredible. A city would spend about a year creating an extraordinary setting, in St Louis’s case about a dozen Buckingham-sized palaces, and invite delegations from pretty much every country in the world, as well as each of the 48 states (as they were then), and then people would come in massive crowds for about eight months straight to sample all the incredible things that were being created and put to use across the globe. Imagine living in a time of such breathtaking innovation! Why don’t we have these things anymore? Has humanity lost its love of progress?
The other interesting thing about St. Louis is that it’s pronounced Loo-iss. In Kentucky I had arrived at Louisville talking about Loo-iss-ville and was sternly corrected by the locals, since apparently it’s Loo-ee-ville. So naturally I assumed Missouri would have a St Loo-ee. Oh the fickleness of Midwestern phonetics! Then again, Kentucky calls its famous horse race a “Dir-bee” (instead of “Dar-bee”, which every English person knows is the right way to say it), yet its whisky is “Ber-bon”, despite being spelt b-o-u-r-b-o-n, which I would assume should be “Bor-bon”. Go figure.
Slicing straight across the middle of Missouri, I entered the glorious state of Kansas, which I was very excited about. I couldn’t wait to see endless fields of mind-numbing crops stretching without a single topographical blemish to every horizon. So you could imagine how upset I was to find not only not a single stalk of wheat or ear of corn, but an extremely detectable up-and-downess in the landscape. The road didn’t even go further than the human eye can penetrate before changing direction.
Fortunately, my bitter disillusion was immediately cast away when I reached the fantastic city of Lawrence, home to Kansas University and…erm…Kansas University students and…well…some other buildings I guess. Now, you may think that being in Kansas, the state which famously banned the mention of Darwin or his theories in classrooms, the students at the state’s premier university would be a bunch of stiff-collared puritanical fun-killers. Actually, KU is just about as bohemian and crazy as anywhere that can’t be seen from the Golden Gate Bridge. Some of the people I met were sincere nutters. One of them was telling me about their next-door neighbour, who was apparently a one-eyed, shirtless man with seven rabid chiuauas who was known to sit on his porch gripping a machete. Is Lawrence the best-kept secret of the Midwest? I certainly had a great time, and the university gets two thumbs up.
Despite lots of grey clouds on my first day in Kansas, and the fact that I spent every second praying fervently for God to send a tornado, no freak winds disturbed my stay in the Dorothy State, another disappointment. Still, when I left at least I could say I wasn’t in Kansas anymore, and I can officially do so for the rest of my life. This is probably the best reason for visiting Kansas.
I spent one night in Kansas City, which, confusingly, is mostly not in Kansas, but across the border in Missouri. I had a great hostess, Babette, who took me to the quintessential KC barbeque experience at Arthur Bryant’s restaurant, which proudly had pictures on its walls of John McCain and Sarah Palin patronising the establishment during the 2008 campaign. You know it’s authentic when politicians who publically wield guns do publicity stunts there.
The other authentic experience I had in KC was a baseball game, my second of the trip. With the home team losing 7-8, this was almost four-times more high-scoring than any game I had seen so far. There was a pretty cool fireworks display afterwards, although this wasn’t impressive as the baseball game which had taken place in St Louis while I was there, which managed to get Big B-dog Obamarama himself to throw the first pitch. I missed out seeing the world’s most powerful man by a mere $600, the average price of admission. The reason for the big occasion was that it was the yearly “All Stars” game, when the best players from all the teams in each league (charmingly named the “American League” and the “National League”, as if there were any other countries that played baseball) form two teams which play against each other. I’m not sure why they do this, because even though they are supposed to be the best in the country (or the world, as they want us to believe), they are still incapable of scoring more than three or four runs per team.
If I had been excited about Kansas, it was nothing compared to the sheer thrill I felt at the prospect of my next stop, Nebraska. Of all the big, utterly pointless states in America, Nebraska has to be the most random. All other ones have at least something going for them: Utah has the Mormons, Iowa decides primary elections, Colorado has a river, Kansas has the Wizard of Oz, the Dakotas have each other, Nevada has no gambling laws, Idaho has a cool shape, Montana has a Canadian border, and even the desolation that is Wyoming – a perfect rectangle several times larger than the UK but home to only a few thousand people – has Yellowstone. But Nebraska? I am convinced that if the state were to disappear off the face of the earth, it would be months before anyone noticed.
Well, at least I can confirm it actually exists as of now. I spent most of an intriguing day exploring the town of Omaha (in the words of the Counting Crows, “somewhere in middle-America”) with Bennet, one of its couchsurfing citizens, who was – I kid you not – a supporter of the Nebraska separation movement. It’s actually not too shabby a city, with a cool restaurant district made from the bricky ruins of old warehouses, a nice-enough river side, and some sweet cafes and vintage stores. Just don’t talk to anyone about Connor Oberst, they all hate his guts.
After Nebraska, I traversed the entirety of Iowa during the night, arriving at daybreak back in Chicago again! What fun! I met up with me ol’ mates that I hadn’t seen in, oh, it must have been several days, and we hit up Pitchfork music festival, where I experienced all the delights of bands such as The Thermals, Japandroids, Walkmen and a curious rapper called Pharaohe something. The highlights were some awesome European electronica from M83, some even awesomer European shoegaze rock from legendary Danish group Mew, and of course the spectacular headliners The Flaming Lips, who were probably more notable for the massive cannon-shots of confetti, the chorus of dancing frogs, and the lip-synched music videos on a huge screen behind the band than the music they actually played. Also present were my friend Steve from DC and his brother Michael who I’d stayed with in Cinncinati, who get special mention for getting me free tickets.
Anyway, after spending the next day recouping with some of the festival goers, I headed north to my Very Final Stop of the Whole Trip, none other than Minneapolis, one of the famous Twin Cities of Minnesota, a state mostly famous for an odd accent which I think is purely fictional because I didn’t hear it at all while I was there. I had some great hosts, and enjoyed the interesting delights of the town, which is a really nice place but hopelessly cold in the winter. Highlights included a local open-mic night where I saw some ridiculously talented performers, and a basement gig at someone’s house which included a touring band from Pennsylvania called Hop-Along, which was really really good and you should all go listen to now: www.myspace.com/hopalongqueenansleis.
Well that about brings up to date. Sorry for such a tediously long final update – at least you won’t have to read anymore. I’m sitting in the waiting lounge of Minneapolis’ Lindbergh Airport just about to board a domestic flight to San Francisco, where I’m going to decompress for a couple of weeks before returning to the lovely Isle of fair Britannica (may her name be eternally glorious), where the sun is always shining and the tea flows plentifully from the electric kettles, and the streets are paved with Daily Mails and the vomit from last night’s binge. Apparently we now enjoy representation from our very own British National Party who were victorious in an election while I was away, I wonder what else has changed.
Hearty thanks go out to my incredibly supportive boss, Harriet Plyler, who has been coordinating things from her HQ in Florida, and to the Good Schools Guide itself for making the trip possible. Thanks also to for the support of my family back in England. Hopefully the articles that I’ve written on the road (which will be receiving some touch-ups in the coming weeks to make them GSGI-worthy) will have been worth it all. Stay tuned for a some more conclusory blog posts, and also for more updates on what’s happening with Uni In The USA in the coming months – we’ve got a few more plans up our sleeves!
Finally, massive thanks to the huge number of other people who all helped me along the road – couchsurfers, relatives, complete strangers and old friends (including those who stayed in touch with me from England along the way!): from the tranquil coast of Alabama to the ghettos of West Philadelphia, from an LA frat-house to the beaches of Lake Michigan, I cannot stress enough how much you have all restored my confidence in human kind, and how heartwarming all your friendship and generosity has been for me. See ya all on the next adventure!
Tuesday, 14 July 2009
University Rankings Pt. 2
Here is the second in the series of university rankings, where I make some entirely subjective and unofficial lists out of the universities that I've visited so far. These rankings are comprised of the following universities:
Emory (Atlanta, GA)
Georgia Tech (Atlanta, GA)
The University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill, NC)
American (Washington, DC)
St. John’s (Annapolis, MD)
Hunter (New York, NY)
Barnard (New York, NY)
Boston University (Boston, MA)
The University of Chicago (Chicago, IL)
Best Academics:
Winner: Chicago
Runner Up: Georgia Tech
Most Beautiful Campus:
Winner: North Carolina
Runner Up: St. John’s
Best Campus Life:
Winner: North Carolina
Runner Up: Emory
Craziest Parties:
Winner: Boston
Runner Up: North Carolina
Best College Town:
Winner: Chicago
Runner Up: American
Best Overall Social Life:
Winner: Boston
Runner Up: American
Coolest Students:
Winner: North Carolina
Runner Up: Hunter
Most Educated Students:
Winner: St. John’s
Runner Up: Barnard
Quirkiest Students:
Winner: St. John’s
Runner Up: Chicago
Kindest Students:
Winner: North Carolina
Runner Up: American
Best International Program:
Winner: American
Runner Up: Hunter
Best Sports:
Winner: North Carolina
Runner Up: Georgia Tech
Coolest Scientific Facilities:
Winner: Georgia Tech
Runner Up: Chicago
Best Overall Public University:
Winner: North Carolina
Runner Up: Georgia Tech
Best Overall Private University:
Winner: Chicago
Runner Up: Barnard
NB: Many of these categories were extremely difficult to pick a winner for, and the result was a little random. Don't take these rankings too seriously.
Emory (Atlanta, GA)
Georgia Tech (Atlanta, GA)
The University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill, NC)
American (Washington, DC)
St. John’s (Annapolis, MD)
Hunter (New York, NY)
Barnard (New York, NY)
Boston University (Boston, MA)
The University of Chicago (Chicago, IL)
Best Academics:
Winner: Chicago
Runner Up: Georgia Tech
Most Beautiful Campus:
Winner: North Carolina
Runner Up: St. John’s
Best Campus Life:
Winner: North Carolina
Runner Up: Emory
Craziest Parties:
Winner: Boston
Runner Up: North Carolina
Best College Town:
Winner: Chicago
Runner Up: American
Best Overall Social Life:
Winner: Boston
Runner Up: American
Coolest Students:
Winner: North Carolina
Runner Up: Hunter
Most Educated Students:
Winner: St. John’s
Runner Up: Barnard
Quirkiest Students:
Winner: St. John’s
Runner Up: Chicago
Kindest Students:
Winner: North Carolina
Runner Up: American
Best International Program:
Winner: American
Runner Up: Hunter
Best Sports:
Winner: North Carolina
Runner Up: Georgia Tech
Coolest Scientific Facilities:
Winner: Georgia Tech
Runner Up: Chicago
Best Overall Public University:
Winner: North Carolina
Runner Up: Georgia Tech
Best Overall Private University:
Winner: Chicago
Runner Up: Barnard
NB: Many of these categories were extremely difficult to pick a winner for, and the result was a little random. Don't take these rankings too seriously.
Sunday, 12 July 2009
Everything but Fried Chicken
Leaving Cincinnati I arrived in Bluegrass Country, which you can recognize because of the beautiful, rolling, tree-covered hills instead of the slightly gritty industrial farm-land of the rust-belt. First stop was Louisville, Kentucky, home of a ridiculous list of awesome things, including Tom Cruise, Johnny Depp, the Lebowski Fest, the Disco Ball, the Slugger baseball bat, the Kentucky derby, Mohammed Ali, Colonel Sanders, Hunter S Thompson, the song “Happy Birthday to You”, and an extremely good record store called Earx-tacy.
I confess, I was expecting old wooden homes with porches adorned with banjo players, mint juleps and race-horse fanatics, so it was both a pleasant surprise and a disappointment to find that Louisville is actually an incredible cool, alternative town with masses of top-notch coffee shops, vintage stores, and a great sense of humour and eccentricities.
I had a fantastic couchsurfing host called Brigid Kaelin – she is a local folk musician who plays accordion and the musical saw and sings brilliantly. Go check her myspace. She had great stories about her touring in the UK and being friends with Elvis Costello. While I was in town Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp did a joint concert, which I was only $100 away from going to.
After Louisville I spent a night in the less cosmopolitan town of “Bowling Green”, where there isn’t any bowling green at all. Although it is in the same state as Louisville, Bowling Green is in a different time zone. Grrr. I had more fantastic hosts there; we cooled off from the ridiculous heat of the day by swimming in a river out in the sublime countryside, and then went back at dusk for a homely bonfire, and to my delight I did sample some mint juleps on a porch with a banjo: for real! I couldn’t actually believe it.
After this glorious Southern interlude, I rolled up in Nashville, Tennessee, like so many aspiring artists before me, lacking only a battered guitar and a demented sense of ambition. They’re not lying when they say there’s an abundance of great country music in Nashville. But no one ever believes me when I explain that we have some decent folk artists in the UK also. I found the romantic Nashville image to have been twisted out of proportion by unchecked tourism and the ever-present pressure of American profiteering. The glitzy honky-tonks were local-less, and were so crammed full of folksiness, tacky celebrity-worship and general cult of the country-singer legend that there wasn’t much room left for much soul.
Still, I had an awesome time in Nashville, not least because of my wonderful hosts Kristina and Chris, who drove me round to places and were just great fun to be around, as well as having a proper Southern twang in their voices. Among many other events (not to mention fine Southern eating), we went to a big-band swing dance in the famous Centennial Park, right next to a massive life-size perfectionised version of the Parthenon, as if it wasn’t surreal enough as it was. Why a Tennessean town happens to have a replica of an emblematic ancient Greek temple, complete with a 14 foot statue of Athena, I have no idea.
Kentucky and Tennessee must be among the coolest states in the union; they’re certainly earned a place up there on my list of where I might live in my middle age. Next, I plunge even deeper into the mid-west, praying that I can find a tornado somewhere, so stay tuned for more graphic Americana in the next update! And if you were wondering, Jack White’s house in Nashville is painted red, white and black after all.
I confess, I was expecting old wooden homes with porches adorned with banjo players, mint juleps and race-horse fanatics, so it was both a pleasant surprise and a disappointment to find that Louisville is actually an incredible cool, alternative town with masses of top-notch coffee shops, vintage stores, and a great sense of humour and eccentricities.
I had a fantastic couchsurfing host called Brigid Kaelin – she is a local folk musician who plays accordion and the musical saw and sings brilliantly. Go check her myspace. She had great stories about her touring in the UK and being friends with Elvis Costello. While I was in town Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp did a joint concert, which I was only $100 away from going to.
After Louisville I spent a night in the less cosmopolitan town of “Bowling Green”, where there isn’t any bowling green at all. Although it is in the same state as Louisville, Bowling Green is in a different time zone. Grrr. I had more fantastic hosts there; we cooled off from the ridiculous heat of the day by swimming in a river out in the sublime countryside, and then went back at dusk for a homely bonfire, and to my delight I did sample some mint juleps on a porch with a banjo: for real! I couldn’t actually believe it.
After this glorious Southern interlude, I rolled up in Nashville, Tennessee, like so many aspiring artists before me, lacking only a battered guitar and a demented sense of ambition. They’re not lying when they say there’s an abundance of great country music in Nashville. But no one ever believes me when I explain that we have some decent folk artists in the UK also. I found the romantic Nashville image to have been twisted out of proportion by unchecked tourism and the ever-present pressure of American profiteering. The glitzy honky-tonks were local-less, and were so crammed full of folksiness, tacky celebrity-worship and general cult of the country-singer legend that there wasn’t much room left for much soul.
Still, I had an awesome time in Nashville, not least because of my wonderful hosts Kristina and Chris, who drove me round to places and were just great fun to be around, as well as having a proper Southern twang in their voices. Among many other events (not to mention fine Southern eating), we went to a big-band swing dance in the famous Centennial Park, right next to a massive life-size perfectionised version of the Parthenon, as if it wasn’t surreal enough as it was. Why a Tennessean town happens to have a replica of an emblematic ancient Greek temple, complete with a 14 foot statue of Athena, I have no idea.
Kentucky and Tennessee must be among the coolest states in the union; they’re certainly earned a place up there on my list of where I might live in my middle age. Next, I plunge even deeper into the mid-west, praying that I can find a tornado somewhere, so stay tuned for more graphic Americana in the next update! And if you were wondering, Jack White’s house in Nashville is painted red, white and black after all.
Tuesday, 7 July 2009
Adventures in C-town(s)
Leaving the East Coast, I headed out into the “Mid-West”, which as far as I can make out is an area that goes from Ohio to Nevada and basically a get-out-of-jail-free card for anything that’s not on either coast. First stop Chicago, the city which taught New York everything it knows. The first sky-scraper was built in Chicago and it still has the tallest building in the country.
Now you might think that, being in the middle of the country, Chicago isn’t on the coast. In fact, Chicago is on the coast: the coast of the Sea of Michigan. A lot of people call the Sea of Michigan a lake, but this seems misguided to me, seeing as when you’re in the middle of this “lake” your eyesight would have to be 30 times better than the average person to see either side. There are beautiful beaches all along the coast of this sea, and one of the great strokes of city-planning genius that Chicago has achieved is that they have left a big strip of luxurious parkland all the way down the shores.
Other than that, Chicago is not an aesthetically pleasing place, but it makes up for it by being incredibly fun. I was lucky to catch a few days of the “Taste of Chicago”, a food festival where all kinds of restaurants set up tents and sell samples of their trademark dishes, including the delicious deep-dish pizza which, I’m sorry if I’m offending anyone, is conclusively far better than New York’s.
On one of the days I headed down to the infamous South Side and took a spin around the homely University of Chicago, the academic powerhouse where “fun goes to die”, according to the T-shirts. This is where Obama taught law during his stint as an Illinois politician, so I took a peak at his house, which is frankly far too big for any self-respecting family with only two kids. Elitist scum.
Then came July the Fourth. It’s always a little awkward being British in America on Independence Day, but also very fun. Chicago likes to make a statement by having its big fireworks display on the 3rd instead of the 4th, but it was still pretty impressive and went on for ages. In the UK, on Guy Fawkes night or New Years Eve, there are great fireworks shows, but they last about five minutes at most. In Chicago it went on for about half an hour. The combined presence of fireworks and lots of interesting food meant that the crowds were unbelievably dense across the huge area of Grant Park and the surrounding fields, so I got a taste of what things must have been like on election night when Obama gave his victory speech in the exact same place.
On the Fourth itself I headed down to a local party with my Chicago host, a great guy named Parker, where there were local bands playing and barbecue food to be devoured. It kind of went Glastonbury after the second or third hour of rain, but we were leaving anyway to head back to Grant Park to watch legendary bluesman Buddy Guy give a free performance, which was seriously cool. After that, we headed out to a couchsurfing “Revolutionary Party”, a fancy dress affair where you had to go as a famous historical American, making me feel even more awkward. Naturally I went as John Lennon. They actually had King George III up on a dart board. It was a fantastic party and I now have lots of life-long friends in Chicago, hurrah! One of the best bits was that you could go up on the roof of the building and watch the local fireworks going off all around the city, a beautiful experience.
The next morning I managed to groggily managed to pull myself into consciousness and suddenly realised that the bus was leaving soon and I had left some stuff in my hosts car, which was down by the party place. After some serious rushing I just caught the bus in time, but it was all in vain because once we got to Indianapolis, we had to change buses. They told me the new bus was leaving at eight, so with some time to kill I took a stroll around the city centre and got back for about 7:30 (Indianapolis is actually quite pleasant, contrary to what people had told me). Of course what I didn’t realise was that we had crossed a time zone and it was actually 8:30. So I spent the night taking assorted buses through various states and eventually got to my destination, Cincinnati, Ohio, about ten hours after I should have.
The whole thing was worth it though, because when I stepped out of the bus station in Indianapolis, I suddenly heard a huge roaring, like a jet plane taking off behind me, and I turned to see thre REAL LIFE Hell's Angels shoot past on REAL LIFE Harley Davidson motorbikes and REAL LIFE handlebar moustaches and shoulder-length hair, and REAL LIFE leather jackets, one of which said, for real life, "Hell's Angels" on the back. Even if I had seen nothing else in America, this would have been more than enough to justify the whole trip.
Cincinnati was also nicer than I was expecting, even if it wasn’t the most hip-hop happening place in the universe. I took a pleasant stroll around the Mont Matre-esque Mt. Adams, and then hooked up with my hosts, who were actually the brother and sister of my Obama campaign friend Steve from Washington DC. They were very enjoyable and made a great dinner for me. I also managed to sample a “three way”. For all you dirty-minded people, this is obviously a famous Cincinnati staple, basically spaghetti with chili sauce and cheese.
When I was in the bus station to leave, I saw a group of REAL LIFE Amish people. The women had long plain dresses and those white puritan head bonnet things, and the men had incredible facial hair. One old dude had a massive fluffy white beard down to his bellybutton. It was exactly like in that film whose name I can't remember with Harrison Ford. Can I just say for the record that Amish men have the coolest dress sense ever. They have these vibrant shirts and snappy waistcoats, and awesome broad-brim hats. I wish I could be as cool as them.
And so now I’m on another bus, completing the next leg of my mid-western meanderings. For now, I leave you with the million dollar question: how do you pronounce “Illinois”? Is it A) illy-no-is (rhymes with show-biz), B) illy-noi (rhymes with the French, pour quoi), C) illy-noy (rhymes with McCoy) or D) illy-noise?
Now you might think that, being in the middle of the country, Chicago isn’t on the coast. In fact, Chicago is on the coast: the coast of the Sea of Michigan. A lot of people call the Sea of Michigan a lake, but this seems misguided to me, seeing as when you’re in the middle of this “lake” your eyesight would have to be 30 times better than the average person to see either side. There are beautiful beaches all along the coast of this sea, and one of the great strokes of city-planning genius that Chicago has achieved is that they have left a big strip of luxurious parkland all the way down the shores.
Other than that, Chicago is not an aesthetically pleasing place, but it makes up for it by being incredibly fun. I was lucky to catch a few days of the “Taste of Chicago”, a food festival where all kinds of restaurants set up tents and sell samples of their trademark dishes, including the delicious deep-dish pizza which, I’m sorry if I’m offending anyone, is conclusively far better than New York’s.
On one of the days I headed down to the infamous South Side and took a spin around the homely University of Chicago, the academic powerhouse where “fun goes to die”, according to the T-shirts. This is where Obama taught law during his stint as an Illinois politician, so I took a peak at his house, which is frankly far too big for any self-respecting family with only two kids. Elitist scum.
Then came July the Fourth. It’s always a little awkward being British in America on Independence Day, but also very fun. Chicago likes to make a statement by having its big fireworks display on the 3rd instead of the 4th, but it was still pretty impressive and went on for ages. In the UK, on Guy Fawkes night or New Years Eve, there are great fireworks shows, but they last about five minutes at most. In Chicago it went on for about half an hour. The combined presence of fireworks and lots of interesting food meant that the crowds were unbelievably dense across the huge area of Grant Park and the surrounding fields, so I got a taste of what things must have been like on election night when Obama gave his victory speech in the exact same place.
On the Fourth itself I headed down to a local party with my Chicago host, a great guy named Parker, where there were local bands playing and barbecue food to be devoured. It kind of went Glastonbury after the second or third hour of rain, but we were leaving anyway to head back to Grant Park to watch legendary bluesman Buddy Guy give a free performance, which was seriously cool. After that, we headed out to a couchsurfing “Revolutionary Party”, a fancy dress affair where you had to go as a famous historical American, making me feel even more awkward. Naturally I went as John Lennon. They actually had King George III up on a dart board. It was a fantastic party and I now have lots of life-long friends in Chicago, hurrah! One of the best bits was that you could go up on the roof of the building and watch the local fireworks going off all around the city, a beautiful experience.
The next morning I managed to groggily managed to pull myself into consciousness and suddenly realised that the bus was leaving soon and I had left some stuff in my hosts car, which was down by the party place. After some serious rushing I just caught the bus in time, but it was all in vain because once we got to Indianapolis, we had to change buses. They told me the new bus was leaving at eight, so with some time to kill I took a stroll around the city centre and got back for about 7:30 (Indianapolis is actually quite pleasant, contrary to what people had told me). Of course what I didn’t realise was that we had crossed a time zone and it was actually 8:30. So I spent the night taking assorted buses through various states and eventually got to my destination, Cincinnati, Ohio, about ten hours after I should have.
The whole thing was worth it though, because when I stepped out of the bus station in Indianapolis, I suddenly heard a huge roaring, like a jet plane taking off behind me, and I turned to see thre REAL LIFE Hell's Angels shoot past on REAL LIFE Harley Davidson motorbikes and REAL LIFE handlebar moustaches and shoulder-length hair, and REAL LIFE leather jackets, one of which said, for real life, "Hell's Angels" on the back. Even if I had seen nothing else in America, this would have been more than enough to justify the whole trip.
Cincinnati was also nicer than I was expecting, even if it wasn’t the most hip-hop happening place in the universe. I took a pleasant stroll around the Mont Matre-esque Mt. Adams, and then hooked up with my hosts, who were actually the brother and sister of my Obama campaign friend Steve from Washington DC. They were very enjoyable and made a great dinner for me. I also managed to sample a “three way”. For all you dirty-minded people, this is obviously a famous Cincinnati staple, basically spaghetti with chili sauce and cheese.
When I was in the bus station to leave, I saw a group of REAL LIFE Amish people. The women had long plain dresses and those white puritan head bonnet things, and the men had incredible facial hair. One old dude had a massive fluffy white beard down to his bellybutton. It was exactly like in that film whose name I can't remember with Harrison Ford. Can I just say for the record that Amish men have the coolest dress sense ever. They have these vibrant shirts and snappy waistcoats, and awesome broad-brim hats. I wish I could be as cool as them.
And so now I’m on another bus, completing the next leg of my mid-western meanderings. For now, I leave you with the million dollar question: how do you pronounce “Illinois”? Is it A) illy-no-is (rhymes with show-biz), B) illy-noi (rhymes with the French, pour quoi), C) illy-noy (rhymes with McCoy) or D) illy-noise?
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
Uni in the USA: What's Available?
Having seen some incredible universities in the States, I would argue to almost anyone making university choices that America is a better option than the UK.
But that does not mean I would say that any US university is better than any UK university. You have to choose carefully.
While I have been in agonies because each university seems so nice that I would joyfully spend four years studying there, and I find it impossible to write a negative review of any of them, I do feel that it is important to note that there are a variety of pluses and minuses at each. UK students have been looking ever-more westwards for their education due largely to the massive overcrowding of universities in Great Britain. One complaint that is being ever more loudly expressed in Britain is that, because of this, the amount of contact you actually have with teachers is shrinking disastrously.
In America, meanwhile, the economic downturn has meant that few people can afford the top colleges, and universities like Harvard are having to dig unprecedentedly deeply into their waiting lists to fill spaces. This means that there has never been a better time to apply in the US as a Brit, especially since the distance between trans-Atlantic prices is also shrinking. But it doesn’t mean that things like student-to-teacher ratios are getting better. At school after school, the students I talk to mention the impact of budget cuts. The worst hit universities are the state schools, where state funding is being rapidly rolled back and large lay-offs of professors have become necessary.
So if you want to be able to have good contact with your teachers, where do you go?
Well, unsurprisingly, I would say you still go to America. There still exist a plethora of other (smaller) schools which offer excellent levels of teacher contact. But you can’t pick any American university and hope it’s good; you obviously have to give as much detailed attention to your choices as you would in the UK. If you go to a big state school, you’ll need to be prepared for lectures with hundreds of anonymous students who barely know the professor’s name, at least for some of the lower level classes. But you get other things in return – like incredible campus life, a wealth of friendly and diverse students and top-notch facilities.
To help make sense of this and many other confusing aspects of American universities, I’ve created a highly unofficial summary of what I consider the four main types of schooling available in American universities. But be warned, even within each category there can be serious fluctuation.
1. The Big Famous School
Generalisation: This is probably the category that most people think of when they imagine American universities, but in truth it’s probably the smallest of the four. Big Famous Schools are where everyone would love to go – in their dreams. Due to huge endowments and high fees, these behemoths of US education can afford the best students, the best professors, the best facilities…the best everything really. Although there is a danger of institutional elitism at some of them, and perhaps a lack of diversity or imagination among the student body, generally these schools are large enough and take enough students on financial aid that everyone can have a good time here, as well as a world-famous quality of teaching. Note also that some public schools can be Big and Famous too.
Money: These schools are seriously expensive, but they want the best students at all costs, so financial aid and scholarships abound.
Uni in the USA picks: Harvard, Yale, University of Virginia, MIT
2. The Big Public School
Generalisation: The classic American education, Big Public Schools are essentially just that: extremely big, and financed by the state. The best thing about these universities is that they are normally so big (expect 50,000 students at times) that you can do quite literally anything. You will always find like-minded souls there, if you look hard enough. The range of courses available is stunning, though the quality of classes will range as well: it’s important to make good picks for your course choices (ask around to see which professors and which curricula are best). Normally Big Public Schools are one of the favourite haunts of fraternities and sororities, which have a tangible impact on the already extremely vibrant campus life: expect parties that will make American Pie seem dull. Sports and facilities are also fantastic at most of these schools, and extreme university spirit is compulsory.
Money: These schools are designed to be very cheap for students from their own states, but this is little comfort to international students, who have to pay higher fees, and normally are ineligible for financial aid (unless you fancy living in that state for a year prior to application). Still, by US standards, they’re probably the cheapest option available.
Uni in the USA picks: University of Texas, University of California (Berkeley and LA), University of North Carolina, University of Washington
3. The Medium-Sized (Private) Research University
Generalisation: These schools can be extremely desirable, and normally have excellent reputations. This category is perhaps more open to variance from school to school than the others, but normally these universities have first-class academics and great social lives. They might have some of the aspects of the Big Famous Schools, but also some of the Small Liberal Arts Colleges, meaning that facilities are normally superb, faculty is incredible, and there’s a lot to do on your time off. They will generally be harder working than the larger Big Public Schools, but are big enough so that you don’t feel trapped. Though these schools are normally private, one or two have public funding too.
Money: Expensive, with some scholarships on offer.
Uni in the USA picks: Tulane, NYU, Rice, University of Chicago
4. The Small Liberal Arts College
Generalisation: These schools are normally less famous but they have a lot going for them. With only a small number of students, teaching can be intense but very fulfilling. You’ll get unmatched levels of contact with professors. The Liberal Arts curriculum means you get to explore a big range of subjects and get a very well rounded education, and your contact with professors is normally very high. Plus there are no grad students so you don’t have to worry about your professors’ time being taken up by research and being taught by boring post-grads. The community will be very tight, and in some places you’ll get to know almost everyone in your university. Facilities might not be that great, but some Liberal Arts Colleges are affiliated with bigger schools (e.g. Barnard or the Clairmont Consortium) and benefit from it. Though students love their school, they might not have as intense a spirit as some of the big schools, and social life might be quieter, though usually there’s plenty to do for everyone.
Money: These schools maintain their awesome student-to-faculty ratios by charging a lot, but some are open to the idea of financial aid for international applicants.
Uni in the USA picks: Reed, Pomona, Amherst, Barnard
But that does not mean I would say that any US university is better than any UK university. You have to choose carefully.
While I have been in agonies because each university seems so nice that I would joyfully spend four years studying there, and I find it impossible to write a negative review of any of them, I do feel that it is important to note that there are a variety of pluses and minuses at each. UK students have been looking ever-more westwards for their education due largely to the massive overcrowding of universities in Great Britain. One complaint that is being ever more loudly expressed in Britain is that, because of this, the amount of contact you actually have with teachers is shrinking disastrously.
In America, meanwhile, the economic downturn has meant that few people can afford the top colleges, and universities like Harvard are having to dig unprecedentedly deeply into their waiting lists to fill spaces. This means that there has never been a better time to apply in the US as a Brit, especially since the distance between trans-Atlantic prices is also shrinking. But it doesn’t mean that things like student-to-teacher ratios are getting better. At school after school, the students I talk to mention the impact of budget cuts. The worst hit universities are the state schools, where state funding is being rapidly rolled back and large lay-offs of professors have become necessary.
So if you want to be able to have good contact with your teachers, where do you go?
Well, unsurprisingly, I would say you still go to America. There still exist a plethora of other (smaller) schools which offer excellent levels of teacher contact. But you can’t pick any American university and hope it’s good; you obviously have to give as much detailed attention to your choices as you would in the UK. If you go to a big state school, you’ll need to be prepared for lectures with hundreds of anonymous students who barely know the professor’s name, at least for some of the lower level classes. But you get other things in return – like incredible campus life, a wealth of friendly and diverse students and top-notch facilities.
To help make sense of this and many other confusing aspects of American universities, I’ve created a highly unofficial summary of what I consider the four main types of schooling available in American universities. But be warned, even within each category there can be serious fluctuation.
1. The Big Famous School
Generalisation: This is probably the category that most people think of when they imagine American universities, but in truth it’s probably the smallest of the four. Big Famous Schools are where everyone would love to go – in their dreams. Due to huge endowments and high fees, these behemoths of US education can afford the best students, the best professors, the best facilities…the best everything really. Although there is a danger of institutional elitism at some of them, and perhaps a lack of diversity or imagination among the student body, generally these schools are large enough and take enough students on financial aid that everyone can have a good time here, as well as a world-famous quality of teaching. Note also that some public schools can be Big and Famous too.
Money: These schools are seriously expensive, but they want the best students at all costs, so financial aid and scholarships abound.
Uni in the USA picks: Harvard, Yale, University of Virginia, MIT
2. The Big Public School
Generalisation: The classic American education, Big Public Schools are essentially just that: extremely big, and financed by the state. The best thing about these universities is that they are normally so big (expect 50,000 students at times) that you can do quite literally anything. You will always find like-minded souls there, if you look hard enough. The range of courses available is stunning, though the quality of classes will range as well: it’s important to make good picks for your course choices (ask around to see which professors and which curricula are best). Normally Big Public Schools are one of the favourite haunts of fraternities and sororities, which have a tangible impact on the already extremely vibrant campus life: expect parties that will make American Pie seem dull. Sports and facilities are also fantastic at most of these schools, and extreme university spirit is compulsory.
Money: These schools are designed to be very cheap for students from their own states, but this is little comfort to international students, who have to pay higher fees, and normally are ineligible for financial aid (unless you fancy living in that state for a year prior to application). Still, by US standards, they’re probably the cheapest option available.
Uni in the USA picks: University of Texas, University of California (Berkeley and LA), University of North Carolina, University of Washington
3. The Medium-Sized (Private) Research University
Generalisation: These schools can be extremely desirable, and normally have excellent reputations. This category is perhaps more open to variance from school to school than the others, but normally these universities have first-class academics and great social lives. They might have some of the aspects of the Big Famous Schools, but also some of the Small Liberal Arts Colleges, meaning that facilities are normally superb, faculty is incredible, and there’s a lot to do on your time off. They will generally be harder working than the larger Big Public Schools, but are big enough so that you don’t feel trapped. Though these schools are normally private, one or two have public funding too.
Money: Expensive, with some scholarships on offer.
Uni in the USA picks: Tulane, NYU, Rice, University of Chicago
4. The Small Liberal Arts College
Generalisation: These schools are normally less famous but they have a lot going for them. With only a small number of students, teaching can be intense but very fulfilling. You’ll get unmatched levels of contact with professors. The Liberal Arts curriculum means you get to explore a big range of subjects and get a very well rounded education, and your contact with professors is normally very high. Plus there are no grad students so you don’t have to worry about your professors’ time being taken up by research and being taught by boring post-grads. The community will be very tight, and in some places you’ll get to know almost everyone in your university. Facilities might not be that great, but some Liberal Arts Colleges are affiliated with bigger schools (e.g. Barnard or the Clairmont Consortium) and benefit from it. Though students love their school, they might not have as intense a spirit as some of the big schools, and social life might be quieter, though usually there’s plenty to do for everyone.
Money: These schools maintain their awesome student-to-faculty ratios by charging a lot, but some are open to the idea of financial aid for international applicants.
Uni in the USA picks: Reed, Pomona, Amherst, Barnard
Tea parties and Sarbatoriuman Land
I write on the verge of a bold 24-hour journey back into the middle of the country, but my last few days in the East Coast have been great.
New York was scarily similar to the movies. I had a good time hanging out in the famous NY boroughs of Greenwich, Soho, Whitehall and Chelsea. No, you didn't mis-read. New York has flagrantly plagiarised all it's neighbourhoods from London. They're not even ashamed about it. The only areas that are not named after the UK capital have boring names like "The Upper East Side" or "Little Italy".
I think this is all part of the great symptom of American place-names: imaginative dysfunction. These guys had a whole continent at their disposal and they could have named stuff anything they wanted. What would you or I have done in such a situation? Naturally, we would have spent hours cooking up the most ridiculous things you could think of. New York? What's wrong with Sarbatoriuman Land? But no, the Americans named everything after places that either already exist, which is just outrageous cheating, or after themselves. Look at New York state, for example. In this one state you can visit Hamburg, Ithaca, Geneva, Rome, Amsterdam, Dunkirk, Carthage or Norwich. Did they not realise that those names were already taken? And then there's the city Washington. What would people think if we named our capital "William the Conqueror"? How do they get away with this stuff?
It's the same with street names. You have an infinite number of names to choose from, yet in every city the street names are the same: the roads going one way are numbers (how boring can you get?) and the roads going the other are either numbers too, or they're Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin and Independence. Or they're the names of the states. It's unbelievable.
Aaaannnnyyway, New York was amazing, but I don't think I'm completely sold. The "alternative" bits were a bit too pretentious, the buildings were just showing off sometimes, and the subway was a bit too run-down to be believable. Still, it would be an incredible place to live, and for this reason I was impressed by the two schools I visited, Hunter and Barnard.
I managed to find a couch with Joe (to whom I am eternally grateful), a classic New Yorker with the proper accent, who lived on Brighton Beach (there it is again!) in Brooklyn, right next to the iconic but really grimy looking theme park and a beautiful stretch of beach that reminded me of sunny Bournemouth. I recognised the area from the movie Requiem for a Dream, which I had seen just a few days before.
Boston is a great city. It's brimming with universities - I've never seen so many crammed in to one town. I was officially looking at Boston University, but I couldn't resist taking a peak at Harvard too. The historic centre was also nice, especially the incredible street-performers, and I gazed nostalgically at the harbour where the cruel, evil Americans wasted all that lovely tea that the caring British had kindly provided for them. I mean seriously, who would throw away decent tea? From India? If they wanted to offend me as a Brit they couldn't have chosen a better way.
My host Dory was awesome - she was a hip-hop DJ or something cool and also studied Japanese stuff. I also stayed with another dude named Cole and his myriad friends who have a billion musical instruments and are all extremely creative. That was cool.
Now for the non-stop express to the mid-west! Hold on to your hat Dr. Jones!
New York was scarily similar to the movies. I had a good time hanging out in the famous NY boroughs of Greenwich, Soho, Whitehall and Chelsea. No, you didn't mis-read. New York has flagrantly plagiarised all it's neighbourhoods from London. They're not even ashamed about it. The only areas that are not named after the UK capital have boring names like "The Upper East Side" or "Little Italy".
I think this is all part of the great symptom of American place-names: imaginative dysfunction. These guys had a whole continent at their disposal and they could have named stuff anything they wanted. What would you or I have done in such a situation? Naturally, we would have spent hours cooking up the most ridiculous things you could think of. New York? What's wrong with Sarbatoriuman Land? But no, the Americans named everything after places that either already exist, which is just outrageous cheating, or after themselves. Look at New York state, for example. In this one state you can visit Hamburg, Ithaca, Geneva, Rome, Amsterdam, Dunkirk, Carthage or Norwich. Did they not realise that those names were already taken? And then there's the city Washington. What would people think if we named our capital "William the Conqueror"? How do they get away with this stuff?
It's the same with street names. You have an infinite number of names to choose from, yet in every city the street names are the same: the roads going one way are numbers (how boring can you get?) and the roads going the other are either numbers too, or they're Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin and Independence. Or they're the names of the states. It's unbelievable.
Aaaannnnyyway, New York was amazing, but I don't think I'm completely sold. The "alternative" bits were a bit too pretentious, the buildings were just showing off sometimes, and the subway was a bit too run-down to be believable. Still, it would be an incredible place to live, and for this reason I was impressed by the two schools I visited, Hunter and Barnard.
I managed to find a couch with Joe (to whom I am eternally grateful), a classic New Yorker with the proper accent, who lived on Brighton Beach (there it is again!) in Brooklyn, right next to the iconic but really grimy looking theme park and a beautiful stretch of beach that reminded me of sunny Bournemouth. I recognised the area from the movie Requiem for a Dream, which I had seen just a few days before.
Boston is a great city. It's brimming with universities - I've never seen so many crammed in to one town. I was officially looking at Boston University, but I couldn't resist taking a peak at Harvard too. The historic centre was also nice, especially the incredible street-performers, and I gazed nostalgically at the harbour where the cruel, evil Americans wasted all that lovely tea that the caring British had kindly provided for them. I mean seriously, who would throw away decent tea? From India? If they wanted to offend me as a Brit they couldn't have chosen a better way.
My host Dory was awesome - she was a hip-hop DJ or something cool and also studied Japanese stuff. I also stayed with another dude named Cole and his myriad friends who have a billion musical instruments and are all extremely creative. That was cool.
Now for the non-stop express to the mid-west! Hold on to your hat Dr. Jones!
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
Sailing to Philadelphia....a world away from the coaly tyne
After a second overnighter from North Carolina to Maryland, I was taken to my aunt’s house in the suburbs of Baltimore, where I spent a few lovely (and free) days with my family (including mother and sister who came over from England) and went to my cousin’s wedding which was a suitably joyous occasion.
From there I toggled south a tad to DC, and had a great time meeting up with all my fantastic friends from the Obama campaign last autumn. My old partner in phone-banking crimes and fellow music obsessive Steve was good enough to host me, and drive me all over the place. I took a peek at American University, and zoomed off to Annapolis for a day to visit crazy St. John’s, the nation’s third-oldest and most bizarre university.
The students at St. John’s don’t choose their courses. Instead they are given a mammoth reading list, filled with authors like Epicurus and Kierkegaard, and having read all these incredibly insightful and visionary tomes, they form discussion groups of about 15 people and talk about them. That’s pretty much it for four years. It was pretty awesome.
I was fortunate enough to get one of Greyhound’s new fancy buses for my trip to Philadelphia. Greyhound’s made a big deal of these things, but really the only differences are power outlets and wi-fi, and since only about 3% of the clientele own laptops it seems an odd marketing ploy. I enjoyed it at least. And Philadelphia had the first bus station that I’ve been to in America that wasn’t in the very worst, most run down part of town.
As it turned out, this was a shame because Meg, my host in Philadelphia, actually lived in the very worst, most run down part of town, so it would have saved me a trolley ride if the bus station had been there. Meg was a first-class host, and along with her sister and friends I had a great time in Philly. She also worked at Starbucks, meaning free drinks, hurrah! One of her housemates is a Latin teacher, and so I spent perhaps the most surreal evening of the trip so far sitting on the front porch playing chess with some crazy old dude I didn’t know while simultaneously arranging Virgilian hexametres and discussing the minutiae of how to pronounce the word “vincit”, all in visual and audio range of the crack dealers shouting at each other on the street corner.
On day one I strolled round all the historic bits, including the massively overrated Liberty Bell and the massively underrated City Hall, as well as a cool market-place in the centre. I munched a cheese-steak or two (also overrated). On day two I had a quick peek at U Penn (though not for official review – it’s already in the guide) and its anthropology museum (the Egyptian part was breathtaking) before spending a few hours welcoming in the summer solstice at a really really supercool little hidden gem on bohemian South Street: The Magic Garden.
If you ever visit Philly you have to go there – it’s the brainchild of visionary artist and urban reconstructionist Isaac Zagar, and it’s basically a small, multi-facetted apartment and garden all made of pieces of broken glass and mirrors, and old bicycle wheels. You have to see it to believe it, but trust me, it will blow your mind. On the longest day of the year, moreover, it happened to host a special solstice festival with loads of insanely talented, unheard of niche bands and performers, including an incredible DJ set at the end. The Sri Lankan drumming was my favourite, probably.
Anyways, now I’ve found myself, through various accommodation-related mishaps, in the trendy Gershwin hostel in mid-town Manhattan, looking forward to taking a few chomps of the Big Apple in the coming days and hopefully relocating to a less expensive couch asap. Take it easy folks, and stay tuned for the next installment of these quixotic fulminations.
From there I toggled south a tad to DC, and had a great time meeting up with all my fantastic friends from the Obama campaign last autumn. My old partner in phone-banking crimes and fellow music obsessive Steve was good enough to host me, and drive me all over the place. I took a peek at American University, and zoomed off to Annapolis for a day to visit crazy St. John’s, the nation’s third-oldest and most bizarre university.
The students at St. John’s don’t choose their courses. Instead they are given a mammoth reading list, filled with authors like Epicurus and Kierkegaard, and having read all these incredibly insightful and visionary tomes, they form discussion groups of about 15 people and talk about them. That’s pretty much it for four years. It was pretty awesome.
I was fortunate enough to get one of Greyhound’s new fancy buses for my trip to Philadelphia. Greyhound’s made a big deal of these things, but really the only differences are power outlets and wi-fi, and since only about 3% of the clientele own laptops it seems an odd marketing ploy. I enjoyed it at least. And Philadelphia had the first bus station that I’ve been to in America that wasn’t in the very worst, most run down part of town.
As it turned out, this was a shame because Meg, my host in Philadelphia, actually lived in the very worst, most run down part of town, so it would have saved me a trolley ride if the bus station had been there. Meg was a first-class host, and along with her sister and friends I had a great time in Philly. She also worked at Starbucks, meaning free drinks, hurrah! One of her housemates is a Latin teacher, and so I spent perhaps the most surreal evening of the trip so far sitting on the front porch playing chess with some crazy old dude I didn’t know while simultaneously arranging Virgilian hexametres and discussing the minutiae of how to pronounce the word “vincit”, all in visual and audio range of the crack dealers shouting at each other on the street corner.
On day one I strolled round all the historic bits, including the massively overrated Liberty Bell and the massively underrated City Hall, as well as a cool market-place in the centre. I munched a cheese-steak or two (also overrated). On day two I had a quick peek at U Penn (though not for official review – it’s already in the guide) and its anthropology museum (the Egyptian part was breathtaking) before spending a few hours welcoming in the summer solstice at a really really supercool little hidden gem on bohemian South Street: The Magic Garden.
If you ever visit Philly you have to go there – it’s the brainchild of visionary artist and urban reconstructionist Isaac Zagar, and it’s basically a small, multi-facetted apartment and garden all made of pieces of broken glass and mirrors, and old bicycle wheels. You have to see it to believe it, but trust me, it will blow your mind. On the longest day of the year, moreover, it happened to host a special solstice festival with loads of insanely talented, unheard of niche bands and performers, including an incredible DJ set at the end. The Sri Lankan drumming was my favourite, probably.
Anyways, now I’ve found myself, through various accommodation-related mishaps, in the trendy Gershwin hostel in mid-town Manhattan, looking forward to taking a few chomps of the Big Apple in the coming days and hopefully relocating to a less expensive couch asap. Take it easy folks, and stay tuned for the next installment of these quixotic fulminations.
Friday, 12 June 2009
Trekking northward
One’s experience of a city can be considerably shaped by one’s couchsurfing host, so perhaps I got a rather warped view of Savannah, Georgia, which was my first stop after leaving Florida. I arrived drenched to the bone in a tropical thunderstorm. My curious hosts lived in an enchanting wooden-walled mansion, swarming with folk who didn’t really seem to notice me at first. At least half of them were young children.
I had arrived at a community (definitely NOT a commune, they insisted) of the “Twelve Tribes”. Also known as “The Commonwealth of Israel", this is a spiritual group based on community living and good, old-fashioned values....And probably hypnotism (just kidding!). Anyhow, it was an extremely interesting thing to be part of, kind of a mix between the Amish and a hippy collective. They claimed not to be Christian, but they did read the Bible and sing songs about God (who they called Yahweh rather than Jesus or Lord). They did use mobile phones and dishwashers, but the women wore old-fashioned dresses and the men all had centre-partings. Everyone seemed to think that their little corner of tranquility was the last bastion of niceness in a ridiculously evil and hell-bound world.
The whole thing took me completely by surprise as I had been a bit rushed and hadn’t properly read their couchsurfing profile, on which all this was explicitly stated. Thankfully, everyone was extraordinarily kind and hospitable, and as soon as they knew who I was they took a great interest in my travels and didn’t try to convert me at all. They gave me tons of free food, and even though I kept a wary eye out for any Kool-Aid they might offer, there was nothing but warmth and friendship showed to me.
All of which put Savannah itself in an interesting light, but in no way lessened the grandeur and loveliness of the place. Savannah is a historic city, apparently spared from destruction in the Civil War by the early surrender of its fun-loving inhabitants, meaning that it is one of the best preserved examples of Southern refinery and original glory.
Old but immaculately preserved colonial wooden houses, every other one seemingly the one-time residence of some key player in the jigsaw of history, were exquisitely painted and set around charming, tree-filled squares. I saw one couple that had apparently been so smitten by the atmosphere that they were getting married on the spot next to a particularly fine fountain.
Abandoning the interesting corner of spiritual co-living that I had stumbled across, I headed north through Georgia (no red dirt, no cotton), arriving in Atlanta in time to go with my next host, Ken, to watch the Atlanta Braves baseball team lose ingloriously. The last time I had been to a baseball game I had somehow been given free tickets to excellent seats for the Oakland As against the Seattle Mariners, back in 2007. The As, playing at home, had lost 0-4, in a hopelessly boring and low-scoring game, and this time the Braves did even worse, losing 0-3. I seem to attract poor games. Still, attending a baseball match is a great experience for any Brit, and again I had great seats with all the crazy fans, expensive baseball food, and of course the bizarre tradition of singing the national anthem before EVERY sports game, even when the teams are both American.
Ken was a fun host – he worked at Georgia Tech, was doing research for a Masters at Georgia State and was also in training for the army, expecting a posting to Afghanistan within a year or so. On day two we went to a shooting range with his own pistol and his friend’s big army rifle. I hadn’t fired a gun since I was about 12, when I did shooting club at my prep school. The club was run by the legendary Mr. Gardiner, an ancient WWII vet, who would swear in German and tell unbelievable stories. He must have been a good shooting teacher, because I fired some very respectable rounds, achieving better accuracy and grouping than the gun-owners themselves. *grins smugly*
While in Atlanta I took a look at two great schools: science hot-spot Georgia Tech, and also a great little private school called Emory that seemed as good as its excellent reputation would suggest. I also visited Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthplace, and his grave which is just down the road. Has anyone noticed that his initials (including the Jr) are in exact reverse alphabetical order? Weird. Another cool place in Atlanta is the former home of Margaret Mitchell, journalist and famed author of Gone with the Wind, which I found quite exciting and had lots of cool information about her early life and career.
Leaving Atlanta I sped into the Carolinas, changing buses in Charlotte where I had originally touched down to catch my flight to Seattle. I spent two days in Chapel Hill, a small but awesome college town and home of the University of North Carolina, which I really, really liked. I think it might be my favourite school so far. To find out why, read my review which I should be getting up on the site within the next few days.
Having completed my whistle-stop canter through the South, I said a tearful goodbye and headed into an exciting new land known only as…(drumroll)…the North East! Stay tuned to see what happens to yours truly in those blasphemous liberal tree-hugging elitist baby-killing blue states. Damn Yankees.
I had arrived at a community (definitely NOT a commune, they insisted) of the “Twelve Tribes”. Also known as “The Commonwealth of Israel", this is a spiritual group based on community living and good, old-fashioned values....And probably hypnotism (just kidding!). Anyhow, it was an extremely interesting thing to be part of, kind of a mix between the Amish and a hippy collective. They claimed not to be Christian, but they did read the Bible and sing songs about God (who they called Yahweh rather than Jesus or Lord). They did use mobile phones and dishwashers, but the women wore old-fashioned dresses and the men all had centre-partings. Everyone seemed to think that their little corner of tranquility was the last bastion of niceness in a ridiculously evil and hell-bound world.
The whole thing took me completely by surprise as I had been a bit rushed and hadn’t properly read their couchsurfing profile, on which all this was explicitly stated. Thankfully, everyone was extraordinarily kind and hospitable, and as soon as they knew who I was they took a great interest in my travels and didn’t try to convert me at all. They gave me tons of free food, and even though I kept a wary eye out for any Kool-Aid they might offer, there was nothing but warmth and friendship showed to me.
All of which put Savannah itself in an interesting light, but in no way lessened the grandeur and loveliness of the place. Savannah is a historic city, apparently spared from destruction in the Civil War by the early surrender of its fun-loving inhabitants, meaning that it is one of the best preserved examples of Southern refinery and original glory.
Old but immaculately preserved colonial wooden houses, every other one seemingly the one-time residence of some key player in the jigsaw of history, were exquisitely painted and set around charming, tree-filled squares. I saw one couple that had apparently been so smitten by the atmosphere that they were getting married on the spot next to a particularly fine fountain.
Abandoning the interesting corner of spiritual co-living that I had stumbled across, I headed north through Georgia (no red dirt, no cotton), arriving in Atlanta in time to go with my next host, Ken, to watch the Atlanta Braves baseball team lose ingloriously. The last time I had been to a baseball game I had somehow been given free tickets to excellent seats for the Oakland As against the Seattle Mariners, back in 2007. The As, playing at home, had lost 0-4, in a hopelessly boring and low-scoring game, and this time the Braves did even worse, losing 0-3. I seem to attract poor games. Still, attending a baseball match is a great experience for any Brit, and again I had great seats with all the crazy fans, expensive baseball food, and of course the bizarre tradition of singing the national anthem before EVERY sports game, even when the teams are both American.
Ken was a fun host – he worked at Georgia Tech, was doing research for a Masters at Georgia State and was also in training for the army, expecting a posting to Afghanistan within a year or so. On day two we went to a shooting range with his own pistol and his friend’s big army rifle. I hadn’t fired a gun since I was about 12, when I did shooting club at my prep school. The club was run by the legendary Mr. Gardiner, an ancient WWII vet, who would swear in German and tell unbelievable stories. He must have been a good shooting teacher, because I fired some very respectable rounds, achieving better accuracy and grouping than the gun-owners themselves. *grins smugly*
While in Atlanta I took a look at two great schools: science hot-spot Georgia Tech, and also a great little private school called Emory that seemed as good as its excellent reputation would suggest. I also visited Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthplace, and his grave which is just down the road. Has anyone noticed that his initials (including the Jr) are in exact reverse alphabetical order? Weird. Another cool place in Atlanta is the former home of Margaret Mitchell, journalist and famed author of Gone with the Wind, which I found quite exciting and had lots of cool information about her early life and career.
Leaving Atlanta I sped into the Carolinas, changing buses in Charlotte where I had originally touched down to catch my flight to Seattle. I spent two days in Chapel Hill, a small but awesome college town and home of the University of North Carolina, which I really, really liked. I think it might be my favourite school so far. To find out why, read my review which I should be getting up on the site within the next few days.
Having completed my whistle-stop canter through the South, I said a tearful goodbye and headed into an exciting new land known only as…(drumroll)…the North East! Stay tuned to see what happens to yours truly in those blasphemous liberal tree-hugging elitist baby-killing blue states. Damn Yankees.
Sunday, 7 June 2009
University Rankings, Pt 1.
These rankings are entirely subjective, covering the first chunk of my travels, everywhere that I've gone so far:
The University of Washington (Seattle)
Lewis and Clark (Portland)
Reed (Portland)
The University of Southern California (Los Angeles)
Scripps (Claremont, Los Angeles) [women only]
Pepperdine (Malibu, Los Angeles)
The University of Texas at Austin
Rice (Houston)
Tulane (New Orleans)
Florida State University (Tallahassee)
The University of Florida (Gainesville)
1. Best Academics
Winner: Reed
Runner Up: Rice
2. Most Beautiful Campus
Winner: Pepperdine
Runner Up: The University of Washington
3. Best Campus Life
Winner: Rice
Runner Up: Lewis and Clark
4. Craziest Parties
Winner: The University of Southern California
Runner Up: The University of Texas
5. Best College Town
Winner: The University of Washington
Runner Up: Tulane
6. Best Overall Social Life
Winner: The University of Washington
Runner Up: Florida State University
7. Coolest Students
Winner: Lewis and Clark
Runner Up: Florida State University
8. Best Educated Students
Winner: Scripps
Runner Up: Pepperdine
9. Quirkiest Students
Winner: Reed
Runner Up: Rice
10. Kindest Students
Winner: The University of Washington
Runner Up: The University of Florida
11. Best International Program
Winner: Lewis and Clark
Runner Up: Tie - Florida State University and Pepperdine
12. Best Sports (for your average undergrad)
Winner: The University of Florida
Runner Up: Rice
13. Coolest Science Facilities
Winner: Reed (nuclear reactor for undergrads)
Runner Up: Florida State University (High Magnetic Field Lab)
14. Overall Best Public School
Winner: The University of Florida
Runner Up: The University of Texas
15. Overall Best Private School
Winner: Rice
Runner Up: Scripps
NB: Many of these categories were extremely difficult to pick a winner for, and the result was a little random. Don't take these rankings too seriously.
The University of Washington (Seattle)
Lewis and Clark (Portland)
Reed (Portland)
The University of Southern California (Los Angeles)
Scripps (Claremont, Los Angeles) [women only]
Pepperdine (Malibu, Los Angeles)
The University of Texas at Austin
Rice (Houston)
Tulane (New Orleans)
Florida State University (Tallahassee)
The University of Florida (Gainesville)
1. Best Academics
Winner: Reed
Runner Up: Rice
2. Most Beautiful Campus
Winner: Pepperdine
Runner Up: The University of Washington
3. Best Campus Life
Winner: Rice
Runner Up: Lewis and Clark
4. Craziest Parties
Winner: The University of Southern California
Runner Up: The University of Texas
5. Best College Town
Winner: The University of Washington
Runner Up: Tulane
6. Best Overall Social Life
Winner: The University of Washington
Runner Up: Florida State University
7. Coolest Students
Winner: Lewis and Clark
Runner Up: Florida State University
8. Best Educated Students
Winner: Scripps
Runner Up: Pepperdine
9. Quirkiest Students
Winner: Reed
Runner Up: Rice
10. Kindest Students
Winner: The University of Washington
Runner Up: The University of Florida
11. Best International Program
Winner: Lewis and Clark
Runner Up: Tie - Florida State University and Pepperdine
12. Best Sports (for your average undergrad)
Winner: The University of Florida
Runner Up: Rice
13. Coolest Science Facilities
Winner: Reed (nuclear reactor for undergrads)
Runner Up: Florida State University (High Magnetic Field Lab)
14. Overall Best Public School
Winner: The University of Florida
Runner Up: The University of Texas
15. Overall Best Private School
Winner: Rice
Runner Up: Scripps
NB: Many of these categories were extremely difficult to pick a winner for, and the result was a little random. Don't take these rankings too seriously.
Thursday, 4 June 2009
You never know which one you're gonna get
Greetings from the Deep South, where your correspondent has been having an unusual amount of fun, and has seen fistfuls of universities. Last time I wrote I believe I was in Louisiana, famous for seafood, corrupt politicians and jazz music. The person that I had thought would be hosting me wasn’t answering their phone, so through a weird series of links I ended up on the futon of the couchsurfing queens of New Orleans, Robin and her sister Lisa, to whom I am eternally grateful for taking me at the last moment.
They had some pretty cool stories about the millions of couchsurfers who had passed their way, and also of Hurricane Katrina. They also introduced me to some awesome local food, including the amazing novelty of crawfish – mini lobsters that require skill and practice to eat, but taste delicious. I explored the French Quarter at length, including classic conversations with disenfranchised musicians and watching incredible buskers by the river. The river, by the way, none other than the Mississippi itself, is a terrifying, swirling mass of evil-looking water, which lurks in a gargantuan expanse across the city, just waiting for the tiniest excuse to burst the totally inadequate-looking banks. Whoever decided to build a city next to that thing, 20 feet below sea-level, had had one mint julip too many.
Also in New Orleans I had a look at Tulane University, a really fun looking place to study right on the mansion-lined St Charles St.
Leaving such a fun city after only two days was tough, but I was very excited about my destination, so I was actually quite happy to turn up the Lynyrd Skynyrd and head into…Alabama! Specifically, my destination was Mobile (pronounced Mo-beel), site of a key Northern naval victory in the civil war, and the only city in the country to have been owned at various times by six different empires – the French, the Spanish, the British, the original thirteen colonies, the Confederacy and the USA.
Alabama was everything I hoped it would be and more. The town was so beautiful, especially the “sweet homes” built of wood complete with pillars, porches and “shotgun style” design, meaning the rooms are arranged in such a way that breezes, or alternatively a shotgun pellet, can pass through the entire house. The weather was warm and balmy, but not yet roasting. Delightful little squares and churches were dotted round the spacious tree-lined streets. Cool art galleries and coffee-shops had happy looking customers. People greeted you warmly on the pavement.
I was staying with Fuzzy, who was really nice and accommodating, and her house-mate Alicia. They took me to an awesome party where I met the assembled youth of Mobile, as fun a bunch as you could hope for. There were various local heavy-rock bands playing, a change from the mountains of (mostly British) classic-rock that I’d been hearing on radios and in shops. There were more yummy crawfish to be eaten, though apparently I missed the deer sausage. Actually my expectations of Mobile had been skewed by this video (entertainmentfans.com/16) that the folks in New Orleans had showed me, but fortunately magical Irish creatures were notable for their absence.
By the end of my scarcely-more-than-24-hours in Alabama I was deeply in love with the South and everyone I met there. But there were more places to see and people to meet, so it was on to the fine state of Florida, specifically the state capital, Tallahassee, which in my opinion has to be the coolest name for a town in the country. It wasn’t the biggest or most jaw-dropping city I’d been too, but I did enjoy myself with my supercool host Mckensie and her awesome friends. We went to eighties dance parties, very local folk concerts, interesting vegan coffee shops slash alternative culture centres of a kind that I hadn’t seen since Seattle, and also a horror movie which was…interesting.
Thence to Gainesville, another small college town, home of the University of Florida, which like Florida State University in Tallahassee is a huge public school with over 50,000 students. The University of Florida was also where they invented Gatorade, so named because the college sports teams are called the Gators. There was even a lake on campus which apparently has lots of reptilian monsters in it but I didn’t see any. I stayed with a really nice geography teacher, Nick, who was very hospitable and fun to talk to, though Gainesville isn’t the most “happening” place on the planet.
Luckily I’ve still got a few more days in the South. Next stop is Georgia, back on the Gone With The Wind trail. I’m expecting red soil and cotton fields, and preferably some belles wearing ball-gowns. Until next time, just remember that liiife is liiike a booohx of chooohc-laaahts.
They had some pretty cool stories about the millions of couchsurfers who had passed their way, and also of Hurricane Katrina. They also introduced me to some awesome local food, including the amazing novelty of crawfish – mini lobsters that require skill and practice to eat, but taste delicious. I explored the French Quarter at length, including classic conversations with disenfranchised musicians and watching incredible buskers by the river. The river, by the way, none other than the Mississippi itself, is a terrifying, swirling mass of evil-looking water, which lurks in a gargantuan expanse across the city, just waiting for the tiniest excuse to burst the totally inadequate-looking banks. Whoever decided to build a city next to that thing, 20 feet below sea-level, had had one mint julip too many.
Also in New Orleans I had a look at Tulane University, a really fun looking place to study right on the mansion-lined St Charles St.
Leaving such a fun city after only two days was tough, but I was very excited about my destination, so I was actually quite happy to turn up the Lynyrd Skynyrd and head into…Alabama! Specifically, my destination was Mobile (pronounced Mo-beel), site of a key Northern naval victory in the civil war, and the only city in the country to have been owned at various times by six different empires – the French, the Spanish, the British, the original thirteen colonies, the Confederacy and the USA.
Alabama was everything I hoped it would be and more. The town was so beautiful, especially the “sweet homes” built of wood complete with pillars, porches and “shotgun style” design, meaning the rooms are arranged in such a way that breezes, or alternatively a shotgun pellet, can pass through the entire house. The weather was warm and balmy, but not yet roasting. Delightful little squares and churches were dotted round the spacious tree-lined streets. Cool art galleries and coffee-shops had happy looking customers. People greeted you warmly on the pavement.
I was staying with Fuzzy, who was really nice and accommodating, and her house-mate Alicia. They took me to an awesome party where I met the assembled youth of Mobile, as fun a bunch as you could hope for. There were various local heavy-rock bands playing, a change from the mountains of (mostly British) classic-rock that I’d been hearing on radios and in shops. There were more yummy crawfish to be eaten, though apparently I missed the deer sausage. Actually my expectations of Mobile had been skewed by this video (entertainmentfans.com/16) that the folks in New Orleans had showed me, but fortunately magical Irish creatures were notable for their absence.
By the end of my scarcely-more-than-24-hours in Alabama I was deeply in love with the South and everyone I met there. But there were more places to see and people to meet, so it was on to the fine state of Florida, specifically the state capital, Tallahassee, which in my opinion has to be the coolest name for a town in the country. It wasn’t the biggest or most jaw-dropping city I’d been too, but I did enjoy myself with my supercool host Mckensie and her awesome friends. We went to eighties dance parties, very local folk concerts, interesting vegan coffee shops slash alternative culture centres of a kind that I hadn’t seen since Seattle, and also a horror movie which was…interesting.
Thence to Gainesville, another small college town, home of the University of Florida, which like Florida State University in Tallahassee is a huge public school with over 50,000 students. The University of Florida was also where they invented Gatorade, so named because the college sports teams are called the Gators. There was even a lake on campus which apparently has lots of reptilian monsters in it but I didn’t see any. I stayed with a really nice geography teacher, Nick, who was very hospitable and fun to talk to, though Gainesville isn’t the most “happening” place on the planet.
Luckily I’ve still got a few more days in the South. Next stop is Georgia, back on the Gone With The Wind trail. I’m expecting red soil and cotton fields, and preferably some belles wearing ball-gowns. Until next time, just remember that liiife is liiike a booohx of chooohc-laaahts.
Thursday, 28 May 2009
On the American education
So the aim of this blog is supposed to go beyond the purely biographical, and having now looked in-depth at about eight universities, I believe I am well enough equipped to make some initial comments on Unis in the USA.
I have found myself writing certain things in almost every review that I do. First of all, the campuses. They are all so nice. In Britain, you're lucky if you even have a campus, since universities are generally a mish-mash of odd buildings generally congregated into an unspecific area of some-city-or-other. In America, campuses are always arranged neatly with clear-cut perimetres, and have been specially laid-out to create maximum aesthetic value. It is rare that you feel really part of a city when you're on campus, like you do in 99% of British universities. There are almost always plenty of trees, pleasant open spaces and architecture that looks like it was actually designed to look nice.
Secondly, the professors. Almost every student I talk to says something like this: "The teachers are really good, and what's nice is that they care about all their students, I really feel like they want us to succeed." At the smaller schools, the student will then always add "and they encourage you to go see them, and to form real relationships with them. I enjoy going to have a drink with my professors in a bar after class." And they always say it as if this state of affairs is unique to their university. I don't know how much this is a contrast or similarity with Britain, but it's striking that in America there seems to be a lot of real value attached to the teaching process.
Thirdly, student organisations and university activities. In every university I've looked at in America, the students (and the websites) are gushing about the hundreds of student-organised activities and various interesting types of parties and the sports and the music/theatre/art workshops, and the visiting speakers and the Peace corps, and the Greek life and the political groups and the international exchange programs and the student newspapers/TV/radio stations etc etc etc. I can't help but think that America has the edge on college-life vibrancy.
The final thing that I need to mention is a lot more obvious, and it is the curriculum. Once you see the awesome range of subjects students can do all at once in America, you simply can't believe that other countries would be so insane as to impose one single subject from the age of 18 until graduation. Admissions people bang on about making sure to choose the subject that most interests you, but what kind of person only has one such subject? A person who has been artificially limited in his life and education. US universities are judged on the spectrum of courses they are able to offer. In Britain the range is minimal - Cambridge itself barely manages more than 20-25 courses - because students only ever get to pick one of them, and no one is going to study early Taoist philosophy for three years no matter how appealing it is.
I'll try and provide some more (and deeper) thoughts on the subject as the trip progresses.
I have found myself writing certain things in almost every review that I do. First of all, the campuses. They are all so nice. In Britain, you're lucky if you even have a campus, since universities are generally a mish-mash of odd buildings generally congregated into an unspecific area of some-city-or-other. In America, campuses are always arranged neatly with clear-cut perimetres, and have been specially laid-out to create maximum aesthetic value. It is rare that you feel really part of a city when you're on campus, like you do in 99% of British universities. There are almost always plenty of trees, pleasant open spaces and architecture that looks like it was actually designed to look nice.
Secondly, the professors. Almost every student I talk to says something like this: "The teachers are really good, and what's nice is that they care about all their students, I really feel like they want us to succeed." At the smaller schools, the student will then always add "and they encourage you to go see them, and to form real relationships with them. I enjoy going to have a drink with my professors in a bar after class." And they always say it as if this state of affairs is unique to their university. I don't know how much this is a contrast or similarity with Britain, but it's striking that in America there seems to be a lot of real value attached to the teaching process.
Thirdly, student organisations and university activities. In every university I've looked at in America, the students (and the websites) are gushing about the hundreds of student-organised activities and various interesting types of parties and the sports and the music/theatre/art workshops, and the visiting speakers and the Peace corps, and the Greek life and the political groups and the international exchange programs and the student newspapers/TV/radio stations etc etc etc. I can't help but think that America has the edge on college-life vibrancy.
The final thing that I need to mention is a lot more obvious, and it is the curriculum. Once you see the awesome range of subjects students can do all at once in America, you simply can't believe that other countries would be so insane as to impose one single subject from the age of 18 until graduation. Admissions people bang on about making sure to choose the subject that most interests you, but what kind of person only has one such subject? A person who has been artificially limited in his life and education. US universities are judged on the spectrum of courses they are able to offer. In Britain the range is minimal - Cambridge itself barely manages more than 20-25 courses - because students only ever get to pick one of them, and no one is going to study early Taoist philosophy for three years no matter how appealing it is.
I'll try and provide some more (and deeper) thoughts on the subject as the trip progresses.
Texas Schmexas
I had a great weekend in Houston with my cousin Jordy and his girlfriend Marissa. They took me on a whizzing tour of the city, which seemed nice enough, except for the neighbourhood with the oil-millionaire’s mansions, which seemed ridiculously opulent. I had a good time getting to know Rice University, where my cousin earned his degree a few years back, and which I really liked.
In the evenings we patronised a couple of awesome eateries with names like Hickery Hollow, where you sit at long tables with your fellow jolly diners, admire the decorating (antlers, buffalo heads, ballistic weaponry, flags etc) and eat platefuls of classic Texas fare (think meat, bread, BBQ sauce, potatoes, baked beans and ice tea or root beer) in quantities more usually associated with extinct reptilian monsters. Live bluegrass bands played songs with names like “Johnny ain’t comin’ home for to sing a-dyin’”.
---Brief Interlude--- in which I take a minute to mention one aspect of America that nobody talks about but which is the most phenomenal thing I’ve ever seen anywhere I’ve been in the world. Namely, the sky. Every day, at about 7-8pm and 4-5am, the world looks likes it is coming to a spectacular end. The clouds turn florescent pink or orange, and assume shapes like apocalyptical mountains. My jaw muscles give up in awe. Even when it’s not sunset, the cloud formations are so majestic that it’s all I can do to stop myself kneeling in the middle of the street and crying out for forgiveness. Imagine leaving a building or vehicle, stepping out onto the pavement and seeing this:
Actually, that is a picture of a deep-space nebula taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, but it’s really not far off what the sky looks like in America. Talking of nebulae, I found time while in Houston to visit the space centre (of “we have a problem” fame), and check out some incredible stuff about space. They did a thoroughly good job of making me want to be an astronaut, in fact. Did you know, for example, that NASA will be sending men to the moon again in 2020, in order to establish an actual proper base there, which, and this is the really cool part, will be used as a refueling point for the first mission to Mars in 2030. The first person to set foot on another planet is alive today.
Anyhow, Austin was generally a cool place, certainly somewhere I’d love to spend my university years, though I didn’t have long there before I was off again, to New Orleans, or, in the local dialect, “Nawlins”.
In the evenings we patronised a couple of awesome eateries with names like Hickery Hollow, where you sit at long tables with your fellow jolly diners, admire the decorating (antlers, buffalo heads, ballistic weaponry, flags etc) and eat platefuls of classic Texas fare (think meat, bread, BBQ sauce, potatoes, baked beans and ice tea or root beer) in quantities more usually associated with extinct reptilian monsters. Live bluegrass bands played songs with names like “Johnny ain’t comin’ home for to sing a-dyin’”.
---Brief Interlude--- in which I take a minute to mention one aspect of America that nobody talks about but which is the most phenomenal thing I’ve ever seen anywhere I’ve been in the world. Namely, the sky. Every day, at about 7-8pm and 4-5am, the world looks likes it is coming to a spectacular end. The clouds turn florescent pink or orange, and assume shapes like apocalyptical mountains. My jaw muscles give up in awe. Even when it’s not sunset, the cloud formations are so majestic that it’s all I can do to stop myself kneeling in the middle of the street and crying out for forgiveness. Imagine leaving a building or vehicle, stepping out onto the pavement and seeing this:
Actually, that is a picture of a deep-space nebula taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, but it’s really not far off what the sky looks like in America. Talking of nebulae, I found time while in Houston to visit the space centre (of “we have a problem” fame), and check out some incredible stuff about space. They did a thoroughly good job of making me want to be an astronaut, in fact. Did you know, for example, that NASA will be sending men to the moon again in 2020, in order to establish an actual proper base there, which, and this is the really cool part, will be used as a refueling point for the first mission to Mars in 2030. The first person to set foot on another planet is alive today.
From Mars to Austin, where I was hosted by a group of whacky University of Texas students in their awesome three-bedroom flat to the south of the city. I had fun chatting and living it up with them into the wee hours of the morning, as they were a uniformly interesting and hilarious bunch. One of them, Dani, was a DJ for UT’s renowned student radio station, so she took me to see the studio and watch her spin some discs. Indeed if you were listening to KVRX 91.7FM at about 10:45pm on Tuesday night you probably heard me give a brief live performance of a song by an Austin band (…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead) on a piano that happened to be around.
Other cool things I saw in Austin included a massive cloud of bats that fly up from under a bridge every day at sunset, and also the Texas State Capitol, where I idly watched the State Senate pass a few bills. In California I had had two hours to kill in Sacramento changing buses, so I had given myself a quick tour of the State Capitol there, which looks identical to the Texas one and to the national one in DC (and presumably every state capitol in the country – they don’t seem to be very imaginative with this…). In California, however, there had been a cool protest by a large number of people from Laos, all wearing white shirts, who had apparently been concerned about a Supreme Court ruling about the legality of a Lao general who may or may not have been plotting to overthrow the government in Laos from America. There were news teams, riot police, camera crews and everything.
Anyhow, Austin was generally a cool place, certainly somewhere I’d love to spend my university years, though I didn’t have long there before I was off again, to New Orleans, or, in the local dialect, “Nawlins”.
Friday, 22 May 2009
No LA-ughing Matter
The bus from San Francisco broke down sixty miles outside Los Angeles, with the whole back half of the passengers almost unconscious from the petrol fumes that had got into the air-con system. The driver pulled up on the side of the motorway, and we waited an hour or more for the replacement service. It was a good introduction to the feel of things in LA.
It’s not that I had a bad time in the world’s second biggest city, it’s just that the city and I didn’t hit it off. LA hasn’t seemed to have grasped the idea of looking nice. Downtown is concrete and polluted, Hollywood is run-down and polluted, and the rest has been abandoned as a basket case…and it’s polluted. As a Northern Californian at heart, I have to reveal my bias here, but seriously, I was expecting more.
Only one of the many people I solicited in LA, Steven, agreed to take me as a couchsurfer. I knew from his profile that he went to school at the University of Southern California (useful for me since I am reviewing this one). What it didn’t say on his profile is that he is actually a member of a fraternity there. Thus it was that I found myself in ATΩ, a USC frat-house. It wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought it might be. It was very much like in the movies though.
The residents (inmates?) of the mansion which houses the fraternity (on a street full of similar mansions) were sons of wealthy USC alumni, with heads filled mostly with women and substances. Fortunately, Steven himself was a member of couchsurfing.com, and thus a very friendly, interesting and open-minded chap, and had a great taste in music as well. I actually had plenty of fun there, and even began to appreciate the comradely atmosphere of the house.
After getting the low-down on USC, I took the Metrorail train out to an eastern suburb of the metropolis, Claremont, where I felt like I’d just arrived on the other side of the world. Claremont was clean, peaceful, spacious and walkable, and the girls at the tiny all-female Scripps College were a jarringly pleasant and sophisticated bunch, earning themselves a big thumbs-up in their new Uni in the USA entry.
Unfortunately, I got so carried away by the lovely change of atmosphere that I misread the train timetable and missed the last train back. This had happened to me once before, when I went to an Obama rally in Fredericksburg, Virginia, back in September. At the time, I had only recently finished traveling in Europe, so the concept of there being a "last" train did not even occur to me. This time, as with that time, I had to find a motel, though the one in Claremont was not nearly as cheap or Psycho-esque as the awesome place I’d found in Fredericksburg.
The next day I found my way out to another distant suburb, Malibu, on the opposite side of the city, a journey of about three hours. Here I met up with my second host, Justin, who was wonderful and lived in a house with ten other West-Coast guys, and three other couchsurfers while I was there (from Holland, South Korea and Uruguay – what a mix!).
The location was insane. Malibu is situated right on a fantastical stretch of world-famous coast-line, and the house was perched up in the beautiful Mediterranean hills overlooking the mighty Pacific. Justin drove me the ten miles from Pepperdine, the third LA university I was looking at (equally well situated), on his motorbike, on a road that people come from the across the world just to drive on, but which caught me totally by surprise. In the evening we hiked up to the top of one of the hills and watched a magnificent sunset over the ocean.
Wrapping up in LA with an abortive trip to Universal Studios, which was altered in favour of the new Star Trek movie after we discovered that the cost to get into the famous theme-park would be roughly my budget for the next week-and-a-half, I spent the night in Ventura, a little north of LA, with my Etonian friends again at a concert of Ukrainian "gypsy-punks" Gogol Bordello, a band that would be described in British parlance as complete nutters, or in American parlance as Communists.
Up early the next morning, and I began my Tolkienesque 2-day saga of a journey into the far corner of Texas. I had decided to skip Arizona and New Mexico, not a decision I took lightly, but again I felt thwarted by US public transportation, since all the cool bits of those states are inaccessible sans auto. So I passed grimly through famous cities like Phoenix, El Paso and San Antonito, and decided to write this update a few hours short of my final destination in Houston. Texas is the first state I’ve been to that didn’t vote for Obama in November (just ponder that thought for a while) and you can see it in road signs such as "Don’t Mess With Texas. Littering Fine $1000". Also in the bus drivers that look like Terminator 2.
I’ve also passed through two time-zones to get here. Let us take a moment to consider the logistics of a country that has no fewer than four different time zones (more if you include Alaska and Hawaii), including over 10 states that span more than one. Imagine having to change your watch every time you go to a nearby town in the same state. In Indiana, the parts of the state that are in one time zone are not even continuous. My personal favourite is Arizona, which is part of the Mountain Time Zone during the winter, but in the summer ignores the daylight savings switch of that time zone, putting it back into the Pacific Time Zone. One area in the northeast of the state does observe the time change, however, apart from a little bit of that area which doesn’t. This makes it technically possible to go for a two hour-or-so drive and have to change your watch about eight times.
And with that thought, I leave you to imagine what awaits me in America’s fifth largest-city, Houston, Texas.
Saturday, 16 May 2009
The Bells of Saint Francis
This update is brought to you from a greyhound bus somewhere south of San Francisco. Greyhounds have been a bit of a disappointment, if I'm honest. My image of a Greyhound was a rickety old sheet-metal construction made in the 60s, with hippy symbols painted along the sides, cheap uncomfortable plastic seats inside, and the luggage strapped on to the roof. In reality, they are massive modern coaches with soft, suspiciously comfy seats, luggage compartments, air conditioning and reading lights. In other words, the same as English long-distance buses. Still, the comradely atmosphere aboard the buses was very much not English, and did live up to my expectations. The folks on the overnight slog south from Portland were a satisfyingly motley crew, and the chap in front of me even had a real life pirate eye-patch.
Arriving in the San Francisco Bay Area is for me a slightly awkward mix of feeling like I'm home, and feeling like I'm at an exciting theme-park that I only get to go to every few years. I lived in the East Bay for a year-and-a-half when I was six, and still have family living there. Indeed, it was to my grandparents house that I transported myself, even though my grandparents were at that time ironically leaving my house in England to start their holiday in Europe. In the evening I was joined by two fellow British travelers, both of them Old Etonians, and I gave them a dramatic (non-)entry to the house by breaking the latch on the door, making it impossible to get in.
It was about midnight when this happened, and so with the help of my good-natured uncle who lives nearby we set about trying to find an alternative route into the house, where my belongings were already locked away and where soft beds awaited us. As we attempted to prise open windows and back doors, I started imagining having to explain to my grandparents how we had sealed their house from the outside, and I started deciding which was the least expensive thing to break to gain entry. Eventually however, the day was saved at about 1:30 am when we managed to stick a long pole through the letterbox on the garage (which is connected to the main house) and press the inside button on the wall that opened the garage door.
With a roof over our heads and a garage-opening clicker for a house key, we set about exploring all the wonderful (and to me familiar) delights of the area. On day one we went to Berkeley, strolled through the university campus, and marveled at the delights of Telegraph Avenue such as Fat Slice pizza and the two best record stores in the world, Rasputin and Amoeba. We almost went to a film at the movie theatre where I used to work, but decided instead to buy a 50-cent video at Rasputin and watch it at home with a bowl of that traditional American delicacy, Kraft's Macaroni and Cheese. Mmmm. The next day we delved into San Francisco proper, taking trams, eating huge plates of noodles in Chinatown, hiking up Lombard Street, breathing the chocolate-perfumed air of Ghirardelli Square and reveling in the sea-side haunts of Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39.
The grand finale came when we were picked up from the San Francisco docks by my uncle in his huge motorboat, and taken for a whiz round the bay in the sunset. We sailed past foreboding Alcatraz and the millionaires’ homes in Sausalito and Tiburon, as well as under the Golden Gate Bridge itself, with the lit up skyline of San Francisco guiding us all the way. It was an awesome experience, as we took about 75 thousand photos of the Golden Gate framed by a blazing orange and pink sky. San Francisco's bay really is a magical place, and the views from every corner are breath-taking.
We were awake when the sun rose the next morning, too, because we had to catch he early train over to Merced, from which we took a shuttle into Yosemite National Park. This was the first natural wonder I'd seen on the trip, and not because America is short of natural wonders. There were plenty in Washington and Oregon near where I'd been that I'd really wanted to explore. But the issue that's becoming an ever greater problem for my travel plans is transport. I've always thought the situation in Britain was dire - with outrageous train fares and service that pales in comparison to what the Europeans enjoy. But in America, the transport problem is much much worse. The trains are as expensive if not worse than England, the buses are hardly any cheaper, the speed is abysmal, urban transit is patchy at best and most of all, public transport serves almost nowhere. Portland, for example, is only about half-an-hour's drive from what I've heard is the magnificent Columbia river gorge, but if you don't have a car, there is literally no bus or train that will take you there.
So to get to Yosemite, you have to wake up at five in the morning and get home at one in the morning, to be taken on various painfully slow and uber-expensive modes of transport about six hours each way, and finally get to spend a short afternoon in the park. Fortunately for us, therefore, Yosemite was the most fantastic array of natural extremities, with searing mountain sides, dazzling white-water rivers, sumptuous pine forests, insane cliff-faces, psycho waterfalls and delightful little paths through this natural treasure trove, all of which well justified the slog and lightness of wallet.
Arriving in the San Francisco Bay Area is for me a slightly awkward mix of feeling like I'm home, and feeling like I'm at an exciting theme-park that I only get to go to every few years. I lived in the East Bay for a year-and-a-half when I was six, and still have family living there. Indeed, it was to my grandparents house that I transported myself, even though my grandparents were at that time ironically leaving my house in England to start their holiday in Europe. In the evening I was joined by two fellow British travelers, both of them Old Etonians, and I gave them a dramatic (non-)entry to the house by breaking the latch on the door, making it impossible to get in.
It was about midnight when this happened, and so with the help of my good-natured uncle who lives nearby we set about trying to find an alternative route into the house, where my belongings were already locked away and where soft beds awaited us. As we attempted to prise open windows and back doors, I started imagining having to explain to my grandparents how we had sealed their house from the outside, and I started deciding which was the least expensive thing to break to gain entry. Eventually however, the day was saved at about 1:30 am when we managed to stick a long pole through the letterbox on the garage (which is connected to the main house) and press the inside button on the wall that opened the garage door.
With a roof over our heads and a garage-opening clicker for a house key, we set about exploring all the wonderful (and to me familiar) delights of the area. On day one we went to Berkeley, strolled through the university campus, and marveled at the delights of Telegraph Avenue such as Fat Slice pizza and the two best record stores in the world, Rasputin and Amoeba. We almost went to a film at the movie theatre where I used to work, but decided instead to buy a 50-cent video at Rasputin and watch it at home with a bowl of that traditional American delicacy, Kraft's Macaroni and Cheese. Mmmm. The next day we delved into San Francisco proper, taking trams, eating huge plates of noodles in Chinatown, hiking up Lombard Street, breathing the chocolate-perfumed air of Ghirardelli Square and reveling in the sea-side haunts of Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39.
The grand finale came when we were picked up from the San Francisco docks by my uncle in his huge motorboat, and taken for a whiz round the bay in the sunset. We sailed past foreboding Alcatraz and the millionaires’ homes in Sausalito and Tiburon, as well as under the Golden Gate Bridge itself, with the lit up skyline of San Francisco guiding us all the way. It was an awesome experience, as we took about 75 thousand photos of the Golden Gate framed by a blazing orange and pink sky. San Francisco's bay really is a magical place, and the views from every corner are breath-taking.
We were awake when the sun rose the next morning, too, because we had to catch he early train over to Merced, from which we took a shuttle into Yosemite National Park. This was the first natural wonder I'd seen on the trip, and not because America is short of natural wonders. There were plenty in Washington and Oregon near where I'd been that I'd really wanted to explore. But the issue that's becoming an ever greater problem for my travel plans is transport. I've always thought the situation in Britain was dire - with outrageous train fares and service that pales in comparison to what the Europeans enjoy. But in America, the transport problem is much much worse. The trains are as expensive if not worse than England, the buses are hardly any cheaper, the speed is abysmal, urban transit is patchy at best and most of all, public transport serves almost nowhere. Portland, for example, is only about half-an-hour's drive from what I've heard is the magnificent Columbia river gorge, but if you don't have a car, there is literally no bus or train that will take you there.
So to get to Yosemite, you have to wake up at five in the morning and get home at one in the morning, to be taken on various painfully slow and uber-expensive modes of transport about six hours each way, and finally get to spend a short afternoon in the park. Fortunately for us, therefore, Yosemite was the most fantastic array of natural extremities, with searing mountain sides, dazzling white-water rivers, sumptuous pine forests, insane cliff-faces, psycho waterfalls and delightful little paths through this natural treasure trove, all of which well justified the slog and lightness of wallet.
There were no universities that I needed to look at in San Francisco and around, so it's back on the job when I reach my next destination, infamous Los Angeles.
Land of Ports
"Well Portland, Oregon", sings Loretta Lynn, "if that ain't love then tell me what is." I rolled in off the 5:30 Seattle train, and made my way to Lewis and Clark College, the next victim of Uni in the USA inclusion, conveniently also the home of my next host. Walking from the train station to the pick up point for the L&C shuttle was a surreal experience. Portland seemed to be the perfect incarnation of the American Dream City. The streets are broad and unpolluted, the pavements wide and made of lovely brick, meticulously free of any speck of litter or dirt. Trees and statues of Snow-White-esque woodland creatures are positioned at strategically charming intervals along the precisely uniform grid system. There appear to be very few inhabitants cluttering things up. Immaculate sky-scrapers loom over the ghostly scene.
Lewis and Clarke was a lovely place to spend six days; it's a little Liberal Arts College with a small but beautiful campus overlooking the Oregon countryside and the terrifying volcanoes of Mt St Helens and Mt Hood. My hostess was a French girl, Coline, whom I met through mutual acquaintance rather than couchsurfing, and the fact that she wasn't American didn't seem to a hindrance to being as incredibly kind as the folks I'd stayed with in Seattle. In fact, she was working as a language assistant in the College, and lived with three other charming language assistants from China, Japan and Siberia, all of whom were equally friendly and welcoming. I even had a bed to sleep on, a luxury I hadn't experienced in many months. Horrah!
The days were spent in a fairly relaxed fashion: after "doing" L&C I crossed the river to the slightly more famous Liberal Arts rival Reed College, which had an equally nice campus but a totally different atmosphere. I also had time to have a look around Portland (which had a lot more soul to it than my first impressions suggested), and on the weekend Coline and I hit the famous Saturday Market, which was an incredible blitz of salespeople with eccentric ideas such as making loads of brilliant decorations out of cutlery, or wallets out of duct-tape, and interesting food choices. In the end we opted for Voodoo Donuts, a fantastic underground cult venue with types of pastries that Doctor Seuss would be proud of inventing, and pictures on the plaster-peeling walls that would have made Andy Warhole's brain salivate. There were Voodoo Donuts T-shirts and underwear on sale. Apparently people have been married in there.
The famously changeable Portland weather was largely stable during my stay, with one or two sublime cloudless days towards the end. My last day in Portland was Lewis and Clark's graduation day, so I got to witness the spectacle of hundreds of be-gowned graduates and professors in colourful costumes listening to coming-of-age speeches and finally throwing their mortar boards in the air just like they're supposed to. Reed is even more extravagant, since apparently they have a whole ceremony for burning their papers after they've finished with them. Anyways, after eating as many cookies and complementary pastries as it is possible to consume at the post-graduation reception, I jumped on a bus, sat on it for 17 hours, and arrived in the one and only Bay Area.
Lewis and Clarke was a lovely place to spend six days; it's a little Liberal Arts College with a small but beautiful campus overlooking the Oregon countryside and the terrifying volcanoes of Mt St Helens and Mt Hood. My hostess was a French girl, Coline, whom I met through mutual acquaintance rather than couchsurfing, and the fact that she wasn't American didn't seem to a hindrance to being as incredibly kind as the folks I'd stayed with in Seattle. In fact, she was working as a language assistant in the College, and lived with three other charming language assistants from China, Japan and Siberia, all of whom were equally friendly and welcoming. I even had a bed to sleep on, a luxury I hadn't experienced in many months. Horrah!
The days were spent in a fairly relaxed fashion: after "doing" L&C I crossed the river to the slightly more famous Liberal Arts rival Reed College, which had an equally nice campus but a totally different atmosphere. I also had time to have a look around Portland (which had a lot more soul to it than my first impressions suggested), and on the weekend Coline and I hit the famous Saturday Market, which was an incredible blitz of salespeople with eccentric ideas such as making loads of brilliant decorations out of cutlery, or wallets out of duct-tape, and interesting food choices. In the end we opted for Voodoo Donuts, a fantastic underground cult venue with types of pastries that Doctor Seuss would be proud of inventing, and pictures on the plaster-peeling walls that would have made Andy Warhole's brain salivate. There were Voodoo Donuts T-shirts and underwear on sale. Apparently people have been married in there.
The famously changeable Portland weather was largely stable during my stay, with one or two sublime cloudless days towards the end. My last day in Portland was Lewis and Clark's graduation day, so I got to witness the spectacle of hundreds of be-gowned graduates and professors in colourful costumes listening to coming-of-age speeches and finally throwing their mortar boards in the air just like they're supposed to. Reed is even more extravagant, since apparently they have a whole ceremony for burning their papers after they've finished with them. Anyways, after eating as many cookies and complementary pastries as it is possible to consume at the post-graduation reception, I jumped on a bus, sat on it for 17 hours, and arrived in the one and only Bay Area.
Wednesday, 6 May 2009
On couchsurfing
I've had a question or two about my main mode of accommodation during this trip, which is brought to me via the inspirational website couchsurfing.com. As this is quite an interesting phenomenon in itself, a few words here might be appropriate.
Couchsurfing was invented in 2003 by a chap called Casey Fenton, who, like every traveller, dreamed of the basic simplicity of free accommodation. According to him, he was going to Iceland, of all places, and decided to spam email the 1500 students of of the University of Iceland, eventually receiving over 50 offers of sofas to sleep on. The alternative theory is that he just copied and improved the already existing hospitalityclub.com.
The premise is that the internet can be used to harness the inherent hospitable instincts of the majority of people world wide. Travellers create an account, are encouraged to list as much information as possible (including whether they are able to host people or not), and are supposed to "verify" themselves by paying a small sum of money and entering the password that is sent to them on the post card mailed to the credit card's address.
Members have total control who they ask to stay with and who they allow to stay with them. Security is ensured through references and the "vouching" system, which basically means that people who have already been vouched for three times can then vouch for others to show how much they trust them. References are left by people once they have surfed with/hosted each other, as a brief description of their experience for other travellers to read.
The site now claims over 1 million members. My experience of couchsurfing started in March when I got my first taste of free shelter with hosts in Berlin and Copenhagen. These two, combined with the two I stayed with in Seattle, have convinced me that the arrangement is fantastic.
Hosts are by nature friendly and welcoming (if they weren't they wouldn't put themselves down for hosting), and generally interesting to talk to, with lots of fun traveling experiences of themselves. If they have time then they can show you round the city and take you to awesome places that only the locals know about and don't get mentioned in the guide books. Goodness knows how much I saved on hostel expenses in super-expensive Copenhagen!
Surfers may fall prey to any number of inconveniences: couches can be small and uncomfortable, hosts may have irritating pets, the living room in which one sleeps may not be a paragon of privacy, or the house might be miles away on the outskirts of the city. But it's not as if the alternative options at hostels are free of such problems, and it makes the traveling experience more authentic. Folks who use couchsurfing do so in order to have such experiences and share them with new and interesting people from the local culture.
Couchsurfers also organise local meet-ups, especially in large cities, where lone travellers can go have a fun night with interesting people if they are otherwise unengaged. In Berlin I went to a language sharing session and had the slightly surreal experience of speaking Spanish all night with a big group of people in the middle of Germany.
Participants in couchsurfing are generally attracted by the idealistic nature of the social experiment - that people are generally nice enough to share what they have with each other through the common bond of humanity. And the nice thing is, it seems to be working.
Couchsurfing was invented in 2003 by a chap called Casey Fenton, who, like every traveller, dreamed of the basic simplicity of free accommodation. According to him, he was going to Iceland, of all places, and decided to spam email the 1500 students of of the University of Iceland, eventually receiving over 50 offers of sofas to sleep on. The alternative theory is that he just copied and improved the already existing hospitalityclub.com.
The premise is that the internet can be used to harness the inherent hospitable instincts of the majority of people world wide. Travellers create an account, are encouraged to list as much information as possible (including whether they are able to host people or not), and are supposed to "verify" themselves by paying a small sum of money and entering the password that is sent to them on the post card mailed to the credit card's address.
Members have total control who they ask to stay with and who they allow to stay with them. Security is ensured through references and the "vouching" system, which basically means that people who have already been vouched for three times can then vouch for others to show how much they trust them. References are left by people once they have surfed with/hosted each other, as a brief description of their experience for other travellers to read.
The site now claims over 1 million members. My experience of couchsurfing started in March when I got my first taste of free shelter with hosts in Berlin and Copenhagen. These two, combined with the two I stayed with in Seattle, have convinced me that the arrangement is fantastic.
Hosts are by nature friendly and welcoming (if they weren't they wouldn't put themselves down for hosting), and generally interesting to talk to, with lots of fun traveling experiences of themselves. If they have time then they can show you round the city and take you to awesome places that only the locals know about and don't get mentioned in the guide books. Goodness knows how much I saved on hostel expenses in super-expensive Copenhagen!
Surfers may fall prey to any number of inconveniences: couches can be small and uncomfortable, hosts may have irritating pets, the living room in which one sleeps may not be a paragon of privacy, or the house might be miles away on the outskirts of the city. But it's not as if the alternative options at hostels are free of such problems, and it makes the traveling experience more authentic. Folks who use couchsurfing do so in order to have such experiences and share them with new and interesting people from the local culture.
Couchsurfers also organise local meet-ups, especially in large cities, where lone travellers can go have a fun night with interesting people if they are otherwise unengaged. In Berlin I went to a language sharing session and had the slightly surreal experience of speaking Spanish all night with a big group of people in the middle of Germany.
Participants in couchsurfing are generally attracted by the idealistic nature of the social experiment - that people are generally nice enough to share what they have with each other through the common bond of humanity. And the nice thing is, it seems to be working.
Tuesday, 5 May 2009
What do Bill Gates, Starbucks and Jimi Hendrix have in common?
Seattle was everything I hoped it would be and more. The first morning my lovely hostess Vanessa took me and some of her friends to a special vegan restaurant down in an odd little suburb in the south of the city. There was a reassuring light British drizzle, and I was delighted to hear grunge music playing in the background, just like it's supposed to in Seattle. After, we popped into a cool little record and comic book store, owned by a grizzled rocker who claimed to have known Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love before they knew each other.
Pausing amidst the giant skyscrapers and upmarket cafes of downtown, we witnessed a typical marijuana legalisation rally, and more importantly I found a See's Candy shop, one of the finest institutions of the West Coast, and which I always make sure to patronise when I get the chance.
Onwards to the beautiful and enormous university campus, filled with glowing pink cherry blossoms and lovely brick buildings. We had a late lunch in a classic Seattle pho restaurant - something I'd never done before. Pho, for those of you who like me have never heard of it, is pronounced fuh, and is a rather tasty Vietnamese noodle soup dish which apparently forms a significant chunk of the student diet due to how cheap it is. I also sampled chai tea in one of the ridiculous number of laptop-filled coffee shops, and we rounded the day at the movies in true American fashion (although in not very American fashion we didn't have to pay because Vanessa knew the cinema owner).
The next day there were yet more fun foods to be sampled in crepe restaurants and ice cream parlours, as well as a interesting little artisan's outlet down near where Kurt Cobain shot himself. I spent a large chunk of Monday on campus again gathering the final bits of research for my wonderful article on the University of Washington, with help from my second kind hosts, Logan and Eliza, but also had time to visit the iconic Pike Place market, which was simultaneously authentic and a bit touristy. Logan and Eliza made some yummy home-made pho in the evening, to follow the spectacular lasagna from the night before. Mmmm. Food in Seattle is good. Next stop Portland Oregon.
Saturday, 2 May 2009
Arrival
Every airport experience is slightly different. At Heathrow there are miles of pointless corridors (which I'm sure go in circles), in Mexico there are guards who have to keep people's luggage from being stolen before they can even take it off the conveyor. In Russia there's endless officialdom. In Geneva I once passed through a passport check in which the checker was actually reading a book and giving no more than a bored nod at the passports as they were presented.
America regularly wins the prize for most surreal airport experiences. One time I arrived at customs in San Francisco to find the terrifying faces of Bush, Rumsfeld and Rice grinning down at me. There's normally a large draped flag or two, and signs explaining why border control is such an important and prestigious activity. The airport at Charlotte, North Carolina, at which I arrived yesterday, was the first airport where I'd ever seen the featureless and carefully neutral waiting-room seats replaced by lovely white rocking chairs.
I didn't use them for too long however, since I was soon to board another plane that would take me to the opposite corner of the country. The folks on the flight to Seattle clearly came from a different demographic; there was a greater abundance of headphones, hoodies and general hipness for a start, as well as lots of knowledgeable-looking business men and at least one bloke in a full length Matrix leather jacket. A guy in the seat in front of me had a mask over his nose and mouth. Either he had just done an important operation and forgotten to take it off, or he was really paranoid about swine flu. I made sure to cough and sneeze a lot anyway.
It's a great experience arriving in an American city, and Seattle is no exception. From the two bus trips it took to get to my first host's house I saw all the classic give-aways of US urbanity: the sky scrapers, the water fountains (by which I mean the kind you drink from, not the kind you look at - why do these brilliant things not exist in England?), the random people in a car that wished me happy Friday, the city-centre streets that are so wide that they would be a three lane motorway in England, the Starbucks on every corner.
I only had ten dollars on me, but the bus ticket was $1.75 and they didn't have change ("that's not how it works"). Fortunately, from the cross section I found on the bus, Seattlers are the nicest people on the planet. Someone gave me a spare ticket they had, and then someone else gave me another bus pass valid for my second journey. Two people were helping me work out where to get off. Arriving at last, I had a brief exchange with my (again) outrageously friendly host from couchsurfing.com (so much outwardness and kindness is very unsettling for a Brit like myself, born and bred on introversion) before collapsing onto a sofa and, what with having got about three hours' real sleep in the last 48, falling swiftly into unconsciousness.
Monday, 27 April 2009
Thoughts on exploration and the open road
America. Breathe it in. The taste of the open prairies, the lure of wild, uncharted expanses, the explorer's thrill as ancient as Columbus himself. Nowdays of course, the classic Kerouac-style adventure is intensified by the many more tangible charms of the great Union. The ritzy glamour of the great metropolises, the utopian golden coasts of Miami or Santa Cruz, the grandeur and scale of the natural wonders, the music, art, psychosis and idolatry that has created the most influential culture of all time.
I could go on singing praises (and may I just state a private thank you to Obama for making it once again acceptable to speak well of America), but before I give in to the temptation to apply for a job with Lonely Planet, let me get myself at least on the right track before I start, even if I branch off a thousand times as soon as I get going.
Well, here I am on the brink of three glorious months - equipped with a little laptop, a sleeping bag and most essentially a pair of cheap aviators - a handful of dollars in my pocket and the proverbial open road before me. My mission: to seek out new universities and to boldly go where Unis in the USA has never gone before. The itinerary, currently in its seventeenth incarnation and counting, covers North, South, East and West. Florida, New England, Oregon, Texas and, yes, Nebraska are all present and correct. The Statue of Liberty is diligently waiting for me.
I have of course been to America before. My mother, born and raised in San Francisco's Bay Area, gave me not only my life but a US passport (this makes airports a hell of a lot easier, let me tell you). Up until now I have visited a whopping four states, and some bits of the country - Berkeley and Washington DC - I know very well indeed. But between them lies an unimaginable distance for a little islander like me. I have been to Chicago, New York and Boston, but only their airports. I have heard songs about Texas and North Dakota, but I live in a country that could fit many times over into either of these states. Detroit could be a myth for all I know.
And then there are the universities. Here I do have some genuine experience, but again I will be operating under a certain level of irony, because although I will spend the summer examining and assessing "schools" (as they are called by Americans), an activity which I try to stop myself seeing as a payback for A-Levels, I will do so in the knowledge that in October I will start at a university back in Blighty. What can I say? It's a good university and it's cheap(er) and it's easy. But there is a strong part of me that resents this decision - that wants to participate in what is clearly a far superior education, where you can develop more than one interest which you pick blindly at age seventeen, which is what happens in the UK.
In the summer of 2007 I took a short, introductory course in Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, and it was one of the best experiences of my life. American colleges seem, from what I have seen so far, to be much closer to the ideal of university life than anywhere else in the world. Maybe this is because the ideal is an American one, but nevertheless to me there is wholly lacking any sense of we-work-because-we-have-to or we-work-only-when-we-have-to, which are the two ever-present extremes in the UK. In America, students seem either genuinely interested in what they do, or at least genuinely happy with why they're doing it. They don't revere their education as a be all and end all, and they don't take it for granted, except at Princeton. I am looking forward to having these opinions and horrible generalisations disabused and reaffirmed in the coming weeks.
I have much to explore, and much to look forward to, and I hope to bring as much as I can of what I learn to this project and this blog. But for now let me read some more Kerouac and get out the old Johnny Cash records. Stay posted!
I could go on singing praises (and may I just state a private thank you to Obama for making it once again acceptable to speak well of America), but before I give in to the temptation to apply for a job with Lonely Planet, let me get myself at least on the right track before I start, even if I branch off a thousand times as soon as I get going.
Well, here I am on the brink of three glorious months - equipped with a little laptop, a sleeping bag and most essentially a pair of cheap aviators - a handful of dollars in my pocket and the proverbial open road before me. My mission: to seek out new universities and to boldly go where Unis in the USA has never gone before. The itinerary, currently in its seventeenth incarnation and counting, covers North, South, East and West. Florida, New England, Oregon, Texas and, yes, Nebraska are all present and correct. The Statue of Liberty is diligently waiting for me.
I have of course been to America before. My mother, born and raised in San Francisco's Bay Area, gave me not only my life but a US passport (this makes airports a hell of a lot easier, let me tell you). Up until now I have visited a whopping four states, and some bits of the country - Berkeley and Washington DC - I know very well indeed. But between them lies an unimaginable distance for a little islander like me. I have been to Chicago, New York and Boston, but only their airports. I have heard songs about Texas and North Dakota, but I live in a country that could fit many times over into either of these states. Detroit could be a myth for all I know.
And then there are the universities. Here I do have some genuine experience, but again I will be operating under a certain level of irony, because although I will spend the summer examining and assessing "schools" (as they are called by Americans), an activity which I try to stop myself seeing as a payback for A-Levels, I will do so in the knowledge that in October I will start at a university back in Blighty. What can I say? It's a good university and it's cheap(er) and it's easy. But there is a strong part of me that resents this decision - that wants to participate in what is clearly a far superior education, where you can develop more than one interest which you pick blindly at age seventeen, which is what happens in the UK.
In the summer of 2007 I took a short, introductory course in Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, and it was one of the best experiences of my life. American colleges seem, from what I have seen so far, to be much closer to the ideal of university life than anywhere else in the world. Maybe this is because the ideal is an American one, but nevertheless to me there is wholly lacking any sense of we-work-because-we-have-to or we-work-only-when-we-have-to, which are the two ever-present extremes in the UK. In America, students seem either genuinely interested in what they do, or at least genuinely happy with why they're doing it. They don't revere their education as a be all and end all, and they don't take it for granted, except at Princeton. I am looking forward to having these opinions and horrible generalisations disabused and reaffirmed in the coming weeks.
I have much to explore, and much to look forward to, and I hope to bring as much as I can of what I learn to this project and this blog. But for now let me read some more Kerouac and get out the old Johnny Cash records. Stay posted!
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