Sunday 4 March 2007

a walk to work

Several items have been inquired after regarding what UEA's campus looks like and the overall impression that I have of it. Now that I am on my second dose of over-the-counter paracetamol and my second dose of drugs from the good old US of A (with handy warning that may be habit forming -- let us hope there will be no need for THAT! Although brain suddenly feels a bit loopy, but in a good way. Not in a 'I just had four shots of espresso and am going to climb four flights of stairs' sort of way. That is unpleasant.), I feel it is acceptable for me to sort through some lovely pictures taken of campus this week and explain myself, or at least part of my daily routine.

Firstly, depart house approx. 8.45 am. Turn right out of crunchy gravel drive (have noticed security benefits of having gravel surrounding house, even though live in v. safe area), walk up hill to steps and down steps to South Park Ave. Down Bluebell Road, cross and enter Broad of campus. Here is a picture accidentally taken of v. dignified man who had been serenly walking in front of me until his hat blew off. I am taking short-cut down dirt path instead of going on paved path which winds to right. This cuts off about 4.3 seconds of walking time. V. useful.


Once paved section re-attained , the Broad is to my left (which has been posted previously, but which is just so lovely). In this photo are two ladies walking with their two dogs; closer to water is a flock of seagulls (hahahaha -- Flock of Seagulls). The amusing thing here is that one dog is a Corgi and the other a tall bulldog of some sort. Leg length was really funny to watch as tall dog lope-lope-loping along and Corgi's little legs manically working to keep up like small perambulatory sausage-roll :)

A little ways further, past some little woods, is a parking lot on left (where dignified man is walking) and the path continues slightly uphill into built-up part of campus, with some student housing (next photo) off to right. Wind blows rather fiercely along in here, sometimes making one walk in a drunken diagonal line if not paying attention. Bikers ring their bells if you are in their way. Walk to the left, pass on the right. It also drives me slightly mental that people do not move out of the way of either a) other pedestrians trying to pass or b) bikes. They just determinedly thud along in a three-wide row -- usually girls. Wide being descriptive in more than one way. These girls also generally have jeans so tight that they must walk in pigeon-toed manner. It makes one wonder if there will be a spate of female amputees in a decade or so, due to poor circulation. But enough of that for now.).


Walk through Mall-ish area and have taken photo here of favorite location (Waterstone's bookstore. This is kind of like having a Barnes and Noble on a campus in the US - v. nice! Note to self: need to go and reserve copy of HP7 for July.). Also in this area is: newagent, post office, two banks, a small grocery and the accomodation offices. The glass walkway above goes to the Students' Union, which is to the left. Students' Union has travel agent, coffee shop, pub (on bottom floor) and some other stuff that i don't know about but which produces loud music on Friday evenings.

My overall impression of the campus is rather of The Jetsons. This is not as common a cultural reference here in Britain and E has no idea what I am talking about. What makes it Jetson-like is that there are elevated walkways in the main centre of campus. There are no spaceships, but i still hear 'Whrrrrrr' sounds in my head when walking on them :) This view taken from entry to Vista, which is the staff and student dining facility, and where food is really good and fairly reasonably priced (jacket potato with filling and salad £1.90). There are better examples of walkway complexes, and I shall provide these sometime...

British people have an almost lurid attraction to sunshine (as moths to flame) when they can get it and immediately flock out to soak up as much as possible when it emerges. Being from a part of the world where we are utterly indifferent to sun, this slightly amuses me. This is lunchtime view from top of steps descending next to Waterstones (did I mention it is two stories?!?!) to where earlier photo was taken in morning. Glass building to left has open dining on bottom and first floors, coffee shop on first and Visa on top level. Edge of building to left by steps crowded with people is Students' Union. I think my building (The Registry) is the tallest one behind trees, immediately to right of glass building.

As it is not the most thrilling of architectural achievenments (although there are several buildings of architectural note on the campus -- perhaps a future blog topic). International Office is on third floor (again, that is 4th floor in US parlance), and this is the view from the window right by my desk (well, it is a bit turned and framed, but the other way is a parking lot next the SportsPark -- which is actually the largest sports complex on any university campus in the UK, I think). Is looking at same student residences which are by path through the Broad.

And this is all I got for the mo. People more used to the campus think it is funny that I think things are cool. They think it is concrete and boring.

Oooh, almost forgot! Saw laziest bunny in the world on Friday walk home -- he was lying on his belly, stretched out and eating grass. He let me take a picture but finally got gumption to move when tried to take less blurry by putting camera on ground :)

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