A Mix of Mild Malaise, Frustrating Findings, and Plenty of Peters.

OK,  I was about to post this huge rant about what a crummy day I had on Tuesday,  but I've decided (with the help of my accidental page-reload) that no-one really wants to read 1,000 words of me being pissy.  So I'll give you the gist of it - On Tuesday I went on a wild goose chase trying to track down all of the following: the student medical centre, the accommodations office, the international student office, a doctor, the ability to move into campus housing, the option to switch my dorm closer to the PATS building, Surrey County Council, a job, and most importantly, a student ID card.  Needless to say, I didn't accomplish any of that, which was VERY frustrating.  I've been ridiculously sick for about 2 weeks now (I came down with the WORST COLD EVER on the Saturday before I left for England) and I was just hoping to talk to Dr. about it before semester starts.  But unfortunately you can't do that without a student card.  So I went in search of someone to help me get a student card, and it turns out that I pretty much don't exist in the university's system until International Student Week/ Induction Week at the end of September....  As I said: frustrating.


Regardless of how obnoxious that ordeal was, I still enjoyed getting my barrings around campus, meeting new people, taking a few more pictures, and serendipitously running into Kate Hedley-Boxall, the uni staffer from Registry that's helped me with pretty much EVERYTHING through email.  So I got to introduce myself to her and thank her profusely for putting of with all of my insane/inane questions.


The very next day I FINALLY met up with my "email contact" Pete, a music student at UniSurrey who's just finishing his masters.  We met for lunch and a pint at Chancellor's, one of the on-campus restaurants.  He and his flatmate, Leigh, are awesome!  We talked, and ate, and had some fun, and then they were nice enough to show me around the entire campus!  They even showed me the uni's mascot, the Surrey Stag, referred to by the two of them as "RoboStag." 


So naturally,  I challenged them to climb Robostag.  After a bit of hemming, hawing, and haggling they finally complied (I knew they would, cuz I'm awesome like that!)   


                    
                                                                       

           
     
            

Alas, I was wearing a dress and nice (read:girlie)  shoes, so I couldn't climb the stag, but I told them when I'm wearing jeans and sneakers, I'll get to the top of Robostag (so there!)

I also explained to them how I've been sneaking around  campus for the past few days, since I technically don't exist yet.  I've already been in the PATS building because a side door was open..  And the door leading to a rehearsal room...And some practice rooms... And a door leading to the faculties offices... And some cabinets that held some coursework... So the on-going joke is that IF I see a door open, I WILL go through it.  And usually poke around where I probably shouldn't.  But really, that's shouldn't come as a surprise!

After a lovely afternoon with the boys, we exchanged mobiles, agreed on drinks later in the week, and parted ways.  This now brings my mobile-phone contact list up to 6! Whoohoo!!

Then, on Thursday, my friend Peter Pring from Portsmouth (hehehe) stopped in town for a visit and dinner on his way to retrieve our friend Meghan from the airport!  We had a blast, and I realized how nice it is to actually have friends that you've known for a while and can just walk around and chat with.  It was also cool to be the one leading the tour, as Peter has never been to Guildford!  I showed him everything I knew - the North Street/High Street area, Guildford Castle, the River, and the curry place I found by accident.  The curry place was verrry good, but it didn't open until 18:00 (that's 6:00pm) so we decided to have a drink by the river at a place called the White House.  It was SOOOO nice out there!  A beer-garden style outdoor seating area right next to the river, with the shade of HUGE weeping willows, and the smell and sight of beautiful flowers everywhere.  Because Peter came by car, we drove around a bit, checked out the big Tesco by the uni,  and walked around campus in search of the Loo.  (This prompted a discussion of the proper way to ask where the bathrooms are.  In the UK there are no bath-rooms, "because there's no bath in it."  So for future reference you can ask for "the loo," "the toilets," or simply "the ladies."(or "gents" as the case may be.) 

Finally, to wrap everything up, I've taken just a few more pictures to show you.  There isn't really any good anecdotes to go with the pictures,  just me wandering around some more, finding new alleyways and streets to wander down, and doors to open ;)

This is the Duke of Kent building on campus.  It is DIRECTLY next to my dorm.  This building is supposed to look like a giant ship,  but I think the picture doesn't do it justice.  In real life, this side of building is angled out to a 50 degree angle.  My dorm, the Millenium House, is supposed to look like a train.  Are you noticing a pattern here?








(PS, I totally cheated... I actually stole this pic of Millenium House off the internet!!  This will be the ONLY time I do that... maybe...)

This picture is hilarious to me, and me alone probably, because it is THE ONLY view of campus that I could get from google maps before I got here.  Seriously, try it.  Go to Google, click on maps, and type in University of Surrey, Guildford, UK.  If you drag the little street view guy onto the south east, just below "UniSport" this is the view you get.   So it felt strangely familiar when Pete and Leigh took me here to see Robostag.

Also in my travels, I came across this statue dedicated to Lewis Carroll (who wrote "Alice in Wonderland," and of course you knew that).  Carroll lived in Guildford in "his later days" and there's a whole wing of his stuff in the Guildford Museum.  In case you can't see the picture clearly (click it to expand I think) it's Alice and her sister sitting under a willow tree, as the white rabbit hops by.

I also found this wonderfully-named street on my search  for Surrey County Council.  (Instead I found Guildford Borough, which is not the same thing, and discovered that SCC is allllll the way over in Kingston-Upon-Thames, definitely not walkable.)





Alright,  enough pictures for now.  Next time, on "Seeing the Sights With Sierra Schwartz,"  watching an England match at the pub!  Stay tuned!

~Sie