Travel report: The UK - Nottingham - Studying in the University of Nottingham (24.01.16 - 17.06.16)

We were asked to keep diaries if possible to let other 

upcoming Russian students know how it is like in here.

So, I resume my blog.

The updates won`t be regular (as usual) - just when there`s 

something to say or to show.

Hope it would be useful.

It`s our third day here already, but only the first day I finally managed to make first notes. You will have two weeks to explore the campus, they said. You will, but not more, so hurry up. From the very beggining you should have ears, eyes and maps ready to start to navigate easily here and resolve all organization issues during the first week (as some of the classes\modules has already begun and just a few start the next week)! 

It`s absolutely no problem to ask anybody about everything, everybody`s kind and quite helpful (with some exceptions). Some false directions can be given by mistake, the leaflets are almost useless - no specific information about almost anything. For example, we didn`t know about the existance of a dining hall in our... hall (Sherwood Hall) till the end of the second day, so we almost missed the pre-paid lunch. The leaflet about the meals had absolutely no info on the time and place where it is served.

How we got here: booked transfer tickets Moscow (Sheremetyevo) - Helsinki - London (Heatrow) (5+ hour flight, 13 000 rub approx.) Then coach by National Express from terminal 2 (we took a wild run to get there on time!) - funfare tickets with a discount from the University (don`t mind the line "tickets are not available to travel to\from airport" in "help" to the tickets - nonsence) - 3,5 hours ride. We got very thoughtful drivers, who kindly asked where we need to get to (gosh, we didn`t know ourselves for sure!) - so, they got us to Sherwood hall directly.

Customs problems: long queues mostly, approx. 1 hour. We were asked why we didn`t have return tickets. We said, that we were not aware of assessment schedule, so afraid to loose them if booked in advance. 

A short "to do" list when arrived:

- go to the accomodation firstly (keys, laundry card, directions, welcome pack)

- go to receive another welcome pack (info about where is in the booklets in the room`s welcome pack)

- register online (if not registered at home). REMEMBER THE PASSWORD - it`s the access to all of the online fascilities: the campus WiFi, the student portal, Moodle... well, everything. (I failed here:))

- register in person (again, booklets)

- go to get your University Card (having scraped through the novels, we learnt that they are in your "school" (CLAS, for example, in Trent building)). The card is your ID here, access to the meals in the hall, to the library, to the 1 pound bus ride (for specific routs). 

- attend the meetings in the given schedule ("Welcome information")

- try to choose modules by the end of the first week by speaking to people in the schools

Ok, here we are by now.

As for meeting other students, it`s the same as everywhere so far. Accidental striking up an acquaintance, pointless exchage of Facebook accounts (hate Facebook so much!), trying to remember the names... People are quite nice, of a huge variety of nationalities. There are so many beautiful people out here, really want to make friends, but I`m so bad at it, gosh! Well, we`ll see.

We get up at 8 am, go for the breakfast and then we are busy till it gets dark (5 pm). No way to do anything after except of eating again - so exhausted we are. We`ve been invited to clubs today - refused to go. 

No noise time - 10:30 pm (doesn`t include leaving the room, taking a shower - that`s quite quiet:)

Meals: breakfasts and dinners are prepaid (simply go to the dining hall with the University Card) + we have 5.30 pounds to get anything tasty from any cafe\bar\food court at the territory of the University. Yep, even at Starbucks:) (psss, the one at the library is the cheapest;))

Mon-Fr

Breakfast - 7:45-9:30, 

Tea & toastes availiable until 10:00

Dinner - 17:30 - 19:00

Sat-Sun

Brunch - 11:00-12:30

Dinner 17:30-18:30

Sherwood Hall photoes

Room facilities: double-sized bed, table lamp, book shelf, note board, table, fridge, wardrobe, sink, mirror. Showers & toilets are in the corridor, quite neat and cleaned regularly. Cattle, toaster, microwave oven & filtered water are availiable on the 1st and 2nd floor (2nd and 3d actually - that`s Britain).

The territory is huge, sort of a park with a pound, flower-beds, green loans, old trees and bushes nicely cut. We`re still getting lost sometimes, have to do a lot of walking. But that`s ok. The weather... well, it`s Brtitish. Sometimes it`s warm and sunny, but mostly it`s drizzling and gloomy, and wild is the wind... sorry. It`s comparatively warm, beautiful and it`s Britain - what else do you need when from Russia?

P.S. Just realized, that a leaflet with PHOTOES OF THE BUILDINGS and THEIR NAMES would be VERY USEFUL, for the god`s sake! Yes, you can connect to wifi and google it (but I had hard time trying to do that, as it kept disconnecting). Come on, you printed so many happy students on the covers, IS IT REALLY THAT HARD to really make them a bit happier?

Let me think about... Labyrinth (1986)

Think I`m going to renew my blog for the upcoming long travel to the UK as we all were asked to keep notes on new vocabulary heard and anything interesting on our way. 
But first things first. And first things are movies!

R.I.P. David Bowie

It seems so meaningless to write about this now. So strange to mention that I'm crying now over a death of a rock and pop star whom I hardly knew anything about and barely interested in. About the one who died like my mother, but was lucky to live a way longer than her. I sound like a suddenly apeared new fan on a hype, but I don`t do this. I'm not his fan and have never been. I`ve always loved some of his songs even not knowing they were his: Ashes to Ashes, Golden Years, Starman, Sound and Vision and many others (surely didn`t know that The Man Who Sold The World was his). It is highly possible that soon I`ll become one, but that won`t be easy. It requies lots of listening and readng of the lyrics and biography of the artist. It`s just... It seems to me that if I was more attentive to what`s worthy in the world, I wouldn`t be in the stupid situation of discovering the artist for me just now, right after his death. I`ve already listened to a few albums, finding out that some songs are among my favorites, watched some movies, finding him immensly attractive and his acting so electric, watched some interviews, where he is very intelligent and funny sometimes. IPhone keeps offering me to listen to Blackstar, but it will take much time for me to get to it. I`m not ready to say goodbye, not yet. We`ve just met.

"Labyrinth" is frequently mentioned now as the first thing where people of about my age saw Bowie and loved him ever since. It was mentioned in a special late-night radio program, released on the day when everybody knew everything already . It was mentioned by the host of the program in the very end, and I decided to join the club - be the one, who saw Bowie there for the very first time. I could live happily ever after if I didn`t.

Created in 1986, the movie is described as the last one between the old and the new era of movie-making - the age of technological innovations. Puppets are now almost history. So is the director of the movie (and... the leading actor, sorry to say) - Jim Henson died a year after its release. The movie didn`t get positive reviews until the 90s, when people somehow managed to get tired of technological outburst and wanted something old-fashioned. So. here it is, with badly developped special effects, but so life-like puppet characters that  scenes with them will take your breath away! Mysterious settings, adventurous, but vague plot of a fantasy fairy-tale, great work over the details - there are just a few of "why you must watch the movie".

The main one is David Bowie. He rules the movie. Like Jareth the Goblin King he plays, who is a bit bored doing his Gogling-King job - just like the audience when David is not in the screen:) He is one of his many imagies of a performer there, different from Ziggy or Duke, just another one, but still sophisticated and unbarebly attractive. I guess, they changed the early script mainly for him to become one. (The change brought a love story to the fantasy, there was none before - the King was repulsively selfish and was turned into a little ugly gobling in the end. Who dared to do such things with David Bowie? Right.)

I should also mention the duet he created with young Jennifer Connely.  Actually, Jennifer here is like... you don`t know whether she acts badly or she plays a girl who acts all the time, but whoes acting is poor. Anyway, there wasn`t the movie without her lovely and brave Sarah.

Should I comment on the hair, the make up, the costume, the leggins, every single little moment of the presence of the Goblin, but so angel-like creature on screen? Right.

See, I had no chance. The fact, that the Goblin King was in love with the girl (perhaps in his own strange way) was killing me throughout the whole movie. The music Bowie wrote for the movie sounded strange to my ear - no wonder, I`m not a fan of Bowie. 

Let me think about... The Fall (2006)

Think I`m going to renew my blog for the upcoming long travel to the UK as we all were asked to keep notes on new vocabulary heard and anything interesting on our way. 
But first things first. And first things are movies!

The end of 2014 brought me a gift of the most striking movie since... I don`t know... Equilibrium or Sleuth (and they both were a shock!) It all started from a little GIF image of a handsome actor taking off his mask. And, gosh, you have to see what it covered! The image was of a Zorro-like bandit, but a bit away from the classical, a bit less... masculine, perhaps. It wasn`t the only me who asked "what was it??! where is it from??!" in the comments. And the answer was "The Fall".



Released in 2006, directed by Tarsem Singh, starring Lee Pace, Catinca Untaru, Leo Bill and many other actors whom you`ve hardly ever seen or heard of before. Lee Pace wasn`t known as Thranduil in The Hobbit then, but the role contributed into him becoming one - the Hobbit director Peter Jackson chose him for the part exactly after he watched The Fall. However the most challenging,I guess, part he played in his career so on was a transgender Calpernia Addams in "Soldier's Girl" (2003). Lee Pace is also described as a very talented theater performer; and certainly my dream will always be to see him on stage.

The story takes place in a hospital, a stunt actor is in bed after an accidental fall from a horse while doing one of the tricks. But that`s not the only trauma he has - a broken heart also. The actress he fell for chose another man, a leading star of a movie they all were making together. For his money and beauty, surely, as what money a crippled stunt man can make? So, he, a man without any desire to live further, meets a running-around the hospital little girl (who, as it turned out, also didn`t have an easy life at all). The two worlds collapse, the man starts his fairy-tale story for the bored little girl, and then an idea comes to him - why not use the story (and the girl) to help him finish his life?



(beware: spoilers)
To say the story is tremendously heartbreaking is to say nothing. Nobody said it is "based on a true story", but you can`t help believing such situation could have happened! And what a life the girl could have if everything ended badly! That`s what left me crying at the end - together with the girl I begged Roy to stay alive! And how beautifuly the worlds of the fictional character and the real one are combined! 

(spolers free area)
And Roy... Oh, I fell in love with Roy, I fell in love with Lee Pace, I started to watch everything he worked for - almost all movies, Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies (gosh, he is so adorable there!), now Halt and Catch Fire - and just loved every role of those that he took! The movie discovered him for me, and I`m so greatful.

Such a dramatic storyline goes together with an immensly magical picture created by Tarsem. I can`t imagine how much effort it took him to find such beautiful places to shoot all over the world, but it DID worth it! I would really want to rewatch it in a movie theatre now! And I`m really surprised about that none of my friends and relatives loved it (yes, I forced them to watch:)), so it keeps me wondering whether I see a bit more in the movie than some others.



You also probably should know that it was quite hard to work with Catinka - there is even a "spoiled" scene in the final cut, that she refused to remake, but anyway her acting is quite good and believable. Perhaps because she didn`t know that Roy (she didn`t know the real name of the actor) could walk in real life.

I don`t just recommend the movie. The movie is an obligatory MUST WATCH!