Monkeying Around

If you are ever in Staffordshire there are only two words to remember: Monkey Forest.

I spent one of the most amazing days walking around the Trentham Garden monkey forest. It was fantastic! You walk into this large enclosure, which was very reminiscent of Jurassic park, took me ages to get the theme music to stop running through my head, and that’s the last cage you’ll see.

The monkeys roam free within the park and you’ll be able to see them grooming, playing, climbing, sleeping, and eating, all in a natural environment. They will even run right across the path!

We were very lucky to come at a time when there were lots of babies present. Absolutely adorable! They are so small that they could sit in the palm of my hand. We watched them play and run around forever, it was so fascinating to see them acting so naturally. They were easy to find too, just look for large groups of people oohing and ahhing and your there.

The only downside of the trip was the walk. We went on a school trip so it dropped us off at Trentham gardens which I heard is beautiful however if you just want to go in the monkey forest you have to go in the monkey forest entrance and not through the gardens. The entrance just happens to be a mile down the road. With no sidewalks.

That was fun. Also my first experience with nettles. We were walking down an embankment and I was stepping carefully to avoid the thorny undergrowth and in doing so swung my hand into the nettle. Which everyone else was avoiding, not the thorns I was so carefully watching. Not fun

But in the end the monkey forest was definitely worth the walk and the nettles.

“If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine; it is lethal.”

-          Paulo Coelho

Expanding the map

Now that I’ve had time to settle in. its back to blogging. The English curriculum is slightly different than I expected, much less class time and way more self-study, which took some time to get used to. Hence the month long wait time before this post, but I have not been idle! Which means I have some posts to catch up to. To start off I should talk about my university.

Keele University is absolutely beautiful. With the mixture of old and new architecture it seems to fit the English aesthetic to a T. It sits high on a hill about two miles from the nearest town, Newcastle -under-Lyme. Which is why they call it the ‘Keele bubble’, which suits me just fine. I like not having to worry about traffic and hordes of people when I walk out my door. It’s very peaceful.

The oldest building on campus would have to be Keele hall which is where the original classes were taught. Each room holds a theme from a different era, from medieval to Victorian which gives the interior a very welcoming eccentric feel. We were introduced to the hall during the welcoming ball. Which sounds a lot more exciting than it was. The highlight for me was the tour, everything else was just a little boring.

The gardens around Keele hall are the real eye catcher though. Keele proudly hosts many woodland walks and eight lakes on campus if you’re willing to try and find them! Just watch out for squirrels!

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.”

-Robert Frost

Mind the zebra crossing

Language can be a tricky thing. Even going to an English speaking country can be tricky. As I have found, there is American English and then there is British English. While they do mostly overlap there are a few discrepancies.

                 Which is why you might receive horrified looks when you say that you like someone’s pants, for an American you are harmlessly paying them a compliment, however the British probably think you’re a creep or they have a hole in their trousers. In England pants refers to underwear and trousers are their equivalent to our word pants. Many simple words are different in meaning, pronunciation, and spelling, as I’ve come to find out.

While I was prepared for the different spellings (those I knew of beforehand), I wasn’t prepared for some of the misunderstandings that I have encountered.

For example a few days ago I was informed that the American crosswalk is the same as the British zebra crossing because of the black and white stripes. You can imagine my confusion when she first said it, but I personally like that name for it better, it gives a little whimsy to the everyday. And if you’re American like myself you will have read that as zee-bra crossing while in England it is pronounced z-eh-bra. While American’s know the A-Z’s the British know the last letter as Zed.

It’s fun trying to find the differences in words and pronunciations, but I have to be careful that I don’t put a foot in my mouth.