Study Abroad Blog

When you mention football in Indiana, names like Ditka, Urlacher, The Fridge, and other Chicago Bear greats come to mind, at least in the Moore household! But if you mention football in England, they aren’t talking about a game where you need ten yards for a first down and they aren’t sure what a quarterback does. Soccer as it’s called back home is known as football here, which most of you or at least I hope are aware of. People live and die by their teams, they don’t call themselves fans really, but more often you’ll refer to them as supporters. The atmosphere inside football stadiums is almost overwhelming. I had the chance to experience this when I traveled to Manchester to see Manchester City take on Porto in an Europa League match. My good friend Jamie Chapman my dorm room neighbor and huge supporter of Manchester City Football Club accompanied myself, and two other international students to the game. Before I left I told myself I have to make to at least one match, and I’ve accomplished that goal, but I’m ready for more!

 Jamie and I outside Etihad Stadium

So the great people I live with here in England, thought it’d be a great idea to form teams and events for the first annual Eleanor Rathbone Beer Olympics. I’ve been taking antibiotics to fight an infection in my tooth, so I wasn’t able to partake, so I decided to whip out my camera and start filming. Five teams battled it out from three in the afternoon until around ten at night doing various events, before heading to town for more tom-foolery. After reviewing the clips I got I decided to put them in movie style trailers, take a look at the results. And congratulations to the Yellow Team, the only team complied of only Americans bringing home the trophy. Though really everyone’s a winner.

I usually have videos to go along with these, but just consider this a rant more than a blog post.

It’s the small things that change when you go somewhere new. Instead of Lay’s Potato Chips, it’s Walkers Potato Crisps. Instead of parking lot, it’s car park. Instead of the steering wheel being on the left and driving on the right, the wheel is on right and driving on the left. It’s not sidewalk, it’s the pavement, and a fag is not a negative term for a homosexual, but short for cigarette. Your dudes are your mates, things aren’t awesome they are proper good. Classes aren’t fifty minutes three times a week, rather once a week for three hours. Professors are lecturers. There is no Kool-Aid, but there is Vimto. You don’t say cheers only when you drink. Apartments are flats, the houses and cars are more compact, there are no SUV’S chugging gasoline at a terrible rate. No one say’s “Evening governor.” Which I’m totally fine with and didn’t believe to begin with. People often ask me the differences between here and being back home in America, but they are so small that I have to sit down and type them out to really begin to notice. I can’t complain, I feel I’ve adjusted well to all of these new things. I’m truly lucky to have this time in England, the massive amount of people I’ve met will hopefully be friendships I cherish for the rest of my life. It’s only February, let the good times roll.

Take a look at Edge Hill’s T.V Studio!

Also take a look at another Sycamore hard at work. John Wakim recently shot and edited this video to highlight Indiana State’s Air Force ROTC program. Great work John!