My first morning in Europe, 15 September, I was able to wake up well-rested and go get some breakfast at the uni’s cafeteria-like place. It’s pretty small; they definitely depend a lot more on cafés and students cooking for themselves than in Japan or the US.
Their breakfast options were fairly standard Western-style so I won’t dwell on it. I will say that so far, the food has been better than I was led to believe. You cynics. Afterwards we moved out of our ’emergency accommodation’, had some difficulty finding our way back there, and moved into our respective housing facilities. I’m on campus, between the library and the sports center, which is pretty much the ideal location, I think. My department of study is also just a few steps away, so I could probably live most of the year without even leaving campus. Wait – I need food. Scratch that. I wouldn’t want to be so cloistered, anyway.
I enrolled without much difficulty and was thankfully not asked to procure my high school diploma which is in a box somewhere between the East Coast and Tokyo, and was issued my student card, which is my magical key to all things good.
After enrolment we hit the town for the first time in search of power converters, the number one essential item on our lists. Each person we asked seemed to name a different store, but we did get a good tour of that area. The discovery of the day was probably a store called Poundland (there’s also Poundworld) which – can you guess? – sells everything for a pound. To other students I was tempted to explain it as being similar to a hundred yen shop or dollar store, but caught myself, realizing that wouldn’t mean any more to them.
I have yet to meet another American here, by the way. I’ve met a few Japanese, though, which is a higher priority for me. English was guaranteed – it was Japanese I wasn’t sure about. There are significantly more Chinese than any other Asian race, but a few Japanese as well, and they all seem to be in Peace Studies like me. Haven’t seen any Koreans yet though, pity. I like Koreans, although you could argue that I haven’t met true, home-bred ones – are they quite different?
The converters ended up being at a place called Argos, which is a truly impressive store. Rather than aisles, it has merely tables of catalogues and computers. You flip through the catalogues or search by table of contents, look up the product on the computer to get a code, then take your codes to the counter and pay. You then wait with your receipt and order number at a different counter for them to bring out your merchandise. It’s like the fast food version of department stores, come to think of it. I guess they have it in some other countries but I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s a brilliant idea, very easy to manage. Aisles are difficult to navigate, a point I’d have pounded home that evening.
It’s not very often in life that one gets to be completely new to a place, so I’m trying to milk it for all it’s worth. Believe it or not, this is not something I’m accustomed to. I’ve traveled a lot but mainly between two countries I know, more or less. This is different.
Most notably I’m having the uniquely tourist experience of asking clerks what certain coins are. British coins are cool, but a little inefficient. The one pound coin is more than a millimetre thick, so with just a few of those your wallet starts feeling pretty full. The two pound coin has both gold and silver in it, something I’ve never had before. Seems like it should be worth a lot more.
It’s fun to play dumb (or be dumb, rather, there’s nothing fake about me not knowing a two-pence from a fifty), and good for starting conversations. So I have to enjoy it while I can, because after a few weeks of being here it would just be weird.
While we’re on this topic of new experiences and observations:
The weather here is quite cold, rainy, and windy, even in September. Very temperamental. It’s been more or less sprinkling this whole day, but continues to fluctuate between hard sheets and light drops. It depends on the wind, I guess. Not many people use umbrellas, which I’m into (not using an umbrella, I mean).
The people are nice (although, granted, I’ve mostly interacted with international students, who are looking for friends, or staff, who are paid to be friendly and helpful). They’re not quite as blatantly I-exist-to-serve-you as the Japanese, but their greater degree of directness is useful. And they’re very ready to joke around, as I’ve already found. I must say, it’s nice to be back in a country where talking to strangers is allowed.
After lunch I returned to my dorm room to finish unpacking and met the till-then sole occupant of my wing, or whatever it’s called, a German guy from Munich. We’re the only two here so far; I suppose the rest will be arriving around the weekend, either from the EU or from UK – they’re the last, and probably the wildest. It’ll be interesting. I’m trying to enjoy the peace and quiet while I can, and get used to everything. Not to make it sound like I’m not looking forward to having a full house.
He told me about an International Office-led trip to IKEA that evening, so I signed up for that.
If I’d ever gone to IKEA in Japan (or America) I didn’t remember it, because it was a totally new experience and budding relationship birthed out of rapidly shifting degrees of love and hate. I’ll explain.
When we first went in I was impressed by the ‘Showroom’. You walk on a set path and observe bedroom after bedroom, kitchen after kitchen displaying their products. I thought, this is how a store should be, really artistically showing off their merchandise. Plus it was like a Disneyland ride; I felt like we should be riding in boats down an artificial canal listening to “It’s A Small World After All” playing over and over again.
But that love soon turned to growing exasperation as I realized that with the items spread out over numerous home arrangements it was very difficult to even locate the items I was looking for, much less compare them with others of similar type. I started to hate what I had initially found so charming. I suppose there’s almost always a conflict between artistry and economy.
But after a bit, during which time I got to witness some of my newly-made friends, two Germans, arguing over the proper way to make spaghetti and the necessary pan size, I realized that all the products were again displayed at the end of the route, and there they were simply stacked in aisles like conventional stores. Well, almost conventional. These signs brought my opinion meter back over to the love side:
In the end I was able to get all the bedding I needed and learn once again that asking is always the best way to find what you’re looking for. I bought a ‘quilt’ and quilt cover. It seems to be much warmer than a blanket, at least it has been so far. We’ll see when the cold winter nights begin moving in. At first I was concerned about colors but soon realized there wasn’t enough selection left for me to get both the cheapest and the right color. I think the problem was that I came through after the bulk of our trip group. New student orientation activities amass a force to be reckoned with, as I’ll discover most poignantly when I try to get a job.
At checkout I thought everything went smoothly until I walked away and remarked to one of the Germans, “Oh, we get to keep the bags?” (big blue canvas IKEA bags). He laughed and said, “Well, you paid for it.”
“Uh, no I didn’t.”
I’d had too much to carry in my arms, but fortunately I saw these bags lying next to the things I’d just bought, so I grabbed one and filled it with my purchases. As I left the area I had heard the buyer behind me asking for another big blue bag. It was then that I put two and two together and realized the idea was that you transfer your items to the conveyor belt along with however many bags you’ll need, which are in a big bin before the register. I’d swiped the guy’s behind me after he paid for it. Exit the scene, exit the scene.
Later that night I decided to put my second socket adaptor to use recharging my camera battery. Unfortunately the adaptor only changes the shape, it doesn’t do anything about the voltage, which was alright for my laptop because it has a surge protector, but I wasn’t sure about the charger. It said it was workable up to 240 volts, and the source is 250V. Close enough?
Sure. I plugged it in and it didn’t explode, which of course was a good sign. I used my friend’s method of dealing with voltage incompatibilities: plug it in, unplug it when it starts to smoke a little, wait a bit, repeat process. Do I smell something burning?
[Ah, if you’re wondering about the cause of the fire alarm earlier, it was apparently because someone had sprayed deodorant near the sensor. Fortunately I don’t have any aerosol cans. If I burn the place down it’ll undoubtedly be from something more electronic and foreign.]
Haha. It was fine. Seems it’s only hair dryers that are so…combustible. And that was my first full day in Europe.
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