Cultural and personal experiences outside the laboratory

As our plane started its descent into London, England, our excitement grew exponentially. Looking outside our window, we could already tell England was going to be very different from what we knew from our desert home state of California. All we saw was green, a bright vivid green of life, coming from the millions of trees that seemed to overtake the UK. The images of buildings and palaces that I had imagined seeing were overcome with the beauty of nature. As we walked into Heathrow and told the customs officer that we were STUDYING at King’s College in London, we realized we did not know what to expect from this great country, but we loved the accents. We came walking out with our suitcases and bags and coats, and found my mentor and some lab mates from Lauren Smith’s laboratory. We fully expected one or two cars picking us up, I mean, who does not have a car, right? This was not the case, we learned; in London, everyone takes the “tube”. The tube being the London Underground, or subway as we call it here in the “States”. We began to realize that not only did we have to adapt to a new way of life: lugging suitcases from one subway train to another, but we had new words to remember too. It is not the elevator, it’s the lift; the WC or toilet, not the bathroom, etc. However, the people were really friendly and engaging. We were so touched that three people came to meet us and help us with our stuff. Even though the tube is relatively simple to understand, coming right off the plane I doubt we would have gone to the right place. In addition, Heathrow is far away from London City and we would not have known which pass to get.
When we did arrive at our “flat” (or apartment) and checked in, which we learned had only been confirmed a few days before, we were happy to see we had our own bathroom—even though the space was minimal and we had to shower with the toilet! We were also given a few grocery bags of start-up food from Lauren’s advisor, which was a nice and welcoming surprise!
After taking a red-eye flight all we wanted to do was sleep, but Lauren’s lab mates were so hospitable that they took us out pub-hopping right then and there. That is when we learned that not only did they call things by different names, but they also pronounced words differently. They laughed at our American way of saying Southwark, pronounced Sud-ark in England, as they bought us pint after pint of alcohol—oh, yes, the brits can drink! I am still amazed about how we got back to our flat using the tube from SoHo. I was so exhausted by the time that I got to my flat that all I really could think about was falling asleep. As I walk into the common area of the flat: a hallway with a big kitchen, I see one of my flat-mates. I am not sure if it was because here in California people are not as friendly, or if I was too tired to be cordial, but I did not stop and talk with this girl. A few minutes later, as I’m getting ready to have a good night’s rest, I hear knocking on my door! It was my flat mate, introducing herself, asking who I was, and letting me know that they would be glad to show me around London! Wow, roommates that were cordial and wanted to meet me!

Anyway, Saturday morning came around—with a fire alarm that went off in the middle of the night (there’s this obsession with fire alarms in London, I guess because of the great fire of London) –the day after we flew into London. That day and all that weekend in fact, we did marathon sightseeing. I think we covered more places in those two days than at any other time in the following two weeks—except Rome and Paris, but I will talk about that later.

By the time we met with our advisors Monday morning, we had seen a great deal of London, understood the tube fairly well, and knew painfully well the pound-dollar conversion rates. We had a great talk with our advisors, who seemed to be great people. We were given some idea about what our research was going to be, and we learned that normal research/work days in our labs started at 10 or 10:30am, not earlier, and ended around 4 or 5pm. This gave us time to have a nice breakfast in the morning, and be able to stay up later at nights, as well as time to explore the city after research. In fact, we were encouraged to see all that we could of London and of other countries as well. My advisor would ask me every day what new things I had seen of the city, and reminded me to start booking trips to other places in England an in Europe!

As a result, we got to visit many museums, like the Tate Modern, Natural History Museum, National Gallery; go to many plays, two at Shakespeare’s globe, and a handful around the West End and other areas; visit Buckingham Palace, Picadilly Circle, Leicaster (“lester”) Square, etc.

Eventually, after much procrastination, we visited Oxford, England; Paris, France; Rome, Italy; and I visited a cousin in Germany, and visited Salzburg, Austria; Traunstein and Munich, Germany. These trips usually were on weekends, for three or four days, much of which involved walking around the cities and taking hundreds of pictures! It was so exciting to visit places that were historically significant, and get a feel for the European lifestyle. The major hurdle was the language barrier, knowing only a few phrases to order food or ask for tickets, and not being able to communicate with anyone else past that. It was interesting to see the varying responses to American visitors and the differences among European countries.

In addition, I had 6 flat-mates from various places in the world, who had been in London for at least one year. They showed me around London, advised me to go to places such as Burough market and many contemporary plays. More importantly, they made me feel at home at comfortable in London. Additionally, we got together with other MIRT students when we visited Oxford, and then went together to Paris, France. It was helpful to share experiences with people of the same area, and together visit foreign places together.
Overall, this was an amazing experience. Visiting Europe has given me a different perspective on the world, the perception of Americans, but also the effects of globalization, more so in the realm of science. I’m very grateful for this experience, and hope more students will be able to take advantage of this program in years to come.