Road trip UK 2014

In the spring of 2014 Mathias, Thomas and I decided to go on a road trip in the UK.  This was supposed to be a safe and “educational” journey through the land of the United Kingdom, but to be honest, in the end the things we learned on this trip had little to do with education.

Before we arrived in the UK, we had devised a plan for where we wanted to journey. Our starting point, we decided, would be in Wales, or more specifically in the city of Cardiff. From there we would travel to Birmingham, then Manchester and York, followed by a short stop in North York Moors National Park and Northumberland National Park, before heading to the Scottish city Edinburgh. Our last stop was supposed to be in Aberdeen. We had calculated that this trip would take approximately five days by car.

On our arrival in Cardiff, we immediately felt the need to get our hands on the vehicle we would use on the road trip. We had done a little research beforehand, and concluded that we needed something cheap, yet awesome, and that this special car was located in a shop nearby. Therefore, the first thing we decided to do was to pick up our ride. Its style and unique character struck our hearts from the very beginning. In addition, we figured it would attract SOME nice attraction, and we figured that could be fun! The magnificent piece of art was covered in something that seemed like old rabbit skins, with floppy ears on the roof. In fact, the car was so hairy, even the license plates were covered by grey hair. This, we would later come to regret, as we found out that in the UK, the license plates are required to be seen.

We drove out of Cardiff that night, toward our next stop, Birmingham. When we arrived in Birmingham a couple of hours later, the sun was starting to rise in the horizon. The scenery around Birmingham was magnificent, but the weather was something else. The whole time since we left Cardiff the rain had been pouring down upon us. This proved to be fatal for our car’s looks. People kept looking weirdly at us, mainly because our car looked like a drowned sewer rat. Our goal for the Birmingham stop was to watch a baseball game at Regions Field. The teams playing were the home team Birmingham Maple Leafs and the Norwegian SWAT (Telemarksbataljonen). Proving to be true Vikings, the SWAT team crushed all foreign resistance. After the match, we sort of crashed in a pub with some other Norwegian supporters.

The next day, we woke up to find that in the course of the night, some funny little guy had shaved our car. Nevertheless, we continued our epic adventure to our next big stop, which turned out to be Manchester City. Here we wanted to experience the most important thing to an English man´s heart: a football match. It proved to be everything we had expected it to be, and more. The stadium was completely filled with football fans and the roars could be heard several streets away.

The 4^th day of our trip was mainly used to drive. And drive. York turned out to be a place for crazy country folk, and not much interesting to us. Therefore, the most important thing we did here was to eat and visit the bathroom.

However, the stop after York proved very much to be an interesting place. The North York Moors National Park had the most amazing scenery. It seems that this beautiful place is also somewhat famous, as it has been used in well-known productions, such as Harry Potter and Heartbeat. Apparently, there were bears there, so we just decided to drive on, instead of camping.

After a long night on the road, the sleep came crouching, so when we finally arrived in Northumberland National Park we set camp and fell asleep. After all, we had just seen another National Park, and therefore thought; “How different can they be...?” Our snoring could be heard several miles away that day.

The 6^th day was the day of our arrival in Edinburgh. We had been looking forward to this moment. As it happened, this was, by pure accident St. Patrick’s Day and the streets were filled with people in green costumes and happy smiles. The air was filled with the smell of corned beef and cabbage floating from the restaurants. The weather was perfect and we suddenly felt renewed for the rest of our journey. Even though we were quite tired of the long drive, we started exploring the city. As it turned out, they also had good beef and a bottle of Scotch, so the lads and I had a very nice time relaxing some. Later this day we visited the Edinburgh castle and had a nice tour of the castle grounds. The night was spent in the company of many other people in a VERY nice nightclub, Boom Boom Club, with lots of fiiiinelookin ladies!

In the course of the night our car had mysteriously vanished (one word: poker), so instead of using lots of time looking for it, we took a train to Aberdeen on the 7^th day. From here on, we used some of our cash, the prize money from last night’s gambling, to buy ourselves a goddamn fast piece of engineering, currently going by the name Lommey. It´s a yellow Lamborghini Aventador.

 After buying the car, we did of course have to test-drive it. Since Loch Ness was close by, we decided that would be our goal. A quick trip was our intended purpose. We should not have let Thomas drive, however. That was our first mistake. The second one was not to remember the shots we´d given him at the last pub we visited. I guess that was sort of our fault. As we drew closer to the Loch, it became apparent that he was still affected by the liquid, and the results were rather devastating. Short story: the car ended at the bottom of Loch Ness and we were left disoriented on a cliff above the lake. That´s how we ended up walking to the airport at Inverness, to take a flight home. That marked the end of our road trip. 

Letters to Nazneen

Dear Nazneen!                                          15.07.13

I´m sorry for not writing you earlier, but things have been a little hectic lately, as you probably understand, and the opportunity had yet to arise until this evening. Malek and I had a few difficulties at first, getting out of the village unnoticed proved somewhat more difficult than we first had imagined, and staying on the road without attracting unwanted attention from bandits and such. We have tried travelling mostly by night in these first weeks, and have had to live mostly off the things that crossed our path, that occasionally being the belongings of other travelers.

After about a week and a half we started feeling a little more secure, considering that we had put a good amount of land between us and the village, and any family members with a potential grudge. We decided that it was probably safer now to let ourselves into a city. You see; we were starting to become a little desperate for some real food, and suddenly the thought of entering a city was not as intimidating as before. However, with little money to buy for, there seemed no other option but to try our luck pickpocketing. Evidently, the streets of the Golden City are crowded with foreigners, their pockets bulging with wallets and dollars, ripe for the taking. I shall admit to a certain pleasure, as well as a hint of pride, in lifting them of their heavy burdens.

Now, finally, it seems we have found our safe haven in a small estate out in the country. The sweet, elderly woman owning the land here is of old British family and has been very kind to the two of us (a number I suspect is soon about to increase…!) and taken us in as extra help in the maintenance of the estate. Perhaps also as company for her lonely soul.
Anyway, how are you doing Nazneen? I miss you so much, and I really hope you are okay! If you want to see me again sometime soon, you should go find that place we always talked about visiting, in the Golden City. You will find a clue there as to where you should go from then on.

Lots of love

Hasina    

When? Why? How?

The Anglo-Saxons first settled in Britain around the fifth and sixth century. The settlement of the Anglo-Saxons made the basis for the language we refer to today as Old English. They spoke a variety of Germanic dialects, closely related to each other, although with some significant differences. This lead to the many varieties of English in texts from the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries. The most common words from that time, that we still have today, are words related to farming and such, like sheep, shepherd, field etc.

In the ninth century, the Scandinavians started making their appearance in Britain. They were many, and dragged with them Norse words such as gate, here referring to a street, take and they. It was easy for the English to pick up these words, as Old English and Norse were both Germanic languages, and therefore similar to a certain degree. Today, we have examples of the Scandinavians taking back some of the words the English once gained from them, like bag.

In 1066, after William the Conqueror´s victory at the battle of Hastings. After this, the English of that time underwent some serious changes, concerning the inflectional system of Old English, which completely broke down, and a new period in the history of English began, Middle English. In this time, the English also got a great number of loanwords from French and Latin, increasing the size of their language, due to the invasion in 1066.

In the 16^th century, the printing press became quite popular. This finally concluded the standardization process of English that had been going on since the medieval and early modern times. There was also a considerable change in the pronunciation of English over time, leading to, what is today known as the Great Vowel Shift. With this, Modern English introduced itself as a new chapter in the story of the English language.

With the British´ colonization and explorations around the world, the English language began its road to become a world language. Today it has achieved that goal, being a language of administration and diplomacy used around the whole world. Because of being a world language, English is still adopting new words, and evolving ever further.