Rugby and the Cotswalds

Hello Blog Followers,

It seems as though it has been quite a while since last I've posted. Feeling a little deprived...? I got your remedy right here!

The most noteworthy event of last weekend was the Bath Rugby match. I and my classmates looked on as we trounced Worcestor (no, not Worcestor Massachusetts) by a final score of 37-13, which is quite a high scoring match by rugby standards. It was a cold day to sit in the stands, but the atmosphere was much friendlier than most American sports venues, so it was an enjoyable experience, nonetheless. I will now attempt to explain the rules of rugby to the best of my ability:

- The number one rule of rugby is that you're not allowed to pass the ball forward. All passes must be made in a lateral or backward direction.

-When a player is tackled, a bunch of dudes from both teams jump on top and make a dog pile (don't ask me why, or who, or how many...it just happens) and the player on the bottom forks up the ball to his mates and it magically appears at the back of the pile, which is called a "ruck." At this point, somebody grabs the ball, passes it off, and the whole ordeal starts over again.

-There are various fouls and off-sides rules that occur, and these can result in either a change in possession, a throw-in from out-of-bounds (like soccer, except on steroids, and with less fake tears), or a penalty kick (which is like a field goal attempt in American football).

-The goal of any drive is to score a "try," which is the functional equivalent of a touchdown. It is worth 5 points and an ensuing "conversion" (or field goal) is worth another 2. Any other time a team can get the ball between the uprights, they score 3 points (kind of like going for a field goal in football).

-There are no pads (unless you are concussion-prone, in which case you get a little water-polo type hat), and the game is very rough and tumble. Please check out this small clip from the Bath game!




This weekend, I went on a trip to the Cotswalds, which are a group of low hills (technically a plateau, I think) to the North of the City of Bath. Again, this was a group trip, so we got on a bus and were dropped off at Broadway Tower, the top of which is the highest point in the Cotswalds.


This tower is a type of building that is referred to as a "folly." And appropriately so! It serves no purpose other than aesthetic pleasure. At no point in Broadway Tower's history was it ever intended to be used as a lookout post, a garrison, a prison, or even a broom closet. Whichever duke decided to build it did so merely so that his wife could look out her window from six miles away and see it standing on the heights. Superfluity at its finest!

After Broadway tower, we hiked down a muddy footpath to the town of Broadway, which lies at the base of the hill. It is the prototypical Cotswald hamlet, complete with dry mortar stone walls and honey-colored limestone buildings. After lunch, we were taken to Painswick Gardens, which are famous for their snowdrop displays in early spring. Snowdrops, as the horticulturally-inclined of you may already know, are the very first flowers to bloom in the spring, before even the crocuses and the daffodils. After having a splendid afternoon tea in the gardens, we headed back to Bath.



The last thing that I am excited to tell you all is that I have solidified my travel plans for spring break, which will happen right after my week in Oxford at the end of March. My housemate Dan and I will be flying from London to Lourdes, France on the 28th of March and staying there for a few days, hiking in the Pyrenees, and enjoying the blessed city. On Wednesday, we will board the TGV (TGV = Train-Grande-Vitesse = High Speed Train) and shoot over to Bordeaux for a couple days. There, we will partake in the viticulture and the warm Atlantic climate before hopping on another train to Paris on Saturday morning. After a whirlwind tour of Paris, during which I intend to buy Dan his first Croque-Monsieur sandwich, we will get on the Eurostar and head back to London via the Chunnel. After we catch the first train back to Bath, our vacation will be over (and we will be very tired). I have all of the train/plane tickets purchased (no thanks to some minor credit card debacles), and I'm rearing to go.

I do have some major papers due in a few weeks, so I'm going to try and tackle those before posting anything major. However, be on the lookout for a poem about a conniving vegetable. That's all I'll say for now.

Your flippant friend,

The Wandering Wordsmith

Great....another blog post....

I know what most of you are probably thinking:

"Wow, this kid must be so incredibly bored over there in England if all he does is sit around and write these ridiculous blog posts. I'm sick of reading them, I'm sick of his lame humor, and I'm sick of all these emails clogging up my inbox..."

"Well," I say to those of you who might feel this way, "hold on just a moment."

(I'm going to discontinue the use of quotation marks from this point forward because I will be the only one speaking. I've hypothetically muted you all.)

When I originally started this blog, the intent was for me to put up some of the fruits of my writing labors (for your dismay or enjoyment). So far, I really haven't done that. The time, however, is now. In the words of Loren Eiseley (have you noticed how much I like to quote him?), "the nothing looked out upon the nothing and was not pleased." So let there be poetry!

The poem below is a semi-revised version of one that I've been working on over the past two weeks. Originally, it was a very serious piece. My tutor, however, thought it was quite funny (he has a lovely British sense of humor...) and recommended that I make some pointed revisions. At first, I was a bit dismayed that my tutor was compelling me to rip up a beautiful descriptive poem that meant quite a lot to me, but the revision turned out to be, in his words, "quite droll." The gangly teenager of a poem that you see before you portrays an interaction between a man and a woman (or a boy and a girl, however you want to look at it) and reveals some of the potential dangers of asking vague questions to the average male. Ladies...take notes.

A Portrait
Eric Kozlik

I. “What do I look like?” she asked,

So in his mind, he created a picture of lines,
modest boxes, and gentle planes—
nothing extravagant, you see, just a feathering…

He leaned back, deep in thought, to color it
with the pale whip-dart of gold, hair splayed acutely
on a neck that burned with the slightest pinkening of blood,

And it became a soft and half-refracted image, flowing,
and bending the future into close-fitting lines on her palms,
and they were very simple lines until they tripped out of his mouth.

II. “This is what you look like,” he replied,

And she smiled, sweetly, as the first word got lodged
somewhere between the conscience and the uvula
and came rattling like a tin can across his tongue…

He scribbled, and erased, and left a bluish smudge
right down the middle of her lopsided face, and a gap
between her two slightly crooked front teeth.

So just as he opened his mouth, raising his fell pencil
for another go at her, she stayed his hand and his lips—
“you really do have such a way with words,” she said.

**************************************************************

And so The Wandering Wordsmith has finally smithed some words. "Congratulations," you think, "would he like a cookie? Perhaps a nice pat on the back?" (I've decided to unmute you because I enjoy this hypothetical and hyperbolically antagonistic inner dialogue).

My response: "Although he does enjoy cookies and will accept the odd pat on the back from time to time, the Wandering Wordsmith has made it his policy to accept congratulations (even hypothetical and sarcastic ones) solely in the form of pounds sterling."

"Why do I even bother with people like this?" you think.

The Wandering Wordsmith cannot answer this question.

On a more serious note, I just booked a flight to France for spring break. I'll be flying, along with one of my housemates, Dan, from London to Lourdes at the end of March. We'll be spending a week hiking in the Pyrenees and visiting Bordeaux and Paris via the TGV, France's high speed train. There will CERTAINLY be more to come concerning this trip as the time draws nearer.

However, I have some writing to do today and a Bath Rugby match to attend tomorrow afternoon, so I shall hang up my blogging pen for the moment and very likely get back to you all by the end of this coming week.

No hard feelings about that hypothetical conversation, right?

-The Wandering Wordsmith

Oxford Men and Mangledwurzels

Greetings Blog Followers,

Since last we spoke, I've been a very busy little boy. I want to apologize for the inconsistency of my posting habits.

Last Thursday was the day of my first poetry tutorial in Oxford. As you can imagine, there are some serious stigmas and stereotypes that accompany such an undertaking. When one thinks of Oxford, Cambridge, and the rest of the stuffy, hallowed institutions that sort of epitomize the American view of British academia, it's hard to see past the curtains of tweed and corduroy or past the monocles and pipe smoke. Honestly, I can't tell you whether any of those stereotypes are true at the moment because my tutorial takes place in the seclusion of my tutor's residential apartment rather than at one of Oxford's various bustling colleges. My tutor is a rather quirky sort of fellow, which I began to pick up on when he turned me away from his door for showing up ten minutes early. This notion was only further confirmed during a brief explanation of what the city has to offer me, as a student and a human being, when he pointed out the best part of Oxford in which purchase a gun. Another fact that he took the time to make me aware of is that Irish girls have good posture because of all the step dancing they do. Oh...and we talked about writing poetry a good deal as well, but I don't want to bore anyone with that. If I write anything particularly interesting, I'll be sure to post it somewhere down the line.

The REAL highlight of this past week, I feel, was my experience at the Bath Cider Festival. It was an event completely dedicated to the tasting of locally-brewed cider and perry. There were close to 100 different varieties to choose from, ranging from the sweet and admittedly delicious fruity varieties (usually middling somewhere around 9-12 proof)to the formidable "question marks" that had no listed content and tasted more like the barrel they were brewed in than the fruit they were made of. It was more of a tasting event than a consumption contest, so everyone was given small glasses at the door and was required to purchase tokens with which to place their sample orders. Some of the more entertaining cider names include (but are not limited to): "Pheasant Plucker," "Sheep Dip," "Pig Swill," "The Devil's Device," and "Old Rat's Tail." If those names don't get you thirsty, I don't know what will.

The most entertaining aspect of the night by far was the live entertainment. A trio called the Mangledwurzels provided the soundtrack for this particular evening of drinking, belching, and flannel-clad tomfoolery. They (and many of the good folks in attendance) are what I might go so far to define as the "hillbillies" of England. Having grown up in a log cabin with my fair share of flannel, I do not use this term lightly. And they were terrific...if you're into British bluegrass music, which became easier and easier to put up with as the night went on. They belted out such classic tunes as "I am a Cider Drinker," "I've got a Brand New Combine 'Arvester," and "Ey, You, Get Orf of My Land!" (No, there are no typos in the listing of those song titles...) I was lucky enough to have my photo taken with the lads, and I've posted that picture and some links to the original Wurzels songs on Youtube below:


__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5SX3A-ifME (Cider Drinker)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btEpF334Rtc (Combine 'Arvester)

My last noteworthy exploit of the past week is my new volunteer job as a Tower Tour Guide at Bath Abbey. I spoke with the director of tours during my programme's introduction to the Abbey during the first week, and she set me up with a free tower tour, a script, and a uniform shirt. The tower has 212 steps and I will be climbing them twice every Monday that I am in Bath for the rest of the semester. By the end of my stay here, I will hopefully be somewhat versed in the history of the Abbey and the city of Bath. I'll be sure to list any really interesting facts that I come across in the weeks to come.

Alas, my homework beckons, so I must leave this post as it stands. Stay tuned for more in the very near future.

-The Cider-Drinking, Tour-Guiding, Wandering Wordsmith (The artist formerly known as Eric Kozlik)

Toad in the Hole!

Hello All,

This blog post is just a quick note on food and drink in the U.K. I am trying to vary the content and method of delivery of my blog so that nobody gets bored. Prepare to be educated (in list format).

-Fish and Chips:
Before I came to the U.K. I was informed that fish and chips would be more heavily-battered than in the U.S. This, I found to be true. I also found that a dash of vinegar makes such a dish completely scrumptious.
Eric's Rating: 7/10

-Bangers and Mash:
"Bangers" are what we Brits call little sausages. They are quite satisfying when served with a steaming heap of mashed taters, swimming in gravy, and accompanied by some sort of cabbage side. Or peas. We eat peas with everything. This dish may vary slightly in its composition and presentation depending on where you go, but it's usually a safe bet (if you like sausage, that is).
Eric's Rating: 6/10 (on account of cabbage)

- Toad in the Hole:
This culinary masterpiece is the pinnacle of British soul-food, which, as you may notice, includes anything involving bread, gravy, potatoes, and/or sausage. Basically, the toad in the hole is a sausage sandwich (two sausage links and two slices of cheese in between two slices of bread) baked in a sort of puff pastry and poured over with gravy. I call this heaven on earth. When cooked properly, it simply melts in your mouth. It is salty, savoury, and altogether heart-warming. I have no idea why it was given such wretched name.
Eric's Rating: 9.5/10

-The Cornish Pasty (Pronounced "Past-ee," not "Pay-stee")
Consider, if you will, a chicken pot pie. Now take that chicken pot pie and scrape out the insides and fill it with whatever delightful combination of meat, veggies, cheese, and/or gravy that you wish (some may simply choose to leave the chicken pot pie alone...which is completely fine). Now, take that pie crust and fold it up into something that resembles a cross between a taco and an apple turnover, and you have a Cornish Pasty. Invented so that Cornish miners would be able to pack a nutritious (and dee-lishious) lunch in their coat pockets, the pasty serves as one of Britain's most wonderful grab-and-go foods. As Bath is strewn with pasty shops, I am a lucky man, indeed. My favourite flavour thus far is Chicken and Leek.
Eric's Rating: 8/10

Onto the beer...(Nattie Light is outlawed in Britain)

-Kronenbourg
A light-colored beer, I found it tame. It goes very well with food and can be found at most pubs in town. It's not the cheapest thing around, but you can do a lot worse.
Eric's Rating: 6.5/10

-Fosters with Lime
You've all heard of Fosters (Australian for Beeah), but I'm willing to bet that you may not have had Fosters with lime. It's probably better that way. I tried a sip and found that it was more like soda than beer after the syrup (maybe it's palatable with a real lime?). Avoid this little creation like the plague.
Eric's Rating: 2/10

-John Smith's Smooth
A very dark beer, and as smooth as its name implies. This is the local alternative to Guinness. It comes with a very generous head out of the tap and has a strong caramel after-taste. Sitting down for a friendly chat at your favourite pub, you can't really do much better than John Smith's.
Eric's Rating: 9/10

Also, fun pub anecdote:

The men in Bath are apparently a little bit...friendlier...than American blokes. They are more touchy-feely with other men (even if they're reported to be straight) and they can be rather forward. However, what most surprised me was when I looked over at the chap next to me (who was hitting on one of the girls in my programme) and noticed that he was sporting "man glitter." You heard me. Man. Glitter. His face was positively radiant, and he seemed to be under the impression that he was quite sexy. I'm thinking about picking some man glitter up for myself, so if anybody wants me to ship some to the states, just let me know.

Stay tuned for details on my first trip to Oxford!

-Eric "Blinded by the Man-Glitter" Kozlik

Sleepers Awakened

As the gigantic bus full of drowsy college students rolled quietly through the hills and dales of the British countryside on the morning of February 7th, 2010, I opened my copy of The Unexpected Universe by Loren Eiseley to a chapter that spoke of the rise of man, from his prehistoric origins to his earliest civilizations. It detailed his descent from the trees to the plains, his taming of fire, his mastery of language, and his increasing distance from the natural forces that formed him. The fields that we drove past, pale green despite the frigid weather, and their accompanying farmhouses illustrated man's motivation to domesticate plants, and later, animals. I imagined that the people waking up inside of them led pleasant and simple lives, eating hearty food, and living in one place without the worry of having to uproot or face great change. I looked around and saw fatigue in the faces of my peers, and I knew that if a mirror appeared in front of me that same tired look would shadow my own expression. We had just crossed an ocean, entered into strange culture, and scurried around a strange city for a week. We were tired. We were being shuttled to the middle of nowhere to look at a neolithic pile of stones. The prospect wasn't as exciting as it might be under different circumstances.

The bus passed silently into a bank of fog as I read:

As man entered upon a wild new corridor of existence, some part of himself passed into a hypnotic slumber, but, in the diverse rooms of his mind, other sleepers awakened...

Around me, many of my classmates slumbered, not hypnotically, but in that shallow, interrupted manner that characterizes the process of sleep in a moving vehicle. We were in our own sort of foggy corridor- one that stretched out indeterminately from Bath to Salisbury, England to America, February to May. All of these things are alternately starting points and destinations in relation to the "alternate existence" of our time in England. They linger somewhere ahead of and behind us, under us and under the foundations and feet or our original homes and families. I realized this as we passed, wraith-like, through the mist.

Stonehenge itself is only impressive considering its origins and the lengths that people 5,000 years ago went to in order to construct and place its enormous stanchions. The various rings of stones were quarried dozens of miles away (some even in neighboring Wales), and it took the effort to 200 men almost two weeks to convey the giant rocks to their present location. It was a project that showed advanced planning and social skills. It meant that people were working together for a common purpose, worshiping the same gods, and all of this in the year 3,000 B.C. I don't know where human civilization stood at that particular point in time, what the historians and archaeologists considered ground-breaking, but these facts were impressive to me.



We got off the bus, listened to a brief explanation of the history of the religious site, and were set loose to take pictures and admire the ring of standing stones for a bit. My friends and I took one loop around the place, taking pictures from various sides, but not really gleaning anything magical from them. It is a novelty, I suppose, to have a picture of oneself in front of someone else's accomplishment, like standing next to the World Series Trophy when it comes to the local mall. After a few minutes, most of the students in the program (myself not included on account of being a country boy) were taking pictures of the sheep in the field next door.

When we returned to the bus and headed off to visit one of the many Cathedrals that we Americans flock to Europe to see (and not without reason, for they are impressive), I wondered about Eiseley's "other sleepers." What had awakened when man fell into the sleep of collective thought, the written word, and complex tools? What was it that slumbered peacefully through all those thousands of years of evolution, only to wake up and see a ring of colossal stones? And as I remembered the words of our tour guide, Andrew Butterworth, I began to understand. Amid the mechanical hum of highway travel, the other sleepers began to stir in my memory.

Recent archaeological discoveries, Andrew had said, his voice dampened by the gray and the fog, indicated that Stonehenge was a burial site. It was a place to celebrate the winter solstice, the darkest time of year, when shadows leaped and men shivered, and to inter the remains of the dead. The remains that were analyzed were not bones, but ashes, implying that the ritual may have involved burning- a release of the souls into the frigid and shelterless skies of the plain. Perhaps, I began to think, these men had awoken other sleepers within themselves. Perhaps the distance from the sheltered wood of their simian beginnings and their sudden recognition of a certain hugeness of the universe had roused those parts of our minds that tell us how homeless we are, how far we've yet to travel.

And yet, all of this occurred to me because the early folk of Salisbury burned their dead. It might have been an attempt to prevent animals from desecrating primitive grave sites, or a method of appeasing some vague, early goddess, but I preferred to look at the cremation as a form of supplication, a human yell in the desert places of Britain. These simple people, despite their lack of technology or culture, came with the remains of people they had known and released their spirits into the blackness at the annual height of its power. They saw the brown dampness of the earth and the slate walls of cloud that blocked the sun and released the life forces of their most loved and honored kin to infuse life back into a desolate landscape. These people knew somehow that there were magic things at work beyond their control, indeed, the positioning of the stones implies that they could calculate them, even anticipate their movement. And yet they sought to touch these powers, if only briefly, through the souls of the dead. Perhaps they merely wanted to ask for warmth, a turn of season, or a blessing on the land. Perhaps they thought that their past comrades would join the universal forces and look down favorably upon them. In either circumstance, the days gradually grew longer and warmer following the ceremony on the solstice, and the memories of the dead faded gently into the pale green fabric of the Salisbury Plains.

I closed my book. The people around me were less drowsy, reinvigorated by sleep or coffee, and we all watched the countryside unfold on either side of us, rolling toward Cathedrals, and warm pubs with good food. The day was a good one. We had awoken, as from a sleep.

City of Angles

Hello folks!

As most of you know, I'm safely in Bath and have been for a few days now. The most difficult part of getting here was going through security at Logan International Airport in Boston...apparently I just look like the kind of guy who would have explosives residue on his hands (which they "randomly selected" to test me for) and razor blades in his carry-on. I promise, I am not. The 6'6" NSA man with the gun needed some convincing, however. After that, I sailed through my flights, meeting at least half of the programme on the plane from Newark to Bristol, and then had a lovely taxi ride through the British countryside from Bristol to Bath. If any of you think that driving in The States is precarious, you have obviously not traversed the narrow cow paths of the British countryside with a burly English bloke. He was having a jolly good time watching the American boys hyperventilate as he weaved through the streets and went through roundabouts on the left.

Representatives from the programme met us at the train station and bussed us to our lovely homes. (I shall take this opportunity to state that I live at 29 Northampton Street, Bath BA1 2SW, England. Please send any paper mail to this address. If by chance anyone feels motivated to send any (non-ticking) packages, they may be addressed to me and sent to: Nelson House, 2 Pierrepont Street, Bath, BA1 1LB, England.) My house is a beautiful 18th century Georgian structure on a hill above the city. I am right up the road from a portion of Bath called "The Royal Crescent," which currently contains a residence of one Nicholas Cage (I say the Brits can keep him). My house has 4 floors, the second of which contains my bedroom, and houses 8 students. We even have our own little garden in the back! I will post some pictures when I get the chance.

For the past few days, I have basically been put through the paces by ASE Bath (my academic institution) with a rigorous orientation schedule. My fellow students and I have been orientated on everything from culture, to academics, to travel, to community involvement. On top of all this, we have to write 4 "diagnostic papers" (one for each class) that are basically just long essays on a general topic to give the professors (or "tutors" as we call them) an idea of where we all stand academically. At first, I was mildly annoyed by the inconvenience...but then I realized that I am taking 4 classes I am genuinely interested in: One on Shakespeare, one on writing short fiction, one on science and religion, and one poetry writing tutorial. As I was completing my diagnostic paper on Shakespeare today I realized how happy I will be here. .

Bath is a very fascinating and complex city. Lots of winding, cobblestone streets and pubs, and posh shopping destinations, and such. I will be filling you in with many of the details throughout the course of this blog, but I have learned so much in the past few days that I don't want to b(l)og [<--notice the pun] you down with too much all at once. Here is one of the most interesting facts, however: every building in Bath (with a slender few exceptions) is constructed from what we call "Bath Stone," and following the stylistic parameters of 18th century Georgian Architecture. Bath stone is a pale whitish-beige color and comes from a nearby mine. If you don't build your house out of Bath Stone, you don't get to build a house in Bath. Period.

After a few awkward moments asking for directions, I have managed to get a pretty good handle of the city. I walked across it almost in its entirety this evening on the way to and from a meeting, and I must say that it felt glorious to let my legs stretch out and tackle the hills and cobblestone alleys. It was very quiet and the wet pavers glistened in the dim light of the street lamps. As for myself, I am quite excited, un-jet-lagged, and ready for whatever this semester has to throw at me. You can expect many more interesting blogs than this one when I get the chance to fully form my thoughts. Until then, keep on keepin on, and know that I'm doing my thing here in the City of Angles.

Things to look out for:

1.) My professional description/rating of some of Britain's finest cuisine.

2.) Pictures from out and about Bath

3.) And somewhat later...an update on the trip to Stonehenge I will be taking on Sunday! Go Druids!

I can't call myself a "Wandering Wordsmith" in this post because I didn't smith you any good words, so I'll just bid you good night.

Your Friend,

Eric Kozlik