Week 10 Impressions by Shaun Goodman

Some of you might have heard about the political rally in London over the weekend, and I want to assure you we were some of the window-crashing rioters ourselves. Okay maybe we weren’t crashing any windows, but a handful of us went to see the marches. Those of us that went saw peaceful marching and rallying over the weekend. The economy is obviously a huge topic in England, and the large march was in response to numerous government budget cuts that are putting thousands out of jobs. I went to the rally, and it was great to see so many people come together, for me to be part of the activism going on in the world at the moment, and see repercussions of something we had only learned about in class and read about in the newspapers. The size of the rally was in the hundreds of thousands and it was amazing to see that many people together.

Besides actively protesting the government, everyone is busy wrapping up our time here. People are visiting everything they haven’t have had time to see (including a few lucky ones visiting France!), figuring out travel plans after the trip, writing final papers, trying to save up a little per-diem up and trying to see our London-friends as much as possible. Last week I somehow packed two weeks worth of activities into seven days.

Last Friday I went to a Rugby game that was an interesting American-British cultural mix. It was University College London (the University I work at here) vs. King’s College (one of the Cambridge colleges). It was very British in the sense that one, it was rugby, two, the students on the King’s College side wore button down shirts and ties instead of face painted bare chests, and three, both teams cheers were long and clever instead of some classic short American cheers with profanities in them (FU LAKERS cha cha cha cha cha). Before the game I asked the professor I work with if he knew UCL’s college colors; he had no idea. Not only would a professor know his University’s colors in America, he would own 3 free t-shirts with the colors on it, his office might have college swag and the school’s website would have the colors plastered all over it. Americanization crept into the game when half time rolled around and cheerleaders, a dance team, and mascots came on the field. King’s College should not advertise this group of Cheerleaders; they were utterly horrible.

Although the game had its American moments, it was wonderful to see a Rugby live game for the first time in my life. Seeing players get tackled by four of five men and hand off the ball instead of having the ref stop the game was quite amazing. I also enjoyed the randomness of the ball thrown, then kicked, then handed off, and then caught from a boy held up by his teammates. I don’t think I will be joining this full contact-no helmet sport anytime soon, but I would recommend anyone go see a game.