Learning Curve

Last week I learned so many interesting things I had to start writing them down in my notebook.  Here are a few:

Escape Route
The popular board game "Monopoly" was invented in 1904 by an American woman named Elizabeth Phillips, and originally called "The Landlord's Game."  Phillips created this board to help explain the single tax theory of Henry George, an American writer, politician, and political economist.  George's single tax theory illustrated the belief that land (and all of nature) should be equally owned by humanity, and never privately owned by any single person.  George believed that if everyone paid an "economic rent" on land, then everyone could enjoy nature equally.  Elizabeth Phillips, a proponent of George's ideas, thought that if she could illustrate how paying "rents" enriched property owners and impoverished tenants then people would see that unfairness of private property ownership.  She also hoped to change the current land tax policies by encouraging children to play her game and increase their skepticism of private land ownership that children would carry into adulthood.  She later sold her game to Parker Brothers for a mere $500.

The best part of this story is that after Parker Brothers made some alterations to this game to illustrate the economic phenomenon of a a monopoly, they decided to market the game in the UK, and made a similar version but with London landmarks and currency.  Parker Brothers sold the license to produce in the UK to Waddington Ltd, a company based in Leeds.  In 1941, the British Secret Service asked John Waddington, the owner, to create a "special version" of this game for British soldiers in Nazi POW camps.  Waddington agreed and created hundreds of games packaged with maps, compasses, real money, and other objects useful for escaping.  These games were then distributed to British prisoners in by fake charity organizations created by the secret service.  I can't find anymore information on how the rest played out, but I can imagine that it turned out pretty cool.
"Oh, hey guys, want to play a game of Monopoly?"
"....THIS IS SO MUCH BETTER."

In Motion
The first film was shot in Leeds by Louis Le Prince.  Le Prince, a Frenchman, is widely known for being the father of film and shot the world's first documented motion pictures.  The first is called Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge, which was the first bridge built over the River Aire.  The second is called Roundhay Garden, which is shot in Roundhay Park, which I previously posted photos of in the album Sun Days.  Both of these films date back to 1888.

It is said that after the success of these films, Le Prince was headed to New York to continue with the film industry and to promote his new camera design, but he mysteriously disappeared.  Le Prince was last seen in 1890 boarding a train to Paris, but he never arrived in Paris and his body and luggage were never found.

Something About Liverpool 
I don't know much about soccer, but I did learn this week that Liverpool FC fans are known around the world for being rowdy.  They get especially rowdy when they hear the song, "You'll Never Walk Alone." 

Name that Vegetable
No one can decide what to call this delicious vegetable.

If you're an American, you might know it as a bell pepper, and that's what I'm sticking to.  But after some dinnertime confusion and an enlightening cultural meal, I've realized that it is a vegetable of many names.  The Australians call it "Capsicum" which apparently comes from the scientific latin root word for pepper (thank you, Victor).  The British call it pepper, green pepper, red pepper, and sometimes sweet pepper.  Yet still, my German and Bulgarian roommates call it "Paprika."  Take your pick.

First Impressions

My teacher for my Leeds Lives class (class on the history and culture of the city of Leeds) wants us to blog about our time spent here in Leeds.  Go figure.  She asked us to make our first post about our first impressions of Leeds.  Last night I wrote down as many "first impressions" as I could in my notebook.  I've copied the list here for you to read.

1. The locals are extremely friendly.  Regardless of anything else in this list, the more important statement is this one.
2. The English language is notably different here than in America.
3. Everything, literally everything, is smaller here than in America.  From refrigerators to vehicles to supermarkets to people's body sizes--it is all significantly smaller in scale.
4. Students in the UK attend class much less and for much shorter periods of time than those in the US.  Americans attend more class per week, more weeks per semester, and it takes more years to attain a degree.
5. The US and the Great Britain have good relations.
6. Europeans know a lot more about Americans than we know about them.   This is mainly because of American media and pop culture like Hollywood movies and music.
7. Europeans know Americans are ignorant to other cultures.
8. The British like Americans, but they think some of the things we do are silly and ridiculous--like drive to the store when it is a ten minute walk.
9. Europeans think the American Republican Party hates everyone and is going to destroy the world as we know it.
10. Non-Americans in general have lots of questions about and confused perceptions of gun rights and ownership in the US.
11. The British care about what happened on September 11, 2001.
12. There aren't any fat people here.
13. The British don't care about American football.
14. The sun never shines, but when it does, people make the most of it.
15. The drinking/partying culture is much more flamboyant, offensive, inappropriate, uncensored, and in-your-face than in America.
16. Everyone here smokes.
17. The peanut butter here sucks.  If anyone feels compelled to ship me a jar of peanut butter, I won't object.
18. The bus system here is really good, but because there are so many buses, the streets are really noisy and smelly.
19. Traffic is bad.
20. The streets in Leeds are really dirty.  The ground, river, streets, and public places are overly polluted.
21. It is really hard to find a trashcan in public.
22. There are more recycling bins than in the US, but still everyone just throws their trash on the ground.
23. It is really hard to find free wireless internet.
24. The shopping in Leeds is worldclass.
25. The landscape is really green, especially to someone from New Mexico.
26. Britain snubs their nose at the rest of Europe and insists on differentiating itself from mainland Europe.  For example, it didn't adopt the Euro currency, it uses a mix of the metric system along with some Imperial measurements (like what we use in the USA).  In England, they use miles and feet, but they also use meters and kilograms and degrees Celsius.  Confused?  Me too.  
27. The Brits really do have "afternoon tea."
28. In general, things/goods are more expensive here.
29. European chocolate is out-of-this-world delicious.
30. There are some things that still seem underdeveloped here.  For example, the sinks.  I have yet to find one that is a single faucet that produces warm water.  Most public restroom sinks have two water spouts--one for hot and one for cold, so you either get scalding or freezing water.  But in my kitchen, there is one water spout with two knobs.  When you have both the hot and cold knobs on, the water stream comes out half cold and the other half hot.  Never warm.  The refrigerators/freezers seem far behind the ones we have in the USA, and so does the electrical system.  All the electrical outlets have switches so you can turn them on and off.

To be continued when I think of more...

(I feel like this post is sub-par/rubbish.  But what my extremely smart and talented writing professors at UNM taught me is that you win some and you lose some when you write.  Some days are good hair days and some are bad hair days, and that's okay.  This post is lacking in creativity and intelligence--maybe next time.  Bear with me.)

Sun Days

Sun Days, a set on Flickr.

My friend Victor told me that the day I blog about going to get coffee is the day he quits reading my blog. Well, I might lose him as a reader today because I'm quite ecstatic that I successfully found a coffee shop this afternoon that offers free, unlimited wifi, so there is much more talk about coffee to come.

But today's post isn't about coffee, it's about the weather. For some reason it seems like people talk about the weather when they're bored, or when they're out of other conversation starters. And plus, people can always say something about the weather, and it's easy to talk to strangers about the weather. You don't have to have anything in common with the person standing next to you, but you can always say, "Nice weather today, huh?" or if you're in New Mexico, "Is it still windy outside?"

This conversation about weather may or may not be in that category, but it is worth talking about because the weather here in northern England for the past six days has been unusually pleasant. And by unusual, I mean rare. Every day has ranged from 70-80 degrees Fahrenheit (that is 22-28 degrees Celsius, which I am making progress on learning the conversions). Instead of reading about the weather, I figured you would much prefer to see it in pictures, so I have spared you from text and attached the following album.

The following pictures were taken on Wednesday and Saturday. On Wednesday, one of the Australians and I went to a public park. This was unlike any park I've ever seen in America. It was massive with rolling hills of green grass, a lake, cafes, and hundreds of people sunbathing, walking their dogs (and children!), and just playing in the warm sunshine.
The second half of the pictures are taken at a place near Skipton at the base of the Yorkshire Dales. The Yorkshire Dales is like a mountain range or a national forrest, except that instead of mountains, it is rolling hills of breathtaking countryside. The place we went is called Bolton Abbey, the estate of the Duke of Yorkshire. Bolton Abbey is also the home to a priory church (the Christian version of a monastery) that dates back to the 1100s. Christian worship has been held in this church for the past 860 years. Click here to see where it is geographically: Bolton Abbey
Six Germans and myself explored this amazing countryside by hiking nature trails, sitting on the riverbanks, and exploring the thickest part of the woods of the Yorkshire Dales. Enjoy!