Life in Suburbia

Every city or town has its suburbs, and they just so happen to the places where a vast portion of the state's voters live. And so it is in the suburbs where I often find myself, walking from street to street, traversing up a variety of pathways, and knocking on an eclectic mix of doors. It's always fun to guess whether this door bell is going to work, or figure out if there is a knocker. I often have to resort to opening screen doors and just using my knuckles. It is not unusual for me to find various paint marks on my knuckles after a day of hitting the houses.

Because the thing I find most about the suburbs, is that these doors are old, and are often in need of some TLC. (That's tender, loving care for you Americans). One might expect them to need a lick of paint and some home improvements because they are used so much right? Well in actual fact, I find it's the opposite reason. These doors are barely opened. I honestly cannot tell you the number of times I have face-planted a spider's web, which form over the rarely used entrance ways. Dust and dirt gather around door handles, hinges look rusty and sound creaky, and I regularly worry I am going to fall through old wooden planks on the patio.

This seems to be because a large number of Wisconsinites simply prefer to keep their front door locked, and enter the house through either an attached garage, or via a side door or back door. Whichever is closest to the car. There is probably good reason for this; no sense traipsing around to the front of the house with heavy shopping bags in 3 feet of snow in the winter! I do wonder what these people do when they have guests over though. Do they get directed around to the side of the house too? There have been many times when I knock on the front door and get sent to the back, or the owner randomly appears around the side of the house, because I am at the 'wrong' door.

In some places I have been, they don't even bother locking the front door. Anyone is free to just walk on in. I didn't think those places existed, but apparently some suburbs in Wisconsin are still safe enough to leave garages open and doors unlocked. It's nice that it's possible to do that, but is certainly a strange thing to come across. I went up to one house with the front door completely wide open. I knocked but there was no answer. A kid on the street behind me shouted up that no-one was home, but that they would be back around 4.30pm. I retorted that they must be home, because the door was obviously open. He replied "They leave it open all the time, there's no cars here, they're not in!" Imagine the consequences if we did that with our student house in Coventry!

Another thing I have observed about suburbia, and American roads in general, is the lack of street lights. It's kind of unnerving at first, to drive these streets with no lights except those from the car headlamps, and it does make the roads seem so different, not having lamp-posts on them. Everywhere is extremely dark. But then when you think about it, there really is no need for street lamps in these little side streets. They are just lined with houses, and each house will often have a light on the outside. And when you are inside, why do you need big bright lights on outside, shining into the dark room when you are trying to sleep? The same is true of main roads, the street lights are unnecessary. I hadn't stopped to think about it until now, but there are plenty of lights coming from shop windows and other car headlights, that having big huge lamppost wasting energy is just kind of redundant. Sure, in cities, it makes the roads a lot safer, but out in the suburbs they really don't seem worth the cost. Without them, it is a little harder to navigate in unfamiliar areas.

The one feature of suburbia that drives me crazy is the house numbers. At times they are just so incredibly illogical, it blows my mind. At first glance, houses appear to be missing, and it has become quite a skill to pinpoint which houses we have to go to, and where they will be located. Numbers regularly jump from 5340, to 5378 for example, then the next one might be 5400. You might find 102, 104, 106, 112, and then 200. Apartments, and homes with numbers like 56B are even more fun. And I kid you not, I have seen houses with numbers like 320 1/2. Now, it kind of makes sense in some ways that each block corresponds to a  hundred number, so after you cross a street, the numbers will begin in the next hundred section. From 2500, to 2600 for example. But the rest of the numbers are just confusing. I also don't understand why the numbers are so high either! Whats wrong with 2, 4, 6 Kingston Road? Why do they have to be 1402, 1404, 1406?

Still, though at times it's challenging, I do enjoy wandering around suburbia. It's a great to see tons of different homes, and I am getting some great ideas for what I want my house to look like in the future. It certainly is fun to be nosey!

Missing in Action

To all who read this blog,

Please accept my apologies for seemingly disappearing off the face of the earth. Ok, so maybe that's a little bit of an exaggeration, but I have been absent from this blog for too long. It's not for a lack of ideas on things to post, I can tell you that. I have ideas teeming out of my fingers, I just cannot type fast enough. (This has long been a problem of mine; I probably should take lessons and learn how to touch type; maybe that would stop Nicole from teasing me so much about it!)

A shortage of ideas, no. A shortage of time, yes.  The elections are fast approaching, just over a week away. As they near ever closer, my free time decreases. It's important for us to be out there campaigning as much as we can, softening the impact the Republicans may have upon the Democrats. Jobs are literally on the line. So while I thoroughly enjoy hitting the streets, knocking on doors and persuading people's votes, I have unfortunately been short on time to blog.

Starting a new job has also decreased my time, though again, I wouldn't have it any other way. 8am starts mean early to bed and early wake ups. But the job is worth it, some nice money in my pocket, and an interesting experience. There's a lot of sitting around, which hopefully in the future will give me time to catch up on reading newspapers, time magazines, Empire, and a vast array of other things which I have been neglecting recently.

Bored much? Hardly. I remember a time when I used to complain a lot about having nothing to do, and being bored. That was a long time ago, and my opinion now is very far from the one I once held. I literally cannot comprehend being bored and having nothing to do. I have a huge variety of things on my ever-growing to-do list, a number of which date back to "Ben's post- exam to-do list" from June. That's a fail on a to-do list if ever there was one.

This weekend was spent catching up on things I had to do as best I could. I finally booked my Graduate Record Exam. Now I have get into gear and really start revising for it. Hopefully paying $160 just to sit in a chair for four hours should be incentive enough to do well. That, and the slim possibility that I might be successful in applying to an Ivy League school. Researching those has been a painstakingly long process too. I am still undecided on where to apply, though I am a little nearer in narrowing down choices. I have to hurry up with that process too, and start applying.

At least the weather this weekend didn't have us longing to be outside. Nope, it was a true taste of home; dark, cloudy, overcast. Whatever you want to call it. And it also rained. A lot. Perhaps I was missing the rain and miserable skies of England. Not any more.

It wasn't all hard work though. We went over to Nicole's friends' house to watch the Badgers defeat another ranked team, staying on track for the Big Ten Championship. The close game was even accompanied by chocolate covered Oreos in the shape of football(soccer balls) just for me! Then on a spur of the moment decision, we went to a great concert on State Street. More on that later.

I will do my best to get a few more posts written in the next couple of days, but then things really intensify in the final push before the election, so I may be missing in action once again. Keep in touch though, and don't forget to subscribe to be told of new posts, so you don't have to keep checking in!

A Taste of Home

Would you believe it? In the past week or so, despite being 5,000 miles from home, I have driven through London, Cambridge, and Bristol. Oh, I also made a quick pass through Denmark, Belgium and Holland.

Funnily enough, London was actually a little smaller than Cambridge, and Cambridge had a huge population totalling 1,200 people. Now correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that the population of Cambridge, according to the 2001 census, was over 108,000. Well that would be true of the original Cambridge, a centuries old settlement in the UK, home to one of the best universities in the world.

Cambridge, Wisconsin however, is much smaller. Not really much to say about it, though it was pleasant enough to drive through, with nothing untoward happening there.

There must be hundreds and hundreds of towns and cities across the UK with names commonly associated with England: Manchester, New Hampshire; Birmingham, Alabama; New York, New York. If the language doesn't do it for you, then this commonality of names surely indicates the close ties of the two countries. With colonists coming over from England, why would they bother inventing new names, when they can just use those they brought from home, and undoubtedly felt strong attachments to.

The number of English town names in Wisconsin does surprise me a little, for I was under the impression that it's inhabitants largely emigrated here from Scandinavian countries, Germany, and a few from Italy. As far as I am aware, Madison is named after one of the Founding Fathers and subsequent President, James Madison.

And if they are not European sounding names, then they surely originate from the original inhabitants of this area... Native Americans. It's hard to see towns such as Waukesha, Kaukauna, Wausau and Manitowoc as possessing anything other than Indian names.

 

I'm an Alien

I'm a legal alien. But I am in Madison, and not New York. Being an alien, such a negative, unfriendly, unwelcoming term, sure makes filling out tax forms for my new job hard. Orientation went well, seems like a fun job. But who knows if I filled in the tax forms correctly, whether I was a 1 or a 0, or maybe I had to put a 2... etc etc. As long as I get me some money, I suppose it doesn't matter too much.

I may be an alien, but I have taken up one homegrown love. Football. More specifically, Badger football. What a day today was. Wisconsin faced the number one college football team in the country, Ohio State. Once again, Madison was thriving with anticipation. Alumni travelled in, Buckeye (Ohio State) fans attempted to slip down State Street unnoticed. Being a night time game, supporters had all day to rally themselves for the match.

And Madison is famous for its gameday parties, being the number one party school in the country.  The pier/garden in front of our apartment building was jammed full of badger fans, drinking the afternoon away, dancing around to an eclectic mix of pop songs. They certainly had fun, judging by the mess they left behind.

The game was an even bigger event, because ESPN was broadcasting live, and had brought their famous gameday morning show, filmed at 8am out at Camp Randall. Many students were up early, keen to be on this show.

And boy, what a game it was. Opening images showcased what the commentators described as one of the top college towns in the country, and Wisconsin players demonstrated why the Badgers are one of the top football teams. Going up against an unbeaten Ohio State, a team the Badgers hadn't defeated since 2004, the stakes were high. And our guys stepped it up, and showed Ohio what Bucky is made of. A touchdown from the opening kick set things off for the night, and though things got tense in the third quarter, we held our nerve and came through to beat the number one team 31-18. Success, the first time Wisconsin has beaten a number one ranked team since 1981. Jubilation erupted in the stadium and across the city. Hundreds of fans invaded the field to cheer the players who made this happen. Congratulations guys.

Well done Bucky! We sure showed those Buckeyes. I mean, what the heck is a Buckeye anyway!?!

A breed of chicken originating in Ohio since you ask. Not that their mascot looks anything like a chicken.

Harvest and Halloween

I love autumn in the US. It is celebrated as a season. Nevermind the brief little interlude between Summer and Christmas in the UK, where shops clear one little shelf from their Christmas displays (which have been in place since the end of August) in order to display a few little Halloween outfits for children, and some large bags of chocolate for the trick-or-treaters. In the US, fall is a holiday to enjoy and decorate for, just as much as Easter, Thanksgiving or Christmas.

Travelling across the state, I have seen numerous houses wonderfully decorated for the fall. I guess because Wisconsin is such a big farming state, the harvest season continues to hold strong ties over the population. Cute little harvest signs are placed on front doors, miniature hay carts set up outside driveways, and little baskets of autumnal crops adorn patios. The range of these harvest decorations is just staggering; I have seen unique ornaments, plaques, and designs all across the state. And some of them must have cost a small fortune to amass. But that's surely why people get them out in September, and leave them out throughout October. People take pride in how the front of their homes look, and it really makes a difference in these neighbourhoods through which we have been walking, to see these quaint little houses each decorated in their own unique way. It makes them stand out, and look great. I can only imagine what kinds of decorations lie inside.

The same is true of Halloween. Decorations for this ghoulish night have been up since the end of September. Rather early you might say? Well considering how much some of these items must cost, why not showcase them for as long as possible? Why not make what is always a fun night for kids, last for a month? It makes Halloween a little more special, and something to look forward to. The lengths some of these houses go to is truly incredible, and again, it's nice to see people taking a pride in how their home looks, and enjoying it. I have seen fake cobwebs strewn across bushes; giant inflatable Frankensteins sitting by front doors; large eerie skeletons and ghosts hanging from patio crossbeams; and all manner of signs and gravestones lining the pathway up to a house.

And then there are the pumpkins! Pumpkins everywhere. From large farms selling hundreds and hundreds, to small households flogging the few they have grown in their back garden. Not only do they make for great displays (and I have certainly seen some ingeniously carved ones), but they also taste absolutely delicious. And I don't mean in a savoury way. I mean a sweet way. Pumpkin pie, is simply delicious, but it tastes even better with pumpkin ice cream on top. You could always have a pumpkin milk shake, or maybe a pumpkin latte to stay warm. Then again, you might fancy a pumpkin bagel, with pumpkin cream cheese. I turned my nose up at all this when I first came to the US, my only experiences with a pumpkin being the times on the 29th or 30th October when we scooped out all the smelly seeds etc. in order to cut out an evil face. But now, it gives me something to look forward to in the fall, for these pumpkin flavoured delicacies are limited time only. How else are you going to put on those extra pounds needed to keep you warm in the winter!?

If the pumpkins don't do it for you, you could always spend the afternoon apple picking. I thought it was great fun when we did it a couple of years ago, and you only reap the rewards with an apple pie or too afterwards. Or maybe even a few toffee apples.  Now we do have these apple delicacies in England, but not in the same variety or scale. Mass produced toffee apples are found in supermarkets, but any number of local shops will have a huge choice of different types of apples and toppings.

Corn Mazes are also extremely popular this year, and every county across the state holds some sort of harvest festival, with numerous farms opening their doors for great family fun, with mazes to navigate, hay rides to enjoy, and haunted houses to get scared in. I sound like a commercial, but these events are everywhere, and they genuinely sound fun, a nice way to spend a Saturday afternoon with the family.

And the sad truth is, we really don't go to these kinds of lengths in England. We don't really celebrate the harvest, we don't put up Halloween decorations a month in advance, and we don't have the same kind of family fun days, where whole towns turn out to the festival. It'd be nice if we did, streets would feel brighter and nicer, as the days get shorter and the nights creep in.

I should probably start looking for a Halloween costume. That's a big deal too. No problems though; I can just to go to one of the huge Halloween Warehouses, which are located everywhere in Wisconsin. Big stores, just dedicated to Halloween. And they don't seem to be short of business. Recession, what recession?