Bristol Student Special: A Beginners Guide To Bristol

Description:

Chloe Banks takes a two part look at being a new student in Bristol.

Part One: What does it all mean?

Picture the scene: at eighteen years old you've lived in the same house, in the same quiet town your entire life. Suddenly, you find yourself in a strange flat waving goodbye to your dad as he abandons you to an unknown city. This was the situation I found myself in four years ago, as I arrived in Bristol to start my degree, and I wasn't happy about it.

I'd always been able to stand on my own two feet; I could cook and clean and manage money and do all those other things so vital to independent living, but there was something about knowing that the nearest familiar face was ninety miles away, that made me feel about three inches tall. So for those of you feeling similarly overwhelmed by the unfamiliar surroundings, this is for you...

When you first arrive at university, perhaps the most daunting thing is being expected to live in close proximity to complete strangers. And it's not even as if you get placed with locals who can help you get to know the area. You're all just as inept as each other. The student flat I had been placed in was the most beautiful example of political correctness you could ever wish to find; the four of us consisted of two boys and two girls, one disabled, one gay, one black and one from the North - which was all very well and good, but it didn't help a great deal when you wanted to know how to get to the bus station.

Now, I hadn't come from some tiny village in the middle of nowhere. My home town was only thirty miles outside of London and was a centre of the IT industry, but I still found Bristol to be the oddest mix of city-bustle and west-country-dawdle. There were crowds of people and queues of buses everywhere I looked, yet each person walked slower and talked slower than I was used to. In those early days I found myself biting my tongue to avoid the temptation to finish people's sentences for them. If, like me, you are also coming from the south-east of the country there is something else that is very important you should know: in Bristol it rains. A lot. On the other hand, if you are coming here from down in Devon, from Manchester or from the western highlands of Scotland, you'll find Bristol remarkably dry.

Wherever you come from, if you're new to Bristol the thing you need to get to grips with straight away is the dialect. On first inspection you may think that Bristolians speak standard English. Do not be fooled. There are some vital facts you need to know and I'm not talking about knowing that Park Street was named thus because it was built through the bullock park - save that for the pub quiz.

As a brief introduction you should know that when something is gert it's good, if it's maccy it's big, "where you to?" does not mean "where are you going?" but is a query as to where you are currently. The only proper way to thank the bus driver is "cheers drive!" and "alright my luvver" is an acceptable mode of address. Got that? Good, because there's a whole lot more where that came from. Oh, and while we're at it, if you don't know who Isambard Kingdom Brunel or John Cabot are then you'd do well to rectify that as soon as possible - ignorance on these subjects is still a capital offence within the bounds of Bristol County. In fact, my favourite piece of graffiti I've ever come across was something someone had scrawled across a mural in Bedminster: "Big up Isambard K". Genius.

In an effort to stop myself moping, I spent the first couple of weeks in Bristol trying to get to know the place and I was surprised at how quickly you can become attached. At first random sculptures of stag beetles and bombed out churches standing innocuously in pleasant parkland seem odd, if not actually macabre. Soon they become as cheerfully familiar as the faces of those friends you've left behind.

Click here to for a guide to places in Bristol

Next Week: Streetlife - it's the only life she knows...click here to read part two!


Chloe Banks is a freelance writer living in Bristol.


The views expressed are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Guide2Bristol.