Everything is Still Bigger in Texas

It is just about been a month since the Nottingham Law group arrived in Austin, and time has just flown past! We had about a week to settle ourselves into our apartment and Texas life in general before classes started, and are now pretty much into the swing of things.

Classes here are slightly different to what we had back in Nottingham, the most obvious difference that can be seen on entry into a classroom is that everyone is much older than you! Law is a graduate degree here, so the majority of people are over 25, in some cases are married with kids, and you definitely feel like the small fish in the pond! Having said that though there are numerous advantages to it all, for a start the facilities and resources are fantastic in the Law School - the Law Library alone is larger than Hallward back in Nottingham, the discussion in class is of a very high standard, and of course there is a massive variety when it comes to choosing classes. In class, no longer can you get away with not saying anything, the professor will pick you out and grill you on the spot, and bad answers can reflect negatively on your grades, so you better come prepared! The professors themselves are mostly well renowned and have written a few/many books on various topics, in fact we had a week off one class last week because the professor was part of a death row inmate's defence and the case was before the Supreme Court!

Atmosphere on and around campus is pretty amazing, 60 000 students is double what we have back home, and when the Uni American Football team is due to play, the Uni colour (which happens to be burnt orange) is everywhere. The campus is dominated by a 100 000 seater stadium that is sold out every game the Uni team plays (wikipedia the 'Longhorns' for some info!), and this past week we were lucky enough to get tickets so see them play! We lost the game pretty badly, resulting in most people on campus being depressed for the rest of the day, but the UCLA fans who had travelled all the way from California seemed to be pretty pleased about the result!

The food continues to amaze me, we have had a few Tex-Mex meals that involve more cheese than most dairy farms produce in a day (seriously, the cheese to all other food ratio on your dish is about 50:1) but the novelty of free unlimited refills still hasn't worn off, and neither has the all-you-can-eat ribs for $10. Most supermarkets being open 24/7 is just another example of the conveniences people here experience without even thinking about it, but it is certainly causing us Brits to pile on the pounds! It's a good thing the Uni has a state of the art gym that is about 10 times bigger than the Nottingham one and is free to use, or we might not fit on the plane on the way back!

Next week we are off the State fair in Dallas, where literally anything can be deep fried (steaks, oreos, ice cream, beer, you name it!) and hopefully see our newly beloved Longhorns overcome their fierce rivals OU in the Red River Rivalry game, which can never be played on either team's home soil as the rivalry is just too intense!