First Week!

First of all: Its soo nice to have only one or two hours of class a day... Its so different from the USA but I am not feeling suffocated by school.

Monday I had one class @ 1 and then walked around the city to take some pictures...


The first picture is of the Victoria arcade and the second is of the downtown shopping area... Which I am sure will prove dangerous to my bank account.Monday night me and my friend, Amber, went out with my roomates to a club called Halo which is hosted in an old church. It was sort of an odd experience to say the least.

Tuesday I had my first traditions of alcohol class! It was very cool... we get to do tours of brewery ( and maybe a winery) and the week after easter break we brew beer in groups!! I have feeling I am not going to be very good at it... but we will see
Tuesday night me and Amber headed over the Eldon Pub for international night! It was absolutely PACKED! we could not even move (keep in mind it is 9 pm right now.... no one in England goes out until like 11). We each got cider ( a pound fifty! ) and set off to find some people I had met a couple of days before ( they can all be seen in the picture below... although that was a different night). We hungover by the "jukebox" and paid to choose songs all night! It was so much fun! but after about an hour of our DJing someone came over and paid like 4 pounds to choose 10 songs... guess they didn't like our choices
Thursday I met up with a group of other study abroad students (Emma, Mitch, Luke, Chris, Evan, and Amber... the majority of who are from Australia) to go to the union for a headphone disco. Basically everyone is given out headphones with two channels, A and B. On the dance floor, there are two DJ's so you can listen to whatever music you want. The funny thing is there is no music playing over the loudspeakers (since it is all in the headphones) so its essentially silent except for everyone who is singing along! It was soo much fun. We ended up being there from 11 till a bit over 3am.


Finally, Saturday I traveled with Jenna, one of my sorority sisters, to Liverpool. Despite my weakness in musical history, especially regarding the Beatles, I still had fun! There was this awesome cathedral... the largest in Britain. Below are pictures...

Currently I am planning my first trip out of England, to Prague. I am going with the same group I went to the headphone disco with so it should be very fun! We are going the last weekend on February and I am going to be able to meet up with my roommate next year, Colleen and some other people from U of I. I am also heading out to Stratford-upon-Avon and Warwick next weekend!

Finally... some things I have learned this week

-Smarties in England are MnM's!! what?? makes no sense!... what are American smarties then?

-It is better for Americans to refer to soccer as soccer... because if you try to be more "english" and say football... they assume you are referring to American football
Real Conversation I had:

me: My sister plays football! she is going to play in college
Henry: Oh! wow! does she play linebacker? One of the people who squats in the line

-It is impossible to understand Indian professor with British accents. I am definitely taking that class pass fail

My First Days in Leeds...

Helllllo!


I have finally made it to Leeds! I had only one scare, when my plane from Chicago to Detroit was delayed.... I had to run through the Detroit airport to make it to my next gate. It really showed me how out of shape I am. Luckily no one had to sit next to my sweaty self because the plane was only half full! so I got two seats to myself. I had a short layover in Amsterdam and then straight onto Leeds :-)

I was getting a taxi when some guy asked me if I wanted to share. Before everyone has flashbacks to the movie "Taken" he was a fellow study abroad student from U of M and I recognized him from the other two flights. I finally made it to campus and to my dorm. My room is AWESOME. It is huge... like bigger than my bedroom at home. And I have my own bathroom and shower. I have like nothing to fill the space though! If anyone wants to come to visit, I certainly have plenty of room. I also have a nice view of a park outside my window. Well actually its a cemetery... which is kind of creepy but i'll just try not to think about it all semester.

When I got here I just kind of walked around and took in parts of the campus. But I was really just tired and went straight to bed. The next days I had a ton of study abroad orientations and stuff. It was also my birthday! I spent all day walked around campus and the downtown area, which is gorgeous. When I got back to the dorm, my flatmate's decided that they were going to bring me. They even surprised me with a birthday cake! I girl I met, Amber, who is from New Zealand also joined us at the club. It was a great birthday :-)

So I talk to my flatmates a lot about the difference between our countries. For example:
- TJ Maxx in America is TK Maxx in Britain
- There are no american food brands... like goldfish and macaroni and cheese.
There are many more interesting ones, I am just having a mental block at the moment

Anyways, school starts on monday, and I dont think I am ready to work again. I have 9 contact hours, which is amazing compared to the 25 I had last semester at university of Illinois. I am taking 5 classes:
Geotechnics - a civil engineering class about soils
Fluid Dynamics - a civil engineering class
Transportation engineering - a civil engineering class focusing on roads and airports
Traditional alcoholic beverages - about wine and beer making
Theology of Islam - I am soo excited about this class, but I might have to drop because of conflicts :-( Hopefully not though
I actually found out yesterday that my geotechnics and fluid dynamics classes started last week, but no one told me! Not that it would have mattered because I flew in Wednesday and would not have been able to attend. Hopefully I am not too behind in these classes.

I travel to Liverpool this weekend! It should be fun!

Final weights of my luggage:
46.7 lbs
48.8 lbs
SUCCESS!!

Packing Up...

Hi everyone!!!
So I am finishing up packing to leave for Leeds ( T - 3 days). That is more easily said than done... I have a feeling I am going to have to re-pack my suitcases a few more times before I get everything to fit. I probably don't need 5 pairs of jeans or 6 dresses, but how do I know which ones I won't use?!?

I am taking a break from all the packing tomorrow, thankfully. Since my 21st birthday is the first night I get there I am not sure how much energy I will have to go out so I heading down to Champaign to celebrate and say goodbye to friends. Then I will have monday for all leftover errands! Everything is coming up so quickly! I just can't wait to leave!

Until next time,

-Anastasia