This Isn't Where I Parked My Car...

Venice-Torino Olympic Video!!

2007-03-26T01:24:00.001+01:00

Wow, my first post in months and months...I was procrastinating from writing my thesis and finally got to compiling the Olympics video! Yay!

Pictures galore!!!

2006-05-29T18:26:00.000+01:00

Good news! I've updated all the photos I've taken in about the last 2 months!! It took me all afternoon...but hey, it had to be done! I was going to go shopping downtown today and then realized that it's a Bank Holiday today so nothing would be open anyway. Plus it's been chucking it down on and off...best to stay inside!

So, since it took me about 5 hours to update photos I haven't written anything about them yet but if you want to take a look anyway there's new stuff in the following albums:

Amsterdam (with Jo, Tom and Erin - April)
Beverley (where my flatmate Sophie lives - March)
Dublin (with Erin - April)
French Riviera (with Jo, Tom and Erin - April)
Greece (with Elle and Erin - May)
Gryon (with Jo, Tom and Erin - April)
Italy (my trip with Mom - March/April)
London (saw the British Museum with Mom and Buckingham Palace with Jo - April)
Paris (with Jo, Tom and Erin - April)
Venice (more pictures because our ferry left from there to go to Greece - May)

2006-05-14T11:48:00.000+01:00

For anyone who's been checking back here even remotely often I apologize a kajillion times because I've just been really busy and haven't had a chance to sit down and make an effort to write! Sorry!

2006-03-20T23:48:00.000Z

Boo. Nobody wants to go out tonight...it's that time of year again where everyone has work to do...but I seem to be lucky enough to just not have that much work. My work consists of booking hostels and flights...

I really wanted to go out tonight too cuz it's Monday which means a) 80p drinks at the Fruit Cupboard for 80's Night or b) 1 pound pints at The Library or c) 10 pounds all-you-can drink at Bondi Beach.

Oh well...

Today wasn't too exciting...just had class. It sucked cuz I had to wait an hour between my 2pm and 4pm classes...but then when I showed up to my 4pm class the lecturer said that it was cancelled because the guest speaker emailed him yesterday to say that he wouldn't be able to make it...but then we were all like "Could you have told us yesterday?"...like in the Wedding Singer when Adam Sandler says "Once again, things that could have been brought to my attention YESTERDAY!" (in response to finding out on his wedding day that his fiancee didn't want to marry him). Haha! Love that movie.

Oh and I just had another weird coincidence!!! We were watching the new ER (I don't know if it's new for you guys...probably not since it's a Christmas episode) and a patient was being treated and he said he had the Philadelphia Chromosome (a mutated chromosome which can lead to cancer)....and this is really weird because I just learned about the Philadelphia chromosome for the first time ever in my Cancer Biology class today!! That is crazy...don't tell me it's not!

2006-03-19T03:20:00.000Z

I am going to die from second-hand smoke in this country.

2006-03-18T19:08:00.000Z

I heart cheesy music!

Last night at Fruity they played amazing music - and when I say amazing I mean bad music in the best cheesiest way! And I loved it!

I think I've already explained the obsession with the Baywatch song over here? If not, well they play the Baywatch theme song all the time in clubs. And they played "Highway to the Danger Zone" from Top Gun, S Club 7 - Reach for the Stars, Hanson - MmmBop, MC Hammer, Queen, The Killers, AC/DC, B*Witched - C'est La Vie (because they're Irish and it was St. Patty's Day), Pink ft. Redman - Get the Party Started, the Grease medley, an ABBA medley, Bon Jovi, "I've Had the Time of My Life" from Dirty Dancing, Whitney Houston - I Wanna Dance With Somebody, Five....tons of other stuff. It's all completely random!

Anyway, I had a good time.

Tonight I'm off to an International party, which should be fun cuz they're always crazy.

I've spent like, all of today researching stuff for my trips. I think my eyes started to glaze over around 5pm so I went to the grocery store to get food. I was gonna make a big omelette to use up a bunch of veggies and stuff...but I thought the frying pan was non-stick, and I guess it wasn't...so I ended up having to make crazy scrambled eggs with mushrooms, onions, cheese and celery instead. Oh well. It still tasted alright.

2006-03-17T17:39:00.000Z

Happy St. Patty's Day!!!

Tonight I'm going to Fruity with Sophie and her boyfriend, and Elle and her flatmates! It should be pretty good. I saw a bunch of people walking around today with big hats...like the "cat in the hat" hats but the brim is a shamrock and the tall part is a big Guinness glass - I want one SO bad!! Went out and got a new top today so I can wear it tonight (it's green). To be fair I don't have that many green tops.

I half expected people to be walking around drunk at 10 in the morning but no...I hardly even saw people wearing green! Oh well. It's gonna be pretty crazy tonight. I wanna go to the Fruity next week too cuz they're having a Chocolate factory theme with chocolate fountains and stuff...MMMmmmmmmmmm.

Oh haha...just realized that you guys probably have no idea what Fruity is...it's a clubnight run by the university union...every Friday.

I just need to tell you about this dream I had last night - it was WEIRD! Ok so in my dream I woke up and looked in the mirror to see that I had 2 unibrows! What is THAT supposed to mean?? Like, there was the one normal looking unibrow (if a unibrow can look normal) and then about a centimetre above it there was a skinnier one. Ewww. And then I was freaking out in my dream cuz I thought that I'd always had a unibrow and was mortified at what people would say about me. haha....anyway ya...

Oh and we had a fire alarm at 5am yesterday. That was fun - NOT! It was funny though cuz everyone else looked like they'd just jumped out of bed and went out...I took the time to put on boots and my coat...cuz after all the Whidden fire alarms and standing in the cold, well I just can't be bothered anymore...I might as well take the time and prepare myself for standing outside for half an hour in the cold. But we didn't have to stand outside anyway...because unlike Whidden, if it's a false alarm, the firefighters here don't check every room before declaring it safe...they just come and shut off the alarm and that's it.

I've been so busy planning stuff it's crazy! Easter Break starts next Saturday. We then get 4 weeks off, then 2 weeks back at school, then reading week, then exams, and my exams finish on the 26th and then I've got 3 free weeks until I go home. So I've been planning trips...a lot. Mom's coming over to see me and she gets into London late on the 29th. Then we leave for Italy the next morning. We're flying into Naples, staying in Sorrento for a couple of days, then going to Rome for a couple days, then up to Florence and Pisa before we go back to London. Then Mom flys on Fri. 7th and I go back to Leeds. Then first thing Sunday morning I'm leaving for Amsterdam with Erin, Tom and Jo, who are also Mac students. We're gonna be in Amsterdam for a couple days, then going to Paris for a few days - I'm gonna go to the Good Friday Mass in Notre Dame!!! I know I'm not Catholic but we all root for the same guy so I don't see the big deal...it'll be a great experience! Then we're going to this really cool hostel that's right in the middle of the Swiss Alps. The plan is to go paragliding but that all depends on weather and costs and stuff like that...but that would be AWESOME!!! Then we're goin to the south of France...so Nice and Monaco mostly. Then we're going to Barcelona before flying back to England. THEN I go to school for a week and on the weekend I'm going to Dublin with Erin, then I go to school for another week and we leave on the Saturday for GREECE (and by WE I mean me, Erin and Elle). I am soooo excited for Greece...this is our "fun-in-the-sun" trip! We're taking a 24-hr ferry from Venice to the island of Corfu, and staying at a resort for 2 nights, then going to Athens for a couple days to see all the sites. And then I come back and do exams...not exactly sure what I'm doing after exams...I really want to go to Germany, Prague and Austria...but we'll see.

I just found out today that I didn't qualify for McWork which sucks cuz Dr. Daniel wanted me to work for her in the summer. But she suggested I start in August - which is EVEN better because then I have time to be at home and catch up with friends and family before I go back to Hamilton. Maybe Mr.Shivas can give me some hours at the good ole DQ!

And in sad news, I am without an MP3 player at the moment. My little Bean's buttons are sticking in place so it's been sent away to get fixed. So I'm back to making CDs to listen to...hopefully my Bean's back before I go to Amsterdam!

This is what I put on my CD-RW today:
1. Rodeo Clowns - Jack Johnson
I love this song. I love the guitar! Although I supposed that's the part to love in most J.J. songs...it kills me that I had to give up my tickets to this concert!!
2. Wonderful (It's Superman) - Andy Stochansky
Chris used to listen to this song all the time in first year!
3. Goldfinger - Ash
4. Together - Avril Lavigne
5. High Tide or Low Tide - Ben Harper and Jack Johnson
Umm yeah...slightly obsessed with this song right now. I'm teaching myself to play it on the guitar but it's been killing my fingers cuz it's all bar chords...I hate bar chords. Boo.
6. Going Away to College - Blink 182 (live)
My favourite Blink 182 song. I am so sad they broke up. It would have been awesome to go to one of their concerts...I was listening to stuff from Angels and Airwaves (Tom's new band) and Plus 44 (Tom and Travis's new band) and they both sound good....they've got stuff coming out in the summer.
7. Everybody Needs Somebody to Love - The Blues Brothers
I went into a music store the other day and they had a used double CD set of all the Blues Brothers songs for 5 quid and so I picked it up to buy it...but then the guy at the desk said someone had sold the CDs from it and just the cover was left. Why would they put it on display if there was no CD? Grrr....
8. Poison (remix) - Clubland
Alice Cooper fans would want to kill themselves listening to this and it is super Chavvy but I still like it.
9. Dance Dance - Fall Out Boy
10. Meaning - Gavin DeGraw
11. Coming Clean - Hilary Duff
Ok let me have it. I know everyone's rolling their eyes at this one...and usually I can't stand Hilary Duff but this song is just sooo catchy!
12. What's My Age Again - Blink 182 (live)
13. The Passenger - Iggy Pop
I heard this song on a commercial and now I love it.
14. I Want You Back - The Jackson Five
This song always makes me happy.
15. Miss Independent - Kelly Clarkson
16. Suddenly I See - KT Tunstall
Possibly my favourite song of the year! I love it so much. I've watched episode 2 of Grey's Anatomy season 2 way more than the other episodes just because this song opens the first scene!
17. Set You Free - N-Trance
Chewn!!!
18. Shake Your Tailfeather - Ray Charles
Again, I needed to fill my Blues Brothers craving.
19. Dammit - Blink 182 (live)
20. My Number - Tegan and Sara
I love Tegan and Sara right now! Not love them love them...cuz they're lesbians and well, I'm not.
21. Dance Like This - Wyclef Jean
Ahhh....Havana Nights...what an awesome soundtrack.

Anyway, that's what's going on and what's been going on...

Cheers!

The Week of Craziness, Patriotism, Visiting, Excitement and Exhaustion

2006-03-05T20:52:00.000Z

Ooooooooookay. Big breath in, big breath out. This is gonna be one honkin post. Stop procrastinating - just get it over with. Sorry for taking so long to update!

Saturday, February 18: We took the bus down to London late afternoon. (Our flight was out of London Stansted.) Me and Jo were sharing the headphones on the way down and possibly talking/singing loud enough for everyone to hear - but oh well! We got there around 9:30pm and our plane didn't fly out until 6:30am on Sunday. Since we would have to leave at like 3am to get to the airport we didn't think there was much point in getting a room for the night, so we ate some food and then headed to the airport. Thankfully this ride to the airport took half the time it took to get to it when we were trying to get to Germany!
When we got to Stansted we staked out some space to sleep/make our signs for the game. We ended up staying pretty much in front of the doors...which I actually don't know why because it was really cold there from the doors opening all the time. And it was really noisy because cleaning machines kept going on. So needless to say I got no sleep that night. The benches there had armrests that separated every seat so you couldn't even spread out across them to lie down. We did a good job with the signs though I think...bought a bedsheet and folded it half and then did a message on either side::
Sunday, February 19 - a.k.a. My 21st Birthday!: So our flight left fine and we were actually ON it this time! It was only a 2 hour flight but I didn't sleep at all, unlike the other 3 Canadians I went with. I just suck at sleeping on public transportation. So by this time I was really tired. The view was really good though when we were flying over the Alps! Very nice! When we got to the Venice area there was too much cloud and the pilot couldn't land the plane, so we circled for about 3/4 hr. waiting for it to clear - which it didn't - so we had to land at a place called Trieste. The name kind of reminded me of the French word for sad - triste - because this place was like...well you know when you watch Eurotrip and they end up in Bratislava? Picture what the airport would look like in that scene if there was one. That's what this place looked like. The sketchiest airport I've ever been to! Apparently Italy, Austria, and some Eastern countries (likely Slovenia since it's right next door) have been fighting over this city for a long time and Trieste has only belonged to Italy for several decades...if I were them I'd give it back! The airport didn't look so bad once we got inside the terminal though. The airline had arranged a coach bus for us to take to the Venice Treviso airport. This airport was also sketchy because it's not the main Venice airport, just a small one. You may be wondering why we're flying into these crazy places....the answer is cheap tickets my friends, cheap tickets. Then we took a bus from the Venice airport to the city. Our hotel was a lot better than I was expecting. There aren't a lot of hostels in Venice, and nothing is really cheap, so we ended up staying in (I think it was) a 3-star hotel in Mestre Venice, which is the modern part of the city (not the part with all the canals and stuff). It was about 10 euros cheaper a night than places inside the old city and the bus to Old Venice came really frequently and was only 1 euro (or free at night) and took about 15 minutes.

We were really exhausted when we got to the hotel, so we napped for a bit, which was amazing!! Once (somewhat) rested we went to get some supper at a ristorante that was kind of like a Movenpick/Marche thing but with less variety. The pasta was amazing though...I had fusilli with spinach cream sauce and grilled salmon...MMMmmmmmm so yummy! Ooh, and you can get Nestea in Italy, which you can't in England, so I had iced tea.

Then we headed into Old Venice. It was really nice to see it at night, but I think it would've been good to see it in the daylight first cuz we really didn't know where anything was. We went to this bar/pub thing called Cafe Blue and had some drinks - this was my official birthday celebration...I spent my 21st in Venice = YAY! So we had some cocktails and we also had some absinthe. Ooooohhh. I just shared a glass with Jo though so there are no crazy hallucination stories from Kirsten. It tasted a lot better than I thought though. Just like black licorice. I don't like black licorice really but I'd prefer that to the taste of say, vodka. And it didn't really leave an aftertaste which was even better! I think the stuff we had was 60% plus the wormwood. And it actually did glow!
While we were in there the Olympics were on the big screen and there was another group of Canadians sitting beside us. So, we were talking to them about what they were here to see and stuff...and the lady in the group was the mother of Canadian bobsledder Morgan Alexander. [OOooh when I was looking up the link for him I just noticed that he has the same birthday as me!!! COOL!!!] Anyways she was really nice and took this picture for us (Tanja, me, Jo and Dave):A bunch of Morgan's friends were also there and we ended up seeing them again in Torino, but I'll talk about that later.

After drinks what did we do? The same thing every student does after they've had some drinks - GET PIZZA!!! (Careful you don't get a headache when looking at the picture...pizza man didn't have a very steady hand I'm afraid!) And where better to get pizza than in Italy? The pizza in Italy tends to be all thin-crust pizza. It was really good, I'm not complaining...just an observation. Oh and if a pizza is "pepperoni" it has no meat, just peppers. Dave found that out the hard way.

Once the pizza was deliciously consumed, we started wandering the streets/canals. Lucky for us we were there during Carnivale, which is their version of Mardi Gras. So there were tons of people wearing masks and costumes and stuff....some masks were really creepy though! The ones that really freaked me out had really long beaks or noses on them, or the ones that were cat faces. They had a lot of artwork in Venice that had cat heads imposed on people's bodies which also really creeped me out.

There are lots of "piazzas" in Venice...basically they're just squares. Some are really busy, some aren't. We stumbled across a small barely-lit piazza by accident, and there was a band of masked people playing really medieval kind of music, you know with lutes stuff like that. And it would have been cool if they were playing for an audience...but they were playing for themselves. There was a group of non-musician mask-wearers who were dancing like medieval times...not sure if this translates well into words but it was where they put their right palms together and dance in a circle facing each other and promenade and stuff....ANYWAY it was creepy since we were like the only ones not partaking in this craziness! So I snapped a picture anyway before we left:
We also walked over the Rialto Bridge...a really pretty bridge that crosses the Grand Canal. Venice has a bunch of different canals, but the Grand Canal snakes its way through the centre of the city.
A couple more of my favourite pictures from that night:
*View of the Grand Canal from the Rialto bridge
*Most people dressed up in masks and cloaks, these people chose to be Darth Vader and Star Troopers!

Sleep that night was the best thing ever! I was sooo tired!

Monday, February 20: So I said that sleep was good...it was quite entertaining the next morning when we had reports of snoring...
The beds that Dave and I slept in were next to each other...this is how two separate conversations went:
Tanya and Jo: Did she really snore?
Dave: Yes, like a train.
Later on...
Me: Dave, did you know that you snore?
Dave: Did I really snore?
Me: Yes you did snore, like a dinosaur.

The buffet breakfast (which was included) was amazing! When I stayed in the hostel in London I was happy cuz we got toast and cereal....here there were pastries and cakes and really good cheese and meat and buns and fruit cocktail and an espresso machine! Basically we got there at 7:30 and ate til about 9...cuz it was free, so we might as well stuff as much in as we could!

Monday was our big sight-seeing day since it was our only full day in Venice. So, we did a lot of walking! The big thing of the day was the Piazza San Marco (St. Mark's Square), which is home to the Basilica di San Marco and a kajillion pigeons! You could buy birdseed to feed to the pigeons (I didn't - what do you think I am, stupid?!) and it was so funny when people would make the effort to get the birds to land on them but then when the birds wouldn't leave they'd start freaking out...so funny! I have video footage of this lady who looked kind of like Jennifer Coolidge (a.k.a. Stifler's Mom) freaking out, which someday will be part of the Oscar-winning video I make of this trip...Umm, just to clarify, that picture is of us being gangsta, although Jo seems to be a bit out of the loop on that one.
There was a runway set up in the piazza as well...for some kind of fashion show...but we didn't know if it had already taken place or whatever so we didn't stick around to find out.
The Basilica was huge though! Inside it was very dark because I don't think there was any electricity in it. The floor tiles undulate a bit from so many years of sitting on top of water. The walls and ceilings were covered in mosaics which must have taken forever to construct. This mosaic is part of a series found on the outside of the building depicting Biblical scenes (we weren't allowed to take photos inside). And also, this may sound really boring of me, but check out the marblework on the side of this place!
I took a walk up to the top of the Basilica to get some views of the square. Luckily it wasn't too far up. At the top of the Basilica they also had a museum with old church artefacts and stuff. And they had these bronze horses there that had been stolen from Constantinople during the 4th Crusade. It always really phases me when I see really old stuff. I mean, in Canada, nothing is old. Well, I mean you get arrowheads and stuff but that's pretty much it. Everything here is old. So you see stuff like the Basilica and the horses and think back to what it might have been like before. It's crazy!
I bought a lot of postcards that day...which I haven't sent off yet. So some of you might get a postcard...sometime. haha.
Now if you go into my picture section, you may wonder why I have pictures of Jo with this random Italian lady....well this is Wanda. She's been making leather-bound journals for like 30 years and apparently when she makes them she shouts out greetings from her attic to the passersby. But she wasn't making journals when we were there, just selling them (because her husband was away...he usually sells them because he can speak English). She was really cute though. Jo found out about her in her travel guide so it was a bit of a mission to find her. When we finally got there, Jo bought a journal and got Wanda to sign it, as well as the page in her travel guide that mentioned Wanda.

Unfortunately it rained quite a bit while we were there so we didn't get to go on a gondola ride. Boo. Oh well. But we did see someone get proposed to!!! We were standing on top of the Rialto Bridge when we saw a guy put a ring on this girl's finger. It was so cute!

While we were walking around we passed all the huge overpriced shops like Armani and Prada and I took a picture of the merchandise in the Versace window, along with its corresponding price tag:
Um can we say YIKES??!! And the thing is, one of the stores (can't remember which) looked like they had just taken freyed pieces of dull beige linen and sewed them into some ugly dress and then decided to sell it for a kajillion euros! Who would buy that?! Fortunately for you guys I don't have a picture of the hideous thing. Be happy that your eyes have been saved.

That night we decided we were gonna go to this one restaurant, so we were walking around forever trying to find it. At one point we thought we'd found it, but it said it was closed...even though there were people in it...and it didn't have the same name as the one we were looking for....so there was a lot of walking around in the dark, being hungry, looking for food. We walked over canals, through ghettos (but don't worry, ghetto didn't mean sketchy, just an area with certain nationalities or religious type people), and in a big circle really, before decided to just get pizza again cuz we knew where the pizza place was. And the guy there made our pizza from scratch...it only took about 10-15 min. from start to finish! And the pizza was, again, really good. I was a little disappointed at the lack of throwing the dough in the air (he didn't throw it in the air...not once).

We couldn't make it a late night though because our train left for Torino at 7:52 the next morning.

Some more of my favourite pictures from that day:
*I'm pretty sure this is a science museum...it's some kind of museum anyway.
*Cute little canal
*Colourful pasta
*In Canada, condoms are available in pharmacies or drugstores. In Italy, you can buy them from random vending machines on the street! I guess they're just being safe?

Tuesday, February 21: Okay so the plan for this morning was to be out of the hotel by 7:15 so that we could catch our 7:52 train, which left from Stazione Santa Lucia in Old Venice. The buffett breakfast was supposed to start at 7am, hardly enough time for us to eat...so we brought bags, and got breakfast to go. It probably looked kind of bad, but hey, we're students, we're hungry, and that breakfast was paid for already. It's not our fault we had to leave early.

The train ride was 5 hours long but only cost us 10 euros! It was great! We got to sit in one of those train cubicle thingies like in Harry Potter. It was a cubicle of 6 seats, but there were just four of us, and we were listening to music and being crazy...and then two Italian people came in. I thought, Oh crap, now we can't be stupid cuz they're gonna thing we're crazy! But it was fine...they were the same age as us and also slightly crazy at times. The girl, Carlotta, was a huge Avril Lavigne fan. Apparently Avril was supposed to be performing at the medal ceremony that night, and she was going just to watch her. As we pulled into one of the stops there was a sign on the side of the tracks:A bit drastic I think. Usually our signs feature a not-so-injured person behind the circle with a cross...but here I guess they just come out and tell you you're gonna lose your leg!

I'm glad we got on the train at the beginning of the trip, because by the time we hit Milan it was packed and people were crunched in the hallway. We managed to maximize our space by spreading out a bit:When we got to Torino, we first went to the Piazza San Carlo, which was one of the main shopping plazas (it was also where NBC had its headquarters).We were going to try to get last-minute tickets to the awards ceremony so we could see Avril and also watch the women's hockey team get their gold medals, but they were all gone. We agreed to meet the Italians we'd met, Carlotta and Tomaso, after the game for a drink. After getting food we hopped a bus to the Palasport Olimpico, where the hockey game was.There was a beer tent in the grounds so we went there for a bit before the game to paint our faces and stuff. Everyone kept taking pictures of us! It was crazy...obviously we didn't know these people! There was a live band who were really good. They played mostly classic rock like Bryan Adams and "Sweet Home Alabama" and stuff like that....stuff that everyone knew.

We ended up getting into the arena just in time before the puck dropped. Our seats were pretty good. We were in the corner of the arena, 10 rows up. This was our view:So it was high enough that you got a good overview of the rink but not really far away at the same time. The only thing that sucked about our seats was that we were on the same side as the media, which meant that we had no chance of getting on tv....which sucked soooo much cuz we'd spent all this time on our signs and we really wanted to get on CBC!!! Oh well...
As for the game, I'm sure you guys saw it. I was really afraid Canada was gonna lose because they'd just lost the previous two games to the Swiss and the Fins. And Canada really wasn't playing that great. The Czechs had SO many more shots on net than us...Martin Brodeur was just amazing. It was so frustrating cuz I had my camera but I can only take a minute of video at a time so I would take a minute of video...usually starting it when Canada would start getting offensive...I kept hoping that I would catch a goal or something exciting on video. But I didn't. One time I was really mad because I had recorded Canada coming down the ice...and then they missed the shot and the Czechs got the puck and then I stopped recording cuz I thought, I don't care to watch the Czechs playing well...and then right after I shut off the camera the Czechs shot and Brodeur made this AMAZING glove save!!!! I can't believe I stopped recording...that would've been awesome footage!!! SO MAD!!!

It was awesome to see everyone dressed up in their country's colours and stuff! There weren't too many Canadians in my area though...lots of Czechs.

After the game we took a whole bunch of pictures of the Olympic Rings and the torch and the Stadio Olimpico (where the Opening Ceremonies were) and then headed back into the beer tent, where there was mucho celebration and mucho Canadians.Beer was 4 euros a pint, but for the occasion it seemed worth it. It was so fun! Everyone was so happy and everyone sang the songs and then someone started the "Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, good bye" thing and the band joined in and it was awesome! I have that on video too! Someday you'll see it...
This guy was so drunk! He kept going around and shaking everyone's hands...I think he shook our hands about 3 separate times. He was pretty funny though.
Here's a picture of us with some random Canadians in the tent. Actually, I think the guy on the right sat across the aisle from us at the game.:
Once the beer tent started to die down we went back to the Piazza San Carlo. It was packed with people! They had a huge screen up showing the medals ceremony for the night, and we got there just in time to see Avril's performance....and we belted out the songs along with her...some people looked at us like we were crazy, some people took pictures, some people laughed...whatever. I thought she did a really good job. It was all acoustic. I'm not sure if you guys got to watch it or not. She played quite a few songs too!

Then began the walking...which was pretty much what we did for the rest of the night. We walked around the piazza...and felt like celebrities! We still had our facepaint on and signs from the game and people would shout "Yeah Canada!" from across the street...even if they weren't Canadian, and people kept asking for a picture of us, and one couple even asked us to let their child pose with us!! It was amazing!

School Stuff

2006-03-05T20:24:00.000Z

So here's the update on the actual reason I'm here - school (although some may think differently!)

I finally got all of my marks back from my January exams. I passed all my courses, which is all that shows up on my transcript at home, but I got above average marks, which was some comfort after finding out that those "above average" marks were between 56 and 68! I think my Dad's voice is still ringing in my ears from when I told them the marks and he was like "FIFTY-SIX?!!! FIFTY-SIX?!!!"...haha. But the class average for the 56 class was 52 so it's all good - and you don't fail over here unless you have less than 40. And a 70 is a 1st (like an A) and is really hard to get, so I'm happy. Like I said, all I had to do was pass, but it's not in me to not try to do well.

I had some problems at the beginning of term, because I had to find an extra class to pick up to fill up my timetable, and then I ended up dropping 2 classes because the first one conflicted too much, and the second one probably wouldn't have gotten me any credit back home. So, by the second week of classes I finally had it all sorted. So, I am now taking Biochemistry: Macromolecular Structure and Function, Chemotherapy, Applied Biology and Agriculture, Cancer Biology and Human Genome Project. Applied Biology and Agriculture was the final course that I signed up for. I was so happy about it because the timetable online said it was only one hour a week - Wednesdays at 12 - so I was like, SWEETNESS! So I started going to the classes, and then the week before I left for Italy - that would be the second class I'd been to - our professor said "In yesterday's class, yadda yadda yadda....". Now, at Mac it was common for a prof to refer to "yesterday's class" as being the previous class, even if it wasn't from the day before, so at first I thought nothing of it...but then the prof was talking about something that I didn't remember him mentioning before. So, I went home and checked the module handbook...to find that the handbook said we not only had class on Wednesday, but on Monday and Tuesday as well. So the online timetable kind of screwed me over because I had missed 10 classes before even realizing it. I thought I'd only missed 2 classes from the first two weeks before I registered for the course. And then to make things even more fun, we were reminded that class of the midterm we had in class the following week - the week I was in Italy. So basically I went to my module manager's office right after the class and explained how I had this huge problem and that I wouldn't be able to write the midterm next week cuz I was at the Olympics and stuff. But yeah, he was really nice about it...told me the alternate writing date and then talked to me about Canada and the Olympics and stuff. And with my Biochem prof, I also mentioned to him that I wouldn't be in my lab that week cuz I was going away and he was all excited for me and he said I didn't even have to bother filling out the usual paperwork! I wish missing assessments were that easy at Mac!
I ended up writing my Agriculture midterm last week. It was multiple choice, but different from ours. We still had to fill in the pencil-computer sheet thingies, but where at home we just fill in a, b, or c, etc., they have a row for every question, but then within that row there are columns for a to e, and then every column has a spot for "true", "false", or "don't know". So essentially, every "multiple choice" question is made up of 5 true/false questions. But the catch is that if you get it wrong, you get minus one mark instead of just not getting the mark. If you choose "don't know" then you just don't get the mark. They're sneaky here.

2006-02-03T01:18:00.000Z

The week that was...

Last Saturday, Katherine, her friend Lizzie, and I took a random trip to a little town called Ilkley which is near Leeds. Ilkley is in a valley, so when we were riding the bus there we drove on top of one of the hills on the side of the valley, and it was so cool because the sky was completely clear on the hills but the valley had been stuffed with clouds. It was just this huge run of clouds that went on for at least 5 minutes of driving. I really wanted to get a picture, but didn't for several reasons:
1) I was on a bus, which was moving, and I probably would've gotten a really blurry shot anyway
2) the bus windows were dirty = ugly picture
3) there were lots of trees on the side of the road = picture with lots of trees, not clouds
4) I was on the wrong side of the bus = dorky tourist girl rushing to the other side of the bus for a crappy picture of something really cool that everyone else on the bus probably sees everyday

When we got to Ilkley we looked around the shops and stuff...it's a very posh town...you know, the kind of people that go to the bakery and market everyday to get overpriced fancy food because "it tastes better". There was an old school sweet shop there with the candies in glass jars. They had maple walnut fudge! (which I bought, of course...and I'm pretty sure it was devoured in under 10 min.) While we were there we kind of thought it would be cool to make like a storyboard of our day so we decided to take pictures of everything we did...so I was the one nominated to ask the candyman for a picture. Apparently it's not as bad if I do it cuz I'm a tourist. But he was pretty good about it, and actually smiled quite nicely for the shot. (oh boo! I just remembered that we took that pic on Katherine's camera and I haven't got the pics off of her yet...oh well I guess I'll load that link up later...)

After the shops we went to a pub for lunch, and it was an old pub...very traditional. Super slow service though...it took like 45 min. to get our food. But I got a proper roast dinner...roast pork, yorkshire pudding, peas, roasted potatoes and some sort of mashed carrot/turnip (i think) concoction.

Then, we decided we had to walk off the big dinners so we took a hike up the big hills at the other end of town. It gave a great view though!Katherine had a bit of fall on the way down, which I laughed at...probably not the best initial response. But she was alright for the most part so no biggy. It was kind of slippery in some spots because there was frost on the hillside but someone it had melted and it was actually pretty muddy.

On the bus home a grandpa-aged man sat near us and heard us talking and asked if I was from Canada. "You sound just like my granddaughter!" he said (she was from Vancouver). He was really nice though. I guess he heard us talking about movies and dvds or something so since he didn't have a dvd player he gave me the free movie that came with the paper that day....it was Conan the Destroyer with Arnold Schwarzennager....it's the thought that counts right?

On Sunday I went to the movies again with Sophie and we saw Just Like Heaven with Reese Witherspoon, which is definitely a chick flick (although Sophie's boyfriend doesn't agree with that term cuz guys can enjoy those movies too!...PS he loves 10 Things I Hate About You and can we imagine how excited I was to hear that?!) It was a really cute movie though; I liked it.

Monday was the day that I FINALLY got my courses straightened out for this semester. So, I'm taking Biochemistry: Macromolecular Structure and Function, Biology labs, Chemotherapy, Cancer Biology and Human Genome Project. Chemotherapy seems really interesting. I had a 9am lecture in it on Wed. and I didn't even feel like falling asleep! I have 3 9ams and one 10am though which sucks, although I have all of Thursday off. On Wednesday we had our first biochem lab, which wasn't a lab but consisted of watching a movie about Watson and Crick, the scientists who figured out the structure of DNA...kind of (by pretty much stealing ideas from everyone else). It starred Jeff Goldblum...so at first I thought, hey it can't be that bad, right? Wrong. I mean, for a science movie I guess it was alright but definitely not very gripping. Basically it was a lot of male scientists who just needed to get a girl, and kept gossipping about the only girl in their field...or tried to pick up french chicks from the girls' residence and then there was a lot of pipe smoking and beer drinking while chatting about DNA. That was the movie.

It snowed on Wednesday!...a couple of times! I even took video of it the first time but I'm not gonna bother showing you guys that cuz of course you've probably had your fill of snowfall. I even walked home in a bit of snow!...like, it wasn't on the ground but hitting me in the face...you know how when you're driving a car and the snow kind of streams over the windshield and it looks like it's being launched back up into the sky? It was like that, but less snow...and although I do walk fast, I was not travelling as fast as a car. MIND YOU due to traffic I actually was walking faster than traffic in this case! HAHA! My flatmate Rich is in my class and he took the bus home and I walked and beat him! SO THERE! Faster than a car I am!

Today/(yesterday I suppose now) was Thursday, so I had the day off. But it was so grey outside and I was just like...blah. So I seriously did nothing. Matt came home from class around lunchtime and I got him to start watching Grey's Anatomy last night so of course (since Grey's Anatomy is such an AMAZING show) he wanted to watch more today. I only have episodes 1-12 of season 2, which were the only ones available when I came home for Christmas. So, we watched 3 episodes this afternoon and then 3 more tonight. I wasn't going to stay in tonight BUT ok...I was supposed to be going out with the flat next door cuz they just signed a lease for their house and so were going out to celebrate. So I got ready in like, 20 min. including straightening the hair = speedy! But then they decided not to go out because not enough people wanted to go out. So ya...I stayed in and watched more Grey's Anatomy with Matt.

Oh and last night the people going with me to the Olympics came over so we could figure out where we were staying and stuff while we were there, so that's all worked out now. We're gonna make signs while we're spending the night in the airport (we fly out at 9:30am and I am NOT going to miss another flight!) so if anyone has any amazing things to put on signs let me know because we plan to get on TSN and CBC!! (Steph, I don't think "WE HAVE BOOBS NOW" will work this time!)

And, I've been really antsy (is that how you spell it?) lately and just want to go places and get frustrated when I don't go somewhere and end up doing nothing. So, since Ryanair has this flight sale on I've decided next weekend I'm gonna go somewhere...I'm thinking Oslo, Norway. Because, if I tour around Europe in April, Oslo most definitely will not be on the Europe circuit that I'm planning so I might as well go there before April. I'm just working on getting people to go with me...so hopefully it works out!

2006-02-01T11:54:00.000Z

Apparently Rachel has made me the newest player in a game of blog tag.

Alrighty then:
Four jobs I've had...
1. Conference Services assistant, McMaster University
2. DAIRY QUEEN!!!! How I love you and miss you!
3. I worked at a butcher shop...and hated it.
4. Working on my farm...in the barn or picking rocks or something.

Four movies I can watch over and over...
1. LOTR...all three...all special extended editions = Yay!
2. Eurotrip
3. 10 Things I Hate About You
4. Wedding Crashers
....guys there's so many more...4 is an unfair number...it's more like a kajillion.

Four places I've lived..
1. On my farm, just outside Stratford, Ontario.
2. Leeds, England - yay for flat 2.1!!!
3. Whidden Hall room 320!!!
4. and.....West Park!!! (avenue, in Hamilton, my home away from home)

Four tv shows I love...
1. Grey's Anatomy! Guys I've watch season 2 episodes 1-12 twice through now....I need new episodes!
2. Friends
3. Scrubs
4. One Tree Hill...not because it has an incredible script or anything, but because it's a big deal at West Park.

Four places I've vacationed...
1. Mexico (Manzanillo and the Mayan Riviera)
2. Veradero, Cuba
3. Alberta
4. Puerto Rico (one of the most memorable trips I will ever have, eh Chris?!)

Four of my favourite dishes...
1. A really good sandwich! ie) the ones you can get at the Pillers deli at Mac
2. Barbequed...anything really. As long as it's not burnt. Like a really good porkchop or street meat.
3. Ice cream! Especially Dairy Queen!! Especially when I get to make it myself!...and when that's the case then there's really no point in guessing what I'll point on/in it. Maybe a PB&J sundae (peanut butter and raspberry sauce!) or a blizzard with everything possible in it!
4. Mom's lasagna is really good. She makes a lot of good stuff.

Four sites I visit often...
...aside from sites I need for school?
1. Comingsoon.net - Movie news...what's coming out, what movies are being made...
2. MuggleNet - Harry Potter!!!
3. Pink is the New Blog - celebrity news
4. Ryanair - cheap flights around Europe!! This site is particularly addictive because I keep wondering where I should go...

Four places I would rather be right now...
1. Travelling Europe instead of going to school.
2. Back in Canada
3. Somewhere warm....I really want to go to the south of France...or Spain, but I guess that's part of the travelling Europe thing.
4. Doing something really crazy like skydiving or trying to surf or something.

Four bloggers I'm tagging...
...oh man, I don't know. I don't even know who checks this site regularily.
How about:
1. Wheezy
2. Bourke - because you haven't posted in forever!
3. Pam
4. Marie

2006-01-28T01:34:00.000Z

Me, Sophie and Elle went to see Jarhead tonight, and I thought it was a really good movie. I mean, it's not the kind of movie you wanna watch over and over but it was really good. Not sure if the people at home have seen it yet but most of you are in love with Jake anyway so I'm sure if you haven't you will...especially since he's naked, unless you count a Santa hat as clothing...meh, he never did anything for me anyway but I know someone will appreciate it.
During the previews they always have Orange commercials (Orange is mobile company...don't think we have it at home but then again I never had a cell phone at home). Anyway, these commercials are always so funny. They have a new one with Patrick Swayze in it and I've seen it twice now and I kill myself everytime. Watch the Patrick Swayze commercial here. So funny! Nobody puts Swayze in a corner! I love it!
They had another one before Christmas with John Cleese but I can't seem to find it for you guys to watch.

Anyway, that's all I had to say really! Good night!

2006-01-27T00:55:00.000Z

Mucho frustration today. I went shopping cuz I had the day off and the plan was to find a pair of shoes. Now, technically, I've been looking for this pair of shoes since the beginning of the year. I need going out shoes...so I can wear something other than running shoes to a club. But I don't want heels cuz that just kills me...so I've been looking for flat shoes. Except they all look the same! They've all got a little bow or a little flower on the front and if they're not black or brown then they're some crazy metallic colour like gold or silver. And I'm not going to buy a pair of shoes just for the sake of getting shoes to go out with...I wanna get shoes that I see and go, "Those are the ones I want". But that hasn't happened yet. Or, it did but they didn't have my size.

And when I wasn't trying on shoes I was looking at the sales cuz there are tons of them on right now....and I didn't really see anything I wanted either. They had really comfy knit sweaters at Zara for 5 quid but they were in gross colours like mustard yellow and a gross green, or the only ones in normal colours were XL. The only thing that I actually considered buying the entire day was dark pink...and then I thought...since when do I buy pink? Maybe if I go back and it's on sale I'll get it later...

For lunch I had Burger King....the last BK I will have in a long long time because this one did not sit well with me. Blah. I didn't even want fast food but unless you actually sit down and have a proper meal there was only McD's and BK to choose from and I was really hungry to the point that my stomach hurt (although eating didn't make it any better). Oh well...it's good though cuz it's totally put me off hamburgers and crap for a while.

I just finished watching the Whidden slideshow....it was good to watch it but now I'm all like, "I wonder what I'm missing at home". You know? Gah, that was not why I wanted to watch it...it was supposed to make me all happy and stuff. Oh well. I was sitting here, talking to Sophie and Katherine and "Cecilia" came on my playlist so that inspired me to watch it...and I totally forgot that my song was on there! Good thing my flatmates stopped watching it after a few minutes! They've heard that song already and I'd be quite happy to never have them hear it again!

Anyway, must go to bed...which means, I will bum around on the computer for another few minutes and then read some of Narnia and then go to sleep. I don't have class til 1pm and that's my only one so it's all good....I think tomorrow I'm gonna go see a movie with Elle...but not sure which one yet.

Nite all.

2006-01-25T12:47:00.000Z

Attention!! The video of Christmas dinner in the flat is now up.

Now that that's said...

I started school on Monday. Boo. I'm taking a biochem, biology practicals and earth history until mid-semester and then more courses are added on. Today I have a biochem "lab" but all we're doing is watching a movie about Watson & Crick, scientists who figured out the structure of DNA. It may not be so bad though cuz it was written by the guy who wrote the screenplay for Gladiator...and it has Jeff Goldblum in it. I'm not saying he's a fantastic actor or anything but...it could be worse eh? Tomorrow I have the day off = YAY!!

In recent randomness....I took a picture today of my pet snow that "Santa" gave me for Christmas. I had to water it today so it's looking nice and fluffy again:And for something else kind of random, we have this ad in our kitchen for stuff on campus:I thought it was funny obviously...cuz I've seen the skit, but they don't have SNL here! What's the point of having a funny ad that no one gets? No one in my flat knew what it was about! Anyway...must get ready for class...

2006-01-25T11:30:00.000Z

Exhibit A: A Smoothie

MMmmmm a smoothie. I do like smoothies.

Exhibit B: A Blender

Yes that's right. That was my smoothie, and I made it with my new....Blender! Mmmmmmm...

I was at Sylvie's (my Dad's cousin) house in last weekend to visit and she got a blender for Christmas so we had smoothies for breakfast and I decided I needed to get a blender. They were pretty cheap at the grocery store I go to so I figured it would be a good investment for the remainder of the year. I was so mad though because the first time I brought the blender home it didn't work, so I had to go all the way back to ASDA (have to take the bus) to exchange it. Oh well, I have one that works now and that's all that matters.

So yeah, last weekend I went to visit family. I left Leeds on Wednesday and was supposed to get the 10 o'clock bus to London but there was traffic and construction on Otley Road so the city bus I was taking to the bus station didn't get there in time so I missed the bus. Luckily they let me get on the 11 o'clock. Then when I got to London I was supposed to meet my Nan's sister, June, at the bus stop. But apparently I got off at the wrong stop no thanks to a lady on the bus who told me where to get off...so I was walking around with all my bags for about half an hour before I finally found June. That night we didn't really do much. Frankly I was too tired to go out anyway. And there isn't really a whole lot to do after dark for just me and June because I'm not gonna go out by myself and I think it would be a little weird taking June to a club or something. So we just stayed in a chatted and watched soaps....yeppers, Coronation St. and Emmerdale, which I'm pretty sure they show on the CBC. I'd never seen them before really but I'm still not hooked on them. Oh and we watched Celebrity Big Brother...and Dennis Rodman is on it! Why? Why? And you know that song "You spin me right round baby right round, like a record baby right round round round..." by Dead or Alive? Well the singer from that group, Pete Burns, is on Celebrity Big Brother and he looks like this! AAAaaahh! Scary!

On Thursday we went to Windsor, cuz I wanted to see the castle.
When we got there they were doing the changing of the guard, so that was good timing. But, when we got to the castle they told us that the State Apartments (which is essentially the main reason to see the castle) were being cleaned and we could only go into the Royal Doll Room and the Chapel for half price. So I decided not to go in cuz I figured I'd just come back and see the castle some other time and then I would see the Chapel, etc. at the same time. So the rest of the afternoon we walked around and looked at the shops, then we took a walk down by Eton College (where Princes Will and Harry went to school). Ooh and check out this crooked tea house! It's crazy!
The next day we went shopping on Oxford St. for a bit because I needed a new jacket. I had this coat from H&M (Steph if you're reading this, it's the one I bought when you were there) that ripped...and it didn't even rip on the seam, it was like, in the middle of the fabric...so I was sad because I liked that jacket. But I was trying to put it on over top of a thick sweater and apparently the coat wasn't made to accommodate big sweaters...oh well. Then we went to the Science Museum, which was alright. Most of the interactive stuff was in areas that were being renovated so a lot of the stuff we saw was more like the history of science...that's the problem with sight-seeing in the off-season: everything's closed for repairs or cleaning or whatever.

Friday evening I went to Tring to see Sylvie and Mark and Sylvie cooked a really nice meal! On Saturday we went to Oxford, which is a beautiful city. Every building downtown is nice to look at...so naturally, I took lots of pictures. Now, for anyone who's into Harry Potter, you probably know that the Great Hall in the movies are based on the Great Hall at Christ Church College, so I went there and I mean, I wouldn't object to living in these halls! But the Great Hall isn't only connected to Harry Potter...the windows and fireplace, among other things, are attributed to Alice in Wonderland. In the stained glass windows there are small pictures of the characters. They had a really nice chapel and...just everything looked nice. We went to Trinity College too, which was also really pretty. At the end of the day we went up the tower of St. Mary's church and the tower dates back to the 13th century! The staircase is seriously a foot and a half wide and spirals to the top. And this staircase is the only one so imagine trying to get people up and down at the same time. Obviously there wasn't enough room for 2 people on a step so they had little grooves where the windows were that you had to stand in to let people pass by. Now, I'm not usually claustrophobic, but going up there were a couple of times when I could feel my breath kind of getting shorter. Then, when you get to the top, there's about the same amount of room all around the tower, but it was a great view!The next day we went to Woburn Abbey and St. Alban's. But, when we got to Woburn Abbey, the estate house wasn't open, even though it said it would be in my Frommer's book. Boo Frommer's. So that sucked. We could still walk around the grounds and stuff but the house was supposed to be really nice. So then we drove to St. Alban's to the see the old cathedral.

So yeah, I left for home from the St. Alban's station. It was a good weekend though...good to chill out a bit before school started again.

Christmas report!!

2006-01-16T20:46:00.000Z

Well hellooo and now it is time for the update of my Christmas (and pre-Christmas) break. Our "Christmas dinner" in the flat was on Nov. 30...because that was the only time we could all get together before the break. I made a video of it...but one site I uploaded it to is being dumb and keeps putting it in some weird file...and then google videos just takes a long time, so I'll let you know (as always) when it's finally up.

It was a good dinner though. We got a pre-stuffed, pre-cooked turkey...well part of a turkey...it didn't have the wings or legs on it. But it was good. It only took about an hour in the oven and it's not like I knew how to cook a turkey. And then we had veggies and stuff...pretty much the same as they have at home. The thing that was the most different was the "pigs in a blanket" which you'll see in the video. At home, it's like tiny sausages in a pastry, but here it's tiny sausages wrapped in bacon. I don't know which I like better...both very tasty! Nov.30 was also Katherine's 21st birthday so we were going to The HiFi for Motown night with some of her friends from class and stuff. It was quite amusing cuz with that kind of music no one really cares what they're dancing like...and I was the official picture-taker so that was lots of fun. I had to be up super early the next morning though to go to "Germany" so I left before most other people.

Now skip a week or so...cuz I've already explained the whole "Germany" trip...class finished on Friday the 9th and I flew home on the 13th. That weekend I basically spent researching for my stupid Anglo-Saxon Cultures essay that was due when I came back in January. The original plan was to have the essay done before I left, but with my procrastination techniques that was never gonna happen. I actually didn't even finish it over the break...I waited until the day before to do it after I came back to England...it's so bad. I really have to stop doing that, but I swear I do my best work right before it's due!

On the 13th I had to get up at some ridiculous hour...5am I think. I had to catch a train to Manchester Airport at 6:30 and I'm sure I could've slept in an extra 15 min. or so but after "Germany" I just wanted to get there early so I had no problems. There was no way I was gonna miss my flight home...cuz by this time I was ready to go home. You know, you start missing people, missing Tim Hortons, Dairy Queen, snow, hockey games...
So then I had to get a flight from Manchester to Heathrow and Heathrow to Toronto. Thank goodness my luggage just got sent through on to the next flight because four pieces of luggage is pretty exhausting when the terminal you want is on the other side of the airport. My flight from Manchester to Heathrow was possible the loudest flight I've ever been on. Do me a favour....put your lips together and vibrate them. Yeah, that's what it sounded like. But it was only like a half hour flight. Oh and we flew right over that big gas explosion or whatever it was outside of London, all you could see was this huge plume of black smoke. Heathrow to Toronto was alright cuz I got to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but I hardly had any leg room...and I can never sleep on planes so I was so tired. By the time I got home in my house it was about 3am England time...and I'd been up since 5am, so I was tired, but when I got home all I wanted to do was talk and visit so I was up for another couple hours after that.

The whole Christmas break was a blur though...I went to Hamilton a couple times to see the "family", I went shopping...for Christmas presents and for myself, oh yeah...and I got my wisdom teeth out. That was a joy, I'll tell ya! I had to get all 4 out and they were still in my gums...they weren't even causing me problems, but the dentist's been wanting me to get them out since before university started, so I figured I should get it done cuz the last thing I want is to have to get teeth pulled here in England. So I had to get anaethestics but when they intubated me they had problems so they rubbed against my throat a bit...and it was actually the sore throat that hurt the most. My teeth were fine after about 3-4 days really but my throat hurt all the way up to Christmas. Turkey and stuffing were pretty much the only things that didn't burn on the way down.

You have to check out this picture of me and my brother though...I got him an England Rugby jersey (yes Chris, the same one I got you) and I got this whole olympic get-up from my family for when I see the hockey game...and Mom was taking pictures of us in our new clothes but Robert was being stupid so this picture was the result:
Oh yeah, and you have to see our massive Christmas tree! The day we were gonna get our tree it seemed like they were sold out everywhere, which sucked cuz I made my family wait til I went home...but then one of the centres said they were getting about 40 trees in the next day...so we went back and they were all huge! Like the diameter of this tree was bigger than my arm span...biggest fattest tree we've ever had!!

New Years was good, eh girls? Me, Mel and Sher went up to Sudbury cuz Sher goes to school there and their house was having a party. We got to watch the Canadians beat the US at the World Juniors...so that was an added bonus.

Speaking of the Juniors, I flew back on Jan.5th, which was the night of the Gold Medal game against Russia. And I was so mad because my plane was supposed to leave at 8:15pm which meant that I would miss the whole game, and chances were pretty good that they weren't gonna show it on the plane. But, my flight got delayed until 11pm which meant that I got to watch the whole game at the airport! It was great! The thing that sucked about the delay was that when I arrived in Heathrow I was originally supposed to have a 3hr layover before my flight left for Manchester. Except now my layover time was 15min! And I had to switch terminals! So there was this other lady who was on my flight so we were rushing around together...and it turned out that she used to live in Stratford...and then when she moved from Stratford she moved to Burlington or something and worked at Mac! And then we ended up sitting together. Hey guys...do we sense one of those weird coincidence things again? It always happens to me! So anyway we made our plane thank goodness...just as they were saying "Final called for flight yadda-yadda to Manchester". Then when we got to Manchester, we found out that our luggage didn't get transferred because there wasn't enough time in between flights. And as much as that sucked, it meant that I could get my luggage delivered to me instead of lugging everything through the train stations like I did on the way home. So, all these bad things that happened ended up being for the best I guess!

So I'm here now. For the next 6 months. I brought back 12 packages of Tim Horton's Coffee, 500mL of 100% maple syrup, and a package of Oreos (although it's down to half a package now). Hopefully it'll tie me over til I get home again.
Oh man and I can't believe I forgot about my snow! In my stocking for Christmas "Santa" gave me this white powder stuff that if you add water it looks just like snow, just not cold. I say that's the best snow ever! So it's in a tin in my room now. And all I have to do is rewater it every once in a while and I can have snow forever!

2006-01-13T15:49:00.000Z

My procrastination tactic of the day is to update my blog. I have so much to tell! So much that I had planned on telling over the Christmas break but it was so good to just be home that I didn't really feel like updating. Plus, most people that read this blog will have already heard most of my stories, but this is more for purposes of writing down what happened so I can reflect on it later I guess...

The last weekend in December I had plans to go to Dusseldorf, Germany with three other McMaster students. We left on Dec.1 and came back Dec.5. However, this isn't what happened really. It's kind of funny cuz when I talk about this trip I still say, "When I was in 'Germany'", but when I say "Germany" I do the quote fingers, but that is where we were supposed to be. Don't get me wrong though...it still ended up being an awesome weekend!

So it all started on the Thursday (Dec.1) morning. Our cheap plane tickets were out of London, so we had to take a bus down to London at 9am. Lucky for us, since we booked early enough, the tickets were free!! Unfortunately, not everyone made the bus on time...so we missed it. So we were like, okay...what do we do now? Luckily National Express runs busses to London every hour, however these ones weren't free. So we got tickets to go on the 10am bus. While we were on the bus, just about ready to go, the guy I was with said, "Do I need my passport guys, cuz I think I forgot it.".....yeah....he needed his passport. So, we got off the bus, he went back to the flat to get his passport, and we got on the 11am bus to London. Now, it's about a 5 hr. drive to Victoria Station, and our flight was supposed to leave at 7:20pm from Stansted Airport. If everything else had worked out the way it was supposed to we still would have made our flight. However, the shuttle bus from Victoria to Stansted (which is definitely NOT in London!), which was supposed to take 1 3/4 hrs. was caught in traffic (apparently there was flooding in London somewhere, not to mention it was also rush hour), so the trip actually took 3 hours. We missed our plane. It was seriously like being in a movie...we got off the bus and ran to the check-in only to find out that the plane had just taken off. So then that was crappy. We were in Stansted Airport, going nowhere. We'd booked a hostel and paid for our flights and we were still in England. Luckily, the guy at the service counter said that we could claim the taxes back so really we only lost 14p (30 cents) each for our plane tickets (yes, they were that cheap), and we explained the situation to the hostel and they let us cancel without having to pay for any of the nights. So moneywise, it could have been worse.

We decided that since we came all the way there, we might as well just stay in London, because it's not like there was a shortage of things to do there. We got this awesome hostel called the Globetrotter. Even though it was the same company as the one we stayed at in Edinburgh it was SO much better! It was only a minute's walk from an underground station, it had nice rooms, a cafeteria, a bar, a movie room, a big kitchen, a gym...I mean this place was really great! If you book on Hostelworld you get really good prices too! (ie. It was 8 pounds a night from booking online but if we hadn't it would've been 17 pounds a night!) And we got free breakfast!! It was great.

So, what did we do when we were there? Well, we didn't do a lot of really typical touristy stuff like Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London and stuff like that because Erin and Elle had been there the weekend before (obviously they weren't intending on going two weeks in a row!) and I had seen that stuff before when I visited as a kid. So, we walked by a lot of the touristy stuff and took lots of pictures. At night it was nice to see the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge and stuff all lit up:

The first day we were there we took the underground to the Parliament Buildings and when we came out of the station, this is what we saw:

It was great! We sat in on some parliamentary proceedings...although it must not have been an important matter because only about 10 people were discussing it. It was something to do with the crime bill.

Right beside the Parliament Buildings is Westminster Abbey. We just walked around it though cuz we didn't feel like paying to go in. It was really crazy though, because when we stood beside the abbey and looked up (so you see the view in the picture below), it made this kind of optical illusion where the building was falling down backwards because the clouds were moving forwards...it was really crazy.

One of the days we were there we went to the Museum of Natural History. It was free to get in! And we spent the whole afternoon there. There were lots of dinosaur skeletons!! Please excuse the "Ross" but I love dinosaurs...they are so cool! And they had this animatronic T-Rex who roared at you.

And then they had all these "alternative" reasons for why the dinosaurs went extinct which were kind of funny.

So there was a life sciences section with all the skeletons and stuff and then there was an earth sciences section that had this simulation of an earthquake that happened in Viet Nam or something where the floor shook and stuff, which was kind of cool. And it was so cool in the life section because we signed up for this "Behind the scenes" tour, which took us into the museum's labs! Did you know that they actually ship specimens in the mail? Like, they have thousands of those jars with dead species and formaldehyde. So, if I was at home in Canada and I couldn't make the trip to study a specimen in London, they they vacuum seal it and bubble wrap it and mail it to me!! And...when someone brings in a specimen where they only want the bones, instead of scraping the bones clean themselves they have buckets of bugs that eat everything but the bones...so they go into every tiny whole and suck it out. So after a couple of days the skeleton is all clean! It's crazy! And the best part was the "Tank Room". This was were they kept the really big jars of animals... they had jars that held small sharks or anything else that size. Most of the jars were about 1m-1.5m high. They even had what they thought was the link between fish and on-land animals because it still had the fins but it had appendages as well. It looked like an oversized tadpole that was still morphing. And they had original specimens that Darwin took on his journeys!! And I know that it's a really dorky thing to get excited about, but that's a pretty significant part of history right there...and also in the Tank Room were...the Tanks. Obviously, you're not going to fit something like a bear in one of those jars, because they just don't make them big enough. So, they have huge vats of solution that bigger animals just float around in. Some tanks have 4 or 5 specimens in them and they're just tagged for identification. So if someone wants to study one, they have to fish them out. Unfortunately we didn't get to look inside the tanks, cuz it would've been sweet to see all the dead things floating around...haha. We had to wear labcoats on the tour, so this is us:

We also did some shopping while we were there...or rather, more looking at stuff in the shops. We went to Harrods, and obviously when they're selling clocks in there for 10000 pounds I'm not really gonna be in the mood too buy much. But it's a huge store. It was insane because it was right before Christmas. They had multiple Santas there. It was like a corridor with 10 rooms and there was a Santa in each room, but the kids wouldn't see people going into the other rooms, so it wasn't like they could tell there were multiple Santas. But the line was 2 hours long!! I couldn't imagine keeping my kid occupied that long! And then in the toy section they had this almost life-size Lego triceratops!

We went to Portobello Road market too. If you've seen Bedknobs and Broomsticks you'll know what I'm talking about. Basically, it's just a bunch antiques, but it's such a huge market...I don't know how long it went down the street but we stopped after about an hour cuz it just kept going.

Covent Garden was another shopping place, which in My Fair Lady is where Eliza Doolittle sells her flowers. We weren't there for long though...but I'd heard of a "Canadian Store" near Covent Garden, so we went there and they sold Moosehead and Sleemans and they had Oreos and maple syrup and Mr.Noodles and other stuff like that...and I really wanted to buy a bag of Oreos, but it cost 4.25 pounds ($8.50)! So I figured I'd wait til I got home...
And then right near this store was The Maple Leaf Pub. It served normal English pub food but then had poutine and tortiere and stuff...and pancakes with maple syrup...and Canadian beer! So we ate there. And apparently they show Hockey Night in Canada there on Sundays but unfortunately we were there on the Monday, so we missed it.

And in more news relating to movies, when we were on the Tower Bridge, Tom discovered the James Bond door. In the latest film, Die Another Day, there's a part when James Bond goes to meet M in a deserted underground station, and he has to go through this door on the Tower Bridge to get to it.

And...we went to King's Cross Station! It was so funny cuz we kept telling Tom we had to go there but he's not into Harry Potter...so he was kind of out of the loop about the whole thing. But it was exciting in a really dorky way. They even had a photo-op Platform 9 3/4 there...so we took pictures:

We were kind of stuck for things to do at night. We tried to get rush tickets for a West End show...but there weren't really any shows available that we wanted to see. One night we went to see Flightplan at a cinema in the West End. And so we were in the cinema, and then I left to go to the washroom before previews started and there's a girl outside the door giving out free samples of Disaronno amaretto! It was great! They'd never do that in Canada!! So we watched Flightplan, sipping our amaretto. One of the other cinemas in the area had a huge Triwizard Cup on top of it from the 4th Harry Potter movie, so of course I was a dork and took a picture of it. It was so big though!
One night we went to this stand-up comedy night...but it was just really bad so we left part-way through and went back to the hostel to play euchre.

I think that pretty much sums up the trip though. It ended up being a really fun weekend despite the beginning of it...

2005-12-07T21:24:00.000Z

Okay everyone I finished my Edinburgh video!

PS...super-nice day outside today, but very cold. I fell on some ice on Otley road which is where lots of cars go down so I felt like a huge loser. It didn't even look like ice either. Crazy deceptive British ice. Boo.

Last day of class tomorrow!!

EDIT: Just saw the new Pirates of the Caribbean Trailer....SOOOOOO excited!!! Doesn't come out til July 7th though. AND I also just found out that they're supposed to be release The Chipmunk Adventure on DVD in May!!! Yay!!

Edinburgh!!

2005-11-30T13:04:00.000Z

Last weekend I went on a trip to Edinburgh put on by the Leeds Uni Student Union. We left around 3:30 on Friday afternoon on the bus. It was cold. It was also cold when we got there at like 9pm. So yeah, it was a long ride and I think our busdriver got lost a bit and we made this stop that lasted like 45 min....which was longer than we really needed to buy some food and go to the bathroom...but whatever.

Our hostel ended up being in the middle of nowhere, even though on the itinerary it said the hostel was in the city-centre....we had to take a 15 min. shuttle TO the city-centre! And here's where it gets frustrating...one shuttle holds 14 people. There must've been about 150 students there from Leeds. Originally they were running two shuttles an hour, and then they started just doing shuttles back and forth so it was more like 4 shuttles an hour. But that still only accounts for 60 people an hour, which means that if you didn't get on the first shuttle, you had to wait until you did get on a shuttle, which was a huge waste of time. And then the shuttle stopped running at 11pm, so if you wanted to stay out you still had to pay for a 10-pound taxi ride back. Don't get me wrong...the hostel was nice in itself...lots of facilities and the beds weren't bad, but just totally out of the way.

Once we got there on Friday night we took a shuttle into town to see what there was to do...and all I can is that once we got dropped off...you get off the bus and see this:

(The things that are lit up are the castle up top and the art gallery.)
Everything is so pretty because it's done up for Christmas. There was a German Christmas Market going on and they had lots of rides and a skating rink.
Unfortunately, though, there wasn't a whole lot to do at night because most pubs close before 12 and then there weren't many clubs around. We went into one club called Espionage and they had pictures of Native Americans on the walls...not sure why exactly...kind of random.
On Saturday morning I went to the castle and took the audio tour which was really good...lots of history and stuff. It's one thing to look at something but it's so much better to understand why it's there and why it's important. I have lots of castle pictures....just go to my picture album and look up the Edinburgh pictures. I didn't realize that Mary, Queen of Scots was made queen when she was only 9 months old! That's nuts. Oh and it was so cute cuz there's a chapel on the top of the hill where the castle is (it's actually the oldest part of the castle) and a wedding had just finished so I got some video of it. That'd be so sweet to get married in a castle! Oh, and you can't see the video yet cuz I'm working on a video for all of Edinburgh and I'm waiting for some critical music for the soundtrack before I finish it....but I will let you know when it's done!!

After the castle (which I spent 2 1/2 hours in!) I looked in all the tartan shops and stuff....then I met up with the other Canadians again and we went on this tour of Mary King's Close, which was really cool. To see what it is, click on the link before. It was so awesome cuz it felt like I was in some medieval movie or something...like I could actually picture people from the 1500s dumping their crap in the street at 10 o'clock every night and we heard stories about the plague and a couple ghost stories...ya, very interesting.

We went back to the hostel for food...I was starving cuz I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast. Then we tried for another night out on Saturday. We ended up at this crazy pub called the Jekyll & Hyde. It was SO cool!! When you walked in the door there was a bunch of old torture equipment hanging in the window, and fake cobwebs everywhere, and freaky chemistry flasks and tube hanging on the wall along with skulls and other crazy stuff. There was an old silent horror flick playing on the tv. Their cocktails are named after the 7 deadly sins and are kept in creepy tall skinny flasks. And the bathrooms were so cool cuz the doors were hidden in the bookcase wall!!! AND it played good music!! It was great!

Sunday morning I got up a bit earlier and took the 9:30 shuttle in. I looked around the shops a bit and then went to church for the first time since I've come to the UK. I go to a Presbyterian Church at home and figured, if I'm gonna go to a Presbyterian church it should be in Scotland (because it's Scotland's offical church). It was the first day of advent so I was expecting to light a candle and have Christmas carols and stuff....but no, no candles, no organ, they didn't even sing hymns...they sang psalms to tunes that everyone kind of knew already so I didn't even have music to sight-read from. So I was pretty much lost the whole time. But it was a good experience anyway, just to see how they do things. The sermon's main message was "Choose Life", which gave me an amazing inspiration for my Edinburgh video, which hopefully you will see soon enough. Anyone who's seen Trainspotting will know where this is going, since the book/movie was based in Edinburgh.
After church I went in more shops, bought myself a 100% lamb's wool scarf...very warm!...and a bunch of postcards and a sew-on Scotland badge. I've decided that every country I go to I'm gonna get a badge.
In the afternoon I went back to the hostel and walked around the countryside there...took some pictures of the coastline and I found this really cool castle/house thing a bit down the road from our hostel.

The bus left for home at 3pm and I was so dead. But there was hardly any leg room on the bus so it was really uncomfortable. Boo. Yeah, I slept pretty well that night when I got home though.

So that was my trip. Edinburgh's really nice though, I definitely recommend the visit!!

I am officially the worst blogger ever...

2005-11-20T01:10:00.000Z

I did not come to England to write about weird coincidental episodes as per my last two blog entries. Now, even though it may have given some cause to laugh at my level of insanity, I know that those were two crappy seriously boring blog entries. I now have the daunting task of recounting everything that's happened since...oh man, a long time ago...because I've been procrastinating writing about all this stuff like it was some big essay. And everyday it gets worse because it makes that much more for me to write.

As this may take a while, I encourage you to either get comfortable or just run away now. Or, don't read this all at once...whatever turns your crank, floats your boat, tickles your pickle...

Ooh and for some in-flight entertainment I have lots of pictures, videos and I'm also going to tell you every song I listen to while I write this. Woo-hoo! Clearly I'm not tired even though it's almost 1:30am. But, it's Saturday night and tomorrow is Sunday so getting up early is not a requirement. Must I remind you that my iTunes are on random...

Song 1: "It's Gonna Be Me" - 'N Sync

Alright so I'm gonna start with today and work backward.

Oh, song change: "Killing Me Softly" - The Fugees

Today I went to the cinema. (Here they go to the cinema to see a film...mostly I go to the movies to see a movie. I think their way sounds more posh...but so does most stuff they say...) This was the 3rd time I've been to the cinema this week. This may seem like spending a lot of money, and maybe it is, but I've rationalized because it costs about 4 pounds to see a film. Now, if I were to go to a club I would pay that much just to get into the club...and then I'd buy drinks and I'd get out after buses stopped so I'd have to chip in for a taxi home...oh and we usually get pizza on the way home too. So, I mean, it's much cheaper than going to a club...
So tonight we saw "In Her Shoes", and I thought it was pretty good. Very chick-flick bit of drama and comedy. I cried a bit. Yeah, it was good.

Song change: "Half-Life" - Duncan Sheik

Earlier today I went shopping...more like browsing...with Sophie. We went into the city-centre and yeah...Christmas shopping season is SO upon us. Man it was packed.

Song change: "Does He Love Me?" - Keshia Chante

We went into the sports store that always has sales on and there was so much I wanted to buy...more comfy pants, which I definitely don't need, running shoes, again, don't need...and all the pretty football cleats...definitely don't need them but they're a lot more colourful than they used to be. Oh and we went into Primark which is a major discount store...and it was madness in there! And we went into...

Ooh yay song change and it's "The Channukah Song Part II" - Adam Sandler!!

...we went into Harvey Nichols which is the store that has all the really high-end brand names like Prada and Versace and stuff...so we looked at some 200-pound handbags and stuff...(remember pound is currency not mass...could you imagine lugging around a 200lbs bag??)...you know, things that I would never buy...
We had lunch at Subway and it was amazing! Sweet Onion Chicken Terriyaki! Mmmmmmmmmm....

Song change: "One More Night" - Phil Collins...yes I'm quite aware that the switch from Adam Sandler Channukah to Phil Collins was quite random...

Oh and before I went to the movie we were watching "Strictly Come Dancing" on tv. This show was what "Dancing With The Stars" was ripped off of. My flatmates love it. Actually, I think pretty much every reality tv show they have in the states was ripped off of a British show. Oh but here they have "Race Swap" which is exactly what it sounds like...it's like "Wife Swap" but now they're swapping wives of different races...yeah...not sure how far that show's gonna fly...

Song change: "True To Your Heart" - 98 Degrees & Stevie Wonder

So that was pretty much today. Yesterday, that would be Nov. 18, we all, or not all of us but all of us who are in love with the Harry Potter franchise, know that this was the opening of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" in cinemas...a day that I've seriously been waiting for since last year. I was checking Mugglenet.com pretty much everyday up until about 3 weeks ago and then I decided to give it up for fear that the movie would be ruined for me if I kept watching so many previews and interviews and stuff...

Song change: "1, 2, Step" - Ciara

So, I went to see the movie with a couple other Canadian girls and a girl in the flat next door.

Song change: "More Than Anyone" - Gavin DeGraw

Cinemas are better here I think because you actually get assigned seats when you buy your tickets like you're going to see a play or something. You get to choose where you want to sit. So it's nice because you don't have to wait hours in line if you're going to an opening night show just to get good seats. Of course, when you book online you pretty much have choice of anywhere in the cinema if you buy tickets early enough and you're guaranteed those seats. So we had great seats for Harry Potter thanks to Kayla (one of the Canadian girls).

Song change: "What Are You Waiting For" - Lindsay Lohan....yes, I actually like this song.

English commericials are funny too. I think their length of previews is longer than at home...it seems that way anyway. Lots of commercials, some previews, another commerical for Orange with John Cleese and then the movie.

Okay so now the movie...oh man I loved it. It was the best book (although, now I think HP 6 is pretty close in the running) so of course this movie came with high anticipation.

Song change: "Footloose" - Kenny Loggins

Of course there's the usual complaint that it could've been longer...see, it's pretty much the same length as the rest of the movies: about 2 1/2 hours. The only thing is that this book is about twice as long as any of the other books (if not longer), so a lot more was cut out. I guess I probably shouldn't say a lot because I don't want to spoil it for anyone. But, parts I loved were:
the Quidditch Cup (not a long part but the stadium was AMAZING!), the only classroom scene, the Yule Ball, the part in the Prefect's Bathroom, the part where Hermione says that Krum is more of a "physical" guy but not in "that" way (hahaha), and the part where we finally see Voldemort, not because I particularily loved the Voldemort I saw, but because I finally got to see some form of Voldemort. I'm still not sure what I think about the look of him. It wasn't what I though. Yes, he looks a bit snake-like, but I pictured him more repulsive and old-looking...I dunno. But I loved the movie. It seemed to go by so fast. It really is a shame that it couldn't have been longer because it seemed more like a slide show of the book in that the plot needed to be carried forward, so we were really just seeing highlighted glimpses of what was going on in the book...I think I need to watch it again to just to let it sink in more.

A couple song changes: "Don't Speak" - No Doubt; "Omabolisare" (sp?) - Prozzak

I was trying to talk to Emma on Skype today about the movie but it was so frustrating because something was up with the connection so I couldn't hear anything she was saying...I was so mad because I really wanted to talk about the movie!! Why does stuff not work when you need it to?? Gah!

I was going to go to York earlier yesterday because I loved it there so much and it was actually nice outside (it's been really nice out lately...when I say nice I mean no rain...but it's been pretty cold. We've had frost and it stays for most of the day!!!) But then I decided against it because I really had to go grocery shopping so I took the trip up to the better store to and stocked up. The quest for Oreos is still showing no result. Boo. But, I have managed to find Triple Berry Cheerios...2 boxes for 2 pounds! Not too shabby! But I have to complain about my last couple of boxes because there isn't any fruit until you get to the bottom of the package!! Oh well...it's still cheap. Oh and on the cheap note...the other night we were talking about something and I said that I was cheap, in that I didn't want to spend the money on something. Well, apparently the meaning for "I'm cheap" over here is something like "I'm a whore"....haha yeah I guess I'm not gonna say that anymore!!! And although I now know that pants are called trousers (because pants are underwear here) I can't seem to get it into my head because I still find myself calling trousers pants. My worst problem is when I come home and it's been raining and the bottom of my trousers are all soaked, because I come in and say, "I have to go change my pants cuz they're soaked and I'm all wet". Now, take out pants and insert underwear and that's what my flatmates are hearing...doesn't sound too great...but it is pretty funny when it happens...just so long as I say it around them and not to some random person it's not gonna hurt anyone.

Missed a couple more song changes: "It Must Have Been Love" - Roxette; "When The Lights Go Out" - Five

Nov.17 - On this day I had the 2nd of 5 Human Genetics labs. So far, these labs have proved to be just as dumb as the Biology labs at Mac. There is no hands-on lab technique stuff it's just all paper and writing and calculations. Bah. I feel so dumb in my labs because I haven't done genetics since first semester last year so all the processes and stuff have slipped my mind a bit and so when I ask my prof a question and I'm supposed to know it I'm afraid he must think I'm a little slow or something. It's stupid though because we're not given any pre-lab or reading or anything...they refer to some of the stuff in lecture a bit but not enough for you to just pull answers out of your head like they expect you to...you basically go into the lab cold and have to hack through the answers.

Song changes: "Can't Wake Up" - Treble Charger; "I Wanna Be A Kennedy" - Kill Hannah

Okay an hour has gone by since I started writing this and the tiredness is starting to kick in....I shall return...tomorrow...

Ya I was gonna go to bed but "Get Down" by the Backstreet Boys just came on and it reminded me of how we used to watch the video over and over and kill ourselves laughing at how bad it was. Promise me we'll do that when I get back. hahahaha...mental images of the video...hahaha

Okay now I'm out...for real.

2005-11-14T23:45:00.000Z

Yep, still crazy apparently cuz something else fishy came up...we rented Hitch tonight...and in the movie the girl that Will Smith's character falls in love with in college is named Cressida. After the movie I was looking up Stratford-upon-Avon to see which plays I could go see...and apparently they're putting on a play by Shakespeare called "Troilus and Cressida". Come on guys...I mean, what kind of name is Cressida? Something's fishy...I never even knew there was such a play. On a less paranoid note I was upset to see that King Lear wasn't playing cuz I read somewhere earlier in the year that Ian McKellen was supposed to be playing King Lear...maybe there were scheduling problems with filming? And Patrick Stewart is in The Tempest but that's not on til July and I'll be gone by then...boo.

2005-10-29T16:31:00.000+01:00

There's something about weird coincidences that really freaks me out. I'm sure at one time you've heard me going on about how I always seem to notice coincidences and stuff and that I probably make too much of it...anyway, I know that some of those "coincidences" are probably a result of me just not realizing certain things unitl something else happens to draw attention to them and therefore I think they're connected in some way...BUT today I have totally had a weird coincidence.

So where it starts, is yesterday I was walking around Leeds Markets and I went to have something to eat at this one booth and the ladies working there were all excited because someone named Chesney Hawkes, apparently this person was famous in the UK in the 90s, had just eaten at their booth. So they asked me if I knew who he was and I was like....uh...I'm Canadian...never heard of him...so then they continued to tell me that he signed autographs and stuff for them...so yeah, that was yesterday. Today, like 10 minutes ago..I was listening to "The 90s Show" on Energy Radio (yes, I'm streaming my home radio station over the internet) and the song by this Chesney Hawkes guy comes on!!! It's called "The One and Only" if anyone knows it. Now tell me that's not weird. I mean, never heard of this guy before until yesterday...I turn on a Canadian radio station which just happened to be airing a 90s show at the time and this song comes on. And I had never heard the song before...it's not like I recognized the song and just forgot that he sang it or something...That is too weird for me. Call me crazy, I don't care. It's all a bit, you know...oooo-eee-ooo-eee-ooo-eee (uh yeah, that's my creepy sound).

2005-10-24T00:45:00.000+01:00

I was just about ready to go to bed...had a shower, packed up my stuff for school tomorrow, brushed my teeth...and then I started setting my alarm, dreading the 8am wake-up time that would start my week for the rest of the term. See, at Leeds there are 20 credit courses and 10 credit courses. For the most part, the way it works is 20 credit ones run all semester whereas the 10 credit ones are only 1/2 a semester long. I have a Human Genetics course which starts week 14...and it is because of this course that I will lose my sleep-in time on Mondays as well as my days off on Fridays...I hate this course already. So, back to my story where I was getting ready to go to bed early (yes, 12:30 was early for me) in order to get up for this stupid class....and then I realized...this isn't week 14...this is week 13...I don't have class until 1:00 tomorrow...that means I still get to sleep in!! Yay!!! So, out of sheer happiness I have decided to stay up longer, update my blog in light of the weekend's events...and sleep in tomorrow.

On Saturday I went on a trip to York put on by the Leeds University Union (LUU). I lied in bed on Friday night praying for a nice sunny day...no joke...but Somebody apparently wasn't listening.
So, I got up at 8am to get ready to go...too early, hence my dread of doing it for my supposed class tomorrow...I contemplated wearing my winter jacket. I got it out of storage and everything...then right before I left, I thought, I'm going to get really warm walking to school in that jacket, so I changed and wore my green zip-up jacket (?) thingy and my brown jacket with the fake hoodie, convinced that I would be warm enough and if I got too hot I could peel layers. This plan worked perfectly for the walk. Yes, I was warm...I got hot, and peeled...the bus left at 9:30...we got there about 10:15. Now, when I got out of the bus, the whole clothing plan was totally shot. It was cold and pouring. Why didn't I wear my winter coat?! So, I'm sure my stupidity in choice of coat was part of the reason why I have stayed cooped up in my room for most of the day (with the exception of going to Wilko's to buy a battery charger, which I will elaborate on later...) blowing my nose non-stop and feeling like crap.
But anyway, back to happy fun times...
Despite the pouring rain (I did bring my umbrella - or "brollie" as it seems to be called around here) we (as in me and 5 other Mac students) managed to take in the sites of York - a beautiful city that is so old that I'm learning about it in my Anglo-Saxon class (it was a very active area of development of the early Christian church...way before Henry VIII came in and split it into Roman Catholic and "The Church of England" a.k.a. Anglican).
The first thing we did was visit the York Minster - "the largest gothic cathedral north of the Alps".

Well, it was huge and really snazzy inside. All the carvings and stained glass and ceilings and floors...everything was just so intricate and beautiful. Check out the pictures in my photo album...although some pictures may be a bit blurry...this is because my camera is very sensitive to shaking, and I tend to jiggle the camera a bit when I push the button. They had prayers over the intercom every hour on the hour. Everyone had to be still while someone...the priest?...said prayers to the world. Lucky for you I also took quite a bit of video...so I've been an uber-dork during my day of sickness and have put together a 4-min video of the interior of the cathedral (well, highlighted parts of it anyway) that you can watch by clicking on the link in my Videos section. Now I have to warn you again, that it'll probably take a while to load, especially since this video is about 3 times as long as the other 2 I've put up. So be patient...maybe click on it then go do something...make some dinner...come back and watch it...it should be done by then.

When we finished touring the cathedral, it was still pouring...which wasn't really what we had wanted, but oh well. The unfortunate part came about 5 min. after leaving the church when my second set (a.k.a my back-up set) of batteries had run out in my camera. Well, I only brought one extra pair, not realizing how fast normal batteries ran out. I had to bring non-rechargeable batteries because when I tried charging my batteries last week my charger died...I'm guessing the converter wasn't doing its job and the excess power fried the charger. This is why I bought a charger today...so I don't have to worry about using crappy normal batteries anymore and not being able to take pictures of things I wanna take pictures of. Luckily, I like York so much that I'm going to go back sometime and can take more pictures then. But what if I had been somewhere else? So, I have to wait for the other ppl to send me their pics...but I'm not sure when that'll happen. Until then, you cannot see where we ate...although it was called the Punch Bowl and was very cute...you know, tudor-style (which I love) and flowers and such...I ordered fish and chips, because I'm determined to figure out which place makes the best...and when they brought out my fish I started laughing cuz it was huge. It looked like they'd just taken the whole fish and fried it in batter. It was at least a foot-long piece. It didn't even fit on the plate! It was good though. Not the best I've had while over here, but still good. And they had a kind of beer there called Waggledance, which I though was really funny. It reminded me of biology when we had to learn about those stupid bees and their symbolic waggle-dancing. I'm sure that's where the name came from too cuz it was a honey beer.

Okay I have to go to bed cuz I'm actually tired now...but I will continue this when not so tired...nite all.

2005-10-16T13:08:00.000+01:00

Carrot cake, Germany, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Anglo-Saxon church...this is the basis of this post. I have to write it down now so I don't forget what I have to talk about.

First, the carrot cake. I made carrot cake yesterday for my flatmates. The cake turned out great. The icing....not so much. Nan if you're reading this please tell me what I did wrong. I followed the recipe but the icing was sooooo runny! As you can see in the picture, the icing has fallen off of the cake and pooled in the pan. So yeah, not exactly as planned. It tastes good still but I'm not sure how to explain what happened cuz Nan's icing is always so high off the cake. We're just kind of eating the cake now and drizzling the icing on top, which works pretty well too. Also, you'll notice that the cake's a little wonky-looking. That's because nobody had cakepans and by the time I realized this the store was closed. So, I used 2 different sizes of square/rectangular pans and then had to cut a chunk off the the rectangular cake so it would fit on top of the square cake. Oh well. It's done and no one's complaining. The presentation isn't the greatest but it tastes fine.

So, the big news for the week is that I've booked some trips!! Me, Elle, Tom and Erin (who are all from Mac) are going to Germany/Amsterdam at the beginning of December. I've been browsing the internet for cheap flights cuz if you wanna find good deals you have to check quite often as the prices are always changing. So, I found tickets to and from Dusseldorf, Germany for 7p each! (That's about 15 cents!) Now we still had to add flight taxes, which because of gas prices are pretty expensive right now, so it was about an extra 30 quid (slang for the British Pound) each for the return ticket in taxes, but still that's pretty good...65 bucks approx to get to Germany and back? I'm not complaining! Why Germany? Well, my Dad's cousin, Sylvie, who we visited the weekend before Mom and Dad left here, called me last weekend to see how I was doing and mentioned that almost every city in Germany has these amazing Christmas Markets during the Advent period that have been going on for hundreds of years. So I figured it would be nice to go...
So we're flying out of London on the evening of Dec.1 and flying back the morning of Dec.5. So we get 3 solid days there. We're planning on renting a car when we get there cuz Cologne, another German city, is close by and Amsterdam is only just over 2 hours away by car. So we'll probably drive up to Amsterdam on the 3rd and stay over night there. I'm so excited though...it'll be good!

Okay next...Edinburgh...and York I guess I can talk about too. The Student's Union puts on these "Give it a go" trips that you can buy tickets for, and basically they just load up a couple buses and take some students to different places. So, I signed up for the trip to York, which is a really old English city about an hour away from here(we're learning about York in our Anglo-Saxon class...it was around at least in the 700s). Mom and Dad went there and said it was really beautiful so I'm looking forward to seeing lots of cute tudor houses and there's a really old cathedral there too. So that's next saturday, the 22nd. Then I signed up for the trip to Edinburgh, Scotland, which we go to the last weekend in November (the weekend before my Germany trip...haha). We leave on the Friday afternoon and come back sometime on the Sunday.

And speaking of old Anglo-Saxon things, my class went to see the All Saints' Church at Ledsham on Wednesday (about 10 miles out of Leeds). It was built sometime in the 7th or 8th century. I felt like a total tourist when we went though cuz I was taking so many pictures and other people were talking to the prof about archaeological or historical aspects of the church. I just thought it looked nice. I took some video of the inside of the church that you can watch here...it's a bit shaky and dark cuz there wasn't much light inside. Our prof was explaining to us about how in later centuries the church was altered and fixed up and stuff, so when you look at the pictures you will see that there is dark stone the makes up most of the church, and then there's a lighter coloured stone at the top of the steeple...all the dark stone is from the anglo-saxon period...the other stuff is newer. I took a picture of this hanging they had of the Lord's Prayer...and I thought it was kind of funny cuz they spelt trespasses as "trefpaffes". Where we say "And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us", it says on the hanging, "And forgive us our trefpaffes as we forgive them that trefpafs againft us". It just sounds really dim-witted kind of if you try to read it out loud. It reminds me of how that pirate with the wooden eye from Pirates of the Caribbean would've talked. lol...and then I took a picture of this door on the outside that was really cool-looking. Careful though, it's a blurry picture and it hurts your eyes to focus. It kind of reminds me of a mini version of the door at the Mines of Moria in Fellowship of the Ring....and yes, once again, everything I say relates to a movie. We had a block party in our flat on Friday night and I was supplying the music from my laptop...and I never realized how much music I downloaded or bought because it was part of a soundtrack for a movie or television show...

Ooh while I'm on the topic of things I've never realized...I was walking in the city-centre on Friday (cuz I still have fridays off til the first one in November) and they have this open-air art exhibition in Millenium Square called "Earth from the Air" which is a series of photographs taken from the air all over the world. At one end of the exhibition they had a huge floor map of the world that you could walk on and stuff if you took your shoes off...and it was there to point out where all these different pictures had be taken for the exhibit. And I mean, I KNOW Canada's big. But when I saw it on this big map I realized how big it really was. Maybe it's because I'm now staying in quite a small country...I'm not sure, but ya, it's pretty big (this is where everyone goes, "Yeah, well, duh!")

I uploaded some new pictures of my flatmates and I from when we went to a place called The Wardrobe last Monday night. It had a jam night so there were just random people going on stage and playing jazz music together. It was nice, but I'm afraid I can't listen to jazz music for too long before it all starts to sound the same and starts to bore me.
Here's pictures of Sophie, Katherine and Rich, Rich, Me, and Katherine, Rich and I. Haha...still no pics of Matt! I'll get one someday. We don't know where that kid is half the time. He's always off visiting someone upstairs or downstairs or in another block or something...

2005-10-04T15:03:00.000+01:00

Okay I'd like to start off by saying that I've added a video section on the sidebar, so be sure to check it out. It may take a while to load depending on your connection speed so please be patient. I only have one video so far and you'll notice that it's only like a minute long...that's because my digital camera only takes clips a minute at a time. The current clip titled "Thumbmaster" took place on Saturday night...I went to an International party at Kevin's house (Kevin is one of the guys here from Mac) where the Mac students taught the other international students how to play Thumbmaster, or Kings as some people call it...except once the internationals caught on it got pretty crazy! There was a lot more yelling and chanting than I'm used to...and the French were teaming up on the Germans and vice versa...it was really funny. I remember looking at Emma one time (she's from Mac too) thinking, what have we done?!! It was so fun though. Here's a picture of (left to right) Esperanza (Spain), Weng (some Asian country..lol...not really sure which one), Nacho (either Mexico or Brazil...can't remember), Mauricio (Mexico) and Marina (Brazil).
During the game I had to make a rule...so I said that everytime someone took a drink they had to go "HWAAAAAH!!!" like the moose noise in Princess Diaries 2. It was soooo funny!
After the party I went home with Elle and Tom (both from Mac) cuz they live in Lupton too. We stopped by the Subway on the way home and it was so good...I start to crave North American food every now and then. OOhh the worst example, besides my random cravings for Starbucks Mocha Mint Chip Frappacinos, was when I was downtown on...yesterday actually...and I saw a picture of this new McFlurry they had which had chunks of Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate (MMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmm) in it. Now, I've been craving the DQ lately...but they don't have DQ here. They have Mr. Whippy, which is a very wussy looking version of soft serve ice cream served from a van. So, when I saw this McFlurry, I REALLY wanted it. The thing is, compared to Blizzards, McFlurries are roadkill....that was until I gave in and had one of the McFlurries here...it was even crappier than the ones at home!! The ice cream was like, half melted, and they barely mixed in the stuff so it was like...chocolate clumps galore for a while, but then just vanilla after they were all gone. Boo. Hoo.

The reason I was downtown yesterday was cuz I was dropping off my application to volunteer at the Leeds Film Festival. It runs from Nov. 3-13, so I hope I get some shifts cuz I think it'd be a cool experience...plus, we get free admission to the films!! And MAYBE I'll see someone famous!!!

Oh man speaking of famous people...my flatmate Katherine was telling me that a friend of her friend was visiting New York and she was walking home alone from a club one night and a car pulled up beside her and the guy in the car told her that she shouldn't be walking home alone and asked her if she wanted a ride. Of course, she was pretty hesitant about it since this guy could be crazy or something...but it was a nice car and it looked like he had a couple of protective type (aka bodyguard)guys in the back with him, so she agreed. The guy drove her home. She had this feeling that she recognized the guy from somewhere...and when she picked up a magazine the next day she found out that the guy that had driven her home was a BACKSTREET BOY!! Katherine never said which one it was, but I'm sure you can all hear me saying "SHE RODE HOME WITH A BACKSTREET BOY AND DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IT??!!!" It hurt me. It hurt me real bad.

On Sunday I went to play football (aka soccer) with some of the international students and it was really fun. I haven't played outdoor soccer in like, 2 years, so I was afraid I would totally suck...but I didn't do as bad as I thought I would. I think my worst problem was that I am incredibly out of shape, so after playing for half and hour I was dead. But it made me so happy when I got the ball away from this German guy and he told his teammate "don't give me the ball when she's there...she's too good". I know I'm not that great, but that comment made my day! And Emma (she played on the Mac soccer team) scored 3 goals!!! She was on fire!
But as a result of the exercise my out-of-condition body totally ACHED on Monday morning. I was sooo stiff. And one of my classes in the afternoon I had to walk up 5 flights of stairs...

Last night me, Rich and Sophie went to The Fruit Cupboard for their 80s night....and it was soooo much fun! I'll be the first to admit that 80s music is bad music, but I still love it! There was a point when they just kept playing medlies of movie songs...so there was stuff from Grease, Dirty Dancing, Blues Brothers, Rocky Horror Picture Show...it was great! And then some of the stuff they played was popular 90s music too so they had Fresh Prince and Hanson (and even though I used to hate MMBop I was so happy when it came on!) and Whitney Houston "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" - Love that song! Yeah, it was a great night, so hopefully we'll go again next week! Oh yeah! and it was only 80p entry (about $1.70...which is cheap even in Canada...but it's usually about 4 or 5 pounds - $8-$10 to get in to places here)
Tonight we might be going to a launch for the new club on campus. Katherine said her friend might be able to get us on the guestlist so we'll see how it goes...

And now for school...school's going fine. It's tough you know...partying last night, woke up at 10:15...class at 12 for an hour and then I'm done for the rest of the day...it's really putting a lot of stress on me. My population genetics class today went totally over my head...and everyone else's. Although to be fair, our prof did say that this would be the most confusing class of the semester...so I guess it can't get any worse than this. I'll just have to read some stuff over in the book I guess...

Oh, and one last thing...I made banana muffins for my flatmates last night...hey West Park are you missin my muffins? They taste really good! No chocolate chips though...they only have really dinky bags of chocolate chips here and I would've had to buy like 5 of them to make it work and they were 70p a bag...so I'm not spending over 3 pounds on chocolate chips!

Anyway that's it...I'm goin to make some food.

2005-10-01T01:30:00.000+01:00

Yeah, I'm pretty dumb...it's 1:30 in the morning here and I'm not really tired right now. Why? Because I came home from shopping at 6:30 and decided that I would read for a bit...but then that turned into a 3 hour nap....and now I'm awake. At least it's the weekend so I can sleep in a bit tomorrow if I can't get to sleep.

So what's new...uh....well I can start with last weekend I guess since it's been that long since I last posted...and I'll admit, I've just been to lazy to post before now. I can be the Queen of Procrastination when I feel like it...

Last Friday we had a block party (everyone in our block of the residence hung out in the hallways as we have no common area...) which started after Mom and Dad came back from their trip and took me out to dinner. We were leaving to visit family the next day at 8:30am (the trip was supposed to take over 3 hours) so the original plan was that I wouldn't be up super-late...but that planned kind of got tossed. The party ended around quarter to 12 or so and then everyone was going to a club so I also went to the club...we got back around 2 or so...a tad later than planned. But I'm afraid my problem on Saturday morning wasn't the lack of sleep (although it may have contributed), rather the excess of wine that one may have consumed the night before...have I mentioned before how much people like their wine here? I can't remember if I posted it in a blog before or if I've just told people about it...but again, I must say that here, people my age sit around and drink wine...I mean, no one does that at home, unless we're feeling especially posh or something. But if students are sitting around drinking it's usually beer...or in the case of my friends at school some choose tequila, but hey, whatever turns your crank eh Emma?
Anyway, point is: Drinking wine = social pastime....and I'm afraid I underestimated the wine's effect on me given my reputation for alcohol tolerance.
I ate a lot of biscuits that night as well.

NOTE: Where we have the collective term "cookies" the English prefer to categorize their sweets into "cookies" and "biscuits". To them, cookies are only the type that could be home-baked...ie) chocolate chip cookies...biscuits refer to basically anything else: typically the more "boring" selections. I have endured long instruction in the differentiation of cookies and biscuits. However, some discrepancy still remains when two biscuits are sandwiched together with cream in the middle...some argue that the new addition of cream has lauched the biscuit into cookie status, appalling supporters of traditional cookies. A petition has been started to strip these "imposing" biscuits of their cookie rights as some argue that they are still merely biscuits...I shall report back later on the matter...

Ah-ha...now you see what 2 o'clock in the morning can do to people...making up ficticious (is that spelt right?...I'm pretty sure it's "ci" and not "ti") cookie petitions and such...

But anyway, in the words of my high school Physics teacher, "Back to the point at hand".

So yes, we ate lots of biscuits because I found a huge package of cheap ones at Somerfield (the grocery store) and they made a good party snack.
I have a couple pictures from the party, which means, that you are entitled to a first time exclusive look at....duh duh duh....My FLATMATES!! Matt's not in any of the pictures though, but this one is of Richard and Sophie (that night we decided to call Richard Alex because it's been agreed that he looks more like an Alex) and this one is of Katherine and I, and here's a picture of the party in general.

So yeah, it was a good night. 8 o'clock rolled around Saturday morning...I shut off my alarm and set it for 8:15...8:15 rolled around, got up, got ready to go and such...felt fine, except tired, but fine. Got in the car for our 3 hour trip....car starts moving....not so fine. But despite my stomach pyrotechnics we got to Tring, which is a bit northish of London, where my Dad's cousin lives. It was really good to see her...we were trying to figure out the last time we saw her and it was over 10 years ago anyway...they live in a really cute town and they took us for a nice long walk around the countryside...and it was so weird cuz there were public footpaths through people's fields...fields that had animals in them! I mean, over in Canada you could get charged for trespassing...but not here! We stayed there overnight and headed back to Leeds around lunchtime on Sunday. When we got to Leeds there was the inevitable teary-eyed goodbye when Mom and Dad left. They were flying out of Manchester on Monday, so they drove back to Manchester Sunday night.

Monday I started classes. I didn't have to start until 1pm so that was nice...first I had my "Guitar's Influence on Popular Music" course, which sounds like it's gonna be pretty interesting...it's basically post-WWII history of the guitar, how it's changed physically, guitarists who have shaped what music is today, etc. There're maybe 10 girls in my class? Lots of guys...a true sign of an easy class (j/k)...
Then I had my first "Anglo-Saxon Cultures" class. Now, this one is gonna be a lot of work...more work than I had planned for an elective anyway. It probably doesn't help that I've never taken a history course outside of high school, so I'm not used to all the reading...and I haven't written an essay since high school, so given that 2 essays are all I'm being assessed on then it could be a bit interesting...
My prof read us this Olde English riddle in normal English...and then she read it in the Olde English and it was complete gibberish! I was afraid we'd have to learn to understand it...but luckily we don't! And then we had a tour of the library that we're supposed to be using...but it's so confusing...half of the history section is in one place and the other half is somewhere else...and they don't use Duey Decimal like at home either. Meh, whatever... I had my first tutorial for the class yesterday and my TA is from Toronto. Go figure eh?

Now, Tuesday and Wednesday were crap because the schedule for our courses was different that what was actually supposed to happen. For example, the schedule said our classes for "Human Population Genetics and Evolution" were supposed to start on Tuesday at 10 and then there was another lecture at 12. Well, no prof came to either class...so we waited about 15-20 minutes each time before leaving. But those were the only classes I had so I didn't even need to go to the school! The same thing happened on Wednesday morning with my Human Genetics class..except this class started at 9 so I could've slept in...and this course doesn't even start til the end of October which is sweet now that I know cuz that means I have Wednesdays and Fridays off til then!

So what did I do today on my Friday off? Well, I went downtown to the "city centre". First I went to the Town Hall cuz I want to volunteer for the Leeds Film Festival so I needed to pick up an application form. Then, I went to the art gallery. I'm becoming cultured guys! Yeah, we had our Lupton residence social last night (free drinks!) and a girl I was talking to said it was free entry and since it was right beside the town hall I figured I might as well have a peek. I'm no art fanatic or anything...but it was nice....haha...nothing moved me or whatever. There was some weird stuff though...

First I have to go back to the Lupton social now that I've thought about it. It was held at one of the postgraduate bar/meeting rooms on campus and everyone got free drink tickets...except that as usual, not everyone shows up, so they kept giving us more tickets! Basically it was just a bunch of mingling but I met this one girl in another block and we talked a bit and actually I had lunch with her and some other ppl today at a pub (which was very old-fashioned pubbish...and I even had fish and chips). Before the food was served one of our wardens gave a bit of a speech. Here, professors are assigned to each hall (I prefer to think of it being like Harry Potter cuz it makes me feel cool) as wardens. They don't really do a lot with us but I guess if we get in trouble we answer to them. Anyway, so Dr. Hughes, one of the wardens, was talking to us about being socially responsible and stuff...and he was going on saying "I know you're going to come home trashed...you're going to be absolutely smashed...you're going to have vomit all over yourself and stumbling this way and that...but I ask that if you are vomiting please do not do it on the old lady passing you by...do it as neatly as possible in a toilet or a bag...WE DO NOT WANT YOU SICKING ALL OVER THE LOCAL RESIDENTS!" I was killing myself. This guy is like, 60-something and when he told us not to sick all over the locals it was priceless.

So back to today...after lunch at the pub I went shopping...got a belated bday present for Bourke which, I hope you understand Bourke, I'm not going to bother sending over...you'll get it when I come home. Unless I find some way of shipping it for free. I actually didn't buy a whole lot at all. I walked through the arcades, which are beautiful...I'll have to take pictures sometime...it was crappy outside today though, which was why I didn't take them today. But all the shops in the arcades are expensive and too posh for me. So I went into H&M and other such stores. I went into this one store called PriMark which has really cheap stuff...it was like 4 pounds for a knit sweater...(almost 10 bucks)...but I didn't buy anything in that store except for underwear cuz as cheap as everything was, I didn't need another sweater so I didn't want to spend the money just cuz it was cheap.

OOH I bought an England football (soccer) jersey the other day. I walked into this place that's like SportChek and everything was on sale so the jersey was like, 50% off or something. I got it with Michael Owen's name and number...cuz everyone has Beckham and Owen's cuter anyway...see?

But I saw in the news that England lost to...one of the Irelands...I'm thinking Northern...in a World Cup qualifier, so that's not too good. But I figured by buying an England jersey (as opposed to a jersey for say, Man. Utd. or Chelsea or something) people can't harrass me about supporting a certain team cuz I'm sure they all support their own country.

But yeah, that was my week...in a nutshell...we went out to the pub a couple times in the evening...oh, Katherine and I went to this place called the Fab Cafe, which is like...I don't even really know how to describe it...the whole place is done up with action figures of sci-fi and horror movies, or signed posters, tons and tons of movie memorabilia...and they tend to play cult movies on the tv...like, when we were there Mars Attacks was on...and the kind of music that everyone knows but denys that they like...like most 80s music...it was a really cool atmosphere.

Anyway, that's it. It's now 3am...still not tired but I have to make myself go to sleep sometime.

2005-09-23T11:00:00.000+01:00

I got a plant! They had a plant sale yesterday on campus and I needed something to liven up my room...so yeah, I'm naming it....D'Artagnan. haha...I wanted a dumb name cuz I named the plant at West Park Rufus and Steph named her stuffed flower Manfred....so I was looking at a "dumb names to give your baby" site and D'Artagnan was on there...and I thought, yes, it is a dumb name, but it's a MUSKETEER!! And then everytime I see my plant I can scream out D'Artagnaaaaaaan! like that guy in the Disney version of The Three Musketeers when he's chasing Chris O'Donnell at the beginning.

Anyway, you may be thinking - why is she rambling on about plants when there's so much to see and do in England?? Well I was going to go shopping today but it's pouring outside...and around here they don't have just a big mall to go into...it's a lot of walking out side and stuff. Also, I forgot that I have a meeting today at 1 for my Anglo-Saxon class to figure out timetable stuff...so I wouldn't have had a lot of time to shop anyway.

It turns out that the Block L party has been moved to tonight...so last night my flatmates and I went to a pub down the road. But it was soooo busy cuz Real Madrid was playing (David Beckham's team) and I think there was a wedding party in there too...all I heard were church bells last night and I couldn't figure out why church bells were ringing on a Thursday night. But at the same time, who gets married on a Thursday?? Anyway...and then when we came back from the pub there were a bunch of ppl sitting outside our building...apparently Block K and J were having a bin bag party (people dress up in garbage bags)...so we hung around for a bit to socialize. Matt was pretty trashed. It was so funny. He had to get up for a faculty trip/social thing today and the bus left at 8:15 this morning from campus (which is a 1/2 hour walk away). So he kept telling us..."I have to be up in 5 hours" so we're like then go to bed doofus! So I'm assuming he went...if not then I guess he's still sleeping cuz I haven't seen him yet. Actually, I think everyone had to be in for 10 at the latest today...haha not me!

2005-09-22T12:50:00.000+01:00

I've now been here for over a week (I arrived last Wednesday)...and things are settling in pretty well. My other two roommates arrived on Sunday. One is Sophie and she's from about an hour east or so from here...and Matt is from Coventry. So we're all here now!..and we get along pretty well. On Sunday night we all went out to this club called Creation...and it was HUGE. I mean, I'm used to Hess Village in Hamilton where clubs are in old houses....but here, it had two floors and it was so big...and the top floor had this huge dome ceiling with balconies and stuff. So, this was where the foam party was...and it's funny cuz apparently the fact that I went to a foam party has been a topic of discussion around my old house in Hammy...lol. But it's not like I was right in the middle of all the foam with a wet T-shirt or anything. We were on the outside of the party so, I mean, foam floated in our hair, but it wasn't anything chaotic. My flatmate Rich had been to a foam party before and totally got his clothes ruined so he didn't want to get soaked again. The music was good though...in a funny way. I don't know, they have weird club anthems over here...I mean of course there's the usual techno kinda stuff...but they played the theme song from Baywatch and everyone went nuts!! It was so funny. Then on Monday night we went to the Intro Party at the uni (that's what they call university) clubs and Basement Jaxx and Jo from S Club 7 (she now has a solo career) performed. And then there was a DJ after til about 2am....and again, they played really good songs...they played Bryan Adams "Summer of '69" and I was so happy! And they played stuff like Shout and a couple Queen songs and Song 2 and...you know, the kind of stuff that isn't techno club music but that everyone knows so they go crazy over...it was great!

So the last couple of days I haven't gone out really cuz I've been a little bit worn out. But I think there's a Block party tonight, so I'll be going to that. (example: we are in Block L of our residence...yes, it does sound a bit like jail...)

I got registered on Tuesday for school and my modules....Ontario students be happy for online registration and course selection...this was one of the most frustrating experiences I've ever had...standing in line for a total of about 4 hours to sign up for classes...and the thing is, the British students already had a core timetable so they just had to pick electives that worked around their timetable...but since I'm not in a specific program over here (I'm just taking courses to satisfy what I need at home) then I had to sign up for all of my courses like they were electives...so I didn't have this core schedule and thus it was kind of hit and miss with my electives...like I'd sign up for something, but then I'd go to sign up for another course but it would conflict...so either I couldn't take that course then or I had to delete the other course...it was a bit crazy. So I changed my electives choices about 3 times. But, it's all sorted out now finally. This semester I'm taking Human Population Genetics and Evolution, Human Genetics, Anglo-Saxon Culture, and Guitar's Influence of Popular Music. And now you're probably thinking...what's up with my electives? Well, I signed up for the guitar class, which a) is probably going to be pretty easy and b) sounds pretty cool cuz we get to learn about ppl like Hendrix and Clapton and stuff...and then the Anglo-Saxon class...well I was looking for another class for sememster one...and I didn't want anything with lots of hours or lots of work...haha...and I actually stopped at this booth cuz I needed to put stuff in the garbage, but then I started talking to the prof about the course and it sounds pretty cool...basically I get to learn about what England was like before 1300 AD...here's the description of the course:

The aim of this interdisciplinary module is to provide an integrated introduction to Anglo-Saxon culture in its historical context, using texts from the period in translation, archaeology, architecture, manuscript illumination, and the art of decorated artefacts, such as stone sculpture, ivories and jewels.

So basically, it's like a more hands-on history class...and then there's a couple field trips to historic sites or museums or something...so it should be good. And they schedule the lectures to fit our timetables...we have a meeting tomorrow evening to figure out what the best times are for everyone.

I only have 8 hours of class for the first 3 weeks, then 6 hours of class for the next 3 weeks after that...and then my hours go up to a whopping...let's hear it...14 hours a week until Christmas break. Oh you poor Engineering and Science students at home...*wink*...but yeah, the schedules are kind of weird here. Like, they have 20 credit courses and 10 credit courses...so the 20 credit courses you most likely have all semester, but the 10 credit ones start half way through (which is why my hours went up)...so it's a bit different. But it's gonna suck next sememster cuz I have four science courses then whereas this sememster I only have 2. blah...

But anyway I should get going but I before I do, I took some pics of my room last night...and no, I don't have pics of my flatmates yet...we're rarely together at the same time...but we probably will tonight for the Block party so I'll try to take lots of pics.
My Room - desk view
My Room - bed view
My Room - closet/lots of Orlando posters view

2005-09-18T07:00:00.000+01:00

Haha…okay when I decided to start writing this I was fully intent on writing a lot about today but I had no idea what time it was…seriously I just checked the time so I knew when to say I wrote this post (since I still don’t have internet and the posts probably won’t be up til Monday at the earliest now) and I was like…Gah! 2 am!! I have no idea how long I’ve been talking with my new flatmates for….I’m guessing about 3 hours. I definitely had no idea it was this late. I’m still a bit on Canada time here…so if I usually go to bed at, say, midnight…then that’s 5 in the morning here.

But yeah, only 2 out of my 4 flatmates have moved in so far. This is move-in weekend for the British students, but they don’t have scheduled move-in times so I guess the other two have chosen to come tomorrow. I opted for a co-ed flat because I’ve been used to living co-ed for the last year and I was just afraid of sharing a flat with 4 girls who may be catty and stuff…so the two people that showed up today were Katherine and Richard. Katherine is from Norwich, which is in East Anglia (near Cambridge University kind of) and Richard is from Birmingham (near Stratford-upon-Avon). They’re both pretty cool. I love listening to the accents but it’s gonna take some getting used to. It wasn’t so bad talking to Katherine and Richard but we went around to meet other people in our building and we were talking to a couple of girls from upstairs…and one was from Manchester and one from Newcastle, which is farther North than Manchester. So, their accents were a bit heavier…and some of the expressions they used made no sense at all…so they would explain them to me but it would be like, well we say this, because it comes from this, which comes from this, which….and then eventually you get to the original expression which actually starts to make some sense. I can’t give you an example either…I just remember that the expression was “That’s mediums” but the explanation was so long that I can’t remember it…I can’t even remember what the expression is used for.

I finally got all unpacked, and yes, my posters are up. Not all of them though. I left some Orlando Bloom posters down because a) I didn’t have enough room and b) I didn’t want my flatmates to think I was totally crazy. I was actually intending on putting less posters up but when Richard was unpacking I was looking at his movies and he pointed out some movies that he said were crap but he bought them just because they had Sandra Bullock in them…so I was like, if he has unnecessary Sandra Bullock stuff, I’m sure he’ll understand my Orlando craze. He hasn’t commented on it yet though…but then again he hasn’t been in my room really. Katherine walked in and was like, “You like Lord of the Rings eh?”…she hasn’t even seen them!!! But no, I did not freak out on her. I simply pointed out that I owned all 3 special extended editions and she could borrow them whenever she wanted…and then I made sure she knew that they were extremely long…

Everyone that I’ve met in my building (aside from other exchange students) are first years, but it seems to be that everyone has had a gap year, so we’re all roughly the same age. Maybe the flats were arranged that way specifically. I was so afraid I was gonna get stuck living with a bunch of 18 year olds. Katherine’s 20 and Richard’s 19 so it’s all good.

I had my first grocery shopping excursion today. I was actually impressed with the prices. I was expecting them to be pretty much double what it is at home….but it’s pretty close to the same for most stuff…and milk is actually cheaper here…I worked it out to about $1.10/L Canadian over here…and what do we pay at home? I think it’s about $2.59 for one litre in Hamilton…so I was definitely happy about the cheap milk. It’s nice cuz the supermarket is just about a minute walk away around the corner. And then beside it is this place called Wilkinson’s which is kind of a Giant Tiger kind of deal minus the clothing. But they have everything else there. I got some dishware, a couple of pillows, and some other stuff.

So yeah, our long 3-hour or whatever chat started when Richard decided to crack open the wine bottle. No, none of us were drunk or anything. It’s so weird though cuz Richard and Katherine both said that they sit down with their friends and drink wine….and I’m sitting there thinking…we might sit around and drink…something…be it beer or whatever we mix up, but I can’t ever remember deciding, Hey guys, let’s get a bottle of wine. I mean, I could only see us doing that if we decided one night that we were going to be really posh or something…or maybe if we had just watched Sideways…but that’s a bit of a stretch too.

Anyway, I have to get to bed because it was an early morning…the guy above me woke up at like 7 and I swear he was jumping up and down or something…it was loud stomping whatever it was…and at first I thought…crap…it’s going to be some guy with a weird religious ritual that he has to do first thing every morning…and as much as I respect other religions…I have to be honest…that would totally suck for me. So at first I tried to sleep through it but it just kept stomping…and then his music came on…some sort of techno music…and then came his off-key voice singing to the music…and I’m thinking, Man you’re killing me here! Shut uuuuup!! So finally I decided to get out of bed and see if I could confront him because I figured I should do it sooner than later or else the whole year could be like this. So I knocked on the door to his flat and it ended up being an Asian guy, so immediately I was relieved that it wasn’t a Middle Eastern guy with his ritual…so I was like, Hi, my name’s Kirsten, nice to meet you…yadda yadda…I’m the person who lives underneath you…and then he had this look on his face of realization and was like, Oh am I being too loud…uh yeah, just a bit. So it was pretty good after that. But shortly after I had come back downstairs the guy in the room next to me was on the phone and I could hear everything he was saying. This was….8 in the morning now? I don’t know…8 isn’t such a bad time, but keep in mind that I was woken up at 7…plus I had a crappy sleep cuz I didn’t have a pillow yet since I didn’t bring one over with me and didn’t have time to buy one…so I was sleeping on my old stuffed Humpty Dumpty pillow which is seriously like an inch thick. So, when this guy starts talking on the phone I just bolt up in my bed and I was ready to strangle someone. So, I started knocking on the wall…not really loud cuz I wasn’t sure if there were other people in his flat and I didn’t want to wake them up…but he didn’t take any notice of it. And the way my building is set up is there are 3 “blocks” in the building…and he’s in a different block, even though it’s the flat next to ours. So since he was in a different block I didn’t have access to it (we have swipe cards) and therefore couldn’t confront him. So I REALLY hope that these early-morning phone calls aren’t a usual thing.

But yeah…that’s it for now anyway. Yes, the rant is over. It just occurred to me that I totally should have webcammed that whole episode that I just wrote out cuz I’m sure my frustration would have come across a bit better…but my flatmates are in bed now and I don’t want Katherine (who is beside me) to wake up hearing me talking to no one in the middle of the night. That would not be a good start to the year.

Cheers! (They say that ALL the time here…it has a kajillion meanings….kind of like Aloha…it’s like, Hi, Bye, Thanks…I’m sure you could insert it anywhere and they wouldn’t take any notice…)

Happy belated anniversary to my parents and happy birthday to Bourke!!! Haha Bourke! It’s Bourke’s Birthday! Haha!! And I’m half way across the world so Bourke can’t chase me around with a flyswatter or anything!! Haha!! Good luck at the show tonight too…although when I finally get this uploaded to the internet everything will be over…but it’s the thought that counts. Oh and PS Bourke I’ve been promoting Holding Sky over here…I wore your shirt on the plane…so it was exposed all over the Toronto and Manchester airports.

2005-09-15T21:04:00.000+01:00

I am a genius! Well actually this was my Mom’s idea but I’m the one who carried it out…the problem was that the adapter that I had bought for my laptop (because they have different plug holes here) doesn’t work, so I needed to use one of my other adapters, except they only take the 2 pronged plugs and not the 3 pronged…so then I had to use an extension cord in between but that also only took the 3 pronged plug. So I gouged out a hole for my third prong….which now that I think of it probably isn’t totally safe, which is why I’m just not gonna touch that end…but ANYWAY…that means that I can finally use my computer. Unfortunately there is no internet in my temporary residence (Charles Morris Hall), so I won’t be able to post this til Saturday at the earliest (which is when I move into my actual residence, Lupton).

So, I finally arrived here at Leeds um…early afternoon yesterday, which was the 14th. Our plane left Toronto at 10:15 pm on Tuesday the 13th and our flight was pretty fast…only just over 6.5 hours. The only problem was that during the flight, our time had sped ahead by 5 hours so when we landed it was about 9:30 am England time on the 14th, which meant that we’d lost a whole night of sleep. Of course, I could’ve slept on the plane…and I did a little…only about 2 hours max though. I don’t know…I went to sleep during Monster-In-Law and woke up during Moulin Rouge. It was a very uncomfortable flight though. Not a lot of leg space.

When we got to the Manchester Airport we discovered that Air Canada totally forgot to load one of my bags…which happened to be the one with all the underwear in it!! So hopefully they deliver it sometime today since the next flight from Toronto came in this morning. Oh, for those of you who don’t know why I keep saying “we” did this, “We” did that, it’s because my parents came over with me. It’s their anniversary this weekend so they actually just dropped me off today and they’ve gone first to York, and then they’re touring around Scotland. Then they’re coming back next Saturday to pick me up and we’re going to visit some family for the weekend before I start school (yes, I don’t start until the 26th – haha suckers!!) and they fly back to Canada. It’s a good thing they came too cuz I have so much luggage….one huge suitcase, another fairly large suitcase, 2 carry-on sized suitcases, a big gym-bag type thing, and my laptop case. We saw a few girls from Mac at the airport and one of them only had one big suitcase and a carry-on so Dad was getting on my case cuz I had so much more luggage than her…but it turned out that she had vacuum-sealed her clothes, which cut her space in half basically…so it was a really awesome idea on her part…Wish I had done that.

The next challenge was driving to Leeds from Manchester. No, we did not take a train or bus or even get a taxi to pick us up….Dad decided that this would be the day he learned to drive on the left hand side of the road! So although I slept most of the way, I’m sure it was quite an experience for my parents. I can’t get over the tiny spaces they expect you to drive through over here. I mean, the streets are pretty narrow to begin with…and then you have people parking all down one side and traffic still goes both ways beside it! If it was me, I would wait for the traffic to go through before I tried squishing in between!...but that is why I DO NOT plan on driving over here! All my friends at school know how much I hate driving in heavy traffic….now it’s traffic and tiny spaces!!

So we got to my temporary residence finally, after much searching and going around one way streets and such…first problem was that I’m supposed to move out my temporary residence on Friday but I can’t move into Lupton til Saturday. So I need to go back to the accommodation office tomorrow and either they’ll let me stay here another day or move me into Lupton early. But my room here (pics here and here)is just normal single room size…same as Mac…but I share a bathroom with the person beside me…although I’m not quite sure if there is anyone beside me because I haven’t heard them yet. The thing about this bathroom though, is that it is, in all honestly, a shower stall with a toilet in it!! No joke! You could have a shower while taking a crap if you wanted to! (See pics of my view of the toilet from the shower and the view of the shower from the toilet). It’s really…sketchy…ya I think sketchy is the best word to describe it. I could say it’s neat except that I’m not really impressed by the idea, so saying it’s neat seems like I’d be giving it some sort of credit and I’m not about to do that. And since there’s no separate entry area, my next door neighbour could just walk in on my at any minute. So when I got here, I wasn’t going to have a shower but last night rolled around and I just really needed one…so I hopped in and the whole time I had my toes crossed that no one would come in. I was actually saying to myself “Please don’t come in, please don’t come in…” Fortunately, no one did. When I finished my shower I had to rip off the soggy toilet paper and wipe off the toilet seat. Oh yeah, and speaking of toilets. They flush kind of weird here. Like at home they flush one way and in Australia they flush another way, but here, the water pours in from at least 2 holes at the same time that the stuff’s being sucked out. Like, at home it sucks the stuff out first and then replaces the water…and the water doesn’t come gushing in, it’s more of trickle. Here, it’s like (okay, I was just making a gushing noise but then realized that I don’t know how to spell that…so please make your own gushing noise.) Anyway, that’s what it’s like.

So what else did I do today? Um…I woke up, had breakfast (which, along with dinner, is provided with my temp. accommodation). I had to meet Mom and Dad at 10 so we could buy me a cell phone and set up a bank account.

I’ve met a couple people…there’s this girl from Norway, Hanne (pronounced like Hannah) who I’ve eaten with a couple of times…and this morning Dad started talking to her randomly while waiting for me, not knowing that I knew her…and he said “Yeah, I’m just waiting for my daughter” and she goes “Oh, you must be Kirsten’s Dad, you guys look the same”. I couldn’t believe it. She just totally picked him out like that. I go half way around the world and strangers still can tell we’re related. It’s crazy.

So, I got my first cell phone number ever today. It’s a Nokia. If you want my number email me or something and I’ll give it to ya…I just don’t want to put it on here in case some crazy comes across my site. And guess what? Apparently it doesn’t cost me any money to receive calls! I only pay when I make calls!

Weather report: just looked outside and it is now full-out pouring. I woke up this morning and it was raining and I thought…Of course…I’m in England now. So yeah, this whole rain thing is definitely true.

Ooh, when we were downtown getting a phone we walked through the “mall” which is kind of outdoor and indoor at the same time. Like, the entrance is right off the street and there are no doors into the mall, but there are coverings over the walkways so it’s not open-air. But the coverings were all glass and really fancy and stuff. I’ll take some pictures later on, but it’s really beautiful. I can’t imagine all the shopping some of you girls could do over here. Steph, I saw so many purse shops and I thought it was a good idea that you weren’t coming over here cuz you’d spend too much shopping!

For lunch we had fish and chips at a place called Brett’s, which is apparently famous with cricket players and fans. The man who owned the restaurant was very chatty and extremely nice…actually everyone seems really nice over here…and the fish was amazing!!

Anyway, I’m going to brave the rain and go to afternoon tea at the International student’s office!

2005-07-21T20:14:00.000+01:00

Okay so technically this is my first official post about what's gonna be going on next year. I've just found out that I got into the residence I want - Lupton Flats! So I'm pretty happy about that right now, which is what made me decide to post, even though I'm not in England yet.

Here's some info on Lupton Flats...there's also an image gallery if you want to see more pictures. The one below is probably what my room will sort of look like if not exactly.

Lupton's a "self-catered" rez, which means it's what we would call the apartment-style in Canada. It's right in the student village of Headingley, so everything I need is really close!

On a less happy note, the second set of bombs have gone off in London today. And, the people who set off the first set were apparently from Leeds....hey...Leeds...that city sounds familiar...oh YEAH! THAT'S WHERE I'M GOING!....
But I figure Leeds is the safest place I can be cuz who bombs their hometown? Honestly? So I'm guessing we'll be bomb-free at least. *crosses fingers* It sucks that this happened at all, but it just really sucks that it happened now that I'm going over there...cuz security is probably gonna be super tight, like what the States is now...and I mean, it's all for the best, but I'm sure it's going to be a lot of hassle for us exchange students.

It's ALIVE!!!

2005-07-15T04:30:00.000+01:00

Okay so I think this thing is just about ready to go....finally!!! Yay!