Everything's Gonna Be U.K. Christmas Special!

Blogging Location: My flat, Leeds, while defrosting my room (only joking, but not really)

First of all, lemme give a well-deserved and very tardy shout out to the Big Man Upstairs. For about half of the semester I was a nervous wreck about traveling over winter break and traveling in general (to be honest, I still sorta am), but despite it all, I maintained my sanity and got through it all with a good amount of prayer and so far, it's all worked out better than I could have imagined. PTL. It was November- no, the beginning of December-- and I still didn't have my plans set: I didn't know where I was going, I didn't know when I was going. None of my plane/train/automobile tickets were booked, and worst of all: nowhere to go for Christmas. All I knew was that I was going to be in Europe and I wasn't going home. Luckily everything fell into place, forming this itinerary:
Dec 14-17: London
Dec 17-22: Madrid
Dec 23-27: Liverpool with my bible study group leader Elaine and her family :)



Once again, please choose and pick what you want to read, don't feel obligated to read it all! If I've done my job, my writing will be somewhat engaging enough for you to enthusiastically plow through all of it without blinking an eye. Let the blogging begin!

London
14th
Sherlock Holmes Premiere. Yeah, glam and glitz, we pulled a Hollywood. The fans were kind of insane especially for one particular lady at the front. She had a ski mask on for some reason and was raging like a parrot trying to get a ship out of a bottle whenever she wanted an autograph. That might be why none of the celebrities really wanted to approach our section. :P Nonetheless, we caught glimpses of Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Guy Ritchie, Gwen Stefani, Ian Somerhalder and some other celebs. Apparently one of the Princes was there, but he arrived late to avoid the attention. Cheeky. Nonetheless, fun being in the freezing weather with two of my pals in busy Leicester Square.



15th
David Bowie´s birthplace in Brixton is the first place I visited on Tuesday morning. Loads of you know how inspiring I find David Bowie-- probably not in the ways he intended to inspire, but the man is a piece of art. Next I hit Brick Lane in East London, thinking that there was a cool museum there. I clearly got my notes mixed up because it was the curry district. Not such a bad mistake after all. I didn´t eat there, but I know where to go now! Next up, I met up with my friend at a Starbucks (Gingerbread latte, if you care to know) in Notting Hill. I know, I'm quite posh, aren't I? Then we hit the famous Portobello Road!
16th
"It´s... supposed... to... snow... tomorrow!... So... excited!..." I wrote the last touches on my postcard to my family, stuck the international stamp on and dropped it into the red postbox. Just as I had walked about 20m from the cyllindrical transport device sponsored by Royal Mail, a white powder started to fall. Having never seen snow falling before, I assumed it was the super-delayed ashy remains of the great Industrial Revolution. Speculating the debris on my mittens, the "ash" was a bit more crystalline than I expected. SNOW!

Camden Market

The only way I could relay my absolute joy is if I tell you to reach down through your aorta, about 500 feet down into your heart, and pull out your inner child. Anyways, my next stop was Madrid to meet up with one of my best friends who has been studying in Cordoba, Spain. To get there, I had to catch a 3am shuttle to the airport to catch an 8am flight. Sleeping is not a priority here.

Madrid, Spain
Spent loads of time in Spain! During my first two days, I wandered about the big city solo, except for when my wonderful Spanish flat mate who lives in Madrid showed me around. My first day, I settled myself down in the hostel (it was delightful and I highly recommend it-- Hostel One Centro) and putzed off to the city! Armed with a map, a water bottle and my camera I ran around paranoid after psyching myself up about pick-pockets (not to spoil the suspense, but I came out of Madrid unpicked). Kiddy Karate never taught us much about pickpockets. I strolled off the various veins and arteries of the center Puerta del Sol and couldn't help but take in the most beautiful buildings, including the palace, Palacio Real! That night I met up with my flat mate Laura who showed me around the various pockets of town and down one of the main streets Gran Via. She also treated me to dinner at a bocadillo (sandwich) restaurant with some of the best little sandwiches ever!


Armed with my local knowledge, a french bread stick and some chorizo slices, and I wandered around the next day. Finding the Reina Sofia museum, I got in with my handy dandy student ID and spent a good 5 hours amongst the Picasso and Dali pieces. I also found a new favourite: Liubov Popova. Cool propaganda-style art. I can tell you that after that stint, I was all museum'd out for the next few weeks.


Real Madrid v. Zaragoza



That evening I met my friend Jessica at the hostel. We were having issues calling each other, so thank goodness we were at the same hostel. We went out after catching up a bit to try to get some tapas for dinner. Success! Mussels and potatoes for dinner! We chatted for quite some time and got back at around late o' clock and met up with Ryan, another pal of mine. To cut to the chase, the next few days were filled with gardens, parks, site-seeing, a Real Madrid game, persimmon-picking, food, more museums and a trip to the Haribo sweet shop! Transportation is always interesting, so this time it proved no different. Jessica and her fam split off for more sight-seeing of Spain, but it was time for Ryan and I to head home to Leeds. We camped out in the airport overnight to catch an early morning flight and the lack of sleep in addition to the insane amount of sugar consumed resulted in mild delirium, to say the least. But it was a good time and we got back to Leeds with everything and most of our sanity.

Liverpool
My friend Elaine was kind enough to invite me to her home (nicknamed the 'Mad House'; watch the film While You Were Sleeping for a good American translation of 'Mad House' and visuals of my experience) and to celebrate Christmas (and Boxing Day) with her family. She was truly a Godsend. Loads of you will be pleased to know that she lives in the Beatles-y part of Liverpool! As her folks drove me to and from the coach station, they would point down roads and say "That's where John lived! Paul lived down there! John met Paul right here!" They even go to the church where Eleanor Rigby is buried!



It's also a bonus that I LOVE the Scouse accent, so I got 5 days packed with it!
Pre-Christmas, Elaine took me to the Cavern Pub on Mathews St. (where the Beatles often played gigs) to see Kappa, a fantastic local cover band. It was a great night out. :)

On Christmas Eve, Elaine and I basically vegged all day and watched Friends, Top Gear (my first episode of Top Gear just happens to be the one where they go to America and try to piss off as many hicks as possible, go figure. But it was hilarious.), and a bit of Barefoot Contessa upon my request. It should be illegal to go through the holidays without watching Ina Garten's cooking show. Her voice is warmer and homier than a pair of socks right out of the dryer. Seriously. If that woman ever gets angry, it may just be the end of the world as we know it.


What part of this picture doesn't say 'Please bake me cookies'?

Nothing gets you more in the Christmas mood than a watching of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (the new one) and that's exactly what came on on Christmas eve. The snow. The lamp post. Father Christmas. The Lion. Perfect.

Christmases in Britain aren't exactly the same as American ones, and that's why I was wishing for an English Christmas this year. For one, Christmas "dinner" (a bit like American Thanksgiving, actually) is served around noon time while "tea" (basically a full dinner) is served at 6-ish. Plus, you don't hear "Santa" as much as you hear "Father Christmas." The English also have crackers! Let me show you:



In addition, they have fantastic desserts! Trifle, Christmas pudding and mincemeat pies (which strangely have no meat in them whatsoever). For those of you that know me, I can eat enough food for about three full-grown cows, but I never went even slightly hungry in the Siddall home!




I was adopted for Christmas :)

Christmas morning, we got up at about 6 to be at the church at half-seven (that's 7:30am for you Americans) for a lesson in campanology (that's bell-ringing). Coming from churches that don't even have bell towers, let alone bells, this was a very new and slightly intimidating experience because even I had a go at it. In Elaine's village (yes, they call their part of Liverpool a village) just about everyone rings bells or has rung a bell, so I was quite a greenie. I rang bells 1 and 2 to Noel and a version of It Came Upon a Midnight Clear that was not the pop version (so no, I had no clue how it was supposed to go). Luckily, the chart they had for us to read had symbols for where the eighth notes went even though it wasn't in note form.

After getting back to the house, a good cup of tea was needed (cold temperatures come with having a white Christmas). The Siddall family was incredibly generous: not only did they let me stay in their home, but they also gave me gifts! I'm set for all my chocolate needs for a long time (unless I eat it all this week, which very well could happen :P). Next up was Christmas dinner, and like I said, it was held at noontime. At about 3:00 was the annual speech by the Queen which grandma was waiting to see. It lasted for about 15 minutes, but for some reason, that 15 minutes made me feel like my English Christmas was legitimized by the little old lady on the telly. We wore paper crowns that day, but that little old lady's was still better. Elaine's sister and sister's boyfriend had come over for the day and brought their Wii fit which covered all entertainment needs for the rest of the day. It was a good time. :)



Boxing Day was almost just like Christmas Day except with the kids; Elaine's niece and nephew came to make the 'Mad House' even madder, but in a fantastic way. They were adorable, so that was a bonus. Basically, the day was spent opening more presents and playing with the toys in them (to be honest, I think the adults had more fun with the toys than the kids did). More Wii Fit was played, working off the damage done by a second Christmas dinner and then at about 9 in the evening, Elaine and I joined some of her friends at a pub to celebrate a birthday. Despite my lack of drink, I had enough moxie to sing Proud Mary with Elaine's friends at the top of my lungs. Gettin' souuullllfullll! Yeah!

Sadly, my English Christmas had to come to an end as all things do, but it was one of the best times I've had since I've been here. I really did feel at home in the Siddall house. I'm now back in Leeds sitting in a fairly lifeless building, but with more than enough stuff to do to keep me busy. The only words I can use to truly describe it are these: post-apocalyptic. Whenever I'm going in or out of the building (the lift is broken so that's 12 flights of stairs to the 6th floor, baby!) I feel like I need my nine iron with me in case I run into a gaggle of zombies.

Hoping my brain doesn't get eaten,
Raechel

P.S. Thanks for the encouraging emails and prayers! I really do appreciate every bit of it!
P.P.S. For more photos of any/all of this stuff, hit up my Facebook!

Quick Update

Blogging location: Guest room. Liverpool, UK

Another quick update! I'm hoping soon to be posting in full, but right now I'm not quite prepared yet!
Anyways, I'm in Liverpool at the moment celebrating Christmas with my bible study leader's family! It's been my first white Christmas as well as my first English Christmas and it's been a cracking good time! Anyways, I hope you've all been enjoying your own Christmases and seasons greetings!

Love,
Raechel

P.S. Happy birthday Jesus! :)

Semi-Entry

Blogging Location: Madrid, Spain
Current facial expression: Utter confusion and strained eyes. Searching for keys that are CLEARLY in the "wrong" place on the keyboard. At least the alphabet keys are in the same area. :P

While I´m trying to get used to this Spanish keyboard, I´m writing to let you know that I´ll be WELL overdue for an update by the time I can write a propper entry. I´m without a card reader till the 22nd at earliest and I´d hate to write without being able to add pictures-video.

Here´s a sneak peak as to what´s coming up in my future entries: Snow, Trafalgar Square, Robert Downey Jr., Fish & Chips, Antique Shops, Christmas, Christmas Trees, Art...

Now if you´ll excuse me, I need to go buy an electrical converter. I completely forgot that the rest of Europe uses one different from the UK and I left all of mine at home... I´ll probably ask the front desk if I can borrow one first-- no, mom, I´m not dumb enough to go out and purchase something I can temporarily steal/be lent. Yes, my mother reads this blog.

Hasta luego!
-Your Favourite Village Idiot

Thanksgiving at Home... Away from Home

Blogging location: Flat, 3:14am

Being proud of my American identity, I wasn't going to let Thanksgiving sneak by without acknowledgment. Quite the opposite. I was going to impose it upon the unsuspecting country in which I now live in... Luckily, my flat mates were more than happy to accept this new form of imperialism-- then again, who wouldn't? Eating and cooking all day?

So last month, I made a list of all things Thanksgiving while chatting about Americanisms with my flat mates. This list included turkey, cranberry sauce, gravy, mash(ed potatoes), green beans... the typical English Christmas dinner, really... but wait! Candied yams??? What are candied yams? WHAT ARE YAMS? Something had to be done.

Like the good procrastinator I am, I waited till the day before to actually shop for my designated assignments: candied yams and pumpkin pie. I seemed to have chosen the most difficult-- no, IMPOSSIBLE-- task. It wasn't a good sign when my flat mates said that they'd never seen pumpkin pie sold here and I probably couldn't get canned pumpkin in England. That's like calling Marty McFly "chicken". Determined to not be defeated, I set out on the search for canned pumpkin. Which reduced to a search for pumpkin-ANYTHING. I even got to a point where I looked for pumpkin soup and mashed pumpkin in the BABY FOOD aisle. I think I've officially become "crazy-pumpkin-girl" in West Yorkshire since I've asked so many supermarket employees whether they carried pumpkin in a tin. I literally spent an entire day-- with a break consisting of one lecture in between.

Rejection after rejection after rejection, I dragged my feet up and down the streets of Leeds, looking for any international food stores, considering settling on making a cheesecake or even... wait for it... STORE BOUGHT APPLE PIE (and not the Marie Calendars kind either! Tragedy!) The rain was relentless and the wind had picked up to a point where you had to nearly double over to walk.

Anyways, I'll cut to the chase: after buying some yams at the open market, I made a last ditch effort for pumpkin-anything at Sainsbury's. And there I found solace in awkward pear-shaped form... no, not the middle-aged manager at Sainsbury's... Butternut squash! The peachy-coloured cousin of the pumpkin. You have no idea how much I doubted it would be a formidable substitute, but they smell exactly the same and look the same on the inside, surprisingly. I might say butternut squash is a bit creamier, but I had a smaller portion of cream cheese anyways. Thanks to the amazing Paula Deen, I had myself a pumpkin pie recipe, but I stealthily swapped canned pumpkin for freshly made squash puree. The night before I prepared the squash/pumpkin puree and today it all came together! Yes, I would do it again because look how it turned out!:





Onwards!
For a while I thought Thanksgiving was going to consist of just the yams, pie and maybe mash, which is a bit sadder than my original plan, but I was prepared for the worst. Sometime around 2:00 in the afternoon, one of my flat mates rolls into the flat with a Turkey! Prospects are brightened. That goes in the oven around 3:30. Later, one of my flat mates comes in with the largest sack of potatoes I've ever seen and carries it into the flat the way the seven dwarves hi-ho'd their mining equipment up the mountain and two of them made two pots of mashed potatoes or "mash" while another dashed out to buy green beans, cranberry sauce, more pie supplies for the crusts, etc! In a flurry, I rang mum up for her candied yams recipe and Thanksgiving was in full throttle by 4:00!

Production:


^Pie filling











All in all, Thanksgiving actually proved to be more successful than I thought... and here's why:
1. Thanksgiving happened. My flat mates came together at the last minute and went out to haul back copious amounts of food. The turkey didn't actually roll in till about 2:00pm. o.o Imagine how nerve-wrecked I was.
2. We had everything (that I would eat for turkey day-- I purposefully left stuffing off the list because it's just one of those foods that looks rough)
3. My flat mates LOVED the candied yams, even though they had their doubts and/or never heard of yams before.
4. I was able to keep my sanity via butternut squash. And my flat mates really liked the pie. :)

To top off the night, I webcammed with my family while they made dinner, hung out with my dog a bit, watched some Youtube videos with my little brother and "sat" at the table with them for Thanksgiving grace. Doesn't beat actually being at home, but it was damn well close to it. :)

Grand Announcement

Hi friends!
This sounds very trivial to be published on its own, but I've achieved one of my goals: Bringing California to the UK... AKA getting my flat mates to say "Dude." Now I just need to make it a habit of theirs.
Wish me luck!

-Raechel

P.S. Also brought CA to Leeds within the first three weeks: the weather was stunningly nice... it only rained two days! Score! But alas, the inevitable has stricken: the chance of rain is now 50% every day. I've gone thru two umbrellas (guys here, and I mean guys my age, apparently don't use umbrellas because they think it makes them look like sissies...). Cheerio!

A Bit of Traveling... Manchester, Liverpool, & Dublin

Blogging location: the good ol' flat; it's sunny outside! AMAZING.

.:NHS:.
Before I get to the traveling part, I would like to announce that I've gotten my flu shot. Momentous, I know. But the difference between getting a flu shot here and getting one in the States, thanks to the National Health Service, is the paying for the thing. As far as I know, I just walked in, checked in and got my flu shot. It's weird not having to pull out the insurance card or the wallet. I really don't have any further comments because I'm not one for politics. Oh and I also qualified mystically to get the swine flu shot... A flat mate of mine can brag about surviving the swine flu, so I guess I can always live vicariously through him.

.:Traveling:.
Now, for traveling! A few weekends ago (boy, has time flown!) myself and more study abroad students from the EAP traveled via coach to Manchester on a Friday and Liverpool the following Saturday for kicks and giggles. And because I've always wanted to see those areas since 1) Manchester was originally my first choice for study abroad (but it was replaced by Leeds when I read up on Leeds' Communication dept) and 2) one word: BEATLES.

To prep for the trips, I maniacally utilized Google to it's full extent, searching for Top 10 Tourist attractions lists and then Google mapping places... I'm questioning whether I'm more neurotic than I think I am...

.:Manchester:.
Had to get up before the sun did to catch the coach! But considering that the sun doesn't really rise till like 8:00, this doesn't say much... Here's a video to summarize the trip!:




.:Liverpool:.
Ah, yes, Liverpool, home of the Scoucers and the Beatles! :) Yet another really early departure; unfortunately my battery in my camera was dying, so there's a lack of photos in this slideshow video, but hopefully, you get the idea. We visited some museums, both art and natural history museums and then hit the town for lunch (I had steak and ale pie for the first time!) and to look for Beatles landmarks, which we found! We hit the Cavern, where the Beatles played their first gigs (the original Cavern was torn down to construct the underground and the bricks were auctioned off-- but they rebuilt it anyways.) Next we sought out the Liverpool Cathedral, the biggest cathedral in the UK. Photos and videos cannot show how MASSIVE the building was. Though it wasn't very old, it still retained the style of an older cathedral. Next we went hunting for a Tesco's (basically one of cheapest supermarket chains in the UK) to buy munchies. To tie up the day, we went back to Mathews St. to the clubs and pubs and hit a couple of those places to peer about. Though their nightlife is not at all comparable to Leeds (this comparison is both good and bad), we still had a fab time and even caught a decent cover band playing in the Cavern. Here's all of that in audio visual format!:


.:Dublin, Ireland:.
Our decision to go to Dublin was partially based on Halloween having come from Ireland. While we were there, we hit loads of the tourist sites. I thought the city was pretty cool... till I was told it was the most expensive country in Europe. Boy, were they right... Dublin uses the Euro, but that aside, the prices for everything were nuts. For food we settled with buying cheap groceries at Tesco's. I personally went with 1 euro's worth of french bread and a hunk of brie cheese for a day, but I enjoyed every bit of it. :)
While Dublin was a cool place to see, there were probably more gift shops than there were actual attractions of interest, which is why I'm glad we went on the particular weekend we did. There were special events going on such as the Dublin Chocolate Festival and there were just tons of people around for Halloween weekend. Our trip also included a visit to the Guinness Storehouse. I admit that I don't actually care for Guinness and I would never use my own money to buy myself a pint, but it was just awesome to see the storehouse. Very impressive. And yes, it does taste noticeably different from the Guinness in Leeds (or anywhere else, I suppose).
Being in Dublin for the weekend, I decided to visit a church for Sunday service. I ended up going to Christ Church Cathedral, an Anglican church. It was a pretty traditional sung eucharist service, and the choir was more than amazing, not to mention the acoustics. Just being in there for the experience was truly awesome. Again, here's a video, because my writing isn't nearly good enough to be able to share my trip in just words:



.:Leeds:.
I don't have to travel far to get to Leeds, so I figured I'd go see a play my friend was in. :) The play was Grimm Tales and it was a fab production; the performances and the storytelling were very good and it was just a great time sitting on the stage (this play stresses a lack of a proscenium arch, breaking the bounds between audience and actors and basically, the actors are pretending to be wild crazies, so you can imagine the personal space boundaries they're breaking, haha). It really did make me want to do theatre (ha, look how I spelt 'theater').

As always, I'm taking questions from anyone about living in Leeds/England or suggestions of things to check out. Till next time...
<3 Raechel

HobNobs 'n' Broomsticks

Figure 1.0: These beauts have just surpassed HobNobs as my favorite cookie here. Amazing.

Blogging location: Flat > Bedroom > Desk
Current emotions: Sugar high (see Figure 1.0) and a little miffed that I can't get Sherwood's Qu CD from Amazon for the amazing $3 price because I'm in the UK. >.< And no, as much as I LOVE Sherwood, I can't afford to get it for £14.

So as some of you know, I took a very expensive train ride down to London to scope out the big city. A lot happened and I won't waste your precious time by rambling on. Here's a video for your visual enjoyment:

A Lesson in Culture Shock

Yes, it has started to rain, finally... so I bought my wellies (no one says 'rainboots' here, because that would just be "proper daft"!).

.:What???:.
I'm still settling in and adjusting to the cultural differences here. For example, I'm still putting on a puzzled face when someone asks me "Are you alright?" My initial reaction is "Yes, I'm fine; do I look worried? Am I bleeding?" I remembered later (despite the multiple times we were told at orientation) that this phrase simply means "How are you?"
In case you're wondering, yes, I am picking up some slang such as "chav", "proper", and "yob". And I fear that I'm already starting to absorb the word "brilliant!" into my vocabulary. What's worse, it seems that "awesome!", "oh, snap", "word" and "holla" are withering away. Don't think I'm not getting vengeance though... I caught one of my flat mates saying "dude" last week. Britain: 1, Raechel: 2

.:Jay-Walking is Legal Here... And it's the Preferred Form of Transportation:.
Crossing the street is still nerve wrecking at some moments for me, despite having lived here for 3 weeks already. You have tons of one way streets and also plenty of two way streets. I end up looking both ways regardless, for fear of some maniac coming out of nowhere. Also, they drive on the OTHER side here, so double caution when looking to cross the street. Bigger shock here: pedestrians do not have the right of way. I'm accustomed to lazily crossing the street at my leisure knowing that most people will slow down or stop for me, especially at cross walks. There are crossings, but here is no such thing as drivers letting you pass! If anything, they will speed up if they see you (or so I feel) and get as close to you as possible without touching more than 3 hairs on the back of your neck. I do believe this is going to be an official sport in the near future.
I cross this just about every day:


.:Getting Around... and Around, and Around:.
I've been blessed with something resembling a sense of direction, so I've managed to get my bearings around the Leeds university and city center/centre, but upon arrival, it was absolute madness. I've had a good friend of mine try to follow a street to get home... she was told later that she was going to be going in circles for a while... I imagine will happen to me soon. As explained to me by my flat mates, the roads are perfectly confusing because of the city's choice of preserving old buildings. Thus the roads are built around these landmarks that were originally erected with not the slightest consideration of a city grid. Leeds looks something like this:

If you actually care to know, it looks like this. Notice how the street names change every 2-3 blocks. Yeah, try asking for directions now.

.:Queue Up!:.
Apparently there have been studies of English people queueing up (lining up) for nothing. This makes me giggle... not that I don't sometimes get in a line hoping there's free stuff at the end... But anyways, the English are very anal about their queues (this isn't too much of a shock for me since we do have "lines" in the U.S... boy, don't we have lines... Disneyland is a prime example of paying about $90 to spend a day waiting). Fun fact: I have turned around in stores or on the street to see people lined up behind me waiting to get by (because I'm the American that is oblivious and in the way. Classic.).

That's going to be all for now! Feel free to leave any queries and curiosities in the comments section! I'll get to them ASAP! ;)

Cheerio/Toodle pip,
Raechel

Beautiful, Trashy Leeds

BLOGGING LOCATION: This sounds ridiculous, but I'm sun-tanning whilst blogging from my room. I told you it was ridiculous.

.:Trashy:.
The title is not meant to sound as harsh as it is, but it's true... because the bin men (trash collectors) are currently on strike here... I'm guessing it will take some disease or epidemic to break out before somebody does something about it. And that concludes the current events portion of my blog!


.:My Latest Experiences In a Nutshell:.
I've only been in Leeds for a week, in the UK for a bit less than a week and a half, and since then, I've gotten myself lost in an airport, misplaced some of my belongings, been emotionally prodded at by home-sickness, been in the presence of the Holy Spirit at the local church I found called Gateway, bought my own kitchen/living supplies, been bum-rushed by a hobo in an enclosed bus stop, karaoke'd to Backstreet Boys' "Everybody", bought a replacement computer and had rugby explained to me in a Birmingham accent. Truly a full week.



At Costa Coffee with my pal Kayla



Night out with the EAP group!

.:Why On Earth Are You Doing This To Yourself?:.
People ask me why I chose to study abroad. It is none of these reasons:
a. Bring a cute foreign boy home
b. Pick up a different language/accent
c. Party because the drinking age is lower
My honest-to-God answer is that I need to grow up! I've never really been really independent for a long period of time. So far, in Leeds, I've already been put to the test, but more trials to come... Anyways, onward!

.:My Flat:.
So, here apartments are called flats. I'm just a few plates, a knife and a cutting board short of being settled in (if you want to count it that way). I've met all my flatmates and luckily for me they're decent people. From now on, when I refer to my flatmates, I mean 1 girl from Spain, 3 UK guys, and a partridge in a pear tree. Just about all of us are suffering from Freshers (freshmen) Flu at the moment, as are a lot of the other UC EAP people I came over with. I think we're managing quite well though. THINK POSITIVE.

Thistle Do Nicely: Small Update About Updates

I apologize for the terrible lack of updates! I'm completely disappointed in myself. However there is a reason: with a big trip such as mine, there are bound to be big surprises that God just springs upon us, good or bad. One of mine is that I left my laptop on a train. I know it's happening for a reason, but I'm yet to find out what that reason is.
Will post more later. Off to a meeting with the Communications department! Can't be late. PUNCTUALITY.

Hello & Goodbye Edinburgh!

So at the moment I'm sitting in the hotel lobby mooching off WiFi from somewhere... and as my luck will have it, my converter blew. Here I was quietly blogging, and not harming a soul in the world and then *POP*! Having been to L.A. and such and living close enough to it, I don't really notice gun-shot-like sounds until I recall that all electronics have a vengeance against me. Turning my head, I see an orderly and well-behaved little pillar of smoke, my very own smoke signal to get the awaiting sprinklers to do their jobs, unleash their showers and evacuate everyone in the building. Luckily that didn't happen and I don't think Scotland wants me deported... yet. Who knew that my converter isn't for laptops? The guy at the store, I guess.
Good news: I'm electrocution free. Thank God. I've borrowed a converter from the hotel, but it doesn't appear to be working. >.<

I saw Tilda Swinton at Heathrow airport in her silk pj pants, bleach blonde diva hair and crazy-cool glasses. Yay for Hollywood teaching me to spot celebrities... now if only I could make money doing this...

Alongside that event, I went to the wrong terminal, almost missed my connecting flight because they changed gates AND planes and didn't notify anyone (maybe just for fun). Oh, and I can tell that the UK absolutely adores me already. I've been pretty much the loudest person around. Who knew?

The past two days have been facilitated by the lovely EAP people. They've helped arranged meals and tours for us (and of course it's paid by us, but in advance, so it kinda feels like it's free-- it's an illusion like a financial mirage-oasis in a dark, cold desert-- by the way, I love Edinburgh's weather, so not bashing that in the slightest).

On Monday, we took a ghost tour with the Mercat Tours and went into some underground tunnels. A tad cheesy, but still creepy. Edinburgh has a history of body snatching, whether it be exhuming bodies from graves or serial killing. I didn't get to see any ghosts or get beat up by any (the tour guide told us that one of her tourists got slapped over the face by a local angry haunt named "Mr. Boots"). I took a few pictures and caught an orb in one (Google orbs if you're not familiar with this crazy phenom). One of my EAP pals caught one there as well.

On Tuesday we got the pleasure of visiting Edinburgh castle and I caught another orb on camera in the chapel! Me and a couple other gals also watched this street comedian/magician:


Meet Todd Various. Not only is he a great magician and performer, he's also good at convincing people to give donations. He's from Florida, despite the very Scottish or Irish likes of him. I wonder if he was peeved that I gave him American currency...

In terms of the food here, it's not bad. It's not the most amazing stuff, but I'm so suited to American-style food (extra salty, extra sweet, what have you). I've had a panini, lentil soup, chicken tikka kebobs, chicken bhuna, pizza, and various kinds of little deserts. I've also had apple cider. Don't freak out-- I'm not an alcoholic and never will be (in fact, I'm allergic to the stuff: symptoms include the Asian glow, dizziness and a slight itch), but here's something that throws off most tourists: the drinking culture is very, very different and in many ways, these people are more responsible about it. They'll drink any hour of the day, but not to get so wasted they can't see straight or remember the what odd food they had the night before resulting in a horrible sickness (that does happen, but it's not usually the goal). Even after the cider, I still think it smells funny.

My battery is running very very low due to the not working charger, so I will add more later and post some pictures when I get my computer situated! Meanwhile, I'm catching the train to Leeds tomorrow! It's been great Edinburgh, so see you soon!

Cheers!

Not Much To See Here... Yet :)

So I'm still in the process of preparing to pack. (Yes, you heard right, preparing to pack.) I still have a 9 days in the wonderful land known as Southern California and my home. Part of my preparation involves creating this blog and I just finished designing a few of these graphics here. I hope you enjoy it!

Most people have no idea where Leeds is, so I'll show you:

It's in northern England and a good 3-4 hours train ride from London, or so I'm told. I chose Leeds for a couple reasons: it's a good-sized city heavily populated by college students, the living cost isn't quite as expensive as London, and one of it's top departments is Communication (my major at UCSD). I will also be able to study Economics (my minor), Design and Business while I'm there (added bonus!). I would also like to study some sort of performing arts, but I read that it's very difficult to get in, so we'll see what happens...

I'll post more as the date (Sept 13th/14th) arrives and then you'll get to suffer my inane quips and potentially laughable mishaps. Til then, peace and thanks for reading!

-Raechel