Dinner and a Movie

Hello once again readers. Today was my first day of classes that involve a large portion of English students and that aren’t required for me to take while here. Today was World Religions, and it was a bit rushed. We got through about 8 civilizations before the 2 hour long class was finished. The main sections we are going to study are my least favorite; which I won’t go into because that could eventually lead up to an argument that I won’t win, even thought I might be right. When religion comes into the conversation things tend to get, um, fiery? That sounds like a good word to use right now. Anyways, no matter how many facts I state I will be wrong and whoever I am arguing will be right. That’s just how things tend to go. Moving on.

I went to my first movie over here in England, and it’s cheaper. Well if you convert the money into American dollars it probably wasn’t cheaper, but it’s the *insert word that I cannot think of here* of the thing. The movie theaters over here, like everything else, seem to be advanced. They have the large coolers like you see as gas stations and grocery stores, full of pop and ice cream. You can also buy candy by the 100 grams for about 1.30 pounds, and they have A LOT of candy choices. They have the standard popcorn, hot dogs, soda, and Iceys of course, but come on, its CANDY!

Anyways, I saw The King’s Speech with my friends Stephanie, Courtney, Lindsey, Kyle, and Alyssa. It was a very good movie. If you guys in American haven’t seen it yet, you should. It is hilarious and if you are a fan of Helen Bonham Carter, or anything of the Harry Potter characters that tend to appear in her movies (Pettigrew) then you will love it as well. It is very moving and will surprise you at how funny it really is. The previews don’t do it justice.

I also had my first experience with Thai food, which is pretty much, stir fry. It was good, but my Ma’s stir fry is always better. Not sure what else to tell you guys. Nothing else has really seemed to happen yet. Plus, I don’t think I’ve fully realized that I’m over 4,000 miles away from home yet, not to mention in another country. It’ll probably hit me once I see Big Ben or Buckingham Palace this weekend. Oh well, more to tell then I guess. Talk to y’all later.

Little Update

My dear readers, I’m just writing a quick update. I’ll probably write one of these every few days if not every day. Today, we only had one thing to do, and that was going to a quick presentation from the academic advisor and make sure that we got into the classes that we had signed up for. I did, but I won’t know until tomorrow when all the classes are. Other than that I went sightseeing with a few of my friends from my international group. We got to see an amazing garden, a burial mound, and part of the roman wall that is still in use around the city.

Though, all this sightseeing meant a lot of walking. So I somehow hurt my hips and I also managed to pull the tendon on my right foot. I’m definitely going to be hurting tonight. On the way to the college for the presentation one of my friends from my international group almost had a close encounter with death…..and a bus. To understand how this happened you have to know about the city streets. The sidewalks are either bigger than ours in America, or they are almost non-existent. Then, the street lanes have yellow or white lines on them for drivers to follow, and the only thing separating that line from the sidewalk is about 3 inches of space.

My friend was moving out of the way so that a rather rude group of people could pass us, so she stepped out into the street; literally an inch away from the curb, mind you. None of our group saw the bus coming until it was passing and my friend quickly jumped back. Later we found out that the bus had actually brushed against her arm. Close call indeed. Other than that today hasn’t been all that exciting.

My family and friends are really going to get a kick out of this one. At about 7:30 pm my time (1:30 pm yours) my friends and I are going to a pub for some food. Yeah, I can already hear the comments now. Oh well, I probably should get everything set up for school tomorrow. Talk to you later!

First Two Days

Hello readers. I’ve been in England for two days now and things seem to be going well. Today we had orientation and tours. We got to see a little bit of the campus and the universities library, which was amazing by the way. They have technology here that I have never seen before. You know the moving file cabinets you sometimes see in doctor’s offices? Well they have those in the library, only fancier and more up-to-date. Plus, these book shelves also have sensors on them so that you don’t get squished because someone didn’t bother to look and see if someone was there before moving a cabinet. They have self-checkouts for books and also self-return machines. They have little laptops in cabinets all around the library called i-borrows. They only work in the library so they can’t be stolen and they are super small. Oh, the library is four stories tall by the way, and you can have food and drink in it; which is like a crime in America. Haha. They have their own café too! The view from the Library is also amazing. I didn’t have my camera on me at the time so I don’t have pictures yet.

During our orientation we have a few speakers from the university and the travel agency that is taking us on our field trips. It was kind of boring, honestly. Though, I did find out that the words, “sweat” and, “pants” should never be put together, nor should the term “fanny pack” be used. Apparently those terms mean you either have a hygiene problem or that you are a bit crazy here in England.

Also, another good thing is that they have a pound store here; which is like the Dollar Tree in America. In England pound are like American dollars and pence is like American coins or cents. It’s rather confusing. The paper money is easy and I found the 1 pound coin easy enough, but I have sorted out all my other coins yet. I know that the 50 pence piece is a large heptagon (7-sided) silver coin, but the rest is, well, foreign.

My home-stay family is very nice. They have WiFi that they are letting me use, once they get it fixed. They also have a mobile phone that they are going to get activated for me soon. I have a t.v. in my room, but I haven’t tested it out yet. My room is also bigger then my actual bedroom back home and it is the first room that you come too when you walk into the house. My host family’s house is 20-25 minutes to my university and literally a straight shot as well. I get to walk through the main shopping district, which is really a giant out door mall, every day to get to and from school. The only down side is that I also live on the main road in and out of Canterbury. It is like Main Street/Broadway in Monmouth or Henderson/Main in Galesburg.

This brings me to another topic, British driving. They are crazy! I’m not saying that because they drive on the wrong side of the road either. Many of them drive down the middle of the road unless they see another car coming anyway! They take sharp corners at high speeds, and they pretty much tailgate at all times. My ride from London to Canterbury was quite an experience. Another thing is, on their highways or interstates their speed limits are variable. Oh? 70 mph you say? Eh, I suppose I’ll go 85. You know the circle roads/round-abouts that we call death traps in America? Yeah they are EVERYWHERE here. A few of them pedestrians can cross, but there are some that you can’t and those are the ones that are very busy and very dangerous. So they have built underground pathways for people to walk through to get from one side of the street to the other. These pathways; which I call tunnels, are actually called subways. Interesting right?

One last thing I would like to tell you about is the difference in words here in England. British people tend to either shorten describing something to one word, or they use multiple adjective to describe on thing. For example what we could call a USB Broadband Device, or something close, is called a dongle here. Where dongle came from, I have absolutely no clue, but it’s a funny word! Another example is of a restaurant that I came across. I can’t remember the specific name of the place, but the subtitle was Café Restaurant Foodshop. See what I mean? Overkill on adjectives.

Anyways, I shall end this entry here. I hope you are having a nice afternoon as I post this at 9 ‘til 8 here in Canterbury. Adiós!

Airplanes and Ailments

Dear readers, I am writing to you from 34,000 feet in the air. Yes, if you haven’t guessed yet, I am on an airplane, heading to London as I write this. I left tonight, as I am writing this it is still tonight in Illinois, and will arrive in London in 2 hours, 7:30 a.m. there. I have been awake for 15 and a half hours and I will be awake for at least 10 to 14 more. I may take a nap at my host family’s house, but I don’t want to sleep for too long otherwise I probably won’t sleep tonight. The reason I haven’t slept is because I can’t sleep in moving vehicles. I get this weird moving feeling when I try, kind of like I can feel my body moving along with the vehicle. I had thought that this was limited to cars, but apparently airplanes are also a culprit.

In front of me I have this neat little t.v. screen that plays movies, music, or shows a map of my flight along with music. This is how I know that I have exactly 2 hours and 5 minutes before the plane reached London Heathrow Airport, that I have traveled exactly 3021 miles in this plane, and that it is -76 degrees outside right now. Cool right?

As much as I prefer airplanes over trains, I have found that they have one fault to them. Well, maybe more than one, but right now this is the only one that matters to me. I frequently suffer from altitude sickness whenever I go place like Colorado, or, you know, the sky. So as of right now my sinuses are stuffy, my head hurts, it also feels kind of light, I have random bouts of exhaustion, oh, and a new one, nose bleeds. Thankfully I always felt them coming on and was able to stop them. I have a 6 year old next to me with her mom and I’m not sure how she would react to me bleeding out of my nose. She a cute kid, she gave me a jelly bean when her mom let her have them. I didn’t even ask!

My experience at the Chicago airport which I departed from is so-so. Everyone was real nice until I got to security. I understand that they have to be serious, but being rude and making people feel stupid is not professional. After that though, everyone was nice. My plane, surprisingly, boarded and departed on time. Kind of awesome considering the last time I was waiting for a plane my flight was delayed for 2 hours because they had to find another plane. The original one was hit by lightning.

Other than the altitude sickness and the little girl using my lap as a foot rest, my flight has been pretty good. The food, though a little spicy, was tasty, and the movies I watched, thought I couldn’t really hear them, were some of my favorites. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and The Expendables are an interesting combination. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see the ocean as I was (still am) flying over it. I didn’t get a window seat so that I could take pictures. Soon I will also be eating breakfast before we land. Hopefully it is as good as the dinner. 1 hour and 48 minutes left. Buenos días.