We got our map and figured out the places that we wanted to visit. Cody had decided that he wanted to stop and get a bagette and just walk around and eat it…so we did…we walked around with a huge loaf of bread. After we got the bread we kept walking and we first stopped to see Notre Dame. It was very beautiful, the best cathedral we have seen so far. We didn’t go inside but we looked around the outside. It was nice when we were walking by later one other time and we heard the bells going off. After we got done taking our pictures we kept walking and found the park called, Place de la Concorde. It is the biggest square in Paris. It was beautiful with its fountains and statues. We kept walking and found a street that had a lot of little boothes with food and all different kinds of things. We decided to get some strawberry crepes at one of them, they were pretty good. After we ate we kept walking down the park and decided to go and see the Eiffel Tower. We got there at about 3 o’clock. We were going to go back up to the top but it said that it was temporarily closed. We decided that we would try back later, and I had to get back to the hostel to register for classes anyway. We started walking back and made it a good distance…and then got a little lost. We had trouble finding the right streets to turn on and it ended up taking us 3 hours to get back to our hostel. By the time we got back we didn’t want to do anything. So we decided to eat there and just relax the rest of the night.

On Saturday we decided that we were going to get metro tickets (like taking the subway) instead of  walking everywhere. We had found out that on Friday we had walked about 15 miles and we really didn’t want to do that again. We figured we would start off the day by going to The Lourve. That was the only thing we really had planned for the day because we had been told that it would take a whole day or more to see everything. We got there and took some picutres of the pyramids outside and then went it and started our journey. We had gotten a map and saw that the museum had 4 floors. There were also highlighted items on each floor so we figured those would be easiest to go and find and then we could see all the other stuff along the way. It took us about 4 hours to get through all we wanted to see. The best parts were seeing the Mona Lisa, Aphrodite, and of course seeing the things we had seen in the movie The DaVinci Code. After walking around we went to see the Arc de Triumph. We were going to go to the top, but we didnt want to spend money to do it . For lunch that day we went to eat at McDonalds and it was delicious and super bad for you as always. We then went back to our hostel for  a few hours and then got back on the metro and headed to see the Eiffel tower light up. At 8 pm every night, for 10 mins, it does a light show. It was pretty great. It was my favorite part or the trip.

On Sunday we were set to leave at 5pm. We really didn’t have a lot do to. We went and saw Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde’s graves first and then on the walk back to the hostel we got some fruit tarts. They were delicious, they tasted just like fruit pizza. Yumm. We also walked around looking for some wine for Cody, and it’s actually harder to find than you would think but we eventually found some. We didn’t do much of anything else that day, just sat around waiting to leave. It came to be 5 o’clock and found out that the ferries had been cancelled because of the weather so we would be going under the water instead. I was pretty excited. When we finally got to Calias – where we would get on the ferry- we found out that they had started running again. In my mind, this was a terrible mistake. It was the rockiest ride ever, I got sea sick…twice. Soooooo bad. I was very happy when the ride was over. Then we got back on a bus and made our way back to Hull. We arrived back at around 4:30am. It was a very successful trip. The city was the cleanest/prettiest that we have been to.

We arrived in Rome and got a taxi to take us to our bed and breakfast. The traffic was terrible and it ended up costing us 70 euro for a 12 km taxi ride. This right off put all of us in a terrible mood. Of course then we got to the B&B and all the lady wanted to do was talk..talk talk talk talk talk. And it wasn’t about anything important. At one point she started talking about how her friend likes to drink and smoke pot. After we finally got her to go away we started off to tour Rome. First we stopped at this parked and took pictures and looked around. It was quite beautiful. It was also right across from the Colosseum so we could get some pictures of that. We then went to the Colosseum and all around were people saying that there were english guided tours so we decided to pay 22 eruos and get a tour of the Colosseum, the Palantine, and the Forum. It was well worth the money. The tours went very well, we learned a lot and got some great pictures. We spent our day looking around at the ruins and looking in shops. We also passed a sidewalk artist who was in the process of drawing an amazing picture, if you go to my shutterfly you can see it. For supper we decided that we needed to get some pizza. We found a place where you could get a pizza, salad, and a drink for 8.50 euros so we figured that was a good deal. The pizza was delicious. It was different from any other pizza I have ever had, but it was very good. Then of course we had to get gelato. I had cherry, it was also delicious. That night cody and I were exhausted. Both of us had only slept for about an hour the night before and had passed out by 7:30. It was the best night of sleep I have had in a long time. This pretty much ended our first day in Rome.

Our second day we ended up going to Vatican City and looking around. It is a beautiful place but I  think that it would have meant more if we had a guided tour or if we were Catholic. We then went to the Vatican Museum and saw the Cistine Chapel. It was a long walk, but it was worth seeing. It was surprising that the main painting was the same size as all the others, it didn’t really stand out. I wish I could have taken pictures but you weren’t allowed. After again walking around and going in shops we went to find some pasta. We found a little place and ordered tortalinni, it was surprising that the noodles were filled with ham because whenever I  have had it they are filled wtih cheese. It was still good food. We didn’t do much else this day.

On Friday our plan was to go to Naples. The whole day in Naples wasn’t great so I will just tell you about the good parts. 1) we had a very nice hostel. The people were nice and it was just a comfortable place to stay. 2) the pizza was amazing. I had gotten margherita con funghi….so cheese, ham, and mushrooms. Pizza was invented in Naples and it was probably the best pizza I’ve ever had. We then, of course, had to go and get gelato. Apparently there aren’t many gelato places in Naples…we walked for a very long time. And that concludes our trip to Naples

The next day, Saturday, we were set to fly back to London. We took our train back to Rome and met up wtih Emily, her parents, and her grandma for lunch. It was nice seeing familiar faces. Emily, her mom, her grandma, and I all went to a purse store by the train station because I had been looking for an Italian leather purse and there was one mroe store I wanted to stop in before we left. So we went and I finally found one, and I love it (again you can see it in my pictures). After chatting and eating we caught our bus to the airport and flew back to London. Again, we had to sleep in the airport because the trains weren’t running when we were getting back. To say the landing was scary would be an understatement. It was so windy in London that day that I thought the plane was going to be flipped over. When we finally landed some of the passengers decided to applaud…it was a well deserved. I was very nervous and sick feeling after that. So we finally made it back to England. I actually got some sleep that night. It wasn’t great and I woke up at 4:45 am because I could no longer sleep and had to wait until 9 to leave. It was kind of a boring wait but we finally left and made it back to Hull.

Mom, I hope you are happy with my blog.

On Thursday we got up and went and got our breakfast. We filled up on cereal and toast and then went to get ready to leave for our day of adventure. Our first place to visit on Thursday was Temple Bar St., it is pretty much just several blocks off the main roads filled with different bars. We walked around, went in and out of shops, and then decided to head to the Guinness Storehouse/Brewery. We went in and looked around the store, and then looked around the storehouse. It was a self-guided tour. After looking through 5 floors of information on how they make Guinness, the advertising, and the origin of the brewery; we made our way up to the gravity bar.With our ticket we could get a complimentary drink from the Gravity Bar. Of course the boys wanted to have a Guinness, but Em and I opted for the pop. In the gravity bar, you get a 360 degree view of Dublin, and it’s quite beautiful. It is a great view. The guys seemed to both like the Guinness, but they came to the conclusion that it is better straight from the brewery than it would be in the states.

After we went to the brewery, we decided to walk around and find a nice Irish place to eat. We settled on a place, and went in to order. I hadn’t had a nice meal in a while, so I decided to have the 10 oz lamb steak with mashed potatoes. It was quite good. I figured that it was the closest thing to beef steak I was going to get, and they taste rather similar. I wasn’t going to take the chance on getting another steak again (after the Scotland incident). Emily also got the lamb steak, and Cody  got the grilled pork chop with new potatoes and potato and leek soup, and Mouse got a chicken boxty (a potato pancake with a bacon and leek cream with cheese on the inside). All of us were rather pleased with our meals, which was nice. After we ate, we headed back to the hostel and just relaxed for a few hours and finally went to sleep.

Friday was a day set to just wandering around, going in shops, and looking around. We also had to move to our second hostel, the Mount Eccels hostel. It was also nice and it had the biggest room we have had so far, so we could actually walk between the beds.  Before we went to the hostel we went and looked around St Patrick’s Park/Cathedral, walked to O’Connell St to look in shops. I found a celtic ring that I liked, so I purchased it. Going in that was really the only souvenier that I was looking for. After we looked around we went to our hostel and put our bags in our room. Then we decided to walk and possibly find a castle, we went to the Dublin castle earlier that day but it was kind of disappointing. Instead of finding  a castle, we got downpoured on. It was sunny out….but raining cats and dogs. It was ridiculous. Once it finally let up we walked back to O’Connell St  (it’s basically a st with tons of shops and restaurants) and went to find a light lunch. We ended up just choosing McDonalds becuase I was cheap. I thought I was funny that they had curly fries at their McDonalds, they called them Twisty Fries, because that’s a Hardees thing in the states. But I got them anyway, and they were delicious. After we ate we walked around some more and a few hours later we decided to find a nicer place to eat supper. We picked The Celt pub. We all had been looking to get a traditional Irish Stew and that place had it. And Cody was happy that he also got his Crubeans, boiled pigs feet. Now when I think pigs feet the image that comes to mind it pickled pigs feet. That was the complete wrong image. It was a huge hunk of ham. And that is exactly what it tasted like…just plain ham. This was supposed to be a started but could have easily been someone’s meal. So Cody had to eat that AND his stew. I just went with the stew and I thought it was quite good. It had lamb, carrots, celery, potatos, and onions in it. I definitely got full of off my bowl….I have no idea how Cody suffered through his and the pigs feet and he also had a pint of Guinness. What a champ. We got done eating around 6 but decided to head back because we had a really early morning on Saturday. So we went back and I decided to shower Friday night. I have learned taht I had the showers in Ireland, there is no temperature control and you have to push a button to keep it on. I would push the button and the water would stay on for about 10 seconds. So I would have to continually push this button, a big pain in the butt. I have come to the conclusion that that is their attempt at saving water, it’s just so annoying that people won’t take long showers. We all went to sleep at about 8 because we had to get up at 3:45 am Saturday to get to the airport.

We got up this morning at 3:45 and our taxi driver picked us up around 4:10 to take us to the airport. We got there at about 4:30 and got through check in and security with no problems at all. (So much better than on the way there). Our flight didn’t leave until 6:30 so we had a few hours to kill. We finally took off at about 6:45 and finally got to see Dublin at night from up above, that was a great part of the trip. It was beautiful all lit up. We arrived back in Leeds at 7:30am and proceeded to take a bus, train, bus, and another bus to finally make it back to Hull.

That concludes our trip to Ireland. It was a good time in a beautiful city. This coming weekend we will be going to Italy (Rome and Napples). Cody is determined to have me climb Mt Vesuvius…we’ll see how that goes.

Well we left on Wednesday last week and, for the first time, travelled by ferry. I will certainly surprised at how nice the ferry was. There was a Four Seasons, cinema, casino, liqour store, and multiple other things. We had gotten on the boat two hours before we were supposed to leave so we decided to look around and find our room. We got to our room and I was surprised by it also. We had four beds and our own bathroom. After that we decided to go and look around and get some supper. The boat took both pounds and euros so I just decided to exchange my money at the time. I was happy that my amount of money increased when it was exchanged to euros. After looking around we went and decided to eat at the buffet in the Four Seasons. Here is a list of everything that I ate (that I can remember): spaghetti, mashed potatos, dinner roll, roast beef, fish, green beans, baked potatos, zucchini & mushrooms, yorkshire pudding (tasted like chlorine, I did not like it), salad, grapes, cheese, a fruit tart, blueberry cheesecake, a water, and a hot chocolate. We all ate for about an hour and a half straight. I would have to say that was the most food I have ever eaten at one time. Now almost all of the food was amamzing…the cheese was not. Cody thought that we all needed to try this cheese that was moldy (it was supposed to be). Emily smelled it and said, “this smells like cow poop!” And..it did. So we all tried it and guess what….it tasted like cow poop. I about threw up, along with the other three. It was one of the worst things ever! And of course the taste would not leave my mouth for a while. After our meal we just hung out and eventually fell asleep. I found out that I dont sleep well on boats.

We arrived in Zeebrugge,Belgium Thursday morning, caught a coach (a Mercedes-Benz coach at that) to Brugge, and went to the bus station. Our encounter with the bus driver was not pleasent. We didn’t know what we were doing, so we told him the hostel we were trying to find…and to be nice about it, he was a jerk! Luckily there was a nice guy on the bus who told us which stop we had to get off at and where the hostel was. We got to our hostel, the Art Hostel, put our stuff in our room and figured out what sites we wanted to see for the next 3 days, and then we went to find some place to eat. We walked and found a bistro to eat at. Everything was pretty expensive and the food wasn’t all that great (i got spaghetti). From there we walked to the city center, which was about a 20 min walk from our hostel. We walked around and went to the Friet (fry) Museum (fries were invented in Belgium) and went in about every chocolate store we saw. There were prolly like a million. I bought a box of chocolate for myself at the chocolate store across from our hostel. I got 350 grams and I think so far I have eaten 2 pieces. I must say I am pretty chocolated out. I still haven’t eaten another piece and it’s been about a week.

Friday we walked back to the city center and we finally got to eat some waffles!! I was so excited because I love waffles. I ordered the fresh fruit and whipped cream waffles, they were DELICIOUS. The waffle was crispy and perfect. Emily had also found that you can order waffles with choclate and ice cream on them (she got that kind the two times we had waffles). That was probably the highlight of my trip. We went to the choco-story museum, went and saw “The Madonna, ate supper at pizza hut,went to a candy shop where they made hard candies (which are delicious), and walked around some more.

Saturday we got up and went to eat waffles again. I was more disappointed this time because I was looking forward to having strawberry and whipped cream waffles, but I couldn’t because they were out of season. So I instead got a waffle with butter and powdered sugar. Still good…but I was looking forward to strawberries . We didn’t really have anything else to do this day except go to the bus station to get back to Zeebrugge to get on the ferry. So we walked to the bus station and sat there for several hours until our bus came, got back to the ferry, and went back to Hull. We also finally got our first stamp (besides England) in our passport.

We aren’t going anywhere this weekend so there won’t be another blog until probably November 9th (Josh’s birthday!)

On Friday it was just Cody, Emily, and me because Mouse was going to be coming later that night. We got up and went down to breakfast at 8:30. I walked in and there was cereal and fruit sitting there, and this is usually what we have been getting when we go and stay at hostels. Come to find out, these are just starters…so I have already eaten a bowl of cereal and a banana. Ann then comes in and brings in the tea and coffee and asks if everyone is ok with bacon and eggs…of course we are. She comes back a little while later with a plate full of bacon, eggs, sausage, tomato, mushrooms, baked beans, and toast. For someone who doesn’t eat breakfast, I am very proud of myself for being the only one who ate everything. Go me. After that meal we were all very full and decided to go and site see. We started off walking down main street and went into various shops to see what they had and maybe pick up some souveniers. We then went down to the Pembroke Castle and looked around. This castle varied greatly from the Edinburgh castle. This one was an oval castle so the whole inside was wide open and you walked around the outside. You also didn’t have a tour guide so you could walk around and do whatever. We spent around 3 hours just walking around and taking picutres. It was like a jungle gym for big kids, it was great. Once we were done with that we continued to walk around and by 3 in the afternoon we decided we might get some lunch. Again, there was no kitchen open serving lunch, so we had to eat at a fish and chips place that apparently had award winning food….WRONG. I got a chicken and mushroom pot pie and chips (fries). The pot pie was alright but my fries were not very warm and they were so soggy that when you picked them up they fell apart. I was very disappointed. At this point in are all getting a little frustrated with the food options, so we just decide to go back and relax at the B&B for a while. We sat in the sitting room and watched TV, which we don’t get to do at Hull or in most places really because you have to have a license to have a TV. Once supper time rolled around we went and found someplace to eat that we already knew would be opening at 7. It was probably the best food I’d had eating out while in Pembroke. I got grilled scallops in a citrus and chive  butter. They were amazing! I could have eaten those the whole time I was there. After we ate there, we went to the supermarket and got some goodies and went back to the B&B. Cody and I decided to play some pool…we played three games…and I lost all of them. It was a good time though.

On Saturday we decided to go on a Costal Walk. Cody had looked into it and it didn’t sound like a bad idea. Ann had told us of some places to go so we took her advice. We hoped on the Costal Cruiser (a bus/van) that took us to West Angle Bay. We spent quite a bit of time climbing on the rocks, looking for seashells, and taking pictures. Ann had suggested that we go to Fresh Water West, so we thought we’d go there. We had stopped to get something to drink and some ice cream before we left, but then realized that it was a 5.5 mile walk and we had around 2 hours to get there to catch the bus back to Pembroke so we started off. At first, it wasn’t so bad…but then it started to go downhill. There were these hills that I swear we were climbing mountains. It was pretty much straight up and straight down. There were like 11 hills like this. My heels were blistered and bleeding, I was hot, I pricked my hand on a bush or something and it swelled up, but hey at least it was a pretty view…even though I spent the majority of the 2 hours looking the ground so I didnt step in a hole. (Which I ended up doing a lot anyway). By the time we actually got to Fresh Water West, our bus has just gotten there so we didn’t even get to enjoy it. The up side..we got to see about 7 miles of the Wales Coast, also it was my first timem seeing the ocean. So it wasn’t all bad. After that all I wanted to do was shower. So we went back to the B&B and got cleaned up, had some tea, and relaxed until we decided to go and get some supper. Of course this was a pain again. We went and talked to pubs all over and apparently they don’t like to have food on Saturday nights. So we finally found a chinese and english restaurant and ate there. The chinese that I had was good, but I think Cody was a little disappointed in his food. He had ordered a burger, and that’s what he got….without a bun. We couldn’t help but laugh with all the bad luck we’d been having with food. We got done eating and went back to the B&B and just relaxed the rest of the night.

Sunday we left Pembroke at 7 am and got back to Hull around 6 pm. It was a long day. Overall the trip was fun, and it was a beautiful place.

If you want to look at my pictures I created a shutterfly page, it is caitlinstravels.shutterfly.com

enjoy.

Well let’s go through an overview of my Scotland weekend:

Thursday: We left from the bus station Thursday morning and started on our 7 hr and 30 min bus ride. The first four hours I spend sleeping, which was nice. By the time I woke up we had to take an hour break in New Castle so the bus could fill up with gas and what not. It was the dinkiest bus station and you had to pay to use the bathroom (which is kind of common around here). The hour seemed to drag on but we finally got to get back on the bus and we arrived in Edinburgh at about 4:30pm. It is much nicer getting to where we are going in the afternoon. We then got a taxi that took us to our hostel. None of us had really eaten all day, I had had a doughnut and a bag of chips. So once we put our belongings in our hostel room we went to find some place to eat. We  ventured down the street and found a restaurant called Sizziling Scotts. We went in and ordered. Cody got a started of Haggis, which we all tried before we exactly knew what it was. It actually didn’t taste too bad at all. I will tell you what is in Haggis, but I warn you, it is disgusting. Haggis has sheep stomach sac, heart, lungs, liver, and kidney fat. Yuummmmmmm…I seriously never want to eat it again. Well I had ordered an 8 oz steak that came with grilled tomato, mushrooms, onion rings, and mashed potatoes with cheese and chives. Now this sounds delicious right? Well the steak was the worst steak I have ever had…it tasted like I straight up ate a piece of charcol. Nasty. I was not a happy camper after that. I forced myself to eat it all though because I paid quite a bit for it. After we got done eating we went back to our hostel and we all went to sleep around 9…until the fire alarm went off at 11:45 because someone in the kitchen burned something. That wasn’t exactly a great wake-up call. So that was our Thursday.

Friday: So we got up Friday morning and set off to go on the tour of Edinburgh Castle. (Note: After we took our taxi to the Hostel the first night we walked absolutely everywhere we went in Edinburgh, and everywhere in St Andrews except the ride from the train station to our hostel.) We started walking in Edinburgh and saw some pretty churches, parks, and just buildings in general. We made our way up to the castle, which included walking up some crazy steep hills! For one, the castle didn’t look like what I imagine a castle looking like, but it was still beautiful. We took our tour and learned some history of the castle. After our tour we went into certain buildings like the great hall, the Queen Anne building, we saw the Scotland crown jewels, and royal apartments. (I don’t have pictures of the castle b/c my camera died that morning, so Cody has all the pictures.) We looked around and we also went and looked in the gift shops. I bought Cody his Xmas present…and I already gave it to him. (it’s a good thing cause he said he was gonna buy something like it.) So in return he bought me a pair of cashmere gloves, these came in handy because my hands were freezing a lot of the time. Besides looking at the castle, we also went on a Murder and Mayhem tour. We met outside the castle by a retaurant called the Witchery. This tour was meant to show you the darker side of Edinburgh but they did it with humor. It was a great experience. I thought it was going to be scary at first, but it ended up just being funny and very imformative. That’s what we did on Friday, in a nutshell.

Saturday: Saturday we caught a train to go to St Andrews. It was only about an hour train ride. Once we got there, we got a taxi and went to our hostel. We again, didn’t stay there very long and went and walked around. St Andrews is a very beautiful town, I like it because it’s  a small and yet there are things to see and do. We walked and went and saw the Cathedral ruins, went and walked on the beach, saw the Castle ruins, and then made our way to St Andrews golf course. All of it was very nice, although St Andrews isn’t was pretty as I thought it was going be. I guess it’s just the history that is important. After walking around for a bit and going in the gift shops we went back to the hostel and I took a nice nap. After that we went back out and and went to a bar/restaurnt (I dont remember what it’s called) and I guess is famous because of St Andrews. They had pictures of golfers all over the place. I also had the most amazing piece of apple pie there. It has like a strussel top and then a layer of carmel, and it was warm, and had ice cream on it. I would seriously go back just so I could have another piece of pie. Yumm Yumm. After we ate, the three of us went and climbed on some rocks and looked out at the water. It was beautiful.

Sunday: Sunday we got up at 6:45 (boooo) and went back to the St Andrews course and walked the 18-holes and took some pictures. That was the last of our Scotland trip. The rest of Sunday was spent riding back to Hull. We finally got back around 8 pm, and we were all thankful. It was a very good trip but tiring. My legs were super sore from walking everywhere so it was nice to relax.

This upcoming weekend we are going to Wales. I will blog and let you know how that trip goes.

The next morning we got up, got ready, had breakfast, and started out on our journey through Liverpool. We started out just walking down the street to take pictures of an old church and then walked to the Anglican Cathedral, which oddly enough was designed by a Catholic. There is also a Catholic Cathedral in town, that was designed by an Anglican. Once we took pictures of the Anglican Cathedral we walked down by the water to try and find the Fab 4 Beatles store. It was very windy on this day and once we got to the water is was about 10 times worse. The nasty brown water was blowing up on us and it was so windy that we couldn’t walk in a straight line. At times I thought I was going to get blown away. To give you an idea of how chilly it was, we were walking down the sidewalk and the pigeons had their heads bent down so it looked like they had no neck because they were cold too. It was funny. We finally got to Albert’s Dock which had several shops, museums, and restaurants. We looked around and went in some shops to get souveniers and went through a few museums. We went through the Merritime museum, Seized! Mueseum, International Slavery Museum, and the Titanic Museum. We went and got some lunch at a restaurant called What’s Cookin?, it was pretty good but fairly expensive. I had the steak wrap, a side salad, and baked potatoes. I have come to realize that they put corn in/on a lot of things, things that I wouldn’t think of, like on pizza.

After we ate we decided to find our hostel. We started to think that it was strange when the taxi drivers had never heard of this hostel. We finally stopped in a hotel and they called a taxi for us. When we got there we drove up to these townhouses and there was a gate that said that the Old Dairy Hostel was in the back entrance. That kinda creeped some of us out, but we went in this back alley and walked up to this door but it was locked. So we kinda walked back and noticed some barbed wire on the fence. (This may sound really creepy, but it was kind of common is areas around here. Just around random things, the fenses will have barbed-wire on the top) We went inside and it turned out to be a very nice place. We had booked two rooms and each room had a double bed and a twin bed, a tv, stuff to make tea, a sink. I personally like it better than the first place. The rest of the day we spent relaxing and actually got to watch tv for the first time in 2 weeks, since you have to have a license here to have a television. The hostel itself was fine, but there were a group of Columbians staying there also and they were SO LOUD! They had been talking very loudly and laughing and acting like idiots for a while in the afternoon, but then at 2 in the morning they came home and did the exact same thing and woke me up. Then again, some time after that in the morning, they were loud and woke me up AGAIN! They made me so angry…I am just very happy I don’t have to deal with them anymore.

We left Liverpool on Sunday and  made our way back to Hull and have no finally started classes. I had my first set of classes today. Today at 12:15 I had my Religion in Antiquity class, my professor is from Texas so I don’t have to worry about understanding his accent. The class was fine, I am hoping it gets better as the classes go on, but I only have 8 lectures left. Yay! I also had my first class for Environment and Development in Africa, I also think this class will go better as I have more classes once we start learning about the different groups of people. I guess time will only tell. I have my art class tomorrow afternoon and then my Africa class again on Wednesday. Class definetely made my day go by really fast today. I got up, got ready, went to my classes and by the time they were done it was 4:15. Now I have to go do some laundry and possibly eat some supper.

So it’s been a few days since I have blogged. Last thing I talked about was orientation. Well on Friday we went to our briefing and had the run down on how to register for our classes. We had to go to each department that we had a class in, check the time table to see what time the class is, and if you have any clashes to go and find a different class to take. It is pretty much a pain in my butt, to be nice about it. Lucky for me and Emily we could go and talk to the departments on Friday when all the UK students hadn’t shown up yet. Two of my original classes I had pre-registered for had worked out but there was a clash with one other one. So I dropped one classes and picked up one that Emily was taking and everything worked out. So I am taking American Art 1900-1940, Religion in Antiquity, and Environment & Development in Africa. Emily and I are also taking all the same classes which is nice, so we can help each other. And Cody is also taking two of the same classes. I only have lecutres on Monday-Wednesday. I still have to schedule my tutorials. Tutorials are when you break into smaller groups from your lecture. Hopefully I can get those on Monday-Wednesdays too.

Saturday we went on our guided city tour. It went pretty well. We saw some things that we prolly wouldn’t have just exploring on our own.

Yesterday I sat around pretty much all day. We did go out to eat at a pub in town. I had lasagna, salad, and garlic bread. It was rather delicious, and fairly cheap. (which is ALWAYS a plus). We might go to wales this week but if we don’t I think we might go next week. At least it will give us something to do. I have been pretty bored, not having anything to do but when Josh isn’t at work I am usually talking to him which is good.

Who knows that I’m going to do today…I guess we’ll see.

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Not a lot has happened in the past 2 days. Mainly we have had orientation which consisted of different speakers. It was pretty boring, but at least now it’s over. This afternoon we have a briefing at 1:30…hopefully then we will learn more about how to go about getting classes set up and what not. We are registered as students but have not got officially signed up for classes. It’s been kind of stressful because at times they seem very unorganized and we don’t know what we are supposed to be doing, but we will for sure figure it out. Next week is be spent getting our classes set up and getting our handbooks for the classes we register for. I don’t think official classes start until the beginning of October. It seems to be taking forever to get everything set up, I just hope it is all well worth it!

Yesterday they had salsa dacing lessons in the Union so I went and took pictures of Cody, Emily, and Mouse learning to dance. It was very entertaining and it looked like quite a bit of fun. After that we went and ate at the Sanctuary, a retaurant in the Union. My food was fairly good, I had a Chicken and Mushroom pot pie. And the best thing of all is that it was pretty cheap. You do notice a big difference in the waiting staff here as compared to the States. At the Sanctuary you go up to the bar, write down your own order and your table number, order your drinks, takes your drinks back to your table, and wait for them to bring you your food. That one time that they bring you the food is the only time you see the waitor/waitress at your table, you can’t even get a refill on your drinks without getting up and walking to the bar. You are mainly doing all the work yourself. I suppose it wouldn’t be so bad if we weren’t used to the service we get in the US. They are much more attentive and deserve the tips they get. I dont think waitressing here would be that great of a job because you wouldn’t be making that much money because the tips you get can’t be very good.

Tonight there is a Welcome Party at Asylum, a night club in the union. It starts at 8:30 so I will prolly go and be social for a few hours. (Yes everyone, be very proud of  me for being social =] ) One funny thing that happened today was: At the end of orientation a lady from the International Office was making a few announcements and she said, “Most importantly, the welcome party is tonight. And what will you all be doing?” (We were all supposed to say going to the Asylum) But instead people said “Getting Drunk!” So she revised and said,” Where will you all be getting drunk?” Haha. I think it’s funny that out of all the speeches about safety, registration, and religion, that being at the welcome party is the most important. At least it made me laugh.

Tomorrow we are planning on going on a guided tour of Hull so hopefully I can get some good pictures. I havent really taken any pictures of the town yet so hopefully tomorrow I can get them taken and posted so you all can look at them!

Take care.