A Title that Doesn't Start with "F"

Its a Saturday and I'm posting a new blog! YAY! Actually you're probably think "man, how lame is this. Dana's in this super cool country for a year and she's so bored over the weekend she has to update her blog?" But I swear it's not like that. I only slept in until half 12 today (also known as 12:30) and it's been raining most the day and I was out late last night. OK, that's enough excuses. Its just like at ISU there really isn't too much to do on the weekends unless its at night and its 4 in the afternoon here so the campus is pretty much dead. Although there is a strange man walking around taking pictures of the campus.

Anyway, (yes I do realize that half of my paragraphs start with anyway) as you now know, because I'm sure you are an avid reader of this blog and simply can't get enough of it, I am fully healed from the Freshers flu! Which is a very good things as I had planned on walking to Kemble this afternoon but had to cancel do to rain. I swear that's all that ever happens in this country and I probably wouldn't mind it if I had Wellies to keep my feet dry, but I don't.

Most of this week was pretty uneventful. I did socialize with people at the Tythe and like I said I was out late last night at the Student Union "B" party, where we had to dress up as, wear, or bring something that started with a "b". I, thinking myself to be clever, went as Baby Spice and borrowed a dress from a friend that emphasized my bosoms quite a bit more than I was comfortable with. She, however, went in my bathrobe so I guess we're even.

Thursday night, however, I learned how to do some Scottish Reeling. Which is pretty much a cross between square dancing and line dancing set to Scottish music instead of country music, but way more fun then either of those. Except the group I was in when were doing a Reel called Strip the Whip were rather violently flinging the girls around and I have several rather nasty looking bruises on my arm, and they almost make it look like I am a drug junky. It was a really good time and met new people, which is always exciting.

Also, my friend Naomi and I took a bus to Tescos but we were then told that the bus was not returning so we had to walk all the way back to campus. It took about forty-five minutes so it wasn't actually that bad, but still I would have liked to have known the bus wouldn't be returning before I got on it in the first place. But while at Tescos we picked up vampire teeth, like the kind you get for about 10 cents in the US and I got a fake mustache.

On other thing I seemed to be having a problem with some British English and American English words. I don't know if you know this but here in the UK the word "pants" means panties or knickers or underwear and the word "trousers" means pants or jeans. One night we were discussing wearing "trousers" and I happened to be wearing a skirt at the time so I said "I'm not wearing any pants today." As you can see this caused a little bit of a problem because what they thought I meant was "I'm not wearing any underwear" not "I'm not wearing trousers."

Anyway, (I went for three whole paragraphs without using the word it was about time) it is now about half 5 (5:30) and that means that dinner is about to be served. One last thing, my sister sent me a package in the mail and you'll never believe what was in it...TEA! How funny is that I had to be sent tea because there isn't any over here in England. Although if you think about Americans hated British tea so much they threw it into Boston Harbor so it makes sense. ( I would like to point out that I realize this point to false and that they tea was thrown into the Harbor in protest not because we didn't like it)

That's all, now I'm off to go eat undistguishable dining center food (I never thought I'd miss ISU dining so much) and make a video!

Fresher's Flu

Alright, now I promise this blog will have slightly better spelling and grammar than my last few. The one only reason for this I’m healthy again. YIPPEE! If you did not know, which you probably didn’t because I don’t think I mentioned it, I was very sick last week with what is known as Fresher’s Flu. And of course my hippie-like view of modern medicine and doctors meant that my antibodies weren’t going to get very much outside help.

I don’t like taking medicine, mainly because for things like the common cold (which Fresher’s Flu is really just a glorified cold, commonly mixed with alcohol poisoning) modern medication only masks symptoms not cures them and it also leads to mutations in the disease. So there is some science behind my reasonings, but mostly I just don’t care to spend all that money and cheap cover ups when my body is perfectly capable of taking care of itself. I would like to point out that if it had come to the point of me coughing up my lung, which it seemed likely to happen earlier in the week, I would have sought medical attention. I’m not that much of an idiot and now i’m completely off topic.

Anyway I was very sick and sore, but I’m doing much better now although my voice is still a little hoarse it no longer hurts to talk. But I’m afraid that because of the the Fresher’s Flu I didn’t do anything exciting except go to class and watch movies at night. I did walk into Cirencester a few times, mainly to get sore throat lozenges. I was very excited to see that Superdrug sold Fisherman’s Friends, which for anyone who suffers from a sore throat they taste like butt, but they work amazing. And just for Jacob Hunter they had black current flavored Fisherman’s Friends and I’m going to bring a pack back for you! (Hopefully, if I remember).

On Monday the 19th (which would have been yesterday) I felt like the creepy foreign exchange student for the first time since I got here. I went to my food science lecture/class/module and in one section of the class there was several UK students all chatting amongst themselves. (I should also point out before I go any farther that this was a second year class which meant I knew nobody in the class. ) Then around this small group of UK students were all the Asian students so you could clearly see the segregation of the classroom. I, having not be in the previous lecture like everyone else, came in late and was shunned to the outside of both groups making it painfully obvious that I was not one of them and there for must be some creepy foreign student. Needless to say I felt very awkward and that is not an easy task to accomplish, I’m normally the one making other feel awkward while I am perfectly comfortable.

Saturday I’d planned on walking to Kemble (a town about 3 miles away and the location of the nearest train station) with some friends. We’d actually thought we’d do it Friday night, but I thought that walking back in the dark might not be the best idea but only because we really didn’t know where we were going. Unfortunately, when we woke up on Saturday we thought laundry would be more exciting because we are lazy and didn’t feel like walking anywhere. That’s one good thing about campus compared to Iowa State you don’t have to leave 15 minutes before class to get there on time because everything is really close to your dorm. In my dorm you walk down the stairs and the laundrette, dining centre, and student union/Tythe bar are all right there.

I do have one other piece of news to share with you! I have started planning my Easter break. I have 4 weeks to do what ever I want so my friends Kim and Naomi and I are going to travel around Europe. We’re going to start in Paris (which is where Naomi is from) and we will then travel to Germany (where Kim lives) and hopefully Denmark (where I have family) and a few other places along the way. We’d like to visit Spain, Italy, and Amsterdam to name a few places but it will all come down to time and money.

The irony of having started to plan my Easter break is that I still don’t know what I’m doing for Christmas break. And if you know anything about the calender you’d know that we will have Christmas before we have Easter. I’m not worry, although other people seem to think I should at least have some vague idea of what I’m going to do.

Also, the first week in December Naomi, Kim and I (and maybe a few others) are planning on heading to London for the weekend. This means I’ll actually have some exciting stories to tell you! It’s not that exciting things haven’t happened already, it’s just mostly what I’ve done is what I’d do back home, but London is obviously something that I can’t do at home.

And for anyone who cares to know. I’ve started reading Twilight, and it’s not completely horrible. Don’t get me wrong Harry Potter will always be better than Twilight, but Twilight isn’t all that bad. I still don’t like Edward Cullen though.

Sorry this blog was kind of all over the place. I’d promise the next one will have more structure but that would just be a lie.

First Week

So classes have officially kicked off and I’m having a bit of a scheduling problem. Two of my classes overlap and so SOMETHING has to be done. I’m just not quite sure what that something is yet. But I should probably figure it out soon or the classes will almost be over.

Anyway, this past week has been Freshers week. For those of you who don’t know it consisted of mostly drinking, drinking, and drinking. We started out on Sunday with a party in the campus bar (aka Tythe Barn). Needless to say I had my first real and legal drink that night. Also I met a few people, unfortunately it was so loud that I couldn’t actually catch most of their names and of course I was bombarded with the same question from several different people. “Are you from America?”

Monday there was more drinking but we also had a few lecturey things to do. We had our official registration and got our ID cards as well as sat a listened to people talk to us but I’m not quite sure what they were actually saying. That night, though, was something called the Fresher’s Crawl. No one was really sure what to expect, except that alcohol would be involved. It turned out to be gross and disgusting and smelling and sick and also, surprisingly quite a bit of fun. And I must say I probably won’t forget it anytime soon. I’ll have to do some gross experiement in biology and the only thing that will come to mind is, “eh, not as bad a Fresher’s Crawl.”

Tuesday we did a team building event where we had to make a farm animal out of cardboard boxes. My group made a chicken although it would pass for quite a nice robot as well. We didn’t win but our chicken was definitely the best of all the chickens. That afternoon was Old School Sports afternoon so we played things like egg and spoon race and tug of war. And that night they had the Fresher’s Fair, which is essentially signing up for clubs and things like that, also known as clubfest as Iowa State.

Wednesday we sat through more introductory lectures and the first Rugby match of the year was played. However since I arrived in this country it has rained everyday but today [October 12th] and it was absolutely pouring out on Wednesday. I did not attend the Rugby match but I watched from my window and caught bits and pieces of it. Also for those who attended the match it was the start of the port challenge, which is to drink a whole bottle of port during the game just because you can. So far all I’ve managed to learn at the college is how to drink and this small college of 900 students could easily put the biggest party school in the states to shame. That night however instead of just drinking in the Tythe like normal it was the first official RAC night at the Rock Cafe, a local night club. Freshers wore their 20 GBP tops they were required to purchase and we all felt like complete twats.

Another thing that I have learned is that they really want to suck every last pence out of you. Excluding all the drinks you buy and extra crap you want they expect you to buy the Freshers top (20 GBP), go to the Fresher’s Crawl (5 GBP), go to the Rock (4 GBP), participate in a scavenger hunt (20 GPB per team of 4-5), and attend the Freshers/Graduates Ball (40 GBP). In totally they expect you to spend a minimum of 73GBP and that doesn’t included all the drinks which are included in none of those prices. You are also required to pay for your own heating and electricity bills if you live in the dorms and pay for club dues and 90 GBP sports kits during the Freshers Fair. I don’t mean to complain but I’m here on a shoestring budget and they aren’t making it any easier on us poor college students. The thing I miss the most about Iowa State is all the free crap they give you, especially the free food.

Now back to the remainder of Fresher’s week. Thursday was the first day of actually lectures and they were pretty much the same as any lecture you’ve ever been to. Nothing really exciting to tell. However there was a scavenger hunt that night which I did not participate in because I had no money to do so. I literally had 2 GBP to my name. I instead watched a movie with some friends back in the dorms because I just couldn’t be bothered to go out every night like everyone else at the RAC.

Friday was more lectures but I didn’t atcually have one so I slept until about noon and got up for lunch. I’d also like to point out that I paid for all of the my meals for a whole year and you can be pretty darn sure I’m going to eat every single one of them. I get up everyday for breakfast and just go back to bed afterwards if I have to. After lectures however we went to AV8 and did some more dancing and of course more drinking, except for me the broke one.

Saturday we went into town and I managed to get more money from my account back home, something I was not really wanting to do. Went to Swindon to pick up a printer with some friends, came back and went to the Freshers/Graduates Ball. Nothing too exciting happened it was like most homecoming/prom/school dances except everyone was drunk and were actually legal to drink. They also had inflatable games including a mechanical bull, but instead of an actually bull it was a penis.

And finally, Sunday I mostly sat in my dorm and tried to recover from the night before which apparently didn’t work so well as I am now sick with a very bad cold. But there was something called a Pub Quiz that took place that night which I didn’t attend because I went out to pizza hut in Cheltenham.

That pretty much sums up my week. I’m sure I left a few things out but you can blame my crippling sickness. Okay so it’s really not that bad just a sore throat that hurts when i breathe, a massive headache that not even the best painkillers in the UK can seem to ease, and a case of the sniffles. Next time I’ll try not to be such a Debbie Downer.

First Day

Okay, Just in case you might be wondering I have landed in England and I’ve been here almost 12 whole hours. AND yes, I’m already writing my friends back home, but I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to update next week since it sounds like they’ve got the week pretty much planned for us.

It’s still feels a little surreal, like I’m going to wake up back in Iowa, but I’m slowly getting use to it. The whole thing, you know that thing, where the drive on the left side of the road, doesn’t really seem all that weird until you’re in the car with a crazy driver who you think might kill you before you even get to college. We did make there safe, but there was a point I wasn’t quite sure we were.

Other than that I realized I forgot to pack any towels, which if I wanted to be smelly all the time wouldn’t be such a big deal, but I rather prefer to smell nice. You tend to make new friends better that way. So Samantha, the other girl from ISU who is attending the RAC this year, and I went into town to try and setup bank accounts, get phones, and find me some towels.

Needless to say it was all going fine at the bank until he required proof of accomodations, which luckily both Sam and I had forgotten. So he gave us the applications to open an account and told us to come back tomorrow. So we ran across the street to Vodaphone.

I now have a working cell phone in England. Although I’m still slightly confused as to how this works. I’ve returned to the land of prepaid phone systems after I swore off all prepaid phones after I destroyed my Tracfone. While we were purchasing our phones Sam and I were asking questions and the sales clerk must have thought we were stupid when we asked him if there were charges for any incoming calls or texts. Apparently anything incoming is free of charge and we have there for been being ripped off by US cell phone companies who charge for incoming calls and text and charge you twice as much to do.

After that Sam and I walked what seemed like the entire area looking for a store that sold towels. Sam has gone to visit some friends in the next town over so we time to kill, but we just couldn’t find towels anywhere. Finally after Sam had gotten on a bus I was walking back to the RAC and what should appear? A store that not only sells towels but has them on sale. Naturally I jump at the chance and got some nice new towels.

After that I returned to the college and decided to take a nap until dinner, and then ended up sleeping through dinner. So now I’m going to try and find some kinda of food. I would get them out of the vending machines, but I’m not quite sure which coin is which yet.

xo Dana

Sorry about it being so late. I only just got internet in my room to actually post it