See you soon!

Headed back to Canada tomorrow...see you all soon! 

XOXO

Alexis 

Me Where Harry Potter Began

13 posts seemed unlucky, so here is a photo. 

Procrastination

You know how i've been bragging that I have practically no school work? Well, karma has come to get me because I have three essays due in the next two weeks. But it's crazy to think that after that i'll be home and it will be Christmas! And since Lorraine finally blogged, I figured I ought to as well ;)

I went to Scotland two weekends ago for the christmas market during the day which was tons of fun, and I tried mulled wine which is amazing - i'm going to figure out how to make it so that you guys can all try it when I get home. Most importantly (and prepare to be insanely jealous) I went to the cafe where JK Rowling started to write Harry Potter and to the hotel where she finished writing it. I know it's cheesy, but half of my life was shaped by the events that went on in those two rooms!

Also went to Manchester this past weekend to do a little bit of "christmas" shopping with my friends Becca and Kiri and we had a great time :) On Saturday night a dub-step band called 'Flux Pavilion' came and played at my college bar. If you've never seen a dub-step concert add it to your Bucket List, it is absolute mayhem! Last night had a christmas film night with the girls - we watched a very strange British christmas movie called 'Santa Claus the Movie'...I can't quite explain it. We were talking about christmas films, and no one in England has ever heard of the cartoon version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas!!! Crazy, eh?

Tonight, we are having a study abroad Christmas dinner in town, then I plan to spend the rest of my week writing non-stop to finish my papers in time to enjoy my last week with the house-mates and go to the Christmas Ball! Was talking with my friend Andrew from the US today, and we are both going to try to phase out all of our British slang in the next two weeks before we go home....you can tell me how successful I was when you see me :)

T-11 Days until Tim Hortons.

Cheers,
Alexis

Actually, Thanksgiving was in October.

What have I been up to this week? After getting back from Rome had a quality weekend with the housemates: went out, went to the market/Starbucks and even managed to squeeze in a bit of homework! On Monday night, there was a college trip into Manchester for a night out and two really exciting things happened:

1. The takeaway guy made me poutine. I asked him to put gravy on my cheesy chips and he did it -         success!
2. I met a celebrity! This only half counts because I actually have no idea who he is...when we walked into the club my friend Becca went "OMG is that Ricky Hatton?" and she and my friend Ben started freaking out. True Story. For a picture of us with Ricky Hatton (who is a boxer by the way), see my facebook. 

Since then I have still been busy plugging away at my schoolwork! Tonight, since it is American thanksgiving, our college put on a thanksgiving dinner, so that was pretty nice (even if Thanksgiving was well over a month ago). But British version of pumpkin pie was a huge let down...guess i'll have to wait until I come home for the real stuff! And it was a bit annoying having people wish me a happy thanksgiving all day - don't they know i'm Canadian? ;) 

Lastly - exactly one month until Christmas eve today, crazy how time flies!

Cheers!

Alexis

La Vita E Bella

Now that I am back and refreshed from my trip, I figure that it's time for a blog post :) 

I went with two Canadian friends - Allysa (who also goes to Western) and Danielle. On Saturday we left Lancaster and took the train to Manchester to spend the day there, we wandered around and did a bit of shopping. But we couldn't buy too much because RyanAir only allows a carry-on (aren't you impressed that I managed to fit 5 days of stuff into one carry-on?!). I had heard legends that there was a Tim Hortons in the Manchester airport so we also went to search for that....it was there but definitely a disappointment - only self-serve coffee and a few stale donuts; no wonder everyone in England wonders why we think that Tim Hortons is so great! At the hotel that night we asked to have a cot in our room and when we got back there was a crib set up in there! In England cot refers to a crib apparently, although I'm not sure why the front desk would have thought that 3 students without a baby would want a crib!

The next day we had to wake up at 3:30 to get ready and go back to the airport to catch our 6:00 flight to Rome! After we checked into the hostel we went for some lunch and had the most amazing pasta ever! Then we walked around Rome, and thanks to my excellent navigational skills seen the Colosseum and the Roman Forum and had amazing pizza for supper; then wandered around some more, had some gelato and headed back to the hostel (hey - we woke up at 3:30, we were tired!). 

The next morning we got up early and took the city bus (which is free in Rome) to the Vatican and spent the morning wandering around the Vatican Museums. Then we wandered back to the Colosseum, the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain and of course had some more food and went to the amazing gelato spot by the Trevi Fountain that I found on my last trip to Rome :). That night we went out to the bar attached to our hostel and met lots of other international students. 

Tuesday we woke up early and hopped on the train to Pompeii (if you're keeping track, we used plane, train, cab, city bus, shuttle bus, and subway while in Rome - like I said, I'm a great navigator!). It's about a 4 hour journey, most of which we slept through, and once we got there we went to explore the ruined city. For those of you who don't know the story about Pompeii, it got buried in ash in 79 A.D. and everything - people, buildings and all - got perfectly preserved by the ash until they excavated it. The city there is easily one of the coolest things that I've ever seen - even the paint is still on a lot of the buildings! The casts of the people who died are there too - they're really cool and detailed. The city is huge though, after around 5 hours of walking we only still had time to skim through it! Then we went for our last Italian meal (more pasta and gelato of course!) and headed back, packed, had a drink at the hostel and got ready to head home! Pompeii was definitely the coolest part :)

Now I have to spend the rest of my Reading Week actually reading and writing... 

Ciao, 

Alexis

Off to Italy!

Since I'm trying to avoid the temptation to go out with my house mates tonight (can't be too tired for the train tomorrow!) I thought I'd post one more time before my trip. As of today, I am officially on reading week - you've got to love England, after 5 weeks of class they figure that I already need a break :) Strangely, only English Literature students get reading week here too - we're just an under-appreciated discipline everywhere else I guess!

You will all be so proud of me as well - I'm notoriously bad for over-packing, but managed to fit all of my stuff for my 5 day trip into a carry-on bag - and with extra room for shopping!

It's armistice day here today as well (akin to Canadian Remembrance Day) which means 2 minutes of silence at 11:00 instead of the usual one at 11:11 - little cultural difference! It's also Corduroy Day because today's date (11/11/11) looks most like Corduroy. When they told me that, I thought they were just making it up, but it is apparently a legitimate thing, given that three different people and a lecturer told me that.

We've also been studying insane amounts of Jane Austen in my classes this past week which is amazing! And I have plans to go to the Keats-Shelley Museum while in Rome - I'd better get extra credit in my British Romanticism class!

I'd better go and have one last drink with the house before my trip....

Ciao!
Alexis

Change of Plans

So, as those of you who have spoken to me in the last few days know, my trip to Amsterdam was cancelled at the last minute :(
But fear not, as I have just booked tickets for 4 days in Rome instead :)

Also, yesterday was Guy Fawkes Day (more commonly known as 'Bonfire Night') so we went and watched the fireworks show in town for that :)

Hope you are all well!

Ciao,
Alexis

Toga!

Yesterday we had a Toga party for my friend Will's birthday (see facebook for pictures - also, I did all of the girl's togas, so feel free to compliment what a great job I did!). It was definitely a ton of fun! Halloween weekend was also a blast - I'm lucky to live in such a great house and to have made such a great group of friends. It's crazy to think that i've been here for just over a month now - it feels like i've been here forever and also like i've been here for no time at all! This Saturday is bonfire night which I am really excited for - it'll be the first traditional British thing I've done! I'm also busy getting ready for my upcoming trip to Amsterdam and trying to keep on top of my readings like a typical student. Thanks to everyone who's been sending me mail as well - I promise that return letters are on their way!

Cheers,
Alexis

Happy (Early) Halloween!

Surprisingly not a whole lot is new here. Now that I am three weeks into classes, there is a lot of studying going on! This week I played in a Flat 5 vs. Flat 2 pool tournament though and we won! (Although pool is a very different game here then what we play in Canada!) We have also been busy planning a surprise party for tonight for our friend Caroline and made her a cake last night! Then Friday and Saturday we are going out for her birthday, Sunday is Carnage (and my mom's birthday!), Monday is Halloween and Tuesday we are having a house-wide toga party for someone else's birthday. All of the guys in my house want me to bring red plastic beer cups from Canada ("Like from American Pie") because they think that they are really cool.....strange.

I've also booked a ticket to go up to Scotland for the Christmas market at the end of November and am going to Liverpool at the beginning of December to stay with a flat-mate. Also working really hard to plan a trip to Cadbury Land because chocolate is WAY better here then in North America!

Just for interest, this is my new favourite British band, "One Direction". They were 3rd(?) place in X-Factor last year and everyone here loves them. I have a feeling that you will particularly enjoy them Katherine :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJO3ROT-A4E&ob=av2e

Hope that you've all survived your midterms and enjoy your Halloween weekend!

Alexis

What I've Been Up To...

Okay, since I have a whole hour between classes, here is a longer explanation of what i've been up to. I've been really enjoying my time here, especially because of the college system. I live in Lonsdale College (colleges are kind of like the equivalent to Harry Potter houses - we're obviously Gryffindor). And then within my college there are a handful of houses - I live in House 44, Burton. Then in each house there are floors and on each floor are two flats. A flat has between 6-8 bedrooms and a shared kitchen - I hope that this makes more sense Lorraine! My house is really close which is great :) There's also a lot of other international students which is cool - my floor has two Germans and a Bulgarian and there are also two Spanish people and an Irish person in my house. It's really crazy how close you get to people in this system....i'm already dreading having to leave them all!

There's also a lot less lecture time here, I do about two hours a week - but there are tons of readings! My classes are really interesting though! Textbooks are also WAY cheaper which is nice :)

The city, Lancashire, is also really cool. It's really old, the other day when I was coming back from the Lake District one of the guys I went with pointed to a building and said, "that building is older then your country". Kind of puts things in perspective! Everything is close together which is cool, and there are a lot of shops and bars and restaurants for it being such a small city!

Finally, the most fun part is the culture. I still have my accent mocked on a semi-regular basis thanks to my wonderful housemates, and now I can even start to hear the difference between the Northern and Southern english accents (Lancashire is in the North i've learned). The South have a way more "posh: accent. We also have a great time trying to understand each others' slang but some things, like dead baby jokes, are universal (we had a late night last night). I'm also getting really annoyed with being asked if i'm American!

In other news, I joined the Harry Potter Society and got sorted into Hufflepuff - lame; and i've booked a trip to Amsterdam from the 10th to the 13th of November! And I need to figure out a halloween costume pronto because in England people only dress up as scary things so all of my ideas are no good - let me know if you have any creative ideas! Also, Guy Fawkes day is coming up soon - it's pretty cool, it has to do with burning terrorists - google it if you are bored.

I hope this gives you a better idea of what i've been up to!

Cheers,
Alexis

Keeping Busy

This past week was our first week of classes here at Lancaster, so that has been keeping me very busy! I also went down to the Lake District on Sunday which is where Beatrix Potter and Wordsworth are from, it's really nice! Sorry for such a short post, but I will put more later!

Alexis

Are You Alright?

Hello all from England!

Now that I have time to properly post, here goes nothing. This week has definitely been one of the crazy busiest weeks of my life! But I am definitely paying for it now as I am sick (down with a case of the Fresher's Flu as they call it here)! I still can't tell directions for anything and somehow manage to get lost on campus at least once a day, but I can at least find my way back to residence now! They have had a million events planned for us this week and my voice is all but gone from all of our Lonnie chants. One of the most interesting ones was the silent disco - everyone wears wireless headphones and you choose your music station to dance to. The strangest part is taking the headphones off! We've also done several bar crawls, both in-town and to all of our campus bars. Classes start tomorrow which will be strange - it doesn't really feel like school yet.

Here's some of the things I've found the most different so far:

1. Slang - don't EVER use the word soccer; also, "are you alright?" is just slang for hello in England (I was worried that I looked really sad or something!); supper is called 'tea' and so on
2. There's no Kraft Dinner in England!!!! Or Pop Tarts, or Gravol. I offered one of my flatmates a Gravol, and they thought I meant like the little rocks. 
3. Food is REALLY unhealthy. For real - one of the options for breakfast in the cafeteria every morning is deep fried toast. (Or just deep fried bread I guess...it's not really toasted)

That's all I can think of for now......Happy Thanksgiving! 

Alexis 

Quick Update

Hey guys,

Just for a quick update I have moved in and am having a great time....Freshers Week is insanely busy, so I promise that I will post more later and will try to get some pictures up as soon as I can!

Cheers,

Alexis

Bye Canada!

So, I'm off tomorrow! All of my bags are packed (and all overweight....).
Keep your fingers crossed that I make it there in one piece :)!

Alexis

Welcome to My Blog!

Hello all!

As most of you know, I am heading off to Lancaster, England on friday to study there for the year so I created this blog as a way to keep in touch with many of you at once, and to keep you updated on my adventures! My hope is to post once a week, but be patient with me! Other ways that you will be able to keep in contact with me are via facebook and skype and my favourite - snail mail (I promise I will write back!).

Thanks for all of your support!

Alexis