eating, drinking, and much, MUCH MERRIMENT!

Since it is Sunday I believe it is time for me to update you on my weekend.

On Friday, I went on a field study with my World Religions class. First, we went to a synagogue which was interesting, but it was way too early in the morning for me to appreciate it. We did get to see some ancient Torah scrolls though which was really cool. From there we went into London to go to a mosque. We had some free time and so we went to the Sherlock Holmes museum, well actually only to the store but that's the best part anyways. So then we went to the Mosque which was really cool. All the girls had to wear headscarfs. We went into the prayer hall, and got to see the sunset prayer which was cool. And the room smelled delicious,  like incense. Then we got to go up to the library, which is one of the biggest in the world, up in the ranks of the Harvard Library. After the mosque, me and a few others went to the West End to see Spamalot. While we were waiting for the show we walked around Chinatown and ate delicious chinese food. Spamalot was amazing though, so hilarious. Afterwards, the next train home didn't leave for over an hour so we didn't get back to res until 2am. Saturday, I woke up early and took a minibus to Battle. There was a christmas festival, but the minibus planners didn't realize that the festival didn't start until 11am, and they dropped us off at 9am, so we had a really long time to kill. So we went out for tea and scones while we waited, and then walked around Battle which was really cool. The christmas festival wasn't exactly what we were expecting. We happened upon a small room where these two people were giving a presentation about Christmas traditions. Me and two other girls got called up as volunteers to act out the story of Saint Nick, and while I was sweeping, the broom broke and it went flying and hit the presenter in the knees. Unfortunately, after that we had to leave. It was very entertaining though.

Then saturday night we had another pub quiz, and luckily my team didn't lose this one,but we didn't win either. We got 10/10 on the Disney section, but only 3 on the sports section haha. After that it just continued to go downhill, especially when it came to identifying polish movie as.

Anyhoo, it will probably get pretty unexciting from here on, because next weekend I will probably just be studying for exams. 

See you soon.... 

Only in England...

Just a funny story. So I usually have world religions on mondays from 8:30 am until 11:30 am, definitely not a popular spot. This week however, the prof moved it to Thursday night (tonight) because of the field trip we have tomorrow. Thursday nights are also unpopular because it is basically a friday night here. So instead, today we had class from 7pm until 10pm, which was quite annoying. So, he decided that we deserved a reward for coming in at such an unpopular time (no other classes ever run at this time). And what did he reward us with? Not chocolate, as some profs do, or extra marks....

Wine. He gave our class wine to drink while presentations were going on. Needless to say he is now my favorite prof!

Anyways, I just thought this was a funny story, I mean how often does a teacher give you wine. What makes it especially funny is that student services is promoting and anti-drinking campaign right now!!! 

I am off to a mosque and synagogue tomorrow! And also to see Lion King!! YAY

less than a month left...

It is so surreal to think that in 3 and a half weeks I will be flying back to Richmond to see all of your again! It still feels like a I just got here, like I just moved into my dorm room, like I just met everyone here. I guess its true that as you get older, time goes faster. 

November is a relatively unexciting month for me. Last weekend, I stayed in res. Most people were away on a language trip or individual travels but I stayed back, mainly cause I'm not in french so I wasn't allowed to go to Paris, and also because traveling is expensive and I'm trying to save my money. So last weekend was quiet, I finally slept more than 6 hours in one night, and actually slept in until about 2:00 3 days in a row which was amazing. 

Last week we got out economics midterms back, and I somehow got 91%!!! Which I was extremely pleased about. Although, I owe much of it to the help of my friends who are commerce students. So yeah I was very happy about that. Finals are looming too, meaning I should start studying, but I probably won't for another week or so. I only have 2 assignments left for the rest of the term though and their both pretty easy so my path is clear for studying. However, I have discovered the shared hard drive on our network, which has about 100 movies that we can watch on our laptops, as well as games and TV shows. So needless to say, I have spent an inexcusable amount of time watching movies. This weekend I conquered Oceans 11-13. 

This Friday I had a field study for my psych class, which would've been a lot better had I not gone out the night before. We finally made it out to Eastbourne for the night which was awesome, but the 3 hours of sleep I got before my field trip were not. We went to East Sussex University where my prof works, and we listened to a bunch of presentations about research that grad students are doing, ranging from testing the language of dogs, to the relationship between memory, nicotine and genes, to synesthesia (which is crazy might i add) and also about using music to prevent depression. It was really cool to think that in a couple years these people (especially the one about nicotine and memory, which she is hoping to use the research to help find a cure for Alzheimer's) might make huge breakthroughs in the next few years. 

So I did that on Friday, and on Saturday I went to Stonehenge, and Salisbury. Stonehenge was really cool, not quite as impressive as I imagine but still pretty crazy. Its amazing to think that these stones (which weight as much as 7 elephants each) were carried across the country, and all the way from Wales in some cases, simply using man power. However, there is also a legend that the Devil placed the stones there and tricked some lady, but I think the first story is much more plausible. 

From there we went to Salisbury, a town near stonehenge which was also pretty cool. It was a pretty small town, with small streets and old buildings. We went to Salisbury cathedral which was beautiful, and cool because they still had some Remembrance Day wreaths up. After that we just wandered around, watched the swans frolick in the river, and got confused by the stores that had entrances in the front, and back, both which led out to very similar looking streets. 

So that was another long day, I spent a solid 7 hours on a bus, but it was definitely worth it. Now I am back at Bader, and potentially in the middle of a prank war. 

Me and a friend stole the clothing of three of our friends because they were silly enough to leave their doors open while they went for lunch. So we took everything , and hid it, and told them that we would not give it back until they did a few embarrassing things such as professing their love for someone in the cafeteria, dressing in drag one day, hitting on someone of the same sex at the pub, climb a tree in their boxers, and make us a romantic mixed CD. So we are awaiting these tasks to be completed, but also awaiting retaliation. I will keep you updated.

That is all for now, I am headed to London for the upcoming weekend for a field study and to do some shopping and maybe go see a show. 

Until next time..

remember, remember the 5th of November...

Well hello. Yesterday, I went into Lewes for Guy Fawkes Day. Every year they have this huge festival thingy and bonfires and fireworks and stuff in honor of Guy Fawkes. For those of you that don't know, this day celebrated the failure of the Gunpowder Plot, which was the plan of Guy Fawkes and others to burn the Houses of Parliament in London. So we took the train into Lewes, which was SO PACKED. It was very reminiscent of the Celebration of Lights, there were cops everywhere telling people where to go, the roads were shut down, and there was about 500,000 people all in this really small town. 

Of course, it was pouring rain, but it was kinda cool actually. It made it all that more dramatic. So we arrive in Lewes, and start walking around, we realy have no clue what to expect, or whats going on, and then all of a sudden we see a crowd of people walking towards us with burning torches. Oh and they were dressed like Pirates. Kinda weird. There was also a bunch of people dragging huge barrels of fire. Not only was there torches, but they were waving them around, I swear I almost caught on fire at least a couple times. 

So we followed the little parade, and we saw more torches, more people dressed up at weird things. And then we saw the burning crosses. Which was slightly odd, but apparently  no big deal here. It was definitely not something you could ever see in Canada. We also saw a couple effigies of Guy Fawkes and for some reason a huge Wall-E float. There was a bunch of other random float-type things of people and things that I didn't recognize. It was all very surreal.

So after the parade, we continued walking around until we saw in the distance a GIANT fire. So we followed the flame, and encountered a flame about the size of a large large house. Just a HUGE bonfire in the middle of the field. The atmosphere was very much what I imagine Woodstock would've been like, only less love. The field was SO muddy, and some people were just COVERED from head to toe and everyone was just kind of milling around, enjoying the warming and drying effect of the fire. It was pretty cool. From about 100 feet away from the fire, we could feel our faces burning! Luckily they had a fence around the perimeter otherwise I can imagine things would be bad.

After we left the bonfire, we witnessed a fireworks war, which was cool- but nothing compared to the Celebration of Lights. I guess I just have high standards though!  The experience was especially cool because this might be the last year that Lewes hosts this festival- I guess there is just too much danger potential, and it can barely support the amount of people that come anymore. 

So yeah, thats all thats really new- I'm staying around this weekend, might go on a daytrip to London or Brighton or something. I think me and couple people might plan a trip to Croatia for a couple weeks from now too!!! 

By the way, both my presentation and midterm went really well so I'm happy, and I just have a few more assignments for the rest of the semester. Other than that, nothing exciting on my horizon.

Miss and Love you all. 

The west coast is the best coast!

Hello all- I am glad to report that the Bader plague has now moved on to many of my neighbours. My bad... hahaha. Is it bad that I'm happy that I'm not longer sick but that many others are?! Oh well. 

This last weekend was halloween, which isn't traditionally celebrated here, but I guess they've sort of adopted it, just not to the extent that we are used to. We had a pub night and me and two other girls dressed up as beauty pageant contestants (it was the best we could come up with that didn't involve buying things!). So I was Miss BC, and there was a Miss Ontario and Miss Maine. We entered the competition but got beat out by a Nun and Priest Duo. I'm not bitter about it at all.... I mean we even had a little act when we walked out and we had a whole speech prepared. But no biggie....

It is starting to get really cold, and really dark here. Like, so dark that at 5:00 when i go to dinner i can't see where I'm stepping. I'm really glad I brought my long johns which a couple weeks ago I was angry that I wasted space bringing.. 

Tonight Dr Bader is giving a talk about Business and his life basically. He's the one who donated the school to Queen's and the Res building is named after him (so is the plague but I'm not sure he'd want to know that). So that talk is tonight and should be interesting. Also coming up is Guy Fawkes day, which is HUGE here. So were going into Lewes for a big festival on Wednesday which should be cool. 

Also in exciting news, I did an online order for some food and other necessities, this time from tesco (I'm practicing comparative shopping!) And let me tell you Tesco won! I ordered a bunch of food, and they called me and said they couldn't deliver it when i was scheduled because of a staff shortage, so they sent me a 10 pound coupon ($20!!!) and delivered my food  like 12 hours later than I asked. And then, about 3 days ago I get an email titled "Customer Refund" And they had refunded me for everything I bought, even though it's all already on my shelf. So basically, they paid me to take food from them. Nonetheless, I have turned many of my friends here into Tesco believers. And I can't wait to order from them again!!

I thought of a few more things that I miss from home!

-Goldfish crackers! 

-Gatorade (its weird here...)

-Peppermint tea

-peanut butter ( I cant remember if I mentioned this already..)

-Cheese!!!!!

-Clam chowder (again.. i may have mentioned this already!..).but im convinced they dont have it here

that is all for now.