I am back in Atlanta!! My entire family (and sister's boyfriend too) are all here. This is the first time since last Christmas that we are all together; which is quite nice. Its difficult at the same time because we are 7 very opinionated people. Last night we tried to watch LIttle Miss Sunshine and you should of seen it. First it was a hastle of who claimed which seat. Then, when everybody was finally sitting down, we tried to start the movie however it indicated that it wasnt made for the appropriate region. You should of seen our reaction. Apparently there was a problem with our DVD player. Its great to be home again and to be in this environment. I miss hanging out with my sister especially. The other day we baked cookies for an entire evening and we take on really bad crafts project. My mom wanted little tree place tags for Christmas dinner that she had seen in a store. I was stubborn enough to say that that was too simple and we could easily do it ourselves. So tes & i went to michael's arts and crafts store and came back with glue, glitter and paper. We spent the evening geting glue on basically every surface except our Christmas trees. We also wanted fake snow on the tree but then realized that it dragged the paper down too much. It was a blast. Now that we're finished, my dad is determined that those things are not going on his Christmas table. Ha...we'll see about that.
I look back at this year very fondly. The last two weeks were especially great. I went to Michael's mechanical engineering ball, which was fantastic. I loved the dress i got (after quite the episode with a broken zipper in the dress). The ball was a big success, Mike helped organize it, and i was very proud of him for the great evening. My outings to birmingham have always been great. THe last time i was tehre we went to a German fair where we ate bratwurst on the streets and listened to bands. The atmosphere was great and all the stalls had their own crafts/foods/linens for sale. I ended up with lots of German Christmas treats to bring back to my family because my parents grew up on them. The weekend after the engineering ball MIke came to Cardiff. On the Sunday we met his mom and went to a traditional English pub...im going to admit that i'm actually liking these pubs very much. There is good atmosphere and I like the fact that you can sit and chat for hours. That doesnt happen very often anymore in American restaurants. You sit down, 1.5 hrs later they expect you to be gone so the table is free for the next customer. On monday night Mike & i went to my business ball in Cardiff's city hall. The location was absolutely beautiful; and we were greated with champagne coctails. We had a fancy meal and afterwards danced until I was exhausted. The next morning,since it was my last day of uni for the year, i decided i'd get up and bike to my 9am class. Ha-tunred out it was canceled but ofcoarse i didnt know that. So i was pretty exhausted when the next morning at 4.30am a taxi came to pick me up to take me to cardiff central station. From there i was catchign teh train to London Gatwick. My flight was 9.5 hours and just too long. I was squashed into a corner where i was locked in because a big man was sitting in the middle and on the other side of him a lady with an 8 month old baby on her lap! It was a long flight...
The first couple of days back in Atlanta i mainly slept and lounged around the house. I havent done much work (at all) but hopefully that'll come once Tessa, Matt and Dirk leave again. I have to get my act together because i've got a ton of work to do. I'm thinking that ill go to my dads office next week and sit in one of the cubicles.
It is now Christmas Eve and the family is just hanging out. There are way too many dogs in this house because we're taking care of two neighbors's dogs (plus our own.) I'm going on a walk with them later through the forest to tire them out some. For now, my banana bread is in the oven, we're listening to Christmas music and just enjoying being home (and together!). Tommorrow (on Christmas) we'll have a nice breakfast, open pressents and we'll cook up a nice meal.
I hope everybody has a lovely Christmas with their families. I hope the day is merry and filled with warmth and happiness. :) Merry Christmas!!
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Monday, November 13, 2006
I am once again guilty of not updating my blog more often. What can I say, time slips away. The past few weeks have been really busy; packed with studying with the occasional nice breaks. :) On November 10th, I officially left my teenage years behind and turned 20! Finally! Glad to leave the teens behind. My birthday was wonderful. I went out with my friends for a nice dinner and went out to Bar Billabong afterwards. It was very relaxed and just enjoying a good meal in wonderful company.
Birthday Dinner photos:
On the saturday following my birthday Mike and i went on a 22 mile bike ride to a nearby castle called Castle Coch. The castle used to be a medieval castle but was destroyed in a battle. In the late 1900th century, a coal mine ownder- (i.e very rich man here in Wales) decided to rebuild the castle in a fairy-tale like manner as a nice summer retreat. The castle has thus been refurbished in a fairy tale-esk style and when wondering through it feels like walking in Disney World. Unfortunately, the castle was never used often; only when his kids had infectuous diseases did they go there!!
Mike and I really enjoyed our bike ride and just being away from books and uni life altogether is very gratifying. We had a lovely picknic on the castle grounds and went for a walk after we wondered through the castle. I also learned that now that I turned 20 I dont know how to bike anymore! On our way home, I literally just fell down while biking. Full on wipe out to the side. It was brilliant. All of a sudden Mike just saw me flat out on the ground. So, after all those years of being able to bike, as soon as I turned 20 i lost it!
Castell Coch Photos:
The following weekend I went to my first rugby game!! I was so excited to go to well, for one a rugby game, two, an event in millenium stadium (huge stadium here in castle), and finally, to see Canada play Wales in Rugby!! :) It was so good to hear the Canadian national anthem and to see Canadian flags flying around. The game itself was almost sold out, 74,021 people were there out of a total of 74,200 seats. Canada lost the game (62-28 Wales) but they put up a good fight. Everybody said they were very impressed to see Canada play that well against Wales (supposedly the #1 team in the world). I couldnt believe how viscious rugby is though. I couldnt believe these guys who were going head on into the other player. The game also didnt stop every two seconds as in American football, which was great because it keeps you on your toes. I also enjoyed listening to all the men shouting, "go left!" , "ref that was such a bad call", ect....as if they can actually hear you. I was in the highest level-really high up and all these men we're shouting at the players as if they could hear. It was great fun and the atmosphere was really good. Walking out of the Millenium stadium into the night, surrounded by 74,000 fans, it was fantastic. People shouting shants for Wales and everybody dressed up in red. (Funny because the national color for Canada is red as well and Canada wore read whilst Wales wore grey jerseys).
On the Saturday my friend Katrin and I went to Ikea to have her first Ikea meatballs! She, now an x-vegetarian, really enjoyed them. We had a blast walking around Ikea; as she calls it, we went for a "mootch." It was really lovely and later that night we put together my night-stand and lamp whilst watching Desperate Housewifes and eating chocolate truffles :) Don't need boys to put together furniture-we did it by ourselves with a kitchen knife and scissors...(didn't have a screwdriver)! Ok, so maybe i did lose a nail....woops!
This weekend I didnt see Mike because he went to a family reunion in Bristol. It was also his brother's 25th birthday! He was also sick and had lost his voice so contact between us went to nill except the few whispers he could manage on the phone :( But after five days of silence his voice slowly came back to him.
This past week I had an exam in empirical economics that didn't go so well. I was really dissapointed as it was my first exam here in Cardiff. I felt so confident going into the exam as well and as soon as I opened the exam, I knew I was in trouble. So that was a dissapointment. I have another exam in Political Economics of the EU coming up in two weeks and hopefully that'll go better.
Lately my relationship with Mike has had some bumbs. We've just had a hard time adjusting not living together anymore and both being so busy its hard to find time for each other. However this past wednesday Mike called me up and said he was coming to Cardiff!! What a surprise. We hadnt seen each other in two weeks and weren't planning on seeing each other this weekend. It was a fabulous surprise. The following day was American Thanksgiving and I had organized to cook my flatmates a traditional thanksgiving dinner. Mike was a great help and on Thursday morning we started in the kitchen at 11am. I baked an apple pie, pecan pie, corn bread, a BIG turkey for 10 people, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, parsnips, brussel sprouts and gravy. I was very happy MIke was around to help me with the turkey!! Here in England they dont deliver them the way they do in America with a pop-up thermometer and all the guts already out of the turkey. Mike literally had to stick his hands in the turkey center to get out the liver, heart, ect. How lovely-we put that in a pot and made turkey stock out of it for the gravy. This was also the first time i had made gravy and hopefully I played close enough attention so I can repeat it for CHristmas dinner. It was a lovely meal though and the first with the entire flat together. The meal turned out really well and a big success-and now we want to cook a joint Christmas meal with the other end of the floor as well! However, that will then be 25 people not 10 and this time it wont be me cooking! I hope my flatmates got a taste of what American thanksgiving is like and perhaps that they too celebrate it in the future.
The rest of the weekend wasn't nearly as eventful. A lot of studying and just hanging around Uni hall. Mike & I went to go see James Bond Casino Royal which was great. I highly reccomend it. Its a good show and just good entertainment which keeps you on your toes. It had a bit of everything in it; definetly a crowd pleaser in my opinion. The weather in Wales has turned sour. We've had record breaking rain fall and in 20 minutes it can be any of the following options:
a) sunny
b) sunny and raining
c) dark and cloudy but no rain
d) dark and cloudy and rain
e) Hailing (happens more often than you think!)
f) windy
g) windy and intense rain coming at you from a different angle then usual-makes biking even more interesting!
Its ironic because a couple posts back on my blog I commented that I expected the weather to be much worse in Wales-ha
Well, I'm coming to my end. I've caught up in two weeks of posts. This morning we woke up and Mike dragged me on a run around Roath Park. Afterwards we walked into town via Starbucks and I did the first of my Christmas shopping. I said goodbye to Mike at 3.30 at the trainstation; promising to see him again on Friday. While walking out to my bus stop Mike rings and says we misread the time and his train doesnt depart till 4.30! So that was fab and we were able to grab some lunch before saying goodbye again. I'm excited for this week to fly by because next weekend I'm going to Birmingham for his mechanical engineering ball! I get to wear my (mom's) ball gown and Mike is wearing a tux! I cant wait for his ball and for my business ball on December 11th.
It is shocking to think that I only have two weekends left before I fly back to Atlanta. I first typed in Vancouver there--its funny to think that I consider Vancouver to be my home but thats not really true. My home is where my family is, which is Atlanta, but I really am looking forward to going back to Vancouver next year. Don't get me wrong, I love my exchange year here in Wales and i've learned so much, seen so much, and met many great people. But at the same time, I can't wait to go back to Vancouver. I missed my family this past week because everybody was home for American thanksgiving except me. Its been a long time since I've seen them but I really do think the webcam helps me a lot. I see my mom pretty much every other day on the webcam which is fab. When my parents have bought another piece of furniture for the house, or if my dad painted something, they'll show me on Skype. Or when Maurits is eating my mom's Dutch pancakes on monday night he'll pull up the laptop to the stove to make me jealous. Its great--really!
I hope everyone is doing well and getting into the Christmas spirit. Cardiff is all decorated with Christmas lights, decorations and a very large Christmas tree infront of city hall. It looks lovely. I'm excited for Christmas to come around; to be in good company at home in Atlanta :)
Birthday Dinner photos:
On the saturday following my birthday Mike and i went on a 22 mile bike ride to a nearby castle called Castle Coch. The castle used to be a medieval castle but was destroyed in a battle. In the late 1900th century, a coal mine ownder- (i.e very rich man here in Wales) decided to rebuild the castle in a fairy-tale like manner as a nice summer retreat. The castle has thus been refurbished in a fairy tale-esk style and when wondering through it feels like walking in Disney World. Unfortunately, the castle was never used often; only when his kids had infectuous diseases did they go there!!
Mike and I really enjoyed our bike ride and just being away from books and uni life altogether is very gratifying. We had a lovely picknic on the castle grounds and went for a walk after we wondered through the castle. I also learned that now that I turned 20 I dont know how to bike anymore! On our way home, I literally just fell down while biking. Full on wipe out to the side. It was brilliant. All of a sudden Mike just saw me flat out on the ground. So, after all those years of being able to bike, as soon as I turned 20 i lost it!
Castell Coch Photos:
The following weekend I went to my first rugby game!! I was so excited to go to well, for one a rugby game, two, an event in millenium stadium (huge stadium here in castle), and finally, to see Canada play Wales in Rugby!! :) It was so good to hear the Canadian national anthem and to see Canadian flags flying around. The game itself was almost sold out, 74,021 people were there out of a total of 74,200 seats. Canada lost the game (62-28 Wales) but they put up a good fight. Everybody said they were very impressed to see Canada play that well against Wales (supposedly the #1 team in the world). I couldnt believe how viscious rugby is though. I couldnt believe these guys who were going head on into the other player. The game also didnt stop every two seconds as in American football, which was great because it keeps you on your toes. I also enjoyed listening to all the men shouting, "go left!" , "ref that was such a bad call", ect....as if they can actually hear you. I was in the highest level-really high up and all these men we're shouting at the players as if they could hear. It was great fun and the atmosphere was really good. Walking out of the Millenium stadium into the night, surrounded by 74,000 fans, it was fantastic. People shouting shants for Wales and everybody dressed up in red. (Funny because the national color for Canada is red as well and Canada wore read whilst Wales wore grey jerseys).
On the Saturday my friend Katrin and I went to Ikea to have her first Ikea meatballs! She, now an x-vegetarian, really enjoyed them. We had a blast walking around Ikea; as she calls it, we went for a "mootch." It was really lovely and later that night we put together my night-stand and lamp whilst watching Desperate Housewifes and eating chocolate truffles :) Don't need boys to put together furniture-we did it by ourselves with a kitchen knife and scissors...(didn't have a screwdriver)! Ok, so maybe i did lose a nail....woops!
This weekend I didnt see Mike because he went to a family reunion in Bristol. It was also his brother's 25th birthday! He was also sick and had lost his voice so contact between us went to nill except the few whispers he could manage on the phone :( But after five days of silence his voice slowly came back to him.
This past week I had an exam in empirical economics that didn't go so well. I was really dissapointed as it was my first exam here in Cardiff. I felt so confident going into the exam as well and as soon as I opened the exam, I knew I was in trouble. So that was a dissapointment. I have another exam in Political Economics of the EU coming up in two weeks and hopefully that'll go better.
Lately my relationship with Mike has had some bumbs. We've just had a hard time adjusting not living together anymore and both being so busy its hard to find time for each other. However this past wednesday Mike called me up and said he was coming to Cardiff!! What a surprise. We hadnt seen each other in two weeks and weren't planning on seeing each other this weekend. It was a fabulous surprise. The following day was American Thanksgiving and I had organized to cook my flatmates a traditional thanksgiving dinner. Mike was a great help and on Thursday morning we started in the kitchen at 11am. I baked an apple pie, pecan pie, corn bread, a BIG turkey for 10 people, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, parsnips, brussel sprouts and gravy. I was very happy MIke was around to help me with the turkey!! Here in England they dont deliver them the way they do in America with a pop-up thermometer and all the guts already out of the turkey. Mike literally had to stick his hands in the turkey center to get out the liver, heart, ect. How lovely-we put that in a pot and made turkey stock out of it for the gravy. This was also the first time i had made gravy and hopefully I played close enough attention so I can repeat it for CHristmas dinner. It was a lovely meal though and the first with the entire flat together. The meal turned out really well and a big success-and now we want to cook a joint Christmas meal with the other end of the floor as well! However, that will then be 25 people not 10 and this time it wont be me cooking! I hope my flatmates got a taste of what American thanksgiving is like and perhaps that they too celebrate it in the future.
The rest of the weekend wasn't nearly as eventful. A lot of studying and just hanging around Uni hall. Mike & I went to go see James Bond Casino Royal which was great. I highly reccomend it. Its a good show and just good entertainment which keeps you on your toes. It had a bit of everything in it; definetly a crowd pleaser in my opinion. The weather in Wales has turned sour. We've had record breaking rain fall and in 20 minutes it can be any of the following options:
a) sunny
b) sunny and raining
c) dark and cloudy but no rain
d) dark and cloudy and rain
e) Hailing (happens more often than you think!)
f) windy
g) windy and intense rain coming at you from a different angle then usual-makes biking even more interesting!
Its ironic because a couple posts back on my blog I commented that I expected the weather to be much worse in Wales-ha
Well, I'm coming to my end. I've caught up in two weeks of posts. This morning we woke up and Mike dragged me on a run around Roath Park. Afterwards we walked into town via Starbucks and I did the first of my Christmas shopping. I said goodbye to Mike at 3.30 at the trainstation; promising to see him again on Friday. While walking out to my bus stop Mike rings and says we misread the time and his train doesnt depart till 4.30! So that was fab and we were able to grab some lunch before saying goodbye again. I'm excited for this week to fly by because next weekend I'm going to Birmingham for his mechanical engineering ball! I get to wear my (mom's) ball gown and Mike is wearing a tux! I cant wait for his ball and for my business ball on December 11th.
It is shocking to think that I only have two weekends left before I fly back to Atlanta. I first typed in Vancouver there--its funny to think that I consider Vancouver to be my home but thats not really true. My home is where my family is, which is Atlanta, but I really am looking forward to going back to Vancouver next year. Don't get me wrong, I love my exchange year here in Wales and i've learned so much, seen so much, and met many great people. But at the same time, I can't wait to go back to Vancouver. I missed my family this past week because everybody was home for American thanksgiving except me. Its been a long time since I've seen them but I really do think the webcam helps me a lot. I see my mom pretty much every other day on the webcam which is fab. When my parents have bought another piece of furniture for the house, or if my dad painted something, they'll show me on Skype. Or when Maurits is eating my mom's Dutch pancakes on monday night he'll pull up the laptop to the stove to make me jealous. Its great--really!
I hope everyone is doing well and getting into the Christmas spirit. Cardiff is all decorated with Christmas lights, decorations and a very large Christmas tree infront of city hall. It looks lovely. I'm excited for Christmas to come around; to be in good company at home in Atlanta :)
Friday, November 10, 2006
Me sitting on boulder in park:
Michael:
Time has flown since I've posted my last blog. I've been up to Birmingham once more. No adventuruous bike rides this time though, only a lot of work and not that much play. We did make it out on Saturday to the park for a nice walk. The rest of the past two weeks has been filled with work. Its to the point in the semester that sometimes they call 'crunch time'. We've got a lot of assignments, readings, exams coming up, ect. So the mood in the flat here is pretty subdued. A lot of people are going home on the weekends to try to get a break and relax for a bit. We've now been living together for 6 weeks and true personalities are coming out. We've discovered we've had a food thief, some pretty loud people at night, and general complaints about our flat like our radiators dont work, toilet doesnt flush, blinds fall off the wall...this makes it seem pretty bad living conditions, but really its not so bad. Our freezer doesnt freeze b/c the seal is broken and our fridge collects water at the bottom of it...hehe-nice reminder in the morning if you walk into the kitchen with socks on and they in turn are thus wet. Hehe...
Wales is really nice this time of year. I honestly expected weather much like Vancouver where it rains all the time. I've only biked to school in the rain twice so far. I've got fancy waterproof trousers & jacket though so it doesnt bother me. However, what i have come to realize is that my brakes dont work in the rain! The first time i couldn't break was pretty scary--i didnt know if i should jump off the bike and let it crash or should I crash with the bike? Also, I'm realizing that people dont have respect for bikers here (not that they have much respect in Vancouver either). I was almost jammed between two cars by an ediot teenage driver who didnt give me right of way (which I had because i was ahead of him on the road).
Another thing I discover biking around in Cardiff is that I still dont know the city very well at all. There are so many little roads, alleys, and I cant seem to work out where they all connect. Instead of the typical grid: N, S, E, W the roads are in all kinds of directions and not very helpful when you're lost. Also, I think only in Wales can you bike to school and see tractors on the roads next to fancy BMWs and Range Rovers. There aren't many mornings when I dont pass a farm vehicle.
I am officially 20 today and it doesnt really feel like it. I dont think 20 is a big one...there isnt much to celebrate. Except the end of being a teenager!!! Yipee! I dressed up in an interesting outfit for Halloween and made sure to enjoy it b/c it was the last time I could pass it off as being a teenager! Tonight i'm going out to dinner with my flatmates and school friends and tomorrow I'm going on a hike with Mike a hour north of here in Brecon National Park. I'm looking forward to it. I'll make sure to post pictures from the hike on the blog.
And finally, just for general knowledge, who knew that printers could be regionalized just like DVD's?!? I went to go buy new ink for my printer here and on the box it says its compatible with my printer. However, upon sticking the ink in it turns out that its no good. So I called HP and they told me i have to regionalize my printer to UK standards. Who knew? Stupid,eh?
Park in birmingham:
Mike & his flatmate, Andy cleaning their, oh so clean house:
Michael:
Time has flown since I've posted my last blog. I've been up to Birmingham once more. No adventuruous bike rides this time though, only a lot of work and not that much play. We did make it out on Saturday to the park for a nice walk. The rest of the past two weeks has been filled with work. Its to the point in the semester that sometimes they call 'crunch time'. We've got a lot of assignments, readings, exams coming up, ect. So the mood in the flat here is pretty subdued. A lot of people are going home on the weekends to try to get a break and relax for a bit. We've now been living together for 6 weeks and true personalities are coming out. We've discovered we've had a food thief, some pretty loud people at night, and general complaints about our flat like our radiators dont work, toilet doesnt flush, blinds fall off the wall...this makes it seem pretty bad living conditions, but really its not so bad. Our freezer doesnt freeze b/c the seal is broken and our fridge collects water at the bottom of it...hehe-nice reminder in the morning if you walk into the kitchen with socks on and they in turn are thus wet. Hehe...
Wales is really nice this time of year. I honestly expected weather much like Vancouver where it rains all the time. I've only biked to school in the rain twice so far. I've got fancy waterproof trousers & jacket though so it doesnt bother me. However, what i have come to realize is that my brakes dont work in the rain! The first time i couldn't break was pretty scary--i didnt know if i should jump off the bike and let it crash or should I crash with the bike? Also, I'm realizing that people dont have respect for bikers here (not that they have much respect in Vancouver either). I was almost jammed between two cars by an ediot teenage driver who didnt give me right of way (which I had because i was ahead of him on the road).
Another thing I discover biking around in Cardiff is that I still dont know the city very well at all. There are so many little roads, alleys, and I cant seem to work out where they all connect. Instead of the typical grid: N, S, E, W the roads are in all kinds of directions and not very helpful when you're lost. Also, I think only in Wales can you bike to school and see tractors on the roads next to fancy BMWs and Range Rovers. There aren't many mornings when I dont pass a farm vehicle.
I am officially 20 today and it doesnt really feel like it. I dont think 20 is a big one...there isnt much to celebrate. Except the end of being a teenager!!! Yipee! I dressed up in an interesting outfit for Halloween and made sure to enjoy it b/c it was the last time I could pass it off as being a teenager! Tonight i'm going out to dinner with my flatmates and school friends and tomorrow I'm going on a hike with Mike a hour north of here in Brecon National Park. I'm looking forward to it. I'll make sure to post pictures from the hike on the blog.
And finally, just for general knowledge, who knew that printers could be regionalized just like DVD's?!? I went to go buy new ink for my printer here and on the box it says its compatible with my printer. However, upon sticking the ink in it turns out that its no good. So I called HP and they told me i have to regionalize my printer to UK standards. Who knew? Stupid,eh?
Park in birmingham:
Mike & his flatmate, Andy cleaning their, oh so clean house:
Monday, October 30, 2006
Sunday, October 29, 2006
My weekend in Birmingham was great! I went up thursday late afternoon and arrived at Mike's around dinner time. It was a very relaxed evening and most of it was spent studying (lots and lots of microeconomics to read).
On friday Mike went in early to the mech eng building to design a part that apparently was just a square with a hole in the middle! And they're supposed to be graduate students!! He didnt even bring the part home for show & tell....hehe...we came back, baked bread in the bread machine while we went out to a free lunchtime concert at a hall at UBHAM. There were three artists: guitar, singer, and recorder and the concert was just lovely. Mike & I were on our way to the art gallery (which was voted one of the best small art galleries in Europe! I was very impressed!) and we just happened to see the sign for free lunchtime concert. Thus friday was spent very relaxed, got a personal tour of the university, which looks a lot more like UBC. UBHAM has an actual campus feel, very big campus but very nice. The leaves are changing colors here because of autumn and it just portrayed the campus beautifully. We just enjoyed the day walking around and late afternoon, ofcoarse, we did some more studying. That evening we were supposed to go to a Mate's birthday party but Mike fell asleep around 9.30pm and so did his roommate (graduate students, eh?)...Looks like their partying days have past.
Saturday Mike had organized a bike ride for the two of us. I borrowed a friend's bike and we started biking from Selly Oak (Mike's neighborhood) to downtown Birmingham. Birmingham has more canals than Venice and one can follow the canals to pretty much anywhere they want to go. So we followed the canals into the city, met his cousin, Katie, age 20, at a pub for (early) drinks. From there we continued biking to a place called Aston Hall that I had looked up and wanted to go visit. Aston Hall used to be a country house built in the late 1700's by a sir Thomas (if I recall correctly--woops!) and the house was then built in the country but Birmingham has grown so much that its now more or less in the city. To get there was quite a trek because Mike's maps were from 1979!! HA! They show if you go up or down a hill (which is pointless b/c Birmingham is pretty much flat)--so,uhh, lets just say this was quite the adventure. We had a really good time though, getting lost, finding where we are, directions to get to Aston, and then realizing that 15 mins later we were lost again. We asked directions so many times but I don't know if we were too incompetent to follow them or if they were actually wrong...it took us a long time to get there.
When we got to the Aston grounds, we had our lunch and then proceeded into the building. Turns out that this weekend it was the last time open for two years due to major renovations they are going to perform to the hall!! I was thrilled I was able to make it in before it closed. It was very nice to walk around this old mansion, much bigger than I expected. Most of the mansion hasn't been restored, and thus a lot of the original furnishings and structures still remain in the house. The house has a lot of history; like a king who came to stay, cannonball that went through the front windows during WWI. Also, bit of general knowledge, the great hall (which was used for exercise when the weather was poor-who knew that people exercised in the 1700's?!) was a competition between other halls as to the length of the room. This one (see pictures) was one of the largest in the area.
After Aston Hall, we biked to Sutton Park, where Mike spent a lot of his childhood. His grandmother's house is just around the corner of this park, and thus it was great to see where he spent a lot of time. The park also has history to it. During the years of 1914 to 1920, the park was occupied by "her majesty's army" to recruit and train soldiers to prepare for war. Soldiers from as far away as New Zealand were trained in this huge 2000 acre park. Additionally, the original M4 built by the Romans runs through the center of this park. After our stop at the park, we visited Mike's uncle and aunt and his two cousins. Mike's grandmother was there as well, addition to another aunt and the same cousin i had met earlier in the day! So...it was quite the weekend; I feel like I had my share of boyfriend's family visit however in three weeks I'm going to see them all again including more family I havent met yet! Ahh! But, on the more realistic side, it was very pleasant, we had a lovely evening chatting over a few beers;it was the first time Mike had seen them in over a year. Our day ended with taking our bikes on the train back (couldnt be asked to bike the miles back) and we had a relaxed evening eating our home cooked stir fry infront of the 'telly' and watching English tv (just as crummy as anywhere else) and thus we restorted into starting watching 'the Dead poet's society' which we didnt finish because we were too tired.
I came back this morning by train & bus (distortion at Birmingham central station every sunday) and raced to the grocery store before they shut at 4pm for groceries for the week. I also picked up my new and very POWERFUL transformer so my speakers and hair straightener works again. I blew the last one because apparently my hair straightener can jump to more powerful voltage that is indicated on it and it couldnt be transformed in my 100w transformer...(supposedly). So in my MEC backback i had a 300 wat transformer (very heavy) and all my groceries while cycling up my street, which goes straight uphill...it was fabulous...
Tomorrow I've got lectures all day, so I best go to bed sometime soon. This evening I participated in my first ever Pub quiz (english tradition) where teams compete based on a series of questions in categories such as sports, general knowledge, songs, pictures, ect. and whoever has the highest score wins either prize money (our case every participant paid 1 pound-thus total collection of money was price=130 pound prize money) or some other prize. It was great fun for my first pub quiz, despite the fact that we didnt walk away any richer...to the contrary, I lost a pound!
On friday Mike went in early to the mech eng building to design a part that apparently was just a square with a hole in the middle! And they're supposed to be graduate students!! He didnt even bring the part home for show & tell....hehe...we came back, baked bread in the bread machine while we went out to a free lunchtime concert at a hall at UBHAM. There were three artists: guitar, singer, and recorder and the concert was just lovely. Mike & I were on our way to the art gallery (which was voted one of the best small art galleries in Europe! I was very impressed!) and we just happened to see the sign for free lunchtime concert. Thus friday was spent very relaxed, got a personal tour of the university, which looks a lot more like UBC. UBHAM has an actual campus feel, very big campus but very nice. The leaves are changing colors here because of autumn and it just portrayed the campus beautifully. We just enjoyed the day walking around and late afternoon, ofcoarse, we did some more studying. That evening we were supposed to go to a Mate's birthday party but Mike fell asleep around 9.30pm and so did his roommate (graduate students, eh?)...Looks like their partying days have past.
Saturday Mike had organized a bike ride for the two of us. I borrowed a friend's bike and we started biking from Selly Oak (Mike's neighborhood) to downtown Birmingham. Birmingham has more canals than Venice and one can follow the canals to pretty much anywhere they want to go. So we followed the canals into the city, met his cousin, Katie, age 20, at a pub for (early) drinks. From there we continued biking to a place called Aston Hall that I had looked up and wanted to go visit. Aston Hall used to be a country house built in the late 1700's by a sir Thomas (if I recall correctly--woops!) and the house was then built in the country but Birmingham has grown so much that its now more or less in the city. To get there was quite a trek because Mike's maps were from 1979!! HA! They show if you go up or down a hill (which is pointless b/c Birmingham is pretty much flat)--so,uhh, lets just say this was quite the adventure. We had a really good time though, getting lost, finding where we are, directions to get to Aston, and then realizing that 15 mins later we were lost again. We asked directions so many times but I don't know if we were too incompetent to follow them or if they were actually wrong...it took us a long time to get there.
When we got to the Aston grounds, we had our lunch and then proceeded into the building. Turns out that this weekend it was the last time open for two years due to major renovations they are going to perform to the hall!! I was thrilled I was able to make it in before it closed. It was very nice to walk around this old mansion, much bigger than I expected. Most of the mansion hasn't been restored, and thus a lot of the original furnishings and structures still remain in the house. The house has a lot of history; like a king who came to stay, cannonball that went through the front windows during WWI. Also, bit of general knowledge, the great hall (which was used for exercise when the weather was poor-who knew that people exercised in the 1700's?!) was a competition between other halls as to the length of the room. This one (see pictures) was one of the largest in the area.
After Aston Hall, we biked to Sutton Park, where Mike spent a lot of his childhood. His grandmother's house is just around the corner of this park, and thus it was great to see where he spent a lot of time. The park also has history to it. During the years of 1914 to 1920, the park was occupied by "her majesty's army" to recruit and train soldiers to prepare for war. Soldiers from as far away as New Zealand were trained in this huge 2000 acre park. Additionally, the original M4 built by the Romans runs through the center of this park. After our stop at the park, we visited Mike's uncle and aunt and his two cousins. Mike's grandmother was there as well, addition to another aunt and the same cousin i had met earlier in the day! So...it was quite the weekend; I feel like I had my share of boyfriend's family visit however in three weeks I'm going to see them all again including more family I havent met yet! Ahh! But, on the more realistic side, it was very pleasant, we had a lovely evening chatting over a few beers;it was the first time Mike had seen them in over a year. Our day ended with taking our bikes on the train back (couldnt be asked to bike the miles back) and we had a relaxed evening eating our home cooked stir fry infront of the 'telly' and watching English tv (just as crummy as anywhere else) and thus we restorted into starting watching 'the Dead poet's society' which we didnt finish because we were too tired.
I came back this morning by train & bus (distortion at Birmingham central station every sunday) and raced to the grocery store before they shut at 4pm for groceries for the week. I also picked up my new and very POWERFUL transformer so my speakers and hair straightener works again. I blew the last one because apparently my hair straightener can jump to more powerful voltage that is indicated on it and it couldnt be transformed in my 100w transformer...(supposedly). So in my MEC backback i had a 300 wat transformer (very heavy) and all my groceries while cycling up my street, which goes straight uphill...it was fabulous...
Tomorrow I've got lectures all day, so I best go to bed sometime soon. This evening I participated in my first ever Pub quiz (english tradition) where teams compete based on a series of questions in categories such as sports, general knowledge, songs, pictures, ect. and whoever has the highest score wins either prize money (our case every participant paid 1 pound-thus total collection of money was price=130 pound prize money) or some other prize. It was great fun for my first pub quiz, despite the fact that we didnt walk away any richer...to the contrary, I lost a pound!
Thursday, October 26, 2006
It has been a long time since I've updated my blog. And as usual, my excuse is that I just havent gotten around to it because I've been so busy. Uni is in full swing. I'm realising (the hard way) that the European system of education is totally different from that of North America. There is no time to catch up and be up to date in your classes. Last year at UBC i had the chapters read before i went to the lecture, so I knew what was going on. Here i've managed to do that once and still, the material was too difficult-i still couldnt follow! The work is tough and a lot, but I'm enjoying the economics behind it. (believe it or not-half the time I dont believe it myself).
Besides school, everything is well. I'm settling into life at Cardiff and everything that encompasses. Including the 2 mile bike ride that it takes for me to get to school and the crappy weather. They say it 'pisses rain' here. I am learning a lot of new expressions and some of the things the Brits & Welsh say is just halarious. The other day my professor said "cracking" when somebody got the answer correct. I've never heard that said, by, well anybody in the US/Canada! Sailing has been great and a good learning experience too. Its great to hear what people say here in a moment of crisis. Our curse words are totally different and today while we were in the process of capsizing, i was just laughing at what was being said. All in all, its been great fun-learning lots, and every night after a full day of library/lectures/biking/groceries/reading/dinner/sailing I always go to bed exhausted.
Last weekend Mike came up. We hadnt seen each other in two weeks and it was great to be together again. its crazy the distance here that keeps us apart. We're about 1hr 45mins apart by car. I used to almost drive that distance round trip to high school every day. Now, that distance seems incredibly far away and a long trek to make. Getting organized, getting on the the train, changing stations, ect. makes the trek a hastle and a lot longer than in a car. So, its not made as often as I'd like. However, he did come last weekend and it was great. Whats more, my dad who had to work in London last week also came to visit me in Cardiff! And for even more kicks, Mike's mom, Pamela, came to Cardiff as well to see us and meet my dad for the first time. We picked my dad up at 8pm friday evening and had a lovely dinner.
The next morning Pamela picked us all up and we drove to Caerphilly Castle in Caerphilly (9 miles north-17 mins according to mapuest.) Well I'm convinced that Wales does not have nearly as many satellites over the country as USA because the directions printed out from mapuest actually told us to "turn onto unnamed road" and to turn "slightly left." We ended up on a single small country lane road where the hedges were so high on both sides that we couldnt see over them. We saw lots of farms, sheep, and country side-a perfect depiction of Wales. We were shocked and i was so happy that my dad could see this side of Wales.
We finally got to the castle (1hr later) and had a great time exploring it. It was built in 1271 and had 3 moots to protect it. The castle was not as fancy as the one in Cardiff, since that one had been completely restored, but as the pictures shows, one of the rooms in the castle-the great hall-was refurbished and is available for events. Mike & I had our turn sitting at the center of the table and I must admit it felt pretty good. ;) The rest of the day was spent exploring the grounds of the castle, had a wonderful lunch at an old pub that is a converted 400 year old farmhouse,
and later in the afternoon we explored Cardiff some more and I showed my dad the campus.
When both our parents left, after a succesful first visit, Mike & i went out to a club that night with my entire flat. We stayed until the club closed at 2.00 am and had , like expected, a very hard time getting a taxi home. The next day, Sunday, was spent recovering from the busy weekend and studying some more. Mike left monday morning at 6am to catch the first train back to birmingham--the weekend was over.
Despite it being really short period of time, exactly 24 hrs, it was fabulous. My dad met Pam, which was important to both Mike and myself. I wished my mom could of been there as well.
This week has flown by as well and tomorrow I'm heading up to birmingham to see Mike. After living together in Vancouver for the summer, we're having a hard time coping with the distance. I enjoyed having him home and just there to support you whenever needed. Its a really nice luxury to have! So, next post should be about my weekend outing to Birmy!!
(p.s. sorry about the jumbled mess of photos-will get it right one day. All the pics are from either the Castle or the pub we had lunch at afterwards. The one photo at night is of walking back via Cardiff after dropping my dad off at his hotel downtown.)
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