months behind, i know.

So, nearly two months later…

I’ve been caught up in the swing of things (school, social activities, traveling) and this blog has slipped desperately by the wayside. I’ll try to catch up slowly.

I’ll start back in March, when I headed into London to see one of my best friends from back home, Rachel. We spent the day wandering around the city, looking at the landmarks but mostly just catching up. We haven’t seen each other in six months by that point, so of course, we talked for nearly the whole time straight. It was a relaxing day in the city, if nothing else. However, that upcoming week sort of kicked me down a few pegs, I ended up getting an awful case of a sinus infection and went to the hospital for the day, in between writing up two 500 word essay plans. That in itself was (still is) a bit of a strange concept to me. Writing up, essentially, an outline for another person to critique is something I haven’t done since middle school. It was really quite strange, but my professors seemed impressed with the way that I wanted to take my essays, so that was a comforting thought.

That Saturday, Anna and I headed to the town of Plymouth, which is about forty minutes by train from Exeter. It was a spur of the moment trip, we just wanted to get out of Exeter for a day and see a bit of the surrounding area. Plymouth is a bit of a weird city – most of it was bombed in the war because of the fact that it was such a strong Navy base (and had been for centuries). We didn’t honestly do a lot, just wandered about the town, but it was nice and sunny and we were by the coast – so neither of us was about to complain.

The week following that, I found myself locked in the library nearly every day. I had two 3000 word essays (that are not assessed! I hate it, England!) due March 19, and we had a train booked into London for St. Patrick’s Day. So, I really needed to have them both done. But, seeing as I wrote the entirety of 3000 words in about 12 hours on Wednesday, I found myself completely unable to do anything in the way of getting my second essay finished before we left for London that Friday.

London for St. Patrick’s ended up just being a chill weekend for us, we wandered the city on Saturday, and then our Swedish flatmate, Ebba, introduced us to some of her friends from the city and they showed us a good evening out in Shoreditch. Sunday, the actual day of celebrations, was loads more relaxed, as we made our way around Camden market for hours, before getting some Indian food and getting back on the train home.

Now, I’m only a month behind in my updates, so I’ll keep some more stories for another post! Until next time xx

catch-up.

I know, I know, I know, it has been ages. But here I am, I'm alive and well in Exeter. Actually, I'm not completely well. I've catch the mid-semester plague along with the rest of my flat, so there's that little detail.

Anyways, so the last few weeks have been pretty good. After the costume party that was mentioned last post, we took a few days out to just relax and focus on schoolwork. Of course, until Wednesday! We got a full on dose of British culture with the introduction to rugby, the Exeter uni team against Bath. I had the advantage of having someone explain rugby to me for three hours the night before, so I sort of knew what was going on. Exeter won, and all in all - it was a pretty good night. Some of our Aussie boys are on the rugby team (not the one playing), so it was a good time to hang out with them in their element.

That Saturday, Anna, Layla, Megan, Scott, and I headed out to Sherbourne, which is about an hour away in Dorset. We were hoping to see a castle, but alas, both castles were closed. Instead, we went to the abbey and then wandered town and got a bite to eat before going home. Nothing too wildly exciting there.

Last week was the beginning of birthday celebrations for one of our flatmates, Layla. We threw her a surprise party on Saturday night and then went to the Lemmy on campus, and then last night we went for a lovely dinner courtesy of Megan's parents, and then we hosted a party in our flat before going to Cheesy Tuesdays. It was her big 21, so the night was pretty fantastic.

This upcoming week we've all got some assignments due, so we're holding down the fort and working on those - and then on Sunday, I'm headed into London to see the one and only Rachel!

week four.

Sort of a combination of week three/week four, because the photo above is from our "weekend trip" to London. It's pretty nuts that we can say that - oh, we're going to London for the weekend. Not a big deal. Anyways, we legitimately decided to go to London four days before we went (there was a big group from across the way in our building that was going), we booked our bus and our hostel and just headed into the city. However, we got a bit delayed outside of Bristol - we were meant to get to London about 9:30 and didn't get in until 11:45. Yes, at night. So, it was pretty rough, but we found our hostel and Sam and Simon (two guys from our exchange program) were in the room with us. So, the ratio was 6/2 with the randomers, so we can't complain very much!

Our Saturday was sort of a chill day in London. We went to Kings Cross to see Platform 9 3/4, and then wandered throughout Oxford Street, Bond Street, and Soho (and went to the biggest Victoria's Secret ever .. five stories was a big excessive?) - before meeting up with Sam and Simon, and then two girls from the exchange program as well, for dinner. We then attempted to find a bar to have drinks in, but Camden was massively busy on a Saturday night (surprise!), so we ended up at a hokey Mexican Cantina. The Australian in our group loved it, but ... definitely not authentic. They had no idea what chips and salsa was!

Our bus the next morning left at 9 am, and went straight to Exeter, so we got back in good time. I took a nap, got tea, had some food and then headed to Walkabout Australian Bar for a kangaroo burger and to watch the superbowl. I don't care about the superbowl at all, but it was fun to be the only Americans in the bar - people kept asking us questions. And the food was good (and cheap with our student discounts!), so it was a fun night.

Obviously, we got back into the swing of classes come Monday, and I'm officially in a group for a group presentation for my medieval Paris class. One of the other girls in the group is on full-year exchange, and then the other girl is a social chair of the History Society here on campus. It should be a good team, as far as I'm concerned.

Today's just been a lazy day, Layla and Anna headed out to Stonehenge for the day - but as I went there two years ago I didn't really feel much of a need to spend the money to go back today. I slept in, read, cleaned my room, made lunch, and I'm planning to skype some people later this afternoon. Tonight we're going to do some prep for the fancy dress (costume) party tomorrow. Our costumes are a surprise! I'm sure pictures will emerge tomorrow..

week three.

It's now week three, and I’d say things are going really well. I’ve gotten into the swing of classes, and it’s currently sunny outside! Of course, it will probably rain later but I’m about to go to the RAM (pub on campus) with Matthew and enjoy the sunshine.

Last week we didn’t do a whole lot, I went to a few volleyball games with Matthew, and to his volleyball social on Friday with him. Saturday was the big day, Australia day! Of course, the Aussies showed us a good time, we had a huge party in G-Block, and started out on the 4th floor, slowly making our way down to the bottom floor over a span of six hours. It was crazy, lots of noise, lots of people, but a good time.

This week, I’ve just been going to class, and then having dinner with various groups of people. I cooked for ten people last night and that was a good time, and tonight Matthew and I are cooking for Amy’s flat. I feel like I’m finally settling in here and in the city, I’ve got British friends, classes, what more could I need?

So, on Sunday morning, a group of us headed to Exmouth for the day. It was a cute little town, but on a Sunday morning it was absolutely, positively dead. There were a number of things we could have done .. if it wasn’t Sunday morning. We wanted to just spend some time by the ocean, but when we got down to it, our Aussies and then a load of us were freezing, so we ended up just slipping into a pub and having a nice lunch (it was the first time a number of us had eaten real food in days, so a Sunday roast was perfect!) and then heading back to uni.

In the picture above, I’m in the middle of two of my flatmates that headed out with the group that morning, Scott and Layla. They will probably be featured on this blog a lot – Scott is from my uni back home and we are in a class together, and Layla and I have sort of created a best friendship pretty quickly. I had class today, a lecture and a seminar for British Naval History: Ideology and Conflict. It seems to be a pretty interesting class for the most part, the professor seems to be a bit … not all there but he’s knowledgeable. I was the only girl and also the only American in my seminar, and I wasn’t able to access the documents yet because the IT program here is sort of a pain. Thankfully, a nice fellow took pity on me and let me look on with him, and then offered to show me around the city whenever I’d like.

week one.

So I've been in Exeter, in the southwest of England, for almost a week now, and I've got to say I love this city. With rolling hills and grey clouds, it's a beautiful city. Upon coming to Exeter for six months abroad, the thing that I was most worried about was making friends. But that doesn't seem to be an issue now, by the first night I'd already gone out with other international students and met them, and now I've got quite a lovely group featuring an Aussie, a Kiwi (NZ'er), a few Canadians, and a few Americans. We've all started making travel plans with one another so it's been working out just fine. 

One of the things that has been a bit tough since being here is the sorting of classes, because that really hasn't been a thing that they've been worried about for international students until two days after we've been here. It seems as though most students across other colleges got into their modules just fine, but the three of us in the humanities college at first were not placed into any classes, and all had to wait almost three days to be placed into any modules (which, for the record, are extremely confusing. I've got two lectures in one day for one class, but they are at different times and in different rooms, and then a seminar two days later in another building). But, they finally got it sorted and they've apologized profusely, so now it's just time to get into the swing of things at uni. 

All in all, everything is going smoothly, I get on well with my flatmates (two of them are from Colorado State), I've got modules (classes), and I've got friends. And beans on toast for lunch, so what more could I want?