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?