Week 9-10 of Autumn Term

Summary of 9th week in no particular order with a few random pictures:

Study, drink tea, sleep, make cookies, procrastinate, study, eat, make smores, sleep, catch up on shows, study, skip every class, catch up with Wongfu/KevJumba/NigaHiga/David Choi out of boredom, England gets shut down by one foot of snow, study, snow day, eat, more sleep, etc…take test, Christmas potluck, birthday parties…

London

Tiffany, Mike, Susana, and I went to London to enjoy our last weekend in England (well…except for Mike).We went to the Tower of London, where we saw some really cool rooms and amazing crowned jewels. My favorite was this heart shaped scepter (left), it was sooo pretty! If only I was a princess haha.

Mexican food at a pub...it wasn't very good haha but I had to try it!

After our tiring long touristy day, we sat in a pub and ate some random food because we were starving. However, we soon realized that was a mistake when we dropped by the Christmas market. It had so much delicious food but we were all so full! So instead, we ate some churros with chocolate (not as good as the ones in Spain of course!) and drank some hot chocolate (A LOT less chocolatey than America ones).

The market was closing, so we headed to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. This place was so festive, there was live music, fair rides, lots of people drinking, and the smell of food everywhere! Hamburgers, frankfurters, chips with random sauces, mulled wine, rum hot chocolate, roasted chestnuts, doughnuts, pretzels, and all the other stuff they eat during the winter…

We sat inside a wooden building with live music outside (they were really good and did lots of mash-ups with old and new pop songs), it was so cute because all the old couples were dancing and having a good time, everyone had huge mugs of beer and a lady even stole one!

That was pretty much the end of our trip, from 8am-10pm. It makes you realize that it is impossible to do London in one day, we were there for 14 hours (including transportation), and only did two things. I’m going to miss this place.

Sunday

“Christmas” lunch

Mmm…

The cappuccino was honestly the best I’ve had in my life. I guess you get what you pay for haha.

Roast escalope of turkey with sausage and chestnut stuffing, garlic and thyme roasted potatoes, bacon chipolata, and a red wine gravy

Rib eye steak served with a béarnaise sauce and daphinoise potatoes

Chocolate panacotta

Christmas pudding with brandy butter and calvados crème fraiche

Yeah...this was lunch...

Week 10

I guess I won’t be updating for a while because apparently China blocks blogger AND flickr AND facebook AND aim…lol, the last 2 I knew, but it’s basically everything I’ve ever used (besides MSN of course). I’m so sad I won’t get to blog about my experience for all of Italy, Paris, Netherlands, Brussels, and Germany until school starts, which by then I’ll probably get too lazy.

I have had such an amazing study abroad experience and been so fortunate to travel everywhere (TEN countries in the course of 4 months) I remember I wasn’t so thrilled that I had to come to England because I wanted to go to Asia. Now that I think back at it, this experience is worth every second of it and I would never trade it to go to Asia.

Cheers

Au Revoir

Ciao

(I gotta start brushing up on my language skills)

Anyway, I’ll see everyone when I get back! Can’t wait! 

Week 8 of Autumn Term

I think everything I post here is about food, but I’ve come to realize that I love travelling for the food and culture a lot more than the architecture and history. As intriguing as history can be, learning about it way too much can get boring. Instead, I love to sit in a café/restaurant/pub, try local foods (unless it’s too exotic), and just observe my surroundings because it is so different from that of America. The way people dress, speak, walk, and even the simplest gestures can help create an overall picture of their unique culture and lifestyle.

Anyway, Wednesday I finally had pizza after craving it for quite a while (sad right?). Susana and I went to pizza hut because we saw people eat this a while ago:

I mean, honestly, this is the coolest type of pizza ever invented, cheesy dips plus the regular pizza! Unfortunately, it was 17 pounds and we didn’t feel like spending that much on it, so we had the buffet instead. Haha, typical us. Nonetheless, the buffet was amazing.

Because England doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, obviously, there has been a few events organized by Americans for a potluck Thanksgiving dinner. I went to one organized by Jeremy on Thursday and everything was amazing, the mashed potatoes and gravy, the stuffing (well, it kinda sucked cause Susana and I cooked it from those boxes), the pie, and especially the turkey and sweet potato soufflé!

Here are 10 things I’m thankful for:

1) I am thankful for my parents for being there for me, allowing me to go abroad, and paying for all my tuition, expenses, and travelling. I could talk to my parents about anything; they’re like my best friends.

2) I am thankful for all my old friends for keeping me company throughout the year through messenger, skype, facebook, email or however else we can contact each other. It’s always nice to hear a familiar voice or to just randomly chat even though we can’t see each other face to face.

3) I am thankful for all my new friends I have met this year and going on crazy adventures throughout Europe. I have had an amazing time getting to know each and every one of them.

4) I am thankful for my family in China for always taking care of me from overseas. I wish I could see them more often because I miss them very much.

5) I am thankful to have this opportunity to study abroad and travel around. It is the best experience I’ve had in my life and made me understand so much more about the world.

6) I am thankful for the beautiful, untouched landscapes, the blue skies, the green grass, the feeling of snow, the smell of rain, the rolling fields, the tall mountains; nature leaves me smiling from ear to ear.

7) I am thankful for the food I am able to eat. I have had such a different variety of food this year and tried many new things that I could probably write a novel about the experiences.

8) I am thankful for the internet for helping me keep in contact with friends and family and making life easier.

9) I am thankful for today, tomorrow, and hopefully more days to come.

10) I am thankful that I’m healthy and living a good, happy life.

Scotland

This was such an adventure…as in transportation, like always. Susana and I booked tickets for Megabus that left at 11pm at night and arrive at 7:30am. Unfortunately, Scotland was having a huge snowstorm and we didn’t get there until 12pm, so our bus ride was 13 hours long. It was horrible because the seats were small, there was a man sitting next to me who took ALL my leg room and I had to resort to the isle for my legs, and of course, I couldn’t sleep.

But enough complaining, Scotland is actually really amazing. I like the place more than Ireland, there’s so much more to do. We were lucky to arrive on the weekend of St. Andrew’s Day. Most museums/castles were free during the weekend and there were lots of big events going on in the city of St. Andrews. Unfortunately, we were in Edinburgh (which btw, is pronounced Edinburrah).

Once we arrived, we stopped by our hostel to check in. Susana saw an ad for turkey testicles and had to try them…she is crazy. Anyway, they fried up three of them and she said it tasted like meatballs. Ew…haha

We then headed to Edinburgh Castle and the whole place reminded me of Mulan. It wasn’t as pretty as Leeds, because it was one of those war castles. The nice part was that it sat on top of a hill in the middle of the city and had an overlook of Edinburgh.

The sun was starting to set again and we were freezing, so we headed to dinner (since we hadn’t eaten for more than 12 hours). Susana tried at Haggis dish which is “a dish containing sheep's 'pluck' (heart, liver and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal,suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally simmered in the animal's stomach for approximately three hours. (Wikipedia)” Sounds appetizing right? Yeah…I tried a bite and it didn’t taste like much, but mentally I couldn’t eat more than that haha, which is why I ordered a sandwich.

I feel like most of this trip had to do with Harry Potter even though we didn’t plan any of it. We went to Elephant House, which is where JK Rowling wrote the first book. I didn’t even know she lived in Scotland!

After we took some touristy pictures in there, we headed to another café around the street and had 50% off dessert. Susana had an apple pie with ice cream and I had tiramisu. Hmm…I guess you get what you pay for, the dessert was just ok, but we needed a place to sit down and chill for a while because it was so cold.

At night, we watched Harry Potter 7 and it was SO GOOD. I’ve been looking forward to watching it and it just happened that we had nothing to do at night. I’m so glad I watched it in Scotland where it originated and I can’t wait for the next part to come out. So excited!

World's smallest whiskey haha, only a pound something!

We got back around midnight and called it a night. This hostel was a lot different than the previous other two as well. It had 2 bars, and at night there is live music and the atmosphere is very chill. I really liked it, but the room was a bit smelly and with 10 people, I couldn’t sleep that well.

The next day, we got up bright and early to stuff ourselves with 1000 calories worth of free breakfast and headed for our Loch Ness and highlands tour. The place was so pretty (probably prettier during the summer). I can’t describe the scenery with words so here are some pictures that I took while inside the coach.

Back to Harry Potter, a lot of the places we passed were a filming location of Harry Potter, no wonder the movie scenery was all so gorgeous!

Loch Ness is a famous lake known for the monster Nessie. There are spotting every year and if one manages to take a clear photo of it, there is a 1million pound reward. We found it…just not the real one.

The stone was gone, which meant Nessie was about! But we still couldn't find her :(

And that’s a wrap of Scotland, but the story’s not over. Our tour coach got delayed 2 hours because of the storm, and our coach back to London got delayed for 3 hours. We realized we didn’t eat for 12 hours…again, so we had some yummy Indian food for dinner at 11pm.

When we got to London, we missed our connecting bus to Brighton because of all the delays, so we had to buy another ticket. This bus had problems at Gatwick airport and got delayed as well. We finally got back at 2pm!

In conclusion, this trip consisted of 26 hours on a coach, 12 hour tour, weird food, Harry Potter sightings, and lots and lots of fun.

Week 7 of Autumn Term

Because Sussex screwed me over with physics, the really nice professor originally in charge of our pre-med physics class offered to teach us thermodynamics (or about the last 3 weeks of what they teach in physics 113). Basically, Susana and I are meeting up with him 4 times a week for an hour then an hour workshop, that’s 5 hours of thermo physics + 3 hours of kinematics/dynamics + 2 hours lab = ahhh…they shouldn’t have cancelled the class in the first place. The class we were originally registered for was only about 4hr/week :/

I was talking to some people, and apparently it is impossible to get an A (70) on an essay in England, unless it’s good enough to get published. I hate these standards because an A is actually achievable in the US. Pretty much if you get in a B range for an essay you should be really happy (60-70), and it sucks cause now I have to look forward to a B : ( I hate that neuro is all essays, I mean just give me a test and at least let me try to get that A…

Reading faces is 70% essay so I’m kinda looking at a B for that class too, ugh, it’s so hard to get used to being happy about a B.

On a side note, 2 essays down, 2 to go!

Week 6 of Autumn Term

I probably say this every post, but waaa 4 weeks left!!

I registered for classes back home and next semester will hopefully be relaxing after I nearly killed myself a year ago. I’m taking physics 114, linguistics 220, BCS 200 something, and CSC161. This means I’m only having TWO science classes and 16 credits!! Sooo excited. But of course, I need to find a job/internship for the summer and study GREs. Almost back to reality…

Wednesday was another completely relaxing day with a fun social at night. During the day, we went to Eastbourne just because our bus passes could get us there. We rode the bus ride from Sussex to Eastbourne pier was about 2 hours long. This city had such a different vibe! It was basically a Brighton…but with old people hehe. Everyone was walking slowly and enjoying their daily strong, which was a nice change of pace from the busy, student life of Brighton. We had roast at a pub, went around the mall, walked around the pier, had Chinese buns, and…bought an “all American apple pie”.

Why did we buy a pie? So random, right? We had a pie social at night with mountaineering. There were about 50 people who showed up and each cooked 1-2 pies. When British people think of pies, they think savory, like steak & Guinness, chicken & veggies, potato & fish, etc etc. It’s easy to say that everything was delicious and I probably consumed 10000 calories that night, totally worth it J There was also a really yummy banotoffee and I need to make that when I’m back in the states. It was nice to chill with British people for once after seeing all Americans in Norwich house haha.

Next week is time to settle down and finally start writing essays.

Ireland

Because tickets were only 5 pounds and the hostel was 10 euros, Susana and I decided to randomly go to Dublin for the weekend.

I can summarize our trip with two words: Guinness and potatoes

Haha, but I guess I’ll give a recap -

We got our beauty sleep Friday night and left at around 11am to Gatwick for our 1pm flight on Saturday. Upon our arrival, the bad luck with public transportation hit again. The bus to our hostel only took the exact amount of change and Susana had a 20. I got on the bus and waited for her only to find the bus leave without her haha. Luckily, I brought my phone and it was working (unlike Spain). The bus was so crowded and I had no idea where I was going because they didn’t tell you what the next stop was. All I knew was that it took approximately an hour to get to the city center. After numerous stops and a bit of panicking, the bus started going down some big streets with a few tall buildings. At one of the stops, 50% of the people on the bus got off, so I followed. I told Susana to get off at a stop that everyone got off at and we found each other after a while. That’s actually the only bad luck that hit us for once and luckily, we got it over with the first hour in Dublin.

Dublin is actually pretty expensive in terms of food. Pub food was around 10-15 euros and a typical dinner can be anywhere between 15-30! There really were no random cheap places to eat, even the McDonalds was expensive. I saw a Hard Rock Café there that had a burger for 30 euros. Honestly, why would you eat a burger for 40 dollars? That’s insane.

Anyway, we were starving by that time, so after checking into the hostel we went to a delicious pub around the corner. The thing I like about Dublin pubs is that they separate their restaurants from the bars and it doesn’t have the “frat house” smell when you enter. We ate chicken, mashed potato, stuffing, and veggies and to be honest, it was one of the best meals I’ve had in the UK. The food actually had flavor and was salty enough to not add anything. It was a sign that the rest of our trip will be very fun.

After dinner, we tried finding Arlington Hotel but failed because of my bad Google map skills. We walked around the main shopping street by our hostel, it had so many pretty Christmas lights and everything was in Irish, haha cultural shock. This was also the start of our hunt for good chocolate, I had a Butler’s latte truffle and some weird Polish chocolates. The latte truffle was AMAZING and I normally never eat white chocolate! After that, we headed to Temple Bar, a few other major streets, and called it a night. It was cold and rainy and both of us were about to pass out.

Our hostel was so different from the one in Madrid. This one has a very chill environment, everyone was lazing in the lounge when we got back, just chatting to each other or surfing the internet. Our flat mates were also very cool and we had some random conversations with them that ultimately persuaded us to go to Scotland the next week. There were two Brazilians, one Australian, one Croatian, and two others who were not there at the time. I find it amazing how people can travel by themselves for as long as 10 weeks (Australian girl)! I could never survive by myself in a foreign country, plus I’d get lonely. I don’t know how they all do it.

The next morning, we rose bright and early to eat some free breakfast and then started our long and eventful day. I actually really wanted an Traditional Irish Breakfast (which is the same thing as an English Breakfast or a Scottish Breakfast), but it was too expensive and not worth it for some sausage, bacon, egg, black and white pudding, etc.

The first place we went to was Dublinia. It was a museum for Vikings and Medieval Dublin. We had so much fun there because it’s interactive. We did some random craft stuff, learned a lot of history, wore Viking/chainmail/peasant/random outfits, and climbed a tower to get a panoramic view of Dublin, which actually is not that impressive during midday. It just looked like an old rundown town haha.

I think this is me hahaha

Typical Susana LOL

After this, we headed to the long awaited Guinness Warehouse. It is a seven story museum/storehouse for everything from the history to the process of making Guinness. There were lots of interesting facts and I learned so much random knowledge haha, we then also got to pour our own perfect pint and drink it. It was pretty fun!

Barley tasting

It's pretty difficult to pour a perfect pint!

But we did it anyway!

For dinner, we went to eat traditional Irish stew. It’s usually lamb, but I had mine with beef instead and it was amazing. Even their onion rings here are so much different than the ones I’m used to. Nonetheless, everything was delicious.

There is a free showing of live Irish music and river dancing at the Arlington hotel every day, so we walked around the city some more. It is so much livelier at night, even on a Sunday! The show lasted from 9 to 10 or 10:30pm, I really loved the Irish singers and their music, the tune was so happy and made you want to get up and dance. The river dancing was really intense as well. I just loved that this whole thing was free (except I ordered a 5 euro Irish coffee so we didn’t feel too bad about it lol).

After the show, we wandered around the streets until midnight and of course, I tasted some more chocolate. This was the end of our Dublin trip, short but very eventful and fun. We left our hostel at 4:30am on Monday and sleepily got back to campus around 9. Slan Eire (I think that means “bye Ireland”) :D

Week 5 of Autumn Term

I had a physics test this Friday and studied really hard for it all week. However, the test wasn’t hard, but the time restraint made me panic a bit and I ended up doing A LOT of stupid mistakes L Ahh it’s so disappointing, but I’ll get over it…

I had an interesting discussion with two of my German friends earlier in the week. It was about the subject of race. In the US, whenever we will out forms, it will ask for our race/ethnicity and we check white, Asian, etc. However, the Germans said that they get really offended with these forms. The forms in Germany ask nothing about your race and they are an immigrant country as well. They believe that, even if it’s just for data, you shouldn’t be asked about your personal ethnicity or race. When one of the girls was filling out her housing form for the UK, she simply left the ‘race’ column empty. I thought this was very interesting because we would never have given it a second thought. I would’ve checked off Asian happily and moved on with the form. This is one of the reasons I love studying abroad. I love talking to people from other country, you learn so much by just having a random conversation with them.

Another thing that I found interesting was how much we took everything for granted in the US. I know I’ve mentioned this before with the water pressure and such, but this time when I was doing laundry, all the dryers didn’t have heat, so we ended up wasting our money and having to hang our clothes in our room. All the Americans were complaining about it because they weren’t used to hanging their clothes. I must admit, I was pretty upset myself, especially since I only had about 8 hangers and pretty much washed my whole closet. Then, at night, the heaters stopped working as well as the hot water for showers. Once again, all the Americans in our program complained. The services they have here can’t compare to the amazing staff they have in America and yet, we complain about everything we have back home. I know at my cousin’s university in China, they don’t even have a heating system and she lives in a really cold area. They basically deal with it, have a good time, and move on with life - nothing to complain about. America really spoils us.

Moving on to the great parts of the week:

“Remember, remember, the fifth of November…”

After my awful test and lab, we went to Lewes for Guy Fawkes Day. Let me just tell you, this is one of my favorite holidays. I love how England and probably the rest of the world is so relaxed on stuff like…throwing huge explosive things at people, making a massive bonfire, marching through crowds with fired torches.It was crazy, pictures/videos cannot do this justice. These are not my pictures because I did not take my camera with me due to the fact that I thought it was too dangerous haha.

Lewes holds an annual bonfire event to celebrate the failure of Guy Fawkes, it is a smalltown with a 16,000 population. Someone told me during the holiday, it can get up to 70,000! The SIS group and I got there just in time for the parade around 9pm. I have never seen anything like this in my life. It started with everyone was holding crosses that were on fire, and then this guy held one of those things to hang people (was on fire as well), and most people marched around with lit up torches and they were throwing random explosives at the crowd. It was actually really scary, in an exciting way! Now why can’t America have this? Oh, cause we sue everyone.

After the three parades, we headed to the best part of the night. There were 4 bonfires throughout the town; we went to the free one. It was a pile of wood about 2-3 stories high, that’s even higher than our houses! There was hay inside, so the fire can start spreading through the whole thing. Because the bonfire was so massive, it took several minutes to get the fire started. After that, it was crazy. Smoke blew into our faces where we couldn’t breathe, so we all (think thousands of people) started running away from the center. I felt like I was in a burning house, but it was a really exciting experience just because I knew I was safe. We all ducked really low, and tried to breathe, but most of us were coughing and suffocating. Then, as the fire started, the sight was amazing. Haha, I know I’ve said this before, but pictures just can’t describe it. Because the wind blew, it was like a 5 story high tornado of fire. And it was soooo pretty, despite the ash and smoke getting into my eyes/lungs. Someone told me that the fire usually takes a couple of hours to die down, but we weren’t there for that. For the picture below, look at the tiny heads on the bottom, they were very far away from the bonfire. So imagine that flame about 10 stories high, it was amazing :)

The last part of the night was spent watching fireworks. We were literally a few meters away from the place they fired everything up. Everything was directly above our heads. It was such an amazing sight. The fireworks looked like shooting stars ready to fall on me and it was one of the best displays I’ve seen just because it was literally right above my head. Summary: Guy Fawkes Day is crazy, amazing, and I love it!

Weekend

We wanted to eat this cool 5 pound buffet on Saturday (what is up with our obsession with Buffets?!), but when we got there, they kicked us out for a private party. It was so sad because I really wanted crepes, pizza, noodles, etc.! Instead, we went to eat the Days Chinese buffet again LOL. After that, we went to Azda to look for interesting and cool food. Susana bought so much unhealthy stuff that we’ve never seen before and I bought some fruit. I really want to try all the interesting chocolates/snacks they have so I know which ones are good and I can take back to give to people. There were so many cool brands from Belgium, Italy, Germany, etc, I couldn’t decide what to try first! We spent about 2 hours in the store. After we got back, we planned our Italy and Ireland trip. There are so many places to go and see, if only we had endless money amounts of money L

Sunday we went around the Pound and 99 stores for interesting eats again and then stopped by the grocery market. I then played badminton and made some REALLY AMAZING noodles for dinner, it was sort of like dandan mian, but not that spicy. Mmm…on a different note, I’m really going to miss these things about England:

Muller Yogurt

Tiger Bread

Pasties

Cider

So basically, everything I miss will be food/drinks J