Saturday, April 30, 2011

Don't fall asleep at the bus stop

I miss being home with food. I'm going to have to go to the store. However, having to go out for lunch (Subway) got me out into the beautiful weather. It's in the 60s here, perfectly clear sky, nice breeze, green trees. Lovely. Eventually I'll get to my work. Eh.

Since I've arrived back in the UK, I have seen too many girls with shorts and tights. I look forward to the day those tights/leggings go back into winter drawers. I've also seen two guys randomly sleeping in public places. One guy was possibly homeless or just really tired, the other was drunk. The drunk one I saw yesterday, on my trek back from McDonald's, so I only assume he just got a little out of hand amidst the excitement of the royal wedding. Unfortunately for him he fell asleep on a bus stop bench, leaning in what looked like a very uncomfortable way against the bus stop shelter, with an empty bottle next to him and what looked like a bottle cap in his mouth, while young hooligans took pictures on their phones. One day perhaps he'll regret this.

I also forgot to mention that I arrived back to my dorm to many signs proclaiming a "BBQ on the front lawn, 3 pm, bring your own food and drink," which led me to seriously question what "BBQ" actually means to the British.

The wedding is over....now what???

Back in Manchester. Meh.

Three weeks off of work does not help in terms of motivation to go back to school. One paper and a bunch of reading. I can do it!

I can't believe it's already Saturday though. I literally spent all day yesterday in bed. No lie.

Monday I saw Soul Surfer with my mom, which was pretty good - very inspirational. Tuesday I got up early and did something I thought would never ever happen again: spent a block in high school. Went in to see Brys and the Barrys in art, which was very nice. Brys's class also picked their spots for Evening with the Arts and Mr. Barry showed them where all those spots would be, so I even got to walk around a bit with them. It's quite surreal going back, since it seems like I was just there. I was even told to sign the tardy sheet when I went into the office. Sorry lady, I haven't been tardy at Oakmont in three years.

My mom and I then went to Panera, Emily's lacrosse game, and Lucas's first baseball game, before going home and watching Glee with Julie, who came over. Wednesday Brys came over after school and we played Life and watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. Brys whooped my butt in Life.

Thursday I realized I should probably pack, since we were leaving at about 3:30. Got to the airport and found my gate, where I also found a wedding reception for William and Kate:

Yep. Fake cake, real cake, drinks, cardboard cutouts... It was really amusing. At least our flight was going to London.

Luckily for me, the middle seat in my row was empty, so I got extra room in my window seat to stretch my legs, while the old lady on the aisle just sat there. Seriously, I don't think she ever even went to the bathroom. For some reason I was really restless on that flight. All the shows and movies were the same from the last flight I took three weeks ago, and I think I started about 3 shows and 2 movies before getting bored and starting new ones. I watched an old episode of Parks and Rec, Family Guy, and Little Miss Sunshine. And I think I spent a combined total of about 1 hour napping.

We landed in London sometime after 6, and holy cow I have a newfound hatred of Heathrow. Although I knew it was one of the worst airports to fly into, I didn't have problems with it three weeks ago. This time was horrendous. We got off and there was a screen with about 6 flights on it, and only instructions about if you saw your flight. Finally some worker told us that if we didn't see our flight, we had to take a shuttle, the same kind I took last time. Only there were about a million people trying to get on, and I swear I thought I was going to be run over or pick pocketed. Managed to make it out alive, and somehow find customs. This part is kind of a blur. Customs was easy though. But once out, I realized I was in the arrival section. And panicked. I had another flight to catch! So I asked someone and they told me I was fine. Turns out you literally have to leave and then check back in, going back through security. Such a pain.

By the time I found my gate, I had enough time to buy a water, but not a bagel. Because the flight started boarding. Again I had an open middle seat, though I was now on the aisle. I basically just napped on this 35 minute flight.

Took a taxi back and only when we arrived at my dorm did the guy explain that because of the wedding, the taxi service was actually on a bank holiday, and that was why the prices were raised. So instead of paying about 16 pounds I ended up paying 24. Oh well. I was about to collapse from exhaustion and a taxi was much much better than a bus.

Manchester is still several weeks in advance of New England, in terms of springtime. The trees are much greener, and this is what greeted me on arrival at my dorm:


So I literally collapsed onto my bed and, since it was 9:30 and I knew festivities of the wedding were starting on US news channels, I turned on Slingbox and watched the wedding in its entirety. This literally took about 3 hours. Only once did I almost nod off...there was a lot of singing during that ceremony. Between the arrival of the new couple at Buckingham Palace and the balcony kiss at 1:25 I watched The Office and cried like a baby because Michael left. Maybe I'll blame that on my exhaustion. After the kiss I watched Parks and Rec and at about 2 I finally fell asleep for 2 hours. Watched more stuff in bed until after 6, when I realized I hadn't eaten since 8:30 am and figured I needed to go get food. Unfortunately I realized that everything was closed because it was a holiday for the wedding. I think Subway must have closed at 6. Just missed it. It was sad. I walked a long way to be reduced to my last option: McDonalds. The store didn't even have sandwiches left. So yes, my first meal back in Manchester was Mickey D's. Sad. I ate that while watching some crappy version of Red Riding Hood online, which was very entertaining because I had no freaking idea who the wolf was.

Went to bed at 10 pm, woke up at 4:30 am, back to sleep, out of bed at 10...and now here I am. Fun times.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Happy Eat All Remaining Easter Candy Day!

The day of departure looms closer and closer...

Thursday means back to England for me, and I am sooo not ready! I just do not want to go finish class and study for finals, because the finals seem a little intimidating. Plus there really isn't much more class time. I have one more American studies seminar (1 hour), one more religion seminar (1 hour), two more English lectures (2 hours, because that class is evil and rescheduled a lecture - the Monday I get back is actually some sort of holiday and is a day off - and has a week 12 lecture, which NO OTHER CLASS DOES! Everyone else stops after week 11. I don't like you, English class.), plus at least one more English seminar (1 hour). I'm hoping we don't have another seminar for week 12, since the extra lecture is already, as you saw, making me angry. But I wouldn't be surprised.

Essentially I suppose I'm going back because my English class isn't finished. We still need to read and discuss two novels, only one of which I have finished. The other two classes are only 1 hour seminars in which we will most likely just discuss the final exam. Blah blah blah.

In other news, because I'm sure reading about my classes is about as fun as going to them, we had a lovely Easter here, and a lovely weekend with Amanda's friend Kat visiting. I mostly read in my free time, and have already wasted away most of my Monday. The weather here, with the exception of Easter, has not been very nice. Hopefully Manchester weather will treat me nicer. Now I'm probably going to go eat some Easter candy.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Good Morning Katie!


Bunny!


I wasn't sure what to post, since I've been beyond lazy the past two weeks. Now the days have blended in my mind and I can't recall what I've done. Well except for large events, like visiting Wellesley this past weekend.


But I'll attempt a quick recap of the past two weeks:


- Cherry Hill twice with the Burstalls (yum ice cream!)

- Hair with my mom (nakey people)

- Reading - for pleasure and then, after realizing time was slipping away, for school

- Eating delicious food, including but not limited to artichokes, Chinese food, soup and homemade bread, homemade mac and cheese and little hot dogs, pasta, and Panera Bread.

- Watching Randi's softball games in Boston

- Visiting Wellesley (seeing a fashion show, taking a photo shoot, going on an African American Boston Harbor Cruise, watching the Boston Marathon for the first time in the Wellesley scream tunnel)

- sleeping in

- watching TV

- buying and watching Harry Potter the day it came out with Amanda

- making a (hopefully) award-winning video with Amanda and Julie

- more eating


I have thoroughly enjoyed my break at home, and cannot believe there's less than a week until I go back now. I'm psyched for the traveling we get to do in a few weeks, but the work and studying and finals between then and now I am really not looking forward to.


But until then, it is Easter weekend and I'm looking forward to the chocolate, family, and interesting times as Amanda's friend Kat is here for the weekend. So far we have spent an abnormally long time watching animal videos on Youtube.


Happy Weekend!

Saturday, April 9, 2011

The Journey

Thursday was a long, long day. And will be followed by a long, long post. Ready?

There is my desk, and the chaos of paper writing and packing.

I managed to wake up, shower, reread my 8.25 page paper and leave my dorm by 8:15 Thursday morning. From there I walked in the drizzly rain to the library, where I realized my hair had transformed from straight and dry to a curling, frizzy mess. I also realized that 8:30 am is the perfect time to go to the library; no one is there! I almost fainted at the amount of available computers. By nine I'd printed my paper and checked out a few books for my next paper, and proceeded to the Humanities department office where horror upon horrors, I had a mini panic attack.

There, on the door, the office hours: opens Monday-Wednesday at 9am. Thursday 10am.

Of course I was leaving for the airport at 10am. Luckily I recovered enough to knock on the door, and someone answered and let me hand in my paper early, after, of course, I blurted out a panicked explanation.

I made it back to my dorm by 9:40 with tea and muffin in hand, and by 10 past was heading to the bus stop with Lauren, who walked with me to say goodbye. Rather than pay 20 pounds for a 20 minute cab ride, I paid 2.80 for a 50 minute bus ride. I suppose for the money the extra length was worth it.

Upon arrival at the Manchester airport I proceeded to get lost on my way from Terminal 1 to Terminal 3. I blame the signs. But after dragging two heavy suitcases up ramps, up escalators, into elevators, over travelators (aka moving sidewalks), around people, and asking about three different workers, I finally found the right spot. And checked in my suitcase, which made maneuvering much easier - even though I think my back pack gained 20 lbs.

The flight from Manchester to London is 35 minutes. Which means you're at cruising altitude for about 3.8 minutes. But I spotted the London eye out the window and had to contain my excitement and my urge to take a picture. Note I was sitting in the aisle seat and the young Asian kid next to the window would have thought I was a Creepy McCreeperson if I leaned over with a camera.

Heathrow airport was only slightly less confusing than Manchester, but that was probably just luck. It's huge and (like Manchester) doesn't tell you your gate number until about a half hour to an hour before take off. So I wandered around since it was essentially a mall with terminals, wheeling my carry on beside me. My carry on has four wheels so instead of dragging it I like to roll it next to me and pretend it's a robot. In fact I named it Charlie. We enjoyed wandering the shops...or at least I did. Charlie is a robot and has no feelings. Just beep boops.

I had this egg salad sandwich for lunch which I only got through half of before disliking it.

Charlie just chilled in his little robot way.

Later I got a yummy raspberry and coconut loaf from Starbucks.

When I finally knew my gate number I [correctly] followed signs to a tram, reminiscent of Orlando Intl. Airport's only underground and much, much faster.

Before getting on the plane, a cute guy with his arm in a sling caught me staring, but I figured on a double decker plane there was no way I'd ever see him again. Wrong. Guess who sat right across the aisle. And guess who actually said three - three - words to said cute guy? However those three words, "That's really unfortunate," launch me into part 2 of guess how lucky I got in seating arrangements.

Just before we began to taxi, a flight attendant came over to the man sitting behind sling guy, asking if he was okay. I turned around and this man (who I later learned was only 29 years old) looked like he was about to be sick or pass out. So another attendant came over and all I heard was "go get some oxygen!" Suddenly a bunch of flight attendants (lots of butts in my face) were giving this man an oxygen mask and asking him questions, concerned because, as one attendant pointed out, "We are about to fly over the Atlantic." In other words, that's a long 7 hours to be sick on a plane.

The man, previously hot (the plane was a little stifling before take-off), was now complaining of being cold. It was difficult not to look back, but I didn't want to make the man feel worse. But it didn't matter because for the most part the man just sat there with his eyes closed, breathing oxygen.

Suddenly, and all this time we've been taxying and I've been worrying, the captain's on the speaker telling us we have to go back because of a medical emergency.

Paramedics joined the attendants and my neighbor, the one right next to me, not sling guy, started talking. And talking. And talking. I tried to channel my mother and for the most part successfully engaged in conversation, but it was tiring. The younger guy next to the window (there were three of us, obviously - with a row of four in the middle and another row of three on the other side) was reading. Smart.

Finally about an hour later the sick man was wheeled off the plane and that's when me and sling guy had our moment. The kind you can only have once you have something significant in common. And medics tending to a man behind you while simultaneously smacking you in the head because of the small space is definitely worthy of a look, which we proceeded to share before I made my profound statement.

I then watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, which made me infinitely happy because it hasn't even come out on DVD yet. I also watched Burlesque and eventually seven hours passed. Lucky for me the reading window guy stopped his reading on our descent, and middle talkative guy turned his attention to him. Window guy was closer to my age and from Scotland, while middle guy was about 40 and from Maine. (Sling guy, which I later found out, was French. And spoke French to one of the flight attendants. Lovely.)

How nice it was to finally get home! :)

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

USA here I come

DONE MY PAPER!!!!

It only took me all day. But I also stopped to eat lunch, pack, go to the library with Lauren to print boarding passes (!), eat dinner, and have a goodbye-for-break powwow in the hallway with my friends. Plus I had about 0.27% motivation to do this paper in the first place. So at least I didn't have to pull any more all nighters.

The bad part is that I actually still have some stuff to do before I leave, namely print and hand in my paper and check out some books for my next paper. These papers never end do they? But I have my final paper due the week I return from break, so going home without any source of research would probably not be the best idea. Although I'm hoping Wellesley's library can help me out.

I'm also not particularly looking forward to compiling an adequate course schedule for next semester, since I've realized I get to choose my classes Friday - three days early because Wellesley told me they really liked me and missed my squeaky biking around campus. What? You think it's because I'm abroad? No, I am special and Wellesley loves me.

So a lot has happened since this weekend and in fact I'm not sure where the time went. I'm assuming it was sucked into a black hole thanks to a certain paper I avoided. Oh well. So Saturday obviously I went to a pub and played Monopoly, and here is Lauren and me with grown up drinks. Don't get too excited though, mine only had about 4% alcohol content. But don't we just look perdy?

Less pretty is the block around the corner from my dorm, where you can clearly see my beloved Caffe Nero as well as Subway. Further down is a Blockbuster, a small supermarket, a Tesco (which is like a bigger version of a 7/11), a pharmacy, a pub, and a very expensive bike shop. Of course I also took this picture on the one rainy day this week. (Today was beautiful and warm - high 60s.)


And here is the street leading to my dorm, which is on the left past the tree. But the point of this picture was to illustrate the fact that no one cares which direction they parallel park in. Weird, right?


Sunday for dinner Lauren and I, in fits of frustration against the pub food we are sick of, got dessert for dinner. Here is mine, a Belgian waffle with strawberry sauce and ice cream...delicious:


Yum yum yum. In terms of anything else that's happened, mostly Lauren and I have been laughed at. I don't think my wording has ever been questioned so much since I've been here. Most recently at our powwow Emma laughed at Lauren and I for our pronunciation of Edinburgh. We say it with a hard g, but apparently it's correctly pronounced "Edinbur-ah" with a very very soft "ah." No wonder no one said it like us when we went there.

I was also laughed at for saying "mall," "finals," "Bandaid," and "movies"... as in "This weekend we went to the movies."

British translations: "shopping center," "exams," "plaster," and "cinema."

The girl who corrected the movies one thought it was so great. She liked our way of saying it, but didn't think anyone actually said it other than in old movies.

I explained the loveliness of Dunkin Donuts tonight as well. Emma has been to Florida once and was all for Dunkins, proclaiming her love of an icy drink I told her was called a Coolatta. I will miss these lovely dinner chats with my British friends. Though I will not miss the food. No. I will definitely not miss that part.

Paper: 1 Jessica: 0

One more day until I head home! Although I have random pictures of food and such that I know you're probably dying to see, I shouldn't say more for fear of launching into a rant about my lack of time management skills. My passionate words of anger at myself for not having finished this paper sooner would probably be put to better use in the paper itself.

But okay, fine, until I'm done, enjoy this picture of "Hot Chicken Bites," my (and Lauren's) favorite meal at Varsity, one of the pub's around the corner. Our favorite part: eating the wrap.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

The Game That Never Ends

Lauren, Veronique and I just played Monopoly for 3 hours. In a pub.


I bankrupted them both.

Friday, April 1, 2011

Uni and Me

Oh. And I finally found out my final exam schedule. I have exams May 19, May 24, and June 6.

Thanks, University of Manchester. I'm glad that within a 21 day exam period I have to be here for 19 days. For three exams. I will also have 10 days between my last class and my first exam, bringing the grand total of "studying/exam" time to 29 days. A full month if you're thinking February on leap years. (And February is already bitter about being the shortest month, so you'd better be thinking about him).

To make up for this unfortunate scheduling situation, I propose that the exams involve drawing pictures and writing cute poems about unicorns and pickles, instead of essays and questions. And if you don't agree with me, just look how well this poem and accompanying pictures came out, all of which only took me about 2 minutes and 38 seconds to complete:


Side note: Despite the implications, I did not intend to eat the cat.

It's Friday Friday gotta get down on Friiiday

I was about to start off this post with a very obvious, "Today is Friday," but not only was that unnecessary, as I'm sure you're all well aware of the date, but it also got Rebecca Black's obnoxiously awful Friday song stuck in my head. I suppose this post can only go uphill from here.

So after getting lunch today, I hunkered down in my room, ready to do some work, when some sort of alarm started going off. It almost sounded like the fire alarm, but I heard no activity upstairs, outside, or in my hallway. So I sent a quick message to Lauren ("fire alarm?") three floors above me, who had no idea what I was talking about, and couldn't hear a thing. I still don't know what that alarm was all about, but it drove me from my room and up to Lauren's, where I watched her clean her room and vacuum. We then proceeded to skype with her friend for an hour and a half before going to dinner. Productive afternoon successfully down the drain.

I'd also like to note that while running up the stairs to Lauren's, I wiped out half a flight from the top, with a half full cup of chai tea and two people watching. I managed somehow not to spill too much of my drink (the witnesses were impressed), but at the cost of two very sore knees and a nice swollen bruise.

Dinner was a plate full of curry chicken mush and dry rice, which did very little to fill my stomach. The alternatives were some sort of broccoli/salmon pasta or fried cod, neither of which were any more appealing to me. The nice woman who serves us our main food (there's also the cheery veg guy and the miserable chip lady) finally asked Lauren and me what our names were, claiming she knew just about everyone but us. Although she at least knows by now that we are the somewhat picky American eaters who always ask what everything is, as in "What's this? ...Oh. Okay. I'll have the other thing."

After dinner was another Friday night trip to the movies with Lauren, Veronique, Emma, Rachel, and Rishika. We saw Hall Pass, and it was actually funnier than we expected it to be. The first 15-20 minutes of it are pure awful though - horrible acting, pacing, and unnecessary scenes - but once past that, it made me laugh.

I also got some M&Ms and realized that they were re-sealable and it was quite exciting. JUST LOOK!

Whoa, right? This should be on all candy bags all over the world (or at least at the GC).