After the first week… and then off again

INSERT: HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY, GELL. Wish I could be there for all the fun, but I am thinking of you and how old you are, and how I still have 7 more years before I get there. Look at this picture. How are you 30? Really??

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So, from where I left off…

…last Wednesday, all the international students from St. Martin’s went on a “ghost tour” of Lancaster Castle, which could have been good had we actually been able to go into the castle. The tour guide, this creepy old lady, which I’m afraid I don’t have a picture of, looked liked she came back from the olden days, where she was one of those people who probably lived with a lot of cats and made potions and things in her kitchen.

Afterwards, a bunch of us went out to the Walkabout Inn, which is another of Lancaster’s many pubs; they said there’s about 50 pubs & clubs in Lancaster, which is insane cause Lancaster’s about the size of Chapel Hill (okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration). Here’s a tidbit of info; all the pubs in Lancaster close at about 11:00pm, after which people go to clubs, and there are only about 3 in Lancaster that I know of – Revolution (yes, for you Waterloo people, this is so fitting, but I haven’t been there yet), Liquid (also haven’t been there and will probably never go cause cover’s apparently £6.00) and Toast (so fun – read on).

This is Essi (from Finland), Anne, myself, Jenna (from the States), and Arife (from Turkey) at Walkabout.

Nora, Lena, Jana and Camille enjoying a Long Island Iced Tea.

At about 10:00pm, our group of 9 split off, and Anne, Essi and I ended up first at this pub called The Friary, which is a pub inside what used to be an old church building. There’s something so sacrilegious about drinking and all the related naughtiness in a place where mass used to be held. Nice place, but we were really there for an alternate reason:

Everyone, say hello to Rob, bartender at The Friary, our tour guide and the only guy that all 30 of us international students (all girls but one) have come in contact with in the last week. Probably safe to say that a lot of the international girls, myself included, become putty at the sound of a British accent, so it’s not surprising that many of the girls have taken a liking to our Rob here. I disclude myself from that group, however. Nice guy, always in the pubs, but he’s no Orlando Bloom. And he’s about 19 or 20 years old. He thought we were all about 19, and then refused to tell us his real age when he found out we were all about 23. I’m gonna hold out for Beckham or Orlando, thanks.

After The Friary closed at 11:00pm, Anne, Essi and I headed down to Toast, but the lineup was too long and not moving at all, so we met up with Camille, Jenna and Nora at the Chicago Rock Café, where we walked in to a middle-aged man singing some 80’s song on the stage. Awesome, we think. It’s karaoke night!

A drunken Camille goes to the DJ: We’re singing the next song.
DJ: It’s a singing competition.

So, on Wed. Sept. 28th, Camille, Nora and Anne are scheduled to perform Girls Just Wanna Have Fun for the Chicago Rock Café audience.

I think that people here go out every night of the week, cause regardless of what night of the week it is, the pubs & clubs are packed. Every night in Lancaster is Saturday night.

Friday, we had a day off from orientation, and oh-so-cool me spent the day in the computer room. That night was a party at the JCR (Junior Common Room), a club in the Student Union building (kinda like their version of Fed Hall), where we could actually party and mix with some regular St. Martin’s students.

For a girl that’s 5’9”, Anne couldn’t take more than one bottle of wine. For a girl that’s 5’0”, I couldn’t take more than one vodka cooler. I think this was taken at around 10:00pm. We had only gotten to JCR at about 9:00pm. Lushes, we are.

The JCR party ended at 11:00pm that night, so we headed down to Toast early to hopefully beat the lineup and dance some more, and we did just that.

Christina (from the States) in front, Essi, Lena, myself, Anne, Nora and Jana having an awesome time dancing at Toast. I would even dare to say it was comparable to Rev, in terms of music, atmosphere and crowd. Melo, Rosie, Mariese, Jess – my clubbing buddies, I missed you all. You would have all loved it. Really good hiphop music and no cover. And again, Rob was there, so the girls were happy.

On Saturday, the international students went on a field trip to this town called Chester, which is about 2 hours away by bus from Lancaster, and had a lot of nice German-style architecture. Anne said she felt like she was back at home in Heidelberg.

The buildings all down the streets were of this style. Very pretty. Something you wouldn’t typically see in Canada.

This was also down the street. Also something you wouldn’t typically see in Canada.

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Plans for the next while: I have the next 2 weeks off, so Christina and I are going to Austria on Wednesday to see Salzburg and Vienna. Of course I was gonna go to Austria while I’m down here – hello, The Sound of Music Tour. Need I say more? Afterwards, we’ll head up to Prague for a few days, then spend the end of the break touring around London, before returning back to Little Lancaster to finally start (yes, I said start) classes on October 3rd.

Ate (what I call my sister; pronounced ah-teh) is coming up sometime in October to London, then Lancaster to see ME, and then we’ll be heading down to Spain for a few days. It’s still in the works, but you’ll hear about it soon.

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Note to myself: Gotta make plans to go to France (Paris, Nice, south, etc), Switzerland, Italy (Rome, Pisa, Venice), Spain (Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia, Alicante), Sweden (not likely)
- w-end trips to around UK (Scotland, Stonehenge, around London)

Tomas and Jen, my France buddies, we should travel together.

I’ll see you all in a couple weeks!

Finally in the UK

MORE PICTURES: I've finally been able to upload my pictures on my imagestation account, so check these out. Also, here are Rosie & Melo's pictures from their trip to Spain - as well as tons of pictures of us before our clubbing experience. (Please disregard the fact that you can see my bra in pretty much all the pictures. It couldn't be helped).

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I don't really have time to write much right now, but let's just say I'm having an awesome time so far here in the UK. I will write more, and more interesting stuff another day, but everyone likes pictures, including me, so I'll use this blog thing to post pictures.

This is Melo and I actually talking on the phones (and not just posing like dorky tourists) in the fun red phonebooths on Belgrave Rd. just a little ways down from our ghetto (but connected internetically) hotel. Phone calls in the UK are freakin expensive, and it cost me around £1.20 and 3 tries to call my friend Alex for just under 5 minutes. Crazy. I am already poor, after having spent a ridiculous amount setting up my cell phone.

Rosie and I at Piccadilly Circus; Melo's awesome photography skills can be debated here - she missed most of the signs that Piccadilly Circus is actually known for. However, she did manage to get both a cab (on the left) and a red double decker in the picture.

Caption: Pre-Clubbing Buddies Gone International.

Rosie, Melo and I before the drunkeness and the dancing. TOO. MUCH. FUN. London, you were good to us. Thanks to Alex and Steven for taking us out. I'll fix this up when I get the chance, and put up some post-clubbing pictures when I get them. Let's just say, walking home at 3:00am from Piccadilly to Victoria Station: priceless. Accidentally seeing Trafalgar Square, the buildings of Parliament, Big Ben and the London Eye was a good way to end the night, and a good send off to my two clubbing buddies who left me the next day to go back to Toronto.

Insert: London accents; so hot. British boys; not so much. Orlando Bloom and David Beckham were just flukes, I think.

After a boring w-end by myself in Lancaster (with no phone or internet in the res rooms), I finally met some other international students on Monday during orientation. And yes, we went out that night as well to this pub called Keystone's.

L-R: Lena, Jana and Anne (all from Germany), myself, Camille (Aussie) and Nora (from Norway). The 3 German girls all live off-campus, and the rest of us are on the same floor in res. Anne's page has more pictures, although it's in German, so good luck with reading it. Haha.

I really don't know if I'll be updating this often, but it's the easiest for people to see pictures, so I might just have to. We'll be out again tonight after our "ghost-tour" of Lancaster Castle, so I'll try to post more pictures later on this week.