Mocking the French

I feel that I am officially in Britain now that we have thoroughly mocked the French in lecture hall. They were referred to as “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” and then we demonstrated search engine optimization by typing ‘French military victories’ into Google and hitting the I’m Feeling Lucky button which takes you to the most viewed site with those keywords. Haha.

In the Fish and Chips Shop

A bunch of us went out for fish and chips today! It’s actually pretty good. The fish is cod and they deep fry it so it’s all crispy. Then they pour salt and vinegar all over everything. There's no silverware; they give you half a Popsicle stick with a pointy end to poke at it with.

And here’s Lisa, who hates fish, enjoying fish and chips.

At the Pub

We had an international students social thing today so I got to meet some more people. We went out to a nice pub called Wetherspoons afterwards. The place was huge and had two stories and tons of tables. I got a burger and beer. The beer was something called Strongbow and usually I don’t like beer, but it was good. It tasted more like champagne. Beer comes in pints here and they have mastered the art of completely filling glasses without spilling the foam.

Legal drinking age is 18 and everyone drinks, like every day and all weekend. There are two bars in the union and tons in the town. I think our flats are actually in the bar district. (Don't freak out Dad!)

On the way home we met some guys dressed in drag for no particular reason. People like to dress up randomly here. :)

This red dragon is like the symbol of Wales and it's everywhere! I think it's awesome.

In Class

First modules (classes) today. I just had Web Development. There is a huge discrepancy between the number of girls and guys. It’s about 150 people and maybe 15 of us were girls. The professor has informed us that he locks the doors as soon as class starts so you can’t be late. Luckily, I always get to campus early because I have no idea where I’m going and I need about 10 extra minutes to find my lecture hall. Buildings here have a very odd structure. Certain staircases only go between certain floors so you have to find the right one.

We have lecture a few times a week and then smaller seminars for longer periods every two weeks or so. Practically your whole mark (grade) depends on how you do on the finals. They count for about 70%. And then 30% for a paper. Everyone says a 70%in the whole module is a 1st (A) and is pretty much impossible to get. I do not see this ending well.

We had a little snow here and everyone says it’s really usual. There wasn’t even any sticking to the ground and one of my classes was canceled due to weather! Dad sent me this lovely picture from home so I can properly appreciate what bad weather is.

I'm in my new, permanent room in Glyndwr. I’ve got 4 roommates. Lisa is from BG too, Liza is from Canada, Marena is from Finland, and Lucy is from the Czech Republic. We share 2 bathrooms and a kitchen and we all have our own rooms. I’ve ripped apart my old Heroes calendar and put all the pictures up together so it looks like a really long poster going across my whole wall. And, of course, there's my Pirates of the Caribbean blanket.

Bought a cheap phone with 2p international minutes.

Finally got my laptop to work. Tech support had to put me on the network and do something to my proxy settings.

At the Castle

Visited town with Alyssa today. We went up to the old destroyed castle. There’s really not much left, but it was cool.

Also visited the big church.

And Old College, which is the older bit of the university where the art program is. I sort of wish I had classes there because it’s at the bottom of the hill with the town and is much prettier than my part of campus.

We went up about 5 flights of these spiral stairs,

and then there was a sign that said:

I don’t even want to know what art students are using that for.