Back at Last

I can finally write this blog! Though I must admit it will take several blogs to cover the whole thing. So lets just see how far I get tonight. The mid term trip makes up for any breaks we may have gotten. Basically they take all the students to Edinburgh and Liverpool, then leave a few days for people to travel to other places if they so wish. Its like an extended feild study. It is because of this extended feild study that we get to come home early for Christmas break (in comparison with other universities). I shall now start at the beginning.

So last Sunday (October 19) our day began somewhere around 4 am. A lot of people stayed up all night istead of getting a full nights sleep in order to be able to sleep on the bus. I got a good 3 hour sleep before leaving for breakfast with my one backpack (supposed to last me 7 days), filled to the brim with clothes and camera. I also (i should mention for future reference) brought my Fendi purse, you know the cute gold one. It fit everything else I needed in it. Everyone loaded their huge bags into the coach storage areas and I felt so proud because I only had to worry about a backpack and therefore didnt need to worry about leaving it in the coach. I could keep it safely with me. The coaches themseves were far fancier than the usual ones and much plusher. I nabbed a seat near the front and next to the window. Come 5am when we were to leave I noticed I had no one beside me, though I thought we were supposed to be filled to the brim with students. Let me tell you I took advantage! Unfortunately it wasnt until an hour into the drive that I realised I could take advantage of the two seats by sprawling myself horizontally along them. I had the best coach ride I will ever experience simply because I got to SLEEP horizontally for the next 5 hours.

There was a stop in there half way in between where we had to get off and stretch our legs and buy food and go pee and such. Strangely enough we were at one of those truck stops, you know the kind they have when your vanning it around Ontario, with the random fast food places and a conveiniencey store. In this case at every one we stopped at there was a WH Smith. Let me say this is where my new guilty pleasure officially begins its hold on me. I have to admit my new adiction. Fashion magazines. My favourite is Vanity Fair and you may remember me mentioning it before as my prize/reward for when I walked all the way to the village one day and couldnt get out cash at the atm so I bought myself a treat with my visa. So now officially I am in love with them. I have no idea why, but I cant get enough of them. I got a Marie Claire, Vogue and another one the is primarily British. But Vanity Fair is still my obsession. Love. They always have the best articles! And pictures obviously (Annie Lebovitz).

So back to the voyage. The two of the four coaches had history students that were destined for the coal mines. The other two were going to some town or something. As I am in the history class I was off to the mines. They had a museum and pit ponies we could pet and other historical things we could explore. But the main atraction was the underground mine we could get a tour of. I got to go with Elizabeth L (a different one than I usually talk about) and Sarah M (the one I had an interesting convo with in Canterbury). So what happens is in groups of 12 to 15 we entered this random building where we were to put on hard helmets and given lights with battery packs to hang around ourselves. We were to leave any parafernalia behind and especially anything with a battery or flash (watches included) as it could potentially set off the coal...unlikely, but apparently still a possibility. Then they lead us around to one of those shafts, the kind you see in movies where they take you deep underground, but you can still touch the raw earth as you go down. They squeezed all of us in one and just let me say...small spaces dont bother me...crowds do. I was squished to the back corner which was best for me I think. Then we started to descend. There were no lights other than the ones we heald in our hands and no possible means of escape until the end of the tour in 1.5 hours. I was fine until the guide said "so we are now descending about 450feet underground at abour 5 feet per second". fuck. I can not appologize for the swearing because in this instance it was completely apropriate. Holy shit. fuck my life what the hell am I doing? I dont get scared by this type of thing usually, but OMG! I definately started feeling faint so I turned my head to Elizabeth and was like "Elizabeth, tell me a story". I said it very calmly, but I think she could see the look in my eye, plus I had mentioned before how I was nervous. She was my saviour let me tell you! She was on it like a vamp bat on a cow. She started going on about this kid at a camp she had worked at who had whipped everyones but at that game herbivors and carnivors. It totally gave me time to adjust myself and relax, put the fact we were 450 feet from fresh air at the back of my mind. Once we got to the bottom I was fine, it didnt really feel like I was that far underground. The actual tour was interesting. The guide basiacally took us through the evolution of coal mining. From the 1700s through to how it works today. I suggest if you like history at all to look this topic up. It is very interesting and very tragic. To give us some perspective he got us to all turn off our lights at one point to show what they would have been working in. It was pure blackness. I doubt many people can say they have experience pure darkness before, absolute complete absense of light. Quite suffocating. The tour lasted an hour and a half and once we got on the shaft to go back up Elizabeth came up with another story to tell me just in case I freaked again. I think it was the elevators that freaked me the most. It was a worth while experience, but I think I was intended for heights, so from now on I am sticking to the sky and high risers and cliffs and such. They seem to suit me better.

We left around 3 and got to the hotel (yes I said hotel!!!) around 9pm. I didnt know my room mates as I hadnt signed up with anyone, so they put me in a random room with two girls I had only breifly met before. I got there before them, but when they came in they seemed very pleasurable. They mentioned though that they may ask to have another girl stay with us who was supposed to be in their room but the lists got mixed up or something. I looked at whos room she was in and it turns out it was Emma and Elizabeth L`s. I am not sure if you remember me mentioning Emma, but lets just say I know her. Any who I suggested we switch since that way tehy could have more room and have their friend with them. They were really nice and said if I didnt like my room mates I could always crash with them. It worked out really well because I got to be with Elizabeth my saviour and Emma, my overshare buddy (i`ll explain later). The night ended with Liz going out and Emma and me just chatting until we fell asleep.

So finally on day 2! I warnd you this would be a long one! So In the morning Liz (I am calling her that so as not to confuse her with the other one and to keep it simple and short) and I grabbed breakfast and headed with our assigned group to the National Gallery of Scottland. We saw Titian again and other famous works of art. I got to see some Degas and Renoir as well as origional paintings of Madam du Pompadour! I did a project on her in world history in grade 12. After finishing that up Liz, a couple other girls and I headed to Edinburgh Castle for our history tour. I met up with Katie (a friend of Kari`s and now my friend too - thought I would explain as I do not think I have mentioned her yet) and we chatted while we waited to get tickets. When we went in we walked right away to the top to see the view of Edinburgh. You can find my pictures on Facebook and hopefully by this weekend you will see my more artsy pictures on my new flickr account. The wind was fabulous and strong creating great opportunities for artsy shots. Liz, Sarah M, Nora (modern dancer if you can remember from the beginning of the blogs) and I walked around the castle and saw dungeons, war memorials and crown jewels. This is also where my search for my tartan began. You`d think it would be easy, but it was the most intense and least satisfying mission of my trip thus far. The gift shop did not have anything with the Erskin tartan or emblem! boo. So Liz, me and ...sorry brain fart on the girls name, lets call her whatsherface, walked down the royal mile (main street) and looked in almost all of the souvineer shops, and let me tell you there were a lot! No Erskin Tartan to be found anywhere. We eventually stopped in a small cafe, but I was saving myself for dinner...

You see Katy had invited me to go with her and a group of people to the Tear Drop? I think that was its name. Anyway basically a group of 12 or 13 of us walked from the hotel down in the rain to this tavern pub thing. The reason...for good old fashioned hagas. Please do not maul me, but I did not have the hagas, but I did try something new, a steak pie or something. It was basically mashed up steak placed under a pastery, with loads of vegies that I actually liked. Kari, Me, and a few others talked about dance for a bit as well as some other intersting things. I also ordered a strongbow with Kari, which is amazing! I dont know what I am going to do when I get back and I cant order a cyder or wine with dinner, its become a thing. I cant do beer, but I really have acquired a taste for cyder, its sweeter and yet not fruity sweet, its not as yeasty as beer either, making you not feel so bloated. Anywho, lets just say I was feeling pretty good after that, which is when Kari, Katy, me and Kurtis decided to do our own private pub crawl around Edinburgh. We ran into Cameron who is in our program but was meeting a friend who was going to school there. We agreed to meet him later at the pub he was headed to and meet his friend. After that I do not remember where we went, I think we wondered around for a bit then headed to said pub. We meet Cameron and his two friends, this is where Libby had her first drink of the night. A double whiskey with ice. Oh yes, I was feeling the love that night. We had some intersting conversations, I waved my arms a lot. After an hour I ordered another double whiskey, took a wee and proceeded outside with the others to head to our next pub. I must say I really do enjoy walking around when I am drunk. If I sit around to much I tend to feel sober again, not because I am, just because I can settle my brain enough to be able to feel sober and think clearly. This is why at parties I tend to move around a lot as I then drink less because I feel the drunk more and generally have a good time dancing and prancing around. So lets just say the walks between the pubs were my favourite parts. On the way to the next club the Whiskey bird found its fame. Let me explain what it was I came up with and explained to Kari, Katie, Cameron and Kurtis. "A whiskey bird is a bird made of whiskey. Since bird`s feathers are hollow you fill the birds wings and feathers with whiskey. When you you drink the whiskey from the bird the bird can fly higher and so can you!" Yes this is how my mind works. Basically the rest of the night we (more specifically I) would mention or repeat the words "Whiskey bird", it just seemed to sound good at the time.

After that we came accross a pub that was playing live music. We just kinda chatted most of the hour we were there. I dint have adrink as I knew I had already had 2 double whiskeys/I didnt want to spend too much money on booze (god I am getting frugal). When we went to the washroom I noticed that the door had loads of signatures and such on it and decided I should make my mark too. I asked Kari for a pen (I got a pencil, but hey you take what you can get) and decided to write that Libby, Kari and Katie were here, proceeded by Canadians are awsome, then remembering that Katie is from New York I wrote, and new yorkers, only spelling it (as they later told me) newyourkers. As we left we decided to examine the machine selling "supplies" just outside the washroom. Not only did it have eatable thongs, it had vibrators and marijuana flavoured condoms. As we were examining the display a man (quite the attractive man) came out of the bathroom and said "aw, naughty girls, what are you looking at?" He asked if we were fascinated by something dull in the machine at which I replied that I was more fascinated by the marijuana condoms. He laughed and Kari, Katie and I decided to head to the next bar.

On the way I stopped at the cash machine, in need of more cash. This is my major booboo, that I still to this day feel guilty about. We walked past this homeless guy near the machines asking for money. I didnt really think about it at first as I had no cash on me. As I walked away from the machine however what was it I said? I said "Yay, I have money!" right as we pass by the homeless man. I realised what I had said right away and yet I couldnt give him anything as all I had were 5s and 10s (do not say I could have given hime that, as I now have the life of a sad frugal student). I still felt miserabley guilty though, it is one of the most distasteful and tactless acts I have ever done and I really do hope someday I can make up for it.

The last place we went was this Jazz bar where they played live jazz music (which was amazing!). We ran into a bunch of ISC kids and just hung out watching the musicians. It was amazing. I had another double whiskey and thought about how much Angie would love this (she is really into music). I really enjoyed just sitting there occassionally chatting and taking in the classy music surrounding us. When we started to drift and our heads began to bob we knew it was time to head in. The only other curiosities of Libby that I can recall after a week is me being fascinated with Kari`s backpack. It looked like a giant button, so I kept pressing it and saying "BUTTON". I also tried saying it like David Tennent does int the first Christmas special of Doctor who, with the popping B sound he makes when he pronounces button. It didnt work, but let me tell you it was fun. Also we came accross THE FUDGE SHOP OF DOOM!!! (this will be explained later) and I very curiously said "fudge seems like it should be a longer word than it is, eh?" I can honest to god say it really did feel like it should be longer at the time. The word FUDGE just felt wrong.

We got to the hotel and headed for bed, but not before Kari and Katie were convinced that I was trying to get into the wrong room (with good reason I was kinda snockered). I got to my room and my key card didnt work, so they thought I couldnt remember my room number especially since I had switched rooms. I knew it was my room and decided to knock on the door accross from me to prove it was the right door and that I knew the people accross from me. I sort of forgot to tell Kari and Katie this so they thought I was knocking at a random door and nervously waited for the inhabitants to answer. It was just Jacinta (As I knew it was! hee, silly me), so we were safe. I went and got my key card fixed and enjoyed the rest of my night in my comfy bed, but not before having another interesting conversation with Emma. I should also mention there was a double bed, a couch and a pull out box with a matress that comes out from under the couch. I asked for the floor box bed as I knew that was where I would be most comfy should I feel sick. I didnt feel sick thank god, but it was a comfort non the less.

So I shall leave it here since it is only day two and this is intensely long enough as it is. Please tune in again soon for day 3 and 4. Remember there are 7 days of fun and games, plus other tidbits from the past couple days, s you should be fully supplied with Libby goodness for the rest of the week. Good night all!!!

Mid Term Week

So I thought I would catch up on some pics of the stuff I have been doing. Sorry I havent gotten around to taken pictures of dorms and other people and inside the castle and stuff. I will do my best to do that soon. But for now here you go.


These are two of the planes hanging in the hall of the Imperial War museum. Dad I hope you can confirm what they are, I am hoping the far one is the sopwith, it was either this one or the one next to it that is not in the photo.


This is me and the sopwith (hopefully).

Pretty boat! So I dont have a picture with me and the boat (sorry, ship, but get over it). This one is the Victory, the 18th century ship.

This is me and Canterbury Cathedral, which you will hear more about further down in this blog.
Me and more Canterbury.
These are my pretty wellies that I got on sale (remember?), since you havent seen them yet.

So last Saturday I went to Canterbury, well everyone at the castle pretty much went (escept the sickies). I was in the first group to be brought around the Cathedral by our art history prof. She was peeved because she has to wear this weird cloth thing around her neck and pay money to give the tours as only people that work there are supposed to. You will notice there are no pictures of inside the Cathedral because you had to pay somewhere between £5 to £10 to take photos inside and I figured I wouldbuy a book instead that had the same pictures I would have taken and info besides. I was a very mellowing experience again, I seem to keep having those. It was very old and very beautiful, it actually made me want to attend a mass there, just because I think it would be gorgeous. I can really explin it better than that I am afraid, it is rather difficult to describe.

After the tour I went and grabbed lunch and then went on my expedition to find organizational stuff for my room. I found this adorable store that had everything I wanted but I decided to look at some other places to see if I could find things more ... inexpensive. Instead I found many cute shoe and clothing stores that made me feel like Jesus when he went into the desert for 40 days. Temptation sucks! Canterbury by the way I think is one of my favourite places we have gone. I just love the cobble stoned streets and the outdoor shops and even the type of shops and the atmosphere. It even smelled amazing! It smelled old and unique. I eventualy made my way to my afternoon feild study, the Canterbury Tales. You basically walked through this building and got these audio guides who would tell you the stories of the Canterbury tales, but in a way you could understand more easily. We walked through in groups of 12 and there would be wax figures and plasic set ups telling the stories. It was kind of simple, but still for some reason incredibally fun! The best part is at the end there wasnt really any good souvineers (again!) so I just got a bookmark and another poster for my room. Guess what it is!? It was a big pink poster with a black playboy bunny symbol in the middle with playmate scribbled accross the middle. Why this was being sold a Canterbury Tales tour I do not know, but it is perfect for our room!

Anywho I then got some very interesting luck. I went into an HMV just to look around anf found a British show I have always wanted to see. The problem was I kept telling myself it wasnt that expensive but some little voice inside my head kept telling "no Libby, just wait." So very recluctantly I put it down and continued on my way. Eventually I ran into this DVD Music store and decided to look inside. Of course I find the same show for two thirds of the price! I cannot deny a sign like that! I mean how sweet! So after that business I still had to get my room supplies. I love getting supplies, it makes me feel so organized! I love feeling organized! Even better I ran into Sara at the store with a friend of hers who is going to school in Kent. So I walked around with them for a while until we had to make our way to the busses. Sara and I got tlking about some interesting stuff. She told me about this volunteer abroad thing that sounds very interesting and that I would definately like to try either before or right after I graduate. Heres the link in case anyone is intersted. http://www.projects-abroad.org/

To be honest the rest of my week was uneventful. I mostly did my art history essay and studied for other various classes. Today was intersting though. As I was walking back from lunch with a bunch of people we saw a whole bunch of other people attempting to climb this excelent climbing tree, so we stopped to join in their efforts. At first I decided not to since I only had flipflops on. Instead I hung out with the people on the bottom. Eventually everyone on the ground began playing with the intense amount of leaves that had fallen. We began piling them up and then they would jump on them. After the origional people left the rest of us of course had a leaf fight. It was disgusting with all the wet leaves, but terribly fun! We were all covered in leaves by the end. After that we decided, what the hey, we may as well give it a try (climbing the tree). The thing is to get up you had to wrap your arms around the nearest branch that was about 5.5 feet up and pull your legs up so they wrapped around the bottom too. Then you had to somehow swing your body around so that you were hugging the tree from on top. I dont know how I did it, but I actually ended up doing it with the most minimal of help. I guess I am stronger than I thought! So of course I kept going until I got as high as I would allow myself. If I had gone any further I am not sure if I would have been able to get down! So basically for the next hour we would climb around the tree chatting and joking switching places and just plain be silly. Pretty much everyone ended up in the tree at least once. I will have to somehow get the pictures from the guy who had the camera (Eric). I relaxed in the tallest part for a while, basically straddling the branch I was on and leaning my upper body out of the place it split off into two. Getting down was the hard part, I ended up scraping the whole side of my leg against the branch and leaving a pretty nice cut, but to be honest I could not care less, it was the best experience I had all week.

I never did tell you about Thanksgiving. On monday the kitchen staff made a Thanksgiving meal. They did a pretty good job, but it wasnt really the same. It kinda made me realise that the actuall food we have on Thanksgiving isnt my favourite, its not stuff that I miss all year, if you understand what I am talking about. So to be honest the meal didnt really appeal to me that much. Plus when I ate I had come right from a class and then I had 40 minutes to get my food and eat before my 3 hour film class. It didnt really feel like thanksgiving, but I dont mind. Its finally turning to fall here (slowly but surely) so as long as I get my favourite season I am good! Its soo funny because the leaves are slowly falling, but the grass is still this intense green. The tree experience today felt like fall because in the spot we were at you couldnt see the grass it was covered by so many leaves. I thin winter will be more like Canadian fall, or at least thats what it sounds like from what I have heard.

I might not have the next blog until Saturday of next week as I leave for Edinburgh and Liverpool and Cardiff on Sunday. Have a great week everyone!

Long time no See

Wow, it is week 5 here, actually now that I am writing this it is almost week 6. I like keeping track because it helps me remember what is due when. I will start with telling about Saturday. Saturday i did school work all day, and watched stuff on youtube to, you know, relax my poor aching brain. Hee. All this thinking all the time you know. Anyway later that night Kari, Jacinta and I decided (actually had planned) to go to Eastbourne (the nearest town) and go to the club there. We went a little early to have REAL FISH N CHIPS!!! We got a taxi and rode for half an hour to this nice place accross the street from the shore that I had seen before. It even was a "famous" fish n chips. So the three of us chatted and just plain went to heaven over these fish n chips. Let me tell you they were gooood. Well the reason not many other people went out from the ISC is because not only was it raining, it was windy, very windy. The club was on the pier, at the end of the very long pier. The pier is a giant...well pier jutting out on what looks like century old logs, very big and very sturdy (not that it looks like it). So basically its over the water too and we had had wine during dinner so we felt good and it turns out we were the first ones in the club as we had gotten there at 10pm. We chatted and drank for an hour and a half before enough people were there for us to dance. We are pretty laid back, but not enough to dance alone in the middle of this huge (and beautiful my I mention) club. So we danced for an hour before we had to leave (our taxi had come). Not much happened at the club, we danced we chatted, it was a good time, just not much note worthy. There were girls dressed very interestingly. The very short dresses and high high heels seemed normal, but the ones wearinf tootoos and sluty school girl outfits were our favourites.

When we got back Kari and I tried going down to C0 common room, the party one, since we were still in fluffy land. Not too many people were still there, it seems a lot had gone to bed early and everyone else was way more drunk than us, so we decided to hang out in my room and chat for a while. Oh ya my roomie was gone last weekend, back to Toronto for a Wedding. So I had the room to myself for 3 nights. Not that I did much with it in that time. I stayed up on Sunday night and read for a long time, and on Saturday as I just told you Kari and I chatted for a while, but thats pretty much it.

On Sunday I went to Portsmouth Naval Bay (please correct me if my spelling is horribly wrong). It was raining intensly, but thats really only appropriate for going to see 18th and 19th century ships. It was really cool. I was in a really mellow Libby mood, so I spent most of it wondering around by myself. Not completely, We got group tours of Nelson`s Victory. Very cool and very old. It was so intersting to explore, lots of dark corners and stuff. Then we saw the warrior, a bit of a later ship in history (late 19th century?). Again very cool. I couldnt find any really good souviners that I felt were worth my momey, which made me sad. I am such a student! I am so frugal now! Boo on the frugal. Anyway I walked around the rest of the afternoon, exploring the town, I found myself in a bookshop for agood hour (though I didnt buy anything). I attempted to buy myself lunch (fish n chips) and was massively disappointed. I wasnt allowed to sit in the place and eat it because I had paid the take out price and if I wanted to sit down I had to pay more, which was ridiculous because this was not some nice fancy restaraunt, it was a cheaper lousy whatever shop, and then the fish were not very good and the chips insanely greasy. I was not pleases, especially since I could have bought a souvinere with the money i paid for the food with. Whatever, when we were all waiting for the coach to come, Elizabeth came up with all this bread she had gotten for free at a bakery or market or something because it wasnt fresh. So we all snacked on that on the way home.

So this week has been assignments galore. I did a history propasal and started working on mid term stuff due next week. I had a good time watching the presidential debates with Kari and Jacinta last night (only one actually cause we started talking and discussing afterward). Very funny, I couldnt understand what McCain was saying and Kari would have to interpret for me, I find I just kind of zoned out when he was talking and not on purpose! Obama kicked his sorry little behind, let me tell you! Though I am sure you`ve watched more of it than me. We are so secluded out here, I have no idea how the Canadian elections are going either, or what exact day the election is. I voted! ( I may have already mentioned that as it was a few weeks ago). Still are YOU going to vote? This includes everyone that reads this blog! Seriously, if an 18 year old who has never voted before can do it from accross the world so can you. Just make sure you do the research and KNOW who you are voting for and what they stand for and what they will do for Canada. So now I have done my duty as a young voter, I can feel my feathers getting all puffed up.

So on Monday we had our film class and we had to watch the film 49th Parallel for the class. It was a really good movie, WW2 propaganda set in Canada (1941). Laurence Olivier playing a French Canadian, funniest thing and so cool. Also Leslie Howard playing this laid back aristocrat up in the rockies, all contimplative and just plane hilarious. Basically its about 6 Nazi who try to "invade" Canada or at least do something to us. But in the class we talked about Canadian identity and stuff. Everyone was like, "we dont have an identity" which made me really angry because we do it jsut has more to do with our governement than with religion and culture. At least we all agreed that we hate to be mistaken for or assumed to be American. At least they seem proud to be Canadian, but it did make me angery to see they didnt think we had an identity. Oh well. What else? I actually studied for German for 2 hours hard core! And then the test turned out to be really easy, even if I hadnt studied. But it was good pracitise I guess. Lets see yesterday, CUBA!!! Sorry, Karicia is practising for a presentation about cuba and she is right next to me so now I have Cuba on the brain. Oh, everyone watch Un Chien Andalou on Youtube or rent it. It is a 1929 European silent film, but it is less than 20 minutes long. It is basically a look inside Salvadore Dali`s mind ... and its one of the two films i have to do a lecture on with a couple other people for film. Very weird.

One last thing, do notice how people walk way too fast? Probably not because you all probably do to. But I swear I will be walking to breakfast or just down to the castle, not even when it is close to class and people will just whip past me. Sometimes they just naturally walk insanely fast and sometimes I guess they feel they are going to be late for something when they totally arnt, or thy are really impatient. Shouldnt you appreciate life? Shouldnt you observe whats going on around you? Why pass through life at a canter, traught, just FREAKIN TRAUGHT! Can you tell this is annoying me. I mean I will give myself between 10 to 15 mintues to get down to class from Bader and people will sweep past me like they are going to be sooo late and I usually get there a couple minutes before class. I just dont understand why people are in such a hurry, or why I happen to walk so slow in comparison to everyone else. When we were on one of the feild studies in particular (Jack the Ripper to be exact) the group thought we were going to be late so they spead walked and when I mean they spead walked I mean I had to jog to keep up! No lie (I almost spelled it lye, hee), their spead walk is my jog, I just cant walk fast, there is something about my personality and physicalness that just doesnt. Its not even that I`m lazy, I just like to walk at a regular pace. And when there are people behind me who want to walk faster i always step aside for them, if theres anything I hate more its the people who walk insanely slow, slower than me, and just stand in the way with no observance of whats around them at all. That is worse than the speed walkers. I am not saying I am perfect, but at least I try to be considerate of everyone around me. AHHHH, So I have been wanting to get that off my chest for sooo long. It feels like a huge weight has just lifted from my shoulders! It feels sooo good to rant! Thanks for being so patient everyone!

Now that thats off my chest I can be free! Free like the birds, free like wild antalope and imported Canadian Geese! So good night everyone, the times on these if you havent noticed are really off, they dont just tell Ontario times they tell like Vancouver times or something, so add a whole bunch of hours and you have what time it is here. It is actualy 11pm here or 23:00 as they say here. Have a good afternoon everyone!

October Already?

Just realised now that it is October. We dont count by days here, we count by weeks. I hardly notice what day it is, only that it is week 4 or as next week is 5. So I will tell you about my tea last Sunday shall I? It was Angie, Alison, Kevin and me going. We got an e-mail saying that we were examples of the castle and depending on how we behaved judged whether students would be invited back in the future. Well that made us feel comfy so we gave ourselves what we thought was some extra time to walk to her cottage. The instructions were; "it is the Milton house. It is between Milton farm and Mitlon cottage. It will be behind a wall with a fence." We thought we were going to be late but ended up being 10 minutes early. You could tell we had put our game faces on when we went through the gate as we all become automatically extremely cautious about everything we did. We went to the front door, deciding what we should say, wondering if it was the right house and unsure of whether we were supposed to go to the back door. Doreen (the elderly lady we were to be visiting) leaned her head out an upper floor window and told us to just come in the back door and she would be right with us once we were done putting on a different skirt. She had two dogs, one that was obviouly nervous about the safty of its owner, the other just curious about what was going on. One was a small poodlish looking thing, the other one of those small dog, maybe a scottish terrier or West Highland White Terrier or something to that effect. Can you tell I just wikipedia`d Terriers? Well thats something of what it looked like. Anyway Doreen came down and the dogs seemed gentle enough after that. The poodlish one apparently had been ill treated until it came to live with her, so thats why it was jumpy, but loved people as long as Doreen approved of them. It was nice to be with animals again.

Anyway Doreen took us out in her garden and showed us around. We all told stories when she asked questions and she told us stories about her house and the area. She had a fruit/vegetable garden. She grew these beautiful grapes and autumn raspberries. They grow right through autumn and she let us pick the ripest ones to have while we walked. It was nice to have berries again and these were gold and sweet. We dont get a lot of berries at the castle. Anyway after some chats we went inside and she made us tea and cake! Her oven is the most glorious thing I have ever seen! Parents you would go crazy. It has not only the oven parts, but those bread baking lookingthings. It heavy duty, giant and red and beautiful! The cottage itself is a fairly good size, not smalle, but has the wooden beams and uneven floors. Its like a renovated pioneerish looking house you go to on tours. When we went into to sitting room to have tea I saw a good size book case with loads of old books. I asked her about them and you know what she said? She said most of them were her fathers! She is at least in her 80s, that means these books were old! I was dying to get my hands on them but I didnt think she would let me even if I asked. Maybe if I see her again since we all chatted for another 3 hours. She had Rudyard Kipling (huge collection), Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen, Shakespeare and other authors that I havent heard of. She had a lot of books on Winston Churchill. Now this got us thinking later. We were told that one of the "friends of Herstmoncauex" once worked under Churchill and it was up to us to figure out who. She mentioned that she had worked as a seceratary, but we were kicking ourselves later for not trying to nudge it out of her. One other thing is she had 2 kitties that were obviously outdoor cats, but the terrier chased them away when we came as he isnt used to kitties because he was only being babysat by Doreen. I missed petting kitties!

Three hours later we made our way back to dinner extremely happy with our afternoon of real fruit and pets and company. The rest of the week was mostly school for me. On Wednesday night I watched Remember the Titans with a bunch of people in one of the dorm rooms. It was a surprisingly good movie. Thursday I had my adventures with laundry again. I had only two loads this time as I resolved to just shove everything I could into the machine. I also resolved to use the dryer this time which I think in the end my clothes liked better than being hung or waiting to be hung. They were all warm when I took them out and I sat in my room, turned on my portable DVD player and folded and watched a movie I had rented. It was fabulous. I rented two Vietman war movies by the way. While I folded I watched We were soldiers with Mel Gibson. Very good and very sad. I remembered one of the scenes being showed to us in Grade 11 American History so it was nice to get the back story. I started watching Apocalypse Now before going to bed, but I only got half an hour into it as I got distracted by Kari. We sat in her room for a couple hours chatting about dance. We hadnt had a proper convo with anyone about dance for a while and as she is from Ajax, we know of similar places. Though she was far more into hard core competitive dance. She danced with Blake from season 1 of SYTYCD and that whole inner circle. She is a very mellow competitive dancer I found though, she says she goes out there to have fun and to dance, she seems to love it soo much. It was a nice, I also showed her the video I beleive Leah sent me on youtube (was it you Leah?) about the crazy Chinese version of Swan Lake? I suggest looking it up for anyone who hasnt seen it. Kari had never seen it and went crazy, she has her teaching certificates for dance and has done most of her ballet exams, so she was going ape over the craziness of it. We also looked at SYTYCD videos and stuff.

After that I went to bed and then today i went to London again. I woke up early and Kari and I basically slept on the bus. We found our way to the Imperial War museum. I only have one or two pictures and i will put them up later when I have the equipment. We werent allowed to take too many photos either because of the certain exhibits. First I lookeda the World War one exhibit. I would like to go back and look at more of each exhibit when I have more time, as we only had the morning. But it was still cool. We went through a remake/makeshift treanch. I thought the statues of soldiers set up were going to move as there was sound effects, thank god they didnt because other wise I would have screamed and burst into tears. It was an intense museum. We also went through a bunch of the WW2 exhibit. There was a lot so you if you have questions about some of the stuff I saw you can message me, but I wont give all details here. Kari and I had some intense discussions about war and politics and other topics of similar sort. It was already very mellowing, but what got us even mroe mellowed was the holocaust exhibit. It was labeled for only ages 14 and up. It wasnt as intense as I thought it was going to be. Kari and I thought they were going to get us crying by the end of it, but we were good and struck up some interesting convos. It was still intense, some of the pictures and info and videos were things we had never heard or seen before. The only time we both got a catch in our throats was near the end when we came upon a picture that was blown up to fit the size of an entire wall. It was of mangeled bodies in a pile. Now we had seen other pictures similar to thins, but this was a little different in some way. I think it was mostly because we couldnt distinguish in the picture whose body was whose, they were all tangled together and only some of their faces were showing an parts. It was beyond grusome, it was overwhelming. So after that we had wanted to see the crimes against humanity exhibit, but that was left for another time, we were running out of time and we decided that we had had enough sobering for one day. Not to mentionedthe exhibit was marked as only ages 16 and up. So we headed down to the gift shop which was ramsacked with elementary aged school kids. We decided to go back another time to get stuff, as they had many interesting war things to consider buying.

We made it down to the National Gallary just on time as our tour started. It was all Renaissance (and some International Gothic) paintings that she was showing, so I felt a little more in my element. We saw works by such as Titian (who`s painting Venus of Urbino I am doing my big essay on), Raphael, Leonardo, Botticelli, etc. When we were given leave to look around I went straight for the art of 1600 to present. I love paintings. I saw real works by Claude (I love Claude), Monet, Degas, Manet, Van Goh, Sisley, Turner (who I hadnt heard much of before but I discovered I really enjyed his works) and other famous artists that I cant quite recollect the names of at the moment. It was another sobering experience for the day.

Not much happened on the way home. The movie they put on this time on the way back was the third Pirates movie. It made me miss Pirates. So basically so far I have seen Once, About a Boy, Pirates 3, Catch me if you can and possibly another that I cant quite remember. This week was also filled with a game called catch me if you can. I didnt play but found myself in the middle of it anyway. So everyone who signed up gets a name and they have to find that person and without anyone else hearing say to them "Gotcha" while touching them on the arm back or something. It has become intense, no one goes anywhere without a partner, especially someone who isnt playing (aka me). Eveyone is looking around corners racing to and from the washrooms. It got intense, let me just leave it at that.

One more ting before I let you go. I find that it is intellectually intimidating while at the same time stimulating being here. In class I find everyone is so cultured and knowledgable and passionate about everything. Every single topic you could think of and they know about it. The only reason I feal inteimidated is that they can think quicker than me, so in class obviously this can become a problem. But when it comes to discussion on feild studies or at meals or wlking places, pretty much anywhere. These I can do well and it is so fresh and thought provoking, its fabulous. Just this week I had an hour long convo at lunch with a group bunch of people about the up coming election, mostly the Canadian one, but a little of the American one. There were about 4 of us that stayed for an hour but other than that different people would come to eat lunch participate for a bit, then leave and another person would come. The best part was that the majority of the people, I didnt know very well, I had only met them a couple times. It was an invigorating convorsation, they all knew their...stuff. Then the other night Kari, Jacinta and I had an intense convo about religion and today kari adn I had an intense convorsation as previously mentioned on war and similar topics. I have had others, but these stand out in my mind. A lot of the people here want to get into Global Developmetn studies and I am thinking that is a direction I might like to follow too, but we`ll see what the year brings.

Thanks for listening! I know this one is a dusey. I should really learn to break these up eh? Please stay tuned for more tales in the future even if they do take a while for me to get out!
`Till next time!