So, I'll admit, I've been seriously slacking in the journal updation department but really it's only because I've been doing so many more fun things than sitting in the library by myself, honest! Also I had a revelation recently, it's called, Cassie has not had more than maybe 2 half-migraines since she's arrived in England, which I think is sort of amazing. I've decided it's because I'm sleeping more than enough (though, I could always use more) and I'm not stressed out since the classes aren't that hard (okay who am I kidding, they're nothing compared to classes in America) and I am also doing no activities here and relaxing and enjoying myself, man if I had known getting rid of migraines was this simple I would have come to England so much sooner. I've also talked to people who are older here and they told me that students that study abroad in America find it very hard to keep up because we have so much more work there, here I have 6 papers to write in 12 weeks, and maybe 11 books to read, plus psychology reading, and of course there's some secondary reading too like journals and critical essays but it's a very relaxed environment, no tests no quizzes no homework to turn in besides essays it's kind of a great place to be for a limited amount of time, but I think going back to Union will prove to be a challenge; I won't be used to difficult classes and I might have 2 lab courses and hopefully ::crosses fingers:: 3 science, but it's very unlikely. We already had to register and I signed up for organic chemistry (shoot me now...) neural circuits and behavior (which only runs every other year but my advisor is the teacher and being a neuroscience major I think i have a sort of good chance) and endocrinology, if I don't get into endocrinology I have animal physiology as my backup and....after that an english class, but only if I can't get into the science classes. Won't know til monday-ish which classes I got into and then I might need to plead with a professor or two and if that doesn't work, show up on the first day and sit through class in hopes of getting in. Good plan I think.
Well over the weekend I went to Scotland, Edinburgh to be exact, which is pronounced Edinborough for some odd reason, don't ask me why. We got there friday afternoon and checked into our hostel which was a lot bigger than the last one and very colorful, had its own bar and everything. Also seemed to have a much serious-er air there, we had these cards we needed to keep on us at all times to get back into the hostel. The room was big it was a 12 person room and there were only 4 of us so good opportunity to meet new people right? Right. So anyways we dump our stuff then we go on the lookout for some food because of course we're hungry. We end up at a pub that's sort of like underground and it's all old men and they stare at us because we're the only girls in the place and on top of that we're american, but the meals were 2 for 9.95 so it was a good deal, we all got new york chicken with was chicken with bacon (ham...) on top of it and cheese and chips (fries...) yum yum yum. then we went to the royal gallery which was this museum and was so cool! I checked out all the pottery which was really neat, they had a lot of old stuff, and porcelin pottery and just everything, also checked out the birds exhibit which was essentially a lot of dead stuffed birds, i didn't realize how big ostriches were before going to this museum they were so cool. also saw the butterflies, some of the colors were just amazing, and they had an egyptian exhibit and place to learn about dolly the sheep (the one they cloned) and!! a whole floor of scientific instruments, from telescopes, to barometers, to microscopes, they had the first anatomy textbook ever there and some preserved body parts, craziness. Well, the museum closed at 5 so...we couldn't stay past then, so after leaving the museum we....hmm what did we do. Went to a store to buy some wine, but ended up choosing vodka and lemonade instead (lemonade = sprite) then we headed back to the hostel and hung out there, used the internet it was pretty cheap and watched the simpsons and took a nap because we were tired but not a real nap just a restful one, then we got ready and when to grass market to a pub and then over to a club called espionage where we had so much fun just dancing and dancing, they played music from grease, and oldies, and new songs, it was just a great mix of music, and it was free to get in! after the club we went to mcdonalds and met this boy there and talked to him for awhile before heading back to the hostel to get some rest. in the morning we had the hostels free breakfast which was actually great because! they had nutella! which is a chocolate spread and so i had toast with that and peanut butter so it was like a reese's sandwich yum, and tea, so pretty much the best breakfast ever. we tried to do the walking tour of edinborough like we did in london but we just couldn't handle it, it was freezing and raining and we just weren't in the mood, so we hopped on a bus tour instead which worked out really well because the bus tickets were valid for 24 hours so we could use them on sunday as well until noontime. of course, stupid me, i did not bring my jacket because when we left it was sunny and nice out but, it started raining and the temperature dropped a bunch of degrees and of course we're sitting on the top of the bus and im shivering, what a great decision huh. anyways so after we did that we decided to tour the edinborough castle which was just amazing, the sites from the top were gorgeous and the castle was so big and there was so much to see like the POW area and the royal jewels or hmm maybe thats not what they're called the but crown and sword and all that. after the castle tour we decided we needed some food, obviously, but what did we eat?? OHHH, we went to this place called the filling station and it was amazing, i had a chili cheeseburger and it was just so delicious mmmmm. after that we went and bought some wine and headed back to the hostel, and this time, took a serious nap, aka, we all fell asleep and didn't wake up til 7:30 pm, it wasn't even an intentional nap on any of our parts we were just so tired. we went back to the same club that night but met some not so nice guys so we ditched it and went to get some pizza instead, much better choice, it was so yummy though it burned my mouth. on sunday we again had breakfast at the hostel, and checked out but left our luggage, and explored about the city some more, we went on the bus tour again just for a go at it in the sunshine (had my jacket!) and we really wanted to go to the children's museum which was a museum of childhood basically with a lot of toys and whatnot but...it was closed on sundays, so we did some shopping, i got some gifts for people and then we tried to find a cool tour to do we wanted to do the nessie's 3d experience (of the loch ness monster) but they were having technical difficulties but we found an underground vault tour which was really neat, and after that...we were true americans. true...fat...americans. we...oh this is great. we went to this pub for dinner, called the hogs head, they had a great deal; 2 meals for 6.95, bargain right? right. one of the meal choices was...caesar salad, so we figured, we'd each get a meal and a caeaar salad, but no such luck, they ran out of lettuce after the first salad, so, we moved on to another choice, so all 4 of us had 2 full meals, and we ate every last bite, to be fair the meals weren't huge, i had a cajun veggie burger which was amazing, and some chili with tortilla chips mmm it was the mashed potatoes that took me from satisfied to incredibly full. but whatever it was a great meal, and it was our dinner and lunch so having 2 meals isn't that ridiculous. then we treked back to the hostel, grabbed our stuff, and caught the 5:50 train back to york, great weekend, i think so. pictures later I'm too lazy to do them now, and they're not that impressive anyways, it was cloudy and rainy and stuff.
well, maybe more some other time, but my brains getting a bit tired of remembering all that i've done.
side note: megan comes tomorrow and I couldn't be more excited!! Also I've made some French friends, and one of their boyfriends is visiting so we're going to have dinner together (pasta and homeade garlic bread mmm!) with megan and another french boy too and then go see the movie on campus, should be fun!
well thats all for now, more later i promise :)
oh, PS: Dad...i saw a statue of the George who is the reason for georgie porgie, thought you'd find that cool, he was a fat man apparently and loved to eat pudding and at dances he would make it his duty to kiss all of the girls, so, there goes the rhyme. his picture is at the top of this entry i figured one picture would be nice

Lakes District Hiking Trip

London for the weekend :)

Over the weekend I went to London, which was so much fun, but not what I expected at all, at least in the sense of what I thought London was like. We left campus Friday around 7:45 in the morning and walked to the train station to find out that our train had been delayed so we’d be on the next train and uhh, it would be double booked since all the people from the train we were supposed to get onto had to get onto the one coming into the station around 10. But then once we were on it and it stopped at the first stop the conductor told us to get off and switch over to this other train, what a mess, but we made it to London just fine. King’s Cross to be exact. Yes, where platform 9 ¾ is. More about that later though. After purchasing tube tickets (which was a lot more complicated than it sounds….too many choices!) we got over to where our hostel was and put our stuff in the luggage room and attempted to find a place to get some lunch. The first restaurant we went into was filled with all these Asians just…standing there looking at us like we were stupid and not moving when we said excuse me and tried to get by, and then we noticed that the restaurant was empty so we got out of there since it didn’t seem like it was going to be a good place to eat. We ended up at an Italian restaurant where I got some yummy pizza, and learned that ordering water gives you a bottle of water, not a cup of tap water, and you have to ask for your check or else….they’re never going to give it to you. Around two we were allowed to check into the hostel and move our stuff into the room we were staying in so we did that…there were 5 of us in a 6 person room in the hostel and the other person was a girl from Germany named Camilla who was really nice….she was visiting her friend who had just spent a month in England for work or something of the sort. After getting our stuff a teensy bit settled we headed over to the Tate Modern Gallery which is a free art gallery in London and was a great thing to go see…especially because some of the artists featured there I had seen their work in slides at workstudy so it was neat to see the real thing (and also to be able to recognize some works of art!) There was some Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, Matisse, Man Ray, etc and a bunch of other artists as well. Some of the art was very eye-catching and I had a fun time walking around absorbing it all and reading about the difference pieces. Had a hot chocolate stop after we finished checking out the art and then headed back to the hostel to get ready for a night out in London. Friday night was fun, we met up with one of the girl’s friends who was studying abroad in London and spent most of the night in Leicester Square (pronounced, Lester square). After we got back to the hostel we hung out with some boys from France and Australia. Communicating with the French boy was a bit difficult considering only one of us spoke a bit of French, but it was fun nonetheless. Oh, forgot to mention, it was pouring alllll day Friday, good thing I had my umbrella! 
On Saturday we got up and had a free breakfast at the hostel (ick..) and then we took advantage of this walking tour we had a flier for - it was free and 3.5 hours long! We saw a lot of the historical sights in london such as the tower of london, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, London Bridge, Saint Paul's Cathedral, Trafalgar Square, etc etc. Everything was just beautiful and I took a lot of pictures of all the sights we saw. Our tour guides name was Sam and he was pretty captivating though we weren't listening all the time, we wanted to get some nice pictures. In the middle of the tour we got a half hour break for lunch/bathroom and it ended up being in a sort of shoppers market so I looked around there which was a lot of fun, there were so many things I wanted to buy! Like, this one man, he was making jewelry out of forks and it was just so neat to see the things he made. When we met up with the group again, Sam though we were germans because we were so quiet and he figured we didn't know any English. So, we promised him we'd make sure to be more obnoxious on the second half of the tour. We weren't really that obnoxious but by the end I think he was happy to have us gone haha because we were really trying to see if we could stir him up a bit. After the tour we went over to see Buckingham Palace and the Gardens there and it was all beautiful but by this point we were exhausted and our feet hurt and we needed some food so, thus began the lookout for affordable food around Buckingham Palace. We stumbled across the Duke of York which is a pub and restaurant (Maggie and I went there when we were in Manchester!) and decided to have dinner there. I think our waitress didn't like us very much, she swiched out halfway through our meal and didn't like that we wanted seperate checks and also wasn't very good about giving us more water and took away the ketchup halfway through the meal. Weird. I got a chicken and bacon pie with mashed potatoes and vegetables and it was really yummy mmm. I wish I could have more of it right now, I'm kind of hungry. After dinner we took the tube back to the hostel and rested for a bit before we got ready for another night out in London. This one didn't go quite as well. We started off at a pub and hoped to eventually end up at a club but we never did and everyone had minor catastrophes throughout the night; my toe got stepped on and was bleeding, another girl fell down some stairs that were slippery, etc. We ended up at burger king which was kind of hilarious because we got to watch some drunk guy fall up the stairs on his way up spilling his drink everywhere, and then fall down the stairs on his way down. I'm sure he was sore in the morning. Poor guy. We took a double decker bus back to near where our hostel was and then hung out with some of the guys staying in the hostel too (while some really, reaaaalllly loud music played).
In the morning we got up and went out for breakfast since the hostel breakfast wasn't as great as we wanted, and then we headed over to Kensington Palace and Kensington Gardens to check them out before we went shopping! The gardens were so nice, there were little kids playing soccer and people jogging and walking and it just seemed like a place everyone who lived near there went to exercise or hang out or something. Shopping was another experience, I don't think I've ever felt so overwhelmed in my entire life, there were just so many people pushing and prodding and so much stuff and a lot of it was expensive and I just didn't really feel comfortable there it felt like christmas in the US, you know how the malls get around that time, it was like that but just on some random sunday afternoon. I don't think someone could pay me to shop there around christmastime, no thank you. But, I did find a few things to buy, nothing important really, some pajamas and stuff. We went out to dinner after shopping, to a Lebenese place, except after going there we decided that restaurant was really meant for people who could read the menu, not americans looking for some dinner. The food was delicious but the waitress didn;t understand why we wanted to buy appetizers for our meals and blah blah blah, in the end we got 2 appetizers to share and each of us got our own for a sort of meal thing and it was really yummy, we had a lot of hommous which i love, and I got these meatball things, and only katrina would understand if I said the name so I'll just tell her later. I felt kind of bad though for eating lamb, I told myself I'd never do that since they're so cute but oh well, had to happen sometime I guess. After dinner we made our way back to the hostel and grabbed our stuff and took off for King's Cross where, of course, we had another adventure.
As many of you might not know, King's Cross is where they filmed Harry Potter (the train station scenes at least) and so Maggie and I wanted to find platform 9 3/4 to take our picture in front of. (This weekend we also saw where they filmed gringotts bank, and the hogwarts clock, in case anyones interested...i got pictures!) So, we find platform 9 3/4 and it's actually labeled as such and so we're being tourists and taking our pictures and whatever and so this lady comes up and asks if we want her to take our picture so of course we say sure, why not! But, as we learned, bad idea...So she of course wants to know where we're from and everything and then starts lecturing us about the war, and phone tapping, and big brother (made sure that we knew it was from a book, not just the TV show, though both of us knew she was talking about the book, duh) anyways, luckily some lady came up and asked oh is this your purse? (talking about mine) and so then I had to grab my purse (that I had left on the ground since this lady was so shocking and distracting and stuff) and then me and maggie got out of there but wow what an experience. The train ride home was fine, 2 hours was kind of boring and I got a bit antsy, and we took a taxi back to our dorms because it was 11 at night and stuff and well, that was my weekend in london in a nutshell! I'm kind of hungry now for dinner so I think I'll post pictures in this entry later but theres a few entries to keep my avid readers busy :) enjoy!

Throughout the week I took a few trips into town by myself to go exploring the first of which didn't go so well. I wore the wrong shoes and got completely lost and it ended up being a 3 hour excursion where I had to stop at a Bingo place to ask for directions back to campus (since I refused to pay for a cab at this point). The next day I went back into town and took a much shorter trip but found some more pillows, and a new duvet cover/duvet since my bed wasn't as comfortable as I would have liked it to be. Also got some rainbow colored yarn which I'll be using to make a scarf and either wear it or give it away. Hmm yeah besides class and the library and hanging out with my housemates thats about all the excitement I had all week.

Classes

Classes are going well here but it’s weird how infrequently they meet, I’m used to three times a week for an hour, or twice a week for an hour forty, and then a lab or two on top of it for 3 or so hours each. On Mondays I have an hour of class, Tuesdays 3.5 hours, Wednesdays 1 hour every other week, Thursdays I have 2 hours of class, and well folks, that is basically my class schedule minus a few changes on some weeks depending on what we’re doing. My professor for Shakespeare is great because she’s so involved in what she’s teaching, you can tell she really loves it, but she’s also a bit crazy. During one seminar she brought in a doll and a teddy bear and set them on the chair next to me and told the class that “Shakespeare makes you curious” so that we would just have to wait and find out what these props were for later on in the class. We had to act out a scene from one of Shakespeare’s plays and that’s where the bear and doll came in handy….and the tin of chocolates she brought too (which she shared with us after, yum yum). The only problem with this class is that everyone in the class is studying english literature and well, I’m not, and have never studied Shakespeare really ever minus Romeo and Juliet in 7th grade or something so I feel a bit over my head in that class. Oh well, might just have to try a little harder to catch up to where the other people are. Cultures of Childhood is an interesting class (big, but interesting) I’ve enjoyed the poetry we’ve looked at so far and to be honest I haven’t read the book I should read for Tuesdays class yet (and it’s Monday) but it’s Alice in Wonderland so I think I might be able to handle doing that today. Cognitive Neuropsychology is the one class where I feel at home in. I actually participated during the first class and knew what the professor was talking about which was such a good feeling after the two English classes where I was a bit lost, not gonna lie. Yeah I think that’s all I have to say about class really so far, it’s only been a week and a day of class so I’m sure there will be more to say later, don’t worry. And honestly, you’d rather see more pictures! 

Over the weekend (by now, last weekend) I slept quite a bit (though you wouldn’t know it with the way I’m feeling at the moment. We went into town and went shopping which was a bunch of fun, there’s a farmers market down there with loads of fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, flowers, etc. It also has a lot of clothes and cards and posters and jewelry stuff like that. I got a birthday card for one of my housemates and a poster of NY City’s skyline to brighten up my room a bit and I also got a loaf of bread which was really good but I still haven’t finished it yet. Food goes quite a ways when it’s just one person eating it. In the downtown area there are a lot of little shops so we tried to find our books in used bookstores but this didn’t work out too well so I bought a couple at Borders and am going to go back on October 10th when they are having a 20% off student discount sale, which means, it’s really 40% off (if you convert pounds to dollars, how great!) I ordered the edition of Hamlet I need off the internet because they didn’t have a copy with critical essays in the back (or at least not that I could find.) They also didn’t have I Know Why the Caged Bird sings which was quite disappointing, I figured they’d have it. Oh well. What they did have…. was the entire harry potter series….but all the British editions! I’ve already bought the 7th one and I’ve gotta get Jill the first one so I’ll do that when I go to get the rest of my books for school. Oh I guess I haven’t even mentioned what classes I’m taking. Well, I’m taking Shakespeare (pretty self-explanatory), Cultures of Childhood (where we’re exploring the idea of the child through books such as…. Peter Pan, Adventures of Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass, Diary of Anne Frank, The Secret Garden, Skellig [Jay I brought the copy you gave me!]), and I Know why the Caged Bird Sings so, those books will be great to read and we’re going to look at a bunch of poetry too which should be interesting. I’m also taking cognitive neuropsychology, even though I took introduction to cognitive neuroscience at school I figured its such a broad topic I’ll be very likely to learn some new material and there’s nothing wrong with some repetition, that’s how you learn the best anyway. But I’ll give some details about my classes later, this post is supposed to be about my weekend but I’ve clearly already veered off topic. We also took a York Boat Tour which goes down the Ouse river, it’s kind of a gross color but I guess that’s because of the sediments it passes over, they change the color of the water (the tour guide was a bit hard to hear). It was a little short and kind of expensive for what we got but oh well that’s how it goes with tourist attractions I guess. On the way we saw some swans so I took pictures (since I know dad likes swans). After that we did some more shopping I think, hmm, I didn’t get anything else though since I didn’t really see anything I needed. Of course we went to some pubs over the weekend and I’ve discovered how delicious cider is, yum yum. Also I’ve discovered that people do drinks here in rounds, so you don’t have to go up to the bar everytime. But then it kind of works out that sometimes someone won’t have to buy a round and they’ll be paying less than someone else but eventually it should all work out (maybe?). We also went to a nightclub one of the nights here, well I tried to go one other time but waited in line in the pouring rain for an hour and then decided I didn’t really care that much. But the nightclub was kind of fun, we just all danced in a circle around our purses on the ground and then we took a cab back because it was a bit of a hike and all of our feet were sore. But yeah I don’t think I really like the whole nightclub scene, I’d rather just watch a movie or go to the library and take advantage of the internet. Sunday might be the most exciting day so far, since we had a proper English roast, delicious! For 6 pounds I got roast beef, mashed potatoes, roasted potatoes, vegetables, gravy, bread, a diet Pepsi, and this amazing dessert – a chocolate cake filled with white chocolate and covered in hot chocolate sauce. Now doesn’t that just sound amazing? Sorry to disappoint but I did not happen to catch a picture of it. After this we walked to the train station to purchase rail cards – they get you 1/3 off of your train tickets. It was 20 pounds but I’ve already saved 5 pounds by using it once so it was a good deal (either that, or train tickets are wicked expensive, you take your pick). Hmm what else did I do this weekend….set up my room some more, spent some quality time at the library, stuff like that. Overall, a good weekend.

commenting should be easier now

So, I've changed the settings so that anyone can comment, before I think I had it set so only google members could? who knows, I'm off to class at the moment but I'll try to put up another entry sometime today about last weekend. Tomorrow morning I'm off to London for the weekend with some other Union girls, and we won't be back til 1am monday morning but I'm sure I'll have a bunch of pictures and stuff to post when I get back! :)