Traveling!

So another week has quickly gone by. I'm quite sad I must say. The first week was so slow and I wish it would stay like that.

Well this week has been an adventure. The week was pretty much the same. School on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Classes are good. I am really interested in them. Professors here are a lot different from Professors at home. They are more relaxed and explain things so you will actually understand. As one of my teachers said, "If you're coming to my office hours then I'm doing my job, if you aren't, then there's a problem." It's nice to have teachers who really truly want to help and are actually trying to get to know us.

Friday was cool. Although it was rainy and cold (the perfect English day), we went on a tour of Canterbury. Almost all of us have been to town and seen it all, so that part was a little boring. However, they took us to the Cathedral. It was amazing. Canterbury is famous for it. It was gigantic! Here are some pictures. I ended up taking about 100 of the Cathedral, mostly for my Dad. I know he would have loved it, so I tried to get as many as I could!

outside view of the cathedral

entrance

On the side of an entrance into the choir lofts

(the ceiling)

After the tour of the Cathedral. Tom, Dan, Pat, Emily, Gabie, and I went to the train station and took the train to Brighton, the Gay capital of Europe. Haha at least that's what they call themselves. We arrived just in time for it to be dark and very rainy. Since we're expert travelers no one bothered to print out a map of where the hostel was. We knew the general vicinity, but not much else. We walked and finally asked people. Nobody knew where the street was. (This seems to be a trend in England. People know where things are, but never a street name, or the name of the place they want you to go to.) Finally we find our hostel. It's a cool IKEA like place. We walk in and there are a few kids who seem to be students. There is a pool table, some coffee tables, couches, a bar and a TV. Pretty cool hostel to me. We went upstairs to our 15 person room and got situated.

We decided to go to dinner. We asked around and got a few suggestions. Of course, no one knew the restaurants names. They told us the general direction, the type of food it served, and a possible street it was on. Gotta love England. haha. We ended up at an Indian restaurant. 20 bucks my parents are going to say EXCUSE ME? INDIAN? The reason I would not be surprised if they said this is because the Kate Andorka they know orders a BLT or chicken everywhere she goes. Never anything new. I hate Chinese food and although I'll taste foods, I would never actually order something I'm not sure if I'll like. haha Well I stuck to my roots and went straight for the chicken part of the menu. I ended up getting some sort of chicken. Another disclaimer...spices and I DO NOT MIX. Even though my meal was had 0 peppers out of 3 next to the name in the menu, I was burning. I sat there while everyone else enjoyed their meals and I suffered through mine. haha It was good though, just spicy. That's the other thing about England, they hate the fact that you order water. I'm a water girl, I have never really liked pop, or soda, or a fizzy drink as the brits (JAMES) would say. So they will only give you one water for the meal, a small baby water. Unless you ask like 3 times, they will not refill it. This happened at three restaurants to me. However they love to refill your Coke or beer. They also love to charge you for that refill too. So needless to say, my mouth was on fire and I had no water. Still, I enjoyed the meal. We then decided to walk around (still raining) and find a pub. The first one we pass was filled with entirely....now don't be offended non-teenagers...old people. So we skipped it. The next pub we walked into...was, well to say it bluntly, a goth pub. Quite hilarious actually. I don't think I've ever been stared at that much. I mean 6 Americans in a pub with multi-colored hair, face piercings, and a screaming rock band apparently don't mix..who knew? We finally find a pub that is students. We stayed for a bit. Emily, Gabie, and I decided to go back to the hostel. We got back and hung out in the lobby area and played some cards. Some Spanish boys asked if they could play so we said sure. David (DAH VEED) and his friends Javier, another David, and Omar taught us a new game called Liar. Very similar to our game of BS. This part of the night was very ironic for me. Because on the train ride in I had just started reading the book Eat, Pray, Love. And the last part I read talked about the author going to Italy because she wanted to learn Italian. She decided to join an exchange with a native Italian. He spoke to her in English and she spoke to him in Italian and they corrected each other. I found it ironic because these Spaniards were in the UK to learn English. They knew some, but not a lot. Whenever they didn't know anything, Gabie, who's mother is a Spanish teacher, and I would try to help translate and tell them the American word. It was really cool and I got to practice some Espanol. Eventually we went to bed and I spent my first night in a hostel awake for majority of the time. The next morning we got up and it was sunny! Finally some sun in England!

We went past the Royal Pavilion.

We all walked down to the pier. Gabie, Emily, and I went off on our own. The entire pier was an arcade. It was a bunch of gambling machines, which the English love. They literally have them everywhere. Even at the snack shop at the train station. We played some arcade games and took a lot of the face-in-hole pictures.

(Gabie and Emily)

Then we found one of those shops that take old fashion pictures. We dressed up like saloon girls with guns, fans, and bottles of Jack. haha I've never done that before so it was hilarious. And now we all have a memory of the trip. It's a really funny picture. We wandered around the beach and decided it would be fun to chase some waves. All of us ended up being attacked by the English Channel and it got our legs and shoes all wet. But hey, I went in the English Channel in January.

We continued to walk around and looked at a bunch of shops in town. Then we went back to the hostel and took a nap. We then went out to dinner to an adorable Thai place. Got some Pad Thai, it was fantastic!! We went out to a pub called the Pav Tav, the Pavilion Tavern. It was a cool, student pub. The bouncer outside made fun of us for being American, this is a usual response from bouncers. He told us he didn't like us because whenever Americans come to his restaurant they only order water. Again, they hate when you order water. He went on about he truly hated it and that we better not order water inside the pub. The next day we woke up late. We decided, again the girls, to walk the other way down the boardwalk.

We also went to the Museum of Art. It was really cool. They had modern art, egyptian art, and an exhibit about the Women of the Land. These were the women who worked all over the lands of England during WWII so England would have food.

We just walked a bit through town and hung out. I bought a David Beckham jersey! Good day! We went out to dinner with the boys for Italian, which was fantastic! Then us girls went back to the hostel. We ended up playing more cards with the Spaniards. But then everyone around started to talk to us. We met the guys who work there, two from Brighton and one from Australia. We met more Spaniards, some French people, and other Americans. It was really cool to hear all these different languages being spoken and being brought together. We ended up staying up until about 2 talking to everyone. It was really fun! However, it sucked that we just got to know them as we had to leave. Today we woke up and checked out and proceeded to our train. We made it back to Canterbury finally! It felt so good to be home, yes, my temporary home at the moment. The only downside to this trip was the realization of real life. We missed our Brits just over the weekend and thinking of having to permanently leave in two months kinda sucks! But for now, we're enjoying every minute!! I love it here so much and I want to stay for a long long time!!

From the left: Alex, James, Henry, Emily, Tom, Dan, and I