Legalize it (?)

Hey guys!

Just wanted to let you know I am indeed  (sorta) keeping up with election time in CA! Obviously, the marijuana prop is the most fun one. Any thoughts? Ideas? Comments, rants, raves?

I just watched Obama on Jon Stewart. My two favorite television men were on the same show....it was lovely. I think I'll watch it again actually. My mom sent me a package and I just got it today. Yay!! She sent me packages ( or packets, as they're called here) of cookie mix, and almonds that aren't stale, and Double Stufs, along with alfredo and ranch packets, and duct tape! And a light up bouncy ball. I guess I am destined to always have one of those, no matter where I go haha. It was really really nice though! Thanks Mom!

Halloween is comin up! I went to a party on Wednesday (yeah, I went out on a Wednesday night lol) as an Egyptian! It was awesome. I am gonna be a ballerina on Saturday as well, which will be cool. Unless I want to be Egyptian again haha.

I have decided that Alexandre Dumas is my favorite author. Turns out I really like French Romanticism as a literary style- it's full of adventure and twists and turns; plus, there is no need to analyse it, but you can if you want. Oh. No. I am starting to spell like them! They switch their z's for s's a lot... Ah oh well. Anyway, Dumas. And Hugo. Both are excellent. Just throwin it out there.

yesterday my flatmates and I got into a discussion about pronunciation, which happens at least once a week, but this time was funny, so I'll try to paint a picture for you. We were talking about the mounds of sand in the desert (not really sure why). Dunes. With a D. They say (and I am not exaggerating) Junes. With a J. They think it's a D, but really, it's a J. Then we started talking about the stuff outside on the grass in the mornings. Dew. I think you can see where this is going. Jew. There's Jew on the grass. hahaha that sounds so bad. it was a good conversation.

I am still on the hunt for the Chinless Wonder my mom is so terrified of- I'll keep you posted.

I have got class pretty soon, and then I am gonna go to a waffle party. By the way, waffle here can mean "useless filler." For example, when writing an essay, you don't want to waffle on about something. This party is dedicated to the food though, which will be fun. Waffles. (Now I bet you want chicken and waffles, right my LA friends? lol)

You're welcome.

Special Hello to Crystal, as we haven't spoken for some time and I miss you.

That's about it for now, love you guys!

London

Hey guys,
I promised a more interesting blog this time, so here we go!

Tuesday, I went to Cambridge for a field trip for my biodiversity class, which was pretty cool. We started at the zoological museum, which, by the way, is on campus. They have a museum full of bones and other representations of animals on their campus. I can't exactly say I'm jealous, but I think it is pretty cool. They had this HUGE skeleton of a whale outside too, it was massive! I learned what a magpie looks like, and that they are ALL over my school. Magpies are like the seagulls at RB lol. Everywhere. After the zoo museum, we went to the gardens to study the plants there. Woo. It ended up being fun though, because I had a good group and because we met up with a teacher who studies plants, and he showed us around and gave us answers to questions. It started raining while we were outside in the gardens, and at first we didn't really pay attention to it. Rain here is different, sometimes it really does just whisper. You barely even know it's there. A while after the rain started, we went to the greenhouses. After being there for a few minutes, the rain just started pouring. And then the hail started. We were surrounded by cactuses (cacti?) when it was hailing outside haha; greenhouses are pretty cool. We drove by the campus of Cambridge, and I am totally serious when I say these people go to school in castles. it's awesome. This is a picture of the campus:

It's so cool! Look up more online if you are so inclined, it really is awesome. 

Ok, so that was Cambridge. On to London. 

On Friday I caught a train after class and was in the city within two hours. I met up with Dad and we got some dinner. Then we walked around Knightsbridge, which was where the hotel was, for quite a while. By this time, it was pretty late, so we went back and watched tv until bedtime. The next day, we went to the Museum of Natural History, where the dinosaurs were! We saw other stuff too, but the dinosaurs were the coolest. After the museum, we went shopping! Yaaayyyyyy! It took a while, but I got some good stuff and it was fun. We went to Harrods, which is probably one of the most interesting stores ever. Picture Nordstroms or Bloomingdales. Bloomingdales is nicer I think, so picture that one. This store is divided into different rooms, depending on what you want. So they have a whole room for purses, another for perfume, etc. They also have a huge section in the center that looks like a market. You can buy raw meat and veggies there. Remember, this place is like Bloomingdales. With food. They have literally everything from apples to jackets that cost $16,000 to fossils or black jade for house decoration. So walking around there was pretty fun haha. Turns out I don't like expensive things though, so we didn't buy anything there. We also went to Westfield, which is the biggest shopping mall I have ever been to in my life. It's at least 6 times the size of North County, and at least 4 times the size of Powell. Good times!

After shopping, we went back to the hotel, got some sandwiches, and got ready to go to a Michael Jackson tribute concert, Thriller. Dad has been really into Michael since he watched This is It, so he got tickets for this show. The show was really cool, these people just danced and sang to all the hits for two hours, and it was a lot of fun! Thriller was over around 10, but we didn't want to go back right away, so we walked around again. We walked to this one hotel and ate some awesome dessert and then walked the rest of the way back to the hotel, around 12 am. Dad had to leave early the next morning, so we went to sleep. He left and I did a little more shopping before leaving as well. Getting back was a lot tougher than getting to London because on Sundays they do construction on the railways. So, instead of taking 2 hours, it took around 4. It was nice though, I basically just listened to music the whole time. 

Dad says hello to everyone! Hope you all are having a good time! Love you! 

Ava

More (non) events

Hey Everyone!

This week has been good. Lots of class, not lots of work outside of class, which is nice.

The weekend was weird because Aoibhinn and Naimh were gone, as were James and Swany. I was going to be gone as well, but then I realized I'd mixed up the dates. Good news for you guys I guess, it means that next week's entry will be more exciting! I am gonna be in London! Anyway, this weekend, Kaylee and I hung out together a whole lot. We went out on Friday after watching Brokeback Mtn and met some cool kids on the bus, so we hung out with them all night. This guy with a girlfriend was hitting on me that night. Always fun. ugh.

Yesterday, we hung out with our flatmates Donald, Nick, and Mike. We all had dinner, and then Mike had ordered 2 pizzas, so we ate those as well. It was so nice to spend time with everyone because usually everyone is kinda just doing their own thing. Mike and I learned the Soulja Boy dance from Kaylee, which was entertaining, especially for everyone else when I crashed into the trash can. After dinner and hanging out, Kaylee and I went to the LCR, which is basically the club on campus. They set it up a few times a week and people go to drink and dance. I tried a sip of red bull and vodka, and it was pretty good!

Today has been pretty lazy. I went to the library with my friend to study for a test. It's around 4 pm now, and I'm pretty proud of that productivity. This week should be fun because on Tuesday I am going to go to Cambridge with my Biodiversity class to look at the plants. Obviously, the exciting part will be Cambridge, which is supposed to be beautiful, but I'm sure that I'll have some fun facts for you about the plants when I get back. Speaking of fun facts, I learned a great one.

Do you know what a sea cucumber is? it looks like this:

Right. So when something comes along and thinks it looks tasty, this little guy literally spits out his internal organs for the predator to eat. Let me run that by you again. It spits. out. its. guts. Most sea cucumbers are able to regenerate their stomachs and gonads and whatever else they spit out, so the predator eats and the sea cucumber gets away. However, some sea cucumbers slipped through the cracks and are unable to regenerate. This makes the defense mechanism rather pointless.

PS- if you have any doubts, you can look this up on youtube. No joke.

I think that's about it for now, but next week should be better what with all the traveling around.

Love you!

New Words and weekends

Hey everyone!

I have more words to add to the list. A "twitcher," apparently, is a nickname for bird watcher. Yeah. And a solicitor is a lawyer. There are two types of lawyers here, solicitors or barristers.

This weekend was pretty good. Turns out that getting drunk doesn't necessarily mean that I will be mean and tired. That's pretty cool, because drinking is a huge part of the culture here. British kids start drinking at like 14, which I think is a little earlier than most US kids (although I could be mistaken I guess). The legal age is 18, which is the age of university students, generally, so the campus has no qualms about selling alcohol everywhere. There is a Union pub, and a bar I think, and they sell all kinds of stuff at the little grocery store type thing on campus. Even at school events, there is a bartender. Often more than one actually. So I am quickly learning that alcohol is only as big a deal as you make it, provided you are careful.

More good news: Jersey Shore is much loved around here. The only person I have met who didn't like it was the other American girl, Kaylee. By the way, I learned how to spell Aoibhinn's name finally.
A-o-i-b-h-i-n-n. Naimh's name wasn't as tough to learn.

Yesterday was nice because after everyone woke up, we all went to go get lunch. After lunch, we went and sat out by the lake on campus. This lake is very nice; it's pretty in a different way than lake Merced. And it's closer. I would've liked to say that they haven't found a body in this one, but I think they actually did at some point...

Anyway, being out by the lake was cool, we just sat and talked and made dumb jokes and stuff. Good fun, good fun.

I guess it may get tiring to read about all the little things that happen around here, but when something big happens I'll let you know!

Vocab

Hey everyone!

I know you guys all know that some of the words here are different. Sometimes they sound different, and sometimes they mean different things. But I also know some that you don't. Here's a fun list lol. The British word is on the left, the American is on the right

Crisps= chips

Chips= French Fries

Packet= package/ container or wrapper of some sort. Not a stack of paper. 

Maths= math

Trousers= pants

Pants= underwear

Herb= herb. The difference here is the H. Here, it's pronounced. 

Pasta= italian style pasta/ one piece of this pasta. If you say noodles, they think you mean Asian style noodles.

Walkers= Lays. The weirdest thing ever. Think about a bag of Lays potato chips (or crisps lol). Red bag, rad circle thing with the word Lays written in the center. Now, replace the word Lays with Walkers. I kid you not; check my facebook. 

37 degrees= normal body temperature

I guess this list isn't as extensive as I'd hoped. Oh well, I'm sure more will be added as time moves on. 

Today was a good day. I went to class, and I had about an hour for  break, so I came back to my room. I have started sitting on my windowsill (which is sorta big enough) and reading my favorite author. So I opened my window and sat and right away a bug flew at me! I shook it off and thought to myself "I think that was a ladybug!" Then, another one landed on me! There were a total of four different lady bugs around my window when I opened it. They all looked really different too; one had lots of spots, another one was black with red spots, and one was yellow with black spots. I thought it was pretty cool. Especially since the day was so pretty today. No rain! Yesterday afternoon was the same way. I love it when there's no rain here, because the campus is gorgeous. There are no sprinklers here, grass just grows naturally, and it's everywhere. There is a lake too, surrounded by trees. It's almost visible from my room, but there is a big hill in my way. The buildings here have a lot of thought put into them. There are sidewalks that are more like bridges than anything, so you don't have to walk where cars or back alleys are to get to class. 

Classes are tough. I have class Mon-Fri, for hours at a time. At least daily I have classes that are back to back, often three or four classes back to back. One other difference here is that the classes meet on different days at different times. In the States, you'll have class Tues and Thurs at 1:00. Here, I'd have a class Tuesday at 3, Thursday at 1. So that's been odd. 

One of the biggest differences between here and there is the knowledge they have of America, especially compared to the knowledge I have of Britain. We were talking about politics because I was trying to figure out how they work here, and the American girl on my flat was there. She made a comment about Bush, and one of the Irish girls asked what she'd said. She passed it off saying "Oh just something about one of our presidents." The girl asked which one, and rolled her eyes and scoffed when she heard Bush. She goes," Tch. Of course I know who that is."

Now, who can name three British PMs? See what I mean? It is really different. PS- the current Prime Minister is David Cameron. He named his opponent Nick Clegg as a sort of assistant Prime Minister as well, so they are working together, but Cameron wears the pants in this relationship. I now wonder why it is that America is so self centered. I realize that a large part of it has to do with information, what is presented and what isn't. I just wonder why only American information is presented. Why European politics are never addressed, except briefly in a historical context. 

So, lots of thinking going on over here. Hope everyone is well State-side. 

Ava

Two new posts!

This one is a quick one though. I just wanted to let everyone know that my "meeting people in weird ways" trait is alive and well. I was sitting on my bed, deciding not to open my laptop and instead do something more productive, when i looked out my window. I live on the second story, but there was a guy standing outside, looking in.

...

He smiled and waved so, I went to the window, and he told me about how my room was his old room and asked me what the flat was like now and everything. It was kinda sweet, you could tell he really enjoyed his time here (like we did in 212). But.

Still weird.

Double Rainbow !!!

haha now I fit in! stupid double rainbows.

First things first, I have been listening to Mumford & Sons all week, and I gave it a break today (until now haha), and I super love them. This is beyond regular loving of a band. I know I'm gonna get sick of them, but right now, their songs are like crack to my eardrums.

Ok, moving on.

We went into town today to buy grocery type things. I PROMISE to take pics of the town soon, I just am cautious to because the pictures I take won't really explain the feeling here. It's quieter than San Fran, and much, much older. It feels..inspiring in a way. Especially the older part of town, even though there are newer shops. The roads are stone and a lot of the buildings are brick. Turns out Norwich is famous because you can go to a different church every day of the year, and a different pub every night! Alright, I will take pictures soon and try to describe more of it when there's an image to accompany it.

Then, tonight we went out again. Last night was MUCH better than tonight. Last night we stayed at our place and pre-drank, which is a big deal here. Everyone pre-drinks before they go out. I think the idea is to save money on buying drinks while you're out. Sometimes it works and sometimes not so much haha. Then we went to a couple clubs, and generally had a good time. Tonight just wasn't as good, partly because I wasn't feeling it, and partly because Aibhilin and Naimh weren't either. Aoibhinn and Naimh are the two Irish girls on my flat. Their names are pronounced Aveen and Neev haha, I guess the Irish just use a lot of different letters. Turns out there is no letter V in Irish, so bh or mh combines to make the sound. Weird huh?

Good news! Aobhinn told me that the group we hang out with likes me, and they think I'm cool. Obviously, you all know this, but I wanted to let you know that I am not a reject with no friends here haha. I was a little worried there for awhile, but I think we're good! yay!

The weather here is not quite as bad as you might expect, which is nice. It's a lot like SF, except more unpredictable. Today, for example, I woke up to bright sunshine. Well, reasonably bright. And now, it's raining. This happens pretty often here. Apparently, this is one of the rainiest areas in England, so this whole hair straightening/straight bangs is not gonna work haha. Does anyone have any ideas to tame this lion mane of mine? Ahem Jamie?

Classes this semester are gonna be intense, so I can't promise to blog a whole, whole lot, but I know this thing gets checked often :) so I'll try to at least post a little something every now and again!

I love you guys, I miss you, don't fly kites in lightning storms or anything risky and dangerous of that nature!