A plethora...

Sorry I have not blogged in ages and there is so much so let's get cracking.

First and foremost classes here are hard and excellent at the same time. I am taking:

1. Genre and Film - bomb irish teacher, had to explain the awesomeness of Clint Eastwood to the class and explain that Americans, I mean, Westerners and "former" Colonist don't sit around and watch Westerns all day.

2. Children's Literature - taught by the nicest old lady with a Mary Poppin's voice, well she is nice until you get on her bad side and then she turns into crazy lady.

3. Digital Media and Communications - cool teacher sit around and play with photoshop all day rather easy. The first time in history I have ever used Adobe on a PC.

4. Media Policy and Ethics - hardest class of my life. I had to read to extra books on British television just to understand the first day. British TV does not equal or is even similar to American TV. Not super bad because I have a lovely Italian teacher and she is super sweet.

Now on to the trips I have been on.

East Sussex

Very fun trip. It was a USAC trip so all 35 of us got to bond with Mary and Zoe (our advisors.) We hopped in vans and sang songs and played games. We drove through all of these small countryside towns I could not for the life of me tell you what their names are but they were cute. TONS OF SHEEP! TONS OF COWS! We went to a pub and I had the best shepherd's pie. We then went to the Battle Abbey where the Battle of Hastings happened in 1066. It reminded me of Gettysburg but obiviously more medieval. We walked around the entire battle ground which took about 45 minutes. We also looked at where the monks stayed it was kinda epic.

moving on...

Warwick, Liverpool and Manchester

So first stop was Warwick Castle. Crazy place its like Disneyland meets old ancient ACTUAL history. There are tons of people dressed up and singing and yelling at each other it was interestingggg. Check the video below because I can't even explain what this place was.

Then off to Liverpool the land of The Beatles. EPIC EPIC place. The accent is a little harder to understand but we went to all these cool places like Penny Lane!! Another interesting fact about Liverpool is that it's where films are shot when they can't afford to shoot in London. So movies like Sherlock Holmes and even Harry Potter are filmed there. We went to The Cavern where The Beatles, Elton John, Jimi Hendrix and The Rolling Stones played when they were first getting started. It was super fun tons of old people rocking out haha. The next day we went to The Beatles Story museum which was so awesome. I'm a huge George Harrison fan so I didn't really pay attention to all the extra crap they did for Paul and John haha. Poor Ringo... So after Liverpool we hopped over to Manchester which is all about football. We toured the stadium and I guess it was a big deal but I know nothing about soccer so we just looked at all the Beckham stuff.

On to the next...

Robyn Concert

I went I saw one of my favourite artist in Brighton. It was uber cool because her last music video was shot in Brighton. If you don't know who she is well that sucks because she is super talented. Plus it was like 30 bucks to see her which is a steal and when she blows up stateside you all will be jealous of me.

Hang With Me - Robyn (Check out that brilliant seaside)

Amsterdam and Bruges

So we finally got of the island and headed over to The Netherlands and Belgium. It takes about 8 hours which is the same amount of time it takes me to get to Chico...which is RIDICULOUS. 3 countries 8 hours. The scariest part about getting of the island is going through the English Channel. I had a panic attack when our bus got onto a train that went through a tunnel that went under the Channel. I was freaking out, talk about claustrophobic. After that 30 minute death trap we were in France and they literally waved us in, no checking of passports, nothing. Awesome. I was asleep when we arrived in Amsterdam. It was 7 in the morning and pitch black. I already had a cold (surprise surprise) so I was not in a good mood and plus it was like 18 degrees outside. We walked around and of course it rained our tour guide was being lame and we were all in the worst mood until we had free time. What did you guys do with your free time you ask? Heineken Experience. Basically you pay 15 euro and you get a tour, and get 3 pints of beer. For an extra 5 euro you get a custom bottle. Thank you Heineken, I don't like you more than Blue Moon but it was better than being outside in the cold and dying so 100 points to Gryffindor. After that we went to the Hard Rock cafe which was hard to get to because the streets of Amsterdam were alive. Chico is no longer the big bike town I thought it was. Amsterdam is THE bike town of the world. Bikes have the right away every time the lanes are bigger than the car lanes. Our tour guide Omar told us that there are more bikes than people here and you see bikes tied up everywhere or just laying around. We could have literally stole a bike and no one would have noticed. Hard Rock was amazing as usual but I was uber excited to go to Anne Frank's house. There was no photos or videos allowed but I can tell you it was one of the most moving experiences of my life. Each room in the house was preserved and we got to see where they hid and Anne's actual diary. Words cannot express. I was in tears because I cry about everything but it was really powerful stuff more inspiring then sad. It was a good reminder about how blessed I am and how I shouldn't take anything for granted. Later on that night after a good little nap we went back into the city and visited the Red Light District. Very interesting indeed but not as raunchy as I expected it seriously was like "whatever" and we went to get pasta. Oh yes and there is weed everywhere at the floral shops they have "cannabis starter kits" you know just incase you need to grow some at home. Seriously it really propels their economy California should just hop on that wagon so we can get out of debt.

The next morning we went to Zaanse Schans, a dutch village located on the outskirts of Amsterdam. Talk about night and day, these people were walking around in wooden clogs and feeding sheep. There were tons of windmills and we found out that Amsterdam relies on these windmills to pump the water out so the city won't flood. The city is about 4 meters below sea level. We walked around and tasted some cheese and chocolate, watched some shoes being made and then it started to hail. No big deal. We left there about noon and headed for Belgium.

We went to the city of Bruges in Belgium which is an intense medieval town. It is well preserved because Belgium was neutral during the wars. There were tons of horse drawn carriages and cobblestone roads. It felt like Christmas already because of the snow on the ground and all the Christmas stores. We headed straight to a restaurant to get some real Belgian waffles. AMAZZZING!! We were only there for 3 hours and I really want to go back. So our trip was finally coming to a close and we headed back to France. Going back into the UK is way harder than leaving. HARDCORE. We all had to get off the bus and get sniffed by a dog haha. So many people were throwing their weed away it was hilarious. Smart ones. After that whole ordeal we got back on the bus and into the deathtrap train and finally we were back in Brighton.

Good times indeed.

Next up: More escuela, England v France game, Guy Fawkes Night, Paris, Harry Potter, Bath, and Stonehenge!!

Cheers!!

I'll post the video soon-ish! (I hate editing)