Adventures!

Hello again dear blog readers,

I've been out and about exploring some other areas of Kent! What a hectic but fun filled week!! My parents arrived on Saturday, Oct. 13th. We got full English breakfasts at this quaint restaurant in town that morning. Then we walked around window shopping & stopping for treats from venders on the side of the roads to give them a little taste of England. They'd never had nutella before!! What the heck?! We can even get that in the states! So, of course, we gorged ourselves on nutella crepes that afternoon! There was an awesome parade around noon we stayed to watch before touring Canterbury Cathedral! It was really beautiful, definitely a site to see! Unfortunately, more than half of the cathedral was blocked off for a wedding, so I really didn't get to see all of it that I wanted. Hopefully I'll be back with my sister when she comes in December! We finished the evening with dinner at this delicious English restaurant called the Old Weaver's Tavern. Mm mm tasty :)

Sunday morning, we caught a train to Bearsted to explore Leeds Castle, another big attraction in Kent. It was magnificent! It sits on a small island protected by a moat. The rest of the surrounding land is now a golf course, but the castle grounds are like something out of a Disney fantasy; beautiful trees and landscaping, hilltop cabins with stone chimneys, water fowl (swans, ducks, pigeons, etc...) all walking freely among the guests and diving into the ponds. Absolutely gorgeous. I was feeling pretty crappy because of a cold, so I showed them around my flat when we got back to Canterbury and said goodbye soon after. Then passed out. 

Leeds Castle Grounds

Leeds Castle

Mr. Peacock 

(They're all over the castle grounds, along with swans & other water fowl)

Leeds Castle

Leeds Castle Grounds

I'm pretty exhausted from this weekend, it was so eventful. My boyfriend came in late Wednesday night to help celebrate my 21st birthday on the 21st. Friday afternoon/evening we took a train to Longfield to go to the Broadditch Farm Shop in Southfleet to explore some haunted houses! They have an amazing Halloween set up along with other seasonal events. Check out their site: http://www.broadditch.co.uk/seasonalevents.htm

I'm all about supporting local businesses! It took a bit longer getting there & getting back (about 2 hours each way) for an hour and a half of fun, but it was an adventure nonetheless! My flat mates threw a big Halloween/Birthday party Saturday night. It's safe to say that I exposed them to Halloween the American way! The holiday is much less commercialized over here, but I insisted we get costumes & a few decorations to set the vibe. A ton of people came! By the middle of the night, all of us were crammed inside our itty bitty little kitchen! It was awesome!! Then my flat mates surprised me Sunday afternoon with totally unexpected presents & treats! THEN they surprised me again after dinner with a deeeelicious chocolate fudge cake Frankie made himself! I felt so loved and lucky! What a wonderful way to spend my 21st! 

Haunted House @ Broadditch Farm Shop

                           

Frankie and Lily! We were the three cats! 

The ladies of the house! From left: Charlotte, Lily, Me, Margaux

The witch & the cat

The cat, the skeleton, the zombie, the witch! With the "Happy Birthday" pumpkin they carved!

Now, I'm beginning to stress a bit about my midterm exams. They're due in a week and a half, so tomorrow I gotta knock out some intense studying. We have a few other trips planned already, one to Copenhagen for a concert, another to London to see some football matches!! I'm off to get some much needed shut eye. 

Cheers! And a special thanks to everyone who helped make my 21st one of the most amazing and memorable birthdays!!

Kat

Photographs

I figured I'd add a few more photos of my adventures in Europe. Enjoy! But please don't steal any. Gratzi! :)
(Click the pictures for a closer look! This goes for all the photos I've published so far.)

In front of Trevi Fountain in Rome

Visiting Bath

Inside Vatican City

Venice

Venice

Gothic Church in Milan

(Cue "Tubular Bells" from from The Exorcist)

Billy Goat! They have them as pets in Switzerland :)

Venice

This guy sure nose what's up in the Berlin Zoo, ahehe

Berlin Zoo 

Berlin Parliament Building

London

(This one got a bit grainy, sorry)

London

Took a Quick Bath...

...a quick trip to Bath, that is. I just returned from a weekend visit to see my boyfriend who is also currently studying abroad there at the University of Bath. What an awesome city! It's much more metropolitan than Canterbury, which has retained a lot of its medieval architecture from the 1300s and preserved Chaucer Fields, the very same that the pilgrims of Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" made their way through. Bath is very modern, despite the gorgeous cathedrals that seem to dot every corner and the Roman baths themselves (which I've yet to see but plan on experiencing before the semester ends.) I left early Thursday afternoon to catch the train from Canterbury to London, then from London to Bath. I've taken the tubes enough now that I'd like to dub myself an English train station expert! Haha. (Although they aren't difficult to navigate at all.) Thursday evening we got a big group together to explore one of the city's best clubs, Baroque. It was pretty cool; three separate dance rooms with their own DJs and bars. The following morning, we had a booked tour to see Stonehenge, only about 35 minutes outside city limits. The site seeing during the bus ride alone was magnificent, as it took us all around the countryside and to the top of hills whose views displayed some adorable little English towns. I knew a bit about Stonehenge already thanks to the Discovery Channel and the surrounding myths, but I found that I highly enjoyed learning the history of the site and even began speculating and debating with the boyfriend about the purposes and importance of the stones themselves. I'd really recommend making the trek if given the chance. It only takes an afternoon!  

                                                                          Stonehenge 

Friday night we decided to get into the Halloween spirit and saw the new horror flick Sinister. (It came out in the states back in March but was only released here on Oct. 5th.) Coming from a horror film buff, it was really decent! Much better than expected. For once, the previews did a scary movie justice. Saturday afternoon we explored the city a bit more. Visited the Circus, a huge ring of gigantic trees in the middle of a concrete roundabout; took pictures in front of the Royal Crescent, a well known landmark in Bath because of its beautiful architectural design from the 1700s; walked around Royal Victoria Park, a big open grassy area in front of the Crescent; and wandered around more of the old cobbled roads of the city. It was a great day! 

Beside the Circus

Yours truly in front of The Royal Crescent

Royal Victoria Park

I headed back to Canterbury Sunday afternoon, but not before I made a horrific (or wonderful) discovery, depending on how you look at it. Not to get too graphic, but ever since I got to England, my skin has been breaking out. Gross, eh? I've been out of my teens for a bit now, so I'd forgotten the torment of evil zits. I blamed stress, new sleep/time cycles, and adjustment to a new environment. But I started to get pretty ticked off when several different face washes and creams failed to do any good. It was only when I complained about the issue to my boyfriend that he mentioned one of his hall mates, a young woman from China, had been experiencing the same problem. She found the English water to be the culprit. No sooner had the words left her lips than I immediately began drinking filtered, purified, or bottled water ONLY. And within a day, there was a very noticeable improvement. For one reason or another, both of our bodies were not used to the chemicals in the water here, whatever they may be, and our skin visibly showed the negative reactions. This may not be the case for everyone who makes the leap over the pond, but for students from the US who wish to study abroad here in the future: word to the wise; be weary of the water!!

Tomorrow marks the beginning of week three. I'll have to begin researching and writing my mid-semester essays soon, due on November 5 for both of my classes. I'm really not too worried about them. One must be 4000-5000 words, which translates roughly to 8-10 pages. The second must be between 2000-2500 words, aka 4-5 pages. Neither of the lengths should cause issues. I really enjoy my classes and their respective seminars. Both of my professors are specialists on their topics so the lectures are quite detailed, although only 50 minutes long. The seminars give us students a chance to break things down with our group leaders, discuss the themes of the readings, and clear up any questions that may arise. Our group leaders are also the people who will be reading/marking our papers and distributing feedback and grades. I was told that student-professor relationships at UK schools were quite different (meaning they are almost non-existent) than those at universities in the US, and I will defend that remark. I haven't personally met either of mine, mostly because they high tail it outta class as soon as they've finished, but I've met and spoken with my seminar leaders on several occasions just so they know I'm an American studying abroad. I'd recommend doing this as well, since you never know when you'll need help or guidance, especially since the grading scale for coursework and exams differs so much from American colleges. 

My parents are coming for a visit next weekend, and the weekend after that is my birthday! Yay! The long awaited year 21! I realized I haven't uploaded any pictures of my campus or Canterbury yet. I'll be doing most of the touristy stuff once my 'rents get here, so after that, I'll post some pics. That's all for now!

Cheers mates!

Kat