Saturday I went into town with a group of international students. I finally got a mobile (cell phone). So I'm pretty excited about that, it's a cool phone too (a sony ericsson k550i). After I got my phone and another student from Maine got his phone we all broke off into smaller groups. Alicia, Matt (the guy from Maine), Pako and another girl all decided to go check out the Ash Memorial. We learned about it in our orientation. Alicia had an AtoZ guide of Lancaster so we followed the map and headed east out of downtown and walked about 30 minutes (uphill the whole way!) to the Ash Memorial. It was quite beautiful. We certainly don't have anything like it back home. There are photos up on my photo page, you should really check it out. I'm going to go back again in the spring when the weather is better. There is a great park that surrounds the memorial. There were two little Bichon's running around that looked just like Marshmellow! They were so cute! We went up to the balcony of the memorial and could see all the way to the Isle of Man (even thought it was cloudy). It was amazing to see how big Lancaster really is. We aren't too far from the bay that separates England from Ireland. After exploring the memorial we headed back into town to meet up with the rest of the international students we came to town with. They had already eaten so we went to a restaurant called The Penny Bank. It was pretty tasty. Alicia, Matt and I went off to find the superstore after we finished dinner. I picked up a few things the other grocery store didn't have and then we headed back to campus. I didn't go out on my first Saturday night here, pretty lame I know. We had a long day, we walked for a good hour straight let alone wondering around town. And we had a big day planned for Sunday.
Today we had a trip planned by the university to the Lake District. We set off at 9am on two charter buses to Bowness on Windermere. There I picked up some postcards to send to a few folks and just poked around the few shops that were open near the docks. We took a boat to the other side of the lake (to Ambleside). It was cold, windy and rainy but still a beautiful site to see. There were two castles on the lake! two! And lots of sailboats, none of them were out sailing though. We got back on the charter bus at Ambleside and took it to Grasmere. Anywhere there isn't a city or town, there are sheep. And lots of them! I bought a little stuffed sheep souvenir in a shop in Grasmere, it's cute! Alicia bought some sheep droppings (chocolate covered truffles to send to some friends back home). After looking around Grasmere and getting a bite to eat (well I had a beer, it was called Black Sheep Ale and it was delicious!) we got back on the buses to go to Keswick. It was pouring rain in Keswick and we weren't too keen on exploring the town. It was cute though. We looked in a few different shops and then around 3pm we got back on the buses to head back to the university. We made it back about 4:30, and it was countryside, sheep and rolling green hills the whole way back.
Since then I made some dinner and met a few other people who live on my floor in the kitchen (I've met one british person now!) and just been writing postcards and uploading pictures since. I finished my social work essay for my application due on Tuesday back at WMU. I called my Mom and Mike. It was nice to talk to them both from the privacy of my own room!
Classes start tomorrow and I'm bit nervous about it, but I'm sure it'll be okay. I'll give another update in a few days. Hope everything is going well where ever you are!!
Miss you all!!!
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