Week 1

I’m now to the week mark of being in England and things are going well!

I’m settling into my classes pretty well aside from the group projects that are assigned in 3 of the 4. The groups aren’t assigned and everyone was explicitly told only to work with people that you know so being an exchange student puts you at a distinct disadvantage. My Australian friend Emily and I managed to look terrified enough in our Event Management class to attract the attention of our lecturer who then took pity on us and assigned us to a group of English people(!!!!!). I don’t know how it’s going to work out for the other 2 classes seeing as they are MASSIVE but I think I’m going to continue to pull the exchange student card and see where that takes me.

I didn’t fully get it into my head just how the weather was going to be as I was looking forward to getting here. None of my clothes are even close to warm enough and I have a feeling that all of my shoes are going to get ruined from rain and snow. I’m beginning to understand the beauty of wearing multiple pairs of tights with dresses and thigh high wool socks under my jeans!

Every English person I’ve met so far has asked me 3 questions as soon as they find out I’m from the States. 1) Why did you want to come to England when you could have gone anywhere else in the world? 2) Do you really drink out of red cups at parties? And 3) Are you really that obsessed with English accents? To the first I answered that a whole lot of Americans are in love with England and everything about it. The second continuously surprises me and when I tell them yes their faces light up. When I say yes to the 3rd they’re the surprised ones and they say that they don’t understand why…I just tell them to keep talking to me because I love their accent :)

The native English speaking exchange students have all noticed that it’s still hard to understand what people are talking about sometimes. In my marketing lecture the professor was asking for examples of biscuit brands and it took me a few minutes to remember that biscuits in England are American cookies. It was the same kind of thing when one of my flatmates was showing me where everything was in the kitchen. He was talking about my cupboard where I can keep my food but I had to ask him to repeat himself 3 times before I understood that he was talking about what I would call a cabinet. It’s a small part of the whole experience but it’s odd to not understand things even though they’re in plain English.

Other than that life has consisted of lots of tea drinking and long walks to get everywhere. I’m loving it all!