Snow, Groceries, and Fairy Bread

On Saturday I was awoken to the excited screams from my Aussie flatmates.  We had snow!  Now I love snow, but my snow excitement was nothing compared to theirs, especially Amanda's.  On our way out on Friday night she was telling everyone about how it was supposed to snow.  In turn, everyone told her that it wasn't going to snow and even if it did it wouldn't stick because it the ground would be too warm.  All she wanted though was one day where it snowed and she got it.  There was less than half an inch but it was enough to cover the ground.  Living in Australia they had each seen snow only a couple times in their lives.  Katrina, my flatmate from Hong Kong, had never seen snow before at all.  It was fun to watch them all get excited about something that's usually at least a yearly occurrence in Virginia.  

Today was an exciting day for me, I got my groceries delivered!  Ok, so I felt incredibly lazy having my groceries delivered but it really was so much more easier than stopping on my way home from class.  I feel like I have gone there every single day to get something.  That and the store closest to my flat doesn't have a huge variety and I can never seem to find what I want.  It took me 10 minutes to find the chocolate chips on Sunday and there are only 4 aisles in the store.  The other convenient thing was that I can only carry so much back from the store on my way home from class.  This way I was finally able to get some of the things that should last me awhile.  Hopefully now the only things I will need to stop on the way home for are milk and other items that I go through pretty quickly over here. 

It was also Fiona's birthday today.  She lives in the same building as me but on the other girls flat 2 floors up.  She lives with one of the VT girls.  As she is also from Australia Amanda decided to make her a traditional Australian birthday treat that most kids have, I believe, instead of cake on their birthdays.  And I was introduced to Fairy Bread.  It's really not hard to make at all.  All it is, is a slice of white bread, you butter the bread, and sprinkle the dot sprinkles on it.  No baking or doing anything else, that's it.  I was pretty skeptical about trying it but it really wasn't bad at all.  In fact it was quite good!  So watch out if I'm going to be around for your birthday, chances are I'm just going to make you Fairy Bread instead of getting you a gift or baking you a cake:)

Hockey is a Family Sport

On Saturday I went to the Sheffield Uni winter varsity hockey game.  Now Sheffield doesn't actually have any varsity sports, mostly it's just the equivalent to a mix of intermural/club teams at home.  From what I can tell you have to try out to be on the team, but the teams don't play other schools (at least I don't think so).  So this was an exciting event because every winter they have the winter varsity games where Sheffield Uni (my school) plays against Sheffield Hallam (a school closer to the city center).
So apart from the fact that this was a once in a year event (there's also spring varsity but different sports) I didn't have to pay for my ticket.  Granted the regular student price was only 3 quid, I still didn't have to pay for it.  One of my flatmates (Amanda) had won 2 tickets earlier last week at the activities fair.  On Saturday morning she received an e-mail saying to go to entrance B to get a yellow band.  Well we took the tram to the arena bummed that we got to the free buses too late but luckily we didn't have to pay on the tram because it was too crowded for the ticket person to get through.  When we got to the gate the woman there didn't seem to know what was going on.  Amanda's name wasn't on any of the lists.  At first I was concerned that we weren't going to be able to get in, but Amanda told her that she had won tickets and got an e-mail telling her to go to that gate, which was true.  I guess the woman didn't know what else to do but she gave us VIP passes and led us to the VIP room.  There we were able to get free drinks and food in between periods.  This was nice since neither Amanda or I had eaten lunch.

My VIP badge:)

The game itself was quite fun.  It was the first hockey game I had ever gone to.  I would think that a NHL game might have been more exciting but it was still good.  We played well but ended up losing in the last couple of minutes of the game.  We had a group that led some cheers that were quite interesting, such as "We go somewhere you don't go, Uni, Uni.  We go somewhere you don't go, University! University! University! We go somewhere you don't go University"  I was a little confused by this since both schools are universities.  Amanda and I got on the wrong bus going back to campus but it was just going to one of the other student villages.  It was a quick walk back to our flat and we weren't the only ones who had made the mistake!

Go Uni!

Lecture Hall A is not Lecture Hall 1

We started classes on Monday and so far they've all been alright.  Nothing too interesting about any of them.  I was so proud of myself that I had made it to all my classes on time and didn't get lost once!  Well that all went downhill today.  It was my last different class of the week and it was in a building that I'd previously had class in as well.  I also thought it was in the same room as before.  But it wasn't.  The class had already been moved once but to a building much closer to the central part of campus.  In fact all my classes are right off of the main road that goes by the student union.  For some reason I assumed that lecture theater A was just another name for lecture hall 1.  All my other classes had been in lecture theaters identified by number not letter.  So I walked down to the class, first time I walked into theater 2 realized my mistake and walked out.  Then I walked into theater 1 but the previous class was still going on so I scooted back out to wait in the hall.   While I was waiting two other students came over to me to ask if I was waiting for the philosophy lecture and I said yes.  We chatted for a little while, he asked where in the States I lived, then realized it didn't really matter because when I told him Virginia he said he wasn't really sure.  But he did know where DC was do that helped him a bit.  There wasn't a lot of people waiting so we thought maybe it was going to be a small class.  I saw other study abroad students who I knew were in the class and they were waiting as well.  When the class ahead of ours got our we all went in and sat down.  A couple more people came in and sat down as well.  Minutes went by and it came time for class to start, that's when we started wondering that maybe we were in the wrong spot.  One of the girls checked her e-mail and saw lecture theater A.  So we all trekked back up to the main floor and followed signs to lecture theater A.  The building we were in was like a giant maze.  We had to turn go through doors and then head back downstairs.  I was so glad that it was not just me and that full year Sheffield students did the same thing.

Other than that my classes have been pretty uneventful.   I've talked to a couple different people in my classes, all of which are nice.   The work doesn't seem like it will be too difficult.  In one of the departments I'm taking classes in they divide up their semester, so I am only taking this class for 6 weeks!  Luckily it's my earliest class as well, so one week down only five more to go:)  Also in this same class if you are late the prof makes you sit in the front row so she can call on you to answer questions.  Needless to say if I'm going to be late to class I just might not go!  It's also interesting because I am taking first year courses because those were what I needed.  Everyone in the classes seem surprised when I tell them I am a third year.  Yes, if I tell people I am a junior they just look at me like I've said the most bizarre thing.  Some other differences, the classes are set as far as day and time but will vary from day to day.  Like my one class, I have at 4:10 on Tuesdays in the Hicks building and I have it again on Wednesday at 12:10 in the Biology building.  Other classes are similar so it was confusing when I was trying to figure it out.  Also we get a week off in March for reading week before midterms.  We also get three weeks off in April for Easter break, and a week off in May before final exams for another reading week!

Don't smoke in the hotel rooms

So on Saturday Elizabeth and I had to check out of our hotel.  Only we had to check out by noon but couldn't check into our accommodation until 2.  Therefore our solution was to people watch from the lobby until her friend picked her up to go shopping and I had a taxi called.  One of the most interesting things we witnessed was a group of guys who were checking out.  Apparently they had been smoking in their room.  There was a no smoking policy in our hotel.  Needless to say when housekeeping had gone through their room, they noticed the smell.  As they were checking out the woman at the front desk kept asking them which one of them was smoking.  All of them denied that they had smoked in the room.  It started getting busier so the woman called someone else down to deal with him.  This guy basically yelled at them saying that they had to pay the 100 pound fee from smoking in the room because it is illegal in England to smoke in the rooms.  Eventually one of them coughed up the money (by the way 100 pounds is approximately 150 US dollars).  Elizabeth and I sat there the entire time trying not to laugh.  Later while I was sitting waiting for my taxi another group of girls came in and turned to one another wondering if they were allowed to smoke in their rooms.  I think one had even lit up in the lobby before they all headed outside.  When my taxi finally arrived he wasn't entirely sure where he needed to go, he asked me and I of course had no idea either!  We eventually made it where I checked in and moved in.  Did I mention it was raining during this time so I had to walk from the taxi to the Edge (where I was checking in) and to my flat.  Granted it wasn't far but I still got pretty wet.  Although, I was luckier than some people who had to walk further to their flats, and my taxi driver got my suitcases out of the taxi for me.

Orientation Part 2

So Friday morning Elizabeth and I were feeling a bit more comfortable on our walk to the student union.  We stopped at the local Gregg's (which is basically a sandwich place) and got muffins for our walk.  Only it was so cold outside we weren't able to eat them until we got to the Union.  But don't worry, we had plenty of time to eat them.  Apparently, on Thursday afternoon (the part of orientation I missed) we were told the earlier we got there the faster registration would go since we'd be in the first group.  Well Elizabeth and I were a bit over eager and were the first ones there.  The staff was still setting up and told us to come back in about half an hour.  When we got back there was a bit more people but we were still in the first group.  Not that it helped me.  In order to get registered at Sheffield we had to get our courses approved by someone in the department (the tutor) and s/he had to sign off that they approved us for that particular course.  There were about 4 departments that weren't going to be there and 2 others that weren't going to be there until much later.  Of course only 1 of mine was there when I got there.  The good news is the tutor who was signing our forms said that the class was relatively easy.  After that though I had to wait over an hour for the philosophy department to get there, and when he did he didn't have everything he needed so he left and had to come back.  Then I should've gone to the psychology department to them to sign off.  In order to do that I had to go to the psych building and find the tutor.  After spending awhile looking at the psych time table I cam to the conclusion that I thought the class I wanted to take was going to overlap with another.  So I decided to cut the trip out of my schedule and take another philosophy course.  I still couldn't register for my cell and molec class until 1:(  But I found some other girls, one who I had already met (Hannah from Austria) and Krizia from UNC Chapel Hill.  So the three of us got an authentic British lunch of fish and chips with mushy peas.  For those who don't know chips are actually fries (so far I've only had steak fries) and crisps are what they call chips.  After lunch we headed to the molecular bio department to get our form signed.  We were on a time crunch b/c we thought we needed to register by 2!  Only no one knew where the tutor was who needed to sign it.  We got the same answer from everyone we talked to, 'oh I saw him a couple of minutes ago but I don't know where he went.'  That was real helpful, but we found another group of students who were meeting with a different prof who said he would sign our forms, he was in charge of the regular 1st year students.   Once he signed we rushed to where we thought we needed to go only to find out they weren't there anymore.  Luckily someone pointed us in the direction of the regular registry office and we quickly got registered.  I also finally got my student ID and my password for the internet on campus!!!  We made it back in time for the afternoon orientation session.  It wasn't much more exciting then it had been on Thursday.  They made us do 'speed chatting' to try to meet new people, but I had already met everyone around me!  After that Elizabeth and I headed back to our hotel.  We made a quick stop so I could get a mobile.  I could finally communicate with people here.  It had been so frustrating telling people that no I hadn't gotten my phone yet since that seemed to have been the first thing they all did.  Friday night was a bit calmer than Thursday.  And by a bit, I mean it was the total opposite.  Neither of us really wanted to go out, it was cold and windy and rainy.  We didn't even leave the hotel for dinner.  By 9 or 10 we were both falling asleep reading our books and just turned off the light and went to bed.

I know I posted about my room the other day but here are the photos!

A view of my room from the door

My bathroom that likes to flood whenever I take a shower.  It's such a pain that there is nothing separating the shower area from the rest of the loo:)

My picture collage that I put up on the cork board behind my desk:)  I brought so many pictures!

Who said orientation was mandatory??

On Thursday and Friday we had our orientation to the school.  Elizabeth, one of the other girls from Tech who I was sharing a hotel room with, and I headed out Thursday morning for our 20 minute walk to the school.  While I thought I was being brilliant by copying out directions from the hotel to the school, it only works if you are able to follow them.  Again we ran into the difficulty of the streets not being clearly marked.  Every once and a while we could catch a name of a street and see where it was on my list.  Most of our walk was just hoping we would eventually make it pretty close to the school and we would be able to follow signs.  Every time we saw a street name name we'd do a little celebration that we were at least headed in the right right direction.  We finally made it, only asking directions once and that was just for the building we were looking for.  They had a brief introduction to the school and the program which wasn't to exciting, then we broke off into groups by what we were studying to take a tour of the campus which only lasted about half an hour.  If you were to ask me where anything was I would have no idea so it wasn't too helpful.  We then had about 2 hours for lunch before we had to go back to the other part of orientation.  After we finished lunch part of my group and I headed downstairs to get some drinks because it is apparently not uncommon for people to start drinking in the middle of the day.  Well turns out not only were Sheffield students drinking in the middle of the day, they were drinking a lot.  Let me try to put this in perspective, the student union itself has at least 3 bars and all 3 were packed.  Granted it was the last day of their exams so they had reason to be celebrating.  I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that they have bars as part of their student union.  That is something you would never see in the states.  From there we decided that the rest of the days orientation events would be just as exciting as the mornings and we headed off to more bars.  In total we hit 4 bars where most of the group had 5 pints.  Personally I decided to pace myself knowing that we would be going out later that evening and only had one drink.  After dinner that night we met up with a larger group of people at a place called Vodka Revolution.  It was buy one round get the 2nd round for a quid. Which basically meant you got your drink and you another one at the same time for just a pound more.  You could order any drink they had, which included their stick of 6 shots.  So 2 of the guys I was with each ordered a stick and got their second for a quid.  Our table then had a total of 24 shots to split.  However, the size was really about the size of a half shot.  The guys took most of them.  Our orientation leaders were there as well and one of them came up as the guys were walking over to our table with the shots and said "now this is what we like to see".  They all then decided to head to another bar, but it was in the opposite direction of my hotel so I just headed back to my hotel for the night.
One thing I've noticed about Sheffield and maybe Europe in general since I was hanging out with a bunch of Europeans, is that drinking and drinking a lot is part of their culture.  It seems that people here just go out and drink every night and it's not just a beer or two.  Also, the girls when they go to the club wear really short dresses and 4 inch heels without any type of coat.  I walked past one club on my way back to my hotel on Thursday and they were all just lined up and looked freezing.  I mean I was freezing and I had on a coat with tights and a scarf.  Some other things I've learned, they have the equivalent to a Dollar Tree/Store but it's called Poundland.  ATM machines are cashpoints.  Sweatshirts/Hoodies are jumpers.  They drink a lot (in case that hasn't come across yet).  Ta is thank you and cheers can be used in several different ways (hello, goodbye, thank you, etc).  They don't seem to notice the rain.  I've seen very few umbrellas since I've been here and it's rained everyday so far.

Finally Settled (well sort of)

So today was the day that I was finally able to move into my apartment.  It's interesting because they are called apartments but are more of a cross between apartments and dorm rooms.  On the plus side, I have my own room which includes my own bathroom.  Our floor also has a kitchen and common area all smushed into one.  It has 2 couches, 2 refrigerators, an oven, a toaster, and a microwave.  Other than that it doesn't have anything except for a place to eat.  I also finally have internet!!  Except I have to use an ethernet to connect to it and the one they provide is max 3 feet long so I can only sit at my desk to get it.  But my desk is rather spacious and has shelving above it.  I also have a wardrobe that is a fair size only it doesn't have drawers, just shelving and hanging space.  I haven't quite gotten used to the switches here.  In order for me to turn on the light I have to click a switch, but it goes down.  This gets really confusing when I walk out of my room because my bathroom and room light switches are right next to each other and I can never remember which one is which.  I also have to flip such switch in order for my outlets to turn on as well.  I am enjoying my apartment so far.  I am living on a flat with 5 other girls; one from Hong Kong, 3 from Australia (Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne), and one from Canada.  Four of us ventured out into the city centre earlier today to get some essentials.  I needed bedding and towels mostly.  I got everything I needed for just 40 quid, which is good considering I got a lot of stuff.  Here they won't just sell you a comforter, you have to buy a duvet and then the duvet cover to go on top of it.  The genius people for designed the bags for the store however decided that it would be a great idea to use paper bags.  This seems a bit odd considering how much it rains here.  I'm fairly certain it's stopped raining for about 1 hour since Thursday evening.  Needless to say as I was getting off the bus my bag decided to rip from being so soggy.  Luckily I was still on the bus not the street.  After returning to our apartment we walked out to the grocery store so get some essentials and dinner.  They used plastic bags there but they weren't fun to carry back since they were heavy and it was a bit of a walk.  We then just spent the rest of the evening hanging out in our kitchen area.  There was a lot of noise which we thought was coming from upstairs and when we went to investigate it was actually coming from outside where a group was getting ready to head to the bars.  We watched them through the window for awhile until they realized and started pointing up at us!  Some quick notes about our Australian counterparts.  Even they don't really like Vegemite, although one of them brought it with her.  They are freaked out by s'mores, Corey, the girl from Canada, and I had to explain that they really were good and graham crackers aren't really crackers more like cookies.  We also explained to them how to play flip cup.  A couple of years ago they got a Costco where they could buy Solo cups and they became really popular for a while since Americans used them.  Now one of the bars in, I think, Melbourne uses them to serve their drinks.  That's all I can really remember now.  I have to head out tomorrow get more stuff, like kitchen stuff (we took plastic silverware from the coffee station at the grocery store to use for tonight :)  I'll post more tomorrow hopefully about orientation and the past couple of days.

Hotel view and other interesting facts

So I think the view from my room is pretty cool, it overlooks what I think is part of the city centre?  Any way the 2 pictures below are from looking out my room.

And this is the view inside my room.  Not too interesting mostly  standard hotel room.

However, the room is a lot smaller than a regular hotel room in the States.  It basically fits the 2 beds and enough space to walk along the sides plus a long desk and the bathroom (toilet).  Which by the way comes with shampoo and body wash but they are in bottles that are connected to a frame on the wall so they can't be taken.  Again different b/c most US hotels just have the mini sample bottles for you to use and take.  Another thing that is different is that in order to get electricity to my room, I have to have my key card plugged into the wall.  That took me forever to figure out.  I kept thinking that something was wrong with my converter and I was doomed!  I realized I wasn't doomed when I went to use the toilet and the light wouldn't turn on.  But then I was thinking oh no the woman at the check in counter asked if I needed anything amenities and I said no, did she mean I had to pay for electricity too?? I realized that that was a bit ridiculous and they wouldn't make me pay for electricity.   That's when I saw this little box on the wall that kind of looked like my key card could be placed in it.  So I tried it and immediately the air kicked in and I tried the lights and they worked!!!  I'm glad I found it or I would just be sitting here in the dark, or would've looked like an idiot going down to the desk to see if I had to pay for electricity:) 

Planes, trains and walking

So I have finally made it to England!! ( or the land of fish and chips if you're Diana:))  My long trip started out yesterday evening, I left Dulles at 6pm.  Not a drop of ice was in sight as mom, dad, Cait, and Kim dropped me off.  I had been worrying al weekend that we were going to get another ice/snow storm right before I felt and I was going to be stuck.  Luckily though, the ice that had come the night before had melted and more wasn't due in the area until midnight.

Dulles prior to takeoff

Goodbye Virginia! See you in 4 months:)

Nothing too exciting happened on my trip over.  I was excited because the airline had amongst their movies the 5th Harry Potter as well as Monsters Inc. and Lilo and Stitch.  Needless to say I was able to watch all three on my way over.  I tried to sleep on flight but was only successful in getting about 3 hours max in.  Even though I had a 3 hour layover I didn't want to try to sleep out of fear that I would would miss my second flight.  They only announced the gate I was flying out of 30 minutes before the doors to get on would be closing and they don't tell you when they announce it.  I had to make sure I was watching the screen for when my gate showed up.  Luckily it was very close to where I was and I didn't have to go to separate terminal.
Once I landed in Manchester I had to get my bags which wasn't bad, but carrying 2 large suitcases from one end of the airport to the other while having an incredibly heavy backpack on was not a lot of fun.  I was successfully able to buy both the 16-25 yr old railcard as well as my train ticket into Sheffield.  Since genius me forgot the passport size photos I had printed out earlier this month, I had to cut up the one pictures I had the was supposed to be for my room.  The guy at the ticket counter noticed that the shirt that I had on in the picture was an American football jersey and he commented on it.  I told him yes, it was from the school I go to.  Then he started talking about how American football was big at the Universities in the states and that his favorite team was Michigan, he was there wasn't a real reason why but he liked them.  I told him that my aunt had graduated from their rival Michigan State and he asked me where I studied and I told him Virginia Tech.  What he said next struck me, he asked wasn't that where the tragedy had happened a couple years ago and I told him yes.  I was slightly surprised that they had heard about it all the way over here.  I know that when it happened it was news all around the country, I just never realized that it had made it to other parts of the world as well.  He was very nice and told me exactly where I needed to go to catch my train and when it would be leaving.  Even then, I wasn't completely positive that I had gotten on the right train since the only notification about it was outside on the board.  Instead of saying the train stops at certain locations, the train announces where it will be calling at, I guess it makes sense.
Getting off the train in Sheffield was interesting because I had put one suitcase up in the luggage area while I kept one with me.  However, I was sitting on the opposite end of the cart and had to drag my large suitcase through the other people who were getting off and wanting to use the door close to where I was sitting but not where my suitcase was.  I finally made it off the train and realized that one of the other students from Tech had been on the same train.  The two of us walked through the station together.  Since my hotel was close to the station I decided to walk there instead of taking a taxi whereas his was closer to the school and grabbed a taxi.  So another thing I've noticed about England, or at least Sheffield, the street names aren't very noticeable.  Unfortunately for me the directs of have from the train to the hotel are given in the street names.  Not only that but I realize I'm going to have to pull them up this large hill.  This hill normally would not have been a problem but I was toting along 2-50lbs suitcase plus my backpack and purse.  Again I was very fortunate and someone noticed that I was struggling and offered to help me.  I graciously accepted his offer but when I told him where I was headed he didn't know where it was:(  Using my excellent sense of direction (which I really don't have so it was sheer luck) I was headed in the right direction and was quickly able to find my hotel.
At the hotel I was once again lucky and was allowed to check in an hour and a half early.  After a quick nap since I was exhausted I've been exploring things to do in Sheffield via the internet and a magazine that was in my room.  I would go out and explore but I'm content to sitting in my bed and not having to worry about getting lost by myself on my first night here.  Besides I have a whole semester to explore!