first day of school

Sorry everyone! I meant to post this last week!




Well it has been a crazy first week at the castle! orientation, my first field trip, my first week of classes! and now it is time to get into "school mode" (a dreaded term).


but i will begin with orientation:


orientation at Herstmonceux is not your typical frosh week - there are a lot of orientation sessions, getting familiar with England, time management, tours of the school and the grounds (which are beautiful), corridor meetings and ton's of other stuff. then at night when the sessions are done everyone heads to the pub to play pool or darts or have a beer or just hang out. One day we had a two hour break so someone decided to walk the 20 minute walk into town just for fun - soon enough more than half the school was heading down the street into the little village of Herstmonceux. One thing is for sure, good ideas spread like wildfire here.


we finished of our week of orientation with a day trip on Sunday to Brighton. On the way we stopped for an hour at Pevensey Castle:

if you are ever in this part on England i 100% recommend you go. the castle dates back to before 1066 when William the Conqueror invaded Sussex.

 

(I did not take this picture)

then after Pevensey Castle we headed off to the Birling Gap which is a beach on the English Channel

surprisingly the water was not even that cold - one of my friends even went swimming! after a couple hours at the beach we headed off to spend some time in Brighton and then we went to the University of Sussex to check out the library that we have access to here at school. 

Anyways, it was a pretty busy first week and this friday I'm heading off to London for the weekend - but you'll here more about that later :)

packing, packing, packing

So I have spent the better part of this week trying to organize my life into a series of suitcases, backpacks and bags. It's a task that is not particularly easy or pleasant. Now with the big trip coming up tomorrow evening I am putting the final touches in my three suitcases, and one backpack. I have to leave a lot behind but I suppose that is a price I am willing to pay. 


Oh! I guess I should give all some background information about where I'm going! here goes:


I am going to England for eight months as my first year of university. The school I am going to is called the Bader International Study Centre, owned by Queen's University, and it is located in Herstmonceux Castle in the south-eastern part of England. I am leaving tomorrow, the seventh, on a night flight and I will arrive around 8:30 in the morning (England time) on the eighth. The school year ends on April 14th at which point I may do some of my own traveling around Europe :)


So this blog is just to keep my family, friends and anyone else who is interested informed about my year - classes, field studies, trips, you name it!


and now back to packing .......

 oh and this is my school :)