It has been awhile since I  last wrote on here, and I apologize. I have been keeping busy...

First off, I'm still in England. The rest of my time spent at Cambridge consisted of meeting more scholars and gentlemen, a few ''sirs'' and some more lawyers were thrown in the mix. Renad took me to dinner at a pub called the Eagle, which has become famous because that's where DNA was discovered. The scholars responsible for coming up with the equations for DNA apparently frequented the pub and would meet there to not only drink, but to brainstorm. Finally, one night they famously announced, ''we have discovered the secret of life!'' The pub is nothing special, your typical English pub- but the sign on the wall above one table in the corner that these world famous geniuses  had sat at is what makes it so special.
Cambridge was beautiful. It's an awkward city to get to, which is annoying, but if you ever get the chance to go, definitely check it out!

This past week I have been doing some more work for David at his office, making some easy pocket money. On Wednesday though, their family friend Suzanne, who is actually from Toronto, came to stay with them. We decided to go and check out Blenheim Palace on Thursday. It was absolutely stunning. Not only has it been home to countless Dukes and Duchesses over the years, but Sir Winston Churchill was born here, and spent much of his childhood visiting. The new film, Gulliver's Travels was just filmed there as well, (with Jack Black) so there was a huge exhibit all set up showcasing the new movie. We did a lovely tour around the palace, then finished off the day with afternoon tea!

Friday we drove in to Henley, a favourite of mine from the last time I was in England. Henley-on-the-Thames is where they hold the annual world famous Henley regatta. A beautiful little village, obviously with the Thames River running through it. We had lunch and did some window shopping, the weather has become really cold here now, so we didn't spend too long outside.

On the weekend, Harry came home from boarding school, so we all hung out, drank quite a bit of wine, had a thanksgiving-type meal on Sunday (in honour of both Canadian and American thanksgivings) and watched football and the Ashes.
The Ashes is a 5-day series of cricket matches, and is a long running tournament that is played between England and Australia. David tried to get me in to it more than once, I just couldn't do it...one of the most boring sports I have ever watched. (No offense if you enjoy it!)

I went in to work again today for David, I'm trying to decide where I want to go next! I will keep everyone posted!

xxo

Amongst Gentlemen and Scholars...

Cambridge University, where do I begin?

First off I need to explain how this school works. Oxford and Cambridge are both made up of 20-30 colleges, each having their own faculties within them. Renad belongs to Darwin College, and therefore lives in the Darwin building, donated of course by the kind Mr. Darwin himself. Ha.
Renad then informs me that we are attending a formal dinner that evening. Apparently, twice a week each College has their own formals. Imagine a Harry Potter dining room, filled with students sitting at long tables, wearing robes-yes, robes. I of course did not have a robe, so I stuck out like a sore thumb, lovely.
We walk in to the hall and Renad hands me a glass of port, ick. We then walk in to the dining room area and find our tables (we each have name cards, myself included) and then we are made to stand until the Head of the College allows us to sit.
(Renad and I both find this all extremely amusing, he apparently hates these things and never goes.)
Across from me are two of Renad's friends. One of them, Phillippe, used to work for the United Nations in New York and now is taking time off to come back to school... amazing.
We had a fabulous three course meal, then took our leave once the Head of the College permitted us to do so. Haha
The social after dinner was in the basement of Darwin College. I met Supreme Court lawyers from Canada who were really great (from Windsor, of all places!) and spent the night just in awe of everyone who I had the privilege of meeting.
More to come...

xx

Lovin' Leeds

I know I've fallen behind with my posts, my apologies, I was keeping busy in Leeds this week!

I arrived on campus Friday afternoon, backpack on, looking like the lost little tourist that I was. I ventured in to a nearby coffee shop to sit and wait for Lauren to finish class, having a tea of course.
Finally my favourite Brit arrived, energetic and bubbly as ever, I had missed that lovely accent of hers!
Leeds Uni is beautiful, it has a nice sized campus, with student housing surrounding it- a lot like Queen's! We spent the afternoon chatting, sharing stories and catching up on lost time.
That night we went for some Moroccan food and a little vino at a nearby restaurant, continuing our gossip fest.
The next two days were filled with shopping, touring around the city and meeting up with some of Lauren's exchange friends from Edinburgh. We had a great meal on Saturday to celebrate one of the girl's birthdays, and of course ate it whilst watching X Factor! The rest of the night was filled with disco music and dancing!

The weather in Leeds was much like Canadian weather at this time of year, cold and windy. Unfortunately, the heating in Lauren's house does not always reach up to her attic room, so we had to cuddle with a hot water bottle all night to stay warm.
 Monday I spent a few hours wandering around the city, soaking up the beautiful Christmas decorations that were beginning to appear. Two of Lauren's Leeds Uni friends were coming to visit that night, Chloe and Naomi. We went out for a lovely dinner, followed by cocktails at a nearby bar. The final club we went to, Jake's Bar was absolutely dead, save for a few members of the band the Pigeon Detectives. (Apparently they are sort of a big deal in England, Lauren was pretty excited, I had never heard of them. They were great guys nonetheless.) We left the bar that night belting out Prince's 'Purple Rain'...great night.

Around this time of year, there are German Christmas Markets that are set up all over Europe. There happened to be a small one in Leeds, so we went there the next night to check it out. It seriously got me in to the Christmas spirit, as well as made me want to go to Germany for the beer gardens. They had one set up there and it looked like loads of fun. Soon...
Seeing Lauren was so great, and meeting her friends and seeing her part of the world was so exciting. We reminisced about Queen's, and made future plans to meet up, (hopefully I'm going to her family home before Christmas to meet her family, and possibly meeting up with Chloe in London for a night!)

I am now back in Thame, re-packing for my next adventure, CAMBRIDGE! Spending a few nights there visiting Renad and friends, cannot wait!

P.S As I'm sure you all know, Prince William has FINALLY proposed to Kate... It's EVERYWHERE. Poor Harry Potter...being outshone by Kate Middleton, not cool.
xx

LEEDS

I am sitting in Lauren's bed at the moment, sipping tea and watching Love Actually.
'Tis the season!

Jolly Ol' England

Still in England, in the wee town of Thame. I'm currently working illegally during the day at David's warehouse, packing boxes and making up kits and whatnot. Could be more exciting, but hey, money is money, and this is a huuuuge favour from David. (For those of you who don't know, I'm staying with the family I Au Paired for two summers ago, David is the dad.)
So I don't really have any exciting photos to put up, or stories to report. Besides the fact that we break twice a day for 'tea time', so I've literally been drinking about four cups of tea a day here... And the man who runs the warehouse, Vernon, has a toy model bus collection, (I think he owns around 300+ buses...) and also collects Christmas decorations, which I find really exciting. (He orders them all from Costco, apparently they have really stellar Christmas stuff.)

While I spend my time mindlessly packing boxes full of Nokia mobile phone leaflets, I got to thinking...
I had mentioned earlier on in the blog that my mom had wanted me to have a purpose for travelling, sort of like an informal research project while I visit each place. Originally I was going to take a look at cultural events, or festivals that each city/country hold throughout the year. But now, after thinking more about it and having already experienced some of it, I have decided to really take a look at the sporting industry over here, and attempt to compare it to ours in North America.
 Already I have been to a Gaelic Football match, (match, not game) when I was visiting Laura in Dalkey. Her friends brought me to the match, and we watched their team lose, unfortunately. This sport is only played in Ireland, which is really interesting. It has a cult following however, because it is so Irish and unique. The fans are extremely dedicated, and like football,  (European football) each Irishman or woman has their club (or team.)The match was attended by all ages. Kids had their faces painted, covered head to toe in their team colours. Cuala was the team we were rooting for, some of Laura's friends played on it, I guess they've played better games...
I also had the great privilege of not only experiencing the game during the afteroon, but also celebrating (yes, celebrating) their loss at the clubhouse in Dalkey later that evening. North American athletes take note-- even though the team had lost, quite badly actually, they still managed to have their spirits up and
celebrating at the pub with all of their friends and family. This would never happen in Canada....
Men of all ages, fathers, sons, and friends were all gathered in this small, warm, and pub-like atmosphere, drinking to good health and good times, and hoping that next time they'll have better luck.

It was a really neat experience, one that was very Irish and one that I hope to have again soon.
There was such a strong sense of camaraderie among everyone, anyone was welcome.
We didn't leave the GAA (Gaelic Football Association) clubhouse until 5am...leaving behind a good number of people still continuing on the celebrations...

For dinner last night we went to this adorable quaint pub called the Half Moon.
I had duck hearts as an appetizer...surprisingly delicious.
R.I.P. ducks.

'Quiet desperation is the English way...'

In gorgeous, sunny (surprisingly) England I've managed to do three very English things this week.
1) Go to their new, shiney and gigantic shopping mall in London called Westfields. It's massive, think three times the size of the Eaton's Center. It is also very Euro, which makes it fun to visit. With outdoor cafe's along the perimeter, and a genius architectural design to the building- it has everything you could ever want/need/imagine. Go there if you're looking to shop whilst in London.
2) I had the opportunity to drive on the other side of the road. Now I know that I did this many times during the summer I Au Paired here, however I was not planning on doing it this time, so it came as a bit of a shock. Managed to navigate around roundabouts and hairpin tight turns just fine, stay tuned though...more driving today.
3) Last night we all went to London to see English comedian Bill Bailey's live stand-up show. It was amazing. If you don't know who he is, Youtube him. He's hilarious, and I fell in love with his comedy last time I was over here. My cheeks were literally aching from laughing so hard. Although some of the jokes were revolving around British politics, of which I only know a bit about from listening in to both the criticisms and praises that carry on around me, I nevertheless found his deliverance of each joke enjoyable. He's a funny looking guy to begin with, having big googly eyes, (you'll understand this if you youtube him) so you cannot help but laugh.

Before the show began last night, we had the chance to walk around Leicester Square, which is just off of Charing Cross, right around the corner from Trafalgar Square. Although I have been to London a  handful of times, this was my first visit to these popular, and beautiful tourist destinations. Jampacked with people on every street corner, the storefronts and sidewalk cafes were all lit up, with theaters and their twinkling lights shining on every street as well. It was a really nice area, one that I will visit again soon.

What I love about staying with locals when you're in a beautiful country such as England, is how accustomed they become to their incredible historical monuments that fill the city. We were driving home from the show, and passing by Buckingham Palace was like driving past their corner store, no big deal.
I think I have to live in London for a bit...

The sky was also lit up last night, all around the city and surrounding area with fireworks, it was Bonfire Night. It was raining, apparently the British have managed to create waterproof fireworks.

xo

More from Scotland

 The beautiful city center of Glasgow! Siobhan took me on a bus tour of the city. Closer to Christmas, this square becomes all lit up!

 The beautiful campus of Glasgow University...it looks as if it's located in Central Park.

 The 2L bottles of Strongbow that only cost two pounds, genius.

 Out with Siobhan's flatmates! This was a really neat hotel/bar that we started out at...no music though, so we continued on haha.

 St. Andrews!!! On our hike, this is the view from part of the Fife trail, which runs along the sea for about 7 hours. We only did an hour of it...

 One of the many golf courses surrounding us...

 Rich and I!!!

 Taylor and Rich...he was our hiking guide, also our token American friend.

 Walking down someones driveway, on our way back...

 This is the terrifying creature that almost had the misfortune of running into...thank god we didn't.
 Running on haybails...

 St. Andrews in the background

 My 'Halloween costume'....so sad, all I really had was the wig. So I told people I was a Pink Lady from Grease....had the leather jacket on...haha.

 Bobby Dylan, Rich as some sort of dead vampire, and his bat, and Ahmad who didn't dress up, not cool..

 Anstruther, the small fishing village that Rich and I travelled to on Monday.

 Swinging near the seaaa, singing the 'Drunkin' Sailor' song

My future cottage...

Iron Bru is this really sweet pop that the Scotish looove. It tastes like a mix of Cream Soda, Orange Crush, and Ginger Ale...yum.

 The famous fish and chip place! Did not take long for us to finish this...

 HAGGIS!!! Surprisingly good...althought the true taste was masked by gravy and mashed potatoes...haha

Me digging in...

Quick Travel Tips

These mainly apply to those travelling on their own...take note:

1. Choose your seat wisely on a train/plane/bus. Scope out the people, the location, and compare it to the amount of baggage you yourself have. AVOID BATHROOM AREAS. My train ride to Edinburgh was less than pleasant because of that mistake...never again.

2. When possible, watch local television shows that are popular with your age group. It's a great way to start up a conversation/debate when you're meeting people for the first time. (My shows now are the Inbetweeners and X Factor)

3. Travel as LIGHT as possible. Ryanair may seem all amazing and magical because it's so damn cheap. But obviously the airline needs to make money, so they find little tiny ways to charge you...a.k.a overweight luggage.

xo

Haunted Castles

Beautiful, beautiful Scotland. We spent our Halloween evening exploring a haunted castle!!!! ...spooky
St. Andrews is definitely a town to visit if you're nearby, it's small, but worth it. You can walk down the cobble stone streets, pop into a cafe for a smoothie or hot chocolate with oreos, (yum!) or grab some of the worlds best fish and chips. -- Rich and I did a day trip to a small seaside village called Anstruther, which has a restaurant there that claims to have the best fish and chips in Europe. (A hotspot for Prince William, when he studied at St. Andrews, and apparently Tom Hanks has made appearances.)
The food was EXCELLENT!
We managed to find an 'American' restaurant one night, and watched American football on the big screen, while eating hamburgers and chips...a nice change.
Going to an international school like St. Andrews, you meet a lot of interesting people...Rich is lucky.

More pictures to come...
xx

Rich, proud of his new University

The Old Course, 18th Hole. Home of many British Opens, won here by T Woods himself.

This photo is for you Dad. The Swilcan bridge Arnie Palmer famously stood on waving his hat after winning. I didn't have a hat, so had to compromise.

Rich, contemplating what his next move should be...

On my way to Rich's class....these are his school buildings......beauty.