Sunday, December 7, 2008

Wonderful experiences in my last week...
















Well it’s now less than a week until I’m home and I can hardly believe that my time here is almost done! Sometimes it seems as though I’ve hardly been here and at other times I look back on some of the pictures that I took at the beginning and some of my first trips and it feels like it’s been ages. I am ready to come home, but I’m really having fun and trying to make the most of my time here. This past week I spent a lot of time getting papers finished up and studying for my exams this Wednesday. Thursday night was a nice break from work and a wonderful night with friends. Shanna invited me to come with her, Nikita, Gracie and Caroline to dinner at their professor’s flat. Sanders and his wife Bahar are vegetarian and vegan respectively and were going to be making a vegan dinner for us. Nikita and I are pretty much vegan and Caroline and Gracie are both vegetarian. Shanna is the only carnivore in the group, but still enjoys some veg-friendly food now and again. The meal was absolutely delish! We had toasties with garlic for starters and then a wonderful soup Sanders made from Jerusalem artichokes and leeks. I have to get the recipe for the soup because it was fantastic. Our main course had a Scottish flair to it since we had vegan haggis. I know, I know sounds disgusting right? Wrong! It was really good, once you understood that it was nothing like really haggis…ick! We also had mashed neeps (turnips) and colcannon, a Irish mashed potato and kale creation that was wonderful, especially Bahar’s addition of garlic to the mix. We finished off the night with great discussions and dessert of deep fried Mars bars and Oreos! Totally cancelled out all of the healthy veggie food we had just eaten, but the Oreos were amazing! Overall a wonderful night with some great friends and I realized how much I’m going to miss those girls when I’m home. Why does New York have to be so far away?
Friday was an all day paper writing marathon, with some procrastination…ok a lot of procrastination thrown in for good measure. Saturday I decided was going to be my shopping day to get some gifts for people back home that I had yet buy for. I ended up meeting Beth downtown and we just happened to find ourselves in the midst of Canterbury’s annual St. Nicholas parade! It was really neat to see all of the kids that were a part of this parade and we finally saw the big cheese himself, the Archbishop of Canterbury. I got to take some video of the parade, so people can get a sense of what it was like. I found some good stuff downtown and went home to find my kitchen taken over by Nikita, Gracie and Christina-a good thing for sure! After I ate some lunch (it was 3pm and I was starving!), we all went for a quick ASDA run and came back for a night of food and movies. We ended up watching Boonedock Saints, a movie I had never seen, but was definitely high on my list. I loved it, even though it was quite violent. Gracie made the point that I really had to be in order to get the moral of the movie across so well.
Today was exciting for me because I got to see my first real Scottish pipe band perform in Canterbury. The Argyll and Sutherland Highland regiment is a Royal Scottish regiment that is based in Canterbury…I’m still trying to figure out that one, and they just came back from a tour of duty in Afghanistan. They were being awarded the “Freedom of the City,” an honour given by the Lord Mayor of Canterbury. To celebrate the regiment they paraded through the streets, with their pipe band and the regimental mascot Cruachan, a Shetland pony. I loved seeing and hearing the bagpipes! I was absolutely bursting with excitement when I heard them strike in. It was also really cool to be a part of a celebration like that, everyone supporting their troops. Even though they are not soldiers of my country, I felt a since of gratitude to them for serving none the less. Gracie and Nikita who had come down with me also really enjoyed it. Who doesn’t like to see dozens of military guys in uniform…some even in kilts! :) Well, I guess that better be all for now. Finished up one paper and some crib notes for my exams, so now all I have is one last short paper to write and another set of notes for Modern Britain and I’m done for the term! I’ll be home now less than six days! Can’t wait to see everybody!
Take care!
e

1 comment:

Shanna McKay* said...

wait.. the Arch Bishop is in that last picture? I seriously thought it was a Santa joke, I can't take him seriously with the Santa beard haha