"Tea is Life" - Martha Ceuppens

     This fabulous quote was uttered last night by my very own British (more specifically Cheshire) flatmate. Since that'd be a great title for my first blog post in England, I decided it was time to actually make that post. I'm here at the University of York, which is in the north of England... which also means there are some crazy Northern English accents, well not everyone since people at the uni are from all over. It took me a while to get the hang of understanding them and to be honest, I still don't always understand. Other than understanding loads of different accents, I also have to watch my word choice. My first week I was ordering something at a cafe from the display and unknowingly called a flapjack an oatmeal square. Flapjacks, for those who are not British, are essentially oatmeal squares... kind of like the shape of a brownie but with oats and nuts or fruit depending on the flavor. Among other things, pants here means underwear (trousers = pants). What they call jam is what we call jelly, what they call jelly is what we call Jello. Chips are what we call french fries, what we call chips they call crisps. This must just be a weird university thing, but a class is called a module. But, the actual instance of the class is called a lecture if it's a lecture, or a seminar, practical, tutorial or workshop (basically just having 4 different words for what seems to be just a small group session). British English is also so wordy, particularly their signs, my goodness... the opposite of concise and direct to say the least. I can't complain though, because even in their wordiness, most people are very helpful and polite.
     On that note, and before getting lost in vocabulary rants, I've got 3 modules right now: Conversation Analysis, Syntax, and The Structure of Hebrew. They are all linguistics, just as I like it, and also pretty different from each other. Hebrew is about 15 people, so it's kind of similar to what I was used to at Grinnell. Syntax is about a 60 person lecture plus a 20 person smaller seminar. Last time I took syntax was 2 years ago, so I have to do some digging in the depths of my brain for background knowledge sometimes. The year is divided into 3 terms and I'm here for Spring and Summer term. My linguistics modules run over the course of those two terms, and then my last module, some random archaeology one, doesn't start until third term.
     I have a lot of free time since the contact hours for my classes are really limited. I've gone through some phases... the running every morning phase (that ended), the let's sleep in everyday phase (that ended), the let's get up at 8 a.m. everyday phase (that ended), and the let's learn German phase (that's where I'm at now). Thankfully, I've found a few more consistent and reasonable pastimes. Every other Sunday I go hiking with the outdoor society and basically trudge through mud and past sheep in various English hillsides. I also sometimes go into town to have tea and scones, explore different restaurants, and be touristy. This week is the viking festival, so I've gone on a historic walking tour of the city, a viking vocabulary lecture (yeah I'm a nerd I know), and this weekend is the finale, which I think is some sort of viking reenactment. I've done some traveling so far: Leeds and Oxford. The covered market in Oxford is incredible and you must try the pies and the cookies there. Then there's the usual studying in the library, going grocery shopping and eating like a proper college student. To those who doubted my cooking abilities, I can officially say I've been cooking for myself since January 4th and am still alive. I even made my first omelette!

 Visiting the York Minster with Anita and Mira

Me and Jenny in Oxford