A Lovely Tuesday

Today was a busy day for me. I woke up early, ate breakfast, got ready, and packed myself a lunch. I met my fellow classmates at ten to go over the reading for today's class. I had a bit of a break where I printed some articles and ate my lunch. I then headed off to class.

At four, my fellow American students and I went to the Shefton museum for tea and coffee, and to meet a visiting professor from the states. It was nice, we met the professor and briefly chatted. He is here partly because he is responsible for the exchange program at his university, so he wanted to find out about our university. Then we went to a lecture by a modern European historian whose book just came out. It was actually quite good. I then came home around seven, and went up to my kitchen to wash a couple of my dishes from this morning.

When I got upstairs, my kitchen mate who lives right above me was cooking, and invited me to join him and his friends. He is from India, so he was making home made curry, in a couple different varieties. Of course I couldn't turn him down, partly cause it was free food, but also because I love Indian food. It turns out there were seven of us total, and a couple of the girls were helping to cook. One of the guys who was there is from India, but got his bachelor's in the US, and has now been in Newcastle for two years. He brought along some Foster's, which is popular here. Of course, I couldn't turn that down either, so I had one. It was interesting watching them cook. I obviously have never seen a home made curry cooked before, and I was fascinated, and also really excited. They were so nice and welcoming. Once the food was ready, the four of us girls sat down and ate. Apparently the guys waited till we were totally done before they ate, so they basically watched us eat. One of the girls was so sweet and motherly, she kept putting food on my plate, and I am sure she was younger than me. I ate till my little heart was content, and it was amazing. So delicious! After this, we were kind of hanging out, and one of the girls kept taking pictures. So I was the white girl who was randomly in all the shots. I offered to take a group shot of them, but was turned down because they wanted me in the shot! I was also invited to a party on Friday. I might go for a bit, because they were really nice and fun. I also told them I would cook up some Mexican food for them sometime. It was a sweet evening.

Yesterday I had a lazy day from my return home from Edinburgh. I had to get groceries, and read for class. Rob and Jamie invited Alissa and I over to dinner. Rob cooked salmon, roast corn, and a delicious wild rice. He also made homemade crepes with apple filing. I love free food! I received a package from Jason that was AWESOME. He included all kinds of goodies that really made my day. Have I mentioned how much I love packages?

So I have had an amazing few days, and am really happy. Tomorrow, Rob, Jamie, Alissa and I are going to a movie, so that should be fun. I am meeting with my tutor as well because I submitted a paper for him to mark so that I know what to do for my assignments. I am getting pretty excited about some research, so I will be trying to figure out some ideas for my dissertation soon. On Saturday, Rob, Jamie, Alissa and I are going to Anwick castle, which is where a lot of the Harry Potter films were filmed. We are only going for the day, so I am looking forward to a weekend at home, where I can be lazy, and do some research. We might hit up Costco on Sunday, so that could be good times.