Such a Busy Week!

Wow it's been a while since my last post!  We've been so busy with Orientation, its been hard to sit down and write!  Here are some highlights of the week, before I talk about our adventures today!

Bath Abbey

1.  Wednesday (Feb. 2) - the congregation of Bath Abbey invited us over to the church for tea and cake as a welcome to the ASE students.  We were able to tour the cathedral afterwards, and it was simply breathtaking!  Many of my pictures turned out strangely because of the poor lighting, so I hope to go back and take more soon. 
2.  Thursday (Feb. 3) - I ate my first pasty for lunch! And for dinner, my roommate Anna and I went out for our first pint of cider and fish 'n chips!  It was really fun to experience a pub environment, though we went on an off-night, so not that many people were out.  One funny story: we were stopped for directions to a Sainsburys (grocery store) by a British man.  I assume he wasn't from Bath, but it didn't make sense to ask the Americans for directional advice!
3.  Friday (Feb. 4) - In the morning, I signed up for a Contemporary Dance class at Bath University!  I'm so excited to see their take on Modern Dance - a largely American dance form.  We also picked up our books for the semester - and I have 28 novels to read in 16 weeks! 

My "Library" as My Roommates Like to Call It 

That evening, our Programme held a "formal" (more like business casual) reception at the Victoria Art Gallery as a chance for us to mingle and chat with our tutors (technically, they aren't professors - I'm not really sure why).  It was strange being in a social setting with our tutors!  At home, students and professors would not meet for a casual meet-and-greet before class!
4.  Saturday (Feb. 5) - Our first free day of the semester!  This was one of the best days of my Orientation, just because I finally got to walk around the city and take some pictures.  My flatmates and I also went grocery shopping, and I bought FROZEN CORN!  As you all probably know, I am not a huge fan of vegetables, but frozen corn is my favorite "vegetable" to pair with dinner, and I wasn't expecting to find it in the UK!  We also ordered Thai "take away" for dinner with some other girls from our house, which was a wonderfully relaxing way to end the day.

Sorry the picture is slanted - the wind made taking
level pictures quite difficult!

And finally, today was the adventure day for our Programme!  We started bright and early at 9am with a trip to Stonehenge.  Oh my goodness, it was SO WINDY!  There were definitely times that I thought I was going to be blown away!  One of our faculty, Andrew Butterworth, just so happens to be one of the best tour guides in Southwest England (he's a Blue Badge Tour Guide in Bath), so he gave us a wonderful history of the site and ruins.  Our next stop was Salisbury, and we saw the beautiful and HUGE cathedral!  The town is also very cute, and we ate at a traditional pub called the Haunch of Venison.  Our last stop was Lacock, a famous filming site in England.  Scenes from the BBC Pride & Prejudice,  Emma, and Harry Potters 1, 2, & 6 were all filmed in the quaint town of Lacock!

Elysia, Zoe, Katie, and Anna at the
Haunch of Venison!

The Quaint Village of Lacock

It's so hard to believe that I have class tomorrow!  I'm actually very excited for class to begin, and to have a set schedule again.  I can't wait to tell you all about my classes (and hopefully, not so much about our extensive amounts of reading!)  Cheers!