So, a month later...

First of all, I can't believe I've been in England for a whole month now. At times it feels like I've been here forever, and other times it feels like I just got here. One thing is for sure, I am definitely becoming accustomed to British life. The "weird" and unusual things that stuck out to me when I first got here are becoming much more normal now, and just a part of daily life. I'm definitely used to walking 15-20 minutes to class every day, and that same amount of time to get wherever I need to go in the city centre. It's great though, I really enjoy my nice walks to class every morning. It relaxes me. :) It's already getting to the point that it'll actually be weird going back to the US. Thankfully, I don't have to think about that for another 2 months! I love it here too much. :)

Classes are going great! It's awesome having 2 psychology classes and 2 sociology classes. They're all really interesting. It's true what they say about study abroad though, you learn a lot more outside of the classroom than you do inside. The basic academics are the same as they are back home, but the experiences outside of the classroom are ones I could never experience back home. I already talked a lot about my British Culture class and how incredible the seminars are, but seriously... they just get better and better! Our professor always makes sure to include questions that allow all of us to share how certain issues are looked at in our own countries and how that differs from Britain. I'm not only learning a lot about Britain, but about countries all around the world and especially about the U.S. I now have a much better understanding of how the United States is viewed around the world, and it is extremely interesting. Not to mention beneficial! It's great to learn to appreciate your own culture and where you come from.

Since I've been here, our ISA group has had excursions or cultural activities nearly every weekend. It's awesome to get a break from classes and go explore the area. On Saturday, we went to Bamburgh and the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. I think this was my favorite excursion so far. It was so beautiful! I stood in awe most of the time, and took tons of pictures that weren't able to do it justice. It's definitely one of those places you just need to see for yourself! Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the trip:

The island

The priory

My fish & chips dinner! They definitely gave you your money's worth.

Mead, a type of Lindisfarne honey wine. It was really good!

I thought this was awesome. It marks the beginning of the Christmas story in the book of Matthew, and it was made for those who were illiterate. 

Bamburgh Castle

View from Bamburgh

The beautiful sea!

Stunning! But like I said, pictures don't even do it justice. I'm already looking forward to the day I come back over here and explore even more of the country and whatever I don't get to see this time around. It's such an amazing place! What I'd really love is to bring my family over here and show them all that I have seen and been able to experience. Maybe someday! :)

Comparing Cultures

Well today was my first day of classes, and it went amazingly well. Better than expected! I'm taking one class that's particularly fascinating called British Culture. As I expected, it's my favorite class so far (I still have 2 more to take tomorrow). It's a class strictly for international students that basically teaches us a broad overview of, as you probably can guess, British culture. There are two parts to the class: lecture and seminar. During lecture time today, we didn't really learn anything - just got assigned our seminar times. I was assigned to the seminar at 2pm, and was dreading it all day long. Turns out, British Culture seminars are probably going to be my favorite part of the entire semester, not to mention the most educational. The entire class is divided into 4 different seminar groups, so my group consists of about 12 students. There's me of course, representing from the United States, then there is 1 from France, 2 from Spain, 3 from Japan, 1 from Germany, and the rest are from China. And, of course, our seminar leader/professor is British. My little group all got along really well right away. I feel like I made instant friends with them even before seminar got started. Everyone was so eager to learn about each other's culture right from the start, which made for some awesome discussion.

Once seminar got started, we were each given a sheet of paper and were told to make a list of stereotypes each of our cultures had about the UK, British culture, British people, etc. Once we made our lists, we all shared what we had, and they were all basically the same. "British people are reserved." "British humor is dry." "It's always rainy." Then we had to make a list of things that we noticed about British culture once we actually got here. Again, there were a lot of similarities, but then we got to discuss how British culture is different from our own cultures. I wish I could explain how awesome it was to share interesting things about U.S. culture and see everyone else be so intrigued by what I had to say. We also had to name at least one distinctive thing about our culture, so I was explaining how basically everyone in the United States has ancestors who immigrated there from some other country. The girl from Germany was extremely excited by the fact that a lot of our ancestors are German. :) My professor was really surprised by that too. I guess it's never even crossed my mind that people from other parts of the world don't know that about the United States. It was a great feeling to be able to openly share things about my culture and then learn more about theirs. It's amazing how much open discussion like that makes you appreciate your own culture that much more while learning to appreciate others at the same time. There are actually stereotypes I had before today that I don't have anymore, and that's after just one class. I'm definitely looking forward to learning so much more and coming home with a much more open mind! Just from today, I learned that when meeting people, always go in with an open mind and never let stereotypes interfere with your thoughts about them. Get to know someone before judging/assuming anything! That's something I hope to keep with me for the rest of my life.