Sorry I have seriously sucked at keeping up with this since I arrived in Bradford. I am genuinely surprised with how busy life has been since I got here. I've been making an effort to try and be involved in the campus community and meet people. I joined the Ultimate Frisbee team, which isn't exactly trying something new, but it has been a ton of fun and I'm going to a tournament with them this weekend! It has allowed me to actually meet some English people. The personalities remind me a lot of a less geeky version of my team at home. I'm pretty sure I could match a lot of specific people. The same sense of humour has carried over so I've been spending a lot of time with them. They train far more often than we ever did, but I've definitely been gaining skill fast because of it.
Living in a flat with 10 other people seriously helps with meeting people as well. Everyone, with the exception of one person from England, is here on exchange. We have a huge variety of personalities and countries spanning across the flat. To name them all, starting with me in Canada, we have the USA, England, Sweden, Finland, Australia, The Netherlands, Spain, and, Germany. Luckily, everyone has been getting along really well and it's been a really great group of people, despite us all being very different. Our building is super cool and runs on solar power!
Front view of the block of townhouses
Back view through the bushes, if you look at the roof you can see the solar panels
The first week was full of parties, getting to know each other, and figuring out ways to try and make our place feel like more of a home. I've been slowly accumulating pictures and keepsakes to put on my wall and my room, when actually clean, is now feeling a lot less like just somewhere I sleep and more like my own space.
I'm just wrapping up my second week of courses. I'm taking International Marketing, Regional Politics (focusing on Africa and the Middle East), Consumer Behaviour, and Global Business Environment (a glorified economics class that will count as an International Management back home). Because of the credit values, this is going to end up counting as if I was taking 5 courses back home, which is awesome. They have far less course work throughout the year. For assessment from all of these courses I only have 2 individual essays (3000 words in total for both), 1 group essay (2500 words), and 2 exams. In total, that's slightly more than I'd expect from one class back home. It does put a lot more pressure on each individual thing, but I'm really happy about the reduced workload and my courses being solely on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. It gives me a lot more freedom to travel as much as I want. Also, the School of Management (where all of my courses aside from Regional Politics takes place) looks like a bloody castle! The only issue is that it's not on the main campus, however, there is a free bus that comes hourly that will take me there and back.
School of Management
On the first weekend I spent here there was a day trip to York planned. We spent the day wandering around the town, sightseeing and shopping. One of the most interesting places we went was a tower in the middle of the town. From the top you have an incredible view of the city. The most interesting part of it was how it was used to hide Jewish people who were under attack during the war. It had all of these hidden nooks that you could wander in and out of.
I'm going to try to get on blogging more ofter, but I've been here actually living my life rather than just writing about it so I make no promises as to how often I will actually post. As per some requests from last time, I will try and take more pictures and will go through the other ones I have and post them on Facebook soon enough!
Hope all is well in wherever you're reading this!
xx
PS if anyone feels like mailing me something or wants a post card send me your mailing address or I can send you mine!
Memoriam plaque
Outside of the tower
View inside from the top, there are more smaller rooms inside of those arches
View from the top
Obligatory cheesy looking off into the distance shot
More of the view
The other trip I have taken thus far was to Berlin for the Berlin Blues Explosion workshop weekend, which is the worlds biggest blues dancing event. I stayed in a flat with 2 English people who live in France, and 2 Swiss people, who both happened to be fluent in French. Needless to say, it didn't take me long to realise how out of practice I am with my French. Somehow, it almost seemed better after a few drinks. Every night we danced until at least 5am, and I made it to classes the next day for 2:00pm. Unfortunately, I was only there for Saturday and Sunday and had to miss the classes on Monday. However, the lessons I had were incredible. Saturday, I spent time on specific moves and how to use tension in blues with Fabien Vrillon (France) and Lisa Clarke (England), that ended in my feeling extremely sassy. Next was an extremely open class breakaway dancing and shuffle blues with Gaston Fernandez and Alba Mengual (Spain). For the first time, I really feel comfortable with dancing in breakaway and no longer feel like I don't know what to do with myself. The exhausted Sunday lessons started with the snuggliest dance class I've ever had taught by Mike "the girl" and Dan Legenthal on close embrace and ways to play with your dancing while that physically close. The day ended with a really fun class on fast footwork taught by Brenda Russell (USA). It really is unfortunate that my classes with Dan Repsch and Jenny Sowden (USA) were set for Monday. I had amazing dances with them in the evenings, but I have yet to take a class from them. I'm hoping that opportunity will come up again soon.
Korean Food Saturday Night
The best cappuccino of my life (much needed and delicious) Sunday morning
Berlin being pretty
More of Berlin looking lovely
The classiest burger joint that played the best combination of 80s and 90s music
I really wish I had been able to take more pictures of the actual dancing, the venues were all incredible. However, using a cellphone as a camera left me to be very limited in what I could do. Nothing turned out particularly well, however, if anyone is interested feel free to email or message me and I can send you a link to pictures taken by the professional photographer from the weekend on his website. One of the best parts of the weekend was watching a Jack and Jill competition done solely with the instructors from the weekend. I would have been totally happy watching them dance all night.
I've been going out here far more often than I ever did at home. I guess it's a part of life and living on campus. Student bar nights have been a blast and I've loved that I get to go dancing at least once a week, even if it isn't blues. I've booked a few more trips with dancing involved and am trying to not count down the days until I get my blues fix. Something tells me I'm going to come home and be far more involved in the dance community than I was previously.
I'm going to try to get on blogging more ofter, but I've been here actually living my life rather than just writing about it so I make no promises as to how often I will actually post. As per some requests from last time, I will try and take more pictures and will go through the other ones I have and post them on Facebook soon enough!
Hope all is well in wherever you're reading this!
xx
PS if anyone feels like mailing me something or wants a post card send me your mailing address or I can send you mine!
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