The Super Bowl abroad and my first overnight trip.

I have learned one main thing in the past week. Being abroad is more fun when you have things to do...


A group of about 20 of Americans all went to a sports bar to watch the super bowl. A few highlights include standing and singing the Star Spangled Banner while everyone else sat there trying to ignore us. It was also fun to listen to the locals try and talk football during the game. My favorite quote was "challenge the play, that way you'll take a few minutes off the game clock". It was also fun to hear the entire bar sing "Oh when the saints go marching in".

By far the best part of the night, besides watching Drew Brees win, was when The Who played at half time. There were two reasons locals came to watch the game. The first was to watch the big hits in slow motion and yell "OOOOOOO". The second was to hear their beloved band play. It didn't matter how drunk they were, all of them knew every word to the music. In fact half time was when we were all able to get up, go to the bathroom, and order more drinks and food without waiting in line, sweet huh.

The second thing I did was visit Edinburgh, Scotland. I went with 2 of my roomates and one of their friends. Now, I know some of you may be thinking that a semester abroad may change me. Well, here is proof that it hasn't. The bus was supposed to leave at 11. One of my roomates and I hadn't bought our tickets ahead of time so we planned on getting there early. We left our flat at about 10:15 planning to walk there. After walking for 30 mins we decided to call a cab after all, and rode it the last 2 (yes only 2) blocks to the station. While we got in line my other roomate boarded the train and was attempting to stall for us. We got through the line and onto the train at 11:00 exactly. The clock on the bus turned 11:01 before I found an empty seat..... maybe that's something that I should change.

The first thing we did upon arriving in Edinburgh was look for a hostel for the night. We found one recommended in a traveling book I have and got settled. We then went to a "The Elephant Cafe". This is extremely famous for the place that J.K. Rowling created Harry Potter. It was awesome. After eating an overpriced meal we headed back to the hostel for a pub crawl they were putting on. It was us and about 50-60 other backpacking kids from all over so that was fun.

We got up and headed out to explore. We got to their downtown shopping strip and walked down the "Royal Mile". At the bottom was the Queen's official Residence in Scotland. After taking the closest picture I could we saw a large hill (or small mountain) to the right of it. We immediately decided we needed to climb it. However, we needed to get supplies first. After equipped with a snickers, a red bull, whiskey (when in scotland), and a cigar for the top, we set off on our journey. It ended up being quite the extravaganza. It started out as a basic hill, but at certain points we were walking on paths a literally foot wide with steep inclines and no rail or anything for the side. Because of this we were extremely surprised to see young children with their families at the top. It was then we found out there was a much easier (and I think shorter) path on the other side. Anyways the view was fantastic and we had a lot of fun. I am attaching a link to a slide show at the bottom for you all to see this and the rest of my trip.

Once back on town we went to a pub to watch a huge Rugby game between Scotland and Whales. Scotland lost on a last minute score so everyone was extremely upset. After that we went out to a few pubs. There was a random man who sat with us and started talking to us. We eventually got around to traveling (he has been absolutely everywhere, including a trip to NY last month when he spent $5,000 in 5 days) so we started asking him for advice. He then rambled for a half hour about how expensive Dublin is and if we really want to see Ireland to go to Belfast (where he is from). After listening to this over and over I finally asked him "Isn't Northern Ireland still at war with itself?". To which he responded "No that's all but over, plus if it wasn't it's not like Americans tourists were targets." Needless to say I didn't feel reassured and will not be going there.

After that we headed in to crash for the night. In the morn' we grabbed a bite to eat and headed to the castle. It's built on an extinct volcanic rock, and dates back at least to the 11th century, so that was extremely cool. (check out the link for more pictures)



I leave for Paris/Versailles on Thursday so I'll keep you posted when I get back.

Also, to all the hype about the family Brew. For now I will continue to do investigative research on my end throughout travels, and we'll talk logistics when I get back. :)

Here is the link to photos (same as on my facebook) http://www.flickr.com/photos/27735608@N07/sets/72157623442759756/detail/

Week 2.677

Sorry for the delay since my last post. Two of my friends for University of Illinois, Haley and Arianna have been visiting so I haven't had as much free time as usual. It's been good to hang out with some familiar faces, even though it has been a bit cramped in my 8x10 room - ha.

The picture is me and two other girls from the University of Illinois at the shopping part of town. Apparently its a big deal that we have a "TopShop" as well as other pricey stores. I was in there for less than 5 minutes before I left for "Primark", the English equivalent to Kohl's. Much more my style.

Last weekend I went on my first trip. I went to Liverpool for the day. It was a really cool town. Less like a city and party town than Leeds, but I think it was a nicer looking more scenic town. It helps that it's on the coast so it has a lot of water and ports. We took 7 coach buses there as a group. I ended up on the bus with the adult students, who were going with their entire families. I ended up sitting next to 4 little kids that absolutely drove me nuts the entire time. They were making paper planes the whole time, one kid cried three times, and another went to the bathroom 6. It was terrible. I felt like a camp counselor for first graders all over again, except this time I couldn't give them pool time to get them to stop. Longest two hours of my life.

Once we got there I met up with my flat-mates and a few other people and we walked around town. The Leeds chapel is the biggest Anglican church in the world so we paid 3 pound to go to the top. On the roof we were on a 450 foot tower, but its at the top of a hill 500 more feet above sea level, so we had a great view.

After the church we grabbed a bite to eat and headed to the Beatles museum. Now I have never been an avid Beatles fan but it was pretty cool to see the history of the band. It focused a lot on local places in Liverpool, where the grew up, went to school, and all started playing. Beyond that everywhere we went there was Beatles music playing. Musicians on the street, every store, pubs, etc - all Beatles music. It was fun for a day, but I'm pretty sure that would drive me crazy to live there. After that we headed back to the buses. I grabbed my first McDonalds of the trip, it was as delicious as ever, and headed on the bus (sure not to sit by the little kids again).

Besides McDonalds and pub food I have tried to try some of the local cuisine. Bangers and Mash is terrific. Its just a huge pile of mashed potatoes, sausage, and tons of brown gravy. I tried some some Chicken Tikka Marsala (Indian Food - It's as big here as mexican food is in the states), it was really good but I had no idea how to eat it. My favorite thing so far has been the english big breakfast platters. It is 3 pound (about $5) for 2 eggs, 2 english bacon strips, 2 sausage, mushrooms, half a tomato, baked beans, and chips (french fries). I started getting these meals as a direct result of me getting sick of eating peanut butter and jelly, pringles, cereal, and frozen pizzas.

Organizing trips in itself is a job. Just the few weekend trips I have down are getting hard to keep straight, its going to be really hard to travel for my 4 week Easter Break and keep everything straight. It will help that the fam is visiting during that time, so I can let mom and dad be the organized ones for a week, ha. My first big trip is Feb 18th-22nd I'll be in Paris and Versailles.

I am jealous of everyone who gets to watch the superbowl with the commercials. We have tickets to watch it at this big sports bar, but they have their own commercials so I won't get to have the full experience.

As for the Rook Uncles and their interest in the alcohol class. This week we learned about the different early parts of the brewing processes. First you take the Barley and germniate it, Kiln it, then steep it and based on the temperature and times you get different shades of malts. Little known facts, even the darkest beers like Guiness is 95% pale malts. Also, Barley is most commonly used to make beer because the stem is within the seed, whereas wheat and others have external stems so they are more fragile. That is why until more recent technology wheat beers didn't exist. Anyways I've been thinking that my project to create a beer could be a great opportunity to start a Rook family company. We could base it off of one of Uncle Dave's favorite Goose Islands, grow the barley and oats on the Coulter farm, Brew it at Uncle Pat's Papa Dells Chain in Wisconsin, my dad will be the salesman, and Uncle Bob will design our corporate structure. Deal?

Also I found out our cafeteria is the same building where "The Who Live at Leeds" was recorded. Random fact.

Sorry it was long, I'll try to be more regular about this.