This past week was very hectic and stressful because classes started. I originally planned out an amazing schedule with mainly classes on Monday and Tuesday, a lighter day on Wednesday, lab on Thursday and no classes on Friday. After sitting in my first class on Monday morning at a wonderful 8:15 in the morning on a very lovely rainy day in Bath, my perfect schedule changed dramatically! The classes I intended on taking were not even close to the subject matter I would have taken if I stayed at Purdue. Since the chemistry degree in Bath is a three year program (compared to the normal four year degrees in the States) subjects are taught in different orders and in different ways. Therefore, it was difficult to figure out what courses I needed to take in Bath to be equivalent to the courses I would have taken at Purdue this semester. By the end of the week, I finally figured it out! For anyone that is interested, I will be taking a physical chemistry course, a physical chemistry lab, an inorganic chemistry course, a course on drug design, and a modern british society course to mix it up a little bit. So not the easy semester I intended on taking while abroad, but oh well.
Also, I am have found it surprising that there is a language barrier. I never thought language would be a problem studying in Britain because it is an english speaking country. Yet, I am finding it difficult to answer some of my problems because the little things are different. For example, the unit of concentration are mol/dm^3 instead of mol/L. Yes, I know it technically is the same thing, but when you learn something so basic one way it is difficult to think about it in another way. One of my classes is run as a workshop, which is basically a session devoted to solving problems, I found the questions really difficult. Not so much because of the math or knowledge needed to solve the problem, but just the wording used to ask the question. I am banking on the fact that over the next few weeks I will become more accustom to the little things.
It is also very different in the way the classes are set up. Many of the classes are taught by different lectures throughout the semester. Some of my classes meet once a week while others meet several times. I even have one class that meets twice in one day. The schedule changes weekly and the classes are never in the same room. The only plus side is that I am learning my way around campus quickly. So, enough about classes because the subject just drives me crazy. Hopefully, it will all settle down once I am actually registered in classes! I keep reminding myself that it is only week 1 and everything will become routine soon enough. It reminds me of the first few weeks of freshman year when everything seemed confusing because college was so different from high school.
With my new schedule I have a free day on Wednesdays which is nice for day trips. After talking with lots of people here, it seems likes it is normal to only have 2-3 days of classes. This past Wednesday I took an adventure to Bristol. It was only a short 15 minute train ride away from Bath. I think this was my first time going to a place and having no clue where anything was (I forgot to look at a map before I left). I brought my GPS, but unfortunately it couldn't pick up service and it was losing too much battery, so I shut it off and decided to use it in case of emergency only. Plus, it is kind of fun exploring not knowing what you might discovery along the way. Luckily, I had picked up a small tourist guide of Bristol so I had a map highlighting the main attractions in the area. The main purpose of this trip was to go shopping! Bristol is much cheaper than Bath because it isn't as big as a tourist destination and I still needed some essentials, like a pillow! I think we probably only made it about a 200 feet into the shopping area, it was so large with some many shops! My favorite discovery was Poundland (similar to a dollar store). Everything was a pound and the quality wasn't as bad as you would expect! I wish I had found this store when I went out looking for dishes. It is weird that some of the things that are so expensive in the states are so cheap here and vice versa. For some reason work attire is really cheap here! I plan on going to back to Bristol to do the more touristy things at a later point and time. This coming Wednesday I am planning on seeing the Roman Baths and Bath Abbey. This was originally planned for this weekend, but Bath gets overwhelmingly populated with tourists on the weekends (plus it was raining today...no big surprise there). Another upcoming Wednesday day trip is going to be Stonehenge!!! A lot of people have Wednesday off, so it should be an ideal day for short trips to places around the area.
This weekend was spent exploring Bath some more! We managed to find the Royal Crescent and the Circus, two pieces of beautiful architecture build in the late 1700s. Once you finally move beyond all the shops in Bath, the area is very lush and beautiful. We also explored more of the area off the main street, I finally feel like I have a good idea of Bath. Saturday evening was spent out at the Pub, which was very different than the Clubs I have been to since being in Bath. I think I like the Pub scene slightly better because it is more laid back and causal. (For those of you that have been to Nine Irish at school, all the Pubs look similar with tables everywhere and a collection of different seat, it is a really neat atmosphere) I find it weird that most students don't go out on the weekends and prefer to go out during the week! I think this is crazy and it is hard to keep up with the European lifestyle.
I am finding it very hard to cook over here. I really miss cooking fun meals with my roomies. I am finding that the food goes bad before I can eat it all. The food here is also rather expensive. My current diet consists of lots of pasta and pizza, which will get old very fast. I did finally eat fish and chips in a pub here and it was delicious! Although, I found out that fish and chips which I originally thought of as very British is very much an American stereotype. It is really neat sitting around and talking with people from other countries and finding out what they think of Americans as well as finding out cultural differences. I learned something new last night that did not help prove the "Stupid American" stereotype wrong. I always thought the United Kingdom flag was the same as the English flag, but it isn't! All the different countries in the UK have different flags and the UK flag is the one with a blue background with red and white strips and the flag of England is white with two red strips.
Lastly, I wanted to touch on the title of this post. The fashion over here is so fun (and interesting at times)! Women don't wear pants! The latest trend seems to be wearing sheer tights with short shorts, I wonder who thought this would ever be attractive? Legging are HUGE over here and I have yet to find a British woman that wears jeans. It is crazy! People dress up all the time, no matter the weather or occasion. Maybe I'll return with a sense of fashion.
Next up on the list of things to do is to go to London! I am currently in the process of planning a trip for next weekend, I never expected there would be so much planning involved. I assumed the hardest part would be deciding on how to get there: the bus or train. The bus drops us off at a more central location and is cheaper, but the train is faster...There is so much I want to do and see, I am not sure it will all fit into a weekend! Maybe I'll just have to make multiple trips. If anyone could recommend a good hostel to stay at or must see attractions that would be very helpful :)
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