Bulletin Board.

Haiku-a-day:

Mar 31^st

A note tacked to cork,

multiplied and rearranged,

gives onlookers joy.

Here is my wall of wonder.  It contains ticket stubs, maps, letters from friends, pictures, notes from my siblings, and my Harry Potter stamps.  (See if you can spot them!)  This wall serves as a reminder of all the awesome people I'll get to see when I return home in July.





     My mom arrived in Leeds, England today!  After my last class of the week (2 1/2 hours of presentations), I headed out and picked her up from her hostel.  We got lunch, walked around the Student Union a bit, and headed to my flat.  From there, we planned out our time in Paris, France!  We even bought tickets for a night cruise along the river Seine!  Even better, this cruise includes dinner!
    After we finished our planning, we went back to the Union to eat dinner at the Old Bar, a restaurant that serves great fish 'n chips (or so I hear, I'm not a big fan of fish).
    Now she's back at her hostel and I am procrastinating on finishing my essay.  I really should get it done.  Why is 800 words so intimidating?  Or maybe it's not the writing of the essay that is the problem, but rather the act of getting myself to start writing in the first place?!

     By the way, I've just realized that on beginning Saturday, I'll be computer-less for an entire month!  The last time I didn't have internet for a month (which is nearly the same thing) was 2 years ago.  This is going to be such a weird feeling!!  I'll be so...disconnected!

Here is a picture of the meal I had the first time I tried my home-brewed beer.  I thought chicken and veggies would be a good complement to Monkey Head.  

A loss of lighting.

Haiku-a-day:

Mar 30^th

Rushing like an owl

chasing a mouse, I nearly

tackled this essay.

Sight

Hope rises, swarming

thought and body until it

is reality.

Dying Bulb

A loss of lighting

in the hall lulls leery nights:

looks like lightning bugs.

My mom is on a plane right now coming to visit me!!!!!!!  I love that her transfer flight takes off from Amsterdam at 8:30AM and arrives in Leeds at 8:35AM!!  So funny!  Silly time differences!  She should be able to get to her hostel by about 9:00AM or 9:30AM and I will retrieve her after my Museum Studies class is over sometime around 1:00PM.  That should give her some time to rest, considering if she gets to her hostel at 9:30AM here, it'll be 3:30AM back in Wisconsin.  Then we'll grab some lunch and I'll show her around Leeds!  

I am a whopping 1956 words into my 2750 word essay!  Woo!  This means I'm just on the 7th page and I still have about 3ish more to go!  However, it may not get finished until May...crossing my fingers that I can finish it before I start break.  

And just so you know why I have my title as it is, the lighting in this flat is very strange.  One of our shower room lights flashed for DAYS as it was dying.  It was sooo annoying.  Now our hall light is doing it too and it happened for a second in the kitchen.  At least it's all dying when I won't need it because I'll be traveling across Europe...!  =)

One more note!  Today I finished my Computer Science class forever!!  One class done out of 4.  The rest I will finish in May.  And tomorrow I give my last presentation of the semester!  That makes homework for this week: 3 presentations and 1 essay 9-10 page essay.  Beer festival on Friday!  

I wish essays could write themselves...

Haiku-a-day:

Mar 29^th

Numbers bouncing up

and down as word count changes.

Six pages to go.

Today was rather uneventful.  Went to class, found out we have an assignment due tomorrow, panicked, told group about it, went home and wrote 3 pages of an essay, and here I am, bed time.  Tomorrow I get to finish (hopefully) writing my essay, prepare for a presentation I have to give on Thursday, write my final for computer science, make sure the other group portion of the final is turned in, make sure that my brewing presentation is turned in, and get some cleaning/packing done.  Hmm, sounds like I won't be busy at all...!  (Mom leaves America tomorrow to come and visit me!!  She'll arrive on Thursday morning!)

I tried my beer for the first time yesterday (forgot to mention it).  It has a sweet-ish taste, not very bitter and biting, but not bad once you've tasted it a few times.  I probably wouldn't make that particular one again (not that I plan on doing more brewing).  You can hardly taste the alcohol at all.  It's weird, we calculated our final gravity (alcohol content) to be about 11.8% or something like that, but it's not an offensive taste at all.  It's almost not there at all!  It's also not as carbonated as beer you could buy or get at a pub/bar, but at least it's not flat.  Oh, and we picked a name.  One of the girls working on the presentation today came up with it: Monkey Head.  I like it.  

That's all folks!

My journey to Scotland.

Haiku-a-day:

Mar 25^th

Tourists walk through streets

of towering buildings with

roads on top of roads.

Mar 26^th

Little Bobby sits

atop an old gravel mound.

Master won’t return.

Mar 27^th

Long journey back home.

Chatter buzzes around me

close yet far away.

***Today's***

Mar 28^th

A room constructed

of clothes hanging off of walls

smells of lavender.

Edinburgh, Scotland, land of beautiful hills, fuzzy sheep, tall buildings, and of course, men in kilts!  We left Leeds on Friday morning at about 8:30AM.  We were told the journey length would be about 6 hours.  We made it there in pretty good time, by 2:00PM, checked into our hostel, and set out into the city.  The first things I saw when driving into Edinburgh were the giant hills a short ways outside the main part of the city.  My first urge was to climb them, so that's what we did!  My friends and I started off for Arthur's Seat.  It was quite a hike, but well worth it.  From the top of Arthur's Seat you can see all of Edinburgh.  We were up there a little while before sunset (it had taken us a short bit to unpack in the hostel, eat, and climb the hill), so the lighting was stunning.  I would love to live in Edinburgh just to be able to climb Arthur's Seat every day.

When we were done with the great hill, we were hungry and decided to roam the city for dinner.  And roam we did.  For about an hour!  All 5 of us were indecisive and unwilling to pay £10+ for one meal, so that made things sort of difficult.  We ended up going with a very lovely Italian restaurant very close to our hostel that had absolutely delicious pizza.  I've already eaten dinner, but I could be hungry for that pizza anytime!  After tipping off the meal with a little gelato, we went back to the hostel to get more layers of clothing (better coats, shoes, etc.) because it was getting rather nippy outside.  We ended the night with a trip to a pub where the theme for the night was the 60s, so you can guess the type of songs they played!

We awoke early the following day, ate breakfast in the hostel, and headed downtown to find the Belmoral Hotel where JK Rowling finished writing Harry Potter.  You should be aware that this trip was filled with Harry Potter!  After taking a few pictures of and in front of the hotel, we walked through a park, saw the Scott Monument (very old and gothic), then spent a shore while in the Nation Portrait Gallery of Edinburgh.  We could only be there for about 15 minutes before it was time to head back to the hostel for the free tour they were giving beginning at 11:00AM.  

The hostel's free walking tour was great!  Our first stop was in the Greyfriars Graveyard.  This is the graveyard where JK Rowling got some of the names for her characters in Harry Potter.  Tom Riddle and McGonagall, being a few.  From here, she would also have been able to see (quite easily) the boys school where, back when the city was walled off because of the plague (?), the people inside the walls thought that the school (which was outside of it) was teaching the boys magic.

The first feature pointed out to us about the graveyard was Greyfriars Bobby.  Bobby was a skye terrier who was devoted to his master, a guard of the graveyard.  When Grey died, Bobby sat on his grave.  The pup was only 2, but had formed such an attachment to his master that he remained guarding his master's grave for 14 years.  For the first two years or so he was kicked out of the graveyard, as dogs were not allowed, but he would always find a way back.  Within the first few years he was allowed in and given a title.  This gave him rights.  Bobby could legally vote; a dog given the voting right ages before women.  He died when he was 16 and a year later a statue of him was erected.  Post script: Greyfriars graveyard also possesses the most haunted place on earth.  There is a little courtyard area that was gated because so many people would come out of it with scratches or would faint when they were leaving, or would hear voices, etc.  There is only one ghost tour in the city that allows you access, but it cost a lot of money, so we went with the free ghost tour.  More on that to come.

The tour went on to point out the Elephant House Cafe, where JK Rowling first started writing Harry Potter, the Hume walk on Calton Hill, where "Edinburgh's Shame" sits, the Scott Monument, and other touristy places in the city.  With about 20 minutes of the 2 hour tour left, my friends and I broke away to go eat lunch at the Elephant House Cafe.  It's pretty expensive considering the portion size they give you, but at least it's good quality food.  I had been told to look at the bathrooms in the restaurant, so after we were done eating, some of the girls and I went in to check them out.  There were three stalls, normal from the outside, but spectacular from the inside.  This was not because of great decoration, but because soooooo many people had gone in and written their names, favorite quotes, letters to JK Rowling, etc., on the inside of the doors.  Also, one of the toilet seats was covered in pictures from Harry Potter movies.  As you would expect, Roxanne, Leah, and I left our own marks on one of the doors.  If you don't understand this or can't picture it, just scroll down and look through my pictures.

Once finished with lunch, we headed over to the Edinburgh Castle.  We got a "free" half hour tour of it which was nice.  I had always wondered what it would be like to live in a castle, and now I pretty much know!  We toured the royal apartments, the great hall, POW camp, war memorial, war museum, and general grounds.  

By the time we were done with the castle, we were spent.  But the day was not over yet.  We headed back to the hostel to take a break for an hour or so before heading out to dinner.  We ate at a simple falafel and kabob place close to the hostel.  It was delicious.  They had a TV in the place, so we watched the British version of Wipe Out while eating.  It was great!  Food eaten, drinks drank, it was ghost tour time!  Our guide was fantastic.  He had a great accent, perfect clothes (perfect as in old, torn, looking the part of someone who lived about a hundred years ago), and his props and jokes were hilarious.  After the ghost tour, we stopped at an ice cream shop on the way home where I had the best peanut-butter and chocolate ice cream I've ever had.  I loved it so much that I had some the next day as well!  YUM!

The next day, Sunday, we got up early again, ate breakfast at the Elephant House Cafe (it was one of the few places open at the early hour of 9 or 9:30AM!), then headed back to the Greyfriars Graveyard to take find and take pictures of the graves from which JK Rowling got some of her character names.  We had been unable to find them the first time we were there.  I would also like to insert the fact that Rowling lives in Edinburgh, but we were unable to find her as well.  Anyway, after finding Mr. Thomas Riddell and Mr. William McGonagall, we went across the street to the National Scottish Museum followed by a return trip to the National Portrait Gallery.  This being our last day in Scotland, we also made sure to spend a lot of time shopping!  Out of all the time spent shopping, however, I only ended up with a magnet and I scarf.  My goal was to find a necklace as well, but the neat celtic ones were £17.50 at least.  Unwilling to pay $28 for a necklace, I didn't get one.  

The last leg of the trip can pretty much be summed up as: finding snacks for trip back, getting lunch, retrieving luggage, and boarding the bus home.  I love Edinburgh.  It still amazes me how tall all the buildings are.  Unbelievable.  And there were streets on top of street!  I am also happy I was able to see kilted men playing bagpipes all over the place!

 Arthur's Seat!  Well, this is only part of it.  The real Arthur's Seat, the tallest part, is behind this first hill.

 On our way up.  Very beautiful.

 Looking down at the city of Edinburgh.

View from near the top.

 At the top!

 L-R: Tom, Eric, Melissa, Roxanne, Leah at the top of Arthur's Seat.

 After the climb back down.

 If you click on it and look, you'll see how amazing the lighting in this picture is!

 Streets on top of streets.

Tall buildings.  It's like this all over the city.

Eating at the Elephant House Cafe.

 Harry Potter toilet seat in the EHC (not my pee....also, sorry to point that out to those of you who hadn't noticed it!)

 One of the toilet stall doors.

 I love this one.

View from the bus on the way back.

More pictures posted on facebook if you wish to see more of Arthur's Seat and other wonderful features of Edinburgh.

Royal Armories.

Haiku-a-day:

Mar 24^th

Inspiration is

a seed planted in good earth.

When it’s real, it blooms.

Carelessly planted?

superficiality

suffocates the seed.

   

   Today my Museum studies class toured the Royal Armories Museum.  It is a pretty amazing place.  They give demonstrations using real weapons, showing technique for using them and giving reasons for why they were created, and demonstrations about the people from times past that would have used the weapons.  I saw a fencing demonstration and a demonstration of the life of Jack Ketch, a famous executioner in the 1860s.  The project while looking through the museum was to determine whether it is better to have a museum focusing on education or on entertainment.  We will be giving presentations on our opinions next week (similar to the presentation/debate that we gave 2 weeks ago on contextual versus aesthetic).  Overall, I cannot see why a museum should not be able to do both.  The Royal Armories offered plenty to learn from and plenty do: for kids as well as adults.  People could touch chain armor, see how far they could pull a bow to shoot an arrow, play checkers (can't really see how that fits in with everything, but it was still fun!), not to mention the demonstrations which easily qualify as both educational and entertaining, especially as the actors were cracking jokes and knocking each other over!  

    I head off to Edinburgh, Scotland tomorrow morning.  The bus leaves at 8:30 and we'll arive at 3:30.  I am very excited, but I still need to begin packing (it's already 11PM!).  Where has the day gone?  =)  I'll be back late Sunday, so I won't be posting for a few days.

 Clarence Dock (about a 40 minute walk from where I live).  The museum is near here.

Hall of Steel

 Hall of Steel

 Demonstration.

Suit of armor. 

Ah, sunlight!

Haiku-a-day:

Mar 23^rd

Caught off guard, sunlight

evicted students from their

flats into the park.

And because it was such a gorgeous day here are ample haikus (seemingly similar, but with different messages).

Proof

Sunlight gushes through

a cloudless baby-blue sky.

Ah, I do exist.

Pathetic Fallacy

Students blanket fields

of green grass and white flowers.

Sun is their life force.

Ah, the glorious sunlight returns, brightening spirits with its glow and warmth, hardly a cloud in the sky!  Today was beautiful.  I went to Hyde Park with some friends (only about a five minute walk from our flat) and did a little bit of pleasure reading in the sun and a lot of relaxing.  You would not believe how many students go outside on a sunny day like today and just sit on the grass with friends, walk around the park, walk their dogs, etc.  Sooo many.  I haven't seen this many Leeds students since I got here!  With my last English lecture of the semester done with and my final English novel completed, I am free to begin writing my final essay for that class and enjoy the sunlight in the process.  See how I snuck in info about my day with the reigning topic of the beautiful weather?!  =P

Still so very excited about Scotland this weekend.  Also, very glad to have been able to skype my wonderful cousin Kelli over in Washington, D.C.  Miss you a ton!!

 Leeds students in Hyde Park.  I wish I had taken a better picture because this does not do justice to the actual number of people that were in the park.

 This section of the park where we sat was empty at first, but within a half hour was teeming with people.

A little bit of everything.

Haiku-a-day:

Mar 22^nd

Long night of reading.

Kids set off fireworks from a

not-too-distant roof.

Thought I'd take today's haiku in a new direction.  So, today's post comes with a picture!  I got my hair cut at the student union.  It was literally the fastest I've ever gotten my hair done.  They washed it, cut it, and dried it in under a half hour!  Amazing!  I'm used to the process taking at least an hour.  Here is the cut!

If you can't tell, it's much shorter, everything is one length again (no more layers!), and I have more bangs than I did before.

I have my last English lecture tomorrow (third and final!)!  Yay!  Only thing is, it means I have class at 10AM and 12PM instead of just at 12.  But at least it means one thing has finally come to a full-on stop for the semester.  Also, I'm 20 pages from finishing this last novel and starting my essay.  I'm too tired to finish it tonight, seeing as it's 1AM for me.  I give up for today!

And for those of you who care, I have now learned how to make white and red wines in my brewing class!  Unfortunately we won't be making them since the process takes a long time, but I know all the stages, temperatures, differences between climates and vine growth/grape production, etc.  We start learning about country wines next week.

P.S., an email response for an application to enroll in a grad level Library School class from a SLIS professor told me I'm an "ideal library school student"!!!!!  Yup.  Only thing is the classes fill up fast and priority goes to actual grade students, so she says my chances of getting in are low =(  However, the other professor I emailed for another grad level SLIS class said I should still give it a shot and check in with him later in August to see if there are any spots open!  Pray that I can get in!!!!!!  That would be amazing and my schedule for next semester would be ultra amazing!  Class only 2 days a week!!!

Prepared for spring break.

Haiku-a-day:

Mar 21^st

Persistent planning

provokes persistent probing

into pocket books.

I have done it!  I have finished planning my one month-long spring break for April!  I've already given many of the details before, but here is a summary of everything!

Leeds-London-France (Paris)-Austria (Vienna)-Ireland (everywhere in southern Ireland)-Italy (Rome [airport only unfortunately], Florence, Venice)-Greece (Athens, Santorini, Mykonos)-London (for the Royal Wedding!)-Leeds

I am so excited!  Plus, I'm spending this upcoming weekend in Edinburgh, Scotland!!  Now all I have to do is finish the last 100 pages in my English book (Aurora Floyd) and write a 2750 word essay on it, finish the presentation I started working on with my group for Computer Science, begin working on my group presentation for Museum Studies, and drink the homemade beer I made in my Traditional Alcoholic Beverages class.  Then, I'm all set to welcome my mom to England and start the trip of a lifetime!

Marvel®.

Haiku-a-day:

Mar 20^th

Last one to bed and

last one to rise makes Megan

feel a bit lazy.

I'm not quite sure if I was even the last one to go to bed last night nor was I the last one up this morning, but you can't quite fit "second to last to bed and/ second to last to rise" into a haiku; also it doesn't sound nearly as nice!  I slept in until almost 10AM this morning and it felt like most of my day was taken away from me.  I need to fix my sleeping habits.  And if I don't, at least it'll mean readjusting to Wisconsin time will be easier!  =)

Today I did my grocery shopping for the week and found this little gold nugget at the store.  I didn't buy any, but a picture will do nicely.  Click to enlarge. 

A bit random.

Haiku-a-day:

Mar 19^th

A night spent watching

Lizzie and Mr Darcy

is a night well spent.

    I'm pretty sure the room I live in used to be painted orange, and I mean the entire thing--walls, ceiling, and door.  Right now everything besides the door is white, but there are still small smudges of missed spots where orange leaks through.  

    Have I mentioned yet that St Mark's Residence (where I live) was put on the demolition list in 2008?  Every year they say they're going to tear it down.  The orange spots on the ceiling made me think of this and all the work (though minimal yet still an effort) they've put into the buildings.  We even got a brand new refrigerator a short while ago.  I'm not saying they've revamped everything here, because that is certainly not the case, but it's interesting to think about the fact that they still care about this residence.  Heck, we have several flat inspections scheduled throughout the semester and if we fail, we pay to have people come in here and clean it.  That's a lot of effort for a building that is supposed to get demolished soon.   

    Yesterday I turned in my census form for the UK!  I got to tell them that I live in the UK (though temporarily) and am a student here.  It feels good to be able to say that.  I live in England!  This is one life goal accomplished.  And in two weeks, I'll will be accomplishing more by traveling to Scotland, Southern Ireland, France, Italy, Greece, and Austria.  I am very thankful for this opportunity.  This has been a semester I'll never forget.  I've made many new friends from all over the world, explored England (and will continue to do so in May), and learned a lot about the British school system!  

    I started planning my schedule for next semester back in Madison.  My "Wish List" schedule is probably the best schedule I've ever seen in my entire life.  It consists of 2 SLIS classes (that is, grad school Library and Information Studies classes -- I need to email the professors and request permission to get into them, so cross your fingers!!) and 2 Creative Writing classes (intermediate poetry and intermediate fiction -- if they offer playwriting again, though, I might drop poetry and take that).  A schedule like this would mean only having class on Wednesday and Thursday nights.  It would be amazing.  And the good news is that Study Abroad students are supposed to be able to sign up for classes earlier than everyone else, plus I'm going to be a senior which means that those credits help put me above other people's sign-up time slots, so this magical schedule just might work out.  Just as long as there is enough room in the SLIS classes for an undergrad trying to get grad credit early...!

Running out of time.

Haiku-a-day:

Mar 18^th

What do you do when

time feels like it is slipping

rapidly away?

Today's haiku pretty much sums up how I feel.  There is so much to do with so little time, but I'm losing my motivation.  How do I motivate myself?  My real deadlines aren't until the beginning of May and I won't have any time during April to work, so I should be getting things out of the way now, but I'm finding it hard to convince myself of how necessary it is.  I have a total of 9 days left for which I can do homework.  My goal: to snap myself out of this laziness and get cracking on 2 presentations and one essay.  If there's time, both essays.

St. Patrick's Day: beer and apple sauce.

Haiku-a-day:

Mar 17^th

It kind of sucks when

you are left alone when your

group members don’t show.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  Today I sat through a rough 2 hours in my Museum Studies class.  The professor is so boring because all she does in terms of lecturing is read off her notes.  She isn't actually lecturing.  At least we got to watch a video about the Royal Armories Museum here in Leeds which is one of the oldest museums in the world.  We are taking a field trip there next week, so that is exciting.

After taking a lunch break after class, I headed over to the Food Science building because *drum roll* my group's beer was ready to bottle!  We found out from the professor yesterday.  A guy in my group sent out an email saying that we should get together today to bottle it.  I replied to everyone saying we should definitely bottle today, giving them the time I would be there to do it.  Well, no one else responded and when I got to the building, no one else from my group was there.  I ended up spending 2.5 hours there by myself sanitizing and bottling.  We had 12 liters set aside for our beer festival later in the semester and the rest amounted to 26 bottles for us to take home.  However, 2 of them cracked (not completely my fault: 1 of them I wasn't even near, the glass just shattered by itself and the other cracked when I was trying to put the cap on).  So we ended with 24 bottles between the 5 of us.  Even though I was the only one doing all the work, I volunteered myself to be the one to take only 4 bottles home.  I figure it's best because I don't drink that much anyway.

Considering how scared we were when we found out how alcoholic our beer was going to be, it's not that bad taste-wise.  You can't taste the alcohol very much.  As my professor put it, the alcohol "is not 'in your face.'"  It tastes kind of sweet, smooth, and has a nice roast flavor that lingers in the back of your mouth.  It is not a total failure!  The professor actually said he liked it!  We're at the stage now where we must wait for it to go through a second fermentation and become carbonated.  Someone mentioned waiting two weeks for it to become carbonated.  I'm not sure if that's true or not, but I don't mind waiting.

At about 10:30PM today, Roxanne asks me what I'm doing.  I reply "Absolutely nothing."  (It was true.  I didn't want to do anymore homework, so I was just playing sporcle.  If you have never sporcled, I suggest you start immediately!)  Anyway, so I tell her I'm not busy and she suggests we make applesauce.  So we did.  It wasn't like my mom's wonderful applesauce (I think I added too much lemon juice...we weren't measuring anything!), but it was still good.  When my flatmates and I sat down around 11:30PM to eat it, I introduced them all to the concept of eating applesauce on top of bread.  They thought it sounded really weird at first, but then realized that it's an amazing combo.  

So this has been my day.  Also, airline problems resolved (after spending a half hour on the phone with them and paying more money).  Now I'm just praying that they don't change my flights around on me again.

Beer I brewed and bottled myself!  Still have yet to pick a name...

Life goes on.

Haiku-a-day:

Mar 16^th

If life refuses

to yield control and order, 

just try to let loose.

My troubles today were many in number and quite frustrating, but I'm going to do my best to be calm and realize that life goes on.  Here's a shot at letting go of my worries.  

In shortest summary possible: Aer Lingus is now my most hated airline.  I don't care if they're cheap, they suck.

Tuesday.

Haiku-a-day:

Mar 15^th

Why is it that one

bad thing can spoil a good

day so easily? 

Happy Pi Day!

Haiku-a-day:

Mar 14^th

You would think writing

a haiku every day would

make them come easy…

Actually, this one came easy, but other days it doesn't!

Today was spent in going to the gym again, grocery shopping, and watching Glee, as well as doing a little reading!  Besides that, I was able to organize my plans finally and I have extended my stay in England until July!  This means more time for traveling!

Also, happy Pi Day everyone!  Hope you enjoyed 3-14!

Daylight savings?

Haiku-a-day:

Mar 13^th

Why am I Gleeful?

Perhaps it’s because I just

started watching Glee!

This weekend has been pretty good!  I got a lot of homework done on Thursday, finally got myself to the gym on Friday, did some traveling on Saturday, and caught up on TV shows today!  =D  I just started watching Glee (previously I had seen maybe 4 episodes) and now I love it!  It's quite witty and very funny.  Plus, I love music/musicals, so this is a good mix.

Want to know something interesting?  So it's daylight savings time for the U.S.A.  It's not daylight savings time in England!  My friend came over to my room today wondering what time it was.  When I told her the time, she gave me a funny look and said it matched the time she had, but that shouldn't be!  We should be an hour ahead.  We checked the time on my computer, my phone, and my wrist watch and they all said the same thing.  The wrist watch is key here since I didn't change it.  This made us curious, so I went online to see what was going on--if we were wrong about the time and it wasn't what my computer, phone, and wrist watch said, then going to class tomorrow would be difficult (for those who still have classes on Mondays!) because they could get there an hour before it started and be stuck waiting.  According to my results, England doesn't switch it's clocks over until March 27th, two weeks from when the U.S.A. does it!  Do you know what that means?  For 2 weeks, we are only on a 5 hour time difference (in Wisconsin), not 6!  Yay!  This has been my fun fact for the day!

A day in Saltaire and Haworth (Brontë Parsonage).

Haiku-a-day:

Mar 12^th

The graces of a

hilly town are almost too

beautiful for words.

I went to Saltaire, Keighley, and Haworth today!  They were all beautiful.  Saltaire was neat, but definitely more of a place to just sit and relax.  As far as I could tell, it had no big attraction to draw in many visitors.  The pamphlet we received from our guide said this (I've edited it a bit because it was full of spelling errors and sentence fragments/run-ons):

"Saltaire is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  It has been preserved as a Victorian industrial village.  The Mill owner, Sir Titus Salt, built the village in 1853 for the workers in his woollen mill.  This model Victorian village is easy to explore.  It was built in sharp contrast to the dirty and polluted cities of Leeds and Bradford, with each of the 824 houses enjoying a yard at the back with its own sanitary arrangements. The village is built in Neo-Italianate style and laid out in a grid pattern on a 25 acre site.  The streets take their names from the Salt family, from Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, and the architects Lockwood and Mawson.  You can enjoy a walk through the streets of houses decorated with stained glass windows.  Take a coffee and absorb the Bohemian atmosphere in one of the many small cafes."

The only things we really did in Saltaire were to "take tea" at a cute cafe, walk around the Roberts park, eat lunch at a cute sandwich shop, and take a peak at the art gallery.  I collect magnets from wherever I go.  Saltaire has no magnets.  How sad.

From Saltaire, we all (me, Leah, Roxanne, and Lauren) headed back to the coaches where we were to be taken to the Keighley train station.  From Keighley we took a steam train (YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!) to Haworth.  The train was quite fun.  It was a short 20 minute ride.  I love being able to say now that I have traveled by steam engine!

Haworth is gorgeous.  Seriously.  I LOVE hilly places and Haworth is FULL of hills!  It is a very funny town.  Many things there have very strange names, to say the least.  Butt Lane and Purvs Corner are just two out of the many examples.  Oh Charlotte Brontë!  what would you say about this?!

In Haworth, we, as well as my friend Morgan who joined us, toured the church where the Brontë family went.  It was the same church they were buried in (all but Anne who had been buried somewhere else to save the trouble, heartbreak, and money for Mr. Brontë, as Anne had died away from home in an attempt to get better).  After visiting the church, we looked at the vast graveyard that sat in between the church and the Brontë house.  After that, we went into the Brontë Parsonage.  It was wonderful.  Most of the furniture was the original furniture that the Brontë's used.  The original beds were destroyed, but replicas of the real things took their places.  In Charlotte's room, they had on display some of her actual clothes, hats, gloves, shoes, etc. that she wore.  It was very cool.  I learned a lot about the Brontë family history.  After touring the house, we toured the Museum part of the house (basement area) that emphasized details of their lives with plenty to read about their secrets, writings, illnesses, and deaths.

When we were through, we took a walk around a nearby field.  The view was absolutely amazing.  I can't believe how lucky the people who live in Haworth are.  Everything is rolling hills and green grass, winding streets, and cute shops.  I would LOVE to live there.  Haworth possesses moors, but unfortunately we didn't have enough time to visit any.  In the short time we had left, we visited an apothecary shop.  It smelled sooo good.  I bought some nice-smelling soap (handy since I just ran out of bath soap today!) and others in the group bought candy.  When we had finished with the Apothecary, it was time to head back to where the coaches were supposed to meet us.  We decided to take the long way and walk through a park, which was, as anyone could guess, very lovely.

The drive back wasn't long.  Saltaire and Haworth are not very far from Leeds, maybe a half hour away at most.  I hope I will have the chance to see the moors sometime.  For right now, though, I am quite happy with the exploits of today.

In case you want to eat up more fun facts about my trip today, here is another copied section from the pamphlet we received (again, edited because whoever wrote it was definitely not an English major!):

"The Brontës are the world's most famous literary family.  They lived in Haworth Parsonage from 1820 to 1861.  This has now become the Brontë Parsonage Museum.  The three sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë, wrote some of the most beloved books in the English language.  Charlotte's most famous novel was Jane Eyre written in 1847; Emily's was Wuthering Heights, written in 1847; Anne's was The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, written in 1848.  Despite all three being written over a hundred and fifty years ago, they are still popular today.  Their works today are accepted as literary masterpieces but the sisters originally had to publish their works under a fictitious male name, following the custom of the times."

River in Saltaire.

Me in Saltaire.

The most delicious lemon cheesecake I've ever had and some ginger spice tea.









 Me in front of Victoria Hall

Houses in Saltaire

Roxanne, Leah, and Lauren

Haworth

View looking downhill in Haworth

Neat winding streets

Black cat in cemetery! 

Me in front of the Bronte house

View of the graveyard/church from the Bronte's front yard

Fields

More fields and beautiful countryside

Roxanne in front of small 

Made it to the gym.

Haiku-a-day:

Mar 11^th

Sometimes you just need

a little motivation

to get to the gym.

As my haiku says, I finally went to the gym for the first time this semester!  Feels good to be active.  Thanks for motivating me Roxanne and Chelsea!  Off to Saltaire and Haworth tomorrow!  Yay! 

Happy Birthday Melissa! =)

Haiku-a-day:

Mar 10^th

Productivity

is the result of wanting

no work over break.

Yes, the end of the semester is in sight!  Well, sort of!  I have been ultra productive today!  I finished writing and turned in an essay, gave a group presentation (which went extremely well--the professor said our class presentations were the best she'd ever seen!), bought a book that I need to read for English for next week AND read all of it, finished the last 3 lectures for my online computer class for the entire semester, and, finally, started the reading for English for 2 weeks from now.  Yes, productivity at it's best!  My goal is to get as much done as I possibly can so that I don't have to worry about anything over spring break while I'm traveling.  I'll have 2 essays (both around 10 pages) due around May 9th (break ends May 2nd), so I'd like to have already written them and only have to edit them when I come back.  After those two essays, I'll have a final for Museum Studies around May 24th and a final for my brewing class around May 16th and that should be it!  Of course, before break, I will have one group presentation for my computer class (no final!), one presentation for my brewing class, and one more presentation for Museum Studies, but that'll be it!  Yay!

In other news, my little sister Melissa is 11 today!!!  Happy birthday Melissa!!!!

P.S., we had our flat inspection today....

(clicking on it makes it bigger)

Essay time.

Haiku-a-day:

Mar 9^th

There is nothing like

writing an essay at the

eleventh hour.

((That haiku is quite literal right now too!  It's in the 11th hour of the PM for me! (11:45PM)))

I'm at 1547 words out of a 1700 word essay right now, due tomorrow at 4PM my time, 10AM Wisconsin time.  It is most definitely the worst essay I've ever written, however, with all the stress I've gone through and everything I've had to do this week, whatever.  I'll just take my bad marks and hope to do better on the next essay.  My presentation tomorrow morning should go okay as well.  It's unassessed, so even if we do bad, I don't think it'll matter too much, not that I think it'll go bad because our PowerPower presentation is pretty cool.  Aesthetic over contextual anyone?!  

Another day goes by.

Haiku-a-day:

Mar 8^th

So much on my mind

to think about that I can’t

get anything done.

Not much to report today.  I've spent the majority of the day after my brewing lecture reading for English.  In about an hour or so I will have finished all 624 pages of East Lynne.  My essay on this book is due on Thursday by 4:00PM.  I still have to prepare for my presentation debate for Museum Studies for Thursday. Much stress.  However, I'm balancing it by buying tickets to go to Saltaire and Haworth on Saturday!  Should be fun.  Also, I now have my hostel situation planned for all of Greece and Italy.  Almost done with school and ready for vacation!  Yay!

Brewing day has finally come!

Haiku-a-day:

Mar 7^th

The smell of barley

mixed with hops and Irish moss

is stuck to my clothes!

Come one, come all.

Today, the day many of you have been waiting to hear about, has finally come.  Today, I brewed my own beer!! 

Yesterday things were rocky.  Quite.  However, answered prayers, my group members emailed me really late last night (~11PM - 12AM) and we finally were able to decide on a time to meet.  We chose 9:00AM.  I'm sure glad we did, because aparently that's when all the groups were planning on starting.  This was not a widely known fact throughout the groups, but apparently everyone thought it to be an appropriate time and just showed up.  Well, everyone from everyone else's group, that is.  For my group of 5, I was the first one there and only one person showed up for the first round of brewing.  It turns out that one of the girls had a meeting with her professor that she had forgotten about.  I never heard what the excuses of the other girls were.  

Anyway, James (the only other person from group 4 who showed up) and I set to measuring the malted barley and roasted barley.  After we measured everything, we put the barley into sacks in a cooler type of container.  It was rather large, considering it had to hold about 22 liters worth of soon-to-be wort.  When everything was assembled, we took the container over to where stations of boiling water were.  We let the water containers drain into the barely container as we stirred the barely.  It smelled sweet, like watered-down porridge.  We had the chance to try the barley, too, before we started.  It was very interesting; quite sweet.

The first stage of the process was complete after all the water was drained into the barley container.  We tied up the sack, placed a lid on the container, and left it to sit in the water for 90 minutes.  ((During this time, I did homework (almost done with East Lynne!  It's sooo good!) and reserved hostels for myself in Florence and Venice.  Venice is sooo expensive!))

When we were ready for the next stage, the rest of our group showed up.  I'd say I had a pretty good group.  We all got along very well and were very talkative.  I think it's funny that I was in a group with 3 British students and 1 American.  Firstly, the majority of my brewing class is international, mostly American or Canadian.  Secondly, out of everyone I could have been placed with, I was placed with 3 Brits.  Most groups have none.  At all.  I got 3.  What are the odds?!  It was fun talking to them about life in England, where they came from, amusement parks in Britain, etc.  This class overall is great.  And the professor is hilarious.  But how can he not be?  He teaches kids how to make alcohol for a living!!

So, the second stage consisted of sparging.  We took our container, removed the lid, and placed what looked like a hand-held turning sprinkler over the container.  I should mention that the container has a spout at the bottom, so we drained that back into the empty water boiler (~30 liters deep for our 22 liter solution--it's big). Sparging is the process of sprinkling water through the grain to extract sugars from the grain.  Depending on the pH of your water, the taste of your beer could be effected.  Our recipe called for 3 ingredients that we didn't bother adding because they were all there to protect the beer against certain chemicals in the water (this was an American recipe = different water).  After sparging, we had to get our wort back to a boil.  In the meantime, we sanitized a large bucket that would hold the final product of our beer.  Cleaning the bucket took...a long time!  We used bleach and rinsed it out several times.  One of the girls in my group even got a little bit of it on her shirt which promptly turned from blue to pink.  Luckily, she was a good sport and thought it would be neat to dye her shirt when she got home because the pink splotch looked cool.  

After the liquid came to a boil, we added our hops and took our 1 hour lunch break.  This was the first time I was able to leave the building.  I had been there since 9:00AM and it was 1:00PM by the time we were able to take this break.  One hour is definitely not enough time to walk home, eat lunch, and walk back.  I had to scarf down my lunch and run back.  

On returning, we added our second hop to the mix.  The instructions, according to the recipe I found, said that it should be added in the last 2 minutes of the boil.  Well, that sort of didn't happen.  We had it in there for the 2 minutes, but were then told not to strain the hops out, that it would act as a filter for when we drain the final product into the bucket.  So, it remained in the wort for another 30 minutes or so.  I'm hoping it tastes OK...  When we got back after the hour (and after adding the other hops), we unplugged the boiler and installed a cooling system--basically a copper-coiled convector--to "force cool" it, as the recipe said.  As this was cooling, we prepared our yeast.  Once the wort was cool enough (~20˚C), we measured the original gravity and then added the yeast as we drained the liquid into the bucket.

For those of you who know alcohol, our original gravity was 1.125.  I bet you're jumping out of your seats!  Yup.  1.125.  The recipe said the final gravity (target gravity) should be 1.046... yeah, that probably won't happen.  In regular English, this means that our beer has a lot of sugar.  This means that it will be VERY alcoholic!  As soon as we measured (a teaching assistant/person did the actual measurement, so we know we measured correctly) and I saw that it was that high, I knew our beer was WAY above average.  My group members didn't understand what I meant until they heard the professor's exclamations when he saw it.  Here's a quick breakdown: 1 is what the measurement would be if the hydrometer were just sitting in water.  If it was very sweet, it would be above 1; if it was very alcoholic, would be below 1 (This is how the professor explained it).  Usually you'll find beers to be something like 1.04.... or 1.0........  It's good to be this much above 1 because leaving a little extra sugar gives it a good taste.  Basically, the point is that the sugar in our beer will intensify the taste/flavor/etc. of our beer and people will get tipsy faster.  The yeast will eat up all that sugar and convert it into alcohol.  The less sugar, the less alcoholic; the mor sugar, the more alcoholic. 

We have no idea how this beer will taste (especially after learning how ridiculously alcoholic it will be), but we are excited to try it (next week?  week after?  Who knows!  We need to bottle it soon...).  We also have to come up with a name for it.  Some floating options right now are:  Blackout, Swamp Scum, and Seganula Jelanor (a combo of everyone's name: Sarah, Megan, Fionuala, (pronounced fin-ooo-la) James, and Eleanor).  We figured funny is better than serious!  

For you brewers out there, I have skipped a lot in this entry.  I've left out mentioning ingredients and steps, technical terms, etc. mostly because it takes too much time to type, it might get boring, and I have tons of homework.  

Overall, a good day.  I brewed for 7 intense hours and got to try the "winning" brew from last semester (every group's beer is entered into a "competition" between groups.  We'll have a "Beer Festival" and rate everyone's beer in a couple weeks).  Lecture tomorrow will be fun and hopefully just a review.  I should hope that by now I possess plenty of knowledge about brewing that I'm not surprised by anything that he says!

A brewing rant.

Haiku-a-day:

Mar 6^th

Everything is just

chaos when you’re trying to

organize a group.

I'm not sure how tomorrow will function.  I have no idea when my brewing group is meeting to brew.   I also don't know where we're supposed to brew.   Everything is unclear.  Only 2 group members have actually been responding to my emails (meaning 2 haven't), and none of use knows what's going on.  This is a huge part of our grade and I don't even know what to do.  I've email the professor (twice) with no response, so this will be interesting.  We didn't even pick a beer as a group.  In fact, one person suggested 2 types of beer.  Me and the only other person who have been trying to communicate were up for anything.  So, after waiting until after 4:00PM today, I gave in and sent in our selection to the professor.  Yup, I had to make an executive decision for the group.  What would they have done without me?  =)  

In other news, today I booked my flight from Shannon, Ireland to Pisa, Italy.  I'm traveling by myself for the day.  The route is from Shannon to London and from London to Pisa, arriving about 2:30ish.  My goal is to get to Florence this day, but since there are (more or less) cheap trains that run from Pisa to Florence all day, I think I'll spend a little time in the city, which is only 1 kilometer away from the airport!  Nice and close!  As I've just mentioned, I'll take a train from Pisa to Florence (1 hour) whenever I'm ready and then catch up with friends there.  From Florence, the plan is to go to Venice (leaving the next day, so I won't get too much time in Florence *sad*), then head over to Greece to do some island hopping. 

Wish me luck for tomorrow!  I hope things turn out OK!

A walk to Kirkstall.

Haiku-a-day:

Mar 5^th

The Kirkstall Abbey

ruins were amazingly

beautiful to see.

Today I went with the usual group to the Kirkstall Abbey here in Leeds.  It's about a 3 mile walk, which means it takes about an hour to get there.  It was good exercise, fresh air, and we got to see parts of the city we had not come across yet.  The Abbey ruins are amazing.  The Cistercian Abbey was made in the 12th century in the shape of a cross.  It was constructed for a small community of about 30 monks.  Check out this link to get more information, see more pictures, and even take an audio tour of the Abbey.  It's actually a really cool website and I would highly recommend clicking around to learn more about the ruins.  

This Abbey is cool (not only because it is so close to where I live but also) because it is free and it was pretty quiet when we got there.  For most of the time we seemed to have the place to ourselves and were free to look around.  We were free to touch anything and go anywhere except for stairs.  You had to stay on the ground level.  

We poked around for a couple hours, read signage all over to learn more about it, then walked over to the small river that runs nearby and relaxed.  Afterwards, we stopped at a sandwich place and got something eat before heading back home.

It was a delightful day.  If you want to see more pictures of the ruins, check out facebook.  I took way more than I should have and I posted almost all of them there.

 Initials carved into the columns.

Looking down the main stretch.

 The left side of the cross's arm.

 Inside a "room" type of place.

 The library.

 In the chapter house.

 Cool rocks in the chapter house.

 Sarcophaguses in the chapter house.

 Stairs we were forbidden to go up.

Creepy looking courtyard.