First Week of Classes

Well, it has been awhile since I have done a blog post, so I apologize to everyone that has been anxiously awaiting!!! This past week was my first week of classes at the university and it was a different experience than back at Elizabethtown. Three of my four classes are once a week and my other one is just twice a week for an hour each time. The most assignments I have for a class is two for the whole semester. Except for my Spanish class (which is written and oral exams), all of my other classes require me to write essays. The requirements for the papers are done by word count (and not pages like most of the U.S. assignments). My only business class (European Business Environment) is really awesome because there are students from all over the world in my class. My module tutor (they are only called professors if they have been published lots of times) recognized this and put us into groups that were very diverse. It will be very interesting to see what view points the students in the class take on the European Union. Yesterday, was the Freshers Ball!! It is a formal dance for all the freshmen at the University and I had a lot of fun going with my English friends. Most of you from back home probably have not heard of Stavros Flatley. They finished in third place of Britain's got talent, behind Susan Boyle and whoever came in first. Basically, it's a father and son who do like an Irish dance and it's hilarious! The moral of the story is that they performed live at the ball and it was really funny. I will provide a link on youtube for all you guys to enjoy. I don't really have any new pictures to put up but I'm going to London next Monday and the weekend of October 9th I will be making my first trip to Amsterdam!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gHvATmUsSg

Pictures from Different Places

To the left: Beautiful St. Ives

Above: Land's End

Newquay, England

Weekend to Cornwall!!!!

I apologize for all my followers that it has been awhile since I last blogged. I have been really busy and this morning I finally have some free time to let you know how the weekend trip was. We left Cheltenham at about 8:30 a.m. in the morning and made our way to Lanhydrock house. Along the way we had to stop for 45 minutes by law so the bus driver could get some rest. Our trip in total was about 4 hours!!! (a little different than the United States) The Lanhydrock house basically the home of the Agar-Robartes family until 1969. It has been refurbished and is surrounded by beautiful gardens. You can see the picture to the left here. We wern't allowed to take pictures inside, so I apologize you can't see how awesome it was. We left from Lanhydrock and made our way to Newquay (pronounced New-kee) It is known as the surf capital of England and where lots of English people take there holidays. We stayed at the Reef Surf Lodge, which is a really nice hostel and had a surfer feel to it. Newquay was going to be our home base for the weekend. On Saturday, we made our way to Land's End, which is the southernmost tip of England. After Land's End, we went to the fishing village of St. Ives, which was my favorite part of the trip. St. Ives was a beautiful place with narrow streets, and lots of places to eat and shop. After St. Ives we made our way back to Newquay for the night. On Sunday, we left Newquay to head home but we stopped at the Eden Project. Unfortunately, my camera died, so I have no pictures of the Eden Project. Basically, the project is carved out of an old clay pit. There are two biomes, a rainforest one and a mediterranean one. (reminds me of the movie Biodome with Pauly Shore haha) Also, there are all these plants and it was a really cool place. I will provide a link to the website in case you want to check it out!!! Well, I am going to eat some breakfast and get ready for my first international class!!! Wherever you are, hope everything is going well for you!!!!

http://www.edenproject.com

P.S. I will post some pictures from every place we went in a new post!!!

Warwick Castle

Sooo, on Wednesday all of the BCA students went on a trip to Warwick Castle in Warwick, England. The castle was actually built in 1068 entirely of wood and was rebuilt in stone sometime in the Middle Ages (to see all of the pictures, check out my facebook!) It was home to many Earls of Warwick until the 1970s, when it became sort of like a monument. It's neat checking out some history of England, as the United States doesn't have any castles!!! Since my last update, I have been keeping busy with BCA orientation and getting acquainted with the city. I can pretty much find my way around Cheltenham with ease and I think I have figured out the bus timetables (hopefully haha). Today was the Freshers Fayre, where I got lots of free posters/food/deals for nightclubs and pubs. It also gives everyone the opportunity to sign up for the different societies and sports clubs. I have decided that I'm going to play soccer (the school has 5 teams) and I'm going to help coach the men's lacrosse team!! I'm really excited and the trials (tryouts) start on Monday of next week. Tomorrow, all of the BCA students are doing a weekend trip to southern England. We are going to Cornwall first, then make our way to Newquay, the surf capital of England!! We're actually staying in the surf lodge right near the beach, so it should be lots of fun. On Sunday, we are going to Lans End, which is the southernmost tip of England. I will provide an update sometime early next week. Let's go Ravens on Sunday!!!!!!

A Little Update

Sorry Guys, been really busy here in Cheltenham. Just wanted to provide a quick update before I get off to bed!!! On Saturday night, we went to a resturant called Zizzi's in downtown Cheltenham. Zizzi's was awesome because it's actually in an old church. I've never eaten a meal/dinner in an old church before but it was really cool. The oven is actually where the altar used to be!!! (the picture is up top!!) All of my suite mates moved in today with there parents and it reminded me of freshmen move-in day at the states! There are 2 more guys and 3 girls. Everyone is soo nice here, it's awesome!!! The crazy thing is that the University has 4 campuses and everyone only studies at one campus. However, I am going to be at 2 or 3 of the campuses and each campus is at least a 10 minute walk! (Not like Etown at all haha) Also, I have a class at the Oxstalls campus, which is in Glouchester. I found out today that it is a 40 minute bus ride and I have class there two days a week :( Good news is that's where the gym is so I can just spend all day at Oxstalls and get lots of things done!!! This upcoming week we will be going over more orientation stuff and going to the Warwick Castle on Wednesday. Hopefully, I will get another post in before that!! In the meantime, I hope everyone back home is doing well. I am having the best time of my life and I'm so happy that everyone encouraged me to come over here to England!!!

P.S. I am happy that the Ravens won. Joe Flacco is the man!!!

Arrival in Cheltenham!!!

I have arrived safe and sound in Cheltenham, England!! It's currently about 5 p.m. in Cheltenham and it's sunny outside!!! The tempearture got up to the mid 60's today and I also heard that it will sunny out here for the next 5 days or soo!! Soo, my trip started out not in the best fashion, as we went to Dulles Airport instead of Regan National (completely my fault!). The good news is that they are only 20 minutes away so I got onto my flight in Regan with plenty of time to spare!! I then flew to JFK, where the BCA group flight was out of. We then had a red-eye to London, so we landed at 9:30 a.m. London time. Right now I have extreme jet-lag and I only got one hour of sleep last night but it will all be worth it in the end!!! I don't have any pictures just yet but in the near future I will hopefully take some. Cheltenham is an awesome place!! The drive from London to Cheltenham actually reminded me of home because it was all fields and pastures!! Cheltenham is actually a city of about 105,000 but it's not called a city because it doesn't have a cathedral. So, it's considered a town. Alright, well I'm about to get my room organized and walk into town before I go to bed for the night!!!

Hey Guys!!!! This is my first time doing a blog and I created it so that all my friends/family can follow me on my trip to Cheltenham, England. I will be departing Dulles airport on September 10th to JFK in New York City, then taking an overnight flight to London. The university I will be studying at is called the University of Gloucestershire. I will be staying in the Universities dorms with their "freshers" (freshmen) and I get a single room to myself. Unlike some of the other BCA programs that Elizabethtown offers, I get to take classes with all the other students at the University!!! In total, there are about 40 students in the BCA Cheltenham program. There are 3 of us from Etown and about half of the students are actually from Messiah. While I am at Gloucestershire, I will be taking four classes. I'm really looking forward to taking Introduction to Coaching Principles because someday I would like to coach soccer and I've never heard of a class like this before. If you want to know more about the University, I will post the link on here so you can check it out!! Alright well I'm going to get started on packing and look for some new blog posts in the next couple of days!!!

http://www.glos.ac.uk/Pages/default.aspx