The Running of the Santa's

So, yesterday I bundled up and ventured into seaside Brighton in the frigid weather to attend an event known as the "Santa Dash" in which hundreds of giving souls dress like Father Christmas (red hats and beards included) and run a 5k to raise money for a homeless shelter. After walking several unnecessary miles (in the wrong direction) my friend and I finally found the finish line and waited for the return of the jolly fellows. After about 15 minutes of shivering and teeth-chattering, the first Santas began to appear. We stood cheering them on as Santa after Santa ran towards the finish line. Many of them were shedding clothing despite the cold, so there were several half-shirtless Santas, and several Santas carrying their beards. A group of three linked arms chanting "ho,ho,ho" and another group ran past singing "Santa Claus is coming to town" as loud as they could. It was hysterical to watch, and there was no shortage of raised eyebrows from passing tourists and dog-walkers.

Chanting "Ho, Ho, Ho," as they go!

This Santa was too thin to hold up the coat!

There were even some little Santas participating!

Here they come!

Brighton Santa Dash 2010

After meeting up with two more friends, we grabbed a delicious noodle lunch at Pho (courtesy of my mum!) and spent the rest of the afternoon meandering around the North Lanes and shopping for Christmas gifts! The North Lanes are easily one of my favorite places in England. It's aimed at students, full of trendy stores and coffee shops. I spent a solid hour exploring a comic shop top to bottom before grabbing a gingerbread latte and exploring racks of vintage clothes. Also, anyone who knows me knows I cannot pass a frozen yogurt shop without getting some, so I made sure to hit 'Lick" despite the sub-zero (Celsius!) weather! Cheers! xx

SNOW DAY!

I only had 2 days of classes last week as a result of SNOW. 6 inches of snow shut the city down for 3 days and skewed the train schedule for a week. Most of my dorm chose to spend the days sleeping and watching movies in their rooms, but my friends and I chose to venture out into the winter wonderland and explore the snow-covered south of England.

Wednesday evening, we staged a snow battle on the football field and spent a few hours pitching snowballs, inhaling fistfuls of snow, and quite literally tackling each other to the ground. In other words, we spent Wednesday evening getting in touch with our inner children. 

Thursday, we hiked down into Eastbourne center through piles of snow and slush. It was a slippery walk down, and we passed several groups of children on their way to go "sledging" as they call it here (sledding). We walked around town center, enjoying the holiday ambiance and a few Starbucks holiday lattes. 

Friday, I was very ill, but I braved the cold anyway for a trip to the beach for some winter photos. After walking approximately a mile and a half, we stood awestruck on a stone landing, gazing down at a vast expanse of snowy beach. The way down was icy and treacherous, but well worth the shuffling and wall-clinging as we took photos of a beach, half covered in snow and half consumed by the wintery ocean. Good news! My wellies work perfectly! 

Saturday was an adventure in itself as we were headed into London for the day to make sure my two friends who are going home at Christmas Break saw everything they had wanted to see. There wasn't much snow left in London when we finally got there (it took twice as long as usual due to the adjusted train scheduling) but it was certainly cold enough. We did Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, Platform 9 3/4, Camden Market, Harrods, and Piccadilly Circus all in about 4 hours, so I would consider the day quite a success. 

Sunday, we finally relaxed :)!

Cheers! xx

Foreign Education

In all my posts thus far, I have managed to avoid talking about the education system or my classes at all, so, I will devote an entire post to them. As I am double-majoring in journalism and some sort of biological science (biology? bioengineering? biochemistry?) next year, I opted out of taking any courses remotely related to either of those subjects this year. That said, I am taking Business studies, Economics, Psychology, and French this year, and so far enjoying all of them. The classes are extremely easy for me, but in all fairness, they put me in classes with 16 year olds.
The system of education here is very bizarre to me coming from a private american boarding school. They don't receive "grades" in the traditional american sense, but rather receive a predicted note on the A exam which they take in 4 parts spread over 2 years. For example, I received on my grade card, 3 A's and one A*. This means that my teachers predict that, were I to sit all four parts of the exam, I would receive an A or A* over all. This prediction is based on the grades I have received on classwork and the teacher's opinion of my in-class participation and study. I also receive a behavior grade... which is more or less equivalent to a smiley face or a sad face. And that sums up the boring part of the school system. Now for my classes.

Business Studies: This is probably my favorite class so far. We've recently finished the basics of setting up a business and are moving into more interesting topics, like the external forces which affect businesses and the ethics and responsibilities a business must deal with. My professor is animated and engaging and tries to come up with real life examples we're familiar with, which I think help a lot of students learn better.
Economics: My next favorite class is economics. This class is taught by two different teacher's, one teaches microeconomics and the other (my business teacher as well) teaches macroeconomics. This class is interesting, though limited to the UK for the most part, and I like learning about the different economies of the world managing to interact.
Psychology: Though not currently my favorite class, I think it soon will be. Thus far we have only studied attachment and aggression which I did not find particularly interesting, but we're moving into eating disorders and other psychological disorders which I think I will find much more interesting. My teacher is young and fun and easy to pay attention to and I pick up the information very quickly. We do a lot of debates, which is a particular area in which I excel, and analytical papers which are always interesting.
French: This is my least favorite class, but not because I don't like french, I just enjoy my other subjects much more. The problem with french, is they've put me in a class at least one if not two years behind, so I've already learned most of what they're studying. My french teacher thankfully understands, and allows to me to just write the exercises and then move on to reading french literature and short stories by Guy de Maupassant. I've been able to practice my french with a friend from Paris, and I'll be headed there in just about two weeks!

That is an update on my international experience with education. In other news, I'll be going to London this weekend with some friends and Brighton next weekend to see the annual Santa Dash in which many generous souls dress up in full Santa garb and run a 5k on the beach. I'll be updating with pictures of course! I'll be trying to update more often, but i don't want to bore you with the day to day life in sleepy Eastbourne, East Sussex! Miss you all very much and can't wait to come home in 3 weeks!
Cheers xx

picasso, red lights, and zombies! oh my!

                                  I recently got back from half-term break, during which I traveled to Barcelona with some friends and Amsterdam and Brighton with my mum. It was a week full of new experiences. I flew on a plane alone for the first time, tried tapas, ordered a pastry in spanish, stood face to face with an original Picasso, learned about the dangers of bike paths, ate french fries with curry, and watched zombies parade down the main street of Brighton (groaning, shuffling, and outstretched arms required). I saw 3 cities in 3 countries in one week, pretty successful for my first trip abroad. I already have plans for Paris in a few weeks, Germany in February, and a crazy 3 week long traveling extravaganza in June when the rest of my friends are beginning next years classes! It's like some sort of crazy jetset life where I can vacation in Spain, go to London for lunch, and go shopping in France on the weekend (Calais, France this weekend!) without much hassle. I easily spend most of my money on clothes and food, and divide my time equally between writing, drawing, exploring, shopping, and schoolwork (:[ ). Even though I'm loving all my time here, I'm excited to come home in a few weeks and see everyone! I already have a list of restaurants and places I want to go in America! Can't wait to be home!

Barcelona was absolutely amazing. Of all the exploring and site-seeing I did, my absolute favorite part was going to the Picasso Museum. I saw an exhibit there that was a comparison between Degas and Picasso, and the similarities were striking and fascinating. I stood in front of one of Picasso's self-portraits for 15 minutes just admiring his dark impression of himself. In Barcelona I also saw Christopher Columbus's statue and some roman ruins buried 20 feet under the city. The harbor was covered in large modern art expositions and there were limitless squares in which one could sit with a tea and a croissant and just watch how interesting people are. I ate gelato every night and had at least one pastry per day (I think it may actually be a requirement, the pastry shops were packed). I also went to the zoo and watched a dolphin show in spanish and tried paella (which was delicious). I was not a huge fan of the youth hostel, but it was just a place to sleep!

Apparently, if you do nothing else when you go to Amsterdam, you need to try french fries with mayonnaise. Especially when you travel with my mum. I found the "best french fry place in Amsterdam" and we trekked over. I ended up getting french fries with curry, and even though I'm not a huge french fry person, they were really good. We went to Anne Frank's house and saw her real red plaid diary on display. The most haunting part of the entire tour was listening to Anne Frank's father say that after reading her diary, he realized he had barely known his own daughter. We walked around the red light district late at night and learned some interesting tidbits from the tour of old couples we were following. For example, the best alleys are the most narrow ones apparently. We walked down the narrowest alley in the red light district, it was about the width of a person and a half. Sure enough, there were some very pretty women and a well-populated bar down it. It was interesting to go to a place where all things taboo are not only accepted, but normal.

This zombie parade down Brighton's main street was easily one of the coolest Halloween celebrations I'd ever seen. Hundreds of people congregated at the train station, saturated in white and red face paint dragging paper mache organs and fastening humorous deadly instruments to their heads (a pencil, a stiletto shoe). The zombie Blues Brothers were there, as well as the zombie Village People, and the zombie Pope was posing with the zombie Devil. They began to process with a cry of "BRAINS" and a stifled "The zombie's are coming!" and so it began. Process is used loosely in this context of course as really, they began to stomp, shuffle, groan, scream, drag, and pose their way down the sidewalk, arms outstretched and eyes vacant. It took nearly an hour for them all to pass, and for the rest of the day and long into the night, we saw zombie's wandering the city (we even saw a zombie street band performing at White Night later). That night was a festival known as White Night, when the whole city is lit up in fantastic colors and designs with many venues for interesting activities all night. We watched local graffiti artists paint illuminated white canvas and a building's face be transformed into a movie screen. Brighton is possibly one of my favorite places in England.
            Well, that is a summary of my trip, but in other news, I just got back from a weekend in London where I met most of the other ESU kids. I had a ton of fun! It was really nice to get to know them finally and I like them all a lot. We went out one night, but mostly just explored the city by day and talked all night. I also received my report card of sorts, all good news, and decorated my room for Christmas! I'm getting excited for my trip to Paris in a few weeks and brushing up on my french. Miss everyone!
xxx

New photos!

This will probably be a photo post mostly with stuff from the British Museum and London, but first, a word about the city. London is beautiful and vibrant. It has all the charm of a European city and a little bit of something I can't quite put my finger on that reminds me of Boston. I spent the weekend satisfying my inner wanna-be food connoisseur, munching on brie and caramelized onion baguettes, gourmet pizzas, and organic frozen yogurt. The early portion of Saturday afternoon was spent sitting in Starbucks, sipping a chai tea latte and people-watching; admiring the glamour of self-proclaimed fashionistas, the determination of business men braving the chill, and narrating the passerby conversations of dog-walkers. A trek over to Portobello road revealed the bustling and occasionally coercive lives of antique hawkers. My friend and I were pushed along the street by the sheer mass of people all struggling to catch a solid glimpse of the antique valuables strewn across roadside tables and shop fronts. It was loud and congested, a feeling intensified by the practically neon apartments lining the road and the rhythmic drumming of the street performers. It was mesmerizing, for lack of a better word, and we slowly made our way up and down the street, pausing whenever something bright or shiny happened to catch one of our eyes. We finished our weekend with a trip to the British museum, which was stunning at the very least. The museum itself is imposing, taking up almost an entire block and composed of three massive sectors and a basement. We traveled through ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, Japan, China, Mesopotamia, Europe, America, and Africa, all in about 4 and a half hours. The collections were vast and informational; I could have easily spent several more hours meandering through the enlightenment and ancient Japan. I'm going to Brighton this weekend, and Barcelona and Amsterdam in just a few weeks, so I should have plenty more to write about soon. On with the photos!

Meg's future car.

George Orwell's house.

The British Museum!

The Americans in front of the British Museum.

The Rosetta Stone.

A Jake-sized Samurai!

The monkey scroll! A depiction of a traditional tea ceremony, performed by monkeys.

Oops

        I know I haven't been very active lately but I had to move in and get settled and everything! My school is nice; I have a big double room and a missing roommate (visa trouble) so I'm alone for now. I'll upload more once I get my camera cord that I left at home, but here's a quick picture of my room!

I've made some great friends from all over the world! Belarus, Ukraine, Nigeria, China, Germany, France and of course, England. I'm taking Psychology, Economics, Business Studies, and French, and they're all super easy, but interesting. I didn't get to take psychology or business and economics in high school so I'm grateful for the opportunity. However, they are high school classes and schooling seems to be easier here (less homework, fewer topics covered) but in all fairness I went to a very challenging high school. I've been filling my free time with movies, reading, Pokemon, learning german and italian, and exploring the seaside town of Eastbourne. This school does have a significant lack of vegetarian food, so I've been eating a lot of boiled veggies, yogurt, and bread, but there are some yummy places to eat on the weekends in Eastbourne. (and there's even a Starbucks!) I've done a little bit of shopping; I bought a pretty flower for my hair because all of the girls here have them, and a little food. (croissants and coco pops!) I also went to see the Brighton Pavilion last weekend. That was a beautiful place. I love all things western and the Pavilion was designed to look like a Chinese Palace. The internal design was stunning; ornate dragons scaled the walls, massive tapestries decorated the ceilings, and rich colors were plentiful. Furthermore, the entire pavilion was swarmed with 3,000 black ceramic butterflies of all sizes. Clare Twomey, an artist, created the butterflies for her statement art show at the Pavilion entitled "A Dark Day In Paradise". It is a comment on the lavish excess that saturates the palace, from the rich carpets to the gold leaf. It is a really interesting concept, but I still think the Palace is beautiful.
      I'm going to London next weekend with my friend Lindsay, and we're hoping to check out the British Museum (they're free here!) and just explore London together. I'm also tentatively beginning travel plans for this year. Barcelona in October, Brussels or Berlin in February, Istambul and Rome in April, Prague in June!? I was born with an overwhelming and insatiable case of wanderlust. I'll keep you posted!
Love, Kaite

Thursday, September 2, 2010

I'm writing this blog to document my travels abroad this year. I'll post pictures, updates, and reflections on the places I've been and the places I'd like to go. I'll probably open a flickr account as well to have somewhere to put all my pictures. Hopefully I'll have more to say soon!

p.s. Ryoko is the Japanese word for "travel"