6.3.2011 English up-date

Hello world, here’s Elina :)

This week went really fast. On Monday we did our trip to Warwick, which is about half an hour away by train. In the morning I ran the school to print the voucher for the castle and the travel plan that I had generated for my lovely travel companions. Nice addition to our normally quite feminine travel group was Flavien, who didn’t always seem to enjoy the trip with seven girls :D
At the train station I asked all whether they had their student cards with them and it took me another 15 minutes to realize that I had left my own at home :D So it was at home in a jacket pocket because I had needed it in the morning! (We can access the school only with our student ID) I was irritated quite tremendously, but I was hoping that by talking nicely I’d get the student discount :P

First, we headed to the city, since our purchased discounted tickets were valid after 2 pm. We dropped by at the tourist office, the local St. Mary's Church and other attractions (Warwickshire Museumja Lord Leycester Hospital), which were closed on Mondays. The weather was as always windy and wet, so we visited local coffee shop to warm up and drink a marshmallow, whipped cream cocoa. YUMMY :P

So the main focus of our trip was Warwick Castle, the medieval castle at the heart of Warwickshire http://warwick-castle.com/ Since a picture is worth a thousand words, there's a few in my Finnish blog up-date have a look please from there [ just scroll down :) ].

We arrived at the castle full with enthusiasm like the preschoolers that were running towards us at the gate and shares similar interest to the play ground. At first it seemed that there was too much to see in a few hours, which was the time limit set by train schedules. However, we were able to access the castle already before 2 pm.
Here is the first view from the gate [ just scroll down :) ]..

The numerous halls and towers of the castle were designed to display the castle’s history in different time periods. The most entertaining part for us was, of course, all the stories and articles, what we got to experiment and explore. For the first time I also got "announced" as Finland's representative in the 1898 royal weekend celebrations with the representatives of Germany, France and Slovenia. So that was part of the Secrets and Scandals of the Royal Weekend Party show, in which guides implemented their activities by acting a role. It was a fun variation for normal museum visit.

On Tuesday, we booked tickets to Barcelona. We decided with Laura, Lisa and Issie that we’ll make a small detour before returning home for the Easter break. Issie will also continue the journey with me to Finland to visit her friend in Tampere. YEY  I can’t wait to get some heat in my bones after these wet and cold months. I’m also looking forward to meet Susana!!
In the afternoon we took part in the aerobics at our gym. That was the flashback of the '80s aerobics :D Lisa and me almost peed our pant having realized what we had done for the last hour :D Oh my goodness :D To cheer up our day we decided to join Laura and Issie for the salsa lessons in bar Risa.
I and Lisa attended the basic classes as Laura and Issien took part in the intermediate classes. Our teacher was really full of life and energetic which made the learning process even more enjoyable while you’re having a smile in your face all the time  People from different ages and sizes experienced the joy of dance and salsa. After the classes we stayed spinning on the dance floor a few hours. Laura had a lot of dance partners due to her advanced level of salsa while I felt like the little ugly dug next to her and was stamping my partners feet :D I think my line of the day was: I’m so sorry. I’m a terrible dancer :D One man managed to slap his hand against my face slapped his hands on my face when trying to spin me around :D Well those are the new experiences – at first you have to suck at it to improve it :D

On Wednesday Kaja and I wanted to pamper ourselves at the school's salon and had booked a manicure - or at least so we thought. My deluxe-manicure went pretty well – my hands were scrubbed, moisturized, put in to warmers, massaged and nails were treated. My manicurist didn’t say a word during the treatment which was quite alright when considering my tiredness and Finnish background. I had nothing to complain she did a fairly good work. However, Kaja got herself a talkative girl, who could not perform that well… So if you’re visiting the UCB salon, anything can happen :P

On Thursday, we headed again after school to the salsa lessons and this time I learned how to turn and spin :D After that we headed out for the KARAOKE! I and Franzi had been talking about this since the first week and now it was the time to implement the dream :P So we went to the local pub called Tab and Spile, of which customer’s average age was certainly over forty, and 90% of the clientele were men. After all, we had decided to go to sing karaoke, so we did not let this little fact to bother us. As a result the 10-sputter-headed girl gang got seated in front of the pub and took over the stage :D The first songs were enough terrifying to listen to all the parties, while the evening's karaoke host didn’t have the latest versions of songs. His replacement of discs and songs also seemed to be extremely time-consuming and felt like a small eternity. I don’t know was this due to his third pint of beer or just the old fashioned system he had. He also didn’t spare his words if he didn’t like our performance. We didn’t quite take it personally and stayed anyways until midnight. At least the men had something to discuss for the coming evenings: D

On Friday, bought the school’s sweater! Now I have something to put on when I wake up in the freezing cold bed room. As I’ve surely mentioned before the heater works only one hour at a time and rarely I ever press it during the night so in the morning when you wake up, the only place where it’s warm is under the blanket.
On today's seminar class we won overwhelmingly the local students and we were rewarded chocolate muffins - what could be better: D It reminds me that this week's lessons have been quite entertaining. So I do not want to critic the quality of teaching or their tactics, but the strength of students' general knowledge…
This week's Top 3 list for the discussions (S = student, T = teacher, E = Elli, F = Franzi)
1. S: Where are you from? E: Finland. S: Finland. Is that a capital or something? E: Well no, Helsinki is the capital of Finland. It's located in the northern part of Europe. You know Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia ... And then the boy states at me with glazy eyes..
2. Talking about Formula 1 DURING class. S: Hey Teach, Monaco is in Spain, right? T: Well, Monaco is in France ......
3. T: Who thinks that Hitler is still alive? ==>; One third of the Class Raise Their Hands (source: F.)

So that’s the level of education here! I'd really like to do scientific research of the students and their general knowledge in geography and history. I wonder what would be their drawing the world map look like! What the heck they really are studying in school? You would think that hospitality students, and especially tourism students would know something about history and geography. Slovenian girl was also asked whether her country is still communism, and whether they have a telephone or Internet back home ... Here in the "developing country of Internet” they should consider quite many things that they should learn about before considering themselves highly educated.

Still few words about this weekend. Our destination on Saturday was Oxford - the mecca of education and sophistication. It made good balance for this week’s facts that we had heard in the university. In the morning we met with the same group than in the past, namely four Germans, two Finns and one Slovenian at the bus station in the old city center. Return-trip ticket cost us eight pounds for a two-hour drive from Bham to Oxford. In addition, we paid two pounds for the local bus ride from the Park and Ride station to downtown. Park and Ride station is an awesome invention, when you can park outside the city center and as a result there is less traffic in the centre and pedestrians more room to move. Great! One point for Britain 

We made a mandatory *** and a coffee break, then headed through the Office of Tourism to admire the various campus buildings. They had a lot of them... We walked only around the downtown area, but it seemed that in every street corner there was a new university and a professor wearing a traditional black robe was walking in front of the school.

For me, the highlight of the trip was, however Christ Church College and Cathedral, where the two first Harry Potter films have been shooted! After having paid the entrance fee, I texted my sister to praise where I was. The answer was not as enthusiastic as I had expected: "Oh well, tell my greetings to him ;)."
However, we didn’t see Mr. Potter himself and the glamorous of the visit was reduced by the flow of visitor’s restrictions and waiting for the opening of the dining room. I became a little envy how in culturally and historically valuable milieu these young people had the privilege of studying. Though I do not envy the sky high tuition fees that their parents have to pay.


As we continued our tour it became clear that the surrounding area of Oxford has also acted, inter alia, the setting of the Golden Compass and Midsomer murders. Having wandered enough we felt it was necessary to enjoy a warm snack, and we ended up in an Irish pub for lunch. I decided to experiment a treat called 'Chicken and Mushroom crockpod' which was against all odds quite tasty. With our tummies filled we made a stop to the local bookstore, which I left five pounds poorer and three books richer: Jane Austen's Emma, Pride and Predjudice and Little Women, Good Wives are now waiting reader. I've had time to become accustomed to the English “trash/ romance” literature, so maybe I should probably also begin to focus on the actual scientific literature. Surely it is not my fault that the courses are not very demanding, and in the evenings I want to read something just for fun, is it?
Tomorrow, I promise to focus on the assignments.

Greetings and hugs to all <3