The end of the adventure...but not really an end at all!

First an update on things I've done since last chatting! Did all my finals, got thoroughly stressed but made it through. Had dinner with Kate and Chris and Steph at Double Zero which truly did do amazing pizzas. Even though will be spending a lot of the time I'm back in Calgary with them, still felt sad that next year our wine evenings will have to be via skype. Went out to Wreck City (a few houses which are being demolished and artists decorated in crazy fashion) with Hannah which was lovely, even though I definitely looked like a country singer. Had meal out at Original Joes for Claire's birthday. Was so nice to have the majority of us there for a final time. Plus our server was such a sweetie. Then I've had my final night at work with a quiet drink afterwards. I'm really going to miss work, it's been such an enjoyable part of my year abroad (not something you'd normally expect from a job). So that's it, now I'm just packing and cleaning the flat before leaving for travelling. If you can't deal with reading soppy, sentimental mush I suggest strongly that you stop reading now as that will be majority of rest of post.

Obviously over the past few days I've been looking back on the year and how different it has been from my expectations. I honestly didn't expect to fall so in love with Calgary, much as I complain about all it's shortcomings, it's such a great city with such an amazing spirit. Yes, its weather is messed up (it was +20 a few days ago and now it's snowing again), but it gives you something to moan about.

 A lot of people have asked me what I'll miss about Canada the most, and while I may answer wing nights, or hockey really there is no one particular thing that I'll miss the most because everything has just been so great. Before coming out here me and Steph had chatted about things we wanted to do. These varied hugely with things such as "go to Walmart" featuring next to "go horseback riding in the Rockies". I can safely say that we achieved all of that but were dreaming too small because the best thing that I've done is found another home here and a group of people who will welcome back whenever I come back out here.

I can't stress enough just how much I love all the people who I've met out here, you are all people who I've been blessed to meet and I'm so grateful with the welcoming way you've greeted me and made me feel at home even though I'm so many miles away from the UK. Whether I know you from class, or rez, work or IVCF (Christian group), you've all had such a positive impact on my life and I'm glad that I got the chance to meet you. You are all welcome to come visit me whenever and I only hope I can show you the same hospitality that you've shown me!

Year Abroads are kind of weird, because you go from reading about a place to realising that everything you've read doesn't cover what you experience, because you're not just a tourist, you're a resident and you find that perfect bar which you love to visit, you know which bus goes where at what time, you can direct people to different places and best of all you become part of the group of people who live there, understanding their slang and their culture. I'm proud to say that as well as being British, there is now a part of me that is Canadian, and that will never change.

So now looking forward, tomorrow I jet off to New York where I will spend 5 days before travelling to Chile for 7 days, Argentina for 8 days, Miami for 3 days, Vancouver for 3 days then road trip back to Calgary. I'll be in Calgary from 26th to 31st and I'm hoping to catch up with as many people as possible before leaving. But when I do come to say goodbye to people it won't really be goodbye, it won't really be goodbye as I know that I'll definitely be returning at some point, after all I've still got so much more to discover about Canada!

From snow to spring to snow...

I think for once I'm actually going to be writing a blog post where I don't have ridiculous amounts to tell you, in fact you might be able to read this all in one easy sitting! Shocking I know!

So first things first, boring things - it's getting to the end of the semester, term officially ends on the 16th of April, so the amount of assignments and stuff has been building up and I've been doing a lot of work. I finally finished all my midterms on 28th of March (how that is MIDterm I've no idea, but ah well) and now I'm left with 5 assignments, 1 term paper and 3 finals to go. Crazy how in my final few weeks here I'm still doing more than I would be in a whole term back in Glasgow! Although for anyone ever considering a year abroad do NOT let the work put you off. Somehow working doesn't seem anywhere near as bad when you're abroad because you're abroad and you've always got fun things planned too!

Now onto the more exciting things! After my last update, the sun decided to come and warm Calgary...we reached 17 degrees and it was generally lovely! Spent a lot of time lounging about in the sun. On the Wednesday Jeff took me to Moxie's for the awesome brownie (I would recommend it to anyone!) and then we just chilled at mine for a bit. Thursday brought my final midterm (I will NOT miss having midterms when I'm back at Glasgow, yes it takes pressure off for final exam and does help you study, but even so, lots of extra stress!) The Friday was my first taste of dance shows at work...well dance mums are kinda crazy and it's definitely hectic, luckily I'm only working 3 shifts of it so I won't kill anyone or have a mental break down (in theory!)

For Easter Sunday I went to Steph's family's for dinner. It was so lovely to see all her family and meet her parents who were visiting. The food was also good, home cooked meals are lush, and I've been eating leftovers all week! Perfection!

On Wednesday went to Value Village with Jeff and got some gorgeous new heels, Steve Madden, original price tag $125, bargain price of $20! Win at life! Then we got some fantastic dinner, pulled pork is really one of my favourite things to eat! Afterwards we saw Rocky Horror Show at Mount Royal, it was nice to be able to see Mount Royal uni (although Calgary Uni is definitely nicer) and the show was hilarious. Thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Friday went shopping at Market Mall with Claire and bought a few dresses, as you know summer is well on the way and a girl can never have too many dresses. Then Jeff came over and we just chilled out with a movie. Saturday was going to be a productive day but the trip to change our NHL tickets took a lot longer than expected. At least now, me and Claire have better seats than before and her knee will be comfortable during the match. Then sat and ate a lot of popcorn and watched Iron Man, perfect evening!

Unfortunately it's been snowing all weekend so the short patch of sunshine was perhaps a false alarm and spring may not have really started.  But with travelling coming up soon I can at least look forward to some sunshine then! I think that's all the updates for now, the rest of the time has just been assignments, assignments and more assignments unfortunately! 

Final few days...

With me jetting off on Monday I'm doing final minute preparations! This includes printing off lots of photos to take with me (so when I get sad and miss my family and friends I can still have them with me), getting t-shirts printed (well any excuse for more t-shirts), printing out my insurance, study visa, flight details etc. and the dreaded packing.

Now I'm not a great packer at the best of times so trying to limit myself weight wise is going to be a huge struggle, but I've got some luggage scales to try and keep me under! Hard to tell just what to pack, I know Calgary is still pretty sunny and nice in September but it's the only sunshine we'll really have and then just months of snow, so need some warm stuff but not too much! One of my main things is to try and leave some room in my bag, because I'm sure I'll be bringing more stuff home then I'm taking so having that space set aside already will probably be helpful!

Anyway I should stop procrastinating from packing and get on with it! Wish me luck!

Less than three weeks to go...

So with two and a half weeks to go until I'm boarding the plane I've started thinking about practical things. I've sorted out insurance (I would suggest searching around but I ended up going to Endsleigh for mine as it is geared for people who take year abroads due to it's student nature). Then my next challenge was finding a suitcase that would be big enough to fit the kitchen sink in (not literally) but lightweight enough to not ruin the 20kg limit too much! After a wee bit of searching I settled on this bag because it is so light and large! I will still probably have trouble packing, especially as I want to take my ski boots and everything...but that's a challenge for another day.

Still feeling pretty happy about going abroad, especially as one of my closest friends is coming out for New Years with me so that'll be amazing! My next task is to make a list of everything I want to achieve while I'm out there so I don't get out there and get too absorbed in other stuff and forget all my previous goals.

Don't think there's anything else to update on apart from just general excitement about year abroad, it's really starting to feel real now!

Application process...

Now obviously this will vary uni by uni so I can only talk about my experience at Glasgow uni although I'm sure there will be similarities.

I decided to apply for a year abroad quite suddenly to be honest, I had thought about one before coming to uni but it never re-crossed my mind until my lecturer suddenly mentioned that she was the person who we would need to contact if we were planning one. After an evening where I didn't do any work and instead just searched all the pages I had decided I wanted to do it. Then came the tricky process of applying.

In order to apply I had to fill in a form with references from two lecturers, a personal statement, my choice of universities (minimum 3, maximum 5) and the courses I would take if I went there (we have to do a full course load over there and it must be approved by our subject so there will be no clash in our final year). It took me a very long time and a whole lot of emails between myself and multiple different people in my subject in order to get everything finalised. In comparison, the personal statement was easy especially as we were given the scheme of how they would mark it and what they were looking for.

One of the funnest parts of the applications was looking at all the universities we were paired with and deciding if I'd want to go there (this also involved watching a lot of lipdubs and random videos on youtube about them)! I had already decided I wanted to go to an English speaking country, not really for any particular reason but I guess I didn't want to learn another language. I also didn't want to go to a southern hemisphere university as I don't like the term times there, plus as I have already travelled round a lot of Australia I would feel like I wasn't maximising my year as I'd be going to places I'd been before. So this pretty much left me with USA and Canada. While I did look at American universities none of them had very good linguistics courses and in fact it was pretty impossible to find a full course load for linguistics. Also, while this may not matter and I would have been fine, the drinking age being 21 in the States could put people some people off.

In the end I applied for UBC (looked like a fantastic uni), Toronto (had amazing courses) and Calgary (perfect combination of courses/uni and being close to the mountains). After handing in my application there was the nervous wait to hear about whether we had got in and if so where. Unfortunately the offers were given out slightly staggered, so while some people got them at 9am on Thursday, I didn't get mine till 4pmish on the Friday, and others had to wait the weekend. Horrific does not cover the tension that was felt! When I got the email and saw I was going to Calgary I just sat in shock till my flatmate burst into my room asking if I'd heard yet! And then was the lengthy process of texting/calling everyone who needed to be informed and updating facebook. (Over 50 likes later I started to get a bit paranoid that perhaps people were liking it because it meant I would be out of the country, but hopefully at least the majority will be sad to see me go!)

So that is the application process up until the offer, I'll cover the next things that are necessary in my next blog. Hope this helps and please do feel free to ask if there's any points you want clarified.