Only finals still to go...

So classes are over. It's odd to think I may never have another lecture at U of C again, and much as I've complained about the work load I have to say I've had some amazing profs and will really miss some of the courses I've taken and people I've got to enjoy studying Linguistics with.

But before end of classes I had the excitement of getting to go see the Flames play the Canucks with Claire. For those of you who don't know, these are NHL (National Hockey League) teams: the Flames are Calgary's team and aren't that good, whereas the Canucks are Vancouver's team and are very good. There's quite a bit of rivalry and although we knew we would lose, until the last 15 minutes we were drawing 1-1. Okay so maybe the end score wasn't quite the same but let's not mention that. It was a great evening, me and Claire got all geared up in the Flames clothes and had great times dancing along to the cheesy songs.

On Thursday me and the IVCF group went to Peter's Drive Thru and then went 5 pin bowling. It's like 10 pin bowling, but with 5 pins...crazy Canadian things. Turns out I'm actually pretty good, came 3rd overall, mega win (not that I'm over competitive or anything). We had one round of normal bowling, the a round of crazy bowling...definitely not so good at that! But it was hugely hilarious and a great way to round off the bible study which has just been such a massive and amazing part of my time here.

Thursday was also the final Den of the year (well it wasn't there was one the week after but no-one cared about that one) so went out with the usual crowd. The Den was as sweaty and nightmare inducing as ever, but everyone getting home in one piece is always good! Friday was Phil's birthday so we went to a nice bar in Kensington and had some lovely cocktails. Claire managed to come down on her crutches which was great, even if we did get a mildly moody bus driver!

That Saturday some of the British girls had decorated their flat for a Midsummer Night's Dream party so we got all fairy-ed up and had a lovely time. A massive snow storm meant that going out wasn't really tempting so I had an early night instead. The Tuesday was the final official day of classes which is also known as Bermuda Shorts Day (BSD). I worked in the morning, then in the afternoon had pizza while watching Made in Chelsea before heading out to Cowboys for the party. It was crammed full of people but nice to have a dance, especially with some of the girls who I've not seen in a while.

Since then I've pretty much been writing my term paper, then doing Dance Fest shifts...oh dance mums, my favourite type of people. This Saturday went to Jamesons with the work crowd (well deserved after Dance Fest) and Jeff which was lush. I had an amazing steak sandwich, it was so super tasty. Then we chilled out and just generally had a great time. Now I've got a lot of studying to do what with finals coming up etc. but I've got so many great things to look forward to that it's okay!

Fun at Flames

Magical Fairies

Work crew

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! 

It's 2013 - new courses, new job, new blog post!

Sorry for the long gap between updates, things have been busy (as always)!

So when I left you last, we were in the hostel, about to head off skiing the next day! We woke up very early (in fact extra early due to Steph forgetting her phone is set 10 minutes fast), and after a breakfast got on the bus to Sunshine with lots of other sleepy looking powder obsessed people! I think my grin was actually reaching insane levels by the time we arrived at Sunshine. In the queue for our lift passes we got given free hot chocolate - I really do love Canadian hospitality! It was greatly appreciated, but in no time at all we had our lift passes and were in the gondola! When we reached Sunshine base camp, me and Steph had great fun attempting to teach Sarah to ski...however, we were perhaps not as successful as we had envisioned and she ended up booking a lesson for that afternoon which left me and Steph to go off so she could show me her improved ski skills! I have to say I was impressed at just how much better she had got! The runs were lovely, and full of fresh snow! So much fun! While Steph did have a bit of a freak out on one run because she saw mountain edges everywhere (there were no mountain edges anywhere, there were slightly steeper bits of the slope) no one got injured at all, which I count as a highly successful skiing day! Even Sarah got down a green with her instructor!

That evening we had been planning on heading to Banff city centre, but were so sleepy we ate in the hostel and then went to the hostel bar to bring in the New Year. The countdown started two minutes early, but considering we'd said Happy New Year to each other at 5pm (UK midnight) we weren't too fussed. Met some lovely Canadians and spent ages chatting to them (and looking after the slightly drunker member of their group!) The next day we went to the Elk and Oarsmen for brunch, love that restaurant! Ended up eating a lot of food and revelling in the gorgeous sunshine that there was. Then we headed up to sulphur mountain to soak our skiing aches away in the hot springs - it was very different from the last time I was there, the steam basically made it impossible to see anything, but it was truly gorgeous! Unfortunately lack of hair dryer kind of made my hair freeze afterwards, oddest feeling ever. We then went back to the hostel to grab our bags before heading for the greyhound. It was a bit of a military operation with some very well planned bus changes. Then came the waiting for the greyhound. We took shifts going to the nearby Timmies in order to warm up, as typically the shelter was shut and it was -20 something. Not pleasant at all. But it was nice and warm when it arrived and before long we were back in Calgary.

During the rest of Sarah's stay, I attempted to show the best parts of Calgary. Luckily we had a chinook so things were warm, but she still got excited at the sight of snow on the ground! We went up the Calgary tower both during sunset then also after night, and also walked around the Bow River (truly stunning at sunset, especially with the chinook clouds). We also went to Hitment vs Moose Jaw Warriors, and we won! VERY exciting. Plus we had a meal out at the Ship (everyone loves the Ship and Anchor, such good value)! As well as all that we watched a lot of rom coms, ate some great food, and went to the first proper Cascade party of 2013 (which even though term hadn't started got shut down by the CAs, spoil sports! Luckily Brewster CAs seemed much more accommodating so we carried on the party there)!

The room of my floor looked very empty without the mattress which Sarah had been sleeping on but the day after she left was the start of classes so pretty hectic. Unfortunately none of my profs seemed to understand that the first day back should be a gentle introduction, and all gave very long lectures - one of them even over ran! Ridiculous! The course I'm taking this semester are Syntactic Analysis (the higher level of the syntax class I took last semester), Speech Language Pathology (basically speech therapy, very interesting), Second Language Acquisition and Semantics. They all seem to be a lot of work (and the textbooks cost ridiculous amounts) but ah well, such is life! Apart from uni work I've also got a job at the theatre on campus. It's great fun, everyone who I work with is absolutely lovely and we seem to get paid for not doing much which is good!

Having people slowly return to Calgary has been lovely, so nice seeing people again (even though it's sad that some people aren't here). Since people have got back we've watched a few movies, had a few nights out (although not actually made it out, the queue for the Den was just too long) and generally had a lovely time catching up. There has also been about a foot and a half of snow (we laugh at the measly snow which is terrorising England!) Also as per most New Years Resolution-y people I've been hitting the gym with renewed vigour, and today did a brutal zumba class! Last night, Steph, me and Kate went to Original Joes and indulged in a lot of very good food and half price wine, lovely!

I think that's all I need to update you on, I'm probably missing something, but that'll teach me for leaving it so long in between blogs! Sure I will have more to update you on soon!

Skiing Pros

Sunshine in the Rockies

Sunset from Calgary Tower

Hitmen win

Excited to be back to Cascade parties!

Staying in? Not a chance!

Okay, so yes, I have a lot of work to do, but like a true trooper I have been doing my work and finding time to do fun stuff too! Who would have thought that you could do both?! As it's been such a busy week you're going to get a day by day account of my life, I'm sure you'll enjoy it highly!

Sunday - Woke up early on Sunday morning to go and take photos in the snow with Hannah, Fay and Julia. It was absolutely stunning, even if rather cold! But well worth the effort of waking up early! Then Jess drove me to church which was also great. Did some work before curling up with Steph and Claire to watch Miracle on 34th Street, beautiful day!

Monday - Now we all remember that on the plane over here me and Steph sat next to a lovely person called Kate? Well the 8 hour flight with us obviously didn't scare her too much and so we've been out lots since getting here (think they've all been mentioned in previous blogs!) The exciting thing is that even though Kate is a vegetarian, she works for Alberta Beef. For those people who don't know, Alberta is like the beef province, and Calgary is like the beef capital of Canada. And I love beef. So when Kate invited me and Steph to go along to a free buffet dinner of course we said yes (after some brief questions as to whether she really wanted her work colleagues to meet us!) We got dressed up business-casual and got a cab to the Sheraton Cavalier hotel. Once there and with a glass of free wine in our hands we met a lot of Kate's colleagues who were all lovely, and also met quite a few cowboys (very exciting!) The food was absolutely amazing, the beef was cooked in the style of four different countries - there was a carvery for Canada, fajitas for Mexico, some amazing thing for Korea and then beef pie for England. Although the fact the gravy was separate to the pie made it a little less British, like all the rest of the food it was amazing! Already feeling rather stuffed after all of that food there was then the joy of an ice cream sundae station for dessert! AMAZING! All in all it was a lovely night and I still felt full the next day which is always good!

Tuesday - Me and Claire went to see Silver Linings Playbook on Tuesday, honestly I recommend you all go and see it, I would happily see it again and again. Firstly Bradley Cooper is just amazing, and even though he is in a binbag for the majority of the film he still looks fantastic, and then Jennifer Lawrence is just perfect in this role. I could not recommend this highly enough. Then as it was Fay's last night here this semester we all went over to hers and made Christmas decorations (with varying levels of success it has t be admitted!) but now all our rooms look at least semi-festive which is lovely!

Wednesday - This week seemed to be the week for putting in extra effort to my appearance as to celebrate Fliss' 21st birthday we headed to River Cafe, a posh restaurant on Prince Edward Island (a small island in the Bow River which runs through Calgary). While the walk there from the C-train was absolutely freezing there were lots of gorgeous Christmas lights outside which made up for it. The food was amazing; after the slight disaster when five of us had ordered duck and they only had two ducks left, we all managed to get some delicious food. I had a steak and it even came with yorkshire puddings! How homely! For dessert I shared an apple upside down cake with Tilda which filled me up nicely. After deciding it was too cold to get the C-train home we piled into a taxi instead, much warmer!

Thursday - As this was Fliss' actual birthday, after bible study I went home and got ready to head out to the Den. We got to skip the queue which was good (even though for once the queue wasn't too long) . As we danced the night away (getting very amused with Tilda's ghetto moves and open mouthed faces) we kept checking the time until at midnight we could finally say happy birthday to Lucy! I headed home not long after that, knowing I had a lot of work to do and unfortunately after I left it seemed a thief went on a bit of a spree and 11 people got their phones and/or wallets stolen. Even Anna's cheapy flip phone went to the thief, much to the security's amusement. Losses aside everyone had a great night though!

Friday - So now for big Luce's birthday celebrations! While original plans had been to have a few drinks on 17th a few sore heads put paid to that idea so we headed up the Calgary Tower. The views were amazing and watching Steph and Lucy freak out over the height was equally beautiful. After multiple photos including a 'family' photo we headed down to the outdoor ice rink we'd noticed. None of us had skates but it was beautifully lit up and felt kind of film like. Gorgeous! Then we got the c-train home before curling up and watching Love Actually.

Saturday - Did you honestly think that I would have burnt out after 5 days of doing things? No, not me! On Saturday Lucy, Fliss, Tilda, Julia and me went to watch the Calgary Hitmen vs the Edmonton Oil Kings. Now firstly can I just state that while Edmonton is technically the capital of Alberta, everyone knows that Calgary should be as it's a much better city. So yes, there is quite a bit of rivalry. We were all given a box of macaroni and cheese to shake for 'Shake up the Stadium' and then to donate afterwards for the Food Bank Drive which is really nice (kudos to the Co-op for providing 10,000 boxes!) I have a wee bit of a crush on Spencer Humphries (one of the Hitmen) so of course was cheering him on loudly! Unfortunately by the end of the first period we were 2-0 down. The second period stayed the same. Things were looking pretty dire, especially when with 10 minutes to go the Oil Kings scored another goal! People were leaving the stadium, never a good sign! With 4 minutes to go, we scored...then pretty much 30 seconds later we scored again! For a brief glorious minute I actually thought we could do it! Unfortunately the Oil Kings then scored once more, but it certainly was an intense end to the game and I was very much on the edge of my seat!

Sunday - Not much to report today, been doing a lot of revision! However we did all exchange our Secret Santa gifts! A $5 we discovered was a lot harder to shop for than we thought it would be but I got some gorgeous Urban Outfitters socks from Lucy, wrapped in a magazine page which had Ryan Gosling on - beautiful! Then been revising most of the rest of today, but taking a break to write this blog post, aren't you guys happy I did? So that's that, my hectic but amazing week!

Snuggled up to watch Miracle on 34th Street

All smart for Alberta Beef

Christmas Decorations

Posh at River Cafe

Good times at the Den

Moose at the top of Calgary Tower

Calgary at night

One month in...

In under 24 hours I will have successfully made it through a month in Canada! It's odd to think that those who are just here for a term have already done 4 weeks out of 13...not a thought I'd want to be facing...there's so much more I want to do! But as I sit here writing this really I'm just procrastinating from the assignments that seem to be constantly looming over me at the minute! It really is true what people tell you, your year abroad is not a doss year and actually if you come to Canada your workload will greatly increase! However that's not to say I haven't done lots of things this week...the work ethic over here really does seem to be to work hard so that you can play hard so that's what we've been doing...when in Calgary and all that jazz!

On Tuesday we had our first flatmate meal, the student essential of pasta with tomato sauce! Very good however and nice to all sit down together for a meal. On Wednesday me and some of the British girls had pancakes...being Canadian and all that we tried Maple Syrup but as we'd bought the cheap version it really didn't taste great and I switched back to lemon and sugar pretty swiftly! 

Now, last blog I totally left you on a cliffhanger as to why I had bought cowboy boots...well apart from their insane comfort and awesome fashion points we went to Ranchmans a proper cowboy bar on Thursday night! Got a party bus down there, realised we actually quite enjoyed the country music, attempted to copy people and do some line dancing (unlike at ceilidh's there's no caller) and rode a mechanical bull! All in all a great night! Then walked to the C-train stop to catch last train home, which worryingly was running 15 minutes late and made us all rather nervous that we've missed it! But saved us taxi fare so that's good.

On Friday it was the ski club toga party so we got our togas on and partied it up! There were interesting ranges of togas including some really nice spotty bed sheets which I would not risk taking into the Den because they would never come out the same again!

Saturday saw us head downtown for a meal out on 17th Ave. Found a lovely pub called the Ship and Anchor which served amazing burgers at cheap prices. It was nice sitting outside and soaking up some more sunshine! 17th Ave is just amazing, so many good places to eat so will definitely be heading back there! Then walked to the Saddledome in order to see our first hockey (I'm talking ice hockey) game. Now normally the Calgary Flames are the team who play in the Saddledome but the NHL is on lockout at the minute so no NHL games unless they sort stuff out. Instead we saw the Calgary Hitmen play the Red Deer Rebels as part of the WHL (Western Hockey League). Unlike the American Football where I had no idea what was going on I actually understood it and properly enjoyed it! Even though we lost 3-2 on overtime it was a great game with fantastic atmosphere and a lot less stopping and starting than the football! Shall definitely be going back to watch other games as it was great fun!

Had first bible study this week and it was a really nice cosy wee group, then IVCF (the Christian group) also cooked us free dinner tonight which was greatly appreciated! Also have said "eh"in conversation for the first time so really feel like I'm pretty fully settled in now! Very glad I decided to come on a year abroad, and super happy I ended up in Calgary! Anyway, that's enough procrastination for me, I should get back to my assignments now! Probably update you in a week's time again!

Pancake and maple syrup

Everyone wants to be a cowgirl really!

TOGA! TOGA! TOGA!

Ice spray at the hockey game

Intense hockey players!