So, I am really behind on blogging. However I dont feel like writing in retrospect anymore for now. I want to comment n today, a pretty normal day to give you nice idea of wht I am doing here.

Well Today was monday. We got our first tests back today. We took the test on Wednesday and then I flew out to Rome with 11/17 of our group memebers. We got back Sunday afternoon. Rome was lovely but I shall not go into it now...too much typing required.

Last night it was rather hot in our room, so Rebecca and I against advice from our homestay decided to sleep with our windws open. We were quite abruptly woken this morning at 5 am by the sound of Sunny, one of their 3 cats, who had scaled the house and climbed into our 2nd floor window. He landed on Becca's nightstand and knocked some stff over, Im pretty sure the ruckus was incorporated into my dream. Anyway, we closed the window and et Sunny out of our room. Then back to bed.Woke up for school for real, at 7:20. We had breakfast(cereal, toast, juice) and then meet James to bike to class at 8:10am on the corner.

We have tried numerous routes to get to school from Cherry Hinton(the village outside of Cambridge where we live), but this morning we went the 'old' way. Fine by me. It took us around 30-35 minutes, which is pretty standard. Class starts at 9. We meet in a room at DAMTP. The Department of Math and Theorhetical Physics. It is a modern facility, only about 4 yrs old I believe, and quite adequate. We get a break around 10:30 for about 10 minutes and then continue class unitl noon.

After that we walk across the road t Churchill College. This where we eat lunch. we have coupns for 7.95 pounds of food from the cafeteria line. The have about 3 choices from the hot lunch line with 5 hot sides, sandwiches and wraps to go, as well as a full salad bar anazing desserts and frexh fruit. Today I got the chicken fajita wrap(let down), an apple, assortment from the salad bar(potaote salad, green beans, red n salad, and pasta/tuna salad). I also got hot chocolate and carmel apple pie slice.

To clairfy Cambridge is made up of 31 colleges which are similar to frats in that that is the place you live and eat at. Colleges contain students from all majors, and you take dasses at buildings strewn about town, ike DAMTP, not at the college. Confusing system and I am sure there is more to it then what I said but that is how I understnd it now.

After lunch Natalie and I convienced the gang to throw the frisbee over at Churchill before startig our daily homework. It was fun. We saw some guys with what we thought was a rugby ball. We asked the boys but aparently it was an American Football, it said NFL on it and everything. So we threw it around and talked to them a little. They asked if we had been to any of the balls or garden parties. We hadn't, but we found out that there was a bal tonight and there would be fireworks over the cam for it.

The balls apparently are a HUGE deal. Tickets get advertised and sold in Jan for a june ball and this is like Prom mixed with a wedding, but more awesome. Every college puts on a ball for its students and this week is basically party week b/c last week all he exams were finished and the students are finally alowed to relax. It realy s silly here, because the have final only at the end of the year and if the fail they can be kicked out of school. No sco prob, r second chances here. This tension could explain how every stall in the bathroom had a stress anxiety chat line number.

Anyway, after some down time we went back to DAMTP to do the hw, we finally left for home about 5pm. Rebecca, Travis and I rode home togeher. Travis literally lives 4 houses down from us, yet we only see him in class. We went home a differnet way and it was nice. We got home and hung out with Abi and Oli. We played uno in our room with them unitl it was dinner time. Lisa made a chicken curry over rice, with bread. it was good. It reminded me of like a chilli chicken jumbolia?

Anyway I ate it all and then had an 'ice lolli' for dessert. basically a fruity strawberry popsicle. After that we had made plans to go bowling with some classmates at the local lanes around nine, so Rebecca and I looked up Germany stuff to pan for our week after class ends. We found some good stuff no firm plans though yet, any sugestions woud be welcome if you know something good. Right now we are thinking of four days in the Munich/blackforest/bavaria area, so southern germany. We went over to the lanes at 9 with natalie and Kacie, we were meeting James as well. When we got there there was a hour/ hour and a half wait for a lane, so we decided to bounce. Natalie and I said we should ride into town and see if we coul see fire works. I am so glad we didnt bowl because town was buzzing. I had never seen cambridge at night and it as cool. There was black tie dress all around and a few colleges were having balls. We stood on a bridge over the cam for a while, lots of ppl were there and finally around 10:40 the fire works started all synchronized to music There were distinct movements. I heard Harry Potter, a queen song, blur pt 2, gladiator, and u2. there might have been more but thats all i could dechiper between the oooohs and aaaaaahs. Secondly the balls are insane. The ones we saw were set ouside by the river, with lots of security. There were white tents to house food and other things i suppose. I saw carnvial games as well. There were bumper cars, blow up slide, a big swing and more. It was really extravagantly done. Also there were punting boats that took the students to watch the fireworks on the river for the best view. AMAZING!

And that was my monday the 18th.

Tomorrow class as usual and a 'field trip' to Granchester, a village outside of Cambridge where we are going to have Cream Tea. Mind you it will be a 45 minute WALK frm the city, rain or shine, s I pray for a cooler, cloudy, and rain free weather, or it could be a bit miserable.

Love you all lots,

Cheerio