Around Alnwick

a look down a street in a residential area of Alnwick

Club Soccer game taking place

Another residential area

Me in an archway to an alley in town.

Local Ice Cream Truck!

Some houses we passed on our walk.

Alnwick Police Station

Cool vines we passed on our walk

Captains Log: Its currently 11:50, I am currently sitting in my room waiting for lectures to download.

Today I was actually able to sleep in! It felt so good, even though our beds suck and I can feel every spring.

Yesterday was a terribly long day...along with every Wednesday to come. I have our British History class from 10-12:15. then my Information Systems class from 1:30-5:30. (we got two breaks but it is still a very long time to sit)**not to mention in that classroom we dont even have desks or tables to sit at, everyone has a chair and holds their notebook in their lap and takes notes....one would think that a castle of this sort, or anysort would have an adequate classroom.

After dinner last night Bri and I decided to walk around town. We wanted to go further than what our Bus Tour did and our small walking tours the first couple of days. We were both intreigued about the housing here. We started to go in one direction and ended up walking about 3-4 miles. I had a blast. I was able to take some pictures along the way too. The housing here is so different. almost no one has a yard, and if they do its maybe 5' x 5' square in front of their house or a little bit bigger backyard.

We walked past a park where several people had their dogs out...the dogs here are so well behaved. We walked past the Dukes Middle School, and found an Ice Cream Truck on our way towards the local Futball Club. (we would have watched a game, but there was a small fee to get in so we passed)

On our way back into town and to the castle, we decided to stop and have a drink at a local pub called Penny Black. (seemingly the only one that we had not been to yet) We started talking with the bartender, an older gentleman, and a couple local men at the bar. We were anticipating to only have one beer and then head out....maybe a 30 min ordeal. We started talking it up and an hour and a 40 minutes later we finally left. The locals are extremely welcoming and are very friendly and are happy to talk with us. They are used to having students there all the time. They started asking us about US History and Politcal things that happened before we were born so we probably gave way to the stereotype that most of the world has of us "stupid american"

It seems like everyone in different parts of the world knows exactly what is going on all over the world. We tend to only know what is happening in our country and tend to not care about the rest of the world because we are so focused on ourselves. It was interesting to hear how much they actually knew. They talked about Obama and Hillarys biographys, The Nixon scandal, and the Kennedys.

Every pub and local place that has a television keeps advertising about the World Cup. I cant wait to go out and watch a game with people who are hardcore soccer fans. The food is hit or miss at the castle, but there are many local delicious spots to hit. Everyone has found the pizza joint and i think about 4 different groups of people have ordered pizza in the last two nights.

Today we have our orientation for our first field trip to Edinburgh, Scotland this weekend and then we have our Contemporary Britain class after dinner this evening. Almost everyone is staying the night in Edinburgh and many of us are on the same bus back to Alnwick Saturday evening. One of my friends from Onalaska is about 40 mins from Edinburgh right now and she said she might make it into town this weekend, so I might meet her while we are there.

Travel break plans are still up in the air right now. Im tentatively thinking Prague for a couple days, then Mykonos (a Greek island) and then possibly Egypt! Many people want to go to Spain and such. But we have 90% of our Ireland weekend planned out for the weekend of July 16th.

Lunch Time...hope its good, if not...im going to get a panini. Next post will probably be once I return from Edinburgh.