The first week!

Well it's now the end of my first week here in Birmingham! It was a long but very fun week!
So now let’s see if I can remember what I did this week...

Wednesday I took it easy and tried to sleep in as long as I could, and then I ended up walking around campus. The main building on campus is just massive as it's about 12 stories and its apparently a big square (although you can still get very lost very easily) since it takes about 10minutes to walk completely around the square on one floor and there are probably about 10 sets of doors you have to go through .. but I’m glad I took my time and explored the building when it was still relatively empty. I even managed to find a little cafeteria on one of the floors and also a little coffee shop on another floor. Luckily though most of my classes should hopefully be in the vision science building. After wandering around I bit I then went back to my room and watched some movies and took it nice and easy.

Thursday was a whole other story... I ended up walking into town to the big shopping mall called the bullring. The Bull ring is a huge indoor/outdoor shopping area that is always packed with people and a huge variety of stores and shops. It seems to have everything you could ever want! The Bull ring has been around as a market place since the Middle Ages and of course has been redeveloped a few times. I found it was an amazing place since aside from all the stores there was so much history and culture in that area.

The bull ring is situated around St. Martin's church (which was the original church in Birmingham from the 13th century...but it was then had been rebuilt back in 1873) and on one side of the church is the ultra modern design of the Selfridges department store and on the other side of St. Martin's are several large markets.

There is a farmer's market, a meat/fish market and a general items market that are all side by side standing in the shadows of St. Martins. I ended up spending about 4 hours just wandering around the market and the bull ring and I didn't even see half of it! The only thing I even purchased there was my new UK mobile phone, since my regular Canadian cell phone doesn't have a sim card and doesn't work over here :P After all the walking around I came back to my flat and relaxed a bit before heading over to the campus pub (Einstein’s) to the international student's Karaoke night. I met a few new people there and had a few pints (but not enough to get up and sing a song), which was a nice way to end the day.

Friday there was a Cadbury factory trip that I could go on... but I decided to just stay back, since in the afternoon there was a Life Science International student lunch, and I wasn't sure if the trip would be back in time. And ultimately the lunch was well worth missing the trip for, as I got to meet a few of my professors, as well I met two other Canadian students who are also doing Optometry. At the lunch we also found out that about a quarter of our class is going to be Canadian's! ... I have no idea where they all are hiding out... but it's going to be great to meet them all. After lunch the three of us Canadians ended up going and having a coffee and getting to know each other. Then that night we ended up going to the last orientation event for just international students which was called Aston's got Talent. They did it like that America's (or Britain’s) got Talent show and many of the orientation leaders and international students went up and preformed. I was just shocked at how talented so many of the students were from singing, to dancing, b-boxing, DJing, juggling, etc. It was an amazing night with also several very funny comical acts, which I can't wait to see again on you tube.

Saturday was when all of the UK first year students got to start moving in, so campus was very loud and busy so one of the Canadians that I met on Friday and I went wandering around downtown a bit more and ended up strolling along some very typical European alley ways and we ended up having lunch at the Windsor Pub. This was my first experience eating out here, which was a bit interesting as it turns out that what you do is grab a menu on your way in, find a table, figure out what you want then go order it all at the bar and then they bring the food over ... it seems pretty logical and straight forward now, but at the time it took us a bit to figure out how it all worked. Once we sorted it out I had a typical English fair of roast beef, baked potato, peas, and a pint (but no Yorkshire pudding since this was apparently the lunch portion). It was amazing the food! I always enjoyed roast beef in Canada, but it was nothing in comparison to this... this was just amazing! After lunch we ended up walking around some more and then met up with the other Canadian for dinner. We decided to go try another pub in town called Square Peg, which at one time was likely the longest pub in England, as it stretches a whole city block. Here I ended up having some fish and chips which was ok, the fish was very good (not amazing like my roast beef, but still good) and the chips were just standard (I found out later that the best place to get fish and chips are some of the little hole in the wall run down looking restaurants which are apparently called "chipperies"), so I’ll try it there next time. After dinner we then heading back to campus and went to the welcome party for all first year students, ended up being more like a huge loud club..so we only stayed there for a bit.

Today the moving continued, so us Canadians met up again, joined by a guy from Belgium who just moved in. We all went for a coffee down at the bull ring and wandered around a bit. Then this evening a bunch of us optometry students all met up and hung out a bit to get to know each other before tomorrow when we will meet all of our other classmates. We had a good time and then a few of us ended up heading to a pub kind of on campus called Sacks of Potatoes for a pint. Which was are really nice pub, but it just seems like I can't escape potatoes! (i've gone from the potatoe festival to here... but at least there is less farm equipment in the pub)

...and to think that was just my first week!!!

My very long first day in the UK

My first day has finally come to an end. It was a very long but awesome day!

Starting from the beginning....

I flew on an air transat flight directly from Toronto to Brimingham, and so i was worried about the weight of my baggage but at check in my checked luggage was under by a bit which was nice and they never weighed by carry on which was even better. Went through customs smoothly and without a beep, so got some tims and managed to kill 3hrs in the airport :P The plane left Toronto a bit early even thought it was a rainy, foggy evening and it was a very smooth flight all the way to birmingham. The plane it was a small relatively tight squeeze, but luckily i got an aisle and both myself and the two Brits who were sitting beside me were all skinny which definately helpped. The food was as usual microwave TV dinners with a bunch of stuff i have no idea what it was, and the english breakfast was bland and not very good, but it was still food. Also by the time they turned off the lights it was about 10pm and then they turning them back on about 2-3hrs later, but it was too noisy so i only got a few minutes of sleep :(

Arrived at birmingham international airport about 10 minutes early and went through customs without a problem! Picked up the luggage and then went to try and catch a train. After wandering around for a few minutes I eventually found out were the train station was, and so i bought a ticket to the New Street station. After buying the ticket tho i went to find the train and quickly realized that the ticket didn't tell me what time or platform to go on, so i asked a nice friendly lady who managed to steer me in the right direction.

I got to the new street train station around 9am and then took a cab a short 5minute ride over to campus. I was amazed at how well the cabbies drive here, it's nothing like in Canada, cuz here i wasn't affraid for my life and he didn't try to drive around the block to get extra money. As soon as I started to get out of the cab one of the Aunties (orientation week volunteers) was grabbing my luggage and helpping me check in.

My flat is a little diffrent than i expected, as i thought it was going to be kinda like a town house, and well it kinda is and kinda isn't ... it's sort of like a motel with all the units attached by a common covered outdoor walkway. Each unit is two stories high and with 6 bedrooms, a kitchen, eating area, toilet room, shower/wash room, and an ironing room. It looks like there is a total of 14 units in gem house arranged in two levels and so mine is on the upper level and at the end closest to the capus. Also i think i probably have the best room to because my view is of the main building and the clock on the side of the building and then i can also see the old firehouse (which has a bunch of stores and restaurants in it). The room is about the size of a standard canadian residence room, so no big surprise here, but with tones of storage...but i think it's weird having only one toilet. There is also a common phone in our flat for the 6 of us, it has rang a few times but i can never get to it in time, and i got no clue what the phone number for it is. The internet was connected way smoother than I have ever had before and so far it seems to be a decent speed and is fairly reliable. Right now i'm still the only one in my flat, so I'm still waiting to see who else i'll be living with.

 

After i got settled a bit i went to the main building and got my passport scanned, which is sort of like a check in saying yes i'm here and have arrived. I then wandered around campus a bit before going on a shopping trip to ASDA (Walmart). The school had little minibuses/vans that took a bunch of us there and then we had 45 minutes to shop. The students driving the buses were ok, but they definately made me very glad that i'm not driving around the UK :P ASDA was way bigger than any walmart i have ever been in, but it was also almost all food with a very small clothing section and housewears section. But i managed to get all my bedding and cooking stuff and a few food items to last me at least the week. It was odd shopping because for started everything is a smaller size than at home and everything has a different name and even some of the essentials like cheese slices they don't even have. Then when i came up to the check out it was just shear madness ... there were like 15 cashes open plus the self check outs and all had huge lines, but i lucked out and found a relatively small line. Just like in Canada they charge for all plastic bags, but the cashier was nice and i'm pretty sure she gave up counting after a while. I was also amazed at the grand total as it was much less than i expected which was awesome!

After unpacking all my supplies i got ready for dinner. There was a big international student dinner at a buffet on broad street that has foods from around the world (well most places, except canada). The minibuses took us over in groups and the restuarant was shocked at how many of us there were, even tho reservations had been made. There was about 120 of us that filled this restuarant and i was fortunate enough to find a seat before it got too full. The food was ok and it was nice meeting and talking to the various people. So far I have met people from all over the world... france, holland, china, malaysia, finland, russia, poland, spain..but so far haven't met anyone from india (and i think there are only a few actually from india). After dinner the majority of us then went down the street to Revolution, which is one of many bars. We all hung out dancing and chatting most of the night before several of us walked home. I was glad to be with people who knew there way around town, as I had no clue where we were, and I would have gotten completely lost otherwise. It was about a 20 minute walk, which wasn't bad since it was a beautiful night. As well many might think that we were crazy for walking but it turns out that Birmingham is a very safe town (one of the safest in the UK) and the only people we came across were people outside the bars having a smoke and the police. I finally got home around midnight and started to type this but quickly fell asleep instead.

Now today there aren't too many activities schedualed. So i'm going to go through the mound of paper work they gave me and then look at cheep cell phones and the banks and also pick up a pinter, binder, an alarm clock and then see if i can get a charger here for my camera. I'm looking for a camera charger becuase i got a power adapter but when i plugged in the power bar i brought the power bar made a popping sound and then started smoking ... so needless to say i can't use that. but the adapter is working for pluggin in my laptop, since my laptop charger says it's ok to be used in the uk and has a ground. My camera batter charger on the other hand doesn't have a ground and only has north american certification, so i don't think i want to try it....but so hopefully i can get a charger here, but if not i'll try mine here and hope for the best :P

Introduction

On September 21st I will be heading to the UK for the first time. I am going to Birmingham England where I will be studing Optometry at Aston University (which is a three year undergraduate degree program). Once I have completed the program I will then do a one year internship (pre-registration year) before I officially become an Optometrist and head back home to Canada. It's going to be a great adventure and i'm sure it's going to be a lot of fun!

I'm creating this blog so that I can share my experiences with anyone who is interested. My plan is to post something weekly, mainly upload pictures and maybe a few comments.

Lets see what happens ;)