First week of "studying" .. aka Leicester trip

This past week was my first week since classes ended. Since there is still a few weeks until exams begin I took it a bit easier and didn't stress out too much with studying. But I did manage to study a bit, as I studied with two of my friends and over the course of the week we went through two of our courses, which isn't too bad for a "light" week of studying.

Although we did a fair bit of studying we still managed to take some breaks.

On thursday we took some time off studying and went to vote. Even though we are international students, we were still given the ability to vote for the Birmingham member of parliament (Birmingham Council Election) and also for the UK General Election. The night before I managed to take some time out and read up on all of the parties and their varioius policies, since I feel that it's pointless to vote unless you are somewhat informed. I went through the various policies and I found that there was one party in which I agreed with almost all of their policies, well except for one, they wanted to try and crack down on the apparent ease of getting an UK student visa (which they felt had some holes in it .. but after going through the process myself I saw no holes and thought it was quite fair). This issue of student visas is one of the few policies that would effect me directly (other policies being their funding plans for higher education and they're national health service - NHS) and I wasn't really happy with what this party wanted to do with student visas, so I looked at the other parties I ended narrowing it down to two different parties to vote for; the one I agreed with completely except for their crack down on student immigration and another party in which I agreed with about 75% of their policies, and the ones i didn't agree on were ones that didn't affect me directly. On Thursday I ultimately made the decision and voted for the party which I felt would be best for the UK. To actually cast our ballots we went in to the polling station (which was right on campus) and gave them the polling cards and voted. I was kind of surprised that I didn't have to show any proof that I was the person on the polling card, since every time I have voted in the past I have had to show ID. Afterwards I thought that maybe in Canada I always had to show my ID because they didn't think I looked over 18, but then they really should have done the same here, especially since I'm always getting ID'd here every time I go to a pub, even when all I want to order is food and no alcohol. Regardless they gave me the two ballots and I placed my vote on each of the ballots. Apparently there was a lot of problems with the voting this year, although I didn't experience any, and so they didn't end up having the final counts done until 6am Friday morning (even though  the polls closed at 10pm)! Ultimately the election resulted in a hung/minority Conservative government (just like in Canada) with the Labour party a close second and the LibDems' a distant 3rd. No one here was happy about having a minority and so there has been alot of talk in the past few days but recently the Conservatives had decided to form a coalition with the LibDems. It sounds like a lot of people I know are happy with this coalition and so I just hope they can make it work. Personally I don't think it could have gone any better for me, since two good parties got in, and before they decided on the coalition the UK pound dropped some more, so I managed to convert some dollars into British pounds at a good rate. 

On Friday since we had been doing so well studying and one of my friends in another program just finished the last few major essays, then we decided to go on a road trip to Leicester to visit another friend. We ended up taking the train where we got a decent small group same day off peak ticket rate; I still have no idea what all that means, but just knew that it was cheaper than we expected. We left around 10ish and it took only about an hour and when we got there we were met by our friend who lives near Leicester. We ended up going to the mall in downtown Leicester and then walked around the town.

The town seemed fairly confusing, since it was like every square had like six different streets to choose from, and then you go down one street to the next square and there was six more options, but aside from me loosing my bearings I found that Leicester has quite a nice looking downtown core.

Afterwards we drove out of Leicester and to the small canal side town of Foxton.

We went down to the Foxton locks and had lunch at a really nice resturant which had an out door covered patio which was right on the water. It was a really great place and the owners were really nice and friendly and the food was fantastic.

After lunch we took a stroll part way up the locks, but then it started to sprinkle a bit, so we headed back to the car.

We then drove around the area and our friend took us next to a village called Market Harborough, which has a really nice small town atmosphere. We wandered around a bit and saw it's old school house which was on stilts and next to it was this nice old church.

I looked at the church to see what time it was and was shocked to see it was just one thirty, but I could have sworn that it must have been at least 3 or 4. I then looked closer at the clock and noticed it was really a sundial.

This was the first time I had ever seen a large sundial on the side of a building before! Unfortunately it wasn't sunny, so I couldn't try to figure out the time, but it looked like it would have been fairly confusing to figure out, just judging by where all the numbers on the sundial were located. Our next stop was our friend's home town of Kibworth. When we got back to his place we hung out and chatted with his parents for a bit, before having dinner. They had heard that we hadn't had any good fish and chips yet, so they ended up getting some from their local chipper who has award winning fish and chips. The fish and chips turned out to be by far the best I have had so far while in the UK, or well actually best ever! After the amazing english dinner, we then headed back to the train station and caught the train back to Birmingham.

On Saturday we then started studying again, but managed to take a nice lunch break and went for a walk into town to a pub called the Square Peg, where we met up with another friend and had a nice relaxing lunch break. After lunch we continued studying and by Sunday night we had basically completed the review of the two courses, so to celebrate a few of us ended up going out to cinema, where we had ice cream and watched Iron Man 2. I ended up having chunck monkey ice cream, which I didn't realize until after purchasing that it had banana in it, which I don't usually like, but it turned out to be way better than I expected since I could barely taste the banana. The film turned out to be pretty good, but the theatre was quite empty, as there was maybe 10 people in total that showed up. The small turnout actually worked in our favour, as not only did it mean that it would be quieter, but also if anyone had sat in front of us as we wouldn't have been able to see since the theater was old and the seats are not sloped very well, so if anyone had sat in front of us then it would be hard to see over their head.

It turned out to be a good week with more studying than expected getting done, and with some great adventures too.

Cheers,
Jeff


*Word of the Week: in the UK when people talk about "beaver tails" then are generally referring to truck trailers where the back end folds down to create a ramp.

Last Week 1st Year Classes

This past week was me last week of classes and I still can't believe that first year lectures are all done already! Since the classes were finishing up this week, then my lectures mainly consisted of several review lectures. Aside from all the review lectures, in a two of my classes the professors tried to squeeze in a bit more material, and actually presented new material. In my Optics and Medical Imaging (OMI) course we learned a fair bit about MRIs and how they work and how they can be used to assess various structures of the eye. The other course where we learned new material was in Ophthalmic Lenses (OL) where we learned about many of the British/EU standards/tolerances for lenses and frames, as well as some of the more obscure techniques that are used to make sure frame and lenses meet these tolerances. In my labs, unlike my lectures, it was very much business as usual. In OMI lab we did an interference experiment to measure the thickness of some aluminium foil, while in OL we learned and played with many of the various frame materials from the past and ones that are currently being used. In my other lab, Clinical Optometry, we had an assessment on retinoscopy and subjective refraction, and so I'm not sure how well I did, but I think I did pretty good since my retinoscopy results weren't too far off, and I ultimately got  my patient down to the 6/5 (about 20/15) line. With this assessment we had to put a "dummy" lens in a trial frame to simulate a prescription in our patient, which isn't too big of a deal, but the dummy lens that my patient was wearing created a large prescription (specifically a high cylinder power) so they were very sensitive to the orientation of the lenses. Unfortunately with the dummy lens can easily move in the trial frame when the patient moves, so I just hoped that my patient didn't move before the professor was able to mark my refraction.

Aside from classes this week I have been a bit more active than last week...

On Wednesday I had a meeting with several of my peers and some of the executives of my schools optics society. In total there were 8 of us from my class that showed up to the meeting, all of whom were interested in taking on various positions on next years optics society executive team. Surprisingly we managed to figure out all of our roles in a very fair and efficient manner, since it turned out that there were very few roles in which more than one person wanted. Basically it was just the Vice President (VP) position which had about 4 or 5 of us who were interested in taking on this role. Ultimately we discussed it and 3 of the 5 were willing to take on other roles, so we decided as a group to just have two VPs, since we could not see a downside to having two VPs instead of just one. I had originally thought of president or VP, but ultimately I didn't think I could do either of those roles any justice, since there is a lot of phone calls and meetings in the summer that those people will have to do, and I just wouldn't be able to do that from Canada, with the cost to call the UK and the time difference. I believe that the group of executives we have for next year are a great group of people, and I think that we will manage to make next year's optics society the best ever!

On friday after our last first year class a group of about 14 of us ended up going out for lunch to Sac of Potatoes (an on campus pub that I commonly refer to as Sac's). Unfortunately Sac's has recently changed there menu (for the 3rd or 4th time in the last 7 months), and in the past it was always a good thing when they changed the menu, but this last change was very dissappointing as they have increased many of the costs and decreased the portion sizes, but so hopefully they will change the menu again soon. But even with the disappointing new menu we still managed to have a great time, especially since it was great that we were able to hang out all together once last time before our exams. Our exams begin on May 24th, so many UK students have gone home for a week or so, and afterwards when ever they do get back I think we'll all be a bit busy studying :P.

Friday night one of my friends and I were ended up going out to an Irish pub in hopes that they would have some traditional Irish/Celtic music. On our way we ended up hearing some fairly loud music coming from Victoria Square (which is where the German Market was held back in December). So we ended up walking towards it and found out that there was some sort of huge out door dance performance going on. We ended up watching about the last 20min of the show, which was taking place on a two tiered stage that they had set up on top of the big fountain. It was a really neat show to watch, as the dancing seemed to be more Eastern European, with all the swords and some of the Russian style moves they were preforming. But once the show ended we continued on to O'Neill's Irish pub on Broad street. We choose to go to this pub since we had read somewhere that they have music on Friday nights, plus broad street is much more heavily travelled at night than the streets around the Digbeth (the Irish quarter). After having to show my ID to get in (because I apparently look like I'm under 18, while my younger friend didn't have to show their ID :P ), we went in to find it was fairly busy. We found a quieter area closer to the back and ordered some pints of Guinness Red, which as it turns out tastes just like normal Guinness, but just not as heavy, plus it had a cool deep red colour to it. Shortly after getting our pints the music began, which turned out to be a DJ who was playing a mix of music from songs from the 70s to some modern songs, but unfortunately nothing that was remotely Irish, so we didn't stay too long.

On Saturday one of my UK friends invited me and another one of my friends to a Birmingham City (Blues) football match.

I had heard of many football matches that get out of hand, but Birmingham City was playing Burnley and well neither of the teams had anything to gain (or loose) from this game, so emotions were a bit more calm.

When we got there I ended up grabbing a burger outside (since they don't really sell food in the stadium). I was hoping to grab a drink in the stadium, but once I got in I quickly realized that unlike North American sporting matches, here they don't serve any alcohol; which probably is a good thing, as it likely helps to minimize the number of riots at the matches. We ended up getting to our seats which were in the 3rd row right about centre field (across from the TV cameras); we were basically eye level with the pitch and so close we could practically touch the players.

Unfortunately being down so low also meant that we weren't covered by the roof so if it rained (which it threatened all afternoon, but only ended up spitting a few drops), and also we had to watch out for the football coming into the crowd. The game turned out to be fairly good, as play was moving quickly with lots of great chances by both teams. Luckily Birmingham City scored first (around the 25min mark) and then just before the first half ended they scored again. Birmingham held the lead until around the 75min mark when Burnley scored to make it 2-1. As the rest of the match progressed it was much more exciting since the crowd really started to get into it and began singing, cheering and chanting. Fortunately Birmingham ended up winning. After the match we filed out and slowly made our way from St. Andrew's stadium and headed back to the downtown core and Aston (which was only about a 20min walk from the stadium).

It turned out to be a great non violent match, and so I hope to next year go to see a Manchester United match (provided I can get tickets, since their much harder to get).

Now that classes are over it's time to start studying for finals :S

Cheers,
Jeff

*word of the week: in North America we have "aluminum" but in the UK they call it "aluminium", which yes they look very similar, but trust me it sounds very different. Since Aluminium it sounds like they are saying something like al-i-min-e-um instead of al-u-min-um.

My Application Experience

I have recently had a few people ask me about my application process to come here to Aston University. It was over a year ago, so I might miss a few things, but from what I can remember it was a fairly easy and simple process.

To apply for any program at any University in the UK you have to go through this UCAS system (www.ucas.ac.uk). It's basically like a centralized online application that you fill out regardless of the university or program you are applying to. The UCAS application reminded me a lot of the OUAC (Ontario University's Application Center) application that I filled out to apply for my initial undergraduate degree. Basically on the application there is the typical information about yourself, name, age, address, etc. Then they also ask about your education background which is all in drop down menus, so for an international student I found that I was constantly clicking "other" and then typing the information in. If I remember correctly I indicated my high school diploma, my BSc, and my opticianry diploma. For each I also had to click "other" and type in the name of the institution where I received the credential and then put in my overall GPA (as a percentage) that I had at each institution. Initially it seemed odd that they didn't want my transcripts or anything, but a week or two after I submitted my application all of the schools I applied to e-mailed me personally and requested that I e-mail a copy of my transcripts and also send them an original.

I can't remember for sure but I think there was also a tiny section to put in your work and volunteer experiences, but if I remember correctly there was very little room to write your duties (like 100 characters/experience). With the lack of space in this section, I tried to compensate by indicating some of the most important experiences I had gained in my personal statement.

There was also a section where I had to write a little personal statement about myself (I believe I had about 500-1000 words to basically say why I wanted to study optometry, why in the UK and indicate any experience I currently had). Fortunately for me it was fairly easy since I had already written about 10 different personal statements when  I originally applied to the North American Optometry Schools.

I also had to get an academic reference (which again is the same as when applying to any North American optometry school), but the difference here was that the reference was to do it electronically in my on-line application. This could be tricky, but so what I did was I just got my reference to write it and e-mail it to me, but if your reference doesn't want you to see what they wrote then you basically have to have your application complete and then log in and have them copy and paste the reference and then submit the application for you.

The application allows you to apply for up to 5 schools, so I had to choose which five of the 8 in the UK I wanted to apply to. I ended up applying to Aston, Cardiff, Bradford, Ulster (in Northern Ireland) and Glasgow (in Scotland). Out of the out of the schools I applied to I found that they all communicated with me differently (some by post/mail, via e-mail, and even by phone) and all to different extents (I heard from Aston every few weeks while Glasgow I only heard from once). After I applied I checked my e-mails and also the UCAS website (which has a section that keeps you informed of your application status) daily to see if there were any changes to my application, and I ultimately found out that the UCAS website was where I noticed any changes first (but they e-mailed me as soon as they made the status changes to my application). If I remember correctly it ultimately it took about a month or two before I heard back from any of the schools. After about two months I had been given an offer to three of the places I had applied to (two conditional offers and one unconditional offer), Ulster had called to set up a phone interview, and I had not heard anything from Glasgow. I was finishing my last year in Opticianry school when I applied, then two of my offers were on the condition that I complete my Opticianry course (which I ended up doing in April 09, a few months before the UK classes began in September/October 09). I ultimately decided to accept Aston, no matter what Ulster or Glasgow would ultimately decide.

During the whole process I was kind of surprised that Ulster was the only one that had actually wanted to do an interview (over the phone), since in North America, all of the Optometry schools like to do an interview. Another thing that surprised me a bit was that there was no standardized admissions test (like the Optometry Admissions Test - OAT - required in North America). When the schools e-mailed me asking for my transcripts I offered them all my OAT scores, but none of the schools I applied to wanted/needed them (although I think City University in London likes to see your OAT scores).  

To come to the decision to attend Aston over the others was a hard task, especially since I was not able to actually go to any of the campuses or towns and see them for myself. It also didn't help that all the schools syllabus were all essentially the same and all appeared to offer the same services, courses, and experiences, but I still had to make a choice. Ultimately there were several factors I looked at to come up with the decision to come to Aston. For starters I looked at how the school and Optometry/Life Science departments did in the various league tables (such as: www.guardian.co.uk/education/universityguide, www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/good_university_guide, www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/single.htm?ipg=8727). I also considered the service I recieved during the whole application process as some communicated with me more (like Aston and Cardiff) unlike others where I heard very little from them (like Glasgow). As well Aston University has a day hospital on campus where they preform day surgeries such as laser and cataract surgeries. I also liked the idea that Birmingham is the 2nd largest city (next to London), and its known as a working class city, so I figured that I would be more likely to see more pathologies here than in any of the other smaller cities (yet I have since found out that during your pre-registration year/internship you don't stay in the city you have studied in, instead you can basically go anywhere in the UK). Another main reason why I ended up choosing Aston, was because I wanted a smaller campus (since it would have more of a family/friendly atmosphere) and it is in the centre of the town, so grocery stores and banks are only a few minutes away (which was important since I didn't want to have to take the bus or a taxi to go grocery shopping). It also helped that Birmingham is centrally located, so it's very easy to travel by train anywhere you want in the UK (less than 2hrs by train to anywhere like London, Manchester, Oxford, Bristol, Liverpool, Cardiff, etc.), and it also has an international airport, so I can get direct flights home or to Europe. All in all there were many factors that I considered before coming to the conclusion that Aston was the best school for me (yet to be honest Cardiff was a close second, but I didn't like it's location, lack of direct flights to Canada, campus size and the conditional offer). I am extremely happy about my choice, as now I am in the UK and have talked to students from all of the other optometry faculties, I have found that Aston is indeed the best fit for me.

After rereading this I realize that it sounds sort of biased to Aston (which I guess makes sense since I am here), but my intention, when going through how I choose which school to attend, was to show some of the factors that I considered when choosing which school to attend.

I hope this helps anyone who is thinking of applying or has already applied and if you have any questions please feel free to leave me a comment.

Jeff

2nd last week of classes!

This past week has been a very surreal week as classes have started up once again, but many of my courses finished this week, so next week is just review for our exams. It seems very odd since I'm still a bit in holiday mode from our long Easter break, and it doesn't help that about half the students at my school are getting an extended holiday break thanks to Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano. Many of the students either went home or travelling over the break so when the volcano erupted flights were cancelled for about a week due to ash. Some of the students who were stranded in Europe managed to take over priced trains and/or buses back to Birmingham, but many waited to have their flights rebooked. On Sunday I found that many students have started to arrive back at University, but I know many more came on Monday and the rest will likely trickle back over the next few days.

Although many students weren't back we still had to do a group presentation last Thursday on Pointillism for my Optics and Medical Imaging lab. It was just a small 10-15 minute presentation with only 7ppt slides. Our presentation turned out pretty good (i think, we'll find out when we get our marks back), but I was very proud of our powerpoint slides as we had some pretty neat animations and the verbal presentation when fairly smoothly. Also after the presentation there were several questions, which we managed to answer fairly well, so I think we did well. My other labs last week had us just identifying several odd lens types (many of which we will never see again) and the other lab saw us practising our Retinoscopy and Jackson Cross Cylinder (JCC) refraction skill, since this week we will have an assessment on these techniques. The Retinoscopy and JCC went pretty well for me in the lab, so I think I'll do okay on the assessment.    

The weather had been awesome all week long as it had been mid teens and high teens over the weekend, so very much nice summery weather. Since it had been so warm I actually started to wear my shorts occasionally, and unlike some people I don't really like wearing shoes with shorts. My normal sandals are the sporty type with straps and Velcro, but unfortunately I forgot them in Canada, so I had to buy new ones, but since I had perfectly good ones at home I decided to just purchase a nice pair of flip-flops that I had found. The first day I put on the flip-flops I quickly remembered that I had never worn flip-flops before, but figured it should be a big deal. To my surprise it's a lot harder to walk in flip-flops then I had ever thought! I am trying to persevere, and so far I've worn them for about 5-6hrs/day for three days, and I'm starting to get the hang of it, but still no long walks into town with them, yet.

With the nice weather I have found myself spending at least a few hours a day hanging outside. One day earlier last week I had been walking around town and on my way back to campus I saw a sign for a Cadbury Crème Egg McFlurry from McDonalds. I had never seen or heard of anything like that before, but wasn't too surprised since there is Cadbury chocolate everywhere here. After I saw the sign though I knew I had to go try one, especially since it was a limited edition flavour.

Let me tell you that McFlurry was awesome with all the chocolate pieces and creamy caramel! It really hit a spot and I just hope that they have it next year too and keep it around until I head back for the summer.

My evenings have been a bit busy, as I have been able to watch all of the Ottawa Senators and Montreal Canadiens first round games. Aside from hockey, on Friday I went out to a little dinner party that one of my friends was throwing. It turned out to be a really fun evening and we ended up having a fantastic feast of Iranian food which was all so incredibly tasty. On Saturday they had a 24hr walk for cancer starting at noon where they walked around the lake/pond in the middle of campus to raise money for campus research. During this walk there were several musical acts performing, so I ended up spending most of my afternoon just listening to the music.

In the evening they ended up lighting a bunch of candles and putting them all around the walking trail, and many of us just sat out and supported those taking part. I was really surprised to see how many people were actually there watching at 11pm, but i think it was likely because the weather was so great.

Well now my fairly standard week which seems kind of boring when I actually write out down what I have done like this, but so hopefully next week will be a bit more entertaining. 

All for now, 

Jeff

*Word of the Week: What we call "pants" in North America, they call them "trousers" in the UK.

The Rest of My Easter Break/Holiday

After the road trip, the rest of my Easter break had been fairly relaxing and quiet since most people went home, so the campus had been fairly dead. 


During the break I didn't do too much. I watched a lot of movies, did a little studying and made sure that I just spent some time enjoying the beautiful weather by making sure I spent at least an hour a day outside. I did this by going for walks into town and by going out and throwing the lacrosse ball around a bit. 


Aside from the boring routine of my holiday, I did have some excitement that happened to me one Sunday night. I was watching a movie and was startled (a bit) when I heard some noise coming from over by the window & heater. I took a look just in time to see a mouse run behind the heater. I went over and took a close look to see if I could see where it went but it disappeared. I waited and watched for a bit to see if it would show itself again but it didn't, so I went back to my movie. About 30 minutes later I heard the noises again and just like before I was too slow to catch or see where it went, but I did notice what it was going after which was a large piece of the carpet that was about 5x bigger than the mouse (which was really odd since it passed some good cardboard and didn't even take a small bite of it as it made its way to the carpet!). I then searched even harder to find it, but no luck and so I sat and waited even longer to catch it ... but since then I have yet to see it again. To make it more interesting as I was sitting and waiting a wasp flew in through my window (since none of the windows hear have screens). I waited for a chance to get the wasp but it seemed to stay on my light bulb (which I was afraid of breaking if I tried to hit the wasp and if I missed the wasp might fall on my bed where I would likely loose sight of it). In the long run the chance to get the wasp never arose, as instead the wasp managed to find a hole behind the light fixture which it flew into and went somewhere in the wall (or at least that's were I assume it went and died, since I never heard from it since).  Since that night I found that I have had to keep my window closed, as I have had to kill one every time I open my window. Needless to say I've been keeping the window closed until I absolutely need it open, since I have learned (the hard way) that I can't even open the window a crack without a wasp coming in!


Over the break I also received a big care package that my work had sent me. The package had a (pre-)birthday card inside along with a tone of Canadian foods such as some Tim Horton's coffee, kraft dinner, peanut butter, maple syrup, pancake mix, soda crackers, froot loops, alphagetti, and all of the other foods that I have been missing. I was so happy when I got the package that I managed to spend an hour or so going through it all. The next morning I had an awesome breakfast filled with pancakes and Tims! I think that I'll be able to ration it all out (a bit) since there is still a bit left! I think it should be enough to hold me over until I get back to Canada...at least it better be enough :P  

The last week of the break the campus started getting a bit busier, but even now that school is back it's still fairly quiet. I can only assume that it is because of all of the flight cancellations, causing many international students from making it back to campus. It's weird though because I always thought that the noisy people on campus were local UK students, but I guess that's not the case.


Even with a lot of the students missing, classes have now resumed and so its class as usual...well for the next two weeks ;)


All for now, 
Jeff

*Word of the Week: In Canada we have "band-aids" but in the UK they are known as "plaster", which just doesn't make any sense to me :P

Road trip

During the Easter break my friends and I decided to go on a road trip!

We left Monday and took the bus to Manchester where we met up and stayed with one of our friends. Once we had put our luggage away we went the Trafford Centre for lunch. The Trafford Centre is this fancy mall, that reminded me of the West Edmonton Mall, where different sections of the mall were themed - they had even made the food court look like you were on the titanic.

For lunch we ended up going to Nando's which is this chicken restaurant that seems to be very popular over here. I ended up getting some chicken wings which were good, but they didn't have honey garlic, so I ordered lemon herb which according to the menu "barely registers on the heat scale" but turned out to be a tad bit too spicy, so apparently the only ones that wouldn't have been too spicy for me was the plain wings - which that just isn't any fun - so needless to say next time I'll probably stay away from the wings and just go with a half/quarter chicken. After lunch to the Imperial War Museum which was an interactive look at war, as every 30min or so the lights were dimmed in the whole place and on all the walls above and around the exhibits they would show these videos filled with images and pictures from the war.

After the museum we then went out for dinner to an Indian restaurant called Akbar's. I had no idea what to order, so my friend who had been there before ordered the food which was amazing. We ended up getting a variety of appetizers which included seekh kebabs, keema semosas and chicken tikka, all of which were amazing, even though the kebabs were spicy, but still oh so good.

Then our main dishes included chicken korma, lamb and potato balti and a traditional curry - all of which were were fantastic and it was neat the great variety of tastes we had (from the sweet korma to the spicy curry).

They even brought us this huge family garlic naan!

After the great dinner we were stuffed so we just drove around Manchester and checked out some of the sights.

The next morning our friend made us a wonderful full traditional English breakfast!

After the feast we decided to go walk it off, so we went and walked around the downtown area.

Afterwards we decided to go watch Alice in Wonderland at the IMAX in 3-D. The movie was good and it had some really good 3-D effects. After the film we went back to our friend's place and had a big Indian feast with her parents. The food was amazing and fortunately they knew ahead of time that some of us can't stand too much spice, so it wasn't too spicy :)


On Wednesday we left Manchester and drove to Wales. We drove along the water a bit at the north end of Wales before we headed south through Snowdonia National Park.

It had been a nice day for driving, over cast and a bit rainy, but shortly after we entered a national park called Snowdonia it actually started hailing a bit and then next thing we knew it was snowing!

As we drove further into the park the snow started tappering off as we drove through the mountains and fortunately it didn't accumulate too much on the roads (although we found out that later in the afternoon they actually closed the road, so I guess we lucked out). We ended up deciding to stop for lunch in a little village called Portmeirion, which one of my friends had heard about. When we arrived we found that it was very much a tourist attraction and that this was one of the few attractions in the UK which had a gate fee. We debated paying it since it was still overcast and a bit rainy, but we were hungry so we paid and went in and checked out the city. The city is quite unusual as it isn't what you would expect of a Welsh (or even UK) village as Portmeirion was built to look like an Italian villa.

We definitely got the Mediterranean feel as soon as we walked in with all the buildings were stuccoed in bright pastel colours.

It was still drizzling a bit as we wondered around the village, so we found a place to sit and have some lunch. After lunch the rain had basically stopped so we explored the city even more. After spending about an hour or so checking out the village we were having such a good time and the sun was actually starting to come out so we went for a little walk on one of the hiking trails they have.

We made it out towards a little light house and then headed back.

As we walked the weather started to act up as it was nice and sunny then when we made it to the light house it was super windy but still sunny, but a few minutes later it started hailing! The hail didn't last too long, but for the rest of the time at Portmeirion it was sunny for about 10-15min and then would hail for 5min and then was sunny again...it was really quite strange. After spending our whole afternoon in Portmeirion we got back on the road and made it to Machynlleth where we had booked a hotel. Machynlleth was what I expected a traditional Welsh village to look like.

After we checked into the White Lion Hotel we went downstairs and checked out the Pub for dinner but we weren't too crazy about the cost and selection, so we went and wandered around town looking for somewhere to get some dinner.

After asking at a few places someone told us that we should go to Skinner's Arms which was the pub that all the locals go to for dinner. We headed over and could tell that they must have some decent food since more than half the tables were already reserved and most of the other tables were full, but we managed to find a table and had a good meal.

There wasn't much going on in the town so after dinner we headed back to the hotel and watched some videos that we had brought with us.


The next morning we got up and had our complementary breakfast, which was way way better than any complementary breakfast I had had before. They had a tone of cereals, juice, milk and coffee laid out and then came over and took our order. I ended up going of course with a full English breakfast, which was again amazing.

The breakfast was very much like the one that I had in Manchester, except here they actually deep fried the bread, which I know sounds kinda gross, but I found that the fried bread was amazing with the egg as it seemed to taste better than just regular toast and eggs (and probably does an even better job at clogging the arteries). After breakfast we checked out and headed for a leisurly drive towars Birmingham. It was another good day for driving as it was again overcast and drizzly. Just outside of Machynlleth we encountered some construction, which made us a bit worried since we didn't want to have to turn around and find a different route. But as we approached we noticed that the construction was on the cattle grate and that they had put a detour sign up pointing us to go through a gate. The gate also had a sign on it telling us to close it behind us, so I jumped out of the car and went through the mud and opened the gate for us to pass, and then held it for another car (going the other way) before closing and getting back into the car.

I dunno why but I was pretty excited, I think it's probably because it's something that  I have only seen done and happen in movies, so it was pretty cool. Anyways after that excitment we were back on the road and as we drove up the mountains we started to notice a bit of hail .. and then some snow...yes it was snowing again, even though we were taking a completely different road and weren't even in Snowdonia!

This time it was snowing more than the other day and the snow was actually accumulating on the roads and there were a few times when I wondered it the car was going to make it up the snowy hills...but it did.

As we drove there were sheep all over the place and I found out that unlike in the movies when you drive up to the sheep who are standing in the road they actually quickly run off the road!

We drove around and ended up going to the Clywedog reservoir and dam, which is apparently the largest solid concrete dam in the UK.

Along the way home we made another stop, but this time at a rest stop where our friend who was doing all the driving let me and another one of my friends drive (around the parking lot).  My other friend has driven manual cars in Europe, but wanted to see what it was like being on the other side of the car, and seemed to adapt very well, as expected. Then it was my turn. I not only had to deal with being on the other side of the car, but I have only tried to drive a manual car once in my lifetime (about 8 or 9 years ago) ... and that initial experience didn't go too well. So I got in and started up in neutral and then shifted to first and started going. It seemed to be no problem as I managed drove around the parking lot (where I even got it up to second gear!). The only time I stalled it was when I was done and idling, so it went well (in my opinion any ways :P) and so I was all ready to jump on the motorway and get us back to Birmingham...but I didn't.

We ended up making great time and got back just before rush hour. After I got home I went through all of our pictures (mine and my friends) as we had almost 400 (over 250 at Portmeirion alone!) and very few duplicates, actually a lot of them are pretty good and some are even fairly artistic.

Anyways that's all for now,

Jeff

*Word of the Week: "dual carriageway" is apparently what the English call a "divided highway".