The Selbourne House

I’ve lived in Preston for 3 months now. I can hardly believe it. Time flies. I’m finally adjusted to my surroundings.

I’ve started a countdown for my trip home. I’m so excited. :) :)

I’ll have to do a full update when I feel like typing more.

xoxoxo

This weekend marks 5 weeks living in Preston, Lancashire, UK. I’ve celebrated hard the last two nights. My momma would be proud.

I started school this past monday. And as I suspected, it is going to be a whirlwind of a year. My first test is thursday! Just a week and a half after my first class. I’m trying not to stress myself out over it. I know my stuff. Just gotta keep telling myself that. Currently, I have developmental anatomy 3 times a week (monday, tuesday, and thursday) from 9-11 and 1-3. Wednesday (9-11) and Friday (11-1) I have a research and stats class (EW).  I spend most of my free time after classes in the lab taking notes and studying real bones and identifying features. My school has acquired an amazing collection of modern human skeletal remains that I get to work with everyday. They really show the wear and tear that the skeleton withstands during life as well as gives us a really in depth look at what our future careers may be like when working with highly fragmented material (as in how to side them left or right and figure out what bone it actually is).

I have made two wonderful friends as well. This week I actually went out and partied and conversed with a few people, who find American accents to be amazing. Weird right?? Boston accents are so rough, what are they thinking?! Yesterday, Samantha and I found ourselves out till 4 am, eating chips and gravy and talking to two drunk guys in front of a bar that we spent the night at dancing and drinking strongbow. People stop and talk to us when they hear us talk. It’s quite a show. I’ve meet a lot of new people this way. 

I have been really homesick, as I expected I would be. Just being able to see my family in passing at home daily was highly taken for granted. I miss it now that I can only see them through skype once a week when our schedules allow it. Or talk to them through whatsapp when I have wifi on my phone. I miss my dad yelling at the red sox from the couch. I missed him even more when I checked the mlb standings and saw that we fell 7 games behind and have to fight for the wild card. LOL DAD. My other team didn’t do much either. 

Conversely, I love my independence and am getting used to being on an adult schedule again…early mornings and late nights! My apartment is already taking the brunt of my busy schedule…I have no idea how my mom does it ;)

I’ve started to discover places throughout town that I am beginning to call favorites. Little cafes, like Coco’s (mediterranean and TO DIE FOR food), three monkeys (best sandwiches), and Aldephi (pub).

Tonight, I’m going to try persian food for the first time and perhaps find myself out way too late again. I don’t mind, as long as I’m not sitting in my apartment feeling homesick, I am happy.

love and miss.

xoxo

I have officially been living in the UK for two weeks. I’m well acquainted with the city center. I walk to the Starbucks, next to the rail station, a couple times a week so I know the Fishergate strip quite well.

As I think I have mentioned before, Fishergate is the shopping strip. It has tons of clothing stores, cafes, a KFC, 2 Subways, the train station, banks, the Tesco Express, pubs, restaurants…almost as any downtown strip of a city. The clothing stores range from Topshop to other high end names like FCUK. It also has big UK stores that I have never heard of, but all of the clothes look nice and trendy. Fishergate is also home to St Georges Shopping Center which is the underground mall that sits in the middle of the city. You can walk through the upper floor to the other side of the shopping area (Friargate). St Georges has an H&M and a few other similar clothing stores, a farmer’s market, a bedding shop and a cafe as well as many other cafes and shops. Mostly clothing/jewelry etc, like any other mall. 

Fishergate also houses the Fishergate Shopping Centre. It has a Debenhams (Macy’s/Filenes) and Primark (marshall’s) as well as a TK Maxx (yes same as TJ). This is where the Starbucks is. There is also a McDonalds, a Dollar Store, and some beauty stores.

Friargate runs on the other side of the mall (st georges) and takes me right to school. It turns from shopping area to mostly pubs and grocery and other shops. Less clothing more functional shops and restaurants. Once you hit the rotary, about 5 minutes from the shopping center, you have reached campus. The UCLan campus is huge and pretty modern. I haven’t ventured far into campus, just to the student center to get my enrollment started.

Sitting on “Cheapside” in the middle of the shopping area sits the ancient looking roman-esque buildings that house the library, harris museum, and preston city council. They look like buildings that house our government in DC and boston alike. Stone, roman columns, etc. 

I have walked about a mile is all directions from my apartment, and with the coming weeks, as school starts, I hope to explore further. The university gave me an awesome map with the orientation packet that shows grocery stores that I previously hadn’t known about that are closer than Morrisons. Hopefully I will get to go to this week as my loan is disbursed and do a nice full grocery shopping so I can eat for more than 3 days at a time.

And as for skype…I would die without it.

:)

xoxo