Bovril, Gingerbread Man, Constable, Rome, and the Pope

I have a lot to update you all on since my last post the first term has ended and I'm really enjoying having some down time to sleep, relax and sight see. I still can't believe that I have one semester under my belt and find it amusing that another term of students is coming into the program in January and have no idea what they have in store.

Haley, Nadia, and I made a gingerbread man. The first gingerbread man for Nadia and I, and quite an experience. He was very yummy and he even ran away for a little bit, but luckily we found him!

When in a quaint little coffee shop on the coast of Newcastle after having another amazing lunch of fish and chips Nadia and I looked on the menu and noticed an option we had never seen before. Bovril, so we asked the people next to us what it was and they explained that it was like a beef stock that you sip but that is usually better over a roast. We decided to order it because while in England order the thing that sounds the most disgusting on the menu, just to say that you have!!!

Mission Accomplished! I finally found my constabul and had my camera at the same time. He seemed to think it was very strange that I was asking to take a picture of and wanted to be assured that I wouldn't put his name on it...well I don't know his name but if I found it out it would have most likely made the blog. I just love that they wear those hats so seriously and walk around patrolling the streets, it's just one of those things that makes me laugh.


I made it to Rome without any troubles (they even let my oversized luggage onto the plane without making me check it). I can't say the same for the way back, but you can't win them all. Rome was amazing, we (Haley and I) saw so much. We saw all of the historic stuff (the coleseum, roman forum, pantheon, several piazzas with little festivals, the vatican (sisteen chapel, vatican museum, tomb of the Popes, cupula (which if you don't speak italian and I don't means dome or at least i think it does when we followed the signs they led us to the top of St. Peter's basilica and a few of the entire city which was breathtaking).
You may have noticed that I those are pictures of the current Pope Bennidict! How we got tickets to see the Pope was quite amuzing. Alanna (my friend from home) told me about how the pope does Audiences on Wednesday so on Tuesday afternoon we wandered around the Vatican asking various people how to get tickets. Everyone responded to see the Swiss Guards. I guy said they were just beyond the first pillar another up the stairs, and I finally asked someone "you mean the guys in the very colorful clothing", and sure enough it was them. I went up to them and asked them for 2 tickets to see the audience and they very nicely got them for me. It was quite an experience. Then the next day we got to see the Pope, a rare occation for sure. It was honestly more like a basketball game than anything else. People from all over the crowd were chearing, yelling,singing, playing and chanting for the Pope to come on. Once he did he said his message to the crowd (in this case his christmas message as it was the week before christmas) in 7 different languages. As each language was read groups of people who spoke that language showed there appreciation and gratitude to the Pope by singing for him or yelling a message and he just sat there and clapped. I had know idea that he actually knew that many languages including: German, Italian, English, French, Spanish, A Slovic Language, and another language that I didn't recognize. Overall it was an amazing experience!
Until next time!

Medical students NOT in sweat pants

This is going to be my last blog update until after finals mainly because I doubt that I will be doing anything much more exciting than I did this weekend or last. We had the formal on Friday night and it was a really nice event. It was at a venue called the Assembly Rooms and everyone was dressed up really nice. It was amazing how nice you can actually get medical school students to look when they are not studying, and In addition to all the medical student a good majority of the professors showed up as well. There was a student speaker, a professor speaker, and a slide show.

Dr. Mark Williams,our biochemistry, professor who is Welsh was the professor who was chosen to do the honors, and our other professor Dr. Brian Curry (anatomy prof) introduced him (he's British). Apparently the Welsh and the Brits are not huge fans of each other in the general UK population and Curry and Williams are no different, (they actually really like each other and just make fun of each other non-stop and give the other a hard time). They each believe that there subject biochem or anatomy is the more important one during the first term, which they told us in the first week and continuosly thoughout the term. It is definitly a hard choice because they've added embryology to our anatomy course so technically it is worth more credits than biochem, but anatomy is pure memorization where as biochem is memorization, understanding, and application. Anyways back to the formal, Dr. Curry got up and started harping on Williams about when they met down in Grenada and how there friendship has progressed.

Williams got up with his usually Hello FOLKS, he always says folks, and his most famous phrase is "this is important for medical student, folks" or "settle down folks" either way we here it multiple times a lecture, and I don't think he gets that we can't stop laughing every time he says folks. He started with a heart-warming speach about being in medicine and then preceeded to show us embarassing pictures of all the faculty or in some cases just baby pictures.


After the slide show there was dancing in which a few of our professors actually made it to the dance floor and I'm sure all the pictures are wandering around the web by now.

Last weekend I made it down to the coast for some authentic Fish and Chips and it was amazing! I will definitely go back there again!

Study mode is upon me as finals are 3 weeks away, I look forward to hearing how you are all doing, and I will update you as soon as exciting things start happening again!

Pink, Bolton, Halloween, oh my!

I've really been slacking on updating my blog these past few weeks, so I'm going to try to make up for it now and let you know what I've been up to sense Dublin. The weekend after I went to Dublin the we had a school sponsored event called the Pink Party (and all the money we raised went to Breast Cancer awareness), but the best part about the evening is that everyone was wearing pink, even the guys! The event was at a club in downtown Newcastle, and the first person I saw when I walked in the door was Professor Gillateux (our histology professor). The faculty and administration here really do try to come to our events, which I think is nice and really shows that they support us. We all had an amazing night, and there was another girl there who I share a birthday with and she came in wearing that fabulous pink birthday hat. We decided to share that hat throughout the evening!
This is stephanie and I before the pink party!

I've stolen the birthday hat, and am proudly wearing it!

The next friday night I went to see Michael Bolton in concert, yes you heard me right Michael Bolton, and it was a lot of fun. I went with my flatmate (Haley) and we were probably the youngest people there but we still had a blast. We met this really nice local couple before the concert who told us all about living in Newcastle, and where we had to go to get real fish and chips. They also helped us with pronouciation of certian words: Gosforth is gos-futh, metro is met-roe 2 syllables, hiya - hi, and other greeting phrases that i could barely undertand and just nodded my head to.

It took me a long time to decide what to be for halloween, mainly because I hadn't dressed up for halloween for years. Our school hosted a charity event halloween party called party tyne. Our muscial band for the evening consisted of 2 of our professors which was hallarious. I never thought I would see histo Harry playing the drums, and Dr. Holmes on the guitar and lead singer. It was an amuzing night to say the least. At one point they got a bunch of us on stage (including me) to sing Mustang Sally, which I learned while being on stage. The band played a variety of music, and it was just nice to see every one in their costumes. I finally decided to be a cat, but my favorite costume of the night was the oompah loompahs they pulled it off so well, and it was very creative!

This term is going by so quickly, we have 5 weeks until finals and then we are off for a month! I plan on doing a little more exploring in this area before finals, and get that picture of a constable. I did see one the other day, but did not have my camera on me... I hope you are all doing well! Miss you lots!

The Dublin Excursion

This past week was midterms, so to celebrate about 50 students from my class decided to go to Dublin (mainly because it's the cheapest place to get to, and only takes and hour by plane!) It was a gorgeous weekend, the weather was amazing the entire time, which of course is a rarity in this part of the world. Within my small group we saw the Guinness storehouse, the oldest pub in Dublin (Braven), Temple Bar (which is an area in Dublin as well as a famous bar), a local pub (sans tourist), a tour of the city and the Cliffs! All were amazing and if I could I would post all 200+ pictures that I took, but I'll try to give you a little taste!


This is at the cliffs looking off onto the Irish Sea, well at least we think it was the Irish Sea. This was a quick side trip that we decided to take just hours before our plane left, so we didn't have very much time here, but it was still very beautiful!
This is apparently the most photographic door in Dublin(says the tour bus), so I took a picture of it, I don't really know any more than that. However, there was a professional photographer outside of it taking photos when we drove by, and it is a pretty door.

Dublin has some extremely old and exquisite building, this is just one of them that I really like.


The girls...pre-boarding our flight to Dublin, you can tell we are all really excited to be going!
We all had an amazing time, and it was really nice to get away from Newcastle and classes!

Back in Newcastle this morning I learned that the best way to get laundry done is to wake up at 5:30 in the morning because there are 150 of us and 2 washing machines. I got 4 loads done before 8AM, I felt so productive and then I passed out for 2 hours before class.

I'm really having a great time in Newcastle and loving the experience of being in medical school!

Cheerio

Freshers Week at Northumbria

This past week commenced Freshers week at Northumbria which is equivalent to orientation week anywhere else. There were so many more people on campus and this was only the freshmen. In total there are around 30,000 "undergrads" that go to Norhthumbria. I put undergrads in quotes because the English system doesn't really have undergraduate degrees as they don't believe in a liberal arts education so they are all here on some sort of specialized program for their desired profession. Next week classes start for Norhtumbria, which is only ironic because our midterms start a week from Monday!

This week, every corner we turned there was another club offering a free membership in exchange for your email address and a free bag with goodies inside. Walking towards class at lunch time we saw this giant Carona bottle handing out limes with the name of some club and I just had to take a picture. This is my friend next to the giant bottle:

During another lunch outing this week I spotted a fluroescent bike, and when I got a little closer I noticed that it was a police warning to not steal people bikes. Luckily I'm deathly afraid to ride a bike here because you have to follow the traffic laws meaning you are biking on the "wrong" side of the street. I'm not really sure how much good a locked up bike with the word warning does to stop people from stealing but nevertheless it's what they do.

As I've mentioned before I wake up early to go to the gym, and recently it has been pitch black when I wake up. Around 15 minutes after I wake up the sun begins to rise and the other morning I caught a picture of a gorgeous sunrise right outside my window.


This coming week is lighter class wise, but that's only because we'll be studying for midterms for the majority of the weeks. I only have 3 midterms to study for, and unlike the unified they are all on seperate days which is really nice. Friday is my birthday, and unlike any other birthday I have repeadtly forgotten about it due to the shear amount of other things I've been thinking about. Therefore, I will not be celebrating on Friday as midterms are on Monday the celebration will have to be postponed.

1 class down, many more to go...

I know that I didn't update my blog last weekend, but in my defense I did have a huge test on Monday and a Final on Friday. I passed my unified exam and I don't have my grade back from my bioethics final on Friday but I think I did well! I'm officially done with one medical school class!

I am still on the quest for a picture of a constable in their funny looking hats but until then I figured I would give you a little bit of a teaser:believe me it looks so much funnier on an actual officer.

On Monday night after my unified exam I went to Metrocentre (Europe's Largest Mall) which is only 7 minutes away from Newcastle center by train. It has the ONLY mexican restaurant in Newcastle and it's still chain mexican food (more like Margarita's from the states). We then walked around the mall a bit and nearly got lost. They have so many stores including a build-a-bear and a disney store (both of which I never expected to see on this side of the atlantic).

I haven't taken any trips sense I last blogged, as I've been studying LOTS!

I did want to update you all on the laundry situation here, because if nothing else I need to laugh at it. There is 1 washing maching and 2 dryers for 150 students (yeah, you thought you had it bad). There is always someone doing laundry and I strongly contimplated waking up at 4 in the morning to do laundry, luckily I was able to put a load in after one of my flatmates. However, it did take me 2 seperate days to complete all 4 loads of laundry that I had to do.

A lot of students are thinking about moving off campus next semester to live closer to school and not have to take the metro in every morning, I'm considering it but I'm still not sure. It would be such a pain to move all my stuff.

That's all for now, my life has been pretty boring and filled with studying, Cheers!

What I've Really Learned....

In case there is anyone out there that thinks medical school is just fun and games and roaming around England you would be highly mistaken. I have in the past three weeks had: 18 anatomy lectures, 2 anatomy labs, 1 anatomy small group session, 17 biochemistry lectures, 12 histology lectures, 3 histology labs, 9 bioethics lectures, and 2 bioethics small group sessions. This does not include anytime that I am spending going to the anatomy lab or reviewing in small groups. I basically have class from 9AM-5PM every day, and as exhausted as I am at the end of the day I make dinner and then start studying again. I have been waking up at 6:20 every morning to catch the 7:03 metro into Newcastle so that I can get to the gym right when it open (because it's really busy right after class).

A week from Monday I have my unified quiz which contains 25 questions from each of the 4 subjects that I am taking and then that Friday I have my final for bioethics. This Monday I am doing an ethical debated on sickle cell anemia, and our grader is really tough. Apparently in England a good "mark" is 60-70 percent. I have persuaded my entire group to get dressed up for the debate in the hopes that it will win us some points (sense we have the bad side of the argument).

I have also reinstated the wall of biochem (for those of you who lived with me junior year you'll know what I'm talking about). It was actually quite easy this time around because I still had the document saved from the first time it. For those of you who don't it just contains all 20 of the Amino acids in the body including their structure and properties. Not only is it REALLY FUN to look at it adds something to my wall, it's very bare so it makes a nice wallpaper.

As for funny words this week I can only think of a few: motor-way (interstate), postcode (zip code), quid (same as pound, their money), and interestingly the traffic lights turn red and yellow simultaneously before turning green. I've also learned to look RIGHT then LEFT, I usually have to turn my entire body just to make sure I'm look RIGHT first.

Well that's all for now, back to studying sorry no pictures this week, but I do have a goal of getting a picture of a constable (yes they do exist, and they where boulder hats and patrol the streets), so maybe that will be next weeks picture, something to look forward to.

Cheers

Knick Knack Paddy Whack Give a Dog a Bone...

This weekend has been pretty low-key, but yesterday I went down to Sunderland which is a 45 min metro ride away to explore the city just south of here. I was definitely not expecting it to be as dead as it was, but I guess when everything closes at 5 they really mean it. I did see this lovely pub named Paddy Whack and it inspired me to write a little something in my blog. This is the pub:
Other than that I saw the Empire Theatre (notice the re instead of er) and the river Wear. Newcastle and it's surrounding cities are near two rivers. Newcastle is on the river tyne (thus it's called Newcastle Upon Tyne, and Sunderland is on the Wear (and most likely called Sunderland Upon Wear). The metro that connects the two cities is approriatly called the Tyne and Wear Metro.

This week my flatmate Haley and I met Brom...Brom is the ice cream man who "comes around 6 nights per week" we are pretty sure he doesn't come on Tuesday nights which we thought was random. Every night we hear him coming by the student flats and we debate going out to get ice cream from his trunk.

We also went on the search for corn meal (to make the lovely blueberry corn muffin recipe that Sarah gave me), which was not very easy to find. It was in the 4th supermarket we looked at and under the name maize meal and polenta. I got some pretty strange looks asking people for corn meal, and the stock boy said he had never had a corn muffin (I looked at him in disbelief).

Other than that I have added more words to the pile of odd things brits say:
spillage, buggar, stead fast, maize, zed (for the letter z), theater (Operating Room, and probably spelled theatre), Lue (same as toilets), fortnight (two weeks)

Words they pronounce differently:
Cervical (cer - vy - ick - all)
Repiratory (Res - peer - atory)
Schedule (Shesh - wull)
Issue ( iss - eww)
Mobile ( Mo - bile)
Umbilical (Um - bye - ical)
Amino ( A - my- know)
Skeletal (Ska - lee - tull)


I wanted to end with a pretty picture to proove that it isn't always raining here, so this is a picture of the North Sea from my trip down to the coast last weekend :
That's all for now, cheers and have a great week!

Minnie Mouse, Chesire Cat, and Robin Hood, Oh MY

I've finished my first week of medical school, and I now have a holiday weekend. It called the late August bank holiday, I'm assuming it's similar to having labor day right before the students go back to school. The internet in the flats hasn't been working for the past few days because the lovely people in the office forgot to plug the network into the surge booster and there was a fire.

This weekend I went up to Alnwick (pronounced an-ick) Castle where the first and second Harry Potter movies were filmed. We then took the Magical History tour of the castle and found out all the places that the movie was filmed and how much money they wasted on everything. Apparently they spent 2,000 pounds (about 4,000 dollars) just to bring a particular tree stump in. This was my tour guide:She was totally decked out in Grifindor garb! They also had an owl exhibit where they let you pet the owls....This is Rambo, a tropical screech owl, clearly they were catering to the harry potter fans here, but it was still pretty cool. I then went out with some friend into Newcastle, and this is what we saw...

Apparently the people of Newcastle really like to dress up. There are always hen (bachellorette) parties going on, every day of the week with the whole group wearing ridiculous clothing. We just had to stop these ladies to get a picture, and when we asked them why they were dressed up they said for fun, so naturally we are all planning to dress up at some point and go out. Any theme ideas would be welcome...it's literally like Halloween everyday here.

I'm really having a great time here, sometimes I can't actually believe that I'm in England and then I'll hear someone talk and remember. Yesterday was a really nice day, and I was actually able to go to the coast (the eastern side) and dip my feet into the North Sea it was very cold, but also a lot of fun.

Cheers!

My education thus far... phrases

So I haven't learned much medicine yet, but I have learned a lot about England, Newcastle and there culture. I especially wanted to let you all know some of the unique and interesting phrases that I have heard so far.

qwery - question
lifts - elevator
toilets - restrooms
cash point - ATM
hash sign - pound sign (on a phone)
leaf through - browse through
bloody hell - darn
cheers - thanks
mobile - cell phone
Hen/Stag party - bachelorette/bachelor party
ring - call
Zed - the letter Z
take away - to go

Well this is all I remember for now, but I'll make sure to update this list with each subsequent post.

I thought I'd tell you all a little about Newcastle, and let me be to be the first to point out that Helaina (for all of you who know her would absolutely love it here.) It is the most energy and water conscience place I have ever been. All of the outlets (including the stove) have a switch that you have to turn to turn the appliance on. The elevators and hall lights all turn off when you aren't in them it's truly amazing. They really seem to be on top of keeping their environment clean and doing what's best for everyone.

Eating in Newcastle is also an interesting experience, everything is more expensive if you stay and eat in the restaurant. This included places like starbucks where they actually put your drink in a ceramic cup if your eating in and charge you some percentage more (not actually sure how much it is yet), but I do know it's mandated by law for them to charge you more for eating in.

Well that's all I have for now, Cheers!

Pre-Departure Woes

In preparing for my great adventure came a great deal of preparation. One very important part of this preparation included packing, and as people who know me and the way I pack for school or vacation know that I like to pack A LOT. I was faced with a large problem to which the solution seemed impossible. I decided to used Super Saver bags shown below:

I was able to pack my comforter, 4 inch mattress pad, winter coat, t-shirts, jeans, sweaters and pillows. The amount of of air that I was able to suck out of these items was amazing, and now with 1 week to go before I leave all of my belongings are squished into these vacuum sealed bags ready to go.

I have managed to pack two large checked bags as well as a large carry-on and a backpack. I am of course worried about how I am going to get all of my bags from the airport to the train station and from the train to my school, but that is when I will rely on the kindness of strangers, or shamelessly asks friends who are already in London to help me.

Now that the packing is done I am getting really excited and ready to leave. I am planning on updating this blog as often as I can and keeping you all up to date on my studies and my travels. I'll also try to include some pictures when I can. I hope you all enjoy this blog and enjoy being part of my International Medical School Adventure!

Until next time...
Allie