"You must allow me to tell you..."

The day after Joey and Maddie's whisky adventure, I was woken up at the unGodly hour of 9am with a text from Patrick asking what time we were heading off. I'm not going to lie, I thought I was dying. I was sitting on less than five hours sleep as well as a healthy dose of hangover, and I seriously considered not going to Chatsworth. I let Patrick know that we definitely were not heading off until closer to 10.30, and I tried to get back to sleep... but that didn't happen. I eventually rolled out of bed and got ready to go. I met Karsten and we walked over to Stephenson and grabbed Patrick and Elizabeth before catching our bus to the interchange, to jump on the one that would take us through the Peak District and to the house of Mr Darcy.

Unfortunately, the buses were not on our side this day, and we ended up missing the one we needed. The weather was miserable - grey and drizzly, and we were all bundled up in our coats so we headed over to the train station to get a coffee while we waited out the hour before our next bus. There was talk of leaving the trip for another time, but Elizabeth and I were adamant that Pride and Prejudice could not wait. Eventually, we jumped on our bus and were all excited when we realised that it was a double decker one, and so naturally we decided to sit up the top, at the front. By this time the weather had cleared up too - it was still cold, but the sun had made an appearance and the sky had turned mostly blue. We headed through Sheffield and then the scenery changed to the pretty Peaks.

Karsten and I all excited on the bus... can you tell?

We all admired the scenery for a while, but it really didn't take long before the rickety bus and the narrow, winding roads began to take their toll... and unfortunately, the bus trip was to last an hour! About halfway through, Patrick warned us that he might not reply to us if we spoke, because he was concentrating on not being sick. He considered moving downstairs, but didn't want to face the stairs while the bus was moving. I was feeling really queasy myself, and Karsten's face had changed colour. We must have looked really interesting as a group! Finally, Chatsworth came into view. It was magical. I was happy too, because as soon as I got off the bus and got used to still ground again, my hangover disappeared with my motion sickness. Like Charlie Sheen, I was bi-winning.

We decided that we wanted to see the house and gardens, so headed in to the house first. After paying the admission, we took photos on the stairs before we even got into the house proper. Elizabeth and I were super excited... the boys less so, but excited anyway - probably because they hadn't yet learned what P&P fans we are, and because we hadn't gone crazy on the photos.

Yet.

We wandered through the house, taking lots (and I mean lots) of photos - Elizabeth and I spent a lot of time spotting things from the film, including the statue of the veiled lady:

And generally revelling in the splendour of the house. We spent a good couple of hours admiring the rooms, furniture and art. It was so beautiful, but so rich! It's hard to imagine people still living there, but they do. It's really amazing, and I would recommend anyone to visit. By the time we got to the last room - the statue room - we started having fun with the marble. I think they appreciated it.

I commented to Elizabeth that it was a pity that the statue of Mr Darcy wasn't still there (it's really of Matthew McFadyen, and was made for the film. So it's not really surprising that it wasn't sitting there next to the Apollos and Aphrodites). We spent a lot of time in the gift shop - to the point where the boys rolled their eyes and left us to it while we browsed. We stocked up on postcards, mugs with pictures of the house, and I got a magnet with a Mr Darcy quote on it (Patrick pretty much laughed me out of the shop when he saw it!). As I was paying for my goods, Elizabeth turned around and came face to face with the statue we'd mentioned earlier. This was cause for celebration, and defitinely needed to be caught on film. Luckily, we had the boys to take a photo of us with Mr Darcy. Living the dream.

After that, we all went and grabbed a light lunch and sat and ate in the sunshine outside before going for a wander through the gardens. If I'd thought the house was huge, the gardens were beyond comprehension. They're totally amazing and incredibly beautiful - a mix of manicured lawns, fountains and light forest. We went up and looked at the fountain for a while (it was quite cool, and had a waterfall type thing leading towards the house), then decided to meander through the gardens. It was around this time that we realised Karsten's love for nature - he led us down this little path that was really pretty and looked kind of like a fairy path, but ended up leading nowhere. We're pretty sure it was actually a maintenance path. Patrick and Karsten suggested climbing over a wall to get our bearings, but Elizabeth and I pointed out that we were both wearing tights, making this difficult. So we turned around and jumped a small creek instead.



It was when we were wandering down a slope (and Patrick lost his footing and nearly ran all the way back to the house, while using some colourful language) that we decided that Karsten was half mountain goat. He was just totally in his element in the gardens, and seemed to be able to climb anything! We kept on going, taking lots (and lots and lots) of photos, including one where it appears that homage is being paid to Patrick's crotch, that was taken purely by accident! The weather had well and truly warmed up by this point as well, and we were all down to tshirts for one of the first times since we'd arrived in the UK - it was about as close to idyllic as you can get in Derbyshire!

We ended up at the iconic view of Chatsworth, but unfortunately our view was obscured by inconsiderate scaffolding. Still, it was Pemberley!! We went and watched some sheep for a while... they were all heading off to get their evening meal, and they're just funny to watch, really. After that, we decided that it was time for some jumping photos in front of the Chatsworth lake.

The thing with jumping photos is that they're a lot of fun, but can also be a bit annoying to try and take. We had Patrick's and Elizabeth's cameras going, and Patrick was trying to capture the moment. Elizabeth and I were jumping so much that we were getting really tired! Karsten came out of left field and caught it at the right moment... clearly, he has a gift. The final product I think reflects the excitement of the day:

It wasn't over for Elizabeth though, and it took me another couple of goes to get one of her and Patrick jumping. Worth it. After that, we decided that it was probably home time. Typically, it was only as we were leaving that we discovered that there's actually a maze in the gardens - I guess we'll just have to go back to explore it! We headed back to catch our bus home, and thankfully it was a much smaller so motion sickness wasn't an issue! Unfortunately, it was also the Struggle Bus that didn't seem to like going up hills any faster than about 30kms/hr. Fun times.

When we finally got home, Karsten and Patrick bought a pizza and came to my flat to eat it. We filled Elizabeth from my flat and Shannon in on our adventures, and then waited to hear from Massi (from whom we were bumming dinner. He's a really good cook, and I wanted pasta!), and when we eventually got it, Fiona arrived home and joined us and filled us in on her adventures in London. Later on, Elizabeth and I went back up to my room and had popcorn and watched Pride and Prejudice, which was even better now that we'd been to parts of Pemberley! We cursed Jane Austen for writing such a perfect story (that gets both Elizabeth and I every time. Sometimes I wonder if we were separated at birth), and I know I at least went to bed satisfied with my day spent chasing Mr Darcy.

Showing the Guests a Good Time... and us as well!

The day after our adventure in Castleton, two of Patrick's friends were flying out from the States for their Spring Break, which was the full week. This was a little weird for me, because it'd be crazy to get anyone from home to fly out for only a week from home, but the flight from America is only about eight hours, and the jet lag is bearable. His two friends, Courtney and Hillary, arrived on the Sunday and we all had dinner at The Edge to welcome them to Sheffield. Over the rest of the week, we didn't really see Patrick too much because he was off doing the tourist thing - it helps that he only has class two days a week! To go along with Courtney and Hillary, Elizabeth had her friend Katina there for the week (who'd also flown out for Spring Break), and Elizabeth from my flat had her friend Annamarie visiting from The Netherlands. There were so many new people, it was great.

On the Wednesday night, Patrick decided that he wanted to show Courtney and Hillary the wonders of Corp. We tried to rally the troops, but it ended up being a really busy night. There was also a concert on (playing was Does It Offend You, Yeah?, and I'm still a little bit gutted that I missed it) as well as La Fiesta put on a karaoke night, so we thought we'd only have about seven people coming to Corp. But then, we found out that Jeremy would meet us there, and as we were walking out, we also managed to convince Massi to come with us - and he got into his school uniform really quickly!

We got to Corp at around 9.10 to queue up, because we didn't have tickets. It was alright though, because we'd come prepared with a bottle of cider, so the wait wasn't too bad. We got in really easily again, and things escalated. I won't go into detail, but a lot of people hooked up (you know who you are!) and I think we well and truly introduced all the guests to a bit of Sheffield culture.

The Thursday night I just chilled a bit, because the day after Corp is always a bit of a slow one. Friday though, Massi's sister Emma had arrived for the weekend from Holland. Ellie cooked us a Chinese dinner in my flat, and we decided that we wanted to show Emma a good time in Sheffield and try out Propaganda ("The UK's biggest indie night!"), which we'd been wanting to try out for a while. Patrick's girls were still around, as well as Katina, but unfortunately Elizabeth and Annamarie had gone to London. We did manage to talk Fiona into coming with us though, even though she had to catch the train hella early to London the next morning. Classic case of FOMO.

We had the pregame at G4, which most of us hadn't been to before. Those of us from E Block had a severe case of kitchen envy, because they have two ovens - two! - as well as a proper dining table, which is way more than we have. The room soon filled up, and as we drank some cheap cider we soon got into the party spirit. Patrick, Courtney and Hillary got back from Liverpool quite late and Patrick did some power drinking in order to pregame sufficiently - which was fun to watch - and all of us headed off around a quarter past eleven that night.

Propaganda ended up being a really fun night - "Indie" might not be the best descriptor for the night, but they did play The Pixies, The Smiths, Vampire Weekend, Arctic Monkeys, Mumford & Sons and a bunch of other bands not often heard in the club circuit, which was a nice change. I did a lot of dancing and had so much fun! We had a fairly big group of people there too, which always makes for a good night. Propaganda is held at the O2 Academy every week, which is a massive venue. When we got there it was mostly empty, but by the end it was packed, and I'm still not sure how many people it can hold! Well worth it though, I think it's one of my favourite nights out in Sheffield. We got home at about 3am, and Fiona made her train, and Courtney, Hillary and Katina all managed to get on their flights back home. Success!

Saturday night, I had dinner in E1 with Massi, Emma, Akash and Felix, and Massi made us amazing pasta and garlic bread, with perry for the drink (!!!) and pannetone for dessert. It was fantastic. After that, Karsten and I headed over to Stephenson to plan for our Sunday adventure. Because both Patrick's and Elizabeth's guests had gone, and a lot of people seemed to have fled Sheffield for the weekend, we'd decided to go somewhere exciting. After a lot of deliberation, we (being mostly Elizabeth and myself) settled on Chatsworth so we could pretend that we were living in Pride and Prejudice... but more on that another time. When we'd decided that, Joey and I headed up to the Select & Save to buy drinks for that nights shenanigans, which was another party in G4. We settled on a bottle of whisky and some Coke, and settled in for a big night.

So it turns out that playing Flipcup while also drinking whisky and Coke is maybe not the best idea. I ended up going for a walk with Patrick at one point, and then Joey and I kind of turned into hot messes and wound up sitting on the stairs in G Block talking for hours. I can't even really remember what we were talking about. At about 2.30 or 3am, I decided to walk Joey home (because I thought I was a lot more sober than him... which was most likely very not true) then we stayed at Stephenson for ages talking, then I decided to wander home just before 4. When I got back to Lawrencefield, I ran into Freddie and Teemu, who were just chilling on one of the benches outside. I chatted to them for a while, and I think we were all pretty past it by that point!! I eventually crawled into bed just after 4.30. When I woke up the next day, I thought I was dying... but that didn't stop me from getting ready for our Chatsworth adventure!!

The Ultimate Adventure Day

Peveril Castle, in Castleton

The two days following Elizabeth's, Teemu's and Floortje's birthdays were pretty quiet - I think that everyone needed some time to recover! I hung out at Stephenson for both nights. The Thursday I mostly distracted Patrick from his studies and had a couple of drinks at the Stephenson Bar, and the Friday I went to the Broomhill Tavern with a few people, then went back and watched the IT Crowd (and met Patrick's mum, Barb, over Skype. I was more excited than Patrick about this).

Because two of Patrick's friends were flying out from the States on the Sunday and a lot of people were leaving Sheffield on various weekend trips, we decided that we wanted to have an adventure of our own... on two conditions: one, it wasn't too far so we could do it in a day trip, and two, that it wasn't too expensive. We looked up the UK in our guide books, and did a bit of a Google search, before deciding to go to the Peak District. The Peaks is a massive area that's mostly national park now, and is really hilly and very pretty. It's bordered by Manchester, Chesterfield, Derby and Sheffield, so we thought it would be fun to explore the local area!

We invited a couple of other people, but Elizabeth and Karsten were both away, Astrid and Joey were both sick, and Trista slept in. So it was just Patrick and I, and we definitely made the most of it! We booked a train ticket to a place called Hope, which was used for many pun-like purposes throughout the day, such as "we HOPE this is going to be fun!". Strangely enough, we didn't really get sick of that one joke repeated in different forms.

When we woke up, the weather was cold and foggy bordering on drizzle. Despite that, we thought that it would add to the atmosphere. Or at least, we hoped it would. We headed down to the train station, collected our tickets, and ran to the train. It's a really pretty trip, that goes through places with names like Buxton, Bamford and Grindlewald (which sounds like something from Harry Potter). We'd already decided that if Hope was a bust, we'd head over to the next town called Castleton, which was about a mile and a half away. We got to Hope, and quickly found that the train station (read: platform) is a fair way away from the town itself. Luckily enough, there were a bunch of tourists around, and so we followed them. It was around this time that we realised that we were dressed a bit differently from the other tourists. They were all wearing brightly coloured hiking gear, where Patrick was wearing jeans and trainers, and I was in a skirt and Dr Martens, and we had matching red coats. Definitely a bit more town-friendly than the others!

We walked up and found a pretty church in Hope. I took a couple of pictures, then was itching to go and look at the cemetery. Patrick found it odd that I like cemeteries, but I told him that the dead people didn't mind me checking out their headstones. He agreed, and said he'd never thought about that before. So that's Maddie's weird interest for the day. After looking at the church for a bit, we kept on walking a bit behind the other tourists to see where they were heading. We ended up walking through pretty much the entire area of Hope - which is not as impressive as it sounds because there is really nothing in Hope. It's a bust. Other than that church, which I really liked. It was when we were walking along the road that I learned about Patrick's weird fetish with framing his photographs. If he sees a fence, he has to get a photo featuring the fence in some way to give his pictures some atmosphere. Imagine his excitement when I pointed out a large hole in a wall that he could see through! After that, I think he accepted my cemetery interest a bit more. We continued on, and before we knew it, we'd arrived in Castleton.

Castleton, unlike Hope, was really pretty and really, really old. As soon as we got there, our eyes lit up with the English-ness of the whole place. And, it even has a castle! We wandered through the streets - passing another gorgeous old church that I took a bunch of photos of - and decided to hit up the castle before having lunch. We found the gate, abused the National Trust's free samples of lemon curd, relish, wine and mead, paid our admission fee and headed up to look at it. Turns out that Peveril Castle dates back to 1066 (both Patrick and I acknowledged that this is significantly older than both of our countries) and the Norman invasion. Also, the town is called "Castleton" because it is built underneath the castle. Obvious, but still interesting. The hike from the information centre was pretty much straight up - even though the footpath zigzagged to make it easier to climb, I was still out of breath by about half way! Still, the view was amazing and only got better during the way up.

When we got to the Castle, we walked around the perameters of the walls, admiring the views from all the different angles. We found the ancient toilet the soldiers used to use, and then explored the old guard tower (that's pretty much the only structure left standing other than the walls). We were up there for about an hour, and unfortunately in that time we both forgot to ask a tourist to take a photo of us together! Clearly, we're the worst day trippers ever.

My version of a framed Patrick photo. I kind of get what he was going on about.

After that, we headed back down and wandered through more of the town, and up to Peak Cavern, which we deemed too expensive for a big cave, then walked through a bit of a paddock before realising that our shoes probably weren't up to the job of hiking, visiting the tourist information centre (where I wanted to get a postcard, but had to wait for a crazy postcard-stand hogger to make his decisions before I could get mine!) before succumbing to our hunger. We found a little pub on the corner - Patrick ordered the gnocchi and I ordered a traditional steak and ale stew in a huge Yorkshire pudding. It was delicious.

While we were eating, the door to the pub opened - and in walked Sue, one of the teachers from The Elms (where I did my Gap year in 2008). What are the chances? This little town in the Peaks doesn't even have its own train station! Turns out, she was in town with her husband for her brother-in-law's birthday, and was staying at the pub where Patrick and I had decided to have lunch. Crazy. Patrick had the best reaction - when he'd seen me recognise someone walking in, he'd turned, expecting it to be someone from Sheffield, and instead had seen a middle-aged lady, and just got confused after that.

We walked around a bit more after that, stopping at a sweet shop where I stocked up on Flying Saucers and Dolly Mix, and Patrick bought some berry flavoured lollies. We nibbled on them before pouncing on some tourists to take some photos of us together, finally! Then we decided to start walking back towards the train station. On the way, we stopped at a hand-made fudge shop, where we were lucky enough to get offered some free samples, and then both Patrick and I bought some to take home. On the way back to Hope, we found a Public Footpath. Reasoning that we had hours to get back and weren't in any rush, we decided to walk along it, thinking we'd get to see some pretty sights and maybe even make friends with some sheep.

It turns out that the term "public footpath" is used very loosely, and the footpath itself lasted only about 200m before deteriorating into loose gravel, and finishing at a fence. We looked around for a bit, then realised that we had to climb the fence to continue along the path. We did this, and then started following the vague shadow of hiker's footprints. We considered turning back, but realised that we didn't know if we were halfway or not, so there was no point in turning around. It was around this time that we discovered the self timing function on my camera:

Which we used to document the Adventure.

We continued on, climbing over a couple more fences, before beginning to lose faith in the footpath. We strayed once, realising that we could see the road, but after climbing down a bank and through some squidgy grass, we found that our way was hampered by a two and a half metre wide creek. Patrick honestly thought we (he) could make it, but I pointed out that I was wearing a skirt, and not even at the best of times would I really be able to jump over things that are about one and a half times as I am tall. We trudged back up to the gate, where we spotted the horse. Turns out, Patrick's not a massive fan of horses. So we wandered away again, looking for a way to cross the creak or to find a road.

We ended up walking around one of the fields for an hour, looking for an exit and trying to think of something we could say if a farmer with a gun should happen to accuse us of trespassing on his land. We had lost Hope, in more ways than one! I should also point out that other than the horse and a couple of sheep, we hadn't seen anyone else since setting off on the footpath. Luckily, we realised that we still had a few hours of daylight left, so if we did get more hideously lost, at least we could still see. We decided to head back the way we'd come, and then lo and behold, people! Lots of them, coming in different directions!! It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

We asked one of them if we were still on the footpath, and she said yes, and then pointed us in direction we needed to continue. She looked at us a little oddly for wearing a skirt and jeans, but we didn't really care by this point. I'd also stopped caring about the mud that covered my shoes (and tights). We carried on, climbing over another series of fences, and after about another forty-five minutes, climbed over the last fence before the road. At this, we took a couple more photos with the "Public Footpath" sign, showing how happy we were to have conquered it, and others showing disbelief at the "footpath" claim.

We decided to reward ourselves with hot chocolates, because it was f###ing freezing outside and I couldn't feel my hands any more. We had two of the most delightful beverages ever, before wandering back to the train station (and realising that we hadn't checked the return times, so we had a half hour wait before the next train). While we were waiting, we kept on getting whiffs of farm, and panicked that it was us who smelled like that. When the train finally arrived though, we realised that it was in fact a farm that smelled that way, and we just looked like we should.

When we got back, Patrick and I decided to make burgers, because a lot of the ones in the UK don't taste like proper burgers. Great success - I can cook now! After that, we decided to celebrate our successful adventure with Tequila Night. We were joined by Elizabeth and Lise, and we really slammed through a bunch of tequila, alternating between lemon and lime with salt, as well as orange with cinnamon sugar (which was really delightful!). Strangely enough, none of us were that drunk, but we had a good night and it was a great end to a full and exciting day!

An Intense Amount of Birthdays

The night that I got back from Notts was Elizabeth's 21st birthday. We'd decided to have the party in my flat (again), before maybe heading out later. Elizabeth's friend Amanda had given her a big cup with "21" emblazoned on it when she'd come to visit it, and it had been christened the "Goblet of Destruction". Considering that the cup could hold one of the big bottles of Breezer in it quite comfortably, I think the title was quite apt, and that cup kept her going the entire night. Her memory ended up going, too, and we spent a lot of Tuesday filling her in on the events of the evening!

We started drinking at about 8.30, and by 9-ish people had started filtering in. I ended up playing F the Dealer again with a few people (I don't know why, but get a bunch of the international kids together and it deteriorates to drinking games. Just one of those things, I guess...), and I lost really badly. I personally blame Lauri... I think that he was giving me payback for getting him so drunk at his birthday! So I was pretty sloshed by about half nine and spent the rest of the night more or less sobering up.

Shannon had gone to a fair bit of effort for Elizabeth, and had printed off a bunch of pictures from her Facebook and emblazoned them with slogans such as "It's my birthday... get it while it's hot!" and "I'm 21. Whatcha gonna do about it?" and "Go ahead, card me bitch!". They looked great, and Elizabeth was pretty excited when she saw them! We also had two cakes - a big one and a little one, which ended up being lucky because it turns out that it was also Alex's birthday. Cake for everyone!

By about 11.30, people were considering moving on, and a bunch of us went to Vodka Revolutions, which is always a fun if expensive place. We all got a couple of drinks and danced to stuff like Beyonce - it was a lot of fun, especially considering that the fifteen or so of us were the only ones there! They played the mixture of daggy and catchy club songs that have now become more or less the soundtrack to my time in Sheffield. We stayed there until the club shut at 1.30, and then had to debate where to go. The thing is, it's Sheffield, so everything tends to shut early... plus it was a Monday night, so our options were limited slightly. We decided to go to The Harley, which is a pub/hotel that's open 'til 4am every night. We went there, and that was where we all more or less hit the wall. We sat on the couches there for a while, had a couple more drinks, checked out the decor:

And then headed home for the night. Because The Harley's at the edge of the University campus, we all decided to get some cheesy chips and then work them off by walking home. I think we got back around 3.30-ish... good times!

The next day (Tuesday) was Teemu's birthday. His was a more chilled affair than Elizabeth's - a house party at his place. This worked because Teemu lives in a group halfway between the two big groups of international kids, so it was good for everyone! I was drinking Ribena cocktails - which is Blackcurrant Sourz and lemondade, and is delicious. We stayed there for a good few hours, and I passed the time playing "Never Have I Ever" with a bunch of people. It's such a good game. Patrick and I were astonished at our liver capacity, because we were drinking a fair bit but not really feeling it. Although, I guess our drinks were more or less equivalent to weak alcopops so it makes sense. It also turns out that Teemu was turning 26, which surprised me... I would have put him at 24, max! His housemates all put in and got him a Uni of Sheffield hoodie as his present too, which I thought was lovely. The German guys also put in and got him a cake... which was really a selection of beer cans with candles on top. It looked hilarious, and kept Teemu going for the rest of the night.

Anyway, it was a really fun night where we learned a lot about some of the people on Exchange (which always happens when you play that game!). They ended up turning the lights off in the living room, turning the music up and creating a bit of a rave. I ended up standing in the stairwell talking to Joey, Patrick, Frederik and Emanuele, and laughing a lot. We all started leaving at about 1am, and Felix called me a name because he thought I was bailing on the night too early. We also had a moment of panic when Trista decided to use the wall and not the stairs to get back to the footpath, and we had to hold a couple of people upright for the walk home, but overall the night was great, and we got a couple of stories out of it - which is always a good thing.

Wednesday was Floortje's birthday, and to celebrate we decided to go to one of the Union parties called Roar. We had the pregame in the massive kitchen at Crewe, which is always the start of a good night... there were shots, and chatting, and music, and then we all headed off. It was a great night! Adam didn't take a coat because he reasoned that the one pound coat check fee was equivalent to a shot. I paid for Shane's coat check and he paid me back with two shots, and it deteriorated from there. I found the secret bar with Shane and Adam and we did a couple of medleys - enough to get a decent buzz on, which lasted for the rest of the night!

We also ran into some girls from the flat next door to mine, two of whom were dressed up as Bananas in Pyjamas, and we hung out with them for a while. Felix was also wearing a hoodie and sunglasses inside that night... maybe best not to ask why. We danced for ages, too. The music was really good - a mixture of new and old stuff, and everyone was having fun. There ended up being about 30 of us international kids there, and the venue itself was packed. It finished at about 2.30, and after we queued for our coats and Adam got kicked out for being unruly, I went and got more cheesy chips with Patrick, Fiona, Felix and Toby, and then Fi, Patrick and I taxi'd home. Turns out, Felix and Toby had hidden extra beer in the bushes near the Uni, so they had provisions for the walk home. Fi and I went to bed when we got back - around 3am. Turns out, there was a postparty back at Crewe, which Allen had apparently told me about, that I missed because I hadn't been paying attention!

All in all, it was a solid half-week of birthdays. I think all those people who were celebrating their big days had fun, and I definitely enjoyed being able to share in the celebrations!

Alphabet Parties, Games and Vegemite Toasties

On the Thursday after Fiona's birthday, we knew there was an Alphabet party being put on for us international kids. The theme meant that you had to come dressed as something starting with the same letter as your country. So for Australia, you could go as an apple, aardvark, angel, academic, etc, for Portugal you could go as a pirate or a pineapple, for France you could go as a finish line, and so on. Of course, I left my costume-finding until the last minute, and ended up wearing a black skirt, sunglasses and my Corp shirt and saying I was an agent. Personally, I was most impressed with Charlie who went as Al Capone, and Joey who went as an Underdressed Hippie.


We ended up running late for the party, but it didn't really matter because once we got to the Walkabout, it was dead. Like, actually dead. We thought we'd got the wrong venue for a while, but it turns out that just a lot of people had bailed at the last minute. We got a couple of drinks to alleviate the awkwardness, and stood chatting for a while. Then suddenly, we were surrounded by Pokemon. And no, I wasn't drunk - there was also a Pokemon party going on, where I kid you not, there were people with really involved costumes everywhere. I'm talking body paint, tentacles, and one guy who came as a pokeball. It was bizarre and yet quite cool. We ran into a couple of people we knew, and then danced for a while (to classics like Blink-182 and Rage Against the Machine), before deciding to move on. At some point, all the Pokemon disappeared. I'm still not sure where they went or how I missed them leaving, because it's not like they were exactly inconspicuous!


A few people decided to head home, but most of us weren't ready, so we moved on to a club called Soyo, which was actually really trendy and quite cool. It was here we lost Johanna totally, and Shannon for a while. Just after midnight, we were joined by a bunch of people we knew, and it was really fun. We stayed until the lights came on... at 12.30!! After proclaiming our disbelief at a club closing this early, we decided to move on. At this point, we met two English girls, who hung around us for the rest of the night. We walked towards a couple of different clubs we'd heard about, but none of us wanted to pay a cover, so we wandered around for a while looking for one that had free entry. We finally all decided to go to a club called Babylon, which is notoriously seedy. One guy had his wallet stolen - or rather, everything of value stolen from inside his wallet, and his wallet left there for him to find later... so that's kind of what we were up for!


We all got in, and were immediately confronted with a stencilled image of Britney Spears... because every night at Babylon is '90s night! Overall though, it was kind of like Moosehead's seedy foreign cousin. And considering Moosehead's, that's saying something! Shane bought a vodka and coke that tasted truly atrocious... I don't know why, but it was one of the worst things I've ever tasted. I don't even know how they got it to taste like that, but the taste defies explanation! Oh, and the clientele was on the sketchier side of normal - and let's not forget the Russian gangsters. Charlie pointed them out to me, and these guys looked really scary. Adam had somehow found a balloon in there, and was playing a game with an English girl where he was holding it out of her reach. Then somehow, he let go of the balloon and it flew up into an air vent right over the gangsters - and Adam crashed into them trying to get it back. The look they gave him was a bit creepy, and Charlie, Shane and I are now sure that he's got a death warrant against him. I still don't think he should wander around Sheffield alone.

We hung around for a while longer, until they'd played the classics like S Club 7 and Ricky Martin, then decided to head off. I walked home with Joey, Michel and Elizabeth from my flat. I tell you what, I'm getting so used to walking everywhere that I don't know what I'll do when I get home and it's no longer a viable means of transport!! Even though we got back fairly late, I still made it to my class on Friday morning, and was pretty proud of myself for that.

Friday night, a bunch of people had decided to go to Space. I was still feeling a bit seedy from the previous night, and didn't fancy listening to dubstep all night, so I opted to stay back. We hosted the pregame in my flat, and people headed off to the club at about 10.30pm. Left behind with me was Joey, Karsten, Astrid, Elizabeth, Frederik, Emanuele, Tom and Gustave ("The Elusive Gustave", as I like to call him. I don't see him very often), and we decided to stock up on drinks and then play a couple of games. Astrid and Elizabeth opted to leave and stock up, and then we realised we could hear the sound of drunk people in the flat next to mine. Karsten and Joey knocked on the door that separates E4 from D4, and scored us an invite over. We all trecked down the stairs, around the building, and into D Block... because even though there's only a door that separates our flats, it's locked and if we tried to force it we'd set off the alarm and evacuate the entire building.

When we got there, we found that all the girls in there (including Karen, Natalie and Sarah, who I'd met a couple of times before) definitely had a buzz on as they were getting ready to go to Space as well. We hung out there for a bit, and Karen gave me a tour of their kitchen and common room, which was green instead of blue! My favourite part was the wall of hot people. I think we need one in our flat. After a while, they went to catch a taxi to the party, and we headed back to my flat, just in time for Astrid and Elizabeth's triumphant return with the cider. We then started playing games - Kings, F*** the Dealer and Tourettes were the order of the night - and I don't know if I've ever laughed so much in my life. Especially during the "Never Have I Ever" cards... it sure is one way to learn a lot about people!! I lost Kings and had to drink from the cup (interestingly, the last King was the very last card pulled. I'd never had that happen before! The cup wasn't too bad though, it just had blue VK, beer and cider. It just tasted like sweet beer), and Elizabeth lost F the Dealer quite badly which resulted in her getting completely shwasted.

All of a sudden, I heard Shannon come home, and realised that it was already just before 3am. Astrid and I decided to go and get some food to quell the drunchies, and so we headed up and bought kebabs. When I got home, Shannon went to bed, and Joey, Frederik and Karsten were the only ones left. We all decided to call it a night and head to bed. I said goodbye to the boys, and then went and got into my jammies - when my phone rang. It was Shane, who said that he couldn't believe that we'd been playing games the entire time they'd been at Space! He also informed me that they'd kidnapped Joey, and to pay his ransom I had to go downstairs to partake in prank calls and Vegemite toasties. I thought this sounded reasonable, and so pulled my jeans on and went to join them. When I got there, Allen was just about passed out on one of the couches, and Adam was figuring out who to prank next. They decided to call a guy called Luke, and I had to say that I was in love with him, but unfortunately pregnant to another guy and really wanted Luke to be the father to my bastard child. It went to voicemail, I left the message without laughing, arranged to meet at Costa the next day, and was rewarded with Vegemite toasties (that felt more like they were on crackers instead of toast because Shane left the oven door shut when he was grilling them). It was also Joey's first taste of Vegemite. I think he was impressed.

I eventually headed upstairs at about 4.30 and passed out. I then woke up reasonably early to go to Nottingham to spend some time with Jack and the Gaps, which was nice and really relaxing. On Saturday, I met them in the Nottingham shopping area, and then we headed back to Long Eaton, where we skyped Mum and Dad in the evening, and then watched some TV until the wee small hours. On the Sunday, I went for Sunday lunch with Jack and Mitchell, where they had burgers and I had the carvery dinner. It was turkey, it was amazing, and I felt very English. That night, we went and saw True Grit (again) and then had an early night. I went and had lunch at the school on Monday and then headed back to Sheffield in the afternoon, to give myself enough time to get ready for Elizabeth's birthday... the story of which is coming soon!

Fiona's Birthday Saga

The day after York was pretty quiet for everyone, and in the evening we went to the Edge for dinner and the pub quiz, mostly so that the girls could appreciate the guy reading out the questions. We also tossed around some ideas for weekend trips, which was good!

It was Fiona's birthday on Tuesday, so to celebrate, we decided to have a bit of a party and then go to one of the Union parties called Population, which was having a Noughties themed night (as in, music from 2000-2010. Avril Lavigne was on the poster, so we had high expectations!). I went to Meadowhall shopping centre in the afternoon with Fiona and Elizabeth, kind of to look for something to wear, but also just for some retail therapy. We ended up walking around for about four straight hours. It was an intense shopping trip. Then we came home, had some dinner, and prepped for the party.

I'm going to be honest at this point, because I don't really remember all of this night. People started getting to our flat at about 8.30, and I was playing drinking games with a few people - and I've learned that they tend to be one of the things that send me over the edge. I also found out that my friend Magnus had, for some reason, thought I was Canadian for the entire time that we'd known each other... a fact that was made funnier because I was wearing my ANU hoodie at the time. After that, it starts getting hazy. There were a lot of people there, and at about 9.30 our house mentors showed up and said that the party had to be finished by 11pm for sound reasons. We agreed, and then carried on. Karsten had made some sort of concoction that tasted amazing, but was way more potent than it looked. It had cream, vodka, some sort of schnapps, and perhaps a few other ingredients. Shannon said it looked like pancake batter, but it tasted truly delightful, and many people shared in its wonderful effects.

I think it was about 11.30 by the time we headed off for the club, where I think you can get a fair picture of the night through my sent and draft text messages, which include the gems "Your butt just texted me", "Omg I'm so lost without you kids!", "Tequila!", and my personal favourite, "I kind of just want to go home BECAUSE I'M SO HUNGRY". A lot of these are in my drafts, because the music was so loud that we couldn't hear what anyone was saying. Unfortunately, the music wasn't quite what I was expecting. They played "Get Low" (the Flo Rida version) while I was at the bar at one point, but that song doesn't feel like true noughties to me. They did play "Crazy In Love" though, which was a lot of fun.

Astrid and I ended up walking around looking for a way to get food for ages, then found that we couldn't get food and then come back in to the Union, so we left at maybe 1.45. I had to negotiate with the man in the coat check, because I'd misplaced my tag and had to describe my coat in close detail, which was fun. Then Astrid and I decided to walk back, and get a kebab on the way. After we received our food (and learned the term "drunchies", or drunk munchies), I received a text from Patrick saying that he'd had a similar idea to get food and was not that far away from us. Patrick and Astrid ended up heading home together and I walked back with Karsten and Akash, who'd joined in on the drunchies expedition. All in all, it was a solid night... or so I thought until the next morning, when I was more parched than I've ever been in my entire life, had the events of the previous nights come back to me in installments and couldn't get the taste of kebab out of my mouth until mid-afternoon. I couldn't feel too sorry for myself though, because it was all self-inflicted - and really, I could have felt worse!

To continue on with Fiona's birthday celebrations, a group of us went to an African restaurant called UK Mama for dinner on the Tuesday night. The only reason we picked this restaurant was because a lot of us pass it every day on our way to Uni, and were all intrigued. Fiona had arranged for us to have the banquet option, because apparently that meant that we'd all get our food faster than if we ordered off the menu. We made the booking for 7.30, thinking that we'd all be home by about 10.30 and could pour our sleep-deprived selves into bed and get some sleep. However, the restaurant had different plans for us.

We sat and chatted for a while, until we realised we'd been there for ages and still hadn't seen the entrees. We did have a couple of gem conversations though, especially when we (the Australians - mostly Fiona, Shane and myself) got into a discussion over the pronunciation of the letter 'z' with the Americans. My favourite part went like this:

Elizabeth: So does that mean you say 'zeh-bra' instead of 'zee-bra'?

Maddie: Yep. Zebra.

Joey: Do you say zedlophone?

Maddie: What?

Elizabeth: Joey, do you mean xylophone?

Joey: Zedlophone. Zeelophone. You know.

Maddie: Isn't xylophone spelled with an 'x'?

...

Joey: Oh, yeah.

There was also a moment where Astrid said that four Americans had been murdered by pirates, which was misheard by both Elizabeth and myself. Elizabeth thought that Astrid had said her parents were killed by Americans, and couldn't understand why Astrid was so happy to hang out with everyone after going through something like that. I thought she said that four Americans were killed by parrots, and then was trying to figure out if it was murder if animals were the killers. I did have a rather amusing picture in my head of giant, murderous tropical parrots. Gotta love that language barrier!

We were all getting quite hungry (and complaining a fair bit to each other, if I'm honest!), until FINALLY, at closer to 9pm, the waiter brought us out our heated plates for the entrees. Patrick thought that the hot plate thing was one of the weirdest things he'd ever seen, but a few of us explained that hot plates means the food stays warmer for longer. Which is usually true, except that by the time everyone had their plates, mine was cold. And here's the real kicker: the entree mostly consisted of salad, which does not generally mix with hot plates. But we could deal, because by then I'm pretty sure people were starting to consider either cannibalism or going to the takeaway next door. We worked our way through the salad - as well as a couple of other dishes that included grilled banana and some unidentifiable lumps of stuff that I'm assuming was similar to chickpeas, but with the texture of sand and the flavour of soup. Lovely.

About an hour after our entrees had made their appearance, our mains made their way to the table. And if we'd been complaining about there not being enough food earlier, all of a sudden we were faced with an abundance and nowhere near enough room - either on the table or in our stomachs! I enjoyed most of the dishes, which were mostly curry-type dishes made with a bunch of different meats including mutton, beef, chicken, fish, lamb as well as some vegetarian dishes. My favourite was these potato dumpling-type things, which were absolutely lovely. By the end, all my food had mixed together, and it was really nice. I'm a bit of a curry nut though, so maybe that's why I liked it so much.

It wasn't long before we were absolutely stuffed full of food. The waiter put all the leftovers into some takeaway containers for us to have later, and we were told dessert was on its way. The chef/owner even came out and introduced himself to "Princess" Fiona, and wished her a happy birthday. Just before 11pm, they turned off the lights, turned up Stevie Wonder's version of "Happy Birthday", and brought out our dessert, which was a huge pile of cake and ice cream. I really liked it, but then I'm a dessert fiend and not particularly fussy which form it comes in! The overall result though looked like if you gave a couple of kids some cake, ice cream, fruit and candles and told them to go nuts. It was actually a pile, which I thought was kind of fun. After that, the chef/owner gave Fi some chocolates and a rose, which was a nice touch.

We were just about to ask for the bill and head home when all of a sudden, the owner/chef reappeared, this time wearing more traditional African dress, and distributed a bunch of hand drums and some sort of xylophone. We kind of hit them for a while, and then just when we were starting to get bored, the man reappeared and taught us a couple of drumming rhythms. I felt a little bit sorry for the couple in the corner of the restaurant (who were the only other people left in there by this point) because they looked like they'd been after a romantic dinner, and instead, there were twelve Uni students banging drums quite loudly. It was really fun though, and we sounded quite good!

The last one that the man taught us moved beyond easy drum playing and into multitasking territory, where we had to chant as well as drum to a 'joyful, celbration beat'. The man started us off by sending a summons to every single country that he could think of, starting with countries in Africa, across Australia, America, Canada, some of Asia and Europe, before heading into the actual song. We were all quite into it (and sounding pretty good, if I do say so myself!), and then ended up yelling out the chant to each other. The chant went something like this, with the man asking the questions and us yelling the answers:

Who is the best?

Fiona is the best!

Who is the best?

Fiona is the best!

Tell me why?

She has the voice,

She has the beat,

She is the best!

And repeat. Pretty sure we didn't hurt Fiona's ego any! It really was a lot of fun though. We ended up paying and heading home a little after midnight. So much for our early night... but really, it was so unexpected and fun that it was totally worth it!

La Fiesta, Snow and York

On the Saturday, I was due to go to York for a day trip run by the Uni. The night before, I knew that there was an Exchange party going on at a club in the city, but I wasn't sure if I'd end up going. Turns out, a large chunk of the internationals were going, so I tagged along too. We went to Teemu and Toby's house for a bit of a pregame first, where we had also arranged to meet Elizabeth and her friend from London, Amanda. They got to Teemu's right when we were leaving, and we ended up getting to the club at about half past 10 - we'd heard there was a line, but we just walked straight in. They were giving out stickers of flags at the front door - I grabbed an Australia one, but not long after, they ran out, so Fiona ended up with an Argentinian one. When we got to the main dancefloor, there weren't many people there, but there was already a massive queue for the coat check (and a two pound charge for it, as well). I decided to take a gamble, and put my coat on top of the speakers along with Shane's, Fiona's, Adam's, Allen's and a few others.

We went and got a couple of drinks, then sat down for a while. After a relatively short time, the club started to fill up. And then it got packed. I went back and found my friends on the dancefloor, and realised that there were a LOT of people on that dancefloor. And the room really wasn't that big. It ended up getting totally full and really hot, and the drinks really weren't that cheap, so we headed home just after 1am. My favourite part of the night was when they played "Jai Ho!", because the club went nuts! Everyone just seemed to get into it, it was awesome. They also played Ricky Martin, and I'm pretty sure that's the first time I'd ever heard him played in a club.

The next morning, I'd set my alarm for 7am. When it went off, I was a bit confused because we didn't have to be at the bus until 9.00, but then I remembered that the BBC had forecasted snow... and wouldn't you know, it was actually snowing!! And settling on the ground!! I'd never seen it do that before. I know it's snowed in Canberra a couple of times, but every time I've seen it, it's melted before it started settling. But this was awesome! I looked at it for about half an hour before getting ready to go out. I wore a bunch of layers because snow is cold, right? I was so excited. It was really beautiful. All of the Australians loved it actually, because none of us get it at home, but all the other people were complaining that it was wet and slushy. Which it was, but we didn't have anything to compare it to! We walked to the bus, and I nearly stacked it a couple of times but managed to keep my footing.

I stayed awake for most of the bus trip to York (which is only about an hour and a half away) because it had snowed a lot of the way towards there. Teemu and Felix both cracked open a beer on the way (even though it was 9am), and we were all sitting pretty close together, so there was plenty of entertainment. When we got to York, it was caught halfway between snowing and raining, and freezing cold, but still awesome. The reason we were in York was because the UK's biggest Viking festival was beginning that day... none of us really knew what to expect, but thought that we'd get to see the city and then run around like vikings, wearing funny hats and drinking mead from a horn for a while. We walked up to the centre of town, all admiring how pretty and English it was. We were all fairly hungry, so we went in search of somewhere to eat. We found a place called "Betty's Tea House", but it was really full so we decided to look elsewhere. It was around this time that a bunch of the others decided to buy umbrellas, because although the rain wasn't heavy, it was pretty constant and annoying. One of the sports shops was selling these huge umbrellas for 2.50, and when we all had our brollies up we looked hilarious. It's one way to not lose anyone!!

It turned out that the Viking festival had more happening on the Sunday. That was a bit of a bust. We only ran into one Viking, and he was wearing pink, so I'm not entirely sure on the historical accuracy. We decided to take the opportunity to explore York though, and see if we could find any more Vikings hiding around the city.

We went for a bit of a walk, heading vaguely towards York Minster Cathedral, which is really hard to miss and pretty much the centre of the city. When we were walking, we found an armoury (and promptly lost Massi and Akash to it for a while) then we found a smaller version of the tea shop across the road. We decided to see if we could get a table. At first it seemed like the place was too small, but the people working there managed to push a couple of tables together and we all got to sit in a corner together, and we ordered an assortment of cinnamon toast, scones, hot chocolate, tea and Allen's frog cake (that is, a cake in the shape of a frog. Not a cake made out of frogs - I don't think that would taste very nice!). We eventually left the tea shop, in search of "old stuff". First point of call was the Cathedral. We went inside the first part, but I didn't want to pay the 8.00 admission fee, so I just admired it from a distance. We then headed off back towards the city walls, where we all did our touristy thing and took a bunch of photos first from the outside, then from the inside of the gate house.

We then decided to walk up to one of the museums, where we found a part of a really old building that had what looked like sarcophagi in it - so Vanessa and I took the opportunity to pose:

Lovely, huh? We then walked over towards the museum itself, but didn't go in (due to another exorbitant entry fee), but we did see the ruins of another church with a cemetery (which I unfortunately didn't get to explore due to a fence). We took a turn around the park, which was really pretty and green, and then found this old, Tudor-style house that is now used for wedding venues. A really nice man offered to take a photo of us all on the stairs, which I thought turned out really well.

From there, we continued to walk around the park, where we saw squirrels!! I really like squirrels. Even though I know that they're wild animals and probably a pest, they're so cute. Not like possums, which are just nasty. Squirrels are so adorable with their tails and the way they run. After playing with the squirrels for a while, we headed back over towards the train station, and then on to the train museum, where we'd heard the Hogwarts Express was in town. We got there, and there were heaps of people (some of them in costume), including Dumbledore and Hagrid! I was so excited. We waited our turn in line with a bunch of six year olds for a photo with them, and they seemed pretty interested that we'd all travelled from around the world. We somehow managed to lose Fiona and Allen around this time, but we then saw the Hogwarts Express, and so exploited another photo opportunity. It was the actual train from the movies - I was so excited!!

From there, we headed back into town and headed over to the castle. I use the term 'castle' loosely. I knew what to expect, because when I worked at The Elms, I went on an excursion with the Year 5's to the Castle Museum, but the others were fair disappointed. Mostly all that's left is a watchtower from the 13th Century... although that's still pretty cool. From there we wandered back into the city centre and found a Gregg's for afternoon tea. We considered going to the York Dungeon, but that had a massive line and looked to just be a franchised rip-off version of the London Dungeon. We decided to head over to the Viking museum to see if there was more of the festival there, but there really wasn't. I then went for a walk with Cory and Amanda to see more of the town. We stopped and got crepes from a van - Amanda and I got cheese and tomato, and Cory got a chocolate one (that smelled absolutely delightful!). We managed to find another really old church and some cool-looking stores, before beginning to wander back to the bus.

We were amongst the first back, and managed to grab a bunch of seats up the back of the bus (like the cool kids we are). It wasn't long before we were joined by Teemu, Felix and Sam, and then Allen, Fiona, Adam, Annemarie, Vanessa and Kathy, with a couple of the others on the other bus. We were all exhausted, and Felix commented we all must be getting old, because when he was at school, the bus trip was the best part of any excursion. I agreed, then promptly nodded off to sleep like the old person I am.

When we got back to Sheffield, we discovered that there was still a bit of snow on the ground! Adam and Allen had a bit of a snowball fight, while Amanda and I made a tiny snowman (that was either called Frosty or Snowy, depending on who you asked), and then Amanda made a snow angel. It was a really fun ending to what was a truly awesome day!!