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!!

Live Music and Free Beer

The night after Corp, we were all pretty tired, but still wanted to do something. Joey mentioned how some friends of his from class were in a band, and were playing at Bar One. Thinking that this would be fun (and at the very least, a chance to meet some more English people to reinforce which country we were actually in), a bunch of us agreed to go. Just before 9, we (being Joey, Patrick, Fiona, Elizabeth, Lise, Shannon, Elizabeth O, Zac, Karsten, Stephi and myself) headed over. Thinking that the band started at 9, we were worried that we would be late and miss them play - but when we got there, and met Tom and Aaron from the band, they told us that they were actually performing as a part of a Battle of the Bands competition, but they wouldn't be playing until around 11. So then we had a few hours to kill!

We managed to find a booth (strangely enough, the same one we'd found at Super Bowl. I now think of this as "our booth", even though odds are we won't get to sit there again!), and all got a couple of drinks and sat chatting for a while. After about 20 minutes, this middle-aged guy comes up to us and wants to know if he can have a chat to us about our drinking habits. We were all a bit sceptical at first, but then he mentioned that he would "give us a couple of quid", so we decided to take the risk of coming across as young alcoholics.

The guy comes back with a voice recorder, and tells us that he's doing some independent market research on people's drinking. He asks us questions like, what makes a beer and cider night different from a spirits night? Do we mix our spirits, or take them neat? Why do we pick any particular cider or beer? Do we pay attention to the specials boards? Does the brand advertising behind the bar have any part in what we end up buying? Because we're all poor international students, I don't know whether he was happy or not to find out that a lot of our drinking habits are based around price... I mean, I enjoy more expensive brands occasionally, but usually I'll just ask for the house bourbon (or [insert spirit here]), and I know of several people here who ask at the bar what the cheepest beer is and go for that. However, I do think we gave him something to work with, because he thanked us, and as he was leaving, pulled out forty pounds from his wallet. Forty pounds!! That's about $65-70 Australian. And he just left it for us. It was amazing.

Joey and Zac were elected to be the Spenders of the Money, and came back with three huge pitchers of beer for us to share. They were enormous (and really heavy), so Fiona, Elizabeth and I immediately took the opportunity to take photos with them (which annoyed Zac no end, who just wanted to drink the stuff). It was very exciting. I had a pint of it before I remembered that I don't really like beer, so I gifted the rest of mine to Karsten (who accused me of trying to get him drunk. It wasn't my intention, but if it happened, I would be entertained, so I couldn't really deny that!). It was around this time as well that Stephi came back with some hot chips, which smelled so good that the rest of us couldn't stop thinking about them for the rest of the evening.

Finally, 11pm rolled around and we got up to hear Joey's friends play. Their band is called 'Kettle o' Fish', and they're actually really good. They're a bit folky, and have a double bass, acoustic guitar, keyboard, vocals and a tambourine, and were fun and easy to listen to. I would definitely go and see them again. After that, we went back and indulged in chips and onion rings - which were amazing - and chatted to Tom and Aaron from the band while we waited to be able to vote for them. We did that, then somehow managed to lose Elizabeth and then find her again before heading home at about 1am. I'm still not sure how Kettle o' Fish ended up going in the competition, but I hope they did well!

School Shirts, Sticky Floors and Quad Vods

You remember how a couple of weeks ago I tried to get into a club wearing a school uniform, but we bailed because the line was too long and made our own party? If not, the entry's here. Well anyway, the following Wednesday I went and saw Black Swan with Fiona, Allen, Adam and Massi. I found the film super intense, and I think I'll have to watch it again to grasp fully what it meant. Adam made the film more of a comedy though - there's one scene where Natalie Portman throws up in the bathroom, and Adam leant over to Allen and said "That's going to be you later tonight!". Considering the tone of the film, I think we needed that spot of comic relief. Thanks, Adam.

Anyway, afterwards, we decided to try and get tickets for Corp, which was on that night. We walked to a bunch of different bars and places that said they were selling tickets, and then found that everywhere was sold out. After a bit of deliberation, it was decided that we'd get there at 9pm - an hour before it opened - to make sure that we'd actually get in this time. After a brief pregame at our place, where we indulged in cider and wine, we grabbed our stuff and headed over to the taxis. I got a text message from Lauri around this time, asking if I was going to Corp, and when I replied yes, and said that we were heading over then and would he like to join us, he told me that he already had a ticket and would meet us there. I wish I'd been clever enough to think of buying a ticket before the day of.

So we get to the club at about ten past 9, and success! There were only about fifteen people in line before us, which essentially meant that we were definitely going to get in. Shannon had had the bright idea of filling a Sprite bottle with wine, so even though it was totally foul, we never lost our buzz. Patrick even found the pub around the corner, so there wasn't any need for that kind of adventure! We got in after waiting for a little bit more than an hour, and were in the first group of people allowed into the club. Even in the excitement of actually getting in there, we noticed that the floor was already sticky. I didn't really want to know how... general consensus is that the people at Corp don't really clean the floors properly because it's just going to get sticky again.

We went up to the bar on the top floor, and tried to figure out what to order. Everything was served in plastic pint glasses, which is good because if you drop them they won't hurt you. We started off with these things called Blue Pints... I'm still not entirely sure what was in them, but they tasted like sugar, so I was happy. We eventually made our way down to one of the dancefloors, where they were playing stuff like the Arctic Monkeys and Bloc Party, which was fun to dance to. We eventually moved down to the main dancefloor, where they were clearly big fans of the smoke machine, and they were playing everything from Black Eyed Peas to Katy Perry to Robbie Williams, and it was so much fun! Except for when I found out that there's no Robbie Williams in Virginia, which made me sad. I can't imagine life without Let Me Entertain You.

It was while we were on the dancefloor that we started buying quad vods. Don't worry, you read that right. One of the reasons that Corp is so popular - other than because it's kind of fun to dress up in a school uniform - is this particular drink. It's four shots of vodka with a mixture in one of those plastic cups. They're actually cheaper than getting a triple, and I'm a little bit hazy on the legality of them. Sometimes they serve them in two cups, sometimes not. And I think that the vodka's not as strong as normal vodka. But it's still got the world's best novelty value! I can't exactly remember how many I had, but it was enough to keep me dancing for the rest of the night.

The club got a progressively more filthy as the night went on - by the end of it, there were occasional drops of water falling from the ceiling. I don't know how they got there, but it gets hot in Corp and I know the basics of condensation... and I'd rather not think of it too much past that. There were drunk people everywhere, most people's white shirts had stains of some description on them, Adam and Charlie ended up being featured on CorpTV (because there's a guy who walks around with a camera and a mic, and uploads the footage on to Youtube), and I got a bunch of good photos. I caught a taxi home with Patrick, Joey, Massi and Elizabeth at about 2.30am (or maybe a little later), and crawled into bed filthy but buzzed after what had turned out to be an awesome night.

Happy Un-Valentines!

Valentine's Day is a much bigger thing in the UK than it is back in Australia. Being up their with my least favourite holidays (picking the feast day of a saint to show how much you love your partner? Hint: anniversaries are much more important!), we decided to have a dinner for some of our friends at our flat. Fiona and I made chilli con carne, which worked out really well! We had Shannon and Elizabeth from our flat, then Patrick, Joey, VT Elizabeth, Astrid and Karsten over, and it was just really fun.

After dinner, we decided to play a couple of drinking games. We started with Kings, which got entertaining really quickly because some people were forgetting the rules. Astrid picked up that a lot of the rules were based on rhyming (such as 3: me, 6: chicks, etc) which meant that when she drew a 9, she yelled "Wine!"... it actually kind of worked for her that time, because she was drinking wine. It was only in the next round, when she drew an 8 and yelled out "Gate!" that it became funny. We told her that Adventure Time might come later, but there weren't any gates around Lawrencefield, so it might be a bit of a challenge.

At about 9pm, a bunch more people arrived, and it was actually really fun. We did a bit of socialising, played a couple more games and drank a lot more cider, until about 11 when most of the people were leaving to go to one of the Union parties called Population, including Patrick, Shannon and Karsten, who hadn't originally planned on going. Karsten said he had a "good feeling" about the night, and as he ended up hooking up, I think he was right. I stayed behind with Joey, Astrid, Elizabeth from my flat and one or two other people, and we played games until just after midnight. All in all, it was pretty solid!

Tuesday, I decided to stay in and have a quiet one. I knew we were planning on trying to get into Corp again on Wednesday night, so I just hung out and actually did some Uni work. Who would have thought I was here to study?

Lost Phones, Hockey Matches, Birthdays and Crepes!

The day after the afterparty at Teemu's was the last day of the Winter Varsity sport competition between Uni of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University, and a bunch of us had tickets to the ice hockey match that was the highlight of the week. I was planning on meeting a couple of people at the Edge for lunch, and then we were all going to catch the bus there together.

However...

At about 10.30 in the morning, I got a text from Joey's mobile, saying "Found this phone, whose is it?'. Thinking that he must have left it at Teemu's, I replied "Joey's... did he leave it out last night?". I waited a while, during which time I got a bit confused until I got the reply saying "Er found it on the floor." I arranged to meet the phone-finder at the Edge, wondering where on earth Joey had left it. Turns out, he must have dropped it on the road at some point during his 200m stagger home the night before, and two English guys who live in the Village found it. I think it was lucky that they returned it and didn't keep it!

Anyway, after that excitement, I went and found the others in the Edge. I had a dry and disappointing sandwich, then realised I'd left my ticket at home, so had to hotfoot it back up the hill (and stairs) to my place and then rush back to the bus, where I ended up sitting next to someone I'd never met who didn't want to talk. I caught up with the others, and after we all had our faces decked out with yellow and black (Uni of Sheffield colours) and grabbed some paper flags, we got to our seats and waited for the game to begin.

I was surprised, because the game was actually really exciting! I'd never seen ice hockey before, but I think I'd be happy to go along again!! I think I annoyed Patrick sufficiently as well, when I was asking questions about how to play the game, not unlike when I was at the Super Bowl. My team lost, unfortunately... we were winning for the first two periods, but then Hallam got in a goal right at the end of the second period and then scored again at the end. Lauri was really disappointed with our team's performance - in his words "A bunch of girls who had never played before could have done better than that!". But he's Finnish, and because they get a lot of snow and ice, I'm assuming that means that he'd seen a lot of really good hockey in his time. My favourite part of it though was one of the chants - it was to the tune of 'Yankee Doodle', and went something like this:

"We go somewhere you don't go,

Uni! Uni!

We go somewhere you don't go,

University..."

And so on. It's because Hallam used to be a technical college, and was only turned into a Uni about 15 years ago. It'd be kind of like if they made CIT into a Uni, and we played against them in sport. After the match, Patrick and I somehow managed to lose everyone we knew, and so spent the bus ride home quoting Euro Trip.

When we got back, we all grabbed some dinner and then got ready to celebrate Lauri's birthday (which we were actually holding at my flat). People started arriving about 8.30, and we all had a fun time playing drinking games and getting Lauri drunk. Someone gave him a bottle of Captain Morgan's black rum, and he spent a large amount of time getting people to try it. Just a heads up: if someone ever has a bottle of this rum, don't do it. It's rough and nasty, and stopped me from ever wanting to be a pirate. There was a lot of cider of varying degrees of quality floating around, and everyone was having a good time. After a lot of drinks, the birthday boy headed home to sleep at about 12.15, and the rest of us carried on.

At about 1am, we headed off to Crewe flats to continue the party in their kitchen, where a guy called Matt was making crepes. They were amazing, and just when you had taken a bite of one, he'd have made another one, so that everyone could share in the deliciousness. Honestly, they were delightful, and if I could buy a Matt to make me crepes all the time, I'd think it was a worthwhile investment.

The party at Crewe flats ended up with us playing FlipCup (one of my new favourite games!) where my team won one round, then the other team won - during the celebrations for which, Fiona managed to cut her nose on her necklace. Sounds crazy, but it happened! And then we put on some music, pushed the tables out of the way, and had a mini dancefloor to Flo Rida and the Far East Movement. We all got home around 3am (I think, it might have been a bit later) and crashed pretty much right away.

Sunday was more or less a write-off; after a sleep in and grabbing some groceries, I didn't do much until the evening when we went downstairs for dinner (Massi cooked pasta with a bolognaise-type sauce) and then we headed over to the Edge for the pub quiz. We did alright, passing (even though some of the questions were really difficult - like "which Dancing on Ice judge made controversial comments last week?", which is really hard when you don't have a TV!) and I headed home at about 10pm after having my first dry night since arriving in Sheffield!