Posts Tagged ‘Harry Potter’

The past week has been an interesting one filled with class, homework, trips, and Harry Potter!

Classes are going along well. It is still very strange to me to only have each class once a week. However, it has given me a lot of free time to enjoy my trip and still get homework done. Though, it’s also strange not having assignments due every time I attend class. Instead, I just have one or two assignments due per class throughout the semester (except British Life & Culture – I have four papers and a presentation).

This week will be my last week of class before having a week off – Enrichment/Reading Week. Eric and I will be spending most of that week abroad in Italy. We will be avoiding Rome and Lampedusa, where there have been riots/protests recently. We will be starting in Pisa, then traveling to Florence, Venice, and Trieste by train and flying back to London on Wednesday the 2^nd. We are cutting our holiday a little short so we can register for Spring classes without having to bring our computers with us. We don’t want to worry about losing those!

Other than attending class and planning Enrichment Week, I’ve been traveling a little bit. I spent Saturday in Oxford with the British Life & Culture class. That was fun. Especially since we got to see lots of places where Harry Potter was filmed! First we had a guided tour of the colleges, then we went on self-guided tours of Christ Church College. The guided tour was nice and very informative, but our tour guide was very offended by people taking pictures and not appearing to listen. That was something I’ve never experienced before. So far, none of our tour guides seemed phased by us taking pictures. Then, our self-guided tour of Christ Church College was also very interesting. Here, I got to see the actual room used for the Hogwarts Great Hall. Got to love Harry Potter!

Since I had today off, I decided to find Pooh Corner. It’s basically a Winnie the Pooh souvenir shop, including information to help you find Pooh places (“Enchanted Places” – Poohsticks Bridge, Galleon’s Lap, Where the North Pole Was, Roo’s Sandy Pit, The Heffalump Trap and The Enchanted Places Memorial Plaque). Yes, I’m almost 21 and I still love Winnie the Pooh! In case anyone is interested, it is located in Hartfield – about a two hour trip by train and bus from Kingston. Tip: You have to take the 291 bus from Tunbridge Wells to Hartfield, but it only leaves about once every hour. But, if you get to town at an odd time, there are lots of stores to waste time in near the bus stop.

All in all, it’s been a fun week. Very busy. I’m looking forward to a few days’ rest, then lots of traveling around Italy! I’m also hoping to go out with some friends this week to celebrate Halloween early, since I won’t be here on the day.

Private Forest Field Trip

The first week of class is officially finished, and I am exhausted! The first day of class was a field trip to a private forest owner’s property. The owners were a married couple from Sweden, both with forestry backgrounds. Interestingly enough, the husband worked for the timber sector of IKEA. They had a large property that they use for firewood, mushrooming, hunting, an ornamental tree nursery, and rent out some of the land for  farming. We spent the afternoon wandering their property learning about Swedish forestry practices, policy, and private ownership. As a challenge the students were split into groups and told to come up with future forestry and land management options for the couple. It was a fun challenge, and the winning group had even suggested converting part of the property into a paintball field! The long day ended with a much needed bonfire and warm food.

SLU Campus

Juggling class time and homework, it was a challenge to sneak in an ‘official’ campus tour or even welcome for that matter. Luckily I was able to make it to a brief afternoon session to get my networking, computer, and library accounts in order. The system here is very different from anything I have ever had to use before; printers que documents and require double passwords, I also have to put money in an electronic account to pay for copies, faxes, and printing, and if I do not have enough money in my account, I cannot print – no exceptions! Hopefully I will not be printing much this semester. The campus itself is gorgeous, with whimsical looking buildings and a large park. There might have been a few Harry Potter Hogwarts jokes mentioned throughout the tour…

As for classes, it has been intense. The long days remind me of being in high school again, or at the ‘Fall Camp’ that I had to go through for Michigan Tech. I really enjoyed my schedule in Helsinki – I had long days, but they did not start at seven in the morning. I am definitely a night owl.

After a long week, I was invited out with the other new SLU students to go bowling. I have not been bowling in a very long time, and for good reason – I am not very good. I was excited to go out with my new friends, and was even more excited to be meeting more new people. I had to take the bus into Malmö, which costs 22 krona (about $3.40) one way! Not only is Sweden expensive (like Finland), but they use the “Swedish crown” or Krona as their currency. It has been quite the conversion adjustment for me. I miss using the Euro  1 Euro equals 8.87 Krona, which is currently equal to $1.36. Luckily, I kept my NORDEA bank account active in Finland so I do not have to pay common currency conversion fees like most people.

Tastes like home!

To finish the first week myself and a few other ATLANTIS students got together for a hearty brunch. Each person contributed a dish; there was sausage, scrambled eggs, traditional Finnish crepes, fresh bread, lingonberry jam, and someone even bought real Canadian maple syrup! I mad a warm winter citrus salad of grapefruit, blood oranges, and pineapple with a brown sugar glaze. After our spectacular brunch, reality woke us from our mid-morning food-comas and reminded us why we had really gathered, that pesky group homework assignment. It was nice to distract ourselves for an hour or so with brunch though. In short, the weekend and evenings after class have been filled with group assignments, personal homework, and enough take-home reading to kindle fires for a month. This will definitely be a challenging semester!

Next week is the Superbowl! Yes, my hometown team, The Green Bay Packers, have made it to the Super Bowl. It is also one of my Finnish ATLANTIS colleague’s birthdays, as well as Runeberg’s Birthday (a Finnish holiday for the famous Finnish poet). I look forward to writing about the upcoming fun, but busy week.

Kassidy