Snow fun and ham salad?

Ahhh I haven't updated in awhile, sorry guys!! Let's think about what I need to fill you all in on.....

Okay, last Tuesday me and the girls went out with Kelsey and her friends to a bar called Blackfinn's. Before we headed to the bar though, we were at Kelsey's house for some pre-drinks. Played some drinking games involving cards (still don't understand them) and played the classic Never Ever Have I Ever. That was.....interesting to say the least. I had a test the next day so vowed not to drink.....famous last words. "Not drinking" turned into falling on my ass in the middle of the dance floor (totally the heel's fault!!), and being unsure as to who took us home. Somehow managed to make it to my class at 10 the next morning, AND do really well on the test. I'm becoming a pro at this whole "let's go to class drunk" thing.

We clearly love life.

On Thursday, we discovered that we had a snow day. Derek called up Caitlin to see if we wanted to go to his friends house, Elliot, for some sledging. Elliot lives a little further out, and his parents own this little log cabin which I guess they rent out? I'm not sure. Anyway, we were told to take an overnight bag with us because chances are we'd get snowed in, and could stay in the log cabin.  During the day, we went sledging (refuse to call it sledding), which was absolutely hilarious. Definitely the best snow fun I have ever had. Elliot and Dan cooked dinner for us which was absolutely delicious. They made chicken which was stewing in beer or something. Sounds disgusting but it was so good. After dinner, we played kinect on the xbox for a bit which was also very funny. I discovered that I'm pretty good at bowling though, and Rebecca is a champion at boxing!! After that, we headed back out to the snow. Some more sledging took place, and Derek tried (and failed) to build a ramp. Failed miserably, haha. Afterwards, we all headed to bed and woke up the next morning to an amazing breakfast of goetta, pancakes, eggs...pretty much everything! So good!

Lol the chicken!

Derek being a badass

Biggest, but warmest jacket in the world!


Haven't really done too much since last Thursday, the girls have been out but I was so ill on Saturday and couldn't go. Sucks to be me! Also really busy with coursework!! Finally starting to get into the swing of things here though, was def. a bit of a shock to the system. Starting to realise it's a much better way of learning, you actually read the chapters you're supposed to otherwise you fail haha. I'm doing two 8 week classes, which means more work is crammed in to a shorter space of time. The girls keep asking me why I have so much work to do, but that's why! The good thing is though that in 5 weeks time, I'll only be doing 2 classes so will have all the free time in the world awoohoo! Can't wait until that day.

Oh forgot to mention we went down to the Levee on Sunday to see The Dilemma. Was a pretty decent movie, wasn't as funny as I thought it was going to be though. Best part of the night was when Stacey spilled her popcorn...right into Caitlin's bag. Caitlin went home with about a quarter of the box of popcorn in her handbag, too funny!

I think that's all I have to say for now....really not good at this whole blogging thing. Ah well. Later.

Sidenote: Between all the hilarious snow fun, Caitlin tired to eat a pot of ham salad. The vid is on facebook, funniest shit ever.

Chad Hogan, awoohoo!

Mind that time we actually went to Chad Hogan's party?

Alright, first things first. On Thursday, it was Rebecca's 21st. We threw a little party at the girls' apartment (by little party I mean there were 5 of us), had the table all decorated and had banners, balloons and party horn things. It was the kind of party a six year old would have loved.

We then went to Brio, which is a restaurant down at Newport on the Levee. We had dinner (which was delicious), then headed to Brother's for drinks. At Brother's, Derek's girlfriend joined us and she brought two of her friends, then some of Derek's friends turned up. At one point we were sitting outside by a fire, with snow all around us. Who'd have thought? Haha. Had an amazing night, and really hope that Rebecca enjoyed her 21st!

So after the antics of Thursday, we decided to go to Lexington yesterday, which is basically a college town. Full of college houses, students and parties. Derek drove us down there, and we arrived at the party around 9ish. Absolute madness. I honestly felt like we had stepped into American Pie or something. Rebecca discovered she's pretty damn good at the game flip cup, at least until she drinks too much, projectile vomits everywhere and has to be carried to bed. Too funny. Definitely one of the strangest nights of my life, but one of the most enjoyable. Apparently that was a small scale party though, and we've to go back in a few weeks for bigger ones. Mind that time we attended Chad Hogan's party more than once??

Besides partying and getting drunk, there's not much more to report (what's new there lol). Need to work on some stuff for my classes, so I'll be doing that over the next few days. Still can't get my head around how different school is. Oh well. Until next time!

Awoohoo!

Mind that time I jumped on a plane to Kentucky for 5 months?

So, I have decided to start up a blog so that people can stay updated and mainly so that I can remember what I got up to when I get back home. No promises that this will be updated daily, actually it probably won't. I'm fickle and will be fed up with it in a week. However, I will update as much as possible and will throw in some pics to break up the monotony of the walls of text. Most entries probably wont be too long, however this one will as I have a weeks worth of writing to catch up with. Enjoy :)

The first night I arrived, I was met at the airport by a woman named Anne Perry. She's kinda the person in charge of us internationals, so she's pretty much our mum for the next 5 months. She is the nicest person you could ever imagine, so cheerful and definitely will bring a smile to your face if you're feeling down. Anyway, she and her son picked me up and took me to a supermarket to get some essentials, then she brought me to my dorm room. Which is about 1000 miles away from campus but I will come to that in a minute.

The second day, I visited Anne at her office to sort out some things, and while I was there another two girls from Cali arrived. We spent the day together, lugging around boxes/groceries/cleaning supplies and just had a brilliant laugh the whole day. Later on when we returned to Anne, Rebecca (another Cali girl) had arrived. She came with us, and we spent the night in Stacey and Caitlin's apartment, ordered in some pizza and just had a laugh. (Sidenote: We pretty much discovered that we've all crossed paths at one point or another, Caitlin was in Napa the same time as me and I have pics of her friends on my facebook. Crazy.)

The next thing that  sticks in my head is the morning we went for breakfast in Newport. Derek, who picked Stacey and Caitin up at the airport, picked us up with a couple of his friend and drove us to Newport. We went to a little diner called Gourmet Chili, where we had the traditional Cincinnati breakfast of goetta (as in David), eggs, hash browns and toast. It tasted amazing. They then took us a drive to the top of a hill, where you can overlook Cincinnati. The view was gorgeous. We stood around just admiring the view for a little bit, but seeing as it was so cold it didn't take long before we were back in the car.

They then took us a little drive, at one point taking us down a street named Vine Street. Derek informed us that there are often driveby shootings here, and that people often get guns held up to their car....Nice. Needless to say, we were pretty much hiding in the backseats. However, we did spot Saks 5th Avenue, Macy's and Tiffany's! Can't wait until we can have a proper look around.

Also, did you know people can legally carry guns here? Amazing.

Later that night we went out for dinner to Applebee's. Ended up having a few drinks (read as: many) which led to us being invited to a bar. Had a hilarious night, ended up playing beer pong with complete strangers and we got told we were the talk of the place because we had accents. So funny.

On Monday, we decided to go to Ohio/Kentucky's most well know fast food place, Skyline. It's a chilli place, and it is apparently very good. We begged to differ. It wasn't good. Their signature dish is something called a 3-way (also comes as a 4-way or 5-way), which contains spaghetti, chilli, and lots of cheese. I decided to try a 5-way, which includes kidney beans and onions in the chilli. Way too much cheese, and the chilli is disgusting. Note to self: Never go there again. Here is my lovely 5-way. The name of the dish is better than the dish itself (lol mature).

Barf.


Classes started on Monday (10th) and at first I was a bit "ahhhhhhh". It's just so different here. They have so much "busy work" which involves quizzes/tests etc every other week. You need to keep up with the reading or you fail. So different to uni at home, where you go to the first lecture, don't go to the rest, and still manage to pass. I think I'll cope fine, was just a bit daunting at first! Still got some crap to sort out with the classes though, they enrolled me in an online class which means I'd have to pay for it, and eh, no. So now I have to find something else to do. Hopefully it can get sorted out this week, don't want to be stressing about being "illegal" haha. (It's illegal for exchange students to take less than 4 classes)

Yesterday, I had a bit of a crappy day. Laptop broke, and for some reason this seemed like the end of the world. Nothing worse though when you're thousands of miles away from home and have no way of contacting anyone! Rebecca was brilliant though and calmed me down, and I spoke to my mum and dad using her laptop. After realising it wasn't the end of the world, the rest of the day was pretty amazing! The girls and I headed to Newport on the Levee, which is kinda like Xscape, only not. It's hard to explain. It has bowling and a cinema and lots of little bars/restaurants, but it runs along the Ohio River so you can go outside and look over the river and see Cincinnati. The view is gorgeous. We went to an Irish bar, and found out that there's loads on for St. Patrick's day. Cincinnati runs a huge parade, and all the Irish bars have all sorts of festivities on. Really looking forward to that in March, should be amazing!! The manager of the bar offered us jobs, and gave us some free food. We have definitely discovered that our accent gets us pretty much anything we want.

We also went to a huge GameWorks, where we went on racing car games. We were in a Hummer, and it was definitely the best arcade game I have ever played. The hummer moves around as you're driving, and all we did was laugh and scream the whole way through it. Mind that time we had loads of people giving us strange looks? Haha.

Classes today went rather well, must say I'm looking forward to really getting started. Feeling as if I'm starting to "settle" now, so here's hoping things continue to improve.

Random things we have noticed that I'm too lazy to write fully about:
1. No trains. No decent buses. I take back everything I said about you, Scotrail. I miss you. :(
2. We have the same conversations with everyone. "No, we're not Australian." "Yes, we have the same music/designers you do." "We only met a week ago and already we're best friends!!"
3. People think we're weird for walking/taking cabs.
4. There's absolutely no logic regarding what classes people take.
5. We are way more open about things than people here are. We've been told once or twice not to say things too loudly or we might offend!! oooooooops! Conservative state awoohoo!
6. We need to learn American slang. "Let's hook up" does not mean "let's hang out". Lesson learned the hard way!
7. Americans do not understand the "vicky", they think it means "peace". We have introduced them to it though. Also, Americans do not put kisses at the end of text messages. Mind that time we sent everyone kisses and they were like "wtf?!"
8. And because I forgot to come back to the thing about the dorm room, I'm like a 25 minute walk from the other girls apartment. Gonna try to get a room change or something. I have met friends here though, so if I can't move then it's okay.
9. Blog name was inspired by the girls. We always say "Mind that time....?" and "Awoohoo!" Keepin' it relevant. :)

I have probably missed a lot from this, it has been a busy week and there's no way I can remember everything. But I promise I will try to write at least every few days, and if I don't, then remind me. Leave me a comment on Facebook or something.

And because I've always wanted to say this.....

Peace out.