"What, the curtains?"

Week one of class is over! It was a whirlwind of finding buildings, checking out books, and finalizing schedules, but I survived. I'm enrolled in Global Englishes, Origins and Evolution of Language, and Education- Learning, Socialisation, and Lifespan Development, along with our Pomona class (which luckily we haven't heard anything about lately- fingers crossed for it being forgotten about!). My Education class had a fun workshop on Friday where we were finally put into smaller groups and had a bit of discussion. I do miss Pomona education. But huge lectures are an interesting change.

On Thursday afternoon, after 10 hours of straight rain, Alex and I went to our first meeting with the SocieTEA and tried some oolong, chrysanthemum, black, and floral teas. It was a lovely little tea party with very interesting people. We were given types of tea on little cards and told to design cards based on them. As you can see (mine's the Iron Goddess, Alex's is White Money), I'm majoring in art:

The Bad News: One of my flatmates withdrew from school and moved back home... She didn't like what she was studying, and they wouldn't let her switch to the other department, so she's going to take a gap year. It'll be strange to get a new flatmate, but I do think it was for the best for her.

The Good News: She left us a ton of food! Including some genuinely Scottish stuff that I've been scared to buy on my own. Thanks, Lauren.

They do a lot of canned potatoes here. And Heinz is everywhere... though Lauren is the only person I know who buys the kids' versions of their Spaghettios. And the Ryvita's claim to be a British classic.

Luckily, the weather turned magnificent for us today, as it was our Pomona group day trip up to the Southern Highlands! Alex and I had seen some of the same scenery the week before, but the beautiful green hills don't get boring, and I always love me endless fields of sheep. Plus, it was great to be back with all our friends! We'd gotten pretty close as a group during our orientation weeks and hadn't seen each other in a week or two.

We took a beautiful hike through the mossy woods of Comrie. Tom and his partner Jim kept up their usual banter of correcting each other after every historical fact, we all snapped pictures of each other, admired the fungi and ferns, and got our feet disgustingly muddy. Good to be back to old times!

Alex on her merry way

Apparently the valley looks like a place for witches to brew their concoctions..

Me and Chris at the top of the hill

A group of guys hunting grouse! I've never seen a bird fall out of the sky like that before...

This part looked like the jungle from The Land Before Time

After our hike, we deserved a delicious lunch. We stopped at this very cute sandwich shop in the picturesque town of Comrie, and got classic Scottish pastries for dessert! I can't say that Scottish desserts are my favorite, but they sure are buttery.

Triple chocolate shortbread!

On our drive back, we stopped at Doune Castle. Look familiar?

This is the castle where they filmed Monty Python and the Holy Grail!
"What, the curtains?"

All in all, I'd call that a very successful few days.