None

So it has been exactly one week since I've arrived. Everything is falling into place-- the only thing I need now is my money o_o

Yep-- apparently it takes 3-6 weeks for student loans to be disbursed into a UK bank account. Which means I'll be surviving off my dwindling American funds for a month and a half, right? Well, not necessarily. The university has had this same problem every year with international student funds, and finally they decide to do something about it this time around (lucky for me). This entails allowing us to take out a pre-loan-disbursement £800 cheque (that's how they spell check over here, yanks), which still takes until October 7 to get here. Which I guess is better than 3-6 weeks. At this point, I'll have paid for 4 months worth of rent out of my own pocket, which I shouldn't have to do. Should I get back at them by blowing my loan money on travel? Not wise. Maybe it's a good thing that I'm spending all my American moolah first, so I have less to pay back to the US Dept of Education later. Very wise.

Okay, enough about that. Nobody wants to hear my funding problems, right? I bet you all want to hear about culture and the city and nights on the town! Well... I haven't had any nights out yet. I'm kind of wary about the safety of my neighborhood and I don't like to go walking anywhere after dark as of yet. I mean, every road has streetlights, unlike Ohio, but still. There are dark alleyways and corners and things, and sometimes when I'm walking by them I imagine this ghoulish creep in a long black overcoat swooping out to capture me and take me back to his lair. Maybe I'm thinking of the phantom of the opera. And if that's the case, then it would be incredibly cool to be snatched up into oblivion.

The other day, Jana and I went on a tour of Ancient Leicester, led by an eccentrically-dressed fellow with a flowery umbrella and that scatterbrained dialect of the old-fashioned academicals, who know so much about one subject that they don't know where to start. The tour went on for a good 3 hours, partially because the veteran student who was supposed to lead us to the tour got hopelessly lost trying to find a bridge by Castle Gardens, so we had to retrace our steps a few times.

The tour itself was pretty good-- our first stop was the quickest, which was unfortunate because it was also the most interesting-- a 12th century church where Geofferey Chaucer was married. First of all, when I hear things like that: 'Chaucer was married in this very church!' I get this glaze over my eyes and for a minute I see the world as I imagine it must have been like in the 1100s, and let me tell you-- it was really, really cool. Life was so much tougher back then, but when the sun shone, you could find some peace and write a ballad or two. Ah, romance.

As we snaked along the old foundation of the castle, most of it long gone, we soon grew weary of having nothing to see but one old brick from 1260, or trying to imagine a Roman bridge where a modern overpass now stands. We saw a bronze plaque, long greened, commemorating Richard III, which read that his body had been dumped in this very river! (all speculation, of course). It was a nice day, anyway, and I enjoyed my trip to the bathroom where I suddenly emerged onto an 18th century road when taking a wrong turn inside the museum building. The road itself is protected within the walls of the museum, and there were storefronts and everything stretched across 2 room-lengths. Jana missed it because she didn't have to pee.

So I was growing antsy, having promised to meet a friend I'd met last time I was in Leicester and the tour was running later and later. I hurried to the Jewry Wall museum, where I looked around at Roman bath artifacts until Philip arrived on the scene. I was surprised I recognized him as soon as I did, considering our friendship has mainly been internet-based for the past 2 years and I know I've changed quite a bit since then... my hair was very long and frizzy (perm) and I didn't wear glasses back then (this was pre-The Egypt Trip That Caused a Resistance to Contacts). We walked to the city centre and I had a traditional English breakfast (sans meat, of course).

Would you like to know what a traditional English breakfast looks like? Here, I'll describe it to you. Think of a long plate, and each side dish is in its own little pile. We've got white-bread toast with plenty of butter; sliced, fried potatoes; baked beans (yes, these are eaten for breakfast); one crisp tomato, cut in half; cooked mushrooms; and plenty of brown sauce. When Philip asked me if I knew what brown sauce was, I said I'd try some and see, and it turned out to be A1 steak sauce. Apparently they put this stuff on everything, but I did not. Anyway, the breakfast usually also comes with sausage links and bacon (not as crispy as American bacon, and cut thick and squareish), but I had the vegetarian option.

Yep, still going strong with the semi-vegetarianism. I say semi- because I guess a true vegetarian does not eat seafood... but I can't give up that yummy sushi! Mmmhh... sushi.

So Philip and I had a good time. After breakfast-dinner, we went to the library and walked around a bit, and we're going to hang out again on Saturday. Maybe I should invite Jana along this time? I think they would get along.

By the way, I love Jana's roommates, Tom and Sonya. Tom is really laid back; he's related to Harry Potter, has a girlfriend from Wales (whoa!), and informed me of the fell walking society (translation: hiking club) at the university, and I think I will join in on that one. Sonya is from Germany-- Bavaria, in fact-- and of course she knows all about the Neuschwanstein castle (translation: new swan stone-- we spent a nice long time trying to pronounce it last night). Her English is a little rough, but of course she will get a lot better in a very short amount of time, as they all do-- and she has a thing against cheese.

It rained all day yesterday, so we introduced Tom to the Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup dinner. It was great.

Oh, and if you would like a quick update about my roommates, I still haven't really gotten to know them, but that's not because I'm unsocial, it's because two of them have already started a really grueling course and they're at the university half the time and the other half they're cooped up in their rooms, studying. Oh, but I find traces of them in the kitchen (particularly Michelle, I suspect-- I hear the Irish are messy, lol!) but nothing to pull my hair out over. I have to resign myself to living a little messier I guess... no student is quite as much of a clean freak as I am... I should have known that going in, though.

Becky is on a similar course as Jana, and her classes haven't started yet, either. She's very nice-- I see her in the kitchen every now and then and we chat it up nicely, if not a little shyly. I think once she warms up to me, we'll be friends. :P

I wish one of the roomies could have been a guy though, just to even it out :P As you all know, I'm not much of an all-girls girl.

Well, okay, long post. But I'm bored in the university library waiting for Orange (my phone service) to send a security code to my phone so I can enter it in the computer to get my balance and such online. It takes SO damn long though-- I figure it's been about 45 minutes now, or as long as I've been typing this up. I've tried to get this code several times before, and it always seem to come right after I get offline, and of course once you click the Orange screen off, you're finished. You can't re-enter a security code, you have to sign up for a new one and wait another 45 minutes. What a pain! Jana doesn't have this problem with her phone. She got to sign up for online updates right away.

Okay, so! Busy week ahead! Monday I'm getting a bank account and meeting with a prof about a project, and next Thursday is the first day of my course-- yippee! Study study study. I hope I'll have some free time, with which to run and fell-walk.

Peace!