http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Brit-Girl/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Brit Girl en-us Thu, 24 Dec 2009 02:58:29 +0000 Thu, 24 Dec 2009 02:58:29 +0000 My plans to go to a friend8217s for thanksgiving unfortunately fell through and so spent the weekend on campus. Luckily enough however my friend Anna also stayed here and so one crisp autumn Sunday afternoon we went for a walk into Coots Paradise the nature reserve adjacent to the campus.We followed a path behind one of the residences into the woods and down to the lake. Now I8217d heard http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Canada/Ontario/Hamilton/McMaster-University/blog-338963.html So as some of you have pointed out in one case repeatedly thanks I haven8217t actually written that much since welcome week. The reason for this is simple not that much has happened. I am living in a country where students actually work. Where people will choose homework over going out. Where pretty much everyone goes home for the weekend. Coming from a country where procrastination is con http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Canada/Ontario/Hamilton/McMaster-University/blog-334000.html Before we got to Canada some of the exchange students and I had decided to go and see a baseball game the Toronto Blue Jays vs. the Boston Red Sox. In the end because the stadium was in Toronto itself we decided to make a weekend of it. Due to the fact I had a field trip and some others had lab classes on Friday afternoon we split up. Alex Natalie and I were to get a lift into Toronto later http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Canada/Ontario/Toronto/blog-330621.html So Thursday came and with it came classes. Somehow in all the madness of the first few days I8217d managed to forget about the whole work side of Uni the real reason why I was here. Every building at Mac has an acronym so asking for directions made me sound like some sort Bond girl. My Thursday timetable said I was in TSH BSB MDCL and PC. Not only that but every building has a ridiculous n http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Canada/Ontario/Hamilton/McMaster-University/blog-329216.html Everyday on the wall by the main doors to the building the reps put up a poster showing the day8217s activities list. On Wednesday8217s written besides 3pm6pm after the clubs fest and before the pj parade were written the two magic words we8217d been longing to hear all week 8220Free Time8221. So after going around the campus and signing up for all the groups we wanted to we http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Canada/Ontario/Hamilton/McMaster-University/blog-327737.html Tuesday faculty day and because I was being a first year that week it meant I was in social science. Woo We all arrived at the football field in our blue tshirts and had to register. Here we were given a coloured headband and told our team name. You would have thought these would have been fairly simple like Team A Team 4 or even Team Light Green. It wasn8217t. For some reason the organis http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Canada/Ontario/Hamilton/McMaster-University/blog-327344.html I8217m not sure if I mentioned this before but Mac likes cheering. And the annual 8220Bed Race8221 is the focal point for this. An hour before the race we had a Pep Rally. Everyone from our halls met up outside and we literally covered ourselves in purple paint from head to toe writing Bates on any skin available. Whilst doing this we practised our cheers learnt even more and generally http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Canada/Ontario/Hamilton/McMaster-University/blog-327309.html We were awoken at a ridiculous time Sunday morning by the reps shouting and banging on our door. We all dressed in our purple Bates tshirts and they took us all down to the student centre where I had my first Canadian pancakes. Having been told by far too many people that Canadian pancakes are the nicest in the world I was pretty excited. They were obviously nothing like 8220real8221 panc http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Canada/Ontario/Hamilton/McMaster-University/blog-323312.html As the plane started to descend below the clouds we could see Canada properly for the first time. It was really really flat Any height was given by buildings like the CN Tower although there was a whopping great lake. I knew Lake Ontario was huge but I'd never imagined it to be that big. At first I thought it was the horizon but as the plane tilted in to land I realised that I could see Ameri http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Canada/Ontario/Hamilton/McMaster-University/blog-318700.html Roughly two years ago I was sitting in a hot crowded and rather small lecture theatre. I was 17 and being told that I had the opportunity to go live and study in another country for 8 months. At that moment in time this was the first university I'd ever been in and this was just a visit on an open day. The prospects of living in another part of the country without my parents didn't yet seem re http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/West-Midlands/Solihull/blog-294615.html