Garden Walks and Peacocks

First full day yeah! It's been a blast, but first a quick re-cap from yesterday:

Arrived at the airport with a gaggle of eager first years to return to their castle life (Queen's University offers a year abroad at the Castle for first years before they actually study at Queen's). At least they had obviously enjoyed their first semester, and were clearly anticipating more fun times, so this was somewhat reassuring. However, Gaeby and I looked around wondering where all the Upper Year students were...

We signed in with Jeff who has blue hair and was wearing a Queen's leather jacket (you know the ones). Then we boarded a bus, passed out on the ride and missed all the cute quaint villages - but hey it was 4 am Toronto time and we'd slept about 2 hours on the plane...thanks to that %*#!ing baby...so we were exhausted. I woke up once to hear our British bus driver yell "Hello you ignorant cow.....I SAID HELLO YOU IGNORANT COW......I SAID.....HELLO YOU IGNORANT COW. YES IGNORANT COW...AND A DEAF COW". Hahahah I love the British. Oh, he was talking into his headset device, I'm guessing it was to the driver in the bus behind us. His name is Leigh.

We arrived at the gate. We drove past the gate. We drove up the lain. There were trees on either side of the road, rolling hills ahead, stunning....but just one problem...where the eff was the Castle? Gaeby and I crained our necks all around. Maybe the whole Castle thing was just a sham to get kids out into the english countryside and really it was some kind of slave labour...or maybe we'd pass by a shoulder-high board picture of the castle, one that we could pose beside...and that was it, because we all know pictures can be deceiving. I mean really, we should have seen it by then. IT'S A CASTLE, hard to miss. However, just as our nervous laughter was getting a little out of control, we spotted it through the trees. There it was!!! Herstmonceux Castle, dating back to the 15th C, and we were going to spend four months here. Holy Moly. I think everyone on the bus glowed a bit when it came into full view. Someone started clapping (lame).

Then we drove past the Castle and up the lain towards our residence building. It's about a four minute walk from the Castle. We don't actually board there, we just eat meals, take classes, attend events, drink at the pub, you know...stuff. Gaeby and I are roommates, which I'm really happy about for two reasons. One, she's my friend. Two, she's super organized and makes really good plans ahead. She led the way to our room, which I would never have found on my own. After dumping our stuff in the room and gushing over the gorgeous English countryside view from our first floor window, we set off for lunch, which is in the Dining Hall of the Castle. There's a secret code you have to punch into the door in order for it to open, and I can't tell you or else they'll throw me into the moat. Ok maybe they won't do that, but it's a secret. For obvious reasons. Did I mention there's a moat? With ducks and giant dog-sized goldfish.

Somehow we managed to stay awake until dinner, although we were kept busy with campus tours and floor meetings. Still, I felt like a zombie. At dinner we sat with some new friends, including but not limited to Laura, Natalie, Kierstin, and Tracy. After dins we went back to our room to unpack and move in. I had an hour long power nap. Then we went to the Castle's Pub, which was the Happening Place that evening (and is possibly every evening). It's called the Headless Drummer's Pub. Cute!! There's a story about that...

A brief anecdote concerning the name of the Castle's pub:
According to Jeff with blue hair, the Castle saw a period of abandonment some time before WWI. So some smugglers used it as a base to hide their goods. A tax collector started getting a little too curious about the constant traffic in the area, so the smugglers started dressing as a headless drummer and stood outside at the top of one of the towers beating a drum. They also say there's a ghost of a headless drummer that still haunts the Castle to this very day...but that's just silly. Ghosts don't exist.              .........

SO in our girl group we shared a couple pitchers of GLOSCH beer and played Never Have I Ever. Needless to say we are now best friends. Kidding. But we know a lot of dirty secrets about each other, which always brings girls together...or tears them apart. Heh. Then when the beer was gone we all went back to my and Gaeby's room and sang along to music videos from our childhood, specifically Shaggy's "Wusn't Me".

It was a Good Night. OH here at night you can see so many starts, it's beautiful. Specifically Orion and his Belt.

Ok, I'm too tired to write about today. Not much happened really, just more tours and orientation. We made a friend who is in first year, so he's been here for a couple months already, and he showed us where the peacocks are kept. His name is Chris. A stroll through the Castle gardens brought us to the coop with about five male peacocks, eight babies of mixed sex, and one female. Go figure. They are let out sometimes and just stroll around the grounds. Can this place get any cooler? Oh yeah, there's also a Butterfly Garden, but the gate was locked.

Here is a picture of a peacock, and also a fun slanty picture of the Castle. It was sunny today, yesssss, but we've been told not to get used to it. Poop.

CLASSES START TOMORROW WOOOOO AND MINES AT 8:30am WOOOOO

P.S. There are about 120 first years and maybe 10 returning upper year students, and about 30 of us nooby upper years. Super small!! In my 8:30am class tomorrow, I am one of three students.