Scotland, Ireland, Sweden oh my!

So it is now only 19 days till I go back home to the US for the holidays, and only a month and a half till I go back to Quest. Wales has been amazing. I have gotten to study AND travel around. I've learned that study abroad is more about the education you reach from a different institute; it's more about the experience you have living in a new culture. I can't even describe the culture here in Wales. It is different than anything I would have imagined! Everything about them is so funny; their accents, their sayings, their hobbies (i.e. rugby.... the equivalent to Canadians and curling), their mannerisms, everything! Wales is definitely a great place!
So I thought I'd share some of their ridiculously funny quotes and their translations into North American talk.

- "Who's having kittens?" - "Who is nervous?"
- "I'm going to sit in your grave." - "I'm going to take your seat when you stand up."
- "Are you okay?" - "How are you?" (This one drove me insane for at least 2 months!)
- "A fortnight ago" - "2 weeks ago"

When I think of more, I'll post them. But OMG these were soooo funny to hear. Everytime someone said them, I have to pause a second, think, and be like "wait, what?."

Two of my most memorable experiences here were when I got to visit Edinburgh, Scottland and Galway, Ireland with a group of international students. Here are a few pics:

Edinburgh, Scotland

Galway, Ireland:









I also got to go visit Damalie, a fellow Quester, in Malmo, Sweden where she is doing a study abroad. I was sooo happy to see another person from Quest. It made it feel like home! :)

Wales!

I just finished my orientation weeks here in Wales, and I am loving it here. However, I do miss all my friends and classmates back in Squamish who are just finishing their first block of the year.

I'm here is Wales with a fellow Quester, Adrienne and I must say that I am happy to be experiencing this new culture with a friend. So far, we have seen many places in Wales and are starting to integrate with the Welsh students.

We start classes on Monday and unlike at Quest, I will be taking four classes at once! I'm kinda nervous to manage such a crazy schedule but I think I'll get the hang of it. I will be taking The Healthy Child, Human Development, Exercise and Special Populations, and Introduction to Web Design (an elective yay!). Another difference in this school is how they distribute their grades. At Quest, we always have something due for each class whether that is a paper, readings, or a presentation. But here, your grade is based on one massive paper at the end of the semester for each course! Some of them split the grade with a mid-term assessment in the middle of the course. It's definitely going to be a challenge for me to plan my time so I do not procrastinate till the end of the semester, leaving me with four 4,000 page papers to write at once! (I don't think I have ever wrote a paper that long in my life!) But I am very excited to jump into classes and learn all about these topics. I'm also excited to learn more about the Welsh culture and history and meet more students!

I'll keep you posted! :)

Senior Year!

OMG, is it really my 4th year at Quest already?!?! That went by soooo fast! Wow!

As all the new students and returning students begin the new semester, I am sitting at home in Colorado awaiting my travels to Carmarthen, Wales, UK. That's right....I'm going to be studying abroad at one of Quest's partner institutions, University of Wales Trinity Saint David (and I though Quest University Canada was a long name, gosh!).

So I hope all of the students up at Quest are enjoying the new year, and I'll continue to keep you posted about my experience abroad!


:)

Block 5 - SCHOOL'S BACK IN SESSION!

Back to school! Yay! I can't believe I'm saying that. No, but seriously, I am so excited to be back in school and to see all my fellow questers swarming the campus. It's so nice to everyone's smiling faces again :) .

And I'm taking Intro to Psych! Yay! I've been waiting all year to take this course. And so far, I'm loving it! I absolutely love Megan, the tutor of the course. She's so full of energy and happiness. It makes coming to class everyday so enjoyable.

I'm learning some interesting things as well. For example, did you know that humans aren't biologically suppose to live spicy foods? Yep! It's true. We like it because many psychological and social reasons. For one thing, it challenges us to test how much we can handle. Also, many cultures believed that certain spices protected them from certain diseases. And, it also gives us endorphins which make us happy. You can bet that I'll be writing more about this one on my nutrition blog :).

I love how everyone in my class is so interested in the discussions. It's crazy how everyone thinks of things differently. There never seems to be a time in class where someone doesn't have their hand raised. I love hearing about other people opinions and experiences. It really helps open my mind to new perspectives.

I'll keep you posted about what else is happening in class. But for now, I must finish my homework.....ah homework, how much I didn't miss you over the break. hahaha. Just kidding, I'm enjoying challenging my brain. :)

Au revior Olympics!

I can't believe it's already over! These last few weeks have gone by sooooooo fast!!!!! It's unbelievable. I'm really going to miss all the excitement and the community atmosphere around here. It was so much fun!

And congrats to Canada for winning 14 gold! That's the most any country has EVER won in one year at the Winter Olympics. Yay!

And congrats to Canada for beating the US in hockey. As much as it hurts for me to say it, I am so happy they won. It was awesome to see them win in their home country. But I must say, the US played SUPER LOUSY! That's right, I said lousy! I was so unbelievably upset at how they played. It was super funny though, I had never gotten that deep into a hockey game before. Wow! I was like one of those crazy fans screaming at the tv screen. hahaha. It was a close game though.

One thing I really loved about the game was how the US and Canada were rivals from the start. But they weren't enemy rivals, it was more like friendly rivals. Even when Canada was playing against a different team in the Semi-finals, you could see tons of US fans in the stands, cheering Canada on. It was great!

After the game, I was walking downtown Squamish, looking for a bite to eat, and you wouldn't believe all the celebrating that was going on. People honking their horns, waving Canadian flags, shouting from their windows. It was insane! I had never seen anything like that happen with hockey before. I was so happy to be in Canada at that point. And as much as I was disappointed that the US lost, I was still super happy Canada won. It was a really weird feeling actually. I never thought I would be so torn between two countries. But of course, my home country will always be the team I root for the most. But if we had to lose to any team, I'm so happy it was Canada!

But now that The Games are over, I want to start planning a visit to the next Olympic Games. hahaha. These past two weeks were something I had never experienced before. It's hard to describe how amazing it was. It was like everyone's lives here in Squamish, Vancouver, and Whistler (as well as all the visitors) were put on hold and cheering on the athletes and celebrating became priority. It made me re-evaluate what is important in life and how I want to live my life after I graduate. It definitely was an unbelievable experience!

I can't believe school starts on Monday. I'm so excited to see everyone again and to start thinking academically again. I was just talking to my roommate the other day about how our brains are lacking the feeling of overwhelming fullness from studying and how we can't wait to feel it once again. Hahaha. It's kind of weird that we are so excited to learn again. It's definitely one of those things that you don't realize you enjoy until you don't have it anymore.

....What a great break! :)

Never Say Never

Some things we don't talk about
Rather do without
And just hold the smile
Falling in and out of love
Ashamed and proud of
Together all the while

You can never say never
While we don't know when
Time, time, time again
Younger now than we were before
-The Fray :)

So Tuesday night after I got off work, my friend Ian and I hopped on a bus to Whistler to go see The Fray after the Victory Ceremony. Before doing so, we stopped by my new favorite snack shop Booster Juice which just opened down the hill in the new Garibaldi Shopping Center (OMG, I think I have a new addiction!!).

The village was frosted with christmas lights. It made it feel all festive and exciting, almost as if you were walking in a winter wonderland (now I'm going to have that song stuck in my head for the rest of the day!).I was so surprised when we got in to the event center right away. I mean, hello, it's THE FRAY! But I'm not complaining. I was so happy to see them! Another fabulous band from DENVER, COLORADO! That's right! Colorado is awesome! hahaha (now I'm just being a little to full of myself!). No, but really, I was so unbelievable happy that I was able to see them. I never thought I would be able to. Every time they come to Denver, they are sold out within 5 minutes of the box offices opening so I never get to see them. So this was very special for me.



And afterward, we watched a little bit of the fire and ice show that Whistler puts on every night where snowboards jump through hoops of fire and do really cool tricks. It was a lot of fun. It was kinda hard to get picture of it though, seeing how it was night time. We also stopped by our favorite ice cream parlor Cows to get a late night treat before heading back onto the bus.



I can't believe the Olympics are almost over. I have had so much fun in the past few weeks that I hate to see it end. But I am really excited to see all my fellow Questers again in a week and a half and to hear about all the adventures they got up to during the break.

:)

Stop and Stare!

Imaging sleeping in (which I haven't done in so long), snowboarding for 4 hours on smooth, white snow while enjoying the warm sunshine (I didn't fall once! :) ), and then spending the rest of the night rocking out to a band from your hometown. My Sunday was bliss!



The slopes were so nice! The runs weren't too crowded and there was hardly any ice. On the way up the gondola, I could see the winding blue bobsled track in between Whistler and Blackcomb mountain.

Have you ever had a really good conversation with a complete stranger? Well, it seems to happen to me all the time for some reason, especially when I'm riding the gondola up the mountain. Sunday was no exception. I met this dentist, originally from Vancouver but living in Los Angeles, who was here enjoying the Olympics (he was going to the bobsled event later that day, coincidentally). We were talking about both of our experiences studying abroad. He had studied in Italy and South Africa and now was going back to school in France. We talked about how much a person learns by studying in a foreign country and how it's funny that so many people are scared to do so because of the differences in lifestyle from country to country. He told me, "People are people; they all want to be friendly no matter where in the world they live." It reminded me of how great Quest is and how we welcome people from all over the world into our community. And also how it's part of our curriculum to study abroad and to learn about different cultures and perspectives of life. It was so nice to talk to someone that had been in a similar situation as myself and being able to reflect on what life is really about. I love conversations like that.

The day continued to go well. Snowboarding was such a blast. I don't know why but that day, I felt like some super power had come over me; I wasn't scared of anything. You should have seen me! I was flying down the mountain with no worries or fears. I was Super Jenny! hahaha. And I surprisingly had no epic wipe-outs. Thank gosh!

There's nothing like seeing people from your hometown to make you feel proud of the place you came from. On Sunday, I went up to Whistler to go see the band OneRepublic who are originally from Colorado. It made me so happy to see them showing Whistler how amazing people from Colorado are (even though there are plenty of greats bands not from Colorado, I just like showing my Colorado pride). It was such a great show!

And I finally got some decent pictures of the Victory Ceremony. Check them out!



Please excuse my terrible hair-do. I had helmet hair. hahahaha. What can you do?

Whistler Village!!

Before the Olympics began, I thought it was funny that the motto was Vancouver 2010 because I thought most of the skiing and snowboarding events would take place in Whistler and that Whistler would be the main place for the Olympic Games. However, I took a visit up there yesterday and was shocked to see that there was not nearly as much celebration going on as there was in Vancouver. But there was definitely more going on there then in Squamish.



To start out, I have to say that it was a B-E-A-utiful day! The weather was amazing. I took the bus (a double-decker bus, in fact. Who would have ever thought there would be a double-decker bus in Squamish? hahaha). It didn't take too long to get to Whistler either. Before the Games started, all the locals were concerned that there was going to be so much traffic because of all the tourists and VANOC employees but the bus got there in the same amount of time it would normally take if I was driving.

Just as I reached the steps of the village after getting off the bus, I heard this huge cheer. I rushed down the stairs, almost tripping over my feet, to see if there was an event happening on Whistler Mountain. When, I ran past the ticket booth, I saw a crowd of people cheering....at a tv. hahaha. There was a huge bigscreen tv right next to the gondola showing the games. They were all cheering for there fellow Canadian Maelle Ricker who was competing in the Women's Snowboard Cross event(she ended up taking the Gold yay). It was a funny sight to see for sure. :)


I got there about noon, thinking that the village would be packed with people, just as I saw downtown Vancouver. But to my surprise, it wasn't at all. There were still more people than there normally would be in the middle of the day on a Wednesday but not nearly as much as I had imagined.

While walking around the village, I passed by many tv's showing different events. CTV had a booth where they were interviewing some of the Canadian athletes after their competitions. Me and my friend actually got to be in the background of one of the interviews. If I find it on youtube, I'll definitely post it. But OMG, we were complete dorks! We were making funny faces and trying to act like starstruck tourists. It was a lot of fun. hahahah!

During the day, there wasn't that much going on. We just walked around the village, watching the events, and enjoying the nice weather. While walking around, we bumped into a group of French tourist, all dressed up all patriotically. We made sure to get a picture with them. J'aime France!


The real excitement started to happen when The Barenaked Ladies took the stage. I had no idea that they were planning on playing at the Olympics, but it was a fabulous surprise. And best of all, it was FREE! Yup, I didn't pay a dime. They are such funny people. It was great. They were making fun of the name "Whistler". Wow! I guess there are just one of the many free concerts going on during the Olympics. You can bet that I will be spending much more time up there in the next few weeks. hahaha.

Just following the concert, Ian and I were lucky enough to get free tickets into the Victory Ceremony. That's right...FREE! :) I found out that every night, there are standby tickets where people can line up outside the venue and if there are any available seats, they will give them to people for free. It was awesome.

The Victory Ceremony was AMAZING! Of course my camera's battery died just as I was taking the first photo so I had to settle for the camera on my phone. And it was perfect, the first ceremony was for the Ladies Downhill Skiing, in which gold and silver went to the USA. So I got to hear my own national anthem. It was really cool. I also got to hear the Canadian and Russian national anthem for the other event ceremonies. At the end of each of the Victory Ceremonies there is a concert by a big-named band to finish off the night. When I was there, it was Our Lady Peace. I didn't stay very long because the event that I had been waiting all day to see was going on at the same time.

One thing that a lot of people don't know about me is that I am a HUGE Shaun White fan. Who is Shaun White you ask? Well, he is only like the most amazing snowboarder in the World. His nickname is The Flying Tomato hahaha. Anyway...he was competing in the Mens Halfpipe Snowboarding event at the same time as the concert. So once the Metal Ceremonies were finished, we ran through the village to the closest tv showing the Halfpipe Snowboarding. We got to one just in the nick of time, for Shaun White went on just 3 minutes after we arrived. And OMG, let me tell you....SHAUN WHITE WAS AMAZING!!! I was so proud! He blew everyone away and took Gold without any hesitation. It was like he had no competition. It was a great way to end the night. I only wish I would have seen him compete live. Oh well. It was fun standing with a group of people (mostly guys hahaha) cheering at the tv screen.

Overall, Whistler was loads of fun! It was definitely a great day. I saw the list of concerts going on for the next week and a half up there and I know I'll be going back up at least two more times (for The Fray and OneRepublic....both from my home town of DENVER!).

VANCOUVER 2010!

Standing in the small quiet Squamish town
You'd never know all that was going down
Just 45 minutes south in the city
The crowds and events making the streets all pretty

Hahahaha...what a lame poem. Well at least I tried (mental note...stick to the sciences hahahaha)

On Sunday, my friend Ian and I went down to Vancouver to see all the events that were happening downtown. The weather was great, the roads had no traffic. The day started out great. As we enter the city from the Lion's Gate Bridge, we were welcomed with a few people smiling and holding Happy Valentine's Day posters. It filled my heart with happiness and joy.



We started our day by GM Place and the Edgewater Casino, right next to chinatown. Since it happened to be Chinese New Years as well, there was a huge celebration happening right in front of the casino. There was a huge stage with local bands, a farmers market, and booths full of free stuff you could win.





On our way over to downtown, we passed by many Olympic Venues and tourist attractions. One of the coolest things I saw while walking around was this huge sphere sculpture that had the word Welcome written in all different kinds of languages. There were also different "houses" for different countries. We didn't get to see all of them but we did get to see the Irish house and the German house as well as seeing a museum for the first nations of Canada. They were all really awesome!



Walking down Granville St. was when we finally got to see the popularity of the events. The streets were PACKED! But they were packed with excitement. Giant art sculptures and Olympic photo booths lit up the pathway on Granville St, all very colorful and fun.











Robson Street was the place to be! All the roads intersecting were closed off so that it created a pedestrian walk way. There were people everywhere! But it wasn't like the unpleasant crowded feeling that you experience at concerts. Everyone was in good spirits! People were waving flags from their home countries, watching street performers, checking out the local musicians, and overall enjoying themselves.










As we were walking down Robson, we came across this street performer name Dom-o-mite...or something cheesy like that. With his multi-colored hair, tattooed arms, and bright orange socks, he preformed some really cool balancing and juggling tricks (Even one where he balances a bicycle from his mouth!). He had to be one of the funnest street preforms I had ever seen. His jokes were about everyday things, not like other performers who seem to use variations of jokes used in the past. What was really cool was that he chose Ian as one of his assistants in the show. The entire time he was bashing on Ian for being American but it was all in good fun. hahaha.




Also, while walking down Robson, we came across a street performer painted in bronze paint, trying to disguise herself as a statue. I wiggled my way through the crowd surrounding her to get a quick pic :)



We ended the day seeing the Olympic Flame which laid beautifully along the coast of the city. Seeing the flame up close was like a dream come true. And knowing that it came all the way from Greece just blew my mind.




Overall, visiting Vancouver really made the Olympics feel like they were actually happening. It's funny how little we hear about the events happening, other than what is said on the tv and radio. It made me realize how quite and peaceful it is in Squamish and how little people are celebrating. It was great to see people from all over the world having such a great time. And Vancouver (or more of BC) has become my second home so I was so happy to see all the people enjoying our city. :)

Later this week I am heading to Whistler to see all the excitement that is going on up there. I even might attend one of the events. Yay!

Let the Games Begin!

So Friday night was the Olympic's Opening Ceremony and unfortunately, I was scheduled to work at Panago Pizza.

So here's how my Friday night looked....

Ding, dong

(door opens)

Me: Hi! (With a huge smile) How's your night going?
Costumer: Pretty good. Just watching the Open Ceremony.
Me: Oh really? How's that going?
Costumer: Yeah! It's very beautiful!
Me: That's great! Well, enjoy your pizza and the ceremony. Have a good night!
Costumer: You too. :)

(door closes)

Times this by 24 and that's how my night went.

No but to be honest, I had so much fun delivering pizza during the opening ceremony. Every house I went to there was either a family or a group of friend surrounding the TV enjoying the dances and music of the ceremony. It was kind of a community bonding event. It was like everyone in Squamish was so excited and proud to be hosting the Winter Games. And I kind of got to hear about the whole thing. Every house I went to would fill me in on what was happening when I arrived. Everyone was in such a great mood. It was fantastic!

And my boss at Panago put up a big screen TV on the wall of the restaurant so locals could stop by and watch the games. It definitely caught there eyes because it was packed! And there were so many deliveries as well. I was hoping that when I wasn't delivering, I would be able to catch a bit of the games while back at the restaurant but every time I walked through the door, they were handing me two to three more deliveries. hahaha. O well. I plan to watch the rerun on youtube some time this week. But from what I hear, or heard 1000 time from the costumers, it was absolutely amazing.