I continue to be surprised about things here in England. One of the most notable is the weather. Everyone told me it would be rainy and gross every day in England, but so far we've been lucky enough to have some awesome weather. Both days of our excursions were sunny and beautiful. And yesterday it was so nice that Jocelyn, Ashley and I took our books for our British Writers class outside and laid on the grass next to the football pitches. Then we went and watched a match between our friends from Lady Openshaw and the first football team here on the Edge Hill Campus. Our lads got beaten pretty badly, but it was still fun to watch a somewhat "proper" match.

Yesterday in class we started talking about English poetry, and the way it changed from romantic to modern. I'm not really a fan of poetry, but it was interesting to talk about how the class system was so prevalent in British culture and how a poem about a girl working alone in a field would be considered a subject beneath poetic importance. I'm glad we've gotten beyond that, for the most part.

I love hanging out with all of my new friends here. I feel like even though we haven't known each other for very long, we all just kind of click. I know I've made friends that I'm going to keep in touch with when this program is over. It's so fun getting to meet other Americans from different parts of the country, as well as all the British people we've met. I'm glad we feel so comfortable with each other. We go out at night a lot as a big group, and it's basically the same as it is back home. The only main differences I can think of are one good, one bad. The good is that you don't tip the bartenders here. Ever. The bad is that English people don't like to dance that much, at least not as much as we do back home. But other than that, it's always fun, and the lads look out for all of us.

We're going to Haworth tomorrow, so that should be fun. I love when we go on day trips. I think I'm most looking forward to going to the Lake District, since I've seen pictures and it's just absolutely beautiful. I need to start taking more pictures. I always get so caught up the moment that I don't even think about documenting it, even though I'll probably regret it later.

I like how easygoing people here are. Mostly the younger crowd. It's so fun to be able to talk to people my age about our cultural differences openly. The British sense of humor is more sarcastic than ours, but the boys and the girls are very sweet. We like to be affronted when we find out the other doesn't know about a certain thing, like when they found out we Americans had never heard of the card game snap before. We tease each other, but it's all in good fun. We like to imitate their accents, which they think is funny, and they want to know what parties are like in America. I like to think we are learning from each other, and the differences between us are getting smaller as we understand each other more.