Last Celebrations

The past week has been an absolute whirlwind. There has been a lot of celebrating (whether it is because I am leaving and they are finally rid of me or because they actually enjoyed me too, I'm not really sure), but nonetheless, a lot of good times have been had this past week. Between "finishing up" my essays, taking my ONE final exam, and beginnging the packing process, celebreation was a necessary conclusion to all of the chaos.

The beginning of my mass exit started on Wednesday. In true, English Uni tradition (Anytime a group is celebrating something, like a birthday, they all dress up like it's halloween to go out to the pubs and clubs. "Fancy Dress" is not "dressed up" as it would probably be interpretted in the States, but more costumes. Some popular ones include schoolies, golfers, beach theme, football fans, musical groups (like Spice Girls that we did for Jess's birthday) or even flags (like we did for one of the American's birthdays a few weeks ago)), we showed our celebration via "fancy dress" though, because most of us didn't want to go out and buy legitimate costumes, we kept it pretty simple. Most of the girls got sparkly masks and made super hero's with them. Flat 62 simplified fancy dress, and just dressed up really nice. Chris, however, had a costume leftover from Halloween and went as an Oompa Loompa. 

It was a really nice last night to go out to Lava Ignite, one of our favorite clubs in town.

The next morning, I got up early (okay, noon) to clean up the kitchen from the night before and made American pancakes. For those of you who have been avid readers of my blog, you'll remember that when we had pancake night before the beginning of Lent, their pancakes are SUPER thin. Well, I decided to make them AMERICAN pancakes, meaning extra think with tons of yummy stuff on them. I ended up making four batches, so I think they went over pretty well =] 

On Thursday night, in true American fashion, we, the American internationals (and Jay who is from Canada) celebrated American Takeover at Adelphi on Quid night. It has been a longstanding tradition since the very first Thursday we got here in January. It has always been a nice way for everyone to meet up once a week over a few (okay, sometimes a few more than a few) extremely cheap pints. We all stayed friends, despite going off and make friends in a vast variety of different groups.  

The night was concluded at Manzils, an Indian TakeAway that is open through the night, with my very last Chips for £1.20.

 And no chips from Manzils would be complete with out a good ol' squirt of garlic mayonaise.

Seriously. The Best. Ever.

Saturday was Source Summer Survival. Source is the on-campus bar and their big end-of-the-year bash was a 12 hour day of drinking. Sign me up! They had "survival packs" that could be bought ahead of time that included a wristband, a t-shirt, a lei, and a bottle opener among other things.They had drink specials throughout the day, but my favorite was WKD's for £1.50, at one point (before running out) they had a special that if you bought four of them you got a free visor. Now who could honestly turn that down?

The best parts of the day included checking off things that were on the checklist on the back of the shirts. All kinds of crazy tasks were accomplished via the "write-in" sections of the shirt..

Kareoke was a definite repeated occurrence on the day. First was Valerie with the girls, then a tribute to our amazingly memorized version of Baby Got Back with Chris.

After taking a quick break to run home and get some food, we headed back out for the nightcap.

Believe it or not, we made it til 3 am after starting at 3 pm. 

But for whatever reason after a crazily-tiring day, when I got back, I couldn't seem to fall asleep.

 So instead, I packed. Until 6 am. But hey, I got to see the sunrise!

Today, we ventured out to the UCLan Sports Arena which is about 2-3 miles away from campus so we had to take a Taxi. Rebecca had her final football match and since it was such a beautiful day (and it was close) we went out to support her. 

Though she did show us her beastly skills as goalie for the Bolton Wanderer's Women's Team, they ended up losing the match 0-3 and finished their season in 2nd place of their league. Not too shabby, I'd say. 

We finishded the day at the Guild, a local pub, where I had my very first "Sunday Roast." Apparently it's an English Tradition that I'm sorry to say that I've missed out on up until today. Quite yummy, it was roast beef, vegetables, and roasted potatoes all in a yorkshire pudding and slathered in gravy. Now, I'm usually pretty particular about not liking my food to touch, but this was a pretty darn good exception to the rule.

My little Uni family of the combination of Flat 62/67.

Tomorrow is my last day in England, and I leave on Tuesday morning. Time sure flew by.

See ya soon, America!