The Peak District

I felt a little over-citied last week. Don’t get me wrong, Chester was lovely, the football match in Manchester the weekend before was memorable, and there’s always something to do in Liverpool’s City Centre, but I’m really a country girl at heart. I knew that moving to a lively city would be a change from …

A Day in Chester

The more time I spend in Liverpool, the more I realize how much there is to see and discover right here! Fellow classmates, local Liverpudlians, and other Brits are happy to suggest the best pubs, museums, parks, and must-see streets to explore in Liverpool and around the UK. I’ve started a bucket list. It expands …

Sefton Park

Happy Monday! I’m thankful to have one week of classes under my belt! With each passing day I feel a little bit more settled. Daily I learn something new, like the fact that there are no drinking fountains on LHU’s campus or that nobody closes the refrigerator doors in the grocers or that it costs …

Exploring Liverpool’s City Centre

Greetings from Liverpool!  It’s been a week since my parents and little sister dropped me off at the Grand Rapids airport. After two connecting flights, a bleary trek through the Frankfurt airport, and over 30 hours without sleep, I’ve spent the last seven days trying to settle into Aigburth Park, where I will be living …

Trust your gut ;)

Food has definitely been a recurring topic on this blog, but this post is extra special to me.  I had the unexpected opportunity to independently travel outside of England and visit Marseille, France. It was upon recommendation of my dad who said “the food there is great!” I quickly discovered that, as per usual, he …

Quick Ramblings

I will forever be grateful for this amazing experience. I feel incredibly blessed to be studying abroad and learning from a new lens, but I have to admit, at times, it is hard being away from home. I miss my amazing, loving parents and sun-shiny sister so, so much, even though our family group chat …

A Familiar Face & More Hot Takes

This past weekend one of my best friends came to visit me in Liverpool, all the way from Michigan! The travel bug has surely spread through my friend group as she left me to head for Ireland, Germany and Poland. A curious thing happened this weekend – I became a tour guide of sorts. What …

A Wale(s) of a time

Standing back on solid ground with my hands shaking, a classmate asked me, “Is this what you imagined studying abroad would be like?” I replied, “No, I imagined myself in the library doing homework!,” to which our international student support manager overheard us, laughed, and smiled.  I had just completed the second part of that …

A future sociolinguists take on Brexit

*dictionary definition of sociolinguistics: the study of language in relation to social factors, including differences of regional, class, and occupational dialect, gender differences, and bilingualism. One of the classes I was very excited to take while abroad was Multilingualism. Multilingualism is simply an individuals ability to communicate effectively in 3 or more languages. I grew …

Food!! (& My Birthday)

Eating is hard. College students everywhere know what I mean. Meal prep, waking up for breakfast, consuming some sort of fresh fruit or vegetable, resisting the very strong urge to order take out every night, all of this is hard. It’s even harder to do abroad where 1) you have to be smarter with money …