If you can't beat 'em, join 'em

So, I've told you all about my flatmates/friends here in Lancaster, but I haven't told you how I finally ended up being asked to go out with them on Friday night. I missed the first week of school so I missed the clique-building time but luckily I broke into this one without much problem...

So for three of the first five days I was here (I got here on Saturday the 9th) I was kept up LATE, like 3 AM, by my obnoxiously loud flatmates. Me and Pili both talked about how loud they were and how we couldn't sleep. Well, Wednesday night was one of these nights and at about 2 AM Thursday morning the fire alarm went off. At first I wasn't sure what it was because it sounded weird, but when I poked my head out the door I saw people walking outside. I looked in the kitchen quick and saw Annie (who I didn't know at the time) waving a tea-towel at the smoke detector in the kitchen; she had burned her toast.

There are three other flats around the one I live in... probably about a 50- 70 people in each one. All four flats had to evacuate because  of this burnt toast, and we all had to wait outside in the cold in the middle of the night until the fire department arrived and checked to see that it, indeed, was only burnt toast. While we were standing outside though I asked Annie what was going on, and she explained, and I also talked to Ben without realizing I'd be hanging out with both of them for the next three days! I also met a girl from Greece, but I haven't seen her since.

As I was walking back to my room after we were let back in, Catherine (Norway) walked past and said "I'm sorry if we've been keeping you up." To my surprise, I replied with "Oh no worries, you guys should come get me next time so I can hang out though!" The next day, they did. So I figure, I'd way rather be having fun than getting mad since I'm going to be up all night either way.

So, since I met those guys I've gone to a club called Sugarhouse in Lancaster on Friday night and then reluctantly went with them to Preston (about 45 minutes away) on a coach that was sent to pick people up from the Uni. The coach was arranged by a girl named Amy to pick up her guests and bring them (free-of-charge) to a club called Revolution for her 21st birthday. I must say that Saturday night was a lot more fun, much smaller than the night before, and I met about 20 more people.

Lancaster University! I live in the very top right hand corner.

Working with Charlotte is actually going really well. I've only been working with her for a little over a week and I already feel quite comfortable with some of the aspects that I was nervous about. She also provides quite good conversation which makes work pretty enjoyable and I often forget than I'm "on duty."

Charlotte is really interested in everything American and today I made her a very American lunch... it was breaded chicken with ketchup (which isn't very common here), a baked potato and salad. While we were eating she was asking me about American TV: "What does PBS have on it?" "Is ABC Family a different channel than ABC?" "What cartoons did you watch when you were growing up?" It's funny though because American TV is boring to me and British TV is boring to her. The other day I watched the equivalent of a British Maury Povich called Jeremy Kyle, and a show just like The View called Loose Women. She also regularly watches X-Factor (with Simon Cowell) which is mostly just the English version of American Idol.
The weather has been worse here than it has been in Pac Co (according to mom). It's been overcast and it rained a bit today, but nothing I can't handle since I am from Washington state!

Tomorrow is my day off and, after I do some laundry, I'm going to get my student rail card so I can get my train ticket to London for this weekend! We already have our hostel booked so we're almost set to go....