Goodbye norwich

In the middle of our fourth/fifth London trip(s), Til and I made the journey back up to Norwich one last time in order to, in less than twenty-four hours, move out of our accommodation and turn in our keys. All the stuff we'd accumulated and brought with us either had to be shipped home (at great cost), carried on our backs all around Spain, Italy, and Greece for a month until we come home, thrown out, or given away.

The stuff I'm taking with me or have already sent will always remind me of my time on exchange, and will keep being a part of my life, but the things I'm leaving behind, I think, tell their own stories, and deserve a mention, so here's my ode to a random assortment of things left behind:

A bunch of thumb tacs and blu-tac used to hang stuff all over my walls, now squeezed into a snitch-like ball. I left it in the cupboard, hoping the next inhabitant of my room would find it and wonder over it.

One bottle of Pantene Pro-V Smooth & Sleek shampoo & conditioner  2 in 1, which I accidentally bought thinking it was just conditioner.

About thirty mils of Heinz Tomato Ketchup.

Nineteen black plastic coathangers.

A Simpsons poster Kate gave me, from a past exchange student.

A whole stack of books, which I ended up leaving in a pile at Heathrow. The two pretty ones I left behind 'cause I bought them for class but never read them; and the green ones were only two pounds, so I always meant to leave them behind. Hope they ended up somewhere cooler than lost and found.

The goonsack costumes Til and I wore to Gilly's fortieth.

Two shit towels Til and I bought at a shop on our second day in Norwich with Kelsey and Lisa.

And more. I'm not going to list everything haha. The rest is even less interesting than the above. All the interesting stuff got stuffed into our now swollen and hefty backpacks, or sent home, which took HOURS and cost like, a hundred and fifty pounds!

It really sucked that we had so little time in Norwich and so much to do, because we didn't get to say much of a proper goodbye to anyone. So I hope you'll all consider this your goodbye, my housemates, Til's housemates, the other exchange students I met, and the Creative Writing group! Bye Ollie, Kate, Sammy, Bryony, Sykes, and Barbara; bye Penny, Brydie, Carina, Will, Max, Lee, Felix, Danny, Ben (and Rob and Jess)!; bye Bettina and Joanna and Caroline (even though I'll see you all at home, I'm sure) and Mazie and Wes and Bianca and Megan and Allison and Sarah and Kelia and Dave and Rebecca and Stephanie; bye Kim and Nick, George, Rob, Chris, Liam and Tamara, Avani, Sarah, Guns, and Tom and everyone else I've forgotten. Gonna miss you all. And those of you I didn't get to know so well, wish we had have had more time.

Goodbye Norwich, goodbye University of East Anglia, and goodbye room three, flat one, B block, Norfolk Terrace (NTB0103)!

A gallicised st patrick's day and other culinary events

Just before Tilly and I left for France, we went with our American friend Sam to a party in the flat of one of our fellow UOW exchangees, Bettina, where we met Caroline, a USYD student (who we’d actually met before at Barbara’s games night, but not properly). Exchange is complicated, isn’t it?

Anyway, Sam, Til, Caroline and I all left the party at the same time and ended up standing outside Bettina’s flat so long talking and trying to say goodbye that we just ended up going upstairs to Caroline’s kitchen and talking until about four in the morning, despite the fact that we were supposed to be on an early train the next morning.

Caroline is a French speaker, and has family there, and when she heard we were in Grenoble she asked us to bring back some French mixture of Champagne and cider that she had enjoyed in the region. We then decided to have a French party upon our return where we would try the mixture and sup upon cheese and fruit and crackers and the like.

When we planned to have this meeting on Thursday night, we didn’t realise that Thursday was actually St Patrick’s Day, so we ended up celebrating the Irish day in a very French way.

I wasn’t expecting St Patrick’s Day to be as big a deal here as it was. I guess the festivity increases with proximity to Ireland. The Square at uni literally reeked of beer – you could smell it from miles away. It was really fun. I think society should have more days of celebration, like the Romans. I loved the fact that everyone was wearing green. I loved the thought that everyone who was wearing green had made that little effort when they were getting dressed that morning, in concert. There’s something cool about it.

Before the French celebrations began, we went down to the Blue Bar to watch the UEA Take Me Out that Caroline had signed herself up for. The English LOVE this trashy show, so the turnout was incredible. The bar was packed. We joked that if the same thing was done at UOW about four people would’ve signed themselves up and it would’ve been an awkward DIY affair at the unibar with minimal viewers. This is what UEA’s version looked like:

 The crowd.

This dude's 'skill' - knocking a cup off his friend's head with a football.

Then it was time for ze food. Apparently the drink wasn’t as tasty as it was supposed to be because the only one we could get was ‘brut’ or ‘strong’, which doesn’t taste as good.

Tilly showing us how it’s done with her waitress skillz.

Caroline uncorking her first bottle of Champagne.

Only a week later, we attended a curry night at Kim’s house, where Avani whipped up a curry storm! It was amazing in scale and taste:

The curry was followed by games, including Pictionary and Scrabble. I’d like to brag that I lead ‘my’ team, ‘Luke Lucas and the Couch Potatoes’ to glorious victory!

I then retired while the expert Scrabblers showed off. It was an amazing display of wordmanship, as can be seen below. And yes, parquet can be used as a present tense verb!

Soon after curry night was a Vietnamese night hosted by some of Caroline’s friends, where more incredible food was thrown before us and another good night was had by all.

We tried out some wines on special that were somehow Chardonnay/Chenin Blanc/Semillon and Pinot Noir/Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot all in one? They were SUPER WINES!

Tilly models the super wine.

Finally, the other night Caroline, Barbara, Dave, Megan and Bianca were having a vegetarian pasta night to plan their Morocco trip, and Sam, Til and I decided to crash it and join them (because Sam and Bianca are opposite-gender equivalents of one another and had to meet).

More cuisine than anyone can handle!