Canadian Weekends - and a word from Egypt!

People study abroad in order to learn how life is lived in another country. How do the natives eat, what do their kids study in school, what do their college students do on the weekend. People write blogs about studying abroad in order to answer these questions for those who are curious. I am here to answer one of these questions.

Like most colleges, CBU has a drinking culture. However, this post needs a disclaimer, and here it is: I don't drink. Sure, I've had champagne at New Year's, I've sampled my parents' beverages, and I've had a beer with friends. Still, I have never been intoxicated and have no desire to experience the feeling. As a result, this post will discuss a typical collegiate Canadian weekend for the sober.

After a day buying mittens at the mall (for further details, read Friday's post), I watched Lost World with my friends Becca, Kyle, and Kevin. We had watched the first Jurassic Park a few days earlier, and were eager to continue the saga.

On Saturday, I did homework all day. This is only a minor exaggeration. After glancing at my syllabi, I can say that I will read at least one novel per week while I'm here. This can only be accomplished by diligence, which was the word of the day on Saturday. I took a yoga break with Becca in the afternoon, which was followed by more reading.

To finish out the day, we watched the third installment of Jurassic Park with Kyle. I also learned that there's a generic Oreo brand in Canada called Mr. Creamy. While the name is clever, it's a little startling when you hear it for the first time like this: "Becca, will you be a sweetheart and pass me my Mr. Creamies?" It took a while for the immature Americans to stop giggling at that one.

Today was spent reading! How novel! (ha.) My study breaks were a Skype session with my parents, a trip to the gym with Becca, and now a blog post. This is how we conclude: Canadian college kids aren't that different from American college kids. We shop, we do homework, we watch movies, we work out. The only thing missing from my weekend was a trip to Coffea or an evening spent knitting in front of a Nathan Fillion show.

Speaking of which, guess who's in Egypt? The Augustana (my home school) band is currently in Africa! So far, they've performed at Cairo University and the library at Alexandria. Here's a picture, filched from the blog, of the whole gang waiting outside the library.

It's good to see smiling faces! For my non-Augie readers, these are my classmates! They'll be in Egypt for about two more weeks, and have several more concerts to play.

Over to the right, you can see an up-close picture of two of my closest friends from back home. Check out those good-looking ladies! Bekah is a flute-playing English and history major participating in the Civitas program, while Amber plays clarinet and is studying English (and possibly classics), with hopes to go to graduate school for library science. Hope you're having fun, guys!

This post is longer than usual because I'm procrastinating on my homework. Two bad things that need to be stopped at once. And so I conclude.

One more thing: more snow today! Will it ever stop?

Love,

Maggie