An American Learns English... And Swedish.: Ready, Set, GO!

So we just had a meeting to plan out where we'd like to get to this semester and next semester and it was a mucho productive meeting! In case you're interested here's what's up:

This semester:
London this weekend. Also in England: Bath, Portsmouth, Brighton
Ireland
Italy (for our week off!)
Paris
Spain

Next semester (whilst in Sweden):
Switzerland
Germany
Greece
Austria
Amsterdam

Sweet huh?

Well I've now had a full week of classes and though I'm a little nervous, I'm mostly excited. Everyone has been so wonderful and helpful in trying to explain the British education system to me which is lovely of them! Not having gone through it myself it seems very confusing. I'm also a little nervous about our final projects (basically the only thing we get graded on) because they seem intense but we DO have the entire semester to work on them so the idea is not to procrastinate!

Two days ago we went to Arundel castle which was awesome :) I do love castles - but I totally wore the wrong shoes as I'm apt to do. But it was still really cool as it's been a while since I've been in one. Cool as it was I think I won't go in anymore while I'm here just because I've done them before and I'd like to save the money I have for trips that I've never experienced before! But in case you're interested here's some factoids about Arundel. It was built in the 11th century and has been the home for the Dukes of Norfolk for over 900 years. The castle was built by Roger de Montgomery in 1067 (founded Christmas Day) who was awarded a third of Sussex from William the Conqueror as long as he build the castle near the mouth of the Arun to protect Sussex from attacks. Many original features are still intact like the Norman keep, the gatehouse and the lower part of one of the towers. Between the 1870s and the 1890s the castle was almost completely rebuilt, along with the Fitzalan Chapal, with architecture of the Gothic style. Super cool :)

Here are a couple of pictures for your enjoyment!

This picture really doesn't do it justice - it is MUCH bigger. But doesn't this look almost unreal??

This was actually a really cool factoid. I'm forgetting what these are called but basically when one of the family would die this would be carried as a banner in front of their funeral procession. The lion stands for a man, and the horse for a woman. You can tell who died by the colors. Because the side of the lion is black he is the one that died, and because the horse is white it means that his wife is still alive. It would be reversed for the other situation. All black, if I remember correctly, means that he was a bachelor or his wife died before him.