“Emotional rollercoaster”. People use the term to be melodramatic about a film they’ve just watched and it’s the kind of words Taylor Swift would use when whining about the end of a sour relationship. But, at a huge risk of sounding incredibly cheesy, that’s probably the only words I can use to describe the past two weeks I’ve spent in Canada since arriving on campus at UBC. Which is difficult for me to admit as I usually have tough skin, I never get homesick (sorry mum), and tend to just get on with things on a high whenever I’m away at University.

Which isn’t to say I haven’t experienced some amazing things in the past fortnight, because I definitely have. I’ve tried to contain my exchange student excitement while walking past the sea and mountains on the way to a lecture, I’ve watched the sun set over Vancouver skyline in a kayak with seals bobbing up around me, I’ve experienced the excitement of a Homecoming football match and I’ve been lucky enough to meet some amazing people.

But I think that when you’re on the plane en route to a new country for a whole year that it’s difficult to realise it may not be 100% the best time of your life as soon as you arrive. I had mental images of stepping onto the runway to a hoard of fellow exchange students, rushing to dump their bags in dorm rooms and head out to a frat party to play beer pong and embrace the Canadian campus culture. Instead, I was faced with a three hour long wait at immigration to receive my study permit, when all I could think about was how much I needed a shower and how I hadn’t slept in two days. That’s not to say the border wait was all bad, one of the security guys looked like an Abercrombie model, but that’s besides the point.

After just about managing to drag all my suitcases up to the front desk of my student residence, I was given the keys to my new flat, vaguely told the direction I should walk in and given a half-broken luggage trolley to drag behind me. So far, not so good. It wasn’t quite the “Move In Day” I’d imagined from the smiling pictures of volunteers carrying your bags in the online pictures. After unlocking my bedroom door to find a strangely laid out, angular room with drip white bare walls everywhere and practically nothing in it, it hit me. I don’t know what exactly hit me, but something inside me was immediately like “What have I done?”. It probably didn’t help that after enquiring about a social that night, I was told “we have a BBQ in three days time”. That’s pretty difficult to take when you’re used to making friends on the first day through the medium of Ring of Fire, far too many tequila shots and extreme hangover bonding the next morning as you attempt to rush around the moshpit that is Fresher’s Fair.

Long story short, the first night resulted in visiting a fellow British friend who didn’t get University residence, and I will be forever grateful to her. Because I’m 100% sure if I hadn’t arrived at hers, pre drank, and drunkenly stumbled to a “toga frat party”, (in reply to my first blog, yes frats do indeed exist – I’ve witnessed it in the flesh, and trust me it’s weird), then I would most probably have sat on my empty bed and contemplated why the hell I’d thought it was a good idea to move across the Atlantic. After waking up with a hangover from hell and trekking across IKEA with my flatmates for what must have been at least 5 hours the next day- I was focusing far too much on not vomiting to even worry about home or this new environment. Topped off with a home cooked meal from my Italian flatmate that night who just happens to be an amazing cook, I was finally feeling settled in.

So, instead of giving a detailed “dear diary” account of the past two weeks here at UBC, which would most possibly make you decide to take a buzzfeed quiz on “which Disney princess are you?”, or switch on Netflix and carry on watching Gossip Girl, I’m going to break down some experiences here in “19 Things I’ve Learnt Since I Landed in Canada”. Here goes..

• It is not a cultural myth that everyone here is friendly. I can’t remember the last time I bought my lunch without someone asking me how my day was going. Even the bus drivers here are nice, who knew that was possible.
• Canadian netflix is so much better than the UK’s – all 10 seasons of Friends (clearly     I’ve been getting on with lecture readings)
• People take exercise far more seriously than drinking in Vancouver. In Edinburgh I was lucky to make it to the gym once a month. I’ve already signed up to a weekly yoga class here and planned 7am gym trips (whether I make it, to be fair, is another question entirely).
• Homecoming is a big deal. Paint your face, wear a thunderbirds T-Shirt, and pretend you have a vague idea of what’s going on when the football players continue to have a break after what seems like two minutes of exercise – it’s not quite rugby.
• For future reference- don’t turn up in your Thunderbirds gear to the Student Union for a night out the evening of the match if you didn’t even look at the scoreboard – the guys who ask you if we won will not be impressed.”

• Maybe it is possible to be too positive about some things. Only in the past two weeks have I seen ketchup described as an “awesome condiment” at a hot dog stand.

• People work here. I know, I’m at University, this shouldn’t be a shock. But I mean work as in actually do lecture readings on a daily basis. Not Edinburgh-work, where we bash out 2000 words the night before a deadline during an energy drink fuelled 24 hour library session.

• It’s far too difficult to buy alcohol here. (Once again being a booze fuelled Brit). Want some vodka for pre-drinks? How about some wine for that risotto you’re cooking? You get it at the supermarket then? No. You have to go to a liquor store, which happens to close at 9pm on a Saturday night. Mind blown.
• It’s okay not to feel 100% positive about being on exchange every second of every day, especially when you’re watching the two minute snapchat story of Edinburgh nights out at the Big Cheese or your friend gets tagged in a photo at Hive. FOMO on new levels.
• Always carry an umbrella with you around campus, there’s a reason this city is nicknamed “Raincouver”.
• Canadians appear to have a special dish called “Poutine” that is served in Maccy D’s – it’s basically just chips, cheese and gravy – we’ve been doing that up North probably much longer.
• The student gym is a tiny room with a layout that often results in you running on a treadmill, facing a boy with his “Rush Week” frat top on. Not always ideal.
• The sushi here is amazing. And it’s everywhere.
• Don’t try and buy froyo on campus at lunch rush hour unless you wish to be standing in a queue until it’s dark outside.
• Beef Jerkey is disgusting. Never try it. Unless you want to be chewing for about thirty minutes on a stick that tastes like dog food and makes you look like a farmer with a strand of wheat hanging from your teeth.
• Quite suspiciously, the milk here doesn’t go out of date for ages, who knows what they’re adding to that stuff.
• The views from Walter Gage 13th floor are out of this world. From now on I will be having regular tea breaks at my friends to look out over the sea and Vancouver skyline.
• If you search really hard, you will find Yorkshire Tea bags in the supermarket, and it will be one of the best moments of your life. (Sad thing is, I’m not even exaggerating)
• UBC is beautiful, Google wasn’t lying, and I definitely made the right call in applying here.

Right, best get ready for bed, got to get up at 7am for a gym session.

I wish I was lying.

#Vancouverlife

It’s finally here. The moment that always seemed so far away, ever since I received that email from Edinburgh University telling me that I’d been accepted onto International Exchange.

I’m sat on my bed, staring (quite proudly) at the one, extremely large suitcase that I’ve managed (somehow) to pack most of my life into for the year. So a big HAHA to all my friends who claimed I wouldn’t even fit my hairstyling products into one suitcase. Although they had a point, as packing was no easy feat. Almost every time my mum went to close the suitcase up I’d shout something along the lines of:

“I can maybe just fit this third tartan scarf in if we try really hard”.

She was not best amused.

Tomorrow morning, I set off to London with my parents, one of whom will no doubt already be sobbing at the thought of me not returning for Christmas (hint: it’s not my father, a blunt Yorkshire man whose usual advice is “it’ll be reyt”). After an overnight hotel stay tomorrow, I will no doubt have to be dragged from my bed at the horrendously early hour of 4am on Saturday morning to check in for my flight to Vancouver, Canada.

“So, how do you feel about it all?”.

This is the question I’ve been repeatedly asked by friends and family, each of them with a grin on their faces, expecting a deep and meaningful answer. If I’m being completely honest, I don’t really feel that much. And that’s not because I’m not excited or nervous, but because none of this seems real. After spending the majority of my summer holiday watching box sets on Netflix and convincing myself that at some point in the next three months I shall go for a jog, it just doesn’t seem feasible that I am moving to Canada. Canada! The land of maple syrup, ice hockey games and moose (not that I enjoy cultural stereotypes).

I’m sure halfway through my 10-hour flight across the Atlantic, once I’ve exhausted all the half decent on-board film choices and made the most of the free chocolate, it’ll hit me out of nowhere. That this is not a joke, I’m actually moving to Vancouver. That I will soon be arriving at an alien campus and thrown head first into the first day of University all over again. As much as I love meeting new people, this will definitely be a challenge after settling into a comfort blanket of close friends at Edinburgh, and enjoying that we could have much more exciting conversations than the “So, what do you study?” chat that flies around during first week.

Yet at the same time I’m more than willing to put up with numerous awkward handshakes, IKEA trips, and misread map routes to first lectures, if it means I get to spend the academic year at UBC. And if you’re wondering why, then you clearly have yet to visit Google Images and search “UBC”. I knew I wanted to apply to study there the first time I saw the picture that greets you after that internet search. My first reaction was “that cannot be it”, as I stared at a green University Campus literally sticking out at an angle into the Pacific Ocean, with a backdrop of snow capped mountains that wouldn’t look out of place on a Hollywood film set. And UBC is definitely not just a pretty face, it’s regularly ranked in the top 40 Universities across the globe (plus I heard the “frat” parties aren’t too bad either).

Which brings me to one of my many queries about campus life at UBC, do frats and sororities really exist? To any equally bewildered British friends reading this, it seems that yes, they do. And not only do they exist, but it appears they have their own “Village”, which I found out after Google Maps revealed to me that my accommodation is a short walk from a small line of “Frat Houses” named things like “Alpha Delta Phi”, that wouldn’t look out of place on an American Pie film.

So as I begin to learn that “Frat boys” do in fact drink out of red beer pong cups in their own houses, it looks as though there’s a few culture shocks coming my way. One of which will no doubt be the famous friendly character of Canadian citizens, something which I will struggle with after getting rather used to a nation of grumbling Brits who would much rather moan at you about the weather than wish you a fabulous day.

So, as I mentally prepare myself to embark on this slightly terrifying adventure, it seems that the best advice to follow is that which everybody keeps telling me, which is to make the most of this year. After all, not many are lucky enough to spend their third year studying abroad at a beautiful campus on the other side of the world. So it’s time to dive straight in, attempt (and probably fail epically) to ski, meet people from across the world, get used to the coastal rain, and try not to get eaten by a bear. As I remember that the specific grades I achieve at UBC do not count towards my degree classification at Edinburgh, the words of a friend at my Bon Voyage party are ringing in my ears:

“Lucy, if I don’t see a picture of you, upside down on a beer keg at a frat party, I’ll be severely disappointed”.

Canada, I hope you’re ready.