Hello from Leeds! The past two days have been a whirlwind!

The flight from Boston was wonderful, namely in the fact that it wasn’t full at all, and I had 3 seats to myself! Brilliant because those four and a half hours were due to be my “night’s sleep.”  Flying over Iceland was actually very interesting, because the little bit I did see from the plane was very different. The only word that comes to mind was “tundra.” It was really barren, no grass, trees, or any greenery at all: just brown land. I’ve been told that Iceland is really beautiful, but I this must be further inland, because the airport, Keflavik, is very close to the western coast.

 I’ve been told that Keflavik is a “typical Scandinavian airport,” but as this is the only Scandinavian airport I’ve ever seen, I can’t pass judgement on that.

Sunrise in Iceland:

Two of the interesting facts about Iceland that were showing on the airplane movie screens: 99% of the energy the country uses is renewable, and the Prime Minister is listed in the phone book!

I’d never flown Icelandair before, and for the price, it really was a great airline. My only qualm with it was I discovered shortly into the flight that they don’t translate all the Icelandic that comes over the plane PA system…

Getting into Manchester was easy and immigration was actually pretty quick, and then I got a wonderful surprise! I had a welcoming party at the airport 🙂 I knew one of my friends from Leeds was planning to meet me, but two more friends came as well! So I had a proper welcome to England (complete with my last name spread across three pieces of paper!), and one of the guys had been kind enough to bring his car.

City of Leeds:

The first day (Friday) I was here was kind of surreal, and I’ve periodically broken out in giggles the past two days not quite believing that I’m ACTUALLY in England!

I had my first Cornish pasty from a little bakery at the end of my friend’s street. Delicious! I’m staying with my friend and her housemates until I can move into my flat in halls on the 14th.

Her house:

Her street: 

We took a bit of a walk down to the campus, and I was able to finish registering/get my ID card, as friends advised me that the queue will be enormous come Monday.

We had a drink in the little pub in the student union building (!), and they introduced me to the quiz machine. Pub quizzes seem to be very popular, and they really are just random quizzes done in pubs for entertainment, though I do gather that they also have “pub quiz nights” at various places.

I took a nap in the evening (I’ve been pretty good with the jetlag, but I was exhausted from the trip!), and they went out to get dinner and brought me back my first British chips! Wonderful 🙂

We went out to two different places at night. Dockside was first, where we sat up on the roof, and had a nice chat. 

Dockside:

FAB Caf� was second, which is apparently a movie and TV theme bar. A bit of a strange place, but it was a fun night 🙂 They’ve said that some places will get to be really crowded and thus not much fun some nights when everyone returns to Uni.

Yesterday morning (Saturday) was a late start (noon), and I had my first crumpet with golden syrup for breakfast/lunch. Crumpets seem to be a bit of a cross between an English muffin and a pancake, and golden syrup isn’t really describable beyond the fact that it’s just kind of sugary syrup (byproduct of cane sugar refining, invented by a Scotsman, and apparently can be found elsewhere in the world now, though only in Louisiana in the US–Wikipedia).

We took a train to the centre of Leeds, and tried to set up my bank account (fail, because they wanted a letter from the Uni as proof of residence in the UK–will ask for that that on Monday from the Uni and retry), had a look at a mobile (no need for one quite yet–no one to call, and will be sticking with my friends for a few more days), and then went to the market. The market was really quite wonderful. Half indoors, half outdoors, with clothes, meat, produce, and loads more. I found that prices were really pretty cheap for the produce in the market, and I really think I will enjoy cooking 🙂 Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures, as I as a bit too occupied looking around!

But here’s one of the city:

Last night, my friend made us a wonderful lemon mushroom risotto for dinner and we went out to a sort of locals hangout (not just uni students) for a while and met up with another guy from PSU last year.

This morning we said goodbye to one of the guys, as he took a train back to U of Bath. It was lovely seeing him again, and I’m sure he’ll be back up to Leeds at some point, and I’ll also go down to visit.

So that’s about it the past two days. It’s been a lot of new experiences, and I’ve had a terrific time.

All my friends have been absolutely amazing helping me get set up, sorted out, and showing me around Leeds 🙂

It’s fantastic staying with friends here, but I’m also looking forward to meeting my flat mates and the rest of the people living in my building.

One other interesting thing of note is regarding the accents! I’ve had no problem really at all (aside from some of the names of food, places, brands, etc), and I’ve known my friends for a while, so it seems normal with them, but with those I don’t know, for some reason I don’t seem to be anticipating it. I think it might have something to do with it still being kind of surreal that I’m in England.

These first few posts have been really long, but they’ll most likely get shorter as the day-to-day becomes normal and I start reporting on interesting events.

Location: Leeds, UK