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| Edinburgh |
Annnnnd Edinburgh pictures are up.
Now for captions!
After all that I'll throw up another entry explaining how the next couple weeks are going to work.
EDIT: Captions are up.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Edinburgh Pics
Annnnnd Edinburgh pictures are up.
Now for captions!
After all that I'll throw up another entry explaining how the next couple weeks are going to work.
EDIT: Captions are up.
Friday, March 13, 2009
This week.
So. What happened this week?
I wrote ANOTHER 2000 word essay. This one was for some reason easier to write, but that didn't change the fact that I was still up at 2am last night working on it. Although, that's partly due to the fact I forgot that I had statics homework and spent a couple hours working on it around midnight-ish before returning to my bibliography.
So quite honestly, my brain is fried. I have no idea how the people who major in history here do it. They all have like 3 essays due today. 3!!! That would require actually starting at least one of them more than a week ahead of time. Crazy. This is why I'm an Engineer. We just have to figure out what the forces in a truss are. Which, by the way, is incredibly tedious and there are computer programs that can do it for you. (That was a jab at my statics homework, if you missed it.)
Anyway... apart from working on the essay nothing happened this week really. We booked plane tickets and a hostel for next Friday, so that's all set. I have to start looking for hostels for the rest of the trip now. Soon as we've got that done, I'll put up what our iten..... (damn my lack of spelling ability) schedule is. The good news, is that we know what we want to do and when and where in Germany, and we know that there are trains that can get us from point A to point B. Bad news? Let me list it out for you:
We don't know how much said trains cost, or when they run.
We don't have reservations yet for the hostels.
We don't have Switzerland planned out yet.
We don't have Italy planned out.
We don't have a way home yet.
We can't get a way home until we plan out Switzerland and Italy.
Luckily, we should have a couple of those taken care of by the begining of next week, namely the hostels and the way home (which implies having Switzerland and Italy figured out).
But, we have a month in which to get home, so I don't think it matters too much that we figure it out now, it's just that it'd be a lot easier.
So the original plan was to continue on to France and Amsterdam after Italy, but after backpacking for just the weekend in Edinburgh, I realized that a whole month was absolutely ridiculous, and have restricted it to 2.5-3 weeks. Then that last week, I think we'll end up going up to Aberdeen, but we might go to Bath & Stonehenge instead. Not sure. So we need to figure that out so we can get train tickets. France and Amsterdam will get pushed to May when Belinda -hopefully- comes to visit. But I need to talk to her to figure that out.
Most of this entry is for me so that I don't forget what all I need to do and by when, so you can probably ignore most of it, unless you have an abnormally large interest in where I'll be. If that's the case, you had better be my parents, Jake's parents, or someone we will be travelling with or visiting (of which there are like... maybe 6 people?). Otherwise you're a stalker and that's just plain creepy.
Anyway.... I know I promised pictures sometime around today, after the essays were done and handed in, but I really don't feel like putting them up right now. Really. So I guess either Monday I'll stay later after classes and put them up, or I'll do it Tuesday while Jake is in class. You can live 4 more days, right? Good.
This weekend we're planning on going to either the Royal Armouries again to look through the second half of it, or to Kirkstall Abby, because it's broken and broken things are fun. So it could turn into 3 or 4 bunches of pictures. Even more exciting, right?
Anyway, I have to go to class now and turn in my statics homework and listen to the teacher talk to us and do examples and give the class a half hour to do it when it really only takes 5 minutes. *sigh*
I wrote ANOTHER 2000 word essay. This one was for some reason easier to write, but that didn't change the fact that I was still up at 2am last night working on it. Although, that's partly due to the fact I forgot that I had statics homework and spent a couple hours working on it around midnight-ish before returning to my bibliography.
So quite honestly, my brain is fried. I have no idea how the people who major in history here do it. They all have like 3 essays due today. 3!!! That would require actually starting at least one of them more than a week ahead of time. Crazy. This is why I'm an Engineer. We just have to figure out what the forces in a truss are. Which, by the way, is incredibly tedious and there are computer programs that can do it for you. (That was a jab at my statics homework, if you missed it.)
Anyway... apart from working on the essay nothing happened this week really. We booked plane tickets and a hostel for next Friday, so that's all set. I have to start looking for hostels for the rest of the trip now. Soon as we've got that done, I'll put up what our iten..... (damn my lack of spelling ability) schedule is. The good news, is that we know what we want to do and when and where in Germany, and we know that there are trains that can get us from point A to point B. Bad news? Let me list it out for you:
We don't know how much said trains cost, or when they run.
We don't have reservations yet for the hostels.
We don't have Switzerland planned out yet.
We don't have Italy planned out.
We don't have a way home yet.
We can't get a way home until we plan out Switzerland and Italy.
Luckily, we should have a couple of those taken care of by the begining of next week, namely the hostels and the way home (which implies having Switzerland and Italy figured out).
But, we have a month in which to get home, so I don't think it matters too much that we figure it out now, it's just that it'd be a lot easier.
So the original plan was to continue on to France and Amsterdam after Italy, but after backpacking for just the weekend in Edinburgh, I realized that a whole month was absolutely ridiculous, and have restricted it to 2.5-3 weeks. Then that last week, I think we'll end up going up to Aberdeen, but we might go to Bath & Stonehenge instead. Not sure. So we need to figure that out so we can get train tickets. France and Amsterdam will get pushed to May when Belinda -hopefully- comes to visit. But I need to talk to her to figure that out.
Most of this entry is for me so that I don't forget what all I need to do and by when, so you can probably ignore most of it, unless you have an abnormally large interest in where I'll be. If that's the case, you had better be my parents, Jake's parents, or someone we will be travelling with or visiting (of which there are like... maybe 6 people?). Otherwise you're a stalker and that's just plain creepy.
Anyway.... I know I promised pictures sometime around today, after the essays were done and handed in, but I really don't feel like putting them up right now. Really. So I guess either Monday I'll stay later after classes and put them up, or I'll do it Tuesday while Jake is in class. You can live 4 more days, right? Good.
This weekend we're planning on going to either the Royal Armouries again to look through the second half of it, or to Kirkstall Abby, because it's broken and broken things are fun. So it could turn into 3 or 4 bunches of pictures. Even more exciting, right?
Anyway, I have to go to class now and turn in my statics homework and listen to the teacher talk to us and do examples and give the class a half hour to do it when it really only takes 5 minutes. *sigh*
Monday, March 9, 2009
Edinburgh in slightly more detail and a magical surprise!
So, I have possibly figured out a way around the dongle taking control of the internet. I have yet to see if it works 100%, but currently I'm on the campus wireless, which is awesome. And I didn't have to uninstall the dongle. So this might actually work. We'll see. (That was the magical surprise.)
Now for Edinburgh.
So, train ride was relatively uneventful. We got in at like 6ish, and after being lost for about 5 minutes, we figured out where we were and managed to get to our hostel. Checked in, went up to the room and dropped our stuff off. We had a 4 person room to ourselves the first night, so yay for that. After dropping stuff off, we headed over to Adam's hostel. We would have all been at the same one, but we kept forgetting to book the hostel, and ended up at a different one. Ours was much nicer, just a bit farther away from things, but that was ok. So if you ever have a choice between Argyle Backpackers and Budget Backpackers, go for Argyle. In my opinion.
**six hours later**
So I just got my new video card thingie installed and it seems like it's working, seeing as how I haven't crashed in the hour I've been on, although it only crashed two or three times in the past two weeks and not the crazy way, so dunno.
Back to Edinburgh, that's what y'all really care about.
Anyway, after picking up Adam, we went and got dinner at a pub by his hostel. I had steak & ale pie, which was good, but was lacking in the ale flavoring. I've had better. Then we wandered around Edinburgh for a couple of hours, basically just getting a feel for where things are, and because there was nothing else to do, unless we wanted to get drunk and/or go clubbing, which we didn't want to do. If you all haven't noticed yet, Jake and I aren't big on the whole going out and getting drunk and dancing all night thing.
Around like 10, we started heading back to the hostels, since it was cold out.
The next morning, we met up at like 9:30, and found a place a couple doors down from the pub from Friday night, and had breakfast. When I put up pictures I'll caption the ones with the places we ate, I don't remember their names at the moment. That place had the whole English Breakfast thing, and Scottish breakfast, so if you want one of those, I'd say go there.
Following breakfast, we walked up to Edinburgh Castle and wandered around it. Now, it looks fantastic from the side/bottom. But I think I like broken down castles better than ones that can still be used. It had a bunch of smaller buildings in it and a couple museums, which was all great, but there's something to be said for ruins. Not that I'm saying don't go, you should, but if you have a choice between the castle and some of the other things I'm going to get around to mentioning, I'd almost say do them instead.
After the castle, we started walking down the Royal Mile toward the Palace. The Royal Mile is just another name for the street between the castle & palace, and it's full of stores catering to tourists. Many of them are staffed by Indian guys, which is a bit wierd. I'll come back to that in a bit. The original plan was to do the Palace, but since it was already 2:30 and it closed at 4:30, and since we weren't sure how long it'd take, we decided to climb Arthur's Seat instead, since it was next to the Palace. This ended up being a good decision, since the weather Sunday morning made it impossible to climb.
Arthur's Seat is an inactive volcano mountain thing. I'm not sure exactally what, but volcano was mentioned somewhere. It's a bit steep, but if you have a couple hours on your hand, I would definately reccomend climbing it. The view from the top is pretty awesome. The one downside was that the higher we got, the windier it got. At the top, there were a couple of times that it almost knocked us over. Then it started raining, so we headed down. On the way we found really comfy grass. It was comfy. After that, since it had started raining, we decided to get some food in the hopes that it would stop while we were eating. It sort of did. We went back to Adam's hostel to sort of plot out Germany, then decided to go to ours since I had a headache and wanted painkillers. We sat around for a while, then it started raining harder, and when it finally let up Adam went back to his hostel and we went to bed.
Sunday morning we had originally planned to go to the Palace with Adam before he had to go catch his plane, but he wanted to go look at some other stuff, so we went to Calton Hill and looked around up there. Then Adam had to go catch a bus to the airport and Jake and I went to Holyroodhouse Palace. Definately go to the palace. It's cool. Unfortunately you can't take pictures inside, so you can't see what it looks like unless you go. Also, if you go, get the audio tour (it's included in entrance fee, so no reason to not pick it up), it's very informative. After the palace we wandered down the Royal Mile, had lunch at World's End, and then went and got on a train home.
Back to the whole Indian guys running tourist shops- Jake wanted to get a dirk, but not from an Indian guy, so we found a store with a red-headed scottish lady, and he got it from her.
Also, I have no idea if they sell this in the states or not, but if you are 21, go try and find Bruadar. Best alcohol I've tasted so far. Hooray whiskey.
Yeah, that's it for now. I will try and put pictures up on Friday after classes and after I turn in my essay.
Now, back to working on said essay and away from blogging.
I've wasted enough time today.
Can you believe Apple wanted me to drop the laptop off for 3-5 days? The reason I didn't drop it off 2 weeks ago was because it'd take time and the guy said if I brought it back when the part was in they'd fix it when I brought it in. Instead, I get there, tell the guy why I'm there, and he's all, k, sign this paper saying you're leaving the laptop with us, I'm like, wait, how long is it going to take? Oh, just 3-5 days. Um, the guy before said you could do it while I waited. Hm.. well, let me go ask him. *comes back* well, if you can stick around till 6 (it's 3:15 now) we can fix it today. Ok. *signs paper* *wanders off to find somewhere to read a book on the Black Death for two hours until my eyes are tired of that at which time I go to H&M to try stuff on for fun*
So.. yeah.
Oh. Also, apparently Scotland has coos. Really awesome coos with hair in their eyes. There were pictures of them all over, but I didn't see any real ones. So Jake and I have decided that we would like to go back to Scotland some weekend, probably up to Aberdeen since all in all, Edinburgh really caters to tourists, and we'd rather see the real Scotland.
The end.
EDIT: I lied. One, I posted this and realized how bad it looked without spaces between paragraphs, so I put those in. Then I realized I didn't explain why it was good we did Arthur's Seat Saturday instead of Sunday. Sunday morning it snowed. Enough so all the mountains and cliffs and stuff were covered. That would not have worked out, especially since it had been pouring Saturday night. Would have been super muddy.
Now, THE END. For reals.
Now for Edinburgh.
So, train ride was relatively uneventful. We got in at like 6ish, and after being lost for about 5 minutes, we figured out where we were and managed to get to our hostel. Checked in, went up to the room and dropped our stuff off. We had a 4 person room to ourselves the first night, so yay for that. After dropping stuff off, we headed over to Adam's hostel. We would have all been at the same one, but we kept forgetting to book the hostel, and ended up at a different one. Ours was much nicer, just a bit farther away from things, but that was ok. So if you ever have a choice between Argyle Backpackers and Budget Backpackers, go for Argyle. In my opinion.
**six hours later**
So I just got my new video card thingie installed and it seems like it's working, seeing as how I haven't crashed in the hour I've been on, although it only crashed two or three times in the past two weeks and not the crazy way, so dunno.
Back to Edinburgh, that's what y'all really care about.
Anyway, after picking up Adam, we went and got dinner at a pub by his hostel. I had steak & ale pie, which was good, but was lacking in the ale flavoring. I've had better. Then we wandered around Edinburgh for a couple of hours, basically just getting a feel for where things are, and because there was nothing else to do, unless we wanted to get drunk and/or go clubbing, which we didn't want to do. If you all haven't noticed yet, Jake and I aren't big on the whole going out and getting drunk and dancing all night thing.
Around like 10, we started heading back to the hostels, since it was cold out.
The next morning, we met up at like 9:30, and found a place a couple doors down from the pub from Friday night, and had breakfast. When I put up pictures I'll caption the ones with the places we ate, I don't remember their names at the moment. That place had the whole English Breakfast thing, and Scottish breakfast, so if you want one of those, I'd say go there.
Following breakfast, we walked up to Edinburgh Castle and wandered around it. Now, it looks fantastic from the side/bottom. But I think I like broken down castles better than ones that can still be used. It had a bunch of smaller buildings in it and a couple museums, which was all great, but there's something to be said for ruins. Not that I'm saying don't go, you should, but if you have a choice between the castle and some of the other things I'm going to get around to mentioning, I'd almost say do them instead.
After the castle, we started walking down the Royal Mile toward the Palace. The Royal Mile is just another name for the street between the castle & palace, and it's full of stores catering to tourists. Many of them are staffed by Indian guys, which is a bit wierd. I'll come back to that in a bit. The original plan was to do the Palace, but since it was already 2:30 and it closed at 4:30, and since we weren't sure how long it'd take, we decided to climb Arthur's Seat instead, since it was next to the Palace. This ended up being a good decision, since the weather Sunday morning made it impossible to climb.
Arthur's Seat is an inactive volcano mountain thing. I'm not sure exactally what, but volcano was mentioned somewhere. It's a bit steep, but if you have a couple hours on your hand, I would definately reccomend climbing it. The view from the top is pretty awesome. The one downside was that the higher we got, the windier it got. At the top, there were a couple of times that it almost knocked us over. Then it started raining, so we headed down. On the way we found really comfy grass. It was comfy. After that, since it had started raining, we decided to get some food in the hopes that it would stop while we were eating. It sort of did. We went back to Adam's hostel to sort of plot out Germany, then decided to go to ours since I had a headache and wanted painkillers. We sat around for a while, then it started raining harder, and when it finally let up Adam went back to his hostel and we went to bed.
Sunday morning we had originally planned to go to the Palace with Adam before he had to go catch his plane, but he wanted to go look at some other stuff, so we went to Calton Hill and looked around up there. Then Adam had to go catch a bus to the airport and Jake and I went to Holyroodhouse Palace. Definately go to the palace. It's cool. Unfortunately you can't take pictures inside, so you can't see what it looks like unless you go. Also, if you go, get the audio tour (it's included in entrance fee, so no reason to not pick it up), it's very informative. After the palace we wandered down the Royal Mile, had lunch at World's End, and then went and got on a train home.
Back to the whole Indian guys running tourist shops- Jake wanted to get a dirk, but not from an Indian guy, so we found a store with a red-headed scottish lady, and he got it from her.
Also, I have no idea if they sell this in the states or not, but if you are 21, go try and find Bruadar. Best alcohol I've tasted so far. Hooray whiskey.
Yeah, that's it for now. I will try and put pictures up on Friday after classes and after I turn in my essay.
Now, back to working on said essay and away from blogging.
I've wasted enough time today.
Can you believe Apple wanted me to drop the laptop off for 3-5 days? The reason I didn't drop it off 2 weeks ago was because it'd take time and the guy said if I brought it back when the part was in they'd fix it when I brought it in. Instead, I get there, tell the guy why I'm there, and he's all, k, sign this paper saying you're leaving the laptop with us, I'm like, wait, how long is it going to take? Oh, just 3-5 days. Um, the guy before said you could do it while I waited. Hm.. well, let me go ask him. *comes back* well, if you can stick around till 6 (it's 3:15 now) we can fix it today. Ok. *signs paper* *wanders off to find somewhere to read a book on the Black Death for two hours until my eyes are tired of that at which time I go to H&M to try stuff on for fun*
So.. yeah.
Oh. Also, apparently Scotland has coos. Really awesome coos with hair in their eyes. There were pictures of them all over, but I didn't see any real ones. So Jake and I have decided that we would like to go back to Scotland some weekend, probably up to Aberdeen since all in all, Edinburgh really caters to tourists, and we'd rather see the real Scotland.
The end.
EDIT: I lied. One, I posted this and realized how bad it looked without spaces between paragraphs, so I put those in. Then I realized I didn't explain why it was good we did Arthur's Seat Saturday instead of Sunday. Sunday morning it snowed. Enough so all the mountains and cliffs and stuff were covered. That would not have worked out, especially since it had been pouring Saturday night. Would have been super muddy.
Now, THE END. For reals.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Edinburgh Day 1 (briefly)
So.. got in last night, found the hostel, Argyle Backpackers (I think.... It's Argyle something... Anyway, we got our key, dropped our bags off, and went to pick up Jake's friend Adam from his hostel. We got dinner at a pub down the street, and then wandered around Edinburgh for a couple of hours before going back to our respective hostels and sleeping.
Saturday morning, we woke up, went to a little place for breakfast, then went to the castle for a bunch of hours. Then we were going to go to the palace, but decided against it since it was getting close to when it closed, so instead we climbed up to Arthur's Seat, which had an awesome view. It was also uber windy. As in you could be 45 degrees from the ground without falling over, and there were a couple times it was strong enough to almost move us. Then it started raining so we went to an American restaurant we found. After that we went to a little store that had Scottish stuff, I got a flag and Jake got a stabbing implement. And now we're back at our hostel plotting out Europe.
I will put in details on Monday or Tuesday.
Oh, also, the castle had whiskey tasting, and we tasted it, and it was tasty. I think I may have found my alcohol. Heh. Annnnyway, more later when I have more time, just thought I'd put this up since I'm not terribly busy at the moment.
Saturday morning, we woke up, went to a little place for breakfast, then went to the castle for a bunch of hours. Then we were going to go to the palace, but decided against it since it was getting close to when it closed, so instead we climbed up to Arthur's Seat, which had an awesome view. It was also uber windy. As in you could be 45 degrees from the ground without falling over, and there were a couple times it was strong enough to almost move us. Then it started raining so we went to an American restaurant we found. After that we went to a little store that had Scottish stuff, I got a flag and Jake got a stabbing implement. And now we're back at our hostel plotting out Europe.
I will put in details on Monday or Tuesday.
Oh, also, the castle had whiskey tasting, and we tasted it, and it was tasty. I think I may have found my alcohol. Heh. Annnnyway, more later when I have more time, just thought I'd put this up since I'm not terribly busy at the moment.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Geese Solution
So according to the website Jake's dad found, people brought the geese over to hunt them.
(Basically.)
Then some escaped and decided it would be a good idea to block traffic.
For those of you wondering, this means that Jake's dad gets the postcard. And it will be a really cool postcard from Edinburgh too. EDINBURGH! That's Scotland!
This is why everyone should check this more often. I might do something like this again. And if you email me (or leave a comment since they get emailed to me, so technically that counts too), you could get a postcard you would otherwise not get.
Spread the word – tell a friend
Tell them the tale
Get a pic – do a blog
Heroes are over with.....
er... I mean.. let other people know about this blog. Don't keep it to yourself.
Also, if you get what that came from (NO CHEATING) I might, MIGHT, decide to send someone else a postcard.
So, it's worth a try.
Also, I now have 1000 words in my essay and an outline for it, so that's why you all are getting this and a picture of geese.
(Basically.)
Then some escaped and decided it would be a good idea to block traffic.
For those of you wondering, this means that Jake's dad gets the postcard. And it will be a really cool postcard from Edinburgh too. EDINBURGH! That's Scotland!
This is why everyone should check this more often. I might do something like this again. And if you email me (or leave a comment since they get emailed to me, so technically that counts too), you could get a postcard you would otherwise not get.
Spread the word – tell a friend
Tell them the tale
Get a pic – do a blog
Heroes are over with.....
er... I mean.. let other people know about this blog. Don't keep it to yourself.
Also, if you get what that came from (NO CHEATING) I might, MIGHT, decide to send someone else a postcard.
So, it's worth a try.
Also, I now have 1000 words in my essay and an outline for it, so that's why you all are getting this and a picture of geese.
Monday, March 2, 2009
York Trip!
The original plan was to try and be in York by 10, but we woke up a little late and didn't get there until closer to 11. The first thing we did was go to York Minster, because I figured that it would take the longest to get through. The church part itself was pretty cool, lots of heraldry all over the place, so it was definately worth the money to get in. The undercroft however, was useless. The York Minster is built on the site of a Norman cathedral that was built on top of a Roman fort, so you go down there and they show you the walls of the older two and how everything intersects, but it's rather confusing. They've also got some stuf they found down there (bowls, etc.) from when the Romans were there. Then you go into the Treasury, which is just lots of shiny shiny silver & pewter. After that is the crypt, which looks pretty much nothing like the picture on their website. So, my advice, is if you're going to visit the York Minster, skip the Undercroft portion of it, and just get the Minster & Tower ticket instead. The tower was a little annoying, in that they only let so many people up at once, and you have to wait for that whole group to come down before you can go up, due to the fact that the stairwell is only about two feet wide. But it is cool from the top. It's not quite as big as the super huge Anglican cathedral in Liverpool, but it's still cool going up to the top. You can see Leeds and Edinburgh (only not really). Also, you only get like 10 minutes up there before they make you go down, but if you like climbing stairs 275 at a time, definately go up.
After that we got some lunch at a little Italian place down the street(ish). By the time we got to the restaurant it was like 2:30, and the next place we wanted to go see, Clifford's Tower closed at 4, so we ate rather quickly (as quickly as you can when your pasta just came out of the oven and is really really hot), and then left. Clifford's Tower is at the other end of the city from the Minster, but York is pretty small so it only took like 10 minutes to get there. We got there at 3:40ish. Hooray for just making it!
Now, Clifford's Tower is pretty sweet. It's this cute little castle sitting on this huge hill, and a long time ago it used to have a moat. AWESOME. Also, it's kind of shaped like a four-leaf clover, which is cute too. Luckily it's small, so it doesn't take much more than the 20 minutes we had to look at everything. And, unlike the Undercroft, Clifford's Tower looks EXACTALLY like the picture on the website, which is adorable.
Now, someone is going to need to explain something to me. Canadian geese live in Canada, right? Yeah, that's what I thought too- Canada and the US (where they poop on anything they can get their butts over...ew). So then how did they end up in York? Seriously. I mean, is there some magic portal from York to New York? Is that how they do it? They fly down from Canada, and if they hit the exact right 500m by 500m chunk of sky they're miraculously in England? Because I doubt they could fly across the ocean. So someone needs to look that up and let me know, because there were geese all over York.
While we're on the topic of birds, they have these really awesome black and white ones here. I'll take a picture sometime, because they're really cool looking. There's also a ton of pigeons. What's my favorite game while I'm wandering around the city center, you ask? Chasing pidgeons. They won't fly away from you until you get a foot away. So you can stay 3 feet back and run them where ever you want, until they get frustrated that the piece of bread they were trying to eat is now 20 feet behind them, then they get up and fly away. But seriously, if you ever come to Leeds, chase the pidgeons. It's one of the easiest forms of entertainment here.
EDIT: Yeah, I'm totally against animal violence too, I don't hurt them, just give them some exercise, in case you were worried.
Anyway, back to York. Now, I'm sure that many of you know that York has a wall around it. For those of you who weren't aware of this fact- York has a wall around it. What is cool about this wall, is that you can walk on it, unlike the wall in Newcastle, which you can only walk next to, except for one tiny part that is a dead end that I don't think you're really supposed to go on. So we walked around like 2/3 of it, because by the time we finished the 2nd 3rd of it, it was starting to be 'dusk,' and the gates to the walking on the walls close at 'dusk.' So instead we wandered around the middle until it really did get dark, and then we headed back to the train station and came home.
I apologize for the super-long paragraphs and the two paragraphs about birds. I know no one cares about birds that much, but I really want to know how Canadian geese got here. If you don't believe me, wait till I put up the pictures.
Now, about those pictures. Unfortunately, I have this bad habit of procrastinating. This means that at the moment, I only have 500-something words out of 2000 done for Friday. I have another 2000 word essay due on next Friday, and this weekend, we're going to Edinburgh. All that adds up to one simple fact: Time is short this week. I realize that everyone lives for my pictures, seeing where I go in England is the highlight of your fortnight (woo! big word! also, it's true, since they tend to go up every two weeks... anyway), and that without a constant supply, you'll all have to go through withdrawal. While I feel your pain, really, I do, I don't think you'll be getting York pictures for a while.
But I'm writing this huge blog! I must have time to upload a few pictures! WRONG! I bet you didn't know this, but it takes at LEAST 2 hours for me to sort through the hundreds of pictures I take to get rid of the blurry ones, get rid of the ones with me or Jake with silly faces, get rid of the ones that are similar to others.... and then I have to upload and caption every single one of the hundreds of pictures I decide to upload. I just don't have that time right now. I'm thinking you'll have to wait until after next Friday, unless I manage to finish an essay earlier than Thursday night. Maybe if I have free time I'll put up a handfull of pictures, but I'd rather just put the all up at once instead of a few at a time.
And now, you're all wondering when you'll get your next fix. Well, you might have to wait another two weeks, but when you do get those pictures, it will be even better. Know why? Because there will be pictures from Edinburgh too! It's like two for one!
Yeah, I agree with you, why would I decide to go to Edinburgh when I have an essay due the next week. Well, I have no idea why it was decided that we'd go this week. But that's ok! Theres a 3 hour train ride to read books on. And I can read at the hostel. Yes, *gasp* a hostel. We're going in Friday afternoon, coming back Sunday sometime. I mean, it's a 6+hour round trip, you didn't expect us to do that all in one day, now did you?
Yeah, the only reason I'm writing this much is because Jake is looking for books for one of his essays, and I'm waiting for him to find them to leave, and writing this in the meantime.
Maybe I'll write another short entry later this week with a picture of something random, like those black and white birds, or the milk cartons here. Somthing surprising.
Ooh. Incentive: First person to email me at alottaocelot at gmail dot com with an explanation (backed up with evidence, a website will do) as to how Canadian geese got to York, will get a postcard.
Seriously, I'm that curious.
Anyway, Jake came back, so I have to leave now.
Bye!
After that we got some lunch at a little Italian place down the street(ish). By the time we got to the restaurant it was like 2:30, and the next place we wanted to go see, Clifford's Tower closed at 4, so we ate rather quickly (as quickly as you can when your pasta just came out of the oven and is really really hot), and then left. Clifford's Tower is at the other end of the city from the Minster, but York is pretty small so it only took like 10 minutes to get there. We got there at 3:40ish. Hooray for just making it!
Now, Clifford's Tower is pretty sweet. It's this cute little castle sitting on this huge hill, and a long time ago it used to have a moat. AWESOME. Also, it's kind of shaped like a four-leaf clover, which is cute too. Luckily it's small, so it doesn't take much more than the 20 minutes we had to look at everything. And, unlike the Undercroft, Clifford's Tower looks EXACTALLY like the picture on the website, which is adorable.
Now, someone is going to need to explain something to me. Canadian geese live in Canada, right? Yeah, that's what I thought too- Canada and the US (where they poop on anything they can get their butts over...ew). So then how did they end up in York? Seriously. I mean, is there some magic portal from York to New York? Is that how they do it? They fly down from Canada, and if they hit the exact right 500m by 500m chunk of sky they're miraculously in England? Because I doubt they could fly across the ocean. So someone needs to look that up and let me know, because there were geese all over York.
While we're on the topic of birds, they have these really awesome black and white ones here. I'll take a picture sometime, because they're really cool looking. There's also a ton of pigeons. What's my favorite game while I'm wandering around the city center, you ask? Chasing pidgeons. They won't fly away from you until you get a foot away. So you can stay 3 feet back and run them where ever you want, until they get frustrated that the piece of bread they were trying to eat is now 20 feet behind them, then they get up and fly away. But seriously, if you ever come to Leeds, chase the pidgeons. It's one of the easiest forms of entertainment here.
EDIT: Yeah, I'm totally against animal violence too, I don't hurt them, just give them some exercise, in case you were worried.
Anyway, back to York. Now, I'm sure that many of you know that York has a wall around it. For those of you who weren't aware of this fact- York has a wall around it. What is cool about this wall, is that you can walk on it, unlike the wall in Newcastle, which you can only walk next to, except for one tiny part that is a dead end that I don't think you're really supposed to go on. So we walked around like 2/3 of it, because by the time we finished the 2nd 3rd of it, it was starting to be 'dusk,' and the gates to the walking on the walls close at 'dusk.' So instead we wandered around the middle until it really did get dark, and then we headed back to the train station and came home.
I apologize for the super-long paragraphs and the two paragraphs about birds. I know no one cares about birds that much, but I really want to know how Canadian geese got here. If you don't believe me, wait till I put up the pictures.
Now, about those pictures. Unfortunately, I have this bad habit of procrastinating. This means that at the moment, I only have 500-something words out of 2000 done for Friday. I have another 2000 word essay due on next Friday, and this weekend, we're going to Edinburgh. All that adds up to one simple fact: Time is short this week. I realize that everyone lives for my pictures, seeing where I go in England is the highlight of your fortnight (woo! big word! also, it's true, since they tend to go up every two weeks... anyway), and that without a constant supply, you'll all have to go through withdrawal. While I feel your pain, really, I do, I don't think you'll be getting York pictures for a while.
But I'm writing this huge blog! I must have time to upload a few pictures! WRONG! I bet you didn't know this, but it takes at LEAST 2 hours for me to sort through the hundreds of pictures I take to get rid of the blurry ones, get rid of the ones with me or Jake with silly faces, get rid of the ones that are similar to others.... and then I have to upload and caption every single one of the hundreds of pictures I decide to upload. I just don't have that time right now. I'm thinking you'll have to wait until after next Friday, unless I manage to finish an essay earlier than Thursday night. Maybe if I have free time I'll put up a handfull of pictures, but I'd rather just put the all up at once instead of a few at a time.
And now, you're all wondering when you'll get your next fix. Well, you might have to wait another two weeks, but when you do get those pictures, it will be even better. Know why? Because there will be pictures from Edinburgh too! It's like two for one!
Yeah, I agree with you, why would I decide to go to Edinburgh when I have an essay due the next week. Well, I have no idea why it was decided that we'd go this week. But that's ok! Theres a 3 hour train ride to read books on. And I can read at the hostel. Yes, *gasp* a hostel. We're going in Friday afternoon, coming back Sunday sometime. I mean, it's a 6+hour round trip, you didn't expect us to do that all in one day, now did you?
Yeah, the only reason I'm writing this much is because Jake is looking for books for one of his essays, and I'm waiting for him to find them to leave, and writing this in the meantime.
Maybe I'll write another short entry later this week with a picture of something random, like those black and white birds, or the milk cartons here. Somthing surprising.
Ooh. Incentive: First person to email me at alottaocelot at gmail dot com with an explanation (backed up with evidence, a website will do) as to how Canadian geese got to York, will get a postcard.
Seriously, I'm that curious.
Anyway, Jake came back, so I have to leave now.
Bye!
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Neglect.
So I feel like I've been neglecting all of you this week. No updates. Sorry about that.
Monday we went to Meadowhall (giant mall slightly outside of Sheffield) so I could take my laptop to the Apple store since it had been freezing and doing that weird screen freaking out thing again. First time I turned it on there, it (of course) didn't do it. Restarted it, and ta-daa! Crazy screen thing. The guy there figured that it was probably the video card, so he ordered me a new one, and is supposed to call when it gets in.
Now, the really weird thing, is that it hasn't done the weird screen thing since Monday, and it's only (hah, only...as if I've resigned myself to living with it freezing) froze once so far. It's like the video card is saying, no! Don't replace me! I'll be good!
But I'm going to go ahead and get it replaced. Shouldn't do any harm, and it'll probably keep it alive longer. And then if it freezes and does the weird thing again, I just go back and make them figure out what it is. Hooray 3 year extended warranty!!
Other that that, haven't gone anywhere exciting this week. We've mostly been working on homework/essays. I had 2 presentations today and chem hw due tomorrow. Then I've got an essay due next week and another the week after.
Saturday we're going to York for the day, people keep saying we should go there. Then it's back to essays. Meh.
That's it for now.
:)
Monday we went to Meadowhall (giant mall slightly outside of Sheffield) so I could take my laptop to the Apple store since it had been freezing and doing that weird screen freaking out thing again. First time I turned it on there, it (of course) didn't do it. Restarted it, and ta-daa! Crazy screen thing. The guy there figured that it was probably the video card, so he ordered me a new one, and is supposed to call when it gets in.
Now, the really weird thing, is that it hasn't done the weird screen thing since Monday, and it's only (hah, only...as if I've resigned myself to living with it freezing) froze once so far. It's like the video card is saying, no! Don't replace me! I'll be good!
But I'm going to go ahead and get it replaced. Shouldn't do any harm, and it'll probably keep it alive longer. And then if it freezes and does the weird thing again, I just go back and make them figure out what it is. Hooray 3 year extended warranty!!
Other that that, haven't gone anywhere exciting this week. We've mostly been working on homework/essays. I had 2 presentations today and chem hw due tomorrow. Then I've got an essay due next week and another the week after.
Saturday we're going to York for the day, people keep saying we should go there. Then it's back to essays. Meh.
That's it for now.
:)
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Castle Pictures!!
Castle pictures are up. They're pretty awesome. Go look!
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| Newcastle upon Tyne / Tynemouth |
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Newcastle upon Tyne / Tynemouth Trip
So we got back from the Newcastle trip about.... 6 hours ago. It was another trip done through the International Office.
At first, Jake and I didn't really think they had that much going for them, and then I found out that in Tynemouth, they have this awesome castle on a cliff with a beach next door. So we decided that we would definately go there, as it was a 30 minute train ride, for 3.80 pounds roundtrip. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
We got dropped off in a spot that was different than where they had originally told us we'd be dropped off (they give us packets about the cities when we pay that tell us places we could go and where we'll be dropped off, etc.). So that changed the route we had planned on taking, but not by much.
We started off by going toward the wall. There's a wall that used to go around Newcastle as a defense. Part of it was still there, so we found it and walked along the length of it (it wasn't that big). Conveniently, the wall dead-ended at Chinatown. This Chinatown had an Imperial arch, just like the one in Liverpool, excepts this one was smaller. Then we turned around a bit to go to Blackfriars, which used to be a Friary full of Dominican monks (I think). They wore black robes and shoes. Crazy guys. Anyway, the wall had gotten built through their little village, and because their garden was on the other side of it, they got a key to be able to go through and take care of their vegetables. Of course, you can't build a wall around a garden. Psh.
Anyway, after that, we went in search of the Earl Grey monument. We got lost along the way, but then we found a handy dandy sign pointing behind us. The signs in Newcastle are awesome. Know how in movies/cartoons there'll be a stick with 384957893475 arrows pointing in different directions? That's what they had. It was awesome. Anyway, Earl Grey had some musicians down by the base of his pedestal. They were pretty awesome.
From there we got on the Metro, aka train to Tynemouth. It's pretty much exactally like MARTA in Atlanta, except the trains are probably older. Speaking of trains, the girl in charge of the bus we were on said that the first train was tested in Newcastle. Don't know if that's true or not. Anyway, we get to Tynemouth, get off the train, and realize we don't have a map (reoccuring theme I think). But- their train station is pretty cool- they have a local market there every weekend, and there was a guy playing an accordian. So we walk out of the trainstation, and they have a sign with arrows! One of which says, go this way to get to the castle. So we went that way, and ta-daa! Castle. It was AWESOME.
Seriously. AWESOME. In capitals. We probably spent like an hour wandering around it and taking pictures of it. It's mostly fallen down, but the little chapel was still together, so we could go in there, and then part of the main building (I guess...) was still together and you could go up two/three levels sort of. The kitchen was still in one piece! But yeah, it was cool.
Then we went to the beach that was right next door. Literally, it was just down a little hill. We wandered around and took pictures and almost got stranded on some rocks when the tide started coming in. Heh. But we escaped! Jake's toe got wet and I stuck a finger in the ocean. So we have been in the super North Atlantic. Yay for us. Then since it was Valentine's day, Jake found a stick and made a heart with Amanda + Jake in it. Awwww. Then we ran away from the ocean before it swallowed us whole and went back to the trainstation to go back to Newcastle.
Upon returning to Newcastle we went across the Millenium Bridge, and then across a red one, and then we got to a castle in Newcastle, which is all whole and in one piece (I assume). However, we got there at 4:45 and the last admission is at 4:15, so we didn't get to go in, just walked around. But we might go back to Newcastle at some point in the future. Then we just kind of worked our way back to where the bus dropped us off at.
Soo.. plans for the future:
We both have essays due soon, so we're going to use tomorrow (Sunday) and next weekend to work on those. Weekend after that we're going to York on our own to look around.
After that, there's a chance we might meet up with one of Jake's friends from high-school who is in Florence and go somewhere with him.
Other than that, we're currently working on plans for Easter/spring break, which is a month long.
Pictures will go up sometime this week, I'll try and make it before Friday, but Friday really is the easiest day for me to put them up. Maybe Tuesday. We'll see.
At first, Jake and I didn't really think they had that much going for them, and then I found out that in Tynemouth, they have this awesome castle on a cliff with a beach next door. So we decided that we would definately go there, as it was a 30 minute train ride, for 3.80 pounds roundtrip. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
We got dropped off in a spot that was different than where they had originally told us we'd be dropped off (they give us packets about the cities when we pay that tell us places we could go and where we'll be dropped off, etc.). So that changed the route we had planned on taking, but not by much.
We started off by going toward the wall. There's a wall that used to go around Newcastle as a defense. Part of it was still there, so we found it and walked along the length of it (it wasn't that big). Conveniently, the wall dead-ended at Chinatown. This Chinatown had an Imperial arch, just like the one in Liverpool, excepts this one was smaller. Then we turned around a bit to go to Blackfriars, which used to be a Friary full of Dominican monks (I think). They wore black robes and shoes. Crazy guys. Anyway, the wall had gotten built through their little village, and because their garden was on the other side of it, they got a key to be able to go through and take care of their vegetables. Of course, you can't build a wall around a garden. Psh.
Anyway, after that, we went in search of the Earl Grey monument. We got lost along the way, but then we found a handy dandy sign pointing behind us. The signs in Newcastle are awesome. Know how in movies/cartoons there'll be a stick with 384957893475 arrows pointing in different directions? That's what they had. It was awesome. Anyway, Earl Grey had some musicians down by the base of his pedestal. They were pretty awesome.
From there we got on the Metro, aka train to Tynemouth. It's pretty much exactally like MARTA in Atlanta, except the trains are probably older. Speaking of trains, the girl in charge of the bus we were on said that the first train was tested in Newcastle. Don't know if that's true or not. Anyway, we get to Tynemouth, get off the train, and realize we don't have a map (reoccuring theme I think). But- their train station is pretty cool- they have a local market there every weekend, and there was a guy playing an accordian. So we walk out of the trainstation, and they have a sign with arrows! One of which says, go this way to get to the castle. So we went that way, and ta-daa! Castle. It was AWESOME.
Seriously. AWESOME. In capitals. We probably spent like an hour wandering around it and taking pictures of it. It's mostly fallen down, but the little chapel was still together, so we could go in there, and then part of the main building (I guess...) was still together and you could go up two/three levels sort of. The kitchen was still in one piece! But yeah, it was cool.
Then we went to the beach that was right next door. Literally, it was just down a little hill. We wandered around and took pictures and almost got stranded on some rocks when the tide started coming in. Heh. But we escaped! Jake's toe got wet and I stuck a finger in the ocean. So we have been in the super North Atlantic. Yay for us. Then since it was Valentine's day, Jake found a stick and made a heart with Amanda + Jake in it. Awwww. Then we ran away from the ocean before it swallowed us whole and went back to the trainstation to go back to Newcastle.
Upon returning to Newcastle we went across the Millenium Bridge, and then across a red one, and then we got to a castle in Newcastle, which is all whole and in one piece (I assume). However, we got there at 4:45 and the last admission is at 4:15, so we didn't get to go in, just walked around. But we might go back to Newcastle at some point in the future. Then we just kind of worked our way back to where the bus dropped us off at.
Soo.. plans for the future:
We both have essays due soon, so we're going to use tomorrow (Sunday) and next weekend to work on those. Weekend after that we're going to York on our own to look around.
After that, there's a chance we might meet up with one of Jake's friends from high-school who is in Florence and go somewhere with him.
Other than that, we're currently working on plans for Easter/spring break, which is a month long.
Pictures will go up sometime this week, I'll try and make it before Friday, but Friday really is the easiest day for me to put them up. Maybe Tuesday. We'll see.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Pictures!
Ok, due to complaints from parents about a lack of my and Jake's faces, I have gone back and added pictures to Liverpool that have us in them. Scroll down a bit to see the link to the Liverpool album, then just look through it real quick to find us if you want.
I have also added pictures from earlier this week- snowmen and the trip to the Royal Armouries.
I have also added pictures from earlier this week- snowmen and the trip to the Royal Armouries.
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| Snow in Leeds/ Royal Armouries Trip 1 |
Monday, February 9, 2009
What actually happened in Liverpool
Now, I'm sure that someone out there looked at the pictures of Liverpool, and was like, well sure, these captions are great, but what went on at these places?
Well, those people are in luck!
Why, you ask?
Because I am about to tell you about where we went and what those places are and why they're important and all that jazz! Well, maybe. I'll try.
The first picture or so is the countryside on the way to Liverpool. There were a lot of sheep. Sheep are pretty cool. There were also a bunch of old walls laying around which were pretty cool. It'd be fun to get out and wander around and hug the sheep and walk on the walls, but I don't think that'll be happening any time soon.
Anyway, upon our arrival in Liverpool, we were dropped of at Albert Docks. We got off the bus thinking that it'd be in the 40s, because that's what the internet told us it would be. The internet neglected to inform us of the wind, which made it like 20 degrees colder. Before we got there we had plotted out a vaguely circular route through the city with all the places we wanted to go in/past.
We started off by going to the big fancy buildings by the waterside: the Royal Liver Building, and the one next to it. After that, we went on a search for the Superlambanana. The Superlambanana repressents Liverpool's trading in sheep and bananas or something like that. Google it, the website tells you more about where it came from. But, I'd have to say, the Superlambanana is pretty damn awesome.
After the Superlambanana we were getting pretty cold, so we headed toward the museum and library. We had wanted to go past and look at the architecture anyway, but because of the cold and the free admission, we ended up going in anyway. The museum was actually pretty cool. Then we went in the art gallery/museum next door and looked around in there for a little bit. After that, we went back outside, and took some pictures of the statues across the street. Then around the corner to the big building that had Victoria and Albert on horses in front of it; the name escapes me at the moment.
Our next stop was going to be the Anglican Cathedral, but we got a little distracted and ended up going through the shopping district, and found some mini-Superlambananas. Eventually we got to Chinatown (nothing like Chinatown in NYC) and saw the arch. On the way there we had gone past the bombed out church that was closed due to the ridiculous winds. It's been sort of converted into a concert hall, and it was supposed to be open to walk around in.
After that we got to the Anglican Cathedral just in time to get to go up to the top.
Apparently I'm slightly afraid of heights, something I forget until I'm somewhere high and then I get a little shaky. Oops.
Anyway, it was pretty cool up there. You could see the whole city pretty much (go look at the pictures). It was also really really windy. More windy than it was on the ground. But, the most surprising thing was how big it was. It's really huge and on top of a hill, so you can't see it until you come around a corner because shorter buildings are blocking your line of sight. But once you come around the corner to the driveway, it's just like *jaw drop* woah. I was really not expecting it to be that big. The inside was shiny (for those of you who are not familiar with Firefly, shiny is a synonym for cool, awesome, neat, etc.). Again, see the pictures.
After that, it was just about time to get back on the bus, so we headed back to Albert Docks.
So, the week after the trip to Liverpool (31st) I had all those problems with my dongle, but my laptop seems to be ok now. So that's good. This week has been pretty uneventful, just classes, although on Tuesday we went to the Royal Armouries after class since we had the time. Then Sunday we made a snowman family since it snowed again.
Royal Armouries pictures will go up tomorrow along with snowman pictures.
This Saturday we're going to Newcastle upon Tyne, so that should be pretty cool.
Not sure where we're going to next weekend, because the weather is pretty crappy. Apparently the south has a ton of snow, and we'd kind of like to go somewhere warmish. So we'll probably figure that out soon, or might just stay in Leeds again and go to some places here we've been wanting to see. Or might work on essays and stuff since those are going to be due soon.
Anyway, that's it for now really.
I'll try and put up Newcastle pictures Monday or Tuesday, and then do an entry about where we went there.
If anyone has any questions about stuff, leave a comment.
Same goes for recommendations for places to go/ things to see.
Well, those people are in luck!
Why, you ask?
Because I am about to tell you about where we went and what those places are and why they're important and all that jazz! Well, maybe. I'll try.
The first picture or so is the countryside on the way to Liverpool. There were a lot of sheep. Sheep are pretty cool. There were also a bunch of old walls laying around which were pretty cool. It'd be fun to get out and wander around and hug the sheep and walk on the walls, but I don't think that'll be happening any time soon.
Anyway, upon our arrival in Liverpool, we were dropped of at Albert Docks. We got off the bus thinking that it'd be in the 40s, because that's what the internet told us it would be. The internet neglected to inform us of the wind, which made it like 20 degrees colder. Before we got there we had plotted out a vaguely circular route through the city with all the places we wanted to go in/past.
We started off by going to the big fancy buildings by the waterside: the Royal Liver Building, and the one next to it. After that, we went on a search for the Superlambanana. The Superlambanana repressents Liverpool's trading in sheep and bananas or something like that. Google it, the website tells you more about where it came from. But, I'd have to say, the Superlambanana is pretty damn awesome.
After the Superlambanana we were getting pretty cold, so we headed toward the museum and library. We had wanted to go past and look at the architecture anyway, but because of the cold and the free admission, we ended up going in anyway. The museum was actually pretty cool. Then we went in the art gallery/museum next door and looked around in there for a little bit. After that, we went back outside, and took some pictures of the statues across the street. Then around the corner to the big building that had Victoria and Albert on horses in front of it; the name escapes me at the moment.
Our next stop was going to be the Anglican Cathedral, but we got a little distracted and ended up going through the shopping district, and found some mini-Superlambananas. Eventually we got to Chinatown (nothing like Chinatown in NYC) and saw the arch. On the way there we had gone past the bombed out church that was closed due to the ridiculous winds. It's been sort of converted into a concert hall, and it was supposed to be open to walk around in.
After that we got to the Anglican Cathedral just in time to get to go up to the top.
Apparently I'm slightly afraid of heights, something I forget until I'm somewhere high and then I get a little shaky. Oops.
Anyway, it was pretty cool up there. You could see the whole city pretty much (go look at the pictures). It was also really really windy. More windy than it was on the ground. But, the most surprising thing was how big it was. It's really huge and on top of a hill, so you can't see it until you come around a corner because shorter buildings are blocking your line of sight. But once you come around the corner to the driveway, it's just like *jaw drop* woah. I was really not expecting it to be that big. The inside was shiny (for those of you who are not familiar with Firefly, shiny is a synonym for cool, awesome, neat, etc.). Again, see the pictures.
After that, it was just about time to get back on the bus, so we headed back to Albert Docks.
So, the week after the trip to Liverpool (31st) I had all those problems with my dongle, but my laptop seems to be ok now. So that's good. This week has been pretty uneventful, just classes, although on Tuesday we went to the Royal Armouries after class since we had the time. Then Sunday we made a snowman family since it snowed again.
Royal Armouries pictures will go up tomorrow along with snowman pictures.
This Saturday we're going to Newcastle upon Tyne, so that should be pretty cool.
Not sure where we're going to next weekend, because the weather is pretty crappy. Apparently the south has a ton of snow, and we'd kind of like to go somewhere warmish. So we'll probably figure that out soon, or might just stay in Leeds again and go to some places here we've been wanting to see. Or might work on essays and stuff since those are going to be due soon.
Anyway, that's it for now really.
I'll try and put up Newcastle pictures Monday or Tuesday, and then do an entry about where we went there.
If anyone has any questions about stuff, leave a comment.
Same goes for recommendations for places to go/ things to see.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Zombie Laptop FTW....hopefully.
Well Jake messed around with my laptop for a bit last night, he says he didn't do anything, but he somehow got it to start up without freezing, I moved the files that weren't backed up yet onto my external hard-drive... and it was still working.
As of right now, we've just traded dongles, and that seems to be working pretty good for both of us so far.
However, I am sick, and so I'm not going to bother going to campus today since I don't have any classes, so pictures will go up either tomorrow or Friday. Probably Friday.
And if my laptop dies again, we'll be taking a spontaneous trip to Sheffild this weekend. Otherwise we're going to the Royal Armouries again to actually spend time there and take pictures, and then probably going to this old church/castle thing that I found online that's a couple miles from where we live.
So that's what's going on.
As of right now, we've just traded dongles, and that seems to be working pretty good for both of us so far.
However, I am sick, and so I'm not going to bother going to campus today since I don't have any classes, so pictures will go up either tomorrow or Friday. Probably Friday.
And if my laptop dies again, we'll be taking a spontaneous trip to Sheffild this weekend. Otherwise we're going to the Royal Armouries again to actually spend time there and take pictures, and then probably going to this old church/castle thing that I found online that's a couple miles from where we live.
So that's what's going on.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Grr.
There will be pictures soon as I have a laptop again. Mine is dead, courtesy of 3 mobile broadband. Who, conveniently enough, deny that it's their fault, so tomorrow I'm going to Sheffield so that I can go to the Apple store and hopefully get it fixed.
Monday, February 2, 2009
I lied. Also, 3 sucks.
So I had this nice little entry explaining why I didn't have pictures up as promised, then my wonderful little 3 mobile broadband internet decided it wanted to crash the mac, and I had to restart.
Anyway, stuff happened after class, it was snowy and wet and slushy and ick outside, so we decided to just go home and have dinner and be bums and watch a movie. I will bring my laptop to campus tomorrow to upload pictures. I think y'all can wait a little longer, I doubt any of you are dying of antici.........pation to see the pictures of Liverpool. Anyone who knows what movie that's from gets a cookie. Figure out someway to let me know you know without letting everyone else know and the cookie is yours.
Oh, and for those of you who aren't aware, there's a handy dandy link at the bottom of each entry that lets you leave comments if you want. Anyone should be able to leave one, even if you don't have an account.
That's it.
Anyway, stuff happened after class, it was snowy and wet and slushy and ick outside, so we decided to just go home and have dinner and be bums and watch a movie. I will bring my laptop to campus tomorrow to upload pictures. I think y'all can wait a little longer, I doubt any of you are dying of antici.........pation to see the pictures of Liverpool. Anyone who knows what movie that's from gets a cookie. Figure out someway to let me know you know without letting everyone else know and the cookie is yours.
Oh, and for those of you who aren't aware, there's a handy dandy link at the bottom of each entry that lets you leave comments if you want. Anyone should be able to leave one, even if you don't have an account.
That's it.
3 mobile broadband = crap
As a note to anyone who may decide to come to Leeds/England/ the UK and then ends up in a situation where they need internet for some reason, do not get a 3 mobile broadband dongle. Especially if you have a Mac. Yes, I can use the internet, but every so often, for no apparent reason, the modem will cause my computer to crash. Also, occasionally you'll fall offline and it won't let you know, you'll have to go and disconnect then reconnect yourself.
And the latest development? It blocks all other forms of internet from working. Somehow. I have no idea how. I wanted to come to campus to upload pictures on the wifi here, so that they wouldn't eat up my internet.
I just spent the last half hour or so trying to figure out why I couldn't connect to the wifi. Somehow the 3 modem program that lets you run it managed to take control of the internet ports to the point where whenever I'd try and turn on wireless, it would immediately turn it off. I ended up uninstalling the 3 program, and ta-daa! I had wireless. Unfortunately, I think that all that messing with the internet connection means that I don't have time right now to put pictures up. But that's probably ok, I don't think anyone really checks this at 6:30 in the morning in the US... excepts for Jake's dad. So pictures will probably be up by the time y'all wake up or get home from work, whichever is the case for whoever you are.
And the latest development? It blocks all other forms of internet from working. Somehow. I have no idea how. I wanted to come to campus to upload pictures on the wifi here, so that they wouldn't eat up my internet.
I just spent the last half hour or so trying to figure out why I couldn't connect to the wifi. Somehow the 3 modem program that lets you run it managed to take control of the internet ports to the point where whenever I'd try and turn on wireless, it would immediately turn it off. I ended up uninstalling the 3 program, and ta-daa! I had wireless. Unfortunately, I think that all that messing with the internet connection means that I don't have time right now to put pictures up. But that's probably ok, I don't think anyone really checks this at 6:30 in the morning in the US... excepts for Jake's dad. So pictures will probably be up by the time y'all wake up or get home from work, whichever is the case for whoever you are.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Classes / Food
I've been to 3 of my 4 classes so far this week, and I think that they might just be doing it the right way over here.
For most classes, you've got the "lecture" and then a separate smaller group for discussion. Basically.
Like, both my Midieval Knights and History of Disease (shortened names because the real course names are like 9043589357 words long) classes have about 30-40 people in them. That's it, and that might be an over-estimate. Then on Thursdays, there are seminars with about 10 people in them where we sit around and talk about the lecture or other reading we have to do. Disease class is having us do a group presentation too, but really, that's not that bad.
Organic Chemistry only has like 150 people in it. Organic lecture at Tech probably has like 250+ kids, and there are probably 4-5 lectures of it a semester. Now, unless I'm missing something somewhere, there's only one organic lecture this semester here, and it only has 150 people in it. Also, University of Leeds is like twice as big as Tech. Now, true, it's got all those liberal arts kids ((no offense!!)), but still, that's amazing that theres only 150 kids who need/want to take it. Also, something that makes me happy about that, is that the professor writes on the board instead of just using powerpoints. I hate it when Chemistry professors just use powerpoints. It's useless. And then, in addition to the 2 lectures a week, there are 3 tutorial sessions spread throughout the semester to help us out if we have any questions.
Statics I haven't been to, but the room it's in can only hold like 50 kids, max. And again, I'm pretty sure it's the only statics lecture there is this semester. And Tech has like... 10 of those or something. (Probably less, but I'm too lazy to check the catalogue and I've never actually looked it up.) And statics will have the handy-dandy tutorial sessions too.
Oh, and all these tutorials and seminars? They're mandatory. It's like they're forcing us into individual contact with teachers! It's amazing! Tech should try this! Although I'm pretty sure it would never work at Tech. Logistics and all that jazz. Plus the fact that the tutorials arent at the same time/day of the week from what I hear, and seminars don't always meet every week. But I think it'll be nice to learn this way. Not that I have any major issues with how Tech does things. I mean I'm a MSE major... most of my classes only have 10 kids in them. 15 max. Or at least, they will, once I start taking mostly MSE classes instead of general ed requirements.
Oh, the other nice thing here, is that for 4 classes, the Tech equivalent to 19 credits, I only have 7 hours of class every single week, some weeks have 8-9 depending on if there's a seminar/tutorial that week.
Now, for reference, last semester at Tech I had.. 18 hours of classes for only 15 credits (true, that included a 3 hour lab). Last spring I had 17 hours of class for 16 credits (no lab, just regular classes).
THAT'S HALF AS MANY HOURS OF CLASS FOR MORE CREDITS!
But there is a ton of reading outside of class. And I'll have 3 essays to write, plus some chem homework (3 assignments), and probably some statics homework.
Then 3 finals after that.
The grading too, that's something awesome as well-
Knights- 2 2000 word essays, each 50% of the grade
Disease- 1 2000 word essay 30%, 1 presentation- 5%, participation-5%, final- 60%
Chem- 3 hw assignments 12%, final- 88%
Statics- not sure yet.
But look at how little the teachers have to grade! So little they don't have to pass it on to TAs. I think. I'm really not positive, because all the homework gets turned into central locations of the schools the class is for. (History goes to History secretary, etc.)
But still. This is awesome. Unless they don't like my essays and give me an F on them, that would suck. So it's a lot more work for fewer assignments, logically they ought to have more work put into them. The other hard part that I'm going to have to figure out, is how to make MS Word on my laptop think that it's English. We have to use English spelling. As in UK English, not USA English. Basically, they put extra 'u's in words, and turn double letters into single letters. I've got colour and armour and... yeah, that's about the only ones I'm fully aware of. So I've got to figure that out. I think theres probably some setting for spell checker as to what version of English to use... western vs something else. But if someone else wants to look into that for me, that'd be great.
Oh, and, converting UK grades to US grades makes a C something like a 50/60 I think, which is all you need for transfer credit to transfer back to Tech.
Not that I'm trying to make it sound like everyone should do this instead of staying at Tech, but it is pretty awesome. And fun. All this free time means you can go do exciting things, like explore and take pictures of places you explore. (I'll have more up in a day or two or three.)
So, yesterday instead of a seminar for the Knights class, we had a field trip to the Royal Armouries. It's pretty cool, and admission is free, so I'm definately going to go back and take pictures. Since we were a special group, they put us all in a room and let us play with replica armour. AWESOME! Seriously, how many times in your life does that happen? Almost never. Unless you take this class. Most likely. Unless you decide you want to grow up and become a professional jouster or a armour studier-person who gets to play with it all day.. or if you decide you want to make it.. ok, so maybe it can happen, but for the vast majority of the population, I doubt they will ever touch shiny pointy things. (They trusted us with a sword and a little stabby thing with a special name. True, they weren't sharp, but still... awesome.)
Random weird England thing: Their keyboards are different. Mostly the same... but the @ sign isn't above the 2. It's above the '. and the # sign is over by the enter key, above the 3 is the £ sign... " is above the 2. The ~ is above the #, and where the ~ belongs is ¬ whatever that is. I really hope it shows up in the character set over in the US and that the internet doesn't freak out and put one of those little boxes for characters that don't exist. Anyone know what it's for? Also, the 4 has a euro sign on it, but I'm not sure how to get it, since hitting shift-4 gives you $.
*shrug*
Takes a little getting used to, especially when you're signing into a website that you need your email address for, like blogger.
I've still got about an hour till Statics, so I'm just going to keep going.... Nothing better to do really, since the stuff I need to read for class next week is at home and I don't feel like trying to find it in the library.
Food:
There are a lot of Subways here. One on every block almost. Maybe more. I think I've only seen one or two Starbucks.
Their McDonalds are a lot nicer than the ones in the states. Food tastes about the same, maybe a little better, but that could just be because I didn't get a regular burger.
Last week for lunch one day, Jake and I went to a pub down the street because he wanted fish & chips. I'm not big on seafood since it looks like it could just get up and walk off your plate half the time, and the other half of the time it still tastes bad, so I got a steak and ale pie. Basically, it's a pot pie shell with beef burgandy in it, but beef burgandy made with ale instead of burgandy. It was very tasty. I had this really awesome lemonade there too, don't remember the brand name, but it was fizzy and had more than just lemonade flavor. Jake made me try a bite of the fish and it was ok. Still wouldn't order it though.
I think that was probably the only "Brittish" food we've had. We've made pasta a couple of nights, sandwiches, grilled cheese, had Subway, KFC, pizza, he had a donner kebab one night, made tacos one night, made mini-pizzas one night for like £1. Hooray for super cheap grocery stores! Last night we ordered Chinese. They have something similar to campus foods here, www.just-eat.co.uk. We ordered from some restaurant with Dragon in the name, and got sweet and sour chicken balls. Ten times more awesome than regular sweet & sour chicken.
It seems like it's about the same to eat out as it is to cook. Pasta and those mini pizzas we made being the only obvious exceptions. Buying meat is kind of expensive, depending on what store you go to. Ground beef is like 3£ for 500g. Which is roughly equal to $4.50 for a pound, and I'm fairly certain that it's only about $2.50 a pound in the states. *shrug*
Oh, the weirdest thing (in my opinion) about their food is their milk. Now, for those of you who know me, I am a huge milk fan. It's about the only thing I drink, and at home, my family goes through over a gallon a day. So milk is pretty important for me. I walk into the grocery store for the first time, get to where the milk is, and OH MY GOD! IT'S IN RECTANGLES! It is. It also only comes in 1pt, 2pt, 4pt and 6pt containers. Why pints, I have no idea. But it makes sense. The fridges here are like... less than half the size of American fridges. They don't have room for regular square gallon containers. Their milk goes on the door. So it's gotta be all rectangular shaped. Its pretty cool, but every time I go and buy more, it's so weird to see them all sitting there. I'll take a picture sometime. Also, the milk containers have pint markings on the sides so you can tell how much you've used. Pretty awesome. However, the rectangular shape makes it a little awkward to drink out of the 6pt container. Heh. Not that I do that. >.>
Also, there are a million little hole in the wall restaurant/ take away places. Where we're living isn't that big, it's mostly residential, and we've got 8 places within a block that I can think of, I'm sure theres more that aren't jumping out at me. So theres a pretty big variety of food close by if we want to walk down the street and order it. Also, we've got 3 grocery stores really close by. Aldi, Netto's and Meanwood Grocery. I was kinda surprised they had Aldis here. *shrug* Also surprised that they had Helmanns mayo. But that made me really happy since I don't trust other mayos, not after my run in with that crappy mayo wanna-be that tastes like crap (don't remember the name at the moment). Mayo is one of the things I refuse to buy the cheap brand of. Cheese is another, but they don't really have anything other than the "cheap" expensive cheese. As in, no-name cheese, but it's expensive. All their cheese is. Maybe 3£ for half of a regular sized block back home? But it tastes really good since it's aged super long and not processed. *shrug*
But I think this is long enough for now, someone is going to complain about the length I bet, but that's ok.
For most classes, you've got the "lecture" and then a separate smaller group for discussion. Basically.
Like, both my Midieval Knights and History of Disease (shortened names because the real course names are like 9043589357 words long) classes have about 30-40 people in them. That's it, and that might be an over-estimate. Then on Thursdays, there are seminars with about 10 people in them where we sit around and talk about the lecture or other reading we have to do. Disease class is having us do a group presentation too, but really, that's not that bad.
Organic Chemistry only has like 150 people in it. Organic lecture at Tech probably has like 250+ kids, and there are probably 4-5 lectures of it a semester. Now, unless I'm missing something somewhere, there's only one organic lecture this semester here, and it only has 150 people in it. Also, University of Leeds is like twice as big as Tech. Now, true, it's got all those liberal arts kids ((no offense!!)), but still, that's amazing that theres only 150 kids who need/want to take it. Also, something that makes me happy about that, is that the professor writes on the board instead of just using powerpoints. I hate it when Chemistry professors just use powerpoints. It's useless. And then, in addition to the 2 lectures a week, there are 3 tutorial sessions spread throughout the semester to help us out if we have any questions.
Statics I haven't been to, but the room it's in can only hold like 50 kids, max. And again, I'm pretty sure it's the only statics lecture there is this semester. And Tech has like... 10 of those or something. (Probably less, but I'm too lazy to check the catalogue and I've never actually looked it up.) And statics will have the handy-dandy tutorial sessions too.
Oh, and all these tutorials and seminars? They're mandatory. It's like they're forcing us into individual contact with teachers! It's amazing! Tech should try this! Although I'm pretty sure it would never work at Tech. Logistics and all that jazz. Plus the fact that the tutorials arent at the same time/day of the week from what I hear, and seminars don't always meet every week. But I think it'll be nice to learn this way. Not that I have any major issues with how Tech does things. I mean I'm a MSE major... most of my classes only have 10 kids in them. 15 max. Or at least, they will, once I start taking mostly MSE classes instead of general ed requirements.
Oh, the other nice thing here, is that for 4 classes, the Tech equivalent to 19 credits, I only have 7 hours of class every single week, some weeks have 8-9 depending on if there's a seminar/tutorial that week.
Now, for reference, last semester at Tech I had.. 18 hours of classes for only 15 credits (true, that included a 3 hour lab). Last spring I had 17 hours of class for 16 credits (no lab, just regular classes).
THAT'S HALF AS MANY HOURS OF CLASS FOR MORE CREDITS!
But there is a ton of reading outside of class. And I'll have 3 essays to write, plus some chem homework (3 assignments), and probably some statics homework.
Then 3 finals after that.
The grading too, that's something awesome as well-
Knights- 2 2000 word essays, each 50% of the grade
Disease- 1 2000 word essay 30%, 1 presentation- 5%, participation-5%, final- 60%
Chem- 3 hw assignments 12%, final- 88%
Statics- not sure yet.
But look at how little the teachers have to grade! So little they don't have to pass it on to TAs. I think. I'm really not positive, because all the homework gets turned into central locations of the schools the class is for. (History goes to History secretary, etc.)
But still. This is awesome. Unless they don't like my essays and give me an F on them, that would suck. So it's a lot more work for fewer assignments, logically they ought to have more work put into them. The other hard part that I'm going to have to figure out, is how to make MS Word on my laptop think that it's English. We have to use English spelling. As in UK English, not USA English. Basically, they put extra 'u's in words, and turn double letters into single letters. I've got colour and armour and... yeah, that's about the only ones I'm fully aware of. So I've got to figure that out. I think theres probably some setting for spell checker as to what version of English to use... western vs something else. But if someone else wants to look into that for me, that'd be great.
Oh, and, converting UK grades to US grades makes a C something like a 50/60 I think, which is all you need for transfer credit to transfer back to Tech.
Not that I'm trying to make it sound like everyone should do this instead of staying at Tech, but it is pretty awesome. And fun. All this free time means you can go do exciting things, like explore and take pictures of places you explore. (I'll have more up in a day or two or three.)
So, yesterday instead of a seminar for the Knights class, we had a field trip to the Royal Armouries. It's pretty cool, and admission is free, so I'm definately going to go back and take pictures. Since we were a special group, they put us all in a room and let us play with replica armour. AWESOME! Seriously, how many times in your life does that happen? Almost never. Unless you take this class. Most likely. Unless you decide you want to grow up and become a professional jouster or a armour studier-person who gets to play with it all day.. or if you decide you want to make it.. ok, so maybe it can happen, but for the vast majority of the population, I doubt they will ever touch shiny pointy things. (They trusted us with a sword and a little stabby thing with a special name. True, they weren't sharp, but still... awesome.)
Random weird England thing: Their keyboards are different. Mostly the same... but the @ sign isn't above the 2. It's above the '. and the # sign is over by the enter key, above the 3 is the £ sign... " is above the 2. The ~ is above the #, and where the ~ belongs is ¬ whatever that is. I really hope it shows up in the character set over in the US and that the internet doesn't freak out and put one of those little boxes for characters that don't exist. Anyone know what it's for? Also, the 4 has a euro sign on it, but I'm not sure how to get it, since hitting shift-4 gives you $.
*shrug*
Takes a little getting used to, especially when you're signing into a website that you need your email address for, like blogger.
I've still got about an hour till Statics, so I'm just going to keep going.... Nothing better to do really, since the stuff I need to read for class next week is at home and I don't feel like trying to find it in the library.
Food:
There are a lot of Subways here. One on every block almost. Maybe more. I think I've only seen one or two Starbucks.
Their McDonalds are a lot nicer than the ones in the states. Food tastes about the same, maybe a little better, but that could just be because I didn't get a regular burger.
Last week for lunch one day, Jake and I went to a pub down the street because he wanted fish & chips. I'm not big on seafood since it looks like it could just get up and walk off your plate half the time, and the other half of the time it still tastes bad, so I got a steak and ale pie. Basically, it's a pot pie shell with beef burgandy in it, but beef burgandy made with ale instead of burgandy. It was very tasty. I had this really awesome lemonade there too, don't remember the brand name, but it was fizzy and had more than just lemonade flavor. Jake made me try a bite of the fish and it was ok. Still wouldn't order it though.
I think that was probably the only "Brittish" food we've had. We've made pasta a couple of nights, sandwiches, grilled cheese, had Subway, KFC, pizza, he had a donner kebab one night, made tacos one night, made mini-pizzas one night for like £1. Hooray for super cheap grocery stores! Last night we ordered Chinese. They have something similar to campus foods here, www.just-eat.co.uk. We ordered from some restaurant with Dragon in the name, and got sweet and sour chicken balls. Ten times more awesome than regular sweet & sour chicken.
It seems like it's about the same to eat out as it is to cook. Pasta and those mini pizzas we made being the only obvious exceptions. Buying meat is kind of expensive, depending on what store you go to. Ground beef is like 3£ for 500g. Which is roughly equal to $4.50 for a pound, and I'm fairly certain that it's only about $2.50 a pound in the states. *shrug*
Oh, the weirdest thing (in my opinion) about their food is their milk. Now, for those of you who know me, I am a huge milk fan. It's about the only thing I drink, and at home, my family goes through over a gallon a day. So milk is pretty important for me. I walk into the grocery store for the first time, get to where the milk is, and OH MY GOD! IT'S IN RECTANGLES! It is. It also only comes in 1pt, 2pt, 4pt and 6pt containers. Why pints, I have no idea. But it makes sense. The fridges here are like... less than half the size of American fridges. They don't have room for regular square gallon containers. Their milk goes on the door. So it's gotta be all rectangular shaped. Its pretty cool, but every time I go and buy more, it's so weird to see them all sitting there. I'll take a picture sometime. Also, the milk containers have pint markings on the sides so you can tell how much you've used. Pretty awesome. However, the rectangular shape makes it a little awkward to drink out of the 6pt container. Heh. Not that I do that. >.>
Also, there are a million little hole in the wall restaurant/ take away places. Where we're living isn't that big, it's mostly residential, and we've got 8 places within a block that I can think of, I'm sure theres more that aren't jumping out at me. So theres a pretty big variety of food close by if we want to walk down the street and order it. Also, we've got 3 grocery stores really close by. Aldi, Netto's and Meanwood Grocery. I was kinda surprised they had Aldis here. *shrug* Also surprised that they had Helmanns mayo. But that made me really happy since I don't trust other mayos, not after my run in with that crappy mayo wanna-be that tastes like crap (don't remember the name at the moment). Mayo is one of the things I refuse to buy the cheap brand of. Cheese is another, but they don't really have anything other than the "cheap" expensive cheese. As in, no-name cheese, but it's expensive. All their cheese is. Maybe 3£ for half of a regular sized block back home? But it tastes really good since it's aged super long and not processed. *shrug*
But I think this is long enough for now, someone is going to complain about the length I bet, but that's ok.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Pictures!
I put up pictures. As you can see by the telephone booths to the left.
<-----Left.
If you click on the telephone booths you can go and see the rest of the pictures I put up.
If you don't want to click, then all you get to see is that picture. The one on the left.
<-----Left.
:)
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Entry #2 from Leeds
I promise, pictures will be up soon, I'm using a school computer at the moment, and I don't have a SD adapter on me, so no pictures yet, definately by the end of next week. I promise.
So. We got here, and then Wednesday morning decided we should head to campus and let the International Office know that we were here. As we were leaving the house, we realized we didn't know where the hell we were going. This is why you need to print off maps of the area you're travelling to if AAA doesn't have them for that area. We eventually found our way to the city center without knowing it, then stopped in at a hotel and asked the guy at the front desk, he looked at us like we were crazy and said we just had to go up turn left and walk like 10 minutes.
Got to campus, checked in, they told us where computers were, so we went and used them. Yay internet! The rest of Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday were mostly full of wandering around Leeds and figuring out where stores were.
As for phones:
I think I may have said in one of the earlier entries (I don't remember and I'm too lazy too look) that I was planning on getting a Skypephone. Skypephones let you call people in the UK and use Skype to call the rest of the world. Pretty awesome sounding, right? Well, the company that sells the Skypephone, 3 mobile, is really, really annoying. They want a bank statement or a utility bill that says you live here. A letter from your landlord isn't enough, already tried that. So I might end up getting a phone that is skype compatible on a pay as you go plan. We'll see.
Internet:
If we wanted ethernet cord kind of internet, we'd have to pay for installation. We didn't want to do that, so we decided on dongles. Hehe. Dongles. Anyway, we went to Carphone Warehouse and I got a 12gb, 12 month starter kit on 3's network. It's basically pay as you go internet. Yay. That was like £100. Of course, if you pick to live in campus housing, you wont have to worry about that because it'll have wifi or be wired for you.
TV:
Is expensive and you need to get an even more expensive TV license to watch TV. So we most likely won't get a TV.
Buying DVDs:
Don't do it. At least if you have my computer don't do it. DVDs have different regions on them, and the rest of the world is not the same as the US. And for my Mac, you get 5 chances to change what region you're in. So if I wanted to watch a different region's movie, I'd have to change my laptop's region to watch it, then change it back when I was done so I could watch all the rest of the movies I brought from America. Not that this happened to me, just letting you know incase you're thinking of buying DVDs in the country you visit. Yes, you.
Things I've noticed about England:
People pay attention to "fashion". Almost religiously. In America, you can walk around in jeans and a hoodie and chances are, most of the people around you will be dressed the same, college campus or grocery store or city. Here, girls are either in skinny jeans and boots, or skirt, leggings, and boots. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. Guys I'm not paying as much attention to, but I think the general rule is, that if H&M sells it, thats what you should be wearing. It's really weird and makes me feel like I stick out since I'm a t-shirt, hoodie and jeans kind of girl. Oh, also, I think I can count the number of girls with curly hair that I've seen since I got here on two hands. They all have straight hair. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. Again, a little creepy.
Disclaimer: This is my opinion. Apparently someone *cough* Jake *cough* considers tshirts & jeans to be America's fashion. Whatever. I still say all the English chicks are weird. No offense to y'all.
Other werid things: They say "Cheers!" a lot. And at the randomest times, too. I have no idea what it means.
So, International Office is doing a trip to Liverpool next Saturday, we're going to go on it and see Liverpool. Might go to Manchester next Sunday, I'm not sure. But here's a list of places we're going to try and hit in the UK/Ireland:
Liverpool
Manchester
York
Bath/Stonehenge
London
Glasgow
Edinburgh
Loch Ness
Dublin
Blarney
Other places we might hit on weekends:
Paris/Versailles
Amsterdam
Europe places:
Yeah, too big of a list, I'll put it up later, closer to when we're going to go.
So... yeah, guess that's it for now.
So. We got here, and then Wednesday morning decided we should head to campus and let the International Office know that we were here. As we were leaving the house, we realized we didn't know where the hell we were going. This is why you need to print off maps of the area you're travelling to if AAA doesn't have them for that area. We eventually found our way to the city center without knowing it, then stopped in at a hotel and asked the guy at the front desk, he looked at us like we were crazy and said we just had to go up turn left and walk like 10 minutes.
Got to campus, checked in, they told us where computers were, so we went and used them. Yay internet! The rest of Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday were mostly full of wandering around Leeds and figuring out where stores were.
As for phones:
I think I may have said in one of the earlier entries (I don't remember and I'm too lazy too look) that I was planning on getting a Skypephone. Skypephones let you call people in the UK and use Skype to call the rest of the world. Pretty awesome sounding, right? Well, the company that sells the Skypephone, 3 mobile, is really, really annoying. They want a bank statement or a utility bill that says you live here. A letter from your landlord isn't enough, already tried that. So I might end up getting a phone that is skype compatible on a pay as you go plan. We'll see.
Internet:
If we wanted ethernet cord kind of internet, we'd have to pay for installation. We didn't want to do that, so we decided on dongles. Hehe. Dongles. Anyway, we went to Carphone Warehouse and I got a 12gb, 12 month starter kit on 3's network. It's basically pay as you go internet. Yay. That was like £100. Of course, if you pick to live in campus housing, you wont have to worry about that because it'll have wifi or be wired for you.
TV:
Is expensive and you need to get an even more expensive TV license to watch TV. So we most likely won't get a TV.
Buying DVDs:
Don't do it. At least if you have my computer don't do it. DVDs have different regions on them, and the rest of the world is not the same as the US. And for my Mac, you get 5 chances to change what region you're in. So if I wanted to watch a different region's movie, I'd have to change my laptop's region to watch it, then change it back when I was done so I could watch all the rest of the movies I brought from America. Not that this happened to me, just letting you know incase you're thinking of buying DVDs in the country you visit. Yes, you.
Things I've noticed about England:
People pay attention to "fashion". Almost religiously. In America, you can walk around in jeans and a hoodie and chances are, most of the people around you will be dressed the same, college campus or grocery store or city. Here, girls are either in skinny jeans and boots, or skirt, leggings, and boots. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. Guys I'm not paying as much attention to, but I think the general rule is, that if H&M sells it, thats what you should be wearing. It's really weird and makes me feel like I stick out since I'm a t-shirt, hoodie and jeans kind of girl. Oh, also, I think I can count the number of girls with curly hair that I've seen since I got here on two hands. They all have straight hair. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. Again, a little creepy.
Disclaimer: This is my opinion. Apparently someone *cough* Jake *cough* considers tshirts & jeans to be America's fashion. Whatever. I still say all the English chicks are weird. No offense to y'all.
Other werid things: They say "Cheers!" a lot. And at the randomest times, too. I have no idea what it means.
So, International Office is doing a trip to Liverpool next Saturday, we're going to go on it and see Liverpool. Might go to Manchester next Sunday, I'm not sure. But here's a list of places we're going to try and hit in the UK/Ireland:
Liverpool
Manchester
York
Bath/Stonehenge
London
Glasgow
Edinburgh
Loch Ness
Dublin
Blarney
Other places we might hit on weekends:
Paris/Versailles
Amsterdam
Europe places:
Yeah, too big of a list, I'll put it up later, closer to when we're going to go.
So... yeah, guess that's it for now.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Landed!
First entry from England!
So. Let's just say that the trip from **super secret place where I live** to JFK was entirely too long. For a trip that was supposed to be around an hour, we ended up on the plane for 6 hours. That not only ate up our layover at JFK, but it may have been partially responsible for the flight to Heathrow being delayed by 3 hours. Hooray. JFK needs to learn how to de-ice planes. Seriously. That, or develop planes that don't need to be de-iced. Because all those delays made us miss the train we bought advanced non-exchangable, non-refundable tickets for. And thing is, we had planned to be able to get it even if the train was a bit delayed. A bit is not three hours. *angry face* So, advice for all of you people who might want to study abroad at Leeds, if you are flying into London, give yourself 5 hours between the time your plane is supposed to land, and when your train leaves. Takes two hours to get from the plane to Kings Cross, which is the station you want to take to get to Leeds. Or, you can fly into Manchester instead. Or Leeds! That way you fork over the money early and there's probably less of a chance of wasting shit-ton of money, like we ended up doing.
To get to Kings Cross you have to take the Heathrow Express to Padington, and then the London Underground from Padington to Leeds. It was £19.50 for the Express and the Underground.
Money here is pretty much the same as in the US, except for the fact that it's pounds and pence instead of dollars and cents, and it's worth more. Hooray US economy!
Annnd... yeah. That's it for now.
I won't have internet until probably the end of the week at my house, and probably won't be able to use the internet on campus until at least Thursday, so this will probably be the last time you hear from me for a couple of days.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Visa/Traveling
Alright. So, most obvious thing first: Yes, you need a passport.
http://www.ukvisas.gov.uk/en/doineedvisa/visadatvnationals
http://www.ukvisas.gov.uk/resources/en/docs/1903076/studentflowchartsept08
So, we aren't visa nationals because the USA isn't on the list on the first link.
And because we aren't a visa national we dont need a visa.
http://www.ukvisas.gov.uk/en/howtoapply/infs/studentvisitorinfo
Couple paragraphs down says:
"Non-visa nationals do not need a visa prior to arrival but will need to declare their intentions to the Immigration Officer on arrival and will be required to show evidence that they can meet all the requirements of the Immigration Rules, Paragraph 56K."
56K says:
http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/policyandlaw/immigrationlaw/immigrationrules/part2/
Student visitors
Requirements for leave to enter as a student visitor
56K. The requirements to be met by a person seeking leave to enter the United Kingdom as a student visitor are that he:
(i) is genuinely seeking entry as a student visitor for a limited period as stated by him, not exceeding six months; and
(ii) has been accepted on a course of study which is to be provided by an organisation which is included on the Register of Education and Training Providers; and
(iii) intends to leave the United Kingdom at the end of his visit as stated by him; and
(iv) does not intend to take employment in the United Kingdom; and
(v) does not intend to engage in business, to produce goods or provide services within the United Kingdom, including the selling of goods or services direct to members of the public; and
(vi) does not intend to study at a maintained school; and
(vii) will maintain and accommodate himself and any dependants adequately out of resources available to him without recourse to public funds or taking employment; or will, with any dependants, be maintained and accommodated adequately by relatives or friends; and
(viii) can meet the cost of the return or onward journey; and
(ix) is not a child under the age of 18.
Hopefully you knew that already and have one if you're planning on studying abroad. Otherwise, get one now.
Next thing: Visas.
This is complicated. Also, it might change in the future, but as of today, this is what's going on for me:
If you're from the US and are going for less than 6 months, you DONT need a visa, as long as all you plan on doing is go to school. This means no job. The reason for this is because of all this (which I'm copying from an email I sent, because I don't feel like re-wording):
http://www.ukvisas.gov.uk/en/doineedvisa/visadatvnationals
http://www.ukvisas.gov.uk/resources/en/docs/1903076/studentflowchartsept08
So, we aren't visa nationals because the USA isn't on the list on the first link.
And because we aren't a visa national we dont need a visa.
http://www.ukvisas.gov.uk/en/howtoapply/infs/studentvisitorinfo
Couple paragraphs down says:
"Non-visa nationals do not need a visa prior to arrival but will need to declare their intentions to the Immigration Officer on arrival and will be required to show evidence that they can meet all the requirements of the Immigration Rules, Paragraph 56K."
56K says:
http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/policyandlaw/immigrationlaw/immigrationrules/part2/
Student visitors
Requirements for leave to enter as a student visitor
56K. The requirements to be met by a person seeking leave to enter the United Kingdom as a student visitor are that he:
(i) is genuinely seeking entry as a student visitor for a limited period as stated by him, not exceeding six months; and
(ii) has been accepted on a course of study which is to be provided by an organisation which is included on the Register of Education and Training Providers; and
(iii) intends to leave the United Kingdom at the end of his visit as stated by him; and
(iv) does not intend to take employment in the United Kingdom; and
(v) does not intend to engage in business, to produce goods or provide services within the United Kingdom, including the selling of goods or services direct to members of the public; and
(vi) does not intend to study at a maintained school; and
(vii) will maintain and accommodate himself and any dependants adequately out of resources available to him without recourse to public funds or taking employment; or will, with any dependants, be maintained and accommodated adequately by relatives or friends; and
(viii) can meet the cost of the return or onward journey; and
(ix) is not a child under the age of 18.
So that should answer any questions about visas. If it doesn't, keep clicking around the first couple links, eventually you'll get somewhere that should help you.
As for getting to Leeds---
I've got a plane that leaves *super secret city I live in* and goes to NYC, then NYC to London. From there we'll (Jake & I) have to take a train up to Leeds, but we still have to figure that out. Hooray last minute details!
And I think that's it for now.
Might not do another entry until I'm actually in England. Depends on if I can come up with a relevant topic to talk about before then.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Durr!
So I realized that I neglected to say that I'm going to be studying abroad at the University of Leeds in Leeds, England. Which is why I'm putting up this second entry.
While I'm here, might as well go over some other stuff.
At Tech, application dates for study abroad are either September 1st or October 1st. Some schools require teacher reccommendations, but Leeds doesn't. The application itself is fairly simple- who you are, where you live, why you want to study abroad (just a paragraph or so). The Office of International Education then looks over your application and nominates you for study abroad. So, the application was due October 1st for me, and I heard back that I was nominated probably about two weeks later. OIE will send an email, telling you that they're mailing you a bunch of papers telling you how to apply at Leeds. Now, this was a pain in the ass, because inter-campus mail takes forever to get to you apparently. I got the information two days before the application was due to Leeds, and a week after I got the email. Upon opening the envelope, I found that there was no reason for them to mail the information, because all of it was information (a letter) telling us what websites to go to to apply and to figure out classes.
Now, ordinarialy, I don't get too bothered about working under pressure. But this was a little ridiculous. The Leeds application required an essay (hooray!) and they require that you pick your classes when you apply. So, in two days I suddenly had to write an essay and decide what classes I wanted to take. That thrown in on top of mid-October school work. I think I had a test one of those days.
Anyway, it all worked out pretty well. Tech has a Foreign Credit Approval (FCA) form that you need to fill out so that your classes will transfer back, so the next couple of weeks I spent filling that out. Wasn't too hard, I had two electives (email the registrar to get those approved), organic chemistry, and statics.
At Leeds, their classes are all worth 10 or 20 credits, and they require that everyone takes 60 credits a semester. 60 Leeds credits transfer back as somewhere between 19 and 21 credits, depending on what departments you have to go through. I'm getting 7 for each of my elective classes, 3 for organic chem, and 2 for statics. (Electives are 20 credits, the other two are 10 each.) Also, their classes are called modules. Not really sure why.
We heard back from Leeds in mid-November letting us know that we got accepted. They sent a package (to the OIE office) with miscellaneous information which didn't show up until early December. Before hearing back, OIE holds pre-departure sessions where you talk about culture shock, etc. There's also an online thing you have to go through, and then a 15 minute follow up meeting where they give you extra packets and forms to fill out. It's helpful if you tell them at the 15 minute meeting to email you when you get your Leeds packet. By the time I had my 15 minute meeting it was early December, so I was worried about campus mail taking a week again.
Anyway- housing!
Leeds guarantees housing to study abroad students if you apply by December 1st. They'll email and let you know how to go about doing that, same time as when they email you to let you know you got accepted. You'll have to look through their website to pick which dorms you'd want, because you won't get their packet until December, and it has a brochure on the dorms.
On the Leeds website, they reccommended Mary Morris as an alternative choice for international students.
Let me take this as a chance to introduce you to my boyfriend, Jake. He's coming to Leeds with me since he didn't know enough German to go to the place in Germany he wanted to go to. So he figured Leeds would still be study abroad and would still be awesome.
Mary Morris offers family housing, single rooms... lots of options, so we had looked at that first, but ultimately decided to go for Leeds housing, so we applied for that.
Leeds housing offers a couple of different options- catered, self-catered, and I want to say there was something else, but I can't think of it at the moment. We both said we wanted catered, since then we wouldn't have to worry about food.
Leeds housing got back to us the weekend before Christmas to let us know where our rooms were, if we wanted them. My room was 2 miles from campus, and was self-catered (I'd have to cook myself), and Jake's was 4 miles from campus and catered.
Needless to say, we were not amused.
So, we applied for Mary Morris to see if we could get something closer to campus and/or together. They offered us a 2 bedroom cottage for about the same price as I would have been paying for my room. Cut that in half, and we saved a lot of money by going this way. The biggest downside is that there wouldn't be a lot of students around, but Mary Morris puts on events for their residents, and we can always have friends over to the house.
My reccommendation- if you're looking for housing while you're studying abroad at Leeds, apply to both Leeds housing and Mary Morris- Mary Morris is cheaper, and their single rooms are only a mile and a half from campus. Both of them require a deposit only after you accept the offer, so there's no reason to not apply to both at the same time and then see who gives you the better deal. So far the people at Mary Morris have been very accomodating.
First Entry
Alright, here's the deal:
I'm a girl, who goes to Tech, as the title might imply. For those of you who may be confused, Tech refers to Georgia Tech, not any other Tech school, because Tech is the best. (I may be a bit opinionated.)
There are several reasons I'm writing this-
1- To let future Tech students interested in going to Leeds know about problems I ran into and what I did to solve them,
2- To have some record of what I did while abroad for myself, and
3- To keep everyone back home aware of what I've been up to.
Not necessarily in that order.
If anyone has any questions about anything specific, or advice on where I should visit, feel free to leave me comments, and I'll try my best to reply.
I guess that's it for now. In the next couple of days I'll get something up about housing and the application process and how I'm planning on getting there.
