I’ve been having internet problems in my room since I’ve been here, so I apologize for the lack of updates of my first impressions of this beautiful land. I met the warden of my building a few days ago and he has been of great assistance in helping me call people to have someone come over and figure out what was going on (my Ethernet port in my computer was broken—I bought an adaptor, so now we’re A-OK!).
The journey began on January 12th. The weather in Madison, Chicago, and Atlanta, according to weather on demand, was said to be snowy. Since so many flights in Atlanta had all been canceled the two previous days, my parents and I were a little worried about traffic being slow and our flights being delayed or canceled. Our previous arrangement had been to pick Leah up at 8:30AM, but after considering the weather hazards, we changed it to 7:45AM. Once we did this, my parents, myself, and Leah drove the 3 hours to Chicago, stopping on the way to grab a quick breakfast. Once in Chicago, I said my good-byes to my parents and Leah and I headed through security. Everything went very smoothly and our flight was not delayed. Atlanta was only about a 2-hour flight away. It felt like it ended soon after it began.
(If you click on the pictures, I'm pretty sure they will zoom in.)
Leah and I heading to Chicago.
First sight of Atlanta.
In Atlanta, we had about a 4-hour layover. In this time, we got some reading done, had time to get from terminal A to terminal E (at the very end…had our flight been soon after landing, we would have missed it because the distance is just too far), and searched for a place to exchange currency. Atlanta is a little strange and I am not entirely certain why they do things this way, but our flight was set to take off at 8:50PM, but they had us board the plane at 7:50PM—an entire hour early (we didn’t end up taking off until 9:15 also). This was our long flight. We would be in the air for 7 and ½ hours, going 6 hours into the future! When we arrived, it was the next day (January 13th) and the time was somewhere around 10AM for us (4AM for all of you in good ol’ Wisconsin). We had train tickets from Manchester to Leeds that departed at 11:05AM, so Leah and I quickly got our visas and booked it across the airport to the train station. I brought way too much luggage with me, so that was a huge pain, but I’ve learned my lesson for the future!
The train ride, as I have mentioned, was lovely. This was my very first opportunity to see England. The first animal I noticed was a black and white bird that I thought looked similar to a penguin. As we rode along, I noticed how small the roads were, how sparse the trees were, how cloudy the sky was (remembering back to how the sun shown magnificently beyond the clouds, hidden far above), the way the cars drove on the left, and how the little houses outside of large cities all tended to look exactly alike. What was funny about the train ride was that the first person we talk to was an American! All the way from Texas, he was doing his masters in England and had just gotten back from holiday in the US. He sat across the aisle from us and got into conversation with an older British couple. It was adorable listening to the couple’s accent. The three of them began talking about Parliament, the Queen and how she is only a figurehead; the old man chimed in about how he thinks security is unnecessary, that the Queen is just a person and everyone should be able to go up and shake her hand like every other normal person. It was quite funny to listen to.
After the train ride, we arrive in Leeds only to wonder where on earth to go next! We needed to find a bus, but which bus to take to Bodington Hall for Leah to drop off her stuff, and which bus to take me to St. Mark’s to drop off my stuff? I found an information booth and asked the men where to go. One of them was kind enough to personally take us through the train station all the way outside to where the bus stop was. On the way, he inquired as to what our majors were. I told him mine was Creative Writing, that I loved writing short stories and poetry. The funny man told me about how he was a poet and had almost gotten a book of poetry published. For about 10 minutes he went on and on about how he wrote a poem called “Cig and Coke.” There did not seem to be any point to it, but he insisted on telling us the reason for the title, which is pretty obvious already, but over and over he said, “But you see, I was walkin’ ‘tru ‘da park and I see a man comin’ towards me an’ he was smokin’ a cig and in his left hand he was holdin’ a coke. I was in da’ park! I called it ‘Cig and Coke’ and you know why?” Me: “Because the man had a cigarette and a soda.” Man: “No, I saw him in da’ park holdin’ a cig, smokin’ and he had a coke.” As you can tell, he was very repetitive and quite funny.
After finally finding our residence halls and dropping off our stuff, Leah and I headed up the road to the university and found the Student Union. The Union here is one of the largest in the whole country. It has a ton of stores, hair salons, restaurants and cafes, places where they hold concerts, etc. Our goal for this first day was to find adaptors, food, and bedding. We accomplished 2 out of the 3 (no adaptors. We found them but wanted to wait and compare prices). After realizing around 6:30PM that we had forgotten about lunch and finding ourselves to be starving, we looked for a place to eat. After searching many restaurants, deeming them to be too expensive, and finding many other restaurants closed already (it’s crazy here, they seriously close everything VERY early), we went to a Sainsbury grocery store (these are everywhere). The grocery store also did not have anything we found easily edible (most of what we wanted would have to be cooked or microwaved), so we settled for Subway. It was a good sub, but if you compare the pricing with the US, we paid about $8.00 for a 6 in” sub. Things are so expensive here!
After a long day, we were quite worn out. Here we are riding on the top of a double decker bus!
The next day, we got up early, met at my residence hall, and headed for the city center to catch a coach from Leeds to London. Yes, we left Leeds after only one day!! Believe me, it was worth it. We walked about a half hour distance down to the coach station, stopping at a McDonald’s for breakfast. Since we hadn’t bought anything the day before for breakfast, I was pretty hungry. Their McDonald’s has porridge, so I bought that and some orange juice and ate them on the way over. Not bad at all! The coach left on time at 9:40AM. It was a 4 and a half hour trip down to London, but we were glad to not have to walk anymore. When we got to London, we drove down Baker St. (unfortunately we didn’t get to take a picture of Sherlock Holmes’s place) and ended at Victoria station. From there we took the Underground (aka the Tube) to our hostel, Astor Kensington. I had reserved two beds in a 10-bed mixed dorm. This meant that we would share a room that contained 5 bunk beds with 8 other people, both male and female. It was a very interesting experience as none of the other people in our room were American. In the hostel, we came across people from South Africa, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Australia, and more.
Our goal for this first day in London was to see the King’s Cross train station, the British Library, the British Museum, and the National Gallery. We took the Tube to King’s Cross, but thought that you can’t get through to see platform 9 ¾ unless you have a ticket. As you may have guessed, we were not about to spend precious pounds on something that would only last 2 minutes, so we headed down the street, passed a gorgeous St. Pancras train station (jaw-droppingly beautiful and HUGE!), then down the to British Library where we saw old documents ranging from Shakespearian texts to everything on Coleridge, to fragments of the Bible discovered in Egypt dating from around the 2nd century I believe, down to the Magna Carta itself. It was quite amazing. From there we walked down to the British Museum. Again, HUGE! There, we saw the Rosetta Stone, statues and pieces of statues from the 2nd century and up, all the way to old Egyptian tombs and mummies. They had a room where you could see The Book of the Dead, but you had to pay to see it, so we skipped that and moved on to the mummies instead! Afterwards, we walked down to the National Gallery where we saw originals of Van Gogh, Rafael, Titian, Michelangelo, Manet, and Monet, and many, many more. The National Gallery is located at Trafalgar Square, so we made sure to get pictures of that as well. This second day in the UK, we had yet again forgotten to eat lunch, so, starving, we ate at the only not-completely-expansive place that was open around 7PM, a small place called Mas Burrito. It was good, but cost £6 (~$10 in the US).
St. Pancras is HUGE.
Had to.
British Museum again. Massive.
Massive buildings inside the already massive museum.
Our third day in the UK (2nd in London) was the longest and most painful one. It was also probably the best so far (though seeing my friend Ginny the very next day was absolutely fantastic!). This day was a Saturday. We got up early, ate breakfast in the hostel and walked over to my friend Sarah’s apartment. She had been studying in London for Winter break and her last day was the next day, so I figured we should say “Hi” before she returned to the US. After doing this, Leah and I walked all the way over to Westminster Abbey and took a tour of it. It was sooooooo beautiful and so ridiculously old! We got to see the oldest door in London (made about 1087AD), stepped on the graves (inside the church a lot of the graves are just under the tiles, the above-ground tombs are reserved for royalty and people especially deserving – war heroes, etc.) of Chaucer (!!!!!!!!!), Lewis Carol, David Livingston, Charles Darwin, and so many more that I cannot remember. We were not allowed pictures, so I can’t show you what it looked like, but just know, it was worth the £13 I spent on it! The Abbey housed the tombs of so many of the kings and queens of England, including Mary Queen of Scots and her rival Elizabeth, Edward V, Pope Innocent (I just love his name), and more. Westminster also has a place called Poet’s corner (where I got to step on the graves of Chaucer and others). It was amazing. At the very end, we got to see the coronation chair, where kings and queens of England have been crowned for about 1000 years.
After visiting the Abbey, we looked at the outside of Parliament (we couldn’t get in because we weren’t part of a tour group). At the other end of Parliament is the Clock Tower and within Big Ben the bell! It’s quite a spectacular looking tower. Across the street from Big Ben lies the London Eye, the large Farris Wheel. It wasn’t running when we were there (plus it’s supposedly really expensive), so we didn’t go on it, but we walked alongside the Thames, passed the London Eye, passed tour boats, the US embassy, the Prime minister’s house where people were protesting (there were police everywhere, so we couldn’t get very close). A ways down the Thames, we crossed a bridge and took a tour of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. It was amazing! We learned so much about it and how it would have functioned in Shakespeare’s time. We learned where the high class used to sit; which seats back then were the best and which were now; what the cost was then and now; how special effects were used, etc. Our tour guide told us that when they were filming the movie Shakespeare in Love, the director came to the Globe to study it and take pictures so he could copy it in the movie. The director asked for extras to audition as people seeing performances in the theatre and the tour guide auditioned and was chosen to be a peasant! She says she can even clearly see herself in the movie! That’s pretty exciting.
After that Leah and I walked all the way back up to an Italian restaurant on the same street as our hostel. If it sounds like everything is close to each other and an easy walk, think again. According to Google, the walk from Astor Kensington (the hostel) to the Globe is about 1 hour and 33 minutes (~4.5 miles one way). That is only if you take their exact way and don’t get lost. Of course, Leah and I got lost many times AND walked a bit out of our way (not exactly taking the most convenient and straightforward paths due to other interests in sightseeing), so the walks there and back were most definitely longer than what Google thought. My guess is that we walked for 2 hours in both direction (there and back) and then there was all the walking we did at the sights we were at. So, we walked for nearly 10 hours on this day and my feet were killing me. I mean it. Blistering and red! When we got back to the hostel, we conked out Fairly early.
On our last day in London, we got up around 9AM, ate breakfast, checked out of the hostel by 10AM, and bought a day pass for the Tube. We took the Tube to Westminster Station (the entrance/exit to it is almost directly under Big Ben!!) where we met my friend Ginny. The three of us then walked down to Buckingham Palace where we watched the tradition of the Changing of the Guard. The actual changing wasn’t all that spectacular, however, the band there played a mini-concert where they played Disney songs! It was great! The band themselves are absolutely terrific. They kind of have to be if they do this for the Queen! After we were done listening to the band, we walked around for a little bit and then took the Tube to a station where we knew we would find a good restaurant for lunch and was also across the street from the Tower of London. The restaurant was lovely; the food was good (I tried Yorkshire pudding for the first time…it’s not actually pudding! Who knew?!). When we were finished, we went to an ice cream stand, then went across the street. We did not actually go inside the Tower, but we walked around it. It used to be a palace, but it was more often used as a place of refuge from a mob and later as a prison where some of Henry VIII’s wives lost their heads, as well as other very famous royal figures. In other words, when you read in Shakespeare’s history plays lines that mention “the tower,” this is where those people were being taken! The gift shop there was wonderful! They even had paper dolls that you could stick in a paper guillotine and have the dolls heads cut off. That is the strangest kids toy I’ve ever encountered.
After this, we took the Tube to Monument Station. We had been wondering why they called it this. Upon taking two steps outside the station we discovered why. Standing only about 30 feet away was this massive pillar-like object made out of cement and stone. We took a few pictures thinking it was interesting and then I realized that there were people at the top! We circled around and found that for £2 (student rate), you were given admission to clime all 311 steps to the top and take pictures of the city since the monument reached way above the rooftops of most buildings. Ginny stayed on the ground, but Leah and I went up. It was really cool to see so far in every direction. They gave us a funny little certificate for this! Soon after we got down, Ginny left us and Leah and I wandered the city.
We had wanted to see London Bridge, so we headed back to the Thames waterfront. It was not as spectacular as I always thought it sounded. In fact, it is one of the more boring bridges we came across. Nonetheless, I took a picture anyway and we moved on. Because at this point we couldn’t go back to the hostel and we had already covered all of the main sights we wanted to see, this day was a “whatever we come across” type of day. After we finished with London Bridge, we found a map that had points to see. We took some of their suggestions and visited old churches and the London Stone. This is apparently the very heart of London. It is supposedly part of an old church built London in 1742. It had no big sign nor did it stand out in any way, so that makes me doubtful as its importance. The sign itself read that its significance was unkown…
With about 3 hours to go before we had to head back to the coach station back to Leeds, I suggested we visit Keats’s house. In order to do this, we had to take the tube to one of the very last stations in zone 2 (our day passes only allowed us to go to stations in zones 1 and 2, so we had to be careful that we didn’t go too far and have to pay extra to get back). Once we got out of the stations, we looked at another old church, then wandered around trying to find Keats’s house. When we finally found it, we were told that we only had 20 minutes to look through it before they closed. So we went through it pretty fast while still trying to read our pamphlets about it. It was very interesting. I got to sit on chairs and sofas that Keats himself sat on! After we left we found a delightful little restaurant called Polly’s where I had delicious quiche and a salad. Yet again we had to hurry because when we walked it, the owner or manager or whoever he was told us they would be closing at 5:30PM, so we only had a half hour. Making it out in perfect time, we walked back to the station, took the Tube to Victoria station and then took the coach back to Leeds. Four hours on a bus is exhausting. I swear it is super hard to fall asleep and from where I was sitting, it was quite cold. It meant that the majority of those four hours were spent watching the time on a digital clock at the front of the bus, wondering how much longer it would take. We got back at 23:30 (11:30PM) and then had to trek back to our residence halls, so it was another long day.
My quiche dinner at Polly's.
It has been very interesting trying to figure out where things are and how to work them over here. Our oven is gas. Instead of degrees, it had digits 0-9. If you wanted to cook something at 400˚ F, you would press the lighter button (giving it gas and ignition), then turn the button that says “Main Oven” to number 6. At this point flames will spout at the back of the small oven. We decided to remain in the kitchen the entire time we’re using the oven as the first time someone tried it use it they didn’t quite get a flame and instead the gas remained on, filling the kitchen. These situations are to be expected and laughed at after the fact!
Another thing I’ve noticed is how dry the air is. It rains almost every day (though today we had sun all day!) yet still the air is dry and it is uncomfortable, especially at bedtime. It tends to make my throat dry up and I begin to cough, so hopefully my body will just get used to it soon.
Everyone’s accent is super cool! I love hearing it, however, talking to people is not quite a piece of cake. I find myself constantly having to say “can you repeat that, sorry.” I feel bad, but they talk fast and with a strong accent, it can’t be helped. Beyond the difference in accents, I’ve also noticed how freaking nice they dress over here. It is so different from America in this perspective. Girls will put on globs of make-up and wear dresses wherever they go, even if it’s to the grocery store! I feel quite out of place on that end. I haven’t seen anyone in really baggy or everyday clothes unless they’re a guy who really doesn’t seem to care or else a bum sitting on the street. Also, homeless people here don’t beg. We’ve been wondering about this. No one here is pushy. Leah and I walked passed a herd of taxi drivers the night we got back to Leeds and none of them tried to get us to take their taxi. It just kind of blows my mind that everyone is so polite. Yet another thing I wanted to mention that I’ve mentioned before: everything closes early!!!! We heard that Leeds’s nightlife is supposed to be great, that there are lots of clubs and places to go, yet we’ve learned that everything closes early (restaurants close between 5-8 as far as I’ve seen), and clubs and pubs close around midnight. We’ve come across really drunk people at 10PM. Coming from the UW campus, this seems a bit premature in the night! What a change!
This week we went to international student meetings and campus tours. Next week classes start and the first weekend after that, we’re going on a daytrip to Liverpool! I hope you’ve enjoyed my really-a-bit-too-long-but-hopefully-not-boring catch-me-up on my first week living in England! If I had had internet from the beginning, I could have spewed a lot of this in smaller chunks! Keep following and commenting (and leave your name if you’re commenting as ‘anonymous’ so that I know who you are)!
Megan!! Thanks for the update! I didn't mind reading your super long post because it was so interesting. It sounds like you're having a lot of fun- you've gotten to do and see so many neat things already! I can't wait to hear how classes and everything go. Oh, and I thought it was funny when you said how nice everyone dresses there, because I noticed the same thing in China. All the girls wear fancy dresses and shirts- no one ever seems to bum around in sweatpants! Well, we miss you here! Continue to have fun!
ReplyDeleteHi Megan!
ReplyDeleteLoved the blog--and it was not too long--just very interesting! I will be a regular reader! And I loved all the pictures, too! It's like I can tour England and not even leave my chair! Thanks!
Diane
Ah, the long awaited blog! I felt like I was on the trip to London with you! Now I want to see all those places too--but I know we won't have time. I want to go to Polly's!!!! What were the protesters protesting this time? student fees again? Keep on writing!!
ReplyDeleteHi Megan! Wow! It sounds like you are having a great time! I love hearing about all of your adventures and the places you've gone. My family and I took a vacation to London and Paris a few years ago and I love seeing all the familiar/beautiful places again! I can't wait to read more and I hope you continue to have a wonderful time :)
ReplyDeleteEmily H.
Thanks for the comments everyone! I love reading comments =)
ReplyDeleteMom: I'm not sure. A lot of people around the city were protesting the war in Iraq, so that might be what it was about.