Now that I am home from my (quite long) Easter Holiday, I might as well make a game attempt at writing down what happened. After all, didn't I start this blog in order to detail my England adventures? So now I have to try to recall things that happened over a month ago, because I am stupid and didn't keep a travel diary.
Here goes.
My roommate from back home, Heather, pretty much decided she was going to spend her spring break abroad with me on the day I received my acceptance into the program. And Heather, being much more on top of things than I am, had all her itineraries and crap planned out quite some time ago. We decided we would go to Edinburgh, based on our Scottish ancestries. She even did proper research into what hostel we could stay at in Edinburgh. I put off buying train tickets for entirely too long. But more on that later.
Somehow, despite Heather having everything planned, I got the date of her arrival wrong. Thank everything that we chatted before she arrived and she set me straight, or else she was going to be arriving at Leeds-Bratford airport and nobody would be there to help her navigate the daunting English railway system.
Me being me, I still managed to miss her at the airport, but it was not entirely my fault. My bus from the uni to York Station got stuck in traffic, so I missed my train. And then my bus from Leeds Station to the airport ALSO got stuck in traffic, which meant I got a phone call when I was still a good way out demanding where I was. I was so disappointed, because I had been really looking forward to meeting her at the arrivals gate.
Heather was understandably wrecked after long hours of flying and crazy time differences, so we pretty much spent that first day in train stations and going to a nearby pub for (surprisingly cheap and decent) fish and chips. We also discovered that somebody didn't bring her ATM card. I refuse to take the blame for not telling her she might want it. That one was her fault. Not the hugest mistake, really, and there was minor panic when her credit card stopped working (as you cannot use a credit card at an ATM), but everything was sorted by a quick call to Wells Fargo and yours truly covering all purchases under £5.
She did bring cash to change, but as luck would have it she was in York over the weekend and none of the change points were open during our hours of consciousness.
After lots of introductions to the handful of neighbours still hanging around the building, we had an early night due to Heather's jet lag.
And then I woke up before her, which has probably never happened before. We spent our first full day in York wandering through the city, because it is seriously the coolest city. We had a delicious breakfast at some random cart, climbed the walls and walked ALL OVER, ran into a random tour group who made Scottish jokes, went to PoundLand (it is the Dollar Store, but in England), and watched street performers that were actually pretty funny, I pointed out things I could vaguely remember from weekly club-hopping. Somehow or another we ended up at the Museum Park and learned that the museum cost money, so we didn't go in. Instead we sat at the park and admired how pretty it was, and then we creeped at a wedding a little bit. Oh, and there are awesome ruins at the park so we ran around on those for a bit and took some super great pictures.
I never really noticed how many Costa Coffees there are, and I'm pretty sure the Starbuck's are mobile. We keep finding them but they are not the ones I remember from before. And the ones I remember from before are not where I remembered them.
We did find an ice cream shop selling Baskin Robbins, so despite the fact we were wearing heavy coats and it was March in Northern England, we got ice cream. It was actually at this point we discovered Heather's credit card wasn't working, prompting us to return to campus so she could call her parents and the bank.
Oh, on the way back, we found an Argentinian Steak House called "El Gaucho," which was pretty exciting.
Bank issue sorted out via some phone calls, we hit up my remaining neighbours -- Robin and George -- for accompaniment on our dinner excursion. Unfortunately, they had just eaten ALL THE PIZZA and were therefore not interested in dinner. So, like proper English people, we went to a bar instead. Heather got into a lengthy discussion with Robin about the differences between English and American education (I am still confused by their college and classes and GCSEs).
We ended up eating at McDonald's because it was close, cheap, easy, open, and had small options for those that had already eaten all the pizza. I might have mentioned before that everything closes at about 6pm here, and apparently that goes for a lot of restaurants and cafes as well. Heather was confused and annoyed by the differences in size between American McDonalds meals and English McDonalds meals, and would continue being confused and annoyed by it at various places throughout the trip.
Upon return to the university, we spent entirely too much time looking at bad YouTube videos, including Diggerland and the infamous Rebecca Black song. In fact, Robin and George were so horrified and entertained by Miss Black that her song sort of became our running theme for the rest of the York portion of our trip.
I am not kidding. We listened to the song at least twice, and then it was stuck in our heads, and later Robin bought the MP3 to play with it on a synthesizer and to blast it on loudspeakers while Heather was in the shower.
(during that shower instance, George was highly amused by the fact that, upon hearing the song, I walked out of my room, looked at the loudspeaker, sort of shrugged and went back in my room without touching anything)
Anyway, we had some highly bizarre discussions about current news updates (including the Libya issue), various other people in the hall, and Apples to Apples. There were probably other things discussed, but I can't remember them because I still have a hard time getting past the whole "Friday" thing.
I also think that it might have been the first time George and Robin were exposed to how incredibly sarcastic/dryly witty I can be. I think I tend not to be as witty as I can be around my English friends, because I don't really say much. I've never been good at small talk, which can make conversation awkward if I'm not talking with someone who can take charge of a conversation. Therefore, I can't make use of my (sometimes acerbic) sense of humour around these folks, since I can't get into a decent conversation with them. But Heather's good with people, so she can carry conversations. Then I can get properly snarky.
ANYWAY. That's enough for our first two days. Next update will be Days III and IV, which covers the exciting bits of York (mainly the Minster) and our train trip up to Edinburgh.
There's a good chance I'll supplement this post with pictures later, when I can trust my laptop to not commit suicide while I'm doing so.
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