'Til the Cows Come Home!

Cheers, pet!

So, Leeds was incredible.  I am so glad I went!  Jenn is a fantastic host.  I found my way to her place, no problem.  I rode in the front seat on the second level of one of the big, red buses to her dorm!  I was surrounded by window, and the roads are so small that I thought the traffic lights would hit me sometimes.  I got some cool pictures on that bus ride.  I wasn’t sure how long I would have to wait for Jenn in the lobby of her dorm, because I didn’t know which room number was hers or have a phone to call her, but I only had to wait a minute or two.  We went to her room (the English don’t have roommates… all of the dorm rooms are singles) and I talked and talked and talked, etc.  It was really great to not only be able to speak English to somebody, to get past just surface words and topics, but to talk about a familiar place and people from back home!  Fantastico.  She’s been here a couple months already and has done a lot of travelling already; she’s been to Belgium, Ireland, Amsterdam, and London, and told me about her trips.  She has April off of school and she is planning on going to Paris, Berlin, Switzerland, all over Italy (she’s going to stop by Naples for a couple of days!) and Spain- Barcelona and Palma de Mallorca.  I am planning on meeting up with her and her friends for some of those trips- it’s so much nicer traveling with people who speak your language. 

So, we spent that whole afternoon talking, then we went to dinner in her dining hall.  Because it was St Patty’s Day, they served Irish food, which I loved.  Jenn brought out Irish stew, potatoes, rolls, sausage w/gravy and potatoes, etc.  After dinner we went back to her room for a little bit, then we went out to a pub called Hyde Park.  It was a very typical English pub and was crazy crowded.  I asked Jenn if it was so crowded because of St Pat’s, but she said no, it’s that crowded every day of the week.  She told me about Otley runs, which happens when a group decides to get together, for any occasion- St. Pat’s, Halloween, a Tuesday.., and chooses a theme for everyone to dress to, then they go from pub to pub, stopping at all of the pubs on Otley Rd.  Everyone has to get a pint at each pub (there are 19 pubs, or something like that, on Otley Rd…)  I talked to some people on an Otley Run and they were complaining how expensive it was, and I asked them if they really get a pint at each pub, and they told me that most people don’t finish.  One of the themes I saw was Guinness- it was a group of guys dressed as pints of Guinness- in all black with “Guinness” painted on their shirts, with their faces and hair painted white for the froth.

They played some really great Irish music at the pub.  Jenn’s and my favorite was Belle of Belfast City.  Everyone in the pub got up, swayed, danced, and sang it all together.  Jenn and I were jealous that we didn’t know the words, and as soon as we got back to her room, we looked up the song and memorized it.  We tried singing along in the pub even though we couldn’t understand anything they were saying, and at the part in the song that says- “but that’s okay, ‘til I get home,” and we sang- ‘something, something, ‘til the cows come home!”

We went with Jenn’s friend Tanya, who is from Australia and apparently was a professional volleyball player there (they go professional a lot earlier that we do… like high school).  She’s only like 5’8, but she played middle.  She supposedly had a 36” vertical or something ridiculous like that.  She’s in Leeds for the semester as well, and has started professional weight lifting.  She wants to go to the Olympics.  But anyway, her and Jenn danced most of the time, while I and talked to an English girl who told me all about Leeds, etc.  She likes Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging too!!!! (the book… not angus, thongs, or snogging.. although I don’t know, we didn’t get there.)  A guy I talked to gave me examples of like 10 different English dialects.  It’s crazy how they can talk so differently when England is so small! 

That night, I borrowed an extra comforter from Tanya, folded it over, and slept on top of it on the floor of Jenn’s room next to her wall-o-heat.  Her room is heated by a 4’x3’ heater behind the wall below her window… it radiates through the wall, and the wall is really warm.  I curled up next to it like a dog in front of a fire and was incredibly comfy.  I got a full-night’s sleep as well- which are very worth mentioning!  That morning I showered, which was sooooo great.  There’s nothing quite like taking a long, hot shower after you’ve been traveling for a few days. 

Next, we headed into downtown to go shopping.  It was a perfect afternoon.  Leeds has amazing shopping!  Apparently people from London come to Leeds to shop.  It’s way cheaper than London, and there are a ton of great stores.  They have a lot of old, beautiful buildings in Leeds that have been restored, and we went shopping  in stores that are in some of these buildings (one really old, beautiful church was turned into a nightclub instead of being torn down…. It’s called Halo.) I will be putting pics on facebook as soon as I get the chance.   I bought some jeans, sweaters, and socks…my favorite things.  Then we went to the Leeds City Markets, which were incredible!  Very cute.  It was lunchtime and Jenn and I went around to the different stands, ordering things to eat that looked interesting, then shared them.  We shared a Scotch egg (a hard-boiled egg surrounded by sausage, which has been breaded and baked), some meat thing (I can’t remember what it was called but it was a loaf of bacon, sausage, ham, liver, and wheat… we didn’t made it all the way through this one…it was very British), an onion bahji (after a bite each, we gave this one away to a guy who we had met at Hyde Park the night before that we saw at the Markets), pork ribs (so good!), a coke, a chocolate-covered shortbread cookie, and an apple turnover.  Before we left, I bought 2 more Scotch eggs for breakfast.  Everything at the markets was so good and so cheap!  Jenn bought 10 kiwis for a pound, and we each got a sweater for 3 pounds!  I bought some souvenirs and found a charger for my camera!!  After the markets, we walked around Leeds a bit, and found the Spice Girls exhibit at the Leeds Museum just in time before it closed!! Phew!

After that, we were exhausted, and we went back to her room to chill a bit before dinner.  For dinner, we had fish and chips!  After dinner she let me use her internet, kind soul, and I packed while she downloaded the pictures we took that day.  We went to bed early because I had to get up at 5 the next morning for 5:30 cab to get to my 6:00 train.  Everything went according to plan, and this concludes tonight’s account of my trip to Leeds.  Tune in next time for the account of my trip to London! (I am going to post these at the same time, so I might as well just keep writing on this post, but for those of you, like Dan, who get overwhelmed by the length of my posts, this breaks it up and makes it look less intimidating.)

KBye!