York!

Today I went on the first of three trips I mentioned in my previous entry, which was to York. York was the most important Roman British city and has been extremely well-preserved, so it’s quite beautiful. My friends Lucie and Berit, who I also mentioned in my previous entry, went on the trip with me and Lauren too, so it was a lot of fun!

York was extremely rainy and cold today—not much different from how Huddersfield has been, but the weather in York (or maybe just today’s weather in Northern England in general) did put a littttle bit of a damper on the experience. We certainly made the best of it, though, and explored as much of the city as we could.

We started the day walking through the huge outdoor food festival, which was comprised of stand after stand of fish and meat and bread and sweets and jam and a LOT of free samples. We then decided to get lunch at a pretty good pub, where I got fantastic macaroni and cheese (I think they flavored it with cinnamon or nutmeg or both, which was really interesting), which came with a nice salad and awesome garlic bread, and a glass of chardonnay. What I’ve noticed about a lot of British eateries is that even though waiters bring you your food, once you’ve decided what you want from the menu, you have to go up to the bar and order it and even pay for it beforehand. But since this isn’t always the case, it tends to be a bit awkward knowing exactly how/when/from whom to order.

After lunch, we just walked around the very rainy and very beautiful streets, stopping in stores and taking a ton of pictures. Past the food festival was another outdoor market which had stands that sold a lot of knick knacks and scarves and other cute, small things of that nature.

About two hours before we had to leave, we stopped at a cafe for tea and coffee—I still hadn’t done tea time in England yet!—and relaxed and talked about the differences between our cultures (American, Danish, and Czech) and our experiences in other countries. It’s really interesting finding so many similarities and differences in customs you would never even give a second thought to, like what a normal breakfast is or how much you like your tea to be steeped or what you wear out to a club, or “disco”, at night.

On our way back to the bus, we stopped again at the food festival. We all gave in and bought brownies to take back to our flats. We’d gotten free samples of them earlier and none of us had forgotten how good they were. I got an Oreo brownie and a Nutella brownie, which I hope will last me a while. For dessert tonight, I had plain yogurt with honey, cinnamon, blackberries, and a few pieces of the Oreo brownie. YUM!

All of this coming week is Freshers Week, which means that there are events every day and every night geared specifically toward first years and new international students. Last week I bought a wrist band for five pounds which gives me access to every event for free, AND queue (line) skipping privileges. Lauren and I also have meetings with our psychology advisor almost every day this week, which is when we’ll sign up for classes, or “modules” and have an introduction to the psychology major, or “course”.

Here are some pictures of Huddersfield and York:

Am I really here?

Off to Lavinia’s (The program director) for a picnic: We took a very long, hilly walk to Lavinia’s house a couple of days ago for dinner- you would think that the hills become easier to climb after a while, but they really don’t. But the scenery was beautiful all the while, so no one really minded the walk. In order to get to her house, we all entered a narrow passageway, one-by-one, and slowly climbed our way through a long tunnel. It was the most fun I have ever had physically entering a house in my entire life. While there were massive amounts of mosquitos outside, the backyard picnic was really refreshing- especially after the long and grueling walk. I, along with some of the other students, stupidly thought the meal was one course of pasta with bread and then dessert… but after stuffing our faces with pasta, we soon found out that there were in fact three courses (like every other italian meal i have been served), and chose to then really stuff our faces to the point of explosion. The food is worth it here- and the hills, for the most part, make up for the massive amounts of food eaten. Today, I somehow woke up at 1:00 pm ( I really needed sleep), to a three course meal of pasta, chicken, and baked potatos- with an offering of ice cream at the end. That was the biggest breakfast I have ever eaten hands down.

The group at Lavinia’s:

Friday was spa day- or rather, hot springs day.I didn’t know how stiff my body was until after emerging from layers of warm, (and really smelly), sulfer infused water.

And finally: yesterday I went to Florence and had the most incredible time: the architecture is surreal, the streets look like they’re from a different time, and the artwork is breathtaking. While it is essentially the mecca of tourism, (apart from Rome), you completely forget about the millions of people around you when staring in awe at the massive and intricate Duomo. I can’t wait to take the hour bus ride again with my class to visit the Ufizzi museum. Some other girls and I wanted to see the Caravaggio exhibit on display there yesterday, but it cost around 20 euro, and required a long wait in line to get into, so we opted to wander the streets of Florence instead. After some wondering, we came across an outdoor market that sold more leather bags and pashmire scarves than is ever imaginable. Haggling is really not a known part of italian market life, so I didn’t buy much, but I most definitely had an urge to splurge on everything.

Here are some pictures of the day trip: