A Change of scenery: Leeds

Dear diary,

This will be my last entry for quite some time as very soon I will be jetting off to awesome all over Europe. I feel like I haven't been anywhere in about 2 weeks. This is largely because I haven't. Despite this, this last week or so in Leeds has been very eventful. Wednesday the 10th Yazmin, Katie, Sarah and Emily had Mitch, Chris and I over and we made our own pizza's. Mitch even made our dough, however this failed pretty hard. It was a good effort but let's be honest, it needed to rise some more or at least be left in the oven a bit longer, neither of which we did. Still tasted awesome though and would definitely do it again. We had a million toppings to put on and was good to hang out with the girls as I hadn’t really had much of a chance to up until this point.

Thursday the 11^th. Man what a day. I have no idea what happened during daylight....actually pretty sure I missed a lecture for some reason. Something to do with a confusing timetable, but at night Julia and I set off for Manchester to see Karnivool. For those that didn’t know Karnivool are one of my favourite bands at the moment and are from (Perth) Australia, which made it even better that I could see them over here. They played for about 100 people in this tiny venue called the Roadhouse but that didn’t matter, we as the crowd loved them and cheered them and in return they played an awesome show for us. This wasn’t all though, since it was such a small show, they came out afterwards and said hi and hung out with us fans. I felt like such a fanboy but I didn’t care. I got all the autographs and a few photos, but more importantly got to speak to them. They are great guys and it was so good to be able to talk them about touring and stuff like that. Below is a photo of me with lead singer Ian Kenny.

As you can imagine I slept in pretty late on Friday considering I got home about 3am. I also misread my timetable and thought my class was at 1 when in fact it was at 12, which meant i missed it...again. Friday night we all went to Anastasia’ place for drinks and then go in to Fruity – the night club event that is on every Friday night at the Union. I was still pretty tired and still recovering from a cold so I decided I would just go to Ana’s and go home. Well, Emma had different ideas didn’t she? She pretty much coerced me into agreeing to come, against my better judgement. The only downside was that we didn’t pre purchase our tickets. So Josh and I waited in the massive line for about 15 mins and it didn’t move. We left. So at the end of the night I didn’t get an good night’s sleep, nor did i get to Fruity, both things I wanted to do.

Saturday night Amber and I decided it was time we found a new pub. We always go to the Eldon and we needed to explore the city a bit more. Everyone came to my place first and about 9 we headed out and went to The Hyde Park. Not the direction we first planned to as we wanted to go to Headingley, but since that’s the opposite direction to where everyone lived and no one was that keen for a real late night we found one a bit closer. We had actually been there before but was still a good change of scenery.

Sunday Chris, Anastasia, Julia and I went hiking in the Yorkshire Dales. Chris found this place called Bolton Abbey. It was a 13 kilometre hike and the destination was a place at the top of a hill called Simon’s Seat, pretty much a big load of rocks overlooking the countryside. It was really quite beautiful. The trail starts near the ruins of an old church, or at least half of it is in ruins, the other half had been restored and they actually have services inside. The path took us past a small waterfall where we stopped and took some photos. I got my photographer on and busted out the tripod and got some pretty sweet flowing water shots, not to mention it helped with the group shot. Right near the waterfall, on the path leading to it we saw so many frogs, and all I will say is we could definitely tell it was mating season. It was actually quite funny, the path was on the side of a little hill and they would jump together and tumble down the side of the hill. We trudged on and eventually came to the top of the mountain and the view was incredible. You could see a cute little village over the side with lots of farms, and the stone walls that form the perimeter of the yards made for a very picturesque view. We ate lunch at the top and cracked champagne to celebrate our success...I imagine that’s what Sir Edmund Hilary did all those years ago. The walk down was much easier, however not as much as you would think, walking down steep inclines gives your legs a really good workout. We caught the bus, then the train back to Leeds and since we hadn’t walked far enough i walked the half an hour trip back home.

Tuesday night was a night of genius. We had really wanted to play Risk for quite some time now, but we didn’t have a board, nor did we feel like paying for one as we are all poor students. What we did have though, was a massive map of England. Mitch went to the effort of drawing outlines around all the counties (territories), and then made continents out of those. Greater London and Isle of Man were their own continents. Playing this game was myself, Julia, Team Ana/Amber, Kayt, Chris, Mitch and Derrick. We played with M&M’s for armies, regular ones worth 1, peanut ones worth 5. With 7 people and a huge arse map, the game did go on for a very long time. Chris will argue that he won, but I say Risk was the real winner in the end.

March 17 – St Patrick’s Day. For me, St Patrick’s Day was quite dull. However, St Patrick’s Night was one to be remembered. After uni I walked down to Primark – student’s heaven – and purchased myself a white t-shirt and some permanent markers. I then proceeded to make my own t-shirt using a four leaf clover stencil I printed out. The night began at Amber’s in Henry Price where we played Kings – an increasingly regular occurrence at our events. It took about 20 minutes for the rest of my costume to be stolen. This picture is only one of my costume in it's completion. My green sunnies were being passed around and Kayt took my green scarf. It was fun though, I don’t mind sharing my awesomeness. The party then moved on the Faversham, or so we wanted. Upon leaving HP we already lost Josh and Mitch’s 2 British friends. We decided not to go in to the Fav because there was a massive line – a memo that Amber and Julia didn’t receive, thus decreasing the size of the group. The rest of us moved on to Old Bar in the Union. At some point at the Old Bar we lost Evan, he just disappeared. He said he doesn’t even know where he went, he just remembers being at the bar and then waking up at St Marks. We got kicked out at 1am for closing and by this stage all that was left were Myself, Mitch, Chris, Yazmin, Emily, Katie and Kayt. We took the party back to the girls’ place, lost Chris on the way, chatted for a bit there then went home about 2:30: a great night was had by all.

It’s now Thursday night, nothing exciting happened today and nothing is exciting is expected to happen tomorrow. My Micro lecture is cancelled so I will probably spend the day getting ready for Spring break, leaving on Saturday. A month of travelling.

Ramblings of a Traveller

I apologize for this entry in advance. It is all over the shop and follows no sensible order whatsoever.

To most of us here, Leeds is increasingly becoming more of a base than a home. Essentially what this means is the more we travel abroad, the less we do thing in Leeds.

The last few weeks have just flewn by and it seems like I am always on the go. My last few weeks have looked something like this: leave for somewhere on the friday afternoon, return monday. Monday nights: recover from the weekend's adventures.

Tuesday nights: generally at the Eldon, though we've been getting a bit over this recently. Three weeks ago Chris had a pot-luck dinner at his in St Marks, and since we are all students with limited wallets and cooking abilities we all brought a pasta..they all tasted awesome though. Two weeks ago (23 Feb) Ana organised a beer pong tournament at her place in Henry Price which then led to the Eldon.

Wednesday's are my day off so every time one rolls around I say that I'm going to get a lot of work done. This sometimes happens, but the word 'lots' would be used by few. The last few I'd say have been filled with lots of research. Now I'm sure that sounds productive, and it is, but not in a studious sense. Most of it is finding the cheapest flights and hostels around Europe - mainly for spring break - then discussing and booking them. Seriously, if I spent as much time on my schoolwork as I did looking at what I want to do around Europe I would be getting a HD in every subject. Sadly this is not a reality, but happily, it is :). And as of last night all my flights for spring break have been booked. I start off in the French Alps (Chris, Yazmin, Katie) - London (Emma) - Paris (Evan) - Vienna via Bratislava (Evan, Chris, Emma, Anastasia, Kayt) - Munich (same crew) - Berlin (Chris and maybe Stephen from Edinburgh) - Brussels (just me). Very excited.

Last wednesday we had a game of football in the park, there were 2 basketball courts and 2 other groups had taken a half of each of the courts so we played a game across the corner of one, was interesting but it worked. Then we played against another group of 5 and got our arses kicked, had a massive amount of fun though, I just loved getting out and having a kickaround.

When we got here Mitch and I wanted to find a church to go to regularly. There was this church about a 5 minute walk from North Hill but when we went one sunday but we were the only students there and the message for that week just so happened to be a presentation from a local charity that went for about an hour and half. The next week Emma took us to St George's which I absolutely loved. So many students, the message was challenging and everything just seemed to be done well. Met a couple of girls there who invited us to the student tea after the service and to small group on Thursday nights. Unfortunately (but fortunately) I haven't been home on a Sunday night in about 3 weeks but I've been going to the small group and really enjoying it.

Which brings us back to Friday. This Friday just gone we went to Dublin (stay tuned), some went on Thursday night but a few of us went Friday night as we had a class. On Thursday I learnt that my class was cancelled, great.

Tonight (Mar 9) I played a game of futsal, first actual competitive match. It's a comp within the uni and I played for the international team. The winners of this comp go into the inter-uni finals (I think). Again, was so good to have a run around - apart from walking everywhere I do zero exercise - and on top of this we got a win. I lost count but I think it was about 8-5. I netted a hattrick.

Over the past couple of weeks I've noticed that I am using my bedroom sink and fridge more than the kitchen. There's not really that much that I need to keep in the fridge, all my drinks are up here, my lunch stuff is up here, all that is downstairs is anything I need for dinner preparation, most of which is frozen or in the cupboard. I then do all my eating up here.

So congratulations if you got all the way through that.

Praha 26 Feb - 1 March 2010

So for those just joining us, last weekend was Edinburgh. Spent 4 nights back in Leeds before we jetted off to the Czech Republic. Joining me was Chris, Evan, Amber, Anastasia, Jenna and Chris’ friend from Germany, Richard.

Day 1

The excitement began at Leeds airport going through security. Chris got stopped and couldn’t understand why. After a thorough search of his bag he found 2 cans of beer that he forgot to take out the night before.

Once in Prague, getting to the hostel proved quite a mission but we did it and were pleasantly surprised to see how nice it was. We had a room to ourselves which was great. We settled in and went to a restaurant in Wenceslas Square called the Beer Factory. In the middle of our table was our own beer tap. It was really expensive but the food was so good and quite a unique experience.

Day 2

We woke up relatively early and meandered into the city, looked around Old Town Square before our free tour began. The tour took us to the Church of our Lady Before Tyn, the Astronomical Clock, Wenceslas Square, the Jewish Quarter (Josefov) and finished near the Charles Bridge. Now something I am noticing in my time here is people from the Middle Ages really loved their clocks, they are everwhere. But no clock will ever compare to the Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square. It tells – among many things - old Bohemian Time, Roman (normal) time, what sign of the zodiac it is currently and whether it is day or night. They thought it was so good that they burned out his eyes and tongue so he couldn’t make a clock for any other city.

After the free tour we took a much less free tour of Prague Castle. Apparently the tour meeting point was a bit too obvious for us, so Amber and I walked past the group of people hanging around the tour guides and just assumed that wasn’t it, so we walked another 10 mins past looking for it. We saw the changing of the guards...They march really slow. The tour covered St George’s Basilica, Powder Tower, Strahov Monastery/Brewery, and climaxed at St Vitus’ Cathedral which was absolutely gorgeous. However it has buildings built really close around it and was impossible to fit it all in one photo.

By the end of the day we were exhausted (a common theme I am noticing) and everyone insisted we go on the New Europe bar crawl. We seemed to stay at places a long time which meant we only went to 2 places before we called it a night...I was ok with this decision.

Day 3

The tour we went on yesterday walked us through the Jewish Quarter but we didn’t go in anywhere and it seemed really interesting so we headed back there this morning. It is really significant in Prague because from 1938 to 1945 (yes, a year before WWII) the Nazi’s occupied it and many Jews were killed and exiled. We visited the Jewish Museum which had all the names of the Jews killed and paintings children painted to express themselves during the Nazi regime. Outside there was the Jewish Cemetery where for about the 300 years from 1478 Jews had to be buried on top of one another due to lack of space, up to 12 layers deep. As a result it is now several metres above street level.

After the Jewish stuff we walked across the Charles Bridge which you can just tell is now set up for tourists. It was packed and along the sides of it there were vendors with stalls selling little souveniry things...I bought one. Just over the bridge was the John Lennon wall (right), I have no idea why it was there and until we got there I didn’t even know it existed. After lunch we left Ana and Amber, and Evan, Richard and I walked up Nerudova Street (a very picturesque street. Some of the houses have pictures above the doors instead of house numbers as they weren’t invented until 1770. ) and went back to the Castle to see inside the Cathedral as we didn’t get to the day before. Unfortunately because it was Sunday it was closed. On the way back we stopped at the Rudolfinium on the Old Town side of the River to where the line for the Louvre in Paris was filmed - They'll have us believe anything won't they. So of course we took our own robot fight photos and looked very silly in the process...worth it.

Went back to the hostel for a nap and headed out for a late dinner. We found an Aussie pub showing the Canada – US ice hockey gold medal match. We also met Norm, the owner of the bar who is Australian who moved to Prague when he a Czech woman in Sydney.

Day 4

Getting home took a long time. Our plane got in to Birmingham at about 3:30 and our connecting train to Leeds didn’t leave until 8. We got a train in to the city, had lunch at the big shopping centre there and played some cards in a pub.

Then I went home.

Life goes on

Another blog for my own benefit which you are welcome to read...

I'll pick up just after returning from Copenhagen... yeah yeah I know, this needs more Chronology but after my next post hopefully I will have sorted it out a bit better.

So Wednesday the 10th of Feb I had the day off uni and decided it would be a good day to visit Chantelle who had just recently moved to York - about half an hours train ride from Leeds. First thing we did was visit the train museum. Then Mitch joined us and we visited (and climbed) York Minster, which is an absolutely amazing cathedral, and climbed up to the top for a great view of York. Then we walked down the Shambles, found one of Chantelle's friends playing a red piano in the street, and visited Chantelles home and work: The Black Swan - the oldest pub in York. It was so cute and had the best character to it. After this a trip to the York Museum was in store, the highlight of which involved Mitch climbing into one exhibit to pretend to eat some toast, and Chantelle into another to put on a hat.

Thursday night we we invited to a masquerade ball down at the casino near Clarence Dock. None of us (guys) really had another "ball-y" to wear but we impovised pretty well. Jeans and a tie is a good look right? The ball itself was not the most awesome thing, but I/we did have fun at the tables since I'd never really been to a casino before. I put down 5 pound on black and doubled up straight away. After that I didn't need to pay any more money and came out even.

Friday night was an interesting experience, and a really fun night. Our Malaysian flatmates threw a Chinese New Year party and had a bunch of their friends over. They cooked some damn awesome food and there was so much of it. Best part of the night was probably learning a new way to cheers. Essentially it involved yelling out what you're cheersing to and then yelling really loud.

So it is now Saturday, and Evan, Kayt, Chris, Emma and I took a day trip to Newcastle - the fourth city I will have been in since Monday. Newcastle was ok, but our Newcastle is better. Interesting enough, however, they do have a breakwall and a lighthouse on the beach as well. We walked out this (I reckon about a km) breakwall and on the way back had waves crashing over us, it was a bit funny. There wasn't a whole lot to see but we made fun from it.

Sunday was Valentines Day!! Which means I went to see Lostprophets. Not much to say about this except that it was awesome and they played all my favourites...except for the song that got me into them in the first place.

Skipping ahead to next Wed the 17th was the Canadian Otley run. An Otley run is a bar crawl that is very popular in Leeds and they are always themed. For this one we decked ourselves our in as much red and white as we could find.Evan is dressed as Alex Trebek (who for some reason at this stage of the night has a Hitler moustache) and Emma is dressed as Chris....who is Canadian. I'm just there being awesome.

And this seems to be about it for now. All the highlights of life around Leeds. A few days later we went to Edinburgh which is already written, came home from that, recouped and had a pretty easy week in preparation for Prague.

The Americans in our group have started to notice the words that us Australians use that they don't. The most popular ones have been "heaps" "keen" "arvo/servo" "bugger" and "dag". Most of which - when spoken by Evan - are hilariously used out of context. Eg "Man that is arvo".

So by now I am pretty well up to date, hopefully everything from here on in will be in some kind of chronological order which will prompt me to update a bit more regularly.