I apologize for being the worst blogger ever.

That being said, near the end of March, my best friend and best roommate ever Tara visited me here in Leeds! We had a great time, even though I lost my iphone on the first night out so we were left without any sort of phone in London. After dragging Tara out to celebrate St. Patrick's Day on her first night here, we explored Leeds a bit and then went to London for two days. We went to the Making of Harry Potter, which was the most exciting thing for us because we absolutely love Harry Potter and we were freaking out the whole day.

We laughed.

We cried.

We had a great time.

We also went to Buckingham Palace.

Tara finally got to meet Big Ben.

And we had high tea at Harrod's!

We may have also gone to a One Direction pop up store and gotten a picture with the boys, but...we don't have to talk about it.

And we discovered the joy of Maryland cookies (which are not made in Maryland, contrary to the belief of every British person I've ever spoken with about my home state).

Overall, I'm just really happy one of my best friends could come visit me all the way across the pond! I know it cost her a lot and I hope it was worth it, because it meant a lot to me. And I hope she enjoyed the Leeds nightlife, because that's one of the best things about my new home!

I promise to update about my spring break trip very very soon!

It's been far too long! I know I haven't updated in a while, but really, not a lot of blog-worthy things have been happening.

A while ago, my five friends and I went to York for a day on a Don't Be a Tourist trip. It was cute, but pretty small. We did a tour of the town and then went to high tea, which was delicious. Here we are in some sort of park:

Last weekend, four of my friends and I went to Manchester for the weekend. It's only about an hour bus ride, so we got there at about 10:30 in the morning, had a proper English breakfast at a little pub, then set out to explore the city. We walked around and found the main square and sat in the sun (a rarity) and people watched for a little while. Then we grabbed a cab to the Manchester United stadium and walked through the museum, then had a stadium tour. It was pretty awesome. Here we are being cute:

That night we met some friends of friends and had a fantastic night out, which meant our plans for shopping the next day didn't really happen. But for a first hostel experience, I'd say I was pretty impressed.

Other than those trips, it's been pretty standard English life over here. I finally got all of my classes figured out and I'm having a ton of fun with my Aussies (and Canadian). Hopefully I'll stay on top of this blog more from here on out!

clubbing

I haven't updated in nearly a week, so there's quite a bit to tell. On Wednesday, I went out with some of my friends and bought much needed rain boots and a raincoat. That night, we went out to my first club. These Brits are crazy. Oh my. I had a lot of fun with my group, but one of my friends ended up getting really sick, so a couple of us went back home with her after she felt good enough, and I took her back to her room. The next day we ordered take out for lunch and sat around getting over our hangovers. This is so far from what I do at Towson, but it's exciting all the same.

Friday, I was supposed to have my groceries delivered, and I ended up not receiving them, so I'm a little out of luck in the food department right now. Then I had a pizza party dinner with two of my friends, and then met up with the rest of the group to go out to another club. I have been taking too much advantage of the fact that it's legal for me to drink over here, and was definitely too intoxicated that night. I thought I'd maybe made some bad choices that night, but really I'm very happy with how I behaved (besides the consuming-too-much-alcohol thing).

I've spent too much money already for my liking, but I'm just getting used to the different atmosphere and I'll sort myself out soon enough. I don't have any classes yet, and they start tomorrow, but I knew this university was disorganized. Oh well, I'll figure it out.

This is a once in a lifetime experience and as much as I hate the YOLO sentiment, I would like to say that my slogan for this semester is: No regrets. Not to say that I plan on running around, spending all my money and getting copiously drunk, but I do want to make the most of this experience and not upset myself by not trying new things.

Okay, so yesterday I had an orientation event. I was nervous about it because the location was written in code and I didn't understand how to crack it, so to speak, so I had no idea where I was supposed to go. Luckily, I went onto the Leeds Met facebook page and someone had asked about it already. People had also commented that they were meeting up outside at 1 to walk up to campus and anyone was welcome to attend. Well, I'm really glad I did, because the people I ended up going with are awesome! We went to the school and got our ID cards, then went to lunch at Pret A Manger. We went back to the school and had induction.

Induction was the stupid part. It was 45 minutes of people telling me about things that would come in my email "soon." Everyone at the school is so disorganized. But then I went out to a couple of bars with my friends, dinner at Nando's (which was excellent), and out to a few more bars. It was fantastic.

And then today was spent finishing season 1 of Dexter. I lead an exciting life.

the beginning

So, after a 6 hour plane ride consisting of bad food and an annoying man who wouldn't let me sleep, featuring a visually pleasing but quite strange movie and half an hour on the runway after we got there, I arrived in Manchester.  Some people from the university received us, but they didn't really know what they were doing. I met another guy from Towson and a few people living in the same complex as me, and then we waited about half an hour or so for a shuttle. When it got there, the students who were in charge of us had to explain where the driver needed to drop us off and then we left!

Well, England is beautiful. The drive from Manchester to Leeds was only about 45 minutes, but I was able to see rolling hills covered in snow, distant windmills, and plenty of cute shops. Once I got to my apartment (Opal 1), I received my key from the front desk and went off to my room. I couldn't get the heater to work and I was running on about 45 minutes of sleep, so I made my bed (thank you Christina for providing me with bedding!!) and took a nap. It was a little longer than I wanted, since I know you're supposed to power through your sleepiness so as to avoid jetlag, but as I said, the heater wouldn't work.

Once I got up I met one of my roommates, Charlotte, who is lovely and helpful and even came in and showed me how to use my wretched heater! I unpacked and went to bed, taking a lovely 13 hour slumber. Today, I spent about two hours researching local grocery stores and trying to figure out the best route, but in the end decided to just GO. I know myself, and if I hadn't left when I did, I'm sure I never would've gotten out of my room. I walked down the road for about 15 minutes or so on the snow covered sidewalk when I found a map and figured I should go down a side route to the Tesco. I only got a few things, and by this time my suede shoes were soaked through and my feet were freezing, so I headed back. I skyped my mom, and then Laurel Ann for a good three hours, which made me both happy and sad because I know I won't be able to see any of my friends from home for a very long time.

But it'll be worth it! I know I haven't done much of anything, but I can tell I'm going to have fun here. My shoes have dried after being over the heater all day and I think they look pretty good. I made a delightful dinner of penne and red sauce, had my second cup of tea of the day, and now I'm going to watch some How I Met Your Mother. Not the most exciting first Saturday in England, but I think I need friends before I can go out and have too much fun. Thanks for reading!

Tomorrow

Tomorrow I leave for Leeds Metropolitan University. Dear lord, am I nervous. I haven't started packing yet and I have a haircut appointment tomorrow and then I will get to the airport at 6. Let's hope I'm ready to fly by myself, get where I need to be, and start to make new friends. I think that's the scariest part. I'll (hopefully) be writing rather frequent posts about my school and travels around Europe. Wish me luck!