Mav Across the Pond

Bringing you up to date

2009-03-02T14:58:00.002-06:00

Now that I have almost caught up with pictures, I will give a text update of what I have been up to.

Two weeks ago we had our first test in Dynamics (the class that Caitlin and I are taking via correspondence through UNO). That turned out much better than expected.

The past 2 Friday evenings, I have gone to something called ID with the church I am going to. It is an event for 16+, so I guess that would be equivalent to about 10th grade through college. It is on the Bradford campus of the Abundant Life Church (Bradford has 3 services on Sundays and seats a lot of people). There is a mini-bus (like a 20-ish passenger van) that takes people from Leeds to Bradford that has been about full each time I have gone.

Saturday, Caitlin and I went to Manchester for the day. Manchester has a lot of free, tourist type places, so all we had to pay for was the train fare and lunch. We went to the Manchester City Art museum, saw the Chinese arch and wandered around Chinatown a bit before going to lunch. We went to The Piccadilly (a pub) and took advantage of their 2 meals for £5. After lunch, we went to the Ubris center, which had an exibit that featured pictures from areas of Manchester that most people didn't even know existed. There was also a Black Panther exibit. After that, we visited the Manchester Cathedral. Then we hopped on a free city bus and went to the Museum of Science and Industry. From there we got back on a bus with the intention of going to the market to look around, but on the way we went past the John Rylands library and it looked neat, so we got off the bus and went there first. Then we went to the market to look around. Then we walked back to the train station and journeyed back to Leeds.

This concludes the highlights of my last couple/few weeks.

Spencer

2009-02-26T10:45:00.005-06:00

NEWCASTLE

A view from atop the castle keep

At the top of the keep

One of the many bridges in Newcastle

Another

Yet another. This one is the Millennium Bridge. When boats need to pass it is flipped up, instead of lifting, or splitting in the middle.

One more bridge. This one is for the trains.

A model of what the castle once looked like.

Another view.

The castle keep

This was the entrance to to castle.

St. Nicholas cathedral

Newcastle United football pitch.

Here I am.

2009-02-26T09:51:00.008-06:00

Here are those pictures I promised from a long time ago.
These are all from the University of Leeds campus, or very nearby.

Campus Map

Mechanical Engineering building

Electrical Engineering building

A view of the row of engineering buildings from down the road

Parkinson building...the 'face of campus'

The quilted Llama is a lounge sort of place.

The back side of the newest building on campus

Here is the entrance to that building. Student Services is located here.

The Emmanuel Centre, where the International Students club is held.

The Great Hall

Looks like a normal pathway, right?

Wrong...the path is made from old gravestones.

See...

This path is normal, but each side is lined with other grave markers.

The Library...a pub located just across the street from the Engineering buildings.

This is one of the dorms on campus. It is a huge building.

A statue of the Duke of Wellington.

This is where the school of buisness is. You can see a reflection of the buisness building in this newer building.

A fountain outside of the Roger Stevens building

This is the Roger Stevens building. It is full of lecture theatres.

Pictures from Leeds Royal Armoury...and no, I am not spelling armoury wrong...that's how they spell it here...

2009-02-13T17:35:00.011-06:00

(Above) This was dubbed the 'man room' It was a little exhibit room in the armoury.

(Above) See. It had a case of a bunch of guns.

And some antlers. Not the whole head though.

It is kind of hard to tell, but in this picture the man on the horse is hunting wild boar, I believe.

These 2 are sneaking up on a deer, or antelope...but they are awfully close...must not be to scale.

Some armor.

A bunch of spears and swords and such, surrounding a crest of some sort.

The staircase wound around this central area of spears, swords, guns, armor, etc. It went up from the ground floor (level 0) up all the way to the top of the building (level 5).

Another angle.

A fencing person...fencer?

Funny sign.

More armor.

This was a funny looking mask thing. This image was used for the armoury for a bunch of random things. The pillars in at the entrance even had replicas on top.

I guess this is what war will look like in the future...at least according to the armoury.

Putting these up took way to long, so I will have to put up the campus pictures up later. I am off to bed, since the coaches leave at 9am for Newcastle. I guess that means I will have even more pictures to put up...as long as my camera battery doesn't die on me since I left my battery charger at home. Oops...don't worry though, it is on its way to me. Thanks Mom!

Spencer

I'm Back

2009-02-08T17:30:00.002-06:00

I guess it is about time for another update.

I made it through another week of classes. I have a few assignments due this week.

Wednesday I took some pictures of the campus. I also purchased my ticket for the International Office sponsored trip to Newcastle. That evening, Caitlin, Lucy and I had breakfast burritos at Caitlin's place before we went to the International Students club. This week, they had a barn dance.

Friday night, I went to Fruity again. There were not nearly as many people there this time, but is was still quite crowded.

Today, Caitlin and I went to the Royal Armoury here in Leeds.

I will post pictures from campus and the Armoury soon, but right now I am going to go to bed.

It's been a while...

2009-02-02T17:42:00.003-06:00

I just realized it has been a week since I last blogged...

Anyhow, the first week of classes went quite smoothly.

-Tuesday night was International night at The Eldon. The place was pretty packed.

-Wednesday evening, Caitlin, Lucy and I went to the International Students club and learned all about the Chinese New Year.

-Thursday and Friday nights were pretty quiet for me.

-Saturday evening, a film club on campus showed a Portuguese film that Caitlin and I went to. Afterward, we went to Lucy's place for a bit. That night I talked with some friends back home on Skype.

-Yesterday (Sunday) afternoon I did some shopping and got a jacket, scarf and a tie...and a few more groceries. Also last night, I went to church and then after the service a bunch of us went bowling. Once I was done with all of that, I went over to Jimmy's place and he, his flatmate Dave (from Canada), Emily and I had ourselves a little Super Bowl party. Since the game didn't start until after 11 pm local time, I had a pretty late night. Luckily I was able to sleep in a bit as I don't have class on Mondays until 1 in the afternoon.

-Today I had class at 1, and at 2. After that I came back to my flat and watched some of the super bowl commercials online since we were unable to see them during the game (we watched it being streamed online through BBC, so they didn't have the ads.) Then, I did my dynamics homework for the class I am taking through UNO while I am here.

Yesterday it snowed almost all day here, and today it was snowing on and off. It was hard to find a spot where the snow hadn't been trampled (everyone here seemed rather [over]excited about the snow), but I think the total snowfall was close to 2 inches.

Also, here is my course schedule for the semester:

Monday:

1:00pm-2:00pm MECH1210, Thermodynamics

2:00pm-3:00pm CIVE1120, Structures & Stress Analysis

Tuesday:

9:00am-10:00am CIVE1120, Structures & Stress Analysis

Wednesday:

9:00am-10:00am MATH1970, Differential Equations

10:00am-11:00am PSYC1611, Psychology and the Media

Thursday:

11:00am-12:00pm MECH1210, Thermodynamics

2:00pm-3:00pm MATH1970, Differential Equations

Friday:

3:00pm-4:00p CIVE1120, Structures and Stress Analysis Tutorial

OTHER:

Through UNO, Dynamics

On Friday, two weeks only, MECH1210, Thermodynamics Practical

On Wed, two weeks only, MECH1210, Thermodynamics Tutorial

Happy Australia Day!

2009-01-26T17:56:00.002-06:00

So today was the first day of classes...didn't have too much of a problem finding the lecture theatres, as they are called. I had 2 classes, both of which were engineering lectures.

After my classes, I finished up a few things I needed to do around campus, and then went to a barbecue that was at my dorms. A bunch of Australian exchange students were celebrating Australia day. After that, Jimmy and I met Lucy at the Refactory, and then went to the Global Cafe at the International Office.

We met Caitlin there, and after that went to Roundabout (an Australian pub) to celebrate Australia day some more.

Good Times!

Well, I've got class tomorrow at 9, so I should be off to bed.

Spencer

I can't believe this is my 5th day here

2009-01-25T11:31:00.002-06:00

In some aspects, it feels like I've been here longer than 5 days, but I can't believe I have already been here that long!

Friday, I went on a tour of campus...I think for the most part I can find where I need to go now. I also did some more wandering with my friends, learning where everything is. The shopping district in Leeds is huge and there are some really great stores. All of the shops are in like a 5 square block area and in that area there is no vehicle access. Some of the buildings look pretty cool, and it is kind of interesting how there are new, modern looking buildings among the many older style buildings. (Pictures to come)

Friday afternoon, we had a compulsory study abroad meeting where we learned all about all of the places we can go for various things. After that, Jimmy, and I ate with Lucy (a new friend from Australia). There we also met Dan (he's from Connecticut).

After we ate, I had a little free time back in my room. At around 7:45 I headed back up to campus. On the way up, I ran into Emily as she was on her way up to campus too. When we got there, we saw a line had already begun to form for Fruity tickets (they had sold out earlier in the week, but had 250 available at the door). Fruity is a big club event that is held in the student union most Friday nights (all?). We thought since we were new to Leeds we'd check it out, so we waited in line for about and hour and a half. Once we had our tickets we joined up with the other International students in the Mine Bar.

After talking with a lot of International students, it was about time for Fruity. Let me tell you, there were a crazy number of people all in one place. I don't even know hoe many thousand people were there. There were 2 clubs and 1 bar open for this event, and there were people everywhere. Super loud music, and people going crazy...I had fun though.

Saturday afternoon, a group of us made yet another trip down to the center if Leeds to look around some more. I think I have now seen most of the shopping area. Saturday night, Jimmy, Emily and I went out for pizza and then ended up seeing a film at the Vue cinema. We saw Slumdog Millionaire...it was quite good. After that, we went back to our respective dorms for a fairly early night.

Today, another group of us ventured back down to the city center to do some grocery shopping at Morrisons. Let me tell you, the walk back with a bunch of groceries was pretty grueling. I don't yet know what will be going on later tonight...

Cheers,

Spencer

Travel Stories

2009-01-22T10:31:00.002-06:00

Let me tell you about my travel experiences.
The original plan was to fly out of Rochester at 12:30 CST to Chicago. From Chicago, I would get on a plane to Manchester at 5:35 CST. Once in Manchester, I would get on a train to Leeds at 9:35 am GMT.

So, I got to the airport at about 11:00, got my boarding passes and gave them my luggage, no problems so far. Then I went through security, also no problems. I boarded the plane to Chicago (a little puddle jumper, 2 seats on one side of the aisle and 1 on the other. That plane left on time and also arrived on time. Then I found the gate that my next flight left from, wandered around the airport for a while, and then decided on McDonald's for lunch. As I was finishing up my food, Jimmy showed up at the gate as he had just arrived from Omaha. Around 3:30 Caitlin arrived from her flight from Kansas City. About that time, we heard that our flight to Manchester was canceled. About 10 minutes later, they made the announcement that our flight was indeed canceled. Next we went to a different gate to wait in line for them to rebook our flights. Our new plans were to leave Chicago at 7:20 for Dublin, Ireland. We would then get on a plane from there to Manchester, and then get on a train. So, we waited in the airport a while longer and then got on the plane to Ireland, which was very large (2, 3, 2) which all went smoothly. Once we arrived in Ireland we waited in line to show our passports. We had about a 2 hour layover in Dublin. As we were waiting for the flight they made an announcement that the flight would be delayed, but this was only because the plane needed to be fuled and serviced. We got on the plane to Manchester (3 seats on each side) and left only about 10 min behind schedule. About 35 minutes later, we finally made it to Manchester. Once we got to Manchester, we met a girl named Emily that was also going to Leeds (she's from the University of Illinois) as we were waiting for our luggage. The four of us pushed our carts of luggage (nobody had any missing bags!) to the train station. Since our original flight was cancelled, we waited in line at the train station to get our tickets changed. Turns out the grace period for changing train times was 3 hours. We missed that time period by 4 minutes... So, we bought new train tickets and then waited for about 20 min for that train to board. We managed to get all of our stuff on the train and placed it wherever we could find room. The train made 3 other stops before arriving in Leeds where we got a taxi to the University of Leeds. We found each of our residences, eventually, and got settled in a little. After that we ate at the Refactory (Uni of Leeds cafeteria), did a little wandering around the University and met a few people.

So, it may have been a little hectic, but I finally made it to Leeds.

So far today I've eaten breakfast, checked in at the International Office, have been on a tour of the city center, and bought a few things that I will be needing. In about an hour (17:30), there is an introduction meeting and then later on tonight there is a time to continue to meet international students at the Leeds University Union.

More to come.

Spencer

Made It!

2009-01-21T16:42:00.001-06:00

Well, I am now in my dorm room, about to go to sleep.
The traveling was very interesting and eventful, to say the least.
Right now I need to sleep though, so I will come with new details in the near future

Leaving Soon

2009-01-19T01:18:00.001-06:00

Let the final countdown begin:

My plane from Rochester leaves in just over 35 hours.

Welcome

2009-01-02T13:49:00.000-06:00

Hi!

Welcome to my blog.

Here I will keep an account of everything (well, probably not everything) that happens while I am studying abroad in Leeds. So check back here starting January 21st or so to see how my 5 month adventure progresses.

That's all for now...

Spencer