A Trip Down History Lane...

So we finally arrived in Berlin at 11:00 at night, just enough time to take the U-bahn (Berlin's version of the metro/underground) half way to our destination. Tragic. At midnight we got kicked off the U-bahn. Luckily we figured out how to catch a cab to our hostel, St. Christopher's (which is a really good one, if you ever are looking for a place to stay in Berlin).

In the morning, we had the hostel-provided breakfast and went to hunt for a free walking tour (these tours are ACTUALLY free and can be found is most major tourist-attracting cities; the guides are trained and very passionate historians and are paid by tips collected at the end of the tour). We stopped at the Brandenburg gate to scope out the tour.


There were quite a few people waiting for the tour so they split us up among several tourguides, some that spoke in Spanish others in French, others in German, etc... I was really impressed that they were so well prepared and organised for a free service!

The free tour was incredibly extensive and lasted a good couple hours. Not only that, it was incredibly well-led and interesting! Our tourguide, George, took us all over the main city (be warned, a lot of walking is done, but it's worth it!)

One of our first stops was this stunning memorial:

The tour also takes you to part of the remains of the Berlin wall, Hotel Adlon (where many presidents have stayed and where Michael Jackson held his baby out of a window), Checkpoint Charlie, the university, various monuments and memorials, the old Nazi headquarters, where Hitler is actually buried (what a surprise!) and other pieces of history. The stops are brief, but the tourguides are thorough and well-educated to tell you what you need.

Hotel Adlon (and our guide, George, with crazy-cool facial hair!)

Checkpoint Charlie, the most well-known crossing point through the Berlin Wall

Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral)

Nazi Headquarters

Nazi Party mural: crazy stuff, eh?

Everything you need to know about the city was basically covered on the tour; it's an excellent way to whet your appetite if you're a history nerd like me. After getting a dose of the city's past while looking at the places where these things actually occurred, even the map started to look different to me.

Trying to understand the history of WWII in relation to the city and the German people was something I'd also wondered about and even that was covered in the tour. It wasn't just the Jews and the Roma people that lived in fear of the Nazi regime; normal German civilians did too! They were forced to join or become the enemy of the party. It was amazing to see the city become a symbol of good's triumph over evil (even though the good comes with kitschy gift shops and parades of fat tourists, it's still a much better step forward that what could have been). Little did I know that a few months later I would be stepping into Austria's Auschwitz, an area of Europe that received tenfold the amount of collateral damage from the holocaust. The free tour was a priceless introduction to the tour I took in the concentration camp at Auschwitz and Birkenau. So much emotional and spiritual dimension was added to my study abroad experience thanks to a few hours lent to history. It made my trip to Europe worth much more.

Oh... you were probably wondering what that last picture was... let's have a look at it again:

Hitler is buried there... yes, underneath a parking lot. George, our guide, told us that nazi-loyalists have tried to recover his remains; the UN knew this would be happening, so they decided to rest Hitler in an inconspicuous and rather unglorified area. Speaking of unglorified, locals walk their dogs to this lot to let their canines do their business.

Following our tour, we hit the city for some foodventures! I'll let my fellow foodies have a look at my documentation here, and spare everyone else the delicious details. ;)

Berlin, like other major cities, is home to tons of awesome museums! I got my fix of Sandro Botticelli and really eclectic musical instruments in the museum districts. There's even an "island" in the middle of the city called "Museum Island," home to the Pergamon, Bode-Museum and Altes Museum.

I was a fan of the Gemäldegalerie because they had this and other Botticellis:

The Musikinstrumenten was quite the interesting place. Filled with crazy pianos, guitars, see-through violins, it's an Eden for the musical nerd.

How would you even begin to play that?!

In a more obscure part of the main city is another great museum, the Jüdisches Museum. This one's about Jewish culture and the people; there are details about the holocaust, but the exhibits choose to focus on the entire history of Jewish people as well as what life is like today for them. Observe one of my favourite parts of the museum: the assorted yarmulkes!

Yes, they have a Friends yarmulke... WIN.

Now, no trip to Germany is complete without sampling some of the country's beer, right?

This wheat beer is frequently mixed with lemonade (or what we in the U.S. would call lemon Minute Maid) and that's probably why I liked it so much. (Want more about German food?) It was light in body, but had an excellent wheat taste, not too heavily tasting of alcohol either.

And of course, what is a visit to a European city without hitting up their chocolate shops?

Fassbender and Rauch was the main chocolatier in Berlin, claiming to be the "World's Largest Chocolate House." For the scoop on the different wursts/sausages, you'll have to hit my food blog. :)

Stay tuned for more Europe!

Barcelona, Espana!

Blogging Location: The flat, listening to Christmas music, because that's what I do... in June. And all 11 other months.

So after arriving in Barcelona in the evening, we headed off for our hostel, which turned out to be quite charming. We stayed in Rambla's Home, a hostel past La Rambla, one the liveliest streets, if not THE liveliest street, in central Barcelona. Our hostel actually looked like a home and the staff were very nice. It looked EXTRA comforting because for some reason it took us an hour to navigate our hostel, despite the fact that it was close to where we were dropped off. :-/ Nonetheless, it was a great hostel. Probably one of the best I've stayed in all year. I recommend it.

First of all, let me tell you: I LOVE the Spanish accent. The simplest way I can explain it is that their 'j' sounds isn't like the Mexican 'h' but more gutteral... YouTube it. They also speak with a lisp. So it's not "barr-sa-loh-nah," it's "bar-theh-loh-nah." :) Muy adorable! Did I mention that a huge part of my Easter trip was to learn some lingo? As a good ol' Californian (or as some say, "Mexifornian") I know a wee bit of Spanish so I tried to practice as much as I knew how. Of course, my vocab mostly consists of gracias, por favor, hola, donde esta...?, hace frio, and as an avid shopper, who could forget?: cuanto cuesta (rough translation of "how much does this cost?").

On our first whole day, we set out to explore the city; what made such a huge difference was that we were traveling with our friend that had been to Barcelona 3 times prior to this trip, so she knew her way around and even got to finding some hidden jewels of Barcelona, including restaurants, bars, and sales! The weather was mostly overcast, but we had an occasional spot of sun and a drizzle of rain. It was warm enough for me to walk around in a t-shirt and flip flops, and you won't believe how exciting this was for me, having lived in and survived an unusually snowy English winter. Our first day, we visited one of Barcelona's most famous landmarks, La Sagrada Familia. This Roman-Catholic church has been under construction forever and still is. So many styles have been mashed onto it's structure that it's impossible to label its architecture. It's a Frankenstein of works that's quite a magnificent site.


For lunch, we visited a little restaurant behind La Rambla called Romesco and tried our hand at some local food, which included rabbit, salmon, trout, and sheep's brain. Yes, you heard right. (I'll cover more of this on my food blog over the summer.) Afterwards, we went for a stroll to find L'Ovella Negra, a bar that was said to have amazing sangria. And BOY was that true. As one that doesn't like the taste of alcohol at all, I have to say this was easily the best sangria I've had and the fruit was delicious! :) Naturally, I turned just as red as the sangria...
While we were still set on food, we decided to crash the local market, which was gorgeous! One of the most beautiful markets I've ever seen; the fruits, vegetables, sweets, breads and fish and poultry was laid out so tantalizingly. However, this was not what we came to the market for... we came for the freshly squeezed fruit juices. In the late afternoon, these juices went on sale for less than half price. A cup would normally run for 1-2€ each, but in the early evening the prices could drop by half easily. These aren't your normal fruit juices either... Some of the flavours consisted of coconut-blackberry, mango-passion-fruit, strawberry-papaya, guava-coconut, kiwi-banana, etc... I'm a sucker for tropical fruits! Some of us got as many as 8 cups that day. :P



For a night out in Barcelona, we went to see was a bar called Chipito, where they served all sorts of crazy shots. All of their recipes are secrets; the bottles behind the bar have their labels covered by number placards. For example, one was called the "Harry Potter" and they poured the shot, put a slice of orange on top, chucked a LOAD of sugar on top, sprayed the entire thing with something edible, yet flammable and lit the whole shot on fire. The bartender then took a shaker and ignited little sparks all around the shot, blew the flame out, had the customer eat the orange and then drink the shot. Another, called the "Boyscout" was similar, but instead of adding an orange slice, they gave a skewer with a marshmallow that could be roasted over the flaming shot glass. I wasn't allowed to take pictures here, but it was quite a fun place.

The next day we all met up at Mc Donalds. I know, all Mc Donalds' are the same around the world... but no! They aren't... My favourite difference between some of those in Europe and those in America are the "gelat cafes," which is coffee with soft serve in it! Amazing. Anyways, while a couple of us were ordering these, one of our friends' entire bag got nicked! She didn't get pickpocketed, her bag was lifted without notice. Throughout my travels, I've noticed that whenever "Barcelona" or "La Rambla" is mentioned in hostels or amongst fellow travelers, there is always a groan, maybe a chuckle and a shake of a head. The mere mention of either names always triggers memories of gypsy* theft. Despite the setback, we headed for the American Embassy where she was able to get a replacement passport within a couple hours.

After all that, we headed for Park Guell, a park full of architecture designed by Gaudi. Even his house is there. Anyways, it looks like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. Honest. It was pretty wicked.




I apologise for the significant lack of photos here... lo siento! I did not format my memory card before I started snapping and ran out of space just after Barcelona... oddly enough a 4 gig memory card was only 12€. I don't know how much it should be, but where I'm from, that is DEAD CHEAP. Onwards!
It was our last night in Barcelona so we decided to go all out on some snack-age. We went to a restaurant and ordered some churros con chocolate and the Spanish version of creme brulee. We headed back to our hostel just in time for free paella y sangria night! Yes, every Thursday, Rambla's Home does cooks paella and makes sangria for her guests. Awesome. We had a hankering for more of L'ovella Negra's sangria, so back we went and toasted to a good trip in Barcelona!


At about 4AM, we woke up to get to the bus station; flying budget airlines boasts one addition disadvantage to the obvious ones... they always fly out of airports that aren't really in the city's main airport. We were to fly out from Girona instead of Barcelona. Getting to the bus station, we made our coach by God's grace. Due to unfamiliar metro lines and poor planning, we arrived late to the bus station and missed our 5:45am bus. The next bus was at 7am and we were going to be late for our flight. Now, I don't know where this bus driver came from, but around 6:11am, he came up to us and asked us if we were headed for the airport. Si! Oddly enough, there was no bus scheduled for 6:20am, but because of this miracle, we made our Ryanair flight to Rome! PTL!

A Really Cool Layover...

Blogging Location: Good ol' flat... next to my watercolour set and while waiting for an episode of Modern Family to fully load (hilarious show, by the way... my new fave.)


It's a GORGEOUS day in Leeds, sitting at about the low 70's in temp; it's actually warmer here than in some parts of CA. Who'dve thunk? Oh, and the sun sets at 9:30pm. WILD.
Anyways, I'm sorry for not blogging as much as I thought I would this week; I've been just relaxing before the exam-week to come. Here goes...

So from where we left off in Amsterdam, my friends and I had to get to the airport for a morning flight; this involved leaving the hostel at 5am to get to the train station and eventually the airport. Kind of a pain in the butt since we had no clue of our way around Amsterdam! The city centre is enormous and we'd only been there for a day and a half. In addition, it was there that I learned that if I want to know my way around a place, I've gotta be the one doing the navigating. (Yes, I learn the hard way.) After quite a stressful time, we got to the train station and the airport and took off for a day in Geneva, Switzerland.


So when we booked the trip, my friend Tatiana and I realized that we could either a) spend the night in the Liverpool airport or b) spend a day in Geneva; both options were the same price! Neither of us had been to Geneva, so why not? When we arrived in Geneva, we got off the plane and just on the tarmac we could see gorgeous mountains capped with snow! A massive Swiss flag nearby helped the ambiance as well. In the city centre, a short train ride away, we walked around with the help of city maps planted every few corners.
As we walked out of the train station, I saw a small blond guy with a beard waiting for a cable car that looked oddly familiar. "Hey Jesse," I said incredibly casually as if I'd seen him every day of my life. He turned around rather surprised. Ha! So it WAS my Social Communications TA! He's been a TA at Leeds, and while not British, but Canadian, he's put up with my professor (who constantly takes jabs at North Americans-- both Americans and "fake Americans"/Canadians) for quite some time. Anyways, it turns out he was just touring Switzerland for Easter Break. Cool. For those of you that know me pretty well, it's not unusual for me to run into a teacher/TA/professor in another country.
The highlight of the city for me was Lake Geneva, a lake in the centre that had a massive fountain called Jet d'Eau. Not only was that amazing (spouting at about 450 feet in the air, but the water was beautifully turquoise and clean! If you got close enough and the wind changed direction suddenly, you could end up in the splash zone and look as if you just got off the Log Ride at Six Flags.




It wouldn't really be fair to give you a summation of Geneva based off of what I saw, but it seemed a nice little city. There was a University and a lot of the public transport consisted of cable car and buses. Intercity transport is all trains. The city is a mix of modern buildings and some older-looking buildings. It didn't have a lot of sites, but was a nice place to be.
So apart from feeding the swans, getting ice cream, and just going for a mooch (walk), seeing a clock made out of flowers, we also went to check out St. Pierre's Cathedral and indulged in some Swiss hot chocolate! :)




Next, we took a lovely ride on a train to a trainyard by accident in our attempt to get back to the airport, but luckily we had enough time to get shunted back to the station, catch another train and make our connecting flight. Praise the Lord! And now off to Barcelona!

Fun fact: Switzerland has 4 spoken languages: Swiss-German, German, Italian and French. In Geneva, we got to practice a little French. Lots of 'merci beaucoup's and 'sil vous plait's.

A Quick Hello!

Hey everyone! Gruezi! Guten tag! Hola! Hallo! Bonjour! Bonjourno!
Just wanted to say hello from Lisbon, Portugal. I'm on the last leg of my Easter break travel before I go back to Leeds. It's raining like El Niño here, but it's still nice to be in a place where I don't need my coat. I do need an umbrella though. :P I should go buy one soon.

Anyways, it's been crazy living out of a suitcase for 4 weeks. I feel like George Clooney in Up in the Air (a fantastic film, by the way-- so is Shutter Island, but that's another story). I've been flying 1-3 times a week and have been documenting my meals closely for my food blog (see sidebar for link). For a preview, I've seen the Roman Coliseum, been to a Viennese Opera, stayed in jail for a few nights (don't worry, it's not what you think), strolled past the Red Light District in Amsterdam, slept in an airport, ate street food (not roadkill-- distinct difference), biked lakeside along Luzern, etc... Lots of prayers have been answered as well, big and small. There's much more for me to tell you, but that will have to wait till after! I may abandon some coursework in Leeds to blog completely, but I can't abandon my essays completely, so no promises on my conciseness. Hope every one of you have had amazing spring breaks and what not! Lisboa waits for no one!

See you on the other side,
rXw

P.S. Stoked to eat some pastels. ;)

Hasta La Vista, Baby!

Blogging Location: Flat, packing at the mo'

So let me catch you up a bit...

.:London Fashion Weekend:.

Look at me participating in mass consumerism...

I will admit, so I can get admitting out of the way, that London Fashion Weekend was not what I thought it was going to be on several counts... It was definitely a shopping experience as they claimed it would be. I expected everyone to be extravagantly well-dressed, enough to make me feel bashful, but for the most part, not everyone were fashionistas. I saw a lot of Uggs (thank goodness there were no Crocs) and I do believe I saw a couple girls in sweatpants... /shock
The catwalk wasn't as professional as I expected either. None of the designers were announced with the outfits modeled. Odd. And as much as I love vintage clothes, I didn't pay money to see outfits from 40-odd years ago. Show me something new!
Don't get me started on the gift bag that came with the ticket... Let's just say the contents were similar to an easter-egg hunt in the Costco consisting of samples from the beauty aisle. They did throw in a little bottle of Bailey's, which I can't complain about... It's one of the few drinks that actually taste decent to me...
Now, on the other hand, LFWE was pretty fun for shopping; plenty of labels-- although not as many high end ones as I expected, not that I could afford it-- I noticed that for certain stalls, a lot of the clothes were 'rejects.' I'm kind of a village idiot, but I know the difference between 'style' and 'oopsie.'
I bought a couple pieces, one from Ella Moss and one from Buddhist Punk, both of which I got at ridiculously good discounts, so I can be fairly happy with that.



Some photos at the catwalk:





After the crazy extravaganza, my friends and I went for an asian-food run. A couple of the girls we were with had Chinese food the night before, so we went with Japanese (ironically, the entire staff was Chinese). But the food was good and I got my sushi fix.


All in all, it was worth the trip to London, but I think it's a one-time thing. I'm quite satisfied shopping at thrift-stores, thank you.

.:Birmingham:.
It took about 4 hours by coach to get to Birmingham, but it was definitely day-trip worthy. Why? We went to CADBURY WORLD!
Cadbury is England's main chocolate maker, probably at the same level as Hershey's in the US, but it tastes SO much better, hence our trip to the theme park. (I'd like to say that half my English experience has been Cadbury, but I don't think my program would like to hear that much...)


It was about £10 to get into Cadbury World (with student discount, yes! I LOVE being a student!), but we got about three full-size bars of chocolate, which were considered "samples," like it's NO BIG DEAL. They were delicious. While not a factory, Cadbury World had a lot of demos for how they make their chocolate. No photos were allowed in those parts to keep the secret recipe... I CAN tell you, however, that they did not mix their chocolate by waterfall... and they put a glass and a half of milk in their bars.
The park started off with a history of the discovery of cocoa-- well, more like the theft of it from the Aztecs. Anyways, they had a cool set up with wax Aztecs and Spaniards, fake trees, fake giant snakes, etc... Since it's a one-way self-guided tour of a park, the next bit was chocolate's history as a sweet confectionary. They had little hologram shows and the like to explain things. Corny, but cute.


Finally! An English gentleman!-- oh, wait, you're made of plastic.


Ever been on that Bug's Life attraction at Disney CA Adventure? The one that scares the flying crap out of you with the special 4-D, invasive effects? There was something like that at Cadbury World. You get shaken, jolted, mixed, heated up and nearly melted, but they made their point. Next up! There was actually a little ride! Imagine the Alice in Wonderland ride at Disneyland mixed with the Peter Pan ride and the Winnie the Pooh ride. They had these little characters that were meant to be cocoa beans. The drawings of them were adorable, but as models they were... less cute. Look, you can even get your picture with one:

How cool is that guy's jumper?

.:Leeds:.
So I usually only write about traveling because I assume that's what everyone's interested in... but I DO do work... I just turned in an essay and a workbook yesterday before the end of term, and boy did I slave away. I'm enrolled this semester in Social Communications: Processes and Effects, Processes of Performing 2: Text and Image and Technique and Improvisation, Forensic Psychology and Film Music. Unlike last semester, I'm actually enjoying all these modules. Though Forensic psych is a 10am class and they don't take roll, it's cool enough for me to get up for.
In terms of flat life, I'm in a self-catered accommodation, so been doing a lot of cooking on my own. Lots of experimenting... I'm not going to go through all the dishes and desserts I've been creating, but I have to share this photo:

My flat mate Laura buy bananas from the local farmer's market (don't ask me where the bananas come from-- there's AIN'T enough sun in England to grow anything... except mushroom, which grow in the dark...) and for a pound, you can get about 20-30 bananas. Yeah, that's a lot. So we made banana cream pie! And we had leftover egg whites, so I whipped the living daylights out of them and made a meringue topping. Great. :)

.:TTFN:.

So in regards to the title of my blog... I'm leaving Leeds for a month! Just when the weather has started to get warm (when it's above 50*F here, that's warm). Oddly enough, I've gotten so used to the cold that anything above 55*F gets me to break out in a sweat when I'm walking to uni or town. I think my pores have put on their own little eskimo jackets... must ask them to start changing for the next season.
Where am I going, you ask? Look for the select dots:

Anyways, the weather doesn't look so great for where we're heading... It looks like rain and cold every where, but it will be great nonetheless. I'm going to be completely honest though: I'm DREADING being exhausted... One gets little to no sleep in hostels, not to mention walking and sightseeing all day... but I'm going to definitely pray for energy and sustenance! And gonna hope I catch all my flights and trains and such... if I miss one little flight, it's a crazy domino effect of disaster!
Anyways, if anyone could spare any prayer for safety that would be fantastic!
Talk to you in a month!xx

-Raech

Oxford, Harrogate, Chinese New Year and York

Blogging Location: In the flat, excited for the rest of the year, hopeful, and supposed to be doing an essay. I'm obviously not, seeing as I have a guitar in my lap.

Before I get into my travels and experiences, I have an announcement: Easter break is all booked and ready for initiation! I spent a grand total of 17 hours with my friend Tatiana booking trains, planes, automobiles and hostels for the spring holiday! We got it all done in 1 weekend and I can happily say it was decently cheap because of how early in advanced we booked things. Yay for budget airlines and accommodations. Future destinations:


.:Oxford:.
So many moons ago, three friends and I ventured southward to Oxford, the university town. It's very tiny: you can walk from one end to the other in 25 minutes. It's also gorgeous. Luckily, one of my best friends, Katie, studied there for a semester last year and was able to give me a complete to-do list! Fab! Thanks Katie! <3
FUN FACT: Buildings in Oxford demonstrate an example of every British architectural period since the arrival of the Saxons, including the iconic, mid-18th century Radcliffe Camera.


So starting at about middle school, I became a Lord of the Rings and JRR Tolkien fanatic. I'm not sure I even dare to explain how geeky I was about Tolkien's work... Okay, I'll humor you: I own the trilogy in several formats: books, regular edition DVDs, extended editions and boxed sets (with collectibles!); I have two life size cardboard standees of Aragorn and Legolas in my bedroom; my shower door has the door of the Mines of Moria engraved on it; in middle school and high school I could speak and teach elvish, both Sindarin and Quenya. I need to stop there and quit embarrassing myself. Anyways, what this has to do with Oxford is that JRR Tolkien was a professor there! The famous Eagle and Child pub (or the Bird and Baby) where Tolkien and CS Lewis hung out is also located in Oxford. Basically going to Oxford excited the little fangirl in me, almost as if I had a ticket to the Shire. Here's the famous pub:


Another thing we got to see in Oxford... where they filmed part of Harry Potter!


.:The Saints Come Marching In:.
Did I mention that I had a nasty cold while in Oxford? Well, that properly tuckered me out so apart from going to Betty's (a famous and bougie Yorkshire teahouse) I slept pretty the rest of the day. Here's a couple pics from Betty's:




In the evening, I originally planned to make like a fetus and head out (rimshot!) to a sports bar to watch the Superbowl, but nautrally it was raining cats and dogs. I'd been talking about staying up and watching it for a couple weeks, but my illness and the weather got the better of me. Quite disappointed, I trudged around in the kitchen and made myself a midnight snack instead (kick off was at around 11:30pm my time). My flat mate James lugged his TV out into the living room and plugged it in (fun fact: you need a TV license in England :P). Half hopeful and half assuming there was some rugby cup match type thing going on, I asked what was going on. Matter-of-factly, stated: "The Superbowl." Yeah, imagine how stoked I was. Didn't even have to leave the flat! Score!
And Reggie Bush was in the game this year, San Diegan & USC alum, what what?! A bunch of us stayed up PRETTY late, but it was a great time in the flat and totally worth it.
Slight disappointment: BBC didn't air the commercials. Which are half of the Superbowl's enjoyment. Fail.
Just to share, I don't know if this was actually aired during the Superbowl, but this is one of my favourite recent commercials:

Forgive my favor towards non-sequitur humour.

.:Valentin-- Chinese New Year:.
For Spring Festival, or Chinese New Years Eve, my friend Grace from China, invited me to celebrate with her and her friends; we made pork dumplings from scratch!




I blatantly didn't celebrate Valentine's Day because the foodstuffs that are associated with that holiday are no where near up to par with that of Chinese New Year and they fell on the same day this year. As a very last minute party, I threw together some red and gold paper lanterns and one of those silly Happy New Year banners to put above the stove to chase that backseat-driver-of-a-kitchen-god away. Just kidding. Foods included fried rice, noodles, prawn toasties, lychee, and kau yuk.



A good time was had by all! I definitely ate too much though.

.:Vikings!:.
The Viking Festival in York!

Seeing as there are only a few months left for me in Europe, I've been trying to pack something in at least every weekend. One weekend trip consisted of a day trip to York for the Jorvik Viking Festival!

To be honest, we spent most of our time eating at the food fair which consisted mostly of international foods, not really anything Scandinavian, but it was delicious anyways. We also got to pop a few cool pics of the beard competition which I was pretty stoked about:

That's one of my favourite pictures. :)

Now, apart from the Viking museum and festival, York is a very historic city, one of the most visited in all of England. Here's a photo of the Yorkminster.

There's also ancient Roman wall from which apparently you can still shoot a Scotsman with a crossbow (random fact supplied by flat mate, please check accuracy and your own sanity before acting upon your newfound trivia). In addition, there are incredibly narrow streets also called The Shambles. Here's a pic!

Andddd... Guy Fawkes was born in York. :D


As always, see the Facebook albums for more photos! :)

That's about all I've got time for now. I promise I'll get to more food blog entries as well as some more culture shock. I'm now going to tease you with a photo from London Fashion Weekend, which I went to... There will be a blog for this coming soon!


Now I'm off to do what I supposedly came to Leeds for... studying!
Cheers for reading!
-Your local village idiot

P.S. Praise the Lord for the recent streak of gorgeous weather! :) Keep it comin'!