Jet Lag

AK! stupid jet lag! I am wide awake at 5 in the morning, but falling asleep around noon. ugh. ah well... this will give me a chance to get some writing done about the last 16 hours or so. Yesterday afternoon my Uncle Malcom drove me out to Leeds along some nice country back roads. The hills here are amazing, they are soooo well groomed. There really is no place here that hasn't been touched by the human hand. The hills really do look like patch work quilts, it is quite amazing! I can't wait to go exploring the hills and get some hiking in. We finally arrived in Leeds around 2 in the afternoon and finaly found the residence office after wandering around campus for a half hour. The campus really is different here... it is a collection of new large buildings interlaces with old houses, all part of the university. For example the english department is housed in what looks like a 100 year old house... it is really interesting. After finding the residence office, they called up to Bodington house to see if my room was ready, which it was, so we then headed up there. Bodingtons is about 4 miles out of town, which amounts to about 15-20 min on a bus. The halls are quite nice, they are spread over a large old estate. There is a main office and set of first year halls around the center. Around the outside are what amount to small apartment blocks. There are about 4 conjoined towers in each block, with each tower containing 4 floors with 2 sections each. Each section consists of 5 or so rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. Quite nice in all, they are roughly equivalent in size and facilities to the townhouses at SFU. Anyway, after finding Bodington house, and getting my room key we threw all my stuff in my room and headed back towards leeds. My Uncle dropped be in Headingly, which is about 10 min walk outside of leeds city center. I said my good byes to my Uncle and his wife, and headed off down the street. After getting into Leeds itself I spent an hour just randomly wandering around campus. Found out where the computing science department is and all that. At about 4:45pm I headed over to the international Student office, which for note is also housed in what looks like a 100 year old stone house. There I had tea with a few other international student, picked up the shedual for today, and headed off to the supermarket to find something to eat. The supermarket I visited, Morrisons, was nuts. It seemed much less organized than what I am used too, and there were *waaay* more people! it took me about 30 min just to find and locate the 6 or so items I needed. Once I got out of there around 6pm I caught a bus back to Bodingtons. The bus was the fun articulated type, but cost me 1.90 pounds or about $4 which seemed a little much for my 15 min trip, ah well... I will be getting a bus pass today hopefully, which will make it *much* cheaper. Anyway, I then got home, unpacked the groceries and set about finding internet. So I plug in my computer and get an IP address, Horray... I then try and access the internet... have to log on (like SFU wireless) well crap. I then run around the grounds trying to find someone to give me a hand, but it turns out that this place closes down around 6pm untill term starts next week. Ugh. So I am wandering around looking mildly helpless when I run into one of the "sub-wardens" (roughtly equivalent to a CA), Helen was here name I think. She informed me that I had to go into the university to get a log onto the system. Ugh. I then asked here if there were any other internet connections on campus, and she said she was just heading out to have a meal with a Mexican couple who also live in bodingtons, and I was welcome to come along. We then went to one of the flats around the back side of bodingtons, where the Mexican couple lived. Apparently there was food prepared there, spaghetti bolonase to be precise, and the invited me in to eat with them, which was great since I didn't really have much to eat back at my place. We sat down to dinner with the Mexican couple, helen, and this southern American girl named Lauren, who seemed quite nice. After dinner my hosts allowed my to use their laptop for a couple minutes, so I had a chance to connect and check for urgent mail / messages. After responding to the bear minimum I signed off and went back to my flat to unpack. After spending a couple hours getting my stuff in order I went to bed and slept for about 6 hours. Then my stupid jet lag kicked in and well here I am, wide awake at 6 in the morning. Anyway, I am going to try and lay in bed and get another hours rest, well see.

Good night, and Good morning,
Andy.