A weekend without internet

good afternoon all.... sorry I haven't been updating this a little more regularly... but it has been a hell of a week. I have spent the last week exploring around Leeds, shopping, and generally figuring out where things are. The beginning of the week was spent in lectures here about computing. Monday and Tuesday I was busy most of the day getting tours, going to talks and the like. Tuesday afternoon was spent registering.... all of it.
     The registration system here is kind of funny... before class starts you indicate online which modules you would like to take. This gives the school an idea about how many people want each course. However, this does not mean you are registered in the course. To actually become registered you have to pick up this red form from your department with all your personal details on it. Then again to your department to pick up a bubble sheet to fill out your course selections on. Now... not all departments do bubble sheets, some of them just write the courses on the back of the first form.... ugh. After you have been to talk to all the departments you are taking courses from, and gotten their sign-off... it is back to your "parent" department for a stamp. Once that is all squared away, it is off to the finances department for another stamp. Luckily since I am on exchange and still paying fees to SFU, they only had to write "fees waived" and stamp my form. This, however, did not stop me from waiting in line for 30 min for them to do so. ugh. Then... finally off to the last line... the registration line. This is where it really started to suck.... I was in that line for about an hour and 40 min.... inching forward. Now, you can't leave the line... no stretching ones legs... nothing.... just a *really* slow amble forward. You can't understand how boring it is to just stand around for that long. Anyway... finally finished registering after having stood there forever and went home and died! ugh.
     The rest of the week went alright... mostly shopping and attending seminars on how to not die here... and generally get around. Friday afternoon / evening was spent socializing with the local CompSoc (the equivalent of the CSSS) They seem like a good group of guys (and girl). They have a similar structure to us, except there are only 3 exec.. President, Secretary and Treasurer. For more information... their website is: http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/compsoc/index.html.
     The rest of the weekend was spent without Internet... The DHCP server went down some time on Saturday morning... and didn't come back up until the wee hours of Monday. So spent the weekend shopping down town, playing pool, and watching firefly. I managed to watch the whole series over the weekend. This included the last episode which I had mysteriously not seen before. I had forgotten how good a series that was, and can't wait for the movie to come out. I think that is all for now... I will blog the last 2 days soon....

Cheers,
Andy

A day at large

Today I spent learning about Leeds and the surrounding city. I spent the morning on a tour wandering around the city of Leeds. The place is splendid! Leeds itself is about 400 years old and it shows in places. The town hall is the grand building with a great dome roof. The shopping district is full of little hole-in-the-wall shops filled with just about anything. Unfortunately I did not have a chance to go into the main market today as apparently they only work half days on Wednesdays (luck blighters). After the tour of downtown I got a tour of the University. Leeds University is an odd collection of old houses and shop fronts converted into offices and class rooms, and brand new large classroom complexes build withing the last 30 years. After the tour of the University I went and got my University log on information and headed off back downtown. This time I took some photos, visited a few shops, got a bus pass and generally wandered around some more. Then finally around 3pm I took the bus all the way from down town to the end of the #1 line at ASDA's. ASDAs is actually owned by WalMart, but sells quite a different selection of goods from what I am used to. After I picked up a few essentials and dinner, I headed off back to my dorms. When I got here I discovered one of my flat mates had moved in, the local sub-warden in fact. He is an interesting guy from Texas. Not quite the stereotypical Texan, but mildly loud all the same. Generally seems like a nice guy, and he had lots of great advice for staying in Bodingtons. After chatting with him for a while, cooking dinner, and answering a few e-mails, I got back on the bus and headed out for a movie with a group of people from the exchange program. We saw "The Fantastic 4" in this lovely old theatre. The theatre was build in 1914 when silent films had just started coming out. It was build like an old opera house with and upper balcony, front curtains and a piano up the front for the silent films. after the film I caught the bus home again. And now you are up to the present.

Cheers all,
Andy

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.

Nelson

So, got into nelson yesterday afternoon at around 3pm and spent the night with my Uncle Malcom. Soon as I got here I was fed more than I could comprehend. Then took a nap for several hours trying to recover from my jet lag. Got up around 7:30pm and had a great chicken dinner! Sat around for the rest of the evening chatting with my Uncle and his wife and watching the Cricket match. The English won "the ashes" from the Australians.... Apparently this was a big thing here. I dropped off to bed around 11pm and slept for almost 11 hours. My uncle woke me up around 10am wondering if I was alright. Then got up and had a lovely breakfast. Anyway, Uncle is hovering, I should go.

Later all.
Andy.

Finally landed

well... our flight finally got going after sitting on the tarmac for almost 2 hours... then it was a quick up and down from Glasgow to Manchester, didn't even turn off the seat belt sign. We finally arrived here around 11:30am. Then as it always does... it took an hour for my baggage to come out! ugh. I am always the last one to get their baggage. Atleast it all came through in one piece. I have everything I borough (as far as I know). Unfortunately, Manchester airport had reported our flight delayed till 2:30pm, so I get here and my uncle wasn't here... Understandably. Have you ever tried to use a pay phone with money you have never seen before? not easy! take my word for it! first I had to find an exchange counter... which for some reason gave me 4 pounds and change for $15. I think I was ripped off... ah well... then I had to figure out which coins to use.. "the silver ones," which was what I was told didn't help much. Then it turns out that pay phones are ridiculously expensive... and cost per second here... something I should have guessed... had I not just spent 11 hours in a large cigar tube! So first time I call my uncle I got cut off half way through since I had only put in 50 pence (~$1)... so put in more money and call him back. Thankfuly we got something arranged that time, and now I am finally sitting in a coffee shop drinking a mocha and typing away... Thank god for coffee. Anyway, more updates when interesting things happen!

Cheers from the other side of the pond!
Andy.

Plane is diverted

Well... That didn't take long for things to take a mild turn for the worse... Apparently the weather in Manchester is not appropriate for us to land right now... There is too much fog and too many planes ahead of us. Ah, well... we get to land in Glasgow for the time being and wait till the fog and the planes clear from Manchester. Hope my uncle doesn't mind waiting a while...

The plane flight

So... I guess I am official in the UK... Even if I am still 30000 feet above it! The plane flight went well. I managed to get a center section all to my self! So I lay down for a while, got some sleep... I am general pleased with Zoom's service! I would defiantly recommend them. The meals have been good for airplane food... hell... they are good for pre packaged meals anywhere. There were also a good number of them, and free wine! I had to pay for the rum and coke (only $5) but hey, I can now say I have had a drink over 10000 feet! The inflight movies have been half decent. We started with "The sister hood of the traveling pants." It was almost entertaining... and for a chick flick... fairly good. Then we got "Madagascar," one of the Disney annimated movies that one can actual tolerate watching, especial if one is trapped on a flying cigar tube with little else to do. The last movie was "Million Dollar Baby" which was, as always, a really good movie! The ending still moves me... even though I have seen it 3-4 times now. Other than that, the flight over here has been mostly uneventful. The view taking off was nice... but we have been above the clouds for the rest of the trip... so all you see out the window is white one way and blue the other. When I land the intention is to meet up with my uncle Malcom and get a lift to his place were I think I am spending the evening. Hopefully I will be able to post this from there... otherwise it is going to be delayed till I move into res tomorrow (13th). I think that is all for now...

Cheers from the other side of the pond!
Andy.