Wednesday i ended up not going out but i did enjoy watching part of the initiation. The rugby team had their initiation right in the middle of all the houses here where i live in a courtyard area. I was in my room and heard this rumbling of people outside for quite a while. (It's very common to hear chants and such here because everyone is watching football matches and sings songs and chants after wins.) After some time the noise is still going on so i went out to check what was going on. There were about 100 people standing around a group of 15 or so guy who were basically butt ass naked chugging pint after pint of beer and throwing up and doing it again and again. All 100 people were laughing and taking pictures and it was pretty enjoyable. Apparently before i got there the first year rugby players had eggs, flour, beans, and fruit thrown at them. Then they had to run around naked. Then they started drinking pints and what not. Their was an awful mess that night after everyone left and the next morning. This picture doesn't describe it too well, but gives you an idea of what it looked like:
Thursday's class consisted of us recording our data from the previous Thursday's class session. We need to use all this data in a lab write up which i haven't started yet but will soon. Thursday night Andy, Mikael, and I went over to another international house and we hung out there. We met two girls from Austria, two girls from France, and a guy from Australia. The night was full of cards, laughs, and broken English. I taught them how to play spoons and they all loved it and we played a bunch of rounds of that. A chill night.
Friday i didn't have class so Lindsay and I went to the city to get her phone fixed. After that we kinda walked around the city to go exploring. We ran into this filming process. It was real weird. There were cameras everywhere videotaping a bunch of random people who were dancing which was choreographed in the town square. We were asked to go dance but we just weren't feeling it... We walked around some more and found a river which we followed. There were a bunch of house boats on it, see below. We saw a lot of potentially good restaurants and saw a different side of Manchester which was good. Below is the river we walked around and you can see some of the house boats that people live in!
We got back and went to go to the gym, kinda. The lockers here have keys and you put in a pound to lock it. There was one locker opened and there was someones stuff in there so i decided instead of leaving my stuff in the open i'd put it in there and not lock it to be nice to whoever left there stuff there. Well i went for a run on the treadmill and it was eating at my mind to go lock it up cause i had my wallet and keys in there, I didn't really want to lose that stuff. So i go back and the locker is locked, it backfired on me. I sat around for 15 minutes to see if someone would come back and open it but they didn't. I had to leave cause i was getting weird looks from people cause i was just sitting there on my iPod while people were changing in front of me. I went to the workout rooms and asked people if they had the key but apparently no one did. So i had to go to the front desk and get a master key to open it up and see if my stuff was there. It ended up being there and the extent of my gym session was just me running for a mile on the treadmill cause i had to get back to shower and go out for dinner!
This past Friday, Mikael, Andy, Lindsay and I went to Louisiana Kitchen. (Yea yea i know it's American food but it looked good and Mikael wanted to try it out.) I had some gumbo that was very expensive ($20), not very filling, and didn't taste the best. I was pretty disappointed but everything else looked good. After dinner we went out to the friends flat and hung out there before going to a house party. They had a few live bands there which was pretty cool. We met up with the other international students and had quite a group go. After that we went back to the flat and chilled there till we got real hungry and went to the food cart outside where i got this:
It's so good but so unnecessary. That put me right into a food coma but instead of going to bed at like 2 we came back to our place and played some cards for awhile. After some good cards and spoons everyone left and Koala, Edmond, Sonia, and Elith came up and we played some drinking games. I took the week off from drinking so i just drank water while we played a bunch of Chinese drinking games. It was really fun and can't wait to bring them back to the states! We didn't get to bed till like 5:30, i was exhausted Saturday morning.
Saturday was pretty chill. Went slack lining for the first time in England with Koala. I can now check off 2 countries I've slacked in. It got me thinking that when i go to Paris i should slackline near/under the Eiffel Tower. I'm going to see what i can do! Koala tried it and was able to get up (kinda) and walk (kinda.) He really liked it so i'm hoping to set it up again this week for everyone else to try. Saturday night Andy and I went to a house party and hung out there and had some fun. We left kind of early cause we had to wake up at 7 Sunday morning to catch the bus to go to Leeds!
We decided to buy a bus ticket to go to Leeds the night before just because it's something new and it cost 15 or so dollars. We went with the other international students. Leeds is a town similar to Manchester about an hour inland. We walked around, visited a few museums, ate at a good restaurant, visited a pub, and walked around a lot more. Lindsay and I walked around for the longest time looking for a shot glass but decided the entire city doesn't have a single shot glass that says Leeds on it. We both collect them from every big city we go to and they didn't have any, bummer. The first museum we went to was the Royal Armories Museum. It was full of weapons from many centuries ago. Nothing crazy, had some fun. After that we went to the city center and walked around and saw some cool sights. Watched Mikael dance with some African musicians and dancers in front of a group of people. We went to another museum which was...meh. Ate lunch at a oriental buffet because for some reason it was difficult to find food there! We walked around some more and ended up at another pub by the bus station to wait for the bus. It was a good, inexpensive day trip. I hope to take more of those to see the rest of the country! Here is a picture of the City Center:
Today i did some laundry and went to class. Other the that it's been pretty chill. Might do something later tonight with some friends but other then that today was a catch up day from yesterday.
I'm trying to save money here, but still have a good time. Meaning i'm saving money in the food department. Buying only the necessary stuff which still ends up being 35 dollars a week. I've been able to make some good meals here though so far, stir fry, chicken Caesar salads, spaghetti with cheese bread, steak and garlic mashed potatoes. I love cooking but it's difficult when you're budget is low and stuff is so expensive!
Here are some words they use here that have made me look like a fool so far.
Football - Soccer (i've gotten this one down)
Toilet - Bathroom
Crisps - Potato Chips
Chips - French Fries
Boot - Trunk of a car
Fit - Someone is good looking
Snogged - Kissed
I'm hopefully going to the Chill Factor this Wednesday to go snowboarding on their indoor hill! Other then that it's just class and homework! Enjoy yourselves this week and i'll be back soon with more Manchester news!
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