London calling, yes, I was there, too

I went to London the last weekend in November for an annual general meeting for a scholarship I had won. They offered to pay for our train tickets and put us up for a night if we came and talked for two minutes. What a deal!The hotel turned out to be quaint and adorable, and I got a fantastic room- 9' ceilings, chandelier, huge window overlooking a park, king sized bed... All this followed by a free hot breakfast.
The meeting was at Goodenough College. I'm not sure quite what that means, but the little campus was beautiful. If I hadn't been there myself this time of year, I'd have sworn it was early spring.
Before the meeting, I met up with a couple other scholarship winners and toured the British Museum.
Classic. Hannah and I in a London phone booth.
For the Harry Potter nerd lurking in all of us... This is half the group I met at the scholarship meeting. Hannah, Collin and I stayed together for the evening; Colin then hung out for the weekend.
We caught a musical the first night. Oh, wondrous cat calling. :-) Dirty Dancing effects everyone the same way everywhere.
Of course, Big Ben is beautiful at night. Also, it is almost always night... Only 8 hours of daylight in England at this point!
We were lucky enough to catch the right day for the changing of the guard. I got yelled at by a man on horse for pausing to take this picture in front of the gate. "Keep MOVING!"
Jade, Colin and I in front of the Buckingham Palace. Jade is an Australian friend of mine from Leeds.
Portobello Market. I'm going to miss good street musicians. There was a man playing double bass in the street here.
We attended an Evensong Service in the Westminster Abby. I'd missed the tiny sign on the way in, and got yelled at for this photograph as well.Thames and the London Eye. I didn't ride it on this trip (it was sooo cold and the line was long), but got to enjoy an entire wedding party standing in line for it. Standing on the dirty, wet pavement on a windy, cold winter night in your wedding gown must be a British thing...
Tower Bridge. (quite the hike, but it was the last very London thing we HAD to do!)
Piccadilly Square is far prettier at night, at least this time of year. There were Christmas lights and more activity this time of day than the morning we'd been there. Lucky we'd been chasing ear plugs after our delicious dinner in Chinatown. (Every hostel has its snorer!)

Christmas Approaching

England never fails to amaze me- flowers in mid-late November?There are still roses and various other plants that just won't give up.
We even get blue skies!
And a little fall color, but more spread out than at home.

During all of this, Leeds decided it was time to be Christmas! A German Christmas market moved into a square in the city. It wasn't a whole lot to see, but it made for a couple nice evenings, and it had everything from mulled wine to German sausages to special German flavored chocolate covered marshmallow treats.
All the little booths did make for a nice atmosphere.
Julie, Alexander, and Lyndsie looking at frog instruments.
Julie excited over her purchase of a marshmallow treat. They are definitely delicious.

Fall Holidays

Leeds is well known for good shopping and a huge party scene. The city has a wide array of clubs and bars for anyone and everyone. "Fancy dress" (known as "costumes" to Americans) doesn't require an excuse in Leeds. Birthdays, Otley Runs (One thing that "everyone should do" before leaving the city is an Otley Run- a crawl of some 20 pubs in the area. To do this, one must first gather a large group and choose a theme, then dress up ridiculously.), fun night outs, sports team outings, and general evenings on the town are all valid excuses to dress up as a bumble bee or flower with 15 of your closest friends. I still manage to restrict my costumes to designated days, though.
Kim and I, wearing stapled fabric and a sheet for Halloween. We spent the evening in the basement of an apartment. The party hosts had been paid by the University to open their doors to international students.

The following week we had Bonfire Night. I asked a wide variety of British students from all areas of the country what exactly this was. The best answer I got was something like "I don't know, Guy Fawkes was an evil guy who tried to blow up parliament, so we burn him every November 5th." Harsh. Despite the the near-complete dissociation of the actual history of the Gunpowder Plot (a group of Roman Catholics trying to fight religious intolerance) with the evening and the fact that Guy Fawkes actually had a very minor role in the goings on, the holiday made for a fun evening.
The bonfire was located in a large field completely blocked off to everyone. Most impressive fire I've ever seen, certainly.
It was also the most impressive crowd I've ever seen. We went early enough to get a spot near to the front, but the mob there was endless. Every direction looked just like this, the whole way around the fire. The group was very mixed, from bunches of university students, to parents with 5 year-olds perched on their shoulders, to teens and twenties climbing trees with liter bottles of Strongbow (the UK's most popular hard cider) while smoking marijuana (actually quite impressive... what hands were they climbing with?).
The night ended with a fireworks display, and then the masses headed to a carnival set up in a field close to the bonfire. My camera battery died, but imagine a small-ish fair with typical rides and games and food booths completely packed with happy people. It took about a half hour to move 20 feet. We spent hours at it. :-)

Another Year Older

For my birthday, I packed all my flatmates and many international students into my itty bitty kitchen. Not the 21st birthday I'd been planning, but it turned out to be fantastic.
My flatmates decorated the kitchen with streamers, balloons and signs, and many pastries for me!
Cheryl came to visit me from Leicester!
Then we packed everyone in and things got crowded! Diksha, Bella, Louise, Hannah, and Collette. (Hannah and Collette are both flatmates, all but Diksha are British Freshers)
Jade, Diksha, and Antonio. (Antonio is also a flatmate) I wasn't manning my camera for the evening, and luckily it got passed around a bit, resulting in some fun memories.

Harrogate

On a lazy Saturday in October, we decided to take a day trip to somewhere without a bunch of things to do. Classes were starting to get going by this point, and we all needed to relax and play a bit. Harrogate was our target- known mainly for Betty's Tea Room (supposedly the Queen's favorite cafe) and for being a wealthy spa town (lovely, expensive Turkish baths).Betty's window displays were fantastic and looked delicious, but we weren't willing to fight the crowds and long lines to get a snack there. Instead, we hit up the church across the street having a bake sale. We weren't dissappointed :-)
Left with few must-do activities, we decided to play in the leaves...
...hang out under GIANT leaves...
...climb trees...
...take time to smell the flowers...
...and take lots of pictures of one another. (Kathrin, Sofie, Savi, Kim, Croydon, and Jade) Turned out to be a fantastic, very refreshing day!