Liverpool and Miscellaneous Thoughts

Travelling from Ormskirk to Liverpool is amazing.
I absolutely love the public transportation here, I wish we had stuff like this in the USA.
The cost is cheap and the timing is pretty good.

Liverpool itself is a great place to go for the weekend.
I have been multiple times with different people and it is nice to just get out of the small town to a bigger city.

The shopping there is amazing, but do not worry, I haven't been major clothes shopping since being here, I have bough maybe 5 things total, plus a pair of good sturdy boots. They did not even make a dent in my budget, but the stuff for class has.

I am pretty proud of myself. I have been budgetting things reasonably well, and things are looking good, the only thing that will kill me is school costs and the like.

I can definitely say that I have been bitten by the travel bug, and when I get back to the USA I will need to travel more and more. I mean, I have visited a technically 2 countries and i have yet to see much of my own that I can remember lol.

I am ready for my own adventure to keep unfolding :)

Old Posts

I have updated some of my old posts with pictures. I hope that you check them out.

I will also take this time to inform you. I am going to be adding some posts on here that I have had saved on my computer. There is one that is a few weeks old, or even a month or two old, so don't worry things have been sorted, but still. I feel I need to give an accurate portrayal of this experience, both good and bad. So yes, there will be some negative things posted, there may even be some upsetting, but do not worry. I am out of those bouts of depression or homesickness. I do not mind comments you know, so please do leave some love :)

So yeah. I will be adding things off and on. They might be older or recent, I will try to add dates of the experience or give you a view on when it happened... Hell I will try to add them in the correct order in the right month, so now you will have to go hunting for them >:-) I am evil aren't I lol.
Peace

My London Experience

Okay. So it was a bitter sweet trip to London for me. My good friend went home, she is really sick and it turns out that the burn she got is even worse than we originally suspected. It is very scary, and my heart goes out to her. I miss her so much already.

London was amazing. After I dropped her off at the airport, I took the Tube to my Hostel, Clink 261. I won’t lie. The hostel was not a great place. The people working there were rude sometimes, and seemed like they were just there for a payday. They were not very welcoming nor was the atmosphere that great. The place was kind of dirty, and the rooms were small. But there were some up sides. There was this great guy working the front desk when I got in and he really helped. Check-in was at 11am, and I got in at 6:30am. He let me check in early into a room and that was greatly appreciated since I only got about 2 hours of sleep the night before. There was free continental breakfast, great showers, and the beds were very comfy.

After I woke up it was around 9am and went and got some free breakfast :-)
It was nice to eat something and it was nice to relax with a full belly.
I went back to sleep and got back up around noon. I decided I spent enough of the day indoors so I went to explore London.

It was a truly exhilarating experience.
I went around London, ON MY OWN. I took the tube, found SoHo, Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abby, Buckingham Palace, and a few other sights, that my camera sadly didn’t have battery life for.
It was a truly magnificent experience, to just go somewhere without a plan and find my way around it. I loved it. I just wish I could have done it with my friend.

Later that night I met up with the girls I met at Hatters Hostel (PROOF that you can meet good friends in Hostels!!) at Vapiano's. It was a really nice Italian restaurant. The food was great and reasonably priced. The only critique for it was it reminded me of a lunchroom, with seating that you have to find on yourself, and food you go up to order with a tray. I loved it though.

Depression and Homesickness

So. I don’t know how I feel about being here in the UK. Now wait I do think, the UK is awesome, so is the school, but its just. BLAH! I have no money, no way to go out and about. I have no internet, and I am just in my room because some of the people here annoy me. I am rooming with all freshmen, its VERY loud, annoying and just blah!! They are immature and it is driving me insane. Some of them are kind, but others are just icy. I feel somewhat like an outcast like I did in high school. It is funny, you would think that they would act right when they go to uni.. but its like the petty high school drama follows them. It would be fine, if it didn't take up so much time. It is exhausting.

I miss home. I miss my friends, my family, everything. There I would be bored, but I could get online, I could call someone to hang out. Here, no phone, not internet. So the ONLY way I can go out anywhere is finding the person. It is getting a little old just sitting in my room doing nothing. I am paying out the ass for this place and I am stuck in my room.

The Americans are annoying me to no end, save a couple, and of course my friend SaBrandi… She is pretty sweet, and cool.
I ask to hang out, tell them to come and grab me if they want to hang, and nope, they go get other people. I get my hopes up, that yay I can finally go out, and boom.. nope.. they got someone else. I was invited to go out tonight, for this girls birthday, but I have no money, and so what fun would it be to just go out and not be able to drink?? Yes I could see some people, but it is pointless.

I met two gay guys so far they seem cool, but idk if I could bring myself to date them. I mean, they are cute yes, but I don’t really know them and I am scared..I just don’t know how to act around them., do I be myself? Do I just act like I don’t notice them? I don’t even know how to act like myself, this façade is getting old, chipping away until it finally decays, but will I like what I finally see?… what if I fall for them… what then?? I kid saying how I want to get citizenship here, but that is next to impossible and plus I just don’t want to do that to my mom. I know it would be better for me but I just don’t think I could emotionally handle it right now plus she would be devastated. I just want a day to myself, but then I get lonely and then depressed. It just sucks and I just don’t know anymore. I know I made the right choice in places, it is just boring….. and lonely despite having SaBrandi here, I feel more alone than I have in a long time..

I do not even know how to act around some of these people.
I am told, just be yourself, but I don't even know who that is. I have acted how society has wanted me to since I came out of the closet, now that I really have this chance to really find myself I cannot seem to do it.. I am too scared.

Oh well. enough of my crybaby drama.. England is still amazing, but I needed to vent.

Problems in Paradise

1/14/12

So, as there was a problem here.

It got sorted and everything is fine now, but I only found out from another student who was here before.
I was under the impression that when we got to the university, we would get our uni-cards, our Student ID’s, that would act as out meal cards… I was wrong. We wouldn’t get them until that Monday. Okay, that is fine, it would only be four days. I had some money leftover, so I could stretch it to make it work, and by some I mean like 3 pounds.
I made it work in the end, that is for the weekend.

When I went to get my uni-card it did not work. Apparently there is a 4-day waiting period. I was livid.. I was also hungry. So I went back to my room, walked around the town, SaBrandi went with me and we ate at a small coffee shop that day, on her (I got her back, I always pay back my debts.) So it went like this for two more days, until finally I went to the Hub (cafeteria) and saw other international student in there. They were all eating and me and SaBrandi were like “???”

Apparently, all you have to do is go up to the cashier and tell them that you are an international student and they will write it off.
So we finally got our food, it is just crazy that we found out from another student and NOT someone who was in charge.. It would have been nice to know this before hand, or something.

But yes. The situation is FINALLY cleared up. When I told the people in the office about it, they were shocked, and apologized. So no harm meant, they must have thought I knew or something. Either way, it is all water under the bridge and I am better because of it.

Conwy, Wales

Okay, I have been seriously behind with this posting thing.

So here is a recap of a visit I made, with the rest of the international students at Edge Hill University.

On the first Saturday that we were on campus, we went to Conwy Wales to see the Conwy Castle. Yes I did spell it right, it is Conwy, not Conway.
It was a great experience, well it would have been amazing if one little piece of important information was told to me before we got there. There would be an admissions charge. Well yeah I suspected that, but what I wasn't told was that we would need to pay that. I was told a free trip to Conwy Castle, I assumed that meant free entry as well. I didn't know this, if I did, I would have saved for it if I was informed earlier. So I wasn't able to do a tour of the castle, but I got a free ride to Conwy. It would have been an all time high light in my books while in the UK, but since I couldn't go up I will still rank it in my top 10.

Although I will say that the liaison to the American office did offer to buy me a ticket to see the castle. I just didn't think it would have been right for me to take her up on that since I wouldn't really get the chance to pay her back. I don't like to leave debts unpaid so... Yeah, I turned it down, so no more bitching on my part about that.

The weather was pretty cold that day, but that couldn't be helped. My friend and I walked around Conwy all day and just enjoyed ourselves. We did stay in the cafe for a while, mainly because it got a little too cold at times. Still it was a great experience. I will go back and to the tour later, but as it was. A free trip, a nice experience, a beautiful city and scenic coach ride.

Hatters Hostel

January 4. 2012

Well I have been staying at Hatters Hostel for two days, and one night now. It is a great place and I highly recommend it. It is located centrally near every main attraction I can think of, at least for me. The staff were incredibly helpful, kind, and knowledgeable of the area and were just great company. There is a continental breakfast offered each morning and an activity/theme night everyday. The days I was there, it was pizza night and then pancake night.

It is about a 5 to 10 minute walk to the shopping center, as well as a 15-minute walk from the Maritime and the Tate Museum.

I met some great girls while at Hatters. We went together to the shopping center, learned some new card games and just had a blast. I highly recommend going to see The Tate Museum, and if you have the time and GBP to go on the Fab Four Cab Tour, if you get a group of people you can split the costs and it is very cheap at the end. I wish I could have gone, but I was really tired after all the airport stress.

On our first night in Liverpool we went to the Philharmonic pub, a great place. It was designed by the same person who designed the Titanic, and it really shows. There is a class, grace and sentiment it gives to you once you see it. It is truly very beautiful, we were talking to ourselves that this couldn’t be the right pub, we were scared to just touch the doorknob. It is located on Hope Street and if you are ever in the Liverpool area you have to go and see it.

Tonight a girl from Australia and I went to a Chinese restaurant called ARCH located at 45-49 Berry Street, Chinatown Liverpool. They offer sit-down dining or takeaway. The prices are really not that bad, for the amount of food, atmosphere and service. My friend and I ordered one appetizer and main course each and then once we split the bill in the end. All together we spent only 14 GBP for the dinner, drinks and the appetizers. The Chinese food was some of the best I have had in a long time.
Well I go to go to bed, I have to be up early so I can be up in time for our cab and so that I can get some sleep so I can be ready for tomorrow.