It's Grim Up North
Actually, my title lies. It's lovely up North. It's grim down South.
So many cities, so many trains and so very many sandwiches have come and gone in the past couple of weeks; and I've been loving every minute of it. Let's have a city-by-city account of the last two weeks.
Bristol - Saturday 16th
Sort of last minute thing. Classy had a spare ticket to see Russell Howard (Comedian of Mock The Week fame) in a small room above a pub in Bristol, and invited me along. Neither me, Kazz nor Classy know Bristol, so we went the opposite direction to the city centre all afternoon, wondering where the heck everything was. All was not lost, we managed to get back to where we started, by which point we had to find the venue. We were 1 foot from the tiny stage, got picked on a lot by his warm-up acts. Russell was, of course, at his hyperactive comedic best and has us unable to breathe we were laughing so hard. All in all, a good night.
Bath - Tuesday 19th
Another last minute thing, really. Tash wanted someone to go look at Bath uni with her, and as an intrepid traveller, I said I'd go with her. I wanted to go look anyway, my auntie Catherine and her best friend Arwen (more about her later) had done their Biochemistry PhDs together there, and highly recommended it. We got the most rancid train I'd ever seen up to that point to Bath (It was on the way to Wales, the trains there are very poorly maintained), and managed to find the bright orange buses by Bath Abbey to take us to the out-of-town uni. It's a very odd uni, apparently the central area is based on a town centre. I can believe that. It looks how Hounslow would if it were full of posh anxious parents checking out the place on behalf of their little darlings, rather than letting them make their own choice. It was a poorly run day, everything was in the sports hall, with no signs indicating that that was the case. We got lost a few times and had to dive through a few hedges. Had a good day, though. Bath's a lovely city and the Uni's quite nice. I decided that I wouldn't bother with any out-of-town unis. They just don't feel right. I'm working on the hope that a Uni will feel right, you see, and it has to capture the essence of its host town to do that. If you see what I mean. Got an even more revolting train back and packed for my Northern adventure.
Manchester - Wednesday 20th - Friday 22nd
Having got to Newbury station at 0645, I could tell this was going to be a knackering day. I wasn't half wrong. The journey was long, tedious and uneventful, as I thought. Loads of really boring looking commuters tapping away on spreadsheets. I'd not had any reservations about going a few hundred miles away from everyone I know on my own to stay in unfamiliar cities before, but a feeling of dread hit me when we pulled into Manchester. What the hell was I doing?! What if I can't find my hotel, what if I get run over... what if X, what if Y... I knew all those fears were bollocks when I stepped out of Piccadilly station into a bustling, vibrant, cosmopolitan and exceedingly friendly city. The Sons and Daughters of Manchester are incredibly friendly and more than willing to point a lost soul in the right direction. Total culture shock and such a contrast to Newbury, where the locals probably wouldn't even give you the time of day. I somehow managed to find my youth hostel which was... cosy. It did the trick, I only needed a roof over my head for one night. My only complaint was that the communal shower area's showers had glass doors (half frosted), but a towel sorted that problem out. Anyway. Manchester is an amazing city. Most of the centre is relatively new. They rebuilt it all from scratch after those IRA bombings a while back. It's a city with an attitude, and it's damn loud and proud about that. I didn't know it had a tram system until I was about 3 seconds from being hit by one. Oops. If I didn't have my traffic-dodging senses and reflexes hard-wired as a result of growing up in London, I'd probably be a bit of a mess now. Ah well, that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger. There was a whole "palace" of cool indie shops in a backstreet off the city centre, which sold everything from novelty condoms to bondage gear. Nah, it wasn't all sex. There were piercings and vintage things too! The best bit of Manchester (aside from its people) has to be Piccadilly Gardens. It's a little island of concretey grassy goodness with a coffee shop, which seems to rise up from the traffic and people an chaos around it. It was a calm place where you could lie down on the grass, sipping a cup of tea, reading a paper and watching all the people and bicycles and cars and trams and buses go by. Lovely. Oh, and I bumped into Tom Smith, lead singer of Editors :D
York - Thursday 21st
Away from the madness of Manchester, up in North Yorkshire, lies the city of York. It's like Oxford, only more real. It has a sense of attainability about it. I prefer it to Oxford, it's more laid back. It's a labyrinth of cobbled streets with funny little speciality shops interspersed in between the usual high street subjects. It has walls and gardens and a river and a castle, a brass band playing by the fountain in town centre and higgldey piggldey Tudor houses. A true picture postcard English town. A few too many of the residents seemed to be elderly here. Adorable, but not somewhere to spend any great length of time in.
Back in Manchester...
Met up with my aunt, Catherine, who lives on a boat 30 miles south of Manchester. With a dog. A cat. And a husband. Hell yeah. We went out for dinner, on a ride on Manchester's equivalent of the London eye, around and about. Good times.
Friday I went to Manchester Uni's open day. It's a very driven Uni, they're pouring millions into expanding, renovating and generally upping its game. I liked the uni and the people. Alot. The undergrads were very comforting, saying "Oh yeah, you don't need to be able to remember everything at A Level. They teach from scratch here". That made a few of my general uni worries go away, that day. Manchester is definitely number 2 on my UCAS form. I can see myself thoroughly enjoying four years of my life in that city at that Uni.
Friday night I went to Leeds. I knew that most of my life plans would go out of the window if I hated it, I almost didn't want to go. I didn't want to shatter the illusion that it's an awesome place, an enchanted and magical place where good things happen and great music is born. Arwen (my work experience contact, and aunt's best friend) met me at the station and carted me off to the uni, she still had some work to do. It all moved too fast to take stock of what was going on. I had a vague idea of what I was doing and were I was going, who my colleagues were and generally what the hell was going on.
Halifax - Friday22nd - Friday 29th
After Arwen finished work, we went back to where she lives: a gorgeous little old Northern town called Halifax (I was very excited about this: the brothers McNamara lives there, and Embrace write all their music in Richard's barn on the outskirts of town). We went to her parents' place and had fish and chips. The best fish and chips on the planet come from West Yorkshire. No contest, Brighton. Halifax is in a bit of West Yorkshire know as Calderdale, which is the most beautiful place in the world. It's all hills and valleys, not of the rolling kind, but of the majestic take-your-breath-away kind. The hills were littered with little old factories and mill-workers' houses, and the valleys full of vibrant old towns. You don't get that down South. It's a very Yorkshire thing. I lost my heart to Yorkshire when I saw the view from Arwen's house, a traditional little foreman's cottage near the top of a hill. I couldn't get enough of it, I couldn't resist another peek at that view at every possible chance.
Leeds - Friday22nd - Friday 29th
OK. There was no illusion to shatter. I loved Leeds from the second I stepped off the train. It's nothing like Manchester, but has all it's best qualities. It has loads of gorgeous old buildings, a huge bustling market, winding alleys, cobbled streets, ancient arcades and, of course, Millennium Square. The Uni, whilst confusing in layout, is fantastic. I had some nice long chats with people from the Chemistry and Biochemistry departments, and quickly concluded that I belonged in Leeds. At Leeds Uni. Doing Chemistry-Biochemistry Joint Honours. It felt like coming home. I was home. Damn, it felt good.
OK, end my rant of adoration for Leeds, Greatest City on Earth (screw Ancient Rome or New York!). Work experience. Arwen showed me the ropes of what I was doing and set me to work on refining the model of Galactose Oxidase. It was pretty tricky work, but being computer-based I took to it quite well. The only people left at the Uni were the postdocs and postgrads, so most of them spoke in very long words. Not too long, I was able to keep up with them, and felt almost within my depth talking science to them. I went to a few postgrad talks on things like mutant motor-proteins, directed evolution, mosquito semen and self-constructing virii used to construct nanotubes. I learned a hell of alot of PhD level science (all the work I was doing was PhD level, too) that week. If I didn't understand, Arwen had the knack of explaining such things in plain English.
The only slightly less enjoyable aspect of the week was the weather. Worst rain in 50 years. And I'm in Yorkshire. It screwed over the transport system and made commuting tough. At least I had someone to talk to, and even when I didn't, the good, good people of Yorkshire were always up for a little natter. It was always good to get home each day, as Arwen had got me hooked on sci-fi series "Firefly", which always made a bad journey seem a little less painful.
By Friday I felt truly at home in Leeds, and at the Uni, and with Arwen (who *is* one of the loveliest people on the planet, if a little mad), and was very sad to leave. The blow was softened by the possibility of getting a summer studentship to work with her next summer, meaning I can escape to Leeds from Newbury 2 months earlier to live and do scientific research there. Can't wait. One thing I noticed on the train home was how grim and grotty everything is down here. It's depressing. You really are going to lose me to Yorkshire next summer. I'm going up there and not coming back. Just 12 more months in the shit-hole that is Newbury, and counting down. Can't wait for next summer.
Luckily, this trip has been a kind of epiphany for me. I'm going back to school in September with absolute sheer determination to do better than my very best and get into Leeds and live my dream.
Jesus. That took forever. Haven't said half of what I want to, but you get the general idea. I like it up there :o)
So many cities, so many trains and so very many sandwiches have come and gone in the past couple of weeks; and I've been loving every minute of it. Let's have a city-by-city account of the last two weeks.
Bristol - Saturday 16th
Sort of last minute thing. Classy had a spare ticket to see Russell Howard (Comedian of Mock The Week fame) in a small room above a pub in Bristol, and invited me along. Neither me, Kazz nor Classy know Bristol, so we went the opposite direction to the city centre all afternoon, wondering where the heck everything was. All was not lost, we managed to get back to where we started, by which point we had to find the venue. We were 1 foot from the tiny stage, got picked on a lot by his warm-up acts. Russell was, of course, at his hyperactive comedic best and has us unable to breathe we were laughing so hard. All in all, a good night.
Bath - Tuesday 19th
Another last minute thing, really. Tash wanted someone to go look at Bath uni with her, and as an intrepid traveller, I said I'd go with her. I wanted to go look anyway, my auntie Catherine and her best friend Arwen (more about her later) had done their Biochemistry PhDs together there, and highly recommended it. We got the most rancid train I'd ever seen up to that point to Bath (It was on the way to Wales, the trains there are very poorly maintained), and managed to find the bright orange buses by Bath Abbey to take us to the out-of-town uni. It's a very odd uni, apparently the central area is based on a town centre. I can believe that. It looks how Hounslow would if it were full of posh anxious parents checking out the place on behalf of their little darlings, rather than letting them make their own choice. It was a poorly run day, everything was in the sports hall, with no signs indicating that that was the case. We got lost a few times and had to dive through a few hedges. Had a good day, though. Bath's a lovely city and the Uni's quite nice. I decided that I wouldn't bother with any out-of-town unis. They just don't feel right. I'm working on the hope that a Uni will feel right, you see, and it has to capture the essence of its host town to do that. If you see what I mean. Got an even more revolting train back and packed for my Northern adventure.
Manchester - Wednesday 20th - Friday 22nd
Having got to Newbury station at 0645, I could tell this was going to be a knackering day. I wasn't half wrong. The journey was long, tedious and uneventful, as I thought. Loads of really boring looking commuters tapping away on spreadsheets. I'd not had any reservations about going a few hundred miles away from everyone I know on my own to stay in unfamiliar cities before, but a feeling of dread hit me when we pulled into Manchester. What the hell was I doing?! What if I can't find my hotel, what if I get run over... what if X, what if Y... I knew all those fears were bollocks when I stepped out of Piccadilly station into a bustling, vibrant, cosmopolitan and exceedingly friendly city. The Sons and Daughters of Manchester are incredibly friendly and more than willing to point a lost soul in the right direction. Total culture shock and such a contrast to Newbury, where the locals probably wouldn't even give you the time of day. I somehow managed to find my youth hostel which was... cosy. It did the trick, I only needed a roof over my head for one night. My only complaint was that the communal shower area's showers had glass doors (half frosted), but a towel sorted that problem out. Anyway. Manchester is an amazing city. Most of the centre is relatively new. They rebuilt it all from scratch after those IRA bombings a while back. It's a city with an attitude, and it's damn loud and proud about that. I didn't know it had a tram system until I was about 3 seconds from being hit by one. Oops. If I didn't have my traffic-dodging senses and reflexes hard-wired as a result of growing up in London, I'd probably be a bit of a mess now. Ah well, that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger. There was a whole "palace" of cool indie shops in a backstreet off the city centre, which sold everything from novelty condoms to bondage gear. Nah, it wasn't all sex. There were piercings and vintage things too! The best bit of Manchester (aside from its people) has to be Piccadilly Gardens. It's a little island of concretey grassy goodness with a coffee shop, which seems to rise up from the traffic and people an chaos around it. It was a calm place where you could lie down on the grass, sipping a cup of tea, reading a paper and watching all the people and bicycles and cars and trams and buses go by. Lovely. Oh, and I bumped into Tom Smith, lead singer of Editors :D
York - Thursday 21st
Away from the madness of Manchester, up in North Yorkshire, lies the city of York. It's like Oxford, only more real. It has a sense of attainability about it. I prefer it to Oxford, it's more laid back. It's a labyrinth of cobbled streets with funny little speciality shops interspersed in between the usual high street subjects. It has walls and gardens and a river and a castle, a brass band playing by the fountain in town centre and higgldey piggldey Tudor houses. A true picture postcard English town. A few too many of the residents seemed to be elderly here. Adorable, but not somewhere to spend any great length of time in.
Back in Manchester...
Met up with my aunt, Catherine, who lives on a boat 30 miles south of Manchester. With a dog. A cat. And a husband. Hell yeah. We went out for dinner, on a ride on Manchester's equivalent of the London eye, around and about. Good times.
Friday I went to Manchester Uni's open day. It's a very driven Uni, they're pouring millions into expanding, renovating and generally upping its game. I liked the uni and the people. Alot. The undergrads were very comforting, saying "Oh yeah, you don't need to be able to remember everything at A Level. They teach from scratch here". That made a few of my general uni worries go away, that day. Manchester is definitely number 2 on my UCAS form. I can see myself thoroughly enjoying four years of my life in that city at that Uni.
Friday night I went to Leeds. I knew that most of my life plans would go out of the window if I hated it, I almost didn't want to go. I didn't want to shatter the illusion that it's an awesome place, an enchanted and magical place where good things happen and great music is born. Arwen (my work experience contact, and aunt's best friend) met me at the station and carted me off to the uni, she still had some work to do. It all moved too fast to take stock of what was going on. I had a vague idea of what I was doing and were I was going, who my colleagues were and generally what the hell was going on.
Halifax - Friday22nd - Friday 29th
After Arwen finished work, we went back to where she lives: a gorgeous little old Northern town called Halifax (I was very excited about this: the brothers McNamara lives there, and Embrace write all their music in Richard's barn on the outskirts of town). We went to her parents' place and had fish and chips. The best fish and chips on the planet come from West Yorkshire. No contest, Brighton. Halifax is in a bit of West Yorkshire know as Calderdale, which is the most beautiful place in the world. It's all hills and valleys, not of the rolling kind, but of the majestic take-your-breath-away kind. The hills were littered with little old factories and mill-workers' houses, and the valleys full of vibrant old towns. You don't get that down South. It's a very Yorkshire thing. I lost my heart to Yorkshire when I saw the view from Arwen's house, a traditional little foreman's cottage near the top of a hill. I couldn't get enough of it, I couldn't resist another peek at that view at every possible chance.
Leeds - Friday22nd - Friday 29th
OK. There was no illusion to shatter. I loved Leeds from the second I stepped off the train. It's nothing like Manchester, but has all it's best qualities. It has loads of gorgeous old buildings, a huge bustling market, winding alleys, cobbled streets, ancient arcades and, of course, Millennium Square. The Uni, whilst confusing in layout, is fantastic. I had some nice long chats with people from the Chemistry and Biochemistry departments, and quickly concluded that I belonged in Leeds. At Leeds Uni. Doing Chemistry-Biochemistry Joint Honours. It felt like coming home. I was home. Damn, it felt good.
OK, end my rant of adoration for Leeds, Greatest City on Earth (screw Ancient Rome or New York!). Work experience. Arwen showed me the ropes of what I was doing and set me to work on refining the model of Galactose Oxidase. It was pretty tricky work, but being computer-based I took to it quite well. The only people left at the Uni were the postdocs and postgrads, so most of them spoke in very long words. Not too long, I was able to keep up with them, and felt almost within my depth talking science to them. I went to a few postgrad talks on things like mutant motor-proteins, directed evolution, mosquito semen and self-constructing virii used to construct nanotubes. I learned a hell of alot of PhD level science (all the work I was doing was PhD level, too) that week. If I didn't understand, Arwen had the knack of explaining such things in plain English.
The only slightly less enjoyable aspect of the week was the weather. Worst rain in 50 years. And I'm in Yorkshire. It screwed over the transport system and made commuting tough. At least I had someone to talk to, and even when I didn't, the good, good people of Yorkshire were always up for a little natter. It was always good to get home each day, as Arwen had got me hooked on sci-fi series "Firefly", which always made a bad journey seem a little less painful.
By Friday I felt truly at home in Leeds, and at the Uni, and with Arwen (who *is* one of the loveliest people on the planet, if a little mad), and was very sad to leave. The blow was softened by the possibility of getting a summer studentship to work with her next summer, meaning I can escape to Leeds from Newbury 2 months earlier to live and do scientific research there. Can't wait. One thing I noticed on the train home was how grim and grotty everything is down here. It's depressing. You really are going to lose me to Yorkshire next summer. I'm going up there and not coming back. Just 12 more months in the shit-hole that is Newbury, and counting down. Can't wait for next summer.
Luckily, this trip has been a kind of epiphany for me. I'm going back to school in September with absolute sheer determination to do better than my very best and get into Leeds and live my dream.
Jesus. That took forever. Haven't said half of what I want to, but you get the general idea. I like it up there :o)