This past weekend I flew to Birmingham, England to visit Tym for the weekend! He is studying at the University of Birmingham or "Brum" as the English call it! I bought my plane ticket a few weeks ago so I was excited to finally see England for the first time!
I got on my flight and slept the whole way! It was only a 50 minute flight so it went by pretty quick! When I got off the plane, I stood in line to get my passport stamped and when it was my turn to go up she said my French Visa didn't work and I had to fill out a paper about why I was coming to England. Filled out the paper and they made me wait until every other person had gotten their passports stamped before they would let me go back through. They called me up, stamped my passport and I started to head toward the doors but a man with a big police badge came and stopped me. He was very nice but asked me at least 25 questions as to why I was in Europe, why I was coming to England, what I was studying, what Tym was studying, where I was from, how long I would be here and whatnot. It was a good 5 minute questioning until he walked me to the doors and let me go find Tym. I was the first one off the plane and the last one out of customs...I still have no idea why I was questioned, I don't think I looked that suspicious!
Regardless, I finally got out to see Tym and we hopped on the metro to head to Birmingham's New Street station. We both were starving and Tym said he knew of a restaurant that I would love so I agreed and followed along and guess where we ended up, McDonalds! A boy after my own heart :) It was delicious, there is seriously nothing better than a cheeseburger and fries!
From there we headed back to Tym's flat and he gave me a short tour of the campus, it was freezing outside, and we walked back quickly to warm up! The campus is a lot like Iowa State, so it felt slightly like I was walking on central campus and staring at the campanile instead of 4,000 miles away on Brum's campus! Tym shares a flat with four girls and one other boy. They all have separate bedrooms and bathrooms but share a nice kitchen.
The next morning we woke up early and headed to York for the day. We met the other international students at 6:25 am in order to get to the metro by 6:30 and at the train station by 7:00 for our 2 hour ride to York. We finally got on our train and after a hot chocolate and a croissant I settled in for a nap! I woke up and we were just arriving in York! The train was warm and made me sleepy but it was freezing in York and I woke right up!
The other international students that we were traveling with were three girls from Canada, a boy and a girl from Holland and another boy from Iowa. After researching beforehand, we knew there was a walking tour at 10:15 and headed over to find it. The tour started out just fine. Our tour guide was very very british! He had a little cap with a feather in it and a plaid scarf and a perfect British accent to boot! We thought it was going to be great and listened to him talk for a bit but we ended up standing in the same spot for over 30 minutes and we were so cold by the time we finally got to move! We never made much progress because he stopped all the time and would talk in depth about battles fought way back in 300 BC. Yes, it was very interesting but when you cannot stand on your own feet because they hurt from being froze solid, it is hard to pay attention! We ended up sneaking into shops and buildings every chance we could to warm up and after about an hour of listening and ducking into buildings we ended up finding a free art museum and wandered around for a bit!
A dress made out of maps of England that we found in the art museum!
Our group trying to warm up at the art museum!!
I made Tym take a picture by this because I thought it was funny...
A coat of arms that we saw on our walking tour.
Tymothy in a medieval courtyard
Johan, from Holland, and I.
When we finished at the art museum and could finally feel our hands and feet again we went out to find some lunch! A cute little pizza shop on the corner caught our eye and it was very toasty inside so we definitely decided to go in! The food was great and we used our lunch time to plan out the rest of the day! From lunch, we headed to see the medieval fortress around the inside of the town. This wall was the initial size of York during medieval times but the town is much bigger now. We could go up on top of the wall and walk the whole way around! Definitely a neat place to see!
After walking along the wall we headed over to the big medieval church called the Minster Abbey. Although it looked pretty much the same as the Notre Dame from the front it was a beautiful church and I am glad we went to see it. There was a tour to the top of the church and it was only 5 pounds so we decided to go! 275 steps later, and way too much laughing because of the kids climbing up behind us, we made it to the top just as it was starting to snow! We didn't stay up at the top very long because it was so cold but we did manage to get some great pictures from the top!
Johan and I walking to the church.
Only half way to the top!
Looking out over York.
View from the top of the church!
The back view of the front of the church. (If that makes sense?)
York from the top!
The side of the church on our way back down.
After we came down from the church we went to visit the Shambles. The Shambles are a little street in York where the buildings on either side of the street have started to lean in towards each other. We walked through all of these fun little alley ways and back streets with so many cute boutiques and shops! I wanted to go into every store just to see what they had! They were so cute! Definitely a part of Europe my mom needs to see one day!
After I kissed the bear I realized how many other people have probably kissed that bear, then it didn't seem as fun or cleanly as it did before :(
A cute dress in one of the boutiques! We thought it was 12 pounds and I about wet my pants. Turns out the garland above the dress was 12 pounds, the dress was much more expensive.
Medieval store!
Looks like a scene from Harry Potter, right?
Look like cupcakes right? Nope, they're candles!
Once we finally got me out of all of the boutiques we made it to the Shambles.
The leaning buildings are hard to see but they're right above my head! It was snowing really hard and we were all getting cold again! It was just like I was walking down Diagon Alley in Harry Potter!
From here we went to Clifford's Castle and took just a couple pictures, my hands were so cold it was hard to hold the camera!
View from Clifford's Castle.
We found a little café across from Clifford's Castle and had the absolute best hot chocolate I've ever tasted before! It was so good! We warmed up for a bit and then made our way to a train museum to kill time before we had to get on our actual train to head back to Birmingham.
We all though it was the Hogwarts Express, to say the least I was extremely disappointed!
Waving to my friend...
That museum was definitely something Dad could have spent hours in! It was neat to see and got us warmed up enough that we could walk back to the train station to head back to Brum! On the train, Tym and I started planning out other travel weekends and places we wanted to see. Makes me excited to keep traveling and exploring Europe!
England pretty much shuts down when it snows. Our train kept stopping and when we actually got back there was probably a good four inches on the ground.
Walking back to Tym's flat!
The next morning we slept in and I packed to head back to France. I wanted to stop and see the city centre before I left so we made a stop back at New Street so I could see the big bull!
Again, it was another great weekend! I learned a lot about England in the short time I was there and I definitely am looking forward to going back over spring break. One thing to note, English people in Birmingham have much thicker and dirtier accents than other parts of England. In some conversations it did not even sound like they were speaking in English! They speak a very fast and muffled language and it was interesting that their accent was so much different than that of the people in York. There are so many red heads in England, we decided they were all just Weasleys from Harry Potter! It was a cold but fun weekend and I can't wait to head to Italy this weekend!
Carnevale in Venice, Italy is this weekend so Tym and I will be staying with a couple Pi Phis who are studying in Italy for the semester! I will post more about that tomorrow!
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