Welcome to the High Bank Hotel … Leeds

Hello from the train to Grantham! 



I am currently on the train back to Grantham from Leeds! I had a wonderful night there just exploring and getting some good R&R with a few friends and by the sounds of it the man next to me had the opposite and he is miserable on this train haha ... Can't wait…

 Anyways while in Leeds we stayed at the High Bank Hotel which looked like our worst nightmare upon arrival (like a terrible scary movie) and a little further than we would prefer from town but hey it ended up not being too bad after all, the inside was much better than the out. We went to Leeds just to go, we weren't really sure what was there or what we would do but it wasn't far away and with our short weekend it was a perfect little get away. Leeds is a growing city with wonderful shopping centers and night life, but really we just window shopped, had delicious food, and a drink at the Hourglass pub before we went in to watch a few movies for the night. The nice thing about Leeds is it is not touristy so the people there love our accents and are more than willing to help with directions or suggestions. 

Any how even with our little trip we had plenty of fun and we are super thankful for the R&R. 



This week is the first week of quizzes and tests for me which sounds terrible and if I can make it to Friday I will be grateful.. But I guess I am here for that school thing after all :).
 


On Wednesday I have the Meet A Family reception and dinner which is really exciting for me now because I was informed a family would like to "host" me for the semester just last week! ( I was first on the waiting list) 



On Friday we will be heading to Lincoln for a British studies field trip and then on Saturday I will be going to York to see a play with my theatre class! No rest for the weary!


On a side note we found ourselves saying "ugh I wish this particular trip was this weekend" and so on... only to realize that we were wishing our weekends away so we fixed that real quick :)  … because after this week we are already 1/5th of the way done with our semester which is super scary… 


Here is my weekend in a few pictures…Enjoy

Welcome to the High Bank Hotel 

 My Life line at Caffé Nero

 East coast Rail

 Leeds!

 Wine because we can

 My dear sister and friend Abbi

Sorry for the lame post this week but I'm kinda in a hurry

until whenever I can find time,

All my love form across the pond!

Brooke 

P.s I've been home just haven't had time to post!

p.p.s My boyfriend's going to be in Scotland in nearly a month! How lucky am I!?


Send me mail!
K bye

London Diaries

London!

This past weekend I was able to enjoy the beautiful city of London and I fell in love! There is something about the city that is just so wonderful, and not to mention super easy to navigate via Tube. This was a school sponsored trip which cost at least double what it could have on my own, but none the less a good first trip where I wasn't responsible for booking my transportation to the city bonus!!

Any ways.. We arrived via coach (3 hour drive) pretty late Thursday evening and checked into our hotel which I would like to mention is NOT the same as an american hotel.. but it was a bed to sleep in.  Throughout the weekend I explored London with a few sisters that travel very similar to me (where ever the wind takes you style) I swear it's the best way! We would pull out the map and see if anything in particular sounded fun or interesting and then figure out which tube station was closest to that spot, other times we would just walk where ever and see what we stumbled upon. We ended up all over the city Westminster Abbey, London Eye, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Oxford Street, Covant Gardens, and many more places! For classes I had to see the Shakespeare play King Lear, and visit the Freud Museam as for the play it was wonderful but the Freud museum was not my favorite for many reasons but interesting in the least I suppose. 

Now if you are ever going to London and someone says lets go on this pub crawl that only costs £11 Don't Go… Trust me!

While in the city I observed a few things

1. Everything closes early like 8pm on the weekdays even Starbucks!

2. Everyone is skinny! It is a very healthy city minus the massive amounts of smoking. 

3. The tube is dead silent always

4. shopping is awesome

5.  Come Saturday its so full of tourists you can barely walk down the street. 

6. People may laugh a you but for the most part people are really nice and would love to help you find where ever you may need to go. 

Very last on our way home early Sunday morning we stopped at Hampton Court Palace former home of King Henry VIII which was absolutely wonderful but quite chilly! We were able to walk in the home and around the beautiful grounds, but we just didn't have enough time to cover it all! We were even able to meet the King himself ;) Also went to an awesome pub!

 Overall a wonderful weekend I could talk about it forever and look forward to going back hopefully soon! 

As for other things going on in my life… I started watching Downton Abbey how appropriate right? I have been really wanting to watch it for a while but now that I'm here it is much easier considering our library has every season including the current available! It is really wonderful because the Highclere Castle is very similar to the manor I live in and also functioned quite similarly back in the day. I recommend it! 

As for other things I work in the Library for my work study job (warmest building in the manor)!!! Speaking of temperature it has dropped quite a bit and is back around the normal temperature for this area and time of year, and because of that you may be wearing your winter jacket in a few classes, this isn't an easy place to keep warm! 

This week is a "long" week, we have classes Monday - Friday to make up a day we miss later in the semester, and because of that my traveling will be fairly close by a few hours by train at most possibly Leeds but I am not for sure. 

If anyone would like to send me letters or sweaters I can give you my address just let me know!

Ps.. I heard the video wouldn't work for everyone in my last post so here are a few pictures!

London at Night!

Cool Place to blog

                                                  Our Great Room with my favorite chandelier in the manor!

Until next time! 

Thanks for reading my BLOODY BLOG!!! 

All my love from across the pond,

Brooke 

First week of classes!

Well.. I am day three into my classes and If I can make through British Studies alive I will be more than happy! Classes run Monday through Thursday to encourage travel on the weekends, which is awesome but because of that schedule we cram a lot of work into our little week which has shown to already be quite stressful! Other than classes we have had a two dance traditional dance groups come in and show us dances that were performed many years ago which has been a lot of fun to watch and then attempt to learn ourselves.. fail ahaha.
I ventured into town on my own today for the first time for a couple reasons but the main one being because the wifi here it just terrible some days. The manor is so large and the wifi is in such high demand constantly it crashes often, which is frustrating when you have research to do and homework that has to be turned in online. I also went for just some me time, we are starting to realize pretty quick going to school with 170 kids, living among one another including professors and staff, going to class, and hanging out all in the same building is closing in pretty fast. The past few days I find myself going to a spot in the manor or like today heading to town just have some coffee and relax
Even with all of these adjustments it is truly amazing to live in such a beautiful place!

Now let me bring up some of the things you hear about England "it always rains".. now let me tell you, it does. I swear you wake up to the most beautiful day ever, you go to class that has A HUGE WINDOW in it and then you go outside after class and there are puddles EVERYWHERE and clouds in the sky, like WHAT WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN … it's a mystery
"the grass is always greener on the other side" ( I don't think this has anything to do with England) It's super green.. so thats cool I guess.
Thats all I've got…

GUESS WHAT!?

I'm going to LONDON tomorrow!!!

p.s here is some of that dancing (it only got better)

Sooo until next time! 

All my love from across the pond,

Brooke

Hello from England!

Hello!
 I have a lot to say but I don't want to bore you all so I will try to keep this post shortish…

I started my travels technically a week ago today!
First stop Denver, Colorado where I have never been before but I was absolutely blown away by how beautiful it was!
I left Wednesday morning to start my journey to England but of course I can never travel without a few stressful delays! I flew from Denver to Chicago and then off to London, and let me tell you I'm still exhausted!
We arrived to London around 8am local time and then coached 3 and a half hours to the manor which is just north of London. We were warned that Harlaxton wastes no time, but I don't think you truly understand until you are here. Upon arrival we were greeted at the front gate by our Principal and we sat in our first meeting backpacks and all, may I remind you at this point we were all extremely sleep deprived, super hungry, and we all needed a serious shower.
Since Thursday we have showered and eaten and kind of unpacked but we have been extremely busy with an orientation schedule full of meetings about everything from stereotyping to how to keep our "new" 170 year old manor safe (and class).
This place is AMAZING!!! Seriously though.. there are beautiful chandeliers hanging from the ceilings and hidden doors in the walls that lead to another part of the manor like WHATTTT it's so cool.
We made it in to Grantham twice so far once for the store and another time for a drink at the pub and some of the locals are not to fond of us American college kids.. we are the "new batch" as a few have said to us.. but it is our job to prove the stereotype wrong I suppose.
Other than losing weight due to the meals being served in the refectory this should be an absolutely wonderful semester! Until next time! (probably tomorrow)

All my love from across the pond,
Brooke

p.s. Riding in a taxi driving 90 down a curvy country side road is terrifying not to mention on the "wrong side" of the road.
p.p.s. I thought I would show you were I blogged from today! Seriously so beautiful!