I’ve made it in mostly one piece to town! All said and done, it took about 25 hours of travel from Idaho Falls to getting my keys in Leicester. The problem with leaving a teeny tiny town like Idaho Falls is that although it has an airport, it consists only of puddle-jumper planes that get you to your next major airport. Generally, these flights are not cheap when tacked on to an already existing flight schedule. Instead, I took the 4 hour bus ride with the Salt Lake Express to the Salt Lake International Airport and flew out from there. The fast-track lane for security seems to be gaining traction, though why they sent me through it I don’t know, because I ended up having to go through the backscatter machine anyway. Yay for failing the metal detector? At least I didn’t have to take off my shoes, by god.
Don’t have to fight for the charging point when you get in early.
Caffeinated and charged, I got on the plane with my window seat view. Oh yeeeeah. It was a pretty uneventful flight from Salt Lake to Dallas/Fort Worth, but the view was gorgeous. There’s nothing quite like the Rocky Mountain chain. Also, I’m not sure which airplane gods took pity on me, but the leg room was amazing. It almost felt wasted on my shortness.
Once in the DFW airport, I grabbed a sandwich as I was regretting not getting one beforehand and got to pay Starbucks $7 for a ham and swiss. Highway robbery! Waited around and charged up my phone some more and finally got on the long haul flight. I thought British Airways was actually flying this one, but it was American Airlines again. Not a bad flight, but the movie and TV choices were limited at best. Tossed and turned and maybe slept 3 hours of the 9 hour flight before giving up, utterly defeated by my seat.
(At this point, my phone had a fit and ate all my photos between the plane and the next morning. Sorry!) Once off the plane, you have to go through the UK Border checkpoint and it seems they’ve decided to try something new for the incoming students with our own special queue. If you are coming over as a student, be prepared to wait an hour or so in this special queue as the regular entrance queue breezes past you. We all watched a few students get fed up waiting that then jumped into the regular queue and seemed to make it through, but the border guards were not people that any of us wanted to cross so we stuck it out.
Out of the airport, it’s a very easy trip to Leicester. The Underground has stations at each terminal, so you just get on with your luggage and go. The train that terminates at Cockfosters (go on, get the giggles out) means you can get on and ride for about 15 stops to the King’s Cross/St Pancras exit and then come up into King’s Cross and walk across the street to St Pancras. From there it was a brief trip to the toilets to wash my now grey hands and then upstairs to the East Midlands trains.
The train ride was uneventful, but mostly because I kept falling asleep in my seat. Having a table seat was wasted on my sleepiness. Be sure you keep your train ticket with you when you’ve gotten past the barriers, because they’ll check it when you get moving! We pulled in to Leicester and I could see my tower building from the tracks, so myself and my two suitcases hopped off and started walking to the flat. Ahead of time I had made a Google Streetview/Maps note where I had screencapped major points along the way and then attached the directions to them, figuring it would save me from eating the data on the pay as you go SIM in the phone. This helped IMMENSELY. Unlike the US, there is not always a street name marker on every corner, not are they as visible. Don’t even ask about blocks – there are no such equivalents.
While it would seem logical that the tall buildings in town would make for good visual markers, they really aren’t that helpful. For whatever reason, when you’re down on the street you can’t always see the tall buildings until you are right up on them.
Anyway, I made it in, signed my paperwork (Thank you Katt!) and dragged myself up the elevator and straight into the shower. The place looked like a tornado came through with the suitcases basically flipped to find the shower stuff. Ahh, clean feels so good. After that, it was a quick run to the nearest shop (in this case Tesco) for the absolute bare basics. From there, I fought sleep until I ended up falling asleep with Skype open. (Sorry about that!)
Breakfast of champions.
So this morning, the world was not such an overwhelming thing with adequate sleep. Started off with a thick fog, but it was mostly gone and only cloudy by the time I left for the city centre. The humidity though… That will take some re-adjusting to. I’ve done it before in Knoxville, but it’s been a few years.
Started the day by walking towards the middle of the city, but leisurely and stopping whenever something caught my fancy, like this remnant of a medieval gate next to the De Montfort University business building. In case you can’t read the sign, it says:
After his defeat at the Battle of Bosworth, King Richard III’s corpse was brought back to Leicester and put on public display as indisputable proof that the former monarch was dead. After three days his body was removed by the Grey Friars and buried in their own church. It is likely that Richard’s body would have passed through this gateway on his final journey to Greyfriar’s.
At the time of King Richard III, the Newarke area was a religious precinct enclosed by a substantial stone wall. This gateway, built around 1410, would have been its monumental entrance known then as the Newarke Gateway. It was built to impress visitors and house the porter’s lodge.
Also saw some pithy little graffiti nearby.
From there I stopped into the Newarke Houses Museum, which is this awesome mixture of Elizabethan houses with history ranging from the 1500s to WWI. Will definitely have to go back sometime.
Getting hungry, I started to walk more into town. I ended up stopping at a McDonald’s out of curiosity and convenience, and the cheeseburger and fries/chips taste exactly the same. Once in town, there was plenty to see, and this is only a tiny bit of it!
I didn’t take many photos downtown as I was trying to get a feel for where places were, but I’ll try to on further trips. After all this, I had a stocked bag full of flat supplies so I walked on home. Apparently DMU is having a Con of some kind, because I ran into what can only be described as anime coming off the screen.
So here I am now, writing this up after walking past this silliness back to the flat. It’s late here now, and I’m exhausted, so I will speak again in the next few days! Hopefully will be on the right time zone soon enough.
– Kate