A taste of Germany...in Leeds

On November 13th the Christkindelmarkt rolled into town and set up shop for the next month. The German Christmas Markets are quite a popular attraction with heaps of stalls and plenty of places to get a German beer or some mulled wine. Almost everyone from our flat congregated down at the markets and we all relied on Jan (Yarn) to translate for us!

In a few weeks time I will be experiencing the real thing in Germany!

Maria and Martina in line for a hot chocolate with Amaretto

Jun and Jan

Alcoholic peanuts...80% alcohol level!

The Garlic stand...clearly a popular attraction!

Jan sipping his mulled wine, thinking of home!
Ignore the Norwegian flag on his scarf...if the Germans found out I think he would be hung!

All you need is...Liverpool!

November 12th saw me jumping on a bus and heading off to Liverpool for the day. We were blown away when we arrived, not by the town or the Beatles vibe, but by the 50 mile-an-hour gusts that were blowing through the streets! We searched high and low for the tourism centre and eventually found a map to follow. Our first stop was the Beatles Museum. We took our time getting there and detoured via the old docks which are one of the reasons Liverpool is famous. Alongside the River Mersey we could barely stand straight because of the blowing gale. Eventually we made it to the Museum. It was interesting going through and listening to the history of the band and seeing all the paraphernalia they used throughout their time together. We spent a good deal of time here wandering through the exhibits.

After grabbing some lunch from "The Liverpool" we snuck into the Town Hall to admire the red carpets, domed ceilings and marble pillars. Unfortunately there was a wedding on so we couldn't go far inside. We then made our way over to Matthew St - the home of most of the pubs and clubs where the Beatles grew up performing. I was under strict instructions to visit a place called the Cavern Club, one of the Beatles most popular performance venues. The Cavern Club is notorious now for writing messages on the walls. In late June, Emma spent 2 weeks in England and managed to go see the Cavern Club in Liverpool, leaving a message written for me on the walls. If she hadn't of tipped me off on where to look I would have been searching for 3 months. But right above the picture of "The Fonz" visiting the Cavern Club was a small bit of graffiti dedicated to me...how nice of her. I returned the favour by leaving my mark next to hers!

We left the Cavern Club and checked out some of the shopping before heading up to the Liverpool Cathedral for the Evensong service. Liverpool Cathedral is the largest Cathedral in the UK and the largest Anglican Cathedral in Europe so you can imagine how impressive a service was inside! Once the service was over we headed back into town to grab a few things for dinner before heading to the station and grabbing our train back to Leeds.

From a window aboard the train I wished Liverpool good night!

Emma chose the only flat part of the wall as can be seen by the quality of my handwriting!



Liverpool Cathedral



Moore Climbing

On Sunday 7th November I went "bush" walking with some people I met that morning at one of the local churches. We headed out to a country town called Ilkley which has some very nice heather filled hills to climb. We headed straight up the over sized hill and took in the views from on top of a rock formation called the Cow and Calf rocks. It was a great place to admire the English countryside from.

After some dare devilish rock climbing we headed back into the town for some dinner before heading home. A simple day in the country...

The "other place"...Cambridge

No one mentions the "C" word in Oxford. When I went there everyone referred to it as "The Other Place". In some ways I guess it was their "He who must not be named".

On Saturday 6th November I headed off on a day trip to Cambridge organised through the Student Union. Kira, Liz and Maria tagged along also. The day started with an early departure from Leeds and a 2 hour and 45 min bus ride to Cambridge. The weather was perfect!

We finally arrived and headed straight to Kings College. The College was founded by Henry VI in 1441 and is predominantly famous for its Chapel. The Chapel itself contains some of the best stained glass windows in the country.

One of the societies of Kings College had a daredevil amongst them very recently and managed to place an orange traffic cone (witch's hat) on top of one of the spires of the Chapel. No one owned up so the College had to hire scaffolders to climb up and remove it. The workers took a few days to erect the scaffolding and overnight someone from the society climbed up the scaffolding and took down the cone, placing it on the other spire on the opposite side of the Chapel. The scaffolders then had to take everything down and rebuild it on the other side. You'll see in the photos below just how high up that actually was!

After cruising through King's College and making sure we didn't step on the grass, we headed to the Cambridge Markets and checked out the local atmosphere for a bit. We picked up some lunch near the markets and then headed back to King's where we signed up for a punting tour - think gondoliers in Venice but with British accents.

The tour took us along the River Cam whilst our punter talked through the history of the town as we passed by Kings, Queens, Clare, St John's and Trinity Colleges...the whole time the girls were not-so-discretely taking photos of the guys punting.

The Colleges are amazing! Trinity is the oldest and richest College in Cambridge. It has been the College of choice for most of the Royal Family members. Prince Charles studied there doing Archaeology and Anthropology (boring). The Queen had paid for a whole floor of rooms at the College for Charles but eventually he worked her down to just getting three. His bodyguard attended every class with him and was allowed to sit the final exam. However, he ended up with a better grade than Charles so he was not allowed to be recognised as a graduate.

Cambridge University itself is the 3rd largest land owner in the United Kingdom, falling behind the Royal Family and the Church of England. Much of Harry Potter was also filmed throughout the Colleges, just like in Oxford.

After our punt we had a look around some of Trinity College and the backstreets of Cambridge. We did some souvenir shopping then grabbed a bite to eat before racing back to the bus.

Front gate to King's College



Part of Kings and back of the Chapel
The steeples where the cone was placed.




The Chapel
The cone was placed on the top of the steeple on this side at the left. They then climbed up and put it on the other side...just for fun!



The Grand Court

The punting boats



Kira and I




Liz and Maria...probably checking out one of the other punters.




St John's College



Bridge of Sighs
Based off the original in Venice, the story at Cambridge is similar to the one at Oxford: accommodation on the left, exam rooms on the right, students sighing as they walk into their exams.
Cambridge also has another story for the Bridge of Sighs in Oxford: students cross the bridge and sigh "Why can't we be at Cambridge"



A very eager duck...much to Maria's disliking!



Trinity College
Prince Charles' room was at the top in the middle

Main entrance to Kings at dusk