Leeds, England

Lizz is currently struggling with the internet at a hostel in London, when she should be in Berlin…

I made it to Leeds on Friday. Ads picked me up from the bus station with one of his roommates Franco. It was awesome to see him again. We went back to their place. I was surprised at how nice it felt to be back in a college town. Luckily for me Ads had an extra room with a bed and everything. It was easily the nicest accommodations I’d had in a month. Privacy is a luxury I’ve been lacking for a while now. There was also a washing machine. Basically it felt like a five star hotel.
We went out on Friday night to a very cool bar and I drank some sort of flavored beer concoction. Surprisingly delicious.
Saturday we decided to take a trip to the park. It was a little cloudy and windy, but they assured me this was pretty nice weather for Leeds, so we went anyway. Ads had a giant Frisbee, so we took that and some badminton rackets. We were having a lot of fun until the Frisbee got stuck in a tree. It was too high for anyone to really get at. So the obvious solution was to boost me up into the tree to climb up and shake it down. I realized about halfway up the tree that 1. it has been years since I’ve climbed anything, and 2. I’m not very good at it. I did eventually get the Frisbee down but I was more than a little scratched up because of my adventure
On Saturday night there was the Fourth of July celebration. A club in town was supposedly having a full blown celebration for the Fourth. There will be pictures on facebook as soon as the internet decides to allow me to post them. We had an amazing time. There was a hot dog eating contest (very American) and a chili eating contest, (slightly less American). Ads’ roommate Franco was the only person who entered both. We’d joked for the whole day that if one of us entered we needed to dunk the hotdogs, because it’s the only way to win. While Franco was eating hotdogs we started chanting, ‘dunk it, dunk it.’ And he did. Despite the fact that Franco didn’t win either of the competitions, he got a gift bag for entering both. This bag contained some really awesome stuff. There were nerd glasses which we proceeded to wear for the rest of the night. There were also moustache tattoos. All in all, the celebration wasn’t very American. I went the entirety of the Fourth without hearing a firework, but I had a wonderful night.
On Sunday, which was actually the Fourth of July, The guys I was staying with and I made a proper American meal. It consisted of hamburgers and hotdogs. Doritos and Pringles (the only American brand of chips I could find) and french fries. I also made an actual apple pie from scratch for dessert. I think they appreciated it. It was nice to have people to celebrate with. They were enthusiastic about it, even though they were technically celebrating their own defeat.
The rest of my time in Leeds more or less involved hanging out with people, watching movies, going into town. It was actually really relaxing and exactly what I needed at this point in my trip. I also feel like I made some life long friends in the deal.
Ads, Franco and Jas (the three roommates) had only moved into their house a day before I showed up. They told me when I left that it felt like I was a roommate too. The room I stayed in will always be known as Lizz’s room.
I left Leeds on Tuesday with Nick who came up to Leeds on Sunday. We headed back to London for a few days