After dropping my stuff off and changing quickly, I made my way to orientation. I won't bore you with the details, but I did find it interesting that over half of the study abroad and exchange students were American! After that I got lunch and went shopping. I got groceries and necessities from Pound Land. That is an amazing store! It's kind of like the dollar store, buy with a bit more variety and slightly better quality. The variety was a bit closer to CVS, just with different items. I got some food, utensils, a travel mug, shampoo, a dish towel, milk and a ton of tea for only £16! Walking back to my flat with 2 huge bags just gave me more incentive to get a bus pass, which I did today.
At my flat, I located the kitchen and met some of the others in my building. One girl was from my flat and she and some of friends from the building were studying for a chemistry exam that they took this morning. We chatted a bit, I worked on some course selection, and then we ordering dinner from Nando's. Its a fantastic take-away place here that is at a few places in the US. Apparently it's ridiculously popular here and I see why!
The chips had a delicious spicy salt on them called peri-peri and the pita was yummy and had cabbage rather than just lettuce, which gave a nice crunch. Over dinner we chatted a bit more and I was given the down low on some people in the flat and on the flat in general, such as the rota, trash pick up, etc. All in all it was a great evening!
This morning I had a meeting at the Law School with the visiting student officer and the study abroad students taking law or criminology classes here. I'm taking the second, a data analysis class. There I met up with Lindsey, another girl from UNC. We ending up sticking together for the rest of the day. We explored a bit and found a cheap and tasty lunch at Gregg's consisting of pasties and soup. After that I got my student I.D. I used my passport photo but the quality of their ID photo's is aweful, so I now have an ID with an even worse photo, which is sad... After that we search a building so the English Departments reception and found out that my navigation skills are very good, at least according to Lindsay! After find reception, we chilled in the Union until tea time. The International Society hosted a tea for us and it was extremely popular. We arrived 15 minutes early and could barely fit inside. Three rooms were open and the line still went out the door of the building when everyone sat down. Still, I had a good cup of tea, mini-muffin, and scone with jam and clotted cream. I also got some butterscotch biscuits in a packet that I'm saving for my tea with breakfast.
I met a few more people and after the tea we realized we had nothing to do. So...we went to Pound Land and then got dinner together. We tried a place called Spicy Mint on the famous Curry Mile. It was very good and the conversation was even better. I'm really looking forward to all the semester has to offer, which is infinite possibilities minus sunshine..
While Manchester is wonderful, and a place I look forward to exploring, the weather is sad. It rained on and off all morning. By this I mean I walked one block in a downpour, the next in clear skies, the next in spitting rain, the next in gale force winds, the next in a downpour and by the time I got to my destination it was dry again. Here's the view from my room's window from before I left. The wind was going about 15 mph for much of the morning.
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