Our Swanked Out Pad!!

Alright, I know you've all been waiting on the edge of your seats to see which place we picked, so I won't drag it out. As of Jan 21, we have been living in the 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom flat on Clarendon Road!

After we viewed it, Danny and I were both really excited and knew that if we could get the price down, this was the one we wanted. So we talked to the landlord (a very genuine, nice man) and he agreed to lower the price to £600 per month for us! What a steal! He explained that he had just acquired this property and had  planned on fixing it up to have it ready for the 2014-2015 letting season, so our only condition was that we have to be a bit flexible for a some refurbishments he wants to do along the way. He assured us it was only a few surficial changes, mostly just some redecorating. In our eyes, this was almost a plus! So far we have received brand new double beds in all of the rooms and a brand new kettle, microwave and toaster. He plans on doing some painting later on, but since we have three rooms we can just rotate through the rooms as he paints. All in all, Danny and I agreed that this trade off was well worth it for the location and amenities of the flat.

Some of the things that I love about the flat so far:
1. Three bathrooms, no waiting! Although the bathrooms are tiny, they're functional, clean and ...there's three of them! This means we can both get ready in the morning and each have our own place to store our toiletries. My only complaint would be that the showers are a bit small. I have yet to figure out a graceful way to shave my legs.

We have three of these! All the same layout.

2. Open plan kitchen/living/dining! In the pictures, the kitchen/living/dining room might look small, but it's more than enough room with only 2 of us knocking about. We can each be slicing and dicing stuff for meals at the same time and not run into each other. Also, it has a washer/dryer and a full sized fridge. This was a big plus because a lot of the places we viewed only had mini fridges below the counter. The living room couches are a bit on the small side, but we can still lounge comfortably and transition back and forth to the kitchen for biscuits and tea when we please ... aka all the time. So far our dining room table is more of a desk with all our utility bills and information, but we can still have a nice sit down meal and work on homework here. Also I just noticed looking through these pictures that our walls are a little bare, but so far that hasn't mattered because the view out our window is surprisingly lovely.

The galley-style kitchen with new, matching appliances and lots of cabinet space.

 
3. Two windows in each room!  Although there's not a lot of natural light here in Leeds, it is nice to have the option to let it in should the occasion arise. In each bedroom and the living room there are two wonderful, big windows. It can be quite nice when the sun does shine and you can let a breeze in to air out the place. Maybe more importantly, they also help the University's free WiFi flow in. So far Danny and I are getting great reception in both our bedrooms at our desks. This is a big help for the budget. Also, although the rooms are smaller, the tall sets of windows help the rooms feel bigger.

Blatantly posing in our living room.

4. Brand new double beds! We spent our first night on an awful mattress left here by the previous landlord. I was ever so happy when the delivery trucks arrived the next day. We did have to help assemble them and help haul the old ones down the three flights of stairs, but they are super comfy, so it was well worth it. Also there are three of them so we can have lots of visitors!!! (hint hint)

Bedroom  1 (Danny's Room).

5. Handy storage units!  Although they feel a bit dorm-room ish, they are quite well designed and provide loads of storage. Each getting our own unit, Danny and I can easily fit our stuff into these. I'm not using half the drawers provided. It makes cleaning up a snap, but is bad because it makes me think, "Yeah, I could buy some more clothes to fill that up." Then I remember I have to fit it all back into the suitcases I brought with me. (Side note: the shopping here in Leeds is fantastic and it will be hard not to indulge). The desk space works well and will be heavily used for studying in the next few months.

Bedroom 2 (Cailey's Room).

6. We have a gear room! Currently it's more of a meat locker because we have the heat permanently turned off in there, but all in all, quite pleased with it. We get to proudly display/store all our climbing and hiking gear we brought with us. Our big backpacks, suitcases, hiking boots, climbing ropes, helmets, etc. All the bulky items that we're not using on a daily basis.

Bedroom 3 (Gear Room).

By all accounts, we really lucked out with this place. It has more space than we need, is super close to Uni (15 min walk to all our classes) and is super close to downtown (20 min walk to city centre). Without a car, being close to all our key amenities is worth it's weight in gold. We're still finding out about all the quirks about the place, but I'm already falling in love and it will be hard to move out at the end of June. Until then though, we will navigate the nuances of living together and keep some clean linens handy for all those wishing to pop by!

-Cailey

Living in Leeds

Leeds Civic Hall

Monday we started classes which is a big change to what we're use to doing so far on the trip. Prior to Monday we were essentially in holiday mode, nothing to do each day except for a few things that we had to get done. But classes brings new excitement and reminds us that we are indeed here to do school.

Living in Leeds is much different from Calgary which is not surprising. Cailey and I are excited to not have a car to get around, and are looking forward to buying bikes to get around quickly. So far we've been able to get where ever we need to by walking. The Leeds metropolitan area has a population density of 1380/km2 compared to Calgary's 238/km2. In the first few days Cailey and I marveled at how we could walk downtown from our place within 10 minutes. Walking to downtown slowly lost its appeal as we live atop a long steep-ish hill so it's a bit of a drag getting home...but it's exercise.

Leeds General Infirmary 

Walking downtown the architecture looks much older than Alberta. It's reminds me of some of the Parliament buildings in Ottawa. The Leeds campus is a large mix of new and old buildings. The traditional Great Hall is a beautiful building (very Harry Potter-esque, on the inside and out) vs. the Roger Stevens Building which is a very strange building to get around.  The campus is very pretty and very green, especially compared to the University of Calgary this time of year. 

Leeds University Great Hall

Cailey and I have very different class schedules. Cailey's is much more...flexible...than mine but we're both very excited for our courses. I'm excited for two of my geology courses which have field work components. In Explosive Volcanic Deposits we'll be mapping Scafell Pike in the Lake District and in Advanced Sedimentology we'll be mapping turbidite deposits in the SW of England. Cailey is looking forward to Traditional Alcoholic Beverages where she'll be learning about the history, culture and chemistry around brewing beer, and for her final project she gets to actually brew her own batch! 

We've been settling in to a more relaxed pace after finding our swanked out pad. We've become addicted to tea biscuits, mostly Ginger Hobnobs and regular Hobnobs for that fact. But we've weaned ourselves off of those when we realized that each biscuit contains 4% of your daily fat. 2 packs in 2 days was way too too much. There's a large selection of tea here and we chose Yorkshire Tea on high recommendations from our landlord who said it was the best tea in the UK.

Between getting ready for school and getting our flat functional we've been to two of the four climbing gyms in Leeds, the Depot, and the Leeds Wall. The Depot is a large dedicated bouldering gym with good music and very well set routes. The Leeds Wall is in a giant warehouse and they use a lot of the vertical space. You bring your own rope to lead, but roughly half the routes are lead only.  Routes are graded on the french system so that'll take a while to get use to.  None of the climbing gyms in Leeds are very accessible without a car, with the exception of the University wall which is lackluster but a five minute walk from our flat. We've been relying on the kindness of the university climbing club for rides to and from the climbing walls. Weather has been keeping us from getting outside for climbing and I'm getting antsy to get out on grit. Fingers crossed.

So far Leeds has been great and we're looking forward to the next 5 months here and getting around the UK. 

House Hunters International

After arriving in Leeds Cailey and I spent two busy days viewing flats, maisonettes, and houses to rent while in Leeds. During these two days we viewed 11 properties total; two on the first day and an unexpected nine properties on the second. The value of a camera was noticed after we forgot to take photos of two of properties that we saw back to back. They essentially blended together and we struggled to describe them by memory at the hotel later that night. 

For you reading pleasure, we narrowed it down our top four properties and wrote it up "House Hunters International" style.

Consort Walk

Distance from Campus: 700m
Rent: £545/month

This property was a recently decorated, smaller bungalow-style flat in a low traffic area off the university. It consisted of an open plan kitchen and living room (with a small table, two chairs, and couch), a double bedroom with big closet, a very small single bedroom, and a basic bathroom. We viewed the property with 3 other people and we felt like there was some pressure to put a deposit down quickly on the house. It was very close to the University and to the main student area in Leeds. Overall the flat felt quite small but livable.

Woodside Terrace

Distance from Campus: 2.28km
Rent: £625/month

This property was the farthest property from campus.  We were told by the letting agent that as you move farther from campus the housing is often higher quality, better furnishings, for a lower price. This property was the ultimate example of this. Renovations at Woodside Terrace were slated to wrap up this week with new cabinets, a new bathtub and new furniture all being moved in. The property consisted of a full kitchen, full bath, 2 double bedrooms, one with a queen-sized, if not king-sized mattress. The property also included a small back yard. Cailey and I were both blown away by the furnishings as we were used to viewing cheaper properties near the university, however we were told that public transit would be the best way to get to and from the campus as it would be close to a 30 min walk otherwise.

Kelsall Place 

Distance from Campus: 1km
Rent: £550/month

This property was a very unexpected surprise. We heard from the letting agent that it had not been let in some time, and we were prepared for the worst. When we entered the house through a security grate, the house had very nice new furnishings, as the landlord was finishing up some renovations. The main floor had a tiny kitchen and sitting area with a gas range, mini-fridge, and a couch. The second floor was comprised of a smaller bedroom with a double bed and desk, and a newly tiled bathroom. A plastered spiral staircase led to the third floor bedroom which had a nice view and the same furnishings as the second floor bedroom. The house also had a very dark, scary cellar which was used for storage. I would never go down there unless I absolutely had to.  

Clarendon Road

Distance from Campus: 500m
Rent: £950/month

The last property we viewed was a three bedroom house just off campus. We managed to snag this viewing by getting the letting agent to convince the landlord that he should let the property to us considering that the main letting season is over and it is better to make some money versus no money at all. The Clarendon Road flat is on the top floor of a three story apartment building just off campus.  It currently consists of 3 similar sized, en-suite bedrooms. One of the bedrooms is currently housing a couch and dining room table. The main room has a nicely fitted kitchen with a dinner table and two sofas. This was by far the nicest flat that we viewed but it was dependent on what the letting agent could get the price down to for us.

After each viewing we walked back to our hotel discussing the pro's and con's of each property. We felt like we were in our own little episode of House Hunters International throwing around phrases like, "It's in a great location!" or "The rent is a to high/low" or "It has a terrace!" But all fun and games aside, some tough decisions had to be made. All in all we have had a very positive experience house hunting in Leeds. Because the rental property business is so large in Leeds, letting agencies do a very good job of helping renters through whole rental process. We have chosen two properties as front runners and are going to speak with the letting agencies Monday to see what we can work out. Once we have moved in, later this week hopefully, we will post a tour of place.

-Danny

Welcome to our blog!

Welcome to the wonderful travel blog of Cailey and Danny!

If you're looking for some mediocre writing and alright pictures about wicked adventures, you've come to right place. Well okay, it won't be all that bad. In fact we're hoping it'll turn out really well. For those of you who don't know, Danny and I have packed up and headed to Leeds in the United Kingdom to finish our degrees through the U of C's Study Abroad program. We have been planning this adventure for over a year now, and to summarize how it feels to be living out those plans is hard to do. Danny and I will both contribute to the blog where we will share our struggles and triumphs of living in the UK and traveling in
Europe. Bare with us, as this is our first attempt at a blog. Hopefully it will still be a great read for all those wishing to follow our adventures!

Wandering around the University of Leeds Campus. Old meets new architecture.

We left a snowy, yet sunny and warm, Calgary on January 15th and arrived to a cloudy, damp Leeds on the 16th. As the Scottish salesman at MEC told us, "You'll descend into Leeds through a big bank of clouds... and then never really leave them." True to form, the weather here is basically like Vancouver; cool, wet and rarely sunny. Although I'll probably miss the sun eventually, the warmer-than-Calgary temperatures are making up for it right now.

I won't say much about our actually journey over here because everything went surprisingly smooth! We were prepared to get quizzed at customs and loose our luggage, but none of that transpired. The craziest thing that happened was Danny being delayed on his way to the airport because his driveway was blocked by multiple cars stuck in the all the soft snow. The day of our travels had me so giddy, I felt like I had drank 4 cups off coffee and then some. Although excited, I was also super nervous and kind of sad to be leaving friends and family behind. We flew direct to London, Heathrow from Calgary and then connected to the Leeds/Bradford airport. We passed the hours with reading, movies and surprisingly alright airplane food. By the time we arrived in Leeds, we were a bit tired and hungry, but very happy to have had such a problem free journey.

We took a rather exciting taxi ride (read: terrifying first time driving on narrow roads and on the left-hand side) to our B&B near the University, checked in, then promptly crashed on the beds. In true jet-lagged style, we slept from 4:00 PM to midnight, then stayed up until our 7:30 AM breakfast call. We had a full English breakfast (tea, juice, toast, an egg, beans, sausage and back bacon) which we scarfed down hungrily after munching on GORP and carrots through the night. We spent our first day viewing 2 properties and walking around the University Campus, surrounding area, and downtown. It's so nice to be within walking distance of everything and is one of the biggest changes for us from living in Calgary. We didn't eat lunch (so full from breakfast!), but instead opted to treat ourselves to some of the best Thai food I've ever had. It was a pricier dinner, but was somewhat celebratory and well worth it. We had another early night (8:30PM) but this time managed to sleep in till 5:00 AM before giving up and waiting for our breakfast time again.

After another full breakfast, our second day was packed with 9 property viewings and more walking about. (Read our next blog post for more on our house hunting adventures). Again, we just had some snacks for lunch then decided to try out the Student's Union bar here on campus for dinner. We were excited to see some great deals on food and are probably going to frequent the place. I got a burger, chips and pint of beer for 5£. Not too shabby. Afterwards we got a hold of the parents on skype and happily chatted for an hour or so. Then we headed back to the hotel to hash out the pros and cons of our housing options and make a decision. We finished the night by trying to stay awake watching some Ricky Gervais Show episodes, but only made it though one before our eyelids started to sag. Our sleep schedule is slowly getting back to normal, but for now the early bedtimes and early mornings are a nice change from my usual routine back in Calgary. Who knows, maybe I'll become a morning person.!... (unlikely, but a girl can dream, right?).

This morning we woke up feeling good about deciding on a place, but worried because of the host of new financial tasks ahead. Finding a place so quickly means we need to set up a UK bank account ASAP so we can pay our deposit, rent and bills etc. We spent the morning researching bank accounts and finding a few good ones, but getting antsy because we have to wait until Monday to go into any of the branches. Oh well, as they say here, it'll be "sorted" soon enough.

All in all, I'm so glad to be here and as much as it seems like a hassle for us to find our own place right now, it's a learning adventure and an opportunity to live a more grown up lifestyle that we wouldn't have found in residence. We are loving the city so far, and can't wait to explore it even more. Hopefully in a few more days we can be writing a post on how awesome our newly swanked-out pad is! Until then, wish us luck and feel free to set up some times to skype with us! We would love to hear from everyone.

Cailey