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