Fresher's Week: [noun] - one straight week of first year students drinking too much and staying up too late before school starts

Which often leads to Fresher's flu: [noun] - a flu like illness induced by drinking too much and staying up too late for one week. 

My fresher's week, the synopsis.

Saturday:
Met my roomates, Sally, Mits, Josh and Becca.

We went to Sally's friend's flat to drink before we went out (editor's note: As I was rereading this I saw that I had written "hit the town" instead of
went out" and literally gasped with horror).  Some of the group went to a bar called Halo which is an old church that is now a club.  Although I am by no means a practicing Catholic, that whole concept makes me feel icky.  Everyone else who didn't go to Halo (myself included) went to the Student Union.  In the Student Union there are 5 bars and clubs.  On this particular night we went to The Old Bar and Terrace.

Sunday:
Our residence hall hosted a "Pizza and Pims" party.  There was free food, so I was obviously there with my flat mates.  Then a bunch of people came over to our flat to, you guessed it, drink before we went out.  There was a free welcome party at the Union that night so we all headed over there.

Monday:
The real welcome party at the Union.  The main difference between Sunday's welcome party and Monday's welcome party is that you had to pay to get in on Monday.  We all got together at our flat before and then headed over to the Union together.  It was a fantastic night! If you're like the one week ago me and have never heard of a band called Five, you should look into them.  They are the UK's version of Backstreet Boys and their music is just as catchy.  Five was playing at the Union this night except for it was only two of the Five members. 

Tuesday:
A night of rest and relaxation.  I watched a show called The Inbetweeners with one of my new friends, Toni.  For those of you who watch a lot of television on the internet, look into this show.  It's hilarious and I feel going to serve excellently as a tool for learning British slang.

Wednesday:
The night of doing nothing but waiting in a line that was close to the death of me due to the number of people and the amount of squishing that was going on.  Although it was still hilariously fun! After waiting in this massive line for about half an hour, the police came and shut the club down because it was over capacity.  Ironically enough, the club is called gatecrashers.  Anyways, after that we all just came back to our flat and drank more and ate and chatted. 

Thursday:
Me and my new Canadian friend Hannah went to the Union for a headphone disco after going to our very successful School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies social.  Just a reminder, that's where the free sandwiches (and FREE ALCOHOL!) were.  What a headphone disco entails is you go into the club, you get headphones and you can change the station of the headphones between two DJs.  It was such an oddly wonderful experience.  Different people were loudly singing different songs, if you took your headphones off it was silent besides the people singing and talking and you got to choose what you listened to so if you didn't like what one DJ was playing, you could just listen to the other!

Friday: 
Hung out in Alex's flat, a girl who lives in our building, with the group I had been going out with all week. 

Saturday:
This was both the last night of Fresher's Week and the night we celebrated Ollie's birthday.  His birthday is really today but we thought it made more sense to celebrate yesterday.  So let me explain how we celebrated this in the same order I was given the information.
1. Ollie had promised the night before that for his birthday he would wear whatever the guys told him to wear
2. Everyone is wearing "fancy dress", which can more or less be described as halloween costumes, to go out

3. Ollie is dressing up as a hula girl
4. I'm dressing up as an 80's girl
5. Other people are dressed up as angels, cave men, army girls, etc.
6. We are going to a place called Otley Road where you do a 4 mile pub crawl (a term that is both British and Canadian that I'm assuming doesn't need defining)
7. I think all of this is a little bit strange.  We are going to a pub crawl in Halloween costumes? Sure, I'll do it but it just seems odd.  Apparently it's not.  I don't know if doing fancy dress is common for all pub crawls in England but it certainly is at Otley Road.   Name a costume, people were dressed in it. 

And to finish the week off perfectly, I now have fresher's flu!

Flat: [noun]- An apartment on one floor of a building.

To my wild friends, let me apologize.  I know that when you ask for pictures you don't mean pictures of inanimate objects but your just going to have to keep holding your breath.  Partying pictures will come soon, I promise. 

The layout of my flat works like this: there is one long hallway and all five of our bedrooms plus the kitchen have doors to this hallway. 

Below you see a picture from the door of my room.  The door on the right leads to my bathroom.

Two shots of my lovely bathroom.  That Neti Pot has really come in handy so far.

My closet.

A family portrait.

My bed.  Considering my budget and the fact that I can't bring any of the stuff home, it's not too minging (British slang to be defined another day).

My desk where lots of studious things will happen.

The view from my window.

And that concludes the tour of my room.  Next up, the kitchen. 

A view from the kitchen door.  As far as student residence goes, I think this kitchen/living space is amazing! It's huge, which is excellent for the number of people who come over to have drinks before we go out.

That's all the pictures for now.  In about an hour I'm going to head over to the University for a meet and greet with all the first year students in my program.  During the University of Leeds' induction week, there is a lot of partying, but also a lot of going to a variety of welcome lectures.  Why am I going to a meet and greet for first year students, you ask? A number of reasons.   Technically I am both a first year student and a second year student at the University and because of this I decided that I would attend a mix bag of events for both years.  To be entirely honest though, the main reason that I'm going is the free food.  Who cares about making new friends when there are mini sandwiches being handed out just for showing up?  Another plus about this event is that it is being held in the University's art gallery.  This will be my first time seeing it and I'm pretty excited about it.  I'll let you know how it goes!

One last thing: I'm loving everyone's comments! Keep 'em coming! Special shout out to Aunt Betty, can't wait to come across some animal tongue.  Who knows, maybe I'll even try some.

Pork: [noun]- the flesh of hogs used as food. Trotters: [noun]- the foot of an animal, esp. of a sheep or pig, used as food.

Seeing these pork trotters in the grocery store yesterday (almost) made me want to stop eating meat.  This experience may rival the time my mom ordered a full Cornish hen at a restaurant and I cried like the little kid I was and begged her not to eat it.

I was at the grocery store with my flatmate, Becca, and she told me that her dad eats stuff like that to gross her out.  It made me feel a little better knowing that a native was also creeped out by the prospect of eating pig's feet.

I do love that name though, Pork Trotters.  Sounds like a basketball team composed only of heavy set people.

Brilliant: [adj] - of surpassing excellence

A run down of my BRILLIANT time in England so far:

Monday:
-Basically had a heart attack from the anticipation (Thank you family and friends for dealing with me)
-Got on the plane at 9:30 pm with my new friend. Hi Caleb!
-Had an alcohol induced 2 and a half hour sleep on the plane

Tuesday:
-Arrived at Gatwick airport at 10 in the morning.
-Internally (and sometimes externally) screamed with excitement all day.
-Took the train to King's Cross station (saw the London eye on the way)
-Took another train to Leeds
-Arrived at my residence
-Bought sheets
-Unpacked
-Slept for a long time

Wednesday:
-Bought the essentials and walked around the amazing city centre which is about a fifteen minute walk from my residence
-Got a cellphone! My pin is 22F6298D for those of you with BBM
-Enter jet lag

Thursday:
-Walked the very beautiful walk to the University without getting lost!
-Attended the mandatory meeting for international students at the University
-Made a new friend from Montreal.
-Me and my new friend, Andree Anne or Andy, got a bunch of things done such as making an appointment at the bank, getting our student cards, buying posters, and going to tea at the international students center where we met more people from all around the world.
-After eating dinner at my residence, me and Andy went back to the University for the international student's karaoke night and met even more people

Friday:
-More essentials purchased
-Went to the University HSBC to open my bank account
-Signed up for a bunch of exciting stuff: Host which is a program where families in the UK allow you to come and stay at their house for free, Don't Be A Tourist which organizes weekend trips around the UK, and tap class!
-Met one of my "flatmates", Becca, and had dinner with her which consisted of her mom's homemade bolognese sauce which was delicious!
-Went out for cheap drinks with three new international friends: two from Canada, one from Australia.

And now today.  Currently two more of my flatmates are moving into there rooms which leaves one more to move in.  The way my residence works is each of us has our own bedroom and bathroom and the five of us share a kitchen.  My plans for the rest of the day are hang out with my flatmates and look into going to OKTOBERFEST.  That's right. Oktoberfest.  As some of you know, Germany is the motherland for me.  And what better time to get in touch with my heritage then Oktoberfest?  The other international students that I've met are interested in going too so I'm going to try to make this happen!

I can't remember what day I ate this delicious chocolate bar that I got for free but I felt the need to share the wrapper.  I couldn't believe how good it was!