Having never been to Sheffield before, I was hoping that the station would be brightly lit and easy to understand (unlike Nottingham). Luckily, it was! When I found the taxi rank, the driver very nicely picked up my (enormous and heavy) suitcase and put it in the car for me, then asked where I was going. I said "Crookes Street", and he looked at me oddly. He went off and conferred with another driver, who also looked at me oddly, and then they both walked over and told me that "Crookes Street" did not exist, but Crookes Road did. I just kind of nodded lamely and said that's what I had meant. It ended up being a big road... I would have just assumed that the Australian girl with the enormous bag didn't really know what she was talking about. But maybe that's just me.
So I get to the B&B, check in, chill out for a little while, then decide to go for a walk to get my bearings in this strange new town. When I get downstairs, there's two girls in the communal living room, who both end up being exchange students as well: Fiona (from Sydney) and Stephi (pronounced Shtephi) from Austria. It turns out that Fiona and I are going to be living in the same flat when we eventually get to our accommodation. So we arrange to have dinner together. I go for a walk for about two hours, during which time I catch a look at Lawrencefield, which is where I'll be living, wander through a bunch of buildings and eventually come out on a main road that went past the Uni. I then hiked back up another big road and ended up back near where I was staying. I was pretty impressed that I didn't get lost, but it didn't take me long to realise that there are a lot of hills in Sheffield, and I was staying up the top. I think I'll be very fit by the end of the semester!
We (being me, Fiona, Stephi and two American guys, Joey and Patrick) went for dinner just at a pub down the road, where we all played the 'get to know you' game. It was actually really fun - especially hearing Patrick's thoughts on English Breakfasts - and we all headed back after a couple of pints so that we could get enough sleep before starting Orientation the next day. Orientation ended up being pretty boring... we went on a tour of the campus, then stopped and had lunch in a cafe called Interval, and then had more talks about safety, how to manage being an international student, who to go to if you have problems talk. That night, the five of us went to dinner at the Uni, along with two Germans that Stephi had met (Steffi and Karsten), a girl from Patrick and Joey's school called Elizabeth, and another Australian girl called Amanda. After that, apparently a lot of people were going out, but we somehow managed to lose them, so went back to Interval for a few drinks. It was here that we learned that apparently, only Australia, the US and the UK put marshmallows in our hot chocolates... Stephi, Steffi and Karsten thought this was the weirdest thing they'd ever seen.
What I really like about here is that if you ask for a mixed drink, they always offer you a double... and it's really not that much more expensive. It's amazing! But they do charge you for cordial, which I learned after getting a (double) gin, lemon & lime. After slamming a couple back, we went back to the B&B so that we would be good to get to the orientation early on Friday for registration. We ended up getting there fine, and were all in the first group to go in. Registration was really boring, and we had lots of time to kill afterwards, which we spent in the bar having lunch. Oh, I completely forgot. You know how at ANU and UC and most Unis in Australia, there's like one bar? Yeah, here, there's many. I've been to Interval, Fusion, the Octagon and Bar One, and there's still a bunch that I've heard of, but have never been to. It's insane. The afternoon was spent going over a bunch of stereotypes about the English, what we expected, and speed chatting, where I met Joanna from Finland and Anna from Sweden. And that was it for Friday! As we were walking out to go home, we met another girl, Tina, from Greece. And that's how we make friends.
That night, we'd all bought tickets for a Uni event called the Big Night Out, which celebrated the end of their exams. We were all really tired (especially Joey, who was still very jetlagged) so we all went back to the B&B and had a nap before getting ready to meet people at Bar One at 9.30. We eventually made it there, and had a few drinks. I found where we needed to trade our tickets for Big Night In accidentally when I was looking for the bathroom, which was fun. We had a look around, then went to the Octagon for one part of it, and it was empty, so we had a few more drinks before moving on. As a side note, did you know that in the USA, they do tequila slammers with lime instead of lemon? I'm intrigued, and want to try this. Anyway, we ended up dancing to Katy Perry and the censored version of CeeLo Green, then saw "Fake That" live, and ended up dancing more to music from the 80s and 90s. The bar stopped serving at 3am, and we got home by maybe half past... only to have to be back up at 8am for breakfast.
We then went to Meadowhall, which I am pretty sure is the biggest shopping centre I've ever been in - which we have to reach by tram - and then heading back to grab our bags (in the rain) and get our keys to our new flat. Now, taxis in England can usually fit five people with room to spare in the back. We ordered a couple of taxis, thinking that's what they'd be, and we ended up with two normal sized cars. Definitely not big enough to take six people (we were taking Karsten with us too), about fifteen bags and a guitar. One of the taxis ended up coming back to us twice as our stuff was getting progressively more soaked; at least he was nice. We eventually got there, grabbed our keys, and worked our way up to our building, where we found that our flat was on the top floor (no lift). It took us about three trips to get all our stuff upstairs, where we found that our rooms are actually much bigger than I'd thought, and I have an ensuite! So I guess this is what it feels like to be a 'real' Uni student who lives on campus! ... I'm probably way more excited by this than I should be.
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