I left Suvarnabhumi airport at 8pm on March 15th, with my first transfer in Mumbai, India. I've never flown through India before, and it was a pain. They have to spray some weird disinfectant in the plane before we land, and I had to hold my hands over my eyes so my contacts wouldn't get infected with it. Then once in the airport you have to go through security (understandable), and the women have a separate line because we have to all be frisked behind a partition after the metal detector (whether it beeped or not), and that took forever. Otherwise, though, my flights were relatively uneventful. Everything left on time, all my layovers were long enough to get through the airport stress-free, and one flight even arrived at its destination early. From Mumbai I flew to Brussels, Belgium, where it was FREEZING, and we boarded a tiny little 20-row airplane for our 1 hour flight to Leeds, UK.
Arrived in Leeds, took bus 757 to the train station, got my ticket to York and hopped on the train for the 45 minute ride. Followed the directions I had to my couchsurfing host's house, and spent the afternoon getting to know him(Alex) and his roommate, Ben. Met up with Zachary for dinner at the college, met some of his friends, and then we took a walk through the city and along the river.
Returned home to Alex and Ben's for a late evening of cocktails and Scrabble shenanigans, lol.
Saturday was St. Patrick's Day, and after a late breakfast Ben and Alex took me on a walking tour of York. We stopped in town for a milkshake(well, I had a milkshake, they had beer and water) while it rained for a bit, and stopped at a small shop to buy some delicious cheeses for later. Mmmm.
Ben wanted to watch rugby, but I wanted to walk the wall, so Ben went home while Alex and I spent a couple hours walking the wall the surrounds the old city centre(he thought it would be funny to try to push me off at one point), then went on the "Wheel of York" - a big ferris wheel of sorts that tells about the history of York.
Came back home and watched the rest of the England/Ireland Rugby match(which was quite entertaining since Alex is English and Ben is Irish), and if you happened to catch the game yourself, you know that England won.
When Ben had finished sulking, he and Alex cooked a delicious dinner of chicken, pasta and peppers for us, and although I wanted to help, all I was allowed to do was grate the cheese...and then they kicked me out of the kitchen when I was eating the cheese I had grated, lol.
We went out for drinks after dinner for St Patty's Day, and I got to meet their adorable friend Ronan and his awesome leather jacket, haha. Unfortunately, I forgot to take any pictures that night :(. We devoured our cheese from that afternoon when we got home, and it was delicious!
Sunday was Mother's Day in England, so Alex had to leave in the morning to catch a train to Manchester to visit his mother, so Ronan walked me to church to meet up with Zach for Sunday service. We walked through the Minster Gardens, past the Minster itself(which is like the Notre Dame Cathedral, only not), and then we parted ways.
After church Zach walked me back to Alex's to get my things and head to the train station. Zach and Ben, who was up by then, walked with me to the train station and made sure I caught my train on time. I bid them both farewell, and urged Ben to bring Alex and Ronan to all visit me in Thailand sometime.
*Stay tuned to hear about my time in France with Flo.
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