A Day in... Leeds

Day 1

One thing you get used to as an au pair in England, especially with kids that go to a private school, is that they have a lot of school breaks. Since the kids have two to three weeks of holiday again, two friends and I decided to go on a little trip around the North of England. Well, they pretty much planned it and I was too chicken to admit I had the week off, too, until almost a month later. Ups...

Anyway, the first stop on our tour was Leeds. The bus trip was almost 4,5h long that I spent reading Game of Thrones, maybe one day I'll even finish it. Once we arrived we still had a few hours until the check-in which we spent sitting in a park eating lunch. The weather was nice for a change and we knew it wouldn't last for long - another thing you learn quickly here. When we gathered our luggage to find our hostel we didn't know we were on our way to hell.

The place we were supposed to stay at is called Russell Scott Backpackers, is outside the city centre and privately owned. We joked around that the picture on the internet looks like a small, old lady will open the door and fuss around. Instead we had to call the reception to even get into the building in the first place. While waiting there we also figured out that I booked the next bus at the wrong time which means I had to cancel and rebook. The woman that came to open the door for us let me use her PC and then we were off on our way our rooms.
We lived in another building down the street. Not only were we not able to lok the front door or the door to the first room we were let into but the whole place was dirty and unsave - the fire alarms were not activated, anybody could have walked into the house and our room, the floor was loose in some places and the whole thing smelled like nobody opened the windows in ten years.
We were brought to a new room which had a double bed on the first floor. My room didn't have a key, so I decided to go into a 4-bed room were another girl was in apparently. We wanted to meet up with an ex-au pair so we left our things behind and left.

Since we still had an hour we went into the Leeds City Museum at the Millenium Square which has a nice exhibition about the LGBT+ community and past in the city as well as a short overview of the history. When we meet our friend in front of the building we decided to get a drink since the three of us really needed it at this point. SHe showed us a little pub in a side street with cheap drink and nice looking locals and we catched up on how we were and what we did. After that we went to another bar that was more 'public' and then went for a burger at Five Guys. It's weird to see how laid back the city is after living in the rather hectic London and looking after kids most of the time. All of us were exhausted and it was obvious we just wanted to sleep, so we said goodbye and left rather quickly.

However, going back to our hostel wasn't exactly relaxing. A guy that lived in our house as well was turning weirder and made us more uncomfortable with every minute we talked to him to the point were I actually took a knife with me upstairs cause I wasn't sure he wouldn't be dangerous - he made enough jokes about it anyway.
Needless to say I didn't get a good night's sleep.

Day 2

After an aweful night and a unsatisfying breakfast my friends and I packed our bags and left for the reception to give back the key.... and complain about the state of the building. We had to wait a few minutes for the owner to come to the house, but once she did and we told her evrything that was wrong, including the meeting with the gay and how unsafe we felt, we managed to get a refund. In better spirits, we took our luggage into the city only to find out we had to carry them with us because the lockers were way too expensive.

We spent most of the day strolling through shops (where I actually found two jackets I could use for my Harley Quinn cosplay for comic con next month - yeah!), avery cool modern shopping centre and getting something to eat. We walked through the Corn Exchange and Kirkgate Market but we weren't able to find something we all wanted.

In the end we went to a place called "Belgrave Music Hall & Canteen" that was recommanded to us by our friend and where they sell cheap but amazing pizza (first two pieces half-price!) and that had a hipster vibe going on. Apparently they do music and movie events, too, you should really check it out! I think I could spent our there.

Anyway, the only museum we were really interested in was across the river so we headed that way. The Royal Armouries Museum is big and more interesting than you would think when you hear the name. They even had lockers were we could leave our bags for a little while. We came just in time

for a little tour by a guy in costume who explained different weapons and how they were used at the time. Great thing, the only problem is that is closes at 5pm already. Later we went straight to the coach station to wait for our bus to Manchester without having to carry all of our bags around again. It hurts your back after a while.

All in all, the hostel and the bus dilemma put a strain on the whole Leeds-experience, but thanks to our friend Megan (it was nice seeming you again!) it wasn' totally aweful. I think the laid-back mentality and the little bars and secrets in every corner actually put it pretty high on my list of 'possible semester abroad places'. If you are more of a tide-up person you won't find it very endearing, but for me it sends a don't-give-a-fuck vibe that's very appealing when you are used to stress about everything.