Greetings from Manchester (part 1)

Hello my fellow bloggers. Hope everyone is feeling ok and life is good. Excellent.

I am sat here in this computer cluster on a Saturday night when I really should be going out but having been out for the past 7 nights in a row, my body is starting to complain and I have a really stinking cold to boot. So I have decided to give the freshers ball a miss. I know I know that probably is a stupid thing to do but I feel lousy and going out is the last thing I want to do tonight. So enough with putting off the update, here goes...

My week leading up to leaving for Manchester seems a bit of a blur to me now. There was the final shift at Sainsbury's which sucked because they don't let you on checkouts in case you start stealing, but was made better by the nice pressies everyone gave me (aww). Then It was straight off to Darren's bash, which turned out to be virtually impossible to locate and put me in a foul mood. Plenty of saying goodbyes and a little bit of dancing. Afterwards a few of us went into Cramlington clubs for some late drinking, where I moved onto whiskeys. Big mistake. Woke up the next morning with the room spinning and was sick all day. Ugh. Mum and Dad seemed strangely pleased, although this changed somewhat when I manged to break the toilet seat by falling off it :O
Spent much of the next week shopping for stuff, beginning to pack, saying my goodbyes to my close friends. OWA popped round as did Chappaz and the whole went out on the sunday night to the pub, although funnily enough i did not feel like drinking (hmmm... ;) Had one final night out on the thur with Tomo, Darren, Natalie and Jen. We were going to go clubbing but this turned into seeing a movie with some rather unpleasant beasties in it. Lush. Most of Friday was spent panicking about getting ready and running round like a headless chicken.

And then the day to leave came. My nerves were frayed, I was shaking slightly as I said goodbye to my bros. The car was packed. I mean, how much shit does one person need? Quite a lot apparently. Broke the journey up with a trip down memory lane to Halifax, where my Grandparents used to live. It brings a lump to my throat now to think of the happy memories even though they were 10 years ago. Oh the good times. Seeing the hills and dreary weather still brings back a smile.
And then, on to Manchester. After a brief help with packing, Mum and Dad drove away. It felt very surreal to watch them leave. At that moment I had a flash of madness and thought about chasing after them, but of course didn't. And I haven't looked back.
Started meeting so many new people it was impossible to remember even half of their names. First guys I bumped into were John and James, nice chaps. From then on I have met some interesting characters including Jack, an extremely cocky drama student, Nikki who is fond of drunken Boggle (I joined in one match and was beaten by a french exchange student, oh the humliation!) Rhys the nutter from Cardiff, Martin who gets stoned and eats golden graham cereal bars, Sean the canny mackem (who ever thought there could be such a thing?) and Jonothan the Uruguayan ladies man. Rather a diverse crowd in other words. They are now the bunch that tend to go out together. Have met loads more from outside my corridor but can't be bothered to name them and/or can't remember their names. In amongst all this, bumped into Michael Maxwell, who I didn't even know was going to Manchester. We used to be best friends at first school but didn't really talk at all last year, but still a very pleasant surprise to see him.

The area we live in is called Fallowfield, which could be described as a student ghetto, as there hardly seems to be anyone else living here. The upside of this is there are no chavs. Yay! The place is about two miles from the uni and about three from the city centre. There are buses something like every minute, but to be honest it is quite easy to walk. And you get to walk through the 'curry mile' where a lot of Asians live and have set up shops. Ever heard of a guava? Me neither till I set foot in one of their markets. Fallowfield itself has loads of takeaways and kebab shops, which have already come in useful :D Also tonnes of clubs.

The building I am staying in is called Little Court. Not the most modern of places, feels very 60's in style but I'm not complaining. My room is cosy enough and has an ensuite which saves a lot of trouble in the mornings. one problem is the fire alarm which constantly gets set off in the middle of the night by practical jokers. This is not funny after a late night out you bastards! It could be worse, we could be stuck in the high rise tower like Michael. Every time their bell is triggered they have about 18 flights of stairs to walk down (not allowed to use lifts in an emergency silly!) and then a rush for the lifts when the alarm stops. Poor souls.

Oh shite, I forgot that this palce shuts at 10pm on a saturday. I have to curtail this post, so I'll put the rest up tomrrow. Might be feeling better by then, its amazing what a good night's sleep and a lemsip will do. Until tomorrow... goodnight!