Saturday Night

Spending Saturday night watching tele and reading through the Guardian. I can’t say enough about this newspaper. If you get a chance, I think Borders has foreign newspapers, so have a peek. Not sure about Barnes & Noble. They tend to sell out pretty fast at the local shop, so last Saturday I didn’t get one as I didn’t get out early enough. Been looking forward to it all week, and I never read the paper at home.

Going to a nearby mall called the White Rose Center tomorrow with Steve & Paula. Indoor malls are not very common here, so it’s a bit of a treat. As a refresher, Steve is a born & bred Yorkshire man and Paula is from Michigan. They met on-line, were married and she moved here about 6 years ago, they live about 10 minutes away from me and also, were the ones who picked me up from the airport in Manchester when I got here. Great people and have been very helpful in getting me settled, etc. They’re in their 50’s and according to Paula, the only thing keeping them from making a final decision on whether to retire here or in the States is health care. It’s completely free here—the only issue is wait listing for some procedures. On the other hand, with each of them having some health issues, they might not be able to get any health care beyond Medicare in the States without huge cost involved, most likely, so she said unless things change in the States (wishful thinking), they might just be staying put.

Went into the city center today to go to uni and get some homework done, get on-line etc. I think I got out just in time, as it was about 5pm and people were just starting to arrive for dinner and nights out. Leeds gets incredibly packed on Saturday nights as people come in from nearby towns for all the restaurants and pubs. I’d rather be going in the other direction myself. Fingers crossed, I’ll have a few days and weekends out with my classmates soon. We’re talking about going to York Wednesday and Newcastle on a weekend in November. I’m really keen to see where Sting is from;)