[one more step...]

So, I'm back from a fun-filled couple of weekends looking round universities. Oh, and what fun it has been!
Not.
Last Friday was ok. I got the train from Maidenhead to Reading and then proceeded to wait for an hour for the train. When I got on, we were told that the reservations system was down, which meant that I had to stand. Got off at Birmingham, and changed trains to get on the one that would take me up to Lancaster. That was ok - got a seat. The upshot of the journey was that I managed to learn how to knit standing up... obviously a great life skill!
When I got to Lancaster, met Rach and Stacie and then went to the shop to get some bread and butter for tea. It was yummy :)
I forget what we did then... oops. Well, the next morning I got up at 6:15 (or 6:30...), sorted myself out and was down at the station for 7:32. Well, that's what it says on the ticket.
As the my train was at 8, this meant that I was in for a rather boring half hour, that wasn't relived at all.
On the train, I sat at a table and was joined by three other people going to Manchester at Preston.
Got off at Manchester Picadilly. This was where my mistakes began. I should have got off at Oxford Road, as then it was a simple walk down the road to the University. However, as I was feeling lazy, I thought that I'd get the free shuttle bus from Picadilly. Hmm. Now I know why laziness is bad...

I must have gone out the wrong side of Picadilly, as I could not see a shuttle bus at all. Well, I thought, I'll ask the bus driver on this free bus. He said to get on his (free) bus for two stops, then get on a different (need money for) bus. All right, I thought, let's do that. It'll only be 50p.
Got off where he told me to get off, and was followed off the bus by another girl (whose name I have forgotten...) and we decided to try to find the Universtiy together.
This proved to be a lot harder than either of us first imagined. We went to the bus stop, but had just missed the bus. Fair enough, we thought, we'll walk. Ask the two people waiting for a bus: "Do you know where the University of Manchester is, please?" - an easy question, I hear you think. No. It wasn't. Neither of them knew where it was. OK, we thought, we'll cross the road and ask the guy in his shop. No, he didn't know where it was either. Right.
Oh, look. A massive road sign with "University of Manchester" written on it! Let's follow that. Well, we obviously can't read road signs very well. We went down the road directly behind the sign, which, with hindsight, was obviously the wrong one, as if you were in a car, you wouldn't have have time to turn. Still, down this road we found a man who did know where the uni was!
About time. If only a quarter of the people in Manchester know where the Uni is...
Anyway. His directions (I remember because I do) were: "You see this road? Right, follow it to the end, turn right, go right to the end, turn left, carry on to the traffic lights, turn right, then walk straight down that road." Which, now, doesn't sound that complicated, right?
However, when he told us, it was like... right...left...right...left... right...right...right - no, left - ...
I'm sure you get the idea.
We started off on the way he'd said, and after a while, we found a map. Yes, a map. Just there, in the middle of the street, which was quite random but very helpful.
This map FINALLY got us back onto Oxford Road, which we walked straight down. Thank goodness for that!
Went into the thingy to register and all that jazz, then went up to the fair-type thing. Didn't really get what that was all about, but anyway...
Went back downstairs for a tour. I have no idea why. It didn't really tell me anything...
erm... think I did some other stuff... don't really remember!! Oh yes, I went to a welcome talk. Then went to have lunch at the University Place, then went off to the Engineering/General Good Stuff area thing and had a look at maths... but gave up very quickly and moved swiftly onto Chemistry. The lecturer person here was lovely. She told me about Chem and listened to what I had to say about ChemEng, then nicely pointed it out to me. So I went over there. That was good...
Then wandered over to the Physics place and was talking about that with them, then was told that there was a Physics talk going on, so went into that til 2, then went into the ChemEng one, which was interesting. Very interesting.
Then I went on a City tour thing, which went round some of the accomodation. That was ok. By this time it was about half three ish, so I went back to the station and went back to Lancaster. Rach and Stacie picked me up again (Rach had red hair!) and we got fish and chips, which was yummy, then went to Nicki's (right spelling?) and watched Music and Lyrics, which was good.
Went to sleep at some point, then woke up to go to Church. Good thing was did as well, cos the Fire Alarm went off at 10! This was followed by us standing outside, and then the firemen came. But they were all old so that was no fun :P
We walked down to Church, listened to the service (they had some god songs, but the last one was to the wrong tune) and hung around for a bit afterwards. I met Hannah and Mr. Steve, as well as Alison. And I bought some chocolate spread, which was nice. We went back up to uni (although we could only cross the road outside Church when Rach said a prayer) and then went to Spoons for lunch. That was really nice (but then, triple layer chocolate fudge cake generally is...) and then we went and found a spoon from Wilkos (it was 29p).
Then I got on the train to go back home at about 15:05... cos it was the delayed 14:09. Good job I did, too (after some persuading by Rach) as otherwise I would have had to wait for aaaages at Brum. Still, got home at about half seven ish, which was good.

Last weekend, I was in for a treat as I got to get up at 6:30 again to be out of the door for 7:30 so that we could be at Nottingham for 10. This was a very productive day, as after being there for about ten minutes I decided that I didn't like it. This simply meant that we were at my grandma's in time for lunch :) That was good, as I was getting rather hungry...

Tomorrow I'm off to be scared to death by Cambridge entrance requirements, but hopefully they'll tell me how to write a personal statement. That also means leaving home at half seven, so another 6:30 start...
Off to Brum on 9th July for Physics, but will hopefully be able to see some other stuff too, then off to Sheffield on 15th July. Getting a lift then, but still means we have to be gone early...
Leeds is going to wait til 11th September. Inclusion of Newcastle will rest on how much I like the others...

Then that's it :)