Wednesday 27th August

Dear Leeds,

I’m in Shanghai already but there is one last thing left to do.

Per tradition and much belated, my Leeds/UK Top 11 in no particular order:

1. My uni, my programme, my classmates and my teachers, the best ever!
2. Leeds!
3. Seeing the Light Princess at the National Theatre in London with Yvonne and Joe
4. Road trip to Whitby with Yvonne and her friend
5. Every minute spent with the amazing, the fantastic, the incomparable Grayson Geeks!
6. Edinburgh with Eva and Yvonne
7. Food in the UK! Special mention to COSMO and Yorkshire Puddings
8. Singing with the LUUMS choir and singing with CHANT at the Rugby League Worldcup
9. Travelling with my parents in England
10. Seeing Bo Burnham live in Manchester
11. Visiting Harewood House with Jenny and Yvonne

Dear Leeds,

If I had time to miss you right now, I would. And I surely will in the fairly near future. But for now, thank you for quite possibly the best year of my life so far!

This is probably my last post on here. If you want to follow my adventures in China for the next year, head over to annamariainchina@blogspot.com. There is nothing on there right now, but there will be soon.

To finish, here are some pictures of our holiday in England:

art work for the 100th anniversary of WWI

boat with cool graffiti on the Thames

the M&M shop hehe

Lake Windermere

Leeds City Market

the library in Charsworth House

I guess this is goodbye for now. I'll be back!

Lots of love,

Anna-Maria

Tuesday 29th July

Hey Leeds!

You've been holding out on me! Why didn't you tell me that paradise was only 25 minutes by bus from your city centre? Prepare yourself for a lot of pictures:

Harewood House in glorious sunshine

the bedroom for royal guests

such pretty ceilings!

hand-painted "Chinese" wallpaper

more pretty ceilings...

they're just getting better and better

and better...

this is turning into ceiling spam...

from the back

the Terrace where Princess Mary did her promenading

flamingos in the Bird Garden!

no palace garden is complete without a lake

at the Himalayan Garden

prettiest garden I have ever seen

Wow. Harewood House.
How unfair is it that I discovered this gem when I'm about to leave. But I had the best day!

Lots of love,
Anna-Maria

Friday 18th July

Dear Leeds,

I'm a bit late showing you these pictures. "Le Tour" brought a lot of people to you to watch the Tour de France take off. A lot of people.

 Parade thingy with lots of British and French advertisement before the start.

 Is that the Leeds and the Yorkshire flag? I think so.

 The cyclists were too fast for my camera.

 Leeds all in Tour yellow.

The countdown clock at Trinity Centre.

Not even two weeks left now :(

Love,

Anna-Maria

Saturday 12th July

Dear Leeds,

What a beautiful day!  Kirkstall Festival was so much fun.

There were really at lot of people.

 Bengali dancing.

 And English dancing :D (Morris Dance)

The happy monks of Kirkstall Abbey.

A very cheery Big Band type band.

Shaved ice, yummmm.

Today was a perfect summer day. Let's do this again some time.

Love,

Anna-Maria

Saturday 28th June

Dear Leeds,

Can you blame me for fleeing to the south from your clouds, rain and freezing cold temperatures?
London and Brighton are pretty as always. This phone takes funny shaped pictures...

 

Apparently floating people are all the rage around Covent Garden and Leicester Square now.

 Look at my awesome Korean food: bulgogi and patbingsu for dessert.

Bye London.

 Hello Brighton.

Right click -> show picture for full sized pictures.

 Shopping in the North Laine, yay!

Cool graffiti stuffs.

 

Aaaand Brasil goes through to the quarter finals. Good for them :D

Bye for now.

Love,

Anna-Maria

Friday 20th June

Dear Leeds,

Lots to catch up on since my last post.

 

Last time singing at a rugby game, nice weather in Bradford.

 Food festival in Leeds!

 Lots of delicious street food.

I had some Sudanese food. Very similar to the Caribbean food in Costa Rica! So good.

And of course it's all about the football here in Leeds, too. We went to watch the England - Uruguay match last night. The best thing about it was clearly the German sausages they sold! I'm gonna go next Tuesday just to get another Bratwurst.

 

Here is a very short video from last night that just cracks me up so much :D

 

 (Costa Rica just beat Italy, so England is out...)

That's enough for now. Expect some pictures from London and Brighton next week, yay!

Love,

Anna-Maria

Saturday 7th June

Hey Leeds,

I don't even want to think about our time coming to an end but the preparations for China are taking up quite a lot of my time at the moment. I guess I should start a China blog soon...
But I'm not gone yet!
I've tried a lot of new things since coming here, big things and little things. A while ago I went to the Leeds Community Clothes Exchange to participate in my first ever clothes swap. Together with shopping at charity shops that was part of my sustainable living plan. That day we had the heaviest rain all year I think so walking around getting drenched trying to find the place wasn't fun but my mood got a lot better after I found four really nice pieces. Yay.
The light in the place wasn't great and I didn't want to draw too much attention with a flash, so the pictures were very blurry.

Remember the Rugby League Wold Cup last year? Singing with CHANT at the Leeds matches was also a new experience which I really enjoyed. So when they asked us to sing again for the Tetley Challenge Cup (or something) I said yes of course. Here are some pics from last night's match.

These fans were pretty excited and loud. Their team is called Centurions so they're doing a Roman salute, I think, not the other one...

 There's some rugbying going on.

 In the break the little ones get to play. So cute.

That Yorkshire Tea kiosk thing sells tea at a sports event. Not beer, not coffee, just tea! And there was quite a queue. England, you are awesome.

And a sunny day ended with a lovely sunset.

Today we're back to grey skies and rain, boooh! We didn't mean it when we sang "sunshine, she's here, you can take a break" yesterday.

Talk soon.

Love,

Anna-Maria