"I haven't played hearts with real people in a long time." - me

So two full days at York have come and gone - two long but very good days.

Yesterday morning we (by we I mean myself, all the other people on the program with me, and one other American girl - the same cast as the trip to the pub on the first night) took an adventure to the local huge shopping market. It was originally going to be an adventure to the York city centre, but we got distracted by the city walls and our need for food and other supplies.
It transpires that to get to the supermarket / the city we walked down a road which leads to one of the old city gates. Upon discovering this we promptly got up on the back of the city wall - where defenders would have stood. This was led by myself and our one guy, Tom. We tend to lead most of the walks / excursions / anything, because we both have long legs and walk very fast, AND we spend more time looking at maps, and get more enjoyment out of the activity, than the rest of the group.
On the city walls we walked north, all feeling rather enchanted, I think - the walls are partially restored at that point, and so look quite nice, and they lead between fairly suburban apartments (inside) and a large ring-road with shops on it (outside). The walls ended at a small tower and what used to be an "impenetrable swamp" to quote the information sign, and what should be right across the road but the store we had been intending to visit later that morning? At this point it started to rain, so the trip to York turned into the trip to the walls and Morrison's.

After a lunch of goat cheese on toast I went out to explore campus with Tom. We eventually discovered that our campus features a place called Heslington Hall, which is a smallish, possibly Tudor-era stately home with a walled garden, a garden of huge topiaries, and a fountain. I was absolutely thrilled by this, for several reasons. Firstly, the rest of the campus is modern and not remarkably attractive - it was built largely in the 1960s and 1970s - so it is nice to have something so picturesque. Secondly, I adore stately homes (aka manor homes, palaces, etc.) and their gardens, and it's wonderful to have something I like so much and that I associate so much with Britain at easy access.
I think that our campus might be built on the old estate. The hall is across the road from Heslington village (with the parish church on the other corner), and our campus has a pretty lake and is surrounded by fields, so it's likely built on top of the lands of the estate, which was in turn associated with the village.

I took a great many pictures.

Last night a number of us ate in the dining hall at our college (York is on a college system - the one we eight are living in is one of many on campus). I had a rather mediocre red curry which did not taste like curry, but at least had semi-decent vegetables in it. It was also Anna's birthday (she is one of the group, and was my roommate at orientation in London), so we went out and ended up at our college pub, talking and laughing and having a good old time. Then I came back and took a shower - and promptly fell asleep on my bed, not even under all the blankets, with my hair still wrapped in a towel. When I woke back up an hour later I decided it was time to call it a night.

......

Today we spent most of the day in orientation, which was both helpful and... not at all. I'm not sure which, really. Then two fellow art history students in the group - which now basically encompasses my group from the study abroad program and two other American girls, one of whom lives next door to me - and I went to find the department, which was a rather complicated task that involved a lot of wandering and asking several people. I've got my course stuff straightened out - or, rather, they do - they're quite on top of things. The department is huge compared to the one back at Wesleyan, which has only about 15 majors. I didn't count, but York's program has many more students, some of whom are double majors (aka, they are following a double course, while I am following a single course). Of course, York also has 10,000 or so more students than Wesleyan.

Tonight I had a "jacket potato" (baked potato) with baked beans in it for dinner at the college dining hall. Not especially nutritious, but it tasted strangely good, and it was filling, unlike many of the meals I've had here. I need to start cooking for myself. After dinner a few of us - including a Dutch chemistry dissertation student I met at orientation today - played card games in the college common room, where we froze - the windows were open, as they tend to be in my kitchen (they tell us to open them so smoke alarms won't go off). It sleeted while we were playing - there's a layer of very wet ice-and-rain on the ground now. So it's been quite cold, obviously - and windy. And rainy. But also sometimes gorgeously sunny. The weather is as variable as they always say it is.

I'll end this post here, and follow up later with photos from the campus excursion Tom and I took yesterday.