Hey Guys, It has been a while….

But today, Im going to be sharing with you guys about the time I finally got a weekend free and travelled all the way up North England…

So last weekend, after my final submission for this semester on the Tuesday, my body, mind and soul was on holiday mood and that means… more red cups from Starbucks, the replaying of Christmas and chill Spotify playlists and the urge to travel and just go on a holiday ! So I planned a short mid-week to weekend getaway to Leeds and Newcastle to visit some friends that I had up North!

So I had already booked my tickets on (http://www.nationalexpress.com/coach) way in advance and it cost me about £40 both ways by a 6 hour coach which didn’t seem too bad to me! Seeing that in my family, we were getting so used to travelling from Geneva to Paris which was an equally long car ride, so I was not complaining at all.

Here’s how my journey was planned out when I left on Wednesday morning….

5:30 am- Wake Up in Uni

6:40am – Get on the bus from Uni to the Guildford Train Station

7:15am – Train from Guildford to London Waterloo

8:00 am – Arrive in London Waterloo

8:15 – Underground to London Victoria

9:00 am – Coach departs from London Victoria towards NEWCASTLE.

4:00 pm – Arrived in Newcastle….

Does that sound pretty crazy to you ? hahah I actually love the thrill of travelling like this, kinda like when I decided to embark on a one day trip to Paris and back ! (which I blogged about as well, if you’re interested to read more about that!)

The coach was not as crowded, seeing that it was so early in the morning and I had the whole two seats to myself, which made the journey really comfortable … plus, the view wasn’t bad on the way as well which made it go by so much faster!

When I arrived in Newcastle, the first thing that hit me wasn’t excitement but the COLD COLD wind. It was FREEZING and it’s so crazy how big a difference a few degrees can make! It was so much bigger than Guildford, they had their own Metro system, double decker buses like the ones in London and so many people bustling and hustling their way through… yup, that was definitely like London.

My friend in Leeds, Bailey actually travelled up to meet me in Newcastle because she had never been here before and she wanted to take this as an opportunity to sight-see as well as meet me here, before we both travelled back to Leeds together.Leeds had such a huge mall, similar to the Friary but so much bigger and had way more stores than the Friary does… which I think is a good thing that we don’t have it here ? hahaha but the one thing I really wish Guildford would follow from Newcastle was how much later the stores close! We had dinner and could still walk around after because they were open till 8pm !

It was so nice to meet up with Bailey and we caught up on everything and each other’s lives because the last time we met was at our University of Surrey before she decided to move after her first year as she found something that was more suited to gear her towards her career path… and I am so happy for her.

That night, We got on a train to Leeds which was a 1 hour ish train ride… THIS train ticket, I would recommend buying way in advance, like we did, if you ever was in Newcastle and planned to go to Leeds from here! We paid £8 for our ticket back to Leeds but if we had not, the ticket at that time was priced at £85. YA… Planning never fails you….

 

Leeds is such a nice university as well, it was actually one of my initial choices when I was applying via UCAS before I decided that Surrey was really the only one for me. hahaha (they did not pay me to say this,  I promise hahaha)

It was a big town, similarly to Newcastle, I got to go to two of her classes with her and experience being a Leeds Uni Student haha… I did not miss going to classes though seeing I went on this getaway to leave coursework and studies behind for a bit!

Here’s a vlog that I made from my trip if you wanna see more about how it went down!

 

But after visiting Newcastle and Leeds, I really started to miss Guildford and how everything was of close proximity and how I did not need to get on a metro to get to Tescos for example cause I could easily walk there in Guildford. So in a way, this trip made me more thankful for being at the University of Surrey and for Guildford being the small town that it is, that still allows me to live everyday fine and happy hahaha plus, it was Thanksgiving this week as well !

Anyways, thanks for reading! Hope you guys are doing well !

Love, Eggy x