Devonshire Hall

I was planning on using blogging as a form of procrastination from writing cover letters, but I’ve actually written more than todays self-inflicted required allotment, so no procrastination here 🙂 (although I am delaying dinner by writing this…not in the mood to move).

I still haven’t explored Devonshire, or “Dev”, as everyone seems to call it, that much since my last post. I have still, however, discovered quite a bit. I was walking down one of the hallways and ran into one of the cleaning ladies. I had been wondering what to do with garbage once I had a bag to get rid of (our rooms aren’t cleaned, we have to do that ourselves). She told me that it went in the kitchen, which I had no idea existed. She was surprised that no one had showed me around when I arrived. Same here. So she told me where the Old Hall kitchen was and how I could get rid of my garbage (and recycling; Leeds is very big on being green). She asked if there was a form that I filled out upon arriving reviewing the assistance I received; she said I should say it was ‘poor’. I would have to agree. Unfortunately, no such form exists.

I also discovered the location of the laundry machines, which in a few days will be vital information. They’re on property at Dev, but there isn’t a direct route to them, so you have to walk around from the front to almost the back of the building.

Tomorrow is Burns night (don’t ask me to describe that to you – all I know is it involves haggis), so Dev is having a formal dinner night. Everybody gets dressed up and is given robes to wear and everyone eats at the same time. Unfortunately, I missed the sign up and apparently it sells out really quickly anyways. I still get dinner, but I have to go get it ahead of time and eat it in my room (or I suppose in the new-found kitchen). Hopefully I’ll be able to go to the next formal night.

Now that I think about it, most of these discoveries could have been common knowledge if the Dev receptionist could actually do her job properly and effectively, instead of saying the laundry is ‘just through the gate and down the stairs’. I should say that there are many gateways in the courtyard of Dev and the stairs she was referencing are not actually visible from said gateway.

Luckily, the other people in Old Hall are very nice and more than willing to show me the things I’ve asked about. One of them even walked into town with me this morning and showed me the different grocery stores. She neglected to take into account that today is Sunday and most stores don’t open until 11am. So we wandered around the city center a bit and told me about other stores. We also stopped by the Town Hall and the Art Gallery. I had been looking forward to going to the Art Gallery, but found out that it will be closed for all of 2016 due to ‘essential repairs on the roof’. That’s what you get for using old buildings.

Leeds Town Hall

One of my most recent discoveries is that there are roosters visible from my bedroom window. Not wild roosters; they’re in a pen behind a building that I’m fairly certain is a part of Dev. So if I didn’t have a reason to explore before, now I do. I’ll get back to you about that once I have more details (about both the roosters and more of Dev).

Tomorrow is my first class, a whooping one full hour. Wish me luck!

(the cover photo is of the Town Hall front doors, not Devonshire Hall, as the title placement might lead you to believe)