19 February 2016: In the past week I have fallen in love with a beautiful park, visited a new city, utilized some highly beneficial learning facilities, attended multiple enjoyable lab practicals, explored Bradford even further, attended a live musical production, tried out even more new restaurants, become even closer with some wonderful people, and planned even more exciting trips for my near future.

Because of the way my schedule is set up here, I have quite a few free days a week, and I like to use those days to explore and experience something new that Bradford has to offer. When doing research on parks and museums in Bradford, I came across Lister Park and Cartwright Hall, and decided to check it out. Cartwright Hall is an art gallery situated in Lister Park, and along with its magnificent architecture, it displayed some great artwork. The park itself is probably my favorite place in Bradford that I have experienced so far. It has lots of trails for running or biking, a playground for the kids, a beautiful fountain, lovely sculptures, a waterfall and botanical garden, and plenty of grass for pets; but my favorite part was the giant pond filled with ducks and geese. I was fortunate enough to find a nice day to take a stroll through the park and around the pond, and it was an absolutely breathtaking experience. I hope to go back there sometime in the near future.

I also got the chance to take a day trip to the nearby city of Leeds with two of my friends, Ilona and Laura. This was a great day and I got to see so much! We visited places such as the Leeds park square, town hall, library, art gallery, civic hall, cathedral, city museum, city markets, Leeds minster, Trinity Leeds shopping centre, and even took a walk along the river as well. Leeds is a beautiful and bustling city with lots of magnificent architecture. Overall, it was a very enjoyable trip, and it is quite nice that Leeds is located in such a close proximity to Bradford.

Also this week, I was given the opportunity to use the simulation suite again for my Principles of Drug Action module, and this allowed me some personal time with the Anatomage table to review topics such as the basic anatomy and physiology of the human body. I have been really enjoying this course so far; we also had a very engaging lab for this class this week on agonists and antagonists in the body. I also had practicals for both my Sociology and my Forensic classes as well this week, so I had a very busy but exciting schedule for the week. I am so very thankful that I have been given the opportunity to study at a university such as Bradford that has so many wonderful resources and courses available to me.

Other memories from the past week include: walking around the Bradford City Park in the nice early morning sun, attending a live theatrical production of The Sound of Music at the Bradford Alhambra with my friend, Jonna, and enjoying even more wonderfully, tasty foods.

I have also been busy planning even more exciting plans and trips to new cities and countries. It is now officially in my plans to spend a weekend in Edinburgh, Scotland, in April which should be a lot of fun and I am super excited. Also, my tickets for the concert in Leeds in April arrived in the mail yesterday, and of course I absolutely cannot wait until that night! Tomorrow, I will be attending another university offered trip; we will be spending the day in Liverpool, and it is supposedly the best trip of the semester so I have high expectations! And I leave for Malta in a month from tomorrow; I cannot believe how quickly this semester seems to be moving and we are that close to spring break! It will always amaze me at how many opportunities there are to travel while in England; I am in such a privileged position this semester. And of course, I am still planning and finding time to visit even more cities and experience every little thing that the world has to offer for me.

-Grace