Planning ahead gets you…nowhere.  Getting on the plane with only what doesn't exceed the weight limit...  If this sounds familiar, then you're most likely an international student.  That's how I made it to York.  I completed my UCAS almost at random since I didn't really know any of the hearsay about Universities, studied my butt off to pass my International Baccalaureate (IBO) exams, prayed for a few weeks, and then booked the cheapest plane ticket as soon I was confirmed a place for Electronics at the University of York.  That was the easy part.  Now all I had to do was find my way from Manchester Airport to Halifax College. 

The Internet was my only source of information, and from that I did not even know where to begin.  If you don't know what train system exists, how do you search for a train schedule or route?  If you don't know how big York is, how do you judge the distance from the station to your college from that one little (extremely simplified) map offered on the University homepage?  The problem is, that if you're like me, no matter what they lay down in front of you, even if it's the holy grail of directions, you won't know how to get somewhere without placing landmarks like, 'turn left at the building with the broken window.'  And obscure system to some, but everything I need to get to where I'm going.  And so, I kissed my mother goodbye, made her believe I knew what I was doing, twiddled my thumbs at my 3 hour stop-over in Amsterdam, and then ended in Manchester, with the only thought in my mind being, 'I know there's supposed to be a train station somewhere around here.'

For those of you wondering, I did find the train station in the airport, and I did take the right train to York.  But at 9:00 am, after traveling all night from Greece to Amsterdam to the UK, everything seems a little hazy at first.  Even with the ticket in hand you question yourself.  You are even perplexed by the two concrete platforms, and how they will manage to fit six trains arriving at the same time.  And to top it all off, you are tired and hungry, and you ask yourself, 'How is it so f'cking cold in just the beginning of October' (I was coming straight from warm, sunny Greece).  In this state of self-mutiny I realized my train arrived, and what the dude in the hat and uniform was saying in the thick, incomprehensible Yorkshire accent was that the doors were closing, and I had to either get on or off, but apparently not sit with one foot in and one out the door, as I was doing with out noticing.  I stepped on, sat as close to my bags as possible, as they were the only things I was familiar with, and hoped that I would not need to dip into the 'emergency' monopoly-looking British money in my pocket I had exchanged before I left home.  From the looks of the people drinking beer at 10:00 am on a Sunday morning, I was afraid someone would dip into my monopoly money before me.  I was as alert as a deer on the first day of hunting season. 

Every stop could have potentially been York, since I didn't understand the announcements in the same incomprehensible dialect, and didn't know what the station looked like.  After two hours of stress, I finally got off at York station, made my way through the underground maze of elevators and stairs to get on the side with the taxis and mumbled words that must have sounded like University of York and Halifax College, because the driver got me there.  After all that improvisation in three different countries in one night, paying someone to drive me seemed like the best money I've ever spent.