10: Back in Leeds...

I’ve come back to Leeds to attend an Elbow concert and to see the city. Now I want a second driving badge for the Leeds City Centre. Even the locals think it’s nuts — a couple of years ago the City changed most of the downtown roads to one-way. It’s why my GPS couldn’t find a way to the hotel. I drove in a big circle taking small trips off the prescribed path to see if they helped. Finally, after 45 minutes of lightning fast traffic (and remember, I’m driving on the left and sitting on the right side of the car), the gods took pity on me and showed me the one and only, narrow hotel sign. I turned in underneath it and the little tunnel opened up into this beautiful courtyard with elegant facades. It HAD been invisible but I persevered. I had arrived and it was a vision.

I got the elephants unloaded and the USS Bonnie Lass parked on the third floor of the garage. Found a fabulous pizza place next door full of uni students who chatted with me and told me about the town. The brick-fired pizza was delicious, as were the two badly needed pints of cider. I had pizza to take back to the hotel, too. I have to say that eating well on any sort of schedule got really difficult after I left Liz’s beautiful home. It will go onto the list of "Things I Learned are Important” for my next long international trip.

The next day I returned USS Battleship Bonnie Lass to the car hire place, having my first and only experience with a petrol station. I will NEVER — I mean, NEVER — complain about gas prices at home again. It was 1.4 pounds (approximately $2 USD) per LITRE. There are 4.56 litres per UK gallon, making it about $9.12 per gallon, all the time, everywhere. I thanked Bonnie for her faithful service, found out my rental insurance covered most of the scratches and all of the blowout and towing, and was thrilled to be riding in a car again!

Soon I was out and about (it was Saturday) and the people watching rivaled London. There was a huge music festival on one end of the City Centre and people watching the Leeds United game in every pub. (I had been warned in advance not to identify myself as from the US during or after Leeds games — they brought several US players over for their team last year or the year before and they underperformed. It’s an opinion that the US players are the reason Leeds were relegated last year, and I didn’t want any of that.)

My Uber driver bringing me back from turning in the USS Bonnie Lass said in his thick Yorkshire accent, “Everthin’ in Leeds is either bein’ built oop or doog oop.” (Translation: “Built up or dug up”). It’s a changing place — fascinating — and I’d like to go back. It’s a mashup of class, culture, ethnicity, education, modern, and very old. Tuxedos and formals right alongside a level of dress that could only be prescribed as daringly skimpy. There were some of the most beautiful ethnically dressed African women and men with hair done as artwork, as well as odd bachelorette processions (so many that night) where all the women in the groups including brides and moms and grandmothers were wearing satin sashes and already staggeringly drunk at 5pm. Lots of uni students heading to clubs but also a lot of them heading to work. Young women (actually, all the women I saw) here seem to have no body shame and they confidently show off their bodies in ways I haven’t seen back home. Add to this atmosphere the absolutely NUTS driving situation and the “Chicken and Trust Fall” attitude of making your way in a car or crossing the streets, and you’ve got Leeds.