What happened in Bradford…

With some certainty, I can say that this is my last post about my exchange in Bradford. I may have referred to other stories in previous posts, such as my bad experiences in the local supermarkets or how one of my flatmates always refused to do the dishes, but I think that there should be a time to say: enough is enough. And I honestly think that after this post I have probably told you enough about my exchange to Bradford, isn’t it?

OK, I will shortly explain to you what I meant by those bad experiences in the supermarket. The first bad experience occurred back in November when I was trying to buy some Chinese beer with two of my Chinese friends for a Chinese dinner (can I get an award for mentioning the word ‘Chinese’ in a sentence three times?). Anyways, the lady at the till asked for my identification and I proudly showed her my passport, which I always carried with me. Unfortunately, she told me that my passport was not considered a valid means of identification. Instead, I should have provided another type of identification, preferably a British card. As I did not have any other cards, I was not allowed to buy the beer and neither were my friends, since they would obviously give it to me. I got quite upset and the staff tried to reason with me by explaining that it was not their fault and that I should contact general management. Well, the next day I sent an email to the customer service of this supermarket chain and they replied with the following message:

“After consulting my colleagues within the business, I can confirm your passport is sufficient for identification when purchasing alcohol.

Please accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused, I have contacted the store direct to make aware of this. Should you encounter any further problems in store, please do not hesitate to contact the store’s General Manager.”

In other words, problem resolved and therefore my friends and I were supposed to be happy customers again. Unfortunately, something else happened at the same store not much later. My Chinese friend was doing her weekly grocery shopping at the supermarket and she had a short conversation with a nice guy working at the store. They exchanged names so they could add each other on Facebook. A few days later, however, he began to send her very strange messages and she got afraid of going back to the store as he was threatening her after she rejected and ignored him. Hence, I decided never to go back to this supermarket as it was full of irrational and crazy people, who first had to help themselves before they could help their customers. My question to you is: can you guess the name of this supermarket and would you do your grocery shopping at this store after reading these stories?

Back to my chronological tale, which continues on Monday 3 January. When I arrived at my room in the University Halls, I was almost immediately called by a friend who invited me over for lunch at her place that afternoon. She cooked pasta with chicken for us and the chicken was delicious. We told each other about our holiday and I have to confess that she had had a much busier schedule than I had. She went to London during Christmas and she visited Edinburgh and Glasgow to celebrate New Year’s. All the same, we were now back in Bradford where we would both have to study for our exams. During our conversation, we found out that we would have our final exam one week before the end of our exchange, so we could hang out together around that time. After lunch, I went back to my room to unpack my bags, but pretty soon I met my Chinese flatmate in the hallway and we started talking about the holidays. He went on a trip to Germany and France with a friend, but he already got back a few days ago because he wanted to start early with reviewing for the exams. He is a very diligent student, since he will do his exams for the modules of Bradford University in Hong Kong such that he can attend the first classes of his course at his own university. After our chat, I made a phone call with another friend and we decided to have dinner together at her place. She cooked a delicious Chinese dish and explained to me that she had also had a relatively quiet holiday. In other words, she stayed in Bradford and made only a few trips with her friends. At the end of the day, I concluded that my holiday had not been as exciting as it could have been, but even so I did have a nice time with my friends and family. Moreover, I was once more reassured that there is no reason to get bored when I am in the Netherlands instead of England.

On Tuesday, I planned to start revising for my exams, but eventually I ended up reading some trivial stuff on Wikipedia about countries such as China, Pakistan, India, Ethiopia, Nigeria and South Africa. During my exchange, I heard about many different cultures by talking to people with various backgrounds. Most of the times, however, I realised that I knew very little about the demographics and history of such distant countries and therefore I browsed through all of those Wikipedia pages trying to get some understanding of these matters. Next to that, I also started reviewing for the module Resource Planning. It did not take long before I found out that I only needed two days for a complete revision of this subject. This was the module for which I only participated in the tutorials and many topics were similar to the ones I had already studied at Tilburg University. The contents of this module were a bit easier though. Conclusion: I have already earned my credits for this module.

After I had read nearly every PowerPoint slide about this topic, I decided to wash my clothes for the last time during my exchange. Unfortunately, there was still a lot of water in the washing machine when I opened it and I asked my Chinese flatmate for help. His solution was to turn on the washing machine and check whether the water was still inside after it began its cycle. Our solution was put into practice, but soon we found out that this was not our best decision of the day. The washing machine did not have the option to interrupt its current cycle and therefore I had to wait for at least forty minutes until I could start the next cycle. Nonetheless, the water was gone. In the evening, I went to a Chinese restaurant with some friends and had an interesting chat with a Chinese guy who came to the UK to do a language course. In reality, he actually came to Bradford to do a management course, but he was not able to pass the English language test. I wondered why he stayed in Bradford after he failed the exam and I did not bother asking him. Of course this was quite embarrassing for him and therefore he tried to avoid the question by telling me that I was not being polite. He explained to me that in Chinese tradition you should not have a separate conversation with each other, but only talk to the host of the dinner (my flatmate in this case). He mentioned that he did not worry about this tradition and that we could continue our conversation. However, it was already clear to me that our chat stopped after my question. The rest of the evening was better and I enjoyed hearing my friends complain about the food they served in the restaurant. It obviously did not come up to their expectations, but I am sure that it was still much better than the Chinese food in the Netherlands.

On Thursday, I spent my time reading a book about operations management and it once more confirmed my enthusiasm for operations research. In the evening, I made pancakes for my Chinese flatmate as this was going to be his last dinner in Bradford. He told me that he like the pancakes ‘Dutch style’ and luckily it did not become an emotional goodbye party, but a nice evening with a good friend.

The next morning, we brought him to the railway station and he was just-in-time for his train (there were some problems with his ticket, but we were able to resolve these quickly thanks to a nice member of staff). That same afternoon, I booked my own train tickets to go home on the 22nd of January. It took me all Friday and part of the next Saturday to finish reading the operations management book and immediately after that I continued working on a report for Supply Chain Management. Although it took me quite some time to find an interesting topic (I eventually decided to write about the supply chain of Cargill Corn Milling North America), the writing process went quite smoothly and after many hours of hard work, I submitted my report on Monday morning.

My first exam also took place on this Monday at 13:00. As I already told you in the above, I had a fairly easy preparation for this exam about Resource Planning. I am glad that I did not spend much more time reviewing for this exam, since the questions were rather straightforward and on top of that I could choose to answer any 2 questions from a total of 5. Hence, I picked those questions with as much mathematics as possible and within two hours I was pretty certain of getting a nice grade. After the exam, I went to the Subway restaurant opposite to the building where I took the test and after a nice meal I went back home to study a bit more for the exam of the following day, which would be about Operations Management. In the evening, I talked to my flatmate for a while and he explained to me that he had changed his daily rhythm completely. As he preferred studying at night when it was quiet outside (his room was opposite to the library), he decided to sleep during the day and study at night until 5:00 or 6:00 am. This was possible because all of his exams took place in the afternoon. As far as I know, he continued to do this throughout the entire exam period. Although it sounded like an interesting and effective strategy, I preferred getting up in the morning even if I went to bed pretty late sometimes.

The next day, I read quickly through the chapters of the book again and at 15:00 I was ready for the exam. With a lot of confidence I went to the room where the exam would take place, but it would take another ten minutes before the exam was going to commence. Outside in the hallway, I talked to some other students and most of them also thought the exam would be a piece of cake. Especially the mathematical models about flow lines were not too difficult. At that moment I thought: “The models about WHAT???” Apparently, the professor had explained something about flow lines during the final lectures, but I did not attend one of those sessions and there was nothing about these models on the slides or in the book. Therefore, I tried to quickly understand the reasoning behind these models such that I could reproduce some of the results if necessary. Luckily, there was nothing about these models in the exam and after two hours I was again satisfied with my answers.

There was only one more exam to go, which would take place on Thursday and was about Economics of Industry. I did not take much time preparing for the exam earlier and therefore I had to study hard on Tuesday night and Wednesday. It was no fun to study all day long. On the other hand, it was the last day I was actually going to learn something in Bradford, so I was all the more enthusiastic to have a good preparation for this exam. On Wednesday night, I was pleased with my efforts and went to bed in order to get a few hours of sleep before the exam would start at 9:15 the next morning.

On the 13th of January at 10:45, the academic part of my exchange came to an end. I had finished all of my essays, coursework and exams, which meant that I now had one week of leisure time before I would have to go home on the 22nd. Immediately after the exam, I went to the supermarket where they sold Asian products (recall that I was definitely not going to the other store) and decided to buy many fresh vegetables, since I was living on a diet of spaghetti and noodles for the last two weeks. I invited a friend over for lunch and she helped me with cooking the chicken and vegetables. Strangely enough, I chose to cook noodles along with these other ingredients after all. Perhaps I got addicted to them… The meal tasted delicious mostly owing to the great flavour of the chicken, which was cooked by my friend who could rely on her Brazilian roots (at least, that was my interpretation). After lunch, we visited the National Media Museum in Bradford and we enjoyed ourselves in the children’s section of the museum and by making videos of each other in some kind of recording studio. We decided to go back to the museum after dinner to watch the new movie ‘Tron’, which they were going to show in the IMAX theatre of the museum. All in all, it had been a weird but wonderful day on which it felt like my exchange was over whereas the best week of my stay had actually commenced.

On Friday (after some well-deserved sleep), I went to the city centre to buy postcards for my family back home. As my exchange was almost over, I could tell them how I had experienced this period abroad and whether or not I had missed them while I was in the UK. Fortunately, I could guarantee everybody that I was happy to be able to visit them when I would be back in the Netherlands again. In the evening, I went to a restaurant with two girls, since the Dutch girl and I still had to use the vouchers which we received after the Study Abroad Fair in December. We ate curry at a restaurant in the city centre and the Dutch girl decided to order a few more dishes, which she could take home afterwards. In the evening, I went to the Friday Night Disco at Student Central for the last time (at least, that was the plan) and even though it was rather quiet because of the exams, we had a nice time and certainly did not go home early.

On Saturday, I did not have any specific plans and therefore I decided to go and visit a friend of mine in the library. Of course she was totally surprised by my appearance and I invited her for dinner at my place. Although I already had curry the day before, we ate a spicy curry dish and after dinner we talked for a very long time. We both missed my Chinese flatmate and we came to the conclusion that we became friends thanks to him. At around 22:00, I brought her back to her flat and on my way home I decided to pay a visit to another friend such that we could synchronise (sorry, I could not think of a more appropriate word) our plans for the upcoming week. Based on our interest in travelling to other cities in the UK, we set up a last-minute plan to go to Sheffield the next day. Therefore, we did not stay up too long anymore and I went back to my room so we could get up early.

On Sunday morning, I had the least trouble getting up and we arrived in Sheffield at about 12:00 noon. This was a bit later than scheduled though, since we accidentally took a train which stopped at nearly every station on our way to Sheffield. Moreover, my friend left her scarf on the train by mistake and I decided to get it back, since the train stayed at the railway station for maintenance. Luckily, the staff could send someone to pick up her scarf and not much later we were all set to start our sightseeing. The view when we left the train station was amazing. We saw a fountain, the University of Sheffield and some traditional English houses. During the day we visited the cathedral, a museum and an indoor garden. This garden contained trees and plants from exotic regions and it was a nice place to stay as it was much warmer in here than outside. On my suggestion, we walked towards a bridge just outside the city centre, but in contrast to my belief there was no river under the bridge. As it was quickly getting colder, we decided to go to a pub for a nice British beer. Upon entering the pub, however, we found out that there was an important football match played that afternoon, because the pub was full of enthusiastic fans. We enjoyed the exciting atmosphere and joined the ‘crazy Brits’ by buying a drink ourselves as well. Thereafter, we had dinner at a restaurant close to the local theatre, where the next show was apparently about to start (we drew this conclusion after we had seen many people entering the building). Although the city had not been as beautiful as we thought it would be, we still had a fun day and at least could remove this city from our list.

The next day was another special day (I know, every day is special): my flatmate from Italy was going to celebrate his birthday. I had promised him to help with the preparations, so I decided to bake cookies for the guests. I still had the spices for baking Dutch ‘speculaas’ cookies, which my girlfriend gave to me in November. It did not take long before I started creating cookies in all sorts of shapes and the oven worked hard to bake all of these cookies nicely brown. In the evening, I first had to go to my own party with the people of the Real Ale and Cider Society. The president had organised a goodbye party for me, which basically came down to drinking beers in my favourite pubs. We had a nice time talking about our holidays and we extensively made use of the jukebox in one of the pubs. Unfortunately, I had to say goodbye to my friends early as another party was waiting for me back home. When I came into our kitchen, I noticed that the party had been going on for quite some time already, since many cookies had already been eaten. I certainly did not go to bed early (why should I) and I am glad that my flatmate chose to celebrate his birthday while I was still in Bradford.

On Tuesday, I slept late and took my time to relax. After all, I had a few busy days coming up, meaning that there would probably be a party every night from now on. More and more people were finishing their exams plus people were already inviting me for their goodbye party. In the afternoon, I played cards with a good friend of mine and she decided to leave the cards at my place as a goodbye gift. This was certainly a nice present from her side, but it was very hard for me to accept the gift as it meant that my exchange was really coming to an end now and it also meant that we would not see each other for a long time. Eventually, I accepted the gift and at the same time I accepted that I had to fully enjoy the final days of my exchange. In the evening, I went to Student Central in order to have a drink with two British friends and later that evening I met with a French friend who had been in France for almost a month. She told me that she had really missed the international atmosphere and I could not agree more, since I had felt the same way after I got home from my holiday to the Netherlands.

On the 19th of January, I visited a gallery in the city centre of Bradford and because I had to wait for another friend to arrive, I began to read in one of the books that were lying around. Coincidentally, I found an article about the Dutch tradition of Saint Nicholas and it focussed on the black servants of this saint by discussing the establishment of racism in Dutch culture. It was interesting to read the opinion of a foreigner on this matter and I have to say that the article was not as negative as it could have been. When my friend arrived, I took a look at the rest of the exposition, but the gallery was pretty small and it did not really fascinate me. I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning my room for my departure and in the evening I joined my friends for dinner. They told me that they were going to make pancakes, so I anticipated on having a pancake with sweet topping. When I arrived, I soon found out that pancakes are made somewhat different in Brazil as opposed to the Netherlands and instead I enjoyed a pancake filled with minced beef and savoury sauce. After our dinner, each of us made the necessary preparations for a good party at one of the clubs near campus. The DJ played nice music and we danced for several hours until a friend of mine came to me in panic. She told me that her iPhone had been stolen and she needed my phone to call the police. Before she called the police, however, she first tried to ring her own number and surprisingly someone answered. Obviously, he was not giving any details about his whereabouts nor did he offer to return her phone. When he kept making fun of her, she knew for certain that the case was hopeless. This event definitely made our night a lot less enjoyable and hence we did not go home late.

I got up pretty early the next morning, since I was going on a trip to Manchester with a few friends. I went over to Dennis Bellamy Halls to pick up a friend, but she apparently forgot to set her alarm and therefore I had to wake her up by throwing a bar of soap against the window. After she got dressed and finished her breakfast, we could finally go to the railway station where two other people were already waiting for us. This time there were no problems with the train journey and during the day we walked a bit through the old neighbourhoods of the city. We had lunch at the exact same place as when we were in Manchester at the end of November. My friend and I also looked for a new phone and although she really wanted a new iPhone, I advised her to buy a cheap phone of another brand as she may not know what could happen to the next phone she would buy. When we came back to Bradford, we had a few drinks at Student Central and thereafter we went to a club called Tokyo in the city centre (yes, this was a different one from the night before). This party was definitely one of the best I have had in Bradford for a long time and although we were very tired after we got back, I still ate some delicious toast with chocolate spread together with one of my best friends who would leave on Friday.

When I got up the next morning, I had to pack my bags and at 14:00 in the afternoon I went to the School of Management for the last time to ask for some feedback from one of my professors. I was not very satisfied with my report for Understanding Strategic Management and therefore I planned this feedback session with my professor. Fortunately, she was rather positive about my report and told me that I should not worry about the result although a good tip for the future would be to add more structure to the text. After this motivating meeting, I decided to enjoy the city of Bradford once more and walked the entire way back to the main campus. Later that afternoon, I dropped by at the international office to deliver some flowers and say ‘thank you’ for the great service they had offered me during the past months. Soon after, I went to the bus station with my friend from Portugal and waved farewell as her bus drove away towards the airport. In the evening, I had dinner with a few Chinese girls and I soon found out that I did not know most of them. In other words, I met new people on my last day abroad. How amazing! After I had done the dishes (the girls actually did not want me to do any work, but in my view they had to prepare for the night), my Chinese friend and I went to the Friday Night Disco whereas the other girls went to the Tokyo club. It was a nice party, but in next to no time I had to start saying goodbye to my friends. It was not an emotional moment for me, but when I walked home I certainly felt empty inside. What was going to happen when I came back to the Netherlands? And will I ever see these people again? With all these questions running through my head, I closed my eyes and hoped that I could get some sleep before I had to wake up a few hours later.

In the morning of January 22nd, after I had breakfast with one of my best friends and said goodbye to my flatmates (or at least the ones who were still living in my flat), I got onto the train to London. In London, I took the Eurostar train to Belgium and at Brussels-South railway station I took a train which brought me back to my country of origin: the Netherlands. It did not feel right to leave this period of my life behind me. On the other hand, I would meet my friends back in the Netherlands again and I promised everybody in Bradford to keep in touch. Therefore, I would like to summarise my conclusion as follows: before I went to Bradford, I lived Life_version-1, during my exchange, I lived Life_version-2, and back home, I will live Life_version-3. In other words, I have had many unique experiences abroad, but there is no such thing as: “What happens in Bradford stays in Bradford.” Instead, I would say that: “What happened in Bradford enriched my life.”

Yours truly,

Frans

DINNERS

NATIONAL MEDIA MUSEUM

SHEFFIELD

BURACS

BIRTHDAY PARTY

MANCHESTER

GOODBYE