Sheffield Weekend Break

8th – 10th March 2019

A few weekends back I popped to Sheffield to visit my friend Rebecca, who I met working in Maastricht. She moved there to study, and I hadn’t seen her since I helped her move out of her apartment in NL two years ago so a reunion was well overdue. We spent the weekend mainly laughing and catching up on everything we’d missed out on during our time apart.

I went up by coach, because the train was extortionate. Why else do we get the coach? Also though, I do enjoy a coach trip, and with a four hour trip ahead, I was looking forward to some down time on board after what had been a busy work week.

I stayed at Rebecca’s house in Walkley which was a short bus ride from the coach station. On arrival, I was presented with my personal guide to Sheffield, which I thought was the sweetest thing ever. Filled with suggestion of things we could do during my visit. We spent the evening laughing and watching tv and hanging in toasty living room by the fire until I physically couldn’t keep my eyes upon anymore. The 5:30 wake ups were really getting to me!

On Saturday, after a proper lie in, on bacon egg sarnies, we ventured outside. Rain fell from the sky like a rusty tap. Sometimes drizzle, sometimes downpour, and also sometimes nothing. The centre of Sheffield wasn’t a far walk, and I admired all the lush surroundings and classical architecture on route down.

Funfact : In Sheffield there are more trees than people.

Which felt especially true on our walk as streets were pretty deserted. We sampled the museum, where we learnt about Sheffield’s ‘Steel City’ history, the shopping centre, winter gardens and Millennium Gallery where some Leonardo da Vinci works were on loan from the queen, go figure. Before warming up from the cold, and resting our feet in Wetherspoons.

In this building is a lift that’s always moving, and students hop on and hop off! Fortunately it wasn’t on during the weekend, because I surely would have tried, and missed my step and cracked my head open!

We had a couple drinks there, before heading to the Lucky Fox, a quirky American styles restaurant offering up food and surroundings inspired by Brooklyn. I didn’t need to look twice at the menu, I was of course having chicken and waffles. It was tasty, but I of course needed more maple syrup, that dixy cup was never going to be enough for me! But great place.

At home that night, we watched ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ with Rebecca’s flatmate Mike; very cultured evening if you ask me. And an incredible film, which I’m sorry I hadn’t already seen. There’s so many classics that I terribly haven’t sampled. Mike’s a bit of a history buff, so he was able to offer a lot insight into the film and its context as we watched. It was practically a three hour film, so after that I was ready for shut-eye. It’s also very likely that I missed some parts of the film due to nodding off.

And before I knew it, it was time to go home! I had such a blast visiting this dear friend. More coach trips in future for sure. Much cheaper and less hassle than flying, especially amidst all this Brexit nonsense. Choops.