Research Exchange in York, UK

I spent the past 3 months on a research exhcange at the University of York in York, UK, working with the Fairlamb group on organometallic chemistry. While I’d rather not discuss work too much here, I wanted to make a post about the trip as a tourist.

This trip was my first outside of Canada, and my first time in the UK. I was fortunate enough that people were generally kind, as the moment I landed I got very lost and had to ask for directions from a lot of people. It was my first time taking a real train for transportation, and I wish we had something similar in Canada. Long road trips could be much shorter with a proper railway system.

I lived near enough to campus that I could walk to and from work every day, which was lovely. York actually has a spring (unlike Halifax), and it was nice to see the change in seasons on my morning/evening walks.

While I was there predominantly for work, my family came to visit so I got to see more of the city. The UK is quite congested, with lots of tightly compressed buildings, roads and people everywhere. Parts of it felt a bit claustrophobic, but also quite convenient; nothing was more than a 30 minute walk away. I will note that their public transit was expensive, so I was glad that walking was easy to do.

Finally, please enjoy some photos I took while there. If you get the opportunity to visit, I’d strongly encourage it. I quite enjoyed my time there.