Nottingham, Football, & Perhaps Not Enough Sleep

Wow! Today (May 17) was such a BUSY day!!! 

We started out at 9am with a guest speaker, Mark Morris, who was the Head of SME Real Estate of HSBC Bank in London. He talked a lot about HSBC and how they are the world's leading international bank.

From there we ate lunch and then took the coach to Nottingham. The first place we visited was Experian and had a tour of the company by Barry Westbury, who was the head IT person. Experian is a hard company to explain other than that they are custodians of data and information for companies ranging in size as well as storing personal credit scores. They have databases located in Nottingham and in Texas, US. This place was loaded with security! Every time we went through a door, Barry had to scan his card and we all (our group of 14 plus Barry) had to enter and have the door closed in under 17 seconds otherwise alarms would go off!! haha it was intense.

After Experian we went to Nottingham Forest Football Club. This has definitely been one of the highlights of my trip! We went to the gift shop first and of course I bought myself a jersey :) We then went to the press room and their marketing guy came and talked with us about the club. He told us how the club has won the Euro Cup two times in a row and was in the Premier League but then were relegated down. We walked to the pitch and there were a few guys playing on the field. The stadium was not as extravagant as I thought it would be but it was still gorgeous! Our tour guide offered to take a group picture of us....and he said "short ones in the front" and definitely called me out haha as did the rest of the group. Haha I was like hmm ok guys....then the tour guide couldn't figure out where the camera button was on a phone and asked me to show him so I go "oh, here, it's the one that looks like a camera." haha and of course I did not mean that in a rude way but the whole group died laughing and the guy was like "ohhhh ok, just being a short little smart ass, eh?" haha it was funny. As we ended the tour he asked if any of us played football and I was a little toward the back so one of the girls said Sharisse does. haha he asked who Sharisse was and when I raised my hand he was like "Ohhh haha that figures!" 

Once we left and got back to Harlaxton we had dinner and then had yet another speaker, Dr. Jim Lewis, who was a world expert on the Lea Valley and London's Olympic site. It was interesting but everyone was exhausted....even our professor was falling asleep haha. 

After the lecture we all took a short nap and then went out to Grantham. We went to various clubs and had a lot of fun! It's been quite the experience being able to go to pubs and clubs. At one of the pubs I saw a sign that said "If you don't look over 21, we will card you to prove you're over 18." I freaked out at first because I was like oohhh no! I'm only 20 haha and I thought we just had to be 18...but then I realized I was good. :)