Every student in the Arcadia program got assigned to a British family located near the university at which they will be studying. The students studying at the University of Manchester were assigned to families in a nearby district called Wigan, about 20 minutes from Manchester by train. Prior to leaving for homestay, we went over the details and what to expect with the Arcadia folks. It turns out that I was "randomly" designated as the group leader, which meant I had to make sure nothing went wrong during the whole experience, and liason with the appropriate people if things did go wrong. Wonderful, but it forced me to at least introduce myself to everyone else, since I had been quiet for the orientation up til then. We all took the Virgin train from London Euston station to Wigan on Thursday. It took only 2 hours to travel 200 miles, so awesome.
Once we arrived at the Wigan station, all the families were ready to pick up their student. Each family only had one student. The families were all of retired couples whose children are all grown and moved out. The couple I stayed with consisted of a retired head teacher (principal) and a part time magistrate (a judge). They had hosted about a hundred students before because they've been participating in the Experiment in International Living (EIL) program for about 30 years. They had lots of stories to tell me about pretty much everything: their daughter (who recently married and had a son), the town of Shevington (a suburb of Wigan and Greater Manchester), and anything that'd be useful for me to know this semester. We sat down and ate meals together. I particularly enjoyed muesli at breakfast and profiteroles at dessert (I may devote a Gastronomic Firsts post to these items). We also watched a lot of BBC during meals and after dinner, which ended up being more interesting than I had expected. Of course, the very few commercials on British television helps.
The following day, Friday, I went on a walking tour of Wigan and Shevington. I got to learn about the history of the town and look at the canals that were once used for shipping cotton from the United States. It was very scenic. We walked about the town, which was very nice and made me wish the suburbs back home were more walkable. It was only a 20 minute walk to the town center where all the shops, library, post office, chemist, etc were. The schools were nearby too. I also learned a lot about how the British government spoils its people! The country's unemployment problem partly exists because people don't want jobs. The jobs are available, but the benefits the government issues to the unemployed are fairly comparable to a full time minimum wage income; unemployed citizens don't need to pay for housing and receive a 
weekly stipend adequate to cover all living expenses. It works out to be only 10 GBP less than what they would make working full time for minimum wage. Absurd. Additionally, students in low income families receive 35 GBP per week once they turn 16 and attend college (the school that comes before university. There's a difference in this country). College is free, though. University tuition and fees are standardized throughout the country, at about 5000 GBP per year, which some feel is too "expensive." Oh, and did I mention they have universal health care? I'm not sure how I feel about all of this, but I won't attempt to go into here.Friday evening, another American student arrived at my family's house for homestay. She's studying at Lancaster this semester. The whole group of families and study abroad students went out to dinner at a local restaurant. A good time was had by all. I tried the Yorkshire pudding for the first time, which actually is not a dessert, but an appetizer. One of the homestay couples mentioned that Oasis will be playing Manchester in June, so I'm going to look into that. :)
We students departed for Manchester on Saturday morning. All in all, everyone had a good time with their host families. Grace attended choir practice with her family, and then went to a pub immediately following hehe. Jen stayed at a really big estate so she got to see how the wealthy lived. It was the last slice of home-living for a long while.
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