Life in Birmingham Birmingham is flourishing and is internationally recognised as a leader in leisure, entertainment, business, shopping, industry and sport. The city centre is a fusion of attractive squares, modern shopping arcades, diverse pubs, clubs and restaurants and fine museums, theatres and art galleries – truly a World City In the city centre, you can find interesting monuments, museums and beautiful squares. Around the city, you can find wonderful parks. Birmingham is right in the centre of the UK so you can visit the most famous cities quite easily Shopping Europe’s Shopping Capital – Birmingham City Centre Superb shopping facilities are as close as five minutes’ walk from the Centre. The Bullring shopping centre has a vast array of shops, boutiques and restaurants including Selfridges, housed in a striking and unique building. The development proved so popular there were over 50 million visitors in its first year, creating a real buzz in the city centre. All over the city centre the shopping choice is excellent with high-fashion boutiques nestling alongside major ‘High Street’ names in a compact pedestrian centre with many undercover malls. Developments include the Birmingham Mailbox, a massive leisure and designer shopping emporium (including Armani, DKNY and Harvey Nichols stores) and home to the BBC Television Studios, right in the city centre. The historic Birmingham Jewellery Quarter (Europe’s largest), home to manufacturing jewellers, silver and goldsmiths since 1460, is an amazing place full of high quality bargains often direct from their skilled manufacturers. Located just North West of the city centre the Jewellery Quarter has a signposted walking historic shopping trail. Handy for students are the numerous markets (recently totally rebuilt), which offer over 1,000 stalls with an enormous variety of goods including fresh fish, meat, fruit and vegetables all at low prices. There is a splendid range of bookshops, including Waterstones, which accommodates some four miles of bookshelves on four floors Entertainment There are so many places to go, and so much to do that you will always be spoilt for choice... Spend an evening in a canalside café, pub or restaurant, take a trip to the cinema, theatre or ballet or laugh the night away at the Glee and Jongleurs Comedy Clubs. There are numerous cafés, pubs and bars in and around the city centre. The Broad Street, Brindley Place/Mailbox area is popular with students and has lots of places to eat and drink beside the canals, for example Zinc Bar, Living Room, Bank, The Works, Flares, Hard Rock Café, Bar Epernay and Walkabout (amongst many others). The bars, cafés and clubs at The Arcadian Centre (near the Chinese Quarter) are also popular with students. Birmingham is bursting with clubs playing anything from dance, house, drum and bass and jungle, to hard rock, 70s, 80s, lounge, soul, jazz and garage. Clubs like Apt, The Medicine Bar, Air (home to GodsKitchen), The Works, Indi, Rococo Lounge and Gas Street play host to top DJs and attract clubbing aficionados from across the UK. Most also offer a student night, where entrance prices and drinks start from as little as £1. Alternatively, the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) and the National Indoor Arena (NIA) frequently host some of the largest names in music, whilst the Birmingham Carling Academy (300 metres from campus) attracts ‘medium-sized’ indie, R&B and dance acts, as well as hosting student nights during the week. For information on what’s going on in Birmingham and where are the best places to eat, drink or dance, pick up a copy of the City’s ‘What’s On’ magazine or ask our students on open days. Classical and Jazz If you prefer classical music or jazz, Birmingham is equally attractive. The Symphony Hall, one of the finest concert halls in the world, is home to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO and often offers cheap tickets for students. The Hippodrome Theatre in the Chinese Quarter is a base for the Birmingham Royal Ballet and hosts many other touring musicals and events, while a number of pubs in the city centre host jazz and blues bands most nights of the week and the Jam House in the Jewellery Quarter is a famed jazz and live music venue. Festivals and Events Birmingham hosts many festivals including an International Jazz Festival in the summer, a Film and Television Festival, Comedy Festival and ‘ArtsFest’ in the autumn. Broad Street is regularly used as a backdrop for street parades and other lively spectacles and throughout the year the Arcadian Centre in Chinatown is the setting for a variety of street entertainment and themed weekends. The NEC and NIA host many of the country’s major events and exhibitions including The Motorcycle Show, Clothes Show Live, and the BBC Good Food Show. Christmas is a magical time in Birmingham, when the city centre comes alive with lights and sounds and a Frankfurt German Christmas Market (Frankfurt is twinned with Birmingham). Stage and Screen Birmingham has one of the highest concentrations of live theatre outside the West End of London; the Alexandra, Birmingham Rep, Crescent, MAC, Hippodrome, Library and Old Rep Theatres stage both traditional and more innovative works. You can also choose from a wide range of cinemas, from the large multi-screen complexes to smaller cinemas (such as the newly refurbished and restored Electric Cinema, the oldest working cinema in the UK, dating from 1909) specialising in Arthouse, foreign language and avant-garde films. Again, student discounts are available for most performances. The Star City complex, about 2 miles to the north of the city centre, boasts 30 screens and almost 6,000 seats (the UK’s largest cinema), and has restaurants, bars and shopping too. Star City is even large enough to have dedicated sets of screens for Asian (Bollywood etc.), Arthouse and classic films. Museums and Art Galleries Some of the finest art collections in the world are to be found in Birmingham. The City Museum and Art Gallery, the Gas Hall and the Barber Institute of Fine Arts provide spectacular settings for classical and modern works, while the IKON Gallery on Brindley Place hosts challenging exhibitions and serves great coffee. Birmingham also has a wealth of museums. Cadbury World celebrates Birmingham’s chocolate industry whilst the Millennium Point and Thinktank (across the road from the campus) chronicles Birmingham’s industrial past and future and has lots of interesting buttons to press! Sport and Leisure Over the last four years or so, no other city in Europe has held more major sporting championships than Birmingham. Currently, local football teams Aston Villa (Villa), West Bromwich Albion (The Baggies), Birmingham City (The Blues), Coventry City and Wolverhampton Wanderers, (Wolves) are competing in England’s top two Divisions (The Premiership and Championship) and all have their home grounds within easy reach. Warwickshire County Ground at Edgbaston (3 miles south of the city centre) provides Test and county cricket games and a number of local rugby teams compete in national divisions. Major tennis tournaments are held at Edgbaston Priory and international golf tournaments at The Belfry, the National Golf Centre (including the Ryder Cup). The Alexander Stadium hosts international athletics, whilst the National Indoor Arena (NIA) is also the venue for over thirty indoor sports, including tennis’ Davis Cup and the 2003 World Indoor Athletics and World Badminton Championships. Leisure activities in and around Birmingham include go-karting, snowboarding and skiing (for example at Tamworth Snowdome), ice skating, tenpin bowling and paintball, whilst the city’s many parks and gardens offer space to relax in the open air. In fact, Birmingham has more square miles of open space than any other UK city, including Sutton Park, Europe’s largest urban nature reserve. Eating Out Student discounts are available in many pubs, cafés and restaurants throughout the city, so if you don’t want to cook there are plenty of cheap and tempting alternatives. All tastes are catered for, with thriving English, French, Cajun, Italian, Mexican, Spanish, Austrian, Greek, Indian, Chinese, and Latin American, Thai and Japanese restaurants alongside the burger, pizza, vegetarian and gourmet restaurants that characterise any large European city. Transport in Birmingham Public transport can be used to navigate through the city during the day until 12 o’clock at night. You can choose the bus or train, it depends on the neighbourhood where you live. If you have to take the bus very often, we advise you to buy a Faresaver card. It costs £12.50 per week, £44 per month, £112 per term or £280 for three terms. You can find the all information about West-Midlands public transport on www.travelwm.co.uk. To navigate during the night through the city it is necessary to take a taxi. Don’t worry about this because if you take one with your friends it is not expensive. If you want to travel around England you can do it by train or bus. The bus is cheaper but trains are faster and more comfortable. Some useful websites to find information and the cheapest fares are: www.nationalrail.co.uk, www.thetrainline.com, www.nationalexpress.com and www.megabus.com . We advise you to check the ticket in advance because prices change quickly.