Four Day Whirlwind; Introduction to Cheltenham

I had hoped to make a good impression with my first post, but too much has happened lately for me to think and write impressively—I just want to shoot this out quickly so that I can get it all down.  So, I’m going to do this in a kind of ‘flow-of-thought-fashion’. 

Here goes:

Up at 4:00 (Albuquerque time) to fly away by 6.  Two hour layover in Dallas/Ft. Worth.  Over three hour flight to JFK where I meet the rest of the group.  Six hour layover.  Eight hour flight to Heathrow.  Extremely uncomfortable.  Stupid in-flight movies.  Met by incredibly lovely BCA directors.  Hour and a half coach ride to the Cheltenham and our dorms.  After of unpacking, talking, and general-figuring-things-out I freaked out slightly (emotions and exhaustion) and fell asleep after being awake for over 40 hours.

Lots of information.  Meetings, meetings, meetings.  New friends.  Trying to sort ourselves out into little groups—I’m interested to see who will end up hanging out with who.  Haven’t met many English students yet because most won’t arrive to start the new term until Sunday.  Realized that Cheltenham is not what I would consider a “village”, but is in fact, a bustling city.  Discovered that it is much harder to manage walking the streets when the cars are driving on the wrong side of the road…oh, and that drivers—not pedestrians—have the right of way.   

(View from my window--second story.)

Visited my first two English pubs.  Bought my first pair of European boots.  Grocery shopped on three separate occasions.  Tried to make my hardly-bigger-than-a-breadbox room (with a provided-upon-arrival Southwestern duvet cover—come on, really?) more like a home.  Cut up the bottom of a soda bottle to catch the drips that are leaking out of the pipes in my bathroom.  Became acquainted with drain-o.  Said hello to the seagulls and pigeons that live in the abandoned brick building outside my window.  Didn’t sleep well.  Took a sleeping pill.  Slept wonderfully.  Made soup from a can.  Ate an amazing dinner at an Italian restaurant in an old cathedral (the pizza oven was on the altar).   Walked and walked, but still haven’t seen an eighth of all I need to see.  Preparing to go to Bath tomorrow—now that we’ve had a lecture on the Romans and the Celts and we know all the history behind the baths.  Praying lots.

 (On my walk to campus...)