(no subject)
SOOOOOOOOO.....
I'm finally in England! Ahhhhh!!! (Funny, I thought the cries of distress and surprise would stop once I got here, but I guess not). A little over twenty four hours of traveling, trying not to cry on the airplane when leaving Phoenix, losing Prez in the airport in Chicago because United overbooked the flight, watching various parts of Mean Girls, Day After Tomorrow, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Van Helsing for seven hours, hauling one wheelie bag and a few too many little heavy bags around the airport, waiting through an insanely long passport check line with this guy in front of me who insisted on going two inches an hour (I only got through because I could see the musical pamphlets for Les Mis and Phantom on the far side of the passport kiosk), sitting out in the cold bus station for another four hours until this nice bus man took a look at my face when I told him I was only on standby for the 1:00 to Exeter and very kindly let me on, another four hours to Exeter itself and changing lines twice so I could get my room keys, trying to unlock my double locked flat door with my arms full of stuff (some very understanding British type parents took pity on me and helped me get it to the third floor...no lifts here...not even sketchy Caples elevators), and finally collapsing on my dippy bed in a cement walled (but wooden overdone) single (that is, consequently, bigger than Kenyon singles and has a sink, despite its ominous cell like quality)...I'm here! Wow. Breathe.
And that was only the 25th and 26th. But I don't think I have enough breath to do another spiel on the insane amounts of grocery shopping and meeting attendance that all of us study abroad and new studenty types have been doing lately. Let's just say that walking down a hill into town with the bright idea of getting food and arguing with T-Mobile to stop charging me a pound a minute to call home usually doesn't seem so bright once you're carrying a backpack full of stuff and groceries on both arms back up that same hill in the misty stuff they call rain.
In any event, the campus is lovely, something of an uncertain mix between the modern and the much older influence of the town of Exeter itself (which, despite reports, is a heck of a lot larger than Gambier...or Mount Vernon...I mean, come on, they have Subway, Dominoes, AND McDonalds...though that says more for American commercialism than anything else). My room (with walls softened by a Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow Pirates poster, Orlando Bloom as Legolas LOTR poster, and various artistic contributions from certain two and four year olds in between magazine cutouts about the Phantom movie and Wicked's Idina Menzel)looks out onto a grass-grown quad type thing that always seems to be empty (FINE with me--I actually rather hope it stays that way, 'cause I'm not too keen on a repeat of freshman year involving druken singing going under my window at 2 am; Pezcado, unfortunately, has the side with the Lemon Grove, a very popular and very noisy pub nearest out dorm)and has a huge twisty tree that looks lovely for climbing. Hmmmmm...
Today's actually a fairly light day as far as meetings and forms are concerned, though I do need to go open a bank account and try to switch my phone to Orange, maybe look into musical times and costs once the internet is up in our rooms. A trip to Totnes is on for tomorrow, and while I don't know where exactly that is or what precisely we're doing there, it sounds lovely, and I'm excited to see more of the island than I did while alternately dozing and reading on the way down to Exeter. Happy sigh.
Love to everyone I'm missing :)
Quote of the Week: "Whitney, I'm trying to steal your silverware, but I can't find it!" ~A very distressed Pezinator
I'm finally in England! Ahhhhh!!! (Funny, I thought the cries of distress and surprise would stop once I got here, but I guess not). A little over twenty four hours of traveling, trying not to cry on the airplane when leaving Phoenix, losing Prez in the airport in Chicago because United overbooked the flight, watching various parts of Mean Girls, Day After Tomorrow, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Van Helsing for seven hours, hauling one wheelie bag and a few too many little heavy bags around the airport, waiting through an insanely long passport check line with this guy in front of me who insisted on going two inches an hour (I only got through because I could see the musical pamphlets for Les Mis and Phantom on the far side of the passport kiosk), sitting out in the cold bus station for another four hours until this nice bus man took a look at my face when I told him I was only on standby for the 1:00 to Exeter and very kindly let me on, another four hours to Exeter itself and changing lines twice so I could get my room keys, trying to unlock my double locked flat door with my arms full of stuff (some very understanding British type parents took pity on me and helped me get it to the third floor...no lifts here...not even sketchy Caples elevators), and finally collapsing on my dippy bed in a cement walled (but wooden overdone) single (that is, consequently, bigger than Kenyon singles and has a sink, despite its ominous cell like quality)...I'm here! Wow. Breathe.
And that was only the 25th and 26th. But I don't think I have enough breath to do another spiel on the insane amounts of grocery shopping and meeting attendance that all of us study abroad and new studenty types have been doing lately. Let's just say that walking down a hill into town with the bright idea of getting food and arguing with T-Mobile to stop charging me a pound a minute to call home usually doesn't seem so bright once you're carrying a backpack full of stuff and groceries on both arms back up that same hill in the misty stuff they call rain.
In any event, the campus is lovely, something of an uncertain mix between the modern and the much older influence of the town of Exeter itself (which, despite reports, is a heck of a lot larger than Gambier...or Mount Vernon...I mean, come on, they have Subway, Dominoes, AND McDonalds...though that says more for American commercialism than anything else). My room (with walls softened by a Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow Pirates poster, Orlando Bloom as Legolas LOTR poster, and various artistic contributions from certain two and four year olds in between magazine cutouts about the Phantom movie and Wicked's Idina Menzel)looks out onto a grass-grown quad type thing that always seems to be empty (FINE with me--I actually rather hope it stays that way, 'cause I'm not too keen on a repeat of freshman year involving druken singing going under my window at 2 am; Pezcado, unfortunately, has the side with the Lemon Grove, a very popular and very noisy pub nearest out dorm)and has a huge twisty tree that looks lovely for climbing. Hmmmmm...
Today's actually a fairly light day as far as meetings and forms are concerned, though I do need to go open a bank account and try to switch my phone to Orange, maybe look into musical times and costs once the internet is up in our rooms. A trip to Totnes is on for tomorrow, and while I don't know where exactly that is or what precisely we're doing there, it sounds lovely, and I'm excited to see more of the island than I did while alternately dozing and reading on the way down to Exeter. Happy sigh.
Love to everyone I'm missing :)
Quote of the Week: "Whitney, I'm trying to steal your silverware, but I can't find it!" ~A very distressed Pezinator