Flights

Since I didn't sleep at all on the flight to Manchester, I decided to write my first travel journal from somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. It is rather long since I had nothing better to do and I had finished my book. I started writing this around 4:05 am London time....

Since my mom and I would have had to leave at 5 am Chicago time on Monday in order to get to the Indianapolis airport on time, I stayed with Katie Dill Sunday night. I walked in the door, and she said something about "World Traveler: Come help me pack!" So we emptied out and completely organized and repacked both of her suitcases. After our wonderful packing endeavor, Katie decided she wanted to go to Walmart. For 11:30 at night, it was ridiculously busy, and we definitely saw some strange things. There was one woman who had her cart filled to the brim with the frozen microwave meals. Originally, Katie had been planning to pull an all nighter so that she could sleep on the plane to Manchester, but we both ended up going to sleep around 12:30.

As I said, I had a lot of free time on the plane to Manchester. This next part is about Monday. After getting up and doing nothing for a while, Katie and I decided that we would read our assigned chapters from our textbooks. To sum it up, they were rather boring, though Katie did amuse herself by making a very interesting pirate joke. She was reading about the three R's and started making jokes about pirates... "What is a pirate's favorite kind of math?" Arrrrithmetic.

So after the pirates, Katie had been antsy to leave for the airport since Sunday night, so by 10:30 we were on our way to Steak and Shake and by 11:30 we were on our way to the airport. We were past security by 12. By the way Mom and Dad, it isn't me who is flagged, since I got through security with no problem. We were the first people from our group to arrive at the gate, and Ian was the next person to show up about a half hour later. After that, more and more people kept showing up.

So this next part is about the very exciting flight to Atlanta. In reality, the flight was rather boring. What happened at the airport was rather entertaining. Dr. Scho and Dr. Salsbury just told us to be at the gate by 7, so we decided to wander around. We found a Starbucks where Katie was re-introduced to Starbucks and caffeine again after an extended separation. Katie was very amused that the Atlanta airport had a train, and repeated this sentence at least four or five times. "There is a train in the airport!!"

So the next part of our journey was the very exciting Manchester flight.

We left around 1 am London time for our Manchester flight. From then until now, which is about four in the morning London time, I talked to Sarah, finished my book, and attempted to get some sleep. Obviously, I didn't get any sleep. We are still somewhere over the Atlantic, though since it is still dark out I really have no idea what we are flying over. It is now 4:30, and I am going to try again to get some sleep.

So it is now 6:10 am, and I still haven't gotten any sleep. Now I know for sure that we are somewhere over the Atlantic. Our altitude is 10670 m and we have 3 hours and 10 minutes until we reach Manchester. So far on this flight, we have traveled 2376 miles.

So it is now 7 am, and I am watching the sun rise over the ocean. The clouds cover most of the ocean, though they look awesome from up here. You can see all of the ripples and breaks in the clouds though.

The remainder of the flight was rather unexciting, though we did get to fly over Ireland and the Irish sea, which was an awesome view. By the end of the flight, we were all ready to get off the plane. I did end up getting about a half hour of sleep around 8, but Sarah woke me up for breakfast around 8:30.

After going through customs, we proceeded to meet Paul, from Hope University, who showed us to where the buses were. Only one of them was there, so we shoved all of the luggage into that bus. We then had to wait fifteen minutes or so for the other bus, which we all proceeded to cram in to. Dr. Scho and Dr. Salsbury rode with Paul in his car. When we arrived, we got our luggage and were shown to our flats. Some people were placed in the nice, newer flats, and some people were placed in the not so nice, older, and not so safe flats. In the newer flats, each person has their own bathroom and shower. In the older flats, we have three bathrooms and one shower. Katie and I told Erin that we are going to shower in her flat since she has her own shower. We are only in the old flats for two weeks though, and then we are able to move into the newer flats where we will have our own bathroom and shower.

Today, all we basically did was be shown around the campus, had a brief orientation, and receive our Hope ids. Since none of us have slept or showered since Monday, none of our pictures look very nice. I was able to give my mom a call to tell her I got here safe, but she didn't pick up her cell phone, so I ended up just leaving her a message.

I am currently not feeling the jet lag, though I know that I will be eventually. We are going to dinner at 5:30, and then Katie and I are going to Erin's to use her shower, after which I will probably let Katie use my computer and then go to sleep. We have a guest lecturer tomorrow morning at 10, and then we have seminar again in the afternoon. Tomorrow night we are going to go out and explore Liverpool. We are also staying in Liverpool this weekend to get accustomed to the environment and experience some of the things that Liverpool has to offer.

I will probably be posting pictures from the plane rides and the airports later, and as I take pictures of Hope and Liverpool, I will get them up here. Hope this finds everyone well.

Annabeth

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