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Published: July 10th 2007
Well, I'm here. I'm starting this blog without any pictures to post yet because my mom keeps bothering me about it and I need to find a photo center in the City Square where I can make a CD from the photos on my camera. I only have about 50 pictures taken so far so I'll try to fill the card up a bit more tonight and tomorrow before I get the CD made. After that I'll have all the pictures up as soon as possible.
I left Orlando Saturday afternoon around 6:00 on Virgin Air. The flight went well; the food was surprisingly good; I had my first legal (I mean first, ever) glass of wine. I was too excited and nervous to sleep which was unfortunate since I barely slept at all the night before in hopes of passing out on the plane to avoid jet lag. We got into London around 7am on Sunday (2am Orlando time, 1am Pensacola time) and after getting off the plane I found a huge group of kids from Burnett Honors College at UCF and stuck with them until we got on the bus. Getting through customs was nerve wracking. One of the Burnett girls tried to take a picture of all of us going through. Right after the camera flashed a British man in line in front of us said, "Oh, did you get a good shot of that 'No Photography' sign in that one?" And the security guard came racing over yelling about how she'd have to delete the picture for security purposes or he'd take her camera. It was a good beginning.
The customs official asked a lot of tricky questions. First he said, "Where are you from?"
I replied, "Orlando, Florida, United States."
He said, "Are you here on your own?"
I said, "Yes."
"What are you here for?"
"Summer school at Cambridge."
"Oh, so you're with a group?"
"Yes... Oh! Crap! You got me."
My guy was better than a lot of the others though, apparently. We were supposed to have letters inviting us to the college with us and none of us did. I implied that I may or may not have something of the kind in my backpack and asked if he wanted me to get it out. He said no and let me through. One of the others wasn't so lucky. When he said he didn't have an invitation paper the customs official said, "So you actually expect me to let you into my country based soley on your word saying you're going to be a student here?" The kid said, "Well... yes." Then the customs official pulled him aside, called security over, and proceeded to unpack and search all of his luggage while the rest of us had to run ahead to hold the bus and wait an extra hour for them to be through with him. He said they asked him, "What are you 'supposedly' here studying?" He said, "Well, Shakespeare and TS Eliot and poetry." They laughed skeptically, then stopped when they began unpacking his bag which held clothing and an abnormally large number of Shakespeare books, poetry books, and the Waste Land by TS Eliot. Eventually they let him go and we were allowed to get on our way to Cambridge. Another good beginning!
Once we got here we were all exhausted but didn't want to sleep so that we would be able to pass out later in the night. This logic seems to be sticking with me for some reason even though it repeatedly fails. Instead of napping two other girls, Ebony and Anne Marie, from UCF and I began exploring Cambridge and the City Center. There's a small outdoor market, a million shops and cathedrals and huge ornate buildings that are beautiful and really won't be done justice until I post the pictures of them, though not even really then. We walked around for about 4 hours, took the standard tourist phone book photos, and made it back in time for dinner.
The food at the College is surprisingly good. Every night we're served 3 course meals at our table. So far we've had salmon, chicken wrapped in bacon, strawberries and cream, some sort of mushroom alfredo pasta, roast beef and potatoes, and some other good stuff. Breakfasts are ridiculously heavy with bacon, stewed tomatoes, mushrooms again, french toast, regular toast, and porridge. I've learned to stick with the fruits and ceral table to get me through the day. So far no blood sausages or liver or any of those disgusting things yet, but I'm crossing my fingers for dinner tonight. Our rooms here are pretty nice, big with a bunch of random furniture shoved into them like they're storage closets, but not so much that it's impossible to get around. In mine I have two desks, two dressers, a closet, a small bed, two bookshelves built into the walls, a small table, a small free standing book shelf, and a huge sink covered by a big brown wooden box. Yeah, strange. I've taken pictures of it so I'll have to post some of those tomorrow as well.
Other than that, I love my classes and things are way more expensive here than they should be. I'm scared to go to London and see the prices there. I'm in a general potery class, an Anglo-Welsh poetry class, and then we have a different plenary lecture with various topics everyday. My teachers are both young British men and extremely intelligent. The best part about classes here is that everyone actually wants to be there so it makes the environment insanely better than a regular summer college semester. Getting up at 7 and having class every day is tiring. It feels a little bit like being in high school again, except now because of the jet lag and illogical nap refusal I'm exhausted all the time.
Tomorrow night I'm planning on going with some people to a local production of Shakespeare shorts that should be kind of neat. This weekend we're planning on going to London for a day and seeing Othello performed at the Globe and going to Camden market. Tuesday marks the end of this first part of classes and then we have Wednesday off for sight seeing, so if we can figure out the bus system we're going to try to go to Stonehenge.
Alright well that's more than enough for now. As soon as I can I'll get the pictures I've taken so far posted! Thank you so much again to Grammy and my parents for letting me be here. Love you all.
Nicole
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Grammy
non-member comment
Thanks for getting the blog started
HI Nicole, so far it sounds wonderful, if exhausting. It sounds as if you are making some great new friends, learning, sightseeing, being well fed...now if you could only get some sleep...lol. Well something has to go wrong or we will never convince you to come home. Have fun!!!