Arrival in Durham

---

Well, I've arrived safely here in Durham. After the long flight, I waddled into the airport with all of my baggage. Having planned on being alone and having to manage all of my baggage I had carefully selected my large hiking backpack, an enormous rolling duffel bag, and a rolling carry-on bag (on which I could rest the smaller bag containing my computer and other electronics). I was all ready to have to open my baggage at customs, and so had chosen to situate everything on a rolling cart rather than set myself up (logistically this could take several minutes) only to have to do it again. However, no one even blinked an eye at me as I maneuvered out of the secured areas. So, I rolled myself out of the gate (eyeing the signs for people being met with some envy) and made my way to the top of the escalator down into the bowels of the underground. I began the slow process of situating myself, and about halfway through a very nice airpoort employee with an accent that I couldn't identify (who had been watching me with extreme scepticism throughout this process) offered to help. He grabbed my duffel bag, hoisting it over the barrier that keeps people from taking the airport carts onto the escalator, and began heading down, down, down. This left me scrambling to finish with my other bags and quickly catch up. I got to the bottom of the escalator just in time to set him take off running my bag down the hallway to the station. At this point I figured that if I lost my luggage it could be my computer bag, and therefore could be worse. But when I got to the end of the corridor he was standing there patiently waiting beside my bag and left me to my own devices. Getting on the underground was no small trick, mostly because it was difficult to get such a large bag through some of the barriers, and then again to hoist such a heavy bag across the gap ("mind the gap!"). However I did manage it, and luckily King's Cross Rail Station is on the same line as Heathrow, requiring not a single transfer. At the station I waited in line, bought my ticket, stood around for a few minutes and then settled in for a rather uneventful 3 hour train ride. I then arrived into the care of the welcoming committee from the International office of the university. They took fabulous care of me, meaning that as long as I was patient with the mistakes made by beauraucracy I was delivered with relatively little fuss not only to my building, but to the door of my room. Since then things have continued to go quite well. The first day was a breath of fresh air! I woke up that morning to a sunny sky (that night I enjoyed a gorgeous sunset with just enough clouds to make it really beautiful), and promptly headed into the city center to take care of some paperwork. The fact that I had absolutely nothing to eat in my flat may have had something to do with my enthusiasm. I spent much of the day waiting around to get paperwork checked, and then I managed to get some groceries and a few other essential items. Getting everything home was a bit of a trick, since I first had to figure out which bus to take, then where to catch it, then where to get off. Everyone was extremely helpful, and I managed to get onto and off of the bus at the other end. My problems more can with trying to figure out exactly where I was in relation to my building once I was off the bus. I ended up spending a fair amount of time wandering through the parking lot of the hospital just across the way, with my building just out of sight behind some hulk of a building on the hospital property. Though I was exhausted and frustrated, I did eventually get home. And the bottom only fell out of one of my grocery bags before I got through the door. Once I got in though, I began to meet my flat mates - Emma, who is from this area, and Alina, who is Russian. Emma and I spent a long time just chatting and getting to know one another, and we get on extremely well. Alina and I also get on well, and that night the two of us ended up going to a party for international students up at Ustinov College. I met a whole mess of people while I was there, including people from Germany, Italy, Ukraine, Kazakstan, etc. It was wonderful. The next day was really down to business, so I had to wake up early, though I was out late the night before. Early on we had college induction, which really consisted of a series of announcements, a very short tour, and being handed a packet with the information that we needed for the coming week. It was really nice to get to meet some of the people from the Middle Common Room (MCR) though, which is the association of postgraduate students within University College (also known as Castle). These are the people that I will be spending a lot of my social time with during the coming year. This group also includes all of my flat mates, as well as a number from other flats in the same building. By this time I had also met Hitomi and Kate, two of my other flat mates, and was beginning to get my feet under me. Filip (one of the guys from Brackenbury) and I spent some time wandering around in the afternoon, including going to the international student fair, where I found out about the different options for banking as well as about some of the social opportunities. That night I went out again, meeting up in the MCR with a bunch of others, and then taking something of a tour of the bars in the area. It's been really lovely. More later!

---