Settling In

So this is my first post from my study abroad trip to London, England even though this is my 4th day in the country. I have been so incredibly busy that I have not had a second to think so just bear with me and I will try to post new things daily or as often as I can. So a quick catch up on what has been going on:

Friday Jan 3- Friday was the day that I left America and flew to England, arriving on the 4th of January. However, this day did not go as smoothly as it should. After driving 2 1/2 hours from my house to RDU and freaking out the whole time about the fact that I had not been mailed my entry letter (the letter that lets me get into the country) yet, therefore calling King's College every 30 minutes until I was transferred to someone that could e-mail it to me. However, this letter must be printed. So here to save the day is the lovely banker at a Bank of America in Burlington that we stopped at on the way that graciously printed it off for me. So now I was able to breathe.......or so I thought. We arrive at RDU with no time to spare until my flight leaves, run to check in my bag and I can't find my passport in my book bag. Turns out that the previous night my mom made copies of my passport and neither of us thought to put in back in my book bag after we were finished so it was still laying in the copier at home. So the panic begins again! After MISSING MY FLIGHT that was suppose to leave at 11:45am along with my study abroad friend that was on the flight, I was stuck. Everything was full and I wasn't going to be able to leave until the 4th at the earliest. However, while my sister is driving my passport halfway to Raleigh and my Dad driving to meet her halfway and bring it back, and after talking to every single American Airlines associate there (who all had different information about everything), a miracle happened and I was booked on a DIRECT flight from RDU to London and even managed to arrive before my study abroad friend.

Sat Jan 4- Now in London Emily (my friend) and I had to make our way to our flat. We took a taxi and it ended up being an insane 85 pounds (~140 dollars) split between us. We reach our flat, which is kind of in the ghetto, and made our way to our rooms. My lovely room consisted of a broken window that didn't close so the room was FREEZING, a sink that drips from the bottom, and a weird air bubble under the bottom of my shower. Also, as soon as we opened the kitchen door it smelled like rotten fish and curry, which made me want to be sick. So we decided to be productive and go get our international phones. Well for all of you getting ready to travel abroad, the iPhone 5 has a NANO sim card, not a MICRO sim card so you can't just get an European sim card put into your phone, you have to buy another phone. Also on that note, if you do have the 4s or some other phone make sure that your provider (Verizon, AT&T) has unlocked your phone before you leave so that it will accept said European sim card. So I now have two phones, which is fine, just unexpected. Also, it took FOREVER to get the phones and I kept on falling asleep standing up in the store because although it was 8:30 or so in London, it was 3:30a.m. at home. So after we get our phones we make our way to Ewen Henderson House were the lovely JORDAN D'AMATO left me a ton of stuff like bedding and toiletries and kitchen items to use. THANK YOU JORDAN!!! In fact, it was so much stuff that it filled my big suitcase and the guy gave us a bag that the post (mail) comes in to fit the rest. Also a big THANK YOU to Emily Mann who without I would not have been able to transport all of these lovely gifts. We also got lost on the way to Ewen Henderson because the bus system here is very confusing and the city is NOT AT ALL in any sort of grid pattern like New York and there are a bunch of little towns and traffic circles and craziness so was about 5:00pm or so when we finally got back to the flat. At this point I sloppily made my bed, threw everything else on the floor and slept until about 10:00pm that night. Also we bought some milk and cheese and bread from a local Tesco express and so I had microwave grilled cheese that night for dinner.

So even though this covers only the first two days and honestly it was hell, it can only go up from here, and it has! A recent storm somehow shut my window so now it just won't open, which is much better (and warmer). I met my flatmates which are myself, Emily, another American girl from Berkley, Katie from Australia, Sam from Germany, and Jay from Thailand (which accounts for the curry smell in the kitchen as he cooks it almost daily, although I'm still not sure where the rotten fish smell was coming from). And I am slowly but surely learning the transportation systems in London and can now take the bus to and from campus without getting lost.

That's it for now. I will try to cover this week so far in a post tomorrow as it has to do with orientation and whatnot, but for now here are some pictures to leave you with.

P.S. Pictures of my room to come later when I have the time to actually organize it!

Tour of London that we did after our first orientation session (this started at 4:30 and it was dark)

My 2nd phone with a mini jar of Vaseline for size comparison

My King's college student ID card, making it OFFICIAL!