My First Week

It has been exactly one week since I left my house for England and it has been an interesting experience so far.

I may as well start at the beginning of my trip as a lot has happened during these last seven days. (I do apologize if my writing is terrible, I am not an English major).

My mom and I arrived several hours early at LAX. As a family that over-plans, this was not extremely necessary but it was a nice non-stress cushion overall.I got through check-in and security no problem, except for the fact that my bag was exactly 50lbs and to top it off I had a loaded school bag and purse to drag along (I tried to pack lightly--but I'm a girl, and eight months of stuff is hard to fit in one bag! No matter how big.)

The flight was long but it went well and the food was actually pretty good and fresh; especially for airplane food! I arrived in London England a little after 11:00am England time and headed towards customs where I ran into a bit of a itch but was able to figure it out pretty quickly. Here's a lesson to everybody...when the student visa says 6 months it means 6 months. Not 6 months and 5 days. SO, I will be headed to Dublin, Ireland sometime in the next week to take care of this little visa problem. After all was sorted, and please be aware all of this is happening while I have the mindset of someone woken at 3:00am, I went to pick up my massive bag from collections. From here I made my way through the massive London Heathrow airport weighed down and alone to the tunnel where I bought a ticket and maneuvered myself through two sets of tunnel trains, getting plenty of glares as I took up a large amount of space and often stumbled around due to my load. I think I hit a baby in a stroller at one point. Oops. I then took a third train from London Euston to Birmingham where my friend picked me up and took me to her lovely family's home in a smaller town called Solihull.

Georgia's lovely sister Chloe, Georgia, and myself at dinner

 My friend from Northern Arizona University, Georgia, is an exchange student from the university I will soon be attending in England, Nottingham Trent University and it was a pure coincidence that we met and became so close; especially since I am attending her university and she is attending mine. I have to say it was a blessing to arrive and see a familiar face after almost 24 hours of traveling. I had nearly become delusional and couldn't have imagined a better way to end a long journey.

Flying over England, the houses are so close together!

I stayed with Georgia and her family nearly this whole week as they welcomed me in and treated me so graciously. We made the short 40 minute trip from Solihull to Nottingham for New Years Eve where I got to enjoy the legal life of an adult for the first time. It was such a great night with so many great girls.We went to a classier club called the Bowery where we got to ring in the new year and a new beginning.(Thanks mom for the selfie stick)

New Years Eve pre-drinks

 

Cloud cover over Wales

My jet lag has not been great the first few days, often keeping me up for an hour or two in the evening. I guess this really showed when we slept until 3:45pm New Years Day. It was dark when we woke up and left to return to Solihull. Apparently the sun sets before 4:00 each day, Yikes! (What sun?)

FOOD!
 Over the course of the week I have been fed many English foods and almost all of them are SO good and different! I am still fighting to find more American food here though, as there are not a lot of true American food options.

Full English Breakfast

I have to take a moment to do my best to describe the food photos as they are very hard to explain. First, fish and chips comes with the largest fillets of fish I have ever seen served to a single person. And they are covered in vinegar and salt and so filling and delicious. (Chips are fries here, Fillets are also pronounced using both of the L's, like FILL IT)

Second, the bacon here, as seen in the English breakfast, is a massive piece of meat and not as "streaky," thin, and crispy as our bacon in America. Still very good though!

A crumpet

Lastly, I included a photo of a crumpet with a bit of butter on it. A crumpet is very bready and extremely hard to explain as there is nothing exactly like it in America. But, it can be described as a combination of an English muffin with a pancake texture (almost). Sorry, that's the best I can do.

Georgia's grandparents visited for a day and treated me to lunch. Since it was a pretty universal menu I decided to get something close-to-home and order a bacon and cheese burger with guac (it was actually on the menu!) You can see the giant slices of pink bacon and a not too shabby mix of guacamole.

I didn't think I was going to experience much culture shock choosing to come to a country so similar to ours. But then I realized that no one here serves or knows what Ranch dressing is. I made it my mission to find a business that sells some as every time I asked I got the strangest looks from the employees who had never heard of it. But low and behold, good ol' McD's had a ranch chicken and bacon snack wrap! :D

  

Straying away from the topic of food for awhile...

Georgia, her mom and I went shopping for an afternoon in Coventry (not pronounced like CUVentry I learned) and went to this amazing store called Primark. Everything there is so amazingly cheap and I was able to get almost everything I needed to settle into my new place all very inexpensively! I will be going back there! Georgia and I did some additional side shopping as well for the little things (shampoo, toothbrush, Q-tips, etc) and every mall we went to was decorated so beautifully for the holidays! I figured I appreciated it so much, you may as well too.

 

 

Coventry Mall

Last night Georgia and I went for some drinks out in the town. I highly recommend to any travelers that they invest in the $30 Passport Card because 1. It is a form of ID and you don't risk losing your passport on nights out and 2. The look on people's faces when they see it and don't know what it is is priceless! (Especially in a smaller town, most American's don't travel far outside of London or the big cities.) We had a fabulous night out; went to three pubs and met some really nice people!


Today, I did some final shopping, had a "Roast dinner" prepared wonderfully by Georgia's family, (every bite was amazing! I liked food I didn't think I would!) and then packed up, I said my goodbye's, and we drove back to Nottingham. I finally got to meet my roommates, and all 5 of them are so amazingly wonderful! I feel so blessed that I was able to find a room in such a welcoming home and I cannot wait to get to know all of them more! I didn't travel or buy much, but am finally unpacked and settled in. And so, for the humor of all of those people who know I like my stuff, I have attached photos of my completely settled-in room here abroad.

Two fleece blankets for the night

My desk

My sad little shoe rack

My closet. With four SMALL drawers underneath

To all who took the time to read this far, THANK YOU  and I'm sorry! It is now officially 2:07am and I must finally get some rest! I will try and post often! Please feel free to comment and ask any questions that you have as I touched on a lot!

xxx~Dana