Welcome to England!

Everyone reading this probably knows already, but I am now on Day 2 of my European Adventure, studying for 4 months in Lancaster (England - not Pennsylvania). Hopefully I won't bore everyone who reads this and can give funny little anecdotes for everyone back in the states to take the sting out of those "mingin' mondays" as they would say here in Britain.



The plane rides over were quite uneventful, which is great. There are 5 of us Gettysburg students (Matt, Ali, Virginia & Craig) who left for the university from Dulles (About 25 more Bullets will be spending the first 4 weeks in London then joining us here). I sat alone (my luck) but had an extra seat next to me, making me have the most sleep out of any of us. We all received our luggage and some obvious looks of judgment (mostly in Amsterdam where we had our layover) but were pretty satisfied with the trip. Minus the screaming babies on both flights.



The university itself is set in a gorgeous area - quite out of a storybook. But Lanc is definitely not a Hogwarts if that is what everyone is picturing. It's mostly ugly 70's style buildings, but thankfully there are newish type dorms which are reassuring. However, nice the actual room is, there are some nice American cultureshocks.

- The bedding they provided us is worse than expected. Sorry mom and dad, but i'll be purchasing some things to make my life a little easier. I hit the bed last night and literally hit the bed. The bed is sitting on a wooden platform and the mattress is so thin that I touched the platform when sitting on the bed.

- Luckily all computers have been plugged in and not fried. Craig & I made the mistake of deleting our Gburg network which makes getting into my iTunes near impossible (I can only listen to one song at a time). This wouldn't be such a problem if Pandora worked but England has yet to apply copyright laws where Pandora, many youtube videos, and all of our favorite shows are online. Quite disappointing (so yes, when I return, I will be hitting up the television to understand what is cool in America).

- Unfortunately, some of our appliances are not so user friendly - Matt fried his electric toothbrush & Ali's hair straightener only switches on for five seconds. I haven't plugged in anything other than my curler (as a test run) and computer but hopefully the camera charger will work. Knock on wood, those are the only "casualties".

- The showers here are made for literally a person under 5'10" (I say this because - shock, I'm the shortest Gburg student) and are just a spout on the wall. There is a slight (when I say slight, like 1 inch) ditch where the bathroom floor and "shower" are... but this morning I learned that if you pull on the shower at full blast, it will take over that 1 inch and proceed straight out the bathroom. I was very quick to chnage that. The overally bathroom is not bad other than tiny, but we were welcomed with no toilet paper - something the cleaning staff "forgot" in our flat and conveniently won't be able to replace til next week. First British purchase - 89p 4 rolls toilet paper. Wonderful.

- We have yet to go in to Lancaster, the city. This will be when we get our toiletries, supplies, food, and cell phones. It sounds like it would be a good thing for us to be away from all the luxuries, but it's really inconvenient. We, as already stated, need toilet paper apparently, and hand soap and everything that we take for granted. The bedding is crap as already mentioned, and they expect us to make every meal for ourselves except the welcome dinner and the dinner tonight. A little hard when many of the stores were closed last night on campus, and many aren't open over summer term. The cell phones will come in handy, especially when we're on our own, but that is the only thing we are living without "willingly". Tonight, the Gburg crew plans on heading into Lanc City early, to discover the town and night life.

- On that note, for dinner last night, we purchased our first pints (2.15 for a Fosters, 2.30 for a Carlsberg, 2.60 for a Guinness, 1.90 for a Tertley - don't worry, Mom & Dad, I didn't drink all of those, that's just the ones the group I was with for the night ordered). We now understand the need for a cool beer after a long day. We all agree that the Guinness is gross but our German comrade sipped it like hot chocolate. I was a Fosters but Tertley seems to be the Natty Light of England. Oh the wonders of being legal.

That's been the most exciting things to report from across the pond. Today were info sessions and tours of the campus. As said before, tomorrow is Lanc City and Sunday is the Lake District. I start class on Mon - 9:30-12:30 everyday, except 3 Wed, and one Thurs where we go on Field Trips. This Wed. is Hadrian's Wall. Keep on the lookout after then for many pictures & loads of fun stories.

I love & miss you all!

Sarah<3