Arriving in England

Heya everyone. I'll let you know what's been happening.

Leaving Brisbane:

It was stressful and tearful and I miss my beautiful puppy already.

The flight out:

The flight out of Brissie was delayed for an hour. This stressed me out a bit because my connecting flight had only a two hour window. I was confused by how early you had to be at the connecting gate. On the ticket it said one hour, which would mean bolting to the gate. On the screen it said 45 minutes. And further down on the ticket it said no later than 20 minutes before it left. Anyway, I just went as fast as I could and ended up catching the flight with 15 minutes to spare, thank god.

On the flight:

It was long, and I had a good window seat. Downside to that is in the early hours of the morning when you desperately need to pee and the two people between you and the aisle are fast asleep. (Thankfully the guy on the end woke up after a little while and I just climbed over the seat.)

In flight entertainment rocks. You do get a bit sick of it by the end, though. It's good to move around as much as possible. I did lunges and such to keep the blood-flow moving.

Arriving at Heathrow in London:

I was highly amused by a piano that played itself, and had to laugh at a guy's bemused expression. The it was down a long hallway. There was a picture of a lady in a black and red dress/ robe thing. The headline said "Welcome" and the lady's title was "Beefeater". I was like, You get a fancy dress for eating beef here?? The taxi driver later said it might mean one of the Queen's guard.

Before I left, six year old Carly (family friend) asked if I could take a photo of the Queen for her, and to send her a postcard of any princesses I met. I asked her if I could just send her a card with a Disney princess on it and she seemed happy with that. As for the queen, I might just take a photo of the money for her. They have pennies! I thought that was an old fashioned thing. They have pence, too. That's like cents here. So if something costs 9.99 pounds, you actually get the one pence back! You guys are getting ripped off in Brissie. There's no rounding up here!

Coins in England

I hear my roomies getting up, which is surprising seeing as they call anything earlier than 9:30am unreasonably early (according to Nick). I have 9 roomies. All first years, but some are older than me so it feels like it all evens out. Pat is 29 and Oliver is 22 and Ami is 19. She's lovely. I like her the most so far. She is from Wales and she speaks quite fast. She has pale skin and red blonde hair. She's bi. I heard a few relationships-gone-wrong stories from Nick and Ami as the two other boys went out for supplies (beer and milk, I think).

You have to buy a lump sum bus ticket, the price depending on how many weeks you want it to be valid for. I just got a week to start with, while I'm figuring out how much I'll use it. If the weather isn't too bad and if it's not too expensive, I might get a second hand bike to ride into town. It'd take about 15 minutes. Still deciding.

There have been plenty of hiccups along the way but it has all worked out in the end. eg. I couldn't get into my room with the weird swipey electronic door key. Then Helena from International Relations came and showed me how to use it properly.

It's only just starting to get light now and it's almost 8am.

Impressions of England:

From the plane, the houses looked like neat lines. On ground level, they seemed just as orderly. Many of the houses look exactly the same. How can they tell which house is theirs?

The biggest thing I noticed was the colour--lack-thereof, I should say. Everything was either black, white, or brown. Except for the fields. Man, the fields. I saw them on the train ride from Paddington to Bath. The crops and the grass were a very bright green. If it weren't for that colour, the landscape would be totally depressing.

I'm going into the town today. Their buses are double decker. On the bus ride to uni, I was the only one in the bus for a while. It felt like I was being chauffer driven!

The uni is more old buildings. A place where they hold lectures and classes is actually an old castle. How crazy is that??

The rest was ok. Lake and hills like in Austen movies. But the weather made everything seem a little bleak. Helena said I've probably come in the wrong time of year, but on the bright side, it will only get better. It probably is the wrong time of year, but it was the only time that worked out with my studies at QUT. After fretting about this and that in London, and everything working out, I've come to think that everything happens for a reason, and I should just wait a while and everything will work out. "If it hasn't worked out yet, it isn't the end", as the quote goes.

I have to clean my room. Already, I know, haha. It's a decent size, I get a window, desk, bed, shelves, cupboard and basin. Plus a wall-to-wall pin board where I can stick up all my pictures of home and of my friends. Before I left Mum printed all the photos I wanted--which was quite a lot. We didn't bring them all because it was too heavy and also we thought there wouldn't be room. Ha!

That's alright, though, because I'm sure I'll have photos I take here that I'll want to put up.

Surprisingly I'm not that jetlagged. I've been sleeping a lot, even on the plane. Probably making up for the lack of sleep before I left.

By the way, it is cold, but it's not insane. As long as you rug up in plenty of layers it's okay. You need gloves and lip balm with you at all times. And a waterproof jacket and shoes. I'm buying more shoes today.

Thanks for tuning in. I'll update you again soon. Love xoxoxo