Day 1: Arriving and Welcome Reception!

After a nice lunch at the Cheesecake Factory and a short-lived trip to Dave & Busters in Kansas City, I arrived at the KCI Airport where I met up with Alex who I'd be flying with. After a clueless whirlwind through checking my bags and going through security, thankfully I made it into Gate 14! I said my final goodbyes to everyone awkwardly through the glass... from which my mother apparently didn't want to leave ;)

My mom and I

My sister and I

The flights went very smoothly -- we took United Airlines and connected in Chicago. We were quite nervous about the connection since we only had 35 minutes, but our flight actually got in 20 minutes early so the connection was very relaxed. I ended up sitting smooshed between two larger older people who were actually married. Interesting! They were headed for a mission trip to Kenya. They were quite nice, but it wasn't the most comfortable in between them. The food was alright -- pasta for dinner and yogurt for dessert. It seemed like everytime I needed to get up on the plane, it was a bad time.... either both of the people next to me were asleep, eating, drinking, reading peacefully, or whatever else. So I definitely had to be assertive and ask them to let me out, even though I felt bad for disturbing them!

Also, the flight attendants didn't seem all that cheerful, which in all reality I don't think I would be if I had to take care of people on an overnight flight! One of them just watched Alex while she struggled to get her carry-on luggage in the overhead departments! After a lengthy 7 hour flight, Alex and I made it to Heathrow! Everything was pretty easy, except that my luggage was entiiiirely too heavy. My arms are going to be so buff by the time I get back! Also, for future reference, you can take carry-on luggage that has wheels. Please don't ever take a bag you have to carry at your side. So painful!

As Alex and I passed through immigration, where they asked us where we were going, why, etc... we realized how hilarious it was that we really didn't know much about what exactly we were doing, and how it's been so hard to explain to people what our trip is all about!

When we came out into the arrival terminal, I felt like the people around us were paparazzi! There were soooo many of them that swarmed and they were all holding up signs with names on them. We realized that we should probably be looking for our names... but couldn't find them. We figured that since our flight actually arrived 40 minutes early that Kirsten Nichols (the International Recruiter at Roehampton University) might not be there yet. So we stood around for a while and waited.

Once she found us, we realized that we had been waiting literally 10 feet in front of where our group was standing! We all greeted each other with hugs, which was nice since it seemed like we were all already so close! We kept getting to learn bits and pieces of our schedule, too. At that point, all we knew was that we were going to be volunteering in schools, going to Belgium, going to Scotland, and seeing Oliver the musical. That's it! It seemed to be some big secret or something!

Alex and I took a taxi, which took us to Roehampton University. It was so weird to get used to the steering wheel on the ride side of the car and to be driving in the left lane. At one point I looked over in a car, saw a person lounging and reading a magazine on the left side of the car, and I momentarily freaked out, but then realized she wasn't actually the driver! Very, very different!



Here is a video that gives a bit more information about Roehampton University and shows how amazingly residential is it and how close it is to main parts of London!! We got so lucky with our location!




The driver dropped us off at the gate and we had to haul our heavy luggage up this hill to get to Bede House, our residence.


We were all surprised to find that we each get our own room, but share a bathroom and a kitchen. It's nice to have a room to myself, but weird because I thought we were living in a communal flat! Oh well :)

I'm in Room 8! They did it alphabetically by last name, so Dayna got Room #1 (which is sadly separated from us by a fire door!), Barron #2, Emma #3, Jason #4, Malik #5, Nadia #6, and Alex #7).

In each room there was a twin sized bed, desk, and shelves.

Also, there was a small dresser, extra chair, and sink/mirror area. If this picture extended to the left a bit more, you would see a closet and a full-length mirror.

The view outside my window! There was a cute little courtyard out there :)

The hallway... looking from my room down to room #1.

After we got settled in a bit, we headed to the communal kitchen and had tomato and cheese sandwiches for lunch, got to know each other a bit better, and started to feel out everyone's personalities.

Curtis and Louisa, our two Roehampton University student ambassadors, came and hung out with us a bit!













They wanted to take us to Putney to a pub for the Germany vs. England World Cup game. Since we didn't have our Oyster cards (travel cards), we decided to walk there, since Louisa promised it was only a 20 minute walk. Thus began one of the running jokes of the trip because it indeed took 57 minutes to walk from Roehampton to Putney (yes, we timed it). So from here on out, if a British person said anything about time, we would jokingly clarify, "Wait, UK time or US time?" Or if a British person would say, "Oh I'll be there in 10 minutes," without missing a beat someone would chime in, "Okay so they'll be here in half an hour." It was too funny!

Anyways, it was so very fun to be in the pub atmosphere while everyone was going crazy over the World Cup game. It was so LOUD and people were quite upset and embarrassed over the 4-1 loss :( It definitely showed me how important soccer (football) is in English culture. Their reactions to the game reminded me of how Americans would get over American football or basketball.

The newspaper cover the day after the loss.

My first English pounds!

After the game, we headed back (by bus, thankfully!) and got ready for our wine reception and welcome dinner at the fancy Grove House. It was really nice to network with some of the faculty/staff at Roehampton! We had couscous, chicken, some veggies, and raspberry cheesecake. Then we each gave a 5 minute presentation over an assigned piece of London... mine was Trafalgar Square! Others included Tower of London, the London Eye, London Bridge, Queen's Palace, British Museum, St Paul's Cathedral, etc... it turned out very well!

It was fun because you could kind of get a glimpse into everyone's personality by how they gave their presentation. For example, Barron threw in a lot of jokes in his. Jason gave his while reading from his notes on little tiny bits of ripped up paper -- he went through information he printed off and literally ripped out bits that he thought were important -- so he brought all of those bits up with him and used them as notes... we knew he would be a mess at that point! Malik really surprised us... he had been kind of reserved so far, and confided in a few of us that he only had about 5 bullet points prepared... but when he began to speak, his very professional voice and stature surprised us all, and he whipped out all these quotes from Winston Churchill! He's going to be famous someday -- that's a fact!

We all had good conversations at dinner. One that I particularly remember is talking with Alex and Kirsten about dental treatment in the UK and why there is a stereotype that British people have bad teeth. Kirsten explained to us that it's a combination of factors: the UK doesn't treat their water with fluoride like in America, there isn't such a widespread obsession with perfect teeth, and dentists are not covered under the National Health Service (NHS) plan. So, many British people become resentful that they have to pay for their dental treatments, and more often than not, just don't. Additionally, something that I've already noticed is that the English definitely make a bigger deal out of their meal times... they aren't rushed at all. An hour for lunch (meaning, to actually eat, for an hour is typical!) It's interesting. Anyways, we came back and hung out for a while but mostly everyone went to sleep pretty early. Great first day!