There were several classmates of mine on the bus with me, but I was just too tired to attempt to introduce myself until we got off the bus. We all walked trudged, luggage and all, through Parker's Piece, where the bus dropped us off, and down St. Andrews Street until we got to Christ's. To the left you can see a picture of the Great Gate, which leads into the grounds. It took about 15 minutes or so, in all. The Porters were very nice when we arrived, gave us our keys and showed us all the places we need to know on the map of the campus.
The rooms are quite large. I want to say they're roughly the size of William and Mary doubles, except they're all singles. Each room has 4 chairs, a desk, a bed side table, a small coffee table, a larger table, a closet, and plenty of shelf space. It might even be nicer than my room at home, although the bed is only a single. The only issue thus far is that there's no internet. I guess apparently the woman will be in tomorrow so that we can pay and get our login info for the network.
Anyway, after I unpacked and settled in, I didn't really have much to do, since the Orientation meeting with Professor MacGowan wasn't until 7 and by this time it was before 2. I showered, hung out with some of the guys on my hall, and eventually decided to go out and roam. I found the grocery store, Sainsbury's, down the street, and got a sandwich, crisps (that's potato chips for the unitiated), and some fruit for lunch. Other than that, it was basically killing time until everyone else got here. I read a good chunk of Timescape until it was time for the meeting.
We all decided to go over to the room where the meeting was held at 6:30, in case we got lost or couldn't find the place. It's lucky that we did because, well, we couldn't find the place. We finally figured out where we were supposed only to find that the door was locked anyway. MacGowan didn't actually show up until 7:05. The meeting was rather pointless and may have even made things more confusing. There are supposed to be two tours of Cambridge for us tomorrow, one at 10 and one at 1:30, and Prof MacGowan had also scheduled a punting lesson at 10 for those who don't go on the 10 o'clock tour. Of course, the lady in charge of getting our internet working is only in from 10-11 tomorrow, and you can bet most of us want to be there as well (he passed around a sign-up sheet, and only one poor girl had signed up for the 10 o'clock tour). So apparently we're to go to the Activities office tomorrow and sign up for internet, and he'll tell the guide to wait until 10:15 or 10:30 so that we can get it all sorted out. I kind of feel bad for the poor guy, he's certainly more of a professor than an administrator.
Throughout the meeting, I kept looking for Monica Holt, the one person I knew who was going on this trip, but she wasn't there. I thought perhaps that I had been confused and that she was going somewhere else this summer, but as I was leaving, I found her coming out of her dorm.
"Hello Monica, I was wondering where you were."
"Is the meeting over? I slept through it."
So yeah, Monica Holt slept through the first meeting of our study abroad program. Not that she missed much.
Afterwards I was looking to find somewhere to go for dinner, so I walked around with Doug from my hall for a bit, but he said he just wanted a little something from Sainsbury's, so he picked up a soda and a Snickers and we came back to campus. As we arrived, Monica, Rory, Jenny, and Jen were just leaving, saying that they were going to a pub, so I said goodbye to Doug and joined up with them
We walked a good distance down Sidney Street, even over the river, and found a nice little place called the County Arms. We each had our first beverage in England. I got a Beacon Ale, brewed in Leicestershire. It was the cheapest one on the list, but it was pretty good. Rory got a Foster's, which I thought was rather silly. "I've never had one before, and it seemed like a special occasion." I only got a half-pint, because I didn't feel much like drinking. Jen got some sort of cider, which looked good so I decided to get that for my second drink, and it was good. I don't know the name of it, unfortunately. I also got a bacon cheddar burger, which for those of you who know my eating habits was an extremely rare occurance. But it was the special of the night I supposed. It actually wasn't too bad, even though the cheese was shredded and the bacon wasn't actual bacon, at least not in the American sense.
After the pub we moved on to a Spanish tapas bar down the street. Since I had already eaten, I just had a glass and a half of Sangria while everyone else ate. The Sangria was all right, thought certainly not as good as the true Spanish variety (Alyssa Shevchuk's beverage of choice.).
By then it was a little after 11 and we were all rather tired, so we headed back to Christ's. Now I'm off to bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment