Day one in england

Ok so the flight over sucked because I was in coach and there is no leg room and after like 4 hours I was over that. I watched a bunch of bad movies which though poorly made were entertaining none the less. We finally arrived at Gatwick airport at 6:05 am and began the journey home. Let me tell you lugging around two 50 lb suitcases gets really old really fast. We finally get to the train station part of the airport and then get to use our UK pounds while trying to figure out what train to get on. Thankfully it wasnt very busy and the cashier at the ticket counter was helpful. The train finally gets here and we get all the luggage on the train ( I am traveling with my friend Caitlin and her sister Maura thank god) then 30 min later arrive at Brighton station. After stopping by Maura's Hotel room and being able to put our luggage down for the first time( a very nice man in the hotel offered to put it in this room for us until we were able to leave and called us a cab, needless to say he got a good tip) we headed to campus. A short cab ride later we had arrived. We pull up to the dorms and there is a very intimidating hill between us and the sidewalk. In retrospect it wasnt that big but when you are carrying all that stuff the hills seem to triple in size. Did I mention it was raining durring all this? Our awesome cabby carried our luggage up the hill for us, he was also tipped well. (As an aside we later found out that you aren't supposed to tip and it can be considered rude, but oh well) So we walk up to the main housing building and there is a sign on the door that says, "ring bell for assistance with door" or something to that effect. At this point we are so brain dead that we are standing there trying to figure out what we are supposed to do to get inside when a very confused man opens the door to let us in. It was just a regular door and we looked like idiots because we were just standing there staring at it. We inside and announce that we are here to check in to find out that apparently our friends at USAC ( the program we are studying abroad through) has not informed the school (University of Brighton) that we are arriving today. So then we get to sit there and watch the madness as they try to get info about what rooms we are in and the paper work that needs to be filled out. Luckily that was sorted soon enough and we made our way to our dorm, that was also up a hill. At this point I started to believe that everywhere I had to walk would some how be up a hill. My room wasn't ready yet because the previous occupant had just moved out that day so I waited in Caitlin's room while mine was getting ready. An hour later I got to walk up 3 flights of stairs to the top floor where i was staying and started to get settled. The rooms we are in are....cozy. They are pretty small and the bathroom consists of a sink, toilet and a shower head on the wall. It's sort of like a hospital bathroom. There is no partion from the rest of the bathroom, the bathroom floor is the shower floor as well. Not to mention the shower curtain doesnt go to the floor so it insures that the whole floor will be pretty wet after every shower. The beds sucked of course but thats sort of a requirement for a dorm room. At this point it was about 11 am UK time and we were exhausted. We wanted to wait to go to bed at a normal hour to help get regulated to the 6 hour time jump but we didnt make it. So we take a nap and wake up around 8. Well while we were sleeping alot of the other kids studying with us arrived and a girl who is studying here for a year took them into town for food and groceries. We missed this trip and had not eaten in 15 hours and the last meal we had consisted of a croisant and a banana. Seeing as it was so late, we had no idea where we were and there was no McDonalds in sight so we had given up on eating. We were walking past the mail slot in the dorm (apparently there arent individual mail boxes here, everyone's mail just gets dumped in the same slot and you just pick through it) and there was a flyer for a pizza place and on the front it said free delivery. There was much rejoicing. After one very expensive phone call and alot of repeating myself ( our zip code is BNI 9SF and apparently when we say S and F they sound the same, its very frustraiting trying to explain that im not saying SS or FF, even after I said S as in Sam and F as in Fire..?) our pizza was ordered and we were waiting patiently for our food. About 40 minutes later we get a call on the dorm pay phone. ( since I hadn't gotten an international number yet I had to give them the payphone number, that meant we got to wait in the cold lobby, hooray...) The driver can't find us. Well neither Caitlin or I are any help seeing as we have only been here for 12 hours and have no idea where we are. So I told him our address again ( the correct address by the way, I wasnt messing it up) and we continued to wait. 15 minutes later another phone call, by this time both the delivery guy and I were getting a bit cranky and he tells us that he's on this street and we need to come get our food. Well I'm trying to explain to him that I have no idea where he is, that we just moved here, all while trying to fight the urge to to say " I ordered delivery not come park some where and i'll come find you" Well Caitlin and I are so desperate at this point that we just go outside and start looking around. This road is not on any campus map we have so we were just wandering. We happened upon a group of people at the bus stop and informed them of the situation and asked where this particular road was. They explained that it wasn't even on this campus it was on an adjoining one. (Brighton Uni has multiple campuses all around the town and surrounding area)Again, I gave him the correct address as well as the correct campus. I never dream that the pizza delivery guy wouldn't know where a college campus was but at that point I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. So we decided to give up because there was no way we were finding this guy and we figured that he had probably given up on us as well. On the way back to the dorm, Caitlin spots a guy with a pizza bag and our hope was renewed! I was trying to avoid this guy because he had been yelling at me over the course of the last hour and a half so I headed back to the dorm while Caitlin chased him down. I get to our door and there is another pizza guy, our pizza guy. After a quick exchange of food and money, all was well again. Caitlin however weirded out the other pizza guy, seeing as he wasn't delivering to us and she was following him around. We ate and drank and were happy. After that we went to bed hopeful that tomorrow would be less stressful. Stay tuned for Day 2 if you haven't already fallen asleep reading this.

My first blog!

Hello everyone! Sorry it's taken so long to get on the internet and start posting. It has certainly been quite a trip so far and I have so much to talk about. Unfortunately I have no time to do it just yet, we have to head into town soon but I should be back on later today with a VERY long entry about my adventures in Brighton so far. All I can say is that I certainly have a new respect for international students, especially when they dont even speak the language! I know that they speak english over here but I still have a hard time understanding some people when they talk, it will take some getting used too. I love it so far though, the scenery is beautiful and very hilly. Public transportation is the way to get around here and we do quite a bit of walking so my legs have had some adjusting to do. I can't wait to get on and write some more!

Jourdan