Here at last

I know I am WAY overdue for an update, seeing as how I have been in England for about 3 days now! I am loving every minute of my experience here so far, and I've recorded almost every detail of the trip. Let me start at the beginning...Wednesday morning our Oxford group (31 students) left on a bus for the DFW airport at about 10 a.m. Here is the group:



The drive to the airport lasted about 2 hours. Courtney (my future roommate) and I slept on each other the whole way there - we were so exhausted from all of the preparation we had been doing throughout the week! Here is a picture of me and Courtney with some of our bags:



Courtney loves clothes (especially shoes) and kind of had a hard time packing, haha...she actually had 3 suitcases she wanted to check on to the plane (one entirely of shoes)!!! When she went up to the counter to check her bags, the man asked her why she needed so much luggage. She simply said "Well, I suppose I'm just a girl and had a hard time packing because I love clothes." But he quickly replied "I have a better excuse for you. How about this: in that third suitcase is food and presents for third world countries...isn't that right?" She gave him a big grin. "Yes! That's exactly right!" The man ended up checking her third bag at no cost! I was so surprised that he let her do this, especially because it was an international flight, and they are usually more strict. As she left the counter, she sweetly reminded him not to lose all that food for the poor, haha.

After getting rid of our luggage, we had about 4 hours to kill in the airport. It was about 1:00 p.m. and our flight wasn't until 5:00. Courtney and I decided to ride in the SkyLift (I think that's the name of it) around the entire airport. It's like a train that takes you to the different terminals. We met a woman on the SkyLift who was also going to London, meeting her son and daughter there. She wasn't going on the same plane as we were, but we jokingly said "We'll see you in London!" even though we knew that was practically impossible.



I know Courtney is going to be great to have around because she is not afraid to talk to ANYONE! She loves meeting strangers and getting to know people, an area of mine that definitely needs improving. She has a video camera with her at all times, which has been SO wonderful for this trip. We had a lot of fun secretly taping cute guys or children with the camera while we were in the airport. We also met the pilot and some flight attendants that would be on our plane! We had to take a picture of them:



The coolest thing at the DFW airport is this blue musical structure, really hard to explain so I'll just post a picture on here. Basically, there are these circles on the floor inside of it that make noise when you step on them. We were entertained with this for a LONG time, along with all the small children, haha - I'm sure we were starting to get on other people's nerves though...



We got hungry around 4:00 p.m. (yes we still hadn't even left the airport yet...I told you this was detailed!) and decided to eat at Bennigan's. This is when I discovered that Courtney loves sugar more than anyone else I've ever met. She ordered tea and put 15 packs of sugar in it...she wanted more but that was all there was on the table, haha. She actually said it wasn't even sweet enough! I was glad to get salmon and broccoli, a nice substantial meal before the long plane ride.

The flight from Dallas to London was about 9.5 hours, but it went surprisingly fast! I slept 2 hours at the beginning and 2 hours at the end, so that definitely helped. We were served 2 wonderful meals, dinner and breakfast. Tea came with both (fitting) and also complimentary wine, which everyone enjoyed :). The couple in front of us was celebrating their 52nd wedding anniversary in London, and it was really fun to talk to them about it. There were TVs on the backs of every chair, which REALLY helped the flight also - different movies played on every channel, so I ended up watching several parts of them. Here is a gorgeous sunset picture I captured while on the plane:



We landed in London around 8:30 a.m. Thursday morning (although it felt like 2:30 a.m!). As the pilot gave his best wishes to the passengers, he made a special reference and thanks to the "papparazzi" he met before the flight, meaning us (since we took pictures with him)! We were so proud that he actually remembered us! It was a lot of fun :)

After landing, we all "queued" (teehee I've actually got to use that term now in England) in a gigantic line to get our passports stamped. We were talking with each other, not realizing that we were actually the only ones talking! It's hard to get used to that in England...they are a lot quieter and respectful of personal space, if that makes sense. Much to our surprise, Courtney and I spotted the lady we met in the SkyLift! She was in the back of the line, and once she noticed us we said "We told you we'd see you in London!" She gave us a big smile.

We had a problem with someone's passport in the group. A guy named Todd had a slight wrinkle on the front page (the one with his picture) and the airport official spotted it immediately, saying "You expect to get into the country with a passport looking like this?!" (with a British accent, of course :) ....Todd was scared to death and didn't know what to say. Finally, after we got our chaperones and teachers over to the problem, they talked it over with the man and it ended o.k. But Todd sure knows to take better care of his passport now! Now that he's been in the country awhile and loves it, he jokingly says "Maybe they won't let me get back into the United States. I might just have to stay in England forever! "

After getting our passports and luggage all checked out (including Courtney's 3 bags, haha what a pain to get all of them through the airport!), we hopped on a bus and rode for 2.5 hours from London to our new homes in Oxford. All of the cars drive on the "wrong" side of the street, which is really hard to get used to, and the houses look like they came straight from a storybook! All 30 of us had our noses pressed against the glass windows the whole way; we could not get enough of the gorgeous scenery. I took TONS of pictures from the bus, especially of people walking on the sidewalks.



We passed so many historical landmarks that would soon become familiar to me, such as C.S. Lewis' grave, the Thames River, Windsor Castle, etc! At last, we arrived at Canterbury Road, houses 9 and 10. The professors, who had arrived a week ago, greeted us with hugs as we came off of the bus. Courtney and I were assigned a room on the very top floor (3rd floor) of house 10. Our house is made up of all girls, and we also have a classroom and a computer lab on the bottom floor. House 9 is right next to ours and almost identical - this house has the rest of the girls on the 3rd floor, all the boys on the 2nd floor (there are only 8 in the group!), and the professors live on the bottom floor. Each house has a kitchen on every floor (6 kitchens total) and also a bathroom/shower on every floor! Here is my house and kitchen. I'll post pictures of my room once courtney and I get everything unpacked :)





We were a little disappointed to be on the top floor, because we have the smallest rooms and kitchen, and we also have to climb more stairs. The stairs are very steep and narrow, so you can imagine the difficulty of lugging our heavy suitcases up 3 flights! However, at this point we were just happy to finally be on land and in England! We had been looking forward to this day for so long.

After unloading everything into our rooms, we took a break for lunch in the backyard of House 9. Sandwiches, fruit, chips, juice...very easy on the stomach after the anxiety and excitement from traveling for so long. Then, we had an hour to unpack our things and start organizing our rooms. They made it very clear that we were NOT allowed to sleep! They wanted us to adjust to the time change as quickly and as easily as possible. That meant no naps; we had to train our bodies to adjust to the 6-hour difference! It was Thursday now, around 1:00 p.m...although it felt like 7:00 a.m. to us. As we unpacked, Courtney said she was already starting to feel a little homesick - she is an only child, very close to her family, and I got to see that as they were saying goodbye to her in Abilene before we left. This is her first time outside of the U.S. and also her first time to be on a big trip without her parents. I knew that once we got everything put away and surrounded ourselves with familiar and favorite things, she would feel a lot better.

We were making great progress on our room, but there was an Oxford tour scheduled for us at 2:00, just an hour later. Ron and Janine Morgan are the 2 professors that lead the ACU program in Oxford and teach some of the classes. They live in England and have actually never taught at ACU before! The other professors are Dr. and Mrs. Willis, who have taught at ACU for years and came to England a week before us in order to prepare for our arrival. Ron Morgan was supposed to give us the casual walking tour of Oxford. Me, Courtney, and 2 other girls (Katie and Lael) on the top floor forgot our umbrellas (it was definitely going to rain), so we went back to get them before the tour. When we walked back to House 9, the group had already left! We were disappointed and didn't know what to do. Janine Morgan opened the door and exclaimed "What are you guys still doing here?!" Once we told her that the group left us, she excitedly volunteered to take us around Oxford herself. She is such a nurturing and lovable woman, one of those people you feel you can trust with anything. We were so glad to have our own mini-tour with only the 5 of us! We went all around town and I learned so much history about the very ground on which we were walking. My favorite part of the tour was University Park - this is still my favorite part about where we are living, and I've gone to it several times since then. It is a huge park with lots of different paths you can walk on, benches everywhere, gigantic trees that are centuries old...this is a picture of Rainbow Bridge, on which Virginia Woolf contemplated and wrote. If you walk to the top of this bridge, you can see most of the park, and you can watch people taking "punts" (canoes) down the river. Also, in this park is a bench dedicated to J.R.R. Tolkien, and a place where the most recent Harry Potter was filmed last year. If you go down one of the paths, you can pick blackberries! People are always there walking down the paths and having picnics. It is such a beautiful place to go whenever I have any free time!





After we went on our mini-tour of Oxford with Janine, she led us back near the house, and then told us we were free to explore for the rest of the day! The four of us (Me, Courtney, Kaite, Leal) walked around town, exchanged money, bought groceries and headed home. Then Courtney and I left to find a place to eat dinner. We asked someone what restaurant they would recommend for Italian food, and they told us how to get to a place called Pizza Express. We figured it would be fast food, but it was actually a nice sit-down restaurant! Our waiter was named Pete, and he was VERY friendly and made us laugh a whole lot. We knew he was flirting, but it was fun since it was our first meal out in England together. Our chaperones warned us not to be too friendly to strangers because British people aren't exactly the "Texas friendly" type, but we have found that most people enjoy talking to us and learning more about us. There was a mother and daughter (named Jenny and Sophie) at a table close to ours, and they kept looking at us and smiling, so we decided to strike up a conversation with them. They were SO nice and very interested in us. We ended up staying at the restaurant for 2 hours, just talking with them and enjoying our meal. Courtney and I each got pizza and split a pear tart for dessert. Pete came by often to check on us and talk with us. He kept trying to imitate our American accent, which was hilarious, and he offered to give us his phone number so he could show us around town....haha. When we were ready to leave, we asked Jenny and Sophie "Can we take a picture of y'all?" and they about died laughing, saying to each other "They actually say 'y'all'!" It was so funny hearing them try to say "y'all" with a British accent. :) We are thinking of making Pizza Express a weekly stop!





We walked around the city a little more after dinner, and got back to the house around 8:00 p.m. We were so exhausted and went to bed right away!