Well! I had quite a trip out here! My first flight was delayed an hour and a half so I almost didn't make my international flight! Then Engine 1 failed somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, so that was exciting but we couldn't really turn around at that point, haha.
Customs took about an hour and then I got on the metro bound for central London. Let me tell you, rush hour on the underground with three bags is not the most fun I've ever had, but eventually I got to my stop and wandered around dragging bags over the cobblestones for the next twenty minutes in a swarm of people. Check-in did not take long, though the housing office staff seemed quite harried. The girl behind me in line also lives in Clifford Pugh, so we got a cab together and arrived without further incident at the house! My new friend, Selene, and her boyfriend are from Singapore. They both seem super nice, and we grabbed lunch together and went grocery shopping! We were adventurous and rather than settle for one of the tiny and expensive markets near our house, we took a bus into Camden and found a Super Tesco!
Food here isn't all that expensive, actually. I was braced for much worse. Ground beef was £2.50, so that translates out to a pretty similar value of ground beef here, for example. They really like pork here. That's pretty much all I can find in the stores so I will be learning to cook more of that, I guess! I also bought a baguette for 97 pence because I figured it was too European looking not to buy.
Speaking of cooking, everything is really great about my house except.....the kitchens. The people who lived here before us were moving out today and they left every single kitchen in the house in the most apalling shape. I would take a picture but it might scar the camera. I'm talking stuff slopped on the CEILING and cabinet doors hanging off their hinges. I really don't understand what they could have been doing. All of us new folks are not sure if the cleaning lady is going to take care of it or if we are going to get stuck with their mess, so we're just avoiding the kitchen for now. I have a fridge in my room and I pilfered a very basic set of utensils and a plate from the pile of stuff people were throwing out, so I have sandwich making abilities while I wait for the kitchen situation to be remedied. haha. I also bought some pillows, a fitted sheet, a duvet sheet (but not the duvet itself...yet), and a towel, so I think I am probably set up for a few days at least!
It's around six in the evening here right now and I am sitting in a computer lab at the residence hall where I checked in this morning. When I asked to use a computer I watched them punch the code in the door, so now I have access to the computer lab as long as they continue to let me in the building, haha. I tried getting into the UCL library but they require a student ID. One weird culture shock about UCL compared to UNL is the security. There are cameras everywhere and checkpoints, and basically to enter most of the buildings you need an ID. I poked around on campus for a while this afternoon and decided to wait until I get a card. There aren't very many sidewalks through campus, so it looks like you have to either enter from the outside of that city block or weave through buildings that are currently inaccessible to me.
I took pictures of my room and of campus that I will put up as soon as I can use the campus wireless! Hopefully it won't take too long!
It's only 6:00 pm and I'm starting to feel a little tired. I took a nap this afternoon against everybody's advice but I don't think I would have made it around campus otherwise!
Bye!
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