I haven't disappeared!

So I've been terribly remiss about posting, yet again. I can assure you it won't get better lol. The last two weeks have been pretty busy. Two weeks ago my Aunt and Uncle came into town for five days. I hadn't seen them in about five years so it was so great to catch up and hang out. They're just really cool people and really fun to talk to and seeing them helped me a lot with my homesickness. They took me out to dinner every night (from this really good, affordable Thai food pub only two tube stops away from my hall, to a fancy, absolutely delicious, foam-filled French meal that is not quite in my price range lol, but as Aunt Liz said, is a great place to have my multitude of dates bring me haha) which was so nice of them and we did a lot of sightseeing - they treated me to one of the bus tours around London, a ferry ride down the Thames, and a visit to the Tower of London and the British Museum. I had such a good time with them and was really sad to see them go.

Then last week I had to catch up on all the school work I had been putting off to spend time with family lol. Unfortunately at the same time I got really sick. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me for the first several days, but it felt like I had strep throat. I went to the doctor who saw me for (no joke) less than five minutes and told me I was going to be alright, just gargle salt water. Monumental waste of time. So I waited it out and then at the beginning of this week it calmed down to a simple cold and I'm about over it. But being sick and feeling like crap without friends or family around? It kind of blows. No one to listen to you whine :)

Class is still going well and yesterday I went on my field trip to Westminster Abbey. It was sooo cool. They unrolled the carpets covering up the cosmoti mosaic floor (which they rarely do as it is) and their conservator told us all about the floor. It's the area of the church where they do royal weddings, funerals, and coronations. It was really quite interesting and it was pretty large, about 25 square meters. Once she finished her introduction she told us that (if we took our shoes off) we could walk on it to get a closer look. I seriously can't explain how surreal it was to be able to inspect 800 year old mosaics like that. The tourists who were watching us got pretty jealous too lol. She also took us to look at the tombs of some of their most famous kings, like Richard the Lionheart, and showed us more mosaics in the tomb area. She also showed us their conservation lab. It was simply one of the best field trips ever.

Other than that I have really just been spending all of my time reading. This grad school stuff is hard believe it or not lol. I still don't have access to my money and I have been here over a month now! It can't be too much longer though.

I finally got my student oyster card so that I can get a discount on a monthly tube pass. I have been riding the bus, and after a full out brawl between the bus driver and some teenager last week which caused the driver to pull over and stop on the side of the road indefinitely, I would like to get back on the tube!

I'm kind of bummed out though because Halloween is so not a big deal over here at all. It's my 2nd favorite holiday, so it's sad to see it kind of just skipped over. My mom and stepdad sent me a care package with some Halloween candy and a Halloween card in it last week though which was so nice and cheered me up!

Anyway, I guess that about sums it up for now and I'm sorry about the delay. Take care everyone!

Happy Friday!

So I'm finally finished with week one of classes, and I'm still here. That's always a good sign!

Before classes started though I went to Stonehenge last Saturday. It took about an hour and a half to get there by bus and some hungover kid puked all over himself across the aisle from me about 30 minutes into the ride the way up there. That was fun, let me tell you. Anyway, the day was pretty cold, in the low to mid 50's and drizzling. Which I assume is really the way you should see Stonehenge (or at least that's what I kept telling myself as my teeth chattered lol). It was quite similar to the way I remembered it. A bunch of cool rocks with fields as far as the eye can see. with the exception of the major highway running right past it, which unfortunately takes away some of the magic. Apparently within the next ten years they are planning on burying that highway and making it into a tunnel instead, that will make it a lot nicer up there I think. Yet again I took tons of pictures and I think a few of them turned out ok.

After Stonehenge we went to the old city of Salisbury about ten minutes away. It was great. All of the buildings were old but had been converted into banks, grocery stores, libraries, you name it. We got a grand tour of downtown by this adorable 80 year old English woman who we could barely keep up with she walked so fast and kept telling us about how we're going to hell.

The tour ended at the Salisbury Cathedral which is just breathtaking in person, it's absolutely enormous, it has the largest steeple in England and is about 700 years old. The inside was beautiful with lots of stained glass. There were sarcophagi all over the place and everywhere you walked you were walking on top of somebody's burial, which was slightly unnerving.

Besides the large group of self-entitled, spoiled, pampered, undergraduate American brats that made the rest of us look terrible (seriously, they were horrid, I was scared to talk lest I be grouped in with them), the trip was really great and I enjoyed it a lot. I mean, there's no point in going to school in London if you're not going to check out all of the famous sites!

Monday was the start of classes. The way it works in my program is that you have two core courses and one option each semester and they want you to test out various options and see which one you like more. They actually suggest you sit in on a bunch of classes and then decide. So on Monday I went to sit in on a pottery and ceramics course. It was a nine o'clock course which meant I had to be up at 7, which was a nightmare lol. The tube got backed up quit a bit but I still got there with ten minutes to spare. The class was quite full (with only like 18 people in it lol), but come quarter after we still didn't have a professor, then come 9:30 someone showed up to tell us it had been canceled. Grrr. So I went home and went back to bed. I'm going to have to try it out this Monday instead, hopefully he'll email us if he cancels again!

It wasn't until Wednesday that I had another course, also at nine in the morning, one of my core courses on the context of conservation. It went really well and didn't feel the two hours long that it was, thank God! The way classes work over here is kind of interesting too. You go for two hours to lecture and they give you a break in the middle specifically to go refill your coffee. Then, later in the week there are small discussion groups with about 6-7 people. And we don't have just one teacher. We have someone in charge of the course, but lots of people come in to talk to the class, even from outside the university, from other schools or museums, etc. There is a lot of reading, 90 hours was proposed for this course. And then a 3000 word essay and a poster project. I started my readings that night, dreading having to read that much. But it's surprising how easy it is to read that much, and stay awake while doing so, when you're actually interested in the subject!

Thursday I had two courses back to back, yet again starting at nine (this may just very well kill me). The first one was my other core course - conservation management. Which really means just decisions in conservation, how you decide how to conserve an object. In two weeks we are actually going on a special field trip to Westminster Abbey where they are going to let us look at this special mosaic they have that they currently keep under a protective carpeting. Not too bad for a short midday field trip! I can't wait. We also have an inhuman amount of reading for that class lol, but it's interesting, so it works for me. We also have to write another essay in there, but we also get to do a risk assessment report for one of the museums here as the other part of the class.

My other class was on archaeometallurgy, one of the options. I was going to take this one definitively, but it's a lot more geared towards how the artifacts were made and the metals extracted than the objects themselves. So I'll have to see if I want to switch it with the ceramics option next week.

Overall it's been a really great experience so far and I'm excited about it all. Still nervous and doubting myself, but that's just the way it works in a new situation!

Take care everyone!

Yep, I'm a slacker...

Um, yeah, so I am horrible at updating. I really (kind of) have an excuse though! Pretty much nothing happened at the beginning of the week to even talk about, and then I was so incredibly busy the rest of the week I just didn't have a chance to really get on my computer and do much correspondence at all. Anyway, I apologize.

Monday:
I didn't do anything too exciting. I took the tube for the first time and it was really easy. And, since the last underground I rode on was in New York, I was astounded by how clean it is. It might just be the area I am in, but there really isn't much trash to speak of and not many 'undesirables' down there. I think a lot of that has to do with the crackdown on the tube since the bus and tube bombings. There are a lot of armed transportation cops around too.

I also tried my first shot at grocery shopping. I finally understood the story my mom told me about how the change in cultures when we moved to Saudi hit her like an avalanche the first time she went grocery shopping over there. It got me here. The first place I tried was in a less reputable area than where I am staying and it was cramped, crowded, small, and that made it even tougher when I was trying to understand what half the labels I was reading meant. I almost had a meltdown when I couldn't find white bread. Sad, but true.

Later I tried a supermarket much closer to where I live and it was completely different. The closest thing I can think of in the US was like going to Slone's. It was a lot less busy, more open, and I had a much easier time trying to figure out what I was doing. They also have really cheap cornish pasties that can be heated up just in a microwave, perfect for insanely broke college students!

Tuesday:
I literally did nothing. I watched TV and cross stitched, and missed practically everyone.

Wednesday:
This was kind of the start of school. I had orientation with the Institute. There are tons of archaeology grad students, a couple hundred easy. My department itself only has about fifteen, and all of us are girls except for one guy. It's also quite American heavy, we make up over a third of the program. The head of my program seems really nice too. I think she'll be great to work with.

I am a little nervous that I am in over my head. Everyone besides me went to better universities, or have been working in this field for years, or already have masters degrees in other things. So I kind of stay quiet lol. There have been moments when I think they let me in on accident, but I'm sure they knew what they were doing, and I will try my hardest, even if it kills me.

That night the Institute and professors threw us a party. It was on the top floor of our building, and the view was killer. I still can't wrap my mind around the fact that there was massive amounts of alcohol (red wine, white wine, beers, and OMG Strongbow :D ) provided by the Institute for us to drink while hanging out with our professors. Kind of different from the Bible belt, that's for sure!

I made a few friends in my department and actually went out to a pub after the party for dinner with a couple of them. So I'm slowly getting there. We didn't finish with dinner until after 8, and it was already dark. I was only a block away from the tube though and it was a well lit area, so I wasn't worried. Well, I wasn't worried until I got down to the station and found out my line was suspended for safety reasons. I kept the panicking to a minimum and was able to follow some incredibly convoluted and quickly provided directions to find my way home using two different tube lines and making a transfer (much better than my other option - walking two miles in 50 degree, rainy, dark). It was a pretty proud moment for me lol. And as a reward, I got home to a care package from my mom and stepdad, full of ketchup packets and crystal light. I can't explain how much that meant to me. THANKS MOM, I LOVE YOU :D

Thursday:
We got together early in the morning to meet each other in our program more in depth. I hatehate talking about myself in front of a group of people I don't know. But it could have been worse. I got to see the conservation lab I'll be working in next year, and I absolutely can. not. wait. It is so cool and I'll even have my own work station.

After that I took a tour of the Petrie Museum of Egyptology. There is so much cool stuff in there. There's the oldest known piece of linen, tons of pottery, jewelry, tons cat sculptures(!), a head (which you can see here, but don't click if you are easily disturbed, but if you ARE into that stuff, all the human remains, including a mummified toe, can be found on their site). And the coolest thing of all? If I need to use any of the items for school I can have nearly any of them taken out so I can look at them better.

Today:
I went to another general grad student orientation, which I knew I should have just skipped since it was virtually the same as the international graduate student orientation. I also took a tour of the archaeology library, it looks about the same as any other library, but the amount of resources I have available is really quite astounding. I also took a tour of the Institute's collections and they are very impressive. I might get to work with some of them for my essays and dissertation, or I can volunteer to work with them just for the experience.

Today was also the first day that I got to experience true London weather first hand and not from my window. It was in the mid-5o's and raining. I went to take the tube home from school and Paddington station had been closed for security reasons, ugh. So I navigated the tricky bus routes and took a double decker home. It wasn't nearly as difficult as I had worried and I only got slightly more wet.

Tomorrow I am going to Stonehenge bright and early. I'm kind of excited, I haven't been there in going on 15 years. I will take tons of pictures to share with everyone and I'll try to update sooner next time! Take care everyone!

I've made it a week!

It has been a loooong weekend. I went from spending Saturday doing absolutely nothing to not stopping all day today.

I just sat around Saturday. I was feeling a bit homesick and culture-shocked, so I sat around, watched Bridget Jones DVDs, cross-stitched, and got out of my pajamas only for food runs. Go me! Anyway, I couldn't do a whole lot since my feet were so messed up from the days before.

I decided that today would not be the same.

I had breakfast and then headed out by 11:30. I started out by walking along one of the main drags near my hall. I found several supermarkets and general stores, which is so helpful since I keep thinking of things I need. I also found a Baskin Robbins right around the corner, but I doubt they'll give me the family discount like the one back home lol. And it's also right next to a Middle Eastern convenience store instead of Harry's Bar, but still.

I saw a lot of the sights today: the Marble Arch, Buckingham Palace, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and the London Eye. All within walking distance of my hall. To make it even more interesting there was a HUGE bike thing going on today. Traffic was completely closed off in Royal London and a good bit of Westminster but there were thousands upon thousands of people out riding bikes. Kids, adults, the elderly, whole extended families, you name it. There was even this guy who was riding one of those bikes where you lay down and was hauling these huge speakers playing some interesting Euro music everywhere he went. You always hear about people wanting to share the road with bikes, but this was just insane, so much of London was shut down for it.

London is incredibly green as it is. Every block or so there are rows of recycling dumpsters labeled for glass, plastic, magazines, really anything you can recycle. And ads for walking, taking public transport, conserving water, electricity, you name it. I bought a bottle of water the other day and the bottle advertised the fact that it was compostable and then had a blurb on the back about global warming and Al Gore. I almost want to buy you a case Jeremy lol.

Anyway, where was I? I didn't get home till nearly four. I can't believe how many hours I spent wandering around without realizing where the time went. And when I look at a map, it looks like I barely touched Central London! At least I have a lot to keep me occupied for the year to come. I took tons of pictures, yet only a few don't suck and I've posted those already (I put this one up of some cool birds Jenny, you have to let me know what they are!).

I had my hall meeting tonight to learn about where I'm living. They really just went over the guidebook, but to start things off they brought down several bottles of wine and some cups to 'make us comfortable'. It blew my mind, and was totally awesome. I also met a couple people, some Canadians and Americans! That was very exciting. I'm also about to go to the bar downstairs to hang out with one of the girls I met who is here for visual/ material anthropology and to meet a guy who's here for archaeology. Maybe I'll have some walking buddies for class.

Well, I guess that's it for me. There you go Lisa, an entry for this weekend! Mwah :) Talk to you guys later!

P.S. My email has been REALLY messed up. I haven't been able to get into it for days, so I apologize for not being able to respond to a lot of people's emails. I think I have figured out the problem (my Firefox doesn't like my Gmail account or something), so I should be able to respond soon!

Day 5

I got my first real proof today that I am already starting to fit in. I was stopped, twice, today for directions, and once from a native Brit! And to top it off, I could help them both. I really should not be as excited as I am about that lol. I also finally got the courage to wear my iPod on the walk to campus, and man, does two miles go soooo much faster with music!

I'm not really fitting in though because I don't dress at all like Brits. Matt was right, everyone wears tights and flats. It doesn't matter what they're wearing with it, a dress, jeans, a business suit, it's always accompanied by tights and flats. Well I do have two pairs of flats, but I don't, and won't, own a single pair of tights. So I guess I'll keep sticking out like a sore thumb :)

I got all of my tuition fees sorted out today, but it's going to take them a good three weeks to get my refunds back to me! I don't think they realize how fond I am of eating daily, and of how much Lillian Penson would like their rent paid... But I'm not that worried about it, things will sort themselves out, they can't do anything else.

I don't have anything going on this weekend really so I think I'll use it to catch up on my sleep and do some sight-seeing on Sunday. I can't do any tomorrow because my feet are protesting way too loudly and way too much, but I really do want to see more of the sites.

I also have to note that not having TV is so ridiculously hard to get used to. I actually have to actively find things to do to keep me occupied now, it's crazy lol. I think it'll help a lot come class time, less of a distraction that way. But OMG what am I going to do without new episodes of The Office and Private Practice? I guess it's just a cross I'll have to bear :)

I miss all of you guys and will hopefully talk to you soon!

Days 3 & 4

Main Quad
Originally uploaded by murgandy

Well, Lisa's already busted me for being a slacker, guess I better update. Love ya Leese!

Yesterday was the first day of orientation, and I woke up an hour late. I had had another awful, sleepless night and waking up was not fun times. Arrivals for orientation began at 9:00 AM and I didn't even leave my hall until quarter till. I decided to walk there so I could sort out my surroundings and see what was on the way. The trek ended up being two plus miles and took me about 45 minutes. Seriously, if I can't lose weight by doing that walk every day, nothing is going to work for me.

The walk is scary too. I thought I would be totally fine if I wasn't driving here, but it's just as scary as a pedestrian, if not more so. Since the cars all drive on the wrong side of the road you naturally look the wrong way for traffic, so, as a deterrent, there are huge labels painted on the street which tell you which way to look. I'd probably be road kill by now if it weren't for them. And also, in the US we walk on the same side of the sidewalk as we drive on the road. Well here it's really every man for himself since only half the pedestrians are British and the rest of us internationals are used to driving/ walking on the right side of the road. It's chaos.

Wow, I just got off topic like whoa. Anyways, I got to the main building fifteen minutes before orientation started. Good thing I got started late or else I would have just been sitting around in the cold for an hour. So just insert any introduction orientation to college you've attended here and you'd basically have what yesterday was all about. We got tons of paperwork, were told about our resources (computer labs, health care, banking, etc.), and after an hour we were sent on our way.

I was going to hang around and take a campus tour, but it was chilly and drizzling, and I wasn't feeling well so I walked back and spent the rest of the day recuperating. I even skipped the international student reception that night, and since you know how much of a not-scared-of-new-situations, social fiend that I am (LOL) that's kind of a big deal. I'm kind of worried that I'm starting to get a cold or something, but I'm pretty sure it's just jet lag taking it's toll and in a few days I'll feel fine.

Today was enrollment and I actually got down there on time. Even then the line to enroll was insanely long. But I ended up chatting with a few guys the whole time (one from Egypt, one from Nigeria, and one from France, kinda cool), so the wait wasn't too bad. Now I'm all enrolled, have my student ID, set up banking and health care and I'm good to go. I also exchanged info and ended up hanging out with one of the guys for a good portion of the day, so I may have made my first friend. And by saying that I feel like I'm back in kindergarten, goodness.

I have totally got to find some people to hang out with soon though because there is so much cool stuff coming up at school that I really want to do, like there is a chauffeured trip to IKEA (like I really need to be spending anymore money haha), and a Harry Potter tour that I want to go on SO bad. There are also trips all around Britain, and some to Amsterdam and France that are really cheap for students that I would love to look into.

Aaannnd I think I will stop rambling for now. Take care everyone!

Day two

So as hard as I tried to fight getting jet lag, I failed, miserably. I went to bed at midnight, but then I woke up at two, didn't fall back to sleep until four, and then woke up at noon when house keeping came in to pick up my trash. Hopefully it won't take me too long to kick it.

Today I decided to go exploring so I headed over to Kensington Gardens/ Hyde Park, which is less than a quarter mile away from my hall. It was totally gorgeous outside, about sixty degrees and sunny. I can't tell you how excited I was (after all the heat in Kentucky) that I actually had to wear a track jacket it was so chilly! About fifteen minutes into my walk I had my first run-in with a stranger who I believe was not interested in talking to me just because I seemed nice. After about fifteen minutes of talking to him and a growing sense of uneasiness I politely told him I had to leave and got out of that. I'm finally in a situation where my irrational sense of paranoia will actually do me some good lol. I can't wait until I meet some people so I can do the whole buddy system thing.

Other than that, Kensington Gardens was beautiful, and huge! It's so weird seeing such a large, peaceful park in the middle of such a busy city. I have a feeling I'll be doing a lot of studying there as long as the weather holds up. I took a lot of pictures, unfortunately I'm awful at taking pictures and a lot of them didn't turn out (the not so bad ones you can see here). Guess it will just take some practice. I spent a good hour and half walking around the park before I headed home. I looked at my map when I got back and realized that for all of that walking I had only managed to see the Gardens and hadn't even made it to Hyde Park, so I guess I'll have to save that for another day.

Tomorrow I start my international student orientation. It doesn't look like there will be a whole lot going on, just basic introductions and the like, but hopefully I will meet some other people, and start feeling like I fit in here.

Oh, and I forgot to tell everyone, but I obviously know my address now! I'll try to remember to let people know when I email them, if not, just send me a message and I'll give it to you. Anyway, off to try and get a decent night's sleep!

Room pictures

room pic 2
Originally uploaded by murgandy

I took a bunch of pictures of the room before I started unpacking (click the picture and it will take you to my flickr account where you can view the rest). You can really tell how this hall was converted from a hotel.

I'm finally here!

I left Lexington (reluctantly, goodbyes are not good for me) at 5:00 PM Eastern time yesterday. My first stop was the Chicago-O'Hare International Airport. I was supposed to have a layover of 4 and a half hours, but because the plane I was supposed to fly on was canceled due to mechanical problems (that's always fun to hear) I got to switch to one with only 3 hour layover instead.

Besides the fact that I was wedged between two gentlemen who didn't understand personal space, the flight to London wasn't too bad. It's been twelve years since I took an international flight and the changes were wonderful. I had my own personal television in the headrest in front of me which had episodes of The Office on one of the channels. How perfect is that? The food was a lot better than I recall too. Unfortunately I am not nearly as skilled at sleeping on planes as I used to (but I am partially attributing that to nerves) and only got about three hours of sleep.

By the time the plane landed I was so nervous I felt like I could have been sick. However, it was all unwarranted and everything went off without a hitch. My passport and visa were fine and the only additional evidence I needed to be let in the country was a letter from UCL that I was glad to have thought ahead to put in my carry-on.

The real fun started at the baggage claim. The luggage trolleys were just a little too small for my SIX pieces of luggage. You should have seen the looks I received as I had four pieces stacked on the cart that I was pushing with one hand, my pillow propped on the handlebars in front of me, a duffel bag across my back, my laptop backpack on, and another piece of rolling luggage trailing behind me in my other hand. I managed to gimp along to customs though, where they didn't even want to go through my things, which I had no problem with, and then made it outside. It was a splendiferous 57 degrees and overcast.

I had originally planned on taking the Heathrow Express to Paddington and then walking to my hall, but with six pieces of luggage I scrapped that idea and queued up for a big black cab. The taxi driver was so incredibly nice and loaded every piece into the cab for me, teasing me the entire time and wanting to know why I had left my kitchen sink at home.

It took half an hour to get to my hall and, before tip, my cab fare was a whopping 55 pounds (about $110). The cab driver had to park a bit away from the entrance to my building so he carried all of my luggage into the lobby for me too before he left.

Remember how I was excited that I didn't have to wait as long for my layover in Chicago? Well I ended up paying for it. My room wasn't finished so I had to wait in the hall lobby for over an hour to move in. It was a good opportunity to people watch. Of everyone I saw, only one other was an American. I couldn't identify half of the languages I heard everyone else speaking. It was kind of surreal.

I finally moved into my room at about 1:00 PM London time and spent most of my day unpacking. At about 6:00 I got ravenous and decided to go hunting for take away before it got dark (our hall cafeteria won't be opening until the 20th). I quickly discovered the only draw back to where I live - it's so residential and uppity that there isn't a whole lot of quick food. I walked around for half an hour and kept seeing all these really nice hotels and restaurants but couldn't find anything quick I could take home. Eventually I had a brain wave and went over to Paddington Station, figuring that with the amount of tourists through there there would have to be food. I found all sorts of stuff- Indian, little sandwich shops, Middle Eastern, even a McDonald's and a Burger King. I grabbed myself a shawarma meal, I can't tell you how excited I am that I can get one of those so close by. Worth note- Coca Cola tastes different over here, and I had forgotten that their ketchup was different, it's almost pink.

Anyway, that's been my first day here. I'm planning on doing a little exploring tomorrow and I'll take some pictures if I'm not scared of looking like a silly tourist!

Seven days and counting!

I just found out Saturday night that I have been officially approved for all of my loans! This means that I won't be kicked out of England a week into the semester like I was beginning to fear. However, I'm not even remotely ready to go, especially since it hasn't even hit me that I am going anywhere yet. I have a good deal of shopping and packing left to do, hopefully I can get it finished in a week!

Anyway, I set this blog up so that if anyone is interested they can see what I'm doing at school and in London in general. It might take some poking and prodding to get me to update, seeing as I'm a slacker, but I promise I'll do my best to remember :)