Two days ago, I arrived in London. My flight from Milan was delayed 3 hours while we were sitting on the plane. However, I met this nice woman named Shaney who told me all about how she was engaged to man she met six weeks ago. After we landed, we waited on the line for border patrol together. At this point in my trip (I had now been in the UK for all of about 2 hours) I learned something about that British accent that I love so dearly. It either makes a person sound extra nice and friendly or SUPER mean. I don't know what it is. But anyway, the woman at border patrol wasn't very nice. She kept asking me what classes I was taking. I kept telling her I hadn't registered for classes yet, and she proceeded to tell me that this was the dumbest thing she had ever heard of - why would i pay for classes at a university that won't tell me what classes I'm taking? I said this was a good question, but there was still nothing I could do about it. She stamped my passport as a short term student and asked me to please just leave.
A few hours and quite a struggle with all the luggage later, I made it to my residence. I say this because one cannot actually call this an apartment. I walked through the steel door into my apartment, and entered the miniscule standing area we have. you can probably comfortably fit 2 people in this area, standing. then there are 4 steel doors - one to my bedroom, one to Emily's, one to the kitchen, and one to the bathroom. The kitchen is fine, though I am wondering if we would even be able to fit a plate in the oven. Though this is apparently a wonderous living situation, we were not equipped with any kitchenware. We spent the entire day yesterday wandering around trying to buy plates, utensils, cups, pots/pans, etc. so we could actually eat some real food. It was an epic fail. We ended up going to a restaurant and stealing some plastic sporks, and we found two ceramic mugs at the grocery store. Needless to say my cheerios this morning out of a mug with a spork was quite a treat.
Today we woke up fresh, and actually had the energy to go somewhere farther (Poundland - everything is one pound) and buy all of our kitchen stuff. It was a great success! We even made pasta tonight. Oh except for one thing - we tried to buy a little pack of things - a steak knife, a grater and a pair of scissors - which was entitled "student kitchen package." When we were at the cash register ringing it up, the cashier asked us how old we are. When we replied 20, she took our knife away. "You aren't allowed to buy knives unless you are 21," she told us. We started to laugh until we realized she was serious and I asked her how we were supposed to cut anything because we live here alone and we don't know anyone who is 21 who could buy us a knife. She laughed, but failed to give us an alternative option. After that, we made our way to Primark, which is something like Walmart. It was fabulous. I bought blankets, a beautiful pair of boots for $15, rainboots and a winter coat. It was great. And then tonight we unpacked, cleaned up and set up our living space quite nicely. I think things are finally starting to get less stressful now. The last hurdle is registering for class, which we are going to try to do tomorrow. I am also trying to figure out how to get photos developed here, I bought some frames today to make my room look like less of a prison cell.
It definitely has been an adventure thus far...
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