Safe and sound in Winchester

What a long 24 hours! It’s now 5:30 p.m. in Winchester (Greenwich Time) and 11:30 a.m. in Wisconsin on Saturday, Feb. 2… and I’m ridiculously jetlagged.

Mom drove me to Madison on Thursday so I could carpool to O’Hare on Friday with Sam, who is one of the 13 studying in Winchester from Eau Claire. So Sam and I visited with a bunch of his family and some friends, which was really funny because his grandparents thought we were dating! Sam and I didn’t really put two and two together until we were walking back to the car. His grandfather even showed me his birdhouse collection – it was cute. It snowed quite a bit overnight (11 inches in Chicago) and we were worried our flight would be delayed or worse, cancelled. Mom told me later 500 flights were cancelled out of O’Hare Friday morning, but our 5:15 p.m. flight was only delayed by about an hour because of plane traffic.

The flight itself was nice; we only had mild turbulence. I sat beside a really nice man from Germany who spent the last three years working on a medical research team in Tennessee and was flying back to Hamburg for a job interview so he could move back home. All but three of our group from Eau Claire was on the flight, and I got lucky and ended up across the aisle from Danielle, a girl I got along really well with in our English class last semester. The lady behind us had studied abroad in Oxford when she was in university, so she talked to us about England for quite a while. So even though my TV screen didn’t work (we each got individual ones!), I had plenty of people to chat with.

In Chicago, they selected me for additional screening so they pulled me aside and did the standard pat down and went through all of my carry-on baggage. I had snuck a Tide pen in my purse because I have a knack for spilling things on myself and forgot to bring a plastic bag to bring it in, but they didn’t seem to mind. The security guard was nice enough, but I couldn’t help but feel like a criminal. Customs seems to give me a hard enough time already, so I suppose I should be used to it. That all changed once I got to London, though. My Dutch passport put me in the express European Union member line (or queue, as the English would call it), while the rest of our group had to wait for quite a while with the “rest of the world.” Once I got to the front, the guard barely looked at my passport and only asked me one question: how I was doing. He flashed a smile and told me to enjoy my stay. He didn’t even want to know why I was there. Crazy.

Thankfully, none of our luggage was missing and we headed to the bus station, where Hillary and I Oooh and Ahhed over the British advertisements, accents and skyline. Five of us had bought tickets in advance, but when the other four tried to get on the same trip (myself included) the coach bus was filled, so we waited another hour at the station and arrived in Winchester at noon, or 6 a.m. Wisconsin time. The rural landscape is beautiful here and naturally, the massive herds of sheep on the rolling hills immediately won my heart. I slept a little bit on the way home since I was awake for almost the entire flight, and there were “international buddies” from the university waiting for us with bright yellow signs at Winchester’s town square. Winchester is a pretty small city, and looks like a modernized 18th century village with old storefronts, wrought-iron gates, moats, little pubs, winding streets and a big statue of King Arthur. Winchester was actually England’s original capital.

While we were waiting in Winchester to get to campus, our buddies were explaining to us how we can get meals and coffee, and one of them said “You Americans really love your coffee,” which sounded like he thought that was really weird. I said that I was more of a tea drinker and he raised his eyebrow and said, “Come on, you’re legal in England now. You drink beer.” I said something about how we don’t usually drink in the mornings, and he was really excited to point out that some pubs here have a special license to serve 24 hours. We’ll see how that goes.

So they took us by shuttle (which was really a crappy university van) to campus and brought us to our rooms. I’m in Alwyn Middle, one of the dorms, and we share a kitchen and bathroom with British students. Sam actually lives next door to me, which I’m sure is disappointing because he was really excited to meet British students and then got stuck with me! I had only been unpacking for a few minutes and Hannah, a girl on our floor, was knocking on my door. She said weekends are really quiet in the dorms because most students go home or are out doing other things, but everyone was really excited to meet the new Americans. Most of them are supposed to be back tonight and really want to take us out to the pubs. I guess I’ll have to take a nap! We met a few other students, all of whom are really friendly. They asked immediately about Tom, a student from Eau Claire who used to live in my room. They said he’s a “legend” here and teased one of the guys for crying when he left, so they were really surprised to hear we didn’t know him. So they kept describing him and it suddenly hit me that I had met him the day he got back, not long before I left, through a mutual friend. What a small world! So it seems I have a lot to live up to.

Sam and I took a quick power nap and went in search of a computer lab, since we won’t have the password for wireless access until Monday, but the lab shut down 10 minutes after we got there. So we sent a quick email home and then ordered food in the new student union, where he ran into some of his friends who studied abroad in Eau Claire last semester, and we watched part of a rugby game on TV – England vs. Wales. Otherwise tonight Sam and I might spend a bit of time with our new friends before we crash and then we have all day tomorrow to explore town. Orientation will take up most of Monday and I think classes start on Tuesday or Wednesday! I’ll post some pictures soon, but until then, Cheerio!