First Week

The first week and a half here has been a whirlwind adventure. I'm going to try and start at the beginning and not leave anything out so we'll see how I do.

We got to the airport with plenty of time and found our gate. The seats on the plane all had little pillows with a lullaby in Icelandic and its translation and each of the head rests told you a different word in Icelandic and its meaning. The first lag of the journey was long, about 7 hours. I watched Little Miss Sunshine, Date Night, and 2 episodes of Family Guy and still had tons of time. They didn't serve us a free meal which sucked, so we ate granola bars. We landed in Iceland at 6 am their time and it was still dark. After going through security again we had a 15 minute wait to board our next flight. The landing into London was really rough, and the weather was pretty stormy. After finally finding Mandy we grabbed a taxi and headed to our hotel, once we figured out where it was at. The taxi ride was a bit terrifying but nothing compared to the one I had in Reading. Drivers are crazy over here and the roads are very narrow.

Once we got to the hotel we checked in and just hung out in the room. The bed was extremely uncomfortable and the room was so small we could barely fit our luggage in. We watched some tv and just relaxed until Mandy had to leave. We had dinner down in the hotel restaurant and Nathan enjoyed his first beer. After dinner we decided to head to bed early. Nathan slept like a baby and I was up 7/8 of the night. In the morning we just caught the shuttle back to the airport where we met the group and waited for an hour or two for everyone to arrive. I was feeling pretty faint at this point from lack of food or sleep so I just relaxed on the bus ride to Reading.

Once we got here there was a huge que to check in and get our access cards. All together it took a little over 2 hours for everyone to get their keys and get their luggage upstairs. Then they took us for a quick walk to hte center of campus and got us taxi's into town for lunch. By now the rain had started to move in. We ate at a traditional pie place called Sweeney and Todd. The pies were really good but I still wasn't feeling well from the flight. Then we went into town and bought cell phones before heading back to the dorms to relax. Despite being exhausted all day, I was unable to fall asleep until 4am from the combination of jet lag and noisey flatmates.

The next morning we had to be up early to head to London. The train from Reading to London was about 45 minutes and then we rode the tube into downtown London. At the ISA office they gave us amazing sandwiches and snacks and a little welcome orientation/presentation. They also surprised me and Kayleigh with birthday cakes. Then we walked into town to catch an open top bus tour of the city, in the pouring rain. Luckily it stopped raining after a bit and the bus tour was amazing. We decided to bail on high tea at Harrod's in favor of seeing more of the city. It was definitely the right decision. Unfortunately I forgot my camera that day so will have to go back to all the sites we saw to take some pictures. The tour bus dropped us off at the train station and we were on our way home.

Monday was finally our first day to relax a bit. We had a study abroad orientation with the university in the afternoon where they explained how to register for our classes. We went into town that day to buy some essentials and then came back. Nothing too exciting. We went out to the bar in our dining center and hung out for awhile.

Tuesday was my birthday. I went to go and register for a history course which I have since decided not to take. Nathan took me out to dinner at an Italian restaurant in town and we came back to campus for my 21 run with Laura, Chanel and Breezy. It was a really fun night. We met a group of British guys and hung out with them until 3 in the morning when we finally headed up to our rooms to sleep. The next morning the cleaning lady scared the crap out of everyone when she came in to pick up our trash.

Wednesday we went in to town again with a group and checked out the pound and 99 pence stores. Then we went to eat at a pizzeria. They don't eat pizza with their hands here so it was quite the experience to cut an entire personal pizza with a fork and knife.

Thursday I had to register for the last 2 of my classes. We checked out the sports/club fairs on Wednesday and Thursday. Then we went in to town and I bought a skirt, boots and tights.

Friday we got up early to head into London for a tour of City Hall with our program. The tour was really more of an information session but they gave us free drinks and let us go up to the top floor called London's Living Room and it had an amazing view of the River Thames. Then we had lunch at a pub and walked along the Thames to the Millenium Bridge. We had originally planned to go on the London Eye but the weather had turned crummy so we decided to head back. We got to the train station and learned it would be an hour before we could use our off peak rail passes, so we went to Picadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square, which were both amazing. We headed back to the station to discover that 3 trains to Reading had been canceled and the next one delayed. After waiting for awhile we managed to squeeze onto the first train to leave the station. We finally got home around 10 pm.

Since I have to go to class now I'll leave this as it is and make a separate post for Brighton, Bath and Stonehenge.