| Amy's Journal |
| 23/9/03 I arrived today!! It was a long trip. My plane left at 9:55pm on the 22nd, and I arrived at Hethorw Airport at little after 11:00am. My flight was very long, but I did manage to get some sleep. Once I arrived I had no problems with customs or finding the Brunel representative. There were two other international students that I met at the airport. One from Lebanon and the other from Greece. When I got to campus we had some time before the accomidation office opened, so we just walked around campus. After I got my keys, I went to my room and unpacked my stuff. My room isn't too bad for a single. I have my own bathroom which is a plus!! There is tons of shelf space and storage. My room is kinda bare. I am will have to go to the store and buy some stuff to decorate it a bit! Once I unpacked I was so tired, so i fell asleep. That was around 7:00, and then I woke up at 2:00am and didn't get back to sleep until 4:00. Tomorrow I am going to venture out on campus, take care of business, find some friends, food, and a store. |
| 24/9/03 My plans of attck didn't happen exactly the way I planed. My jet lag is pretty intense. Hopefully it will be ok by tomorrow. I woke up at 2:30 this afternoon, and had to be at my international metting at 3:30, so I had no time to get anything done. After the meeting I went to the refectory a.k.a. cafeteria for some food. They actually had most of the same stuff in any college cafeteria. It is funny to see a lot of the same products that we have, just a little differnt. Due to the fact they use the metric system bottles and cans are smaller and are in ml. A bottle is 500ml and a can is 330ml. Coke products are a big thing on campus. There is a campus store and in the refectory there are coke signs eveywere. I have run into some minor problems so far. One is my light switch. It is different then what I would expect. The light is on when the switch is down. So I keep turning my bedroom light off when I want to turn my bathroom light on, or visa versa. Everytime I cross the road I think I am going to get hit by a car, because I look the wrong way. I live on the 4th floor, but it is actually the 3rd floor. The ground floor is floor 0. Good thing there are only 3 floors, or I would hit the wrong elevator button all the time. I alreday stopped on 1 when I wanted to go the ground floor. There are some cool things I found already. One being the cool vending machine in my hall. It makes either cheese and tomato, or cheese and ham tosties, which are grilled cheese sandwhiches. I have already had a tostie experience. They are awesome. The best vending machine food I have ever had. I think me and the tostie machine will become good friends, but hopefully not that good of friends!! Other than that I am still trying to get settled. Tomorrow I have my meeting for my course, and I have to do everything I didn't do today!! |
 |
| 25/9/03 Today was a fantastic day!! I met a bunch of people! Two Americans even! The wierd thing is I am starting to talk like the people I meet! I met two girls from Ireland Emily and Aoife. They are from my course. The three of us went to down town Uxbridge to do some shopping. I got some things that I needed. Still didn't get food, but that is alright! It was crazy all the American things. There was a T-K-Max...yes K, Burger King, T-mobal, and even a dollar/pound store. Crazy stuff. Well before the shopping I did my registering. It went quite smoth actually! I have my ID and everything, so now I am an offical Brunel University studnet. The only thing left to do is pay my bills :(. We went to the bar/pub Bishops Bar on campus and through Emily I met Leslie, and American from upstate New York. The bar itself wasn't too exciting, but Aoife and I really bonded. We got hit on by some scary guys..but we managed to loss them. We tried to get in the the "night club" on campus, it cost 6 pounds, and I heard it wasn't worth it. Needless to say we didn't get in. She and I have plans to go to London tomorrow! On my way back to my hall I met some guys...one also being an American. Mark from Colorado. He is an undergrade, and 18, but such a nice guy. I went back to there hall, which is sooooo much nicer than mine. He has some crazy friends. Most of them were Brits, but there was a Greek guy with crazy hair. They kept saying he had a mullet...but trust me it wasn't. I hung out with these guys for a while, they were so funny. Mark even made me a cheese tostie on his george forman.....awwwwww....I have no phone yet, so maybe I will run into them on campus again. So today was wonderful. I was hardly in my room...and made about 4 new friends, and my goal was 3!! |
| 28/9/03 It has been a few days since I wrote, so here is the scoop since then. Friday I went into London with my friend Aoife. We did some window shopping on Oxford Street, which has a lot of fancy shopes and such. After that we went to the Tower of London. It was very big and very neat. There are actually families that still live there. I woudn't want to live there, that is for sure!! After our walk around the tower we crossed the Tower Bridge, and saw David Blain. It wasn't anything exciting. He was just sitting there doing nothing. So I don't know what all the fuss is about! So after that we were very tired, so I just crashed when I came home. Saturday during the day I went into town, got some things, and Aoife, Emily and I went to the pub Locos. We had a few drinks and then went to the "club" the Acedemy. It is like Night at the Roxbury to get in. There is a huge line, and it isn't even that great. You would think you are at some big exclusive club. This is west london, at Brunel Univesrity...come on!! Well....we got in, and it wasn't too bad. The music was good. You would think you are in America! We danced a lot, saw a guy who looked like he came from the band Hanson. It was funny. I was going to dance with him for fun, but then the music stopped! Oh well. After the club closed we met some brisith guys who are in their third year and work for Xerox. I had a long converstaion with one (Russel) about America. He is fascinated by American and Americans, so I was some what of a novelty. That brings us to today...sunday. I went back into town. This time I walked. It isn't a bad walk. Maybe about 20 minutes or so. I did some more shopping for things. I needed a mirror and some light bulbs and some more food. Still having a hard time with the food. There is so much meat in the supermarkets. There is canned meat, frozen meat, fresh meat, meat in pies, etc etc. It is crazy. Nothing tastes like home either. The cheese is diffenet, the cottage cheese is not very good, and the tuna is all different too. I don't know what kind of food to buy or anything. I am sure I will get used to it sooner or later. I just need to learn how to cook meat! Tonight Aoife, Emily, Lyndsey (an american), and I went to Locos for drinks and trivia. It was on paper and like nothing I have seen in a bar in the states. I guess trivia like this is common. There were a lot of questions you had to be from Britain or Europe to answer. Good thing we had two Irish girls on our team. We actually did quite well! After that we went to kareokee, but didn't have a chance to sing. It is funny how the British don't have an accent when they sing! There were also a lot of songs I never heard before. There was this crazy country song, "Who the f*%k is Alice." It was a country song, but not written in the US. And I thought American country was bad!! Well. that is all that has happend so far! Things are still good! My room is becoming more homey. Classes start Tuesday! I guess there is going to be a "how much do you know" test. Not looking forward to it! So, that is all for today! |