First Two Days

Hello readers. I’ve been in England for two days now and things seem to be going well. Today we had orientation and tours. We got to see a little bit of the campus and the universities library, which was amazing by the way. They have technology here that I have never seen before. You know the moving file cabinets you sometimes see in doctor’s offices? Well they have those in the library, only fancier and more up-to-date. Plus, these book shelves also have sensors on them so that you don’t get squished because someone didn’t bother to look and see if someone was there before moving a cabinet. They have self-checkouts for books and also self-return machines. They have little laptops in cabinets all around the library called i-borrows. They only work in the library so they can’t be stolen and they are super small. Oh, the library is four stories tall by the way, and you can have food and drink in it; which is like a crime in America. Haha. They have their own café too! The view from the Library is also amazing. I didn’t have my camera on me at the time so I don’t have pictures yet.

During our orientation we have a few speakers from the university and the travel agency that is taking us on our field trips. It was kind of boring, honestly. Though, I did find out that the words, “sweat” and, “pants” should never be put together, nor should the term “fanny pack” be used. Apparently those terms mean you either have a hygiene problem or that you are a bit crazy here in England.

Also, another good thing is that they have a pound store here; which is like the Dollar Tree in America. In England pound are like American dollars and pence is like American coins or cents. It’s rather confusing. The paper money is easy and I found the 1 pound coin easy enough, but I have sorted out all my other coins yet. I know that the 50 pence piece is a large heptagon (7-sided) silver coin, but the rest is, well, foreign.

My home-stay family is very nice. They have WiFi that they are letting me use, once they get it fixed. They also have a mobile phone that they are going to get activated for me soon. I have a t.v. in my room, but I haven’t tested it out yet. My room is also bigger then my actual bedroom back home and it is the first room that you come too when you walk into the house. My host family’s house is 20-25 minutes to my university and literally a straight shot as well. I get to walk through the main shopping district, which is really a giant out door mall, every day to get to and from school. The only down side is that I also live on the main road in and out of Canterbury. It is like Main Street/Broadway in Monmouth or Henderson/Main in Galesburg.

This brings me to another topic, British driving. They are crazy! I’m not saying that because they drive on the wrong side of the road either. Many of them drive down the middle of the road unless they see another car coming anyway! They take sharp corners at high speeds, and they pretty much tailgate at all times. My ride from London to Canterbury was quite an experience. Another thing is, on their highways or interstates their speed limits are variable. Oh? 70 mph you say? Eh, I suppose I’ll go 85. You know the circle roads/round-abouts that we call death traps in America? Yeah they are EVERYWHERE here. A few of them pedestrians can cross, but there are some that you can’t and those are the ones that are very busy and very dangerous. So they have built underground pathways for people to walk through to get from one side of the street to the other. These pathways; which I call tunnels, are actually called subways. Interesting right?

One last thing I would like to tell you about is the difference in words here in England. British people tend to either shorten describing something to one word, or they use multiple adjective to describe on thing. For example what we could call a USB Broadband Device, or something close, is called a dongle here. Where dongle came from, I have absolutely no clue, but it’s a funny word! Another example is of a restaurant that I came across. I can’t remember the specific name of the place, but the subtitle was Café Restaurant Foodshop. See what I mean? Overkill on adjectives.

Anyways, I shall end this entry here. I hope you are having a nice afternoon as I post this at 9 ‘til 8 here in Canterbury. Adiós!