Double Days: Waiting, and then Get-To-Know-You Day

So it's been a while since my I wrote about what I was doing, and my last post explains why. Now I have power, but no wireless in my room. I have to go to a little rec room just a few rooms down from my room to get a wireless connection. So now I have a connection and power to work with. So here goes. Me, Brandon, Dani and Shannon woke up at the hotel we were staying at, had breakfast, and then got ready to go. That's when the waiting started. We had to wait about 10 or 15 minutes for our driver to take us to the airport; that was only a small foreshadowing of what was to come. We finally got to the airport and got unloaded and then went to meet the group. When we got there at around 9 only two other people from the group had gotten off of their planes, and we were waiting on the rest, which was about30 or 40 people it seemed like when everyone finally got there. However at that point not everyone was there, and that's the way it stayed for over 3 hours. A few people would trickle in here and there until finally everyone was there. We then had to take all of our luggage back down to the pickup area to load it into a truck and then get on a large fancy bus. We then got on what we thought was going to be a 1 hour bus ride; this turned out to be false. It is 1 hour from Gatwick airport to Harlaxton; but that's by train. And we were on a bus that had to get stuck in traffic, a lot. So all in all it took over 4 hours. It wasn't that bad for the 4 of us, because we had had a full night's sleep, while the rest of them had just gotten off of their respective planes. So at one point there were only 5 people awake on the bus. People would drift in and out and talk some and then fall back to sleep. We almost killed a few motorists because our bus was so big and in a few of the towns the roads were really small. It was a fun, if long ride. When We finally got to the manor it was really amazing, because you saw it from a distance and it looked huge and the closer that we got the bigger that it got. We then got off the bus and went inside to have dinner, which was fish and chips (I kid you not). After dinner we had a little bit of time to bring our things to our room, but not much time to unpack. We then had a short orientation session with randomly-chosen groups. After that we had more time to unpack and free-time for the rest of the night. My room-mate had gotten there before I had, and already had his stuff unpacked, so I didn't meet him at all that day. I explored the manor a little (mostly because it's really big and easy to get lost in) and then met up with the usual group. We then looked around as a group and picked up a new-comer named Josh who was cool. After we were done exploring we watched a little TV (a little ironic, I know) and then I turned in pretty early at about 11, and then slept until about 7:15. My room-mate and I both woke up at the same time so I finally met him. His name is Chris and he seems like a good guy. I then got ready for breakfast and left to meet Brandon, Dani and Shannon. We ate breakfast and then explored the manor a little bit more. We even took the lift (elevator) up to the fifth floor which is where Shannon lives. It is old but still works, although very slowly. We then had our first formal meeting as a class, with introduction to faculty and an address from the president of the college. We also had to sing a song about a garden growing about 10 times, so that was interesting. After that we had about an hour of free-time. It was then time for another meeting where we talked about school rules and policies, the bureaucratic stuff. We then ate lunch which was American-style chili-dogs and curly-fries. After lunch we waited for a little while and then went to wait in line at the bookstore to buy our textbooks. Mine only cost about $70 (35 pounds or so) because I only needed books for the British Studies course; I already had the books for Greek and Latin. We then had some free-time during which we chose to go into Grantham (during my last post I erroneously thought we were going into Harlaxton village). We took a shuttle into town, only Dani and Brandon didn't go because Brandon wasn't feeling well and so was going to lay down for a short while for the next shuttle which came sooner than we thought. So Dani went to get Brandon to get on the next shuttle and Shannon and I went with Drew and Katie, some friends. Drew was in my small group from orientation my freshman year, so I knew him but not Katie who is his girlfriend. We walked around town looking for odds and ends that people had forgotten. We said that we were on a "quest". We then decided to look for the ASDA, which is the British version of Wal-Mart. We couldn't find it and so Drew asked for directions. He then led us and said that he was the "questor". After wandering I said that he didn't know where he was going, and he said that I should trust him as questor. It turned out that he didn't know where he was going, and said that he had let me down. We were joking, of-course, so we made jokes about it for the rest of the day. We went back to the manor on a shuttle in time to have another small orientation meeting about our expectations for Harlaxton and a little briefing about British culture, mostly humorous. Our leader passed out cards with common British phrases on them and we had to guess what they meant. The best one was "yob" (pronounced yawb), which is simply boy backwards. It means hooligan or ruffian, and so we used that about each other for a while. I think it will stick. We then had some time to get ready for our first formal dinner. Everyone was dressed up, and we were split up to random tables. I forgot my camera so unfortunately I didn't get any pictures. The meal was decent, but it took a long time between courses. I got to sit by Ange Drapp, so I was happy that I knew someone. I've been meeting lots of new people, but it's nice to have that comfort of knowing someone well. So far all the ceremonies have been started and ended with a man playing the bag-pipes, which is just about the best thing ever. After the meal ended we were free to go for the night, and I chose to come back to my room and type this. As I was sitting in the common room (which is the place where I get signal), a bunch of girls came in and wanted to know if I would play Taboo, which is where you get a card with a word on it and you have to get your teammates to guess it, but there are also words on the card that you cannot use to help them guess. It was fun and we eventually had about 10 people playing. After that distraction (although it was nice) I sat down and finished this post. After I am done I am going to go to bed and sleep so that I can get up to eat breakfast and then go to the local Anglican church for a welcome service. That should be interesting. Well, there we have two days wrapped into one post, and since it's so much I probably forgot something, but the big stuff should be there. Should be more to come tomorrow.