Since I’ve spent my first several days here without Internet access in my room, this blog will have a LOT in it. I started it when I was waiting for my connection in New Jersey, and continued it after I got to my room and settled in somewhat. That was Monday, I think, so I’ll end this post with Monday night and pick up Tuesday in a new post. I’ll have pictures shortly. Maybe even before you get to read this.
First, I want to say that the reason this is so late in being updated is that I managed to fry my hair straightened on Monday morning, and didn’t trust the outlets here to be kind to my laptop. This morning, however, I got some reassurance from Craig in the IT department that I can plug my laptop in without fear. Therefore I am now blogging from my laptop in my room, and will be able to update you regularly once I get these first few days untangled for you! I’ve been keeping everything that happens to me updated in a hard copy using a journal I bought at Borders before I left home, so I have something solid to start with.
So, here goes:
Newark, New Jersey
5:14pm
New Jersey tarmac
Sitting at the Newark airport. My ears have still not recovered from our descent, and they feel clogged up. I hate it. Chewing gum only went so far. Also, the “Free Public wifi" is not exactly that. My laptop claims that I have been connected, but won’t let me get online. As a result, I will not be posting this immediately.
Cindy, Dad and I (and the little Cindyspawns) went to Famous Dave’s this morning before heading to the airport. I need to vent about this. I will do so now. I will try to keep it brief.
As some of you know, my absolute favorite food, in the whole wide world, is the Sweet ‘n’ Sassy Grilled Salmon platter at Famous Dave’s. I have looked forward to it since I was last at Famous Dave’s (last summer) and was looking forward again to it being my last meal in the U.S. before I left for Scotland. Wouldn’t you know… that they have changed their menu. And not in a good way. I don’t know what other choices they have eliminated from us their admiring patrons, but I will tell you this: their most delicious dish, Grilled Salmon, has been axed. Why they have done this I haven’t the faintest clue. Perhaps they have too many customers, and thus are making too much money, and wished to lower their stock value by driving away us their admiring patrons.
The only Salmon left on the menu is this new Citrus Salmon, which I accepted as a stand-in. It was something of a lackluster substitute. Definitely not the same, and it doesn’t come with all the fixins (cornbread, onion strings, corn-on-the-cob, fries, etc.) that their entrees usually come with.
I will have trouble coping with this loss, as I did when Applebee’s made a similar decision regarding their menu choices and took away an amazing dessert – Apple ChimiCheesecake. Phenomenal. And no more. I thus must find a new favorite restaurant. LongHorn SteakHouse is in the lead.
Mom and Nan met us at the airport, and after a bit of mild panic on my part (I did not have my exact confirmation number and hadn’t known that I was supposed to print it off – hey! I’m new at this!) the man at baggage check-in scanned my passport and declared that everything was in order. Cindy explained the paperwork that they gave me, and gave me some advice.
Mom did not cry at any point before I walked away. Nan started tearing up, which surprised me, and Dad and Cindy were visibly reluctant to let go of me once they got me into a hug. Well, that’s exceptionally true with Mom too. She tried to drag me back out the door twice when she had me locked up in her arms.
*note: STILL NO INTERNET! HOW YOU VEX ME, NEWARK AIRPORT!! AND FAMOUS DAVE’S!!! AND APPLEBEE’S!!!! end note*
I forgot to take my belt off when I went through security, which resulted in a TSA official giving me a quick frisk around the mid-section. Nothing major. I did, however, end up using 3 of the bins they provide for your things to go through the scanner. I put my laptop on my coat and shoes in one of them, and it slid off on its way in, so it had to get it its own bin. Those two, plus one for my book bag and a little plastic dish for my passport. It seemed to take me a long time to gather my stuff back up, but I was able to stay out of people’s way, more or less.
I sat by two young women on the plane. They were not at all talkative, and both of them tried to doze, which offered me little opportunity to converse without feeling like I was being rude.
Things went fine, except for my poor ears. I have not been able to trick my body into yawning, and every so often I hum a little to myself, to check my hearing. It has not improved. This, I think, is one reason why the lady at JuanValdez and I had trouble understanding one another. (That’s the coffee place I stopped at. The coffee’s not great.)
Wandering around the airport is good fun, but not quite as much when you’ve got a 20-something pound book bag on your shoulders. I tried strapping it to the handle of my little suitcase, which worked well except that it made the suitcase WAY more cumbersome that I would like. I ended up just carrying the book bag.
I have just discovered through exploring the airport that there is a food court with a DUNKIN’ DONUTS IN IT. This exasperates me because I have coupons from DD that expire on the 28th that I didn’t bring with me because I figured I wouldn’t be needing them. Also, if I had known it was there, I wouldn’t have wasted money on that terrible JuanValdez coffee when I could have gotten a delicious latte or something for the same price. *grump* I ended up getting the turkey cheddar and bacon flatbread sandwich. It’s all right.
Also, there’s a 50’s diner here – I stopped to check the prices on the menu, and noticed the heading “Now Boarding Omelettes”. This tickled me for reasons that only Kendra knows. *hint: “Amish Paradise”*
And that brings me to where I am now. Still no wifi, so as I said this blog will be a bit delayed in getting to you. Hopefully not too much, though.
The lady next to me has an English accent.
See you on the other side of the Atlantic.
*See?! I had a great ending to it! But it would seem silly to me to post it and then post another right after it, when both are overdue. I mean, it would have been great if I’d had wifi at Newark, but that didn’t quite work out. Ah, well. I’ll try to keep this part brief, although if you know anything about my writing style, you know that’s virtually impossible, especially since this experience is so utterly new and alien to me.*
My row mate and I had good luck on the Edinburgh flight – it wasn’t booked solid, as the Newark one had been, and as a result we had an extra seat and a tray between us to use. She sat by the window and I sat by the aisle. My reasoning for choosing an aisle seat was that if I needed to get up to go the bathroom, which I knew I would in all likelihood, I wouldn't have to climb over anyone, plus if I couldn’t sleep and my RLS was acting up, I would need to get up and wander about the cabin a bit.
My companion was a bit more talkative than the sleepy ones I had on my flight from Cleveland. She asked me questions about where I was going and why, and told me that she was heading to Edinburgh on business – she is a counselor of some sort. I didn’t get much else out of her, but she was amiable enough.
I was not able to sleep on the plane. Some time after we took off I rummaged through my carry-ons to find my Dramamine. It was not there!! I’ll bet anything that if Mom were to open the cabinet in my bathroom at home it would be sitting right there. *growl* Not that I really need it for motion sickness, because planes are apparently not as bad for me as cars, but I know that Dramamine makes me sleepy, and I think that little bit of added oomph would have gone a long way to helping me sleep.
I want to mention, for Mom (and since she might not read this, make sure you tell her, Cindy) that there was a woman onboard playing a game called “Bejeweled” on her touch screen tv. This is a game that my mom found on msn.com that she loves, although recently she has become more addicted to Zuma! and Zuma’s Revenge.
I feel really stupid for this, but I didn’t realize that the video screens we had at our seats provided free on-flight entertainment. For the ride from Cleveland to Newark we also had videos, but they made a point of mentioning over and over that the things it was showing were just previews, and that if we wanted to watch something we had to pay $6. Screw that. But, as it turns out, the movies and tv shows on the overnight flight were indeed free. I realized this WAY too late. They had one episode of The Big Bang Theory available (the one where Sheldon creates an android of himself with a computer screen face), but I only got to watch a few minutes of it before we began our descent.
Speaking of our descent, it was excruciating for me. As some of you know, I have had problems with my ears for pretty much my whole life, and I hate getting water in my ears (and anything else that changes the pressure in there). The pack of gum I bought before heading to my gate in Cleveland did very little to ease the pain, and I quickly got sick of chewing it as the gum dried out my mouth and tired my jaws. As of right now it is *does math based on the time my laptop says* quarter til 5 in the evening (meaning you all are just heading to lunch), and I’m still feeling a bit of clogged-ness and hearing an occasional crinkle that means they’re still not back to normal. Grrr… I hate it! I am not looking forward to doing it again, and I think it is safe to say that while I don’t mind flying, I would rather not do it, just for this specific reason.
I also want to say, for Dad, that we had a beautiful sunrise to look at as we got to the airport, (although It was on the other side of the plane), and that I looked out the window across the aisle just in time to see the Firth of Forth bridge (the Forth Rail Bridge, I guess they call it) as we passed some four or five miles from it! I had never really seen it before Friday night, when Dad and I were watching a DVD that he’d gotten at the library. I was fascinated that I had only just discovered it, and there it was, exactly as we had seen it the day before on Dad's TV. This of course made me think of Dad, and I smiled despite the debilitating pain in my ears.
It took me a tad longer to get through customs than it probably should have, though through no fault of my own. The official asked me a bunch of questions about my purpose for being in Scotland and took a sort of professional wariness in dealing with me. He had never seen a student come into the country to go to this particular college, and wouldn’t process me until he was sure that Oatridge was on their “sponsorship list”. He had me sit aside while he dealt with the rest of the people from my flight, which made me a little anxious. Besides that I was a bit nauseous, a lot fatigued from not sleeping, and my ears were clogged up horribly. After a few minutes he came out of the office with a grin on his face, and my anxiety faded just a skosh. One more hurtle overcome.
My checked bag was one of only a few left in the baggage claim area, and I was slightly dismayed to find that it had been smudged in a few places with something dark. The few other airport personnel I encountered seemed a bit terse, but they directed me to the taxi queue nonetheless, where I got myself an extremely amicable and talkative taxi driver. He knew exactly where the college was, and answered my questions about the area. I was tickled when I recognized the roads I was on – last semester Jennie insisted on finding both of our study abroad locales via Google Maps, and I saw all the nearby roads leading to and from the college. The confusion we suffered when we tried to find the actual college is now cleared up, and I could find it without a problem if I Google Mapped it now!
Sitting at the Newark airport. My ears have still not recovered from our descent, and they feel clogged up. I hate it. Chewing gum only went so far. Also, the “Free Public wifi" is not exactly that. My laptop claims that I have been connected, but won’t let me get online. As a result, I will not be posting this immediately.
Cindy, Dad and I (and the little Cindyspawns) went to Famous Dave’s this morning before heading to the airport. I need to vent about this. I will do so now. I will try to keep it brief.
As some of you know, my absolute favorite food, in the whole wide world, is the Sweet ‘n’ Sassy Grilled Salmon platter at Famous Dave’s. I have looked forward to it since I was last at Famous Dave’s (last summer) and was looking forward again to it being my last meal in the U.S. before I left for Scotland. Wouldn’t you know… that they have changed their menu. And not in a good way. I don’t know what other choices they have eliminated from us their admiring patrons, but I will tell you this: their most delicious dish, Grilled Salmon, has been axed. Why they have done this I haven’t the faintest clue. Perhaps they have too many customers, and thus are making too much money, and wished to lower their stock value by driving away us their admiring patrons.
The only Salmon left on the menu is this new Citrus Salmon, which I accepted as a stand-in. It was something of a lackluster substitute. Definitely not the same, and it doesn’t come with all the fixins (cornbread, onion strings, corn-on-the-cob, fries, etc.) that their entrees usually come with.
I will have trouble coping with this loss, as I did when Applebee’s made a similar decision regarding their menu choices and took away an amazing dessert – Apple ChimiCheesecake. Phenomenal. And no more. I thus must find a new favorite restaurant. LongHorn SteakHouse is in the lead.
Mom and Nan met us at the airport, and after a bit of mild panic on my part (I did not have my exact confirmation number and hadn’t known that I was supposed to print it off – hey! I’m new at this!) the man at baggage check-in scanned my passport and declared that everything was in order. Cindy explained the paperwork that they gave me, and gave me some advice.
Mom did not cry at any point before I walked away. Nan started tearing up, which surprised me, and Dad and Cindy were visibly reluctant to let go of me once they got me into a hug. Well, that’s exceptionally true with Mom too. She tried to drag me back out the door twice when she had me locked up in her arms.
*note: STILL NO INTERNET! HOW YOU VEX ME, NEWARK AIRPORT!! AND FAMOUS DAVE’S!!! AND APPLEBEE’S!!!! end note*
I forgot to take my belt off when I went through security, which resulted in a TSA official giving me a quick frisk around the mid-section. Nothing major. I did, however, end up using 3 of the bins they provide for your things to go through the scanner. I put my laptop on my coat and shoes in one of them, and it slid off on its way in, so it had to get it its own bin. Those two, plus one for my book bag and a little plastic dish for my passport. It seemed to take me a long time to gather my stuff back up, but I was able to stay out of people’s way, more or less.
I sat by two young women on the plane. They were not at all talkative, and both of them tried to doze, which offered me little opportunity to converse without feeling like I was being rude.
Things went fine, except for my poor ears. I have not been able to trick my body into yawning, and every so often I hum a little to myself, to check my hearing. It has not improved. This, I think, is one reason why the lady at JuanValdez and I had trouble understanding one another. (That’s the coffee place I stopped at. The coffee’s not great.)
Wandering around the airport is good fun, but not quite as much when you’ve got a 20-something pound book bag on your shoulders. I tried strapping it to the handle of my little suitcase, which worked well except that it made the suitcase WAY more cumbersome that I would like. I ended up just carrying the book bag.
I have just discovered through exploring the airport that there is a food court with a DUNKIN’ DONUTS IN IT. This exasperates me because I have coupons from DD that expire on the 28th that I didn’t bring with me because I figured I wouldn’t be needing them. Also, if I had known it was there, I wouldn’t have wasted money on that terrible JuanValdez coffee when I could have gotten a delicious latte or something for the same price. *grump* I ended up getting the turkey cheddar and bacon flatbread sandwich. It’s all right.
Also, there’s a 50’s diner here – I stopped to check the prices on the menu, and noticed the heading “Now Boarding Omelettes”. This tickled me for reasons that only Kendra knows. *hint: “Amish Paradise”*
And that brings me to where I am now. Still no wifi, so as I said this blog will be a bit delayed in getting to you. Hopefully not too much, though.
The lady next to me has an English accent.
See you on the other side of the Atlantic.
*See?! I had a great ending to it! But it would seem silly to me to post it and then post another right after it, when both are overdue. I mean, it would have been great if I’d had wifi at Newark, but that didn’t quite work out. Ah, well. I’ll try to keep this part brief, although if you know anything about my writing style, you know that’s virtually impossible, especially since this experience is so utterly new and alien to me.*
My row mate and I had good luck on the Edinburgh flight – it wasn’t booked solid, as the Newark one had been, and as a result we had an extra seat and a tray between us to use. She sat by the window and I sat by the aisle. My reasoning for choosing an aisle seat was that if I needed to get up to go the bathroom, which I knew I would in all likelihood, I wouldn't have to climb over anyone, plus if I couldn’t sleep and my RLS was acting up, I would need to get up and wander about the cabin a bit.
My companion was a bit more talkative than the sleepy ones I had on my flight from Cleveland. She asked me questions about where I was going and why, and told me that she was heading to Edinburgh on business – she is a counselor of some sort. I didn’t get much else out of her, but she was amiable enough.
I was not able to sleep on the plane. Some time after we took off I rummaged through my carry-ons to find my Dramamine. It was not there!! I’ll bet anything that if Mom were to open the cabinet in my bathroom at home it would be sitting right there. *growl* Not that I really need it for motion sickness, because planes are apparently not as bad for me as cars, but I know that Dramamine makes me sleepy, and I think that little bit of added oomph would have gone a long way to helping me sleep.
I want to mention, for Mom (and since she might not read this, make sure you tell her, Cindy) that there was a woman onboard playing a game called “Bejeweled” on her touch screen tv. This is a game that my mom found on msn.com that she loves, although recently she has become more addicted to Zuma! and Zuma’s Revenge.
I feel really stupid for this, but I didn’t realize that the video screens we had at our seats provided free on-flight entertainment. For the ride from Cleveland to Newark we also had videos, but they made a point of mentioning over and over that the things it was showing were just previews, and that if we wanted to watch something we had to pay $6. Screw that. But, as it turns out, the movies and tv shows on the overnight flight were indeed free. I realized this WAY too late. They had one episode of The Big Bang Theory available (the one where Sheldon creates an android of himself with a computer screen face), but I only got to watch a few minutes of it before we began our descent.
Speaking of our descent, it was excruciating for me. As some of you know, I have had problems with my ears for pretty much my whole life, and I hate getting water in my ears (and anything else that changes the pressure in there). The pack of gum I bought before heading to my gate in Cleveland did very little to ease the pain, and I quickly got sick of chewing it as the gum dried out my mouth and tired my jaws. As of right now it is *does math based on the time my laptop says* quarter til 5 in the evening (meaning you all are just heading to lunch), and I’m still feeling a bit of clogged-ness and hearing an occasional crinkle that means they’re still not back to normal. Grrr… I hate it! I am not looking forward to doing it again, and I think it is safe to say that while I don’t mind flying, I would rather not do it, just for this specific reason.
I also want to say, for Dad, that we had a beautiful sunrise to look at as we got to the airport, (although It was on the other side of the plane), and that I looked out the window across the aisle just in time to see the Firth of Forth bridge (the Forth Rail Bridge, I guess they call it) as we passed some four or five miles from it! I had never really seen it before Friday night, when Dad and I were watching a DVD that he’d gotten at the library. I was fascinated that I had only just discovered it, and there it was, exactly as we had seen it the day before on Dad's TV. This of course made me think of Dad, and I smiled despite the debilitating pain in my ears.
It took me a tad longer to get through customs than it probably should have, though through no fault of my own. The official asked me a bunch of questions about my purpose for being in Scotland and took a sort of professional wariness in dealing with me. He had never seen a student come into the country to go to this particular college, and wouldn’t process me until he was sure that Oatridge was on their “sponsorship list”. He had me sit aside while he dealt with the rest of the people from my flight, which made me a little anxious. Besides that I was a bit nauseous, a lot fatigued from not sleeping, and my ears were clogged up horribly. After a few minutes he came out of the office with a grin on his face, and my anxiety faded just a skosh. One more hurtle overcome.
My checked bag was one of only a few left in the baggage claim area, and I was slightly dismayed to find that it had been smudged in a few places with something dark. The few other airport personnel I encountered seemed a bit terse, but they directed me to the taxi queue nonetheless, where I got myself an extremely amicable and talkative taxi driver. He knew exactly where the college was, and answered my questions about the area. I was tickled when I recognized the roads I was on – last semester Jennie insisted on finding both of our study abroad locales via Google Maps, and I saw all the nearby roads leading to and from the college. The confusion we suffered when we tried to find the actual college is now cleared up, and I could find it without a problem if I Google Mapped it now!
____________________Oatridge College, according to Google Maps__________________*note: I’m getting a little worried about my computer’s power cord. It was charging fine earlier, in this very room, but now it’ll charge for a few minutes, then tell me it’s plugged in but not charging. I don’t know why… it’s never done this before :-( *
My taxi driver drove me up and down the road on campus, trying valiantly to find me someone to talk to, but he ended up having to leave me in the Resident Reception area. It was only about ten minutes later that Tasho, the groundskeeper, showed up, and told me that he’d been looking for me and was charged with showing me around. He’s from Bulgaria, and his English isn’t great, and he was probably a little too friendly. At this point he’s the only person I’ve interacted with here, and the age and language barriers make me feel a lot more alienated than I should.
The idea of meeting other students is a little terrifying. Okay, a lot terrifying.
(And that was where I ended the blog on Monday, since I couldn’t plug in my laptop. Here’s day 2 (Monday), straight from my journal but with a few more details):
Binny Craig, as seen from the front door of my flat (the EQ center in in the foreground)Monday Feb 28th
I woke up around 7am this morning. I think I went to bed around 8, and only woke once for half an hour or so – it’s the most I’ve slept at once in a long time!! It seemed to do wonders for my jetlag, though. I struggled to stay awake into the afternoon yesterday, but finally gave in and lied down for several hours just to rest myself. I may have dozed but I didn’t fall asleep, thankfully, so I got a full night’s rest last night.
I took a shower (it was easy to figure out the handle things, but the water pressure leaves much to be desired, the showerhead isn’t adjustable and the curtain clings to you), and was about to fix my hair when Tasho came around to tell me that Barbara wanted to see me in the Resident Reception office. When I got there, however, she said that she hadn’t sent for me, but got a woman named Jo to take me back to the canteen (that’s what they call their cafeteria) for breakfast. I had a sausage sandwich (nothing like sausage in the US – it was similar in texture and color to corned beef and didn’t really taste like sausage), coffee, water (yes! WATER!) and a small apple.
After that I took a walk through the campus, across a small natural bridge that crosses a stream and up a hill by a stone wall where I discovered a sand trap littered with golf balls. From there I took a picture of the main campus area and another of the hillside over Ecclesmachan, a town that is, as I have been telling everyone, literally 2,000 feet or so from one end to the other. I think you could fit 4 Ecclesmachans inside 1 Pheasant Run, and the town would easily fit within the Lake Erie College campus.
________________________Oatridge Main Campus Building____________________
___________________Hills over Ecclesmachan, from the same vantage________________
_________________________Pretty flowers by the sidewalk__________________
Before I left Ohio I was worried that it would be too early in the year to see a bunch of green and that everything would be brown, but I was wrong. There are beautiful hills in three directions from the college campus, and I took pictures of all of them between Monday and Tuesday. It's a lot warmer here than it was when I left home - about 50 degrees Fehrenheit I suppose (they do everything in Celsius here, and I haven't gotten used to it yet), and quite windy, but every morning that I've stepped outside it's been sunny, a bit chilly (warm enough for a hoodie, though) and gorgeous.
I met with Sharon Anderson at 11am, and she had me fill out some basic paperwork and showed me where my classes would be. She then commandeered a student named Susan to come by Cromarty (that’s the name of my flat) and show me around the barn (the “yard”, they call it).
When I got back to my room I set about straightening my hair. Using the 50-watt converter it worked well for about 10 minutes, then the converter overheated and refused to work. I tried the 1600-watt converter, figuring that it would handle anything above 50 and below 1600 without a problem. It made an awful buzzing sound, and the straightener won’t even turn on now. So I only got my hair half-straightened and now I have to either buy a straightener here or find a girl to borrow from.
Perhaps Susan has one – she lives in Cromarty as well – in the flat across from mine, and she came by a little before 3 to take me to the yard. She admittedly talks really fast and has a thick accent, and at times I couldn’t understand her. Jonathon was right when he said it might feel like learning a new language!
I haven’t plugged in my laptop all day – after what happened to my straightener I’m a little afraid to! I think I’ll hop online as soon as I can on a school computer and see if I can find any useful information that will buoy my confidence.
At 4 Susan brought me back to the Reception office to see Allistair Cranston. According to the note that was left on my pillow when I got here he was going to go over residential policies with me, but really he just asked me some questions about my flight and if there was anything I needed. I mentioned my need for hangers and my concerns about activating my phone and using the Internet. He said he may be able to get me a SIM card but that since it’s an Irish phone I may have to buy one. That’s fine with me, of course, as I had budgeted for one.
I should mention that this Allistair fellow is an attractive guy, and very personable. He is not difficult to understand; I’m not sure where he’s from, but he doesn’t quite have a brogue, exactly. He’s Oatridge’s “evening” Megan McKenna (Barbara is here in the daytime), I suppose, but I suspect he’s got a touch of Travis Rose in him somewhere as well. That bodes ill.
After talking to Allistair we went to the library to get my picture taken and get my student ID card made, which is supposed to be used to get me into the canteen but seems superfluous since there’s never anybody there to check IDs.
I went back to my room for a while to read some Sherlock Holmes (and start this journal entry) and a little after 5 Susan invited me to have dinner with her and her friends. That was certainly an experience, to say the least. Three of the six of them came to dinner drunk, and they were a rambunctious lot. The girl sitting next to me was more my type – she hardly said a thing while the others carried on. I think I need to find a group to hang with that’s more… square. Quieter. More pensive. Less drunken.
Susan told me that she does indeed have a hair straightener, and I think she said she’d bring it to me, though I’m not sure when. I’ll probably end up just washing my hair and moussing it. She said if I bought one it would run me somewhere between 18 and 30 pounds. Eeek.
Class tomorrow!
♥SM
When I got back to my room I set about straightening my hair. Using the 50-watt converter it worked well for about 10 minutes, then the converter overheated and refused to work. I tried the 1600-watt converter, figuring that it would handle anything above 50 and below 1600 without a problem. It made an awful buzzing sound, and the straightener won’t even turn on now. So I only got my hair half-straightened and now I have to either buy a straightener here or find a girl to borrow from.
Perhaps Susan has one – she lives in Cromarty as well – in the flat across from mine, and she came by a little before 3 to take me to the yard. She admittedly talks really fast and has a thick accent, and at times I couldn’t understand her. Jonathon was right when he said it might feel like learning a new language!
I haven’t plugged in my laptop all day – after what happened to my straightener I’m a little afraid to! I think I’ll hop online as soon as I can on a school computer and see if I can find any useful information that will buoy my confidence.
At 4 Susan brought me back to the Reception office to see Allistair Cranston. According to the note that was left on my pillow when I got here he was going to go over residential policies with me, but really he just asked me some questions about my flight and if there was anything I needed. I mentioned my need for hangers and my concerns about activating my phone and using the Internet. He said he may be able to get me a SIM card but that since it’s an Irish phone I may have to buy one. That’s fine with me, of course, as I had budgeted for one.
I should mention that this Allistair fellow is an attractive guy, and very personable. He is not difficult to understand; I’m not sure where he’s from, but he doesn’t quite have a brogue, exactly. He’s Oatridge’s “evening” Megan McKenna (Barbara is here in the daytime), I suppose, but I suspect he’s got a touch of Travis Rose in him somewhere as well. That bodes ill.
After talking to Allistair we went to the library to get my picture taken and get my student ID card made, which is supposed to be used to get me into the canteen but seems superfluous since there’s never anybody there to check IDs.
I went back to my room for a while to read some Sherlock Holmes (and start this journal entry) and a little after 5 Susan invited me to have dinner with her and her friends. That was certainly an experience, to say the least. Three of the six of them came to dinner drunk, and they were a rambunctious lot. The girl sitting next to me was more my type – she hardly said a thing while the others carried on. I think I need to find a group to hang with that’s more… square. Quieter. More pensive. Less drunken.
Susan told me that she does indeed have a hair straightener, and I think she said she’d bring it to me, though I’m not sure when. I’ll probably end up just washing my hair and moussing it. She said if I bought one it would run me somewhere between 18 and 30 pounds. Eeek.
Class tomorrow!
♥SM
Three things: first, "how you vex me, Newark airport!" may well be my new favorite cri de coeur, second, Allistair Cranston might be the most perfectly Scottish name ever, and third, less drunken indeed. But at least she's a friendly drunk. That's always something.
ReplyDeleteproof read a little more sis. lol. also i agree with jenny. about all of what she wrote but mostly that allistair cranston being a perfect scottish name. it's like something out of a book. or movie.
ReplyDelete