Alright, so instead of emailing individual people a million times telling the same story, I decided to only tell it once and send it to everyone, much easier for me in any rate. The pictures coincide with the story, so feel free to look at them.
When I got through security at the airport and made it to my gate, I immediately ran into someone else who was on the group flight, Kat. Anyway about 11 other people showed up and we all huddled together like scared new-born puppies until we were forced to break apart and get on the plane. (I knew you would be interested, Connally and Dad, so i took a pic of the tv screen and the safety manual to prove that I was on a 767 :-P) The flight was about 8 hours and I watched Slumdog Millionaire on the way over (FANTASTIC movie). We landed in Gatwick around 5:45 local time and 1:45 your time.
Customs ended up being a nightmare for me. We all got off the plane together and headed toward customs, and after waiting about 45 minutes in line it's my turn to go up to the official. A few had already gone through before me and seemed to have made off alright so I felt pretty good about dealing with this on my own. He asked for my passport which I provided and then asked my purpose in the United Kingdom. I said "I'm studying at Oxford for the semester." Then he asked about the details of the program which I gave, and the he asked "Do you have any proof that you're studying there?" Well, I did. I had a letter from my program director to the customs officials for exactly that purpose, only when I pulled the letter from the envelope containing all of my travel information, the letter was empty. I apologized and told him that I didn't have any sort of written proof, and he backed and forthed with me for a while before he finally acquiesced and stamped my stupid passport. The only thing that convinced him of my stay, ended up being my Oxford T-Shirt that I was wearing. Anyway when I got out of the customs area, i not only found that everyone that had been behind me in line had not only finished but they had all been waiting on me wondering what had happened. When I told them the situation everyone of them was shocked to here that I had been asked to provide evidence for my visit because none of them had. Long story short, apparently I look like a terrorist with my backpack and college attire.
So, after that fiasco, we got our luggage without a hitch and found our guide. We had a little wait for the bus but eventually found our way. The bus ride was relatively uneventful, and we finally made it to the house in Oxford. The house is beautiful. You can see a picture of it in my pictures, and the inside is even nicer. I'm living in and enormous room with 4 other girls who all seem wonderful. So we spent the rest of the day unpacking and trying our hardest to ward off the jet lag (which was quite difficult). We had a quick orientation at 5 pm and afterward had a pizza dinner. That night the majority of the house (staff included) went downtown to one of the local pubs! It was fantastic to be able to legally buy alcohol... and good alcohol at that :-P I had my first pint last night which I got a picture of to prove ^_^ It was a local english beer called ... something... Stallion. Anyway, it was good. Afterward, the for girls in the picture with me and I made our war back to the house... only to get quite lost.
Don't worry mom, we were very safe, but we did end up accidentally going by the center of oxford, we didn't know what it was at the time, so we just started taking pictures cause the buildings were very impressive. (Those are the pictures that look like they were taken at night) We finally found our way back to the house and I fell asleep right away.
This morning started with us taking a trip to the Bodleian Library (The central library of the campus) were we took the Bodleian oath in order for us to use the facilities. The room in which we took the oath had once been used as parliament during the english civil war, and the chair you can see me sitting in was once sat in by the king of england... before he lost his head that is. Fascinatingly the room adjacent to this room was used as the Infirmary the all of the Harry Potter films. Also interestingly, the Bodleian has some of the oldest manuscripts in England and is equivalent to or Library of Congress. For example, one of the 3 remaining original scripts of the Magna Carta are in that library (not for public viewing unfortunately).
After the oath we took a short break where we had lunch and I am pleased to say that I decided to have McDonald :-P. Almost as good as the real thing.
Anyway, after lunch we went on a tour of the different colleges throughout the University. We took a large tour of my college and many interesting facts... most of which I can't recall off the top of my head, but I took several nice pictures.
Sense the tour I decided to go to the free museum of natural history in the science building in Oxford. They had replicas of the "Lucy" skeleton and many dinosaur displays. I'm sure you don't want to be bored with all of what I saw, but if you are interested I posted pics. (I found a lot of things interesting)
Tonight we go to dine for the first time in our dining hall were I will be donning Harry Potter style robs and eating like a true British College student.
I'm having a blast out here and hope all is well at home!
Ande
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