Alright, since it's been three days since I arrived in England, I'm going to do my best to backtrack day by day and talk about my first experiences in the country.
Friday: I started my journey to Bristol with a flight from Cleveland to Newark. Luckily there was a spot between us, but the guy closest to me was this older gentleman who took his shoes off as soon as he sat down and drank gin and tonic the whole way to Jersey. The second flight, from Newark to Bristol, had better company, but was much worse overall. The people next to me were a British couple who kept making jokes the whole time. Unfortunately, the little computer embedded in the back of the seat in front of me went out, so I had pretty much nothing to do for most of the flight. It was also really uncomfortable, so I couldn't sleep at all. However, this gave me the chance to watch the people around me and see some things I probably never would have otherwise, such as a tattooed man with grown out hair and a Harley Davidson jacket watching "The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past". I thought the food they served was pretty good, though.
Saturday: I got into Bristol around 10 AM, and there was a bus that took me and some other people who came in at the same time to our rooms. Two of the girls were in my building, so we got to know each other a little, however, I've yet to hang out with them again. I live on the 3rd floor, but it's really the 4th, because they call the 1st floor the ground floor, and 2nd floor the 1st, and so on. It was quite the ordeal to get my giant suitcases up all those stairs. When I moved in there was already another person on my floor, a guy named Jan (guessing on how it's spelled) from Germany. I spent the next couple hours getting everything in my room situated, along with my phone and computer, and during that time two other people had come to our floor. One is a girl named Darcy from Canada, and the other is Alice from Hong Kong. The three of us decided to go shopping for some kitchen items we could all share. The stores aren't too far away from my dorm, but the dorm happens to be on the top of quite an impressive hill, so the walk back is pretty much torture. When we got back, another girl named Charlotte from Australia had moved in, and all four of us went shopping again for dinner. We ended up buying stuff to make spaghetti, and it was pretty good.
That night there was a toga party at the Union Building, which is right next door to my dorm. We all went, and I met a whole bunch of people, very few of whom I really remember all that much. Who sticks out the most is boisterous a guy named Kris, actually from England, who liked to pick out groups of people who were clumped together talking and throw himself in the middle of them to start a conversation. Once that conversation got boring, he would move on to the next group of people. I actually lost track of the people I came with at one point, so I ended up wandering around with Kris for a while. A very loud, fun, crazy person. Later I found my people again along with a few others, and we jumped around on the dance floor. Then, of course, the least appealing guy in the group took a liking to me, and I couldn't get rid of him so I went home and got ready for bed.
Sunday: I slept in really late, since I'd basically been up for the past 2 days. Once I got up and got ready I went out and did a little grocery shopping (got some bread, juice, lunch meat, and apples), and not too long after I got back I ran into Jan, Charlotte, Darcy, and Alice, and we all went out to an Indian restaurant for dinner. It was really good food. After that it was pretty much just a quiet evening to myself. Not very eventful, but I think I needed a day to relax, anyhow.
Monday: By this time, and I'm not sure when they all came in, but a few more people moved onto my floor. One is a guy from Italy named Michael, which has an Italian pronunciation that I cannot seem to master. After I tried five times he told me to give up. Another boy is from Singapore (I think) named Chika (that's probably not how it's spelled but that's how it sounds). He doesn't really hang out with any of the rest of us much, but any time we have talked with him, he's been really nice and fun to talk to. Third is a girl from Wisconsin named Mary, who just came in from 16 days of backpacking across Europe with two other kids from her school back in the USA.
Darcy, Charlotte and I all went downtown in the afternoon to pick up some things for our rooms. I got a new pillow because the one they gave me was way too thin, and a blanket because my room is crazy cold at night. We got back and made dinner for ourselves (mine consisted of a sandwich because I really need to go grocery shopping again), then went to a meeting with the rest of our dorm about safety procedures and whatnot. After that we went to a bar crawl (please don't get upset mom) that went through all the main bars in town. I spent most of that time with Mary and her friend from home Bethany, just talking to people and walking around the area. I ran into Kris again, which was pretty fun, and was told about the school's skydiving club by a very excited guy whose name I don't remember. Around 10 the three of us headed back to the dorm and got ready for bed.
Tuesday (Today): We all had to get up early for an orientation meeting, where we learned about how to sign up for our classes. Turns out that we have to do it manually with each department, which is kind of annoying. Both the departments I'm taking classes in (Religion and English) are on the same day at the same time right next to each other, so I guess I'm pretty lucky. After the orientation they gave us a free lunch, and then I went on a tour of the campus with two kids from California, Marie and Brian, a girl from Australia named Jen, and a few other people whose names I never learned. I think I know where all my classes are going to be, and I have to say that everything on this campus is beautiful. All the buildings are gorgeous and well landscaped. I'm going to try and get some pictures of the area in general tomorrow, so I'll be sure to put them up soon.
When I got back form the tour, I didn't feel like doing anything else, so I just hung out in my room for a while. However, I eventually got hungry, and right when I was leaving to see what I could get to eat, I ran into Jan. He said he was going to meet up with some people who knew about an organization for international students at the school that was giving out a free meal, and that I was welcome to come if I wanted. I did. Turns out that he wasn't the only person from the original group that decided to bring a friend, and we showed up with around twenty-five people, which really overwhelmed the group making dinner. We all sat outside and ate since there wasn't room left inside. The food was good, though, and I met quite a few new people.
After dinner, a girl from Italy named Fredrica (guessing on the spelling) and a guy from Belgium named Rupert invited me to hang out with them and some other friends. We met up with their friends at their dorm (not too far from mine), and hung out at this place called "The Woods". There were two girls from France, one was named Julia and the other I can't remember, a guy from Cyprus (island off of Greece) named Pauvlo, along with Fredrica, Rupert, and myself. I had a lot of fun with them.
I also found out that the room next to mine, which I thought was empty, has someone living in it that I haven't met yet. That room is also the room I stole a light bulb from because the ceiling light in my room didn't have one. I was going to tell the RA about it, but I forgot, and that guy had to spend his first night in the dark. I feel really bad about that.
So that's everything I've done so far. Next time I'll try to include some pictures and talk about the city itself more, but for now I just wanted to let you know what I've been up to.
