Day One

(I live up the "R" Staircase on the Left)

I am finally in bed and its almost 3am Cambridge time. I think my body is so confused by all of the time changes it doesn't know when to be tired anymore. So I have, oddly, a burst of energy and I thought this was as good of time as ever to start my blog.
When I landed in London I was still attempting to wake up because I took 2 benadryll on my flight and had a glass of wine so I had fallen asleep for the majority of it. It was really sad, about 1.5 hours into my flight I all of the sudden had the worst itching attack. I had to pull down my carry on to get to the medicine before I got even more uncomfortable. Once that was sorted I had a much more enjoyable flight.
When we landed I was really surprised by the lack of security and procedure when we went through customs. I literally didn't need any of the 5 or 6 documents UCI had me print out and I simply walked through without my bags even examined or X-rayed. I met up with a bunch of nice people from my group and we took the Tube to Kings Cross Station in central London. The Tube ride took a little under and hour. Then I took a train from Kings Cross to Cambridge. It was really amazing and fun that my platform was 9 (...almost 9 3/4) and I felt like it was a good sign to have the platform next to Harry Potter's. (by the way, I'm letting my nerd flag fly here in England. There's a lot of Harry Potter stuff going on and you cant help but get swept up but the accents of the people. You feel like your in the movie just being here!)
After that 3o minute train ride through the countryside we made it to the Cambridge Train Station and I paid 2 pounds to be taken to the front gate of Pembroke College with Erika and Sam. I am still figuring out which coins are which so I have been getting a lot of help from Erika who picked it up really quickly.
I got my room, which is in one of the older buildings and it is so amazing and old-worldy. I have a view of the street below and my room is on the 3rd floor so I can leave my window open and get a breeze.

(Picture of Formal Hall)

Then we had our welcome dinner. The food was really really bad, even for the new Kate who likes more foods. We all got to meet our Program Assistants who are here to plan the social aspect of our trip and they later took us to a Pub called the Anchor. The Anchor was kind of cool because it is right on the water and has a few levels of different Bars. I ordered a Pint of Stella and I felt very mature.
When I finally got home at the end of the night I decided it would be a good idea to charge my computer and my phone because I needed them in the morning. Well... As I plugged in my power strip I lost power to the entire room. This was a little worrisome because I needed my phone to be charged so it could wake me up in the morning. I proceeded to go look for the circuit board to the building and was pleasantly surprised to find it on my floor. I ended up resetting the power to my room and got my plugs working sans my power strip. I felt even more mature after this experience.
I finally made it to bed, and I got really lonely because my room is so big and I was all by myself. So I started to write my blog, and I hope I can keep up with this because it seems like a really great way to keep track of all that I am doing. And who knows? Maybe they'll turn it into a movie someday.