A New Year, A New Country

So I finally, finally made it to England. Ironic that before I left for England, I told myself how much easier it would be flying to England as opposed to Japan. How very wrong I was. My journey here was three times longer than it needed to be. (I could have flown to Japan, eaten lunch, and flown back in the time it took me to get here!) There were "heavy snows" (aka 2 inches) around Manchester, the airport I was flying into, so I had many flight delays and two of my flights were canceled.
Swiss airlines was nice enough to put us up in a swanky hotel, however, and I met some interesting people whose flights were canceled as well.



The second time my flight was canceled, I'll admit, I was tempted to just ask for a flight back to Chicago or Milwaukee, but I'm glad I stuck it out. (Though I think one more flight cancellation might have pushed me to the edge of insanity. There's only so many airports and four hour lines to rebook flights one can take.)

Even though I asked for the least expensive dorm, Lancaster University stuck me in some of the most expensive dorms on campus. Though it's another drain on the bank account, I do get my own bathroom, I live down the hall from a very, very good Beloit friend and it's hard to beat the view.



I've been in England for almost a whole week now and I've finally started to figure out how to get from one end of Lancaster University to the other (still can't find most of my classes though). I'm definitely not used to the large university thing. Last week I overheard one international student talk about how small the place is - I guess it all depends on perspective!

The surrounding town of Lancaster is really nice as well. There are some great shops downtown and right near the bus station there's this awesome co-op grocery store where things are normally a pound each. (Though I'm not sure if Michelle, my Beloit friend and flat mate, and I can show our faces there again. We brought an empty suitcase to the co-op last time we went so that we could stuff our purchases inside and roll it back to the university more easily. We got quite a few stares, suffice it to say.)

Also: at said co-op I found my high school's namesake...



Yep, William Horlick invented malted milk *and* had a high school named after him. Way to go, Will. (I'm not sure why malted milk is supposed to be good for sleeping purposes though... I didn't feel very sleepy after I drank it.)