Okay, so I'll start with my REALLY LONG travel. Seriously. It was 40 hours and 37 minutes from my plane leaving Pasco until I arrived at the York train station.
On my first flight I sat next to a young missionary headed to the Philippines after the MTC. He and I eventually decided that SkyMall is secretly a social experiment to see who would really spend a thousand dollars on a giant Easter Island head statue for their backyard.
Upon arriving in the SLC airport, I had to claim my luggage because my layover was slightly longer than eight hours and then walk it straight over to the Delta counter to re-check it for my flight. The woman at the counter had a terrible time getting my flight to come up, so someone came to help her and pointed out that she had to click "yes" on the "Does the customer have a visa?" section because my return flight is more than six months away. Anyway, it worked out and I'm glad I was able to immediately re-check my luggage instead of having to load it in Kate's car.
After that, I went out to the passenger pick-up area to wait for Kate where I met a sister missionary from Spokane who would be going to one of the Brazil missions. Kate and kids picked me up and drove me back to Brad and Jen's house. The entire ride Seamus kept poking me with his foot and then objecting when I tickled it. I spent a few hours just hanging out with the kids, letting Seamus and Kaylee play Angry Birds and the balloon game on my Kindle. Bria cried when she first saw me, but warmed up rather quickly.
Here she is taking her mom's phone
Seamus of course needed to be a giant goofball
He's a fan of taking selfies...
...as you can see. There were about 300 on my phone after I left.
I couldn't get a picture of Kaylee holding still and looking at me, so there you go.
She LOVED the reusable shopping bag Ericka gave me, or rather she loved it as a strawberry headband. She was NOT AMUSED when I turned it into a bag.
"No, no, no. Not like that. Not like that"
Paul took me to lunch at Cafe Rio (yum!) and then drove me back to the airport. On the freeway we passed Teddy Roosevelt.
The wing of my plane
Nicole requested selfies . . .
I arrived at JFK airport about 11:40 local time. NOTHING is open except McDonald's. I don't know what was going on with the employees, but with two people ahead of me it took 20 minutes to get to the front of the line. AND, the girl taking my order left twice to do other things in the midst of me ordering a "medium #6". It was aggravating. Then after getting terrible directions twice, I ended up in B concourse because the airport employee swore that's where my plane would leave from (no gate info on my ticket or the screens). I wanted to wash my face, clean up, and change my clothes but some genius decided to close all of the bathrooms on the B concourse for cleaning at the same time. So I chilled in B39 for awhile waiting.
Around 5:30am, departure information finally showed up on the screens and guess what? My flight was leaving from A4 which was all the way across Terminal 4 from where I'd been hanging out. I was more than a little exhausted and grumpy at this point. My back, knees, and feet weren't thrilled either. However, I did meet a really nice couple who live in Harrogate who gave me their contact information if I ever needed anything. They were so nice. I'm glad I struck up a conversation with them once I saw their UK passports. I was able to board ahead of almost everyone after asking the agent, because standing in even the smaller lines before while wearing my backpack was torture.
I'm a serious fan of Virgin Airlines now. Their coach was much more comfortable than Delta coach. This was my cute little breakfast. It actually tasted pretty good.
This was the dessert after dinner towards the end of the flight. Also good. I took the picture especially for Kaitlin. I wish I could mail you some. I think you'd love it.
I arrived at Heathrow about 7:15pm, the border took about an hour, collected my suitcases, and made my way to the coach station. Then, I boarded a coach to Victoria Station where I waited about an hour, paid 30 pence to a truly irritable woman to use the restroom, and boarded my coach to York. I catnapped a lot on the coach, but I had an alarm set because I didn't want to accidentally miss my stop. For reasons I didn't understand, we stopped in a parking lot somewhere for about 20 minutes. When we finally got to York, we were about an hour and 10 minutes behind schedule. Thankfully, Bishop Martin had checked to see if it was delayed, so they weren't waiting long.
He and his wife Karyn picked me up from the train station and drove me to their house where they told me to sleep as long as I wanted and eat anything from the fridge. They are really nice! Sister Martin checks on me via email periodically and has offered to let me store my suitcases in their attic if I ever need the space under my bed. I slept, ate, showered, and slept some more.
The next day (Saturday), they drove me to Constantine and helped me get my suitcases to my room. Getting everything from Heathrow to University of York by myself was my only big worry, so I feel really blessed that they helped me through everything. I was really exhausted, so I didn't take a lot of pictures between landing Thursday evening and church on Sunday.
Sister Martin picked me up at the nearest major roundabout, about 5 minutes from my room and drove me to church last week. Everyone was SO friendly and welcoming.
In Relief Society they give all the new people a little gift of candy that is produced locally. There's a lot of chocolate made in York. And Kit Kats here taste better.
On Monday I walked to the West campus to join a shopping trip to Monk's Cross, which is a huge shopping center. I bought food and some essentials at ASDA, which I'm told is the British version of Walmart. Everything is super cheap, and one major difference from Walmart is their store brand food actually tastes good. I could eat the ASDA brand of lemon yogurt all the time. YUM.
I went on an evening walk. It's gorgeous here.
Chronologically out of order, but here are the tiled screen shots of all the selfies Seamus took with my phone. His wrist, knee, and elbow also got some camera time.
On Monday, we all walked down for the compulsory fire safety talk. It was about 45 minutes that basically boiled down to: candles aren't allowed ever, don't use kitchen appliances in your room, don't leave cooking in the kitchen unattended, keep fire doors closed, and exit your room ASAP when the fire alarm sounds. We were also warned at length about the dangers of the river, especially when drunk.
Monday night there was the beginning of term "Cellidh" which is a celtic barn dance. It was fun.
On Tuesday, there was a compulsory international student orientation talk at Central Hall, plus a lot of information sessions after. I attended a few, including one on a brief history of York. Romans, Vikings, Normans, War of the Roses, etc. We were again warned multiple times by different people about the river.
This is the lake right outside Central Hall.
The other side of the lake looking at Central Hall
They are really serious about keeping your bike secure. In fact, a few people on the uni swap page who were trying to get rid of cheaper bikes they couldn't sell for much just posted pictures saying, "These are not locked. First person to find them wins." There are also tons of warning signs that say North Yorkshire Police have tracker bikes on campus to deter thieves.
On my way to the psychology building, I saw this helpful notice.
Found my building, it's about a 25 minute slow-paced walk from Constantine.
The first takeaway menu in our postbox. I was amused by the selection of "poultry" dishes.
On Tuesday evening, I went on the Ghost Walk in the city center. It was a lot of fun, if extremely wet. We met at the Minster. I learned this week that in the UK, only places with a cathedral can be called cities, everything else is a town or a village. So all of the Tri-Cities would be a town, and Benton City would be a village. I also learned the Minster is the largest gothic cathedral in Northern Europe and it took 250 years to build.
Our guide had us re-enact several of the ghost stories. It was very amusing.
The shambles are adorable. I need to spend some more time exploring all the shops.
My hair was soaked. I took a warm shower, which only changed the temperature of my hair :P
Also out of order, but I got this huge bruise sometime during my flights. No idea how.
On Wednesday I didn't do much, but on Thursday I went to the Vice Chancellor's welcome talk on campus and the Postgraduate information fair. We were yet again warned about the river. At the information fair I talked to the women at the Languages for All booth. When I told her I wanted to improved my Spanish, but didn't know which level to start with she talked to me in Spanish for a bit and said although I'm pretty rusty, I know enough to start with Level 2, so I'm currently on the waiting list for that. It will cost me 142 pounds to take a language class each term, but if I complete all the tests, I get a special certificate with my diploma when I graduate that certifies I'm competent in whichever levels I've taken. Undergrads get one language class for free, so the only class without a waiting list right now is Medieval Latin. Also on Thursday I met my first American classmates, Andrea a girl from Texas and I got on really well. A woman named Debbie (who also lives in D2), Andrea, and I went to The Edge restaurant in Wentworth college and got a sandwich after the information fair.
Friday morning brought a migraine, so I was pretty boring.
On Saturday, I went on an open top bus tour which was really fun. Our guide, Rich, drives for unibus and does the tours as a hobby because he enjoys it.
Before this was a bingo hall, the Beatles played here before they were famous.
The city walls go most of the way around York. They are the most complete city walls in the UK
The extremely dangerous river, Ouse (pronounced oooz)
The Swan pub where one of the stages of the Tour de France started.
One of the gates into the city
The main gate
The train station, where I first arrived
The Royal York hotel, which has no business being called the "royal" because no member of the royal family has ever stayed there. Rich emphasized that point at least twice.
A war memorial
These cats are on buildings all over York. The builder added them as a signature.
The York Theatre Royal, which is playing Pirates of Penzance in November. I'm VERY excited about this. There is also an opera house, but I didn't get a picture.
Another cat
One of the bricked in windows from the daylight tax of Victorian times
The other university, York St. John, not nearly as big as University of York
Top of York Minster over the wall
A lovely garden that we passed
The Black Swan is apparently a very good pub with nice food, and it also sports another cat.
One of many churches
The castle. York is the only city besides London to have two castles during Norman times. The other was wood, no longer standing.
The sign says "Keep off the bank," Rich explained that this isn't just to keep the grass nice or anything. One of the schools came and planted lots of February daffodils as a memorial to about 150 (I think? I wasn't taking notes) Jewish people who were killed in the castle.
And of course, there are tons of white roses all over York.
After the bus tour I hid in my room watching the new episodes of Downton Abbey, Doctor Who, and last season's episodes of The Walking Dead with headphones while the university radio station blasted music next to The Forum (central part of Constantine College) for all the Freshers were moving in. I decided to hide rather go to the city center because on the bus tour I saw it was an absolute zoo. The "silent" disco last night wasn't so silent either. Everyone was wearing headphones, so I didn't hear actual music past 11pm but I did hear all the drunk people singing along to Robbie Williams at the top of their lungs. yay.
That brings us up to today. I found out that one of my roommates, Keta, is also LDS. His wife and son are back in Japan while he has been getting his Masters and PhD in the UK. They run a private english-speaking school in Japan.
Other roommates are:
Matt, from the UK, getting a PhD in computer science
Sam, from the UK, getting a PhD in maths
Lara, from Germany, getting a Masters in management
Didi, who I haven't actually met yet so I think she's pretty shy, getting a Masters
Tanya, from India, getting a Masters in the preservation of historical buildings (archeology)
Michael, the Fresher, studying Engineering
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