My first couple days

Hello all! It's about 10:30 p.m. on Monday night. The past couple days haven't been too exciting. On Saturday morning, we had the President's address. We all went and listened to the President.. or Principal as he's actually called, talk and introduce us to Harlaxton. We sang the national anthems of America and Great Britain. On Saturday night we had the President's dinner. We all got dressed up and had a fancy dinner. There was a bag piper that led us into the dinner, and then led us out of the dinner. It was quite cute! He was in his full Scottish gear as well. And very good as well! He just came back from the World Bag Piping Championship. He took 5th in Europe and 7th in the World. (In the picture, the girl in the black shirt on my right is Elizabeth. She goes to my school back at home. The girl on the left is Leah, she goes to Marian College in Indiana.) At dinner we were served some sort of chicken, some British potatoes, salad, rolls, and then we had "puds", which was really just a cake.. So I'm not quite sure if they gave us the right dessert or not. It was good except for the frosting. We also had wine, which I wasn't too fond of.. tasted a bit gross to me, so I just drank the water instead.
On Sunday then we got to sleep in. We had more orientation things going on in the evening that we had to do. Monday, [today] we went to classes for the first time. I just had my British studies class. We have both a seminar and a lecture. The seminar is smaller, only about 20 people... and the lecture everyone goes too. It wasn't as boring as I thought it was going to be, actually quite interesting. And it wasn't that bad listening to the British professor. Not as weird as I thought it was going to be. Hopefully now the rest of my classes are going to be this good.. :)

I did some exploring around the manor the past couple of days.. here's a couple pictures for you to see. The first one is of me inside the telephone booth. The next couple are just a few pictures from within and around the manor. There's so many beautiful places to see and visit. There will definitly be more pictures coming as I've really only made it around the inside and little bit outside yet... Haven't traveled around on the grounds much.

Yesterday, a pheasant ran into the windows of the carriage. It's not really that funny, but one of the professors saw it and took him. He was going to eat him for dinner.. that made it rather funny. The food is here a bit to get used to.. but it isn't all that bad. Some stuff is better then others.. the ice cream is good actually! Lol.

Well, I'm off to bed.. I'll write more later.

XoXo, Tiffany

I'm never flying again..

...now that might pose a problem when I try to come in December.. but maybe i'll just take a boat... ?? Haha. No seriously! I finally made it to England!! I thought I would never get here it seemed.. I left school yesterday morning at about 11 a.m. and I was walking into O'Hare by 1:30 p.m. After going through the wonderful long line for security.. I finally made it to my gate at about 2:30.. about 3 hours before my flight was supposeed to board people. Well.... since I'm going to England, why not get some rain before you leave too right? It started to rain in Chicago, they had a tornado warning.. so everyone from our section had to pile down into their little underground passageway. We looked like a herd of cattle.. seriously! Lol. About 15 minutes later we got to go back up.. Whoa! Yay! Exciting.. Around 5 the desk guy announces because of lightening we will have to post pone boarding a for 10 mintues.. 10 minutes later he says postponed for 15 minutes.. then he tells us our flight attendants are stuck in traffic! Oh boy..! So at about 6:45 p.m. [[remember this is about 20 minutes after we were supposed to have left already]] we finally got to load the plane! :) Oh but don't get too excited! Because.. that's right! More lightening!! So we got to sit inside the plane for almost 2 hours.. We got free food and drinks. Lol.

This is me.. when I finally got on the plane! Right before being told we didn't get to leave yet..

Basically, we took off at about 9 p.m. [[Wisconsin time]] and arrived into England at 10:45 a.m. Next was passports.. then baggage.. then customs. We were all so worried that the school's bus wouldn't be there anymore to pick us up since we had missed the meeting time... But the good news was everyone else had messed up flights because of weather so everyone got picked up! :) After a two hour bus ride.. which i slept most of.. we finally made it here! We got our room assignments.. and then we had our first dinner. Fish 'n' chips! Hehe.

I live in the carriage house.. which is right outside the manor. My roomate is named Krista, she's a senior at U of Evansville. This is a picture of me.. outside the carriage house!

And then just a picture of the manor of Harlaxton College. Beautiful, huh?

Not to much else to really say.. We have orientation events all day tomorrow.. and a dinner with the President of the school.

I'll post more later!

XoXo,

Tiffany

Tomorrow.. Tomorrow..

Tomorrow!

That seems so weird to say.. I leave tomorrow. In less then 24 hours I will be in England. It's quite strange to think that I won't see my family.. my boyfriend.. my friends.. my sorority sisters.. for almost 4 months. And that's really sad.

But I'm really excited! Because I know this is going to be an amazing experience and I can't wait! I'm soo excited to go and experience the culture.. and soak it all in.

I'm sure I'll be a little homesick at first. And I'll miss my everyone.. but I'll get over it. I'm sure.. :) I'll still miss everyone but I'll be so busy having the time of my life.. that time will flyyy by and before I know it, I'll be right back home with my family and friends.

The next post I write.. I'll be in England! :)

I'm off to bed.. Tomorrow is going to be a busy.. busy.. busy day. And very stressful.. and sad... and amazingly exciting!

Goodnight everyone! :)

*Tiffany