Arrival

Well, I have arrived in England. It is 12:33am and I woke up from what I had planned to be a good night's sleep, but has turned out to be a 5 hour nap. So I thought I'd try to bore myself back to sleep by getting this up for everyone.

So I left for the Chicago airport at 9am on Friday. I had two giant suitcases, a backpack and my shoulder bag. Which is all I could feasibly bring, but I'm sure I would have brought more given the chance :) We went out for lunch at Red Lobster on the way down and then got to the airport ridiculously early. We hung out for quite awhile and eventually I went through security to wait at my gate. I was pretty sad and nervous, but kinda excited too. My plane left at 5:05pm and it was a 7.5 hour flight to London. Nothing really to note about the flight. I watched The Hangover and Night at the Museum and and airplane food. I also managed to get about and hour or two of sleep, so that was good.

When I arrived at the London airport I had to go through immigration control. There was a separate line just for students so I stood in that for quite awhile. They were making a lot of people in front of me go to the health check area, so I was a bit worried that I'd have to do that too, but they just asked what I was studying and stamped my book. Then I had to pick up my baggage. I almost stole someone else's purple suitcase, but I looked at the tag and realized it wasn't mine so I put it back. Then I went through custom's no problem. I found the meeting point for BU students and there were a few other people already there. It was a long wait with a million other university students in the airport, but eventually we left. We were suppose to leave around 10:30 but didn't actually go until about 11:15. Then there was a big accident somewhere so we were further delayed. I finally got to my dorm around 2 or 2:30. I had to check in and then got to go up. But then of course the key didn't work. It's a magnetic strip key like a hotel, so I had to go back down and have them reprogram it for me. Then it worked and I got in. Another girl who was on the transport with me is one of my roommates. She's doing an MA in film directing. Later another roommate arrived. He's from the UK and is doing and MA in film editing. Apparently another girl is also here, but I haven't met her yet. There is another room in our flat so I assume that will be filled today, but maybe not.

So after I got a bit settled in and unpacked some of my stuff and go the internet going I went to Aldi's, which is right next door, and got a few essentials such as toilet paper, bread, ham, cheese and napkins :) I didn't do a lot of wandering around because I was pretty tired. I plan to do that later today. They have a Poole town tour in the morning so I'm going to go on that to try to orient myself. Anyway, that's pretty much the extent of my first day. I went to bed around 7 hoping to sleep through the night and relieve the jet lag, but that obviously didn't happen. I'll try to go back to sleep in a little while and hopefully make it to a more decent hour. I set my alarm for 9:30 and really thought I was going to need it. Stupid brain!

Well, I took a few pics of my room, but I think I'm just going to wait and post them with the pics of town that I'll take tomorrow. So until then. Good night (hopefully).

Going Away Party

Just a little before I leave update for anyone that's already stalking me :) On Saturday my best friend Sara threw me a going away party. It was a murder mystery party and everyone had to come in costume as their assigned character. Over the course of the evening many details came out and one of the partygoers was murdered. We then had to figure out who the murderer was and why they did it. It was a great time. So a big thanks to Sara and to everyone who came. It was great seeing you all before I left and it was really fun to get to play another murder mystery. I do believe that they are my favorite kind of party.

Test

Just making sure this still works and I can still add new posts. I'll be putting up a new one when I get to England on Sept 19. Hopefully. I may be really tired and won't get it up until the next day, but somewhere around then. Talk to you soon.

2 Months

Wow, almost 2 whole months since I last updated this. Sorry about that. I my defense, my computer had a virus for about a month from March to April. So I couldn't really get on the internet. But its all fixed now so I'll try to get this up and running again. I'll try to get you updated on what has gone on in the last 2 months in a couple of paragraphs. We'll see how I do.

Well, March 15 was my birthday. So I went out with a couple of my coworkers and proceeded to completely embarrass myself. Its cool though, I'm over it. Make fun all you want, I've put it behind me ;)

I went up to visit Grandma in Myrtle Beach the next weekend. That was really fun. We went to a couple of shows and a brass quintet concert. It really made me miss my bands. You can't really dabble in french horn in a hotel room though, so I'm out of luck. Plus I'm sure my instrument is in a horrible state of disrepair by this point. It would probably cost a bunch of money to get the valves working again :(

The weekend after that we moved down South of Tampa. I can't remember if there was anything of particular note to say about that two weeks. I went to the beach one day and got the worst sunburn of my life. Parts of my are still a bit red from it. It was in the middle of the work week too, so I had to carry my backpack around for days with a terrible sunburn on my shoulders and back and everyone was making fun of me. (I work with a bunch of jerks if you can't tell) Later that weekend I went parasailing with Kazi. It was cool but boring at the same time. It was cool to be up there, but there was really nothing to do while you were up there, so it was kinda boring. I did see a hammerhead shark though, so that was cool. Then we ate at a restaurant right on the beach a couple of times. That was cool because you were sitting outside just looking at the ocean.

To start the next session of work we had to leave our hotel on a Monday morning at 6am. We all drove our individual cars out to the site in order to dig about 4 shovel tests in a field. Then we all went out for breakfast at IHOP. Then we headed on to our new hotel in Port Richey, which is a bit north of Tampa.

During that session I went home for the Varsity Band Concert in Madison. It was awesome! I got to see almost all of my college friends who I hadn't seen in about 6 months at that point. I also got to see my high school friends because they came down on Friday night and we hit up the town. Then Jen came up from Chicago with some of her friends so it was a really fun night. Then on Saturday my parents came down and I went to the concert with my mom. It was awesome as usual and less sad this year not to be in it. Sunday I went out to lunch with my parents and then hung out with college friends for the rest of the day. We went to the Quaker Steak and Lube for dinner. It was amazingly awesome. We had strawberry Lube-N-Ade and wings with lube sauce. Amazingly corny :P Then Monday I had to come back to Florida.

I only worked for 1 day and then it was our weekend off. My friend Carrie came up from the coast guard base that she is stationed at and we went to Busch Gardens on Thursday. It was really fun. We rode most of the roller coasters and then I excavated some Egyptian artifacts. On Sunday I went out with Kazi and we went jetskiing on the Gulf. It was amazing!!! So much fun! I still can't get over it. It was like getting to ride a motorcycle, but with less chance of getting hurt because if you fall off you just land in the water. I would love to go again before I leave Florida, so we'll see. Then later that night we went and played some mini golf. I have to hunt down those pics, but it wasn't my best night. I lost my ball in a pond on the first hole and had to go back to the office to get a new one. Then it kept getting stuck other places that put me in ridiculous positions for mean people to take photos of me.

And I think that takes us up to this week. So I will try to get the picture links on here and get this weeks update on here tomorrow. Good night!

Civil War

Today after work we went to the Civil War. They've had a reenactment the last 2 days in Crystal River. We wanted to go yesterday, but we ended up working too late and it was already over. But today we got done early so we went over there. It was kinda neat and kinda dull. I think its another one of those things that its more fun to contemplate than to actually do, like the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. Plus today the South won. They surrounded the North from 3 sides and took over their cannons. So its back to slavery for us, I guess...

Yesterday we ended up in the field right next to where they were reenacting and heard the cannons being fired during the morning. I guess they were doing some sort of cannon demonstration while we were in the area. We couldn't really see anything but smoke, but it was weird to be so close and not really know what was going on.

We heard rumors today that the Kansas crew may be sent back after a month. I don't know it that's for sure, but I don't know what we'd do if we were sent back. There isn't much to do in Kansas. We are super-fast diggers though. I think we did about 3 miles today. And we consistently find nothing because we're digging where they have already run a gas line and built a bunch of power lines. Ah well, it saves us digging even more holes if we don't find anything in the ones we do dig :D

The Rest of the Way

Well, Sunday I headed out of the Nashville area but didn't make it far before seeing a sign for the Jack Daniel's distillary. So of course I decided to go. I didn't realize how far off the road it was though. A quick detour turned into about 3 hours. It was fun though. It would have been better if I hadn't seen a show about how to distill whiskey on tv already, but it was cool to see it in person. We didn't get any samples at the end though :( It was Sunday and its a dry county. I guess they usually let them sell bottles on site, but on Sundays even they can't sell it.

So I got back on the road and drove to just past Atlanta before stopping for the night. The next day I headed down to Falorida. I thought I was pretty close, but it turned out that I was about 150 miles from the border. At the welcome center they give out free orange juice, but I didn't stop for any. The drive was pretty uneventful. Besides the crazy noise my car continues to make. I have to take it somewhere and have it looked at.

So I checked into the hotel and then went further down the road to see what was up. Well, nothing was up. It seems pretty boring here. But there is a brochure for diving with manatees in the room, so I'm going to dive while I'm down here. I'm gonna see if anyone else wants to go, but if not I'll go by myself. No reason to waste all that money on the lessons if I don't get when I get the opportunity :)

Then today we went out to work, but where we were suppose to start they didn't want to let us dig to the depth that we need to. So we called it a morning and will try again tomorrow. Then it rained for awhile while we were at the store buying tennis raquets, but it seems to have stopped now. So I'll probably make people play tennis with me for awhile. Woo, tennis!

Superman!

So I'm making my way down to Falorida (Which is how I'm going to say that from now on because my crazy Australian friend has corrupted my speech). I'm heading to the border of Illinois and Kentucky and I see a sign off the interstate for a giant Superman statue. So I think to myself, "That's pretty much the most hilarious thing of heard all week, but I shouldn't waste my time.......No, I should definitely waste my time." So I pulled off to Metropolis to see giant Superman. It was pretty weird. But amazing. So then I got a delicious milkshake from Hardee's and went to get back on the interstate. But the police had the entry ramp roped off. So then I had to take an alternate route. So I took a small road around and had to cross the Ohio river. On the skinniest, longest bridge in the world. It was pretty much the worst experience of my life. Plus I was worried about the wheel of my car falling off the entire time. I don't know what's up with it, but my car is making a funky noise that hurts my head. So I'll have to have it looked at when I finally get to Falorida. I guess that's it. Tomorrow I shall head for Georgia. Hopefully I find another awesome thing to do on the way there :D