Arrival

Well, it is approximately five twenty in the evening back home in Maryland as I write this, which means I have been up for roughly 34 hours.  Surprisingly, I feel like I could keep going and going and going right now, although I have no idea how that’ll turn out tomorrow.  It has finally hit home that I am finally here in London, after five years of dreaming and planning.  And let me tell you, what an adventurous day it has been for me!

So we all get together and meet up at the airport.  After some quick introductions, we gather together our luggage and head out to where the van is waiting for us.  There’s a van for us to ride in and a van for our luggage.  The guy driving the luggage van couldn’t figure out how to open the back so we could load up our luggage.  For forty five minutes he tried the SAME key over and over again even though there were other keys on his key ring, and we were all pretty much convinced he was using the wrong key.  After forty five minutes, we were finally on the road from Heathrow to our housing.  There was almost a repeat of that fiasco outside our apartment building, but somehow he figure it all out.

My room here isn’t bad.  How it’s set up is a bunch of individual rooms off a main hallway and we all share a common kitchen and bathroom (also off the main hallway).  My room has a bed, desk, dresser, wardrobe and then a sink/medicine cabinet in a cabinet that looks like a wardrobe.  Not bad, I know!!

My first day here, we also rode the Tube.  The London Tube is the oldest subway system in the world.  The line that I ride to and from my building is the oldest line.  The Tube was used as a bomb shelter during World War II as well, which is pretty cool in my opinion.

Last night we also got a brief introduction to the British Museum.  They wanted us to get a taste of the museum since it’s free, and they also wanted us to know how to get there.  I took advantage of the free time to explore the Egyptian and Greek/Roman sections.  I only had an hour, but let me tell you, I managed to see A LOT more than I thought I would!  First, I got to see the Elgin Marbles.  Now the Elgin Marbles were taken from the Parthenon, and how they’re displayed at the museum, they’re fitted together to try to make as many complete images as possible.  It was impressive, there was this HUGE room dedicated to them.  What I thought was amazing was the Egyptian displays.  I took Ancient Egyptian history this past spring semester, so I finally got to see everything I’d studied over the course of the semester.  I came across quite a few sculptures and everything that I remember studying.  What amazed me so much was that there wasn’t any glass in front of these sculptures, so what’s to stop someone from going up and touching them?  I also got to see a lot of mummies, which was awesome.  I had so many opportunities to show what I’d learned in class, and the girls I was with really seemed interested in what I knew and asked questions, not that I’m an expert or anything.  Overall it was really cool.

The British Museum

The Elgin Marbles

The Elgin Marbles

The Elgin Marbles

The Elgin Marbles

Ushabtis

The Egyptian Book of the Dead

A mummified crocodile (front), eel (middle) and snake (back)

I remember studying this statue in class

The Rosetta Stone, its a lot bigger and thicker than I thought it would be

To round out the day, we all headed to a pub down the street for a bite to eat.  What made it such a cool experience was that the England/Sweden Eurocup game was going on.  even though I’m not into soccer (they’re football), it was still a really cool experience.  Everyone was so into the game, and it was a wonderful social experience to get to know the rest of the people from the program at the university while experiencing a common English practice.