Well, it has been a couple of days since I last post and I have experienced so much! I have now seen much downtown Wolverhampton and university as well as traveled to Stratford-upon-Avon. I will try to tell you as much about it all as I can remember, but the last couple of days have been very busy! Here we go...
Once I finally got over my jet lag, things began to really fly! I did not have much of a chance to meet many people on Tuesday, because of the traveling, but Wednesday was much better. We
had several meetings to attend and I was quickly overwhelmed with the amount of exchange students there were, at least 60. This made it also tough to meet people, but later that night we attended a traditional English tea party where we met a ton of students from all over the world! That night we went out with them and managed to even stay in touch with out mobiles (cell phones). I have spent most of my social time with these students and it has been very nice to have people to call to go do something with. On Thursday we explored much of Wolverhampton with our fellow exchange students and even got mobiles together!
Wolverhampton is a city maybe the size of downtown Hartford or Memphis. It is not really a suburb of Birmingham like I initially thought, because it is a large city on its own. It really has anything you would want to do or see, and has some great history! There is a main pedestrian street with all kinds of shops and vendors, even STARBUCKS!!! I must admit that a good cup of coffee was much needed! Overall, I think it will be a very fun city to live in and I still have a lot of exploring to do!
I also got my first taste of English soccer this morning! My dorm room is just down the street from the stadium, and this morning I got woke up to the fans chanting and singing in the stadium. It may have been the loudest sporting ever I have ever heard! It was loud because of cheering, rather it was 30,000 people singing and chanting! There were people everywhere too, it was quite shocking to wake up to. They have another home game next weekend which I think I may try to go to.
Yesterday, I took my first trip out of Wolverhampton to Stratford-upon-Avon...the birthplace of Shakespeare! Although I never really enjoyed Shakespeare, the town was beautiful and very nice place to visit. When we arrived, we got an hour long walking tour, which took us through the town past his birthplace, school, tomb and even his favorite pub! We did not go in any of these places, other that the church where he is buried, because you had to pay for each one. This tour also took us along the river and canals, which was my favorite part. The longboats and locks were very neat to see and the river was so beautiful. We also walked through a park where there were the most ducks and swans I have ever seen! There was one swan that was the size of a small child!
Well, that is about it for now. Classes start tomorrow, although my first class is not till Tuesday, but it will be nice to see the campus come alive and meet some of the British students. I have also finally unpacked my luggage, which I had been avoiding, but it is nice that it is done. I have also added some pictures from this first week into Photobucket (the link is on the right) so please check those as well.
Cheers,
Justin
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
New address and email...
As promised, I have got my new mailing address and email address.
Justin Baker
014 Hereford House
Lomas St.
University of Wolverhampton
West Midlands
WV1 1QU
justin.baker@wlv.ac.uk
In the mailing address, I am not sure if you need to include England, but I would ask the post carrier (West Midlands is the county). Also, I don't anticipate much mail, so if you could let my parents or myself know that you are sending something, so I will know to check my mail. It is very very expensive to send any kind of package, so please do not feel obligated in away to send anything! Lastly, I will still check my KSC and Gmail emails regularly, so feel free to send anything to those. This email will only be valid while I am in Wolverhampton, so do not delete the others!
Cheers,
Justin
Justin Baker
014 Hereford House
Lomas St.
University of Wolverhampton
West Midlands
WV1 1QU
justin.baker@wlv.ac.uk
In the mailing address, I am not sure if you need to include England, but I would ask the post carrier (West Midlands is the county). Also, I don't anticipate much mail, so if you could let my parents or myself know that you are sending something, so I will know to check my mail. It is very very expensive to send any kind of package, so please do not feel obligated in away to send anything! Lastly, I will still check my KSC and Gmail emails regularly, so feel free to send anything to those. This email will only be valid while I am in Wolverhampton, so do not delete the others!
Cheers,
Justin
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
I am here...
Well, after one very very long day of traveling and more than 24 hours without sleep, I have arrived in Wolverhampton, England! I can honestly say that it feels a little weird to be here, but I am sure that is due to my lack of sleep and/or the stress of wondering around airports in countries you don't live. But if your wondering why I mention the stress of airports, let me elaborate...
We (myself, Sarah, Heather) started the day off great by making incredible time into JFK and made it to our gate without a hitch. The same continued for the flight, which went by much faster that anticipated and was a rather pleasant flight. However, it was running 10 minutes late to Dublin...
This is when all hell broke lose! When we arrived in Dublin, we were told to go through customs/immigration and make our way to our connecting gate (keep in mind that we only had an hour lay over to begin with). Easy, right? Well, customs was no problem and I received my first stamp in my passport, but that is were the fun ended. Before and after customs we had no choice but to follow the line, which we thought would eventually take us to the terminal, rather it took us to baggage claim. All the sudden I had my first moment of panic! We quickly (thank god for English!) figured out that we needed to go through security and make our way to the gate, which was conveniently not on our boarding pass. As we briskly moved through security I glanced up and found our gate number...so I thought. When we arrived at the gate I was relieved to see people still standing in line, but quickly was filled with terror when the gate agent handed my ticket back to me saying, "We're not Aer Lingus." I had managed to look at the only other 6:30 flight to Birmingham and missed the flight numbers. At this point we have no idea where we are supposed to be, since the monitors in each terminal only show its flights. We are in a dead sprint back through the terminal when we round the corner only to find our selves back at baggage claim! Which at this point we all about lost it! We took a deep breath and made our way to the ticket counter to be rescheduled for the 9:30 flight. Only to add insult to injury, during the now 2 hour wait, I managed to spill an enitre cup of coffee on Heather and sit in the single coldest terminal I have ever been in! But needless to say, it was truly my first European adventure and I am here safely!
This afternoon we had lunch at our first English Pub (which we later found out was one we should steer clear of) and did a little shopping. Overall it was a looooong day, but I all ready have some great stories and experiences.
Hopefully this week I will have a mailing address and some other contact information, but for now feel free to email me or leave a comment. Check back here offten for new posts, pictures, and such.
Cheers,
Justin
We (myself, Sarah, Heather) started the day off great by making incredible time into JFK and made it to our gate without a hitch. The same continued for the flight, which went by much faster that anticipated and was a rather pleasant flight. However, it was running 10 minutes late to Dublin...
This is when all hell broke lose! When we arrived in Dublin, we were told to go through customs/immigration and make our way to our connecting gate (keep in mind that we only had an hour lay over to begin with). Easy, right? Well, customs was no problem and I received my first stamp in my passport, but that is were the fun ended. Before and after customs we had no choice but to follow the line, which we thought would eventually take us to the terminal, rather it took us to baggage claim. All the sudden I had my first moment of panic! We quickly (thank god for English!) figured out that we needed to go through security and make our way to the gate, which was conveniently not on our boarding pass. As we briskly moved through security I glanced up and found our gate number...so I thought. When we arrived at the gate I was relieved to see people still standing in line, but quickly was filled with terror when the gate agent handed my ticket back to me saying, "We're not Aer Lingus." I had managed to look at the only other 6:30 flight to Birmingham and missed the flight numbers. At this point we have no idea where we are supposed to be, since the monitors in each terminal only show its flights. We are in a dead sprint back through the terminal when we round the corner only to find our selves back at baggage claim! Which at this point we all about lost it! We took a deep breath and made our way to the ticket counter to be rescheduled for the 9:30 flight. Only to add insult to injury, during the now 2 hour wait, I managed to spill an enitre cup of coffee on Heather and sit in the single coldest terminal I have ever been in! But needless to say, it was truly my first European adventure and I am here safely!
This afternoon we had lunch at our first English Pub (which we later found out was one we should steer clear of) and did a little shopping. Overall it was a looooong day, but I all ready have some great stories and experiences.
Hopefully this week I will have a mailing address and some other contact information, but for now feel free to email me or leave a comment. Check back here offten for new posts, pictures, and such.
Cheers,
Justin
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