The first morning...

Good morning from England!

It’s my first morning here, around 8am at the moment, and I’m currently sitting in my little Sherbert-orange colored room, typing while my poor roommate Juliana continues to sleep. What can I say, my biological clock is currentlnonexistentnt.


So first off, how did I get here.
Yesterday was a whirlwind. I met Katie Jones, another Stanford student on my flight, at the airport and we were traveling buddies all the way along. The flight was long and I didn’t sleep a wink, so you can imagine the state I was in after 10 hours. Heathrow airport was manageable but full of excessively long lines and hot hot heat. We made our bus right on time and got to Oxford with basically no problems! As soon as we arrived we were shown our rooms and started orientation with Stephanie Williams, the house manager. She gave us lots of money, keys, towels, paperwork, paperwork, paperwork to fill out and other boring things you don’t want to hear about.
My room has a few windows, and looks out on High Street, a main drag in Oxford, which is pretty cool. Good thing I’ve been living near Woodside Road my whole life so the noise doesn’t bother me! One funny thing about our living situation is that our closets are outside our room, in the common hallway. Most of my clothes fit in my desk drawers inside the room, but my coat and dresses and shoes are hanging out in the closet out there. It's such a quirky house! I’ve got to take a video of the staircases themselves to give you any idea how odd this living situation is—-totally inexplicable and fascinating (there truly are more staircases than rooms in this house!!).
In the afternoon we had tea and scones (pronounced "sc-AH-nes," here) in the garden out back, which allowed us to meet everyone in the house, as well as the staff. Our last activity yesterday was a tour of the city. The weather was gorgeous which made walking around Oxford almost a dream. Every corner of every street is filled with amazing architecture and stunning views. The buildings are ancient and overwhelming. I was looking up so much at the architecture that I couldn’t pay attention to where we were going. I barely remember the names of the streets we were walking down during that tour but it was an amazing time just walking around. I am definitely in the right place for my architectural study.

After the tour we all stopped by a pub on the Thames called "The Head of the River" (which, I learned recently, is the title given to the winning boat of a rowing race here). Beautiful view, expensive and tasty food, all paid for by the program. My kind of meal. We walked back home around 8pm and nearly everyone konked out, weary, in our quirky, sherbert, house.

I'm having a wonderful time to far, even though I'm exhausted. I think this is going to be a great quarter.