I woke up this morning and started watching Netflix. I think I left my room a total of 3 times to eat other than that I watched Netflix all day. I went to bed around 23:00 so that I would be well rested for the first day of school on Monday.
Month: September 2015
Day 8: Beach
I got up late in the morning today. I decided that I had to do laundry and did one load of darks. Laundry here is expensive, three and a half quid or about $5.30 per load. After doing laundry, I went to CitySpace where we were meeting for a beach walk. They shuttled us to the beach which was about a 15 minute drive. We walked down the beach then had a choice between going through a park and visiting a church on the way to the fish and chip stand or continuing on the beach. I decided to go through the park. The church that we saw was built in the early 20th century. We walked for a while after the church until we reached the fish and chip stand. The fish and chips were extremely greasy. They were however, really good. After eating fish and chips, I went back to the stand for ice cream. The flavor choices were really unusual, the choices were Raspberry, Chocolate, Apple or, banana. I got the banana which was yummy. After we left the fish and chip stand we walked almost 45 minutes to the St.Peters campus which is on the North side of Sunderland. Along the way I stood on a glass roof and, saw St.Peters church (the one built in 674). From there, I rode the bus to the Park lane interchange. Sadly that’s all the farther the bus went as it was the last one for the evening. I walked back to Clanny from there and watched the new episode of Doctor Who. I socialized downstairs for a while then, I went back to my room and watch Iron Man 3 before going to sleep.
Day 7: Busy
The adviser appointment that I scheduled the previous day was scheduled for 09:15, I showed up at the bus stop at 08:49 and, the bus should have arrived at 08:57. After waiting until 09:00, it became obvious that the bus had come early (The bus is never on time when you need it to be). I ended up walking to campus so that I would be on time. In my meeting, I had my adviser drop one of my classes and add both German and Spanish into my timetable for the full year. At the end of the meeting, he sent my module choices to the people that make the timetables for analysis. After this meeting, I went to CitySpace.
For fresher’s week, there was scheduled to be free haircuts and smoothies in CitySpace. This wasn’t scheduled to start for an hour so, I sat on the sofas until it was about time. I went to the room that this was in at 11:00 because, I wanted a free haircut. When I arrived I found out that they weren’t doing free haircuts which was fairly disappointing. From there, I went back to the Forster building where we had a mandatory study abroad scavenger hunt.
In the Forster building we were divided up into teams then sent out around Sunderland to find the answers to questions and get random objects. The hunt made us walk clear to one side of the city centre, then to the other side and, finally back to campus. In all, our route made a large triangle that took an hour and a half to complete. Surprisingly the team that I was second to complete the hunt. We were told to return at 15:00 to find out who had won the hunt. This gave me time to go back to the bank.
I walked to the bank from campus where the banker was able to open my account with no problems. When I went to cash my check however, the lady at the counter was grouchy that I didn’t cash it the day that I got it. It was all sorted out though and I rode the bus back to Clanny. When it was time to go back to campus, I had planned on riding the bus. The bus wasn’t on time again and I had to walk all the way back to campus for the second time that day.
On campus, we learned who had won the hunt and surprisingly it was my team. The prize was a chocolate bar the size of a gold bar. I was disappointed that I had walked all the way back to campus for about five minutes though. I went to the bus stop where I waited 30 minutes for the bus to arrive. Back at Clanny, I watched Netflix for a couple of hours.
I went downstairs as the plan had been to go to a roller disco and then a paint party on campus. Instead my flatmate was making cookies (she makes really good cookies). Around 18:30 we decided to go to Tesco’s for some grocery shopping. Tesco’s is like the Wal-Mart of the UK except a little smaller. After everyone checked out at Tesco’s, half of us took the groceries back to Clanny and the other half walked to a pub where we would meet up to watch the Rugby World Cup. When we arrived at the pub, we had to leave as my flatmate was wearing sweatpants that didn’t meet their dress code. We ended up going to CitySpace where they had the game on. One of my flatmates went and bought pizza while we were watching the game.
After the game ended, we left CitySpace to meet up with the flatmate that bought the pizza. We ate it on a sidewalk near the city center. When we finished the pizza, we went back to Clanny where I went directly to bed.
Day 6: Bank
On Thursday morning, I had my adviser meeting where we learned about the format of our classes and what we were taking. Most people receive there time tables but, I did not. Because I had wanted to take German and Spanish, I had to wait to sign up since my adviser did not know that my first language was English. This meant that I had to schedule an appointment for Friday with him. This meeting ended around 14:00 then, I left for the bank.
I arrived about 20 minutes early for my appointment and waited for quite a while. When I was taken back, the banker took copies of my passport and proof of enrollment. Then he entered all of this information into the computer. After about 30 minutes of doing this he submitted the application. The application was flagged for further investigation for some reason and he told me that I would have to come back the next day to get my account opened. I went back to the flat after this and yet again watched Netflix.
Around 19:00 my flatmates and I went to a comedy hypnotist. The show was very entertaining and one of my flatmates was hypnotized. I won’t detail what they did as it was an R rated show but, afterwards we had to help our flatmate piece together what had exactly happened (He didn’t remember hardly any of it). Back at the flat I went to bed and got ready for Friday, the busiest day of the week.
Day 5: PLAY
Today, I didn’t have any induction or mandatory classes. I woke up and around 12:00 then, went with one of my flatmates to get our meal stipend checks. After getting the checks, we went to the Bridges where I went back to Primark for hand towels and a blanket. Next, I went to Tesco’s where I bought cleaning supplies and some food. From there, I went back to my flat and watched Netflix for a while after I put my food away. Around 21:00 I met up with my flatmates in the lounge and went to Gatsby, the first PLAY night club. Gatsby was packed shoulder to shoulder so we didn’t stay long. From there we went to the second club called Verve, this club was much better and had a fairly good DJ. After about an hour there, we were going to go to the last club, the Basement. We we got outside of Verve we saw that the line to get in was clear around the block so, we decided not to wait around. One of our flatmates that was with some of his friends was in the line though. He finally got in after waiting an hour then, left five minutes later because of how packed it was inside. After we had left Verve we ended up going to a restaurant called the Proper Roast. I had a diet coke. After we left, we went back to the flat where I went immediately to bed because, it was already about 01:00.
Day 4: Bierkeller
This morning was very similar to yesterday morning except it was really raining. After arriving at school we had more safety briefings. One thing that was kind of ironic was the part about crossing the streets. As most people know, they drive on the left hand side of the road in the UK. The only international student to have been hit crossing the road was from Australia. This is ironic because, they also drive on the left hand side of the road in Australia. After the safety lectures, we broke up into smaller groups to play trivia. The questions were about random UK and Sunderland things like who the prime minister is and who the manager of Sunderland A.F.C. is. Our team did not do well at all. The winners received Sunderland mugs. Then we had a couple of bonus questions with individual winners. The first question was what is the population of Sunderland, I guessed 179,000 while the correct answer was 250,000 (Sunderland is 9 square miles smaller than Topeka which has a population of about 100,000). The second question was what year St. Peter’s church was built. I had read about it before and answered 673, the correct answer was 674 (Yes, the church is almost 1400 years old). My answer was the closest so I won a mug. After this game it was lunch time.
I walked back to Clanny House so that I could stop at Aldi on the way and buy mayo. This was a mistake as it was still raining fairly hard. By the time I made it back to Clanny, my water resistant Under Armour sweat shirt was soaked all the way through. For lunch I ate a ham sandwich. After lunch I rode the bus back to campus for the afternoon session. I don’t remember what we did in the afternoon session but, afterwards we went to the bank where we scheduled appointments to open accounts on Thursday.
The welcome party was at a bar called revolutions. The study abroad department here provided us with sparkling wine and fountain drinks as well as food. After eating we left and headed to one of the student union’s buildings called the north shore. For fresher’s week, they were having a Bierkeller that they had imported German beer for. Admission was free with my wristband. The music that the band played was german drinking polka type music. The band is called the Bavarian Stompers. I had a stein of beer that I only drank half of. Basically everyone that was there was drunk other than 3 or 4 people from my group (I didn’t drink enough to be drunk). We stayed there dancing to the music until the band stopped at around 22:00. Then after we left we went to the after party at revolutions. There was like no one at the after party and drinks were a crazy price so we didn’t stay long. We went back to clanny where I watched Netflix then went to bed.
Day 3: Induction
Today I woke up and went to campus for induction. In the morning session, we played an icebreaker game and registered with the university so that we would be current students. Then it was lunch time.
For lunch a group of us went to Greggs in the Bridges. I had a slice of cold barbecue chicken pizza and a bottle of water. All together, the meal only cost me £2.50. After lunch we went back for the afternoon session of induction.
In the afternoon session we heard from a police officer, a sports and, a health official about safety and well-being while in the UK. My flatmates and I were in a hurry to get out of this meeting to get to bowling though.
I had purchased a wristband earlier in the day that would allow me free access to fresher’s week activities. For bowling only the first 60 people got in for free. Because we were 30 minutes late getting to the bowling I expected to pay the £5 fee. Surprisingly the place was not busy at all and I got in free. Entrance also included a free drink. Everyone around me has a pint but, I just had a diet Pepsi. We bowled two games which was fun but, bowling shoes weren’t provided. I still managed two games over a hindered though. After the games we went to a pub for dinner.
Bar food in the UK isn’t very different from the US except for possibly the fish and chips. I ordered a BBQ hog Burger which was a hamburger with pulled pork on it. When the waiter brought out the food though, I received a hotdog. I decided it would be fine as it was huge like, over a foot long. After dinner we went back to the flat and I went to bed.
The date that my posts show that they were posted is the day that the post is about NOT the day that they were actually posted.
Day 2: A lazy Sunday
I woke up at 06:30 after sleeping 12 hours. All day I watched Netflix and talked to family over Skype. In the mid-afternoon I finally got my phone all set up so that it would only cost me about 3 cents per minute to call home. If you want my number pm me on facebook. I stayed in my room almost all day not leaving until I was invited for cookies with my flatmates.
When I went downstairs for cookies, I met the rest of my flatmates. In total there is two girls from Canada, two guys from England, a girl from Lithuania, and lastly me the American. We sat around talking and, eating the amazing M&M cookies until around midnight when everyone decided it was getting late as we had to get up early for our first day of induction at the uni the next morning.
Day 1: Arrival
After arriving at Clanny house, I waited in line to receive my key. After getting my key and other arrival goodies, I was led to my room. My room is what they consider to be a large room which is about a 15’x15′. In the room there is a bed, wardrobe, sink, desk and, a dresser. One thing to note about the UK faucets is that there are two separate spouts. One provides cold water while, the other provides hot. They are also on opposite sides of the sink so there is no way to mix the water. Next I made my bed, charged my phone for a short time then left to do some shopping as towels are not provided.
Navigating a new town is difficult. In Sunderland as students we receive free access to the 700 and the 701 bus routes. The maps that the uni and the bus company provide however do not include the actual names of the stops that the bus makes. After riding 45 minutes on the bus while trying to figure out where I was, I disembarked near the city centre. In the city centre, there is a large shopping center not unlike a mall called the Bridges. My first stop in the Bridges was at Carphone Warehouse for a prepaid SIM card. I had planned on getting the iD plan that they provide themselves however, they were out of stock of their own SIM cards. I decided not to get a SIM card immediately because, the other plans cost so much more. I left Carphone Warehouse in search of someplace that sold towels. After walking for a while, I found a department store called Primark. I went inside and bought the first towel I found which was navy blue and not badly priced. My next stop was the Post Office. I asked in Primark for the directions to the Post Office and, surprisingly nobody knew where it was located. I wandered around for a while after this trying to find the Post Office myself. I got terribly lost and it began to pour rain. I began to give up hope and walked back toward the bus station. Then I decided I did not want to give up. I walked past the bus stop and went into the Sunderland Winter gardens and asked the person at the front counter where the post office was. I think she must have thought that I was blind since it was straight across the street and down a block from the gardens. I went in, waited about 15 minutes then, left with my Biometric Residence Pass (BRP). I then went back to the bus station waited 15 minutes since I had just barely missed my bus and, went back to my flat (It was easy to get to on the return). I then planned on watching Netflix for a while before I went to bed.
Shortly after beginning to watch Netflix, I heard a knock at my door. It was my first flatmate that I met. She was from Canada and asked if I would like to go grocery shopping at the local Aldi (Pronounced Al-Dee not All-Dee by everyone else in the world). I said sure and made the walk to Aldi with her. At Aldi, I purchased almost everything that I would need for making tortilla pizzas, spaghetti and, ham sandwiches. I had planned on making dinner after I returned to my flat however, all I did was put my food away. I then went up to my room, put my pajamas on and, went to bed. I fell asleep as soon as my head hit my pillow around 18:30 because, I had been up for over 30 hours straight at that point.
The Flight
We left Topeka around 08:00 on Friday morning for my departure flight to Dallas at 12:44. After we arrived we found out that my first flight would be delayed long enough that I could not possibly make my connection to London. This was easily remedied by a quick stop at the airline desk where they issued me two new tickets, the first to Chicago and then from Chicago to London. The second flight to London was still scheduled to arrive in time for me to make my connection to Newcastle.
Since my flight would now leave at 14:15 instead of 12:44, we went to McDonalds for my final meal in the United States. We returned to the airport around 13:30 and I said my goodbyes to my family before going through security. Surprisingly this was really easy even with all of the electronics I brought with me onto the plane. About 30 minutes later I boarded the plane and found that I had a lot of leg room (my new ticket was issued for economy plus). We took of slightly early and were not in the air for very long at all.The flight was so short that literally as soon as the guy next to me pulled out his laptop he had to put it away.
When I departed the plane, I had no idea where I was at the airport and had to ask the counter what terminal I was in. I was glad to find out that the gate I arrived from were on the same hallway in the terminal although, the hall was probably half a mile long. When I arrived at the gate, I still had about an hour to spare. While waiting, I noticed a guy getting on the plane that had a parachute as carry on (I didn’t anyone would actually take a parachute on a plane).
I finally boarded and we took off a few minutes after we were scheduled to. Seated across the isle from me was someone with a dog that was really well behaved throughout the flight. About an hour and a half into the flight we were served dinner. The two choices for the main entree were chicken and rice or cheesy noodles. I went with the chicken and rice. Included with the meal was salad with a vinaigrette, a sealed roll, Swiss cheese and crackers and, a brownie that tasted like Play-Dough. It was not good at all but, what could I expect considering it was airplane food (The salad was good though). The next four hours were awful. You would expect being a seven hour long international flight you would get more legroom than you would have on a short domestic flight; at least I did. In real life it seems that the airlines must play a game called “How Many People Can Fit in a Clown Plane”. This was by far the worst part of the journey to get here. I tried sleeping but, could not. I ended up watching Mad Max: Fury Road a few hours before we were scheduled to land. Around 05:00UTC or 23:00CST, we were served breakfast which, consisted of yogurt with granola and dried cranberries. About an hour and a half later we landed in London.
When I got off the plane in London, I had to take a bus to Terminal 5 from where I landed in Terminal 3. It was no joke over a mile of walking to get from the plane to the bus. When I arrived in terminal 5 I followed the signs to where connecting flights disembark from. After waiting 10 minutes in the line I was told that since it was my first time in the UK I would have to go through Customs. I walked back the other way toward the line that I was really happy that I did not have to go through (The immigration line for connecting flights was much shorter). When I got to this very very long line they opened a line dedicated just for first time students (There was a lot of us, 7 at least that were on my flight coming to the University of Sunderland). This line was short and after 15 minutes I had my passport stamped. Now is when it got fun. Because we had to go through customs, there was no way to go through the terminal to get onto my connection. To reach my connection, I had to walk clear to the airport exit, take a lift back up onto the departure level, go through security again then, finally walk to wherever my flight was departing from. I was worried about time as I completed these tasks as I only had an hour to get to my flight from customs. From gate to gate, the time taken was about 2 hours.
We began boarding about 15 minutes before our departure time and took of 30 minutes after our scheduled departure time. This was the quickest flight of all. About 15 minutes into the flight drinks were served. The drinks served were not what you get on an American flight though. On this flight the drinks were juice, water, Hot Tea, and Hot coffee. Instead of pretzels on this flight we were given bacon or ham sandwiches which was good since I had not eaten since breakfast on the first flight. Before departing this flight, I met a girl from Colorado who was also going to UoS. After landing I retrieved my bag from the baggage claim which was surprisingly there considering that I had changed my first two flights after checking my baggage. Just pass the exit doors from the claim area the uni was waiting for the students that were arriving.
The representatives from the school took us to where we waited for the rest of the international students to arrive. After dropping my stuff off, I wandered the airport looking for a cold bottle of water. This was easier said than done as the market type stores all had warm bottled water. Starbucks was there for me though with their overly priced (still cheaper than the other places) cold bottled water. This water cost me 2 whole pounds or $3.09 at the time. After getting my water we went to the bus which seemed like a charter bus. I almost forgot to mention it was raining in both London and Newcastle. The bus departed and, the entire trip I kept thinking we were on the wrong side of the road. 45 minutes later we arrived at Clanny House, my home for the next year.
Tips
- If you can afford it fly business internationally. You get real blankets, better pillows, seats that lay flat and, Bose headphones for the in flight entertainment.
- Make sure that you have a long enough lay over. 2 hours was plenty in London even though I was worried about time. If you’re connecting in Heathrow to another UK town, you have to have enough time to go through customs or immigration.
- Pack at least 2 sets of clothes in your carry on just in case your checked baggage does not arrive on time.
- Take some Benadryl or an alternative as it is really hard to sleep with all of the noise, light and, the small space on the long flights.
- Bring a Towel if you’re studying here. They’re not provided.
- Optional: Bring sheets and a pillow. The provided sheets are ok but, not the best. In my opinion the pillow is really soft so if you want more support bring your own. The provided sheets and pillow are decent enough though and, if you don’t have the space in your baggage allowance I wouldn’t worry about it.