My very long first day in the UK

My first day has finally come to an end. It was a very long but awesome day!

Starting from the beginning....

I flew on an air transat flight directly from Toronto to Brimingham, and so i was worried about the weight of my baggage but at check in my checked luggage was under by a bit which was nice and they never weighed by carry on which was even better. Went through customs smoothly and without a beep, so got some tims and managed to kill 3hrs in the airport :P The plane left Toronto a bit early even thought it was a rainy, foggy evening and it was a very smooth flight all the way to birmingham. The plane it was a small relatively tight squeeze, but luckily i got an aisle and both myself and the two Brits who were sitting beside me were all skinny which definately helpped. The food was as usual microwave TV dinners with a bunch of stuff i have no idea what it was, and the english breakfast was bland and not very good, but it was still food. Also by the time they turned off the lights it was about 10pm and then they turning them back on about 2-3hrs later, but it was too noisy so i only got a few minutes of sleep :(

Arrived at birmingham international airport about 10 minutes early and went through customs without a problem! Picked up the luggage and then went to try and catch a train. After wandering around for a few minutes I eventually found out were the train station was, and so i bought a ticket to the New Street station. After buying the ticket tho i went to find the train and quickly realized that the ticket didn't tell me what time or platform to go on, so i asked a nice friendly lady who managed to steer me in the right direction.

I got to the new street train station around 9am and then took a cab a short 5minute ride over to campus. I was amazed at how well the cabbies drive here, it's nothing like in Canada, cuz here i wasn't affraid for my life and he didn't try to drive around the block to get extra money. As soon as I started to get out of the cab one of the Aunties (orientation week volunteers) was grabbing my luggage and helpping me check in.

My flat is a little diffrent than i expected, as i thought it was going to be kinda like a town house, and well it kinda is and kinda isn't ... it's sort of like a motel with all the units attached by a common covered outdoor walkway. Each unit is two stories high and with 6 bedrooms, a kitchen, eating area, toilet room, shower/wash room, and an ironing room. It looks like there is a total of 14 units in gem house arranged in two levels and so mine is on the upper level and at the end closest to the capus. Also i think i probably have the best room to because my view is of the main building and the clock on the side of the building and then i can also see the old firehouse (which has a bunch of stores and restaurants in it). The room is about the size of a standard canadian residence room, so no big surprise here, but with tones of storage...but i think it's weird having only one toilet. There is also a common phone in our flat for the 6 of us, it has rang a few times but i can never get to it in time, and i got no clue what the phone number for it is. The internet was connected way smoother than I have ever had before and so far it seems to be a decent speed and is fairly reliable. Right now i'm still the only one in my flat, so I'm still waiting to see who else i'll be living with.

 

After i got settled a bit i went to the main building and got my passport scanned, which is sort of like a check in saying yes i'm here and have arrived. I then wandered around campus a bit before going on a shopping trip to ASDA (Walmart). The school had little minibuses/vans that took a bunch of us there and then we had 45 minutes to shop. The students driving the buses were ok, but they definately made me very glad that i'm not driving around the UK :P ASDA was way bigger than any walmart i have ever been in, but it was also almost all food with a very small clothing section and housewears section. But i managed to get all my bedding and cooking stuff and a few food items to last me at least the week. It was odd shopping because for started everything is a smaller size than at home and everything has a different name and even some of the essentials like cheese slices they don't even have. Then when i came up to the check out it was just shear madness ... there were like 15 cashes open plus the self check outs and all had huge lines, but i lucked out and found a relatively small line. Just like in Canada they charge for all plastic bags, but the cashier was nice and i'm pretty sure she gave up counting after a while. I was also amazed at the grand total as it was much less than i expected which was awesome!

After unpacking all my supplies i got ready for dinner. There was a big international student dinner at a buffet on broad street that has foods from around the world (well most places, except canada). The minibuses took us over in groups and the restuarant was shocked at how many of us there were, even tho reservations had been made. There was about 120 of us that filled this restuarant and i was fortunate enough to find a seat before it got too full. The food was ok and it was nice meeting and talking to the various people. So far I have met people from all over the world... france, holland, china, malaysia, finland, russia, poland, spain..but so far haven't met anyone from india (and i think there are only a few actually from india). After dinner the majority of us then went down the street to Revolution, which is one of many bars. We all hung out dancing and chatting most of the night before several of us walked home. I was glad to be with people who knew there way around town, as I had no clue where we were, and I would have gotten completely lost otherwise. It was about a 20 minute walk, which wasn't bad since it was a beautiful night. As well many might think that we were crazy for walking but it turns out that Birmingham is a very safe town (one of the safest in the UK) and the only people we came across were people outside the bars having a smoke and the police. I finally got home around midnight and started to type this but quickly fell asleep instead.

Now today there aren't too many activities schedualed. So i'm going to go through the mound of paper work they gave me and then look at cheep cell phones and the banks and also pick up a pinter, binder, an alarm clock and then see if i can get a charger here for my camera. I'm looking for a camera charger becuase i got a power adapter but when i plugged in the power bar i brought the power bar made a popping sound and then started smoking ... so needless to say i can't use that. but the adapter is working for pluggin in my laptop, since my laptop charger says it's ok to be used in the uk and has a ground. My camera batter charger on the other hand doesn't have a ground and only has north american certification, so i don't think i want to try it....but so hopefully i can get a charger here, but if not i'll try mine here and hope for the best :P