Hello! I have safely arrived in Newcastle. It only took 1 car, a plane, a train, another plane, another train and a little bit of walking. I traveled a total of 17 hours and a little under 4,000 miles and I arrived here at 1pm (8am in NY). The first flight was fine except for the bad turbulence the last 2 hours. I was talking to the woman next to me for some of the flight and she grabbed my hand to comfort me when the plane started dropping. She was very nice and told me a lot of stories to get my mind off our plane almost crashing. Next, I had to collect my luggage, meet with an immigration officer, change terminals and take a plane. I was initially very nervous that I wasn't going to make the next flight, but my flight from NY landed early so I had plenty of time. I bought something to eat and learned that the credit card machine is different here and I didn't know how to work it (been to 3 stores since then and still don't get it) The next flight was only 45 minutes so it was fine. Once I landed I got my luggage (and sweated away at least 5 pounds) and I took the metro to meet up with my friend Brittany. We went to my dorm put all my suitcases down and went shopping. For ₤68 I bought all the stuff I needed for my room and a prepaid cell phone. While she went to class I began to unpack and am going to finish as soon as I finish this post! It took me hours to figure out how to work the internet here. They don't have WIFI so you need to plug your laptop into the wall, but for some reason my account wasn't working. Although I was running on 0 hours of sleep I stayed up until midnight and finally got it working.
Today, I went to orientation at the library. The weather is very cloudy, but it is warmer than New York. The library is only a few buildings away from my dorm so it was a very short walk. I met a couple of people from different countries and keep forgetting that I need to stop using American words. When I was discussing with the man in finance that I paid for my dorm already he didn't know WHAT I was talking about. It's very funny, but all the people are very nice here. On my way home I stopped at the convenience store that is connected to my building. I bought a drink called Orangina since I saw all of Brittany's British flatmates seem to love it. It is a sparking orange juice drink and is 89 pence. (All the prices here include tax so there is no additional charge than what is listed as the price.) It is very good! For the next week and a half I'm just going to be hanging around campus - get my class schedule together and getting used to living here. I will post pictures soon because of course I left one thing home.. my camera cord.
I wish there was a like button. I like the orangina haha. also i think you should have included how you came over for dinner and were so out of it that it took you about an hour to have a bowl of pasta. Which after about a half hour I helped you finish! :)
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