i have arrived.

So here I am. England. It's all a bit surreal--and really, except for the accents and everything being in pounds rather than dollars, i kind of feel like i'm still in America! The fact that there is a group of us from Jewell all living on the same hall might help with that feeling. Besides the JYAs (that's us), there are a couple of Australian medical students and some British grad students on our hall--we all get along quite well and have had a couple of "hall get-togethers" already. In fact, some of the students from the floor below us came up to check out what was going on. Apparently we are the stereotypical loud Americans, automatically making our hall the gathering place. I don't mind.

School hasn't started yet--that's not til Thursday. But don't think we all have just been lounging around bored out of our minds--surely you all know me better than that! Cambridge has had many events planned for both international students and then for students of Homerton (my college). During the day we've filled our time exploring Cambridge, ie: getting lost. Of course, since the majority of this town is built around the University, we're never really horribly lost, just rather turned around.

Getting settled has definitely taken the whole 6 days that we've been here. Finding a decently priced grocery store (it's called Tesco's) led us on a 5 hour adventure. (Well, almost everything we've done so far could be counted as an adventure). After finally finding the store and filling our bags with our newly purchased goods, we proceeded to walk back. Eventually we figured out which bus would take us home. However, I now have a bike! Well, it needs a little work, but I'm sure it'll make getting around much easier. . . once I get up the guts to actually ride my bike side-by-side with the crazy british drivers.

On our excursion to The Eagle (the pub Watson and Crick announced they had discovered the structure of DNA) I ordered fish and chips







A bigger portion than I expected, but delicious all the same.


We took a trip to visit King's College.









We saw people punting!











This is Trinity College, where Isaac Newton studied and eventually taught.

Basically, Cambridge is amazing. Beautiful, historic, awe-inspiring . . . really, the praises could go on forever.

Tomorrow I explore some more, attempt to fix-up my bike, and go see Henry the V. Cheers for now!