Tiger Dreams and Connect Four

6 October 2010

I’m finally in the United Kingdom, and thankfully unlike in the crazy anxiety dreams I’ve been having lately the University of York actually exists. This is going to be my attempt at blogging about my year abroad. Hopefully it will progress better than my other travel writing endeavors that seemed to taper off rather quickly. I’ll try to post at least once a week (hopefully more but I make no promises) so I can keep people posted on what I’m doing over here.

The trip has started off on an exciting note with a celebrity sighting before even leaving the US. I ended up standing right behind Mike Tyson while on line waiting to check bags at JFK. He unfortunately did not have his tiger with him, but it was still pretty cool. The rest of the traveling although exhausting went smoothly. We arrived in York at around noon so there was time to get settled and take care of all the little tasks that seem to have accumulated. We also were able to wander around York and walk some of the medieval wall which was great.

At night there was supposed to be a movie and game night for the international students to meet and hang out to start off our orientation. It turns out the movie was actually planned for tomorrow night instead (there are rumors it will be either Mamma Mia or James Bond…not exactly what I’d picture watching at an orientation but I guess that’s fine), but there was at least an attempt with the game night. But unfortunately it was pretty much a failure because the only games present were an unused twister board on the floor and a giant game of connect four that actually came up to my waste and had checkers larger than hockey pucks. I did get to meet a lot of different students from all over the world, which was very fun and interesting. Everyone seems nice and very eager to make friends. I feel like a freshman all over again which is a little disconcerting. I’m really excited now about the idea of studying in York because it is definitely one of the prettiest and most interesting cities I’ve ever visited. I’m ready to start exploring!