Getting Settled In!

On Monday, I had my first day of orientation at my campus, Kari came with me and sat through the whole thing, it lasted about 3 hours. After my orientation Kari and I went to the accommodation office for the University and I got the best news possible. They had a room open in one of the residence halls! So things started looking up for us...we were finally able to get out of the hotels! Kari has been an amazing help to me during our trip thus far, without her I might be on a plane back to the U.S. She is an amazing girlfriend! Kari and I moved into my new room late Monday night and found it very nice. It is a fairly good sized room with my own bathroom and shower so I only have to worry about myself, I do share a kitchen with five other people.

Tuesday, I had another orientation where I got my University ID card, the campus is lockdown. The only way you are able to enter campus is if you swipe your id card. I also met the person within my program that is in charge of dealing with international students and she seemed very nice and helpful. I met a kid from Australia named Thomas, he lives with some relatives near Kari’s school and knows a much faster route there than what the internet tells me. He will show me the way when I make a journey to Kari’s university! On Tuesday night, Kari and I made our first little adventure around the town, we went shopping on Oxford Street, it was amazing. The buildings were beautiful and there were tons of people and shops everywhere. Our main purpose was to get sheets and other essentials for my room. That was the first time that it felt more like home! Here are some pictures of my room!

Wednesday, We had a pretty exciting evening planned by the university, we were able to go on a river boat tour on the River Thames and see many of London’s major attractions. It was a lot of fun and we met many other people from my university and got to know them, to my surprise though there were a lot more people from Minnesota and Wisconsin then I expected.

Later this week we plan to do more touring and go on The London Eye and a Bus tour. We have already been gone a week now! It is crazy; this time is going to fly so we are both going to make the best of it!