My day began at 4:00 a.m. in order to make it to the airport for my 6:24 flight to Washington, DC. I don't actually mind traveling early in the morning; it always feels so secretive, as if I'm inhabiting a space the sleeping world doesn't recognize and I'll be gone before they know I'm on the move.
Such are my esoteric thoughts at 4:00 in the morning, anyway.
Dad drove me to the airport, where I checked my bag for the first time I can remember, and we both proceeded through security to my gate. He was also kind enough to buy me coffee.
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| Coffee is more vital than ever at this hour. |
This was also the point at which I was dive-bombed by a bird. Indoors. I'll admit it added some excitement to sitting alone in an unfamiliar airport, but it was surprisingly terrifying at the same time.
Although I'd had a croissant at SeaTac, the "lunch" I had in DC felt more like breakfast because of the time difference, so my meals probably contributed to completely and hopelessly throwing off my body clock. I hadn't started to feel too tired by the time my flight to Manchester took off, but I planned to sleep on the plane as much as possible.
That plan did not exactly pan out, as the dinner they served us felt more like lunch to me and I found it impossible to ignore the siren call of my one remaining book. So I read, chatted with my neighbors, and played games on the seatback screens, only dozing for a few hours when the tiredness finally crept up on me.
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| The sunset somewhere over the Atlantic (I think) |
When we landed in Manchester, it was 6:34 a.m. local time, which is 10:32 p.m. at home. Even taking into account the hour and a half or so I spent trying to sleep on the plane (which wasn't really restful at all), I had been awake for what amounted to a full day, so I was ready to go to bed.
Instead, I found my way out of the gate to the passport checkpoint, with the help of my lovely neighbors from the plane. As instructed, I handed my passport and landing card across the desk and introduced myself as a study abroad student, offering my letters from the Fulbright people and Nottingham Trent University. But she had never heard of the Fulbright Commission! So I found myself scrambling to describe the program and what Fulbright awards are all about. Her raised eyebrows made me rather nervous, but she waved me through eventually.
My new friends from the plane waited with me until I found my suitcase in baggage claim, then wished me well and headed off into the arms of their waiting relatives. I knew that the NTU ambassadors were supposed to arrive around 8:30, so I settled down in a quiet corner to wait, keeping an eye out for any of the other Fulbright students who might arrive after me.
Imagine my rising panic when 8:30 came and went with no sign of any other lost-looking American students or guides holding NTU signs. Where were the signs? They were supposed to have signs! Large ones, preferably, with capital letters.
Logically I knew that they would not leave without me (the email had specifically said so), and if all else failed, I could go to the information desk or security for help. But there is something frightening about being alone in a strange country and unable to call either my hosts or my family, particularly when one has not slept in approximately 20 hours. However, as soon as I came back from taking several deeeeeeeep breaths and giving myself a pep talk in the bathroom mirror, I stumbled upon a group of people my age who looked vaguely familiar.
"Are you Grace?" one of them asked. I was saved!
The drive from Manchester to Nottingham became quite the bonding experience as we fought off sleep by playing word games and discussing our various nerdy interests. There are eight of us total - seven girls, one guy - and we quickly formed a comfortable group.
Settling In
Arriving in Nottingham, we were shown to our flats in a student residence hall not far from campus, with five of us girls downstairs and the others in another flat upstairs. Our flat features an individual room for each of us, two bathrooms, a kitchen, a common area...and one student already living here who has been kind enough to explain things to us even though we've invaded his formerly private residence.
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| My room as viewed from the door - pretty nondescript. |
Although the university provided us with some bedding and the flats already have dishes and such, we lacked towels, trash cans, and food for the next day's breakfast. Two Americans from upstairs showed us the way to Asda, a supermarket, where we all stocked up on supplies to hold us over until we received our stipend on Monday. Here, I learned that my credit card does not have a magical international chip, so I had to check out at the customer service desk after numerous, increasingly aggressive attempts at the self checkout.
We trooped back to the flat and finished unpacking before meeting our NTU hosts for our next activity. Our hosts/ambassadors, Allie and Lauren, are two recent graduates of NTU who chaperoned and guided last year's Fulbright group and were kind enough to perform the same duties for us. They're both wonderful and will probably show up many more times in this blog.
Our NTU coordinator (I am uncertain of his exact title in relation to us) took us all to a Fulbright orientation in town, where we met the Fulbright Programmes Coordinator and took a "pub quiz." The pub quiz, as the name suggests, was the sort of trivia one tackles in teams in bars. My team won. (Go Knights of Knottingham!) After the orientation, Allie and Lauren took us on a wandering route through Nottingham in search of some food, since we didn't have the supplies or energy to cook anything back at the flat. Jet lagged as we were, most of us agreed that while it was certainly cool to finally be in Nottingham, it felt more dreamlike and hazy than exciting.
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| We got these fancy folders too. |
It turns out I am the one who came the furthest east, and thanks to all those time zone changes I ended up not sleeping for a total of about 32 hours. As our only guy put it, it will be interesting to see what it's like re-meeting everyone tomorrow when we're actually awake.
By the time I finally fell asleep (I'm finishing this on Monday) I was so exhausted that even though logically I knew that I had had fun at certain points in the day, that I liked these people and they seemed to like me, and that I would feel much better after some sleep, I still felt like begging my parents to book me a flight home this minute. It felt like Saturday had never ended (a sentiment my fellow Fulbrighters echoed) and I had reached my utter limit - yet I was stuck here for another four weeks.
But I swallowed my homesickness, gave myself another pep talk, and went to bed. Sleep is a beautiful thing.
