My day of travel

(written on 23rd of September, but only added on 26th, 'cause I only just got my permanent room with internet!)

Today I left The Netherlands. I woke up at my Uncle’s house, finding him already gone to the dentist. At 9:30 a.m. we left for Schiphol airport, where my parents saw me off. I really miss them now, not being able to hug them, kiss them and tell them how much I love them.

It was quite easy finding the Gate , but had to wait quite a while for the check in to start. The gate was near a conveyor belt, so I still can’t get the “mind your step……mind your step…..mind your step….etc.” out of my mind. The check-in went fine though, no trouble. It was only when we really started flying, the engines on full and the plane leaving the ground that I really felt that I was leaving and that I wouldn’t see my family for a long time. I miss you guys!

We had some plane trouble when arriving, though. The ground crew was not there, so we waited 15 minutes for them. Then we couldn’t go out through the front of the plane, so we had to leave through the back and be carried in busses across the airport, towards the arrivals and luggage collection, then had to walk for god-knows-how-long until we got to our luggage, which was waiting for us. I had to pie so bad at that time that I took all my luggage, including my big suit case that I just took off the belt, and stowed all of it (and me) into a toilet O.O Not the best idea, but hey what else could I do, I was alone O.o;

Next I walked from Terminal 1 to Terminal 3, where the Southampton Uni crew was waiting. Yeez that’s quite a long way! I got to the crew and met a guy, Peter (actually Piotr) from Poland, and started making small talk ‘cause we still had to wait there for about an hour. I also met a guy from Malta doing his PHD, but I can’t remember his name.

When we were finally able to go to the bus, we stood in the cold (and temporary rain) for about 30 minutes waiting for the bus and later waiting to get in the bus…… O.o; Then we drove for about 2 hours (we got stuck in traffic of course) and finally got to the Glen Eyre Complex. Here we had to check in and get a room key…. As if I hadn’t had a long enough day already, my room was, of course, not ready yet, so I got a temporary room… yeey…… By now it was about 5:15 pm. And I got somebody to help me get my stuff (+ bedding pack) to my temporary room. Luckily I found some really nice people here to go to town with :D

I met Iman, a girl from Libanon (somewhere far away) doing her postgraduate in Artificial Intelligence and I met Verena (pronounces Wehrana) a girl from Germany doing her postgraduate in Shipping Science. With them and Peter, who we met again on our way to the bank, I went to the burger king and food co-op to have diner and buy some breakfast. They are really nice people and Verena also has a temporary room, right next to mine, which really helps against the homesickness....

Right now I hear suitcase wheels, so there are probably more people arriving right now, but tomorrow is our first real introduction, so I agreed to meet Peter, Iman and Verena at a big tree on campus to go to the first welcome lecture together in the morning. They are really nice people, but I’m still very much homesick right now. I miss everyone and of course Fudge as well. But I’ll manage, just have to get past the first few days…

(btw I figured out that the plug-box doesn’t fit into the adapter, so I can only use one socket right now…. Ohh well we decided to go to Tesco’s tomorrow anyway to get adapters, plates, cutlery and everything else anyway O.o;)