"The best laid plans of mice and men, always go a wry"

Where to start??!

Why, the beginning of course!

I left Moscow on July 2nd… having woken up at 4:30 am to finish last minute packing and showering. We made it to the airport in 25 minutes… an unheard of feat in Moscow! At this point, I’m feeling pretty good about the experience. And why wouldn’t I? As far as I could tell, I hadn’t forgotten anything and we’d made great time.

Naturally, this would come to a very speedy end…

Upon check in at the airport, I was told by Aeroflot that the maximum weight for luggage was 20 Kilos TOTAL. This is not very much. I was 10 kilos over… and naturally had to pay.

I was still unconcerned because this didn’t seem like something all that out of the ordinary.

Of course, all this changed in true Russian style.

I was instructed to go across the check in area to a small desk where I could pay for my overweight luggage. I did this but then realized that I had no boarding ticket, which led to much confusion because no one seemed to be able to give me a straight answer. I was told to go to several different people before the fourth check in attendant I talked to finally told me that she couldn’t give me a boarding pass because she hadn’t checked me in.

So I dutifully go and stand in line at the original woman’s desk. Since there were only two people ahead of me, I wasn’t too concerned although time was getting tight.

(By this point I really should know better than to be calm…)

Apparently there was some problem with the ticket for the passenger in front of me. So while the computer tried to figure out the problem, what does the attendant do? Perhaps motion for the next person in line to step forward? Perhaps send the man to a different desk where they would be better equipped to deal with his problem? These seem like reasonable options right? So what does she do?

Takes a cigarette break.

Three. Times.

I was livid. So what do I do?

Call my dad. (Brilliant and mature, I know)

He said the exact same things I’d been saying but apparently much more authoritatively and therefore boarding pass was quickly acquired.

Finally I made it to the plane (after again some forceful words from dad resulted in the diplomatic passport control line being opened… thanks dad!) and had a very nice flight to London.

I made it to the bus without any problems and actually met a girl, Sam, as we got off the bus. She ended up being in my course here and we’ve since become friends.

My room is a little strange though. I am living in the building called “Kitchen Staircase”. Essentially I live two floors above the dining hall, known only as “the Hall”. My common room is down the hall and has a sofa, two desks (because I share it with another girl, Elizabeth) and a table. Its actually pretty nice.

My room is very small but it does have a sink in it so when I brush my teeth and wash my face, I don’t have to leave the room. Also nice when filling up a water bottle in the middle of the night!!

My room looks out onto a little courtyard which houses University College’s library. Behind this there is the small building where my course is held.

Side note about Oxford: It is made up of several small colleges which coordinate to create a huge system. The library is beyond extensive because it is a “copyright” library, meaning it receives a copy of every book published in England. Very cool.

While the weather has been extremely hot here, and therefore can be quite draining, I have been having a really lovely time. Another girl in my course, Katie, was in my Italian class this semester but I never really spoke to her. Actually, getting to know her over the last couple days has been really great and I wish I had made more of an effort during the year!

I think this post is long enough as it is, so I’ll fill you all in on the activities of the last few days in the following posts. I’ll also try and add pictures of everything… but its very temperamental so we’ll have to hope for the best!