Jolly Good

Ok, so I have been a delinquent lately and not posted for a while but I have an excuse - I've been seriously busy. And here I am now... all moved into my residence in Cambridge, England. To re-cap the last month - my job finished late August, I packed and moved my things to storage at Uncle Roman's :), I said goodbye to all my friends and family and boyfriend and hopped on a plane with Michele.

We arrived in London and spent some time catching up with my old friend Davey. We stayed in a terrible hostel (yes, i believe I am now at the age where I am officially too old to stay at a "youth hostel" regardless of how much money it will save me), we ate expensive food, and strolled around the fun and dynamic city of London (which always smells a bit musty to me).

From there we hopped on a plane to Malta and spend 4 days in the sun, walking on cobblestone, eating gelato every day (I sampled 10 flavours - watermelon, lemon, coffee, amaretto, strawberry, mixed berry, orange, cherry, coconut and pistachio), swimming in the salty sea, getting bounced around taking boat trips, experiencing Maltese night life, trying to avoid staring directly at old men in speedos and having a lovely time. We also took a day trip to Sicily (Mt Etna and Taormina) although it was more "bus trip-y" than I would normally like, travelling with Michele made it bearable. The high lites were the gnocchi, red wine and gelato. The low lites was the non-air conditioned bus (although they said it was), Mt Etna being completely fogged in, and our crazy tour guide who insisted on playing "Amazing Grace" several times over the loud speakers of the bus! Amazing indeed.

Then we flew back to chilly England (which was surprisingly sunny - although brisk) and went our separate ways. I hopped on a train to Cambridge (with my 44kilos of luggage in tow) and took a taxi to my new digs - in residence. A lovely porter (old man who is in charge of letting people in and out of my college (they are all gated and you need to sign in if you wish to visit or come in) gave me my key and I settled in my room which is bigger than I thought it would be.

My bathroom is also bigger than I though but the toilet leaks. So that's gross. Hopefully they get around to fixing it sooner than later. I have a bell tower outside my window - luckily it starts ringing only at 8am and stops at 10pm. It will act as a secondary alarm clock for me (as all my classes begin at 9). I bought a bike (another post and photos to follow) and met some of my classmates. This city is beautiful. Breathtaking. Amazing. I love it. I really do. The air is so crisp. The buildings are gorgeous, old, and fascinating. this is truly the nicest city I've ever visited. There is a cow pasture with bike paths running through it that I can pass on my way to school. You can see the stars here. It's just really nice.

There is so much to write about but it is hard to put it all down. School is fine so far. The people all seem really great (very interesting and diverse group - all very intelligent and nice). There are 149 of us in the class representing 48 countries! About 33% are women. The business building is amazing and we get 500 free pages of photocopies and 4000 pages of prints. Why this excites me, I'm not sure. The work load isnt' heavy yet but looking at our upcoming schedule things will get crazy very quickly.

I have taken a few photos and will post them soon. It's going to be a wild ride - I can tell.