The trip over was quite a journey delayed! First my flight (with 8 of the students) was delayed an hour at Charlotte/Douglas for maintenance. That would not have been a problem except for the fact that the delay caused use to wait just long enought for the thunderstorms to roll in! SO 4 hours later than scheduled, we took off at 10:45 pm for our 6:30 pm flight. Hmmm. Well dinner was served at 11:30 and the rest of the flight was uneventful and we arrived in London around 11:15 am Wednesday. We stood in line at customs for 2 hours (they were about to go on strike) and finally made it through to meet our ride to Kingston. Thank goodness he was still there waiting for us and we took a nice 30 or so minute bus ride to the campus. The landscape and scenery here is just beautiful, especially in the little towns outside of London.
Once we got to campus they had to rush us around because we were 4 hours late, but we were able to get our phones, THROW our luggage in the rooms and catch a walking tour to Surbiton (part of Kingston town). After that I went to dinner with some other profs from all over the country to a restaurant called Slug and Lettuce (not kidding). It could have been dogfood and I would not have cared. I'm certain we were all functioning on adrenalin anyway. We came back to our rooms around 9:30 and crashed, literally. I woke up at 5:45, which wasn't too bad considering I could have woken up at, oh I don't know, 3:00 am?!?!?
Today, we went straight to an orientation meeting at 9:00 am and then to lunch at a Pub here in Kingston with 160 people, which is the entire study abroad program. Then the students were assigned to groups to do a sort of scavenger hunt in London. I attached myself to a group and we set off for London taking a train to Waterloo station. We then had to follow directions, taking "creative" pictures along the way to the London Eye, Picadilly Circle, Bond Street and some others utilizing the tube and bus systems. Another prof and I then left by ourselves to come back to Kingston to get out computers up and running. When we got back---- Viola they were working! So I need to run now but will try and post some pics when I come in for the night later. So far this has been a whirlwind but absolutely incredible. I am actually going to TRY and teach something tomorrow. We'll see how that goes. Bye for now! Oh and watch the gap!
