First Impressions

The point of this blog is to document my semester at The Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Scotland and allow family and friends to keep up to date with my goings-on, so that I don't have to tell the same stories 12 times.  Plus, everybody and their brother has a blog nowadays, so I figure now it's time to get in on the fun.  It will probably be a terribly boring read, but I'll try to post pictures, and they might be worth looking at.

It took me a full 17 hours to make it from my house in Carlisle, PA to my flat in Aberdeen.  There was a 2 hour drive to the airport, 3 hours of waiting before my flight, 7 hours flying across the Atlantic, 3 hours waiting in Heathrow, 1.5 hours flying to Aberdeen, and finally a 30 minute drive from the airport to my flat.

For flying to the UK, I would definitely recommend British Airways.  As I boarded the flight, there was light classical music playing over the plane intercom.  Sitting down, I received a travel pillow, a blanket, and a set of headphones.  Each seat on the plane had a touch screen television built in, so that you could watch whatever movie or tv show that you wanted from the pretty decent selection.  Within 20 minutes of takeoff, the flight attendants came around to offer us all complimentary drinks.  And then they came around again 20 minutes later.  And then they served dinner 30 minutes later with wine.  And then they came around for drinks again.  An hour before landing, they also gave us a continental breakfast with tea.  The only time that I ran into trouble on the flight over was asking for decaf tea.  Both the flight attendant and the English woman sitting next to me laughed, and then I was offered decaf coffee.  This was the first of many times that my Americanism was rather obvious.

Immigration at Heathrow was a breeze, though I had to go through security again before I was allowed back into the terminal.  Because I flew British Airways, I flew through terminal 5, which is apparently relatively new.  It looks exactly like a train terminal, and it took me about 20 minutes to figure out where my gate was.  But, having found it, I was able to get a bite to eat and wait for my connection.  The flight to Aberdeen was short and sweet and less than a third full.

Once I landed in Aberdeen, I was picked up by Jason, an RGU student tasked with meeting international students at the airport and riding in a taxi with them back to the flats.  Like the first dozen people that I met here, he's Irish, not Scottish.  Apparently, this is a common theme in the campus housing.  A lot of Irish students come here to study health sciences such as pharmacy or physiotherapy, and so most of the people in the campus flats are Irish.

Once I arrived in my flat, I briefly said hello to my flatmate who was in the common room with some friends, and then promptly fell asleep for three hours.