The First Day

After finishing my last entry, I boarded the British Airways 777. I had a window seat next to another young guy from Denver named Hashi. Hashi was headed to Barcelona to film skateboarding with some friends there. Apparently, Barcelona has become something of a skateboarding mecca in recent years. Luckily, Hashi was on the aisle, and we had an empty seat in between us. The coach seat had plenty of room (especially with the empty seat). It also leaned farther back than expected. We were served a pretty gross chicken dinner and offered wine multiple times. I took an ambien before dinner and was able to pass out for about five hours with some help from the old eyemask and earplugs. I awoke to a box breakfast sitting next to me. It contained: a small yogurt, a small orange juice, and a disgusting turkey sandwich. “Where were my pancakes?” I wondered. After landing almost 30 minutes early at 11:40, we sat on the tarmac for about half an hour before deplaning.

And so began the second leg of my travels. The dude at immigration seemed pretty sure that I was a terrorist, mostly because I don’t have a job at home. “So what do you do at home again?” “I’ll need to see your itinerary.” “Do you have a return ticket booked?” “You know this Catherine and Caitlin at Cambridge?” Whatever…I got through. My bag was one of the first to arrive. No water fountains to try out my steripen, so I had to buy some water. I walked right through customs with nothing to declare. It took a walk out to the bus area at terminal 4 to realize that I clearly wasn’t headed to Cambridge from there. After some asking around, I found that I had to take the express train to terminal 2 to the central bus station. There I was able to buy a bus ticket to Cambridge and discover that my phone wasn’t working! Partly due to my dialing strategy, both on phone and calling card, but also due to my phone “adjusting” to European life, I had a pretty frantic time in the bus station. I was finally able to leave a message for Caitlin on her phone, but was still pretty freaked. Once on the bus I was able to get through to home to ask for more instructions. My mom sent me the AT&T international helpline number, who instructed me on how to dial local UK numbers. Then…I got through to Caitlin. My bus was about 15 minutes late, and I arrived to find…you guessed it…no Caitlin. So, here I am after circa 16 hours of traveling in unfamiliar Cambridge with not even so much as an address (stupid…I know). And wouldn’t you know it, T-mobile cellular service just happened to be down. Not even AT&T could get through to Caitlin or Catherine. The dude at the bus stop even let me try his phone. After about 30 minutes, I began a frantic walk to the other bus station. I made it about 200 yards there when I heard, “Ben!” Apparently, the dude at the bus stop had told Caitlin my bus would be an hour late. Big thanks for relaying that conversation to me when he saw how freaked I was. Once the crap had settled in my pants, Caitlin took me back to Emmanuel college where Catherine and she live. There rooms are nice, but moderate. They have their own sink, but share a coed bathroom downstairs.

I was pretty smoked from all the traveling etc, but we went to “hall” for dinner. It was definitely English food, but still palatable. Interestingly, all the Williams kids here drink the water no problem. And speaking of Williams, man…are there a lot of Williams kids here. We ate with Maggie Lowenstein and Shane. I saw Alan and Natalie. Haven’t seen Paul yet, but will. After dinner we bought some baklava and had tea back at Shane’s room, which is very nice. I must make note of his lovely wine carafe, fine olive oil, and morter and pestle.

The college itself is very nice. Old and weird too. Being so tired, all of the weird names and policies around here make it feel like the twilight zone. I’ll take pictures later. That’s about it. We’re headed to London tomorrow.