Wow. Okay. Goodness. Holy crudpuppies. What.

I am in England.

It’s both incredibly unbelievable and hauntingly familiar at the same time. It’s like every dream I had about England, Cambridge, old historical towns and fashion-forward trendsetters come to life. I mean, seriously, this is what my desk (that I am typing at right now, this minute) looks like:

I mean, this is my life? Really? But I digress. There is more you want to hear about, not just me flipping out over the reality my dreams became.

SO. Today I have flown into Heathrow Airport, ridden up and down the lifts in said airport trying to find the right place to get to our bus (‘lifts’ are ‘elevators’–everything here as a slightly different, but somehow more proper-sounding name… I don’t know how that happened, exactly), took a rambling ride through the Britsh countryside in a very hot bus, somehow managed to understand the rules Matt (Professor Ringenberg, our director) told us, settled into my room, walked downtown, freaked out at how unbelievably COOL downtown looks, withdrew some money which came out in pounds (which was weird), bought stuff to shower with, took said shower, and now I’m sitting down to explain to you all why it is that I find it hard to function normally.

Funny story #1: Apparently there is no such thing as ‘just coffee.’ Well, not at the place we stopped to get coffee, anyway. This is during our small trip downtown Cambridge to retrieve necessities like shampoo, conditioner, and toothpaste. We were all exhausted, naturally, from the 7hr 45min flight, and the 6hr time difference, and so decided that a coffee break was needed to make it through the day. Rachel, one of the girls here, asked the barista for an iced coffee–pretty much the simplest coffee drink there is. Coffee, ice. Bam. However, the barista (and all the workers there) didn’t seem to get ‘just iced coffee.’ The barista suggested an iced latte or iced americano instead, which we ended up getting, but it was a bit of a shock to have a deceivingly ‘American’ looking coffee shop immediately prove itself to be not what we expected. I’m sure there’s more of that to come.

Funny Story #2: We were walking back from our mini-downtown-trip when a mother rode past on her bicycle. She had a kid in a bike-seat in front of her and another in a bike-seat behind her. As the mother coasted down the slight hill, both children were going “weeeeeeeeeeee!!” For some reason, that reminded me that no matter how different or fantastical or strange this place may seem, it is still populated by human beings who aren’t that much different from me, or my family, or my friends. It’s the little things, people.

Finally, we went to Sir Isaac Newton’s Pub for dinner. Now, we were all exhausted and such, but this pub looked pretty cool.

So some of us got chili con carne, some of us got the traditional fish and chips, and Matt even got a lamb burger, I think. Me? I got cheesy chips (cheesy french fries) and garlic bread. I love my carbs. It was really delicious though, even if I did end up sharing my fries with pretty much everyone. But we just got back to the house, I’ve put on my pyjamas, and I plan to relax a bit and force myself to stay awake until at least 9:30 so that the jet-lag doesn’t hit me too hard.

With amazement, love, and exhaustion,

Bryn