My First Two Days in Cambridge

I'm here. And after frying 2 £7 power converters (plugged a power strip into them....bad idea), buying a gown (among other strange and varied items), and running around a whole lot, I'm finally starting to get my bearings.

Cambridge is gorgeous. I've never seen so many 600-year-old buildings in such close proximity to one another. There are also a whole lot of ENORMOUS, yet pristine lawns that nobody is allowed to walk on under penalty of death. I'll post some pictures as soon as I can connect my laptop to the internet.

Unfortunately, I'm stuck using the computer clusters this week because Caius College requires everyone to submit their computer to a virus scan before allowing them onto its network. And they don't trust you to do it yourself! Today I had to bring my laptop to the "computer officers" at a designated time so that they could scan my system for digital herpes. To make matters worse, they're probably not actually going to "approve" my IP address until next Wednesday.

Freshman (or "freshers") orientation just began last night. There are orientation events here like any other college, but they all involve drinking because 99% of the Freshman are over the legal age! All in all it's very bizarre. If colleges in the states had similar events, people would probably end up dead.

Brits have a more relaxed attitude toward drinking. They don't really "binge" like American college students do. Sure, a few people end up stumbling home at the end of the night, but nobody ends up passed out in a pool of their own...well...you know...

Also British keyboards are weird!

Last Week in DC

I figured that this would be a good time to start this blog as I've finally begun to make preparations for my trip. This is officially my last week in Washington, DC. Next Saturday, I'll be on a train to Boston. After that it's California, then Boston again, then England.

On Wednesday I filled out the paperwork for my student visa. The only part that made me a little bit nervous was FedEx-ing my passport to the British Consulate in New York City. Recent screw-ups at the State Dept. have made the waits for getting a new passport unfathomably long, so mine had better not get lost in the mail.

Today, I picked up a copy of Notes From a Small Island by Bill Bryson, which catalogues the author's travels in the UK. I've really enjoyed a few of his other travel books (A Walk in the Woods, In a Sunburned Country, etc.), and I heard that this one is particularly funny. Mostly, I'm hoping to get a better idea of the cultural differences between England and the US. Bryson's book has already taught me that in the UK, a "public school" is actually a private school and "streaky bacon" has a lot of fat in it. Hopefully, more useful information is forthcoming.

I know that the page says this post was made at some ungodly hour in the morning, but I assure you that it's only about 10pm. I set this blog up on Greenwich Mean Time so that there wouldn't be any confusion later on.