Home away from home
It took us a bit to get out of Toledo–this is always the most nerve-wracking part of the trip for me, once we get to the airport, you’re really on the adventure. Our flight out of Detroit was delayed 30 minutes because the tailwinds were so strong that if we departed on time, we’d arrive at London Heathrow outside the allowed window of arrival time allotted our aircraft. So we waited an extra 30 minutes and still arrived 20 minutes early. The map during the flight noted that the tailwind was in excess of 100 mph, and we were flying at 600 mph. Nice.
Touring Charterhouse
After a ridiculously long line–I mean, “queue”–at immigration, we enjoyed an hour long bus–”coach”– ride to our home away from home, Charterhouse School. At this point, many of us were really only interested in sleep. The east-bound transatlantic flights depart in the evening and arrive in the wee hours of the morning–we landed at 7:40 AM, which is 2:40 AM at home. Sleep on the aircraft is nearly impossible, but you try to get some. Then you stay up all day, even though you want to sleep, because that’s the best way to curtail jetlag.
We toured Charterhouse and visited the local town of Godalming. The walk to Godalming is mostly downhill. Which means the walk home was mostly uphill. Did I mention that we were tired? The time zone change really messes with your mind. Our first meal at Charterhouse, which was lunch, felt like dinner. Or was it breakfast?
Walking to Godalming
There are almost 90 students here this year! A very big year in terms of numbers. My four have already started meeting new people, as have I. For my ISCA veterans reading this blog, back for this year are Matthew (the tour guide) and Michael & Tom in sports–they all say hello!
To end the day, we had a barbeque and then it was a bee-line straight to our comfy beds. Today, it’s off to Winchester to see Winchester Cathedral and more, including King Arthur’s Round Table. Wink, wink.
Admin Note…I’m working with the Charterhouse School’s web filtering right now, it seems to change every day. Yesterday I could not access this blog site, and today I cannot access Flickr, which is why this blog post currently has no photos in it (update: fixed!). Check out my Flickr page for a few photos that I uploaded last night before crashing.
Also, please comment on my blog posts if you’d like to say hi or have a question. Click on the number inside the little shout-out icon at the top of the post to get to the comments.
