Thursday, January 15, 2009

Jetlag and Dragon Tattoos: I've arrived in Canterbury

I've made it. Canterbury at last! It has been a hectic past couple days, injected with jetlag and "Scrumpy Jack" (London's form of hard cider that tastes like apple juice with a kick-it's one pound and delicious). 

We arrived at London's Heathrow airport at 6:30 in the morning on Jan. 13. A British taxi driver named Liam, who talked non-stop and had coincidentally bad teeth, met us with a sign. 

On our hour and a half drive to Canterbury, he told us how to "bunk" a train (get on without paying), things that are "dodgy," and how he got a "caution" from the police once. I couldn't believe the British accent, it kept surprising me. We arrived at our campus, which is 10 minutes from Canterbury and extremely wooded. Birds were chirping, pigeon poop was on the ground, and it was a sunny 44 degrees. Bliss. And very different from Marquette.

Our flat is great, we have 5 roommates and our own rooms--no living room though which I found odd, or dodgy, if you will.
My messy bed

We didn't think anyone was there when we first got there. But there were rotting olives in the fridge, doughy spatulas on the kitchen counter, and men's boxers hanging in the bathroom. Suspicious. We later discovered we had a guy roommate who has dragon tattoos on his forearms and apparently enjoys incense who lives on the first floor. Then there's four of us girls living on the second floor, who are all really great.

All right, this is too long a blog. One more thing. The actual city of Canterbury is stupendous. It's described by Virginia Woolf as "the loveliest city" on Earth. Maybe (Detroit might be a smidge better).  But it's very English, very medieval, and very me. 

The view of the Cathredal from campus
A teacup ride in the middle of downtown Canterbury
Cozy pub across from the cathredal serving standard English pies

1 comment:

Molly said...

Sounds great Rose! I want more updates!