Nap time.

This is my first post and I am still quite jet-lagged, so bear with me. Constant activities haven’t helped with my sleep deprivation either, but I’m not complaining about that. I arrived here Saturday at around 2 pm Scotland time, or 9 am Williamsburg time, after a 7 hour flight from Dulles airport in DC, a 3 hour layover in Heathrow, an hour flight to Edinburgh, and an hour and a half shuttle ride to St Andrews.

For anyone traveling here, a note on that: you have to go through customs in Heathrow as a “first-time student,” which means you go through customs as if you are staying in London and exit the terminal, then you must go back through security. So don’t leave water in your water bottle or they’ll take every single item that you expertly squished into your carry-on bag out of it to look for “dangerous items” when the only thing that set the alarm off was water. Just a note. Also, both St Andrews Direct, which I took (cost about 20 GBP) and the St Andrews shuttle are easy ways to get to the University; they meet you at baggage claim and take you straight to your dorm.

So anyway, since I have been here I’ve had a total of 10 hours of sleep. But it has been absolutely amazing. The town is incredible, the sea is absolutely gorgeous (and right there!!), and the people are so welcoming, and so diverse! However, so far my dorm (McIntosh, the best dorm here) seems to contain more Americans than any other nationality, which is a bit disappointing to be honest. They are all great though! We’ve had several hall social events already, and this week is just going to get better! Academic sessions also started today, so there is business as well (not all fun 😛 ). My list of things to do (written on the back of a handout because I don’t have any paper yet) keeps getting bigger! My plan is to sort out my phone situation and set up a bank account today. And hopefully get some shopping done. But first I’m going to take a nap. 🙂