Nottingham Night 1, Day 1, Night 2.

My last meal in Incheon Airport. :) Was not as good as it looked. Ahhhh. I ate in a hurry as well which I am sure did not help.


After another 12 hour flight.

Landed in Nottingham half an hour later than planned due to congestion of air traffic in Beijing. This made my trip harder because the shuttle to Nottingham was leaving at 7. I was supposed to land there by 5.15 but ended up getting there at 5.45, and by the time I got to the border agency it was already 6 05. When I passed the border agency it was about 6.30, and when i collected my bag it was already 6.45!

Heathrow Airport is quite big: it has different terminals that are really far from each other so there are trains that take you from a terminal to another. I was in terminal 4 when I landed, but the shuttle was supposed to be leaving from terminal 3 so had to catch a train there!

When I got to the train station it was about 6.50 and the train was arriving at 6.55!!!!
My luck seemed to be running low. I prayed and prayed that I would get there on time to catch the shuttle-

After much running from the train station to the central meeting point in terminal 3, I was there at 7.05 and my luck was out. No Nottingham reps to be seen anywhere. I only found some airport volunteers who help out students arriving in September who showed me another student late for the shuttle, Eric.

When all hope seemed lost, Eric spotted someone wearing a blue top and ran after her. She turned out to be a Nottingham rep, and after much talk with Eric(I dunno what the talk was about) we were able to get on the SHUTTLE!!! YAY God loveeesss meeee.


View from the bus. :) pretty!!!

When we got to Nottingham, I was placed in Sherwood Hall, and was given a meal pack with an orange, "just ham" sandwich( which had just...ham in it, funnily enough), water, a kit kat bar and a pack of chips.

I was also given a bracelet that was to identify me as a welcome programme participant. With the pack, there were maps and welcome programme schedule!

Sherwood Hall "single study" room. not bad. E block Room 19.

After a night's sleep, we went to some lectures after breakfast( your normal continental breakfast. Eggs, Cereal, Bread, Croissants, Yogurt, Fruits would be the normal spread at the halls.

Lectures were in the law building-(thats when I updated my facebook status! hehe)

Law School Cafe.

After lectures we went to the convenience store "Boots" in the Portland Building, which would be the equivalent of our IC building. Portland Building has a "student union shop" which is run by the student union of Nottingham(which is an independent body from the University itself, much like our AUSA) It has pretty much everything there, including alcohol.

I met a couple of people at breakfast, Ecem, Advina, Erica, Joyce and Nuri whom I hung out with for the most of the programme. We bought lunch from Boots and ate together.

Boots.

Student Union Shop. Alcohol!

Joyce, Me, Advina and Ecem.

The walk back from Portland Building to Sherwood. The campus has a very large green area, which apparently is used for the Europe's biggested student summer festival. Missed out on that one, didn't i.

The campus is very large and pretty. It is all green around, which apparently impresses a lot of English students, but coming from NZ it is not THAT impressive. But obviously the fact that it HAS a campus at all is a bit of a shock to me, coming from a city U like UoA.

After Dinner(which I gotta say ain't that great overall. I like their breakfast better- it is easier to pick what I like etc.) we went to a barn dance, put on by the International Students Bureau.

Before people started pouring in. This is the Ball Room in Portland Building.

The old lady in blue was the lady leading the barn dance.

Another Kiwi, Renae. Having fun it seems!

It was fun-

Overall Impression: Nottingham really cares about their students. I was really impressed.

Warning: I do not intend on updating about every day I am here, and I am getting more lazy with photo taking, so I am not sure how detailed my other blog entries would go, but will see!

:)