echoes reflect

I'm going to use this blog pretty much as a general life blog for the next four weeks (seeing as how I used it so extensively as a style blog before, cough, cough) to chronicle my adventures at the summer school program I'm doing at the University of Sussex in Brighton, England. I am going to try and make a habit out of it and update it frequently, so if I start lagging behind please harass me into posting.

On Saturday I took my first ever overseas, overnight flight from Pearson Airport in Toronto to Gatwick Airport in London. I am horrible at public sleeping, so I stayed awake the entire flight and occupied myself by attempting to finish reading On The Road (didn't happen) and watching movies (The Adjustment Bureau, J'ai Tué Ma Mère (!), and three-quarters of Whip It). They never got my special meal request, which I kind of suspected would happen but didn't prepare for, but they cobbled together a meal for me that consisted of two buns, two different types of salad, some fruit, a surprisingly vegan cookie, and tomato juice. After I landed in London, went through customs, and collected my luggage, I made my way to the train station which, thankfully, was attached to the airport. Anyone who had talked to me in the week prior to my leaving heard about my fear of not knowing where large luggage goes on the train. Conveniently enough there are racks for it near the doors and the other passengers were extremely helpful in lifting my heavy luggage to and from the rack.

Some people from the school were there to greet new students at the train station and take us to our residences. The residence I am staying in is a little bit far from the main campus, but basically right behind the train station. The room I am in is enormous. I think that it may actually be larger than my bedroom in the apartment I lived in in second year.

I spent most of the first two days getting settled in and adjusted to life in Brighton and at the University. So far I feel like it's simultaneously not that different from home and drastically different from home. For example, the architecture and general look and feel of the city is completely different from anywhere I've ever seen in Canada (or ever before anywhere I've gone), but the University is really similar to Canadian ones.

I will update about the more fun and interesting things I've done soon, but it's taken me long enough to write this, I should post it before I get too behind.