Finally!

I got up really early, and hopped on the metro to get to the train station. I got my luggage out of the locker, and got my ticket for the express train. I waited. Then I waited some more. Then they said that the train would be about 20 minutes late. And since the trains run every 20 minutes, that just meant that the early one I had been hoping to take was essentially cancelled, and I would go on the later one. Luckily, there was a really cute baby on the train that I basically played games with the whole way (she would shake her head, so would I, etc.).

So I finally got to the airport, and got checked in. Then I took my bags over to get them checked in, and the woman didn't know the baggage regulations very well, so she was ready to charge me 250 NOK per kilogram that I was over the limit (since I was only supposed to have 1 bag/23 kg). Luckily, her coworker knew that the fee was just 250 NOK for 1 extra bag. After that, I zipped through security, and headed towards my gate.

The Oslo Airport.

I had to get my passport stamped to get through to my gate, and I sat down to wait. Found another cute baby that I played peek-a-boo with for a while. Then (joy), my flight got delayed from 10:55 to 12:05 and switched to another gate nearby. Woohoo! An extra hour worth of waiting! The funniest part was that once I boarded the plane, I saw something that said SAS was the world's most punctual airline, and that last year 92% of their flights were on time. So I got to be in part of that lucky 8%!

Once we were in the air, everything was incredibly normal. I slept for a big chunk of the flight, and then watched out the window (when I checked in I got to choose which seat I wanted, so I chose a window one!).

This is what my view was like for most of the flight.

One of my first glimpses of Manchester.

Once in Manchester there was THE MOST MASSIVE LINE UP I HAVE EVER SEEN waiting to go through customs. The stupid part was that they had quite a few officers working, but half of them were for non-EU residents, and the other half were for EU residents. The EU residents I guess were fewer in number at that point, so they zipped through, and then the officers still didn't really take any non-EU people. I stood in the line for about 1-1.5 hours, but once I got to the desk, they didn't even have to scan my fingerprints more than once.

My bags were waiting for me, so I found them right away, and started making my way out to find the shuttle to Lancaster. I got to the booth they had, and they gave me a nice little welcome package. I didn't have to wait too long to get on the bus, but then we had to wait a while on the bus before everything was ready to leave.

The bus ride took about an hour and was extremely uneventful. It was nice to see some of the English countryside, but I didn't see any of Lancaster since the university is a ways out of town. There were people to help us find our college (residence) when we got there, but I had to drag all my luggage half-way across campus.

On the bus ride to Lancaster.

Houses in Bailrigg (I think), the town right by the uni. Pretty typical.

I got my stuff into my room, and spent a while hanging out with the JCR (don't know what that stands for, but they are some sort of helpers) that had helped me find my room, and her friend. I met a couple other people, and then I went back to my flat in hopes of meeting some flatmates, and met 2 of the people on my floor. The girl I share a bathroom with (she's on a 1 term exchange from the US), and a guy from Germany who is here for his program. The three of us decided to go around and explore a bit so I could find some food to eat because I hadn't really eaten all day.

Luckily, our building is really close to a tiny little convenience store/grocery shop on campus, so I bought a little food there, and then we kept walking. We went all over campus looking at a bunch of the different bars (there is one for each college, so a total of 9 I think?), and stopped at the Graduate College bar. One of our flatmates was there, so we met him and a few of his friends. One of them had even been to Montreal before and was quite excited to tell the story of how he got there in the winter during a massive snowstorm, and (the part that may have been created due to drunkenness) how everyone went down the streets on skis.

I decided I was pretty tired, so the American and I went back home, and I went to bed pretty quickly. Since we were supposed to go to an exchange student meeting the next morning, and neither of us had an alarm, we decided to hope that the sun would be a sufficient alarm clock if we left our curtains open.

I bought a bedding pack from the university, and although it does have a duvet, and pillow, the sheets and pillow case are made of a terrible, cheap fabric that is rather scratchy.

Next - First day at Lancaster University.