homesick at spacecamp...

*tonight i'm writing you a million miles away*

so, i made it. barely.

i began my journey at 6am (central standard time) on thursday the 7th. i woke to find that chicago o'hare airport had cancelled at least 200 inbound flights. that sucks for me because i flew into o'hare around 3:30pm. i quickly went online and checked my flight... sure enough it was cancelled. since i (smartly) booked my trip through orbitz, i called the customer service hotline to try and figure out what to do next. after being told to call back in an hour, and a subsequent call that lasted two hours, i was re-booked on a different flight that left at 2:15pm to chicago. well, this flight actually left, but not until around 3:40pm. i had a connecting flight in chicago to dublin at 6:50 (still all central standard time). now this flight left chicago around 7:30pm and was a seven and a half hour flight to dublin, so arriving in dublin at 9am (greenwich mean time). i had a connecting flight in dublin to manchester leaving at 9:30am (gmt). i still had to go through international customs and make my connecting flight. needless to say, i was running full speed the minute i hit the ground in dublin. (side note, aer lingus [ireland air] is really quite spectacular). i couldn't sleep on the plane so at the time i was awake for a grip of hours, and in not the best shape. i ran a mile through the airport in approx. 10 minutes (very fast for me). one point i want to stress: irish customs is quite simple. the man asked to see my passport and asked me how long i was staying in ireland. my reply: "15 minutes." he stamped away and i took off running another mile to where my gate was. when i got to the gate, the ground crew was just pulling the stairs away from the plane, with the plane door shutting at the same time. they saw me and after various radio communication, put the stairs back and let me aboard. this flight was delayed another hour though, and i arrived in manchester around 11:30am. i never went through customs in manchester, which is weird because i was asked only one question in ireland. silly uk.

the train ride in from manchester to york took about an hour or so. it was quite nice. comfortable, even though i was lugging around a 60lb bag, a smaller bag, and a messenger bag. when i arrived in york, i hailed a cab and proceeded to my b&b, chelmsford place. the room was fantastic and the proprietors, nigel and wendy, were more than hospitable. pics of the room are below.






as you can see, it was quite nice. i walked to town to find a cell phone because my internet was not working at the time and did at t-mobile. it was a quite cheap phone but i now have an english number! so "street cred." for me. the rest of my day was spent wandering around the city before i decided to have dinner and a few pints at the nearest pub, the lighthorseman. this bar was like a home away from home (for bars). steve, the owner, and jane, the bartender, talked my ear off for hours, which was great. all of the locals were drawn to me because of my "exotic" accent and tales of snow and cold that they could never even imagine. yes, to answer what you are all thinking, i was asked about "that movie fargo" at least five times the first night. i managed to say up almost 40 hours before i passed out. it was a good day.

the next day, i woke up around 8am for breakfast (full english breakfast) which was amazing. bangers, bacon (which is ham), poached eggs, tea, orange juice, and toast and jam. it was the best meal i have had in a long time! (probably because it was in england). i managed to sleep after breakfast for a few hours and then wandered the city again. i went home for one more snooze and then walked into town to have dinner at the "punch bowl." it is one of york's historic pubs. the food was excellent but i have yet to have a beer that i completely love. i am a big fan of IPAs and i have yet to have one in york. the ale is quite nice, so not complaining, but i like all those hops. after the punch bowl, i went to a local punk-rock concert at a place called the city screen basement. it is, like the name says, in the basement of a movie theatre. the show was pretty awesome. i bought a few pints and the first band had a female lead singer and bassist. the girl that sang was really good and she had the sweetest belt (made of gun bullets). the next band was a real throw-back. the lead singer reminded me of the rev. horton heat. they sounded more like the ramones, which is what they were going for, but that was still cool. they were older guys and you could tell they just loved playing music and it wasn't about how talented they were. the last band was by far the best, they sounded a but like the strokes or interpol. what was cool is that the lead singer was wearing a prince symbol necklace. after the show, i went up to him and told him i was from prince's hometown. they guy thought that it was so crazy someone from so far away was at the show and he introduced me to his wife as "tj from prince's hometown." after that, i went back to the lighthorseman and met the girl from america that steve was talking about the previous night. met a few chaps that want to take me to a york city football game and drank until i was nice and warm.

thats it for now, i'll update on my move into the university tomorrow, with more pictures.