The best orientations are on your own...

Wow... I feel like I haven't had ANY sleep over the past 3 days.

It's amazing here. It's everything I hoped it would be and so much more. The place is beautiful, the people are awesome, and the friends are great.

I got settled into my room almost as soon as I got here. I was worried that I might get bad roommates or a bad room... I was wrong on both. I am in a room with 3 other guys and the room is huge. All three guys are great. Roommates that you don't know are always a gamble, but sometimes pay off big time. This is one of those occasions, I do believe... Here's a picture of the room:

We needed a few supplies that we didn't bring from home so we went into town to get some stuff. We were picking up shampoos, pillows, and body wash... the usual "don't let yourself be dirty and stink" stuff. My roommate Eric Stamper had a wild night on Friday night and decided to go "Gravel Diving." Here's a picture of him at the market.

While we were in town, we kept seeing these yellow signs. Here's a picture of me with one. They say that here in England, you are always being watched...

While we were in town, we also stopped to eat at a Chinese resturaunt that we had been told was called, "Mr. Wang and Mr. Pang." In actuality, it was called "Mr. Man and Mr. Pang..." I wonder where the two got mixed up? HAHAHA. The dinner was very upscale Chinese and even had a lazy susan that you used to spin all the food around so that everyone could share dishes.

I also got hit on by a group of what I would imagine to be middle school girls... they had braces. I hope that's not the best I can do while I'm here. hahaha!

We had a "high table dinner" last night as a way to kick off the semester. The faculty at the college was introduced and we had a very nice dinner. There was a reception hosted by the President right before dinner.

A piper piped us down to the dinner from the Great Hall:

We ended up going out last night to a pub called "The Blue Pig." It's said to be the oldest pub in Grantham and the bartender told us that it's probably the oldest building that we'd ever been in. It's crazy to see how old things are here...

I decided that I very much like something called "Strongbow Cider." It tastes just like apple cider (maybe because that's what it is) and you can't taste the alcohol in it... bad. hahaha. The English girl in the picture below is the one who first let me try it. Her name is Jackie (I think...). She wanted to get a picture with me and asked that we looked like we were drinking out of the same glass... IT WAS NOT AS BAD AS THIS PICTURE MAKES IT SEEM!!! hahahaha.

We also asked to take a picture of someone's cigarettes because of the huge label on the front of them. ALL of the cigarettes here in England are REQUIRED to have this on there...

Today, we just explored the Manor a little bit more and took some pictures.