Landed

So I'm in this hotel they put us at for orientation. Not too shabby. The photo is the view from my window. Everything here looks 56,657 years old and castle-y and cool. Observations I've made:

1) There are very few speed limit signs here (the ones that exist are in mph, not kph);

2) Scottish accents, contrary to my presupposition, are in fact attractive on women;

3) Everyone's lawn here looks perfect due to the frequent rain - no patch of open earth isn't covered with some kind of grass/weed/vegetation

My flights were good. Watched a movie on the way over, and enjoyed the unlimited and complementary supply of heineken offered by the crew. Couldn't fall asleep and so read a bit of "Ivanhoe" - by Sir Walter Scott, an Edinburgh literary great - for a while until we landed. Met a few interesting people in my program on the flights/while we were waiting. One of the kids is from Ridgewood, actually, and we know some of the same people from F&M and Glen Rock.

Took advantage of the duty free store in Heathrow. It seemed like London-made gin was free there because there were no taxes and they didn't have to import it, it being in London already.

Not much else for now. Excited to be here and looking forward to the next few days. Classes start Monday the 10th.