we've been in high wycombe for around 36 hours now, and i feel at home.
the internet was down until a couple of hours ago which caused some panic, but so far the trip has gone smoothly.
on our first flight, melbourne - sydney we were provided with "refreshment" in the form of a cookie and drink. at sydney airport we adopted our catchphrase for the trip: follow the hotties. may it serve us well.
the next, sydney - singapore was 7 and a half hours long and we watched movies, slept and ate our dinner and a snack. our flight captain was named captain england. it was fate, and we wrote a song in his honour. the next flight was much the same, singapore - london, but with more sleeping, and plane letters being read and tears shed.
the plane touched down in london about an hour ahead of schedule. some of us have british passports and got through passport control in around 20 minutes. the others took 15 minutes or so longer and we were soon through to the baggage claim. that went smoothly too, it was on the conveyor belt as we entered the hall. customs was a non-event as there were no airport officers working so all our worry about bringing lollies and biscuits into the country were for nothing. i guess at 5am, i'd just let the food in too.
in the arrivals hall, we waited for 15-20 minutes, broken up by 2 trips to the bathroom to experience first hand the terrifying hand dryers which blow your skin in different directions. georgie and i nearly passed out from laughing on the walk back to our bags. once back, we only waited a couple of minutes longer before martin approached us to ask if we were heading to godstowe. his bus easily seated us all and after a minute of photo-takiung we got in and set off for high wycombe.
seeing the town at 6.30am wasn't the most welcoming sight i could have imagined for us arriving; but it didn't really matter. up the hill at one of godstowe's boarding houses we were met by the other martin who let us in and showed us where to put our bags, leaving us free to explore the house while he went to get his wife sam and their adorable baby owen. we then all sat down and were filled in on martin and sam's views on the entire staff and student's of godstowe, including which boys were "interested in the gaps" and who to avoid at all costs. they were also glad to see that we planned on going to london for NYE, deeming us "normal 18 year olds". they then took us down to the town of high wycombe where we explored the shops and bought groceries to keep ourselves alive with until the school kitchen re-opens next wednesday.
by the time we got home from high wycombe and put our shopping away, it was close to 2pm and we all realised we hadn't actually eaten since breakfast at 3am so lunch was pretty much devoured and then georgie and i sat on the counter drinking really strong tea. it was so strong because i forgot british tea bags are SO MUCH STRONGER than the australian kind, and so 5 minutes of brewing reduced it to tea flavoured sludge. also the kettle needs cleaning, because nobody likes limescale in their tea water. yuck.
after lunch at tea and such other things including reorganising the suitcases and opening toothbrushes, toothpaste, moisturiser and multivitamins we decided to watch zoolander. unfortunately nobody thought that watching a movie might put us all to sleep, as it almost did. a bit more than halfway through we decided to go for a walk and worked out where the main school is, the sport fields, the junior lodge and the flat where i will probably be living. we returned from our walk with enough energy to cook dinner, finish the movie and crawl into bed. we were asleep by 6.30pm and slept through to almost 8am
today we had lazy breakfast watching the news( we saw flooded australia. good luck with that guys...) and kids tv, then yve suggested we should actually DO something so we dressed very slowly and walked down the hill to the train station and in to town to buy phones, more orange juice because we somehow drank 2L in 18 hours, and a bottle of vodka. we left a note for martin and sam because we had called around in the morning to see if they wanted any groceries bought. when we got back we went over to say hello and see martin's impressive movie collection. he took us up to the gap flat so i could search for the bag of things left behind for me by liv from last year, and then we went back to our house to sit down and play with phones and other exciting things. the bursar called in to say hello and then martin and sam came over again to show us how to use the laundry. after they left we realised the internet was back on and suddenly became very anti-social...
now it's off to dinner and probably early to bed again tonight to be ready for new years eve tomorrow!
