The First Week

It has been over one week, and we have managed to get a lot of important things accomplished such as getting a flat, cell phones, a landline, Internet, television, a bank account, library cards, oh....and finding out that Kate's classes don't actually begin when the information from BCU said they would. So that's nice. We've also started cooking our own meals again as we have located a Sainsbury's and a Aldi a half a mile from our flat.

Beyond this, some very exciting things have happened. The other day, we received a phone call from our good friend Kirk Zimbelman. It was sincerely refreshing to hear from him as Kate was beginning to feel kind of lonely as she looked at her cell phone with only two numbers in it, one of which was her own. Kate is the kind of girl that likes to have a full address book in her cell phone as well as several text messages, and not just text messages from the phone company asking her to rate their service on a scale of 1-5. In fact, Kate struggled the first few nights in the flat as she realized where her life had taken her. No more big fish in a little pond. Also, she missed everyone. However, the ever-steady Andrew kept it together and comforted her whenever she needed it...which was a lot.

Things got better after the first two nights as Kate and Andrew began to really enjoy their surroundings. This enjoyment was undoubtedly brought on by the fact that they live .5 miles away from Cadbury World. Another glimmering moment was when Andrew bought a £5 phone card that contained 5,000 minutes on it. We thought it was a fluke, but were overjoyed that we had endless time to call home. And as we got off the phone with our mothers, we realized that it sucked up all of our cell phone minutes. Not so magical after all. However, it won't suck up any minutes when we use it with a landline, of which we will get on Oct. 6th along with Internet.

As always, the quest for Internet is ever-present. Right now we are both sitting in a shopping mall on shady computers. Oh! I almost forgot one of the most exciting things- we received our first mail! Kirk & Cynthia were so kind to send us a gift of a Scotland travel guide. Now we have to go there. For sure.