D-Day + 1

Having arrived around 4:30 on Thursday there wasn’t time enough for me to do much in the way of checking things off my list. Fortunately, because of my grossly inadequate ability to sleep, I woke up around 5 AM on Friday, wrote my previous blog entry, and was able to start taking care of business at 8 AM sharp. In addition to learning not how to order breakfast or dispose of my food tray I was able to obtain my university card (which won’t activate for another couple of days), register with a doctor… or as the British say “Register with a GP at the Surgery”, sign for my housing contract and internet contract…it may take a week to get internet in my room, go food shopping, and take a stroll around King’s College without having to pay a dime by flashing my impotent student card. This was quite satisfying as I waited to do it until a group of Korean tourists tried to pass through the main gate and were made to pay quite a hefty sum in order to enter the college grounds. I have my small victories.

If you hadn’t noticed by the status of my university card and internet contract, the British take quite some time to get anything done. My neighbor Simon put it best when he said, and I paraphrase, “It must be their tea time and subsequent siesta from all responsibility after around 2:00 PM which causes us to suffer”. Indeed it must be... but for the time it is quite enchanting how nothing here is serious and everyone is quite laid back…and nothing ever gets completely done. I, for one, would have lost all control had somebody at Rutgers told me I wouldn’t have internet for several days… this in spite of the fact that the only things that need to occur for me to gain access are my contract going from one office to another 10 meters down the hall, and a click of two or three buttons to recognize my machine’s MAC/IP address. Efficiency must be a word coined in America… or Canada, to give Simon credit.

I got home around 1:00 from my errands, ate, and took a four hour nap. I woke promptly for dinner at the dining hall, drinks at the MCR, and then went into town later to grab traditional late-night British food: Gyros and Souvlaki. Indeed, the British have done a nice job at spelling foreign food differently such that when I order I am thoroughly confused as to what it is I will be receiving. Thankfully, a large Yeros is a Gyro and Cheese Crisps are Cheese flavo(u)red chips. I’ve been told that as a foreigner, if I ever start calling “chips” as “crisps” I will be subsequently pariahed from the rest of the community. Thank god we’ve got self-respect in numbers.

So I write this early Saturday morning, a product of my well-adjusted sleep schedule. Today I hope to obtain a bank account… and if I’m lucky get a pay-as-you-go phone. I’ve heard they should be called Broke-as-you-talk in reference to the outrageous rates one needs to pay… so I’ll probably be registering for Skype-Out once I get internet in my room. In other words, I’ll be able to make unlimited calls to landlines in about 40 countries and cell phones in about 10 (US included). More on this when the British put down their tea cups and get to my paperwork.