Arrivals

Sarah (Slipek, a close friend and fellow Holy Cross student who I flew to England with) and I have been in Bristol for two days now, and we are absolutely loving it! We will be staying here with a friend and her family for the next week before heading to our respective universities on the 26th.

Bristol is beautiful (and big). The city is directly west from London, located just across the water from Wales. Sarah and I spent today (after waking up very, very, very late I might add) putzing around and walking through the downtown area. Thanks to what-couldn’t-have-been-more-perfect weather, the day was absolutely stunning – a great way to get acquainted with our new home while burning off the chips we had for dinner last night (and the chips we had for breakfast this morning).

In true teenage fashion, earlier this evening one of my younger sisters just came out and asked it via text: “how’s england??” That’s a good question. England is, well, terrifying. But totally awesome. Peaceful, fun, exciting. New. I’m definitely still in a stage of transition, something I imagine will be a reality for quite awhile; it takes some energy to truly wrap my head around the fact that I am here, all the way across an ocean. Then again, I’ve already experienced long periods of time where it doesn’t even occur to me that I’m so far from home. Just like with anything new it ebbs and flows, that feeling of stark homesickness melding and mixing with that sense of total comfort. And that’s ok – this is a process, and processes simply take time.

All in all, life is pretty darn good. We’re here, we’re home (with friends, at least), and we’re full of fish and chips – what’s not to love?

I’ll be back on in a week to tell you all about my first day at Oxford. Until then,

Cheers!

HRH

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New Words of the Week

*After being inspired by another close friend who is currently blogging for Holy Cross from Buenos Aires, Argentina (check out her blog here! https://hmbutl17.me.holycross.edu/), I’ve decided to include a little extra section in each blog post that shares some of the new things I’m learning here – in my case, WORDS. Big words, little words, important words, slang words, and everything in between (no swear words, sorry!) From now on, you’ll be able to find “New Words of the Week” at the bottom of each post. Enjoy!

chip (n): equivalent to french fry in American english

quid (n): informal word for one pound (think the British dollar)

shout (n): a guess given by a contestant on a British game show

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