Crossing of the pond successful, bangers and potato hash procured.

Seven hours on a plane, five crossed time zones, three patchy hours of sleep, two overweight bags, one pond jump and a full English breakfast later (not a single partridge or pear tree, however) I find myself across an ocean and in Leicester.

Yesterday afternoon, after three weeks of slow packing and two days of frantic bag-stuffing, I was finally in a position (albeit a slightly frazzled one) to get on a plane. My enormous duffel bags were stuffed to the brim, each coming in at 69.5 lbs. (the limit for free checked bags is 50 lbs. while the absolute limit is 70 lbs., so I'd say that's quite a packing accomplishment), and both earning their well-deserved $50 overweight-bag surcharge. And even though I managed to pack almost everything I thought I might need, the various kitchen appliances I was considering didn't fit, and I honestly can't tell you how I managed to bring 140 lbs. worth of belongings with me.

When I arrived at Heathrow Airport at the ungodly hour of 6:35 in the morning, two Rotary members from Leicester, Moira and Howard, were waiting for me. They were holding up a large picture of me that I'd sent to them (awesome and just a little embarrassing), and although they were slightly thrown because I was wearing glasses, we managed to connect just fine. And then these incredibly kind people loaded me and my enormous luggage into their little hatchback, took me out for a full English breakfast (pictured above, and let me just say YUM - I'm a huge fan of the English versions of both bacon and baked beans), drove me the 2.5 hours to Leicester AND moved me into my dorm room. If you have to pick up your life and move it to another country for a stint, this is the way to do it. They even brought dorm room essentials (including an electric kettle - the British equivalent of a toaster oven) for me to use for the year. Simply incredible. I was blown away and my life was made exceedingly easy compared to what it could have been, especially considering the jet lag and mild sleep deprivation.My dorm turned out to be pretty nice - basic and clean. The coolest thing, however, is that it comes with it's very own BEANBAG chair. That's right folks, a beanbag chair. How fantastically middle school. And I have my own bathroom, which is also stellar. So far, I have 3 flatmates - Amanda, from Holland, who is studying business; Nick, from South Africa, who is exceedingly tall and studying film and animation; and Zathew (the pronunciation of which I always butcher), from China, who is studying fashion design. Maybe she can give me some tips. But the four of us share a kitchen and "common" area, and they are all very nice. I hear rumor that there is another American in the building, Emily from California, but I haven't met her yet. All I know for sure is that she's guaranteed to be much tanner than I am.

And even though my body was screaming for a nap, I went out for a walk around Leicester and took in a few of the "city center" sights - basically a large square with side streets full of various shops. But there are definitely some cute areas, and I'm looking forward to exploring once I've gotten more sleep and my bearings. I even managed to figure out the whole electricity/plug converter thing and get internet set up so I could charge my computer and let my family know that I was alive. All in all, it was a pretty good day, except for the part where I dropped my toothbrush in the toilet (or the loo, I suppose I should call it). Thank goodness I'm an over-prepared over-packer, since 2 oz of that 140 lbs. of luggage was a spare.