We made it!

We made it to Birmingham! After a long day of traveling on Sept. 11th (our flights were rebooked, sent us to a different airport, and we missed our train... thanks Swiss airlines), we arrived late in the night at our new home of four months.

As many of you know, we are now attending Newman University College in Birmingham. It's a bit confusing because the school shares the same name as NU in Kansas, but they are completely unrelated otherwise! However, throughout the past couple of days we are already realizing the schools are a lot more similar than we expected.

This Newman is about the same size in student population as back home, but the campus is much smaller! There are about the same number of buildings but they are all squished together around one small quad in the middle. I kind of miss my long sidewalks, sprawling lawns, and giant trees of NU back home! Here, all the buildings are connected, so it almost feels like one giant building. The plus side? You never have to walk in the rain or cold if you don't want to, and it rains a lot.

The building complex is a little confusing because all the hallways look the same and they all connect. You have to read the signs or look outside to get an idea of where you are. If you thought it was fast to walk to class in Kansas, you have no idea about here!

The dorms are pretty standard, we'll put up pictures as soon as we are settled to give future students more of an idea. They're pretty small but individual rooms so it's not so bad. The cafe/restaurant on campus is actually pretty good and the prices are the cheapest around so we will probably be down there a lot.

We've met some fabulous people so far! I never, EVER, expected anyone to say that they loved my accent (I have an accent?), but they're all over it here.

Also, we got out on a bus and into the downtown area yesterday and it is wonderful! Honestly, parts of the city feels like a cleaner, better paved, wider streets version of parts of New York. LOVE IT! They have a giant shopping and entertainment area and great places to walk around. Nice parks and I found out that the Cadbury factory is only three miles away!

Alright tons of pictures of campus and the town coming soon! Also maybe a video tour of some places on campus for those students coming next semester.