My first week in England was interesting, to say the least. I got to my new home a week before classes and orientation, so I was kind of left to myself to figure out my surroundings. I was with two other girls from New Paltz, Meredith and Kathleen, and Kathleen lives in my lodging, so it was nice to have them around for the first few days. I slept the first two days away, barely ate, and felt pretty messed up. To be completely honest, I was questioning how I was going to make it living in this place–being in a new house in a new town with new people 5 hours ahead of your friends and relatives is not easy! I didn’t expect it to be, but I didn’t know how much it would affect me. It took me so many weeks to adjust, and I think that’s an important thing to know coming into this experience.

Once orientation came around, I was beyond excited to make new friends. The day after, there was a trip for international students to Leeds Castle. This was the day I started to feel like I belonged, since I met a really cool group of people that I stuck with for the rest of the day. We laughed so much we cried, we talked about nothing and everything, we couldn’t believe that we didn’t know each other before this day brought us together. Here’s a few of us in front of the castle:

The next few orientation events were amazing and I was loving my new friends, but I still had a lot of extra time to kill in between days–something I stupidly did not think about before I left. This was definitely the biggest struggle for me.