Falling Faintly, Faintly Falling

Customs was scary because I was nervous. All the long, winding corridors and industrial orange lights dying the snow outside had a vaguely Soviet vibe. All the little old ladies in blue British Border Dept. vests, however, were very obliging and pointed me exactly in the direction that I should go; and there were a bunch of other students ahead of me, and so I sort of watched what they did. Turns out all I needed in the way of documentation was my letter from St. Andrews and my passport. No one went through my luggage (in front of me, anyway. I dunno if it was searched before it came out), and when I walked into International Arrivals, the guy from St. Andrews Direct was right there waiting. It was all very easy.

I traveled with two other kids, Alex from Sweet Brier in Virginia who's also in classics and Carter from Denver who was, I think, doing sciences, as well as a mother of a regular student, neither of who's name I caught. Both the kids were going to New Hall, on the other side of town from me, close to the golf course. Walking out of the warm airport and into the snow, I couldn't quite place my thoughts or emotions. I was tired and very much awake, covered in snow but not cold. Everything seemed weirdly off. Not in bad way, just strange. I kind of maybe almost got hit by a car because I was looking in the wrong direction when I was crossing into the parking lot. The driver's accent was very thick. It was like watching a telenovella. I caught words, phrases, sentences, but it took longer to piece them together and sometime I couldn't make sense of them.

We passed through fields and fields blanketed in white, the snow blowing fiercely and giving a kind of grainy texture to the air. It was hard to see much of anything. The driver talked the whole time, about farms and sheep and flowers and bridges and you know right now I have a hard time remembering what all he said. The villages we past through were tiny, and very much in line with that scene from Half Blood Prince with Bellatrix and Narcissa going to Snape - is it sad that the Harry Potter movies are my only point of reference? I remember thinking that I had never seen that much stone construction in my life, everything's built out of huge grey blocks, and not in any sort of American brick style. It as if some of the stone housing in Old Metairie crossbred with the little one-stories in Lakeview. The layout of the towns and the roads reminded me of New Jersey, in that you just keep going and sort of cross into a new place without any warning.

Eventually the snow gave way to rolling green hills, and the sun came out, and we drive through Culpar, a former market town, and before I could absorb my impressions of it, we were at New Hall. A lot of circles, the lack of food, and an upset stomach had all made me fairly nauseous, and now I was beginning to feel it. I felt the cold air as the door opened, and the other kids out out, and soon enough we were passing golf shops on North Street, heading towards Albany Park. The street was narrow, and again I was overwhelmed by the amount of stone. I tried to mark where restaurants were, we passed a medieval-looking church, later I would learn that it's St. Sal's Chapel which is associated with the University, and then the ruins of the Cathedral, and then we were still going, further and further out of town. This driving on the wrong side business had begun to get to me now, and nerves too, I suppose. We were winding along a high stone wall, medieval by the looks of it, over a bridge, and then into a more residential area. I kept looking out for the sea.

Albany Park is a collection of houses that feel like they're scaled to slightly smaller than person-size. It's got a beach motel after Spring Break vibe. For anyone who might get the point of reference, Westco is nicer.



The room was smaller than any dorm I've ever been in, the heater looked like it belonged in a period piece, the bed was really just a box of springs, the bathrooms were larger than I expected but really only as spacious, comfortable and well-built as, for anyone who might get the reference, the bathrooms on Junior line. The whole thing was bad news bears. But, dizzy and tired as I was, I got unpacked, and then went outside to explore and find something to eat. No one else seemed to be around save the Park cat, a pretty nonchalant, friendly, huge tabby who I am going to call Crookshanks until someone tells me not to. I explored the computer room, which was dusty but nice enough and the laundry rooms, which were about on college par. Got lost a couple times until I was able to find my way around the complex, and somehow found myself cold and hungry and walking up a path towards a wooden gate. And then I came here.



And suddenly everything was great.