So. Today I touched down on Aberdeen. This week (beginning since Monday until now) has been the most fast forwarded week of my life. Monday I left for England and arrived Tuesday morning. Wednesday I went down to London for an important meeting. Thursday I awoke early to get ready to spend a (basically) entire day in downtown London with my cousin. We went to the Museum of Natural History. And then Friday, today, I awoke at 4:30 AM to get ready to go to the airport for a flight at 8:10 to Aberdeen. I flew out with my granddad. And let me tell you, British Security (B.S. for short) is seriously stupid.
For example, everybody is still only allowed one piece of hand luggage that is no wider than a notebook. My hand luggage was basically a huge bookbag that had my laptop and some peripherals in it. The line to go through security was HUGE. While you waited, Brits would be walking up and down checking to see if your hand luggage would be appropriate. They saw me, well, a lady who couldn't speak English saw me, and said, "Excuse sir, your bag too big. Please check size in box." That meant I had to stuff it into a box to check the size. It was too big. So, after quite a display of bickering between me, her, my granddad, and a second Brit worker, everything became under control. What'd we do? We got one of the infamous plastic bags (the clear ones plastered over CNN) and put my granddad's small carry on in there with some of my small things and laptop. Then the size was perfectly fine. After we had gone through security, we put everything back in my bookbag. What a bunch of garbage.
Plus, I got my picture taken for some terrorist identification thing. The guy said it was so I don't get confused from being international and domestic. That was a load of bollocks.
How many terrorists have they thwarted with this whole 'one small piece' idea? I'm guessing slim to none. Maybe if they just did a bang up job then such a need wouldn't be necessary. I'm paying here to fly, I'm not paying to be in discomfort. If I want to be in discomfort, I'll go yell at a pregnant woman for taking up too much space.
Other than that, we got in to Aberdeen just fine. The campus is absolutely gorgeous. It is immensely huge as well. My dorm is clear across campus and on top of a pretty steep hill. My calves will be amazing when I come home.
The people are incredibly knowledgeable about the area (know which bus to take to where) and are super helpful.
I'm pretty sure I'm going to love this place.
