Settling in...

Well, it's officially my first full day here in Milton Keynes. I arrived yesterday about 11am (two hours past my supposed landing time). From Heathrow I was taken to Walton High. The school, without a doubt, is the largest high school I've seen in my life (well, New Rochelle high is much larger, but moving on...). The staff is incredibly nice and hospitable. I feel as though I'll be fine when it comes to fitting in/meeting teaching standards. The students' GSCEs just arrived today and, from what I've been told, all scored very high--a good sign indeed ;) 

My house is HUGE. I've never lived in a place like this--EVER! It has two levels--five bedrooms and two empty rooms, a brand new kitchen with top of the line appliances, fully furnished dinning and living room, and all bedrooms come with furniture and bedding. *waits for reader to close mouth from amazement* haha. My two roommates, thus far, are incredibly nice. One is from Packastan and one from Manchester (he's Muslim as well). The other woman is from Australia, though she's having issues with her Visa at the moment and isn't arriving until the first day of classes. I told her I'd update her on anything she needed to know. The town of MK is set up very much like Columbia, Maryland. You have Milton Keynes, the actual town, but within the town you have places like Kings Contrivance, Huntington etc. I live in Walnut Tree, a subset of Milton Keynes and each subset, much like Columbia, has a town centre (note the spelling haha). The area is very English, though I've been told it's nothing like the rest of the UK. Still, it looks similar to where Harry Potter lives (his Aunt and Uncles place in Surrey--which btw--is quite accurate). The City Centre is really nice. With the ski place, the shops, bars, pubs, clubs, rock climbing wall, markets etc., there is a lot to do/choose from. I'll be spending a lot of time there-- I can already tell. 

Today, after going for a run, I did a bunch of looking around. Found my way to the local pub for some lunch followed by finding my way to a bus stop that took me into the City Centre. I really have been away from the UK for a while because a lot of what became second nature to me, has pretty much disappeared. I'm still getting use to the money and the accent here is more cockney rather than posh, like it was at RHUL. I have a difficult time understanding a good portion of the people here, but I think my ear will readjust as the weeks continue. Anyway, after lunch I asked around and found the bus that takes you into the City Centre (instead of walking the four miles). It's really easy and rather cheep; I can get a month pass for 35 pounds--not bad! My first errand of the day was to purchase a bike. I am now a proud owner of a bike and plan on taking that everywhere lol. MK is really Green Friendly for the reason that they have a bike/walking path that goes ALL OVER (Milton Keynes is not small, but they've managed to create a path that spans the entire town). After that I poked about and then headed home (purchased a new umbrella that is complete rubbish and essentially did NOTHING when it started to rain this afternoon during my walk back from the bus stop--note to self: do not skimp on an umbrella--less really is less...). 

I met a friend of a friend from RHUL who took her sister and myself back to City Centre for a drink. It was really nice meeting more people and starting to see that I'm going to have no problem finding friends around these parts :) 

Okay it's 11 and I should get going. I'm heading into London to meet Steph tomorrow--haven't seen her in about a 2 years or so! I'll update more in a few days or so! Pictures will be up as soon as there are enough to create a photo album on facebook.