Day 23: What day is it?

After three amazing weeks in Asia that are easier told in photos than in any other form (mostly because I did not have any time to write for Catching the Trade Winds), I find myself suddenly in England, where it is precisely what everyone has warned me: cold and wet. Despite the chill, however, I am managing to bundle up and carry on. I arrived yesterday morning after a seven-hour flight (which seems almost short after 18 hours of air time getting back from Asia), at which point my group and I were rushed off to get our keys for the Grange (apartment complex), then rushed off to the Grange to put our things in our flats, then rushed off to Orientation, then rushed off to an International Student pow-wow...by the time we returned to our flats that evening, I was so exhausted that I nearly fell into my bed and was asleep by eight o'clock.

Today has been the same kind of rigorous routine: starting at 5:30am, when I woke up suddenly and could not get back to sleep. Since we had nowhere to be until 9am, I ate a bagel with nutella and crawled back in bed after setting an alarm. I then proceeded to have a very odd sequence of dreams in which I was fighting off very malicious children that came from the forest on a path, struggling to protect everyone, and suddenly waking up in a room that was clearly still in the Grange. One of the students on our trip came in and told me that my cousin Ruthy had noticed I wasn't feeling well and had me taken up to the room to sleep. I don't remember much more happening before I awoke once again, in a different room in the Grange, very confused and wanting very badly to wake up in my own room. And then I did wake up in my own room, but I could tell that I wasn't awake, so I pinched myself and slapped myself and pounded my head against the wall without feeling any pain in severe frustration with the fact that I simply could not wake up from this ridiculous dream. I have never had an awareness of dream dream in which I was particularly frustrated with not being able to wake. And then I suddenly awoke to my alarm at 7:30am and was too terrified to get trapped in a dream to go back to sleep. So I got up with a good hour and a half to get ready and slowly put myself together for enrolment.

After the tedious things that were required, we walked over to visit the York Minster, a large Cathedral and Minster that is visible from almost anywhere in York. It was magnificent, of course, with intricate details paired with the highest ceilings I have ever found in a structure. It was beautiful. Hard to leave, in fact.

We ended the day at our program director's house for tea, snacks, Wii, and the Princess Bride (because for some reason the King's Speech wasn't available on Netflix UK). It's now nearing 11pm and even though I very discreetly passed out during the Princess Bride, I am exhausted, and we have a bright and early day tomorrow morning to visit Liverpool, which, though it is the home of the Beatles, will always and forever remain in my heart as the home of my favourite childhood author, Brian Jacques.