get in you had to give the password to the lady at the bottom of the
stairs. As I ascended the stairs for the first time a sadness sprung up
inside me like a fresh water spring, (not a metal spring). I was going to
miss home for the very first time. I was going to miss my parents, and
I was going to miss Jordan like a beached whale misses the ocean.
Jordan acted like he didn’t care that I was going to leave Qingdao.
“I will have the room all to myself and I won’t have to listen to you
talk to yourself all day, which can be so stressful,” he said.
However, Jordan was quick to phone me soon after I arrived in
London. I’d got lost in the prohibited forest and had to take a secret
passageway back to my room to avoid missing his call. I told him all
about my new surroundings, but he wasn’t impressed,
“You have to share a room?” my little brother asked me, shocked.
“It is a student residence, Jordan; it’s not a castle. In London
there’s not much space.”
It took me about four days to really settle in my room, and another few
to fully unpack. My valet, Blenkinsop, showed me how to settle my
falcon in the falconry, how to launder in the laundry, and how to get
food from the foodery.
I was eager to start classes immediately so I could meet people
and make some life long friends. After my experience in Qingdao I
wasn’t afraid of not knowing anyone, but rather saw it as an
opportunity.
On my second day in halls I finally got to meet my new roommate.
His name was Dustin Dustin, and although his name sounded like the
answer to the question ‘what kind of cleaning are you doing? Answer
me twice,’ he was cool. I helped him settle into his half of the room,
and explained the penalties for trespassing on my half. Dustin’s
parents wanted him to become a lawyer, and he was studying Aquatic
Sciences and Knitwear, which meant we would both be in the Faculty
of Languages and Cultures. Dustin Dustin was from New York, New
York, and although he rarely spoke, when he did, he talked about
America a lot. I understood a few things about the USA from watching
TV and reading ‘Where’s Waldo’, but I’d never dreamed of actually