Travel Adventures in England

It’s been almost five days since I left North Carolina to head to England and I haven’t made it very far, let’s put it that way. After the fiascos of flights in the United States, Carmen and I made it to London Airport and made it through customs and immigration without any issues. Since we missed our original day, no one was at the airport to pick us up. With absolutely no help from the university on how to arrive at Keele, I took to Facebook and bombarded anyone who I thought would help me! Some friends made it sound so simple, take a bus or the underground to the train station, take the train, and afterwards there was a bus to take us directly to campus; or so it seemed. 

We collected our luggage and made our way to the Underground Railway. We bought our tickets for the tube and off we went. What the lady at the ticket counter declined to tell us was that we’d have to change tubes and there would be massive amounts of stairs. Yes, stairs. Stairs with my two suitcases and two carry-ons jammed full of stuff (easily 50-70lbs each bag). Let’s just say that majorly sucked. We made it through the underground and surfaced at Euston Station in London where we bought a train ticket to Stoke-on-Trent. After pulling our luggage to the 17th Terminal (the very end of the platform) we collapsed on the train, thankful to be sitting again and not pulling our luggage. However, because we had so much luggage we took over an entire cubicle of cars (the conducted wasn’t too pleased).

After a 2hr 45min journey through some actually pretty countryside we emerged in Stoke-on-Trent!! A kind man had pity on us and helped us carry our luggage off the train and directed us to the bus stop, in which we could take the bus to Keele University.

The driver dumped us out at Keele University and we probably looked like lost animals, just searching around for the Chancellor’s Building. One thing I have to say, is that the people at Keele have been really friendly. A girl saw us struggling up the many hills of campus and offered to pull one of my suitcases for me, which was a kind relief for my now blistered-hands. We got to the Chancellor’s Building and collected all our forms, paperwork and room keys and then made our way to our accommodation, mine which happens to be .06 miles away from campus! There was no way I was going to be able to carry my luggage any further, so they were kind enough to drop me off at my “block”. To my surprise however, room ‘24’ is not on the second floor, but it’s on the third floor. Three flights of stairs later, a good cry, and trying to figure out how to open my door…I finally made it to Keele University.