First Post!!!

January 11th/12th/13th :
Traveling is such a joy and a pain in the ass. My flight from Portland was delayed about 2 hours because “we are having problems with the engines, again.” The point will make me not fly with Delta again! This was the first time with them and there seemed to be no causes that they could have helped as they tried to insure us that we would make it to NYC at all that day. Leg two: Moving luggage from one terminal to the next in JFK is not the easiest but not to bad. For some odd reason JFK was extremely warm but what ever. So I meet up with Bethany first and then Loren joined and Melissa came soon after. We all hit it off pretty well and when our flight was delayed for an hour the company was nice. Then we got on the plane now you expect when you get on a plane you will be leaving shortly….nope. We waited for about two hours on the plane. First they had to load a database onto the plane-okay not sure why that isn’t done when the plane is not active in the fleet and then it was decided that the plane did have ice on it. BUT FOR SOME UNKNOWN REASON, even after a snow storm had just passed through New York all of the de-ice crews had been sent home, so with in the two hour delay one of it was waiting for the crew to come from home…. So we arrived at London about 2.5 hours late and taxied for a while so from the time we got off the plane we had 40minutes. We had to pass through security and meet another kid John (He will be Johnny for the semester since there are 3 of them…).We got on our flight and there was probably 15 other ISEP students on the flight most of them unbeknown to me. We arrived in Accra late because that flight was also delayed. And they say that flights are on average more on time now then before. I do not believe it!
Most of the group, 30 by now make our way through immigration, baggage claim, and customs to be helped to buses where we shall head to the University. A few minutes passes and we arrived. There are so many people and names to remember and I still don’t think I meet them all, I know I haven’t met my room mate. I am currently waiting for her to arrive this evening.
The rooms are not bad- They aren’t southern but they have a fan and lights- what more do we really need. We each get a bed, desk, and armoire. There are two book shelves and two more comfy chairs as well. I got my power to work with no problem which is nice. It is Tuesday night I still do not have internet which is okay- but I would like to get pictures and this entry up as soon as possible.
It is extremely warm and humid 82* at 9:20pm- when the sun goes down it is a little cooler- There has been a breeze today which has helped immensely. The university is very unlike universities in the USA. Many of the professors live here with there families all within this “compound,” there are stores, banks, markets, seamstress, and many other amenities right here. It is about a 20/30 minute walk to most of the places on the campus. There are paths and roads leading all over the place.
Orientation began today. We had a safety talk and a lady from the registration office came to speak to us about the process to register for classes- they have been slowly turning it over to an online system which we are one of the first semesters to have this. I was sorta looking forward to ‘running’ around to get classes. We got phones but I am basically only going to use it for local calls because I have skype. I still don’t know if all will be okay with that because of the no internet situation at this point, but I think it will be fine.
The food so far is good. It is interesting to see what foods are spicy and which ones are not. Opposite to what you would normally think. Water is a most at all times. So much is lost through sweating. So one random thing- we need to buy and provide our own toilet paper. The bathrooms are not bad- 3 sinks, showers, and toilets for about 10 of us. They are in okay condition nothing worse then some camps I have been too.
I am very tired still not on the time zone. Last night which was the first night I did not get to sleep until 4am…luckily our day on the 13th didn’t start till noonish. Tomorrow we begin earlier so hopefully I can get to sleep earlier tonight.
We have a weekend trip the 24/25th to the Cape Coast and February 6-8 to Kumasi. Other excursions are still to be planned and dates to be announced. Once we all have our schedules it will allow for more planning for any trips we might want to take in small groups.
Well I guess that is it for the first full day and such entry!