Roommates & Shopping!

City Center/Shopping Area (Outdoor Part)

So since moving in I have spent the past two days in the shopping center of Derby, which seems to be comprised of a large outdoor area that has shops/café’s lining either side of a wide, brick, pedestrian-only  packed street and an enormous indoor mall.  Since I have no internet at home yet I have been stealing wifi from the McDonalds, a café chain Gregg, and the local Library.  Unfortunately only the library, which I am now officially a member of, has an outlet and their hours are very limited combined with a 35 min battery life has led to minimal internet usage the past few days.  Side note pretty angry I left my Ray-Bans in the library and noticed within 5 minutes after leaving only to return to find them taken. Note to self: Do not take expensive sunglasses to Europe!

I have finally joined the smartphone revolution; unfortunately I joined a very limited pay-as-you go company so I am currently in the process of switching to another provider. I will soon be getting 400 talking mins, 3000 texts, and unlimited data for only 15 pounds per month/top-up… not bad!

Part of my Walk-The Center Cathedral is Close to my Final Destination

With nothing but my two long legs to get me around I find that I am frequently making trips back and forth to the shopping district which is about one mile/15 minutes away because I can only carry so much at a time. Between bedding, food, and sundries I have gone there and back 3 times both days… that’s 6 miles each day walking, no wonder the Europeans are in good shape.

My two roommates Stuart and Becca have joined me and turn out to be really nice/fun people.  They are both rising seniors in mechanical engineering and attend University of Virginia, which even though we are rival schools we have found some way to put aside our differences.  Stuart is from Blacksburg, VA (Virginia Tech’s location) where his dad teaches a mechanical engineering course and Becca is from Chantilly, VA where it turns out we went to the same elementary and middle school, but she was a grade ahead of me. To quote a particular mouse “It’s a small world after all!”

PS: I bought a duvet to use as a mattress pad and 3 pillows (one of which is memory foam) so I am sleeping easier. Then today we all spent a good amount of time scrapping and scrubbing + purchasing some air fresheners so everything is smelling a bit better… finally starting to feel a bit more like home.