This is it then, I’ve upped sticks from my little English Peninsula and travelled across the vast Atlantic Ocean to Bethel College in Kansas. This, it must be said, was quite an out of character move. But the opportunity arose and it didn’t seem like one that could be passed up. Anyway, here I am. The experience has not admittedly been the most glamorous of my life to date, but then I didn’t really expect it to be. I departed from home at 3am on Wednesday morning and flew from Manchester three hours later. From there it was on too Amsterdam and, after two pleasant hours admiring the bevy of tulip stands, I set off on my nine-hour leg into Atlanta. I was grimly prepared for the inevitable trials of the journey, and I wasn’t disappointed. I was seated just behind the screaming child, an inescapable feature of every long-haul flight, and I must say that her performance was a particularly fine one. I can’t say I took much joy from the situation, and my misery was compounded when the little lass finally settled down to sleep ten minutes before the plane was due to land. Pretty much the first thing I saw after stepping off the plane was a large television broadcasting CNN. The commentators didn’t seem to like Donald Trump very much.
A short connecting flight to Wichita later and I’ve arrived in Kansas. Coach Parsley couldn’t have given me a better welcome – we went for dinner before touring the Campus and the local town of Newton. There’s an enormous Walmart which I’m told sells everything from lemonade powder to semi – automatic rifles. Only in America. Having been awake pretty much constantly for over 26 hours, I was happy to finally go to bed. Unfortunately, my body clock is pretty well trained, and I awoke just after 6 this morning. Today is a very busy day on campus – a lot of students are starting to move into their dormitories. Having moved in, I’ve now been ordered to quarantine for two weeks, which is something that I’m not relishing. This actually means that I will be moving into my digs sometime in late August, and that I will begin my academic career at Bethel from the seclusion of my room. I’m painting quite a dull picture, but there is plenty of room for optimism. The campus is absolutely beautiful, especially the central buildings. The College owns an awful lot of land, most of which is not yet in use. This just means there’s more space for us cross country runners to train in – the college has constructed trails that run for miles around the perimeter, and coach has been busy converting the unused grassland into a racing circuit. The track and stadium look amazing, though I don’t know how much Football (I refuse to call it soccer) and American Football is going to happen this term. Over all I’m very much looking forward to life on campus, I’ve just got to get this quarantine out of the way first!
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