My Phone Number!

Okay if you were to call me from the States my number is 011447531064119. In order for it to work my mom and dad had to add the international plan to their phones for $3.99 per month with calls going at 20 cents per minute. If you don't have the international plan then it is $1.49 per minute. I'm not really expecting anyone to call, but I wanted to post this information in case of emergency and just for reference. Okay I have to go do homework and go to bed now it's almost midnight!!!

Contacting Me

We went on our walking tour of the city of Plymouth today. The city is pretty decently sized and everything is pretty much in walking distance. We started our tour with our instructor and then he left us on our own to wander and find our own way home. I shopped around with a couple of the girls for awhile and then we found our way back home to the dorm from town all on our own! We are at a port, so we walked right down to the ocean this afternoon. I got to see the steps our fore fathers took to get on the Mayflower in their voyage to the United States. We also walked around town quite a bit, and I got my new cell phone. I can recieve free incoming calls, and for me to dial out is about 12 cents per minute. I can also send and recieve text messages, which are about 20 cents per message for me to send. I'm not sure what your international rates to contact me are though, that is up to your service in the U.S. Anyways my phone number is still to come because I need to figure out the country codes for you to dial out.

There is also the service called SKYPE. If you go to skype.com and click the download button, the service will download to your computer. Then it will walk you through setting up an account with a login name and password. If you then search my name "Nichole Humitz" it should bring my skype account up. Then if you hit the green call button it will call my computer. My Internet is not yet working in my dorm room, hopefully it will get fixed in the morning and then I can keep my skype on at all times. You can call me on there from computer to computer for free, or I can call from my computer to your phone for 21 cents per minute. There is also an instant message chat option where you can message back and forth or leave a message if the person is away from the computer.

That's it for now, so until I can work out the kinks on my computer I can still email or call from my phone. Of course, my computer is the only one in the group having problems... BUT I'm just making due until we can figure it out.

I'M HERE!!!!

Well I'm finally here safe and sound. Our flight went perfect and we actually got in a little early. I was able to sleep a little on the plane and I watched the movie 27 Dresses, one of my favorites :) so that was nice. I sat next to a man from London, so I got to hear about the country and city from him and he gave me lots of good advice about traveling there. The British accents are thick and a little harder to understand than I was expecting. After we arrived in London we took a five hour bus ride, which is actually called a "coach" not a bus, to Plymouth. Driving on the left side of the road was wild, with cars flying past us on our right. It was super cool though to do a "road trip" because we got to see the country side of England. There were a lot of brown and tan colored cows grazing all over the side of the road which I thought was really funny. We passed by Stonehenge on the highway, it was really cool to see, and we are going back to visit there on a field trip. As soon as we got to the University of Plymouth we got our rooms, then had to go down for a dinner reception. We met the other MSU masters students who are also studying here for their second or third years in our same program. Everyone has been extremely nice and welcoming. After dinner we went to the pub right around the corner of our dorm where everyone met to watch the Spain vs. Germany World Cup game. By the time we finished one drink we could barely keep our eyes open so I went back to my room, unpacked, then fell right asleep!!!

This morning we had to wake up bright and early at 6 am for breakfast at 7 am and class at 8 am. The jet lag is kind of getting to me, because they are five hours ahead here. So essentially I woke up at 1 am this morning. And my feet are super swollen!! When I got off the plane I was walking really funny because my feet were busting out of my shoes, and its only a little better today but I could only wear my flip flops today. So if anyone knows if there is something I can take to fix this please tell me!!

So today, we are having class from 8-1, then lunch, then we are getting a tour of the city. The food isn't that bad, just kind of plain. My room is really tiny, but it's my own and I have my own bathroom. I took pictures and when I get a chance I will put them up here for everyone to see.

If you want to email me my email is humitzni@msu.edu or you can comment on here. I miss all you guys, I wish everyone was here with me. I will post as often as I can. Oh yeah! Gas is approximately $10 per gallon here!!! Crazy expensive and the exchange rate is double the U.S. dollar. Well, that's pretty much what has been going on so far. I think I will be getting a European cell phone too and I will post that number as soon as I can. It's super expensive to call from a pay phone, about 1 pound per minute which would be 2 U.S. dollars a minute. So email is best, or I will post later about "skype" a service to talk long distance from my computer to another computer or phone. I will post again soon miss you all!!!!

Subscribing to the Blog

Some were wondering how to subscribe to this blog so that you will be notified when there are updates, so I will try my best to explain how to do it. If you look on your internet tabs (up by the back, forward, refresh, home, etc.) there should be a little icon to click on that looks like an orange megaphone thing. This is called an RSS feed. If you click on it this will "subscribe" you to the blog. There are different ways to subscribe, you can get alerts sent to your email or create a new tab on your homepage as a "favorite." There is also a "Subscribe" link at the bottom of the blog that I think you can choose as well. I'm kind of new to the subscribing and RSS, but I hope that helps!!

I will be leaving tonight for my overnight flight and I will arrive in London about 5 AM U.S. time. Then I'm taking a long coach ride to the University of Plymouth. It's going to be a lot of traveling but I'm looking forward to it!! I will post on here as soon as I can to let everyone know when I arrive there safely. I won't have a phone until I can make it to the european phone sotre and get a pre-paid phone, but I will do my best to call home when I get there :)

I'm Studying Aboad!!

Welcome family and friends to my blog! For those of you who are not familiar with blogging, it is basically an online journal. It is possible for you to subscribe to my blog so that you will be notified every time I update it, or you can just check back periodically to see if I have added any new entries. There is also a comment option, where you can add comments to my posts as well.

My Study Abroad adventure will begin the evening of June 28th, when I leave for my overnight flight. I will arrive in London the morning of June 29th, which is where I will take a coach bus with everyone else from my program to Plymouth, England. This is the city that the historic Mayflower made its voyage from Great Britain to the United States with the pilgrims. I will be studying at the University of Plymouth. If you click on the link you will be taken to the university's website and you can see where I will be living for three weeks! During my stay I will be placed in a British school as a student teacher and I will also be working on an independent project as well. The weekend of July 4th-6th I will be traveling over to Dublin, Ireland with a few girls from my program. Then the weekend of July 11th-13th, our entire program will be going to London. The official study abroad program ends July 19th, when our coach bus brings us back to London from Plymouth. From there, I will be going through "the tube" to Paris with another friend from my program. We will be in Paris July 19th-23rd. My return flight home is from Paris in the afternoon of July 23rd.

I am extremely excited to see and learn about these new places I have only dreamed about visiting. Thank you to everyone who has made it possible for me to take this amazing trip of a lifetime. I will try my best to keep you all updated here on my blog with what I am up to :)