T-Minus Ten Days!

You know that feeling you get the night before you leave on a week long vacation when you're in a mad panic and rushing around the house trying to pack and think of last minute things to do. There's the midnight run to Wal-Mart and the question of what to do with the dog. Yes, I've officially arrived at the point of no return and the momentary panic of waking up one day closer to life in Wales. I have done so much to get ready but, as always, it seems like the more I do the longer my list becomes. I already own a passport so that hurtle is out of the way but then there are things like paperwork, getting credit cards, calling the bank to tell them that I will be out of the country, absentee voting, booking a flight, buying a BritRail Pass, making hostel reservations in London, creating this blog, and a whole slew of other details too extensive to mention here.

There was one major administrative dilemma that I did run into. Please take the following as a word of caution if you are planning at any time to travel abroad through a University or other academic institution. For anyone who has recently begun reading and doesn't know me, my hometown is in Franklin, Tn. about thirty minutes South of Nashville. I attend school at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. The program that I am going to Wales with is organized and operated by the study abroad office at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. So here's the situation...I am one student who attends one UT school and wishes to study abroad through another UT school. So far we have one student and two schools involved. Try to stay with me on this. The question is how to get my student loan from UTC to UTK. This should be easy but of course nothing that involves the state ever is. I receive a letter in the mail from UTC with my express statement of fees and a place for me to sign saying that I accept my student loan and agree to have it sent to them. I do sign the letter and send it back. Then we call UTC's bursar to notify them of my trip and we ask them to send the loan to UTK to pay for the program fees. UTC says no can do and my troubles begin. They told me to call the lender to have them switch the receiving school because UTC claims that they can't do it. We call the lender and they tell me that they can't in fact change the receiving school and that the problem will have to be worked out between the universities. Great. Finally, we call UTK and explain the situation. Their study abroad office then kindly calls the UTC study abroad office and after an afternoon of debating it is decided that my refund check from UTC will be sent to me and then I will deposit it and send a new check to UTK for the program fees. In short, if you ever find yourself in this unfortunate predicament leave the lender out of it and get the two schools on a conference call, with any luck all problems will be solved within five minutes. A great thanks is due to the UTK study abroad office for their help and patience.

Moving on to other things, yesterday we went to the airport and picked up a few British pounds to last me through the first day or two seeing as I won't even make it to Swansea until the sixth. The beauty of this program is that unlike with ISEP and other agencies I'm not going by myself. Accompanying me on this trip will be about fifteen other UTK students and a UTK professor. I am flying into London with one other student and we plan to spend our first night in London before catching the train to Swansea on the seventh.

So that's where I'm currently at in my preparation process. I'll keep you updated on my ever extending list of things to do. Also, last night I saw on the news that about five flights were either diverted or delayed. On that note, perhaps I should go back to the airport and pick up a few Euros, just in case. Right now I'm just trying to make it through the next ten days. I'll worry about the flight some other time.