And so it begins...

Hello all, welcome to my brand new blog! Many of you will probably know that this blogging malarkey is nothing new to me, with my Beyond Infinity Film blog being the home of all sort of film review goodness - but for now that will probably have to take a break, as I've gone stateside! That's right, for the best part of the next 12 months, I will be, as James Brown would put it...

Not bad, huh?! To be more precise, I'm living in a town called Irvine, located in the Orange County of California. Why? For a year abroad transfer from my home University, the University of Kent, to the University of California, Irvine. So for me, it's going to be a year of studying Film Studies, just an hour away from Hollywood itself - need I say more?! B)

Let's go back a little bit first though, to the start of my big, exciting adventure...

2 days ago, on Saturday 21st September 2013, after just 3 or so hours of sleep (I was too excited!!!) I picked up my suitcase (yes, just the one), said farewell to my family, and got on board a plane from London Heathrow, headed for LAX. The flight was long, around 11 and half hours, but fine, and it actually just flew by (sorry, I couldn't resist...). I flew with Virgin Atlantic, so in all honesty sitting down with a library of new films to watch whilst a crew of waitresses walked around giving out free food and drinks sounds like a pretty good day to me! If you're anything like me, at this point you'll be wondering what films I watched, and to satisfy your curiosity; The Great Gatsby (good, bar a few Lurhmanny tropes that I could do without), Populaire (who'd have thought a French film about competitive typewriting would be so stylish, sexy and cool?!), Love Is All You Need (Pierce Brosnan in a realist version of Mama Mia, minus the dodgy karaoke), Oz The Great and Powerful (funny, charming and well-done in parts, fluffy and unfulfilling in others), and parts of Monsters University (a reflection of the American university life I am about to begin... sort of...). I also managed to bag myself a window seat, resulting in some truly incredible views, as you can see below.

Mountains...

Deserts...

Vegas!...

...and Los Angeles.

So, after the long flight, which arrived at LAX at around 11pm English time, it was only 3pm American time, and so continued one of the longest days of my life. Getting through border control was fine, with the daunting queue turning out to be not quite as horrific as it looked, and once I got through that I was collected by couple of UC Irvine students who were taking a group of us directly to the campus and our accommodation in the university's mini-bus. The drive was good, taking us through some parts of Los Angeles and then down the highway straight to Irvine (during rush hour, no less). Upon arrival at the accommodation, I signed in, grabbed my keys and headed straight for my room (which naturally, was as far away as possible from the check-in desk). At this point, it was about 7pm CA time, and 3am in England; all I wanted to do was have a shower, grab a bite to eat, and to get into bed...

Arriving at the flat, I was quickly greeted by my new roommate EJ and his family, all of whom seemed very very nice, so any worries that I might end up living with some form of psychopathic flatmate were instantly dismissed (after all, you could be bunked with anyone...). After introductions were made, I quickly unpacked my belongings and jumped into the shower, ordered a dominos pizza (the true staple of any student diet) and checked out the place. The flat, situated on the ground floor, is lovely: spacious kitchen, a living room with sofas and a cable TV box (just need the TV...), a small patio, en-suite bathrooms, a spacey bedroom, air con (thank God!) and best of all, for the first time in my life a DOUBLE BED!!!

Bedroom

Kitchen/Living Room/Patio

View from my window

People of England, I'm sorry to say this, but at this rate I may never come back...

Yesterday I had a chilled day, walked around the accommodation area to find where everything is and to check it all out, handed in some paperwork for the flat in return for a free t-shirt (aww yeah!), and then I headed to the nearest supermarket (expensive, but just down the road) to grab some of the basics - you know, so I can live and stuff....

Yes, that's right, we have a pool and jacuzzi...

Later on I went down to check out the free gym at my accommodation, which is small and basic, but for the most of the time I was there, empty. Then after getting back to my flat and talking to EJ for a bit, we headed out to meet up with some people who he had met earlier that day. Chilling by the pool, with out feet in the jacuzzi and the BBQ going right by us, I got to meet a lot of people very quickly, all of whom, it must be said, were fantastic. It seems like everyone is so so nice here in the States, and on top of that, they go crazy when they hear a British accent - I've never had so many compliments about my voice in my life! Unfortunately the jet lag was kicking in pretty hard at this point, so I decided that I had to call it a night when they all went off for ice cream.

And now you're up to date! Today is the Anteater Involvement Fair (the Anteater is our Uni mascot) so I'm heading to campus in a bit for that to see what clubs and stuff are running this year, and after that I have my orientation, where I will get a guided tour of the whole campus (which is unbelievably massive, by the way).

So 'til next time, this is Dave Startup signing off from Sunny Califor-ni-a! ;)