Arrival

*This is a quick post with pictures updating folks on the past week since we arrived. An education content-heavy post is in the works and coming soon. 

Our first week in the United Kingdom

We arrived in the United Kingdom last Friday evening, traveling straight to Birmingham, England for the U.K. Fulbright Forum – a bi-annual meeting of all the U.S. Fulbright awardees in the U.K., included visiting professors, post-graduate students earning a masters, and the two of us K-12 fulbrighters.

Lauren and I arrived a few days before the forum started with the lofty goals of seeing the city and overcoming jet lag before I started on Monday. That didn’t happen. A week in and my body is just now feeling like it has a sense of itself. Might have something to do with the fun sinus infection I seemed to have carried with me from the holidays in the blustery midwest. Those that know me, know that this is simply par for the course. Handling business like a boss, just with acute sinusitis. Or so the bevy of urgent care doctors tell me when I finally go in to get it checked out about once a year. Anyways, I was stuck with one, so tried to get some over-the-counter fun and was swiftly told that the only cure for the chunks of blood coming out of my nose was a good old prescription for antibiotics. This sounds like a terrible story, but wait…

I went from the pharmacy to the National Health Service walk-in clinic two blocks away. However, we hadn’t been in the U.K. long enough to pick up our health cards, so I was skeptical if they would see me. In under 30 minutes from the time I arrived, I was told it was okay that I didn’t have my card, promptly ushered through to a doctor, told by a medical professional that “it really sounds like you know your own body”, given a prescription for antibiotics and then charged 8 pounds for the entire ordeal. National Healthcare! huh? Taking care of people, like we matter and deserve to feel healthy. What a concept.

Alright, to some pictures: