I referenced “the morning I had” in the last post, so I suppose I should tell my tale of woe. I am going to make it extremely short because I’ve already told this story in various forms to about five different people and I’m sick of the sound of my own voice.
So, this morning was the reception for international students. It was in Main Building. I checked out of the YHA hostel, called an Uber, and:
- Got dropped off in front of Main Building. (I will have to take pictures of Main Building. Architecturally, it looks like what you would get if the Victorians got ahold of a whole quarry of marble and the blueprints for a French palace, plus an assortment of Renaissance humanist statues.)
- Asked the two young guys outside the gates if I was in the right place for the international student reception. They were wearing matching green shirts, so they must have been official at something. They told me no, there’s nothing in Main Building except exams. They told me that the reception would be in the Student Union building.
- Okay, crash course in Cardiff geography: The Student Union Building is three stories tall and resembles a ziggurat. It’s built on a rise that is also three stories tall. To get to the front doors, you have three choices:
- Climb three flights of Mayan Temple of Doom stairs.
- Go up in a coffin-sized elevator
- Walk a mile down the road, up a shallow slope, and a mile back to get in through the rear door.
- So I picked the Mayan Temple of Doom option, 40-pound suitcase and all.
- When I got to the top, I was definitely the only person in that lobby with a 40-pound suitcase. Or any suitcase. The receptionist didn’t know what to do with me. He waved vaguely at…another flight of stairs. He said that the reception was probably in the lounge. On the third floor. My choices:
- Mayan Temple of Doom, Part Two.
- Elevator. Out of order.
- So I drag my suitcase up the stairs to the lounge. There are no other students with suitcases. I go across the hall, knock on the student services door, and ask the nice Chinese enrollment officer for directions to the reception. It became very quickly evident that she had no idea where it was or even that it was today, but as soon as she heard the words “international student,” she pulled out a map and launched into an exhaustive, friendly, and extremely unhelpful summary of all the things that an international student needed to do, from purchasing a meal plan to obtaining a student card to choosing classes. I could not seem to make her understand that these were all things that were in the orientation schedule, and what I really needed to find right now was not my residence hall or my study permit verification number, but the orientation. Finally I managed to communicate that I was running late and just needed directions to Main Building.
- Back down three flights of Mayan Temple of Doom stairs. Somehow I got turned around in the lobby. I came out the back door at street level. And got locked out.
- So I got to hike a mile to the cross-street and a mile back to the front of the building. It was somewhere at about three-quarters of a mile in that I realized I didn’t have my purse. Ensue some frantic mental retracing of steps. When I realized I’d probably left it in the backseat of the Uber, I dove for my phone. Which was in my purse. Which was in the Uber.
- By the time I made it to Main Building (and learned that the two young guys in matching green shirts were there to hand out flyers for a gym membership discount), I was sweaty, frustrated, and exhausted. The reception was indeed in the high-ceilinged Victorian lobby of Main Building. I parked my suitcase in a corner, found a nice peppy orientation leader, tried to explain to her why I’d just done the two-thousand-meter ancient-monument-stairway challenge, and burst into tears. (We’re going to blame the jet lag. I am going to keep using jet lag as an excuse for the next month.)
- Enter Josie, a peppy Welsh student leader, and Sarah, a cheerful blonde volunteer from Kent. The two of them descended upon me with their iPhones out. We created our battle plan on the premise that the driver’s name and contact information would be on the receipt in my Gmail account. So:
- I tried to log into Gmail on a borrowed phone. Since it was a new device, Gmail sent a four-digit verification code. To my phone.
- To get to Gmail, I would have to get my laptop onto Cardiff University Wi-Fi. I’d never done this before, so I entered my student number and password into the wireless sign-up. Since I was a new user, it sent a four-digit verification code. To my phone.
- When Josie got me onto the Wi-Fi using her login, I got the receipt with the driver’s name—but to contact him, I had to log into my Uber app. So I did, on Josie’s phone. Since it was a new device, Uber sent a four-digit verification code. To my phone.
- Through some complicated three-way phone jitsu involving Josie’s iPhone, Sarah’s iPhone, and a pressganged male student leader’s Android, we managed to log into my Uber account with Josie’s phone number as the contact address. (We screwed it up the first time around because we didn’t notice that the default area code was +1 for the US and Josie has a UK number.) Josie finally managed to get ahold of Alan the Uber driver. She explained to him (in her lovely Welsh drawl) that she had a very jet-lagged American here in tears whose phone—sorry, phone and wallet—sorry, phone, wallet, and all worldly possessions contained in purse—was currently riding around in his backseat, and could he please, please come back before the nice American hyperventilated.
- So all’s well that ends well. I got my purse back, Alan the Uber driver got a very large tip, and you got a long blog post to read to put off whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing.*
*Levi, I’m looking at you.