Waking up at 5:30am is never fun, but the prospect of travelling to America made it somewhat more bearable. The 12 students representing the UK at this year’s International Space Settlement Design Competition met up at Heathrow, and seven hours and multiple movies later, we had landed in New York. We happened to meet some of the team members from Cardiff, with whom we’ll be spending the next few days before the competition, on our next flight to Orlando.

Arriving at the hotel in Titusville, we dropped our bags and went for a late night IHOP dinner – most of us struggled to finish the mammoth pancake servings, and there was an unfortunate lack of brown sauce with eggs, as Americans don’t seem to be acquainted with this particular condiment.

All in all, with breakfast pancakes posing as dinner and no lost luggage (or people), we have all had a pretty successful albeit exhausting day.

(Pictured below: the team at IHOP)