You're gonna learn about researching stuff HB, so it's helpful to know about a few places for the given subject.
The
newbee guide is a good start. Plus, as you may have already gathered, a lot of the membership here are in the US - they have access to a far better stocked home brewing market than we do, but if you don't mind shipping prices from time to time and the uni' you're off too is located not far from a half decent HBS, then you'll be able to get a close equivalent.
Did your hydrometer come in a plastic tube or was it blister packed on card.
If it was the former, then you can actually use the plastic tube to take a reading. For a cheap sanitiser liquid, just get a hand spray from Wilko's or somewhere like that, then mix in 5 crushed campden tablets and 1 teaspoon of citric acid into a pint of water and stir it. I just mix it all in my spray bottle.
Give the inside of the plastic tube a good rinse with soap and warm water, rinse well to make sure all the soap is gone and then just spray the sanitiser in coating it well (same for the hydrometer), allow 2 or 3 minutes contact time then shake out/off any drips remaining. If you have a turkey baster, wash, rinse and spray that (inside and out) as well, as it's easy to use to take the sample out and put straight into the tube. Then supporting the tube on a flat surface, let the hydrometer settle and get the reading.
What you will find, is that because you've effectively made a show mead i.e. no nutrients, that it may still have some way to go. That's the nature of show meads, long, slow ferments.
Given your time frame, if you'd followed a traditional method, the ferment would have finished, it would have even probably cleared and be ready for ageing.
As for transporting it ? A padded (cloth, bubble wrap or even sheets of corrugated cardboard) box that doesn't give the fermenter any room to move. Wedge the box in amongst your stuff. Remove the airlock and replace it with a rubber balloon. You can spray, or tip a little sanitiser inside the balloon and give it a good scrunching, then pour out any excess liquid and then stretch it over the top of the fermenter. It should be fine.
If the movement does actually disturb the dissolved CO2, the balloon will start to inflate and take up any pressure generated.
Then once you've got it installed at uni', get some cheap bread yeast from the nearest supermarket, mix it with a little water and either boil it in a pan or nuke it in a microwave. Then let it cool before adding it to the batch, it should provide enough nutrient for it to finish, if it hasn't already done so. You'll know from the hydrometer reading.......
p.s. which uni is it you're off to ?