Fainting and Taxi Riding

January 7, 2010

London, Kensington, my bunk

Wow. What a long day it has been. Forty-eight hours ago I was frantically packing at home. Since, I’ve drank four tall coffees, eaten two horrible airplane meals, gotten a million bruises from my suitcases, found out that I absolutely love driving on the wrong side of the road, walked past a few palaces, and gotten five total hours of sleep. And there is so much more. I’ll start at the beginning.

After I landed in Chicago, I met up with my friends Hal and Vivian. We sat around in the terminal for a while and found a few other people that are in our program. That was nice. It got crazy when everyone from last night’s canceled flight showed up at our terminal, trying to get on our flight. We ended up departing almost an hour late, but we made up time in the air. The flight to London was, at best eventful, and at the very worst, an absolute nightmare. There were people puking and passing out all around me. The turbulence was insane. But I am very thankful we got out of O’Hare before the big snowstorm today. The flight went by pretty slowly, but the British lady next to me told me all of her favorite places in London and gave me some good advice. I don’t think I will ever forget that flight.

We made it through customs (the part of the trip I was most uneasy about) and we headed to the baggage terminal. It was a zoo. A really big room filled with way to many people. After finding my two huge, 50 lbs suitcases, we sat around for a while waiting for everyone’s luggage. One of Hal’s never came around the belt. Apparently, United lost a lot of luggage because the line to wait for help was fifty people long. We waited for an hour and then the lady told Hal that her luggage came on the previous flight and it should be here. They looked around for a while (there was random luggage laying everywhere), but it turns out someone accidentally took Hal’s luggage and we have to wait for them to return it… ugh.

But it all gets much, much better from here. The tax ride, with Viv, Hal, our new friend Becca, and I, was so fun. I thought so anyway. Everything is just so different across the pond. The houses are all made of red brick and crammed together. The advertisements and billboards are all hilarious and clever. The license plates are all yellow! And driving on the opposite side of the road is awesome. Best part yet.

Next, we found our apartment and are presently located between the Dutch Foreign Embassy and a royal family from Dubai. And Hyde Park is right across the street. I don’t think living in London gets any better than this.

Currently, we are all trying to take a nap and then it is off to orientation tonight.

I’ll be back tomorrow after my walking tour, a few errands, and a few more adventures on the streets of London.

Oh, and they asked us to write down a few goals for our time here. I’m taking mine very seriously.

1. Master the tube (subway) system and possibly the bus system

2. Do as many touristy things I can, followed swiftly by as many untouristy, secrets-of-London things as I can.

3. Get in a fistfight as a futbol match. I’ll settle for a bar fight

4. Find Diagon Alley and buy a magic wand from Ollivander.

Love,

Kelly