Traveling Adventures

Where to even begin. Tuesday morning went smoothly as we woke up and departed for the airport. We arrived at the Indy airport early which allowed for no stress which was a nice thing when I still had a full day of travel ahead! My bag was even under the weight limit (something I had been stressing about for days though American Airlines didn’t seem to care if anyone’s bag was overweight). Then we sat around for what seemed like an eternity before we finally went through security and waited for our first flight.

The first flight was a little rough for the majority of our group. We had two separate flights to Chicago, but the majority of us were on the first flight. We were having a good time talking and joking on the flight until we got to circle Chicago three times before our plane was able to land. Since it was a small plane this did not go over well for most people, luckily I had no problems and no one actually got sick. Once we landed in Chicago we had almost a 5 hour layover before we were set to depart for London. We ate lunch and played some banana grahams. Some of us tried to sleep but no one was very successful. I closed my eyes for a while and that made me feel rested at least. At 4:30 we were supposed to start boarding our plane but it wasn’t quite ready yet. We started boarding around 5:00 and somehow managed to take off fairly quickly.

The plane was nice and big and our whole group was seated in the middle aisle. I was fortunate enough to have an aisle seat. I watched part of Letters to Juliet and then took a bit of a nap. Then it was time for dinner. I forgot I had ordered the vegi meal but I did and it was pretty good – garbanzo beans, rice, and vegi’s with a side salad and some cantaloupe. After the meal I attempted to fall back asleep and according to other members of the group I appeared to be quite successful as they said I was totally out. I felt like I woke up every hour, but in all I felt pretty rested.

When we arrived in London – only 10 minutes off schedule – it was 7 am and we all got off the plane and headed to immigration which was quite the experience. The line looked like it was never ending. We encountered several rude people who continually tried to nudge ahead in line. At first the line was moving at a snail’s pace but soon the workers opened up more lanes and we flew through it seemed. The funniest part about the experience was this girl, who was trying to budge past me the whole time, even asked me to excuse her so she could move my bag to try to get ahead of me. I let her move my bag but didn’t let her cut...I got a laugh out of it. I was only asked two questions by the immigration person and my passport was stamped (my first stamp which was pretty fun!). Then we headed to baggage to pick up our bags and all meet up.

Once everyone was gathered back up we met up with our Director. It was 9 a.m. when we boarded our bus and prepared to head to our flats. The driver told us it would take about 45 minutes to an hour to get to our flats. I think it ended up taking about an hour since we had to circle a few times so he was parked on the correct side of the street (apparently it’s a theme to our trip). The drive from the airport was neat being able to see different parts of London. We were all extremely glad to get out of the bus and into our flats though.

We explored the flats which were a little bit different than what I was expecting. My room is located on the 4th floor so there is no doubt I will be getting my exercise daily! There are two rooms up on the 4th floor and one bathroom. On the 3rd floor is a 3 bedroom room. The 2nd floor contains our living room/dining room area and kitchen. Then the 1st floor contains a single room and just a little entrance area. They seem pretty nice overall. Getting to know how to use everything will be interesting. I believe they are going to teach us all of that tomorrow. Jeana and I have made our room feel a bit like home by unpacking and putting up pictures already. And we have nice purple comforters that have moons and stars on them. Though we just recently discovered the flip side of them is nicer than the side we have up now so we might be turning them over. Overall the flats are really nice.

Once we got to the flats and took our bags up to our rooms (yes I climbed 4 floors with my 50 lb suitcase…luckily Jeana helped me about halfway up or I probably wouldn’t have made it!) we all had to meet in the flat next door for a meeting about the rules for the flat. The guy who explained the rules was sort of intense but I think he got his points across.

Next we ate lunch which was delicious! We had sandwiches on fresh bread with ham, lettuce, tomatoes, and cheese along with carrots, fruit and juice. Then we filled out our tube pass forms and headed out to get those. We purchased our tube passes and then boarded the tube for our first experience! We all made sure to “mind the gap”  We took the tube to a stop near the college we will be studying at while we are here, The City of Westminster College. We had to walk a bit once we got off the tube but it wasn’t a bad walk at all. Once we got to the college we met our main British faculty, Lyndon, who seems very enthusiastic about the program. I’m quite certain his class will be a lot of fun.

When we left there we headed down the street to visit one of the markets and along the way got some money out of the ATM machine. I love the money as their 20 pound is purple! Makes me not want to give them away, which is probably a good thing! The market was neat…and very cheap! I didn’t get anything today as I was just sort of clueless as to what to purchase but we plan to go back tomorrow now that we are not so overwhelmed with everything and aren’t a little loopy due to lack of sleep!
After we went to the market everyone was pretty out of it so we were given the rest of the day to ourselves and told to only take a short nap and then try to go out again so we could adjust. On the way back to the flats we stopped at a grocery store and I got some Orange Juice and yogurt for the morning. Once we finally made it back we were dead tired so Jeana and I checked our email and both fell asleep almost instantly. Both of us woke up about an hour later feeling refreshed and ready to go.

We unpacked and made our room feel a little bit more like home by putting up pictures. Then several of use went and ate at the pub right next to our flats. I decided to be adventuresome and eat some fish and chips. I figured it was the perfect meal to start this trip out with. I liked it and will probably get it several more times while I’m here. Then we decided we needed to go get some groceries for the next day only to be told most of the shops were closed. Jeana and I decided to go walk around anyway and a few places were open but we decided to just wait and get our food tomorrow as we will have plenty of time. Then we finally headed back here and have just been talking and relaxing. Half of our flatmates just woke up from their “naps.” We thought they were gone all day or we probably would have woken them up!

All in all it was a great start to my adventures in London. I’m even more excited for tomorrow as we will be going downtown and seeing some of the main sights of London. I think I have a handle on the area around us and the tube was not that difficult to navigate so things are looking good! Excited for tomorrow!!! (Props to anyone who actually read this entire thing!)