London

Greetings from LONDON!

Let's just say the last couple of days have been pretty intense. After someone having a medical situation on the plane (meaning all lights fully on starting two hours into the flight with constant announcements asking for doctors), yesterday I went 48 hours or so on about 1.5 hours of sleep. Besides that, the flight was easy. I even met someone from Arcadia sitting behind me, Sarah, and after we landed, headed to customs for an hour and a half to be admitted to the UK.

Then the fun began.

FINALLY ON THE BUS.

 Arcadia (the school who's program we are all on) assured us when we met up the next bus would be there in 20 minutes—this was around 9:30 a.m. Little did we know, we wouldn't board a bus to our hotel until ONE PM. No one told us what was going on or where the buses were. All I know is that four hours was quite the opportunity for college-students-delusional-from-jetlag bonding time.







When we finally got on our bus, we were lead on a mini-tour of London by our bus driver Tony, who gave us a rolling commentary from a local's perspective, on our way into the center of the city. Needless to say, he was by far the favorite adult we had met thus far—sorry Arcadia.

From there, Erin and I dropped our bags, met our roommates at the Thistle Kingsley hotel—literally right in central London, the middle of everything—and headed out. We successfully bought phones (they only had mine available in pink, be jealous) from Jono at Orange Mobile, who also suggested I put a butterfly sticker on the back of my phone, and went straight to a pub. After the day we'd had, we thought this was a necessary step. So we explored central London and found the White Hart, self-proclaimed as the oldest licensed establishment in the city. The inside looks just like a pub you could have walked in to in the nineteenth century, minus the huge flat screen TV adorned in a vintage gold frame.WHY IS AMERICA SO UNCOOL.







After beers and quesadillas, we went to Arcadia's London Centre for a short orientation meeting and what were we met with? Our "group meal" consisted of a few crackers with brie and shavings of ham. Arcadia. Is. Horrible.

After orientation, some girls and I decided to hit the Tube and make our way to the Thames, Big Ben, and the London Eye, which was remarkable. Seeing London at night was an absolutely unforgettable experience for my first night here. Still feels surreal that I am in this amazing city. Everywhere you turn, there's an incredible amount of culture, history, and fashion. None of us can believe we're lucky enough to spend another three months here.







More to come later! No Wi-Fi at the hotel (staking out at Starbucks currently), so communication of all kinds is seriously struggling. Hopefully things will get better when I move into my living arrangements Saturday.

Cheers!