Travel and The Real Day One

Yesterday was about the longest day EVER. After hours spent trying to make my bag weigh less than 50lbs with Mom's assistance, I left for the airport at 6:30pm. Got to the airport only to find that my flight had been delayed an hour; no big, I've had much worse. We left pretty promptly at 10:10. Lady sitting next to me was super cool; from Netherlands and in the states visiting a camp she used to work for in the summer. Sleep on the plane did NOT happen as much as I would have liked... the super nice lady kept twitching in her sleep, waking me up! Whatever.

Arrived at Heathrow around 10:15am local time (so 5:15am at home), and took my sweet time getting to the flat... I had no real rush, so I had a nice chat with the currency exchange man (he informed me that one can tell if the queen is in residence at Buckingham Palace if her personal flag, a yellow one as opposed to the union jack, is flying). A really nice couple that had flown over on the same flight from Phila were on the same tube that I was and we had a nice chat, too (they wanted to make sure that I actually knew what I was doing/where I was going, so they sweetly made sure I had myself together). Hour spent on the tube, and I arrived at Russell Square Station! Getting my bag up the stairs was noooot fun, but I made it to my apartment without too much ado. Checked in at the main office (our flat is on a street that attaches to the square, so it's SUPER convenient to get to from the tube station....at least if you aren't hauling a 50lb bag of stuff), and moved right in!

One of the girls, Laura, found me sitting, dazed on my bed, and took me outside to get some food. We ate at a cafe in the middle of the square, and I swear, that plain mozzarella tomato sandwich was HEAVENLY. One of the guys, Nick, walked by about 20 mins after we sat down, and after lunch, he and I went on a search to find the organic grocery store that he SWORE was nearby. 2 hours later, we returned triumphant, him toting lots of organic vegetarian food ( I informed Nick that it would take much more convincing to get me to go veg). Upon arrival, we broke to unpack and get ourselves situated. The other girls were leaving  to find a grocery store as Nick and I returned, but I decided getting unpacked would serve me well. Our room is TINY (will include a pic as soon as I get transferring data from phone to pc figured out... maybe by the end of this post), and I'm in the bed by the window. My two roommates and I have realized by now that we got royally wrung out to dry in terms of rooming. We have four drawers each, apx dimentions of 3in x 15in x 25in, and two desks in the room. Our bedroom door opens into the hallway, not into our actual "flat," so we have to take a key to our room whenever we go into the REAL flat to use the bathroom/kitchen/living room. It doesn't make any sense, because the other bedroom in our flat is attached directly to the corridor that all of these are on. Also, other bedroom has wardrobes for their clothing in addition to the dinky drawers. But I digress.

My bed is the one in all the light...

 Once I got myself somewhat organized, I realized that I was revenously hungry again, but as I prepared to depart, Dr. King arrived! He came over to our flat, and the whole group (minus one) gathered for basic info. He gave us part of our weekly 80 pound allowance. We set a time for a meeting on Monday, and then were done. Left almost immediately afterwards for food; we went to a pub nearby called the College Arms (they have a deal every Monday/Thursday that if you buy two large glasses of the house wine, you get the rest of the bottle free). I asked the barmaid what beer I should try and explained that we had only just arrived in country (NOTE: official drinking age in the United Kingdom is 18... WOOOOO!). She steered me towards a bitter beer, and so I bought my first pint of British beer. For food, I had a venison pie that was fantasssstic!

Venison PieMy First Pint!

As we were finishing up, a group of older men appeared (mid-30s?), and invaded our table (literally, just sat down and started chit-chatting). We hung out with them for a while, discovered that they had just come from a rugby match (their team lost), and were cordially invited to head over to a different pub in Covent Garden. We politely declined, but they ended up sticking around for 45 mins or so anyway. Fun.

Went back to the flat and hung out for a few hours before heading off to sleep.

Another mini-rant about my bedroom: we are in the front of the building. AKA right next to the sidewalk and road AKA the windows rattle every time a large vehicle drives by, and people apparently stop and hang out on our stoop in the morning with screaming babies. Regardless, we all slept til noon.

This morning we went food shopping (part two for most of my flatmates... there are 6 of us), and bought basics. The fruit here is incredible; I bought some Scottish strawberries that were just... insanely delicious. Helps that it's harvest time I suppose.

It's raining now (we had a beautiful dry day yesterday til we were leaving the dinner pub), and we're just kinda vegging out. The Nottinghill (or Nottingham? I forget) Festival is today; apparently it's a big deal and a lot of fun, so I think we'll end up heading that way sometime in the near future. Street vendors, a parade and general frivolity :)

Til next time...