Welcome to London!

Arrived today in London at around 6:50am after a 12 hour transit. All I can say is, I'm glad I won't be making that flight again until May. To be fair, it wasn't all that bad. But considering it's Sunday and I haven't slept since Friday, everything feels a little fuzzy right now. And yet, that's the joy of traveling, is it not? Putting yourself out of your comfort zone and just merging into a whole other world.

A whole other world is definitely what I found myself in when I arrived this morning.

In Detroit, I met another Eckerd student who was on my flight, so we traveled together as far as baggage claim in Heathrow. At that point, she wanted to take a taxi all the way to the house, whereas I had agreed to meet 2 other students and take the train into the city.

Everything went surprisingly smoothly until I realized my rendezvous was no where to be found. Finally I asked some employees at a baggage window if the students' flight had come in on time, and they told me to walk out some doors to the right and ask at the information desk.

When I walked out those doors (which were one way, mind you -- no turning back!), I was NOT prepared for what I found. I almost froze, dumbfounded as I stared into the eyes of what seemed like hundreds people leaning over a cordoned off area waving signs with peoples names they were supposed to be picking up.

It was a little terrifying. Beyond this wall of grim-faced Londoners was a massive terminal. I turned right and started walking, when suddenly I heard my name being called from a voice I recognized. Miraculously, I found the two students was meeting (or rather, they found me).

From there, as planned, we found our way to the Heathrow Connect (cheaper than the Heathrow Express) and rode it straight through to Paddington Station. I took a short video when we first came out from underground, which can be seen here.

At Paddington we followed the signs to the taxi area, where we quickly hailed a cab and rode to the London House. It came out to about 12 pounds which we split between the 3 of us.

At the house, I was first assigned the top floor double room, but later swapped with someone else who didn't want to sleep in the top bunk of the triple room the next floor down. Long story short, I'm now rooming on the 3rd floor (considered the 4th floor in the US) with the 2 students who I traveled with from the airport.

After getting everything sorted out, we walked around the city for the afternoon, sightseeing and trying to take everything in. I didn't want to take too many photos but I'll definitely take more tomorrow. There are no words to describe this city, other than that it is *nothing* like home.

There is so much more I want to write, but I'm really exhausted right now and can't think and I need to try and figure out how to sleep with the so far almost constant roar of traffic and sirens blasting through our window that doesn't close all the way.

What an adventure! More updates to come.

Cheers!