London Day 1

February 8th (Friday) – 15:23 London time

I think that this qualifies as one of the most tired times in my life. haha. I slept only like 3 hours the night before I left and then on the overnight flight I cat napped for about 2 total hours. We arrived in London around 7am and I had to stand in a ridiculously long customs line. All the AIFS people who were at the airport at the time met up and took a charter bus to our hotel.

chillin at the holiday inn. haha. Lame I know. On the bus this girl I met, Leah, has skied a lot and her dad is from Germany so she said she would give us skiing lessons! One of the girls walked outside (it’s around 55º) and she goes “It’s hot!!” I started laughing and then she said, “Oh yeah, you are from Texas.” It was just really funny seeing how mostly everyone is from up North and it gets a lot colder up there and me having my jacket when they don’t. We were not supposed to check in until 2, but our rooms were cleaned early so we basically waited like 30 mins and got our rooms. They are really small and also I couldn’t figure out how to operate the lights because you have to use your room key? Way to go green London! J But then we headed off to this pub a couple of blocks away and ate – I ordered this chicken club (had bacon and eggs on it…yum) but then the guy brought the wrong thing and I also said onion rings, but those didn’t come so I didn’t bother with it by that time. The other kids in the program were finishing their beers and some of us headed off into London to walk around. I wanted to go to Harrods so we walked about 20 blocks (even though there are no such thing as “blocks” in London – everything is expressed in minutes) and then all up and down the 5 floors of goodness.

It was so crazy how expensive most things are there and how confusing it is to get around too (there is a store map/booklet). We also stopped by the Natural History Museum to look at the beautiful architecture of the building!

(Side note: I hate how pounds are double the amount of money for us. SUCKS. Everything is like around 10 pounds/meal – so really 20 bucks. Let’s just say that Caitlin and I have shared our meals so far.) So then some of that group wanted to go back because they were tired, but I was like…we are in LONDON – I’m not going back to the room so early. Caitlin, Michael and I went to Hyde Park which was beautiful and the weather is also lovely today!

But then we finally made our way like 30 blocks (but not really) back home and my feet are hurting. So now we are just watching TV and about to maybe take a nap. There is a meet and greet tonight at 6 with lots of people from the group (not everyone since some made their own plans). First impressions are pretty good of the group. I can tell that cliques are already being formed which of course is bound to happen. Some are nice, some are not so nice, and some are just plain weird….haha. But we’ll see how it pans out and I’ll write more soon!