London Living

I've learned a few things in the two days since I left the U.S. First of all, flying internationally is AWESOME. Going through customs, not so awesome but I'll get there. You're greeted at your seat by a pillow and blanket, you get served Indian food for dinner, and there's tons of T.V. shows and movies to watch. I didn't sleep much, and thus was a bit disoriented when we landed at 7 am London time, while my body was on Virginia time where it was the middle of the night. I completely forgot that my dad had told me that before you go through passport control, there's a landing form you have to fill out. When my half asleep half awake self handed the border patrol officer my passport I was met with a very dirty glare as he angrily asked where my landing form was. He handed me one after I explained that I had forgotten to grab one, but not without a bit of eye rolling. I frantically filled it out and made it through customs in one piece after being questioned about why I was entering the country and having to give him some proof. The border patrol officers don't exactly give you a warm welcome to the country. I met up with another girl from my program, and we got incredibly lost trying to find the flats where we're currently staying, but we made it! Yesterday afternoon was spent mostly getting the stuff we needed and doing a little bit of exploring! I am just in awe of how beautiful all of the buildings in London are! It's really like nowhere else in the world!

Today after classes, we decided to take a bus tour of London! The tour took us around to a lot of the classic tourist-y sites like Big Ben, the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, etc etc. It was one of those hop on/hop off tours, but it was pouring rain so there wasn't much hopping off. We finished the tour around 5 pm and realized we hadn't eaten all day (thanks jet lag for messing with our bodies), and we felt that the rainy day called for some warm comfort food. It seemed like the perfect chance to experience a London favorite: fish and chips. My expectations were low I'll admit, but it was so delicious. Worth every penny. So basically, after two days I'm in love with this beautiful city and I can't wait to explore even more!

Here are the few pictures I took today, not the best quality because they were taken through a bus window, but I tried!