So it began....

7/7/07

So it began....

It’s 252 in the afternoon London time (which makes it 652 am pacific time) and i’m feeling a little loopy. I might just have to take one of those Jet Lag caffeine pills. Even though I slept through most of my flight and it feels like it’s almost 3 in the afternoon (in my brain anyway) my body is saying “nu-ah”.

But before I get into my first almost day in London I have to start at the beginning....

It’s official, I am the worst packer in the world! I typically over pack, it’s a given. I try to prepare for worst case scenarios and best case. But this time I really tried to be realistic. I ended up repacking twice Thursday night. I took everything out, repacked and ended up leaving some stuff behind. The sucker (aka my red 36” roller duffle back) was still fair to bursting. Granted, I also included an overnight bag for when I do those weekend trips to Paris and hopefully Ireland, but then I needed to also take towels (the school was only providing one), plus my shampoo and stuff like that. It was recommended we bring full size of all products because it’s twice as expensive so I did. Then there where the books, travel and fun books.. which I just had to take (I should have just chosen one), 80 some odd pounds later... yeah 80!
I’m standing at the ticket counter and being told they don’t accept bags that weight, even if I paid the overage So I had to take at lease 20 pounds from my duffle and put in my little itty bitty overnight bag, ugh! I finally managed and ended up carrying with my several books because they didn’t fit in the overnight bag. Needless to say I was so over carrying a truck load of books on the plane with me, I was almost tempted to just leave them behind... almost. In the end I suffered through it (I was half asleep/delirious to care half the time) and just restuffed them in the bag once I landed. Besides that the my trip was quite uneventful. I was so exhausted from staying up all night I kept nodding off at the SFO airport so I slept most of the way to Toronto. I didn’t have to deal with a seat mate (from Toronto to London also), I had the 3 seats to myself. Yeah! Custom’s through Toronto was a breeze (all of 10 minutes) London was a little bit slower, it took me 30 minutes to get through. And I ended up sleeping through most of the flight from Toronto to London, missed watching “Wild Hogs” and “The Time Machine”, but did wake up in time to watch “Robin Hood” (new BBC series and look out the window as we flew over Ireland. They also fed us quite well, I was very much surprised. I had a yummy lemon chicken for dinner and a continental breakfast (yogurt, muffin, fruit). I was a very comfortable trip all ways around.

Caught my taxi and was absolutely lost. Oddly enough the whole driving on the opposite side of the road didn’t freak me out as I thought I would. Now, his driving... it was like being in San Francisco. Craziness! I could never drive here, public transpo all the way. It took about a good 40 minutes to get to the “flat”, though narrow streets (very narrow), and crazy drivers (everyone), though West End and Westminster... we finally made it. I was one of the first to arrive.

I’m on the second floor and share my flat with 5 other people. The room is very small but as you can see I have plenty of desk space and a wonderful window where I can watch the going on of the neighborhood. Across the way, first floor flats, there are two dogs, they keep on barking when someone passes buy, one looks like my Darcy.... I miss my Darcy. The things that can cause homesickness.

I still haven’t met any of my roommates. I thought I heard them come up but once I got here I unpacked, made the bed, took a shower and ended up taking a nap. I felt good just being able to lay down to rest on a bed! A very lumpy and creaky bed. In fact the whole flat is creaks, i’m so afraid of walking because I don’t want to disturb my flat mates in case they are resting. I feel like such a clod. After my nap I need to go out, I was desperate for some water, plus I needed toilet paper and something to eat so I could take something for my headache. So off I went to explore my neighborhood. Ended up finding the closes Underground station at Euston, which made me realize I had gone the wrong way, so back around I went. I had a woman asked me for the time and totally confused her because they use the 24 hour system. I guess I’ll have to relearn the way I tell time, lol. Passed by tons of pubs and little ethnic restaurants and ethnic themes grocery stores, some adult stores (movies, books, pictures -oh my lol) until I made my way to a store called “Sainsbury’s”. The biggest closes market to my location, it’s a chain and very neat, also very tiny. But they had a little of everything so picked up some juice, nectarines, apples, yogurt, and a chicken fajita wrap (yum) along with water and a dt. coke, which my the way is freaking tiny! and they had a mini version besides that, along with toilet paper and bag liners (because they are not provided). The damages wasn’t bad, it was only 12.65 pounds (of course when you convert it the amount is a lot, $25).

I loved walking the streets of my little neighborhood, I almost felt cool walking among the Londoners... all that was missing was something glittery.. everyone seemed to have something shiny and sparkly.. even the guys. People walking their dogs, parents their kids in strollers, couples. And so many nationalities! I heard french, german, spanish, cockney (which i know isn’t a language per se), plus other very heavy accented English, and other languages I didn’t recognized. London is definitely very diverse.

Later on in the day there was a tour of our neighborhood done by the school which ended up at a local pub half way to main campus. It’s basically what I had explored on my own they just specifically told me what I was looking at. It was very entertaining. We where shown where we could get groceries (which i had already found), the two Underground Tube stations in our area (a mini and a major traffic one) and as we made our way down Euston through the main station there is a park you go through... there was a guy doing his business behind a tree.. yes, you read right..... and suddenly i felt like i was back in the states.. and I don’t know why. LOL Only in the big city I guess.

We walked past a mixture of historical and modern buildings on our tour. You’d see a building made of brick with columns looking so posh and stately and next to it would be these modern glass monstrosities. It just seemed hard to believe I was walking down it London street when you are faces with these hodgepodge of architectural styles. And with Regents Park just over a few streets, it seemed out of place sometimes.

I was also entertained by watching the car’s zoom buy. they have a thing there.... PEDESTRIANS DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT OF WAY. If it’s between you and a car or double decker bus you will lose. And believe when I say they won’t let you pass. They probably do earn a 1000 points for every person they run over. And not an SUV in sight!!! Except for an occasional Land Rover ( a small one at that) everyone drives these little itty bits of cars. Most look like toy cars and I can understand why. The freaking streets are miniscule. Tiny little lanes only big enough for a mini cooper to drive in. You’ll never see a Hummer ruling the London streets. It’d get stuck just getting out of the parking lot. I kind of liked not seeing big cars... there seemed to be more to see. Except for the double decker busses everything was so see able (is that a word? lol). You didn’t have these huge vehicle blocking the area you walked in.

So we made it to the pub called the Albany right off of Euston, very dark in the basement and tiny. they had some finger foods, drinks and music for us. It was pretty cool. I sat with my flat mate and we talked about the classes where were taking (we both have the History of London together) and discovered we had a lot of things in common. both love Pride and Prejudice book and the movie with Matthew Macfayden we’ll probably end up going to go see “The Itch and the Pain” next sunday (yeah!), both reading “The Historian”, Harry Potter , and other stuff that I thought I was the only one excited about. :) As far as we knew we where the only two so far in our flat but there was a third person. After we left the pub, we headed back to the grocery store, she needed to grab some food and I needed an umbrella (left mine in the car) and she was on the lookout for a hairdryer so we went looking. After coming back we met our third roommate. she had spent the day at the Live Earth concert here in London so we met her afterwards.

It was an early night for me. by that time (around 9pm London time, 1pm California time) i was ready to crash... but with no TV to fall asleep too it was kind of hard. Earlier during our search for a hair dryer we came across a 99 pence store (basically 99 cents store) and I found a Will and Grace Series 2 (4 episodes) DVD for 99 pence, of course I had to get it because again, I forgot the DVD’s I was going to bring, so i watched a couple of episodes and since computer can ready any region DVD’s i might try to get a couple of other DVD’s they only sell in london that i’ve been wanting to watch. yeah!

So that was my first day in London. Lots of walking (I got a blister on my right big toe, ugh!) lots of sun, and even more walking. Gaw, I’m so freaking tired!

I’ll have more tomorrow on my second day.

peace out.