It was such a great feeling to finally get off the plane and walk on solid ground! It still hadn't really hit me though that I was actually in London. It kinda felt like I should have landed at the Nashville airport to get ready to go back to school at Belmont. Once I got off the plane at terminal 4, it was quite a long walk to get to the customs area and the airport was really crowded. It was kind of confusing to figure out where to go because there was a lot of construction going on and everything was changed around. I eventually found the right line to stand in and had to wait about 25 minutes to get to the customs counter. I was hoping I would get a nice person to check my passport and visa but I ended up with a really grouchy lady. She asked me some questions about why I was there, if I was traveling alone and if I had my sponsor letter from Arcadia stating that I was actually doing what I said I was going to do. Well I didn't bring the letter with me because I wasn't told I would need to. When I told her this, she gave me a pretty grouchy stare and I thought for a moment that I wasn't going to get in but she didn't say anything and just let me through, thank goodness. One thing I found strange though was that when I went through customs was that they did not check my carry on bag. Maybe they don't do that anymore, I don't know, but I just thought it was weird.
By the time I got through customs and down to the baggage claim almost everyone else from my flight had picked up there bags and mine and a couple others were the only ones left. Thankfully the airport had trollys I could put my luggage on other wise there was no way I would have been able to wheel my bags through the airport because they were so heavy. I finally made it to terminal 3 and found the Arcadia group who was meeting me. There were also a lot of other students who had arrived as well and when we were all there we headed out to find out coach.
After our bags were loaded, we headed through the streets of London to our different flats. My flat is in the burough of Westminster, which is in the city of London and the nearest tube station is Nottinghill Gate. On our way to the flat, we passed through many different parts of London that I never saw before. Everything was so pretty and the architecture of the buildings was awesome. Everything was really old and really close together. The roads are all really narrow here compared to what we have in the U.S. and the cars are so close to each other on the road that if feels like your going to brush up against them while your driving. People drive like mad over here too. Everyone, especially taxi drivers are always weaving in and out of traffic and people are constantly honking there horns at each other. There were tons of people walking down the streets too. They were just everywhere. You could tell that some were coming or going to work or lunch and that some were just out running errands or shopping or something. Everyone walks everywhere over here because it's so much cheaper. It's really expensive to own a car over here so a lot of people don't have one.
Well we finally arrived at our flat and brought in our bags. It was not easy getting my luggage up the stairs. I had to drag each bag one by one up 4 flights to my room on the second floor. After dropping off my bags, I went with the my roomate and some other people in the flat to get some lunch and walk around. We ate a restaurant named ASK. The food was really good. Then we walked around and looked at all the shops nearby so that we knew what was in the area. Right down the road from my flat is at least 3 big grocery stores and tons of other shops. Also just down the road a bit and across the street my flat is Hyde Park which I plan to spend time in just reading, walking, or doing homework. It is really nice. Afterwards we all came back to our flat and most of us began unpacking our bags.
I was really surprised at how big our room actually was. Even though it is an older building, it has been fixed up pretty nice and is has all new bedroom furniture.
There is not much closet, or wardrobe as they call it, space to hang your stuff. Thankfully I have two drawers under my bed where I can store stuff otherwise I would not have had enough room. The beds are all twin size and we each have a desk. Our room also has its own sink and mirror which is really convenient for getting ready in the morning. At 4p.m. we all had to go our house meeting downstairs in the common room where Philip, our graduate resident that lives in the building and some other Arcadia staff went over house rules, safety and other stuff about our schedule. After that we went on a tour of the town with our graduate resident and bought sheets and towels. The only sheets that the store had in my bed size were an UGLY color brown. I ended up having to get them because that was all they had :( oh well......
After the tour with Philip, we just walked around town some more and ended up going into a local pub called The Champion which is right down the street from our flat. It is a pretty cool place and we plan to go back again. After leaving The Champion, we walked a little ways through Hyde Park. It was really pretty walking through it at night and I can't wait to go back during the day.
Well it's getting pretty late so I will write more later.
Bye for now....
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