Welcome to the UK!

Well it has certainly been an eventful day, and it's not over yet. In about half an hour a bunch of us are going to dinner, then probably back here to unpack and sleep in preparation for a relatively early start to tomorrow. But before I get there, let's start at the airport. Get ready, this post will probably be a long one.

After a long wait with Mom and Doug at the inappropriately named "Bag Drop-Off," it was through security and onto the plane. The plane itself was huge - a double decker, with this gorgeous first class area that looked like a space-age restaurant or something. Then they teased you with the Premium Economy section - all these leather seats and purple mood lighting - and then tossed you into the harsh reality of dizzingly patterned seats and bright lights. Lights, I might add, that were only off for two hours of the entire five-or-so hour flight. So guess how many hours I slept?

I found myself wedged between two men, and one looked an awful lot like Billy Boyd (and for those of you who don't know who that is, look here: http://e2de.com/data_images/billy-boyd/billy-boyd-01.jpg). Though I imagine Billy Boyd wouldn't be travelling economy, I nevertheless affectionately dubbed him "Billy" in my mind. Billy and I were great friends. The other man I called "Rico Suave," as he was about eight feet tall, black, and wearing a spiffing vest, bowler hat and dress coat combo, and carried with him an umbrella. It was looking like sleep would be next to impossible. They took up a lot of space.

But then out of the blue a flight attendant approached Rico Suave and told him that if he so wished, there was a seat open in the exit row! Ah! Sweet merciful Lord there is a God. After Rico squeezed his extremely large person past me and Billy, I politely turned to Billy and asked him if it'd be okay if I took the window seat. He told me of course, and then very calmly informed me that he planned on drugging himself heavily, so if I needed to get out at any time to just climb over him. I thanked him for his kindness, and shifted over a seat, congratulating myself on having my first real conversation with someone on my journeys.

The flight was alright apart from the whole "leaving up the cabin lights" deal. There was this delightful little Indian baby that serenaded us with its screams for the entire five hours. Can babies get laryngitis? This particular bundle of joy seemed immune. And because I know my mom was interested, the food was pretty good. I had this chicken and rice thing, with bread and butter, a little salad, and a pudding. Pretty good.

We landed before the sun rose and filed off the aircraft. I relieved myself in a British bathroom for the first time (WOO HOO!) and began the long trek to immigration. Heathrow is huge. And the immigration line took forever. Poor Billy left a book on the plane and only realized when we were at the immigration line (it took about 20 minutes to walk there), and stopped me very politely (yet awkwardly) to ask if I'd grabbed it. Unfortunately I had not, and he ran off in the other direction as I shouted apologies at his back. Then, I approached the dreaded line.

Waiting in line was boring and sucky and I won't make you listen to it.

Long story short, I waited for an hour and a half, to go up to the guy and only need to give him my landing card and passport. Yes, Mom, all the stuff we scrambled to get together didn't even get looked at. Awesome.

I retrieved my bags and successfully got myself from Terminal 3 to 4 (only having to ask directions once). There, Maria was waiting with a few other ISA kids. She greeted me, sold me a cell phone, and pushed me off to the cash point to get money, which I totally burnt through in the first day. Whoops. We sat there for a while - and by a while, I mean from about 9 until 12:30. But I made friends - acquaintances? Well, one way or another we're going to dinner in about 15 minutes, so I'll count that as a win. Do I remember all of their names? Absolutely not.

We then were ushered aboard a coach bus, which proceeded to blatantly drive off on the wrong side of the road (crazy British drivers), and I kind of fell asleep for a bit, but the parts of the country I did see were very nice! We dropped some kids off at various locations and finally, finally, arrived at the Alexander Fleming dorm at about 2:30 or so. We checked in, lugged our bags where they needed to be, and kind of collapsed for a bit before getting right back up and legging it to the tube station to get our Oyster cards (like a MetroCard), then to Argos to get bed things.

Now, for those of you who don't know what Argos is, let me take a moment to explain. You walk in and go over to these rows and rows of catalogues roughly the size of phone books. You then leaf through them to find the item(s) you want, check on this pin pad thing if they're available, and then write them all down on a card. Then you take that card up to the cashier, who puts in the order, you pay, and then move to a waiting area. When your number is called, you walk up to another counter, and they have all your stuff from a back room in bags. It's kind of ridiculous. I can't decide if it's an efficient system or not - we had more than one confusion in our group, including me, who didn't know about the little pin pad and had to go back to find a replacement for an item that was out of stock, and then wound up getting the wrong thing, then waiting in line to return it, and getting the right thing. It's just because I hadn't filled my awkward quota for the day with Billy that the gods of social interaction had to smite me.

Anyway, then we went right next door to a grocery store (where I came to the realization that the ad outside announcing two bottles of wine for the price of one could actually mean something to me - don't worry, Dad, I did not purchase any booze. Just cereal, milk, and a whole bunch of pre-made sandwich/pasta/salad meals to eat while I get situated. Oh, and chocolate. Duh). Then we hobbled across all of London to get back to the dorms. Well, maybe it was like two blocks. Po-tay-toh, po-tah-toh.

And here I am! Writing furiously to finish before 7 and dinner. I'm not sure where we're going - hopefully somewhere delicious, as my stomach has been noisily reminding me of its existence for a few hours now. So now I am off! I miss you all, and wish you were here to experience all of this with me - it's been a whirlwind so far, and I'm not sure I'm taking it all in properly. But I'll get it eventually! So here I go - to dinner, then hopefully to unpack and sleep. Cheers!