Good Morning, Moneypenny.: Across the Pond.

Greetings for Twickenham, London!! (Twih-kin-ehm)

Sorry for the late update, but hey I've only been here for two days and the uni's got me a lame orientation schedule. wah wah

haha I can already tell you'll notice that I've picked up all of the slang/jargon words for lots of stuff here, so it should be fun to reread this one once back in the states.

anyways, let's start from the top:

My family dropped me off at SFO and waited for me until i absolutely had to pass security. Apparently there was a deal on flight from SFO to Vegas and there was a disco-ish theme. I say ish because people were dressed in banana suits, roller skates, everything that would make an airport security hate their lives haha. But literally everyone on that flight was decked out. I bet they had an interesting couple of days...

Alex too!

So, after I parted with my family, I was all sad waiting at the terminal, slowly realizing I was all by my lonesome.

Fortunately, once settled into the air, I had these to open and look forward to.

!!!

The meal on the plane was actually really good. It was a ground beef kinda thing with mashed potatoes and veggies. They called it "Cottage Pie." There was also a pasta salad with peas in it, which I thought was a little different than I was used to. Look at my wine :) It tasted eh though. lol pink silverware, that was actually really sturdy and the knife cut through the bread.

gahh, this cake was soo good and soo small! the top was a chocolate mouse and the bottom was so light and moist. nomm.

I'd say you could probably do without trying this water.

I guess my first real cup of tea :) plastic cup.

milk. yeah it was exactly as weird as you're thinking.

Breakfast :) either I was super hungry, or that Jimmy Dean egg & cheese bagel was good! haha

Soo... the flight itself? Yeah I was sitting next to an English family. I was in the center group of seat on the aisle and next to me was this 8 or 10 year old girl with scraggly hair and a bunny. Apparently she had gotten a new ring that was soooo pretty that when the airplane went dark for people to sleep she was the ONLY person to have their light still on so she could admire it. I kid you not, friends. The entire 10 hours in the air, I had the bright reading light shining down on me. :(

In addition to the fact that my plane was already delayed, I was on a time limit to make the shuttle provided by my school back to campus. I arrived in London Heathrow at 12:30pm and the shuttle was scheduled to leave at 1pm. To my luck, once I ran out of the plane to immigrations (which was seriously a mile away.. Heathrow is HUGE), I was welcomed with a fatty line :( And, once I got to the counter, the guy talked to me for everrr asking about EVERY plan I had in London and that I had no intention of staying. Ugh, and I though having a legit Visa would be proof enough that I was supposed to be there. Guess not.

Upon arriving at baggage claim, I was greeted with the announcement that there was a problem getting the luggage off of the plane and that they didn't know when they would be about to get it.

So, I ran out to the exit to try and catch the rep from my school to tell them my situation. After looking through a sea of taxi signs, I finally found my school rep. She wasn't very optimistic in the idea that I would be able to make the shuttle, but since there was only ONE other student present, she agreed to wait. THEN, what I had to do was go ALL THE WAY BACK THROUGH SECURITY. shoes off, laptop out, the whole bit, all the while I was wearing a big jacket since it was snowing. Man, I was sweating!

Of course, once I made it all the back to baggage claim, huzzah! Luggage! I met up with my the other student and the rep and waited outside in the cold for 45mins for the shuttle to get there.

London definitely wasn't welcoming me nicely :(

But, once I make it to my room, I was able to breathe and the day unfolded less-stressed. Here's my room: