Finally here!

After a year of waiting, I have finally arrived and settled in London, England! After an 8 hour flight (that left one hour late due to deicing procedures and a flipped circuit breaker) we still made it to England on time thanks to a 200 mph tailwind! My first adventure with British traffic was from the airport to my apartment via taxi. Shew! I'm still getting used to this driving on the opposite side of the road thing! The roads are very curvy and bendy downtown, and when you add that to all the extremely tiny cars and police sirens I feel like I have stepped into the Bourne Identity! My apartment at Endsleight Court falls under the "efficiency flat" style and is located in the very urban region of London.  we have two beds, one closet, one dresser, a table, a chair, and  a teeny kitchen that has no oven!! gah!! however, other students do  have an oven so we can bake there if we need to. But we do have one big burner and then a smaller burner. Shopping here is different too. No driving to the grocery store, and most locals go every day due to the fact that you must carry what you buy. Just to give you an idea of pricing differences and currency differences, a sponge loofa that you could buy for .99 cents at walmart is 1.99 pounds here, which equals nearly $4! But at long as you think of it in pounds and not dollars, you can get through the grocery stores and not want to noose yourself. Today, our group ventured through the greater London area (all on foot) and walked around 9 miles in 5 hours. We strolled through some parks (Regents and St. James), walked through Oxford Street (lots of high-end shopping), saw the Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament, Eye of London (the big ferris-wheel apparatus that had a cameo in Fantastic Four II), and Buckingham Palace (and yes the queen was home). The buildings and architecture are absolutely beautiful, except in the spots where London has been bombed so many times in past wars and new buildings have been erected. Classes start tomorrow and my day will be filled with the History of London, History 110, and the first meeting for my British Theatre class. Look later this week for updates from London!