Welcome to London!

WOW!!  There is so much to say I don't know where to even begin!  I have been in London for just over 24 hours and I am already obsessed and never want to leave.

Our plane ride was quite interesting.  We flew on the "luxurious" Air India airline (notice the sarcasm).  The flight attendants wore traditional indian dress, the windows had taj mahal type frame around them, and the seats were the most uncomfortable things ever.  My seat cushion kept falling off the seat itself and the flight attendant hated us and all our questions.  I thought after benedryl and 2 mini bottles of wine, I would pass out, but unfortunately, I kept drifting in and out of sleep.

We got to London and went straight to our flats.  All the Mizzou kids are in Hogarth.  I have 5 other girls in my flat (Christy, Lauren, Caroline, Julia and Marylyn).  We have two bedrooms, a double and a quad.  I live in the quad and our room overlooks the tube (the train system) and a train comes by every 30 seconds, all the time.  We have a kitchen and a nice sized living room.  And then the bathroom is the scariest part.  We seem to have a window that is stuck open and is in the shower...kind of sketchy I know.  Luckily we live on the first floor so we didn't have to trek our stuff up the stairs.  Our street is very nice and we live around lots of hotels.  The borough we live in, South Kensington, is a royal borough because Queen Victoria used to live here and is one of the wealthiest neighborhoods.

Next we walked to our college, Imperial, and saw some things around the area.  They gave us a HUGE serving of fish and chips that none of us thought we would eat all of.  But when the last time you ate was dinner the night before in a timezone 6 hours behind, I guess you do eat the whole thing.

Then last night, the whole group went on a pub crawl.  We went to a couple pubs were we mostly drank cider, which is the popular thing here, and then headed to the pub in the student union of Imperial.  We met some students and then decided to follow this kid on our trip who has been to London before and go to some club.  He took us on a ten mile hike and we ended up at some place that we left after 3 minutes and went for food to Pizza Express.  Now I know that sounds like a fast food sbarro type place, but its actually an upscale place.  There were even wine glasses on the table (I guess the best word is very "posh").

Today we went on a 3 hour tour of London and learned how London is actually more than one city.  It's the City of London and the City of Westminster, which is where most people live and shop, and the Boroughs.  We also drove next to a ferrari gathering where there were at least 15 ferraris just driving along and hanging out.  We also saw the changing of the guard.  After the tour everyone went their separate ways and we ended up in Picadilly Circus for lunch and then found our way home on the tube.  Our first tube experience!  Nothing too exciting, but I did realize that I'm going to have to get over giggling everytime I hear a British person speak.

Everyone needs to start going on skype so we can talk and I don't have to pay 4 pence (8 cents) a minute tot talk to people on my phone.  Alright, cheerio.

P.S. I promise my posts won't be long like this all the time!