Landed and Living in London

So I'm officially in London. Our plane was delayed for two and half hours due to one bag the crew was unable to find for a person no longer on the flight, but other than that it was quite enjoyable. I liked being able to watch the flight path on our personal television sets. The movies we were able to watch were ones that I wanted to see anyway (Last Kiss, The Queen) so that was quite nice as well.

To be completely honest, the first day and half were exhausting and depressing. Meg and I had over an hour walk to our hostel from the Paddington station (where the Heathrow Express from our airport let off), mostly because we got lost several times and the owners didn't know much about giving directions. We had too much luggage for that sort of trip, and we arrived extremely grumpy. We woke up bright and early around eight, grabbed the free breakfast (yay toast!), and made our way to the London Center with most of our luggage - making for another completely unenjoyable journey on the tube. (Not to make it sound as though I hate the tube; I actually like it quite a bit without all the luggage.)

We spent the entire first full day looking for flats, all of which were dead-ends, except for one at the very end that we all loved but needed one more person for it to be affordable. We spent the rest of the evening desperately looking for a sixth person, but to no avail. My flatmates, by the way, are: Paddy, Erin, and Jessica from U of M. In the morning, with a fresh attitude (though Meg and I were a bit late due to both the District and Circle lines - our main tube lines to get to school - being severely delayed and/or down completely), we contacted someone else that Jessie had found online the night before to set up an appointment. He showed us three flats, all of which we liked, leaving us to just choose the one we liked best.

A Flat!!! We chose one with an excellent location - right between two tube stops, Queensway and Bayswater and down the street from Hyde Park. Signing the lease was very exciting for all of us, we couldn't stop gushing, and I think if you weren't within our group, you probably would have found us obnoxious. Meg and I moved in right away as we had checked out of our hostel in the morning and were currently facing sleeping on the street (not entirely true, but we weren't going back there...). It's lovely and I really liked waking up in my own flat. :)

Also, yesterday, due to the tube problem, we explored London a bit on the buses, including some double-decker ones. The buses are definitely nicer than the T-CAT at school, thank God.

Today, with no more flat-hunting (again, thank God) and my one meeting for the day over, we may do some sight-seeing and just spend the rest of the week exploring everything. Our orientation packets had a "26 Quick Facts" sheet in it and #17 was very right - It WILL get better.