The City

My arrival and introduction to the city currently known as London

A tip for all you international travelers - Always bring a little more local currency than you think you might need. It might save you from a rather large headache...

After leaving Angers, France, I spent a couple days in Paris, Milan, Rome and Athens. My flight from Athens left about half an hour late, because the plane was late getting to the gate. I also had to pay 15 extra euros to get easyJet to take my bag because it was over the allowed 20 kilograms. Both Ryanair and Aegean Airlines had the same restrictions listed, but neither of them forced me to pay any extra, even though my bags were at least 2 or 3 kilograms overweight.

The plane made up a little time landing in London, but it really didn't matter much. I had to stand in line for 45 minutes going through passport control, but listening to other people later, I guess I was really lucky - they were in line for up to 2 hours... Normally on this trip, I've had to wait until nearly everyone else has gotten their bags before mine shows up, but this time, I walked up just as my bag went by me.

Then all the fun started. I had decided I was going to take an easyBus into Central London from where I was going to get a cab. No one was at the easyBus desk, so I asked at the next office/desk over where they were and they told me that it was probably sold out. So I asked them what my next best option would be and they said the train. So I bought my train ticket (£11.50 or so) and went to get on the free shuttle bus to take me to the train station in Luton. When it arrived, the driver announced that there were no more trains into London that night, so the only option was to take another coach. That cost another £10. The coach took me into Marble Arch about 1am where I got off and tried to hail a cab. The first one I got said he didn't have any idea where I was going and said he couldn't take me, but the second one said he'd just look it up on a map.

The cab cost me £48, which wouldn't have been a problem because I thought I'd read online that cabbies can take credit/debit cards, but apparently they can't. I had £55 or so with me, but I'd already spent 10 to get the shuttle (the train ticket was bought with my bank card), so I was about 5 pounds short of cash. Fortunately, my host sister was waiting up to welcome me/let me in and had some cash to lend me - otherwise I'm not sure what I would have done... That was about 2:15 in the morning...

I essentially just crashed that night and woke up about 10:30 the next morning. My roommate showed up just as I was getting breakfast. He had come with two other friends from Seattle, and later that day we met up with one of them who lived nearby and her roommate and roommate's friend and walked around a bit until we found the tube stop. They felt like going into London for a bit, so we hopped on and went to Picadilly Circus. When we returned to Eastcote about 4, my host parents still hadn't returned from the wedding they had been at - apparently one of the big highways and been shut down, so they got delayed by several hours. They did show up about 15 minutes later though. They're really cool and laid back about everything, so I think it'll work out well. They were tired and didn't feel like cooking that night, so we just had pizza. It was definitely a good start. Watched a little soccer and there was even some NFL on TV.

The next morning was the first day of orientation. A lot of talking, a few freebies (including a personal alarm/noisemaker from a Metropolitan police officer) and a walk around the neighborhood were the order of the day. The walk included a quick stop at the British Museum - only a 10-minute walk from school. I'd known it was close, but I hadn't realized how close it actually was.

Day 2 of orientation was a little more of the same, but much shorter. We met our teachers and they passed out syllabi. After a two-hour lunch, we all went down to the Thames to get on a riverboat to Greenwich where we walked around and visited the Royal Observatory and the line dividing Eastern Hemisphere from Western. The program director Martin also bought everyone a drink at a nearby pub, thereby becoming everyone's new favorite program director. He took us there as a way to emphasize how central pub life is in the UK (it's one of the only places where Brits let their hair down a little bit - otherwise life seems to be all business to them...) and to give us a chance to try a local brew. At the same time, he used the opportunity to emphasize that you can go to a pub and not drink anything alcoholic and that most of them offer soda and food, not just alcohol. There weren't a lot of locals there - it was probably a little early for them to be off work - but we did have a nice few of the Thames, the dirtiest river I've ever seen.

The tube ride back from there took us through Canary Wharf, the newly-built commercial area just east of London. It looked like it was from the future. Everything was built of glass and everyone was dressed exactly the same... It was really surreal.

Ta ta for now...