I'm here!!!!

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The day is finally here... I'm in London!!!! The airplane ride was long, but I did manage to sleep a bit and have been trying to stay awake all day to get used to the time change (they are 6 hours ahead of what I am used to). The flight went pretty fast until we had about an hour left. By that time I was just anxious and ready to get out of there!! Got to Heathrow and everything ran pretty smoothly-- no problem with customs and all of my luggage was there. As I was in line for customs I met up with my friend Stephanie, who I met at an earlier orientation for our program. She was on the flight with three others in our program and then I realized that three more had been on the same one as me!!! I felt a lot more comfortable with all of them there with me and from Heathrow we took a shuttle back to where we are living.
We unpacked for a little once we got there, but took off not long after to go and explore. This city is incredible!!! It is even more than I had imagined it to be! There are people EVERYWHERE-- it's certainly a crazy and chaotic place with unforgiving drivers (who also drive on the wrong side of the street)!!! It's funny, even at the pedestrian crosswalks there are signs that say "Look right" because so many American tourists are used to traffic coming from the other direction. We walked for almost 4 hours and saw SO much-- we passed Big Ben, the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, funny mimes and artists along the streets, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, St. Paul's Cathedral, and the beautiful St. James Park. The architecture here is so amazing. It's not something you see in the US because it dates back to even thousands of years ago. I must have taken a hundred pictures today because everything I saw was so unique and I kept saying "Oh, I just NEED a picture of that!" ha. And I just love hearing all of the cute British accents-- every time I here a child speak I get excited!!
The people in my program seem really nice, too. I have a feeling everyone is going become pretty close. We have a pizza reception downstairs in about a half hour, so hopefully I'll be able to meet the rest of the students as well as the program advisors and directors here at Vandon.
Tomorrow will be a full and busy day as we have orientation and walking/tube tours. So until next time, "cheers!" (that's what they say here!)

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Comments

[Uncle Jack]

Celebrity Sitings
Have you seen mini-me yet or Austin Powers??

[erinabroad]

oh behave!!
haha, not quite yet!! but don't worry, you'll be the first to know!!!! yeaahhhh babyyy!!!!