First Day in London!

Ahhhh!!!! We are finally here! I am pretty amazed that I am actually in London since I had so many issues getting my VISA, i.e. I picked it up on the way to the airport. Crazy, right? It caused so much stress but was well worth it! I packed only one suitcase with a purse and a carry-on. Can you believe it? I was shocked, to say the least. However, when we got to the check-in, my suitcase was 70 lbs (20 lbs over the limit). Thankfully, my mother is a genius and suggested that we bring a small suitcase in case it was overweight. I am sooo glad she did because we would have ended up paying a good bit when we could have avoided it! Snaps for Debbie!
The flight was quite long. I sat between my best friend, Liz, and my new friend, Katie! She is so cute and sounds like she will be one of our pub/dinner/exploring buddies. She & Liz definitely hit it off because they started off comparing notes about boyfriends, blah, blah...Haha. Anyway, I definitely slept a good bit of the trip. Katie, Liz, & Beth (one of our teaching assistants) said that I was curled up in the fetal position and looked like I was sleeping good:) I bought a neck pillow in Atlanta airport and I definitely think that did the trick.
Our landing was rough...I said, "Land much?", kind of loudly and Liz & Katie were embarassed. Oops. I think I will probably end up being that token, loud American..Haha...We shall see. We went through customs without a problem. Well, okay, that's a lie. I took three photos while we were standing right outside of customs waiting for a few of our girls. A customs guy ran over and yelled at me and made me delete them. Rudddeeeee!!! Thank goodness I didn't get kicked out. I better be careful!
We rode on a chartered bus from the airport to our flat. It took about an hour and a half. We drove through countryside, an area that looked like Canal Street in New York, and then through the historic area. We dropped two loads off before we got to our place. Our flat is literally sandwiched between a pub (which is sooo hopping right now...woop woop!) and The Sherlock Holmes Museum. You can barely see our door in between the two. The stairs going down to our flat are ghetto. As I walked down the stairs, I thought to myself, "great, this place is janky....". Anyway, as it turns out, our flat is amazing!! We have two big bedrooms - one for Liz and me and the other for Tori and Macon. We have a huge open kitchen and living room, a great room with a futon and desk, and a big bathroom aka "loo"! All of the appliances are new and I am pretty sure it was recently renovated. We also have a little garden/deck area off the back and it is adorable! There is a table out there right now that Liz thinks is perfect for beer pong. Oh, Lord!
Okay, this is long so I am going to cut the rest short. Basically, after we got here, Liz and I took a three hour nap (she is still grouchy, btw). We then went to Pizza Express and I had a "light pizza". It was delicious! It was a pizza with the middle cut out that has a salad in that middle part! Yum! Less than 500 calories! We then came back and figured out what groceries we needed. We walked 15 minutes away to get groceries, a hair dryer, and a flat iron! They really weren't too expensive, so I'm pumped!
We just got back to the flat and I am getting ready to shower and get an outfit ready for tomorrow. We are meeting up with the group to have orientation and have a lecture in the afternoon (wooopdeeedooo.....).
Anyway, I don't know if every post will be this in depth. Liz just made fun of me but I am "gay" and enjoy this kind of thing. Will check in tomorrow!

XOXOXOXO,
Abbie