London, Day 1
So, today I officially arrived in London.
After 2 flights, a 5 hour lay over, and an hour long border patrol process I finally reached my destination of Regents University located in Regents Park of London.
Once I had checked in at the dorm hall’s desk, I figured it was smooth sailing until I had an orientation meeting later but that was before I realized I had to lug my suitcases up three flights of stairs. I’m not what they call a light packer (having a suitcase that was 15 pounds over say whhaaaattt) so I bet you could imagine how I looked lugging those suitcases up the ancient steps of this dorm hall.
I had arrived before my two other roommates so I decided to unpack and eventually I passed out until they had arrived. Then we all did the boring orientation stuff and walked around the University (which has a full equipped bar, with alcohol, and a Starbucks in it) and then eventually made our way into Central London.
It was a nippy 50 degrees (Fahrenheit, because I’m an ignorant American that can’t be bothered with Celsius) with the infamous London overcast, which set the magical tone for the day. And it was magical. I’m pretty sure we could’ve watched horses poop and I would’ve thought it was magical. This whole experience is still so surreal to me and I don’t think I closed my mouth for more than 10 seconds because everything was jaw-dropping.
We walked passed many pubs and I was hoping we’d eventually stop at one, which did happen once our Professor left us next to The Parliament and we had to find our way back alone. We stopped at the pub The Old Shades where I had a glass of Italian Rose wine because I like to think I’m sophisticated.
After it took us 20 minutes to figure out how to pay the bill (because we were a party of 9 and apparently split bills are not a thing) we made our way to The Tube, London’s version of New York’s subway, and made our way back to the dorms.
The only other riveting incident of the day was that Border Patrol did not question that my name was Austin, there is a first for everything.
45 more days of adventures are coming up, but for now I have to get my sleep schedule on track because time zones are a thing.
Ta Ta for now
