Arrival

I have arrived!

I'm sitting in my Kensington flat typing away with my feet up against the heater. Mmm. Feels so nice, especially after a day of tromping around in the rain. It's a bit damp over here, mates. Lots of London dew.

Pictures of the living quarters: My room is one of six in our flat. It's nice, if a bit bare. Newly refurbished, I'm told.

Teeny bathroom! I couldn't get a very good angle for the picture.

My flight was long, but uneventful. Well, we did get delayed an hour in San Francisco because of a mechanical problem (always comforting) but we have arrived in jolly old England safe and sound. It was cloudy and raining, and when the plane broke through the clouds and I caught my first glimpse of the English countryside the sight nearly took my breath away. It's still all very surreal--I'm in London! On the other side of the world from where I grew up! So weird. I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around it all.

Side note here. I haven't flown very much in my life, and I'm still getting used to the concept of air travel. You see, with driving, you can see the places you pass and the progress you're making, but in a plane it's not the same. I watched the little airplane icon on the screen on the back of the seat in front of me move across the United States and Atlantic Ocean, and it was hard to believe that that little icon was me, flying over oceans and continents.... Yeah. Strange. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog post.

When we landed, I had to keep reminding myself to take deep breaths and calm down so as not to get all giddy and label myself as a hopeless, giddy foreigner. And then, of course, there were all the things that our program directors told us that we had to remember: Don't smile at strangers. Walk with purpose. Don't joke with the customs officials--they don't think it's funny. Customs took FOREVER, by the way. There were about a zillion people in line and only two staff. Waited at least an hour for that one. At least I wasn't in a hurry to make any connecting flights. But once I was through, I found my bag just fine and then mentally reviewed the list of Things to Do:

• Find the Tube station (the underground)
• Buy your Tube pass for 24 April through 8 June for Zones 1-3 Kinda spendy, but we get reimbursed through our program, so that's good. I paid about 210 pounds, and the exchange rate now is approximately $1.60 American dollars to every pound. My gracious. Better not lose that thing.
• Get on the Piccadilly Line and get off at Glouchester Road.

The great thing was that I ran into a bunch of girls from my program while I was buying my Tube pass, and we all rode the tube together. We got off and trekked through the rain a few blocks to our lovely, newly refurbished flat where our program director and his wife were waiting to greet us.

So I made it! I'm alive! And yes, I took a very long nap, and hopefully I'll be able to sleep tonight.