Saturday, June 30, 2012

Non-Foggy London Town


In the very short list of things that Kate cannot do, we must officially add….sleeping on planes. It’s pretty much impossible for me to get comfortable on an airplane. I hope one day to conquer this issue and learn to sleep anywhere, but at the moment it still plagues me and becomes a hindrance when traversing several time zones.

Since I’ve updated this blog, you now know that I’ve landed and arrived safely in London. And I have a lot to catch you all up on so this will be a two-part blog. The plane ride was smooth, despite the fact that I got an hour’s sleep at the most. I was in the center seat of a three seat row. The woman on my right was really odd. She seemed all knowing about plan travel, with her noise-cancelling Bose headphones and a really cool mask that blocked out all light, but when dinner came around, she assumed that she could get the “Vegetable Curry” without preordering it. And then, when she obviously couldn’t, she ordered the beef….yeah, I’m still trying to understand that one. Overall, it was an uneventful flight with a touch of minor turbulence.

We landed at 730 and once I went through immigration, I had to truck from Terminal 1 to Terminal 3 to get the coach that would take me to my residence. I’m very happy that I came through Terminal 1 and that my immigration only took 20 minutes, for those who came in through Terminal 3 had to wait two hours. Thus, I actually spent an extra two hours at Heathrow Airport, waiting for enough people to arrive so we could board the bus at head to London.

After a 30-45 minute drive bus ride to London, we arrived at King’s College. I got into my dorm room, which is small but will be perfect for what I need this coming month, but I’m not sure I could live in a room this big for an extended period of time. We all have our own bathrooms and refrigerators in the rooms. When writing this on Friday afternoon, we did not have WiFi but will hopefully have it by tomorrow, Saturday, morning. (side note: We got it on Saturday morning!)

Once I was settled in, I ran into a friend and fellow library science student, Melissa, who was about to head to find food and WiFi. Her companions were serious travel newbs. Well, one of them definitely was. I’m going to call her Kat. She’s from the south, Mississippi in fact, and she is kind of dumb. I tried to be nice about it but she just has no idea how to travel. She didn’t call her bank to tell them she was going to be overseas and didn’t bring any pounds with her. So when the restaurant declined her card, she was very shocked. She also made us all go get Indian food, because she’s picky and everyone needs to cater to her food tastes…She also didn’t take her key with her or lock the door to her room. We’re already best friends. Sorry for ranting but it really was dumb.

After lunch, we stood in Waterloo Station by the McDonalds to access the WiFi on our Kindles/iPhones. Then Melissa and I went for an adventure, where we walked along the Thames, purchased tickets to see Henry V at the Globe Theater tomorrow evening, and then got some breakfast and snack food. (Side note: the weather has been quite nice. Sunny but windy. I hope it lasts!)

Then we met up with our professor and other library science people for a longer tour of the region. We got our Tube cards and took a trial run on the tube to Leicester Square. We had dinner nearby and finally got back to the dorms around 730. I was seriously dead on my feet and had pretty much gone crazy by that time. I took a quick shower and then passed out. Great first day in London! It’s now Saturday so I will post my second blog later this evening with a recap of the day. And I will post pictures of my room!

-        -  Kate

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