So I am finally here in London... it was a long trip. My plane was delayed about an hour leaving Calgary, then I find out I don't even have a window seat and I've already seen the movie they played! Oh well, I watched it anyway. I don't know how people sleep on airplanes sitting up - I obviously don't have that skill. The weather here is disgustingly hot so far and practically nowhere has air conditioning because it isn't usually this hot here! Needless to say, dragging 2 suitcases that weigh as much as you sure makes you sweaty ew. And the tubes are so hot it's so nasty... I hope this weather calms down soon. I didn't really pack "hot weather" work attire...

Anyway, so after my plane was delayed, I finally get to Heathrow which is gigantic and I can't find a trolley for the life of me. I lug my bags to the info desk like my mom told me to and asked if they could page a porter to help me with my baggage and the guy says "no, they are really busy... you can try to flag one down (I have no idea what they look like so this advice doesn't help!) don't you have a trolley? there should be some around... why do you need help, are you disabled at all? (to this I respond "um no but my bags weigh as much as I do!")... so anyway, without a trolley I managed to find the train station and get to Paddington where I was supposed to meet Elliott (a U of A student who is currently here on a work term as well). I get off the train and I'm over an hour later than the time we were supposed to meet and the station is HUGE and I have never met this guy. I get to a payphone and figure out how to use it with a credit card, dig Elliott's cell number out of my purse and finally get a hold of him. He came to meet me about a 1/2 hour later and we took the hot tube to try to find my residence, where Elliott has only been to once. I'm tired and my bags weigh a ton (have I said how much they weighed yet?? LOL) and we can't find the place right away... but we eventually got here long enough to drop off my luggage and buy a phone card. Then we decided to take the tube to Soho for dinner... wandered around for a while and finally decided on a pizza place (that didn't have air conditioning). It was alright but I discovered that nowhere here seems to just serve tap water, you have to get bottled water which sucks because you have to pay for that! I also discovered that for some weird reason they don't slice their pizza... Anyway, the heat and the nerves kill my appetite so I have lots of leftovers for tomorrow!

Well, you might be wondering what the photos at the top of this post are - well this is my compact room. I actually long for Lister because these rooms are ridiculous and they don't have anywhere to store your luggage so I guess it's just gonna sit against the wall for 5 1/2 months! As you can see, we have bunk beds (oh yay...), and I obviously overpacked as my "closet" (if you can even call it that - the cupboard in the corner) is overflowing and there are still more of my clothes under the bed. Plus looking at what I packed, there are a lot of sweaters and pants so I hope it gets a lot cooler soon. It even poured rain today and that didn't seem to help at all! My room is a little sweatbox... ew. Oh and that other "closet" you see is the bathroom! It is so tiny... How come everything always looks so much better on a website than in reality?? Anyway, so far my roommate seems nice enough. I guessed right, she is American. Her name is Claire and she is from Conneticut, she is here for an 8 week course at a music/drama school... so I think she is only here for about another month... hopefully after that maybe I won't have another roommate for a while... one can only dream... haha.

I haven't taken any photos yet except the ones I just posted because my camera wasn't in my purse when I went out for dinner... Now that I am unpacked I'm not sure what I am going to do tomorrow... hopefully I won't be really jet lagged. I guess I should try to find the nearest grocery store and do some shopping, and maybe attempt to purchase a monthly tube pass somewhere... and maybe read over my SWAP stuff and work stuff if I get a chance... I wish I knew someone else here. I was sitting in the common room earlier and two people came in but they were speaking another language so yeah... I hope it isn't too hard to meet people here! Maybe it's just because it is Saturday night and most people have gone out... I guess I'll find out soon enough.

Then on Monday I have to try to get to my SWAP Orientation thing, which I hope is useful to go to... I don't need their help finding a job or accommodations, but I hope they give me a few other helpful pointers. And after that I need to find the specific bank branch I need to go to to set up my bank account here... Then on Tuesday I start work AH. I'm super nervous, I don't really know what to expect. I hope Sam (a guy that I'll be working with) is really nice and patient and helpful because I think Raj is going to be really intimidating from what I've heard...

Anyway, the more I stress about it the less sleep I'll get... so I should try to stop worrying so much. It's too late now anyway haha. At least I'll have a few visitors while I am here so it will be nice to see familiar faces! It is almost midnight here and I don't think I got much more than an hours sleep on the plane here so I should probably try to sleep (even though it's way too hot... I should buy a fan tomorrow if I go shopping). Speaking of shopping - you wouldn't believe how many shoe stores are on King's Road! I'll have to restrain myself because I already have too many clothes here, I don't really need to buy anymore!! Well this is a long post so I'm going to stop rambling now... please write to me to keep me entertained and in touch with my friends and family!! I miss you all like crazy already

Later days