London, Day 1

Cheers from London!

I left Boston around 6pm on Tuesday, January 12th. The plane ride went relatively smoothly, except for about 20 minutes where we experienced some of the worst turbulence I've ever felt. I had to hold on to my tray table, things were flying everywhere! The captain said we had tail wind of 200 mph. This helped speed us along, and we landed about 30 min ahead of schedule, just before 5am London time. I had been able to sleep on and off, I was too excited to sleep! We were served drinks almost every half hour, a snack of pretzels, dinner, and then breakfast. We definitely didn't go hungry.

Upon arrival, I had no idea where to go or what to do! I found two boys who were also going through the Rome program, Ryan and Brian. The three of us together found customs/passport check. There were many students waiting to go through a passport check. The line was about a half hour long. The customs officer just asked a few questions, and we were set to go. An AIFS (my program) representative was waiting for us in arrivals. On the bus, I met Jackie, another girl in the program, and we sat together on the bus. London was still dark, and very foggy. We took a bus from Heathrow to our hotel, near Hyde Park in London. There wasn't much to see on the way, the fog was too heavy! We arrived to the hotel around 7:30 am. After checking in, I rested for a little while, then met up with my new friends again to walk around London.

A group of 5 of us decided to explore London and see what we could discover. We first went to get lunch at a pub just down the street from our hotel at Lancaster Gate. I had a club sandwich, which includes chicken, hard boiled egg (this surprised me), ham, lettuce, and 'chips' (french fries). After lunch, we walked through Hyde Park ending at the Prince Albert memorial. The park was quiet, and there were many joggers and dogs. From there we walked down Kensington Road, which was uneventful. From there we saw the famous Harrods. We walked through, and I was very impressed with the upscale, swanky merchandise. We were asked several times if we needed any assistance.

After Harrods, we set the goal of finding Buckingham palace. We found our way, and I was very impressed with the presence of the building. The guards outside had their tall furry hats and guns, with police by the gate. From Buckingham palace, we could see the Eye of London, a large Ferris wheel, in the distance. The group decided it would be fun to ride it to get a great view of London. We were so focused on our walk over there, we didn't even realize we were standing in front of Big Ben! After some photo ops, we headed over to the Eye of London, only to discover this week is their yearly maintenance and it will be closed until Friday. It was still cool to see, we were all kind of bummed we didn't get to ride it, but maybe next time!

At this point, we had been walking for nearly 3 hours and were pretty tired, and still jet lagged. We deiced to brave the London tube to try to make it back to our hotel. Everything went very smoothly, and we made it back. I'm now writing to you from an Internet cafe about 3 blocks from my hotel.

Our AIFS group is hosting a cocktail social tonight, so we can meet everyone else going to Rome! There is about 170 of us in total. Tomorrow morning we will have a 3 hour sightseeing bus tour of London, then free time in the afternoon.

Cheers for now!