I made it! ...Finally in London!

So I’ve finally arrived to my destination.  All my worries and anxieties about traveling are gone.  I’m here, I’ve showered, I’ve eaten a couple of meals (have been here for about 24 hours) and I’ve slept.  I don’t have any internet at the moment, so I’m typing this up before hand and I’ll add it to the blog later.  Before we boarded the plane I was over hearing a conversation of two girls (whom I suspected) were students and a boy (whom I soon realized was another UNH student who was heading there early for Regents College as well!  The plane ride wasn’t bad at all, a little turbulence (what is turbulence anyway?!) which of course is annoying and at times makes me nervous, but I’ve finally arrived in London, England still in one piece.   We (Virgin Atlantic flight 12) landed at Heathrow airport yesterday morning about an hour before we were scheduled to arrive.  I met a really nice girl on the plane and she was from Plymouth State University (I was pleasantly surprised of how many other students studying abroad on my plane there was) the plane was very empty, I sat in the row of the middle section seats, and the two seats next to me were empty, as well as the seats in front of me.  I don’t know how many seats there were on the plane, but the captain announced that there were about 126 people on board.  So we took off (my adrenaline was still rushing, my cortisol levels must have been very high all day) within the first hour they started to serve our dinner!  I really wasn’t that hungry and plane food, is well plane food.  Not that good.  It was rice, with some kind of curried chicken (very hot temperature wise!) burned my entire mouth of course in the first bite, then had to be a bit more careful, as to not burn my entire mouth off!

I settled in quite nicely and after dinner, immediately fell asleep, woke up to find only 3.5 hours left (which was really nice) so after flipping between the virtual map, I found the movie selection section and began to thumb through and finally decided to watch “Water for Elephants” which is a movie that I’ve been dying to see all summer since I finished the book (amazing book, a must read!).  The movie was about 2 hours long, so by the time I finished there was about 55 minutes left and we had begun our long descent.  It seemed like we circled for a long time before we finally landed, I thought that maybe that was because we landed 45 minutes earlier than expected.  Of course I was glad to land, but still nervous because it was not yet 7am (almost 2am EST) so I was nervous that I would have to wait around customs before I called my cousins, who were planning on picking me up a couple of tube stops down.  We got off the plane and my (new) friend waited for me and we walked (very quickly) for about 10 minutes, following the crowd from our plane to border control.

When we got to border control we realized that we had to stand in the longer of the two lines (one for EU passport holders, and the longer line for the “other” passport holders) next thing we realized was that there were about 200+ people in the line ahead of us, and we figured that we were going to be standing in that line for a very long time (which was exhausting, not only because we had our heavy carryon baggage with us, but also because in our mind it was still 2am).  Luckily for us, the two girls behind us were very chatty and were also students studying abroad (in the same program as the girl that I met on the plane whom was standing with me…).  One of the girls was from Lesley University (she was my favorite, because she was just hilarious) and another girl who was from Maine!  So all four of us (my newly acquired friends) stood in that line for what seemed like forever,  to add to our negative experience it was also just about 100 degrees in that room so we were sweating standing there, with our luggage, waiting to be welcomed into the country by the 8am stern looking, grumpy British border control agents.  Finally after what seemed like forever, I was sent to border control book number 29, shaking I walked up to the agent, ready to explain why I was here, what I was studying, and where I was living.  It was easy, he asked me why I was here, which program I was studying at, and what I was studying, finally the stamp came down on my passport and he told me sternly that I was not allowed to work while I was here, and I joked to him about how many students there were and that I was just the first of my group of students from my university studying here and that they would all be arriving on Thursday.  He replied with a “thank god I’m not working Thursday” which made me laugh.   I walked on to the baggage area with my “friends from the plane” since it had taken us so long to get through to the border control they had already taken all of our baggage off the conveyor belt (or whatever you call it) and had placed all our luggage on the floor like a “free for all”.  I was so relieved to find both my bags sitting right next to each other, I quickly grabbed them preparing myself to face the tube. 

I knew I had to find a pay-phone to call my cousins to let them know that I had landed and that I was going to be heading to them shortly.   I was nervous about this phone call, because I only had bigger bills (pounds) and I would have had to break them to smaller coins in order to make the call.  However, when I arrived out in the arrivals part of the airport I saw a bunch of men holding signs (for their guests) and I immediately went up to them, I asked them if I could use one of their phones to call my cousins, they all stared at me blankly, finally one of them asked me if they lived in London and I told him yes and showed him the number, he regrettably handed me his phone, I was so grateful! 

Finally I had reached them and said goodbye to my “newly acquired” friends, promising to meet somewhere at a pub the next week, then we all went our separate ways.  I was so grateful to have found them, I was so nervous and so glad to meet others who were my same age and realized that they were nervous too!  I have traveled a lot… I have been to Israel, Spain, and Russia etc… but never some place completely alone.

  Sighing I heaved my baggage and walked towards the signs with arrows that pointed towards the tube.  But my problems weren’t over yet, first of all I had a lot of luggage with me and heaving it (probably a quarter of a mile) through the tunnels underground that led towards the tube was no fun, I was sweating, my back was sore from carrying my heavy backpacking backpack and my computer bag, on top of that I now had to drag two different sized wheeling luggage bags.  Finally reaching the tube entrance I was squeezed in the rotating pedestal and took out my credit card to buy an oyster card (a tube pass).  I had done this before, buying subway passes in New York city, or T passes in Boston.  I followed the directions on the touch screen, and inserted my credit card, nothing happened.  Frustrated I tried again, no luck.  By now of course a small line had developed behind me.  Frustrated, I wiped my forehead and licked my lips determined that this last time it would work.  No such luck.  Dragging my bags I had to go to the ticket counter and purchased one there.  Of course when I got to the entrance I had to prepare my bags so I could quickly slip through the opened doors once my ticket was accepted.  I rode down the escalator, repeating in my head the directions my cousin had given me “take any line”.  The tube arrived just as I got to the platform and I half dragged myself and my bags in and took a seat, breathing a huge sigh of relief that I had made it at last to the tube.  The tube chugged on every minute about reminding us to “mind the gap”.  Everyone looked exhausted on the tube, presumably we were all travelers coming from the airport, and the girl across from me fell asleep on her bags.  Within ten minutes the train was PACKED, and stupid me had sat in the middle and had my bags blocking the way (I didn’t realize that the tube would be so packed, I mean it was already past 9:30 am (4:30am EST).  It was cool actually finally being out of the airport and I was most excited to see the cars driving on the other side of the street.  Other passengers started giving me weird looks and I felt extremely uncomfortable sitting there with all of my bags.  Begrudgingly I decided to get up and stand with my bags so that people could sit. 

Finally my stop (Acton Town) had arrived; I braced my body, not knowing for sure which of the doors would open.  I didn’t want to miss this stop because of my baggage.  I got off the train and it was cold!  I had forgotten what my cousins looked like, but thankfully my cousins’ wife (Gill) spotted me.  It was great to see them, I hadn’t seen them in about 10 years when we last had been in London and had stayed in their house when they vacationed in Cuba (which we Americans cannot, but the British are allowed to travel there).  It was off the car and we squeezed in elevator to get to the top of the street.  I found it weird in the elevator that the floors were listed as -1 (being the floor of the tube) and the street was 0.  Outside of the tube stop it was very busy, and I was confused and overwhelmed by all the cars that to me where driving on the WRONG side of the road.  Stuffing my bags into his saab we were off, I had forgotten (and this makes perfect sense) that not only do they drive on the wrong side of the road but the drivers side is on the right side of the car.  As mentioned before, I have traveled a lot, and been inside of a lot of foreign cars but never inside of a British car. 

We pulled up to their house and I had expected to remember the house (I’m usually good at remembering those types of details) but nothing seemed familiar to me.  I suppose now that I’ve been here for one day, things do seem more and more familiar.  Of course also everything is opposite in their house, even the turning the faucets on and off and the round door handles had to be turned counter-clock wise to open them. 

It was the biggest struggle staying up, I didn’t want to sleep I wanted to stay up as late as possible as to get accustomed more quickly to the time change.  By the time 10pm rolled around (5 pm EST) I was so tired  I could barely keep my eyes open.  I’m still tired it’s 2:12pm here and only 9:12am at home, and this is the second day I’m here.  I’m contemplating taking a nap.  My cousins have been very hospitable but at this point even though it’s the middle of the afternoon I’m still completely wiped out.  I presume I’ll feel even better tomorrow.