First 2 Days in London!

TADA!! I'm here! These past 48 hours have been unbelievable! I cant believe that I'm actually in England! So the flight over here wasnt that bad. I sat next to some really cool people. The girl to my right was from Holland but was just finishing up a semester in Mexico and the guy on my left was going to grad school in Amsterdam! So they gave me some tips on living in Europe. I arrived at Heathrow around 11 am. I got through customs, baggage claim and the next tricky part was getting myself to the center. Obviously I had never used the tube before so I was a little nervous but I gave it a shot. It was really easy to use, minus the fact that I was carrying around 2 huge suitcases, which are rarely seen on the tube, so I felt like I stuck out majorly as a tourist. When it came to my first stop, I had shuffle all my bags off only to find that I had about 30 stairs to climb. As I started to carry both of my bags up, a man offered to help me and carried them all the way up the stairs. This happened again a second time when i came to my second tube stop. When i bought my tube ticket, an old black man who was behind the counter joked with me in his Jamaican voice that he had been waiting for my arrival all day. When i finally got to my last destination, i climbed out of the subway station only to find myself lost in the city. Not lost really, but i had no sense of direction on where to go. So i stopped a crossing guard and he pulled out his map and pointed me in the right direction. All of this made me realize that British people are awesome!! I got so scared in my prep class with all the talk that Brits had Americans and to not talk to them, but they were so helpful to me.

So i finally arrived at the center around 1:30. I was exhausted but me and some of the girls went out for a walk. We came back for dinner, which was not that delectable, and headed out to Les Mis. The theatre was right in Piccadilly Square and the city looked gorgeous lit up at night! The play was fantastic. "Bring him Home" was fabulous. We were all tired after the play so we hit the sack.

This morning I woke up at 8 and 7 of us girls started on our London Walks again. We have this booklet that contains walks throughout London that we have to complete. We did 2. The first was rather boring, but the second one was just fantastic! We got off the tube station right at the Tower of London. It was huge and an awesome sight to see! We didnt tour it because we're saving that for another day, but it was quite a sight! That walk took us by Big Ben, Parliament, and the London Eye. It was so miraculous to be standing right at the heart of London and seeing all these sights that I have only seen pictures of! It was such an blessed feeling of awe. We came back for dinner, which was good tonight, and then we headed down to the shopping district. The first store we hit- HARRODS!! WOW! Words can not describe that store. It has everything! EVERYTHING!! I thought it was just a huge department store, which it is, but there is so much more! There's a huge chocolate department, meat & cheese department, perfume, bags, mens accessories, shoes, makeup - that doesn't even describe the majestic atmosphere of that store! And yes, i bought something for there and it was the only thing that I could afford - a truffle. And it was delicious. We went to H&M as well and some other European stores, which we are planning to revisit some other time again. Oh, we went to this fabulous market in downtown earlier today to which had some great buys, but dont worry I havent bought anything yet!! After window-shopping we came back and watched "braveheart" and now I'm off to bed!

Oh, and tons of people love Arrested Development, so incase you were worrying about me not fulfilling my daily quotes, i have plenty of people whom I share my insanity with. And I'm already finding that I subconsciously am developing an accent in my head....