Travels With a Book: A Jet Lagged Arrival

Hey guys, guess what? I'm in London! Pip pip cheerio!

People say that all the time here. I'm fitting right in.

So my journey to good ol' England was nothing too adventurous. I flew on a teeny tiny airplane to Canada, and had a 6 hour layover in Toronto. This was my first time in Canada. It was great. I saw a giant fish on a billboard and I ate a maple doughnut. Here's proof:

I also sat and ate my shark and dino fruit snacks right in front of the Gucci store. I'm a classy lady.

So it was my goal to just sleep on the plane from Toronto to Heathrow, because I was arriving at 6:30 am and I knew I'd have to stay awake all day (which did not happen on my last vacation to London, and I paid for it). But the lights were on, they were passing out food, and there were some entertaining movies on the plane. So I think I ended up sleeping an hour. Oops. Once I got to England, it was time to get to the study center. I bought a shared transfer shuttle because I knew I would be jet lagged and didn't want to attempt to use the underground in that state. So when I walked out of the airport a guy was standing there holding a sign with my name on it, and I felt pretty elite. But once I got into the car with the driver, I had second thoughts. This guy was like Cruella de Vil. He was narrowly dodging cars, motorcycles, and road barriers. He even almost drove a van off the road. I was gripping my seat, trying to focus on the London scenery rather than picturing my death before I even got to experience the city. But luckily we made it okay, and all is good.

So on Tuesday I wandered around like a zombie, touring one exhibit of the British Museum, getting lost in the study center and Covent Garden, meeting the other girls in my program, and getting to know the area I will be living for the next three weeks. I tried really, really hard to stay awake all day, and I did a pretty good job, but as soon as we got back to our flat, I laid down in my bed and PASSED OUT. It was like 6:45.

The next thing I knew it was 5:30 in the morning. I didn't have to wake up for 3 more hours, so I just went back to sleep. 13 hours of sleepful bliss.

The next morning we had class, and then we went grocery shopping. My cashier could tell that I was painfully American. Usually they don't bag your groceries for you, but he offered to help me, which was both nice and embarrassing. Then we ventured to Fleet Street, Blackbriar's Bridge, and had a group dinner at a pub. Enjoy the following pictures from today: