Travel and Arrival (06/06-06/07)

We watched a bunch of movies on the plane and they served some good food. Only downside was that our seats were close to the restrooms (or washrooms as the Brits call it). It was a long eight hours and a long three hour bus ride to our flat (AKA apartment). Once we checked in we had our first meal in London at Pret, a cute, little and delicious sandwich shop just a few blocks from our flat. After being awake for over 24 hours all we wanted to do was sleep, but we had to beat the jet-lag and attend the welcome reception. Then we got settled in our rooms, took a shower, and fell asleep the minute our heads hit our pillows.

First day- (06/08)

Much too early after a full day of travel (8:00), our alarm went off to head to orientation. There, we had breakfast of British pastries, fruit, and coffee. Our orientation lasted for 7 hours with an hour break for lunch. We used this hour to venture into Soho and try Nando’s, a restaurant we have been wanting to try for years. We had chicken pitas and chips (fries). After orientation, we went to Covent Garden to fix the UK SIM cards for our phones. We got a little bit lost in both Soho and Covent Garden because we are still working on learning our way around the city. Getting lost has its perks because we found cute little shops and restaurants we now want to try throughout our stay. On the way back to the flat, we stopped to pick up groceries for dinner at Tesco, a popular grocery store in the UK. This is something we will be doing frequently because most of the food is fresh and goes bad a lot quicker than in the States (good thing there are about 3 grocery stores within walking distance from the flat). Even after an international flight, going through customs, being in a new country, moving into our rooms, and meeting new people, we found that grocery shopping was the most stressful. Between the different brands, pricing, and tons of people, it was very overwhelming. We spent half the time converting the price to dollars to make sure we were getting a good deal and the other half of the time looking for simple things like sliced deli meat. We discovered deli meat is not as common as it is in the States, so we changed our plans from sandwiches to spaghetti. Once back in our flat, our next task was to figure out how to use the stove to cook said spaghetti. This proved to be another challenge because it kept turning off and lowering the temperature. However, once it was finally cooked it felt nice to just sit in our quiet living room and eat dinner. After eating dinner we soon realized that we didn’t have containers to store our food. We walked down the block to go to another grocery store called Sainsbury’s to pick up containers. Unfortunately, one container was 9 Pounds so we bought cling film instead. On our journey to the store we heard music and followed the sound. We found that the music was coming from some street performers called The Street Cats! We spent about 10 minutes listening to them play. They had a whole production with amps, audio systems, drums, bass, and a guitar. This is not something you would typically see in the states. We concluded the night with some wine and terrible reality TV with our flatmates. Our first day here taught us a great deal about the city and we are falling love with it. -SYD & SAM