First day in London

Taking off was terrifying. The airplane was fine, the flight was fine, but it was so difficult to get myself onto the airplane and ready to go to the U.K. for the school year. This will be the longest I have ever been away from home. Even though I have been at school in Ottawa for three years, this time I am on my own, which makes it all the more scary.

Flying over Toronto on my way to Gatwick airport in London, UK.
I love that you can really see the grid of the streets from the plane,
illuminated by street lights. It really is quite beautiful. I'll miss you, Toronto.

The first 20 minutes of the flight was near a thunderstorm. My boyfriend was on his way back to Ottawa and had told me he was going through so much lightning. There wasn't any in Toronto, but it was really neat to see the lightning in the sky from afar, knowing it was probably the same flashes he was seeing. Airplanes always boggle my mind. I don't understand how they work, and it seems crazy that a giant hunk of metal can speed through the air, and that I can look down and see hundreds of kilometres away.

I sat beside two older Canadian women on their way to a Baltic cruise. Lucky for us all, the plane arrived half an hour early! I carved a path around the people strolling towards customs and I got through pretty quickly. I met another student who was also hurrying through, and we joked about the need for express walking lanes. Unfortunately, our efforts proved useless in the end as the baggage took quite a while to come through.

I navigated my way through the airport (even stopped to help a Japanese man find his terminal since he couldn't speak English!) and got onto the coach bus.

My first thoughts driving down the M25 towards Heathrow, where I would get on the subway, was that it looked like it could be anywhere. The trees and hills looked no different than some of the areas I've driven down on the 400, particularly around cottage country. The only difference was that the vehicles were clearly driving on the wrong side of the road. It's going to take some getting used to seeing people driving in what should be the passenger side of the car.

I arrived at Heathrow and went directly to the Piccadilly line of the subway. Luckily, it was the end of the line, so it was clear which line I was meant to take. I plan on taking the tube to the centre of London tomorrow, and I'm a bit nervous considering the complexity of the lines in comparison to Toronto. I'm glad I didn't choose to study in Paris! I found South Ealing Station easily enough, and there was only one way out, so finding my cousin's place was not too difficult.

I opened my luggage and discovered that most of it survived the trip. My soap and shampoo bottles broke. Frustrating, but at least it wasn't my nail polish. That would have been much more of a pain.

I went on a walk with my cousin Bridget and her 19-month-old daughter, Sabine. She was absolutely adorable, and was having a lot of fun in Walpole Park, in Ealing, playing with a little dog named Ben. Before I boarded the plane, I felt like I really needed a hug, so I bought a little teddy bear with an RCMP uniform. Sgt. Snow Flake, according to his tag. Sabine was getting a real kick out of the little bear and was playing with it. Unfortunately, Paddington Bear's shoes were a bit too big for Sgt. Snow Flake, so he couldn't come with us on our walk.

At the end of our walk was the Ealing Broadway Mall, where I was hoping to set up a phone plan. There are too many companies here and the plans are a bit different from Canada. For example, they all seem to be unlimited incoming, but they charge more depending on whether you're calling a mobile or a landline, and depending on which networks the caller and receiver are on.

This was quite different from the malls in Canada. It looked like an indoor mall but then there was no roof in the middle. Reminded me of the Great Hall. :) I guess we don't have these in Canada because it would be too cold!

While I was chatting with a salesperson at a mobile phone store, I mentioned I was from Canada. He commented on how nice it must be for me to escape the cold weather. It was 30 degrees in Toronto yesterday. It was maybe 15 here.

When we got back, I fell right to sleep. I had planned on staying up until the nighttime, when I would fall asleep right away and jet lag would disappear. However, I doubt I got more than an hour's sleep on the plane, so I was utterly exhausted. It's now a quarter to midnight and I'm just starting to feel sleepy, but I'm going to attempt sleep soon anyway. I have a feeling I'm going to be woken up early by a crying baby.

Tomorrow, I'm going to do a hop on, hop off bus tour of London, so hopefully I'll get to see some of the famous buildings.

Until then...